from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
The Wiktionary projects and communities have been and are traditionally
autonomous. The different projects all have their own history, data and
peculiarities. As only a community can decide for itself and the rights that
exist on their "collection copyright" it is best when each project decides
for themselves. This however is only possible when the Foundation does not
assert the ownership that is formally theirs.

It may also be clear that some of the bigger Wiktionary projects have more
content for a specific language than you will find in the Wiktionary for
that language. The Dutch wiktionary is able to boast content in 341 and the
English 389 languages. Much of the content is common to all projects.
Integrating data in WiktionaryZ is problematic if done without sufficient
planning. A lot of work will be needed to find a sensible way of doing this.
Creating links to WiktionaryZ is one step in opening up the WZ data to
Wiktionary.

Thanks,
    GerardM

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary

On 11/16/06, Jerome Banal <jerome.banal at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Salut,
>
> Thanks for this detailed explanation Gerard.
> So if I sum up the whole thing, actually, you can already grab a lot of
> contents for wikt:fr, but changing the license would made grabbing
> definitions somewhat safer, am I right?
>
> Right now, reactions here seem pretty positive to try a license change and
> I
> did not see someone from the board screaming at this idea :-) Nobody is
> against starting a discussion/poll about this? A local one or a Meta one?
>
> Thanks for any comment,
> Jerome
>
>
> 2006/11/15, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > A copyright holder can license his content. This is why several Open
> > Source projects insist that any the ownership of a contribution that is
> > to be merged  into the core of that project is to be transferred to the
> > organisation that maintains the project. This way they can provide both
> > free and proprietary services based on the same code-base. The Wikimedia
> > projects are not the same. It is possible to write a quality NPOV
> > Wikipedia article in many ways, just compare articles in different
> > Wikipedias and you will see what I mean. Wiktionary is very much more
> > factual; the translation for child in Dutch is kind. The gender is
> > neutral, the plural is kinderen. You cannot copyright this. The
> > information in WiktionaryZ and Wiktionary is very much like this. It is
> > very much the reason why WiktionaryZ could be developed in this way.
> >
> > It is as you indicate, there are multiple copyrights involved. The
> > MediaWiki is GPL. The database design is GPL. The database specific
> > copyright is as indicated earlier with either with the Wikimedia
> > Foundation or with the community of a Wiktionary project. It is not
> > possible for a single person to lay claim to the whole of the
> collection.
> >
> > The WiktionaryZ project is completely differently organised from the
> > Wiktionary projects; one is relational the other flat file organised.
> > When it comes to the data itself, for Wiktionary an article exists for
> > each each expression spelled in a particular way. In WiktionaryZ there
> > is a record for each occurrence of the expression per language. It is
> > therefore impossible for WiktionaryZ to "infringe" on the license held
> > by Wiktionary in all the ways that you specify for the "database
> > specific copyright".
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > Jerome Banal wrote:
> > > Hello Gerard,
> > >
> > > Hmm, this is pretty adventurous, isn't it?
> > > GPL is not compatible with GFDL and a poll to change a license of
> > current
> > > content is only valid if the license is entitled to the community as a
> > > collaborative work and not to contributors like in the case of
> Wikimedia
> > > projects. Otherwise, you should be only able to get edits made 100% by
> > > people who agreed (but I guess, you know all that already).
> > >
> > > Also, in some countries (France for example), there is a
> > "database-specific
> > > copyright law" that may apply on dictionaries (a structured list of
> > > synonyms, translations and all being nothing more than a database for
> > the
> > > law) and which basically forbids to copy a "substantial amount" -both
> in
> > > term of data fields and entries- of a database (if you read some
> French:
> > > http://www.murielle-cahen.com/p_base_de_donnees.asp).
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Jerome Banal
> > >
> > >
> > > 2006/11/15, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com >:
> > >
> > >> Hoi,
> > >> Let me explain why WiktionaryZ allows for what are in effect two
> > >> licenses that are not compatible otherwise.
> > >>
> > >> It is not possible to copyright facts. It is however possible to
> > >> copyright collections of facts. Every Wiktionary is a collection of
> > >> facts but there is no single person who owns this copyright. At best
> > >> there is a formal owner; the Wikimedia Foundation and there is a
> > >> practical owner that is its community. There are arguments about
> > >> definitions being copyrightable and there have been court cases about
> > >> this. It was typically found that there is often only one way of
> > >> defining certain things. This resulted in many dictionaries having
> > bogus
> > >> information that only aims to "prove" that when found, the content of
> > >> their collection was illegally copied.
> > >>
> > >> For WiktionaryZ we have defined success as: "When people find an
> > >> application for our data that we did not think about, that is
> success".
> > >> The consequence is that the data has to be available for inclusions
> in
> > >> applications. This means that we aim to provide the data in STANDARD
> > >> export formats. The data has to be identifiable to be in a recognised
> > >> language, a recognised script and a recognised orthography. There are
> > >> few practical standards for this. We went on a limb by choosing
> > >> ISO-639-3. This is the best currently available but this still does
> not
> > >> provide sufficient granularity. This may only arrive with the
> > ISO-639-6.
> > >>
> > >> When the data itself cannot be "protected" with licenses or
> copyright,
> > >> the question is what is it that we want from the copyright, the
> > license.
> > >> What we want to make plane is that the data is available at
> WiktionaryZ
> >
> > >> for any purposes and that we REALLY want people to help us complete
> > >> curate our data. This is what the CC-by allows us to do. It is
> possible
> > >> to include the data necessary to build OpenOffice (or any other)
> spell
> > >> checkers. These can be re-build every week. As long as the end-user
> > >> knows how and where to fix errors and omissions, we have the
> > >> functionality of our license. This is what mandatory attribution
> > provides.
> > >>
> > >> When a Wiktionary community wants to /cooperate /with WiktionaryZ,
> > there
> > >> are several ways in which this can be done. We can have interwiki
> links
> > >> on the Wiktionaries articles to WiktionaryZ. When people want to use
> > the
> > >> WZ content in Wiktionary they can. When a Wiktionary community wants
> to
> > >> /integrate /their data in WiktionaryZ integrally, they can vote on
> > this.
> > >> >From the WZ point of view, if there is at least a 75% majority of
> the
> > >> active community in favour, it should provide enough clarity required
> > to
> > >> investigate the integration of the data of that Wiktionary into
> > >> WiktionaryZ. In the past several large collections under other
> licenses
> >
> > >> like the GPL have been integrated into the different Wiktionaries.
> The
> > >> copyright holders of these collections may find it in themselves to
> > >> grant WiktionaryZ this same privilege they gave to the Wiktionary
> > >> projects.
> > >>
> > >> When people edit content in WiktionaryZ, these changes can be used
> > under
> > >> a less Free license, you only need to attribute.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks,
> > >>     GerardM
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Jerome Banal wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Hello,
> > >>>
> > >>> We had a small chat at Wiktionary fr: since a few days about moving
> > >>>
> > >> /new/
> > >>
> > >>> edits made on Wiktionary fr (and others some other are interested)
> to
> > >>>
> > >> dual
> > >>
> > >>> licensing GFDL - CC-by. After a small discussion with Anthere about
> > >>>
> > >> whether
> > >>
> > >>> we could be allowed to do it and how, she advised me to come and
> talk
> > >>>
> > >> with
> > >>
> > >>> you all.
> > >>>
> > >>> So maybe a little explanation of the reasons and consequences would
> be
> > >>> useful.
> > >>>
> > >>> The main reason we have in mind for discussing it is to have a
> better
> > >>> cooperation with the project WiktionaryZ, which is dual-licensed as
> > >>> specified above. It basically means that we can take its content
> under
> > >>>
> > >> GFDL
> > >>
> > >>> license, but that they can take only contents that are under GFDL
> and
> > >>>
> > >> CC-by
> > >>
> > >>> at the same time. Which is not our case.
> > >>>
> > >>> Some people thinks that helping WiktionaryZ reusing our content
> would
> > >>>
> > >> make
> > >>
> > >>> them progress faster, and in return, that their progresses would
> help
> > us
> > >>> making progress in the future in several possible ways (software
> part,
> > >>>
> > >> data
> > >>
> > >>> part...).
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> What would be the consequences about this license modification ?
> > >>>
> > >>> * A site license somewhat more complex. Edits prior to the date of
> > >>>
> > >> change
> > >>
> > >>> would have to remain GFDL only (unless specific agreement with
> users),
> > >>>
> > >> new
> > >>
> > >>> edits would be dual-licensed. This is not awful: people can still
> > reuse
> > >>>
> > >> the
> > >>
> > >>> whole Wiktionary as if it was GFDL-only. CC-by is just a bonus.
> > >>>
> > >>> * As this is not a CC-by-SA (incompatible with WiktionaryZ),
> > Wiktionary
> > >>> content could be taken, possibly modified and redistributed under
> any
> > >>> compatible licence with CC-by, which is about all as long as you
> give
> > >>> attribution, including non-free licenses (but of course, the
> original
> > >>> remains free so it should not be a big deal).
> > >>>
> > >>> * Import from Wikipedia and other GFDL-only projects will not be
> > >>>
> > >> possible
> > >>
> > >>> without prior agreement with past contributors. These imports are
> not
> > >>> insignificant but remain limited in amount and often in quality.
> > >>>
> > >>> * If we have to negotiate importing external source, we would have
> to
> > >>> request dual-licensing, as WiktionaryZ needs to, right now. CC-by is
> > >>>
> > >> more
> > >>
> > >>> free (I know, it's paradoxical; see it as "there are less
> > restrictions,
> > >>> including the one to keep derivative free") than GFDL so it may be
> > more
> > >>> difficult, as it is possible that the original authors can't get the
> > >>> enhancements made by someone else back in their own work due to a
> > >>>
> > >> different
> > >>
> > >>> license choice.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> So there are good points (better collaborative work with
> WiktionaryZ)
> > >>>
> > >> and
> > >>
> > >>> bad points (probably more difficult reusing of some external sources
> > >>>
> > >> -like
> > >>
> > >>> some other GFDL dictionaries- which brought a good amount of
> articles
> > in
> > >>>
> > >> the
> > >>
> > >>> past and of derivative works).
> > >>>
> > >>> OK, I think that's the picture. What do you think about it? Should
> > >>> Wiktionary users start a poll on their projects? On Meta? Or does
> that
> > >>>
> > >> just
> > >>
> > >>> sound bad to you?
> > >>>
> > >>> Thanks all,
> > >>> Jerome Banal
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Dual-Licensing Wiktionary :fr ?


