BJAODN restored again - WikiEN-l - lists.wikimedia.org

List overview All Threads
Download

BJAODN restored again

Bus Uncle is a FA?

BLP and this...

Brock Weller

5 Jun 2007 5 Jun '07

8:20 a.m.

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these? -- -Brock

Reply

Show replies by date

David Gerard

5 Jun 5 Jun

9:01 a.m.

On 05/06/07, Brock Weller <brock.weller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Every organisation has a culture, by virtue of being made of people. It has politics for the same reason. These are not optional and are not avoidable. How to deal with them and nevertheless get anything achieved is the endlessly fascinating question. Suppressing them tends not to work too well and create backlash. (c.f. management banning Dilbert cartoons.) - d.

Reply

Brock Weller

9:09 a.m.

im completely wrong, he is aware/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj/BJAODN Its a nice timeline too, shows what happened. On 6/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 05/06/07, Brock Weller <brock.weller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Every organisation has a culture, by virtue of being made of people. It has politics for the same reason. These are not optional and are not avoidable. How to deal with them and nevertheless get anything achieved is the endlessly fascinating question. Suppressing them tends not to work too well and create backlash. (c.f. management banning Dilbert cartoons.) - d. _______________________________________________ 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

-- -Brock

Reply

Ray Saintonge

9:28 a.m.

Brock Weller wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Your participation in the debate shows that you care this much in your own way. Perhaps you might begin by quietly asking yourself that question. Thank you, SJ? The most important issue in this dispute has not been the worth of these pages or the copyright/GFDL issue. It has been the unilateral action of an admin who chooses to ignore a substantial contrary body of opinion, and in the face of clear alternatives that have been presented. Sometimes admins can and do take unilateral action, and sometimes these actions are even acceptable. A good admin, however, has the wisdom to recognize when those actions provoke needless controversy. In those circumstances being "right" is not enough. So too is being right not enough when we proceed on a green light while ignoring the speeding driver that is coming the other way without paying attention to his red light. I find the single-minded self-righteousness with which some people want to perfect the encyclopedia extremely disturbing. Often it happens in relation to articles that I find to have dubious value, and in which I would normally find no interest in participating. But these situations come to the top for reasons other than the value of the article. Someone bases a decision on self-righteousness to the exclusion of any possible alternatives. Just like the real world! ... and I thought we wanted better. Ec

Reply

Bryan Derksen

4:12 p.m.

Ray Saintonge wrote:

Brock Weller wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Your participation in the debate shows that you care this much in your own way. Perhaps you might begin by quietly asking yourself that question. Thank you, SJ?

No question mark for me, thank you SJ. BTW, I found a couple of other subpages that hadn't been restored that had been speedied as "G1 Patent Nonsense" by User:^demon on May 31, a reason which indicates a _complete_ missing of the point of BJAODN. Some of them were even individual articles that had been page-moved into BJAODN, which meant that the GFDL was completely happy in those cases.

Reply

Angela Anuszewski

4:16 p.m.

I'm sorry, I'm sorta new around here, and I guess I am not really sure I understand exactly what the GFDL says and why this (in some people eyes) is an issue. Is there a good summary of this controversy that a neophyte can understand without slogging through months' worth of talk pages?

Reply

Charlotte Webb

6 Jun 6 Jun

8:30 a.m.

On 6/5/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I'm sorry, I'm sorta new around here, and I guess I am not really sure I understand exactly what the GFDL says and why this (in some people eyes) is an issue. Is there a good summary of this controversy that a neophyte can understand without slogging through months' worth of talk pages?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GFDL particularly section 4, which requires a document's edit history to be maintained in some form or fashion. Generally this is easy to fulfill because the software does it automatically. But, if we continue to publish text even after deleting the edits through which it originated, then no edit history relevant to this text could possibly be readable by the public. Thus the text is being used in violation of the GFDL, unless the edit history is preserved manually by alternative means. The following could be copied from the history window and be more than adequate: ==From [[Some deleted article]]== Edit history: *11:53, 31 May 2007 User3 (requesting zomg speedy deletion) *11:51, 31 May 2007 User2 m (typo fix using AWB) *20:13, 16 May 2007 User1 (←Created page with '// Actual text of joke. //') // Actual text of joke. // ==Next stupid joke== If it makes things easier, the edit histories of bad jokes tend to be pretty short. ―C.W.

