Apparently some people got together...somewhere...and decided that it would make sense to merge [[WP:DOP]], [[WP:SPA]], and [[WP:SOCK]] into [[WP:U]]. No link to said discussion was put anywhere on the talk pages of the articles to be involved in the merger, just general comments that it had been decided following discussions on WP:LAP, WP:VP, and WP:AN. I couldn't find any trace of a discussion on the talk page of WP:LAP concerning the merge, and that page has no archives. I'm not about to go trolling through the archives of WP:AN and WP:VP, but even if there has been discussion, it doesn't do anyone any good if no one knows about it or can find it. The only discussion relating to the merge that I found was on the talk page of the draft page where the merge was conducted before it was moved to WP:U, and that discussion involved no more than 7 editors. I just thought I'd try to bring this to people's attention, because I don't feel that this merger makes the slightest bit of sense, and the way much of it was done without even properly using merge tags (one was never placed on WP:U until I put it there, nothing was put on WP:SOCK until I put it there even though the material has already been merged, nothing was put on WP:SPA until the material was already merged, and WP:DOP was merged after having a merge tag on it for five days but without there ever having been a merge tag on WP:U or any discussion on its talk page) really gets on my nerves. I don't like it when a few people get together somewhere and decide the fate of multiple *policies*, not guidelines, without even linking to the discussion or mentioning it on the talk pages of the policies in question until major changes have already been underway. Not to mention I can't imagine why they thought the merger of a guideline ([[WP:DOP]]) and a somewhat controversial essay ([[WP:SPA]]) into a policy would be uncontroversial. That's akin to raising the status of those pages to policy level, and I've yet to see straw polls or any kind of discussion at all indicating consensus.
This is related to a banned editor [[User:Andries]] claiming in Citizendium that as the main contributor to an article, if he removes the contributions of others from that article, he can than re-post that content in CZ without giving credit to Wikipedia.
My comment: Articles posted in Wikipedia are licensed under the GFDL and need to be attributed to Wikipedia, regardless of how many editors contributed to these articles. Jossi 12:44, 13 April 2007 (CDT)
Larry Sanger's response:
Your opinion is incorrect, Jossi. If a person contributed a piece of content to WP, that person may contribute the same content to CZ under CZ's terms. According to WP itself, contributors to WP are the ones who license their edits; they do not donate their copyrights to WP. In this case, since Andries presumably still has copyright in the content he created and contributed to WP, he may contribute the same material to CZ.
This said, we ought to investigate Andries' claim and ensure that in fact he really is the only [contributor to the material that he has transferred here. See [1]; on the strength of that, I am checking the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box. --Larry Sanger 14:03, 13 April 2007 (CDT)
----
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
-- Jossi
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:C
Johnleemk
On Apr 14, 2007, at 1:26 AM, John Lee wrote:
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:C
Thanks for the clarification. I think now I understand it, although I am still not clear about how CZ uses content from WP, if it does not re-publish content under similar terms as the GFDL.
Is it not the case that if I want to use content from WP, I need to make it available under the same terms?
-- Jossi
Jossi Fresco wrote:
Thanks for the clarification. I think now I understand it, although I am still not clear about how CZ uses content from WP, if it does not re-publish content under similar terms as the GFDL.
Is it not the case that if I want to use content from WP, I need to make it available under the same terms?
Indeed.
It appears that Citizendium has at least two catagories of pages:
1. "Articles that originated in part from Wikipedia", which are "available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2"
2. New articles written for Citizendium, which "will be available under an open content license yet to be determined."
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
Indeed.
It appears that Citizendium has at least two catagories of pages:
"Articles that originated in part from Wikipedia", which are "available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2"
New articles written for Citizendium, which "will be available under an open content license yet to be determined."
I see... but how can one make a distinction?
Can I take an article from Wikipedia, remove the material contributed by others (if that is ever possible), and post it elsewhere *without* releasing it under the GDFL?
I was under the impression that once I hit the save button, the content I contribute to WP can only be reused under the GFDL.
-- Jossi
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Jossi Fresco wrote:
I was under the impression that once I hit the save button, the content I contribute to WP can only be reused under the GFDL.