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Mike T.J.Jiang

subject: [Wikitech-l]Wikimania 2007 Hacking Days	call-for-help

body:
Dear all,

   The funder of Wikiwyg.net, Ingy, has just comfirmed that he will be the chef
of Wikiwyg Cookhouse in Hacking Days of Wikimania 2007.

   We hope this activity can be both comfortable and efficient, as Mr. Brion and
Mr. Starling's advises. Therefore we plan to find a Cafe with WiFi, beers and
foods  to be the playground.

   We invite you joining the discussion on
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_days and its Talk page.

   Thank you very much.

   Best Regards,
Mike


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] idea: edit summary preview

body:
On 11/16/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> Simetrical wrote:
> > On 11/15/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> >> I realize full well that obsessing about one's edit summaries is
> >> a sign of, well, obsession, and I'm not about to propose a way of
> >> editing them, but given that their formatting rules are subtly
> >> different from normal wikitext (special treatment of /* */,
> >> evidently no treatment of ''...'', automagic insertion of
> >> the ? character, etc.), it seems like it would be nice (but also
> >> benign) to show a preview of the edit summary along with the rest
> >> of the page when doing Show Preview.  Is this too goofy an idea?
> >
> > I just committed a change to do exactly that a couple of days ago.  It
> > should go live within a few days, whenever someone decides to
> > resynchronize the sites with the codebase.
>
> \o/ superb! Thanks a lot.
>
> --Ligulem

. . . and it should be live.


subject: [Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [17715] trunk/phase3

body:
On 11/16/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> simetrical at svn.wikimedia.org wrote:
> > (bug 3315) Allow rollback directly from history page.
> [snip]
> > +                     $extraRollback .= '&token=' . urlencode(
> > +                             $wgUser->editToken( array( $wgTitle->getPrefixedText(), $rev->getUserText() ) ) );
> > +                     $s .= ' ['. $this->mSkin->makeKnownLinkObj( $wgTitle,
> > +                             wfMsg('rollbacklink'),
> > +                             'action=rollback&from=' . $rev->getUserText() . $extraRollback ) .']';
>
> Don't forget URL encoding; this will fail for usernames with various
> special characters.

D'oh.  Will do tonight.

> It might also be wise to refactor some of the rollback bits; if the edit
> token usage for rollback is changed, for instance, we've got several
> places it has to be tweaked.

Yeah, that annoyed me when I was trying to make the link work.  Maybe
I'll fix that too.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] mail.wikimedia.org down?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 11/15/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I get a timeout when connecting to mail.wikimedia.org / mail.wikipedia.org.
>> All the other *.wiki*edia.org pages are up and running for me.
>> Anything with the mail server?
>
> It's down. A reboot request has been sent.

Mail was down for two hours last night due to server crash (diagnosis
uncertain; no panic info in syslog). It took a while to contact the DC
to get it rebooted, longer than we wanted (unusually we got no response
from their support e-mail, and the phone lines were busy; eventually we
did get ahold of our main tech contact via IRC and someone was able to
push the button.)

We're going to want to migrate mail to a more reliable server soonish,
it's died a few times lately and it's an older box without a
remote-administration interface which we could have used to reboot it.

By the way, asking on the mailing list doesn't really help when the mail
server's down. ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of
 the	Wikimedia Foundation

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Brianna Laugher wrote:
>
>
>>The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them
>>English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own
>>language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the
>>other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion
>>languages, right? I don't think so...
>>
>>
>I am really glad that you picked up on this. This is very much
>imperialistic thinking; to the winner all the spoils. If you want to
>understand what the relevance is of native languages, you may want to
>read what the UN has to say about this.
>
>http://webworld.unesco.org/imld/res_en.html
>
The ideas there are very interesting once you strip away the diplomatic
verbiage.  In particular the following:

>    5. Also invites the Director-General to undertake the following
>       concrete actions to promote multilingualism and cultural
>       diversity on global information networks:
>
> (a) to strengthen activities to make cultural heritage in the public
> domain which is preserved in museums, libraries and archives freely
> accessible on the global information networks;
>
> (b) to support the formulation of national and international policies
> and principles encouraging all Member States to promote the
> development and use of translation tools and terminology for better
> interoperability;
>
> (c) to encourage the provision of resources for linguistic pluralism
> through global networks, in particular by reinforcing the UNESCO
> international observatory on the information society;
>
> (d) to pursue further consultations with Member States and competent
> international governmental and non-governmental organizations for
> closer cooperation on language rights, respect for linguistic
> diversity and the expansion of multilingual electronic resources on
> the global information networks;
>
I would suspect that we are already among the most engaged of the NGOs
referred to in (d).

>The notion that by providing information in English we provide
>sufficient information is fundamentally wrong. The English Wikipedia
>does not provide sufficient information for people to understand their
>culture. When it does provide information in the first place, it brings
>it into a context that is decidedly outside of the culture of these
>people. When you have read and listened to people explaining what
>knowledge is lost with the demise of minority languages, you would
>understand that the tapestry of human knowledge is become threat bare as
>a consequence. Then again, when you do not know what you lost you did
>not lose it right ? Wikipedia may become a collection of much of the
>information that exists, when it does it may help us appreciate the loss
>that is happening to us all and to our detriment.
>
Absolutely!  The most important task for minority languages lies in
relating to their own cultures.  It may be interesting to translate into
a minority language information about the latest discoveries in nuclear
physics, or the politics of nations on the other side of the globe, but
that has nothing to do with the soul of that language.
    :-) Although in most cases I prefer not to comment on erroneous
idioms, I would like to point out that "threat bare" should normally be
threadbare" indicating that the fabric is deteriorating to the point
where one can almost see through it.  It is nearly at the point where
darning may no longer an effective way of bringing it back to life.  To
be sure, that which has become so impoverished is also barren of
threats, but that is another story. :-)

>It has often been pointed out that the disconnect from the cultural
>values leads to a loss of cohesion and conflict. History also learned
>that the "upper classes" adopted the language of the cultural oppressor
>leading to eventual revolt. The sad thing is that much of the cultural
>values are lost in the process and one of the slogans for such a
>revolution is the promise for a cultural resurgence. A resurgence that
>seems to be always bleak compared to what is considered the "golden age"
>even if it was objectively not that great for the majority of the populace.
>
None have been so effective at sharpening the oppresor's language into a
weapon as the Irish, but they had already resisted Charlamagne's effort
to impose a common European script.

Ec


from_name: geni

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	Wikimedia Foundation

body:
On 11/16/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think some statement of the importance of multilinguality is needed here.
>
> The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them
> English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own
> language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the
> other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion
> languages, right? I don't think so...
>

Would save us from haveing to work out if Montenegrin is a language or not.
--
geni


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images of living people

body:
Fastfission wrote:

> In the end, in any case, if this were, in reality, what FUC#1 was
> trying to do, then that should be discussed and ARTICULATED. As it is,
> this interpretation of FUC#1 is simply added on as a throwaway line,
> was not discussed in any detail, and is now being used to delete all
> sorts of things as if it were gospel. That's a bad policy model, in my
> opinion, but not too many people around here seem to care about what
> it might mean to have a good policy model, in my opinion.

I've tried to get some movement on this at the fair use talk page.  It
appears a large amount of people are seeing FUC#1 as a means to an end -
we want more free material, and the only way to get it is to delete the
fair use stuff whenever possible.  Realism doesn't come into play (I know
I can't get a free picture of the indie rock chick who's dove out of the
public eye to become a mother, but she's alive and I ''could'' get a
picture), but rather directing the desires of those who do the image
stuff.

I dunno, it seems awfully counterproductive.

