Wikimedia-l March 2007

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

108 participants
113 discussions

[Foundation-l] Board Resolution + Wikiquote (was: board resolution )
by Pedro Sanchez 30 Mar '07

30 Mar '07

So, I see several wikiquotes really confused about this. Can the board clarify a little bit about the specific case of wikiquotes? Since wikiquotes are much more likely needing to use EDPs, can we have some pointers? On 3/29/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: > On 3/29/07, Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > On 3/29/07, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > Wikiquotes host mostly content under some sort of exemption (for > > > instance, when quoting from TV series). Is the resolution meaning that > > > all wikiquotes have to develop a specific EDP for TEXT ? > > > > As long as the language project would like to host such copyrighted > > materials, I think so. > > How? Exceptions are supposed to be 1) to illustrate historically > significant events; 2) to include identifying protected works such as > logos, or 3) to complement (within narrow limits) articles about > copyrighted contemporary works. > > 2 seems out, 3 seems out. Does 1 cover quotes about historically > significant events? > > Or is the whole EDP resolution terribly biased toward images? > > Anthony > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >

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[Foundation-l] board resolution
by Pedro Sanchez 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

About the board resolution and wikiquote. It says that now projects can't hold nonfree content unless they develop an exemption policy. Wikiquotes host mostly content under some sort of exemption (for instance, when quoting from TV series). Is the resolution meaning that all wikiquotes have to develop a specific EDP for TEXT ?

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[Foundation-l] Belarusan Wikipedia
by Johannes Rohr 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place for my complaint, but I was taken by complete surprise by what has happened to the Belarusan Wikipedia, i.e. the replacement of the existing bewiki (in "classical" orthography by the incubator project in ("normative" orthography). For one, there has, as far as I see, no formal request to close the existing bewiki (cf. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects ). To me it seems that the closure of a large, active wiki must not go ahead without a prior proposal and debate. Second, given the deadlock in the new languages creation process, I am more than surprised, that for the new bewiki an exception was possible. Third, the most desirable path to be taken would have been to have a single bewiki which accepts both variants, just as enwiki accepts both British and American English. Have there been serious efforts in this direction, prior to the current decision? A Belarusan user says at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Special_projects_subcommittees/Language… ,---- | That was the only cause, by which it was used mostly in be.wiki; but | both systems were allowed to be used, and so-called "current" variant | was also used there by minority which preferred it, and they didn't | have any obstacles to contribute; administration welcomed contributors | in all grammar versions. `---- If this is true, I don't see, why the closure of the old bewiki was inevitable. Even if the two camps cannot be reconciled, I don't believe that the closure of the existing project was necessary. The proponents of the Belarusan normative wikipedia had requested bel.wikipedia.org rather than be.wikipedia.org. Both projects could have existed in parallel. This may be an ugly solution, but the current one is even uglier. Next, what strikes me is an apparent lack of transparency. At http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Belarus… I read: ,---- | The normative Belarusian Wikipedia has been created at | be.wikipedia.org, with the alternative Belarusian Wikipedia moved to | be-x-old.wikipedia.org by decision of the board of trustees on | recommendation by the language subcommittee. `---- I would say, that those who take such a drastic decision, that risks to deter a large number of committed authors, should be required to deliver a full explanation of their decision. The above brief announcement is clearly insufficient. And lastly, if I understand the announcement at http://be.wikipedia.org correctly, the old bewiki has been frozen, but no decision has been taken concerning its future. This is just totally incomprehensible to me. If langcom and the board of trustees make a dramatic and far-reaching decision, they should make a /full/ decision, not a halfhearted one, which essentially leaves the existing conflict open. Forth, -- http://www.infoe.de/

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[Foundation-l] Again, a note on recent resolution..
by Mohamed Magdy 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Sorry if it is a duplicate of any previous messages but it is important. I have a question.. is it possible to change pages like this [1] or it is rock-solid unchangeable? > An EDP may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals. Why base such a policy on expectations? what happens if there are no pictures of such notable individuals for.. say 10 years? why not allow a low resolution photo of that individual instead of leaving the article without a photo where that photo is important in articles talking about that individual.. It isn't very good to rely on the unknown (reasonably expect).. That about this particular issue..another thing is how these pages are made..I mean, shouldn't such pages be agreed on by a great number of the contributers to all Wikimedia projects and not by "Passed with 7 supporting" only? I, of course could be wrong on how things people agreed to work on it..IMO this kind of things aren't to be agreed on by only the 7 members but it should be publicly announced like the fund raiser... [1] = http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy Mohamed Magdy~alnokta

