I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place; feel free to point me elsewhere.
Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material from one article removed and put into another article. None of the documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining the necessary authorship information.
I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without making sure it was correct.
In case it helps, I'm trying to update [[Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page]] and [[Wikipedia:How to break up a page]].
-- Creidieki
2005/11/19, Michael Crouch creidieki@gmail.com:
I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place; feel free to point me elsewhere.
Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material from one article removed and put into another article. None of the documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining the necessary authorship information.
I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without making sure it was correct.
Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to it does not differ much either.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
On 11/19/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2005/11/19, Michael Crouch creidieki@gmail.com:
I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place; feel free to point me elsewhere.
Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material from one article removed and put into another article. None of the documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining the necessary authorship information.
I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without making sure it was correct.
Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to it does not differ much either.
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement.
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Then we're guilty of quite a bit of copyright infringement.
-Jtkiefer
On 11/20/05, Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net wrote:
Then we're guilty of quite a bit of copyright infringement.
Yes.
-- Sam
On 11/19/05, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason avarab@gmail.com wrote:
when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement. _______________________________________________
Speaking as someone whose text has been reassigned this way, (Armageddon 2419 A. D. was incorporated into the Buck Rogers article) can't one reasonably assume that this can and might happen? And won't that make it harder not just to prove copyright infringement but to even discuss it as such?
On 11/19/05, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason avarab@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/19/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2005/11/19, Michael Crouch creidieki@gmail.com:
I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place; feel free to point me elsewhere.
Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material from one article removed and put into another article. None of the documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining the necessary authorship information.
I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without making sure it was correct.
Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to it does not differ much either.
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement.
I think you'd have a tough time convincing a judge to rule that an ISP is "guilty of copyright infringment" for simply hosting the content which you provide for it to host. Wikipedia isn't following the GFDL, and it should be, but to say it's committing copyright infringment is a different story entirely.
There is a difference here between simply hosting your content, hosting it with modifications, copying it to a different part of Wikipedia, and copying it to an entirely different project. The first is pretty obviously legal. The second is more questionable, and you could argue that you have a right to revoke the permission (certainly upon any violation of the GFDL which is ongoing). The last two are even more legally shaky, but there are plenty of arguments that it is legal even outside the GFDL.
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
There is a difference here between simply hosting your content, hosting it with modifications, copying it to a different part of Wikipedia, and copying it to an entirely different project. The first is pretty obviously legal. The second is more questionable, and you could argue that you have a right to revoke the permission (certainly upon any violation of the GFDL which is ongoing). The last two are even more legally shaky, but there are plenty of arguments that it is legal even outside the GFDL.
Whether these licenses may be revoked is a dubious prospect. If someone revokes the GFDL that he has granted to Wikipedia what is the effect on the downstream user who has himself copied the material based on the licensing provisions that he found in Wikipedia, and which were perfectly valid at the time? Anything but irrevocable licenses could lead to serious absurdities.
Ec
2005/11/20, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Whether these licenses may be revoked is a dubious prospect. If someone revokes the GFDL that he has granted to Wikipedia what is the effect on the downstream user who has himself copied the material based on the licensing provisions that he found in Wikipedia, and which were perfectly valid at the time? Anything but irrevocable licenses could lead to serious absurdities.
It seems their rights remain as long as they keep to the GNU/FDL themselves:
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except
as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
Without this, I guess revoking the license would have the same effect on downstream users as putting a copyright violation on Wikipedia would: They are technically breaking copyright, but may be considered exempt by the courts for acting in good faith.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
Yes, the whole Wikipedia is still dead blocked in China, including the .zh section.
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Jiaming Xu wrote:
Yes, the whole Wikipedia is still dead blocked in China, including the .zh section.
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
Waerth, you are removing words from my mouth...
Jiaming, Andrew and others, I would like to ask you help on something.
I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.
Additionnaly, one of the organisations we talk with for possible sponsorship (and who actually sponsored some people to come to Wikimania) recently asked me to explain a bit what the block state was, and asked if they could be in touch with some of the chinese actors helping for the unblocking.
For this reason, I started yesterday a page on the issue on meta : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/China_block where I just had the time to put Jimbo's words yesterday, before I gave up due to the whole system slowliness.
