On 28 Jan 2005, at 2:39 pm, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: Judging from all the conflicting information on the net, a lot of it from reputable sources, it seems anything but clear. I've yet to see one person cite a conclusive source in regard to law. There is the argument that anything published is copyrighted unless stated otherwise, however it is possible that the very word "release" could be construed as such a statement. Who knows? I don't. And nobody I've discussed this with on Wikimedia, so far, seems to know either. If the status of press releases proves to be inconclusive then, yes, it clearly would not be a good idea for Wikimedia to be publishing them. However, if it were proven that press releases were compatible with Wikimedia licences, far from being absurd, I think there's a very good argument for publishing them on Wikisource, so they can be linked to from Wikinews articles. It's worth noting that current Wikisource policy does not preclude press releases from being published (save for probable copyright issues), and reasons to publish them on Wikisource as opposed to simply linking to them externally are the usual suspects, we don't have control over them; they could disappear or be edited. Over recent years, as a reader of news on the internet, I have found it extremely beneficial to refer to press releases; to make my own judgements; to read exactly what the prime minister said rather than what some other person believes she meant. Historically this ability has been reserved for journalists, one reason being that traditional mediums, such as newspapers, simply do not have the room. We obviously don't have this restriction. The idea that news readers should be sheltered from press releases by groups of people with superior powers of deduction is elitist (can the masses be allowed to decipher the world for themselves?) and flies in the face of the goals of Wikimedia (to promote and spread knowledge). One of the fundamental issues of media and propaganda today is the fallacy that there is such a thing as objective news, even that which attempts a NPOV. You may be able to write things with a neutral point of view but the way we frame things is fundamentally woven into our cultures, i.e. one culture's NPOV will be very different to another culture's NPOV. Knowing who is saying what and what their world-view is (or what culture they belong to) is key to getting around this problem, which is what the ability to refer to press releases partially allows one to do. Wikinews is a news site. It's clearly to the benefit of news readers to be able to refer to relevant press releases, therefore publishing a copy of relevant press releases would be beneficial to Wikinews and its goals. This is far from absurd it seems to me. Of course this is all beside the point if there are copyright issues. :) Christiaan

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:09:12 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: Releasing something as a press release is giving a broad implicit permission to reuse the content. However, this is not the same as PD, legally. All rights are not given up. However, there's nothing wrong with quoting a press release for relevant portions; that's fair use. For NPOV, of course, we should attribute anyway. -Matt

What follows is a duplicate of a message sent to the Admin notice board. Additional comments are in {braces}. === [[User:Robert Blair]] === I've finally discovered through his [[User talk:Robert Blair|talk page]] that this user has been editing offline and the installing his edited version over the top of new articles. This has caused no end of problems, since it is indistinguishable from reverts {and frequently does effectively revert. it also overwrites contributions made in the meantime}. I don't think administrative action (blocks etc) are needed, but what is '''urgently''' needed is for an experienced Wikipedian to talk to him about this. Can anyone help? - [[User:Jakew|Jakew]] 01:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)