G'day folks,
Associated Press reports that Citizendium will launch this week.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm
'This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative, Citizendiumhttp://www.citizendium.org/. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time, avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls.
Like Wikipedia, Citizendium will be non-profit, devoid of ads and free to read and edit. Unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium's volunteer contributors will be expected to provide their real names. Experts in given fields will be asked to check articles for accuracy." More in story.
It will be interesting to see what they actually deliver as opposed to talking about delivering.
Regards
Keith Old
--- Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
G'day folks,
Associated Press reports that Citizendium will launch this week.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm
Probably this has already been discussed here ad nauseum, but:
Prospective editors are supposed to use their real name, and provide proof that this is their real name. However, at the moment, http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html says that providing the proof is optional.
In other words, anyone can sign up, claim their name is John Johnson from Wisconsin, submit a fake bio, and be an editor.
If actual proof is later required, just exactly what percentage of potential editors are going to fax in a copy of their driver's licence or some such thing? 1%? I surely wouldn't do that.
So, either: 1. anyone can edit, just like wikipedia, but having to first provide some bullshit data, or 2. Some sort of proof will be required, resulting in almost no editors.
____________________________________________________________________________________ We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love (and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list. http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265
On 25/03/07, bobolozo bobolozo@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
G'day folks,
Associated Press reports that Citizendium will launch this week.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm
Probably this has already been discussed here ad nauseum, but:
Prospective editors are supposed to use their real name, and provide proof that this is their real name. However, at the moment, http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html says that providing the proof is optional.
The second link to the "Statement of Fundamental Principles" is hilarious...
As for the USA Today article, I wonder if the comment "Sanger says he intended to keep nurturing Nupedia's expert-review idea as well, but he was laid off from Bomis in 2002, apparently because of cost-cutting in the dot-com bust" explains the anti-Wikipedia rant on every page? Long time to hold a grudge, pal.
On 3/26/07, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
G'day folks,
Associated Press reports that Citizendium will launch this week.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm
'This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative, Citizendium http://www.citizendium.org/. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time, avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls.
Like Wikipedia, Citizendium will be non-profit, devoid of ads and free to read and edit. Unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium's volunteer contributors will be expected to provide their real names. Experts in given fields will be asked to check articles for accuracy." More in story.
It will be interesting to see what they actually deliver as opposed to talking about delivering.
Regards
Keith Old
Folks,
It is now live with 1,100 articles.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page
Further, there are red links on the main page in areas such as earth sciences, theater, education, sports, architectecture, visual arts, journalism, military and the media. It is probably where Wikipedia was in early 2001.
Regards
*Keith Old*
On 3/25/07, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
Folks,
It is now live with 1,100 articles.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page
Further, there are red links on the main page in areas such as earth sciences, theater, education, sports, architectecture, visual arts, journalism, military and the media. It is probably where Wikipedia was in early 2001.
So now they're live, and they still have decided what license to use.
http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/23/we-are-definitely-undecided-about-the...
If you follow that all the way to the forums and their on-wiki discussion page, you'll find a lot of sloppy reasoning salted with just a bit of sense. Some of them seem to think it would be a good idea to take Wikipedia content and relicense it under CC-by-nc so that Wikipedia couldn't reincorporate their changes. Many more think it will be desirable to at least cut Wikipedia off from any use of what Citizendium produces from scratch. And in order to avoid the license complications, they're talking about the possibility of authors having to share copyright with Citizendium, so that Citizendium could work out individual commercial deals. (One of the few well-informed discussants brought up the possibility that doing so might make Citizendium liable for their content and bypass the safe-harbor provision, but no one seems to be worried about that.)
One interesting possibility (if unlikely) they discussed would be to intentionally misinterpret/reinterpret/ignore the GFDL by relicensing Wikipedia content under CC-by-sa, with the hopes of establishing compatibility in court. I know little about the legal aspects or the chances of success, but if it worked it would be nice for us... it would give a chance to switch licenses without having to take the legal risk.
Also check Sanger's snarky manifesto "We Aren't Wikipedia": http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/21/we-arent-wikipedia/
-Sage
"Sage Ross" ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com writes: ....
