I've just reverted over 200 edits on the toki pona Wikipedia. Someone apparently feels the language is copyrighted so decided to replace every page, including user pages and the main page, with a copyright violation notice, presumably with the use of a bot. I've reverted these, although unfortunately the "bot rollback" failed on later pages so recent changes is a mess. I haven't deleted anything, so if people want to see the pages, such as "copyviopedia" this person created they can still do so.
As far as I am aware Sonja Kisa, the creator of the language, has released it under the GFDL, but I can't find any mailing list evidence to back this up.
If this is not the case, the wiki should obviously be removed but vandalizing hundreds of pages is not the way to go about this. I suggest we wait to hear from Sonja on the status of the copyright and remove it she can not confirm it is GFDL.
Angela.
Angela_ wrote:
I've just reverted over 200 edits on the toki pona Wikipedia. Someone apparently feels the language is copyrighted so decided to replace every page, including user pages and the main page, with a copyright violation notice, presumably with the use of a bot. I've reverted these, although unfortunately the "bot rollback" failed on later pages so recent changes is a mess. I haven't deleted anything, so if people want to see the pages, such as "copyviopedia" this person created they can still do so.
Edits were performed anonymously with the IP address 24.251.242.236 . The corresponding hostname is ip24-251-242-236.ph.ph.cox.net.
On the English Wikipedia:
mysql> select distinct rc_user_text from recentchanges where rc_ip='24.251.242.236'; +--------------+ | rc_user_text | +--------------+ | Node ue | +--------------+
I suggest a temporary ban from all projects effective immediately.
-- Tim Starling
I clearly support a TEMPORARY ban.
Rationale: This is a significant breach of rules of good conduct. Even if we're not a higher moral authority or in any way "teachers" over the next guy (and really, we're not), a ban will be better for Node, because it will give him the opportunity to return to this community afterwards in a way that makes it easy for everyone to accept that he has "served his time" and can then be welcomed back without anyone continuing to hold a grudge. No penalty at all would lead to a situation where people would continue to hold a grudge, and maybe not entirely without some justification.
I have left a note about this to Sonjaaa, who is also a WP contributor on the English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sonjaaa#Toki_Pona_vandalism
I would imagine that she should be able to clarify the copyright situation.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
On 22 Sep 2004, at 05:05, Tim Starling wrote:
Angela_ wrote:
I've just reverted over 200 edits on the toki pona Wikipedia. Someone apparently feels the language is copyrighted so decided to replace every page, including user pages and the main page, with a copyright violation notice, presumably with the use of a bot. I've reverted these, although unfortunately the "bot rollback" failed on later pages so recent changes is a mess. I haven't deleted anything, so if people want to see the pages, such as "copyviopedia" this person created they can still do so.
Edits were performed anonymously with the IP address 24.251.242.236 . The corresponding hostname is ip24-251-242-236.ph.ph.cox.net.
On the English Wikipedia:
mysql> select distinct rc_user_text from recentchanges where rc_ip='24.251.242.236'; +--------------+ | rc_user_text | +--------------+ | Node ue | +--------------+
I suggest a temporary ban from all projects effective immediately.
-- Tim Starling
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Rules of good conduct? I acted in good faith. I did not realise how much trouble it would cause. I figured if there really was an issue, then good, and if there wasn't the notices could easily be removed (had somebody asked, I would've done it myself).
Regardless of whether or not there are copyright issues with tokipona:, I believed there were and I put up copyvio notices.
And I strongly object to you calling my actions vandalism - I added copyvio notices to pages where I suspected copyright violations.
Others have suggested I used a bot, the simple fact is I did it manually. I'm too stupid to write a bot, though I could probably learn.
As I said before, I am truly sorry for the time I have wasted and the bad feelings I have caused.
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:01:30 +0200, Jens Ropers ropers@ropersonline.com wrote:
I clearly support a TEMPORARY ban.
Rationale: This is a significant breach of rules of good conduct. Even if we're not a higher moral authority or in any way "teachers" over the next guy (and really, we're not), a ban will be better for Node, because it will give him the opportunity to return to this community afterwards in a way that makes it easy for everyone to accept that he has "served his time" and can then be welcomed back without anyone continuing to hold a grudge. No penalty at all would lead to a situation where people would continue to hold a grudge, and maybe not entirely without some justification.
I have left a note about this to Sonjaaa, who is also a WP contributor on the English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sonjaaa#Toki_Pona_vandalism
I would imagine that she should be able to clarify the copyright situation.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
On 22 Sep 2004, at 05:05, Tim Starling wrote:
Angela_ wrote:
I've just reverted over 200 edits on the toki pona Wikipedia. Someone apparently feels the language is copyrighted so decided to replace every page, including user pages and the main page, with a copyright violation notice, presumably with the use of a bot. I've reverted these, although unfortunately the "bot rollback" failed on later pages so recent changes is a mess. I haven't deleted anything, so if people want to see the pages, such as "copyviopedia" this person created they can still do so.