Reply

SJ

10:54 a.m.

On 6/6/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/5/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I'm sorry, I'm sorta new around here, and I guess I am not really sure > I understand exactly what the GFDL says and why this (in some people > eyes) is an issue. Is there a good summary of this controversy that a > neophyte can understand without slogging through months' worth of talk > pages?

Strict interpretation of the 'History' requirements of the GFDL might suggest that a) a History section can only be preserved and added to, and b) every published change to Wikipedia (acting as one large 3-million-page document) should include an addition to the History section. Any bit of edit history that is not attributed on the 'History' section, whatever that means, fails to comply with clause 4I. (so, for instance, attribution via paste onto a talk page is just another practical way to infer attribution -- morally a good thing to do, since attribution is important, but not satisfying the GFDL.) So deleting any article or revision can be complicated -- one of the many ways in which the GFDL wasn't designed for wiki-style creation. SJ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GFDL particularly section 4, which requires a document's edit history to be maintained in some form or fashion. Generally this is easy to fulfill because the software does it automatically. But, if we continue to publish text even after deleting the edits through which it originated, then no edit history relevant to this text could possibly be readable by the public. Thus the text is being used in violation of the GFDL, unless the edit history is preserved manually by alternative means. The following could be copied from the history window and be more than adequate: ==From [[Some deleted article]]== Edit history: *11:53, 31 May 2007 User3 (requesting zomg speedy deletion) *11:51, 31 May 2007 User2 m (typo fix using AWB) *20:13, 16 May 2007 User1 (←Created page with '// Actual text of joke. //') // Actual text of joke. // ==Next stupid joke== If it makes things easier, the edit histories of bad jokes tend to be pretty short. ―C.W. _______________________________________________ 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

-- ++SJ

Reply

The Cunctator

4:15 p.m.

Of course, section 4 (Modifications) only applies to modified versions of the Document. We interpret it that its conditions apply to the original Document as well, but such requirements are not actually required by the GFDL. In other words, "if we continue to publish text even after deleting the edits through which it originated" the text being used is in violation of Wikipedia policies, not necessarily the GFDL. Most of the time each individual page is considered a distinct Document under the terms of the GFDL, in which case copying text from one page to another without indicating authorship history somehow would be a violation of the GFDL. However, in other cases the entire Wikipedia database is considered a single Document for the purposes of the GFDL, in which case there's no violation. The interpretation of the Title Page is naturally pretty flexible. We would be better off if we added "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors') where authorship must be credited under the terms of the GFDL" to the submission statement. At least for non-logged-in contributions. Save us a lot of grief. On 6/6/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/5/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I'm sorry, I'm sorta new around here, and I guess I am not really sure I understand exactly what the GFDL says and why this (in some people eyes) is an issue. Is there a good summary of this controversy that a neophyte can understand without slogging through months' worth of talk pages?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GFDL particularly section 4, which requires a document's edit history to be maintained in some form or fashion. Generally this is easy to fulfill because the software does it automatically. But, if we continue to publish text even after deleting the edits through which it originated, then no edit history relevant to this text could possibly be readable by the public. Thus the text is being used in violation of the GFDL, unless the edit history is preserved manually by alternative means. The following could be copied from the history window and be more than adequate: ==From [[Some deleted article]]== Edit history: *11:53, 31 May 2007 User3 (requesting zomg speedy deletion) *11:51, 31 May 2007 User2 m (typo fix using AWB) *20:13, 16 May 2007 User1 (←Created page with '// Actual text of joke. //') // Actual text of joke. // ==Next stupid joke== If it makes things easier, the edit histories of bad jokes tend to be pretty short. ―C.W. _______________________________________________ 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

Reply

Angela Anuszewski

5:16 p.m.

