--- koyaanis qatsi <obchodnakorze(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
LittleDan Writes:
We shouldn't copy public domain sources
verbatim,
but it's fine to copy the information. We're not
just a dump site for words, only for ideas and
information.
well, a few points about that. Originally the idea
was to import the information as a base for an
article
that, with any luck, we'd expand. It's happened in
some cases, not in others.
A few problems with the original idea: 1, it forks
the
material; 2, sometimes information goes out of date
and with e.g. the CIA Factbook stuff it would be
easier to let them update it year by year, and have
us
just link to it.
A few benefits of the idea: 1, we have no guarantee
that the information will stay wherever it is
originally; 2, at least we'll have *something* on
big
topics like e.g. Chile when it's time to have a hard
copy of the 'pedia. I very much doubt we'd have
anything at all on e.g. [[Bhutan]] by this point if
not for the CIA stuff.
I guess you're right, but we should paraphrase
whenever possible. With very obscure topics, we
shouldn't jump to copy a PD source. I think a 2
paragraph stub is much better than a 20 paragraph
coppied thing.
What hard copy of the 'pedia? I think I missed that
discussion. In my opinion, an offline wiki database
reader and full search engine (but still only offline)
would be more useful.
A side point: arguing that we shouldn't have the
information because someone else has it is a
non-starter--if that were our rationale, we wouldn't
have any information that's available *anywhere*
else
online. I'm not saying *you* are arguing that, but
people sometimes do. Ideally, the wikipedia would
have information on everything under the sun, and be
as complete as possible.
You're right, that's not what I'm saying.
In effect, it is the same as copywrited sources
(except that we can copy the pictures from PD)
but I see nothing wrong with that.
I don't understand what you mean by this.
kq
We should have approximately the same policy for
copping directly PD and Copyrighted sources, but now I
guess in some circumstances we need to copy PD sources
--LittleDan
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