One interesting possibility (if unlikely) they discussed would
be to
intentionally misinterpret/reinterpret/ignore the GFDL by
relicensing
Wikipedia content under CC-by-sa, with the hopes of establishing compatibility in court. I know little about the legal aspects
or the
chances of success, but if it worked it would be nice for
us... it
would give a chance to switch licenses without having to take
the
legal risk.
Also check Sanger's snarky manifesto "We Aren't Wikipedia": http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/21/we-arent-wikipedia/
-Sage
While we're on the topic of changing licenses, does anyone know whether any further information has come to light about whether Wikipedia could relicense under the [[GNU Simplified Free Documentation License]]? I haven't seen any new news for the last several months, and when I asked him about it, Brad said to wait for new news - but nothing's been said AFAIK, and now Brad's gone...
On 3/26/07, Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
just a bit of sense. Some of them seem to think it would be a good idea to take Wikipedia content and relicense it under CC-by-nc so that Wikipedia couldn't reincorporate their changes. Many more think it will be desirable to at least cut Wikipedia off from any use of what Citizendium produces from scratch. And in order to avoid the license
This would be a very intriguing turn of events. Citizendium takes Wikipedia's free content, releases it as free content, but won't give it back... I can just see the XKCD already.
Steve
This part of their policy is almost funny seeing how much we all just "love" WP:TLAs
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a user introduces such an expression in a policy page, he/she will be warned and the expression removed. The second time a user repeats this offense, he will be banned for a suitable amount of time.?
On 3/26/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a
Heh. Well their equivalent of WP:NOT should be quite short:
Citizendium is not Wikipedia.
Steve
On 3/25/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a
Heh. Well their equivalent of WP:NOT should be quite short:
Citizendium is not Wikipedia.
Steve
It seems they've inherited a bit more from us than just articles: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special:Contributions&target=Peter+...
I wish them well, hope that they take open content and author rights under the GFDL seriously, and hope that as a community they consider *why* it's a good idea to build a universal open content encyclopedia -- unfortunately not something I saw articulated at all in the reactionary "Statement of Fundamental Policies," and only minimally in their "about."
-- phoebe
phoebe ayers wrote:
It seems they've inherited a bit more from us than just articles: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special:Contributions&target=Peter+...
That's pretty funny! I suppose I should get to work on my invented persona for CZ - hmm, one PhD or two? Do you think they would be skeptical if I had three??
:-)
Stan
On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
This part of their policy is almost funny seeing how much we all just "love" WP:TLAs
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a user introduces such an expression in a policy page, he/she will be warned and the expression removed. The second time a user repeats this offense, he will be banned for a suitable amount of time.?
I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms are the English Wikipedia's jargon.
--- Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
This part of their policy is almost funny seeing
how much we all just
"love" WP:TLAs
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the
Citizendium may not contain
any three-letter "initialisms." For example,
"IAR," "NOR," and "AFD"
are three letter initialisms. These expressions
are a considerable
problem for new users who are unfamiliar with
them. The first time a
user introduces such an expression in a policy
page, he/she will be
warned and the expression removed. The second time
a user repeats this
offense, he will be banned for a suitable amount
of time.?
I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms are the English Wikipedia's jargon.
Exactly.
Despite their silly "acronyms are bad, they make it hard for new people to understand what we're saying" policy, jargon is necessary and inevitable. In fact, I think in a way it's better to have acronyms like "NPOV" than to use common english words like the one Citizendium has chosen for NPOV, "neutral".
If you use a common english word, then you will have endless confusion by new or less-than-bright editors who will believe that by "neutral", everyone means the common dictionary definition of "neutral", rather than the policy definition of neutral.
Citizendium will have a policy on precisely what "neutral" means, which will change over time and take on a complex meaning as editors argue over it.
I've seen long revert wars kept going by confused editors on Wikipedia who insisted that "My source IS reliable, it's never been wrong in the last 2 years!" and "This information is verifiable, I can verify it!" and so on.
At least when you type in NPOV, people are instantly clued into the fact that a specialized term is being used, one they are not yet familiar with, and which they need to read up on before they can understand what is being discussed.
