Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 48

-- Steven Walling Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:50:38 +0300 From: "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il Subject: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: foundation-l foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTikCC1k1QWE9rmPAq58Qnoxq74A5NQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 The problem of content ownership hits any wiki at some point. In the English Wikipedia it is governed by a policy called "WP:OWN" [1]. There's a similar policy in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Is this policy any different in other projects? I am asking, because i agree with the English Wikipedia's policy in principle, but the reality is that sometimes instead of helping people write together, this policy drives people away from the project - people who could be very positive contributors, but who don't like their contributions edited by others without being asked. So i am wondering: maybe en.wp and he.wp can learn something from other languages here? Thank you, [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles -- Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?????? ????????? ?????????? http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, ?I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:08:41 +0300 From: Strainu strainu10@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTi=PQDF_tpQo+r-aJ+46ah-o=QDWQQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control offered by copyright laws. And this is not only from a legal POV, this is also true from a common sense perspective: more people approaching a problem often lead to better result than a single individual trying to solve that problem. >From what I see, presenting the rule, but not the reasons behind it, is the main problem of the English version of WP:OWN. Strainu 2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il: > The problem of content ownership hits any wiki at some point. > > In the English Wikipedia it is governed by a policy called "WP:OWN" > [1]. There's a similar policy in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Is this policy > any different in other projects? > > I am asking, because i agree with the English Wikipedia's policy in > principle, but the reality is that sometimes instead of helping people > write together, this policy drives people away from the project - > people who could be very positive contributors, but who don't like > their contributions edited by others without being asked. So i am > wondering: maybe en.wp and he.wp can learn something from other > languages here? > > Thank you, > > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles > > -- > Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?????? ????????? ?????????? > http://aharoni.wordpress.com > "We're living in pieces, > ?I want to live in peace." - T. Moore > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:29:22 +0300 From: "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTimVSRp21yK7mGeJAgN5aEk3RKpb9Q@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com: > I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in > other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the > wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot > consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA > license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control > offered by copyright laws. It's not so much about CC-BY-SA as it is about the fact that it's a wiki, where content is constantly changed by different people. This breaks the usual idea of authorship and makes quite a lot of people terribly uncomfortable and sometimes even violent. It's unpleasant, but i understand how their feel and i want to find a way to work with them. But since you mention licensing, one possible solution to this problem that i though of is to suggest such people write their content on some other website where others can't change their text, but to release it as CC-BY-SA, so Wikipedia would be able to use. That could be a good use case for a project like Knol, which was advertised as "Wikipedia killer" once, but didn't grow much. Used wisely, these Wikipedia and Knol could actually help each other grow. This would cause forking, of course, but forking isn't really bad - a forked freely-licensed article is better than no freely-licensed article. This solution is far from perfect, of course, because many people want Their articles on The Wikipedia, not on some other non-notable website... ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:41:29 +0300 From: Strainu strainu10@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTinU7jGzefd_jsoik2PzPnp7Q68kmw@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il: > 2011/6/17 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com: >> I think that such a policy could not be fundamentally different in >> other languages, since they all have the same license. However, the >> wording could be improved, for instance by explaining WHY one cannot >> consider himself as the owner of an article: by accepting the CC-BY-SA >> license, one gives up a significant amount of the rights and control >> offered by copyright laws. > > It's not so much about CC-BY-SA as it is about the fact that it's a > wiki, where content is constantly changed by different people. This > breaks the usual idea of authorship and makes quite a lot of people > terribly uncomfortable and sometimes even violent. It's unpleasant, > but i understand how their feel and i want to find a way to work with > them. > Well, a wiki promotes a certain way of collaborating, but that is not always sufficient. Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been written. Also, there are many ? wikis, used only as CMSs, not to collaborate. That's why I believe that WP:OWN would be much harder to justify if we wouldn't be using CC-BY-SA. Anyhow, my previous email presents a problem seen in many policies on multiple languages. Experienced wikimedians refer to policies with ease, by using shortcuts and assuming that the discussion partner knows what the policy is about. More often than not, this is not the case. This problem has been raised many times before and will probably be raised again in the future. It is in no way specific to WP:OWN. Strainu ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:44:13 +0300 From: Strainu strainu10@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTimaKSK8XX=UzqaSJRBmFAqBsT+L+w@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2011/6/17 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com: > Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one > could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been > written. Actually, I'm not even sure you could add content to articles on a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Would have to check with a lawyer... Strainu ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:50:03 +0200 From: Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTikoGT-ww+cmeFNKoqdL27f82_ZR7w@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 I guess that Amir was rather referring to the cultural aspect than the legal aspect. Even if you are legally allowed to change something, that doesnt mean the original author likes it. I assume that all Wiki projects have this culture in them, that nobody "owns" an article - this doesn't mean however that there are no exceptions (people who think they are exceptions or policies allowing temporary exceptions to be able to make a nice draft - for example in ones own usernamespace). Amir, is there a specific background that you are thinking of which is why you are asking this? Maybe that helps people answering your question. Best, Lodewijk 2011/6/17 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com > 2011/6/17 Strainu strainu10@gmail.com: > > Think about a CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Theoretically, one > > could only add content to that wiki, not edit what has already been > > written. > > Actually, I'm not even sure you could add content to articles on a > CC-BY-NC-ND wiki. Would have to check with a lawyer... > > Strainu > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:53:34 +0200 From: Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Election results? To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTikkUaEqwnqF-T_=AwNGm9WPDO+kmQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 It's now the afternoon of the 17th (UTC), and this list?of which I have the dubious distinction of being custodian?hasn't seen a single thread about the WMF board election results. I'm honestly not sure if I should be proud of or disappointed with you guys. In any case, I beg your forgiveness when I myself ask: What are the results, and why haven't they been released yet? Austin ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:56:44 +0100 From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List     foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTi=ZNc+mU57ZwPjbCjZYxzSJyVXtrg@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 17 June 2011 12:29, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: >  That could be a good > use case for a project like Knol, which was advertised as "Wikipedia > killer" once, but didn't grow much. Minor note: as far as I know, *no-one* from Knol/Google ever claimed it had anything to do with WIkipedia. The entire notion appeared to me to have arisen in the technical press in the week after Knol's announcement, apparently on the basis that both were written by unfiltered contributors, which was still a radical notion to the press at the time. The comparison stuck, but I know of no evidence that that was the intention. - d. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 48 ********************************************