subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> You should not believe that. Everything is copyright
> by its author, if no
> one else, notice or no notice, unless it has been
> released into the public
> domain either by the passage of time, some specific
> license to use it or
> simply a declaration that people are "free to use
> it" as one sometimes sees.

Certainly.

> You did the correct thing. If User:Stevertigo wishs
> to do enough editing to
> create a credibly new article using the factual
> material in the copywrited
> material (thus conserving energy as he alleges) that
> is fine. But in fact he
> did not. He just reverted. User:Stevertigo's demand
> that you edit it rather
> than request deletion is inappropriate.

Sorry Fred -- I didnt "just revert" --I edited the
material down to stub with barely the smell of the
original on it.  (the sites copynotice just said "fine
to copy for noncommercial reasons, just link here" -
are we "commercial"?)

Since I have neither the time nor patience, I copy
here the discussion from Talk:Thomas Sutpen: Do read
section *** at leaste.

Wikilove be upon you and all you wikilove,
~S~

I rolled the copyvio deletion back because this little
text --even if copied from an edu site does not
constitute a problem for us. There was no copyright
notice on the source page, it was not copied in full,
and theres no reason why the effort placed in calling
this a copyviolation cant be better put toward
changing the text to make it unique. --??????sv 04:09,
Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

Why not discuss it on the VfD page before arbitrarily
rolling it back? This little bit of text is word for
word from the original page, and just because there's
no copyright notice on a page doesn't mean that it is
free for us to steal. I'm going to put the copyvio
boilerplate back. Please take it to the VfD page.
RickK 04:14, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

        Ditto. Just because there is not a copyright
notice on the source site does not mean that the owner
of the site does not hold the copyright on it. Chances
are s/he does even without the notice. The original
text here was extremely close to what was on the page
and would need to be deleted out of page history
before rewriting the article I think. Am I
correct?Ark30inf 04:18, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

    There are two issues -- one an anon user who
insists on adding copied text -- I think its probably
our autist friend Merritt who mails the list. He
should be temporarily blocked.
    The second issue is the use of small amounts of
copied text and simple ability of us to modify it
enough to remove any direct connection to it. I
understand that this is hard to do if your goal is to
be the current m:top cop but I also see a lack of
effort -- of simply copying a boilerplate while "not
using sysop powers" to take more decisive action, as
suspect behaviour. I suggest adding a boilerplate
without removing the text, and letting people modify
it. Yes there are other editors here. -??????sv 04:36,
Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

        I was under the impression that copyvio stuff
needed to be deleted from the page history before
rewriting. I'm not sure that the amount of copyrighted
text makes any difference.Ark30inf 04:39, 11 Sep 2003
(UTC)

***      The only explicit answer to this is that its
unclear. There are incredible limits to how Wikipedia
can or cannot be in danger of a copyvio -- it is
likely that there are plenty of things that are
technically in violation now. The history cannot
seriously be called into question -- if you have to
dig into history to find a vio, how can it be argued
that its a current violation? Its also true that if we
know about it we can change it, and if *they know
about it, they can change it too, cant they? With an
openly editable content system it is just as much the
responsibility of an owner to change a specific entry
that violates their copyright, as it is our obligation
to accomodate them if they ask us to remove it. In
otherwords, while we can't simply copy text
willy-nilly we also can't be worried about it too much
either. As a general rule its just as easy to edit
something down to a stub - (that it may grow into
something) than it is to waste time going through VFD.

I have no interest in being anyone's cop. That is not
and never was my goal, and resent your assertion. How
am I supposed to change an article when I have no clue
what to change it to? RickK

I dont mean to offend you. Please dont take my
comments personally. If Ive been rough with you its
because I was under the impression that you were being
rough with the newbies. If I am mistaken in that
impression I apologize. -??????sv 04:42, Sep 11, 2003
(UTC)

You didn't answer my question as to how I'm supposed
to change an article if I don't know how to change it.
RickK 04:48, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Cut it down to a stub-- a WP:STUB is an ugly duckling
that may grow to be a swan. --Im taking a
break...-??????sv 04:51, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

        I understand, just thought that it was
preferred that copyvios be deleted to get them out of
page history and then rewritten/stubbed.Ark30inf
04:55, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Copyright violations on history
pages. Copyvios should be listed for a week to see if
they are copyvios. Not having a (c) symbol does not
make it copyright free. Accusing people of laziness
for not wanting to correct a copyvio is out of order.
Different people have different priorities, perhaps at
different times of day. If I saw a copyvio when I was
not awake, I would not want to rewrite it as it would
be no good. If someone has no interest in a topic,
they can not be forced to write about it. Listing it
in the appropriate place for someone else is the best
idea. RickK - please stop not using your sysop powers.
The same goes for Martin. It's very annoying. Angela
06:32, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

        While I would trust your sleepytime edits over
the bright and awake edits of many others, Angela, I
would prefer to believe that the difference between
your asleep and awake skills would by reason be
astronomical. The merits of an article, although
always at the mercy of human fancy, might best be
judged when our high officials are sober. As for Rick
and Martin to chose moderation--this is to be
encouraged, but to deliberately choose (redundant?) to
not use their powers for good might constitute a
dereliction of duty. Listing it in the appropriate
place for someone else? -- If were interested in
efficiency (which I assume is the premise for
following our autist copyswipers around to immediately
undo what they do) then perhaps a simple call out on
recent changes, and an adding of a copyvio notice to
the top might prove a good balance between throwing
baby and bathwater out. Spectrefully-??????sv 07:28,
Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Smarty template skins: Paddington and Montparnasse

body:
I've sort of hacked together templates for Tarquin's Paddington and
Montparnasse proposed skins as Smarty templates, and stuffed and prodded
it into the development branch of MediaWiki.

Go on down to test.wikipedia.org, log in, and pick the new skins.
(Warning: very VERY incomplete! Lots of links not showing pretty text
yet.)

Smarty templates get compiled down to PHP scripts, so "in theory" it
shouldn't be slower than writing the interface in raw php. The advantage
is in maintainability; I've attached the 4k Paddington template file for
comparison against the current combined 96k of OutputPage and Skin which
contain, amongst many other things, the HTML layout in scattered dribs
and drabs.

To get the Smarty template working, I swapped a chunk of
OutputPage::output() into Skin::outputPage(), so the widest pieces of
page layout could be done by the template.

I think it'd be a good thing to separate out the functional groups in
OutputPage and Skin: wikitext->HTML conversion, RecentChanges layout,
history page layout, image upload history layout, HTTP magic, and
full-page layout (at the least!).

Skin discussion:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins

General info on Smarty:
http://smarty.php.net/

Installation notes: get the Smarty download from the above site (Smart
is under LGPL license), untar it, and make sure its "libs" subdirectory
is in your PHP include path. Put the *.tpl files into a "templates"
directory under the wiki script directory (ie, /w/templates) and make
also a templates_c directory writeable by the web server, where it
stores the PHP scripts compiled from the templates.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vote on voting method for final round

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Well, this logo contest is an experiment in voting.  It has gone well
>in some ways, and not so well in other ways.  In any case, no matter
>how we evaluate it overall, we can all agree that it has been
>educational, exposing some of the issues that we are going to have to
>deal with as we form scalable, stable, consensus-driven decision
>methods.

In many ways, the nature of Wikipedia makes scalability
moot for most -- almost all -- of the decisions that we make.
We make thousands of decisions every day on updating articles
and these rarely even reach the stage where they are contentious.
When they do, they are normally discussed on talk pages,
and a consensus is, almost always, quietly reached there.
Then there are a few occasions where some issue of debate
spills out into the entire Wikipedia, or at least several pages,
and that requires a wiki-wide (one language) discussion.
Issues like the logo, which affect all Wikipedias,
are extremely rare indeed!  And this is as it should be,
because it is for these issues that consensus doesn't scale well.

>The current experiment is a good one because the choice of a logo from
>any of the fine leading contenders is not a life or death decision for
>the project.  None of the choices available to us are bad, and so we
>can learn from this in a low-risk way.

I agree entirely.  I called the process "farcical" in an earlier post,
but that should not be interpreted as despair, or even criticism.
Democracy is farcical by nature, but people can learn to do it better.
(And it's no more farcical than a certain "real life" political election
that I, as a registered California voter, will see in less than a month.
Since Californians can also learn, the next recall will be handled better.)

>Later, there will have to be some major policy decisions.  In the
>past, these have always been made by consensus, which in reality boils
>down to us listening to all sides and encouraging different factions
>to accomodate each other so that we can find solutions that are better
>all around for everyone.

What major policy decisions will have to be made for all Wikipedias?
Very few, I hope.  That's the best solution to scalability problems.

-- Toby


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA

body:
Adam Raizen wrote in part:

>You malign ad hoc pronunciation schemes, but they do have *some*
>redeeming value. You can use a single ad-hoc system to represent
>different dialects more easily than you can use IPA for the same
>purpose, since users will read their own dialect into the pronunciation
>guide for the ad-hoc system. Still, I can't imagine making up an ad-hoc
>scheme for wikipedia; IPA is probably best for us.

This is what morphophones are all about --
a scheme where all dialects read in their own sound.
We don't have to invent our own ad-hoc scheme,
since linguists have been studying morphophones,
and quite often in the context of English, since 1962.
(IPA, in contrast, does phonemes, or even lower-level structures.)

