The following page has been vandalized and needs to be looked into - I would
have edited it but wasn't able to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semen
Thanks
Ryan McNabb
Matt Brown wrote:
>One thing that I think is needed is to have as policy that if a free
>image can be found to replace a fair use image, then the fair use
>image can be disposed of. I've experienced a number of times
>situations where users have strenuously resisted getting rid of a fair
>use image they like when a free one comes along. Some situations,
>indeed, when users have replaced an existing, free image with a fair
>use one because they find, e.g., an official publicity shot more
>'professional' than a photograph by a Wikipedian.
>
>
In general, I think it would be a good guideline. However, I think the
quality of the replacement does need to be considered, though the issue
should not be professionalism as such. Rather, in some cases it's more
the question of "can we confidently say that this blurry photo is
'Subject X'?" If the subject of the free image is clearly identifiable
and there are no reasons to doubt its provenance, then by all means the
fair use one should go.
>For example, there is one user that is using scans of auto magazine
>covers to illustrate articles about the magazine cover's subject. I
>think that is beyond the scope of fair use. It's one thing to use a
>Motor Trend cover to illustrate the [[Motor Trend]] article; another
>to use it to illustrate an article about a car that happened to be on
>the cover that month.
>
>
Indeed. At whatever point we manage to organize a serious cleanup of
fair use images, there are two matters to address. One is the presence
of images where the fair use claim is simply bogus. The other is the
whether the use in any given article is actually fair. *Every use* must
be considered separately; the fact that one may be acceptable means very
little when you've moved to an article about a different subject.
--Michael Snow
Just when you think you've got it figured out ... it changes!
I thought we had all agreed that the Neutral Point Of View policy
requires Wikipedia to take no sides in any controversy. I harbored the
belief that when it comes to [[protoscience]], i.e., discoveries of new
scientific knowledge which have NOT QUITE been fully established,
Wikipedia would avoid endorsing the new "knowledge" - at least pending
final confirmation.
If astronomers at Harvard, and professors at MIT, are still disputing
the truth of the new hypothesis, maybe it's too early to enshrine it as
REALLY SO - and way too early to dismiss as [[pseudoscience]] all the
skepticism which says that an alternate explanation is still viable.
Along comes Dr. William Connolley and his mates. They have
simultaneously begun a WikiProject to delete articles which (in their
view) promote pseudoscience, and, wait for it...
...actually nominated Connolley for adminship!
I marked up the nomination with strikeout text at four points and
appended my signed corrections, and have been 3RR'ed into oblivion and
threatened with my first-ever user block. What is this, the borking of
Ed Poor?
We need to tread carefully on this.
Uncle Ed
>But that's exactly what's happening as long as
>all the focus is on U.S. laws. Fair use won't
>protect you if you're publishing Wikipedia derived
>content in Denmark. Nor will Bridgeman v. Corel.
>Recently a picture of the Lindisfarne Gospels
>taken from the British Library website became
>a featured picture even though the BL explicitly
>claims copyright on it and that claim may well
>hold up in a British court.
There are two critical facts that people seem to be missing in this
debate. Firstly people moan about things that old having a copyright.
My answer to that is, unfortunately, TOUGH! British copyright law is
NOT just life of the author plus 70 years. That is the rule for
PUBLISHED photographs and works. UNPUBLISHED works have an entirely
different set of rules. If the author of an unpublished work died more
recently than 1968, then the copyright term of published and
unpublished works by that author are exactly the same. For unpublished
works of those authors who died before 1969 then the rule is that
there is a period of 50 years from the time of first publishing, or
2040, whichever is earlier, for copyright to expire.
To take the example of William Shakespare:
1. His published works were out of copyright before the concept even existed.
2. His unpublished works REMAIN IN COPYRIGHT TO THIS DAY.
3. Works published posthumously, and after the invention of copyright,
expired as appropriate to the laws of the day. A Shakespeare work
first published in 1954 would only have come out of copyright six
months ago in the UK.
The second factor that people are missing is that US law on fair use
is irrelevant to this discussion when it comes to images on the
British Library server. That server is physically located in the
United Kingdom. It is therefore governed by the copyright law of the
United Kingdom. Anyone accessing it from the UK is only governed by
British copyright law. Anyone accessing it from another country is
covered both by British copyright law and the copyright law of the
country they are accessing it from.
Those two factors mean that I draw the following conclusions. Unless
it can be shown that the Lindisfarne Gospels were published more than
50 years ago, they are still in copyright in the United Kingdom. Since
they are unique objects, they cannot have been published in their
original form. That means that in order to be published a scholarly
work on them or a facsimilie version would be the most likely sources.
If they are still in copyright, which is most likely the case, then
the British library has every right to slap a copyright notice on
images of them. Even if the images do not themselves qualify for
copyright protection, the object they depict DOES qualify for
copyright protection. Since the object is deliberately, and not
incidentally, included in the scene the photos are derivative works of
that object. Under British copyright law, which is the one we have to
worry about here, the exceptions to copyright are called fair dealing.