-Jeff
--
If you can read this, I'm not at home.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 11/15/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/15/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that the vast majority of these 'fair use' images are not
> > images in either problem category.  Most that I've seen are
> > fundamentally images whose licenses/permission would permit them to be
> > used on Wikipedia
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Screenshots_of_films
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fair_use_posters
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Screenshots_of_computer_and_video_games
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fair_use_event_posters
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Album_covers
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Book_covers
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fair_use_magazine_covers
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fair_use_stamp_images
>
> Do you wish to rethink your position or do you have counter evidence?

All of those categories are probably the "safest" fair use images we
have. They are all transformative, they are usually used to illustrate
the media itself, and they don't compete with known markets (there is
no market that I know of for thumbnailed covers of books, anyways).
I'm not sure if that was what you were trying to illustrate or not,
but if that is meant to be a "scary" amount of fair use it is not very
scary, not in comparison with media which is not the cover of
something to be sold.

FF


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Statistics

body:
Parker Conrad wrote:
> Hi -- there used to be (as of a month or two ago) a very useful website at
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm that included historical
> Wikipedia growth statistics -- very helpful for those of us who are trying
> to study the phenomenal growth of this community. Unfortunately, it appears
> to have been taken down, or perhaps moved. Does anyone know where I can
> access it?

These pages are down pending removal of some accidentally added private
info.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Christophe Henner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
The thing is I never spoke about rollback ^^

I know they're many .js script that give the "magical gift" to users.
In my first mail I was speaking about give to some users acces to a
"preset time blocking" page. I never mentionned rollback :)

--
schiste


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/16/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Eh? This is new. I've always understood that permissions@ was for
> "filing" such claims, as well as being a way to deal with people who
> contact us directly.
>
> Assuming we're getting copies of the correspondence, with headers etc,
> this shouldn't be a problem. Who's been telling you this, can you
> recall?

It's long been strongly preferred (or rather required with lax
enforcement) that the rights granter reply to or at least CC
permissions.

We've certantly had cases of people outright lying about permissions
requests, so that has to be  balenced against our desire to trust and
make things as simple as possible.

Great ideas towards this end are always welcome.


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 11/16/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's long been strongly preferred (or rather required with lax
> enforcement) that the rights granter reply to or at least CC
> permissions.

Required by whom?  Six wikipedians in a room does not make consensus.

> We've certantly had cases of people outright lying about permissions
> requests, so that has to be  balenced against our desire to trust and
> make things as simple as possible.

If I was willing to lie, I could easily pass this test.

Putting extra obstacles in the way of people trying to do the right
thing does not encourage the right thing to be done.  New rules and
more complicated procedure do not enhance the chances of the correct
outcome.

-Matt


body:
On 11/15/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's not hard (finally) to find examples where our policy has
> increased the pool of free content. I don't think you're disputing
> that from that perspective our policy wins.

I think the net reuslt of culling all images of people who are living
would be a decrease in overall article quality and the isolated
creation of a minimal number of replacements. I'm all for encouraging
people to replace images -- especially those which can be fairly
easily replaced with free ones -- but I think having ridiculous
requirements for what "reasonable" means doesn't help anybody. There
is, somewhere, a point where draconian policies arranged towards a
good end just end up wasting time which could also be spent towards
that good end (that is, the inefficiency and frustration of the system
impedes its functioning).

> == The legal ==

None of your legal examples have any relevance to the question of
whether or not we should ban all images of living people. They are
generally good things to keep in mind but they don't result in making
a draconian policy being sensible. There is no legal difference
between a unlicensed photo of a dead person and the unlicensed photo
of a living person -- the differences which might arise have nothing
to do with the photos replaceability or not.

> == The ethical ==
> No matter what your position is on the ethics of copyright in general,
> I suspect that if you think carefully you will agree that acting
> against the wishes of the producers of content is not the right thing
> to do.

Again, you are making general statements that do not justify this
approach to policy at all.

In both cases you are making general arguments against using "fair
use" media at all, which has nothign to do with this policy. This is
exactly the sort of "drift" of conversation that I was referring to
before.

One cannot reasonably discuss whether or not we should use "fair use"
at all and how to specifically implement "fair use" criteria at the
same time. They are different discussions, and using one to try and
slip in a new policy about the other is both complicating and
misleading.

In the end, in any case, if this were, in reality, what FUC#1 was
trying to do, then that should be discussed and ARTICULATED. As it is,
this interpretation of FUC#1 is simply added on as a throwaway line,
was not discussed in any detail, and is now being used to delete all
sorts of things as if it were gospel. That's a bad policy model, in my
opinion, but not too many people around here seem to care about what
it might mean to have a good policy model, in my opinion.

> and why now? when we're making such tremendous progress at getting
> Free pictures of famous people?

We should keep getting them and reward those who get them heavily
through our other mechanisms. We should not use the desire of free
images as an excuse to destroy all images which are non-free, unless
we are deciding to get rid of "fair use" alltogether. Which would be a
fine discussion to have but is not the one I am trying to have at the
moment.

I am of course fine with keeping our "ultimate intentions" in mind
when making policy. But when it comes to the protocols for
implementation, we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia runs on more
than just ideals -- it runs on users, and users are going to want
policy that makes sense, and they are going to want policy that does
not appear arbitrary. If we lose sight of that then Wikipedia will
only be a place for the sorts of people who like to endlessly haggle
over the internet and don't mind rules that don't make sense. I think
that is a stupid restriction to have.

FF


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject:
[Wikitech-l]
	Labeled	SectionTransclusion	(need	feedbackoncurrentstatus!)

body:
On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:46:29 +1100, Nick Jenkins wrote:

>> OK, I seem to have found a better hook for the recursive parsing (as well
>> as a competent newsreader), so we may be back in business.  The new
>> version seems to address these issues.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Had a quick third look at it, one small thing is that using this wiki input on a test page:
> ----------------------------------------
> {{#lst:Main Page|/}}
> ----------------------------------------
>
> Which when error_reporting(E_ALL); is included in LocalSettings.php, will cause these PHP warnings:
> ----------------------------------------
>

> Warning:  preg_match_all() [function.preg-match-all]: Unknown modifier '\' in
> /var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line 174

>

> Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line
> 176

> ----------------------------------------
>
> Also managed to get an "Unknown modifier 'z'" on the same line, by doing "{{#lst:Main Page|/iz}}", but it's probably the same thing
> as the above.
>
> Other than that, it's looking good.
>
> All the best,
> Nick.

Oh, I guess \Q doesn't work with variables like in perl; good to know.
When I changed that to preg_quote(), those errors when away, so now it
works with a section called "/".

Thanks again
  -Steve


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikitainment Guides

body:
A. J. Torrepuerto wrote:
> I'm starting a Wiki similar to wikipedia in format but focused on
> non-academic content.
>
<snip>
> Can somebody help me?
>

Wrong list. Try mediawiki-l at wikimedia.org

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Utente:M7 (M/)

subject:
[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the
	WikimediaFoundatio

body:
2006/11/15, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:

> > 2) Florence and I saw "That's what we're doing" as potentially

> yup.

Something alike that old phrase could be the "link"
from the Vision to the Mission,
implying the

Try to put "That's our commitment." there...

I'd also remove "The Foundation is committed to" from the Mission statement,
along with another minor change (all->useful), since the communities sometimes
decide to delete something).

In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides
the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the
support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other
endeavors which serve this mission, making and keeping useful
information from its projects available on the Internet free of
charge, in perpetuity.

--
Ciao,
M/
[ http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:M7 ]


body:
On 11/16/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
[snip]
> The idea that humanity can unite under a single language is not
> appalling at all to me, rather the opposite. Some people believe this
> "world language" to be Esperanto, others might think it can be Chinese
> or English, or a new artificial language. But I don't think Wikimedia
> should adopt a position that implies humanity should continue to
> actively use hundreds or thousands of languages indefinitely. To me,
> supporting multilinguality is first and foremost about breaking down
> barriers to knowledge, but it's not the only strategy to achieve that.
[snip]

Erik's position on languages isn't a new one, .. and I can only assume
that the community was aware of it when we elected him to the board.
:)

While I doubt Erik and I would agree on all the details, I broadly
agree that multilingualism should not be, for us, an end in and of
itself.  Of course, this is another engineer speaking here...

Consider a language with a great many speakers, and a reasonable
number of internet connected speakers, but a completely unsuccessful
Wikipedia (there are a couple of good examples, but I'll avoid naming
them now). The reasons for this are sure to be complex and hard to pin
down.

We could, were we strongly committed to being very multilingual,
expend our resources (both 'social' and monetary) to fill this
Wikipedia with content... We could teach people the language, we could
hire authors... etc.     Or we could decide that being highly
multilingual isn't our first priority, and we could spend far less on
it..  Instead we allow Jeff Merkey's translation software to make
first cuts for those who speak languages without momentum in our
projects... and our resources can be spent in other ways.

Most of all... I think that the proposed vision adequately captures
the important aspects of working with multiple languages.

'''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge.'''

It's clear that the "sum of all knowledge" is material which currently
exists spread across multiple languages and I think "freely share"
implies a form of useful sharing where the shared material isn't
trapped in languages which make it inaccessible.