I would really appreciate it if you could help summarize the various steps of the past 2 blocks as well as this one. I think there is information we can dig in the SignPost as well and Brion made some stats a few days ago on the matter. The idea is mostly to document the whole events, not necessarily to do an all clean and well written page.
Could you help here ?
Ant
I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.
I support this suggestion. This page should also list other blocks (I think I heard that some language versions ware or are blocked by Iran).
Here is a link to the chinese page on this event (including the two blocks in last year): http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%86%E5%B0%81%E... and this is the english version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Greetings Ting
Ting Chen wrote:
I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.
I support this suggestion. This page should also list other blocks (I think I heard that some language versions ware or are blocked by Iran).
I do agree on that. There is one but. We have given the people who negotiated with the Chinese government some backing by not being to loud about our being blocked. I feel that if negotiations are being held with the Iranian government they should be given some time as well.
Waerth/Walter
Ting Chen wrote:
I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.
I support this suggestion. This page should also list other blocks (I think I heard that some language versions ware or are blocked by Iran).
Here is a link to the chinese page on this event (including the two blocks in last year): http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%86%E5%B0%81%E... and this is the english version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China
Greetings Ting
Thanks for the info Ting. I hope the english page will be updated from time to time :-)
I also renamed (not great, but better than nothing), the meta page : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_projects_blocks
ant
Anthere wrote:
Jiaming Xu wrote:
Yes, the whole Wikipedia is still dead blocked in China, including the .zh section.
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
Waerth, you are removing words from my mouth...
Oooops, a gentle english speaker indicated that my use of words were quite incorrect here and could lead to confusion. He said I should have said "you took the words right out of my mouth"
I did not mean to say anything ungentle to Waerth, I was just jumping on the opportunity he offered me in opening the subject :-)
Thanks for opening the subject Waerth, doubly so as I thought the block was lifted... so it is important we know that it is not...
Ant
Anthere wrote: <>Anthere wrote:
Jiaming Xu wrote:
Yes, the whole Wikipedia is still dead blocked in China, including the .zh section.
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
Waerth/Walter
Waerth, you are removing words from my mouth...
Oooops, a gentle english speaker indicated that my use of words were
quite incorrect here and could lead to confusion. He said >I should have said "you took the words right out of my mouth"
I did not mean to say anything ungentle to Waerth, I was just jumping
on the opportunity he offered me in opening the subject :-) Doesn't matter Anthere I hadn't noticed it untill you mentioned it just now ;)
Walter/Waerth
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP to request the site to be unblocked.
You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:
1. Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese government. We are not a site for dissidents nor for government supporters. We are neutral. NPOV is non-negotiable. It is impossible to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.
2. It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia, most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all. It is that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as Wikipedia is blocked. Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.
It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of criticism. But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not critics of the Chinese government. My argument was that censoring Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from hearing the voice of the Chinese people.
--Jimbo
Based on a mostly unscientific calculation...
Of the 33 zhwp editors with the most edits over the last 30 days, 51.5% (17) were primarily users of Traditional Chinese.
In total, these 33 people have made 16570 edits over the last 30 days. Percentage of edits made by primary TC users was 45.0% (7466).
I never did such a check before the blocking of Wikimedia in China, but I'm guessing percentages were quite different.
A more specific breakdown based on current geographical location:
42.4% (14) were in the PRC; 24.2% (8) were Taiwanese; 21.2% (7) were Hong Kongers; 09.1% (3) were Canadians; 03.0% (1) was in Germany.
All of the users in PRC and Germany were users of Simplified. All users in Taiwan and HK were users of Traditional. 2 users in Canada were Traditional, 1 simplified.
Geographical breakdown of edits: 50.6% (8379) were from Mainlanders; 21.7% (3594) were from Hong Kongers; 18.0% (2979) were from Taiwanese; 06.4% (1065) were from Canada; -- 05.4% (894) were from Traditional users in Canada; (83.8% of Canadian edits) -- 01.0% (172) were from Simplified users in Canada; (16.2% of Canadian edits) 03.3% (553) were from Germany.
My guess is that pre-block, it was much more concentrated on Simplified users and users from the Mainland.
