On 21/10/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I was wondering when someone was going to write that. :-)
"Lean how to contribute to Wikipedia, the popular user-generated online reference that has become serious competition for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia: The Missing Manual gives you practical advice on how to create articles and collaborate with fellow editors, how to improve existing articles, and how to work with the Wikipedia community to review new articles, mediate disputes, and maintain the site."
Looks exactly the sort of approach it should be taking...
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but "missing manual"? We have excellent help pages that will guide a newbie through everything from just starting to writing featured articles to resolving the most entrenched disputes. [[Help:Tutorial]] is an excellent place to start.
This is one manual that is not missing.
--Oskar
On 21/10/2007, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but "missing manual"? We have excellent help pages that will guide a newbie through everything from just starting to writing featured articles to resolving the most entrenched disputes. [[Help:Tutorial]] is an excellent place to start. This is one manual that is not missing.
"The missing man page", perhaps?
- d.
On 10/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but "missing manual"? We have excellent help pages that will guide a newbie through everything from just starting to writing featured articles to resolving the most entrenched disputes. [[Help:Tutorial]] is an excellent place to start.
It's nothing personal. They have one for eBay too :)
On 10/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but "missing manual"? We have excellent help pages that will guide a newbie through everything from just starting to writing featured articles to resolving the most entrenched disputes. [[Help:Tutorial]] is an excellent place to start.
We have help pages, but with all due respect to the people who wrote them, they are not "excellent". Compare our tutorial to the one created by WikiEducator:
http://wikieducator.org/Help:Contents
That one contains audio messages and screencasts, and is pedagogically structured with objectives, activities, and assessments. When I organize wiki workshops, I usually point people to this as a reference, rather than our own internal help.
On 21/10/2007, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm sorry, but "missing manual"? We have excellent help pages that will guide a newbie through everything from just starting to writing featured articles to resolving the most entrenched disputes. [[Help:Tutorial]] is an excellent place to start.
We have help pages, but with all due respect to the people who wrote them, they are not "excellent". Compare our tutorial to the one created by WikiEducator:
http://wikieducator.org/Help:Contents
That one contains audio messages and screencasts, and is pedagogically structured with objectives, activities, and assessments. When I organize wiki workshops, I usually point people to this as a reference, rather than our own internal help.
I think Wikimedia in general (although I'm only thinking of en.wikipedia, commons and MediaWiki) isn't very good at producing very good help and documentation. I think it's because writing this kind of documentation seems dull next to using our time to produce content. What could be done to improve our documentation and recruit more people to documentation/help-writing?
d. wrote:
Ooohh, fun! So now instead of trying to figure out the real-life identity of a Wikipedia editor, we've got the inverse problem: find the Wikipedia username of a real-life person! :-) (Not that it's at all hard in this case.)
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I think a better choice for the cover animal should have been a rooster (cock) with a line through it :)
John Broughton? Isn't he the guy with the two musical things after his name?
Phoenix 15
Aha!
That's his sig -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yourname#CSD_Tagging And that's his page -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:John_Broughton
Phoenix 15
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual"
Did he get permission to use the Wikipedia trademark in his book title? If not, I say threaten to sue unless he releases the book under a free content license. I'm serious.
Anthony wrote:
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual"
Did he get permission to use the Wikipedia trademark in his book title? If not, I say threaten to sue unless he releases the book under a free content license. I'm serious.
IANAL, but I believe that you can't stop people from talking about you by demanding they not use your trademarked name.
Given that O'Reilly already publishes a number of books that are also available under free-content licenses, you might do better through polite requests than legal threats. Depending on their sales curve, opening it up at some point could well give them a nice sales boost.
William
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual"
Did he get permission to use the Wikipedia trademark in his book title? If not, I say threaten to sue unless he releases the book under a free content license. I'm serious.
IANAL, but I believe that you can't stop people from talking about you by demanding they not use your trademarked name.
No, you certainly can't. But whether or not you can stop people from using your trademark as the title of their book is a completely different question.
Given that O'Reilly already publishes a number of books that are also available under free-content licenses, you might do better through polite requests than legal threats.
I doubt it. Best strategy would probably be thinly veiled legal threats disguised as politeness.
Depending on their sales curve, opening it up at some point could well give them a nice sales boost.
Maybe, maybe not. Using Wikipedia in the title surely provides a nice sales boost, though.
