WikiEN-l July 2007

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

155 participants
211 discussions

25 Jul '09

At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall". I removed this as being almost certainly a violation of copyright. It is now being argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright, because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows. It is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not constitute original research, although there is no known reliable secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated list Original research? You decide. Copyright? I think so, but what do I know? Fancruft? Ooooh, tricky :-) Guidance appreciated. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

30 191

Fair use issues; we need serious help
by WikipediaEditor Durin 23 Aug '07

23 Aug '07

Greetings... On en.wikipedia, fair use images are allowed so long as they comply with the fair use criteria as stipulated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NFCC. Recently, and especially subsequent to the Foundation's resolution on licensing, significant efforts have been made to bring en.wikipedia in compliance. A large number of users have engaged in activities intended to bring images in compliance with our policies or be deleted. There's been several key debates/events in this process: * Images/screenshots in episode lists have been removed. This was reported in Signpost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-05-07/Fair_u…) * User:Betacommand created a bot (BetacommandBot) to tag images missing fair use rationales (a requirement under the fair use criteria) as missing them, placing them for deletion. This was debated in a number of places, most notably at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/FURG * Images in music discographies are being removed * Based on dumps from May, a list of articles where fair use images were used in large numbers was created and is now being worked on by several users. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Durin/Fair_Use_Overuse These are not the only efforts underway, but should serve to demonstrate what is happening. Some of the problems that are happening, using a broad paintbrush: * Some users are insisting that if the Foundation hasn't taken a position specifically against fair use images being used in say discographies, that it is therefore acceptable use. * Some users have insisted that the bot tagging images missing fair use rationales be permanently blocked. Further, that the deletion policy for such images (WP:CSD I6) be suspended. * Some users have been debating, at great length, that boiler plate fair use rationales can be used to bring these images in compliance. This is in large part due to the idea that fair use criteria is sufficiently met if the fair use image serves to __identify__ the thing in question. Under this argument, it is not necessary to have any critical commentary regarding the product being displayed, or the cover art/logo being displayed. * Debates that have previously occurred, even recently, are being disputed as not achieving consensus. Yet, those attempting to act to bring our fair use images in compliance are acting under policy and the Foundation's resolution. It is frequently noted that consensus does not always trump policy, or indeed our very mission to develop free content. These debates are becoming endless, with no way to seemingly satisfy all parties. I am summarizing in short as much as I can. Please understand that these debates have been heavily rancorous at times, almost always long winded, repetitive, and unending. Just about every negative word you could think of a debate would apply to the sum of all that has happened on this overarching debate in the last three months since the Foundation's resolution. I am not looking for people from this mailing list to jump into the debates and speak their minds in support of one camp or another. That will do nothing to end this terrible situation. --- What I think needs to be done --- A clearer stance from the Foundation needs to be made with specific regard to fair use on the English language Wikipedia. In particular, this stance needs to clearly indicate one of several possible stances: 1) Fair use may be liberally used wherever it is legal within the confines of fair use law in the United States. - This is a stance that one side of this issue insists is acceptable. 2) Fair use may be used if it serves to identify a given thing, such as an album, book, person, etc. No critical commentary on the image in question is needed; just that it serves to identify. - This is one interpretation of the current policy. Many people feel this interpretation is correct. Many people feel it is not. 3) Fair use may be used only if it discussed within the context of critical commentary inline with the article, thus the image is necessary to the text of the article itself. - This would greatly diminish fair use usage as it would remove logos, book covers, album covers, and quite a number of other possible types of images. It would retain images that are significant to the text of an article, including unusual book covers, album covers, logos, etc. where critical commentary on the design was present. - Note there is a further division of this stance as there will be some that will argue that if you are discussing a book, displaying the book under this stance would be ok. Which is it? Commentary on the contents of the book or the cover of the book? 4) Fair use works may not be used at all. - This would bring en.wikipedia in line with other language Wikipedias, but has the drawback of eliminating highly significant photographs relevant to articles about the things depicted in those photographs. It could be modified to have an exclusion for historically significant images, but this reduces the bright line effect of this stance. I know that Jimbo has stated a personal stance of limiting fair use to highly historical photos. Stance (3) above supports that, but is more broad. Stance (4), if modified, could support that. Stances (1) and (2) can not. Our current situation is very murky. The debates are endless and are getting nowhere. People are acting to support perceived policy and resolution, but are being called vandals often enough and reverted numerous times. There is no clear line, and nothing in policy that provides us with a clear delineation of what is acceptable and what is not. While fair use law is deliberately vague and does not provide a bright line, I feel we must provide one in policy for en.wikipedia if we are to have any chance of achieving the targets laid out in the Foundation's licensing policy (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy). Personally, I have been attempting to support our fair use policies for a year and a half now. I have been attacked for it more times than I care to account. I've been called an extremist, disruptive, fair use nazi, revisionist, and all manner of assorted attacks. I am growing tired of endlessly trying to explain to users that we are a free content project, and our fair use policy is a superset of law. I'm about ready to throw in the fair use towel because of my perception that at a fundamental level, this issue doesn't matter enough to the Foundation for the real power of this project to step in and clearly support our mission. The licensing resolution helps, but has suffered multiple interpretations locally. On en.wikipedia, there are approximately 200 thousand fair use, copyrighted images of ~750 thousand images total. This is a major, major undertaking to bring ourselves into compliance. Yet, in three months we've barely made a dent affecting only a few thousand images, and fixing a similar number of articles. At the rate we are progressing, the nearest date we could come into compliance would be ~5 years from now. Further, we'd have a huge amount of effort wasted in the process debating endlessly over this subject. Please help us. Respectfully, -Durin

