2009/3/3 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>: I don't understand what you are disagreeing with... The license has certain requirements, there is a long list of things that would satisfy those requirements. Community opinion should be used to decide which items on that list we consider acceptable, it can't be used to decide that things not on that list are acceptable.

2009/3/3 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>: Indeed. What we need to determine is what things are both acceptable to the community *and* legal. They are two independent criteria that both need to be satisfied.

2009/3/3 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: We've been in repeated conversations with CC about the possible attribution models. CC counsel has commented specifically that attribution-by-URL is a permissible attribution model that is consistent with the language and intent of CC-BY*. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

They wrote the damned thing, so they are most likely to understand it. ________________________________ From: geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 7:41:32 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Attribution survey, first results 2009/3/4 Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>rg>: What is their line of reasoning on that? -- geni _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

2009/3/4 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com>om>: So? Their line of reasoning will still be very much based on the questions asked and the outcomes they have considered. -- geni

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 7:19 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: 1) Have the numbers been released? All I saw was a selective summary. 2) What do you think they're conclusive of?

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Less than half of people answering the survey ranked attribution by URL first. You're assuming that those who ranked "no credit is needed" first will be happy with attribution by URL, and you're assuming that those who ranked "credit can be given to the community" will by happy with attribution by URL. But these people will also probably be happy with attribution by listing of authors. So you can easily draw the conclusion that a significant majority of the community will by happy with attribution by listing of authors. In fact, making your assumption you could say that the survey showed that 100% of them are happy with it. It was horribly designed, but this much seems true - 1 in 5 Wikipedians surveyed expect that an offline copy of a Wikipedia article to which they have contributed, will contain their name. But according to Creative Commons, CC-BY-SA does not require such attribution.

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: Now, how many of the 20% who wants their name cited would have given the same response to something like: "Would you be happy to piss everyone off if your name does not appear in a list of about 100 authors of a Wikipedia article cited by Xyz?" Cruccone

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: Far be it for me to disagree with survey results that back up my position on attribution :) ... but I actually agree with Anthony on this one. This is a very small, self-selected sample; there would be no harm or cost associated with turning it on for a much larger percentage (or all) of logged-in users on the top-ten languages, not just English or German alone, which both have peculiarities associated with being the largest Wikipedia communities. I agree also there was not a middle-ground option for those who think only the top (no matter how that gets determined) authors should be attributed. On the other hand, I can't recall for sure what the questions said, because I can't see them, having already taken the survey... is there a meta page with the questions somewhere? I know there's time pressure on this... but on the other hand, we've waited years :) It would be worthwhile to get better stats before making sweeping generalizations about the community's desires. -- Phoebe

2009/3/4 Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco(a)gmail.com>om>: Do we really want to only listen to the opinions of those people actually willing to make a fuss if they don't get their way? I imagine most Wikimedians are sufficiently mature to accept it if the majority disagree with them. (This is assuming only options actually legal under the license are considered.)

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: Ah, so the only people who matter are the immature children who throw temper tantrums while the adults are busy with important work? Interesting concept, although I can see how people who believe this would be tempted to act like immature little children, because there's the expectation that such behavior should yield good results. The people who matter here the most are those that are hard-working, productive, helpful. The people who aren't whining like a tired baby on every mailinglist thread that they find disagreeable. This is a group of people that tend not to make their opinions well-known, but scarcity is directly proportional to importance here. --Andrew Whitworth

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: It's a matter of priorities. If a decision is made that I don't agree with I have to weigh up how bad it is that this bad decision has been made, how much harm me making a fuss will cause and how likely it is that me making a fuss will make any difference. (This varies depending on your definition of "fuss", obviously.) I think it this situation making a fuss is very unlikely to make any difference once a decision is made, and the pointless drama will detract from people improving the projects, so I am unlikely to make a fuss as long as I am confident the decision is a legal one. Accept that they've lost the argument and move on. How are you going to define "ethical"? It's an entirely subjective concept, a vote is pretty much the only way we can handle it.

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: I've made my views on the legality clear, I'm just talking about the legal options and then it is simply an argument about personal opinions. Are you serious? I think I've made my opinions perfectly clear (several times), you are clearly aren't actually listening, so I'll stop banging my head against a brick wall now.

