You changed something. Thus far thus good. I guess it's simply a bug.
If you click on a description page like
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Nuernberg-haus-theresien7-suedfassade-n-w…
the WP software displays the picture. It isn't that userfriendly
esp. if the image is large.
In the past I used to add links to thumbnail like pictures, thus the
user can decide on his own whether he wants to download the large
picture or not.
Displaying a thumbnail picture (300/200px) would be okay. Please
announce those change to this mailing list!
--
| ,__o
| _-\_<,
http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/ | (*)/'(*)
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>I can't vouch for what Fred was saying, because I think I disagree
>with him and actually agree more with what you're saying. But I would
>say that there *is* an accepted canon of knowledge, and that Wikipedia
>ought to (and mostly does) reflect it.
>
>To me, the notion of "accepted canon" immediately raises the question
>"accepted by whom?" The wikipedia process/policy of NPOV answers that
>question by saying that articles ought to be such that they are
>acceptable to the widest possible range of _reasonable_ contributors
>working in a spirit of mutual inquiry. This means that we frequently
>have to make "softer" claims than we might like, due to the existence
>of some annoying minor (but reasonable) viewpoint. We have to
>"contextualize" a lot of claims, but this makes us stronger overall.
>
...
>So we could (if we were interested) work together in a spirit
>of love to present the basic information in a way that no reasonable
>partisan could find unfair.
>
>That, to me, is the only possible sensible meaning for 'accepted
>canon'.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
I would only agree that there is a canon of knowledge, perhaps, in the
same sense that Plato's Forms have some kind of existence. It's an
ideal, and not easily attainable. And you rightly point out that the
question of getting any canon accepted is the real problem. Wikipedia is
a good try at reaching acceptance for a canon of knowledge, and I don't
mind your "definition" of it.
Part of my objection to the idea of a canon is that the term *canon* is
loaded, if you'll pardon all my puns here. In academia, it's strongly
associated with a canon of Western civilization, particularly in the
arts, that has ignored knowledge from many other cultures. Part of this
draws on the religious usage of canon, which tends to treat knowledge as
a closed book, an idea which has dangerous implications for the
Wikipedia project.
Which is why I believe that allowing anybody to edit a page has to
remain one of the basic rules of Wikipedia. I think it's always possible
that new knowledge will come along, and we have to be able to include
it. As a logical conclusion, I doubt very much that any article will
ever reach a point of sufficient perfection for us to protect it from
editing on the grounds that future edits would only be harmful.
--Michael Snow
No-one seems to have mentioned that I, for example, could easily sign
any comment [[User:Optim|Optim]] and then it would take a page history
and diff to prove that I had tried to assign a comment/vote to Optim.
Obviously this would be madness. The solution is a "legal" one rather
than technical and is pretty simple:
Rule:
- Don't pretend to be another user.
Guideline:
- Don't change your signature too often. It makes it difficult for other
users to remember who they've built up a feeling of trust with.
(example: If Uncle Ed ever becomes Father Ed, I for one would come over
all confused :-)
Pete/Pcb21
Alex R. wrote:
>Perhaps you did not read that
>part where I said "it is so generic as just to be knowledge" such generic
>expresssion cannot be copyrighted, or if it is subject to copyright it is
>so de minimus as to be trivial. You cannot copyright a sentence such as
>"New York is the financial capital of the world." It is trivial expression,
>believe it or not.
>
>
I disagree. One, the sentence "New York is the financial capital of the
world." is not a generic statement of fact; it is a conclusion based on
a number of other facts, such as "The Wall Street Journal is published
in New York." I won't waste time deconstructing the sentence further,
but it's clearly not objective fact.
Two, I would argue the sentence is copyrightable. The selection and
arrangement of words within a language to form sentences is a creative
form of expression, and capable of protection by copyright. After all,
you could have written "The financial capital of the world is New York"
or "New York is the world's financial capital".
The reason you might believe the sentence to be uncopyrightable is
really the difficulty of proving copyright infringement. Since the
sentence is relatively generic and easy to compose, you can't prove
infringement of this sentence just by showing that someone else also
wrote the same words (for anyone wondering, copyright is not like patent
- if a second person comes up with the same thing independently, it's
not a violation). So instead you would actually have to prove that they
copied you, which is much more difficult, since they're not likely to
admit it. But if someone did actually copy that sentence without some
other defense, like fair use, it would technically be an infringement.
