I recently found a site called ebookeden which sells public domain ebooks (in pdf) for 99cents. I manged to see a preview of the books through google books and it seems to me that they always add an introduction which is basically the wikipedia entry about the author and the book without attribution to wikipedia.
I don't think they are *evil* the book price is very reasonable (though one can easily find similar books for free) but nontheless it is a violation of the cc-by-sa license therefore i decided to report them.
the site is:
http://ebookeden.com/
here you can view some of there books content through google books:
http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=ebookeden&btnG=Search+Books
Hello,
I did an analysis of advertisement space used on Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. I measured banners first - Wikipedia had 250k pixels (okok, my screen is large :), Google had 60k pixels, Facebook had 40k.
I applied a multiplier of 2 for Wikipedia image, because it's ability to scan your soul is epic (facebook got 1.5 multiplier for toned down logo images in their ads). Also, Wikipedia got 2x multiplier for central placement.
I tried to come up with good number of how many times those ads get shown, but it is somewhat complicated - so I will assume that Facebook and Google always show, and Wikipedia does show only 10% of the year.
I will not involve ethics or relevance argument, as I don't support 100% of WMF direction either :-)
End result - Wikipedia got score of 100, while Google and Facebook, both ads-funded companies, got 60 each.
Thats why I donated, Wikipedia obviously needs money.
Cheers,
Domas
In a message dated 11/27/2010 7:05:39 AM Pacific Standard Time,
russnelson(a)gmail.com writes:
> Nothing in their experience base can be used
> unless it's already in print somewhere ... so how is their experience
> useful? I'm not calling into question the [[citation needed]] policy, but
> instead the idea that domain experts (professional, teachers, scientists)
> are needed to improve Wikipedia. >>
>
It's not necessarily experience that we would seek, but rather knowledge.
Knowledge which can be transmitted to your students exactly because it can
be cited, not because you simply *know*. Knowing in many cases is simply a
short-hand for "I'm too lazy to figure out where to look it up."
The domain expertise is useful because experts, true experts not faux ones,
know where exactly to look it up. And cite that.
W
(also including foundation-l as this isn't really a commons-specific discussion)
On 22 Nov 2010, at 21:04, Samuel Klein wrote:
>> A wikidata project could use semantic mediawiki from the outset, and
>> be seeded with data from dbpedia.
>>
>> A lot of existing & proposed projects would benefit from a centralised
>> wikidata project. e.g. a genealogy wiki could use the relationships
>> stored on the wikidata project. wikisource and commons could use the
>> central data wiki for their Author and Creator details.
>
> +1
>
> Could this be part of dbpedia?
dbpedia is about collating the information available on Wikipedia and providing that as a database for others to use. This is about having a central information store that can be edited to add information. Whilst dbpedia could seed wikidata, they're very different projects in the way they would operate.
In my opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation should very seriously look into starting something like wikidata. I don't suppose there's a facilitator that could be hired that knows about Wikimedia sufficiently to facilitate an on-wiki discussion and formation of a comprehensive proposal to start this project, including bringing together the various people interested in this project?
Mike Peel
Okay, but that's just to control the power of the monopoly federal
government, which is STRICTLY limited in what it can do (unfortunately, most
Americans have forgotten that part). To control the power of the states
(which is where nearly everything SHOULD be done), there is nothing that a
state can do to prevent someone from leaving or entering. If a state does a
bad job, its citizens will leave. So in a wiki context, that would point to
forking of articles when disagreements cannot be resolved. So, most
famously, there would be two pages about Cyprus. Some people would link to
one, and some to the other, and others to the disambiguation page. Likely
this has been proposed before, and I'm simply ignorant of the result of the
discussion.
On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Virgilio A. P. Machado <vam(a)fct.unl.pt>wrote:
> Dear Mr. Will Johnson,
>
> Three hurrays for the separations of powers, checks and balances and
> full accountability to oneself, others and the foundations of a
> civilized community.
>
In a message dated 11/25/2010 10:57:11 AM Pacific Standard Time,
jayen466(a)yahoo.com writes:
> It's a headache for the copyright team on en:WP because they have to
> figure out which came first.
>
First there should be a presumption that established editors (I've been
in-project for seven years), do not do copyvios.
Second there should be absolutely NO grant made to *admins* to police
copyvio content issues. None. Zero. Admins have no position from which to make
a call that is any different from an established editor or reviewer. The
creeping rights of admins are just ridiculous. Admins have dozens of
"rights" that established editors do not, over content, and they shouldn't.
It's an old drum that I keep beating. Admins keep granting each other more
rights, and soon all that we will have in-project will be admins. No
editors at all.
All content issue rights, should be removed from admins. That's my
position. All of them. Every content issue right period.
W
In a message dated 11/25/2010 1:52:48 PM Pacific Standard Time,
geniice(a)gmail.com writes:
> Aaaand there the problem. There is no effective way of drawing a line
> for established editors so where you want to be able to prevent non
> established editors from doing something your only real option you
> have is to draw the line at adminship.
>
We have Geni, many ways to determine if someone is an established editor.
We have flags already to mark people as established editors in addition to
that.
In a message dated 11/25/2010 9:14:20 AM Pacific Standard Time,
wing.philopp(a)gmx.de writes:
> I think it is very important for us to understand the difficulties
> academics face if they want to join the Wikimedian community. And maybe
> we should rethink about our strategy and approach on working with
> academics.
>
>
A similar thing occurred with someone within the community, tagged an
article I had written with a "copyvio" which effectively blanked the entire page,
replacing it with a large warning block. (How outrageous I might add that
we would have such a thing.)
Someone ELSE had copied *my* article to an external link. I had added that
external link just to show how the subject of my article was related to
other people, his parents, children, spouses, etc in a genealogical content.
But my article had additional details.
There was no attempt made to show that the EL had copied me, just the
presumption that I had copied the EL. Similar to your case Ting. But of course,
during the time that the tag was up, none of our five billion readers could
see the article at all.
Incidents like that "don't remove this tag until an *administrator* has
reviewed it..." leave mental scars on editors.
W
In a message dated 11/24/2010 4:11:03 PM Pacific Standard Time,
michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net writes:
> I just pulled up the Articles on two actors who I know died in 1970. One
> was
> in the Category "English Film Actors" and the other in "American Film
> Actors".
>
The category intersect PHP is very finicky.
You have to use the right case.
"American film actors" and "1970 deaths"
NOW I get a list of 61 articles
W