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: I think it is reasonable to go with the simplest solution that a significant majority are happy with (I'm assuming everyone is in favour of making things as easy for reusers as possible, while maintaining what they consider adequate attribution). The options given, in order of simplest to most difficult are: No credit Credit to "Wikipedia" (or similar) Link to article Link to history link online, full list of authors offline full list of authors (Does anyone disagree with that ordering? I don't think it should be very controversial. I would be interested to know how many people didn't order the choices in a way compatible with this ordering - by that, I mean starting at a certain point as (1), then assigning subsequent places to subsequent options until you reach the end and ranking the remaining options in reverse order - and by how much they varied.) If we look at just people's first choices (assuming they ranked the options in way compatible with my ordering, first choices are sufficient) then: 12.11% would be happy with no credit 39.48% would be happy with credit to "Wikipedia" 69.66% would be happy with linking to the article 80.89% would be happy with linking to the version history That clearly shows that a significant majority would be happy with attribution-by-URL (you can argue over where the URL should point).

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: No, because that wouldn't be legal. I think I've made it quite clear that community opinion is only relevant when it comes to legal options. I'm not a statistician, someone else can work out how large a majority is needed from a sample size of 570 to be confident (at the 95% level, say?) that a majority of the population as a whole agrees. Could you explain your reasons for that?

(Last email, since I received this I was I was typing what was meant to be the last one. Then I'll really stop.) 2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: They can't. The GFDL requires future versions to be in the same spirit. If the government (or governments, depending on if you care about non-US jurisdictions) makes it legal, then they have no (legal) right to attribution. Moral rights (in the sense of the dictionary definitions of the individual words, not the legalistic sense of the phrase - let's not get into *that* argument again!) are completely subjective and are very difficult to have a meaningful debate about. That said, I'm not sure I would consider 51% sufficient for such a decision (I know that somewhat contradicts my previous statement). In other words, you've had a falling out with the Wikimedia movement and don't feel it deserves the credit for your work, even if that means no-one gets the credit. Fair enough.

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: Thanks for the specific number. I was under the impression it was something like that, but it's far outside my area of expertise. Far from it, though it pretty much confirms my suspicions (actually, I thought the number of people who wanted their name listed would be lower, around 5-10%, not 20%). Thomas's latest statement suggests that he doesn't either, but then, that brings back up my question as to what *does* constitute a sufficient majority.

2009/3/4 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: You have declared previously on this list that you do not contribute and in fact have tried to repudiate all your past contributions. As such, it's entirely unclear how your opinion has any relevance whatsoever, even anecdotally. - d.

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 4:19 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes. Mike (not the CC counsel but just spoke to her)

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 12:46 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: The question was whether attribution by URL works offline as well as on. It was a very simple question (though she's read this thread) and answer, didn't go into reasoning. Others have expressed since then what makes sense to me, eg Moeller and Snow at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-March/050727.html ... indeed, CC licenses have been written to be medium agnostic to the extent possible. Mike p.s. Personally, discussions of "offline" here and everywhere (say, accessibility of educational materials) are absurdly myopic. Consideration of offline use is about as relevant now as consideration of horse stables in urban planning 100 years ago.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote: Furthermore, horse populations continued to grow well into the 20th century. Horses peaked in the US in the 1910s, and in Finland in the 1950s, and horse-drawn equipment was the core transportation technology of World War I and played a key role even in World War II. This is a typical pattern when a complex technology is introduced in the presence of a simpler one; it's not a simple matter of replacement, and old technologies (where the infrastructure is easy to maintain) can stick around and even become more significant, even while a complex technology spreads as well. (See David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old.) I'm speculating here, but it would not surprise me at all if amount of print publishing is still growing, and could continue to do so for a few more decades at least. -Sage (User:Ragesoss)

2009/3/9 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>: Kenyan copyright law is ultimately derived from English law . There is no legal way to do that nor is there any real benefit in doing so. -- geni