Within that context we can be free to translate (via machines or
humans), to teach people new languages, or both as we see best, with
no preordained bias towards a specific tool.

And when it comes down to it this is the only sane solution: Language
is a complex issue that goes beyond the the few hundred primarily
languages spoken by man, there are cultural complexities, and people
in various fields speak their own dialects.

So should we be required by our vision offer three separate articles
in English for the [[Euler Lagrange equation]], one written in the
dialect spoken by physicists, one written in in the dialect of pure
mathematicans, and one in the dialect of a US high school graduate?
or should we write one version and expect people to learn enough of
the dialect (using wikipedia).. should we accept the notion that the
total layman will either not care about the subject or will be willing
to learn enough to learn?

These are questions which depends not only on the demands and needs of
our readers but the willingness of our volunteers and the availability
of other resources.

I think this type of problem is best decided on a case by case basis
and I see no reason why we should be any less nuanced in our approach
to all our language issues.


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

references:
<ej7f1l$9l7$1@sea.gmane.org> <4557C162.3060807@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<ej8rfq$vrt$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e692861c0611122134k37734bc5p67bd31f790d22556@mail.gmail.com>
	<ejd0fd$pug$1@sea.gmane.org> <ejdr4p$jcg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ejfsl4$5hg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e692861c0611151806h6f57f1c1h3c27b8265c0d4f18@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
<snip>
> # Edit approval   (i.e. detect penis penis penis and hold their edit
> until someone approves it, or perhaps a new sort of protection...)

You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with that...

> # Upload approval  (users first upload can be inspected while they wait)
>

Could be useful on Commons. Also useful would be a "mark this image as
being sane" function, with a queue, that would prevent it from being
displayed to non-sysops until reviewed. End of image vandalism forever!
End of horribly blatant copyvios too...

Of course, the hard part is getting it written and integrated. Hrm.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Marco Schuster

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
David Gerard schrieb:
> On 16/11/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In part, it's a pretty long-standing request: bureaucrats should be
>> able to assign more limited groups, such as users who can only roll
>> back edits, not just sysop/bureaucrat.  It shouldn't be too hard to
>> do, but none of us has done it yet, and several wikis have already
>> asked.
>
>
> There's Javascript that allows non-admins to do rollback in wide use
> on en:wp - it's just another form of edit, after all. There's no need
> to add a privilege level to MediaWiki.
But the javascript is a pure resource eater and it is slow like nothing
else.
But: Why don't we just use the extension "GiveRollback"?? It's also in
SVN repo, so there should be no bigger problem to enable it.

Regards,
Marco

(HardDisk)


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
I've been, for a while, working on a way to codify existing best
practice on writing articles on fictional topics, combined with a few
ways to forge compromises between those who want Wikipedia to include
all manner of information from within fictional worlds and those who
consider such information fancruft.

There have been three main aspects of this work, all of which are
now, I think, ready to go live.

I don't pretend that these are any sort of magic bullet for the
problems surrounding fictional topics, since so many of those are
social problems, not policy problems. But I think these do offer a
way of fixing the underlying policy problems and of promoting a way
of working on these topics that is less "us vs. them" and more just
plain "us." I welcome any comments people have at the early stages of
their deployment.

1) Sourcing

The blanket restriction on blogs, message boards, and Usenet that
existed for some time was crippling to articles on fiction and
particularly popular fiction. Too much high-quality information on
these topics is self-published online, from blogs by creators to
important fan debates. Such sources do need to be used with care, but
they need to be allowed in, especially if we want our articles on
fiction to be able to advance beyond pure plot summary.

Thankfully, [[WP:RS]] is clearly on its way to replacement by
something, whether a revision of it or SlimVirgin's proposed
Attribution policy. Either way, the consensus has clearly shifted
towards an understanding that sources require a measure of case-by-
case evaluation.

2) Coherent policy

Our policy on fictional topics is currently spread across an MOS
page, a notability guideline, and [[WP:NOT]]. This meant that policy
on fictional topics often had to be explained anew every time.
Furthermore, the explanations at several points were less than
satisfying, and did a poor job of showing why these policies are good
ideas, making them seem arbitrary and ripe for ignoring.

To this end, I've, with the help of several people, worked on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Sandifer/Fiction_essay

It's a fairly compact proposed guideline that offers a good
explanation of how to deal with fictional topics. Virtually
everything in it comes from other guidelines, though the explanations
are often redone. I'd like to move it into the Wikipedia namespace
soon and get consensus as a guideline, so any comments before I do
that would be appreciated. Expect it to exist as
[[Wikipedia:Fictional topics]] soon - I'll post again here when it does.

3) Alternative Projects

There is clear demand for good in-universe guides for many fictional
worlds, hence the large numbers of people trying to use Wikipedia for
them. Thus we need to do more than just declare it forbidden - we
need to create a viable alternative. Thankfully, Wikia and other
projects have already made this possible.

In order to make this easier for Wikipedia, I've created this: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:FreeContentMeta

This is a meta-template that can be used to generate boxes that look
like the existing sister-project boxes for other free-content sites
running MediaWiki. So far I've created one: [[Template:Babylon
Project]], which is only in place on [[David Sheridan]] at present. I
intend to put it in place on some more Babylon 5 related articles
over the next day or two, and then to start creating templates for
other areas and taking them to the relevant WikiProjects so they can
get wider adoption.

Since most of Wikia is GFDL, we can readily transclude our in-
universe articles over there, and replace them with out-of-universe
articles that contain boxes linking.

These boxes are also colored green to distinguish them from official
sister projects.

As I said, I welcome any comments on any of these ideas and
developments, particularly #2 and #3.

-Phil


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] (semi-OT) What to do with old but not old enough
	encyclopedias?

body:
On Nov 16, 2006, at 2:38 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> I have bought several books with the intention of using them as
> Wikipedia source material. Of course, I haven't got around to it at
> all ...

Familiar.

Fred


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

body:
On 11/16/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Whether or not it is also a trademark of the Foundation doesn't affect
> > its copyright status.
>
> Incerdentaly do you know if it is a trademark of the foundation?

It is.

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> Keeping this in mind --
>
> On 15/11/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point?
>> Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide
>> which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't --
>> something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing
>> projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is
>> Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement
>> will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they
>> are relevant, and not just organizational fluff.
>>
>
>
>> == Vision Statement ==
>>
>> '''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
>> in the sum of all knowledge.'''
>>
>> Comment:
>>
>> One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
>> language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
>> that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
>> teaching another language like English and then giving access to
>> learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
>> endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
>> in our vision statement. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase
>> such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or
>> government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I
>> feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to
>> convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as
>> possible.
>>
>
> I think some statement of the importance of multilinguality is needed here.
>
> The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them
> English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own
> language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the
> other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion
> languages, right? I don't think so...
>
I am really glad that you picked up on this. This is very much
imperialistic thinking; to the winner all the spoils. If you want to
understand what the relevance is of native languages, you may want to
read what the UN has to say about this.

http://webworld.unesco.org/imld/res_en.html

The notion that by providing information in English we provide
sufficient information is fundamentally wrong. The English Wikipedia
does not provide sufficient information for people to understand their
culture. When it does provide information in the first place, it brings
it into a context that is decidedly outside of the culture of these
people. When you have read and listened to people explaining what
knowledge is lost with the demise of minority languages, you would
understand that the tapestry of human knowledge is become threat bare as
a consequence. Then again, when you do not know what you lost you did
not lose it right ? Wikipedia may become a collection of much of the
information that exists, when it does it may help us appreciate the loss
that is happening to us all and to our detriment.

It has often been pointed out that the disconnect from the cultural
values leads to a loss of cohesion and conflict. History also learned
that the "upper classes" adopted the language of the cultural oppressor
leading to eventual revolt. The sad thing is that much of the cultural
values are lost in the process and one of the slogans for such a
revolution is the promise for a cultural resurgence. A resurgence that
seems to be always bleak compared to what is considered the "golden age"
even if it was objectively not that great for the majority of the populace.

By preserving and promoting cultural diversity we contribute much more
than by concentrating on what we happen to do best at the moment.
Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
On 11/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
[snip]
> The statement
> will presumably be translated (both linguistically and culturally) into
> as many languages as required, where it strikes me as normal that every
> person will imagine in the context of a world vision unique his own
> language and culture.  We want a Yaqui person to imagine within the
> context of a world not too dissimilar to that described by Casta?eda.
> Vision may not even be about language, so why restrict vision by
> mentioning it.

Thank you, this was the point I was trying to make about our proposed
vision statement already capturing the required aspects of
multilinguality.

> In fact I would be inclined to shorten the statement even furtherr to
>
>     '''Imagine a world in which every person can freely share all
>     knowledge.'''

So, while I agree with every point of your reduction and I recognize
that my argument would apply to the initial draft just as well,  I'm a
bit concerned that a vision of  "Imagine a world in which every person
can freely share all knowledge" fails do differentiate us from
communications technology projects like Freenet
(http://freenetproject.org/whatis.html) or a project to make 'Free
Hardware' networking equipment. :)

None of the current Wikimedia projects, for example, are currently
intended to facilitate the sharing of all fetish porn videos. But are
not these videos a part of all knowledge taken in the absolute sense?