The "Webster's Dictionary" systems often seen in US dictionaries
are roughly morphophonic, but not very sophisticated linguistically.
(But Merriam-Webster's current system is phonemic,
despite it's old-fashioned non-IPA, Webster's-ish look.
Therefore the worst of them all, IMO.)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
Rick wrote:
>[[User:Stevertigo]] rolled back the copyvio boilerplate I'd put on the
>page and said in [[Talk:Thomas Sutpen]]: "I rolled the copyvio
>deletion back because this little text --even if copied from an edu
>site does not constitute a problem for us. There was no copyright
>notice on the source page, it was not copied in full, and theres no
>reason why the effort placed in calling this a copyviolation cant be
>better put toward changing the text to make it unique."

I disagree with Stevertigo on every point.  I think that he should
refrain from making any comment on copyright violations until he
has studied the law more fully.

First, copyright notice is not required in any way shape or form
for copyright to be valid.

Second, while it can make a difference whether something is copied in
full or in part, this far exceeds the allowable legal bounds.  But
more importantly, it *drastically* exceeds the allowable _moral_
bounds as it amounts to pure and simple plagiarism.

And finally, changing a text to make it unique may be problematic from
a 'derivative works' point of view.  For a text as short as this, the
right thing to do is get rid of the copyright violation completely and
write a new article *from scratch*, using facts gleaned from the
original _and_ other sources.

> Is Stevevertigo correct that, because the page doesn't specifically
>have a copyright on it, it's fair game to be stolen and incorporated
>onto Wikipedia?  I can't believe that.

Well, you are right and Stevertigo was wrong.

--Jimbo


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Guillaume-

> Sorry, according to the discussion I read, I thought alternative logo was
> not welcome. I effectively saw many intresting variant of Paullus logo (as
> an example) on his own page, but they are not on the vote page. Do you
> planed to allow to vote on all those variant ?

This is not my decision, it is the artist's decision. He/she can choose up
to 5 versions of each logo. But it would be unfair if anyone could simply
bypass the first voting round and put anything they want on the final,
limited ballot. Miwiki is among the finalists anyway -- if Olie wants
Miwiki to be part of *other* logos than his own, he needs to convince the
artists. Olie has made clear that this is OK with him, so I don't see a
problem.

> I just regret that the rules
> was not cleary defined before vote start

That's simply not true. The voting rules have all been on [[International
logo vote]] before the vote started. I have been careful not to change any
rules during voting.

> and deadlines are so short.

Honestly, I don't think they are short. Just think about all the
complaining you could do before the deadline even has elapsed! That alone
shows it's long enough ;). As I said earlier: We can always work on
optimizing the final logo.

> I don't undertand why the fact Olie tryed to make variant of all logo with
> his ant is a problem.

Some people perceive it as such. This has more to do with the logo/mascot
distinction than with the contest as such. But if the artists accept the
Miwiki variants, then they will be voted on like all other logos. For
example, Paullusmagnus has accepted one Miwiki variant.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

in_reply_to:
<20030911120629.96952.qmail@web80701.mail.yahoo.com>;
	from utilitymuffinresearch2@yahoo.com on Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at
	05:06:29AM -0700

body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:
> Sorry Fred -- I didnt "just revert" --I edited the
> material down to stub with barely the smell of the
> original on it.  (the sites copynotice just said "fine
> to copy for noncommercial reasons, just link here" -
> are we "commercial"?)

*Yes*, we should proceed as if we are.  I can't repeat this
often enough, I think.

We likely fit any reasonable definition of noncommercial on our own
website.  The website is owned by a nonprofit organization.  The
website does not have advertising.  The website is created by
volunteers working for the betterment of humanity, etc.

However, we are *also* releasing everything under the GNU FDL, which
does *not allow* discrimination against commercial endeavors.  So we
must assume that some of our licensees will be using the text for
expressly commercial purposes.

In this case, I can totally envision that some enterprising writer
deciding to publish a book on William Faulkner, called "The Faulkner
Encyclopedic Companion".  The book would consist completely of entries
lifted from wikipedia, and sold for profit.  That's totally legitimate.

And it's also why we can't use anything that *only* grants the right
of reuse for 'noncommercial' purposes.

Also, you write 'copy' -- the site gave permission, you say, to
'copy'.  But we don't just copy, we edit.  We produce derivative
works.

Everyone should take a good hard look at the SCO/Linux/IBM lawsuit.  I
think SCO is wrong in most details, but nonetheless the whole affair
raises a lot of troubling questions.

Now fast forward 5 years.  We are by far the dominant encyclopedia in
the world.  People view Britannica as a quaint old relic, but nothing
compared to the scope and quality of Wikipedia.  Super, and at that
point we will be a target for FUD charges that all we did was
plagiarize stuff from the net.

This need not be a matter of technical legal copyright problems!  Our
standards go far beyond that of mere obediance to the law.  Even if
there were some legal gray area here (and there is not, IMHO), it's
still plagiarism.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Slashdot [OT]

in_reply_to:
<20030911100638.A14729@meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in>;
	from arvindn@meenakshi.iitm.ernet.in on Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at
	10:06:38AM +0530

body:
Arvind Narayanan wrote:
> The law is a simple consequence of modeling a web surfer as a random
> monkey

Interestingly enough, this is why Bomis is so successful, too.  As
nearly as we have been able to determine, our most avid users are
random monkeys.  :-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
on 9/11/03 6:06 AM, Steve Vertigum at utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com
wrote:

> Sorry Fred -- I didnt "just revert" --I edited the
> material down to stub with barely the smell of the
> original on it.  (the sites copynotice just said "fine
> to copy for noncommercial reasons, just link here" -
> are we "commercial"?)

Commercial uses are foreseeable and permitted under the GNU Free
Documentation License.

I don't see your name on any edit other than:

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Thomas_Sutpen&oldid=1418240

Which is not materially different from the copyrighted text:

"Sutpen, Thomas. The founder of the Sutpen family in Yoknapatawpha County.
He was born in the mountain country of western Virginia in 1807, and around
1820 went to Haiti, where he married Eulalia
Bon, the daughter of a French planter there. They had one son, Charles Bon.
When Sutpen discovered that his wife had Negro blood he divorced her. He
arrived in Jefferson in 1833, and built himself a large
plantation in the northwestern part of Yoknapatawpha County on a hundred
acres of land gotten from the Chickasaws. He married Ellen Coldfield of
Jefferson in 1838. They had two children, Henry and
Judith. His whole life was dedicated to establishing a family, and when his
son disappeared he tried other means of getting a male heir. When he spurned
Milly Jones because her child by him was female, he
was killed by Wash Jones, Milly's grandfather. This was in 1869. Appears in
Absolam, Absolam!"

Fred


body:
I wrote:
> >Later, there will have to be some major policy decisions.

Toby responded:
> What major policy decisions will have to be made for all Wikipedias?
> Very few, I hope.  That's the best solution to scalability problems.

Well, that's a very good point.  The one thing that I have in mind
will be the final selection of a method of driving towards 1.0, as
well as parameters for what that means, exactly.

It's a systemwide thing because of (in my mind, legitimate) concerns
about what any sort of approval process will do to our community.

Here's a more detailed example, and I bring it up not so we can debate
it right now, but just as an example of the sort of legitimate big
picture debates we might expect to see in the future.

Let's say we have a good, solid 1.0 approval process well underway, to
the point that we are rapidly approaching a situation where we have a
high quality 'stable' release that we can all be proud of.  The
question naturally arises: what should random visitors to our site
see?

1.  The currenty live Wikipedia, as we have now?
-or-
2.  The stable release?

I am in favor of #1, but I do think that there are legitimate
arguments for either.  I can see that a lot of people might be of very
different opinions about it.  #1 has the virtue of being more
naturally evolution, so it will probably happen by default.  But
suppose I find that lots and lots of respected contributors are
campaigning that we switch to #2, i.e. that random visitors see an
approved version of the article, with live edits available by a link
to "click here to see the live version".

In such a case as that, my own opinion is not strong enough that I
would have any interest in forcing it on everyone against a developing
contrary consensus.  And it's such a big thing that I can't imagine
that we'd get near unanimity.

So that's a big picture decision where I can easily see how a vote
could legitimize what we ultimately decide, in such a fashion that
even those who 'lost' the vote could support the process as being a
fair one.  At least *potentially*.

One reason to discuss all this so far in advance is to help to avoid
people taking sides on whether or not we are voting based on how they
think the outcome of the vote will be.  I mean, it wouldn't be good
for people to be tempted to say "I think we should just do what Jimbo
thinks is best" just because I happen to be taking one side in that
particular dispute.  And, it wouldn't be good for people to be tempted
to say "It's time for Jimbo to step down as benevolent dictator, this
is unjust and unfair" just because they don't agree with one
particular decision.

As usual, I guess my discussion here is inconclusive but I hope gives
some good perspective on why I do take an interest in introducing some
more formalized decision procedures.

--Jimbo


from_name: clist at cox.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Danish Wikipedia in the radio

body:
The danish national radio program 1 is going to air a program about Wikipedia this weekend. It's going to be part of a program called "harddisken", which is a high profile technology program.

We are hoping this will give an increased interest in the danish Wikipedia. So please do not make to many experiments with the servers this weekend, we would like all these (hopefully many) new visitors to see a functioning Wikipedia!

For the program they have interviewet Jimmy Wales on the phone, and they have made a very long interview with Brian Hansen one of the most active wikipedians on the danish Wikipedia.