<snip> WP:C#Contributors' rights and obligations: If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either
* you hold the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself, or * you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.
In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever.
In the second case, if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy. </snip>
My reading of the above is that one you submit material to WP "you can never retract the GFDL" and that the "GFDL is forever".
I may be missing something here, so I would appreciate some help with this.
-- Jossi
On 4/15/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Jossi Fresco wrote:
I was under the impression that once I hit the save button, the content I contribute to WP can only be reused under the GFDL.
<snip> WP:C#Contributors' rights and obligations: If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either
* you hold the copyright to the material, for instance becauseyou produced it yourself, or * you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.
In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever.
In the second case, if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy.
</snip>
My reading of the above is that one you submit material to WP "you can never retract the GFDL" and that the "GFDL is forever".
I may be missing something here, so I would appreciate some help with this.
-- Jossi
The GFDL is non-exclusive, meaning that although you cannot retract the licence, you can license the same GFDLed material under another licence, as you retain the copyright to it: "You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like." It is indeed impossible to revoke the GFDL for material placed on WP; nobody is stopping you, however, from placing that same material under a different licence in the future.
Johnleemk
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:29 PM, John Lee wrote:
The GFDL is non-exclusive, meaning that although you cannot retract the licence, you can license the same GFDLed material under another licence, as you retain the copyright to it: "You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like." It is indeed impossible to revoke the GFDL for material placed on WP; nobody is stopping you, however, from placing that same material under a different licence in the future.
Now I get it. Thanks.
-- Jossi
Jossi Fresco wrote:
I was under the impression that once I hit the save button, the content I contribute to WP can only be reused under the GFDL.
<snip> WP:C#Contributors' rights and obligations: If you contribute material to Wikipedia... you must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either * you hold the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself... In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever.
My reading of the above is that one you submit material to WP "you can never retract the GFDL" and that the "GFDL is forever".
You can never retract the GFDL *from the copy you posted to Wikipedia*. (What this means is that you can't "take the words back" from Wikipedia, or attempt to unrelease them.) However, you can do anything you like with those words elsewhere.
(I think I will edit WP:C to change "the versions you placed here" to "the copy you placed here", to clarify this point.)
On 4/14/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
Jossi Fresco wrote:
My reading of the above is that one you submit material to WP "you can never retract the GFDL" and that the "GFDL is forever".
You can never retract the GFDL *from the copy you posted to Wikipedia*. (What this means is that you can't "take the words back" from Wikipedia, or attempt to unrelease them.) However, you can do anything you like with those words elsewhere.
It's unclear whether or not it's true that you can't retract the GFDL. I've read before that if the GFDL is considered a waiver then it can be retracted at any time.
Also note that the rights under the GFDL are automatically terminated whenever you "copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License". And considering the fact that pretty much no one uses GFDL-contributed texts "as expressly provided for under" the GFDL, that means pretty much everyone has already had their rights under the GFDL terminated. This part will probably be fixed in the next version of the GFDL.
Finally, it seems to me it'd be near impossible for anyone but the WMF to show in court that the copyright holder ever licensed the work under the GFDL in the first place.
So if a copyright holder ever really wanted to take back the GFDL-licensed text, it seems it'd be incredibly easy for them to do so.
Anthony
On Apr 14, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Anthony wrote:
So if a copyright holder ever really wanted to take back the GFDL-licensed text, it seems it'd be incredibly easy for them to do so.
Seems to me that there is no clarity on this issue. For me it all started when I read the comments here:
Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#Citizendium TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2vaswd
-- Jossi
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Anthony wrote:
So if a copyright holder ever really wanted to take back the GFDL-licensed text, it seems it'd be incredibly easy for them to do so.
Seems to me that there is no clarity on this issue. For me it all started when I read the comments here:
Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#Citizendium TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/2vaswd
Well yeah, there's very little clarity over the GFDL. But the key here I believe is, to put it bluntly, to stop worrying about other people's issues. If CZ is using *your* content without your permission then write to Larry and tell him about it. Tell him what content he's using, what licenses you've granted for its use, and why he isn't following those licenses (if it's not obvious). I'm pretty sure he'll happily address your concern.