Well, the interesting thing is, I just was looking for the FDL on the FSF's website. If there is any question about what we should do on a wiki to meet the FDL's requirements and want "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors')", perhaps we should start by emulating what I see here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Reply

John Lee

5:21 p.m.

On 6/7/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Well, the interesting thing is, I just was looking for the FDL on the FSF's website. If there is any question about what we should do on a wiki to meet the FDL's requirements and want "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors')", perhaps we should start by emulating what I see here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Hm, I think there would be some resistance to attributing copyright for edits to the Wikimedia Foundation, even if it does grant editors back all their rights. Johnleemk

Reply

Ray Saintonge

7 Jun 7 Jun

6:43 a.m.

John Lee wrote:

On 6/7/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Well, the interesting thing is, I just was looking for the FDL on the FSF's website. If there is any question about what we should do on a wiki to meet the FDL's requirements and want "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors')", perhaps we should start by emulating what I see here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Hm, I think there would be some resistance to attributing copyright for edits to the Wikimedia Foundation, even if it does grant editors back all their rights.

I don't see that such an attribution would accomplish much; however, appointing WMF as agent for pursuing copyright violations by outsiders could have benefits for everyone. Such actions are only likely if the violations are on a massive scale, but on such occasions we would not want to be held back by questions about who has the right to sue. Ec

Reply

Charlotte Webb

6 Jun 6 Jun

5:26 p.m.

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

We would be better off if we added "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors') where authorship must be credited under the terms of the GFDL" to the submission statement. At least for non-logged-in contributions. Save us a lot of grief.

You're joking, right? How would that differ from allowing the Foundation to assume copyright of all entries? If you wrote the article of the century, pretty much by yourself, some how I doubt a byline of "From Wikipedia, by Wikipedia" wherever it's mirrored would be satisfactory to you. Not without at least a link to the edit history. The actual quality of most users' edits will not rise to that level, but that is not a factor in copyright status or attribution requirements, which must be fulfilled unless said edits have been explicitly released into the public domain, which while quite common is not the norm. And even with no legal requirement to credit the author of explicit public domain edits, it is still a polite, ethical thing to do. —C.W.

Reply

Angela Anuszewski

5:55 p.m.

You're joking, right? How would that differ from allowing the Foundation to assume copyright of all entries? If you wrote the article of the century, pretty much by yourself, some how I doubt a byline of "From Wikipedia, by Wikipedia" wherever it's mirrored would be satisfactory to you. Not without at least a link to the edit history.

If that was the way the copyrights worked, if they choose Wikipedia as the medium to publish what they have written, then they chose to accept that as the byline. You don't submit what you don't expect others to rewrite, anyway.

Reply

David Goodman

6:16 p.m.

As is, the requirement to attribute individual edits is at odds with the general concept of collective editing on a wiki. Is there any reason why everything in WP can be put in the PD, with of course the material that is only fair use indicated? (Essentially the way the US government does it: everything in their publications is PD, unless previously copyright elsewhere.) The difference would be that others could use it without attribution to us, and we wouldn't get the publicity--but are we in it for publicity or to make an encyclopedia? DGG On 6/6/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

You're joking, right? How would that differ from allowing the Foundation to assume copyright of all entries? If you wrote the article of the century, pretty much by yourself, some how I doubt a byline of "From Wikipedia, by Wikipedia" wherever it's mirrored would be satisfactory to you. Not without at least a link to the edit history.

If that was the way the copyrights worked, if they choose Wikipedia as the medium to publish what they have written, then they chose to accept that as the byline. You don't submit what you don't expect others to rewrite, anyway. ____________________

-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.