Edits were performed anonymously with the IP address 24.251.242.236 . The corresponding hostname is ip24-251-242-236.ph.ph.cox.net.
On the English Wikipedia:
mysql> select distinct rc_user_text from recentchanges where rc_ip='24.251.242.236'; +--------------+ | rc_user_text | +--------------+ | Node ue | +--------------+
I suggest a temporary ban from all projects effective immediately.
-- Tim Starling
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 22 Sep 2004, at 06:01, Jens Ropers wrote:
I have left a note about this to Sonjaaa, who is also a WP contributor on the English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sonjaaa#Toki_Pona_vandalism
Sonjaaa has replied at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ropers#Toki_Pona_vandalism
Well, I for one felt it was nessecary to replace all content with copyvio notices because it states explicitly on the Toki Pona homepage that Toki Pona is copyrighted. In a cursory Google search, just to make sure I wasn't missing some sort of release by Sonja of the information into the public domain or under some sort of terms, I found no page under which Sonja released the language in any sort of way.
While it is debatable whether or not a language is copyrightable (see Lojban), I feared for Wikipedias interests and so took down those pages immediately pending further investigation.
Some have raised the point that a significant number of the pages were written by Sonja herself, and thus were explicitly released under the terms of the gfdl when she clicked "submit".
I have two things to say to that:
1. At the time I did not realise this.
2. Since I suspected that they were copyvios, rather than checking the history of each of 200-odd pages I simply replaced them all.
Since it appears they were indeed *not* copyvio, the appropriate course of action is simply to revert them to their previous versions after it has been shown that they aren't copyvio, and then keep going from where you were.
Whether or not I am blocked from all projects is obviously not my choice, but I will submit that I have contributed much to the community. For example, just in the past couple of days I have made logos for over a dozen Wikipedias, and posted them on Meta. I am also (at least I think) partially responsible for the founding of fo: and lb: (I informed people of the possibility of creating them).
Anyhow the decision doesn't rest in my hands. I will not object if it is decided that I should be blocked or banned or whatever, I will only defend myself against specific arguments.
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 03:45:36 +0100, Angela_ beesley@gmail.com wrote:
I've just reverted over 200 edits on the toki pona Wikipedia. Someone apparently feels the language is copyrighted so decided to replace every page, including user pages and the main page, with a copyright violation notice, presumably with the use of a bot. I've reverted these, although unfortunately the "bot rollback" failed on later pages so recent changes is a mess. I haven't deleted anything, so if people want to see the pages, such as "copyviopedia" this person created they can still do so.
As far as I am aware Sonja Kisa, the creator of the language, has released it under the GFDL, but I can't find any mailing list evidence to back this up.
If this is not the case, the wiki should obviously be removed but vandalizing hundreds of pages is not the way to go about this. I suggest we wait to hear from Sonja on the status of the copyright and remove it she can not confirm it is GFDL.
Angela. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Sep 21, 2004, at 11:38 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
Well, I for one felt it was nessecary to replace all content with copyvio notices because it states explicitly on the Toki Pona homepage that Toki Pona is copyrighted. In a cursory Google search, just to make sure I wasn't missing some sort of release by Sonja of the information into the public domain or under some sort of terms, I found no page under which Sonja released the language in any sort of way.
A language, per se, is not copyrightable. Only a particular description of a language is copyrightable under US law and international convention.
As I said before, while the law may be debated I added the notices because of a suspected copyvio. IANAL...
--node
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:51:29 -0400, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Sep 21, 2004, at 11:38 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
Well, I for one felt it was nessecary to replace all content with copyvio notices because it states explicitly on the Toki Pona homepage that Toki Pona is copyrighted. In a cursory Google search, just to make sure I wasn't missing some sort of release by Sonja of the information into the public domain or under some sort of terms, I found no page under which Sonja released the language in any sort of way.
A language, per se, is not copyrightable. Only a particular description of a language is copyrightable under US law and international convention.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Isn't Klingon copyrighted?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Stirling Newberry Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 11:58 PM To: Mark Williamson; wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] toki pona
On Sep 21, 2004, at 11:53 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, while the law may be debated I added the notices because of a suspected copyvio. IANAL...
--node
This point is not debateable - a language is not copyrightable, since it is an idea, not a particular work.
_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I'm pretty sure it is. The legal question here though is, as I understand it, whether or not copyrights of languages are valid or not, and apparently there is precident (Lojban) for languages being uncopyrightable.