The program will air on P1 saturday september 13 at 20.35 danish time (CEST) and sunday september 14 at 17.00 danish time (CEST)
After that it will be available on the net at http://www.dr.dk/harddisk

Regards
Christian List


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net>

> on 9/10/03 10:24 PM, Rick at giantsrick13 at yahoo.com wrote:
> Is Stevevertigo correct that, because the page doesn't specifically have a
> copyright on it, it's fair game to be stolen and incorporated onto
> Wikipedia?  I can't believe that.

Before 1989 (when the US adopted the Berne Convention) a work that was
published in the United States without a copyright notice did not assert
copyright. Some such works may have fallen into the public domain. However
the law passed allowed for works in which a copyright notice did not appear
to have copyright restored if certain steps were takens.

This was not generally true for works who first country of publication
was/is
a Berne Convention signatories as one of the principals of Berne is that
there are no
formalities to copyright; copyright subsists by the act of fixation.

There is no concept of copyright "theft"; only copyright infringement. There
are
criminal statutes that cover copyright infringment that can incur a criminal
penalty. One does not deprive the owner of their property when one
misappropriates
intellectual property; one deprives them of the rights they have over that
property.

Alex756


from_name: Stephen C. Carlson

subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>on 9/10/03 10:24 PM, Rick at giantsrick13 at yahoo.com wrote:
>>Is Stevevertigo correct that, because the page doesn't specifically have a
>>copyright on it, it's fair game to be stolen and incorporated onto
>>Wikipedia?  I can't believe that.
>
>You should not believe that. Everything is copyright by its author, if no
>one else, notice or no notice, unless it has been released into the public
>domain either by the passage of time, some specific license to use it or
>simply a declaration that people are "free to use it" as one sometimes sees.

U.S. copyright law has dispensed with the notice provision since
joining the Berne Convention in 1988.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson,
mailto:scarlson at mindspring.com
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]

body:
Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] and I have been having a long discussion, and he would
like for me to reinstate him.  He is of the belief that I am the only
one who would be against this, although he does allow as there may be
some complaints from those who have been most strongly against him in
the past.

However, at this point in time, I have no objections to his return,
and would like to reinstate him under the name 'Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]'.

The interpersonal courtesies that would be expected of him at that
point would be the same as expected of anyone.  That is to say, he
would not be on any sort of extra-special probation, although of
course he should be aware that some people will be wary of him at
first.

The important thing, to me, is that Adam has approached this with me
in the right way this time.  We've talked it over, we've talked about
various alternatives, and I feel comfortable with his sincerity.  He's
gone so far as to give me an example of an edit he would like to make,
and the reasons for it, and it all sounded fine to me.

The point of this letter is to ask people with strong objections and
concerns to send them to me, and privately at first please, because
this type of interpersonal matter is seldom made better by public
argument.  However, and in the interests of sunshine, if anyone has
any complaints that they feel should be made public, go ahead with
that if you must.  I just think it'd be better if we cleared things
up quietly and with dignity.

I know this may be a controversial decision, and I want to make it
carefully and with ample opportunity for people to express their
views.

--Jimbo

P.S. for those concerned about the 'Pizza Puzzle' connection, please
note that whether or not this user is in fact Adam (and he has told me
directly that it is not him), PP has not edited anything in nearly a
month and a half.  So that's a problem in the past, I think.


from_name: Arvind Narayanan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Slashdot [OT]

in_reply_to:
<1063213930.994.4.camel@flare>;
	from cwitty@newtonlabs.com on Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 10:12:11AM
	-0700

body:
On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 10:12:11AM -0700, Carl Witty wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 05:44, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Anyhow, my research at the time suggested that for every *doubling* of
> > traffic, you generally *halve* your rank.  That's a rough rule of
> > thumb, but it held remarkably well.
> >
> > That is, a site ranked 500 has twice the traffic of a site ranked
> > 1000.  And a site ranked 845 has twice the traffic of a site ranked
> > 1690.  If we are 2,140 and they are 845, then they have more than
> > twice the traffic that we have.
>
> Actually, I read somewhere that this seems to be a general law for all
> kinds of rankings.  That is, if you rank cities in the United States (or
> the world) by population, a city with twice the rank will have about
> half the population.  If you rank English words by frequency of usage,
> then a word with twice the rank will be used about half as often.  (And
> of course there's nothing special about "doubling"; something with a
> rank ten times as high will have one-tenth the popularity.)
>
Yes, this is known in statistics as the Yule distribution. The observation
that the Yule distribution holds for English words is known as Zipf's law.
The fact that this holds for websites also seems to be well known, in the
context of weblogs - http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
("Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality" by Clay Shriky.) The law is a simple
consequence of modeling a web surfer as a random monkey (clicks on a random
link on the current web page, after a while gets bored and goes to a random
web page), which is also the same model used by google to calculate pagerank.

Arvind
--
Its all GNU to me


from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes copyvio apologethletics?

body:
Well that clears some things up, but it appears I
confused two things -- my alteration of the [[The Wind
Done Gone]] page, with the [[Thomas Sutpen]] page --
the talk page being the place where the discussion
took place. I apologize for that. The Sutpen article
was clearly a vio.

But of course nobody gave any hint that they even read
the attached discussion -- let alone answer any of the
points made there --Centrally the one the Jim and I
seem to be in agreement with-- namely take a second to
create a Stub.

The secondary issue of purging the history of copyvios
seems paranoid and I wont comment further.  IANAL, Im
sure this issue has been thought out -- it seems to
stop at the assumption that anything that "may
potentially cause a problem is bad."  Certainly to be
lax might be the wrong signal to send, but a scrorched
earth approach to copyvios seems silly. (Pardon my
French ;)

While its not in anyones interest to maintain
copyrighted text, the automatic adding of boilerplate
and move to VFD -- if enough people get into "top cop"
mode  and carry this to extremes, it will mean a
serious reduction in articles, (lets be realistic) and
lead new contributors (even autist ones) to leave.
Not to mention cause more people to drop from the
[[m:academic standards kick]] disease. So I called for
some reasonable moderateness.

My disagreement is not practical--IANAL (thus you
people with business degrees may not understand it)
but it was an attempt to correct an attitude that says
"lets copyvio text added by a repeat offender, (but
dont actually ban the repeat offender, nor ask anyone
else to) and do nothing about adding a stub because 'I
just dont know how."

Mr. "wrong-on-all-points",
~S~

"I'd love to be in a world where women grow penises
because its fashionable, or you can have an eye
replacement of a different color or from a different
species. All the adults will say, "Tut, tut, tut,
girls never had penises in my day." -Neil Gaiman

__________________________________
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body:
I thought Evercat did a pretty decent job of
establishing a pattern... look at Evercats page for a
sublink.

And... welcome back, Adam
~S~

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] and I have been having a long
> discussion, and he would
> like for me to reinstate him.  He is of the belief
> that I am the only
> one who would be against this, although he does
> allow as there may be
> some complaints from those who have been most
> strongly against him in
> the past.
>
> However, at this point in time, I have no objections
> to his return,
> and would like to reinstate him under the name 'Adam
> [name omitted for privacy reasons]'.
>
> The interpersonal courtesies that would be expected
> of him at that
> point would be the same as expected of anyone.  That
> is to say, he
> would not be on any sort of extra-special probation,
> although of
> course he should be aware that some people will be
> wary of him at
> first.
>
> The important thing, to me, is that Adam has
> approached this with me
> in the right way this time.  We've talked it over,
> we've talked about
> various alternatives, and I feel comfortable with
> his sincerity.  He's
> gone so far as to give me an example of an edit he
> would like to make,
> and the reasons for it, and it all sounded fine to
> me.
>
> The point of this letter is to ask people with
> strong objections and
> concerns to send them to me, and privately at first
> please, because
> this type of interpersonal matter is seldom made
> better by public
> argument.  However, and in the interests of
> sunshine, if anyone has
> any complaints that they feel should be made public,
> go ahead with
> that if you must.  I just think it'd be better if we
> cleared things
> up quietly and with dignity.
>
> I know this may be a controversial decision, and I
> want to make it
> carefully and with ample opportunity for people to
> express their
> views.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> P.S. for those concerned about the 'Pizza Puzzle'
> connection, please
> note that whether or not this user is in fact Adam
> (and he has told me
> directly that it is not him), PP has not edited
> anything in nearly a
> month and a half.  So that's a problem in the past,
> I think.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> > I didn't read all post (translate is fastidious for me), but in
> > those I read I see words as "silly", "pushy French attitude" and
> > other not so friendly sentence. Hope it's just translation mistake
> > ;o).
>
> Well, I hope so, too.  I have not seen any such remarks, and I
> personally thought you were Japanese.  :-)

According to Anthere it was just friendly moquery, so it's forgiven.
I'm more and more japanese but still a smelly chesse adorer ;o)

> > On the other hand, I didn't read any proposition to make vote
> > process become more close to a consensus. For me, the vote method is
> > not the real problem (average method & Condorcet are not so
> > different in fact). Imho, the problem is a standard vote doesn't
> > offer any dynamic solution.
>
> Well, I share this concern, and indeed this is one of my main
> objections to voting processes in general.  As you may or may not
> know, I'm a longstanding skeptic of voting.
>
> Here's the basic problem with voting -- voting is selection among
> alternatives.  But often, rather than selecting from alternatives, we
> are better off being creative at addressing the concerns of everyone,
> of trying to combine options A and B to get C, which is preferred by
> almost everyone.
>
> HOWEVER, I also think that voting does have some benefits, and it does
> at least scale well.  The problem with consensus is simply that
> ultimately, it comes down to someone (me) saying what the consensus is
> -- and if I'm unfair or don't listen thoughtfully to everyone, then
> the entire process is a sham.
>
> Of course I'm perfect in every way, ha ha, but still I can see how
> people could be concerned about this.