It is illegal to copy a photo from a website in the manner which has
been done here. None of the fair dealing exceptions apply.
Discussing US copyright law is irrelevant until British copyright law
is out of the way. If the Lindisfarne Gospels themselves are out of
copyright, then it becomes a whole new ballgame.
David Newton
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
>I would be fine with such a policy. And I argue that
>if we can tolerate a few fair-use images where they
>are the only ones available we can also tolerate a
>few used-with-permission images where those are the
>only ones we can obtain.
>
If they truly are the only ones we can obtain, then they're almost
certainly fair use for us anyway. The permission should be noted, but
isn't critical. But there's a huge difference between an image being the
only one of its kind we can get under any circumstances, and being the
only image some editor is able to get a hold of.
In the past, even with Wikipedia-only permissions discouraged, far too
many users have thought it sufficient just to ask for permission without
asking for permission under a free license. Allowing this would
encourage people to be even more lazy about getting free images.
--Michael Snow
Stacey Greenstein wrote:
>Please people... do not feed the trolls. Let them post and ignore them...
>they thrive on the replies.
>
>
Hmm, perhaps the mailing list admins should start moderating the posts
of established users on the list in addition to new subscribers?
--Michael Snow
How do libraries handle it?
When I was about eleven, I discovered that my local library had a copy of
Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" shelved among the science books.
I went to the librarian full of indignation, demanding that they reshelve it
under "science fiction." The librarian somehow calmed me down... and the book
stayed where it was.
Well, I'm older. (And to tell the truth the geologists seems to be a lot less
uniformitarian than they used to be. Asteroids extinguishing the dinosaurs?
Well, OK. But I still don't think the fall of manna that saved the Israelites
resulted from the earth passing through a comet's tail.)
Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all
the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system
can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's
some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any
case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction.
Who does? and how?
User:Norrath was block by David Gerard for "admitted
sockpuppet and role account". This account is indeed a
sockpuppet of a user in good standing, created to
protest other blocks caaried out abusively by
Snowspinner. The account was declared as a sockpuppet,
in accordance with Wikipedia policy (which does not
prohibit this) and the only edits were polite
questions to Snowspinner about why he did not follow
policy.
It is outrageous that admins block users simply for
making legitimate requests for explanation from other
admins about why they did not follow policy.
Please help.
Norrath
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That now makes FOUR times that Gerard has denied a message claiming
"personal attack" because it was critical of his constant abuses of power.
A. Nony Mouse
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Because the sandbox talk page is frequently vandalized, and because this
is a larger issue, I'm posting this here. I'd like to know whether I'm
alone with this position.
Currently, the Wikipedia Sandbox features 5 links to "experimental
projects":
* Hangman
* Chess
* Go/Weiqi
* Checkers
* Poetry
Ever since WikiChess became popular and accepted on Wikipedia, the
sandbox has turned into an incubator for new "wikigames". The problem
with this is that, as long as a page is a subpage of the sandbox, it is
very difficult to delete it, because it is regarded as "legitimate
playground." On the other hand, once a game has found a sufficient
number of players, these players are all likely to vote "keep" when the
game eventually and inevitably creeps into the Wikipedia namespace, as
has happened with chess.
Therefore, the sandbox has become an incubator for a potentially
unlimited number of wikigames which are almost impossible to get rid of
once they've become popular. While there's nothing wrong with some
harmless games, I strongly feel that such games need to be limited because:
1) Eventually, these gaming activities will attract users who do nothing
*but* playing games, and therefore use our donation-sponsored hardware
effectively as an Internet gameserver. These users can exist outside our
normal community framework, potentially causing problems when they
interact with the rest of the community and the site.
2) A couple of wikigames don't make much of a difference, but once
there's 10 or 20 popular ones, the constant edits to these pages will
start to clutter up Special:Recentchanges.
3) The Wikipedia: namespace is meant primarily for policies; an
abundance of gaming-related pages complicates browsing and searching.
4) The more visible these activities become, the more they become a
reflection on our project to outsiders.
I'm not arguing that any existing wikigame activities should be
suspended -- that would be an exercise in futility, as anyone trying to
do so will be shouted down by the existing player community. No, my
suggested solution is this: All subpages of Wikipedia:Sandbox should be
deleted. There's no need to have any "experimental development" pages.
Users who want to conduct non-game experiments can use user sandboxes
for this purpose. If someone wants to start a new wikigame, they should
start it in the Wikipedia: namespace, where it will receive a much more
intense assessment right from the start. If a game started in the proper
namespace survives VfD, then it may very well be fun or useful enough to
exist.
In other words, I would strongly argue in favor of shutting down the
sandbox as a VfD-resistant incubator for games which distract from the
purpose of building an encyclopedia. There is value to wikigames as
entertainment and as an artistic effort, but there's a separate wiki
dedicated to this already -- http://games.wikicities.com/ -- and I feel
that our own gaming related efforts should be limited at best.
Regards,
Erik