--node
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:59:17 -0400, James R. Johnson modean52@comcast.net wrote:
Isn't Klingon copyrighted?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Stirling Newberry Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 11:58 PM To: Mark Williamson; wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] toki pona
On Sep 21, 2004, at 11:53 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, while the law may be debated I added the notices because of a suspected copyvio. IANAL...
--node
This point is not debateable - a language is not copyrightable, since it is an idea, not a particular work.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
[re language copyrights]
I don't know about USA but just finished one big hunk of 'copyright' article in HU: so I believe I'm pretty up to date on the European interpretation (probably similar to international treaties) which explicitely does not allow to copyright ideas, or anything which isn't "materialised". So the toki pona or klingon website, books, recorded materials etc could be copyrighted, but the languages themselves cannot.
(As a sidenote the Klingon font faces/glyphs probably cannot be copyrighted either, just their actual representational forms, prints, etc.)
IANAL (but I have read the law recently :))
peter
ps: ...which doesn't mean they're not protected by other laws, though.
After a cursory glance at the KLI,...they really should be writing their wiki with the pIqaD font, instead of using tlh S D and the like. It'd be more 'authentic.'
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Peter Gervai Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 5:29 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] toki pona
[re language copyrights]
I don't know about USA but just finished one big hunk of 'copyright' article in HU: so I believe I'm pretty up to date on the European interpretation (probably similar to international treaties) which explicitely does not allow to copyright ideas, or anything which isn't "materialised". So the toki pona or klingon website, books, recorded materials etc could be copyrighted, but the languages themselves cannot.
(As a sidenote the Klingon font faces/glyphs probably cannot be copyrighted either, just their actual representational forms, prints, etc.)
IANAL (but I have read the law recently :))
peter
ps: ...which doesn't mean they're not protected by other laws, though. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:43:31AM -0400, James R. Johnson wrote: [klingon fonts]
After a cursory glance at the KLI,...they really should be writing their wiki with the pIqaD font, instead of using tlh S D and the like. It'd be more 'authentic.'
thats mainly offtopic, but they already explained that the latin transliteration is "the official" writing, as pIqaD wasn't developed enough (and probably klingon speakers on earth are too lazy to memorize).
but that doesn't change the fact that they're probably not protected in europe (yet).
g.
JRJ> After a cursory glance at the KLI,...they really should be writing their JRJ> wiki with the pIqaD font, instead of using tlh S D and the like. It'd be JRJ> more 'authentic.' JRJ> James
There would have to be Unicode support for that font first...
The Klingon pIqaD is encoded, albeit unofficially, in the Private Use Range of Unicode; it is registered with the Conscript Registry (I believe that's what it's called?) which is managed by Michael Everson, one of the main founders of Unicode.
I personally do not think that it would be a good idea to use that, though, because it's possible and even probable that the characters the average font assigns to the private use range do not match with those assigned by the Conscript Registry.
I think what James meant is that rather than typing things in a transliterated way, they should be typed in a way that's compatible with general non-Unicode pIqaD fonts.
I don't really know Klingon, but I'll give an example:
tlhIngan = transliteration DIngan = font (I think?)
It's not really much of an issue anyways, as presumably one could use opentype features to make the sequence t-l-h display as the tlh character; and from what I know, most Klingon in use isn't in pIqaD (even the few books written in Klingon, I think).
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 19:53:08 +0200, Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:
JRJ> After a cursory glance at the KLI,...they really should be writing their JRJ> wiki with the pIqaD font, instead of using tlh S D and the like. It'd be JRJ> more 'authentic.' JRJ> James
There would have to be Unicode support for that font first...
-- Ausir mailto:fallout@lexx.eu.org http://fallout.scifi.pl ICQ 41090834 GG 2730728
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
A> If a language can be copyrighted, then it is, but I don't know what A> the implications of that are since I wrote to Paramount about this at A> the start of June and got no reply. A> Angela.
Try writing to Klingon Language Institute instead.
Angela_ wrote:
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:59:17 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
Isn't Klingon copyrighted?
If a language can be copyrighted, then it is, but I don't know what the implications of that are since I wrote to Paramount about this at the start of June and got no reply.
I would be surprised if you did. The question must certainly not be new to them. Any enterring into correspondence by them would only complicate their position since that could commit them to something that is contrary to their interests. When such companies feel that their copyright is threatened they prefer to let the matter be handled by their lawyers. If they do not feel threatened they do nothing.
Ec
Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, while the law may be debated I added the notices because of a suspected copyvio. IANAL...
I am not a great supporter of Toki Pona, but acting on mere suspicion like that is no way to operate, such actions are more characteristic of copyright paranoia.. There are enough people in Wikipedia who oppose Toki Pona, and it has been here long enough that you would think that the copyright argument would have been raised before. There is no need to act hurriedly on a mere suspicion. If a copyright owner feels that his rights are violated he can request that it can be taken down, and there will be ample opportunity to act on that request. There is a legal requirement to act on clear violations when they become known. Beyond that, one of the requirements for take down notices is that the person making the request have some kind of standing for making that request. This is a protection from being flooded by requests from do-gooders who have no knowledge of the facts and don't know what they are doing.