It's why I think we need a system to be able to see at any moment the point
of view of each participant (have a place to debate and an other to give
current summarized opinion (just like a vote)) and why I think dynamic vote
may be a good solution.

> > I'm aware that is only a personal point of view but I expected to
> > ear some alternative solution instead of the eternal debate on the
> > best way of count vote. But perhaps I just miss those discussions.
>
> Maybe.  It's an important topic, and I think your point of view is
> basically correct, i.e. we should be concerned about how a move
> towards voting can give rise to dangerous divisions within the
> community that wouldn't appear if we all continue in a commitment to
> find solutions that are widely accepted.
>
> > I agree consensus become harder as we get bigger. But instead of
> > switch decision process to a standard vote method, we can perhaps
> > just create some rules to make consensus easier to achieve.
>
> I think that's a good idea.

We are now trying to create this kind of basic rules on the French
Wikipedia. I will let you know if those rules survive to a real decision
process ;o)

> And I also think that there need not be *one single* decision method
> for every decision that needs to be made.
>
> There are some decisions, like technical decisions, that need to be
> made by technical people, period.  A popular vote by nonprogrammers on
> whether to use ISAM tables or InnoDB tables would be silly.  A popular
> vote on what kind of hardware to buy, or where to locate servers,
> would be silly.  Those are primarily technical questions.
>
> There are some decisions that don't even have to be made all at once
> -- most editing decisions, for example, can stand to be left undecided
> until experimentation shows us the way.
>
> But sometimes there are decisions that are big, and that have to be
> made in a timely fashion, and have to be made in a transparent manner
> that takes into account as many views as possible, etc., and I think
> voting can be useful for that.

I agree. In fact I think majority vote can also be useful in few case
(essentially for quick decision). The most important is to use this method
only in case all participants agree to use it. For very subjective choice,
as colors for exemple, standard vote can be useful..

> > If I enter the debate it's just because I worried to see Oliezekat
> > spend all his time to try to found alternative proposition (he
> > really worked hard) and to be bother just because he didn't strictly
> > respect the saintly rules.  Imho, the wikipedians must to be more
> > flexible and patient; especially with those you have difficulty to
> > speak/understand English. Next time, a non-American organizer!?
>
> Sure, maybe next time we'll choose a European?  (This is a joke.  Erik
> is not American, he's German.)

I tought about not well represented country (China, India, or why not
Afghanistan). But I fact the more important is not the nationality but the
competence and the trust you have in him. I have nothing to say against
Erik, I think he do is best (even if I don't agree the decided rules). Sorry
for my silly remark.

> --Jimbo

Aoineko


in_reply_to:
<20030911171830.38162.qmail@web80707.mail.yahoo.com>;
	from utilitymuffinresearch2@yahoo.com on Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at
	10:18:30AM -0700

body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:
> points made there --Centrally the one the Jim and I
> seem to be in agreement with-- namely take a second to
> create a Stub.

Yes, it's nice to do that, but if a person knows nothing about the
topic, I can see why they might not want to bother.

--Jimbo


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> However, at this point in time, I have no objections to his return,
> and would like to reinstate him under the name 'Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]'.

Excellent!

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

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body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
>
> >I mean, you select some solutions
> >(before the vote start), then you start the vote and block any new
> >proposition.
> >
> At some point that has to be right, as long as there initially were
> ample opportunities to present new alternatives
>
> >For example, imagine you want to select a color. Favorite
> >colors are black and white (just an example), so people propose those 2
> >colors to be voted. After some time you see both colors have closed
score.
> >With standard vote system you must select one of those colors (by any
> >method) and make happy only half of people instead of be able to propose
a
> >gray that may satisfy more people (just an example).
> >
> The question should really be, "Was there an opportunity to suggest gray
> before the voting started?"  In a truly democratic system there is no
> excuse for negligence.

For my, the question is, who can think about gray before the vote start if
everybody prefere black or white and don't know what other prefere. It's
juste after the vote begin that you can see both colors are appreciate at a
close level and you can think about aleternative solution.

> >I think discussion,
> >proposition and vote have better to take place concurrently. I mean allow
> >participant to propose new solution and change vote during the decision
> >process. I'm aware that is only a personal point of view but I expected
to
> >ear some alternative solution instead of the eternal debate on the best
way
> >of count vote. But perhaps I just miss those discussions.
> >
> When a large number of options are offered, there needs to be a way to
> narrow those options.  When 10 options are offered the top vote getter
> can easily win a plurality of 15% which then means that 85% of the
> participants voted for something else.  Several rounds of voting where
> the lowest vote getter(s) are dropped until someone has an absolute
> majority is a workable system.  The second round of voting in French
> elections somewhat reflects that.  Transferable ballots try to
> accomplish the same thing in one round.

Have a way to narrow many options is perhaps a good idea, but if you can't
make new proposition according to 1st round result, the 2nd round is
unnecessary. In fact, according to this 1st round, I'm almost sure the
Paullus logo will won the final vote. So imho, artist had better to create
Paullus logo's variant rather than go on create many new variant of their
own logo that will not be used.

> Once something has been decided there still needs to be a process that
> allows for change.  The conditions for change (in the current situation
> in relation to a logo) need to be made clear.  This will allow newcomers
> to have a say, and it will allow others to change their vote.  An
> overthrow threshhold needs to be established that prevents rapid changes
> in policy between two very equally supported alternatives.  Thus
> '''changing''' an agreed logo could require that 60% of voters support
> the change.  Voting could take place on any alternative proposal with
> minimal support (say 10 Wikipedians).  Voting could remain open for an
> extended period of time: 90 days? 6 months?  The threshhold would not be
> very easy to reach, but everyone's opportunity to having meaningful
> influence would be respected.

It may be a good thing.

> >>As we get bigger, we need to preserve and improve on our success in
> >>that area: when decisions are made, they need to be as inclusive as
> >>possible, i.e. to make as many people happy as possible, and at the
> >>same time, they need to be made by a process that people can support
> >>even when their exact preferences are not chosen.
> >>
> >>Do we agree about that?
> >>
> >I agree consensus become harder as we get bigger. But instead of switch
> >decision process to a standard vote method, we can perhaps just create
some
> >rules to make consensus easier to achieve.
> >
> Voting only ''appears'' to make things easier.  More rules seems just as
> anti-consensus.

Sure, any limiting rules is anti-consensus. But I think there is a large gap
between consensus and standard vote method. Perhaps we can create few rules
thet just help organize a consensus. The first rules we created is "You must
argue any opposition to a proposition". This avoid people who just said "I'm
against!" but I don't think is very anti-consensus.

Thanks for your constructive comments.

Aoineko


from_name: Delirium

body:
Adam Raizen wrote in part:

>>You malign ad hoc pronunciation schemes, but they do have *some*
>>redeeming value. You can use a single ad-hoc system to represent
>>different dialects more easily than you can use IPA for the same
>>purpose, since users will read their own dialect into the pronunciation
>>guide for the ad-hoc system. Still, I can't imagine making up an ad-hoc
>>scheme for wikipedia; IPA is probably best for us.
>>
>>
I agree with this criticism of IPA -- how can IPA even be remotely
useful for us, given that there is no one correct phoneme mapping for
nearly *any* word in the English language?  Are we going to have dozens
of different IPA entries for each word, representing the full range of
pronunciation in the English of England (including many dialects),
Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, India, the United
States (including many dialects), etc.?  And how about for the range of
pronunciation of Chinese words within different parts of China, or
countries outside China that also have significant Chinese-speaking
populations?  The whole thing just seems pretty useless.

-Mark


body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Steve Vertigum wrote:
> > points made there --Centrally the one the Jim and
> I
> > seem to be in agreement with-- namely take a
> second to
> > create a Stub.
>
> Yes, it's nice to do that, but if a person knows
> nothing about the
> topic, I can see why they might not want to bother.

Yes, I can understand _____ in the name of efficiency,
too.
But do we make _____ policy by enforcing the hard
rule?  Id simply like to see the standard procedure
mitigated with some reason, rather than deference to
fear of repercussion.

Enough for today,
~S~

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body:
I tend to agree. But at some point, the effort put
into correcting this might overshoot the effort of
simply adding Vorbis audio ("speex" codec, whenever it
comes out) to each entry.

>"What about China...all those dialects?"

Pinyin covers those-- not in a linguistic way, but a
political way.  There are far more positives for using
IPA -- namely that its compatible with SAMPA, and that
this might someday be used on WP to machine read text
-- which would be velly nice.