Cheers Mark
On 22/11/05, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP to request the site to be unblocked.
You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:
- Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese
government. We are not a site for dissidents nor for government supporters. We are neutral. NPOV is non-negotiable. It is impossible to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.
- It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia,
most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all. It is that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as Wikipedia is blocked. Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.
It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of criticism. But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not critics of the Chinese government. My argument was that censoring Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from hearing the voice of the Chinese people.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
OK, I've done some more calculations. From the 33 users with the most edits before 30 days ago, 36.4% (12) were primarily users of Traditional Chinese.
Percentage of edits made by primary TC users before 30 days ago was 31.1%.
So, edits by people who used primarily Simplified Chinese went from 67.4% down to 55.0%.
Geographical breakdown: 57.6% (19) Mainlanders; 21.2% (7) Taiwanese; 12.1% (4) Hong Kongers; 06.1% (2) Canadian. 03.0% (1) unknown.
One Canadian simplified, one Canadian traditional.
Geographical breakdown of edits: 65.9% (178232) Mainland; 15.5% (42040) Taiwanese; 11.8% (31981) Hong Konger; 05.2% (14099) Canadian; - 03.7% (9974) Traditional in Canada (70.7% of Canadian total) - 01.5% (4125) Simplified in Canada (29.3% of Canadian total) 01.5% (4022) unknown.
So again, a fall in Simplified users.
But keep in mind that these edit counts are from the beginning of zhwp until 30 days ago, so it's not nessecarily a short-term trend.
Cheers Mark
On 22/11/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Based on a mostly unscientific calculation...
Of the 33 zhwp editors with the most edits over the last 30 days, 51.5% (17) were primarily users of Traditional Chinese.
In total, these 33 people have made 16570 edits over the last 30 days. Percentage of edits made by primary TC users was 45.0% (7466).
I never did such a check before the blocking of Wikimedia in China, but I'm guessing percentages were quite different.
A more specific breakdown based on current geographical location:
42.4% (14) were in the PRC; 24.2% (8) were Taiwanese; 21.2% (7) were Hong Kongers; 09.1% (3) were Canadians; 03.0% (1) was in Germany.
All of the users in PRC and Germany were users of Simplified. All users in Taiwan and HK were users of Traditional. 2 users in Canada were Traditional, 1 simplified.
Geographical breakdown of edits: 50.6% (8379) were from Mainlanders; 21.7% (3594) were from Hong Kongers; 18.0% (2979) were from Taiwanese; 06.4% (1065) were from Canada; -- 05.4% (894) were from Traditional users in Canada; (83.8% of Canadian edits) -- 01.0% (172) were from Simplified users in Canada; (16.2% of Canadian edits) 03.3% (553) were from Germany.
My guess is that pre-block, it was much more concentrated on Simplified users and users from the Mainland.
Cheers Mark
On 22/11/05, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I feel we should change tactics.
A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP to request the site to be unblocked.
You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:
- Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese
government. We are not a site for dissidents nor for government supporters. We are neutral. NPOV is non-negotiable. It is impossible to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.
- It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia,
most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all. It is that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as Wikipedia is blocked. Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.
It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of criticism. But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not critics of the Chinese government. My argument was that censoring Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from hearing the voice of the Chinese people.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
On 11/20/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
There is a difference here between simply hosting your content, hosting it with modifications, copying it to a different part of Wikipedia, and copying it to an entirely different project. The first is pretty obviously legal. The second is more questionable, and you could argue that you have a right to revoke the permission (certainly upon any violation of the GFDL which is ongoing). The last two are even more legally shaky, but there are plenty of arguments that it is legal even outside the GFDL.
Whether these licenses may be revoked is a dubious prospect. If someone revokes the GFDL that he has granted to Wikipedia what is the effect on the downstream user who has himself copied the material based on the licensing provisions that he found in Wikipedia, and which were perfectly valid at the time? Anything but irrevocable licenses could lead to serious absurdities.
Ec
Read clause 9 of the GFDL: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." Wikimedia distributes the Document other than as expressly provided for under the GFDL, and has already had its rights under the GFDL terminated.
Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd. If you want to make any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Read clause 9 of the GFDL: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." Wikimedia distributes the Document other than as expressly provided for under the GFDL, and has already had its rights under the GFDL terminated.
Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd. If you want to make any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
Anthony
Under clause 9 aren't we already in breach of the license due to the fact that many things on wikipedia are multi licensed and despite our best efforts the licenses don't always match up with each other totally?
-Jtkiefer
On 11/20/05, Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Read clause 9 of the GFDL: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." Wikimedia distributes the Document other than as expressly provided for under the GFDL, and has already had its rights under the GFDL terminated.
Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd. If you want to make any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
Anthony
Under clause 9 aren't we already in breach of the license due to the fact that many things on wikipedia are multi licensed and despite our best efforts the licenses don't always match up with each other totally?
-Jtkiefer
Probably not for that reason. Aggregating GFDL content with non-GFDL content is valid under clause 7. There are some legal grey areas here, for instance what if a copyright violation is intertwined directly within the text in a way that can't possibly be considered a separate work.
The most important point of non-compliance on the site itself is the lack of a title page listing five principal authors and the name of the publisher. There is also the lack of a copyright notice within the document (although one could argue that the entire project is a single document with the copyright notice as part of [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]), and a less than compliant section entitled history (the wiki feature doesn't state the title or the publisher). The history section becomes completely unacceptable whenever anything is copied or moved from one page to another. To go further into it I'd really have to hear a proposal over what is considered the document, what is the history section, where is the title page, etc.
There are a few different ways you could try to shoehorn these things into Wikipedia, but I don't see how any of them could be considered "as expressly provided for" by the GFDL. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong, and there's a way to look at Wikipedia so that everything fits. If so, it'd be really nice if someone would explain it all. What are the documents? Where are the title pages? What are the titles? Has permission been given to use the same titles? Where are the sections entitled history? Where are the copyright notices? Who are the publishers? I can come up with possible answers to all of these separately, which come close to compliance, but then the different answers invariably contradict each other. Is the document everything? All the text? Is each article a document? Is Wikimedia the publisher? A publisher?
Perhaps the most blantant offender is the current database dump. That doesn't even contain a *mention* of all the authors, let alone a compliant title page and history section. It's clearly distribution outside of what is "expressly provided for" by the GFDL.
All of this is really just a mental exercise unless it actually comes down to a lawsuit. And then the doctrines of laches and maybe even abandonment would come into play (plus fair use, implicit license, and OCILLA). But in terms of Wikimedia, I really don't see how the GFDL could be used as a defense, it just isn't being followed very closely.
Hi Anthony,
The most important point of non-compliance on the site itself is the lack of a title page listing five principal authors and the name of the publisher.
Once an article has a history of e.g. 30 entries, it is no longer feasable to identify the 5 principal authors. What makes things even more complicated: once you move a certain paragraph into a new article, you would have to find the 5 principal authors of this passage. If you insist on being compliant here, you can as well prohibit any moval of any content from one article to another. Is that what you want?
A proposal by Magnus was interesting:
While I agree with this, a simple technical solution could be a "copy" function, similar to "move". Instead of splitting an article, just duplicate it by clicking on "copy" to a new name (and preserving editing history), then delete everything not intended for the split-off article.
But unfortunately this does not help at all if the target article already exists and you just want to move a passage from one article to another just because it fits there better.
Demanding to mention the 5 principal authors is also impossible, once you try to translate an article from en to any other language. * There is no way to find out this information from the history of e.g. [[creationism]] or [[Jehovah's witnesses]] * There is no way to cramp this information (just in case you managed to get it after all) into the checkin comment. * You cannot put it into the discussion page, because old discussions might get deleted.
So what is your proposal? You are the one who interprets things in this strict way. Please make a viable proposal. Otherwise one would have to put Wikipedia on hold. There have been lots and lots of edits and translations that violate the GFDL (if your interpretation is correct). Lots of pages are in violation and would have to be taken down because of copyright infringement. And you cannot even know which ones. The only way out then would be to find a more suitable licence and to start all over with an empty wiki. But this would be a huge waste of resources.
Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann
On 11/21/05, Heiko Evermann heiko.evermann@gmx.de wrote:
Hi Anthony,
The most important point of non-compliance on the site itself is the lack of a title page listing five principal authors and the name of the publisher.