Ec
Mark Williamson wrote:
...For example, just in the past couple of days I have made logos for over a dozen Wikipedias, and posted them on Meta. I am also (at least I think) partially responsible for the founding of fo: and lb: (I informed people of the possibility of creating them).
I have little idea how banning works but I'd personally prefer Node commit to making or fixing a non-infinite number of logos rather than be temporarily banned for impulsively adding copyvio notices en masse.
Henry H. Tan-Tenn a écrit:
Mark Williamson wrote:
...For example, just in the past couple of days I have made logos for over a dozen Wikipedias, and posted them on Meta. I am also (at least I think) partially responsible for the founding of fo: and lb: (I informed people of the possibility of creating them).
I have little idea how banning works but I'd personally prefer Node commit to making or fixing a non-infinite number of logos rather than be temporarily banned for impulsively adding copyvio notices en masse.
I agree.
When my kids do mistakes, I usually first scream (very loud). Then I ask them to fix their mess. And when I am full of energy, I give them TIG (Travaux d'Intérêt Géréraux in French, which means "task beneficial to the whole community").
The alternative is to scream, lock them in their room and go for the sponge and washing power myself. Well, 'am lazy :-)
Anthere wrote:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn a écrit:
I have little idea how banning works but I'd personally prefer Node commit to making or fixing a non-infinite number of logos rather than be temporarily banned for impulsively adding copyvio notices en masse.
I agree.
When my kids do mistakes, I usually first scream (very loud). Then I ask them to fix their mess. And when I am full of energy, I give them TIG (Travaux d'Intérêt Géréraux in French, which means "task beneficial to the whole community").
Here in Canada the term "community service" is used as an alternative to jail time for minor offences.
Ec
I find all this talk of community service a bit laughable.
Does anybody have any reason to believe I wouldn't continue making such contributions to the community? I have nothing else to do with my time.
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 05:31:29 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Henry H. Tan-Tenn a écrit:
I have little idea how banning works but I'd personally prefer Node commit to making or fixing a non-infinite number of logos rather than be temporarily banned for impulsively adding copyvio notices en masse.
I agree.
When my kids do mistakes, I usually first scream (very loud). Then I ask them to fix their mess. And when I am full of energy, I give them TIG (Travaux d'Intérêt Géréraux in French, which means "task beneficial to the whole community").
Here in Canada the term "community service" is used as an alternative to jail time for minor offences.
Ec
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
I have little idea how banning works but I'd personally prefer Node commit to making or fixing a non-infinite number of logos rather than be temporarily banned for impulsively adding copyvio notices en masse.
Mmmm.... Those logos should be uploaded as Wiki.png to the wiki in question, not just uploaded to meta.
-- Tim Starling
I've just spoken to Sonja about this. Please see below for the end of an email she sent me this morning regarding the copyright status of the language.
Angela.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sonja Elen Kisa marraskuu1978@yahoo.com Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 00:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: toki pona Wikipedia To: angela@wikimedia.org
[...]
Anyway, the Toki Pona language is obviously released under the GFDL.
Sincerely,
Sonja
As I said before, I was not aware of this.
My statement that I did what I did in good faith still stands (though obviously I will not do it ever again, in fact chances are I'll never post a copyvio notice anywhere again).
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:08:48 +0100, Angela_ beesley@gmail.com wrote:
I've just spoken to Sonja about this. Please see below for the end of an email she sent me this morning regarding the copyright status of the language.
Angela.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sonja Elen Kisa marraskuu1978@yahoo.com Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 00:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: toki pona Wikipedia To: angela@wikimedia.org
[...]
Anyway, the Toki Pona language is obviously released under the GFDL.
Sincerely,
Sonja
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Just the other day, acting in good faith, I went through about 50 articles on the English Wikipedia changing [[Strand, England]] to [[The Strand]], and moved the article there. It turns out I was completely wrong, and it was right originally. Ought I be banned for this too?
Seriously, we have enough malicious vandals on Wikipedia to focus on without also banning decent editors. Regardless of how much node may annoy people in the #Wikipedia IRC channel, as far as I know he is a good contributor to the encyclopedia itself. If making a mistake like this constitutes vandalism and is a bannable offence, then almost every sysop on Wikipedia ought be banned. People break the Main Page, stub messages and things like that all the time. Is this more serious because it takes more effort to fix? Or have you all made up your minds that node did this maliciously? Didn't this raise a valid concern about the vagueness of the copyrights for these con-lang wikis? I feel that, as Wikipedia grows, we need to be more and more vigilent for copyright violations, and a hard-line policy is imperative. The larger we grow, the larger the target we are for holders of violated copyrights.
