Wikimedia-l January 2007

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122 participants
113 discussions

[Foundation-l] free access to the sum of all human knowledge
by Anthony 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Seriously, don't just read the words, imagine it. Forget about rules-lawyering and what Wikipedia is not and think about what it would take to achieve something of that magnitude. I imagine a collaborative tool that allows me to upload and download information in a seamless fashion, and one which allows me to search through that information to find what it is that interests me. Getting a bit more detailed and realistic, I imagine a website that allows its visitors to find information about virtually anything, one which allows its visitors to *easily* add knowledge that isn't yet assimilated, and one which allows its visitors to index that knowledge in a way which will help others find what they are looking for. Am I way off, or are there others out there on this list who would like to create something like that? If so, how can we do it without ruffling the feathers of those who have a different preconceived notion of what it is the foundation is doing? Does this need to be a separate project? I have a feeling that some people are going to respond by saying that Wikipedia is already pretty much doing this. Before you say that please at least note the part about it being *easy* to add knowledge. Anthony

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Re: [Foundation-l] free access to the sum of all human knowledge
by Fred Bauder 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

>Getting a bit more detailed and realistic, I imagine a website that >allows its visitors to find information about virtually anything, one >which allows its visitors to *easily* add knowledge that isn't yet >assimilated.... >Anthony Wikipedia does not permit publication of knowledge that isn't yet assimilated. Wikinfo does, but there are several problems. First, very few people are actually capable of generating such knowledge, at least beyond a trivial level, Second, they tend to be both talented and well paid, consequently resistant to doing hard work for free, and third, those who think they can generate such knowledge, generally can't. I do think Wikipedia should loosen up a bit, especially with regard to popular culture, where there really are no peer reviewed sources. How about it? Nobody does their dissertation on Star Trek insignia, but it is entertaining... Fred

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
by rfrangi＠libero.it 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

> senpai wrote: > > >It's the only way to have some images in the italian articles. We have a lot > >of restrictive legislations and we can't use the fair use. For example, we > >can go in a museum and take some pictures of a painting but, we can't > >publish into wikipedia without the permission of the "sovraintendenza ai > >beni culturali"; some days ago the "sovraintendenza ai beni culturali" of > >florance have threated us for the photos of some painting and ohter kind of > >arts taked into the florence's museums; perhaps will be a problem also for > >commons. > > > I would suggest that you investigate the "sovraintendenza ai beni > culturali"'s right to do this. If I, as a foreign tourist, chose to go > to the museum, take pictures of old masters' works, and upload them into > commons when I got home, I don't think there's much they can do about it. > > Ec Two years ago I went to Bruxelles (Belgium) and took a lot of pictures of the city. I uploaded them on Commons (as PD images) but the pictures of the Atomium where removed because of Belgian law. Apparently, being a foreign tourist is not enough. Roberto (Snowdog) ------------------------------------------------------ Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
by rfrangi＠libero.it 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

Gerard, I will not only think Internet. I hope others will not think only USA. If the point is "If we use a fair-use image, a commercial organization can at least take whole Wikipedia pages and re-use them." Well, this is not necessarlily true outside the USA. So fair use images should be banned for the same reason that applies to NC's. Roberto (Snowdog) ------------------------------------------------------ Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
by rfrangi＠libero.it 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

> So, I'm against using non-commercial images unless we're using them > under fair use because we don't have a substitute. > > If we use a fair-use image, a commercial organization can at least take > whole Wikipedia pages and re-use them. On the contrary, non-commercial > images must be removed if they don't meet fair-use criteria. Fair use images have to be removed as well if you reuse the contents in places where the concept of fair use does not exist. > > The key here is that we're producing a free-content *encyclopedia* on > Wikipedia, not a free library of the media used to create the content. > (Wikimedia Commons *is* a project creating a free library of media.) > This means the final goal is free-content articles. Non-commercial > images undermine that goal. Fair use undermine that goal as well. Fair use is not a license, is "an excuse to use copyrighted material". As such, it does not protect you from a legal action and in the end a judge will decide if an image is used "fairly" or not. Beside that, please understand that you can't force a community to abandon NC's, when they consider fair use as being worse than NC. No way. As long as fair use will be allowed on en.wiki, NC's will be allowed on it.wiki. I wish both will not be accepted, but NC is a licence, fair use is a trick, so for what concerns me, if the latter stays, the former will stay as well. Roberto (Snowdog) ------------------------------------------------------ Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom http://click.libero.it/infostrada14gen07