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
Someone please remove me from this mailing list. I tried to use my account actions, but it says my password is wrong. I requested a password be mailed to this e-mail address, but it has not arrived. Please remove me from en-wiki. Thank you.
KP
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 10/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"Wikipedia: The Missing Manual"
Did he get permission to use the Wikipedia trademark in his book title? If not, I say threaten to sue unless he releases the book under a free content license. I'm serious.
Given that O'Reilly already publishes a number of books that are also
available under free-content licenses, you might do better through polite requests than legal threats.
I doubt it. Best strategy would probably be thinly veiled legal threats disguised as politeness.
Depending on their sales curve, opening it up at some point could well give them a nice sales boost.
Maybe, maybe not. Using Wikipedia in the title surely provides a nice sales boost, though.
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
Um. Are you serious about this? Please, don't tell me you are.
Michel
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Depending on their sales curve, opening it up at some point could well give them a nice sales boost.
Maybe, maybe not. Using Wikipedia in the title surely provides a nice sales boost, though.
Um. It's a book about Wikipedia. Not including "Wikipedia" in the title would be somewhat awesomely counterproductive, rather than just missing out on a "sales boost".
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it; and I can't see the Foundation saying otherwise to anyone who contacted them.
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here. A book has been published about how to contribute to Wikipedia and some are worrying about whether we should threaten them for using "Wikipedia" in the title?
Such a book could only help Wikipedia. Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
On 21/10/2007, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here. A book has been published about how to contribute to Wikipedia and some are worrying about whether we should threaten them for using "Wikipedia" in the title?
Such a book could only help Wikipedia. Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
Ho hmm. To clarify, by "people stopped using it", I meant people stopped using the name (not that people stopped using the software). For Debian (and other hard-FLOSS projects), Firefox's policy on the usage of their name was too non-free and it needed to be changed (to ColdWeasel, I believe).
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here.
The problem is that this book isn't free content.
A book has been published about how to contribute to Wikipedia and some are worrying about whether we should threaten them for using "Wikipedia" in the title?
I'm the only one commenting on that, and I wasn't worrying about it, I was suggesting it. Of course, Andrew Gray says it's not a viable plan anyway.
Such a book could only help Wikipedia.
If it were free content it'd help Wikipedia even more, though.
Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
This has nothing to do with Firefox.
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here.
The problem is that this book isn't free content.
A book has been published about how to contribute to Wikipedia and some are worrying about whether we should threaten them for using "Wikipedia" in the title?
I'm the only one commenting on that, and I wasn't worrying about it, I was suggesting it. Of course, Andrew Gray says it's not a viable plan anyway.
Such a book could only help Wikipedia.
If it were free content it'd help Wikipedia even more, though.
On those counts, I agree with you - it would be far better if it were free content (and perhaps Wikimedia could start such a project?). But while proprietory knowledge exists and is so prevalent, I think an extra book (whether proprietory or, preferably, free) helps.
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Such a book could only help Wikipedia.
If it were free content it'd help Wikipedia even more, though.
On those counts, I agree with you - it would be far better if it were free content (and perhaps Wikimedia could start such a project?). But while proprietory knowledge exists and is so prevalent, I think an extra book (whether proprietory or, preferably, free) helps.
I don't know that a proprietary book helps all that much. How many newbies are going to shell out $27 for a PDF or $40 for a print version of this? Free content would help a *lot* more, and *if* the WMF is in a legal position where they could force it to happen, I think they should.
If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell." Too bad.
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Such a book could only help Wikipedia.
If it were free content it'd help Wikipedia even more, though.
On those counts, I agree with you - it would be far better if it were free content (and perhaps Wikimedia could start such a project?). But while proprietory knowledge exists and is so prevalent, I think an extra book (whether proprietory or, preferably, free) helps.
I don't know that a proprietary book helps all that much. How many newbies are going to shell out $27 for a PDF or $40 for a print version of this? Free content would help a *lot* more, and *if* the WMF is in a legal position where they could force it to happen, I think they should.
If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell." Too bad.
Contrary to some perceptions, it is not unreasonable for someone who invests the time and money to write a book to then expect to make money off of it. Talk of "forcing" them to make this work free content is tantamount to robbery and ridiculously unethical in my opinion.
-Robert Rohde
On 10/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
Contrary to some perceptions, it is not unreasonable for someone who invests the time and money to write a book to then expect to make money off of it.