~Mark
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:14:44 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
As I said before, I was not aware of this.
My statement that I did what I did in good faith still stands (though obviously I will not do it ever again, in fact chances are I'll never post a copyvio notice anywhere again).
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 06:08:48 +0100, Angela_ beesley@gmail.com wrote:
I've just spoken to Sonja about this. Please see below for the end of an email she sent me this morning regarding the copyright status of the language.
Angela.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sonja Elen Kisa marraskuu1978@yahoo.com Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 00:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: toki pona Wikipedia To: angela@wikimedia.org
[...]
Anyway, the Toki Pona language is obviously released under the GFDL.
Sincerely,
Sonja
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, I was not aware of this.
My statement that I did what I did in good faith still stands (though obviously I will not do it ever again, in fact chances are I'll never post a copyvio notice anywhere again).
There's a difference between blanking an article, and merely putting a notice.
Ec
What? Who says I blanked any articles?
Replaced the full text of articles with copyvio notices, yes, but that's what you're supposed to do for such notices, no?
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 05:08:51 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, I was not aware of this.
My statement that I did what I did in good faith still stands (though obviously I will not do it ever again, in fact chances are I'll never post a copyvio notice anywhere again).
There's a difference between blanking an article, and merely putting a notice.
Ec
If you're objecting to articles, yes. What you do is replace the copyrighted text with a copyvio notice.
The problem here, as I hope you've figured out, is that you weren't accusing specific articles of being copyvio. You were accusing a whole project of being a copyvio. Thus the specific article replacement served only to make a mess that was hard to clean up. Pretty much this falls under "don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point." You picked a disruptive and difficult to deal with way of expressing your concern of copyvio that made a lot of work for people, was rude to people, and was rightly read by people as a slap in the face to an entire Wikipedia. You could have posted to the mailing list, to Meta, asked in IRC, or even, since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC, asked her specifically, since you knew she was involved in the project. You did none of these things. Instead, you caused trouble.
As I said, I hope you understand this point. Because, quite honestly, if you don't, that's even more troubling than your removal of a whole Wikipedia.
-Snowspinner
On Sep 22, 2004, at 10:21 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
What? Who says I blanked any articles?
Replaced the full text of articles with copyvio notices, yes, but that's what you're supposed to do for such notices, no?
--node
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 05:08:51 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
As I said before, I was not aware of this.
My statement that I did what I did in good faith still stands (though obviously I will not do it ever again, in fact chances are I'll never post a copyvio notice anywhere again).
There's a difference between blanking an article, and merely putting a notice.
Ec
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
If you're objecting to articles, yes. What you do is replace the copyrighted text with a copyvio notice.
Yes. I suspected that the text of each and every single one of the articles I replaced was copyvio (with the exception of a couple I did by mistake which had no content at all).
The problem here, as I hope you've figured out, is that you weren't accusing specific articles of being copyvio. You were accusing a whole project of being a copyvio.
No, I wasn't. I wasn't "accusing" anything of being anything.
Regardless of that, there were quite a few pages (mostly talk pages) that I left up.
Thus the specific article replacement served only to make a mess that was hard to clean up. Pretty much this falls under "don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point." You picked a disruptive and difficult to deal with way of expressing your concern of copyvio that made a lot of work for people, was rude to people, and was rightly read by people as a slap in the face to an entire Wikipedia.
...
I did it out of concern and with nothing but the best intentions. I would hardly call it "disrupting wikipedia" as if you look at RC on tokipona: there have been no revisions since Angela rv'd my edits and an edit or two I made a few hours after that. Nobody even noticed what I had done for nearly 24 hours after I stopped doing it, and over 24 hours after I started doing it; before I started there hadn't been any new articles for quite some time anyways and most non-new-article edits were very minor, and even they were few and far between (compare this to other Wikipedias with similar or even smaller contributor pools such as kw:, lb:, etc which have at times grown enourmously in the course of a week or less; although to be fair there are wikipedias with similar or [possibly?] larger contributor pools that grow at the same [or lower?] speed as tokipona:)
Nobody came to me about the notices - had they discussed them with me and I realised that was not the way to deal with the issue, I would've taken them down myself.
The intention was not to be rude to people. If I wanted to be rude to people, I would've done it on en:, and it would've probably been a lot worse than a couple of hundred copyvio notices.
As to whether or not I support the existance of a Toki Pona wikipedia:
Independent of all other concerns, yes. It's a conlang - I still support it. I also support Wikipedias in other conlangs; but given recent decisions on policy regarding wikipedias in such languages it seems very unfair. That doesn't mean I think Toki Pona should be removed.