I'm not sure what more you can ask for. Citizendium is a wiki. It has somewhat tighter editorial standards compared to Wikipedia, but it's still quite possible for someone to get an account and violate copyright.
Anthony
On Apr 14, 2007, at 1:32 PM, Anthony wrote:
Well yeah, there's very little clarity over the GFDL. But the key here I believe is, to put it bluntly, to stop worrying about other people's issues. If CZ is using *your* content without your permission then write to Larry and tell him about it. Tell him what content he's using, what licenses you've granted for its use, and why he isn't following those licenses (if it's not obvious). I'm pretty sure he'll happily address your concern.
I'm not sure what more you can ask for. Citizendium is a wiki. It has somewhat tighter editorial standards compared to Wikipedia, but it's still quite possible for someone to get an account and violate copyright.
Anthony
I do not have concerns about *my* content, Anthony, as I have released my contributions to the project with {{DualLicenseWithCC- BySA-Dual}}.
I was unclear about how WP forks work, how other wikis can use the content from WP, etc. I guess that things are unclear for others as well, if one is to judge for the comments at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks, that is.
-- Jossi
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 1:32 PM, Anthony wrote:
Well yeah, there's very little clarity over the GFDL. But the key here I believe is, to put it bluntly, to stop worrying about other people's issues. If CZ is using *your* content without your permission then write to Larry and tell him about it. Tell him what content he's using, what licenses you've granted for its use, and why he isn't following those licenses (if it's not obvious). I'm pretty sure he'll happily address your concern.
I'm not sure what more you can ask for. Citizendium is a wiki. It has somewhat tighter editorial standards compared to Wikipedia, but it's still quite possible for someone to get an account and violate copyright.
Anthony
I do not have concerns about *my* content, Anthony, as I have released my contributions to the project with {{DualLicenseWithCC- BySA-Dual}}.
I was unclear about how WP forks work, how other wikis can use the content from WP, etc. I guess that things are unclear for others as well, if one is to judge for the comments at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks, that is.
I see. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 4/14/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
It's unclear whether or not it's true that you can't retract the GFDL. I've read before that if the GFDL is considered a waiver then it can be retracted at any time.
Also note that the rights under the GFDL are automatically terminated whenever you "copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License". And considering the fact that pretty much no one uses GFDL-contributed texts "as expressly provided for under" the GFDL, that means pretty much everyone has already had their rights under the GFDL terminated. This part will probably be fixed in the next version of the GFDL.
Finally, it seems to me it'd be near impossible for anyone but the WMF to show in court that the copyright holder ever licensed the work under the GFDL in the first place.
So if a copyright holder ever really wanted to take back the GFDL-licensed text, it seems it'd be incredibly easy for them to do so.
Unless the license is withdrawn almost immediately, it would likely be impossible to enforce the withdrawal. When the mirror sites pick it up their actions are based on the licence status when they take the material. If this happens in the time between the granting and the withdrawal they have a legal copy. The contributor wanting to withdraw would likely need to notify each of these sites individually.
Ec
On 4/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 4/14/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
It's unclear whether or not it's true that you can't retract the GFDL. I've read before that if the GFDL is considered a waiver then it can be retracted at any time.
Also note that the rights under the GFDL are automatically terminated whenever you "copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License". And considering the fact that pretty much no one uses GFDL-contributed texts "as expressly provided for under" the GFDL, that means pretty much everyone has already had their rights under the GFDL terminated. This part will probably be fixed in the next version of the GFDL.
Finally, it seems to me it'd be near impossible for anyone but the WMF to show in court that the copyright holder ever licensed the work under the GFDL in the first place.
So if a copyright holder ever really wanted to take back the GFDL-licensed text, it seems it'd be incredibly easy for them to do so.
Unless the license is withdrawn almost immediately, it would likely be impossible to enforce the withdrawal. When the mirror sites pick it up their actions are based on the licence status when they take the material. If this happens in the time between the granting and the withdrawal they have a legal copy.
I'm not sure what it means to "have a legal copy", but unless that mirror site has a license to copy and distribute the work it doesn't matter when they downloaded that copy.