> "The sum of" is a pointless redundancy and clich?.

To me, "The sum of"  implies aggregation, distillation, and synthesis.
Perhaps my understanding of the words is unconventional?

In any case, I believe our vision should succinctly express an
intention to not merely facilitate a lossless retransmission of all
data, but to enable the world through repositories of  knowledge in
the most useful and apropreiately accessible forms.

I thought "the sum of" took us closer to that...


from_name: ATR

body:
The fact of the matter was that Jimbo applied for the MediaWiki
trademark and then I fixed the application afterwards. The term "MEDIAWIKI"
is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..  This was done
after the foundation was created, not before. This was not hidden from
anyone
it is a matter of public record:

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78507335

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=6lvb7s.3.1

As you can see from the database TESS record it clearly states that the
trademark
was: "FIRST USE: 20030808. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20030809" The
foundation was incorporated on June 20, 2003, August 8-9, 2003 is subsequent
to that date. Thus, this is after the Foundation was created, not before. It
was first
posted on Wikimedia project web pages and it was proposed to be used in that
context, no other. The logo was not create before that date, but afterwards.
How can
you say you own something when a part of it belongs to someone else?

Also Brion was aware of the trademark application and knows that the
trademark has been
registered by the foundation:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/htdig/foundation-l/2005-November/004774.html
|"5) The Foundation may own the trademark on the name MediaWiki, which
|postdates the creation of the software itself.
|
|6) A trademark registration for the mark was filed last year on behalf
|of the foundation, though it hasn't totally gone through yet. (I'm not
|the person to ask for details on that.)
|
|-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)"

Brion acknowledges that the foundation was getting a registration for the
trademark,
he or other developers never opposed this registration. They probably would
find it
very difficult to overturn that registratino now if they tried.

There is also a discussion about the creation & licensing of WMF trademarks
and
ownership by the foundation. I have not been able to find it, but when I do
I will post it;
this was the allusion I made to Jimbo being able to back up the fact that
the Foundation
expected people to grant the ownership of any logos to the foundation and
not release
them through some other license (why else would you create a logo for a
brand, it makes
no sense otherwise?)

The fact of a logo being made up of PD images, does not mean that someone
can
cannot recognize that MEDIAWIKI links back to WMF. It is up to the
foundation to police that. If any people think they own it they can hire
lawyers and
bring the appropriate legal action to get the trademark invalided and then
the foundation
can either fight that or give it up. That seems really silly to me because
the foundation is
not making money out of this, (any suggestion is ridiculous because it is
released under
the GPL which allows free copying and alteration). This is just there to try
and prevent
people from stripping off the information about the contributors to the
project, there is
really not much else that the foundation can do because the software is
released under
the GPL anyway. It just keeps the WMF flavor of MediaWiki distinct from all
others.
Is that really something anyone needs to fight about or that we want to deny
because
individuals want everything in the public domain and do not care about the
moral
rights of authors, such as the right of attribution (which is still
rightfully protected by
most so called "copyleft" licenses because it is not an economic right but a
right
normally considered part of the "droit d'auteur" bundle of rights associated
with
intellectual work that countries like France and Canada recognize as being
as important
or even more important than the economic rights (unfortunately the USA has
very limited
moral rights protections for creators).

As far as the ownership of these things are concerned, if you do not have
the right to release something into the public domain because it does not
belong
to you then you cannot later release it into the public domain as an
afterthought
and I would suggest that creating a logo that uses the trademarked term
MediaWiki
cannot be copyrighted by anyone other than the foundationno matter what the
other
people say, even if it is made up of a composite of public domain images
(which
do not have the licensing limitations of the GFDL or CC licenses).

The only record of owning the trademark MEDIAWIKI is with the WMF, anyone
else
using it is a trademark infringement. Does it matter who owns the copyright
or even if it is copyrightable because it may just be so generic as not to
be subject to copyright, i.e. the brackets and the sunflower show no
inherent creativity as elements, they are just standard symbols. This
reminds me of the dispute with that Neo-Nazi group that tried to claim it
owned copyright in some symbol that was clearly not subject to copyright:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arrow_Cross but of course the consensus on
this issue seemed to be that they actually owned the copyright and the
images were taken off Wikipedia because no one really seemed to want to
fight these fascists.

We should be congnizant of the need to only fight  battles that are
important, not
every fact dispute that exists because the reality is that there are a lot
of these
disputes and the resources to fight them are limited.

There is clearly a policy about Wikimedia logos being an exception to the
content
on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing
"Use by Wikimedia only (the only non-free-licensed exceptions hosted here as
well are Wikimedia logos and other designs copyrighted by the Wikimedia
Foundation that are the trademarks, service marks or other design elements
that identify the sites of the various projects of the Wikimedia
Foundation)"

If the Foundation board thinks this is incorrect they should have their
General Counsel
correct it or put people on Notice that anyone can use these logos for
anything they want
because they are on Commons and thus, according to the logic of some
Wikipedians,
must be released under the GFDL (even if they were never so released before
being posted
on Commons).

Alex T. Roshuk, Attorney

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthere" <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
To: <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

| ATR wrote:
| >
| > |> > I don't think the foundation owns the mediawiki logo. Copyright
wise
| > |> > it is in the public domain.
| > |> Hoi,
| > |> Given the age of the thing it cannot be PD yet. They are part of a
| > |> trademark and as such they are owned by the Foundation. They can if
they
| > |> so choose license the logos. This is problematic because the rights
that
| > |> are usual for other WMF content contrasts with the requirement of
| > |> maintaining the trademark.
| > |
| > |No, the MediaWiki one really is public domain.
| > |http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png
| > |
| > |Whether or not it is also a trademark of the Foundation doesn't affect
| > |its copyright status.
| > |
| > |Angela.
| >
| > Someone cannot declare a work PD just by copying it. It seems the
| > actual logo was created by Eric Moller, and it has always been the
| > understanding with all logos that they were "works made for hire" for
| > the foundation. This has been discussed previously and Jimbo can
| > back this up. Just because someone put a PD tag on the page at
| > Commons does not invalidate the Foundation's claim to this logo.
| >
| > As far as the "trademark" status of the logo, the word MEDIAWIKI is
| > a registered mark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. I know this because
| > I am the attorney of record on the USPTO file that granted this mark to
| > the foundation. Also the actual logo is also a mark of the Wikimedia
| > Foundation Inc., and is used to identify the MediaWiki software which
| > is released by the Foundation and is a foundation project.
| >
| > Of course all trademarks can also be used based upon principles of
| > fair use that apply to trademarks in a similiar way as copyrights. The
| > important issue is that the mark is not used in a way to confuse the
| > public or dilute the brand which the mark represents as this is the kind
| > of protection that the law affords mark holders.
| >
| > Alex T Roshuk
| > Attorney at law
|
|
| Can I put my feet in the mud here ?
|
| The logo was a creation of Erik. The flower is from me (see here:
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tournesol%28L%29.jpg)
|
| After the end of the contest, Erik decided to use that logo for
| mediawiki. At this time, it was not clear at all the logos would be
| trademarked by the Foundation. The truth is we had no idea at that time
| how important trademarks would be in the future. Well, the Foundation
| was created only a couple of months before the international contest for
| logos. There was no set up board. There were no board decision. There
| were no resolution. In short, there is absolutely no trackable way to
| prove there was an understanding the Foundation would own the trademark.
| This is just bullshit. There was no clear understanding. We were young,
| we did not know. Period.
|
| My memory is also very clear that developers did not want the mediawiki
| logo and name to be owned by the Foundation. Of course, in real life,
| anyone can claim to own a trademark on something that nobody else claim.
| So, the Foundation asked to own the trademark of this, and now does. And
| with most developers now making a living thanks to the Foundation, I
| doubt very much any of them would ever make a complain over this. There
| is now a history.
|
| Several months after the logo started being used for mediawiki, Erik
| asked me if I would put the flower image under public domain. Again, I
| did not know much about copyright and author rights at that time. At
| this point, the image was under GFDL, which made no sense for a logo,
| and no sense for what we wanted it to be used for. It may be that
| another licence would have been better.
|
| The mediawiki software is very arguably a Foundation project as you
| claim. For a long time, it was not. And the developers did not want it
| to be. It seems the Foundation just decided at some point that it was.
| Apparently.
| The problem I have with this statement, is that I far as I know, I have
| been on the board of trustees since june 2004, and I have NO memory we
| ever decided that mediawiki was a wikimedia project. For all I know, it
| is not. And for now, the Foundation website does not claim it is :
| http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects.
|
| It is definitly a software we are using. Developers are largely
| improving it for our projects. But others are improving it as well. The
| main *ownership* of mediawiki is related to the main developers being
| now paid by the Foundation. It may be a wikimedia project in this that
| we largely support its development. But it is not officially a wikimedia
| project. Period.
|
| Now, understand it well. I *prefer* that the Foundation owns the logo
| and name trademarks, because as you say, it means the logo and name can
| not be misused to confuse public.
|
| However, contrariwise to Wikipedia, the mediawiki software is not only
| used by the Foundation, but by also thousands of projects around the
| world. The worse thing that could happen is that people deciding to use
| the mediawiki find themselves obliged to ask permission or even worse to
| pay the Foundation to use the software, use the name, use the little
| logo, powered by Mediawiki. If something like this ever occurs in the
| future, I hope developers will consider changing the name, changing the
| logo and make it possible for the software to spread freely. This is
| what is important, and as long as the Foundation respects this spirit,
| and only defend the logo and name against bad uses, I am fine with the
| current situation.
|
| In the end, I am only pissed of to see claims about what the Foundation
| owns, said, agreed to, blahblahblah, provided with the stamp "Jimbo can
| back this up". The Foundation is governed by a board. And as Angela will
| probably agree to, there are some decisions which were never made by the
| board. Which makes their validity questionnable.
|
| Ant
|
| _______________________________________________
| foundation-l mailing list
| foundation-l at wikimedia.org
| http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


body:
On 11/16/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the net reuslt of culling all images of people who are living
> would be a decrease in overall article quality and the isolated
> creation of a minimal number of replacements.

