In a message dated 1/8/2009 12:40:10 AM Pacific Standard Time,
wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com writes:
As for your interest in this thread (intended point)... I think Geni is
right in saying that our current practice of merging is in violation of
GFDL. We cannot ignore any part of the GFDL license as it is legally
binding. A solution to the problem can be achieved culturally (by altering
our merge practices) and technically (by altering the source code - perhaps
the creation of a [[Special:Merge]]).>>
------------------------------------------
Whether or not Geni's interpretation of this particular point is on-target
is tied as well to our current blatant disregard for mirrors which do not even
link to the history page in the first place. I mentioned that a while back
and since then I know of nothing that the foundation or any other official
group has done to look into it.
If we ignore these supposed violations of the GFDL, there will come a point
when any suit over any new violation can simply use the same argument as
"historic right-of-way" that is, "its been this way for a long time and they've
done nothing about it."
Of course the interpretation that all mirrors (and our own merges) even need
to link in all of history, is still open to debate.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 1/8/2009 12:06:36 AM Pacific Standard Time,
wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com writes:
I am sorry? Who encouraged merging? There is no consensus behind that. Merge
was proposed as a compromise to the mass deletion/inclusion war but it was
never commonly accepted. If it was I want to see the evidence of that
consensus.>>
----------------------------------------------------
I am not speaking of *your* personal war over fiction.
I am speaking of the broader issue of the merging of *anything* in-project.
We, as a community, encourage the merging of stubs. That has been the case
since before I even started editing five years back. I myself have merged
some articles in the past, although only a handful.
It would be sadistic if, the idea that merging, which in and of itself, is a
seemingly innocuous edit, would carry as-well the *hidden hammer* of
copyright infringement. Wouldn't it?
Here's how you merge... oh you've done it? Well good, now I can clobber the
hell out of you.
That's not the spirit of the project. Therefore there is a contradiction
somewhere in the assumptions.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 1/7/2009 11:35:47 PM Pacific Standard Time,
wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com writes:
Just like "deleting" a merge requires admin tools. You are welcome to file a
bugzilla on this.>>
------------------------
It's not at all like it.
In this case, anyone can do a merge. You simply cut and paste the text and
then redirect the page. This is open to any editor. However, some
commentators are stating that doing this violates the license, and the *sole* way to
do it without doing so, would be to use tools that some editors do not have.
So we set up a situation, where we allow and encourage merging, and then
when editors actually do it, we threaten them with a copyright infringement
lawsuit.
That is not acceptable. I'm not going to file a "bug report", because this
is an conflicting interpretation of what we can, should, may, or might do. I
don't personally think we need the history in order to fulfill the license
requirements. But I'll strenously object to anyone trying to use that to
clobber mergers when we are allowing and encouraging them to do exactly that.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 1/7/2009 11:30:53 PM Pacific Standard Time,
wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com writes:
It is not a problem at all. A merge is a slow and delicate process. It takes
time an energy. One should not be trying (or claiming) to be merging
hundreds of articles in a matter of a day.>>
-----------------
That is not relevant to my point.
My point is that if only admins can do a merge, than we have failed.
Merging is an editorial job, it should be done by editors. It has nothing
to do with being an admin or not, which is a janitorial function, having
little to do with editorial functions.
Our task is supposed to be a project which any responsible person can edit.
To state that a task like this can only be done by admins, is not an
acceptable position.
Will Johnson
**************New year...new news. Be the first to know what is making
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In a message dated 1/7/2009 11:20:05 PM Pacific Standard Time,
wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com writes:
Any admin can merge page histories through import or delete/undelete.
- White Cat>>
--------------------
Then that's a problem isn't it?
The rest of our editors cannot do this. That's a fairly fatal flaw to our
ability to state that the license must be followed on this technical point.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 1/5/2009 11:21:59 AM Pacific Standard Time,
geniice(a)gmail.com writes:
When you merge the wording of the GFDL requires that you preserve the
history (a really really bad choice of words). Can be done close
enough through a history merge but most users don't/can't do that.>>
-----------------------------------
If most users *can't* do this, then I'd say we really have no choice but to
ignore that part of the GFDL.
We are supposed to be writing a project that all users can write without the
threat of being sued for some obscure technical flaw. If our software
cannot compensate for that, that is the fault of the foundation, not of the
editors. Unless we are suddenly going to proclaim that "only bureaucrats can
merge!" or whatever.
Will Johnson
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Hmm isn't this "text" something which was garbaged ?
Can someone clarify that the project was treating this as a garbage entry?
i.e. deleted?
Will Johnson
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<<In a message dated 1/7/2009 4:30:53 PM Pacific Standard Time,
cbeckhorn(a)fastmail.fm writes:
* Building the majority of an article from newspaper sources is not
a reliability problem at the level of the individually-sourced
pieces of information. However, it's exactly the type of synthesis
of primary sources that has been decried for academic articles.
And, in many cases, it suffers from the bias of newsmedia to
cover things that will sell papers in much greater depth than
topics that are of less popular interest. >>
As I've been pointing out, in bits and pieces, we don't have an alternative
for BLPs.
There simply is not some highly regarded, repository of veracity out there
for this type of article.
What we have is reliable secondary sources, and realiable primary source,
which should and can be used in conjunction in a proper mix.
I don't agree that newspaper articles are necessarily primary sources. If
in a new story about Jane Fonda, they happen to mention that her father Henry
was in such and such movie, that's not a primary source for that fact. It's
obviously secondary. Just the fact that something appears in a newspaper or
news magazine does not make it a primary source for that something.
The primary source is the first fixed-media product which has stated that
fact. The primary sources for Henry Fonda having been born in Omaha is *a*
newspaper story, but subsequent mentions of that fact are not again primary,
they are secondary. Apparently relying on previously published biographical
details.
A report on Peter Fonda's arrest may rely on the underlying published
primary sources of his court papers. They may rely on an interview with him, which
may or may be published. They may rely on some reporter, watching a filmed
interview of him on the Tomorrow show. We don't necessarily know from just
reading the newspaper whether they are reporting something as a primary source
or secondary, unless they clearly state or infer that somehow. Such as, "I
ask him blah blah blah and he said blah blah blee"
That would make it primary.
Jane Fonda's memoir is primary for what she herself experienced. But she
says "I read in my father's biography where he said blah blah blah". Her
repeating it and commenting upon it, does not make it again primary (provided it
was in the first place). It makes it secondary.
Again, primary statements in sources, are those which are appearing in a
fixed media for the first time.
Will Johnson
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I understand that there are history journals, which may or may not be doing
the same type of "peer review" as the hard science journals do. But I was
trying to address just the smaller point of "BLPs".
My thesis being that there is no such thing as a "peer reviewed" biography
in the same sense as a "peer reviewed" article on solid-state physics. It
just doesn't exist.
*That* later historians *comment* upon previous biographies may be true, but
their comments, later, do not change the original paper or book. They are
accretive only, not constructive or destructive.
So my thesis being, that "peer review" really has no bearing on BLPs at all.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 1/7/2009 1:25:30 AM Pacific Standard Time,
mbimmler(a)gmail.com writes:
Mind
you, this doesn't mean that we should try to write as"academically and
unintelligibly (to the general public) as possible, but I'm referring to the
sources we use etc. - I think we should not lower our standards just to
attract more readers.>>
----------------------------
Remembering that the thrust of this argument was specifically the use of
Encyclopedia Brittanica, news magazines and newspapers. That doesn't
necessarily sound like a low standard to me. Does it to you?
Will Johnson
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