38 160

If anybody is remotely interested...
by Skyring 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

I'll be in London tomorrow for two nights. Camel and Artichoke in Lower Marsh Street near Waterloo from 1830 on Tuesday. Tim Tams will be provided. -- Peter in Singapore

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy
by Michael Snow 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

The Mangoe wrote: > As > far as I can tell, DennyColt just took it upon himself to turn the > ArbCom statements into a policy and then began enforcing it against > Wikipedia Review (which the ArbCom decision pointed to). Actually, the arbitration decision often relied on for removing links to attack sites involved Encyclopedia Dramatica and did not mention Wikipedia Review at all. How far that principle extends is obviously a matter of debate, but for an endeavor that requires as much fact-checking as Wikipedia, I'm constantly disappointed with the inability of some people to keep even simple, easily checked facts straight. --Michael Snow

22 154

Oh shit, Slashdot is an attack site!
by SPUI 05 Aug '07

05 Aug '07

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/27/1943254 is currently on the front page, along with the text "It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack..." Looks like outing to me.

29 47

Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict of Interest and lobbyists for foreign governments
by Fred Bauder 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

Utter contempt for the integrity of Wikipedia. Fred >-----Original Message----- >From: Hello all [mailto:wikipedian51@gmail.com] >Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 03:39 PM >To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict of Interest and lobbyists for foreign governments > >The Hasbara Fellowship program is a project of the Israeli Foreign Ministry >which "educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel >activists". The program essentially pays people to engage in promoting >Israel's point of view online. > >Hasbara has said the following about wikipedia: > ><http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11> >http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11 > >Everyone knows about Wikipedia, a place to go to get the 'real' scoop. How >often do you use Wikipedia to look up subjects you know little about? Now >imagine how often other people use Wikipedia to look up subjects related to >Israel. > > Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia >that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is >controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the >Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly >rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel >in a negative light. > > You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are >interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented >fairly and accurately, please contact director(a)israelactivism.com for >details! >------- > >This looks like a concerted and funded effort to push a particular political >POV on wikipedia. If there is a "team" of people paid to edit Israel related >articles in a POV fashion shouldn't they be required to declare their >Conflict of Interest? Should employees or other individuals paid by Aish >HaTorah, which runs the Hasbara Fellowships program on behalf of and with >funding by Israel's Foreign Ministry, have to declare their COI if they edit >Israel related articles? >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: >http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >

14 33

Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go?
by Fred Bauder 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

>-----Original Message----- >From: Oleg Alexandrov [mailto:mathbot@hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org] >Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 09:04 AM >To: 'English Wikipedia' >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-sensorship, how far should it go? > > >On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 01:15:26PM +0000, Fred Bauder wrote: > >> Generally speaking we don't include stuff that is made up; unless it crosses the notability threshold. This might, but does not seem to yet. > >I am not talking about including this in articles. I am talking >about people removing any mention of this from talk pages, >not just the link to the attack site, nothing, nothing at all >containing the words "SlimVirgin" and "news" is allowed to stand. > >I understand that such discussion may be off-topic on Wikipedia, >but how far should people go to purge any mention on this from >the site? This is not about notability anymore, not about >protecting the feelings of an editor, it is about some >Wikipedians using the policy of attack sites to censor and delete >any discussions on the topic. But is there anything to it? Or is it just nasty gossip? If you want to gossip, join the Navy. Fred

25 93

Conflict of Interest and lobbyists for foreign governments
by Hello all 02 Aug '07

02 Aug '07

The Hasbara Fellowship program is a project of the Israeli Foreign Ministry which "educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists". The program essentially pays people to engage in promoting Israel's point of view online. Hasbara has said the following about wikipedia: <http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11> http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11 Everyone knows about Wikipedia, a place to go to get the 'real' scoop. How often do you use Wikipedia to look up subjects you know little about? Now imagine how often other people use Wikipedia to look up subjects related to Israel. Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel in a negative light. You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately, please contact director(a)israelactivism.com for details! ------- This looks like a concerted and funded effort to push a particular political POV on wikipedia. If there is a "team" of people paid to edit Israel related articles in a POV fashion shouldn't they be required to declare their Conflict of Interest? Should employees or other individuals paid by Aish HaTorah, which runs the Hasbara Fellowships program on behalf of and with funding by Israel's Foreign Ministry, have to declare their COI if they edit Israel related articles?

3 2

55 Reasons You Shouldn't Use the Wikipedia
by Joe Anderson 01 Aug '07

01 Aug '07

Enjoy: http://joeanderson.co.uk/blog/2007/07/31/55-reasons-you-shouldnt-use-the-wi… -- Joe Anderson [[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.

6 6

Re: [WikiEN-l] Self-censorship, how far should it go?
by Sheldon Rampton 01 Aug '07

01 Aug '07

Rather than discuss the merits of this particular "outing," I think it would be more productive to discuss ways of encouraging people to edit under their own names rather than anonymously. I realize that some people have legitimate reasons for preferring to remain anonymous. Maybe they live under a repressive government. Maybe they do some of their editing at work and don't want to get in trouble with their boss. I don't have any quarrel with *allowing* people to be anonymous. Most people, however, might as well edit under their own name, and if Wikipedia could find a way encourage this, it would cut down on some of the trolling and flame wars. (People are more likely to be on their best behavior when their own name and reputation is attached to what they do.) -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | http://www.prwatch.org/donate --------------------------------

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WikiEN-l July 2007