If you really care about whether or not I support conlang Wikipedias, get this:
After a long heated discussion on the length and purpose of en:'s Template:Wikipedialang, Raul654 - the sysop who banned me for a short period of time for ths very incident - was the one who removed tokipona:, a Wikipedia with more than the required 100 articles, from the template citing "no original research". In none of my edits did I remove the link to the Toki Pona wikipedia, and any other links I removed (such as tlh:, jbo:, etc) were only in the interest of a peaceful resolution of the argument over the template (I was for keeping it long, like it used to be). Of course one could argue that by not adding it back, I was thus explicitly declaring my contempt for tokipona:. But I have learned from the past that edit wars are generally not nearly as important as they seem in the beginning and I recognised that for the best solution to the problem both Raul and I would have to make concessions, which is of course very true in real life as well (If you think I need to learn life lessons, look at all the heads of state in the world today who do not seem to recognise that in a conflict major concessions are required from both sides, regardless of who is "right").
That's nothing against Raul, many people clearly don't like tokipona:, but I would generally not count myself among their ranks. FWIW, I truly cannot consider myself entirely for conlang Wikipedias, because I do think that perhaps the best solution for these Wikipedias today is to search for a home more accepting of them, which would obviously not be reached by abrupt content removal and such would not prove a point in that direction either.
You could have posted to the mailing list, to Meta, asked in IRC, or even, since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC, asked her specifically, since you knew she was involved in the project. You did none of these things. Instead, you caused trouble.
1. Sonja is not on IRC all the time. When she is, she's not always active in #wikipedia. The same is true for all non-bots. 2. As I noted before, I was under the mistaken impression that as far as copyvios go, policy said to act first and ask questions later to protect the interests of Wikipedia (as I have said before, IANAL, and apparently even in cases of blatant infringement there is plenty of time to take such things down, especially if legal action hasn't been threatened/taken) 3. As I said before, her comments on IRC were indicative of her not being too involved in the Toki Pona wikipedia. 4. I *had* asked her a day or so before, and she responded that she was basically worn out from all the attention she gets over Toki Pona and thus did not want to talk about it - that was the answer I got from her. The Toki Pona website otoh has the very ambiguous "(c) toki pona blah blah blah blah blah blah" which can obviously be taken to mean that Toki Pona itself is copyrighted. It has of course been noted that copyrighted material can be released, but as I said before in a cursory google search I found no implicit or explicit release on the part of Sonja. 5. "Instead, you caused trouble" implies that my actions were in bad faith, which I continue to assert they were most certainly *not*.
As I said, I hope you understand this point. Because, quite honestly, if you don't, that's even more troubling than your removal of a whole Wikipedia.
What's troubling to me is that people have told me over and over how bad I am for doing that, that I shouldn'tve done it, that it was wrong, etc etc etc ad nauseam. I fail to see how one single person can believe that if they repeat to me basically the same things said before, many of them seemingly in contradiction to and without refutation or explicit dissent towards things I have already said.
While the volume of mail from the ML alone about this is annoying in and of itself, it certainly doesn't help that I have had been reprimanded similarly by just about everybody in #wikipedia whether it was gently or harshly, often more than once; I have also had (minor) issues in other chatrooms and on Wikipedia itself.
What I'm saying here is not that it's unreasonable for people to respond to an action they find objectionable, but rather that if it's been said already, you don't need to say it again because I heard it the first time and quite frankly if this never stops I will probably end up turning into a bad user (If you think I'm a bad user now, you wouldn't want to imagine me in that situation). If you want to turn this into a quickpoll/lynchmob, then fine, but if you're going to turn it into a tell-him-exactly-what-he-did-wrong-in-2-or-more-paragraphs fest, please leave me out as I've already heard it all.
--node
Node, some friendly advice - Wikipedians are some of the most forgiving of folks on the 'net. Being so argumentative is puzzling. Just say sorry and move on.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:08:14 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
If you're objecting to articles, yes. What you do is replace the copyrighted text with a copyvio notice.
Yes. I suspected that the text of each and every single one of the articles I replaced was copyvio (with the exception of a couple I did by mistake which had no content at all).
The problem here, as I hope you've figured out, is that you weren't accusing specific articles of being copyvio. You were accusing a whole project of being a copyvio.
No, I wasn't. I wasn't "accusing" anything of being anything.
Regardless of that, there were quite a few pages (mostly talk pages) that I left up.
Thus the specific article replacement served only to make a mess that was hard to clean up. Pretty much this falls under "don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point." You picked a disruptive and difficult to deal with way of expressing your concern of copyvio that made a lot of work for people, was rude to people, and was rightly read by people as a slap in the face to an entire Wikipedia.
...