(And for God's sake, we're really supposed to fully type out "Articles for Deletion" instead of AfD, every one of the 10,000 times a day the term is used somewhere on wikipedia?)
____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html
Mark Wagner wrote:
On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
This part of their policy is almost funny seeing how much we all just "love" WP:TLAs
"No initialisms. The Policy pages of the Citizendium may not contain any three-letter "initialisms." For example, "IAR," "NOR," and "AFD" are three letter initialisms. These expressions are a considerable problem for new users who are unfamiliar with them. The first time a user introduces such an expression in a policy page, he/she will be warned and the expression removed. The second time a user repeats this offense, he will be banned for a suitable amount of time.?
I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms are the English Wikipedia's jargon.
I appreciate the sentiment behind trying to deal with this problem, since I often encounter abbreciations on this list that I need to puzzle over before giving my best guess. I don't think the hard line approach will help them. It's just not a winnable battle.
Ec
On 3/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I appreciate the sentiment behind trying to deal with this problem, since I often encounter abbreciations on this list that I need to puzzle over before giving my best guess. I don't think the hard line approach will help them. It's just not a winnable battle.
Ec
What I do is that I simply put in "WP:" plus the abbreviation/acronym in the search box and click Go. That will pretty much always give you the right answer. Take ASF, for instance. WP:ASF leads to the Avoid Self Reference policy page.
--Oskar
on 3/26/07 9:51 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson at oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I appreciate the sentiment behind trying to deal with this problem, since I often encounter abbreciations on this list that I need to puzzle over before giving my best guess. I don't think the hard line approach will help them. It's just not a winnable battle.
Ec
What I do is that I simply put in "WP:" plus the abbreviation/acronym in the search box and click Go. That will pretty much always give you the right answer. Take ASF, for instance. WP:ASF leads to the Avoid Self Reference policy page.
--Oskar
Thanks for this suggestion, Oskar. My eyes tend to glaze over when a particular paragraph contains many of these initials. I was thinking of making a suggestion that someone familiar with all (or at least most) of these initials create a Glossary of them.
Thanks again,
Marc Riddell
On 3/26/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Thanks for this suggestion, Oskar. My eyes tend to glaze over when a particular paragraph contains many of these initials. I was thinking of making a suggestion that someone familiar with all (or at least most) of these initials create a Glossary of them.
Thanks again,
Marc Riddell
There's already a list of shortcuts at [[WP:WP]], and since all the TLAs we have are shortcuts it's pretty much the same thing. But there are so very many of them, that you're really better served by just typing the shortcut into the search box and seeing what comes up.
On 3/26/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Thanks for this suggestion, Oskar. My eyes tend to glaze over when a particular paragraph contains many of these initials. I was thinking of making a suggestion that someone familiar with all (or at least most) of these initials create a Glossary of them.
Thanks again,
Marc Riddell
on 3/26/07 10:52 PM, Dycedarg at darthvader1219@gmail.com wrote:
There's already a list of shortcuts at [[WP:WP]], and since all the TLAs we have are shortcuts it's pretty much the same thing. But there are so very many of them, that you're really better served by just typing the shortcut into the search box and seeing what comes up.
Thank you.
Marc
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 3/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I appreciate the sentiment behind trying to deal with this problem, since I often encounter abbreciations on this list that I need to puzzle over before giving my best guess. I don't think the hard line approach will help them. It's just not a winnable battle.
What I do is that I simply put in "WP:" plus the abbreviation/acronym in the search box and click Go. That will pretty much always give you the right answer. Take ASF, for instance. WP:ASF leads to the Avoid Self Reference policy page.
Actually not. WP:ASR does. I would still be puzzling over ASF. ;-)
Ec
On 3/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Actually not. WP:ASR does. I would still be puzzling over ASF. ;-)
Ohh... right... I meant that :)
Silly me :)
--Oskar
On 3/25/07, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
Associated Press reports that Citizendium will launch this week.
<snip>
It will be interesting to see what they actually deliver as opposed to talking about delivering.
<snip
My first click of the "random page" button brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Choosing_a_horse.