Of course it isn't. Whose perceptions do you think say it is?
Talk of "forcing" them to make this work free content is tantamount to robbery and ridiculously unethical in my opinion.
Talk is tantamount to robbery? Give me a break.
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
Contrary to some perceptions, it is not unreasonable for someone who
invests
the time and money to write a book to then expect to make money off of
it.
Of course it isn't. Whose perceptions do you think say it is?
Your's, when you suggest that they should be "forced" into making their writing free content which would deprive them of most of the commercial value of their work.
Talk of "forcing" them to make this work free content is tantamount to robbery and ridiculously unethical in my opinion.
Talk is tantamount to robbery? Give me a break.
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would be equivalent to robbery.
-Robert Rohde
On 10/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
Contrary to some perceptions, it is not unreasonable for someone who
invests
the time and money to write a book to then expect to make money off of
it.
Of course it isn't. Whose perceptions do you think say it is?
Your's, when you suggest that they should be "forced" into making their writing free content which would deprive them of most of the commercial value of their work.
I think you've mischaracterized what I said.
Talk of "forcing" them to make this work free content is tantamount to robbery and ridiculously unethical in my opinion.
Talk is tantamount to robbery? Give me a break.
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would be equivalent to robbery.
Well, I said they should be forced to make their work free content only if it can be done legally, which would make it quite distinct from robbery, which is illegal.
I find it interesting though that'd you'd equate enforcement of trademark law to robbery.
Anthony wrote:
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would be equivalent to robbery.
Well, I said they should be forced to make their work free content only if it can be done legally, which would make it quite distinct from robbery, which is illegal.
I find it interesting though that'd you'd equate enforcement of trademark law to robbery.
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
If trademark law were badly written, it might still be legal to take this guy's work through threat of lawsuit. However, that would still still be wrong, as it's not our property and he hasn't harmed us. Certainly not in a way that requires him to give us months of work in recompense.
William
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would be equivalent to robbery.
Well, I said they should be forced to make their work free content only if it can be done legally, which would make it quite distinct from robbery, which is illegal.
I find it interesting though that'd you'd equate enforcement of trademark law to robbery.
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
If trademark law were badly written, it might still be legal to take this guy's work through threat of lawsuit. However, that would still still be wrong, as it's not our property and he hasn't harmed us. Certainly not in a way that requires him to give us months of work in recompense.
I don't really see it as requiring him to give us anything, just requiring him not to sue any of us, in exchange for the WMF agreeing not to sue him.
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would be equivalent to robbery.
Well, I said they should be forced to make their work free content only if it can be done legally, which would make it quite distinct from robbery, which is illegal.
I find it interesting though that'd you'd equate enforcement of trademark law to robbery.
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
That is horrifying. Is this idea prevalent in any particular demographic sector that you consider yourself a part of?
On 21/10/2007, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
That is horrifying. Is this idea prevalent in any particular demographic sector that you consider yourself a part of?
I ask everyone foolishly responding to this thread to let it die under the weight of its own silliness.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
I ask everyone foolishly responding to this thread to let it die under the weight of its own silliness.
Hah. Thanks for the gentle reminder. I understand why I have a weakness for chocolate cake, but I've never quite grasped why I feel compelled to argue with people who say obviously insane things.
William
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
I ask everyone foolishly responding to this thread to let it die under the weight of its own silliness.
Hah. Thanks for the gentle reminder. I understand why I have a weakness for chocolate cake, but I've never quite grasped why I feel compelled to argue with people who say obviously insane things.
William
Ha, ahh. Done.
Now I want some cake! :D
Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion
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 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
Always? Really? Even if you hold a gun to my head to do it? Free content is good end, but if you have to use immoral means to accomplish it then it is not a good thing.
-Robert Rohde
On 10/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
Always? Really? Even if you hold a gun to my head to do it?
No, I guess not. A copyright notice is only a legal threat, not an actual act of force, so you'd only be justified in using legal threats against it.
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Of course what I meant is that actually forcing them to do so would
be
equivalent to robbery.
Well, I said they should be forced to make their work free content only if it can be done legally, which would make it quite distinct from robbery, which is illegal.
I find it interesting though that'd you'd equate enforcement of trademark law to robbery.
There is legal and there is right, and you shouldn't confuse the two.
I think I've been incredibly careful during this discussion in distinguishing between the two. In my opinion it's always right to force someone to release their work under a free license. Only some of the time it's legal, though.