Reply

Gabe Johnson

6:31 p.m.

On 6/6/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:

As is, the requirement to attribute individual edits is at odds with the general concept of collective editing on a wiki. Is there any reason why everything in WP can be put in the PD, with of course the material that is only fair use indicated? (Essentially the way the US government does it: everything in their publications is PD, unless previously copyright elsewhere.) The difference would be that others could use it without attribution to us, and we wouldn't get the publicity--but are we in it for publicity or to make an encyclopedia? DGG

Any derivations could be made proprietary if we put it into the public domain. ~~~~~

-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. _______________________________________________ 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

-- Absolute Power C^7rr8p£5 ab£$^u7£%y

Reply

The Cunctator

7 Jun 7 Jun

1:25 a.m.

On 6/6/07, Gabe Johnson <gjzilla(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:

As is, the requirement to attribute individual edits is at odds with the general concept of collective editing on a wiki. Is there any reason why everything in WP can be put in the PD, with of course the material that is only fair use indicated? (Essentially the way the US government does it: everything in their publications is PD, unless previously copyright elsewhere.) The difference would be that others could use it without attribution to us, and we wouldn't get the publicity--but are we in it for publicity or to make an encyclopedia? DGG

Any derivations could be made proprietary if we put it into the public domain. ~~~~~

Though since we allow uses like answers.com the GFDL isn't really that helpful in that guise. But it does guarantee some form of crediting.

Reply

Charlotte Webb

6 Jun 6 Jun

6:30 p.m.

On 6/6/07, Angela Anuszewski <angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:

If that was the way the copyrights worked, if they choose Wikipedia as the medium to publish what they have written, then they chose to accept that as the byline. You don't submit what you don't expect others to rewrite, anyway.

GFDL section 4.B expresses the requirement to list "as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement." This has nothing to do with whether or not work will be modified. If an article has been edited primarily by me, Tom, Dick, Harry, and 68.39.174.238, I would expect distributed copies to reflect this credit (because that's what the GFDL says) unless the five of us have each explicitly waived our rights under this license. —C.W.

Reply

The Cunctator

7 Jun 7 Jun

1:24 a.m.

On 6/6/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

We would be better off if we added "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors') where authorship must be credited under the terms of the GFDL" to the submission statement. At least for non-logged-in contributions. Save us a lot of grief.

You're joking, right? How would that differ from allowing the Foundation to assume copyright of all entries? If you wrote the article of the century, pretty much by yourself, some how I doubt a byline of "From Wikipedia, by Wikipedia" wherever it's mirrored would be satisfactory to you. Not without at least a link to the edit history.

Actually, it would be totally fine with me. I don't contribute to Wikipedia for the glory. Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

The actual quality of most users' edits will not rise to that level, but that is not a factor in copyright status or attribution requirements, which must be fulfilled unless said edits have been explicitly released into the public domain, which while quite common is not the norm. And even with no legal requirement to credit the author of explicit public domain edits, it is still a polite, ethical thing to do.

I don't know about ethical, but it can be helpful for historians.

Reply

Charlotte Webb

6:30 p.m.

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

By default we are required to credit everyone. Whether they edit as a name or a number is not relevant. The proportion of significant content (i.e. whole paragraphs) added by IP users is higher than you think. There was a study on this, I'll see if I can find it. —C.W.

Reply

Anthony

7:25 p.m.

On 6/7/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

By default we are required to credit everyone. Whether they edit as a name or a number is not relevant.

OK, but credit them how? The GFDL certainly doesn't explicitly say that giving the IP address which the person used to add the text counts as crediting them, so you have to admit that there's a bit of reading into the spirit of the license going on. An IP address does not identify a person. As far as I'm concerned it's as much in compliance with the GFDL as saying "an anonymous contributor".

Reply

The Cunctator

8:25 p.m.

On 6/7/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

On 6/7/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

By default we are required to credit everyone. Whether they edit as a name or a number is not relevant.

