> From: Rick <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia
> --- "James D. Forrester" <james(a)jdforrester.org>
> wrote:
>> On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick
>> <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of
>> British
>>> Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be
>>> copyrighted?
>>
>> One imagines that the contention is that the source
>> blank map is in fact
>> held in copyright.
>
> How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties
> copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would
> be copyrightable.
>
> RickK
Off-topic, yet, somehow, I feel, relevant:
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
"What`s the good of Mercator`s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we`ve got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) "that he`s bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!"
--Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark"
And the iTunes Music Store sells completely silent tracks with DRM
protection for $0.99...
...and John Cage's publisher claims copyright protection for the work
4'33", consisting of that quantity of silence, and claimed infringement
and demanded a quarter of the royalties for a work by Mike Batt
consisting of a minute of silence, see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2133426.stm . (Batt
insisted his silence was original and not a quotation a portion of
Cage's work...) By the way, anyone who thinks that's ludicrous had
better be aware that it's nothing but... and should consider joining
the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
Charles Mathews writes:
>But you
>do seem to be implying that content disputes could somehow be separated
>surgically from the existing processes for conflict resolution. Would that
>they could.
Yes, would that they could. I understand and appreciate your point. But
just to be clear: my main concern is simply to focus on what is most
important: following content policies. Whatever process is available, I
just don't want any personal arguments between me and RJII on the talk
pages to divert attention from, or overwhelm, these content-issues.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
--- "James D. Forrester" <james(a)jdforrester.org>
wrote:
> On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick
> <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of
> British
> > Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be
> > copyrighted?
>
> One imagines that the contention is that the source
> blank map is in fact
> held in copyright.
How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties
copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would
be copyrightable.
RickK
__________________________________________________
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A short time ago there was an extensive debate on this list-serve about the
nature of our dispute-resolution process, and about the difference between
violations of behavioral rules and content rules. Apparently, most people
believe that the available processes are adequate to the problems we
face. Well, here is a test case and frankly, I do not know -- based on our
current policies -- what to do.
Over the past couple of weeks there has been vigorous debate at the
Capitalism article concerning the introduction. The debate has mostly been
between me and Ultramarine on one side, and RJII on the other. Two
policies are relevant: NPOV and NOR. RJII insists on writing his own
definition of capitalism. He has provided NO evidence of any research,
beyond looking up the word "capitalism" on the OED. He consistently
provides what he calls a "marxist" definition of capitalism that
Ultramarine and I insist is not Marxist, and he refuses to provide a
source. Most recently, he posted this comment:
>Explanation... I used the term "typically regarded" so that stray
>definitions by malcontent college professors don't count.
My understanding of this is that he is flagrantly disregarding the basic
encyclopedic principle that articles should be based on research. He uses
"typically regarded" (and, in other instances, "common knowledge" or
"obvious") to explain why he does not need to provide a source for his own
definition of capitalism, and to explain why it is intrinsically NPOV,
despite my and Ultramarine's vigorous objections. To this he now adds that
he is dismissive of definitions provided by scholars!
But my problem is not just with RJII, it is with the Wikipedia community,
and the community's apparent inability to deal with such problems.
Ultramarine and I made several compromises with RJII, but we have reached a
point where there can be no compromise (you can't compromise with someone
who makes up a definition, refuses to cite sources, and disregards the
research other editors do, and thinks that precisely because we can provide
a source, which comes from a scholar, that the definition is therefore
invalid). On many days we have simply taken turns reverting and reverting
-- and as some here have observed, the result was that I was blocked one
day for violating the three revert rule. So the first mechanism -- "Most
policies and guidelines are thus enforced by individual users editing
pages, and discussing matters with each other" -- is not working.
I posted a request for comment, and there has been no response.
What else can I do? I will not go to the mediation or arbitration
committee for two reasons. First, I am not concerned with any possible
violations of behavioral guidelines by RJII, I am concerned only with his
violation of content guidelines. Second, I do not view this as a personal
dispute between he and I, and I do not want others to characterize this as
a dispute between he and I. I am not defending my own version of the
introduction, or my own definition of capitalism. I do not need someone
else to help us come to a compromise definition. I do not want someone
else to start investigating my own behavior (for the record, with the
exception of the multiple reversions, I have been at pains to avoid any
personal attacks. But my point is, my own behavior should not be an issue
here. I will gladly voluntarily refrain from editing this article if that
would solve anything. But the problem is not the fact that RJII and I do
not agree on a definition, the problem is that he consistently refuses to
follow basic policies). What we do need is someone who will either make
RJII follow our content policies, or who will block him from the article.
The introduction, a month ago, was not perfect. But it did introduce the
article in an NPOV way. Today it is a shambles, and the discussion on the
talk page gives no reason for anyone to believe that it is going to get
better in the near future.
Is this the process we want to encourage?
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_COTW is a proposal for a weekly
cross-project collaboration similar in process to the English Wikipedia
Collaboration of the Week (COTW). To trial this idea, I suggest adding a
WM-COTW box to the English Wikipedia Community Portal.
Plase comment on this proposal at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Community_Portal (bottom)
If this leads to people actually working and voting on the COTW, I will
then proceed to propagate the idea to other projects (though hopefully
some people will read this list and suggest it on their own on their
local Wikimedia project). Ideally, the current WM-COTW would be
prominently featured on all the sites, and lead to lots of activity on
important tasks such as documentation and promotional materials, as well
as an increased group identity, raised awareness of Wikimedia and Meta,
and more exposure for our smaller projects.
All best,
Erik
How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of British
Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be
copyrighted?
RickK
__________________________________
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Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
Sj wrote:
>Thanks for the feedback, Charles and Tony. I'll make some tweaks in
>an hour or so to make sure it mentions our amazing multilingualism,
>and highlights our popularity /as a reference work/, if I can think of
>a good way to slip it in.
>
>I was planning to leave a couple days for people to set up a new
>press-log, and think about who to contact; and then send out the
>releases all at once this Sunday. However, people are already
>starting to write about us reaching the half-million mark, not least
>b/c of Jimbo's presentation yesterday at e-tech. See for instance the
>Inquirer:
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21909
>
>What do you all think? Should we send out press releases
>tommorrow/Saturday, to be as timely as possible? Also, what was the
>500,000th article?
>
>
Answers:
1. I think the press release is great work, good job all around.
2. Yes, we should act quickly. Nothing kills the media's interest in a
press release quicker than being old news. Although news cycles being
what they are, once we hit the weekend it won't matter that much which
day it is, so might as well keep sending it out through Sunday.
3. Based on Alterego's calculation of the precise time (I'm not sure how
that was determined, but I'll take what I can get), the article that's
the closest match seems to be [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet
Union]]. So congratulations to Mikkalai, and of course congratulations
to everybody who's helped make Wikipedia into a wonderful resource. Now
we just need to go and make that into a featured article!
--Michael Snow
--- Sj <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> What do you all think? Should we send out press releases
> tommorrow/Saturday, to be as timely as possible? Also, what was the
> 500,000th article?
Send now.
--mav
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