Once an article has a history of e.g. 30 entries, it is no longer feasable to identify the 5 principal authors. What makes things even more complicated: once you move a certain paragraph into a new article, you would have to find the 5 principal authors of this passage. If you insist on being compliant here, you can as well prohibit any moval of any content from one article to another. Is that what you want?
A proposal by Magnus was interesting:
While I agree with this, a simple technical solution could be a "copy" function, similar to "move". Instead of splitting an article, just duplicate it by clicking on "copy" to a new name (and preserving editing history), then delete everything not intended for the split-off article.
But unfortunately this does not help at all if the target article already exists and you just want to move a passage from one article to another just because it fits there better.
Demanding to mention the 5 principal authors is also impossible, once you try to translate an article from en to any other language.
- There is no way to find out this information from the history of e.g.
[[creationism]] or [[Jehovah's witnesses]]
- There is no way to cramp this information (just in case you managed to get
it after all) into the checkin comment.
- You cannot put it into the discussion page, because old discussions might
get deleted.
So what is your proposal? You are the one who interprets things in this strict way. Please make a viable proposal. Otherwise one would have to put Wikipedia on hold. There have been lots and lots of edits and translations that violate the GFDL (if your interpretation is correct). Lots of pages are in violation and would have to be taken down because of copyright infringement. And you cannot even know which ones. The only way out then would be to find a more suitable licence and to start all over with an empty wiki. But this would be a huge waste of resources.
At least for translating articles, or for splitting articles it might be interesting to have a '(transwiki)copy feature like we have a move feature.
Finne
-- "Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy" http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app
On 11/21/05, Heiko Evermann heiko.evermann@gmx.de wrote:
Hi Anthony,
The most important point of non-compliance on the site itself is the lack of a title page listing five principal authors and the name of the publisher.
Once an article has a history of e.g. 30 entries, it is no longer feasable to identify the 5 principal authors. What makes things even more complicated: once you move a certain paragraph into a new article, you would have to find the 5 principal authors of this passage. If you insist on being compliant here, you can as well prohibit any moval of any content from one article to another. Is that what you want?
Well, the GFDL doesn't require that you identify *the* 5 principal authors. It requires that you identify 5 principal authors. But you don't have any argument from me that this would be a PITA to do. I'm not insisting on GFDL compliance, I'm just pointing out that Wikipedia isn't compliant.
I'm not sure why this GFDL requirement prohibits any "moval of any content". It's not that hard to put 5 names next to the title. "Article Blah, by A, B, C, D, E, and others" (with others linking to the full list of authors). Whether content is moved or not doesn't affect that.
Alternatively, an effort could be made to abandon the GFDL altogether. In the long term that's probably a better solution. The GFDL wasn't made for wikis.
A proposal by Magnus was interesting:
While I agree with this, a simple technical solution could be a "copy" function, similar to "move". Instead of splitting an article, just duplicate it by clicking on "copy" to a new name (and preserving editing history), then delete everything not intended for the split-off article.
But unfortunately this does not help at all if the target article already exists and you just want to move a passage from one article to another just because it fits there better.
Demanding to mention the 5 principal authors is also impossible, once you try to translate an article from en to any other language.
- There is no way to find out this information from the history of e.g.
[[creationism]] or [[Jehovah's witnesses]]
- There is no way to cramp this information (just in case you managed to get
it after all) into the checkin comment.
- You cannot put it into the discussion page, because old discussions might
get deleted.
So what is your proposal? You are the one who interprets things in this strict way. Please make a viable proposal. Otherwise one would have to put Wikipedia on hold. There have been lots and lots of edits and translations that violate the GFDL (if your interpretation is correct). Lots of pages are in violation and would have to be taken down because of copyright infringement. And you cannot even know which ones. The only way out then would be to find a more suitable licence and to start all over with an empty wiki. But this would be a huge waste of resources.
Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann
You don't seem to have read many of my posts. While I think it's clear that Wikipedia is not GFDL compliant, I never claimed that was a copyright infringement. Like I said before (look up a few posts), I think you'd have a tough time convincing a judge that an ISP was infringing copyright by distributing text that you gave it to distribute.