OK, but credit them how? The GFDL certainly doesn't explicitly say that giving the IP address which the person used to add the text counts as crediting them, so you have to admit that there's a bit of reading into the spirit of the license going on. An IP address does not identify a person. As far as I'm concerned it's as much in compliance with the GFDL as saying "an anonymous contributor".

Exactly.

Reply

Angela Anuszewski

8:29 p.m.

> An IP address does not identify a person.

The RIAA would disagree. ;-)

As far as I'm concerned it's as much in compliance with the GFDL as saying "an anonymous contributor".

Exactly.

Why not ask the FSF compliance lab how to handle it? Angela

Reply

Ray Saintonge

8:40 p.m.

Anthony wrote:

On 6/7/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

By default we are required to credit everyone. Whether they edit as a name or a number is not relevant.

OK, but credit them how? The GFDL certainly doesn't explicitly say that giving the IP address which the person used to add the text counts as crediting them, so you have to admit that there's a bit of reading into the spirit of the license going on. An IP address does not identify a person. As far as I'm concerned it's as much in compliance with the GFDL as saying "an anonymous contributor".

Most anonymous contributors would have a hard time proving that they are the ones who are the copyright owners. Ec

Reply

The Cunctator

8:29 p.m.

On 6/7/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.

By default we are required to credit everyone. Whether they edit as a name or a number is not relevant.

They're not editing as a number. Remember that for a long time we obscured the leading digits of IP addresses when displaying non-logged in edits. Are those edits not properly credited? Going down this line of reasoning rapidly leads to silliness.

The proportion of significant content (i.e. whole paragraphs) added by IP users is higher than you think. There was a study on this, I'll see if I can find it.

It's not higher than I think. I'm pretty cognizant of how Wikipedia functions. I would love it if those who profess to care about pure GFDL compliance would do something about restoring the lost edit histories in the 2001-2002 period of a large number of entries.

Reply

geni

9:09 p.m.

On 6/7/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The proportion of significant content (i.e. whole paragraphs) added by IP users is higher than you think. There was a study on this, I'll see if I can find it.

It's not higher than I think. I'm pretty cognizant of how Wikipedia functions.

So how high do you think it is?

I would love it if those who profess to care about pure GFDL compliance would do something about restoring the lost edit histories in the 2001-2002 period of a large number of entries.

Eh they should all have picked up 5 more principle authors by now. -- geni

Reply

The Cunctator

9:58 p.m.

On 6/7/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/7/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The proportion of significant content (i.e. whole paragraphs) added by IP users is higher than you think. There was a study on this, I'll see if I can find it.

It's not higher than I think. I'm pretty cognizant of how Wikipedia functions.

So how high do you think it is?

Well, especially if you exclude robotically added content, I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the 90s percentagewise. Then again I would expect that to be more likely true before the "experiment" shutting off non-logged in page creation, which I'm sure has trended the percentage downward.

I would love it if those who profess to care about pure GFDL compliance would do something about restoring the lost edit histories in the 2001-2002 period of a large number of entries.

Eh they should all have picked up 5 more principle authors by now. -- geni _______________________________________________ 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

Reply

Anthony

10:48 p.m.

On 6/7/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/7/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I would love it if those who profess to care about pure GFDL compliance would do something about restoring the lost edit histories in the 2001-2002 period of a large number of entries.

Eh they should all have picked up 5 more principle authors by now.

The GFDL requires you to credit *all* authors, not just 5. 5 have to be on the title page (where Wikipedia currently has none). They all have to be in the section entitled History. There are lots of places where Wikipedia is *materially* non-compliant with the GFDL. Crediting of users who have made no attempt to identify themselves is not, IMHO, one of them.

Reply

The Cunctator

10:53 p.m.