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever. They've even left in most of the image links and template calls, not to mention the great mass of red at the bottom where our interwiki links are.
-- Jonel
On 3/26/07, Nick Wilkins nlwilkins@gmail.com wrote:
My first click of the "random page" button brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Choosing_a_horse.
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever. They've even left in most of the image links and template calls, not to mention the great mass of red at the bottom where our interwiki links are.
I tried that too and found a bunch of pages taken directly from wikipedia without any attribution what so ever. It's probably likely that most of their 1000 or so articles are direct copies.
This is disgraceful. It's not like the Citizendium people doesn't understand the concept of free content. I mean, I would think proper attribution and non-copyright infringement was a big deal for them, but apparently not. It's not even so much the legality of this as the fact that they are trying to pass themselves off as "better" or "higher quality" and then they go and steal content our editors have worked hard at for months.
Initially I was positive to the project. You know, the more free content the better, it's a good thing to experiment with different editorial models. But if this is how it's going to work (did someone actually suggest relicensing wikipedia content under cc-by-nc so we couldn't use it?) I won't feel bad at all a year from now when they will be virtually forgotten.
"We are not Wikipedia", says Larry Sanger. That's right! And you never will be.
--Oskar
On 26/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
This is disgraceful. It's not like the Citizendium people doesn't understand the concept of free content.
Read the licensing thread on the forum:
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.0.html
It's clear that many of the contributors don't, or don't care.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
This is disgraceful. It's not like the Citizendium people doesn't understand the concept of free content.
Read the licensing thread on the forum:
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.0.htmlIt's clear that many of the contributors don't, or don't care.
That thread is rather appalling, particularly the number of seemingly senior people (including Larry?) who are willing to countenance blatant copyright violations. I have written a number of articles, which I've released freely under the GFDL. I do not give anyone permission to release my work under another license, such as cc-by-nc, and it is no more legal to do that than it is for Citizendium to take a random copyrighted book out of the library and purport to release it under cc-by-nc. If they wish to use my copyrighted material under the GFDL, I have given them permission to do so. If they wish to use it under any other license, they must contact me to make separate arrangements.
-Mark
On 26/03/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
This is disgraceful. It's not like the Citizendium people doesn't understand the concept of free content.
Read the licensing thread on the forum:
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.0.htmlIt's clear that many of the contributors don't, or don't care.
That thread is rather appalling, particularly the number of seemingly senior people (including Larry?) who are willing to countenance blatant copyright violations. I have written a number of articles, which I've released freely under the GFDL. I do not give anyone permission to release my work under another license, such as cc-by-nc, and it is no more legal to do that than it is for Citizendium to take a random copyrighted book out of the library and purport to release it under cc-by-nc. If they wish to use my copyrighted material under the GFDL, I have given them permission to do so. If they wish to use it under any other license, they must contact me to make separate arrangements.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From the forum:
Larry Sanger: "The conclusion you are trying to establish is that we cannot relicense our versions of Wikipedia articles with GFDL and CC. Why not? Does the GFDL explicitly forbid licensing works under another license in addition?"
Is he seriously suggesting that they can basically just license our works under whatever license they please as long as they also license it under the GFDL?
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
On 3/26/07, Vee vee.be.me@gmail.com wrote:
From the forum:
Larry Sanger: "The conclusion you are trying to establish is that we cannot relicense our versions of Wikipedia articles with GFDL and CC. Why not? Does the GFDL explicitly forbid licensing works under another license in addition?"
Is he seriously suggesting that they can basically just license our works under whatever license they please as long as they also license it under the GFDL?
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
It's baffling that the founder of this project has only a cursory knowledge of copyright, less than an experienced wikipedia editor.
However, what bothers me the most isn't necessarily the legalities, but the ethics of what they are doing. Wikipedia is a proud member of the free content movement, and we give our content away for free for others to use. We believe it is The Right Thing to Do. We didn't have to do it, but we did. They would like to take that content that we produced, modify it slightly, and then not release their content in the same way we have. Even though we did the majority of the work.
It's an absolute disgrace. The contributors to Citizendium should feel ashamed about what their founder and fellow editors are saying. I know I would, if I were in that situation.
