Erik Moeller wrote:
>Michael-
>
>
>>Well, that image is where Creative Commons got the idea too, of course.
>>But why invite confusion,
>>
>>
>I don't think the name invites confusion. It would be quite ironic if the
>name "commons" became proprietary because "Creative Commons" adopted it.
>
I'm not at all suggesting that we avoid "commons" because it's proprietary.
>It is not desirable for the term "commons" to be merely associated with a
>set of licenses, to become in effect a legalistic term
>
Nor is it in any danger of that. Whether we use it or not, "commons"
will always have plenty of other meanings and uses. But it's worth
noting that if you Google the word, the Creative Commons site is the
first hit.
>It is much more desirable for the image of a commons
>in the digital age to be firmly etched into the mind of the Internet
>public as one of a set of content which may be freely used with limited or
>no restrictions.
>
I would think that the choice of name should serve the agenda of
promoting the project, instead of having the project serve the agenda of
promoting the name.
--Michael Snow
hi all,
i'm trying to download the english old dump file, however i appear to
be forbidden. (gasp.) can someone point me in the right direction for
getting access to this file?
thanks so much.
adam
I propose that the current Project Sourceberg is integrated into a larger
"Wikimedia Commons".
Said "Wikimedia Commons" should reside at commons.wikimedia.org and be a
repository for
- images
- public domain texts
- otherwise freely licensed documents
- music, artistic works (but see below)
All material in the commons would have to be licensed under one of several
licenses, not necessarily the FDL, but all allowing at the very least free
distribution and commercial use. For texts, modification rights would also
be a requirement. There would be NO fair use material on
commons.wikimedia.org.
Material would be eligible for inclusion in the Commons if it is useful to
at least ONE Wikimedia project. This includes plausible *future*
usefulness.
The Commons Community would apply commons sense .. excuse me, common
sense, to determine which files are eligible for inclusion, i.e. if a band
is notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia, and their MP3s are
freely licensed, they can be deposited; if a file is highly referenced
from the outside and causes unbearable bandwith costs, it can be removed.
The larger and more popular a file, the more pressing needs to be its
rationale for inclusion.
I propose that we shall build an interface between the files residing in
the Wikimedia Commons, and other Wikipedia projects, so that it will be
possible to easily reference a file in the commons, like so:
[[Image:co:Airplane.jpg|200 px|A very nice airplane]]
[[Media:co:listen.mp3]]
This would not create a copy of the file or auto-generated thumbnails on
the local server (e.g. en:). However, [[Image:Airplane.jpg]] could be used
to describe the file in the local language and context (we should probably
rename the Image: namespace to File: in the long term, because it is also
used for other description pages.)
All new uploads would automatically go to the commons unless the uploader
explicitly chooses not to send them there (e.g. for material which is
clearly only relevant to one project, only allowed under certain
jurisdictions ..).
The commons wiki itself should of course be multilingual as Project
Sourceberg and Meta are. There are some features which we should enter
into our software development roadmap to facilitate the transition to
using the commons:
- user interface languages can be set in the preferences
- automatic import of source information from the commons to the
description page of the local wiki
- better interlanguage handling in a single wiki installation
- friendly user interfaces for multi file uploading, automatic addition of
uploaded files to a category etc. - things that make life easier for
people not familiar with Wikipedia
- automatic gallery generation for multiple images of one category
What are the advantages of this system?
- Central place to resolve licensing issues
- Less time wasted on locating relevant files
- Less time wasted on re-uploading files
- A place for things like image galleries that go beyond the needs of a
single article (e.g. 10 different pictures of the same airplane)
- We can actively solicit contributions specifically to the commons from
people who are not interested in contributing on a regular basis
- We can provide the largest such respoitory of freely licensed material,
with a quality control mechanism that other such projects lack (the
community)
- We further establish our name beyond being merely the largest, greatest
encyclopedia ever
- We benefit from the positive connotations of the term "commons" and
appeal more directly to altruism, which will be beneficial when we ask for
donations
- We create a very real consciousness for the copyleft idea which so far
is missing especially for images, where many people simply upload whatever
they find on the net.
- We can use this platform to become more politically relevant in the
ongoing discourses about copyright law.
What are the downsides?
- The user interface is likely to be a bit clunky at first. We can fix
that.
- This project can exceed Wikipedia in costs if it is successful. I
believe prominent fundraisers will cover us, if not, we can fix this by
limiting the scope of the commons.
- People will upload all sorts of things which we don't want. We can fix
that the same way we deal with Wikipedia articles we don't want.
- Changes to the software will be very specific to our needs, other
MediaWiki sites will probably be unable to interface directly with the
commons. Maybe we can authorize other projects on an individual basis to
interface with us.