~S~

--- Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
> Adam Raizen wrote in part:
>
> >>You malign ad hoc pronunciation schemes, but they
> do have *some*
> >>redeeming value. You can use a single ad-hoc
> system to represent
> >>different dialects more easily than you can use
> IPA for the same
> >>purpose, since users will read their own dialect
> into the pronunciation
> >>guide for the ad-hoc system. Still, I can't
> imagine making up an ad-hoc
> >>scheme for wikipedia; IPA is probably best for us.
> >>
> >>
> I agree with this criticism of IPA -- how can IPA
> even be remotely
> useful for us, given that there is no one correct
> phoneme mapping for
> nearly *any* word in the English language?  Are we
> going to have dozens
> of different IPA entries for each word, representing
> the full range of
> pronunciation in the English of England (including
> many dialects),
> Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, South Africa,
> India, the United
> States (including many dialects), etc.?  And how
> about for the range of
> pronunciation of Chinese words within different
> parts of China, or
> countries outside China that also have significant
> Chinese-speaking
> populations?  The whole thing just seems pretty
> useless.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Guillaume-
> > For example, imagine you want to select a color.
>
> Your black/white/gray example is perfectly applicable to our process.
> There has been the possibility of discussion during the entire logo
> submission process (for more than a month); discussions continued during
> voting, and even now after the submission deadline has been closed you can
> still submit variants and try to convince the artist to put these variants
> up for final voting. So I fail to see how and when we could or should have
> been trying harder to find compromise solutions. Many logos have been
> modified based on viewer feedback, especially NcWiki, Stygian's logo and
> Paullusmagnus' puzzle sphere. Some people have created vector variants of
> existing logos, others have changed the colors, and others have added
> their favorite mascot (*cough*).

Sorry, according to the discussion I read, I thought alternative logo was
not welcome. I effectively saw many intresting variant of Paullus logo (as
an example) on his own page, but they are not on the vote page. Do you
planed to allow to vote on all those variant ? I just regret that the rules
was not cleary defined before vote start and deadlines are so short. In
other hand, I don't disagree the fact that have an unified logo before the
big press relase may be a good thing.

> There have been some complaints (not by me) about Olie's attempts to get
> Miwiki integrated into virtually every logo. Are you saying these users
> should just shut up? What exactly are you asking for here? I think you
> should be glad that we have a formalized process in place to handle these
> variants, because otherwise we would now be knee deep in a flamewar about
> whether Olie should be allowed to do this or not.

I don't undertand why the fact Olie tryed to make variant of all logo with
his ant is a problem. Many people vote for logos where ants were (2 of the
10 finalist logos have ant inside). I suppose that mean many people think
the ant is a good symbol of community work. So I think it's really positive
to try to mix this symbol with other artist concept. It's the Wiki way,
isn't it !? People who don't like this symbol just have to don't vote for
it. Accuse Olie to only want to promote his mascot is as wrongful as
deplorable.

> > I agree consensus become harder as we get bigger. But instead of switch
> > decision process to a standard vote method, we can perhaps just create
some
> > rules to make consensus easier to achieve.
>
> I fail to see how it will ever be possible to achieve "consensus" on which
> logo to pick from a selection of more than 130. Feel free to prove me
> wrong -- just leave a message on the user talk page of everyone who voted
> and tell them your arguments why you think a particular logo or compromise
> should be used.
>
> Realistically, when you stop using voting for decisions like this, you
> will end up with a cabal that makes decisions for the majority of users.
> The funny thing is: I think the people who complain about voting would not
> complain about such a cabal -- because they know that the only alternative
> is voting, which they despise.

Please read the answer I made about "dynamic vote".

> > If I enter the debate it's just because I worried to see Oliezekat spend
all
> > his time to try to found alternative proposition (he really worked hard)
and
> > to be bother just because he didn't strictly respect the saintly rules.
>
> I did not "bother" Olie about anything. Which "saintly rules" do you think
> should be relaxed? Should Olie be allowed to submit his Miwiki variants
> for final voting even if the artists do not agree? What exactly do you
> want? If you just want to express your solidarity with the Miwiki
> campaign, well, maybe there are other places to do that.

I didn't think especially to you about "bother" ;o)
I thought that as puzzle-globe, sun-flower or dove (just few example), the
ant is an intresting concept. I don't see any problem to allow artist to mix
those concept to make new proposition. In fact, imho, I think we had better
to first just decide what concept we want to represent Wikipedia and only
after, allow artist to create logo on those themes.
It may be great if people stop thinking all French wikipedians are just here
to try to promote MiWiki just because it was designed by a French.
Personaly, I like this concept very much, but I'm not sure it fit vey well
as a logo. The very famous (at least in France) book "The Ants" is perhaps
for something in the fact French like ants as much ;o)

> > Next time, a non-American organizer!?
>
> I'm not an American, but perhaps it's a problem that I speak
> understandable English. In that case, maybe we should try to get Brion to
> organize the next contest in Esperanto. Or how about Volap?k? I hear it's
> all the rage with the kids these days.

It was a stupid non-sens remark (wrote too late in the night).
The positive point is that for me you speak as well english as I thought you
was american :o)

Respekt.

Aoineko


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> >Next time, a non-American organizer!?
>
> That's a bit insulting since it presumes there is something wrong with
being
> American. Erik isn't American either, BTW.

>
> Why is it when people see that something is not going the way they want
it,
> that they automatically assume it is some type of Anglo or "worse"
American
> conspiracy?

It's not because thing was wrong I thought he was american, but just because
we speak very well english :op
I already said it was a regrettable stupid sentence.
In fact my means was not about americain, but about majority. If we use a
majority vote method, the fact the english wikipedians are as numerous, make
their choice to have large probability to be choosed.
I just wanted to say that take someone from a small Wikipedia to organize
may help non-english wikipedians to fell more concern by decisions.

> This has to stop.

Keep cool ;o)

> --mav

Aoineko


body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:

> "Silly" is now considered a silly word to use, eh? I
> think thats silly, myself.
> ~S~

Sorry, it was just a silly miss understood.
You can use freely all friendly words you want ;o)

Aoineko


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Vote on voting method for final round

in_reply_to:
<bjqol4.3vvla75.1@hamster.epaul.my-fqdn.de>;
	from Paul-Ebermann@gmx.de on Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 09:15:16PM +0200

body:
Paul Ebermann wrote:
> Do you want a multi-language-1.0, or is this (now)
> a English-only thing?

I want a 1.0 in each language, yes.  And the drive to create a 1.0 in
each language will depend on the organic growth of that language's
encyclopedia. I think that there's a natural time to look at what has
been accomplished and to say "yes, this is now getting close to a
degree of breadth that would justify trying to get to a stable
release".

It'll naturally be primarily up to the people who are working in any
given language as to when there's enough interest in the partial shift
of focus.  (I say 'partial' because while I expect some of us to get
really excited and active in finalizing articles for a 1.0 release, I
also expect others to just keep doing the same wonderful things
they've been doing all along.)

I think it would be needlessly English-centric of us to assume that
all wikipedia languages should be doing the same thing at the same
time.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
Alex R. wrote:
> As far as history pages are concerned my current thinking on
> copyright infringements appearing on these pages is to invoke
> sec. 108 of the Copyright Act. Thus while a current page version is
> released under the GFDL, prior versions of an article should have
> the famous 108 notice so that if some one has downloaded copyright
> infringing material at least Wikimedia will not be responsible as it
> is acting as a non-commercial archive (this cannot apply to the
> current version of any page as it would be in violation of the
> GFDL).

Can you explain more about the "famous 108 notice"?

I read this article, but found it only partially helpful:
http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/notice.html

And this:
http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us/services/copyill.php

And finally, a marked-up copy of the law itself:
http://www.groton.k12.ct.us/mts/eg13a.htm

--Jimbo


from_name: wiki pedista

subject: [Wikitech-l] fulltext searxh disabled in es.wikipedia

body:
Hello,
The full text search has been disabled en
es.wikipedia.
Is that on purpose for performance reasons?

AstroNomer

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from_name: Anthere

body:
I feel lazy this evening, therefore I will use the
translation of google.

Here what I conclude from the current experiment of
the vote.  I think that after vote of the new logo, it
would be very interesting that all the international
wikip?dias take care well to translate the various
techniques of votes (by using for example the articles
of en.wikipedia).  That will make it possible to the
editors to better include/understand the various modes
of existing poll.

In addition, a page on m?ta, clearly identifying the
advantages and disadvantages of each mode of poll will
make it possible to better identify for the next vote,
the various possibilities being offered to us.  This
page exists already partially, here
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/Vote_on_voting_method

The most information concerning a mode of poll will be
added, the best informed future voters will be.  We
will be able to also add the various already lived
examples, the vote of the counting of the articles,
the vote of the logo first turn, the vote of the logo
second turn, the vote of the vote: -)

Anthere

Je me sens paresseuse ce soir, donc je vais utiliser
la traduction de google.

Voici ce que je conclus de l'exp?rience actuelle du
vote.

Je pense qu'apr?s vote du nouveau logo, il serait tr?s
int?ressant que toutes les wikip?dias internationales
prennent bien soin de traduire les diff?rentes
techniques de votes (en utilisant par exemple les
articles de en.wikipedia). Cela permettra aux ?diteurs
de mieux comprendre les diff?rents modes de scrutin
existant.

Par ailleurs, une page sur m?ta, identifiant
clairement les avantages et inconv?nients de chaque
mode de scrutin permettra de mieux identifier pour le
prochain vote, les diff?rentes possibilit?s s'offrant
? nous.

Cette page existe d?j? partiellement, ici
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/Vote_on_voting_method

Le plus d'information concernant un mode de scrutin
sera ajout?, le mieux inform?s les futurs ?lecteurs
seront. Nous pourrons ?galement ajouter les diff?rents
exemples d?j? v?cus, le vote du comptage des articles,
le vote du logo premier tour, le vote du logo deuxi?me
tour, le vote du vote :-)

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from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Guillame, what you're talking about is exactly the stuff I'll write about on
that page, but didn't include in the mail because I couldn't figure out how
to say it well (and it was long). And that Babelfish translation was quite
understandable, I think. (Not as good as your English, despite what some may
say, but understandable.) And while German, Japanese, and Esperanto
currently top my list of languages to learn in the near future, maybe I'll
try to pick up some French. :)

-- Jake


body:
It's worth noting I've never considered any of the pronunciation schemes to
be worth anything. If it's an English word, I go to m-w.com and listen to
the pronunciation wav files.