--Oskar
On 26/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/07, Vee vee.be.me@gmail.com wrote:
From the forum:
Larry Sanger: "The conclusion you are trying to establish is that we
cannot
relicense our versions of Wikipedia articles with GFDL and CC. Why not? Does the GFDL explicitly forbid licensing works under another license in addition?"
Is he seriously suggesting that they can basically just license our
works
under whatever license they please as long as they also license it under
the
GFDL?
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic
copyright
issues... CZ is a joke.
It's baffling that the founder of this project has only a cursory knowledge of copyright, less than an experienced wikipedia editor.
However, what bothers me the most isn't necessarily the legalities, but the ethics of what they are doing. Wikipedia is a proud member of the free content movement, and we give our content away for free for others to use. We believe it is The Right Thing to Do. We didn't have to do it, but we did. They would like to take that content that we produced, modify it slightly, and then not release their content in the same way we have. Even though we did the majority of the work.
It's an absolute disgrace. The contributors to Citizendium should feel ashamed about what their founder and fellow editors are saying. I know I would, if I were in that situation.
--Oskar
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You've summed up exactly how I feel here. I don't care so much that CZ is copypasting from Wikipedia, per se, but that (from what I have read on their site) they are trying to do it in such a way that we won't be able to take back from them if we should want to. It's disgusting to think that they are trying to get a lift off the backs of hard-working Wikipedia editors without having to credit them for their work or use their work in the way it was intended. It's totally against the spirit of what we're trying to do here and is very underhanded and well, plain wrong. When I first heard of CZ I thought that it sounded like an interesting and potentially useful project but the more I see and hear of the attitudes of Larry Sanger and (it seems) a lot of the editors there, the more I think that it's ultimately going to fail. I hope that Sanger finds away to move on from his anti-Wikipedia grudge and considers things from the perspective of improving Citizendium, not harming Wikipedia.
As for their current licensing status, according to the site:
Articles that originated in part from Wikipedia are available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html. All new articles will be available under an open content license yet to be determined.
It's good that Wikipedia articles are going to keep their GFDL license, but I guess it remains to be seen if they're going to try to multi-license.
On Mar 26, 2007, at 12:19 PM, Vee wrote:
You've summed up exactly how I feel here. I don't care so much that CZ is copypasting from Wikipedia, per se, but that (from what I have read on their site) they are trying to do it in such a way that we won't be able to take back from them if we should want to. It's disgusting to think that they are trying to get a lift off the backs of hard-working Wikipedia editors without having to credit them for their work or use their work in the way it was intended. It's totally against the spirit of what we're trying to do here and is very underhanded and well, plain wrong.
My sense of reading the relevant thread is that this is not the case - Larry, at least, does not seem interested in blocking WP from using CZ content. Some CZ users do, but some CZ users are probably idiots.
-Phil
On 3/26/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
My sense of reading the relevant thread is that this is not the case
- Larry, at least, does not seem interested in blocking WP from using
CZ content. Some CZ users do, but some CZ users are probably idiots.
-Phil
I believe you're correct, and I'd also like to point out that the license for CZ-originated content has not yet been chosen (it has been conceded that Wikipedia-originated content must be GFDL).
If you feel strongly about this matter, please participate in the forums, or on the wiki, or send an email to Larry directly. I think he'll be willing to listen, because he doesn't seem to care a whole lot about the license.
Anthony
On 3/26/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/07, Vee vee.be.me@gmail.com wrote:
From the forum:
Larry Sanger: "The conclusion you are trying to establish is that we cannot relicense our versions of Wikipedia articles with GFDL and CC. Why not? Does the GFDL explicitly forbid licensing works under another license in addition?"
Is he seriously suggesting that they can basically just license our works under whatever license they please as long as they also license it under the GFDL?
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
It's baffling that the founder of this project has only a cursory knowledge of copyright, less than an experienced wikipedia editor.
I found this baffling as well, and when I called Larry on his lack of knowledge of the GFDL he replied that he was the one who chose the GFDL for Wikipedia!