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[Foundation-l] Please comment on Yiddish wikipedia sysop abuse
by willi boy 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comments/Yiddish_wikipedia_syso…

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
by rfrangi＠libero.it 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

> Matt wrote: > > Fair use is an important freedom under US law that many on the English > wikipedia are loath to abandon. There is always going to be fair use > in Wikipedia, and we are unlikely to want to eradicate it entirely - > for one thing, pretty much all language versions of Wikipedia use fair > use text quotations (or whatever the local legal equivalent is). Honestly, Fair use is an important freedom, but it's not a licence. NC images are way more free than fair use images (i.e. copyrighted images that you use without asking for permission). My personal position is that what is true for texts should be true for images and other types of contents. So if WMF pojects release their texts under GFDL, they should allow only images with GFDL of compatible licenses. For what I can see, asking it.wiki to remove NC images (no matter how gradually) without asking someone else to remove fair use images will only piss off the italian community (And by the way we still think that the removal of images tagged as PD-Italy from Commons has been an abuse). I think WMF should state clearly which kind of licences are proper for its projects and everything that is not compliant with this should be removed everywhere, quickly. Possibly this will piss off more pepole, but it's the only way out IMHO. Roberto (Snowdog) ------------------------------------------------------ Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom http://click.libero.it/infostrada13gen07

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[Foundation-l] Copyright issue with external links
by John Barberio 14 Jan '07

14 Jan '07

Hi, Over on Wikipedia, there's a significant group of editors who've decided that current copyright policy doesn't go far enought, and are rewriting the external linking guidelines to require 'copyright verification' and 'due care to verify copyright' on external links. This is because they feel we are risking threat of suit due to linking to the likes of YouTube. No, I'm not suggesting we should allow links to copyvio, it's clear that we shouldn't. But it's my understanding that the proposed changes would be poor ones to make for various reasons. Primarily because we don't have the resources to take 'due care' and 'verify copyright'. True copyright verification needing lawyers time and money, it's not something that's in our grasp at all. At the moment, copyright policy says not to 'knowingly and intentionally' link to violations of copyright. And I believe this is pretty much the best standard we can claim without introducing unattainable burdens. Additionally, my lay understanding of the legal implications is that claiming we can and do verify copyright status of external links may well open us up to liability rather than reduce it. I've tried to explain this in discussion, but the discussion has gotten a bit overheated. It appears no one is going to calm down over this until there's a clarification of copyright policy by the foundation. I hope this can be clarified by the foundation. - John

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Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
by rfrangi＠libero.it 13 Jan '07

13 Jan '07

> On 1/13/07, rfrangi(a)libero.it <rfrangi(a)libero.it> wrote: > > My personal position is that what is true for texts should be true for images and other types >of contents. So if WMF pojects release their texts under GFDL, they should allow only >images with GFDL of compatible licenses. > > Could you clarify what you mean here? Do you mean "as free as or more > free than the GFDL" or do you mean the statement literaly? > > -- > geni > Yes, "as free as or more free than the GFDL" Roberto (Snowdog) ------------------------------------------------------ Passa a Infostrada. ADSL e Telefono senza limiti e senza canone Telecom http://click.libero.it/infostrada13gen07

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[Foundation-l] UK government information changes on the way?
by Neil Harris 13 Jan '07

13 Jan '07

The BBC is carrying an interesting story on possible changes in the attitude of the UK government to the free use of government information. At the moment, the Statute Law Database is Crown Copyright, as is nearly all UK government information, with a commercial licence needed for any use other than private study or non-commercial research. According to the BBC, this may be about to change, and the changes may be part of a wider change in attitude to the free reuse of government data. Is this something that the Foundation or other interested Wikipedians might be interested in pursuing with the UK government? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6255321.stm -- Neil

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Wikimedia-l January 2007