-- Jake


from_name: David Friedland

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:
> This is what morphophones are all about -- a scheme where all
> dialects read in their own sound. We don't have to invent our own
> ad-hoc scheme, since linguists have been studying morphophones, and
> quite often in the context of English, since 1962. (IPA, in contrast,
> does phonemes, or even lower-level structures.)

 > The "Webster's Dictionary" systems often seen in US dictionaries are
 > roughly morphophonic, but not very sophisticated linguistically. (But
 > Merriam-Webster's current system is phonemic, despite it's
 > old-fashioned non-IPA, Webster's-ish look. Therefore the worst of
 > them all, IMO.)

The American Heritage Dictionary gives the following explanation of
their pronunciation scheme:

"For most words a single set of symbols can represent the
pronunciation found in each regional variety of American English. You
will supply those features of your own regional speech that are called
forth by the pronunciation key in this Dictionary"

And it seems like a panacea for the pronunciation problem. But it's not,
because some words simply have different underlying representations in
different dialects, and the system only works for dialects that are
roughly the same except for a few sound changes. It fails for wildly or
even mildly divergent dialects. The American Heritage Dictionary system
sweeps this problem under the rug by saying "The pronunciations are
exclusively those of educated speech", which, to my mind, is a cop-out,
and not a satisfactory solution for Wikipedia.

However, the question of dialect remains. Obviously listing
pronunciations in all possible dialects is not a reasonable solution,
and indeed, nor are any of the systems used in American dictionaries. I
recognize that the general task of specifying a pronunciation that
speakers of any dialect will automatically speak in their dialect is not
ideally handled by IPA. However, I have do not know of any system
advocated by linguists other than what phonologists call "broad
transcription" using IPA. Can you point me to a book or paper, written
by linguists, that specifies such a system for English, and advocates
its use by and for general (non-academic) readers?

I have never encoutered such a system, and I doubt that one exists.
Barring the existence of a standard system, I don't really see that
Wikipedia has any other options besides IPA for specifying
pronunciations. Certainly I hope no one thinks Wikipedia should invent
its own system. When it comes to standards, it should be our job to
follow them and describe them, not create them.

So I advocate having IPA transcriptions for standard dialects (like
Standard American English and Received Pronunciation), and having
special pages describing how the various nonstardard dialects differ
both phonetically and phonemically from the standards. I don't know much
about morphophones and I'm not sure it's a concept widely accepted by
linguists.

PS: I have made a page on meta called [[Pronunciations]] and am going
through the list archives and posting links to relevant discussions
there. I'm not sure what the policy should be regarding where further
discussion should occur, so if you want to respond, do so either here or
on the list.

-- David [[User:Nohat]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Adam Raizen wrote in part:
>
>>> You malign ad hoc pronunciation schemes, but they do have *some*
>>> redeeming value. You can use a single ad-hoc system to represent
>>> different dialects more easily than you can use IPA for the same
>>> purpose, since users will read their own dialect into the pronunciation
>>> guide for the ad-hoc system. Still, I can't imagine making up an ad-hoc
>>> scheme for wikipedia; IPA is probably best for us.
>>>
>
> I agree with this criticism of IPA -- how can IPA even be remotely
> useful for us, given that there is no one correct phoneme mapping for
> nearly *any* word in the English language?  Are we going to have dozens
> of different IPA entries for each word, representing the full range of
> pronunciation in the English of England (including many dialects),
> Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, India, the United
> States (including many dialects), etc.?  And how about for the range of
> pronunciation of Chinese words within different parts of China, or
> countries outside China that also have significant Chinese-speaking
> populations?  The whole thing just seems pretty useless.
>
> -Mark

The nice thing about IPA is that it allows to to have a range of
phonetic details. You can specify exactly where a vowel is with respect
to, for example, Daniel Jones' cardinal vowels, or you can just use the
plain vowel symbol, meaning it's somewhere near that vowel.

The problem is fundamentally that dialects _do_ sound different and
using the system "this sound sounds like this sound in another word"
breaks down eventually.

There are, however, standard dialects, and other dialects can be
described in terms of those standards. Likewise, pronunciations should
be presented in the standards, and speakers who are unsure how their
dialect differs from the standard can view the page on their dialect.

In the cases where a word is pronounced in a dialect in a way that is
not predicted by the regular differences between the dialect and the
standand, then it seems only reasonable than to present that dialect's
idiosyncratic pronunciation along with the standards.

- David [User:Nohat]


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Backup (was Re: I'm shopping today for upgrades)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:
> Tim Starling wrote:
>
>>Does anyone back up the image and oldimage tables, the user table, the
>>watchlist table and the sitestats table? How often are the images
>>themselves backed up?
>
>
> Good question.  I backup everything using rsync to my home computer.
> I don't know who else does that, but only the developers would have
> access to do that.
>
> I could set up a cron on another machine in the cage to do the same
> thing.

I guess the obvious thing to do would be to backup pliny's data on
larousse and larousse's data on pliny. That way ordinary developers like
Brion and I would be able to access them. I don't think we've had any
crashes yet where both machines have stopped working simultaneously.

Brion's been talking about replication for a while. I don't know how
hard it is to set up, but it would be mighty nice if either server could
immediately take over when the other one fails.

-- Tim Starling.


body:
Jake Nelson wrote:
> A lot of interesting points being made, hmm.
> Some replies, in no particular order:
> I'll note that the FPTP vote on voting method wasn't a great choice, but
eh,
> we can live with it. It shouldn't be a terribly different result with any
> decent system. I'd recommend establishing some sort of standards for
voting
> system... not 'we use X system always' (though if we could find one people
> consistently agree upon as good enough, that'd be /nice/ (I'm not holding
my
> breath here)) but maybe 'we use system X, Y, or Z' (Which to me are
> Condorcet, IRV, and Average, in no particular order). And if we really
feel
> the need, specify how we choose among X/Y/Z  (I'd say by average voting).
> I find it distressing that our French friends think 'silly' equates to
> 'idiot'. Silly is mostly a friendly term... it can be considered a little
> patronizing to have your idea called silly, but it's not really personally
> offensive, and being called silly as a person can almost be a compliment.
> I wouldn't vote in favor of a Miwki-ed logo, but I don't have an issue
with
> the existence of such variants. We really should have (or should have had)
> more variants... and I'd have liked to see some creation of new logos
after
> the Round 1 determination of what people want to see... more fusions of
> logos, etc. (The black/white/grey example is a good one.) I could make
more
> detailed suggestions, but it'd be academic now, the current system isn't
> bad, and suggestions of "I'd do it this way" would seem like undue
> criticism. I can understand if Erik gets very irritable about such things
> (Though he seems to show quite good restraint on this so far...)
> I definitely understand the concerns of the foreign-language Wikipedians
> about having to go through intermediaries, and possibly being ignored by
the
> English-only-speaking majority. For starters, I suggest that posting in
> their language may be better than staying quiet: translation can happen.
> Babelfish doesn't exactly produce brilliant prose, but it rarely fails to
> convey the gist, and has improved drastically from how it used to be...
and
> sometimes you'll be surprised who understands you. Also, try not to read
> American or Anglophonic conspiracies into things- any that exist are
likely
> unintentional. Remember Hanlon's Razor: 'Never attribute to malice that
> which can be adequately explained by stupidity.' (Though I don't think
> stupidity is necessarily the right word here, perhaps ignorance might be
> better.)
> I have a lot of thoughts on voting, governance, and including
> non-Anglophonic Wikipedians, but they're lengthy and scattered, so I'll
not
> burden you with them... maybe I'll post something on my userspace
later....
> though I'm still rather self-conscious about making such statements, not
> having been here terribly long.
>
> Anyway, in general, the best prescription for all of us is just to relax.
> I'll shut up for a while now ;).
>
> --Jake

Perhaps you can't imagine how sometime it is frustrating to don't be able to
get to the heart of something just because of a language lack. It's not a
problem to speak about weather, but for deeper subject it can be. Sure we
have to develop embassy, but found someone fluent in English who are agree
to read all post and make summary for those who don't speak English is not
an easy thing ;o) We have better to learn English that is the in facto
international language. In fact, this time we had a lack of information
inside the French Wikipedia, mainly because this vote occurred in a period
of many ? main ? French wikipedians were missing. I am very interesting to
hear your proposition to develop collaboration with non-Anglophonic
wikipedians.

Aoineko

Just for fun, here is the Babelfish translation of my text above:

Perhaps that you cannot imagine how much it is sometimes frustrating not to
be able to go at the bottom of the things simply because of a problem of
language. It is not a problem to speak about time, but that can be it for a
major subject. We must certainly develop the embassies, but finds somebody
who speaks usually English, and who is close with reading all the messages
and to make of them summaries for those which do not speak English, is not
an easy thing;o) One shoed to better learn English who is in facto, the
language international. In fact, this time there was a lack of information
inside French-speaking Wikip?dia, in particular because owing to the fact
that the vote intervened at one period or much of the French-speaking
wikip?diens "major" missed. I am very interest to hear your proposals to
develop collaboration with the wikip?diens not english-speaking.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
--- "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> I agree with all of Jimbo's point. The dichotomy
> commercial v.
> non-commercial
> is not really applicable because of the GFDL.