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[Foundation-l] GFDL-wikititle updated (resolves importDump.php failures with enwiki-20070206 XML Dumps)
by Jeffrey V. Merkey 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

The updated gfdl-wikititle program has been posted to: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gfdl-wikititle This program is released under the GNU GPL version 3. This release corrects failures with importDump.php and will remove and fix corrupted article titles in the XML dumps provided by the Foundation. At present, two articles in the enwiki-20070206 dumps will cause importDump.php to fail in MediaWiki 1.9.3 and prevent the XML dumps from being imported into MediaWiki and to fail with NULL title errors. The problem appears to be related to titles which A) exceed 256 bytes in length and B) also contain multi-part paths. This same bug manifests from MediaWiki 1.7.3 through MediaWiki 1.9.3. versions with the enwiki-20070206 XML Dumps. This tool allows the XML dumps to be imported into MediaWIki 1.9.3 (which routinely fail on most Linux distros) by removing corrupted titles. This tools also supports insertion of interwiki links back into the originating Wikipedia language site for each dump to provide a GFDL compliant link back to the original article and its edit history and authors. I have also updated http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps with instructions on how to get around the problems with importing the dumps. There were two titles which caused the failures: Article number 2698248: <title>Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greatest Hits Volume One (The Byrds)</title> (I have censored the actual text in this article title and replaced it with X characters as it is inappropriate language to post to a public mailing list. Article Number 4443711: <title>Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Former (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) by Ashley Giles and Bradley Hogg.</title> It may be prudent to consider a filter to remove titles longer than 256 characters when the dumps are made which contain multi-part paths. There were two titles in the last dumps and they both cause importDump.php to fail with NULL title errors. Jeff

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[Foundation-l] Communications Projects Group
by Cary Bass 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

Call for volunteers: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for volunteers to contribute to forming a Communications Projects Committee, for the purpose of acting on specialized communications requests, such as researching press lists, analyzing media coverage, as well as other functions not presently covered under ComCom. This committee will be made up of translators, wiki liaisons and consultants, from a variety of countries, including graphic artists. We are looking for volunteers who are willing to make ComProjCom their first priority. ComProjCom will be responsible for executing and carrying out PR campaigns. Members of ComProjCom will also be given the opportunity for training and eventual entry into the Communications Committee. Interested parties should contact Sandra Ordonez at sordonez(a)wikimedia.org or myself with your details and/or specialties. Cary Bass

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[Foundation-l] [Fwd: posting on foundation-l]
by Florence Devouard 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: posting on foundation-l Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:42:42 +1000 From: Robin Shannon <robin(a)shannon.id.au> To: foundation-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org g'day, I have tried to send the following email about a possible abuse of trademark to foundation-l 3 times but it keeps getting rejected. Could you please forward it to the list (or other appropriate person) for me. Thankyou, -rjs. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robin Shannon <robin(a)shannon.id.au> Date: 29-Mar-2007 09:37 Subject: Possible abuse of Wikipedia trademark To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org I don't pretend to understand trademark law, but in this month's issue of cleo <http://cleo.ninemsn.com.au/cleo/> there is a section called "cleo's guy wikipedia" or something to that effect. Basically it is a bunch of articles along the line of "if a guy says this he really means this". Anyways, it has nothing at all to do with wikipedia except for the use of our name. I'm not sure if this is the right list to bring this up but since wikilegal was closed down i guess it must be. Paz, -rjs. -- Hit me: <http://robin.shannon.id.au> Jab me: <FIRSTNAME(a)LASTNAME.id.au> "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." --- George Bush

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Re: [Foundation-l] Banning Fair Use
by Andrew Whitworth 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