Whoa.. that is in no way right. People shouldn't have to release something they spent time and effort on for free.
Do people honestly think that you have to get permission from the subject of a book before you write about it? What weird intellectual-property brainwashing must have gone on there.
And yes, forcing people to give away something they have worked for is robbery, and in my opinion morally wrong. If it were legal (which clearly it isn't) it would still be wrong. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
Trademark means other people can't start an encyclopedia and call it Wikipedia, or use the logo to imply the foundation supports something they don't etc. It doesn't mean you need permission from the foundation to utter the phrase, or write it down. This is a good thing. Freedom of speech, expression etc.
I'm a little frightened by some of the views in this thread... Seems like people, given a tiny pretense of ownership of IP will immediately take on the most extreme views. We aren't the foundation, and trademark law does not allow people to stop a open discourse about a topic. Thank goodness.
On 10/21/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
Do people honestly think that you have to get permission from the subject of a book before you write about it?
Asked and answered three or four times now. No, people don't honestly think that.
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
Do people honestly think that you have to get permission from the subject of a book before you write about it?
Asked and answered three or four times now. No, people don't honestly think that.
Well, you seem to think they have done something wrong, that can be used as leverage to strip them of their rights. If it's not writing without permission what is it?
cohesion wrote:
Do people honestly think that you have to get permission from the subject of a book before you write about it? What weird intellectual-property brainwashing must have gone on there.
...
Trademark means other people can't start an encyclopedia and call it Wikipedia, or use the logo to imply the foundation supports something they don't etc. It doesn't mean you need permission from the foundation to utter the phrase, or write it down. This is a good thing. Freedom of speech, expression etc.
I'm a little frightened by some of the views in this thread... Seems like people, given a tiny pretense of ownership of IP will immediately take on the most extreme views. We aren't the foundation, and trademark law does not allow people to stop a open discourse about a topic. Thank goodness.
Indeed. Copyright law is bad enough, but it would be worse to live under a copyright law the way some people around here describe it.
Ec
If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell." Too bad.
(IANAL)
I shall refer you to our own article [[Trademark]] which provides a link to "Fair Use of Trademarks" (http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html) .
The work is not contributing to the dilution of the trademark, it is not disparaging, it does not turn the trademark into a noun or verb or plural form, the trademark stand out as such. It otherwise fulfill requirement for "nominative use" of another's trademark, including the work "does nothing that would, in conjunction with the trademark, suggest to the reader sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner". I'm also pretty sure that there would be disclaimer about who own the Wikipedia trademark inside the book, not endorsement etc.
It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people, organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise about our right to do this.
I think the title of an encyclopedia article is significantly different from the title of a book. "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" strikes me as something created by Wikipedia. When I saw the title to this thread, that's what I thought it was going to be. Even "The Missing Manual: Wikipedia" would be less confusing in my opinion. So I figured from this that trademark law would apply.
Only because you're familiar with the web page title of a Wikipedia's article. If you look at the article book, no reasonable person would be confuse by it being an article rather than a book that describe Wikipedia (or eBay or ...).
We're also not talking just the title of a Wikipedia's article. We use the name in the title, we use it multiple time within the article, we (at least a sizeable portion) fight for the fair use of their logo and what not in the article in describing them. It's not any different here. In our article, we talk about a company, a company product etc. Here, the book talk about how someone would go about editing Wikipedia.
Just because you might not agree with someone writing a book that's not free content doesn't mean we can have different interpretation of fair use applying to our use of someone else's IP and someone else use of our project IP.
Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
This has nothing to do with Firefox.
We're talking about another use of one's trademark, it's not as far apart in concept as you might otherwise suggest.
KTC
I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
On 10/21/07, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell." Too bad.
(IANAL)
I shall refer you to our own article [[Trademark]] which provides a link to "Fair Use of Trademarks" (http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html) .
The work is not contributing to the dilution of the trademark, it is not disparaging, it does not turn the trademark into a noun or verb or plural form, the trademark stand out as such. It otherwise fulfill requirement for "nominative use" of another's trademark, including the work "does nothing that would, in conjunction with the trademark, suggest to the reader sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner". I'm also pretty sure that there would be disclaimer about who own the Wikipedia trademark inside the book, not endorsement etc.
It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people, organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise about our right to do this.