Anyway, I've already given an example of how one can become compliant with the requirement to list 5 principal authors on the title page (which is defined in the GFDL as the area around the title). It wouldn't be that hard to do, and there isn't really even an attempt at compliance with this requirement. That's why I called that point the most important one.
Anthony
On 11/21/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Well, the GFDL doesn't require that you identify *the* 5 principal authors. It requires that you identify 5 principal authors. But you don't have any argument from me that this would be a PITA to do. I'm not insisting on GFDL compliance, I'm just pointing out that Wikipedia isn't compliant.
Anyway, I've already given an example of how one can become compliant with the requirement to list 5 principal authors on the title page (which is defined in the GFDL as the area around the title). It wouldn't be that hard to do, and there isn't really even an attempt at compliance with this requirement. That's why I called that point the most important one.
Anthony
OK, I contradicted myself here. I said it would be a pain, then I said it wouldn't be that hard.
I don't know which one is right, and really I don't know how to solve the problem. But I stand by my assertion that Wikipedia isn't GFDL compliant. I just don't know what to do about it, if anything.
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd. If you want to make any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
Dual licensing is not uncommon, with MySQL software often mentioned as an example.
In a wiki without any mention of a license (I think c2.com falls in this category, and susning.nu certainly does), the wiki system itself silently implies that articles can be edited and refactored by other users, and that an entire text paragraph can be cut out of one article and pasted into another within the same wiki. People who save their contribution to any wiki can be assumed to have agreed to this "implicit wiki license". In the case of Wikipedia, this is de facto a dual licensing with GFDL, where the implicit license includes recipies being moved to Wikibooks, dictionary definitions being moved to Wiktionary, source texts being moved to Wikisource, and articles being translated and reused in other languages of Wikipedia. Because that is how the system works, and you better know this when you contribute.
Hoi, The only thing that I read in all this wrangling about licenses is that they are a major pain in the posterior. Whan you think about it in an abstract way, we all know what the intentions of our projects are. In general the advocates of all these 'free' licenses want us to do what we do. So 'de jure' there may be a problem, in practice we have to be carefull not so much about the differences of the Free licenses but more about the non-free licenses.
The people who think that one Free license is better than the other and have this as their reason for not cooperating are as crazed as the people who believe that non-free licenses are not preventing cooperation.
Thanks, GerardM
On 11/21/05, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Wikipedia's use of the GFDL is already absurd. If you want to make any sense of things you have to look beyond the GFDL.
Dual licensing is not uncommon, with MySQL software often mentioned as an example.
In a wiki without any mention of a license (I think c2.com http://c2.comfalls in this category, and susning.nu http://susning.nu certainly does), the wiki system itself silently implies that articles can be edited and refactored by other users, and that an entire text paragraph can be cut out of one article and pasted into another within the same wiki. People who save their contribution to any wiki can be assumed to have agreed to this "implicit wiki license". In the case of Wikipedia, this is de facto a dual licensing with GFDL, where the implicit license includes recipies being moved to Wikibooks, dictionary definitions being moved to Wiktionary, source texts being moved to Wikisource, and articles being translated and reused in other languages of Wikipedia. Because that is how the system works, and you better know this when you contribute.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
GerardM wrote:
Hoi, The only thing that I read in all this wrangling about licenses is that they are a major pain in the posterior. Whan you think about it in an abstract way, we all know what the intentions of our projects are. In general the advocates of all these 'free' licenses want us to do what we do. So 'de jure' there may be a problem, in practice we have to be carefull not so much about the differences of the Free licenses but more about the non-free licenses.
The people who think that one Free license is better than the other and have this as their reason for not cooperating are as crazed as the people who believe that non-free licenses are not preventing cooperation.
While I agree with this, a simple technical solution could be a "copy" function, similar to "move". Instead of splitting an article, just duplicate it by clicking on "copy" to a new name (and preserving editing history), then delete everything not intended for the split-off article.
Magnus
On 11/20/05, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
In a wiki without any mention of a license (I think c2.com falls in this category, and susning.nu certainly does), the wiki system itself silently implies that articles can be edited and refactored by other users, and that an entire text paragraph can be cut out of one article and pasted into another within the same wiki. People who save their contribution to any wiki can be assumed to have agreed to this "implicit wiki license".