Ok.

> As
> well, even if one were to
> use the fair use defense under US law, this fair use
> may not be fair use for
> downstream licensees. The problem is that fair use
> does not primarily depend
> on the third sector (what some people call
> non-profits as being the "third
> Force
> in democractic societies); fair use is a specific
> use defense. Thus it might
> be
> allowed in Wikipedia, copying a whole text might not
> be considered a
> copyright
> infringement, but someone downstream that does not
> have notice of that fact
> is going to infringe and may not have the same fair
> use defense as Wikipedia
> will be found an infringer.

You say "will be found" as if this were a "legal
certainty." Is  there such a thing where
hyper-transmission of materials is concerned? Please
dont point to the current RIAA case-- its likely to
recieve a severe case of public-advocacy backlash.

> While anyone who releases a text has the burden to
> prove that they did not
> engage in an infrnging act (thus the burden IMHO
> should be on the editor
> contributor and the downstream licensee)

This is pretty straightforward. It comes down to a
contract between contributor and Wikipedia.  A
deliberate and repeated violation of this contract is
the real issue. Understood.

>Wikiepedia
> may not have any
> direct absolute liability because "Wikipedia" as
> such,  did not contribute
> the
> text

This is exactly what I said.

(a reason that the editors should retain
> authorship attribution and
> copyright IMO)

Is this going to happen? How does this jive with the
open-wiki model?  Again, the democratizing,
open-source model was never really inline with the
privatized proprietary model in any case-- it's just a
matter of time for these things to come to a head -- I
see no point in changing horses in mid-stream now.

> the goal is to create a base of
> knowledge that can be used,
> not sidelined because the due dillegence could not
> be done to show who
> actually owns the co-author copyright on any
> Wikipedia article

And I take it that "due diligence" does not mean "an
excess of zeal" either right?  We all are *not in
disagreement.  Should we (for clarity's sake) now
better define the term "due diligence" -- or must it
remain as subjective as the law is itself? :-)

> effectively
> making the GFDL license scheme useless except to
> non-income producing downstream licensees

I see, so the whole notion of open-encyclopedia,
generated by free editor labor, is somehow predicated
on the possibilty that it will someday must be used by
someone "for-profit" -- and not merely maintained as a
perennial world resource ?  Is'nt
this--philosophically in contradiction to your first
paragraph--more subject to laws dealing with
non-profit, for-profit distinctions?

> not-for-profit publishers will probably be
considered
> no different than commercial publishers, the only
> difference is that the money in a not-for-profit
does not go to the shareholders (there are none) it
goes to'
> salaries and the assets of the corporation, there is
> still plenty of income from the exploited
intellectual >property.

> Thus, copyright violation vigilance will do at least
> two things, first make
> it easier for third parties to do their due
> dillegence, second make it
> harder
> for Wikipedia (be that the volunteers or the
> not-for-profit structure in
> Wikimedia) to be held liable for failure to take
> reasonable steps to prevent
> any infringement (or defamation/personality rights
> issues from cropping up).

This is quite clear.  What at issue now are specific
technicalities --1. Copyviolations in the article
history only--not in the current version.  -- is it
necessary to delete an article --or can it simply be
refactored?  2.  The creation of stubs from copyvio
sources.  3. Proper attribution to article source as a
mitigating factor in a hypothetical claim of
violation.  4. The inefficiency of deferential
preference to the VFD process over refactoring.

> This is important when dealing with non-US nationals
> that browse Wikipedia,
> Wikipedia's problem will not be copyright so much as
> it will be the problems
> that might arise with defamation and
> privacy/publicity rights; in those
> cases the person that posts the tortious material is
not
> shielded by US law. the law
> in the place of the defamation applies (and that can
> be any country in the
> world).

As long as people are made better aware of this
fact--essentially, that they are personally
responsible for the material they submit specifically
in a civil defamation context.  The issue then is,
since WP itself is shielded, how much can or will or
should WP shield its contributors?

> We should also remember that copyright law itself
> provides the best "out"
> for this kind of problem. sec. 102(b) of Title 17
USC
> states:
>
> "(b) In no case does copyright protection for an
> original work of authorship
> extend to any idea, procedure, process, system,
> method of operation,
> concept,
> principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in
> which it is described,
> explained,
> illustrated, or embodied in such work."
>
> Thus any material that is rewritten to the point
> where the only resemblance
> with
> the original material are ideas, concepts, facts,
> that will never be a
> copyright
> infringement.

Tadaa. ( Meaning: Similar to Viol?? ).
Never say never though?

> As far as history pages are concerned my current
> thinking on copyright
> infringements
> appearing on these pages is to invoke sec. 108 of
> the Copyright Act. Thus
> while
> a current page version is released under the GFDL,
> prior versions of an
> article
> should have the famous 108 notice so that if some
> one has downloaded
> copyright
> infringing material at least Wikimedia will not be
> responsible as it is
> acting as a
> non-commercial archive (this cannot apply to the
> current version of any page
> as
> it would be in violation of the GFDL).
>
> Alex756

Thank goodness!  But this new notice will take maybe
an hour for one of the developers to implement. I hope
the Firmament does'nt get sued before then.

Thank you Alex. I think that all of this actually
cleared something up. My spidey-sense is getting back
to normal.

Ah the sweet swell of indication,
~S~
"I don't believe in nothin nomore--I'm going to law
school." -The dark-cap wearing teenage bully from 'The
Simpsons'

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subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> This need not be a matter of technical legal copyright problems!  Our
> standards go far beyond that of mere obediance to the law.  Even if
> there were some legal gray area here (and there is not, IMHO), it's
> still plagiarism.

I agree with all of Jimbo's point. The dichotomy commercial v.
non-commercial
is not really applicable because of the GFDL. As well, even if one were to
use the fair use defense under US law, this fair use may not be fair use for
downstream licensees. The problem is that fair use does not primarily depend
on the third sector (what some people call non-profits as being the "third
Force
in democractic societies); fair use is a specific use defense. Thus it might
be
allowed in Wikipedia, copying a whole text might not be considered a
copyright
infringement, but someone downstream that does not have notice of that fact
is going to infringe and may not have the same fair use defense as Wikipedia
will be found an infringer.

While anyone who releases a text has the burden to prove that they did not
engage in an infrnging act (thus the burden IMHO should be on the editor
contributor and the downstream licensee) Wikiepedia may not have any
direct absolute liability because "Wikipedia" as such,  did not contribute
the
text (a reason that the editors should retain authorship attribution and
copyright IMO) the goal is to create a base of knowledge that can be used,
not sidelined because the due dillegence could not be done to show who
actually owns the co-author copyright on any Wikipedia article thus
effectively
making the GFDL license scheme useless except to non-income producing
downstream licensees ( not-for-profit publishers will probably be considered
no different than commercial publishers, the only difference is that the
money
in a not-for-profit does not go to the shareholders (there are none) it goes
to'
salaries and the assets of the corporation, there is still plenty of income
from
the exploited intellectual property.

Thus, copyright violation vigilance will do at least two things, first make
it easier for third parties to do their due dillegence, second make it
harder
for Wikipedia (be that the volunteers or the not-for-profit structure in
Wikimedia) to be held liable for failure to take reasonable steps to prevent
any infringement (or defamation/personality rights issues from cropping up).
This is important when dealing with non-US nationals that browse Wikipedia,
Wikipedia's problem will not be copyright so much as it will be the problems
that might arise with defamation and privacy/publicity rights; in those
cases
the person that posts the tortious material is not shielded by US law. the
law
in the place of the defamation applies (and that can be any country in the
world).

We should also remember that copyright law itself provides the best "out"
for
this kind of problem. sec. 102(b) of Title 17 USC states:

"(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship
extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation,
concept,
principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described,
explained,
illustrated, or embodied in such work."

Thus any material that is rewritten to the point where the only resemblance
with
the original material are ideas, concepts, facts, that will never be a
copyright
infringement.

As far as history pages are concerned my current thinking on copyright
infringements
appearing on these pages is to invoke sec. 108 of the Copyright Act. Thus
while
a current page version is released under the GFDL, prior versions of an
article
should have the famous 108 notice so that if some one has downloaded
copyright
infringing material at least Wikimedia will not be responsible as it is
acting as a
non-commercial archive (this cannot apply to the current version of any page
as
it would be in violation of the GFDL).

Alex756


body:
> Guillaume-
>
> > Sorry, according to the discussion I read, I thought alternative logo
was
> > not welcome. I effectively saw many intresting variant of Paullus logo
(as
> > an example) on his own page, but they are not on the vote page. Do you
> > planed to allow to vote on all those variant ?
>
> This is not my decision, it is the artist's decision. He/she can choose up
> to 5 versions of each logo. But it would be unfair if anyone could simply
> bypass the first voting round and put anything they want on the final,
> limited ballot. Miwiki is among the finalists anyway -- if Olie wants
> Miwiki to be part of *other* logos than his own, he needs to convince the
> artists. Olie has made clear that this is OK with him, so I don't see a
> problem.

I didn't speak about submit whatever people want, but just propose
alternative logo based on elected concept.

> > I just regret that the rules
> > was not cleary defined before vote start
>
> That's simply not true. The voting rules have all been on [[International
> logo vote]] before the vote started. I have been careful not to change any
> rules during voting.