Um. We are far from having "all images of people who are living" being unfree.

> None of your legal examples have any relevance to the question of
> whether or not we should ban all images of living people.
[snip]

Any argument against all images with a weak argument for fair use is
an argument against some images which have a weak argument for fair
use.

> > == The ethical ==
> > No matter what your position is on the ethics of copyright in general,
> > I suspect that if you think carefully you will agree that acting
> > against the wishes of the producers of content is not the right thing
> > to do.
>
> Again, you are making general statements that do not justify this
> approach to policy at all.
>
> In both cases you are making general arguments against using "fair
> use" media at all, which has nothign to do with this policy. This is
> exactly the sort of "drift" of conversation that I was referring to
> before.

Perhaps I didn't yell it loudly enough:  I believe that "replaceable"
is not only directly related to our primary focus of providing free
content, but is ALSO a useful proxy metric for both the legal and
ethical considerations.

That is, images which tend to be irreplaceable also tend to have much
more clear legal positions as fair use (without fair use being
permitted our ability to provide critical commentary would be
disrupted), and it is generally much easier to make a solid ethical
argument (we couldn't provide a fair treatment of this work without
excerpts).

> One cannot reasonably discuss whether or not we should use "fair use"
> at all and how to specifically implement "fair use" criteria at the
> same time. They are different discussions, and using one to try and
> slip in a new policy about the other is both complicating and
> misleading.

You have completely misunderstood me.
I have never advocated that we avoid using fair use entirely.

I have always argued that we should gladly use fair use where we must,
for those are the cases which fair use was specifically designed.

I made an effort of pointing out how I advocate fair use to parts of
our community that reject it.

I do not know how to make it more clear.

> In the end, in any case, if this were, in reality, what FUC#1 was
> trying to do, then that should be discussed and ARTICULATED. As it is,
> this interpretation of FUC#1 is simply added on as a throwaway line,
> was not discussed in any detail, and is now being used to delete all
> sorts of things as if it were gospel.

The intention of FUC#1 is clearly embodied in its words. That you do
not agree with its intentions does not imply that it is incorrectly
worded. Nor has its application changed in any qualitative way.

> We should keep getting them and reward those who get them heavily
> through our other mechanisms. We should not use the desire of free
> images as an excuse to destroy all images which are non-free, unless
> we are deciding to get rid of "fair use" alltogether. Which would be a
> fine discussion to have but is not the one I am trying to have at the
> moment.

Following your reasoning, why do we not copy all the "Groves
encyclopedia of music" and "McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Engineering"
articles for which we do not yet have coverage into Wikipedia?

> I am of course fine with keeping our "ultimate intentions" in mind
> when making policy. But when it comes to the protocols for
> implementation, we need to keep in mind that Wikipedia runs on more
> than just ideals -- it runs on users, and users are going to want
> policy that makes sense, and they are going to want policy that does
> not appear arbitrary.
[snip]

There have been plenty of people who have been angered by our
"arbitrary" refusal to allow them to copy text from commercial sources
the Internet.  Is this really what you are advocating?


body:
On 11/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
[snip]
> Adding the adjective "educational" somewhere doesn't help because
> opinions on just what is educational are likely to open a whole new
> round of debate.
[snip]

Although it is difficult to say what is educational, there are many
cases where it is not difficult to obtain broad consensus that a
particular item is not.

[snip]
> The mission statement is a big picture document.  It is about wishes and
> possibilities, not about restrictions.  Where needed those restrictions
> can come later.

I'd prefer to say that a mission statement should not attempt to micromanage.

It should fully define the destination, but not every footstep along the path.

The question of a statement about 'educational' being too close to
micromanagement is one I can not answer with certainty. However,
"educational", in a broad sense, is an actual and important aspect of
our implemented mission, and it would be unfortunate if we couldn't
find a clear way to express that in the written expression of our
mission.


body:
On 11/16/06, ATR <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> Someone cannot declare a work PD just by copying it.

the authors however probably can although I am aware there is some
disspute on that point..

> It seems the actual logo was created by Eric Moller, and it has always been the
> understanding with all logos that they were "works made for hire" for
> the foundation. This has been discussed previously and Jimbo can
> back this up. Just because someone put a PD tag on the page at
> Commons does not invalidate the Foundation's claim to this logo.
>

That someone was the author:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png&diff=2170395&oldid=1545263

While the work for hire bit holds true for most of the more recent
logos it doesn't so much for things tha happened in the early days

--
geni


body:
On 11/16/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> My question was: who are the potential beneficiaries of the
> free-licence images that increasingly we insist on having?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download

--
geni


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
On 11/16/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is clear demand for good in-universe guides for many fictional
> worlds, hence the large numbers of people trying to use Wikipedia for
> them. Thus we need to do more than just declare it forbidden - we
> need to create a viable alternative. Thankfully, Wikia and other
> projects have already made this possible.

If this material is of value, wouldn't it be more sensible to create a
WMF project for it?  Outsourcing it to external sites seems like a
rather roundabout way of keeping it around.

> In order to make this easier for Wikipedia, I've created this: http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:FreeContentMeta
>
> This is a meta-template that can be used to generate boxes that look
> like the existing sister-project boxes for other free-content sites
> running MediaWiki. So far I've created one: [[Template:Babylon
> Project]], which is only in place on [[David Sheridan]] at present. I
> intend to put it in place on some more Babylon 5 related articles
> over the next day or two, and then to start creating templates for
> other areas and taking them to the relevant WikiProjects so they can
> get wider adoption.
>
> Since most of Wikia is GFDL, we can readily transclude our in-
> universe articles over there, and replace them with out-of-universe
> articles that contain boxes linking.

I think that giving Wikia preferential treatment in terms of link
placement and appearance - particularly using templates that might be
readily confused with sister project ones by the casual visitor, but
really by any means - isn't a very good idea.  Despite the personal
connections, Wikia isn't really an adjunct of Wikimedia; there's no
reason to treat links there any differently than we would external
links to any other non-Wikimedia site.

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: George Herbert

references:
<98dd099a0611151216n11602f22paeff1d73b1f91c72@mail.gmail.com>
	<e692861c0611151256h55f2b5cer5932ff9f6f89c19@mail.gmail.com>
	<98dd099a0611161116x6d89bb1cw9637d2cc077a8f3@mail.gmail.com>
	<2504.63.151.8.141.1163706349.squirrel@www.internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<9cppl2df2at3g7q386iortgepocug69fmb@4ax.com>
	<455CE767.4000503@internationalhouseofbacon.com>
	<8bspl2l3vf5s37l7kumhse3612aomspbra@4ax.com>
	<f80608430611161523l29b60433ife5c7cbddada974c@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Rancom vaguely related topic question - What is the right thing to do about
some obvious copyvios which I haven't figured out where the copying was from
yet?  [[Ship construction]] has a bunch of images which claim to have been
done as original Autocad work for Wikipedia, and yet are clearly scans out
of ship design textbooks, some of which I recognize, but I haven't figured
out which books yet.  The same person contributed them all, and some other
suspicious stuff.

Thanks.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Gabriel Simões

subject: [Wikitech-l] Adding new marks (or tags) to MediaWiki markup language

body:
Is it possible to add different marks, like ++ Text ++ or || Text || to
MediaWiki markup language?
What class of MediaWiki translate the wiki markup to HTML?
Please, someone can help?
Thanks
------------------------------------
Gabriel da Silva Sim?es
Mestrando em Ci?ncia da Computa??o
Instituto de Inform?tica - UFRGS
SBC #12250
ICQ #16149875
CEL #(51)93232480


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Labeled
	SectionTransclusion	(need	feedbackoncurrentstatus!)

body:
> OK, I seem to have found a better hook for the recursive parsing (as well
> as a competent newsreader), so we may be back in business.  The new
> version seems to address these issues.

Thank you!