And how to you reconcile this with the fact that there is a non trivial amount of GFDLed content inserted into Wikipedia by someone other than its copyright holder?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 11/20/05, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
have agreed to this "implicit wiki license".
And how to you reconcile this with the fact that there is a non trivial amount of GFDLed content inserted into Wikipedia by someone other than its copyright holder?
That is a good question. Copying GFDL text into a (GFDL) wiki and then copying it out again without modifications (e.g. Wikisource) would obviously be ok, but is this also legally compatible with "normal wiki editing, as we know it" (i.e. my proposed "implicit wiki license")? I don't know. Have there been any conflicts of this kind, where a copyright owner has protested against their GFDL text being copied into Wikipedia?
I know a lot of public domain (EB1911 etc.) text is going in, and that is not a problem. But to what extent (and from where?) is GFDL material being copied into Wikipedia? Foldoc? Wikitravel is apparently CC-SA-BY, not GFDL.
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but
Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to it does not differ much either.
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement.
It seems as though you don't understand the concept of interpretation. Anybody has the right to interpret any legal text the way he wants. This does not mean that his interpretation will be correct. What you state is nothing more than your interpretation of what licensing is about.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement.
It seems as though you don't understand the concept of interpretation. Anybody has the right to interpret any legal text the way he wants. This does not mean that his interpretation will be correct. What you state is nothing more than your interpretation of what licensing is about.
What is "correct"? Agreeing with judges?
Gerrit.
Gerrit Holl wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement.
It seems as though you don't understand the concept of interpretation. Anybody has the right to interpret any legal text the way he wants. This does not mean that his interpretation will be correct. What you state is nothing more than your interpretation of what licensing is about.
What is "correct"? Agreeing with judges?
There is rarely a single "correct" interpretation. Perhaps it's the other way around: It's when the judges agree with you.
Ec
Actually, this is not true. A license is an agreement between 2 people and a declaration of will, but you have to interpret it within the context. Since it is not possible to respect the text of the GFDL, you have not other choice but to understand that it is a declaration of will and to intrepret it within context.
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
On 11/19/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2005/11/19, Michael Crouch creidieki@gmail.com:
I'm trying to improve the English Wikipedia's documentation on article moves, and I had a GFDL question. I hope this is the right place; feel free to point me elsewhere.
Articles on En are often split in a cut-and-paste way, with material from one article removed and put into another article. None of the documentation (that I can find) mentions anything about maintaining the necessary authorship information.
I've been told several times (on [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]) to simply mention in the edit summary "This material moved from [[Foo]]". Is this adequate for the GFDL requirements? I know we might not have a perfect solution to this, but I didn't want to add anything to the documentation without making sure it was correct.
Simply speaking: No, it is not enough according to the GNU/FDL, but Wikipedia is interpreting the GNU/FDL so freely anyway that adding this to it does not differ much either.
Wikipedia has no legal right to "interpet the GFDL", when people save text they give permission to use the text under a certain license, and if you don't follow that license you're guilty of copyright infringement. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Okay, this debate has gotten very abstract, and no one seems to be coming to any firm conclusions. Let me try to be more concrete.
Current en practice is to simply place a note in the "edit summary" field, to the effect of "this material copied from [[foo]]."
1) Does anyone object to me codifying this practice in the documentation? 2) If so, what other practice should I recommend instead?
-- Creidieki
On 11/23/05, M. Creidieki Crouch creidieki@gmail.com wrote:
Okay, this debate has gotten very abstract, and no one seems to be coming to any firm conclusions. Let me try to be more concrete.
Current en practice is to simply place a note in the "edit summary" field, to the effect of "this material copied from [[foo]]."
- Does anyone object to me codifying this practice in the documentation?
- If so, what other practice should I recommend instead?
-- Creidieki
The best way to see if anyone objects to you codifying the practice in the documentation would be...to codify the practice in the documentation.
But anyway, if you want to state in the docs that this is what people do, that's fine. If you want to say that it's a good idea to place such a note in the edit summary, that's a good idea too. But if you want to say that doing so satisfies the requirements of the GFDL, well, that would be adding lies to the documentation.
Anthony
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org