Wikipedia-l March 2004

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70 participants
79 discussions

Developers should mind their own business
by Daniel Mayer 09 Mar '04

09 Mar '04

Great idea Tim! I don't care much for the name - "developer" has been used for a long time to refer to those blessed and wonderful code junkies that hang out on WikiTech-l and play with MediaWiki. Replacing their title with site-administrator will add more confusion as well. Why not just add all those abilities to bureaucrat accounts? Or better yet, couldn't we even get rid of the bureaucrat account type by requiring at least 3 admins to approve bureaucrat+-type actions? Kinda like requiring two keys turned by two people at once and having to enter the correct codes in order to launch a nuke. The idea of adding yet another level of hierarchy to our community doesn't rub me the right way... Tim Starling wrote: >I'll also take this opportunity to drop a few subtle hints. >Maveric149 > >Wikipedia's most active contributor, Not in the article space lately. I think over half my edits are to non-article pages now (lot's of organizational and meta-type work) I'm also not currently the most active (just historically and *only* based on number of edits - most of which are small edits I do while I'm checking anon and other edits on Recentchanges). To see who is most active currently, look for names off the 'last 30 days' column at http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians >Maveric149 has done a tremendous amount of work >for Wikipedia over the last two years. Thanks for the compliment. :-) >Mav is always cool and rational when dealing with >a dispute, and works hard to find a compromise >amenable to all parties. I try to be that way - but I've been more or less told by some people that I am sometimes borderline cold in my coolness. Some of those same people seem to think I take my rational tendencies a bit too far (I've been accused of not giving emotional context enough consideration - only looking at the bare facts). While I don't agree with those criticisms, I cannot say that I really disagree. >Respect for him in the community is universal. If true, which I don't think it is, then I would be very uncomfortable with that - I don't want my words to have disproportionately more force than their actual content and inherent merit. There is also at least one former Wikipedian that would probably disagree with your statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:168... I'm sure there are others but none have yet stated that fact on my RfC page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mav >Angela > >Angela has been extremely active in the Wikipedia >and Wikipedia talk namespaces over the last 6 >>months, organising the formation of many policies. >In her enthusiasm for weeding and quality control, >she has edited almost every functioning Wikimedia >wiki. I completely agree with all that. >She also lives in a different time zone to Mav, >so she'll be able to deal with situations arising >when Mav is unavailable. IIRC Bryan Derksen lives in British Columbia and is thus in the same timezone as I am. There are certainly many other highly-respected and very active Wikipedians in time zones near mine. --- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com

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no derivative work? was: Creative Commons Licence
by Marco Krohn 08 Mar '04

08 Mar '04

On Sunday 07 March 2004 17:17, Erik Moeller wrote: > Maybe, but there's another side. I've just tried to get permission to use > some example webcomics on Wikipedia in the respective articles. I received > one positive and three negative replies. The main problem was that people > are worried about third parties modifying their work. > > And I can understand that concern. If you have an example comic which > features the main characters, someone else can easily rip off these > characters and create their "fork" of the strip, even market it > commercially, as long as it's copylefted. > > What does it do for us to have it modifiable though? We're an > encyclopedia, our purpose is not the creation of new artwork but the > improvement of encyclopedia articles. The purpose of the comics is to > illustrate these articles. Modifying them does not further that purpose > (except for resizing, converting etc. which are probably allowed anyway). > > I think there's an argument to be made to allow something like "no > derivative works" for *some* images. It doesn't really hurt our purpose as > a "free encyclopedia", IMHO. Of course I understand the concerns of companies being afraid of "forks". I also agree with you that, in order to build the best "encyclopedia", we should be fine with restricting the rights of some images, e.g., using more fair use, no-derivatives and so on. This surely allows much more content and a better encyclopedia. What I don't agree with is the focus or better the change of focus that is taking place. Our top priority shouldn't be to become the best "encyclopedia"--we should become the best "free encyclopedia". Where "free" is meant to be in the spirit of science and scientific work: everyone builds on the works from others and everyone let others build on your own work -- "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" -- Newton (btw: the quote itself is another nice example for derivative work [1]) Sure, Disney would lose millions if they would allow us to use Mickey Mouse under GFDL. And every other company producing comic strips might lose money too. On the other hand one should not forget that Mickey Mouse is a derivative work and the only thing that has changed since 1928--when Walt Disney "stole" Willie (ancestor of Mickey Mouse) from Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill"--is that Walt Disney and Co. now have the power to buy the law (Mickey Mouse protection act, see [[Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act]]). These are just three randomly choosen examples: science, quote and Mickey Mouse and they all have in common that they build on past work. And even this text is partially based on work from others, in particular on Lawrence Lessig talk about "Free Culture" [2]. In this talk he made some very important points: <quote> * Creativity and innovation always builds on the past. * The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it. * Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past. * Ours is less and less a free society. </quote> We as a _free_ encyclopedia project should support those who produce free content and not those which give us their content under some non-free license only. As I said in the beginning I agree with Erik that it's the best for us as an encyclopedia (at least mid-term) to use more works even if they are not free. But for a _free_ encyclopedia this is unacceptable in my humble opinion. Coming from science I have seen how important derivative work is and I have benefited from that principle very much--I love standing on the shoulders of giants :-) best regards, Marco [1] http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0162b.shtml [2] http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html -- Marco Krohn Theoretical Physics University of Hannover