I think the title of an encyclopedia article is significantly different from the title of a book. "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" strikes me as something created by Wikipedia. When I saw the title to this thread, that's what I thought it was going to be. Even "The Missing Manual: Wikipedia" would be less confusing in my opinion. So I figured from this that trademark law would apply.
Only because you're familiar with the web page title of a Wikipedia's article. If you look at the article book, no reasonable person would be confuse by it being an article rather than a book that describe Wikipedia (or eBay or ...).
We're also not talking just the title of a Wikipedia's article. We use the name in the title, we use it multiple time within the article, we (at least a sizeable portion) fight for the fair use of their logo and what not in the article in describing them. It's not any different here. In our article, we talk about a company, a company product etc. Here, the book talk about how someone would go about editing Wikipedia.
Just because you might not agree with someone writing a book that's not free content doesn't mean we can have different interpretation of fair use applying to our use of someone else's IP and someone else use of our project IP.
Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
This has nothing to do with Firefox.
We're talking about another use of one's trademark, it's not as far apart in concept as you might otherwise suggest.
KTC
-- Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine
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Okay, wow. I'm stupid. Scratch that last post. (est. publication Dec 2007)
On 10/21/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
On 10/21/07, Kwan Ting Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
If the WMF isn't in such a legal position, then I go back to my comment earlier: "Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell." Too bad.
(IANAL)
I shall refer you to our own article [[Trademark]] which provides a link
to "Fair Use of Trademarks" (http://www.publaw.com/fairusetrade.html) .
The work is not contributing to the dilution of the trademark, it is not disparaging, it does not turn the trademark into a noun or verb or plural form, the trademark stand out as such. It otherwise fulfill requirement for "nominative use" of another's trademark, including the work "does nothing that would, in conjunction with the trademark, suggest to the reader sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner". I'm also pretty sure that there would be disclaimer about who own the Wikipedia trademark inside the book, not endorsement etc.
It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people, organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise about our right to do this.
I think the title of an encyclopedia article is significantly different from the title of a book. "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" strikes me as something created by Wikipedia. When I saw the title to this thread, that's what I thought it was going to be. Even "The Missing Manual: Wikipedia" would be less confusing in my opinion. So I figured from this that trademark law would apply.
Only because you're familiar with the web page title of a Wikipedia's article. If you look at the article book, no reasonable person would be confuse by it being an article rather than a book that describe Wikipedia (or eBay or ...).
We're also not talking just the title of a Wikipedia's article. We use the name in the title, we use it multiple time within the article, we (at least a sizeable portion) fight for the fair use of their logo and what not in the article in describing them. It's not any different here.
In our article, we talk about a company, a company product etc. Here, the book talk about how someone would go about editing Wikipedia.
Just because you might not agree with someone writing a book that's not free content doesn't mean we can have different interpretation of fair use applying to our use of someone else's IP and someone else use of our project IP.
Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian)
who does that help?
This has nothing to do with Firefox.
We're talking about another use of one's trademark, it's not as far apart in concept as you might otherwise suggest.
KTC
-- Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine
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If it becomes notable, how will we get around the name? If we put it in as is it'll go in the Wikipedia namespace
On 21/10/2007, Vee vee.be.me@gmail.com wrote:
If it becomes notable, how will we get around the name? If we put it in as is it'll go in the Wikipedia namespace
Ha!
"Wikipedia space colon space the space missing space manual" would be the correct bibliographic form for the name, so we can always fall back on that :-)
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Vee vee.be.me@gmail.com wrote:
If it becomes notable, how will we get around the name? If we put it in as is it'll go in the Wikipedia namespace
Ha!
"Wikipedia space colon space the space missing space manual" would be the correct bibliographic form for the name, so we can always fall back on that :-)
Everyone's hot and bothered about this "book deal", but the big question is why the foundation never thought of publishing a (paper) book about Wikipedia. Or maybe the idea occurred but there was a significant consensus that "nobody would fucking buy it".
Anyway I meant to talk about namespace collisions...
I noticed a while ago that there is a template for collisions like that, see [[Help:A Day in the Life]] (which is actually about an album). The link works properly when linked to as a redirect, but topics whose proper titles start with an interwiki prefix are not so lucky (and there are a few of them).
In theory you could work around that by going to the other site and adding a redirect back to the (crudely approximated) title of the article on en.wikipedia, but the people there will probably ask "what the hell that was all about" while deleting the redirect.
