Hi interesting, my position is, that we have a term or keyword for the encyclopaedia. e.G. STROOPWAFELS.
My idea is, that the description in all countries is the same and as well the structure of the article should be the same.
We are on the way to have a global consensus.
See LITVINENKO, in germany the article was fixed because of heavy editing, and in england every users could edit at any time.
See china blocking some content and principles, which we accept/grant here for right. Here we want the same description. I want that the chinese groups like "Falun Gong" fighting for democracy get the option to the same decription in every country. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
I want this article be written in the same way in china, as here in germany, and chinese people in germay should be able to edit this chinese article or just translate some content as well.
This is as well a reason, why we should support the wikia search engine project for a p2p search engine www.yacy.net and www.yacysearch.com (as a good demo for it) to have social development not depending on central monopolists.
A decentral search box on each wikipedia page like yacysearch.com would be cool, so please discuss this point as well at the board meetings in every country.
Thanks tom
-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Datum: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 23:30:17 +0100 Von: "Delphine Ménard" notafishz@gmail.com An: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: Re: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week
On 1/14/07, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
I don't think you understand my position. I'm not arguing for an elimination of policy catering to non-U.S. countries. I'm arguing for a separation between languages and legalistic policy. We would have guides for editors from Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. Such a guide would not be specific to the German Wikipedia.
The guide, I think, is a good starting point. However, we should not be imposing any kind of "licence" or "legal trick" or whatever you want to call it to wikipedias in one specific language which have chosen not to use these licences or tricks. This has to be a two-way street. That the Foundation issues a clear policy about what is acceptable and what is not is one thing, and yes, I believe it is needed.
That some language based Wikipedias agree to make these rules narrower to comply with the laws of the country in which the Wikipedia is most likely to be read/used etc. is, imho, the problem of the community of those wikipedias and their call.
Plenty of people in Germany edit the English Wikipedia. The current language-country ties don't account for those scenarios.
I have said it many times on this list, and I say it again. Any user who thinks he is above the laws of his own country is doing so at his own risk.
Let me try to give an example.
Imagine that German law declares that stroopwafels are illegal. Talking about them, praising them, showing them, is illegal. Of course, US law thinks stroopwafels are just great.
As a result, we could assume anything related to stroopwafels would be banned from the German wikipedia and allowed on the English one.
If a contributor lives in Germany, he is subject to German law. Of course, technically, the contributor *could* (in the sense they have the possibility of) upload pro-stroopwafel material in the English Wikipedia and say "but it's allowed in that wikipedia".
However, making such a document public is illegal in Germany. The contributor is responsible for making it public, against the laws of the country he/she lives in. Hence also "suable" under the law of the country he lives in.
To summarize, people should always:
- forget the idea that internet is a lawless zone
- observe the laws of the country they live in
- observe the laws of the US, where the servers are.
That's for the user.
Now, for the projects.
We could argue that since the German Wikipedia is hosted on American soil, it could display tons of stuff about stroopwafels. However, whatever you will say, the German Wikipedia does have a public that is primarily located on German soil. So there's a big chance that the people who are going to reuse the content are Germany-based. Promoting stroopwafels heavily in the German Wikipedia could be a liability, even for an American based web-site, for users reusing, but also for the website itself, at least on German soil.
In the past, legality of content has been measured against the primary audience of a website. See the Yahoo! lawsuit in France about nazi material on Yahoo! Auctions.
I therefore believe that allowing communities to voice their concerns and apply restrictions in their own Wikipedia according to a country-language relationship is only fair.
However, I also believe that we have a responsibility to make people aware of the risks they are taking by uploading material that is "illegal" in their countries, even on a website where those are "legal". Without going all the way to nazi stuff, this could apply for things not so dramatic, such as Fair use material.
It's a difficult balance to find, but one we should be able to find by educating our users as to how they can reuse our content, as you suggest, and responsibilizing our contributors ("you are responsible for the stuff you upload/write on Wikipedia, man!").
Delphine
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