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RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bureaucrat on French Wikipedia
by Constans, Camille (C.C.) 08 Mar '04

08 Mar '04

>-----Message d'origine----- >De : Nicolas Weeger [mailto:weeger@noos.fr] >Envoyé : dimanche 22 février 2004 16:16 >À : wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org >Objet : Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Bureaucrat on French Wikipedia > > >> no Ryo, it is not so. It was not very well explained, but >you need to be >> bureaucrat to make people sysop, and a bureaucrat is a sysop >which needs >> a special status given by a developer. > >I did understand that. >But I'm also _certain_ at some point I _did_ access the 'make >sysop' page. IT >has a plain text box to enter the user's name :) > >> I suggest you (I think Shai was interested as well) ask a >developper to >> make you bureaucrat on fr, so we do not have to bug a developper any >> more :-) > >I have no objection to being bureaucrat - but maybe we should >ask the opinion of >other french contributors. > >> ant For now, we are three bureaucrat on fr, Traroth, Aoineko and me. Each can name another person bureaucrat.

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Moved here from [[Talk:Maximus Rex]]
by Timwi 08 Mar '04

08 Mar '04

Someone wrote the following on [[Talk:Maximus Rex]] (notice: the article [[Maximus Rex]] doesn't exist). Timwi ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello, I was using your article on Roman currency for a research project, and was wondering how i would go about properly citing it in my bibiography. I can be reached at chronicallybored(a)comcast.net

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DNA, mediation AND arbitration
by Anthere 07 Mar '04

07 Mar '04

Tonight, I can't sleep. So, I go up again. I look at Wikipedia. I look at the DNA article and its talk page. I see the result of yesterday unprotection. It looked so obvious to me what would happen. I think of private mails. I think of mediation failing. I think of arbitration request. Arbitration request rejected because not approved by Jimbo. I see those putting oil on the fire. I think of dispute resolution method as currently suggested. I see what is gonna happen. Likely... unsysoping and soft ban, right ? And later, since nothing will be solved, hard ban ? So mechanical. You sure there was nothing else to do than wait, without answering, without commenting, just wait till *that* happen ? (shaking my head in disbelief) (listening to heavy silence)

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Copyvio bot (was: Yahoo has choosen Wikipedia for his non-commercial channel of CAP)
by Daniel Mayer 05 Mar '04

05 Mar '04

Robert Michel wrote: >PS: Search engines like Yahoo could be a good partner to >get support to use their server more than 1000 times a >day, for example with a script which check every new >entry if it was only a copy&paste from one webpage or >newsposting. Do you think when the Wikipedia Foundation >would request for support, this would be realistic? E.G. >Yahoo should has been an interest of their own that we >don`t use copy right protectet material ;) Sorry for the 'me too', but... I think this is a great idea. :) As the volume of edits increase, being able to check new contributions for copyright violations becomes more important since even if a very small percentage of edits have copyvios, that still will be an absolutely large amount of text given enough time. Such a thing could poison and potentially doom any chance for a print version of any of our content. Fixing a copyvio on the wiki after being notified is easy. Fixing a copyvio printed on 50,000 print copies would be impossible. A bot checking each new article and each new major diff for copyvios would be very helpful. It could be written so that anything from websites known to host public domain or free content could be excluded from being added to a suspected copyvio list. Humans would still have to go through that list and make decisions on whether or not the suspected copyvios are in fact copyvios. Feeback from that could be used to further refine the copyvio bot. But yes, that would require more than 1000 searches a day from a single IP address. We could get around that by coordinating copyvio bot use by several users from each wiki, but IMO a better way to do it would be to have the bot become part of MediaWiki and for the service to be run by the Wikimedia servers. That will require special permission to exceed the 1000 search a day limit. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com