—C.W.
On 2007.10.21 14:22:10 -0700, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com scribbled 0 lines:
I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
That's a good question. Someone should email the author and see if he'll release a preview version so we can point out any errors or bad points which could be improved.
Not to mention it'd give us a head-start on any specific outstanding problems he covers. It'd be unfotunate if a popular hardcover book immortalizes a stupid edit or other infelicity that could've been fixed with a trivial bit of coding or a minute or two of editing...
On 10/21/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
This had just occurred to me as well... I'm not so concerned about it being wrong at the time of publication, I'm more concerned that, as a printed work, it won't be evolving along with Wikipedia policy and practices which have a tendency to change and grow quite rapidly in certain areas. Parts of the book will be useless within a month of its publication, and at least half of it will likely be outdated within 6-12 months.
So, this time next year, we'll have to deal with hordes of people who joined the project because of the book quoting it as policy in discussions when the relevant policy has been updated. Boy, I'm cynical.
--Darkwind
On 21/10/2007, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
So, this time next year, we'll have to deal with hordes of people who joined the project because of the book quoting it as policy in discussions when the relevant policy has been updated. Boy, I'm cynical.
The author appears to be of good will, and so I don't expect it to be insane ;-)
In fact, that's quite a marvellous trick for reshaping reality. Wish I'd thought of it.
- d.
On 21/10/2007, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
I've only got one question, and its the only one that matters...
Has anyone read the thing? Is it correct? What happens if the manual contradicts Help pages or, God forbid, policy?
Well, my guess is that it does in some places - how on earth could it not when our own "Wikipedia" pages could be any random inconsistent decree at any given time even on the policy or "approved" pages.
I'd be curious to see if this book defines some of the common Wikipedia terms that someone else in this thread describes here as being newspeak (actually, I think the way Wikipedia treats words like "consensus" is worse than newspeak; it's not that the words are given another meaning or given a good/bad connotation - it's that they can mean anything that the people using them want them to).
Personally, I'm hoping the book finds its way into my Uni library! I don't have any problem with people charging money for their work, but I'd prefer not to pay :-) There - a more honest rationale than a lot of the "free" ideological stuff!
Zoney
Zoney wrote:
I'd be curious to see if this book defines some of the common Wikipedia terms that someone else in this thread describes here as being newspeak (actually, I think the way Wikipedia treats words like "consensus" is worse than newspeak; it's not that the words are given another meaning or given a good/bad connotation - it's that they can mean anything that the people using them want them to).
Or whatever will most successfully propagate the notion that resistance is futile. Policy discussions quickly exhaust the majority, leaving a handful of enthusiastic individuals plenty of latitude for deceiving themselves into believing that their schemes are widely accepted.
Ec
Oldak Quill wrote:
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here. A book has been published about how to contribute to Wikipedia and some are worrying about whether we should threaten them for using "Wikipedia" in the title?
Such a book could only help Wikipedia. Firefox became too concerned with their name and it's usage, and people stopped using it (Debian) - who does that help?
I think the goal was that the book would be released under a free license and not sold for profit, not simply to litigate willy-nilly.
At any rate, as has been said, fair use in U.S. trademark law covers this instance fully. The Foundation has no standing to force the publisher to do anything. You can read more about U.S. trademark law at [[United States trademark law]].
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
...at least, I'm fairly sure they aren't!
It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people, organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise about our right to do this. How come we should get antsy when someone uses our name to write about us?
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, for all I know they've already gotten permission. Who would be the one to contact about this?
No idea. But they don't need permission; they are under no legal or moral or ethical obligation to ask for it;
Wow, I'm rather surprised by that. Ohwell.
...at least, I'm fairly sure they aren't!
It strikes me that we have made our project by writing an encyclopedia; we write about anything and everything - people, organisations, products - without ever asking permission to do so or to use their name, and indeed we aggressively make a lot of noise about our right to do this.
I think the title of an encyclopedia article is significantly different from the title of a book. "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual" strikes me as something created by Wikipedia. When I saw the title to this thread, that's what I thought it was going to be. Even "The Missing Manual: Wikipedia" would be less confusing in my opinion. So I figured from this that trademark law would apply.
How come we should get antsy when someone uses our name to write about us?
I don't suggest getting antsy. I'm just saying if we can force someone creating a non-free book to make that book free, we should do so.