Right. We should remember this only applies to modifited versions of the Document. If Wikipedia wanted to make the claim that it's not transferring between separately licensed individual documents when text goes from one page to the next, I have trouble seeing how that can be argued with. Then again it's preferable for a host of reasons to act as if each page is a separate Document and we make sure to comply as much as possible with the conditions covering Modified Versions. On 6/7/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

On 6/7/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/7/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I would love it if those who profess to care about pure GFDL compliance would do something about restoring the lost edit histories in the 2001-2002 period of a large number of entries.

Eh they should all have picked up 5 more principle authors by now.

The GFDL requires you to credit *all* authors, not just 5. 5 have to be on the title page (where Wikipedia currently has none). They all have to be in the section entitled History. There are lots of places where Wikipedia is *materially* non-compliant with the GFDL. Crediting of users who have made no attempt to identify themselves is not, IMHO, one of them. _______________________________________________ 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

Reply

Anthony

11:12 p.m.

On 6/7/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Right. We should remember this only applies to modifited versions of the Document. If Wikipedia wanted to make the claim that it's not transferring between separately licensed individual documents when text goes from one page to the next, I have trouble seeing how that can be argued with. Then again it's preferable for a host of reasons to act as if each page is a separate Document and we make sure to comply as much as possible with the conditions covering Modified Versions.

Yes. Personally I think the only sane way to interpret things is that everyone contributing to a Wikipedia article is a joint author as part of a single version which is *then* released under the GFDL. Whether or not the document is a single article or all articles then becomes for the most part a moot point (*), as the GFDL provides for both splitting up a single document and for combining multiple documents. Any other way of interpreting things runs into problems. What is the Document? What is the Title Page? Where is the section entitled History? Where is the copyright notice? You can answer these questions individually, but I can't come up with a consistent way to answer all of them, and I've really really tried. You can see my current method of trying to make a fork compliant with the GFDL at http://en.mcfly.org/McFly_copyrights (*) Of course, if you treat each article as a Document, then forks would have to hand waive around the requirement to change the title.

Reply

Ray Saintonge

5 Jun 5 Jun

5:25 p.m.

Bryan Derksen wrote:

Ray Saintonge wrote:

Brock Weller wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Your participation in the debate shows that you care this much in your own way. Perhaps you might begin by quietly asking yourself that question. Thank you, SJ?

No question mark for me, thank you SJ.

I apologize for the question mark. :-[ I didn't even notice it until it came back to me in the mailing list IIRC I was thinking exclamation mark, and my fingers didn't understand me. Ec

Reply

SJ

6 Jun 6 Jun

10:30 a.m.

On 6/5/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

Ray Saintonge wrote:

Brock Weller wrote:

SJ just got all them back up, with the notation to avoid wheel-warring, which leads me to think he's not aware of what went one already with the pages... *sigh* Seriously, why does anyone care this much one way or the other about these?

Your participation in the debate shows that you care this much in your own way. Perhaps you might begin by quietly asking yourself that question. Thank you, SJ?

No question mark for me, thank you SJ.

You're welcome. Where would we be without BAD JON?

BTW, I found a couple of other subpages that hadn't been restored that had been speedied as "G1 Patent Nonsense" by User:^demon on May 31, a reason which indicates a _complete_ missing of the point of BJAODN. Some of them were even individual articles that had been page-moved into BJAODN, which meant that the GFDL was completely happy in those cases.

This highlights that our speedy deletion process is being heavily overused, by people with more zeal than strength at facilitation, with little consideration given to the efforts of others. We should ideally have a culture in which it is impossible for anyone to delete thousands or edits by others without discussion... and in which speedy deletion is a last resort, not something one spends an afternoon doing as quickly as possible. The worst is when afterwards non-admins are told (as Ivanknight69 was told http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Bad_Jokes_and_Othe…) that speedied material can't be undeleted for any reason. ++SJ

Reply

Chris Howie

3:52 p.m.