My initial thought was "oh, so you're the one we have to blame for that - explains a lot that the person who chose the license for Wikipedia had no clue what it meant". My actual reply was a bit nicer, I believe.
All of this said, I believe Larry had a conversation with some higher-ups in the free content movement, and some of his misconceptions were cleared up. But he still thinks it might be a good idea to license Citizendium created content under CC-BY-NC (or is it CC-BY-NC-SA, he doesn't seem to understand the difference).
Anthony
On 26/03/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
All of this said, I believe Larry had a conversation with some higher-ups in the free content movement, and some of his misconceptions were cleared up. But he still thinks it might be a good idea to license Citizendium created content under CC-BY-NC (or is it CC-BY-NC-SA, he doesn't seem to understand the difference).
Does anything with NC count as an open content licence? It certainly doesn't for Wikimedia purposes.
- d.
On 3/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/03/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
All of this said, I believe Larry had a conversation with some higher-ups in the free content movement, and some of his misconceptions were cleared up. But he still thinks it might be a good idea to license Citizendium created content under CC-BY-NC (or is it CC-BY-NC-SA, he doesn't seem to understand the difference).
Does anything with NC count as an open content licence? It certainly doesn't for Wikimedia purposes.
Depends on who you talk to, I suppose. Anything with NC doesn't count as a free content license under the "Free Content and Expression Definition", which seems to have its website down at the moment.
I just found one of the more recent posts by Larry which suggests that he does now have a better understanding of the GFDL: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.msg5127.html#msg5127
Here's a post where he suggests he doesn't care so much what license is used: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.30.html
In another post he says that he's leaning toward CC-BY-NC, and in yet another he suggests that Citizendium is going to own the copyright on submissions by contributors. That one is pretty bold, so I looked up the message number: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,607.60.html
"What activities does by-nc restrict us from? We're the copyright holder. As such, we can do whatever we want with our own articles."
After Larry made a final call for discussion on the mailing list, I asked him what the procedure was for those of us who refused to license our content under CC-BY-NC - how could we go about removing our articles from Citizendium. He didn't really answer the question, but said that I was "the first person [he's] seen who's had such a strong negative reaction [to CC-BY-NC]". I pointed him to http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655 and http://freecontentdefinition.org/Licenses/NC (thanks Erik), and then two days later he announces that he's holding off on the license decision.
So once again I'll ask that if you care about this you let Larry know. Of course, if you just think CZ is going to fail anyway I guess you can save your time and not bother.
Anthony
Mark Wagner wrote - "I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms are the English Wikipedia's jargon."
They've already started their private vocabulary with "editors" versus "authors". Authors are the commoners, whereas editors are the ones with advanced degrees. In order to be an editor you're supposed to be tenure-track in your field and send in a CV. In addition, in order to "approve" an article, you must not only jump through the hoops of becoming an editor, you must be somehow certified an "expert" in that specific topic. It's not clear how specific your expertise has to be. Looking at the music articles and the music editors (my particular field of interest), there will not be an approved Citizendium article on a music topic in quite a long time.
On 3/26/07, Mak makwik@gmail.com wrote:
Mark Wagner wrote - "I look forward to seeing what sort of private jargon they wind up developing -- and if they realize that they've done so. Initialisms are the English Wikipedia's jargon."
They've already started their private vocabulary with "editors" versus "authors".
That's not exactly jargon specific to Citizendium. At pretty much any magazine, newspaper, or other publication, authors write articles, and editors edit them. That's plain English, not jargon.
The rules of who is allowed to write articles, and who is allowed to edit them, are specific to Citizendium, of course.
Anthony
On 3/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Does anything with NC count as an open content licence? It certainly doesn't for Wikimedia purposes.
Depends on the definition you are using. Under debian's no but then they (rightfully) reject pure GFDL as well.
Under Lawrence Lessig's definition they probably do
Under FSF's definition they don't but then FSF doesn't appear to have a problem with ND licenses for text.
Under the wikimedia commons definition (which is defacto the wikimedia definition) they don't (although like debian it looks like we are going to accept the 3.0 generation of CC licences in the end unless something changes).