From: "Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> >Can you explain for us why Wikibooks needs fair use? I'm not sure I >see as much of as a use case as I do for Wikipedia. Can you provide >some pointers? There are certainly some examples, more wide-spread then you might imagine. We have several books devoted to the use of particular software packages, many of which are copyright. Screenshots of these programs, which are an invaluable learning aide, are fundamental to these books. For some programs there are free alternatives whose screenshots can be reasonably substituted for the copyrighted versions (albeit with some explanation as to the disparity), but for other programs, there are no such equivalents. Other books, such as art or history books tend to make use of fair use images as well. We dont have nearly as many art or history books as we have computer software books, however. >At most it would seem to me that it would be something that should >only be permitted by exception on a book by book basis based on the >subject matter of the book. It's a matter that has been discussed on our project. We have toyed with the idea that each book could have it's own localized policy documents dealing with issues like this. Many authors tend to overexaggerate their own need for special exceptions, however, and so we have generally not followed that path. >The prospects of printing wikibooks is probably much greater, to the >complications and harm from using non-free images is also probably >greater. This should cause us to consider more carefully. This is precisely the reason why I have personally called for a reduction in fair use, long before the WMF resolution on the issue. Wikibooks in my experience is more oriented towards printing and distributing then wikipedia is, for instance. Readers in areas that dont allow fair use are at a distinct disadvantage because they cannot usually print or distribute our books. Some books are at a disadvantate without fair use, however, and we need to weigh these issues carefully. --Andrew Whitworth (b:User:Whiteknight) _________________________________________________________________ Watch free concerts with Pink, Rod Stewart, Oasis and more. Visit MSN Presents today. http://music.msn.com/presents?icid=ncmsnpresentstagline&ocid=T002MSN03A07001

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Re: [Foundation-l] Banning Fair Use
by Andrew Whitworth 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

From: Robert Horning <robert_horning(a)netzero.net> >As I feared would be the case, this new foundation policy has become a call >to arms by deletionists to institute a massive removal of all fair use >content on all Wikimedia projects. I don't know if this was the intent, >but on at least en.wikibooks, the most active bureaucrat there has demanded >that all fair use content be eliminated from Wikibooks. And has used this >policy to strength his own counter claim that we should never have allowed >fair use onto that project in the first place. As the most active of the three bureaucrats on that project, I can only assume Robert is talking about me. This is a gross miscategorization of my words and actions, and should not be used to cause alarm among foundation members. After reading the resolution, I suggested in a local forum that we needed to finalize our EDP policy proposal (which is an "unofficial" de facto standard at the moment), we needed to increase our monitoring and tagging of fair use images, and we needed to educate administrators about the use and misuse of fair use media. I specifically called for people not to delete any fair use media until our EDP policy was finalized, and so far no images have been deleted because of this. >... unless you have already "approved" an EDP (whatever that means.... and >the process of approval is certainly vague here) It's not vague at all, en.wikibooks has a method for approving new policy, and we are employing that method now to our own EDP. Again, no cause for alarm here. >Because of the earlier discussion about fair use that was started by Kat >(before this policy was written), this same bureaucrat on Wikibooks also >deleted and rewrote the fair use policy to simply say that fair use was >banned, presuming authority on the part of the WMF. A mistake on my part, which I personally reverted when I learned of my errors. I had been under the impression that Kat's essay carried more weight then it actually did, and that the forthcoming WMF resolution would be significantly more restrictive about fair use then our previous policy on the matter was. I was right, and there are significant restrictions on it. >But because this is a smallish project with only a handful of users who set >policy, it makes it easier for some users to wildly mis-interpret what has >been said. And it is also easy for people like this to wildly misinterpret the actions of their fellow wikimedians. It's easier to raise alarm if you lie and say that our project is going to hell in a hand basket. It's harder to raise that alarm when you admit that our project is functioning normally, and is making a community effort to meet the expectations of the WMF resolution. In the future, if you are going to lie about me, do it in private so I dont need to call you out about it in public. It's just rude. --Andrew Whitworth (b:User:Whiteknight) _________________________________________________________________ Exercise your brain! Try Flexicon. http://games.msn.com/en/flexicon/default.htm?icid=flexicon_hmemailtaglinema…

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[Foundation-l] Wikiquote-l
by Casey Brown 27 Mar '07

27 Mar '07

Wikiquote (http://www.wikiquote.org <http://www.wikiquote.org/> ) now has a mailing list! (It is the last project to receive one! :)) I just got a mailing list (Wikiquote-l) created for the Wikiquote project. You can sign up for it and read the list information at http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquote-l. Hopefully, this will be a mailing list for all the Wikiquote projects where we can talk about issues related to us all and ask for help on discussions. Among other things, we can discuss GFDL and copyright requirements to make sure that we don't get a Wikiquote closed again. Cbrown1023

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Wikimedia-l March 2007