I don't specially like to be treat as lier especially when I'm not ;o)
When the vote begun, the rules of the second round didn't allowed variants.
This (good) rule was add by you the 6th of september at 12:55 (to be
precise).
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=International_logo_vote&diff=15096&oldid=15095
Imho, 4 variants is verry few, but perhaps no much varants may be produce
until the deadline so it's not a problem.

> > and deadlines are so short.
>
> Honestly, I don't think they are short. Just think about all the
> complaining you could do before the deadline even has elapsed! That alone
> shows it's long enough ;). As I said earlier: We can always work on
> optimizing the final logo.

Sure I had better to work hard on logo variants instead of speaking in the
wind :o)
But I didn't wanted to work on something I may be unable to submit, so I
waited to much...
In fact, Olie kindly released my idea that I will put on my own page over
the logo :op

> > I don't undertand why the fact Olie tryed to make variant of all logo
with
> > his ant is a problem.
>
> Some people perceive it as such. This has more to do with the logo/mascot
> distinction than with the contest as such. But if the artists accept the
> Miwiki variants, then they will be voted on like all other logos. For
> example, Paullusmagnus has accepted one Miwiki variant.

Paullus seem open to alternative idea. It's nice.
Hope to see 5 variants of his logo.

> Regards,
>
> Erik

Aoineko


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
> If Adam
> 1. comes back as Adam,
> 2. edits as Adam and /only/ as Adam,
> 3. vows not to revert to running multiple personae
> 4. avoids personalised attacks on those he perceives
> as his 'enemies'
>
> then I will support his reinstatement.
>
> JT

I'm sceptical that that will happen, but if it does,
I'd welcome him.
LDan

__________________________________
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http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Look at those barcharts! http://de.wikipedia.org/stats/usage_200309.html

 I don't know what it is, but I find that 'Look at those barcharts!' line
terribly amusing for some reason. They are pretty impressive charts,
though... (and the referrer section is interesting... especially farther
down. *eyes some of those site names askance*)

-- Jake


from_name: Richard Gallagher

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Strange things happening on some of non-english
	wikipedias

body:
There seem to be some strange things happening with some of the
non-english wikipedias.  For instance if you follow the Afrikaans link
on the front page http://af.wikipedia.com/ it takes to a page about
something called The TV Clubhouse.  It seems to affect all the
language wikipedias that are under wikipedia.com while the ones
under wikipedia.org seem to work as normal.  The simple english
http://simple.wikipedia.com/ also seems to be affected.

Richard Gallagher


from_name: Nik

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with updating pages

body:
Hi there everyone.

I am running Mediawiki here at work on our local intranet. I am loving it,
apart from one bug that I can't figure out:

If i make a link to a new page, and then I follow that link and add content
to the new page, then i go back to the 1st page (with the link on it) the
link will still show up as a blank page (red) and following it will go
directly to the "edit this page". This happens even if I refresh the page!
The only way to refresh is to edit the page and save. The same thing happens
if I view the page on a different computer (I have to go into edit to
refresh the page, refresh doesnt work by itself).

Bog standard redhat 8 almost, with php + MySQL. Server connected to a router
(no cache I can see) going directly to 4 client computers. All computers are
set to check for new pages every visit. IE6 latest version running on 98 and
XP.

I run MRBS on the same server, and I have no problems with it. I would have
thought if it was a cache problem, it would affect the MRBS as well.

I havent done the mod_rewrite thing maybe thats what is the problem? I can't
appear to get mod_rewrite working properly, and the patch in the phase3
instalation wouldn't patch the mod_rewrite files at all.

If anyone has any ideas or can help, i would be most gratefull.

Cheers,

Nik


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
I would have no problem with Adam returning.

Danny
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subject: [WikiEN-l] What constitutes a copyvio?

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
>
> Can you explain more about the "famous 108 notice"?
>
> I read this article, but found it only partially helpful:
> http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/notice.html
>
> And this:
> http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us/services/copyill.php
>
> And finally, a marked-up copy of the law itself:
> http://www.groton.k12.ct.us/mts/eg13a.htm
>
> --Jimbo

The 108 notice is the notice frequenters to physical paper libraries
often encounter. Usually the notice is affixed to the photocopy
machines. At the NYPL (New York Public Libary) the notice has actually
appeared on each photocopy page, marginally on the copy and the NYPL
has stopped allowing individuals to make copies, they must order the copies
from the Copyright service in the Main Library on 42nd Street. The glass
platen
has the photocopy notice pasted to it, so all copies have the notice on it.
You also have to sign a form stating that you are aware of the copyright
law.
Most libraries still allow self service photocopying and they just put a
notice
 near the photocopy machine. I often see them in law libraries:

"NOTICE: Photocopys may be protected by Copyright Title 17 United States
Code."

This section was advocated by library association lobbyists who were worried
that libraries might be held responsible for copyright violations that
occurred
on their premises due to the proliferation of photocopy machines. It is seen
as
a way to give notice to the person that their use of copying devices
provided
by the library or archive, may result in potential copyright infringement.

The original requirement was either to provide a copy of the notice from the
work
(i.e. copy the copyright notice page when any photocopies were made by
library
staff or to affix a notice) the law was interpreted different ways and there
was
not one way in which it was applied.

THE DMCA clarifed the confusion about the notice that was required and the
legal opinion your cited below Jimmy deals with the minimal notice
requirements,
i.e.  "a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright" if
there is
no notice on the work itself (the copy is only of a page out of a book is a
good
example and it seems this might apply to the kind of potential infringement
that
occur when people paste stuff from copyrighted web sites onto Wikipedia that
later end up in the history pages.

This article gives a pretty good background and explanation of the
provision:
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/super_copying.htm. It is pretty clear to me,
but then again IAAL!

Also 108(f) might be a good reason to place a notice on all of Wikipedia
as it will put users on notice that it is there responsiblity to check
copyright
(actually this is equivalent to a copyright warranty disclaimer, though
specifically
mentioning sec. 108 might give Wikipedia some added protection, it is
another
argument to use if infringement is alleged).

Alex756


from_name: Tucci

body:
I welcome him back as long as he promises that it is
his goal to write neutrally-phrased articles and
maintain reasonably cordial relations with others.

On another note, there has been doubt about his
actual/perceived/desired gender.  Since he is now
apparently going by Adam, does that mean he would like
us to refer to him as a male?

TUF-KAT

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Slashdot

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> (Actually I see now that the rank that they show is some kind of
> moving average, and that according to this url, our traffic just
> recently touched theirs.  I'm skeptical, but we do rock.)

It is clear that Wikipedia grows in size, and this should be reflected
in traffic.  But I find it hard to believe that Slashdot is growing
any much bigger than it already is.  Slashdot feels like a "mature"
phenomenon (even if the contents gets less and less "mature").  The
main difference is that Slashdot is what they produced in the last
week, but Wikipedia is the accumulated sum of all we ever produced.

Slashdot is a river and Wikipedia is a lake.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/


body:
> Aioneko, please forgive me for saying this, but the
> Babelfish text was actually very good -- *perhaps in
> some ways better than your current English :D

No problem, I don't have a good opinion of my English ;o)

> Which dispenses with the nonsense claims of some that
> machine translation is generally useless.
>
> May my French someday be as good as your English is
> now,
> ~S~

May my japanese and my english be as good as Erik English ;o)

By the way, I will be out for 2 weeks so don't take offense if I don't
answer your mails.
I will try to found a PC to be able to vote :o)
Good luck everybody!

Aoineko


from_name: Chris Seaton

subject: [Wikitech-l] Open bugs

body:
On Sourceforge there are lots of bugs that are still open even though
comments attatched to them provide a resolution. Who can change the
status of a bug? I don't seem to be able to, even though I am registered
as a developer.
--
Chris Seaton

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: text to voice; learning languages

body:
--- "Merritt L. Perkins" <mlperkins3 at juno.com> wrote:
> 1. Instead of reading an Encyclopedia article from
> the screen would it be
> nice to be able to lean back and have it read. to
> you by a synthetic
> voice? I believe that such programs already exist.
> Would anything need to
> be done to the articles so that such programs would
> work?.

They are available in the plenty. Ive never used them
-- Dragon or other TTS software before -- maybe
someone else knows a good prog.

> . My computer has such a text to voice program in
> Dragon
> NaturallySpeaking 7 but it does not want to work for
> me. Perhaps it is
> not compatible with XP.

Its a good guess, but often there are simple audio
problems at work. Do a check of all your audio
settings/wires and make sure that no other audio prog
is running.

> 2. While it would not be part of Wikipedia would
> free lessons in foreign
> languages be a good idea? Once you get started you
> need to get practice
> using the language and Encyclopedia articles might
> furnish such practice.
> Is anybody interested?
> Just daydreaming.
> Merritt L. Perkins

I like this idea -- all we have now is the "Common
phrases" (in various languages ?) page. Search 'common
phrases'

This could be a good starting point and blossom from
there. Aslo, I understand that there are some efforts
to write books on Wikibooks.org that are language
instruction oriented.

Hows your wikiing going, Merritt? Do you have a login?
~S~

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from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, wiki pedista wrote:
> Hello,
> The full text search has been disabled en
> es.wikipedia.
> Is that on purpose for performance reasons?

Yes, it's disabled all around for the moment. Traffic on the server is
very high thanks in part to recent publicity for the German Wikipedia.

Look at those barcharts! http://de.wikipedia.org/stats/usage_200309.html

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)