Does the mirror site have a license, because someone checked a box on a completely different site saying that they release the work under the GFDL? Maybe, but it seems this would be something difficult to convince a judge happened in the first place. Once the copyright holder has convinced the judge that she has a valid copyright on the work it's up to the mirror site to show they have a license.
The contributor wanting to withdraw would likely need to notify each of these sites individually.
In most cases if they want any significant damages they'd have to notify the site, and the site would have to ignore their request, yeah.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 4/14/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Unless the license is withdrawn almost immediately, it would likely be impossible to enforce the withdrawal. When the mirror sites pick it up their actions are based on the licence status when they take the material. If this happens in the time between the granting and the withdrawal they have a legal copy.
I'm not sure what it means to "have a legal copy", but unless that mirror site has a license to copy and distribute the work it doesn't matter when they downloaded that copy.
Does the mirror site have a license, because someone checked a box on a completely different site saying that they release the work under the GFDL? Maybe, but it seems this would be something difficult to convince a judge happened in the first place. Once the copyright holder has convinced the judge that she has a valid copyright on the work it's up to the mirror site to show they have a license.
One needs to presume that all of these events will be time-stamped. The person copying the freely licensed material does so on the basis of what he sees; he should be under no obligation to periodically review his source to determine if the situation has changed. The whole viral purpose of free licences is to strenghthen the right to re-use. If there is an unbroken chain of licensed and legal copying I don't think that the original copyright owner can do anything about it. I think there was a Dutch case on this involving material on YouTube. Generally I think that it will take quite some time before the courts can bring any kind of clarity to the issue of free licences, and related matters. I'm sure they will work just as quickly as they have with other copyright issues that interest us. ;-)
There does remain the question where the person who uploaded the material had no right to do so in the first place. Title to that material continues to be faulty no matter how many people are in the chain. I do remember reading about a document that was stolen from the South Carolina archives more than a century before had to go back there despite a long string of innocent transfers that had taken place since the theft.
Check marks too can commit a person. Shrink-wrap contracts on software have been declared valid even though most people have no clue about what they say. For them the simple fact is that if they don't say yes, the software won't work.
Ec
On 4/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 4/14/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Unless the license is withdrawn almost immediately, it would likely be impossible to enforce the withdrawal. When the mirror sites pick it up their actions are based on the licence status when they take the material. If this happens in the time between the granting and the withdrawal they have a legal copy.
I'm not sure what it means to "have a legal copy", but unless that mirror site has a license to copy and distribute the work it doesn't matter when they downloaded that copy.
Does the mirror site have a license, because someone checked a box on a completely different site saying that they release the work under the GFDL? Maybe, but it seems this would be something difficult to convince a judge happened in the first place. Once the copyright holder has convinced the judge that she has a valid copyright on the work it's up to the mirror site to show they have a license.
One needs to presume that all of these events will be time-stamped. The person copying the freely licensed material does so on the basis of what he sees; he should be under no obligation to periodically review his source to determine if the situation has changed.
That's an interesting argument. I agree the person copying the materials shouldn't be under an obligation to continually review the source. However, it seems there's a valid argument that the person has to at least get a license from the copyright holder in the first place. Materials under the GFDL are not sublicensed, the license is obtained from the original copyright holder. If a license is granted in the woods and no one hear it, does it exist? In all seriousness, this argument rests upon A being granted a license by B when B submits text to C. It's a strange concept, and I don't know of a precedent for it outside of free software (nor do I know of a court case which addresses the question, maybe your YouTube case does - if you have a link to it I'd like to see it).
There does remain the question where the person who uploaded the material had no right to do so in the first place.
Well, yeah, that too. And many contributors would probably be pretty difficult to trace. Maybe even nearly impossible if the IP addresses have been deleted.
Title to that material continues to be faulty no matter how many people are in the chain. I do remember reading about a document that was stolen from the South Carolina archives more than a century before had to go back there despite a long string of innocent transfers that had taken place since the theft.
I think you're drawing too much of a parallel between copyright and physical property. In any case, title to copyright doesn't change hands under the GFDL. The GFDL is a nonexclusive license, not a transfer of copyright.
Check marks too can commit a person.