I believe that we should not work on a temporary fix to the licensing
(tagging) problem, but address this issue in one fell swoop instead. More
generally, if we want to do this, I would suggest for Jimbo to authorize
me to set up a roadmap on Meta for the implementation. That roadmap would
also be a place for volunteers to list themselves for specific tasks that
need to be completed. This will have to be a community effort among
developers, sourcebergers, wikibookers, wikipedians etc.
I believe we can launch the Wikimedia Commons within about 3 months, maybe
less, if we work together. Let me know your thoughts and possible
improvements to this concept.
Please help to get the word out about this proposal by forwarding this
message to the other project mailing lists, translating it, summarizing it
etc. As this concerns a way to share relevant data among *all* projects, I
believe every Wikimedia user should know about this and participate in the
planning phase.
I suggest that the initial discussion (do we want to do this?) take place
on wikipedia-l (we have no Wikimedia list yet, sadly), and that the
implementation discussion, if any, take place on meta.wikipedia.org.
All best,
Erik
Caroline Ford wrote:
>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Peter Jaros wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, March 17, 2004, at 03:55 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think there is universal support for this proposal, actually this
>>>> proposal:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Force the user to choose a license
>>>> 2. Force the user to fill out a field (or more?) indicating the source
>>>> 3. Write this on the page: {{msg:<NameOfLicense>}}
>>>> 4. Additionally store the license and source information in a separate
>>>> database field
>>>
>>>
>>> What about {{msg:CopyrightedFreeUseProvided}}, which takes an
>>> "argument" (text following the tag)? Perhaps a text field after the
>>> license choice?
>>
>>
>> My only concern about this approach is that most people don't
>> understand anything about copyright. Asking them to choose a license
>> under those circumstances is like rolling dice. It would be nice if
>> the license choices were accompanied by a brief outline of the
>> implications of each choice.
>>
>> Ec
>
>Another problem is that people regularly put things under the wrong
>license ie claiming things are public domain when they are not.
>
>We certainly need sources though.
>
Sources we absolutely must have. I still think it would be simpler, and
better, to not provide choices of license. We don't need to have people
engaging in the amateur practice of law any more than they already do.
--Michael Snow
We got about a minutes worth of coverage on BBC's ClickOnline show in a
discussion about wikis.
The show was broadcast on BBC World TV (available in 200 countries to
about 250 million people) at 20:30 on Thursday, but is getting repeated
at the following times,
Saturday 01:30 / 07:30
Monday 16:30
Tuesday 01:30 / 08:30
Wednesday 13:30
(All times in GMT)
In the UK it's available on BBC News 24 at the following times,
Saturday 20 March 8:30pm
Sunday 21 March 4:30am
Sunday 21 March 4:30pm
Monday 22 March 1:30am (**Also on BBC 2 at this time**)
Saturday 27 March 8:30pm
Sunday 28 March 4:30am
Sunday 28 March 4:30pm
Monday 29 March 1:30am
Available online (very very low quality) at,
Real:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/04/click_online/18mar.ram
Windows Media:
http://stream.servstream.com/ViewWeb/BBCWorld/File/worl_click_180304_show.a…
The section on wikis is at roughly 18 minutes.
Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran
I tried to find some info about the other members of the board of
trustees that are not democratically chosen, besides Jimbo, but failed.
Who are they? Why is only a minority of the board chosen democratically?
I won't argue about Jimbo's right to be in. But is the benevolent
dictatorship now extended to a benevolent triumvirate with two guests?
Erik Zachte
.
Hello everyone!
It looks like that someone has started to post the King James Bible to
s.w.o at:
http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Testament_(King_James_Version)
Before I get flamed, I don't have a posting the Bible to s.w.o. However
on the talk page of [[King James Version of the Bible]], I wrote that I
have received an email from Jim Black, a UK Online Bible reseller who
stated two things:
*The KJV crown copyright is a letters patent not a copyright;
*The patent is enforced;
Since Wikipedia has contributors from the UK, should we think twice
about posting the KJV to s.w.o?
Joshua Holman
AKA Hoshie
--
Joshua Holman - joshua at sillydog dot org
AIM: mozillaguy - Y!: hoshie331
John Kerry for President!
http://www.johnkerry.com
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>We need to have elections for the board of directors within some time
>period after the bylaws are signed, which isn't quite yet. (I have
>signatures from the other two, but I've delayed signing myself just to
>prevent this clock from starting to tick too soon!)
>
>There are two seats up for election, and I need to refresh my memory
>by re-reading the bylaws to get everything setup for the elections. I
>believe we need a couple of volunteers who are not running for
>election to serve as election administrators or something like that.
>
>Please volunteer! And I'll post more tomorrow about what we need to
>do.
>
I have created the following page so that information about the
elections gets on the wiki, and not just the mailing list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Elections
I apologize for the fact that this is English-centric right now. Feel
free to translate the portion relating to the Wikimedia board and post
it on as many other languages as possible.
--Michael Snow