I did it out of concern and with nothing but the best intentions. I would hardly call it "disrupting wikipedia" as if you look at RC on tokipona: there have been no revisions since Angela rv'd my edits and an edit or two I made a few hours after that. Nobody even noticed what I had done for nearly 24 hours after I stopped doing it, and over 24 hours after I started doing it; before I started there hadn't been any new articles for quite some time anyways and most non-new-article edits were very minor, and even they were few and far between (compare this to other Wikipedias with similar or even smaller contributor pools such as kw:, lb:, etc which have at times grown enourmously in the course of a week or less; although to be fair there are wikipedias with similar or [possibly?] larger contributor pools that grow at the same [or lower?] speed as tokipona:)
Nobody came to me about the notices - had they discussed them with me and I realised that was not the way to deal with the issue, I would've taken them down myself.
The intention was not to be rude to people. If I wanted to be rude to people, I would've done it on en:, and it would've probably been a lot worse than a couple of hundred copyvio notices.
As to whether or not I support the existance of a Toki Pona wikipedia:
Independent of all other concerns, yes. It's a conlang - I still support it. I also support Wikipedias in other conlangs; but given recent decisions on policy regarding wikipedias in such languages it seems very unfair. That doesn't mean I think Toki Pona should be removed.
If you really care about whether or not I support conlang Wikipedias, get this:
After a long heated discussion on the length and purpose of en:'s Template:Wikipedialang, Raul654 - the sysop who banned me for a short period of time for ths very incident - was the one who removed tokipona:, a Wikipedia with more than the required 100 articles, from the template citing "no original research". In none of my edits did I remove the link to the Toki Pona wikipedia, and any other links I removed (such as tlh:, jbo:, etc) were only in the interest of a peaceful resolution of the argument over the template (I was for keeping it long, like it used to be). Of course one could argue that by not adding it back, I was thus explicitly declaring my contempt for tokipona:. But I have learned from the past that edit wars are generally not nearly as important as they seem in the beginning and I recognised that for the best solution to the problem both Raul and I would have to make concessions, which is of course very true in real life as well (If you think I need to learn life lessons, look at all the heads of state in the world today who do not seem to recognise that in a conflict major concessions are required from both sides, regardless of who is "right").
That's nothing against Raul, many people clearly don't like tokipona:, but I would generally not count myself among their ranks. FWIW, I truly cannot consider myself entirely for conlang Wikipedias, because I do think that perhaps the best solution for these Wikipedias today is to search for a home more accepting of them, which would obviously not be reached by abrupt content removal and such would not prove a point in that direction either.
You could have posted to the mailing list, to Meta, asked in IRC, or even, since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC, asked her specifically, since you knew she was involved in the project. You did none of these things. Instead, you caused trouble.
- Sonja is not on IRC all the time. When she is, she's not always
active in #wikipedia. The same is true for all non-bots. 2. As I noted before, I was under the mistaken impression that as far as copyvios go, policy said to act first and ask questions later to protect the interests of Wikipedia (as I have said before, IANAL, and apparently even in cases of blatant infringement there is plenty of time to take such things down, especially if legal action hasn't been threatened/taken) 3. As I said before, her comments on IRC were indicative of her not being too involved in the Toki Pona wikipedia. 4. I *had* asked her a day or so before, and she responded that she was basically worn out from all the attention she gets over Toki Pona and thus did not want to talk about it - that was the answer I got from her. The Toki Pona website otoh has the very ambiguous "(c) toki pona blah blah blah blah blah blah" which can obviously be taken to mean that Toki Pona itself is copyrighted. It has of course been noted that copyrighted material can be released, but as I said before in a cursory google search I found no implicit or explicit release on the part of Sonja. 5. "Instead, you caused trouble" implies that my actions were in bad faith, which I continue to assert they were most certainly *not*.
As I said, I hope you understand this point. Because, quite honestly, if you don't, that's even more troubling than your removal of a whole Wikipedia.
What's troubling to me is that people have told me over and over how bad I am for doing that, that I shouldn'tve done it, that it was wrong, etc etc etc ad nauseam. I fail to see how one single person can believe that if they repeat to me basically the same things said before, many of them seemingly in contradiction to and without refutation or explicit dissent towards things I have already said.
While the volume of mail from the ML alone about this is annoying in and of itself, it certainly doesn't help that I have had been reprimanded similarly by just about everybody in #wikipedia whether it was gently or harshly, often more than once; I have also had (minor) issues in other chatrooms and on Wikipedia itself.
What I'm saying here is not that it's unreasonable for people to respond to an action they find objectionable, but rather that if it's been said already, you don't need to say it again because I heard it the first time and quite frankly if this never stops I will probably end up turning into a bad user (If you think I'm a bad user now, you wouldn't want to imagine me in that situation). If you want to turn this into a quickpoll/lynchmob, then fine, but if you're going to turn it into a tell-him-exactly-what-he-did-wrong-in-2-or-more-paragraphs fest, please leave me out as I've already heard it all.