Maybe. But actually there isn't even a check mark involved in a Wikipedia edit, and as I mentioned the third party mirrors wouldn't be a party to that transaction anyway.
Shrink-wrap contracts on software have been declared valid even though most people have no clue about what they say.
I'm only aware of one case where this can be claimed to be true, which was an instance of software which was purchased directly from the copyright holder. The argument in that case was that the contract was formed at the point of sale, not at the time of any clicking.
That said, a contract certainly can be entered into electronically, by clicking a check box and submitting a form. Online sales wouldn't really work if it couldn't. But if you're going to argue that a contract is being entered into, then the parties to the contract would presumably be the WMF and the submitter, and that'd leave third party mirrors SOL.
For them the simple fact is that if they don't say yes, the software won't work.
It seems to me that the mirrors have to basically rely on the assumption of good faith, in that the vast majority of people probably *won't* try to sue them. The WMF is on much more solid footing. They have protection under OCILLA, and they are a party to any clickthrough agreement which is made.
Anthony
Jossi Fresco wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
It appears that Citizendium has at least two catagories of pages...
I see... but how can one make a distinction?
I'm not sure. (I don't know that much about Citizendium.)
Can I take an article from Wikipedia, remove the material contributed by others (if that is ever possible), and post it elsewhere *without* releasing it under the GDFL?
An article that you first wrote? You can take the version that you first wrote and do anything you like with it, certainly.
I was under the impression that once I hit the save button, the content I contribute to WP can only be reused under the GFDL.
Your impression is quite incorrect! There's no way that WP could take away your rights like that. (If you wrote a work-for-hire, or contracted with a publisher to publish your own copyrighted work, your contract might have an exclusivity clause which restricted your ability to republish the material elsewhere, but Wikipedia has no such contract with any of its editors.)
You might want to retract the comment you made at 01:36 to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement. (I'd add a comment there myself, but I don't have a Citizendium account.)
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:30 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
Your impression is quite incorrect! There's no way that WP could take away your rights like that. (If you wrote a work-for-hire, or contracted with a publisher to publish your own copyrighted work, your contract might have an exclusivity clause which restricted your ability to republish the material elsewhere, but Wikipedia has no such contract with any of its editors.)
You might want to retract the comment you made at 01:36 to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement. (I'd add a comment there myself, but I don't have a Citizendium account.)
Well, I can see that I was acting under the wrong understanding. Thanks for clarifying. I will surely address my mistake in that talk page.
-- Jossi
Jossi Fresco schreef:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
It appears that Citizendium has at least two catagories of pages:
- "Articles that originated in part from Wikipedia"...
- New articles written for Citizendium...
I see... but how can one make a distinction?
In theory, pages which contain Wikipedia material (that was not added to CZ by the original author) should be marked with a "W" in the page history. See for example http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Dog&action=history . Articles marked in this way will have a line at the bottom with a link to Wikipedia.
Unfortunately, a lot of WP articles were imported into CZ before the crediting system was written, and there are a lot of unmarked "copyvio"s in CZ at the moment. It does not look like a priority for CZ at the moment, as this includes 2 of the 11 approved articles ("Some of Citizendium's finest.")... [*]
Eugene
[*] Vertebral subluxation and Metabolism.
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
-- Jossi
(IANAL, TINALO) They're releasing them under the GFDL as a non-exclusive license and retaining any copyright they hold on them. No license is granted to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation specifically that is not granted to anyone who honors the terms of the GFDL.
(Some users (including myself) also specifically grant the Wikimedia Foundation a non-exclusive license to their contributions, and others release their contributions into the public domain, but these are things those editors do with their copyrights themselves, and do not occur by default.)
If someone contributes something to Wikipedia, they can post their contribution anywhere else they want, and need not credit anyone or follow the GFDL. If they modified or co-contributed to something that comes from Wikipedia, that content is usable only under the GFDL, which requires attribution of the authors (and while it's nice, crediting Wikipedia is neither necessary to do so nor does it count as doing so, though linking to Wikipedia's article history is usually (IIRC) considered to do so) and that its derivative works be licensed under the GFDL (and a few other things that are less relevant).