On 26/03/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Under the wikimedia commons definition (which is defacto the wikimedia definition) they don't (although like debian it looks like we are going to accept the 3.0 generation of CC licences in the end unless something changes).
I thought we were accepting the variants that were free licenses, e.g. the US version but not the FR version.
- d.
On 3/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I thought we were accepting the variants that were free licenses, e.g. the US version but not the FR version.
Currently accepting none. The conversation appears to have died out for the time being.
On 26/03/07, Matthew Woodcraft matthew@woodcraft.me.uk wrote:
Vee wrote:
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.
Eh? I understood Wikipedia started with GFDL because Nupedia did.
- d.
On 3/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/03/07, Matthew Woodcraft matthew@woodcraft.me.uk wrote:
Vee wrote:
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.
Eh? I understood Wikipedia started with GFDL because Nupedia did.
Nupedia was intialy under the Nupedia Open Content License. Text copyright is delt with through the software for the most part and thus dispite the debates over [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]] is fairly simple.
Images are not and on our smaller projects tend to be a complete mess.
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/03/07, Matthew Woodcraft wrote:
Vee wrote:
I can't believe they've gone 'live' without even sorting out basic copyright issues... CZ is a joke.
It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.
Eh? I understood Wikipedia started with GFDL because Nupedia did.
Certainly it was said to be GFDL from the beginning.
But there was a good deal of discussion and disagreement during the first year or so about just what this meant, including:
- whether authors were transferring their copyright to Bomis (LMS thought so, IIRC);
- whether Bomis could change the licence to something else if it wished;
- whether Wikipedia was in fact satisfying its obligations under the GFDL (to provide transparent copies, attribution, and so forth);
- whether each page was a separate work under the GFDL;
- whether there was, or should be, an invariant section on every page containing a link back to Wikipedia.
The point is that a new, small project can in practice get away with fudging these issues for a while.
-M-
On 3/26/07, Matthew Woodcraft matthew@woodcraft.me.uk wrote:
It isn't so terribly shocking. After all, Wikipedia did the same.
There is a big difference. When wikipedia launched, it was very much an experiment. It wasn't really clear how the copyright-thing should work, free content was in its infancy. We've worked it out since then and now has an advanced and rigorous system for dealing with such issues. Citizendium doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, they can just look at wikipedia and see how we handle copyright. Wikipedia didn't have that luxury.
--Oskar
On 3/28/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
Citizendium doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, they can just look at wikipedia and see how we handle copyright.
How is it that Wikipedia handles copyright? And are you suggesting that there aren't any copyright violations on Wikipedia?
Citizendium has a firm policy to acknowledge Wikipedia when using text from Wikipedia in an article. In fact, when you edit any page there is a checkbox at the bottom which says that there is text from Wikipedia in the edit, and if you check the checkbox text acknowledging Wikipedia is given.
Not everyone follows these rules, of course. So just like on Wikipedia, there are copyright violations on Citizendium.
Anthony
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever. They've even left in most of the image links and template calls, not to mention the great mass of red at the bottom where our interwiki links are.
So Citizendium is a non-compliant mirror. What is our standard procedure for dealing with them?
On 3/26/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever. They've even left in most of the image links and template calls, not to mention the great mass of red at the bottom where our interwiki links are.
So Citizendium is a non-compliant mirror. What is our standard procedure for dealing with them?
Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#Citizendium
Thomas Dalton wrote:
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever. They've even left in most of the image links and template calls, not to mention the great mass of red at the bottom where our interwiki links are.
So Citizendium is a non-compliant mirror. What is our standard procedure for dealing with them?
Small, but important clarification: I'm pretty sure they would be considered a fork or sorts, not a mirror.
-Rich
Nick Wilkins schreef:
My second brought me to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Liechtenstein, which is clearly taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtensteinwithout any attribution whatsoever.
The article is now attributed to Wikipedia at the bottom. I believe this message ("This article uses content that originally appeared on Wikipedia.") is added automatically to revisions marked "from Wikipedia" (W) in the history.
I hope there is a CZ project working on tagging all pages derived from WP; if I could, I would help with that, but unfortunately I cannot get a CZ account.
Eugene