Now, you're saying you don't think that's possible, that trademark law doesn't apply here. And the fact that there's a "Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual" without any TM or (R)'s on it suggests that maybe you're right. Although, with Wikipedia it's still kind of different (more confusing), because Wikipedia is the title of a series of written works.
Anthony wrote:
Now, you're saying you don't think that's possible, that trademark law doesn't apply here. And the fact that there's a "Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual" without any TM or (R)'s on it suggests that maybe you're right. Although, with Wikipedia it's still kind of different (more confusing), because Wikipedia is the title of a series of written works.
AFAIK, the "™" and "®" symbols have no particular legal standing even when used by the trademark holders themselves; they're just a commonly understood flag one can wave if one chooses to let people know what you've trademarked. Third parties are under no obligation to use them and I remove them from articles whenever I see them (unless of course the article is talking specifically about those symbols).
So, this time next year, we'll have to deal with hordes of people who joined the project because of the book quoting it as policy in discussions when the relevant policy has been updated. Boy, I'm cynical.
I'd tend to agree. We might even have to create a whole new disclaimers/guideline explicitly saying that Wikimedia didn't endorse this book and that quoting it as "the truth" doesn't mean squat.
On 10/21/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Now, you're saying you don't think that's possible, that trademark law doesn't apply here. And the fact that there's a "Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual" without any TM or (R)'s on it suggests that maybe you're right. Although, with Wikipedia it's still kind of different (more confusing), because Wikipedia is the title of a series of written works.
AFAIK, the "™" and "(R)" symbols have no particular legal standing even when used by the trademark holders themselves; they're just a commonly understood flag one can wave if one chooses to let people know what you've trademarked. Third parties are under no obligation to use them and I remove them from articles whenever I see them (unless of course the article is talking specifically about those symbols).
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So, this time next year, we'll have to deal with hordes of people who joined the project because of the book quoting it as policy in discussions when the relevant policy has been updated. Boy, I'm cynical.
I'd tend to agree. We might even have to create a whole new disclaimers/guideline explicitly saying that Wikimedia didn't endorse this book and that quoting it as "the truth" doesn't mean squat.
If the book is any good it'll point that out itself, along with the fact that this is true of the policy pages on Wikipedia itself.
In that sense I could see the book going two completely different ways - it could focus on quoting policy pages as written, or it could instead focus on the de facto power structure and the concept of "ignore all rules". The latter would be much more interesting.
On 21/10/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
So, this time next year, we'll have to deal with hordes of people who joined the project because of the book quoting it as policy in discussions when the relevant policy has been updated. Boy, I'm cynical.
I'd tend to agree. We might even have to create a whole new disclaimers/guideline explicitly saying that Wikimedia didn't endorse this book and that quoting it as "the truth" doesn't mean squat.
If the book is any good it'll point that out itself, along with the fact that this is true of the policy pages on Wikipedia itself.
In that sense I could see the book going two completely different ways
- it could focus on quoting policy pages as written, or it could
instead focus on the de facto power structure and the concept of "ignore all rules". The latter would be much more interesting.
I don't think we need to worry about it rewriting abstract matters of policy on us; the bulk of any book like this is going to be "At the top of the page, there is a 'history' tab". There's unlikely to be much we need to worry being quoted against us; practical not procedural advice.
Really, most users will have very little interaction with the wonderful world of our Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and the book synopsis reflects that.
"...gives you practical advice on how to create articles and collaborate with fellow editors, how to improve existing articles, and how to work with the Wikipedia community to review new articles, mediate disputes, and maintain the site.
* Basic editing techniques, including the right and wrong ways to edit * Pinpoint advice about which types of articles do and do not belong on Wikipedia * Ways to work with page histories and how to use the site's "talk pages" * How to use templates and time-saving automated editing tools * Tools for fighting spam and vandalism
..."
So four "practical" aspects, two of which veer into community interaction, and one "theological" one.
The target audience for this isn't rule-lawyers looking for a new trick; it's people who've heard of us and like the idea but have no idea how to contribute. It's *exactly* the sort of thing we want for opening up new groups of editors.
Wikipedia: The Missing Manual Appendix A - How the Wikipedia community responds if you write a book on editing Wikipedia
;-)
On 10/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Really, most users will have very little interaction with the wonderful world of our Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and the book synopsis reflects that.