SJ wrote:

On 6/5/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:

BTW, I found a couple of other subpages that hadn't been restored that had been speedied as "G1 Patent Nonsense" by User:^demon on May 31, a reason which indicates a _complete_ missing of the point of BJAODN. Some of them were even individual articles that had been page-moved into BJAODN, which meant that the GFDL was completely happy in those cases.

This highlights that our speedy deletion process is being heavily overused, by people with more zeal than strength at facilitation, with little consideration given to the efforts of others. We should ideally have a culture in which it is impossible for anyone to delete thousands or edits by others without discussion... and in which speedy deletion is a last resort, not something one spends an afternoon doing as quickly as possible.

Not to mention that G1 doesn't even apply here. From [[WP:PN]]: "The following, while often regrettable, *are not* patent nonsense. [...] * Poorly written content [...] * Incompetent and/or immature material [...]" ^demon really needs to be tapped with the clue-by-four. There are honest mistakes, and then there's willful ignorance coupled with [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]]. I'm going to AGF and assume it's an honest mistake. Admins should take some time to read up on the policies and guidelines they are invoking before applying them. -- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/IT d-(--) s:- a-->? C++(+++)$> UL++++ P++++$ L+++>++++ E--- W++ N o++ K? w--$ O M- V- PS--(---) PE++ Y+ PGP++ t+ 5? X- R(+)>- tv-(--) b- DI+> D++ G>+++ e>++ h(--)>--- !r>+++ y->+++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Reply

Erik Moeller

5:39 p.m.

On 6/6/07, Chris Howie <cdhowie(a)nerdshack.com> wrote:

^demon really needs to be tapped with the clue-by-four. There are honest mistakes, and then there's willful ignorance coupled with [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]]. I'm going to AGF and assume it's an honest mistake.

What I find concerning here is that, according to Sj's timeline: "May 31 : ^demon speedily closes a deletion review about BJAODN, with "Closing this early. First and foremost, DRV is now based on strength of arguments, rather than vote-counting. The basic strength of the argument in regards to BJAODN being a GFDL violation is a simple fact and there is no way to refute it." This appears to be yet another example of an attempt to "snowball" a discussion where reasonable people can very much disagree. Voting on everything is one extreme that we all agree we want to avoid. Letting a small core of users decide on a whim what they like or what they don't like is equally bad policy. Process does not necessarily mean "voting", but certainly it includes giving people an opportunity to examine & make arguments. Killing process whenever one side feels that they are absolutely, certainly, 100% correct, does not work. For in almost any debate, there will be a subset of people who feel that way about their own opinions. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open, free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic

Reply

Ray Saintonge

7 Jun 7 Jun

6:59 a.m.

Erik Moeller wrote:

This appears to be yet another example of an attempt to "snowball" a discussion where reasonable people can very much disagree. Voting on everything is one extreme that we all agree we want to avoid. Letting a small core of users decide on a whim what they like or what they don't like is equally bad policy. Process does not necessarily mean "voting", but certainly it includes giving people an opportunity to examine & make arguments.

I would take it even a little further. The people who make these arguments need to feel that their arguments are fairly considered, and not peremptorily dismissed. Of course no-one can expect that his views will be fully adopted; it is enough that a reasonable attempt is made to accomodate them with respect. Ec

Reply

Ken Arromdee

1:50 p.m.

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Ray Saintonge wrote:

I would take it even a little further. The people who make these arguments need to feel that their arguments are fairly considered, and not peremptorily dismissed.

I'd take it further than that, and it has nothing to do with this particular case: the people who make these arguments need to *actually have* their arguments fairly considered and not peremptorily dismissed.

Reply

6182

days inactive

6184

days old

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Manage subscription

35 comments

16 participants

tags (0)

participants (16)

Angela Anuszewski
Anthony
Brock Weller
Bryan Derksen
Charlotte Webb
Chris Howie
David Gerard
David Goodman
Erik Moeller
Gabe Johnson
geni
John Lee
Ken Arromdee
Ray Saintonge
SJ
The Cunctator