2009/3/9 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>: Common law is very much driven by legal precedent. Looking to see what similar legal systems have done is a fairly common approach. That said Kenya allows for up 6 years of jail time for some forms of copyright infringement (and two for others) so I suggest it is probably a good idea to take Kenyan law seriously. Because as of this moment wikipedia has 291,172,469 edits what were not made under any such term of service and could not have their copyright situation impacted by such a TOS. -- geni

Milos Rancic wrote: Yep! The only reason they may even have such a law would be to fulfil a quid pro quo extorted by the World Bank as a prerequisite for foreign aid. Any application of such laws is seriously unrealistic unless an offended foreigner wants to finance the prosecution. Ec

geni wrote: I'm not sure that it's as simple as that. I agree that their first law on this was inherited, and that some US publishers will do anything to protect the turf upon which they cull their profits. At the same time the US government has provided far more wiggle room about fair use and the like. While it does provide for criminal infringement it prefers to use civil infringement provisions. Also, the evidence required for a criminal infringement is at a much higher standard than for a civil infringement. I would not single out the US as the sole pressure source; vested interests in the EU can be just as aggressive. For countries like Kenya one might rightly ask how much of these stated jail terms are all bark and no bite. Ec

David Gerard wrote: Not necessarily a "given" legal threat, but an even weaker "perceived" legal threat. Copyright paranoia exists as a socially acceptable response to raving lunatics. That, but also it gives a legal right of action as plaintiffs to the lunatics. That makes sense. Ec

Milos Rancic wrote: Why should Kenyans care? Even more, why should Kenyans care about patents? If the purpose of intellectual property was to promote useful sciences it's not in the national interest to be exporting royalties abroad to high cost nations. The fearful children and Kim Jong Il are edge cases anyway, but I'm glad to hear that the Siberian system of roads has improved enough to make this posible. The oldsters are adapting ... as long as significant technical knowledge is not required. Anything but implicit permissions would be a drain on people's time. How much more than that is enforceable? If OGNC does that, who takes it to the next level when a New Great Company only credits the link to OGNC? The concept needs to be workable beyond first-generation re-users. Ec

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Certainly results vary. Slide-rules, I suggest, do not make a good ...used as they were almost exclusively by the upper educational tiers in developed countries. For something broader that serves a more fundamental role in society (like storage and transmission of knowledge), old, easy to maintain technologies are likely to co-exist and even thrive alongside higher-tech ones. It's a whole lot easier to manufacture books in a poor country than to maintain the infrastructure for robust Internet participation. From the perspectives of resources, required technical expertise, infrastructure maintainability (shelves in a dry room vs. electricity and continual replacement of short-lived hardware), there are advantages to the older technology. Certainly, things are looking up for continued expansion of electronic communication (dependent, of course, on economic developments). But with broad classes of technologies like printing and electronic communication, I suggest that there are not global tipping points, because of the drastic economic inequalities of the modern world. Some or many cultures may reach a tipping point (even here, I'm skeptical, given the widely acknowledge virtues of traditional print even in rich cultures; the Internet has not brought a significant decline in US printing, even though the Internet is now very widely available to Americans). But a global tipping point? Globalization is powerful, but not all-powerful. Will poor countries develop electronic communication instead of printing industries, or alongside them, or first print and only later electronic? The last two seem more likely, to me. Print-on-demand, especially, means that printed distribution of Wikimedia project material is probably going to be on the rise for quite a while. I don't think anyone can predict with certainty what the trajectory of print vs. electronic communication will be. But I do think it would be myopic NOT to consider print among the likely significant ways material will get reused. -Sage (User:Ragesoss)

"horrificly bad question?" Surely you can't be serious? This is just sensationalism. On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:40 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml(a)creativecommons.org>wrote;wrote: Substitute "print" for "offline" and I think the market is fairly limited (maybe I'm wrong, though, does anyone from the German Wikimedia know how many copies of "The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia" have sold?). But there are plenty of uses for an "offline" encyclopedia - CD/DVD and iPod Touch come to mind immediately. I can't say I understand your horse stable planning analogy, but the Wikipedia we write today will surely be useless 100 years from now except for archaeological-type purposes, just like the Britannica from 100 years ago is today.