Really? I think many users are introduced to Wikipedia's "idiosyncrasies" quite early on. Upload an image? Get hit with 20 canned messages on your talk page telling you why it's about to be deleted (which often don't even apply to the particular situation). Create a new page? Welcome to the world of speedy deletions or AfD. What's "rv" mean? How come you're allowed to do it but I'm not? Why can't I edit this article about myself? I'm have a PHD in Quantum Physics, why do I need to cite a reliable source to correct this obviously incorrect crap that some moron put in this article? What do you mean "no consensus for this change"?
There should be a chapter just on Wikipedia newspeak. Forget everything you know about the meaning of the word "consensus" or "notable". Wikipedians pretty much never use the term in this sense.
"How many experts have been driven away by the agressivity of some of our members ? How many new editors just were discouraged by the difficulty of editing a table or a template ? How many newbies were blocked because they just did not understood quickly enough how to use a talk page ?" This book could almost be the answer to these musings of Anthere. If only it were free :).
"...gives you practical advice on how to create articles and collaborate with fellow editors, how to improve existing articles, and how to work with the Wikipedia community to review new articles, mediate disputes, and maintain the site.
* Basic editing techniques, including the right and wrong ways to edit * Pinpoint advice about which types of articles do and do notbelong on Wikipedia * Ways to work with page histories and how to use the site's "talk pages" * How to use templates and time-saving automated editing tools * Tools for fighting spam and vandalism
..."
So four "practical" aspects, two of which veer into community interaction, and one "theological" one.
The target audience for this isn't rule-lawyers looking for a new trick; it's people who've heard of us and like the idea but have no idea how to contribute. It's *exactly* the sort of thing we want for opening up new groups of editors.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that it was for rule-lawyers looking for a new trick. On the contrary, I would hope the target audience was good-faith-contributors who need to learn how to deal with the rule-lawyers.
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Really? I think many users are introduced to Wikipedia's "idiosyncrasies" quite early on. Upload an image? Get hit with 20 canned messages on your talk page telling you why it's about to be deleted
That's why I think that one of the qualifications for posting such messages should be the ability to convert oxygen into CO2.
On Sun, 2007-10-21 at 19:38 -0400, Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Really? I think many users are introduced to Wikipedia's "idiosyncrasies" quite early on. Upload an image? Get hit with 20 canned messages on your talk page telling you why it's about to be deleted
That's why I think that one of the qualifications for posting such messages should be the ability to convert oxygen into CO2.
And the race to build a machine (robot) that can convert O2 into CO2 with the ability to post said messages on Wikipedia begins.
:)
KTC
Kwan Ting Chan wrote:
On Sun, 2007-10-21 at 19:38 -0400, Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Really? I think many users are introduced to Wikipedia's "idiosyncrasies" quite early on. Upload an image? Get hit with 20 canned messages on your talk page telling you why it's about to be deleted
That's why I think that one of the qualifications for posting such messages should be the ability to convert oxygen into CO2.
And the race to build a machine (robot) that can convert O2 into CO2 with the ability to post said messages on Wikipedia begins.
:)
KTC
Oh. Then my guesses about what he meant were wrong. I suspected that the chemical conversion had to do with burning the books.
Ec
On 22/10/2007, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Really? I think many users are introduced to Wikipedia's "idiosyncrasies" quite early on. Upload an image? Get hit with 20 canned messages on your talk page telling you why it's about to be deleted
That's why I think that one of the qualifications for posting such messages should be the ability to convert oxygen into CO2.
Or to be able to do this: http://xkcd.com/329/
On 10/21/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Now, you're saying you don't think that's possible, that trademark law doesn't apply here. And the fact that there's a "Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual" without any TM or (R)'s on it suggests that maybe you're right. Although, with Wikipedia it's still kind of different (more confusing), because Wikipedia is the title of a series of written works.
AFAIK, the "™" and "(R)" symbols have no particular legal standing even when used by the trademark holders themselves; they're just a commonly understood flag one can wave if one chooses to let people know what you've trademarked. Third parties are under no obligation to use them and I remove them from articles whenever I see them (unless of course the article is talking specifically about those symbols).
What I'm saying is that if Microsoft had given permission to ORLY to use its trademark, they would have probably insisted on including TM or (R). Since ORLY didn't use those symbols, they probably were using the mark without permission. (The converse wouldn't be valid, though).
Incidentally, though, doesn't the use of a trademark, by the trademark holder, without an identifying symbol, promote losing the mark to genericide?