Others will, I'm sure, correct me if any of that's incorrect.
-- Jake Nelson [[en:User:Jake Nelson]]
If Citizendium doesn't have a more restrictive license and if the user isn't posting other people's content there, Larry is pretty much right.
Mgm
On 4/14/07, Jake Nelson duskwave@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
-- Jossi
(IANAL, TINALO) They're releasing them under the GFDL as a non-exclusive license and retaining any copyright they hold on them. No license is granted to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation specifically that is not granted to anyone who honors the terms of the GFDL.
(Some users (including myself) also specifically grant the Wikimedia Foundation a non-exclusive license to their contributions, and others release their contributions into the public domain, but these are things those editors do with their copyrights themselves, and do not occur by default.)
If someone contributes something to Wikipedia, they can post their contribution anywhere else they want, and need not credit anyone or follow the GFDL. If they modified or co-contributed to something that comes from Wikipedia, that content is usable only under the GFDL, which requires attribution of the authors (and while it's nice, crediting Wikipedia is neither necessary to do so nor does it count as doing so, though linking to Wikipedia's article history is usually (IIRC) considered to do so) and that its derivative works be licensed under the GFDL (and a few other things that are less relevant).
Others will, I'm sure, correct me if any of that's incorrect.
-- Jake Nelson [[en:User:Jake Nelson]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
If Citizendium doesn't have a more restrictive license and if the user isn't posting other people's content there, Larry is pretty much right.
That's or, not and. I can license any work I myself contributed to Wikipedia under any license I want; the only thing adding it to Wikipedia does is allowing others to use it under the GFDL. No one, including myself, is required to use the GFDL for that work, as long as a license has been worked out, but anyone who wants to use it under the GFDL is allowed to, citing that it was added to Wikipedia under the GFDL.
On Apr 14, 2007, at 3:05 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
If Citizendium doesn't have a more restrictive license and if the user isn't posting other people's content there, Larry is pretty much right.
Mgm
I could not find any licensing terms at CZ.
-- Jossi
On 14/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
On Apr 14, 2007, at 3:05 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
If Citizendium doesn't have a more restrictive license and if the user isn't posting other people's content there, Larry is pretty much right.
Mgm
I could not find any licensing terms at CZ.
-- Jossi
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
They're still debating the license apparently.
On 14/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
Basically, yeah. Strictly speaking they're licensing them to everyone and publishing them on WP - but same effect. Crediting the Wikipedia original is not required, and Wikipedia has *no claim on the material* - it's just that doing so is about the easiest way to comply with the GFDL requirements.
If the other website does not duplicate the list of contributors, then they do need to cite the page on Wikipedia where it came from. Technically, they are probably required to duplicate the list, but in lieu of that the link to Wikipedia is appropriate.
On 4/14/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement
Is this the case? Are editors "licensing their edits to WP and retaining copyright"?
Basically, yeah. Strictly speaking they're licensing them to everyone and publishing them on WP - but same effect. Crediting the Wikipedia original is not required, and Wikipedia has *no claim on the material*
- it's just that doing so is about the easiest way to comply with the
GFDL requirements.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 4/14/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
This is related to a banned editor [[User:Andries]] claiming in Citizendium that as the main contributor to an article, if he removes the contributions of others from that article, he can than re-post that content in CZ without giving credit to Wikipedia.
Actually, you can always post the content in CZ without giving credit to Wikipedia. The GFDL requires that you credit the authors, not Wikipedia.
Anthony
On 14/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
This is related to a banned editor [[User:Andries]] claiming in
Er, no. You and your co-religionists got a critic topic-banned, in a startlingly awful ArbCom decision, and he left Wikipedia. That's quite different from a "banned editor."
Citizendium that as the main contributor to an article, if he removes the contributions of others from that article, he can than re-post that content in CZ without giving credit to Wikipedia.
Yes, because he wrote it.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement
You drove him off one site and you're now trying to drive him off a second?
- d.
On Apr 14, 2007, at 8:15 AM, David Gerard wrote:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba_Movement
You drove him off one site and you're now trying to drive him off a second?
Surely not. I was just puzzled by the comment made that the copyright content submitted to WP is help by the authors.