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Yahoo has choosen Wikipedia for his non-commercial channel of CAP
by Robert Michel 05 Mar '04

05 Mar '04

Salve, was this on action by Wikipedianers, or was this on action of yahoo without contacting the Wikipedia foundation? Greetings rob see: > http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/ index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040302005391&newsLang=en --snipp-- March 02, 2004 08:20 AM US Eastern Timezone Yahoo! Search Launches New Content Acquisition Program, Providing More Relevant, Comprehensive Online Content For Users SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 2004-- Includes Relationships With NPR, The New York Public Library, National Science Digital Library And More; Program Also Introduces Overture's New Site Match Paid Inclusion Program, Giving Commercial Content Providers Direct Way to Interact with Search Engines Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that Yahoo!(R) Search (http://search.yahoo.com) will be rolling out its new Content Acquisition Program (CAP) this week as part of Yahoo! Search's ongoing efforts to enhance search quality and comprehensiveness. CAP enables non-commercial and commercial content providers to better interact with Yahoo! Search Technology by directly providing their Web pages, which are then added to Yahoo!'s search index and displayed in search results based on their relevance to a search term. Overture, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!, has launched a new paid inclusion program, called Site Match, as the commercial component of CAP. Site Match allows commercial content providers to effectively submit Web content, update it frequently, obtain additional targeted leads, and track and optimize their performance. "Our primary goal is to discover all the content on the Web for free. In addition, the Content Acquisition Program serves to make a richer set of content accessible to users in a way that most search engines today are unable to achieve," said Tim Cadogan, vice president of Search at Yahoo! Inc. "This program enables us to develop direct, structured relationships with content providers to increase comprehensiveness, maintain the most up-to-date data, improve relevance and thereby deliver a higher quality search experience for users." As part of the non-commercial channel of CAP, called Public Site Match, Yahoo! Search is working with several content providers from government, academia and other non-profit sectors to help improve search quality and expand the breadth and depth of content users can access through search, including: -- NPR (National Public Radio), an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of non-commercial news, talk and entertainment programming, will provide access to the audio from its flagship news and information programs. -- Northwestern University's online OYEZ project contains more than 2,000 hours of Supreme Court audio, including all audio recorded since 1995. -- Library of Congress, the research arm of Congress, is the largest library in the world with more than 128 million items, including 29 million books and other print materials, 12 million photographs and 57 million manuscripts. Additional CAP partners include The New York Public Library, one of the most renowned libraries in the country; Project Gutenberg, the Web's oldest producer of free electronic books; University of Michigan's OAIster project, which provides hard to find academic collections; UCLA's Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) with content documenting Babylonian history back to 3500 B.C.; Wikipedia, a free, multilingual online encyclopedia with articles ^^^^^^^^^^ in more than 50 languages; and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), the National Science Foundation's online library, with more than 250 collections that improve the way Americans learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The OYEZ, CDLI and NSDL projects are all federally funded in part or in whole by the National Science Foundation. [...]

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Creative Commons Licence
by Daniel Mayer 05 Mar '04

05 Mar '04

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: >Using short text quotations places few limits on use, >modification and distribution of a work. And so does using a single frame from a 50,000+ frame TV episode, or a few frames from a 150,000+ frame movie. Or even the use of low resolution versions of non-GFDL images in articles. >The same can't be said about using "fair use" images - >you can't use them for commercial purposes, you can't >distribute them if it involves some profit, and the same >applies to any modifications of them. Fair use depends on use. If you extract any fair use material from the context that makes it fair (the article), then that use may no longer be fair. That is just as true for images as it is for quotations. IANAL -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia featured in German weekly magazine
by engelsAG＠t-online.de 04 Mar '04

04 Mar '04

"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge(a)telus.net> schrieb: > What convinces them is when Googling produces a Wikipedia article. :-P > That happens more and more frequently. Unfortunately, it is often one of the copiers that will be found first, which is especially a problem if one does not get the same one every time. Andre Engels

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RE: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia featured in German weekly magazine
by Sean at AWH 04 Mar '04

04 Mar '04

>One possible hook is to pick apart a Google result or two, show >how often 90-95% of the results are bogus sites just trying to >sell you something. Small towns in the US are an example - just >try to find the town's home page or date of founding amongst all >the "fine motels in Smallville, Nebraska", and "real estate >opportunities in Smallville, Nebraska". It's not just Americ-- oops, United-Statesian towns that have that syndrome. I just went thru that particular torture trying to look up Petrozavodsk.

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Wikipedia-l March 2004