We should really be having this discussion on wikilegal-l.
--Michael Snow
Timwi wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> Areas which are especially subject to academic politics which eventually
>> skews the content of coursework.
>
>
> Ah, I see. Sounds like Maths and Computer Science aren't affected. :)
>
> Timwi
I hope you don't believe that too seriously, especially for computer
science. Just to cite one example, the computer science department at
the University of Washington (in Seattle, just across the lake from
Redmond) is located in the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and
Engineering. Better yet, the law school is located in William H. Gates
Hall, though technically it's named for Bill's father, not Bill himself.
Does anyone seriously believe that the way computer science is taught
there is not influenced by Microsoft? (let alone how they teach
copyright law)
--Michael Snow
Fred Bauder wrote:
> Including only material in an article which is within the accepted
> canon of
>
>knowledge is one of the Wikipedia editing guidelines. I think it means facts
>which are accepted by scholars in the field.
>
>
>
I couldn't find such a statement in any of the editing guidelines. The
only place I did find such a phrase was in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is
not (and I edited it out of that page, hopefully leaving a less
problematic expression of the sentiment it conveyed).
As to what "accepted canon of knowledge" might mean, I feel that part of
the problem is associating it with the standards of academia. Does
something have to be accepted by "scholars" in order to qualify as human
knowledge, and what qualifications are required to be a scholar? Again,
I think it's easy to reach a conclusion from this approach that we
should restrict Wikipedia contributions to people who have certain
"qualifications", whatever those may be. Also, it's worth noting that
Wikipedia covers many fields in which academic scholars have very little
interest.
--Michael Snow
Evan Prodromou wrote:
>>>>>> "AT" == Alex T <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
> AT> This brings up an interesting point regarding copyright. If
> AT> the content is so generic as just to be knowledge then it is
> AT> not really copyrightable as it would fall in the public
> AT> domain.
>
>That's absolutely 100% not true. Copyright is on expression of facts,
>not facts themselves.
>
>You need to read up on [[:en:copyright]], bub.
Well IANAL either but I share your dislike for Alex's statement even though I highly respect Alex.
But to insinuate that NPOV articles are not creative works is *highly* insulting and also smacks
of academic hypothesizing about *possible* extensions to current copyright law that, frankly, will
never be accepted unless the Supreme Court of the U.S. goes completely nuts. Congress certainly
would never enact such a law due to the reference material and news lobbies (who claim to be
neutral, and often are in many cases - even if we are better at it). The public good would not be
served by encouraging bias in reference works and news reporting.
The selection of what material to have in an article, its formatting, organization and
presentation, are all creative aspects that are protected by copyright law. The example of a
single sentence not being copyrightable is correct (except in rare circumstances, such as short
poems) but cannot be extended to the whole work (unless that work is just a list organized in a
non-creative way - but even then the *selection* of what to include may be creative).
So this whole thing is just an academic 'what if' that has little to do with the real world.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Optim wrote:
>...
>[[User:tillwe|Till]] is disallowed because it
>creates confusion and can be used as a way to
>hide your real username. If you want to hide your
>identity you can logoff and post with an
>anonymous IP. Also, another useraccount may exist
>with the name "Till". Not everybody knows your
>first name, so we should examine the link in
>order to understand who you are.
>...
This has got to be one of the most paranoid things I've read in a while. All you have to do to
find out what a person's full user name is to put your mouse pointer over their sig. Presto! Their
full user name is displayed as mouse over text. You can also check the history.
But the notion that people are trying to hide their real user names for nefarious reasons by using
a nick is very insulting. Where the hell is the abuse Optim? If and when somebody votes twice in
the same poll using the same user account but different nicks, I can assure you that the people
who voted in the opposite direction will find that out quickly. If any user had a habit of doing
that, then that could form part of a ban request.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav <- I guess I'm now guilty of some perverse sin since I did not state my
full user name)
Bah!
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