And BTW, I did not drive Andries from WP, and he is not a co- religionist of mine.
-- Jossi
On 14/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
And BTW, I did not drive Andries from WP, and he is not a co- religionist of mine.
No, he's a critic of your religion, the one the article in question concerns.
- d.
On Apr 14, 2007, at 11:56 AM, David Gerard wrote:
No, he's a critic of your religion, the one the article in question concerns.
Sorry, but you have this wrong. I am Jewish, I do not follow the religion that Andries is a critic of, and have *nothing* to do with the Sai Baba movement.
You may be confusing me with someone else.
-- Jossi
Merging those first 3 might be a good idea, but without wide discussion this is going to fall flat. WP:ATT hit problems too. We need to do some serious thinking before trying a second merge.
Merging into the username policy is a bad idea. Sockpuppetry is more about behavior than account naming.
Mgm
On 4/14/07, Dycedarg darthvader1219@gmail.com wrote:
Apparently some people got together...somewhere...and decided that it would make sense to merge [[WP:DOP]], [[WP:SPA]], and [[WP:SOCK]] into [[WP:U]]. No link to said discussion was put anywhere on the talk pages of the articles to be involved in the merger, just general comments that it had been decided following discussions on WP:LAP, WP:VP, and WP:AN. I couldn't find any trace of a discussion on the talk page of WP:LAP concerning the merge, and that page has no archives. I'm not about to go trolling through the archives of WP:AN and WP:VP, but even if there has been discussion, it doesn't do anyone any good if no one knows about it or can find it. The only discussion relating to the merge that I found was on the talk page of the draft page where the merge was conducted before it was moved to WP:U, and that discussion involved no more than 7 editors. I just thought I'd try to bring this to people's attention, because I don't feel that this merger makes the slightest bit of sense, and the way much of it was done without even properly using merge tags (one was never placed on WP:U until I put it there, nothing was put on WP:SOCK until I put it there even though the material has already been merged, nothing was put on WP:SPA until the material was already merged, and WP:DOP was merged after having a merge tag on it for five days but without there ever having been a merge tag on WP:U or any discussion on its talk page) really gets on my nerves. I don't like it when a few people get together somewhere and decide the fate of multiple *policies*, not guidelines, without even linking to the discussion or mentioning it on the talk pages of the policies in question until major changes have already been underway. Not to mention I can't imagine why they thought the merger of a guideline ([[WP:DOP]]) and a somewhat controversial essay ([[WP:SPA]]) into a policy would be uncontroversial. That's akin to raising the status of those pages to policy level, and I've yet to see straw polls or any kind of discussion at all indicating consensus.
--
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OK, not even I know what all of these are, and I know most of the 3LAs on WP. Can someone disambig?
Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer@english.ufl.edu
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
On Apr 14, 2007, at 2:02 AM, Dycedarg wrote:
Apparently some people got together...somewhere...and decided that it would make sense to merge [[WP:DOP]], [[WP:SPA]], and [[WP:SOCK]] into [[WP:U]]. No link to said discussion was put anywhere on the talk pages of the articles to be involved in the merger, just general comments that it had been decided following discussions on WP:LAP, WP:VP, and WP:AN. I couldn't find any trace of a discussion on the talk page of WP:LAP concerning the merge, and that page has no archives. I'm not about to go trolling through the archives of WP:AN and WP:VP, but even if there has been discussion, it doesn't do anyone any good if no one knows about it or can find it. The only discussion relating to the merge that I found was on the talk page of the draft page where the merge was conducted before it was moved to WP:U, and that discussion involved no more than 7 editors. I just thought I'd try to bring this to people's attention, because I don't feel that this merger makes the slightest bit of sense, and the way much of it was done without even properly using merge tags (one was never placed on WP:U until I put it there, nothing was put on WP:SOCK until I put it there even though the material has already been merged, nothing was put on WP:SPA until the material was already merged, and WP:DOP was merged after having a merge tag on it for five days but without there ever having been a merge tag on WP:U or any discussion on its talk page) really gets on my nerves. I don't like it when a few people get together somewhere and decide the fate of multiple *policies*, not guidelines, without even linking to the discussion or mentioning it on the talk pages of the policies in question until major changes have already been underway. Not to mention I can't imagine why they thought the merger of a guideline ([[WP:DOP]]) and a somewhat controversial essay ([[WP:SPA]]) into a policy would be uncontroversial. That's akin to raising the status of those pages to policy level, and I've yet to see straw polls or any kind of discussion at all indicating consensus.