Had a quick third look at it, one small thing is that using this wiki input on a test page:
----------------------------------------
{{#lst:Main Page|/}}
----------------------------------------

Which when error_reporting(E_ALL); is included in LocalSettings.php, will cause these PHP warnings:
----------------------------------------

Warning:  preg_match_all() [function.preg-match-all]: Unknown modifier '\' in
/var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line 174

Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line
176

----------------------------------------

Also managed to get an "Unknown modifier 'z'" on the same line, by doing "{{#lst:Main Page|/iz}}", but it's probably the same thing
as the above.

Other than that, it's looking good.

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: dmehkeri at swi.com

body:
> In the end, in any case, if this were, in reality, what {{{1}}} was
> trying to do, then that should be discussed and ARTICULATED. As it is,
> {{{1}}} is simply added on as a throwaway line, was not discussed in
> any detail, and is now being used to {{{2}}}} all sorts of {{{3}}} as
> if it were gospel. That's a bad policy model, in my opinion, but not
> too many people around here seem to care about what it might mean to
> have a good policy model, in my opinion.

I moved your observation into the mailing list's template space for you.

HTH
Dan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
On 11/16/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that giving Wikia preferential treatment in terms of link
> placement and appearance - particularly using templates that might be
> readily confused with sister project ones by the casual visitor, but
> really by any means - isn't a very good idea.  Despite the personal
> connections, Wikia isn't really an adjunct of Wikimedia; there's no
> reason to treat links there any differently than we would external
> links to any other non-Wikimedia site.

To be clear, the boxes are not inherently tied to Wikia, though one
imagines that Wikia would form the majority of such links just by
virtue of its role as the main hoster of free content wikis. The
template does favor MediaWiki, but this is mostly because it was easy
for me to code that way. And, actually, I still needed help getting it
to work right. If there are resources done in other software besides
MediaWiki that we should be linking to, someone should make a box that
works for them.

This is not, to my mind, a bias towards Wikia, but towards free
content in general. I think it is perfectly reasonable for us to
provide prominant links to other free content resources - particularly
ones that cover substantially different types of material from
Wikipedia. Especially if doing so helps to alleviate a fundamental
schism within the community that we currently are suffering.

-Phil


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 16/11/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> That Javascript often fails and generates more load on servers than
> does the internal rollback (IIRC it makes four page requests instead
> of the one required by internal rollback).  There are good reasons for
> providing broader access to the rollback button; please do not poopoo
> such requests so lightly, especially when adding a rollback level to
> MediaWiki is really very easy, and adding an interface to set it is a
> rather simple modification to the existing "makebot" functionality
> that already exists.

OK, I didn't know that :-)

What's the reason for not everyone having rollback? What would happen
if everyone who'd had an account for a few days could use it?

- d.


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 11/16/06, Marco Schuster <CDL-Klever at gmx.net> wrote:

> But the javascript is a pure resource eater and it is slow like nothing
> else.
As a matter of fact, there are tools as VandalProof which allow for a
pretty fast and pretty neat rollback by non-sysops. As VandalProof is
access-restricted, I consider it similar to an extra group of
"rollback users". However, it only works for enwiki at the moment, but
afaik internationalisation is planned for later releases.
Michael


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/16/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't follow what this has to do with OTRS.

Because I thought you were complaining about actual attempts to get
license releases from folks, which should have ultimately resulted in
OTRS permissions emails which I could look and get input on how to
make our requests easier for rights holders to understand.

> My question was: who are the potential beneficiaries of the
> free-licence images that increasingly we insist on having?

I missed that you were only asking that, I thought you were trying to
complain about how challenging it can be to get appropriate
permissions...

Who benefits? The world.

> We're
> insisting on free licences even in situations where we know the
> copyright holder doesn't mind,

Doesn't mind what?

Doesn't mind using making modified versions? Doesn't mind us selling the images?

If they honestly don't mind, then getting them to make a clear
statement shouldn't be a problem.

>and where there's therefore no legal
> problem with claiming fair use.

Legal ability to claim fair use is completely orthogonal with the
copyright holders willingness.

The point of fair use is that under fair use you can use the material
when the rights holder says no.

Did you miss my point about the importance of avoiding being liked by
the rights holders in maintaining neutrality?   Or perhaps you'd
rather we were driven by copyright concerns to uphold PETAs views even
when they are at odds with a neutral coverage because our our usage of
so many of their images?

> Who is our audience, in other words;
> what is our market?

We endeavor to create an encyclopedia of Free Content for the world.
It is not sufficient to merely place knowledge behind a glass wall of
intellectual property, so that the people of the   world may look but
not touch.  The world already has fine examples of that in commercial
encyclopedias. To go beyond that we must produce a resource which will
be owned, equally, and in perpetuity by all the people of the world so
that they may use it, share it, and benefit from it, in any way that
they see fit.

In a few short years we have created so much free work. It would seem
foolish to not take every effort to ensure that the greatest amount of
the total can be easily used as freely as the majority so that it may
be enjoyed by as many people for as many purposes as possible.

Wikipedia will be around 100 years from now, and hopefully still going
strong.   I see no cause to walk away from free content because in a
few cases it will allow us to speed things up a little.  Certainly not
now, .. not after we've proven that competent photographers would want
to contribute.. not after we've proven that we can get excellent
photographs of famous people..

> As I said, responsible publishers who want to use
> our material won't trust what we say regarding free licenses: they'll
> make their own licensing enquiries. And irresponsible publishers won't
> care. So who are we doing it for?

Are they to make these enquiries years after the source has died?  Do
we expect a publisher to contact dozens of rights holders just to
republish a *single* Wikipedia article.. people whom we already should
have contacted for our own usage?  That would seem to be very
inefficient.

Considering that my contributions are available on many websites who
have mirrored and excerpted from Wikipedia and the only rights
requests I've ever had were from people who wanted the ability to use
my works commercially without attribution, I think you're assuming
publishers are able and willing to do more work than they actually
are.


body:
On 11/16/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> "...regardless of [their] nation, culture or language"?

point of view, religion, sexual orientation, etc etc etc.

I hope that someday the entire world will expect that
non-discrimination will be the norm and that discrimination will be
the exception which needs enumeration.

Even so, if we're going to make it unreasonably long I can think of
more important points to make than the fact that we don't intend to
discriminate.


body:
On 11/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
[snip]
> relating to their own cultures.  It may be interesting to translate into
> a minority language information about the latest discoveries in nuclear
> physics, or the politics of nations on the other side of the globe, but
> that has nothing to do with the soul of that language.
[snip]

A language can not live without useful material being both available
in it, and being actively written in it.

That said, although it is a laudable goal, I do not believe that
preserving dying languages should be part of Wikimedia's mission.

If the output of our efforts can be used by others to help preserve
languages... If they can translate the content in the major Wikipedias
or if we can find a little space on our servers for them to run
Wikipedias in their languages, all the better. If our efforts to
archive the past knowledge of the world in wikisource, and our efforts
lower the real cost of sharing knowledge through Wiki technology
causes the preservation of languages as a side effect then thats
fantastic!

But preserving languages should not be our mission.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 16/11/06, Marco Schuster <CDL-Klever at gmx.net> wrote:
> David Gerard schrieb:

> > What's the reason for not everyone having rollback? What would happen
> > if everyone who'd had an account for a few days could use it?

> because vandals will register with a "normal" nick, wait the few days
> and then they can easily do revert wars, mass vandalizing (afaik the
> rollback doesnt have a captcha so you could easily use a bot), etc, etc.

They can and do do that now.

Hmm. Presumably the vandalbots would have fun spotting good rollbacks
versus bad ones ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rethinking Fictional Topics

body:
On 11/16/06, Phil Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that giving Wikia preferential treatment in terms of link
> > placement and appearance - particularly using templates that might be
> > readily confused with sister project ones by the casual visitor, but
> > really by any means - isn't a very good idea.  Despite the personal
> > connections, Wikia isn't really an adjunct of Wikimedia; there's no
> > reason to treat links there any differently than we would external
> > links to any other non-Wikimedia site.
>
> To be clear, the boxes are not inherently tied to Wikia, though one
> imagines that Wikia would form the majority of such links just by
> virtue of its role as the main hoster of free content wikis. The
> template does favor MediaWiki, but this is mostly because it was easy
> for me to code that way. And, actually, I still needed help getting it
> to work right. If there are resources done in other software besides
> MediaWiki that we should be linking to, someone should make a box that
> works for them.
>
> This is not, to my mind, a bias towards Wikia, but towards free
> content in general. I think it is perfectly reasonable for us to
> provide prominant links to other free content resources - particularly
> ones that cover substantially different types of material from
> Wikipedia. Especially if doing so helps to alleviate a fundamental
> schism within the community that we currently are suffering.

While the boxes may not be Wikia-oriented in design, their _practical_
effect will primarily be to add prominent links to Wikia.  Better
access to a useful free content resource is good, of course, but we
ought to be very careful about avoiding the appearance of a conflict
of interest in how we present Wikia to readers.

(This would get much worse, incidentally, if we were actually to adopt
a policy of moving material from Wikipedia to Wikia in a forcible
manner.)