--
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On 4/14/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
OK, not even I know what all of these are, and I know most of the 3LAs on WP. Can someone disambig?
Sorry. As I said earlier in a different message, I was disgruntled and tired when I sent this and not thinking overly clearly.
WP:DOP: Wikipedia:Doppelganger account WP:SPA: Wikipedia:Single purpose account WP:SOCK: Wikipedia:Sock puppetry WP:U: Username policy WP:LAP: Wikipedia:Overlapping policies and guidelines WP:VP: Wikipedia:Village pump WP:AN: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard
That should be all of them. If you hadn't heard of WP:LAP before, it doesn't surprise me. I'd never heard of it before yesterday. Apparently it's the source of much of the ridiculous number of attempted policy mergers attempted recently.
On 4/15/07, Dycedarg darthvader1219@gmail.com wrote:
That should be all of them. If you hadn't heard of WP:LAP before, it doesn't surprise me. I'd never heard of it before yesterday. Apparently it's the source of much of the ridiculous number of attempted policy mergers attempted recently.
I'm glad WP:LAP exists - it's good to be aware of policies that overlap. But merging them obviously requires a fair bit of discussion.
Steve
On 4/15/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I'm glad WP:LAP exists - it's good to be aware of policies that overlap. But merging them obviously requires a fair bit of discussion.
Yes. Unfortunately some of the things listed there don't actually overlap, as in this case. The page about sock puppetry doesn't overlap at all with the page about selecting usernames.
They are all broadly to do with user accounts, but they're diverse enough to be suited to a main summary page rather than all being dumped into the one page.
On 15/04/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/15/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
I'm glad WP:LAP exists - it's good to be aware of policies that overlap. But merging them obviously requires a fair bit of discussion.
Yes. Unfortunately some of the things listed there don't actually overlap, as in this case. The page about sock puppetry doesn't overlap at all with the page about selecting usernames. They are all broadly to do with user accounts, but they're diverse enough to be suited to a main summary page rather than all being dumped into the one page.
I'd call that a bug in the system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:LAP looks like a damn fine idea to me. Also avoids subtle POV forks in policy space.
Now to eventually resolve everything down to NPOV, ATT, NPA, AGF and "Don't Bite The Newbies."
btw: jargon *always* bites newbies and needs conscious minimisation.
- d.
There's some areas mentioned on [[WP:LAP]] where merging is probably a good idea, e.g. I really don't see the need for both [[Wikipedia:Libel]] and [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]]
However in this case I think it's better to keep policy in tasty bitesize chunks. If I'm a new user picking a name, I don't want to read a load of nonsense about so called "sock puppets".
On 4/13/07, Dycedarg darthvader1219@gmail.com wrote:
Apparently some people got together...somewhere...and decided that it would make sense to merge [[WP:DOP]], [[WP:SPA]], and [[WP:SOCK]] into [[WP:U]].
Some sort of merger in there might well be a good idea, but I think I'd have to disagree with the particular choice of target. Single-purpose accounts and sock/meatpuppets can be grouped together, probably (if not completely, then describing them on the same page seems okay). Username policy seems to be a distinct issue, as I read it -- one manages the use of multiple accounts, the other deals with what you can or cannot name your account(s). But that might just be me.
Doppelgangers, likewise, don't reeeally seem to need a standalone policy page, so I suppose they could be a subset of the "using multiple accounts" issue (whatever page that ends up at).
As another issue, please do bear in mind that thousands of block summaries we can never change all reference [[WP:U]] as a shortcut to "username policy." I guess it's not a huge, huge problem if that gets changed, but if it is, notice should be posted (admin noticeboard?) so that people can alter any scripts they may have accordingly, along with taking care of any other related issues.
Just a few odd thoughts, -Luna