As far as alleviating the schism: while driving the contributors
interested in adding in-universe coverage of fiction off to another
site would, indeed, get rid of the dispute, I'm not sure that it would
be a particularly good solution.  For one thing, we can expect that a
significant portion of the potential Wikipedia contributors on a topic
will refuse to become Wikia contributors on that topic because of the
differences between the two.

--
Kirill Lokshin


body:
After thinking about it and reading the comments of
the two individuals (who just happen both to be WMF
board members) whose alleged PD content makes
up the logo and reconsidering what I posted before
I have several comments/clarifications:

First, if something is so generic that it has no real content,
i.e. a closeup of a sunflower and a set of brackets, it cannot
be "released into the public domain" because it is already
uncopyrightable; IMHO any such "license" is irrelevant as a
matter of law. How is anyone going to know if one photo of a
sunflower close up is the same as another? Can someone
copyright a set of brackets? I don't think so, that seems silly
to me, there is no real creativity there. Not everthing we do
is protected by copyright law, so you cannot PD something
that can't be PD, or if you want to suggest that it is PD
that does not mean that trademark law cannot superseded
by copyright law and people can use it in violation of trademark
law just because someone said, "hey I released this into the
public domain because I was just a volunteer for the
organization that is now using it."

Putting together those two elements creates a logo, and
a logo is covered by statutory & common trademark law.
The basis principle of trademark law is that the trademark
belongs to whomever uses it, here it has been in use by the
Wikimedia Foundation, it was created on its servers and it
belongs to it, anyone, even board members of the WMF
cannot suggest that it belongs to them or can be transfered to
some kind of "public ownership" because they are not
using it "in commerce" and never did. Correct me if I am
wrong.  Otherwise it is Wikimedia Foundation that "owns"
the logo, and all the underlying intellectual property rights
to said logo, whatever such rights may be notwithstanding
whatever anyone says or whatever they might have did,
i..e., declaring such logo as being "public domain."

Creating a logo for "public domain use" is an absurdity,
it is like mixing apples with oranges.There is no such thing as
releasing a logo into the public domain, once logos fall into
disuse they are no longer logos, just graphics; as Eric
points out people can certainly create graphics that use
parts of other graphics that are generic, that happens all
the time and does not depend on the "public domain" just
as no one "owns" words, no one owns basic symbols or
reproductions of images that are so generic that no one
can really tell who made those images. However if someone
creates a "logo" that causes confusion with another logo,
especially one that is protected by statutory trademark law
the question is, does the owner care if the mark is diluted by
such wrongful infringement? If the owner does nothing and/or
its board members condone such action eventually that
trademark will be worthless, but I would like to point out
that board members owe a fiduciary duty to the organization(s)
on which they sit.

I would like to note that I am discussing this issue publicly as
volunteer not in any "official" or "unofficial" capacity. I am
not disclosing anything here that is not a matter of public record.

 Alex T Roshuk
Attorney at law

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
To: "ATR" <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

| The MW logo is PD content and Anthere and I explicitly designated it
| as such. I'm not even going to get into any discussion about whether
| we could retroactively "un-PD" it, as I find such attempts to put
| content that has been explicitly released to the public under a
| proprietary license unethical.
|
| Is it valuable for the MW logo to be copyrighted by the WMF? Maybe it
| is, maybe it isn't. I'm skeptical. I've seen dozens of wikis which
| have "remixed" the MW logo to make their own (put something else
| between the double square brackets etc.). I think that's pretty cool
| and has not created any confusion as far as I know, since MediaWiki is
| primarily a product rather than a community website of its own.
|
| I suggest distinguishing strongly between the brand name MediaWiki and
| the picture used to represent it. One can be protected while the other
| is not.
| --
| Peace & Love,
| Erik
|
| Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
|
| DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
| in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
| position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Wikitech-l] Implementing a licensing quiz on Commons

body:
Hello,

It has been floated a few times that new users should have to go
through a copyright or licensing quiz before uploading material to the
Commons. If there was widespread community support to implement such a
thing, would the developers be willing to code such a quiz into either
Special:Createaccount or Special:Upload (for first time uploaders)?

The type of quiz I mean is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Licensing_quiz

regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Delinker bot

body:
Hi Marco,

Have you talked to user:Orgullomoore? Maybe you guys should be working together.

cheers,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

On 16/11/06, Marco Schuster <CDL-Klever at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a half-completed delinker bot in PHP at home; it can start in, i
> think, three days.
> Anyone who wants to use it, please email me to cdl-klever at gmx.net.
>
> Regards,
> Marco
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] mail.wikimedia.org down?

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> You can host the mail server at my place if you wish at no charge, and
> I'll setup a dedicated server just for that purpose.

Thanks, but not necessary.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Michael Wechner

subject: [Wikitech-l] Integrating Yulup resp. Neutron protocol into MediaWiki

body:
Hi

We are currently trying to implement Yulup (http://www.yulup.org) resp.
the Neutron protocol into MediaWiki and need to implement the following
three steps:

1) implement neutron introspection link into (X)HTML head, e.g

<head>
<title>Main Page - Wiki</title>
  <link rel="neutron-introspection" type="application/neutron+xml"
href="MainPage-introspection.xml"/>
</head>

2) Make pages *-introspecition.xml available, e.g.

<introspection>
 <edit mime-type="application/xhtml+xml" name="MainPage">
 <checkout url="?title=MainPage&action=editneutron" method="GET"/>
 <checkin url="?title=MainPage&action=saveneutron" method="PUT"/>
</edit>
</introspection>

3) Implement actions
-- editneutron
-- saveneutron

so we have three questions ;-)

1) What (file) is generating the layout resp. the HTML head of a
MediaWiki page
2) How can we generate XML pages for the introspection files, e.g.
index.php?introspection=MainPage.xml
3) How can we implement new actions where we have to hook them in?

Any pointers or hints are very much appreciated.

Thanks

Michi

--
Michael Wechner
Wyona      -   Open Source Content Management   -    Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com                      http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner at wyona.com                        michi at apache.org
+41 44 272 91 61


from_name: Jeff Raymond

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Jeff, I have to say I am surprised to see you of all people making
> this argument.  You seem to me to be thoroughly committed to the ideal
> of free-as-in-speech content, which is precisely what fair use images
> are *not*.
>

You'll notice I'm not advocating ignoring the rule. d;-)

I guess I'm in a minority (surprise surprise) regarding how to get to
the free content.  As fair use has minimal chance for harm, and no one's
told me that I'm way off base in terms of possible legal ramifications,
I see no need to make our free-as-in-speech content less useful because
we're quibbling over whether it's possible to get a picture of the
still-living J. D. Salinger.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Sebastian Moleski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
On 11/16/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What's the reason for not everyone having rollback? What would happen
> if everyone who'd had an account for a few days could use it?

This page might be helpful to find out more about the arguments about giving
liberal rollback access:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_rollback_privileges

Regards,

Sebastian


from_name: Anthere

body:
Utente:M7 (M/) wrote:
> 2006/11/15, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
>
>
>>>2) Florence and I saw "That's what we're doing" as potentially
>
>
>>yup.
>
>
> Something alike that old phrase could be the "link"
> from the Vision to the Mission,
> implying the
>
> Try to put "That's our commitment." there...
>
> I'd also remove "The Foundation is committed to" from the Mission statement,
> along with another minor change (all->useful), since the communities sometimes
> decide to delete something).
>
> In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides
> the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the
> support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other
> endeavors which serve this mission, making and keeping useful
> information from its projects available on the Internet free of
> charge, in perpetuity.
>

Please, [[edit the page]]

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission/Unstable

ant


from_name: Marco Schuster

subject: [Wikitech-l] Different sysop levels

body:
David Gerard schrieb:
> What's the reason for not everyone having rollback? What would happen
> if everyone who'd had an account for a few days could use it?
because vandals will register with a "normal" nick, wait the few days
and then they can easily do revert wars, mass vandalizing (afaik the
rollback doesnt have a captcha so you could easily use a bot), etc, etc.

regards,
marco


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 11/16/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If I was willing to lie, I could easily pass this test.
>
> And with enough firepower I could rob Fort Knox...
> So?

My point was that someone willing to forge permission emails has
already shown that they are willing to work at the lying process.

In many categories of image, this effort isn't even required, since
nobody will doubt the claim of permission on Wikipedia in any event.
For these categories of image, this process is creating work for the
honest contributor for no benefit against the dishonest.

I suspect, though, that this procedure has been created because of
incredible claims of permission?  In those cases, a simple claim on
Wikipedia will not be believed.  How many of these kind of claim do we
actually get?

> In no way is it intended to make things harder for honest folks, and
> if you have real constructive suggestions on how to improve it I'm
> sure we'd all love to hear them.

Consequences do not change based on intention.  For the honest
contributor, it does make things harder.

Where was this policy decided upon?  By whom?  Is it actually
documented anywhere at all? (note: I'm not accusing anyone of NOT
documenting it - simply that I haven't seen it).

I'd like to know what the intentions are regarding permissions not
received in email, since that's an issue for me.

Also, for information: how often are people lying when they email the
permissions queue?  About what proportion of tickets?  I ask because
the policy described by you sounds inspired by a constant flood of
bogus 'permission'.

-Matt