--node
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:21:33 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Node, some friendly advice - Wikipedians are some of the most
D'oh! You said the A-word. I hope you asked permission first.
On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 12:08:14AM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
If you're objecting to articles, yes. What you do is replace the copyrighted text with a copyvio notice.
Yes. I suspected that the text of each and every single one of the articles I replaced was copyvio (with the exception of a couple I did by mistake which had no content at all).
[...]
node, do you require each and every wikipedian (outside yourself) to tell you that your interpretation is different from all of the other people's and most of us think you did something very wrong and rude, you should apologise and you should stop trying to convince others that you're right, they're all wrong and keep on debating? The more you debate the more I feel like banning wouldn't be that bad idea. You ruin the remains of your good reputation (let us suppose there's still some).
I believe TokiPona wikipedia was not a bright idea (and this was phrased euphemistically), I believe we have two zillion conlangs are "better" than tokipona, I believe that tokipona being copyrighted and not *generally* released under a free licence is a very good reason to purge its wikipedia **IMMEDIATELY**. (Unless Sonja changes the licence very very very fast.)
It is not you, however, to decide that, and to go and purge it on your behalf. It is not any of us. This is a community project. You may feel that it's wrong to have tokipona (klingon, whatever), and object it POLITELY the several ways we use (and others kindly already listed). It's not that hard to gain attention without killing anyone.
You neglected that, you went on and started killing it. You got your feedback: this is unacceptable. Please don't go on arguing why do you think it is, you may already have noticed that "we" don't intend to see it like you do.
People already accepted the possibility that you're an intelligent person, realised that you did it wrong, learned from it, next time you will do it right and let it rest and move on. Honour them (being unhostile) by accepting that and end this damn thread, stop the noise in the list and move on.
(And ignore those not very wise people further accusing you, or repeating things already said and answered. They're noise, too. I believe right now I am noise, too, as these things were probably already said. I shut up. I offer this possibility to the other members of this thread, too.)
Thank you. Peter Wikipedian
ps: I am not against "get change tokipona license or get rid of it" thread, I am against "node did this and that so we should do this and that" thread. That's already walking in circles. If he moves on, let's move on. If he debates further, ban him and move on. *sigh*
Peter, honestly what am I supposed to do when there are messages on the ml that are against me, often ignoring important things (ie, that I already apologised)?
I am willing to drop this here and now but honestly it doesn't seem like everybody else is, though I appreciate those who are.
--node
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 11:48:34 +0200, Peter Gervai grin@tolna.net wrote:
On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 12:08:14AM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
If you're objecting to articles, yes. What you do is replace the copyrighted text with a copyvio notice.
Yes. I suspected that the text of each and every single one of the articles I replaced was copyvio (with the exception of a couple I did by mistake which had no content at all).
[...]
node, do you require each and every wikipedian (outside yourself) to tell you that your interpretation is different from all of the other people's and most of us think you did something very wrong and rude, you should apologise and you should stop trying to convince others that you're right, they're all wrong and keep on debating? The more you debate the more I feel like banning wouldn't be that bad idea. You ruin the remains of your good reputation (let us suppose there's still some).
I believe TokiPona wikipedia was not a bright idea (and this was phrased euphemistically), I believe we have two zillion conlangs are "better" than tokipona, I believe that tokipona being copyrighted and not *generally* released under a free licence is a very good reason to purge its wikipedia **IMMEDIATELY**. (Unless Sonja changes the licence very very very fast.)
It is not you, however, to decide that, and to go and purge it on your behalf. It is not any of us. This is a community project. You may feel that it's wrong to have tokipona (klingon, whatever), and object it POLITELY the several ways we use (and others kindly already listed). It's not that hard to gain attention without killing anyone.
You neglected that, you went on and started killing it. You got your feedback: this is unacceptable. Please don't go on arguing why do you think it is, you may already have noticed that "we" don't intend to see it like you do.
People already accepted the possibility that you're an intelligent person, realised that you did it wrong, learned from it, next time you will do it right and let it rest and move on. Honour them (being unhostile) by accepting that and end this damn thread, stop the noise in the list and move on.
(And ignore those not very wise people further accusing you, or repeating things already said and answered. They're noise, too. I believe right now I am noise, too, as these things were probably already said. I shut up. I offer this possibility to the other members of this thread, too.)
Thank you. Peter Wikipedian
ps: I am not against "get change tokipona license or get rid of it" thread, I am against "node did this and that so we should do this and that" thread. That's already walking in circles. If he moves on, let's move on. If he debates further, ban him and move on. *sigh* _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
Peter, honestly what am I supposed to do when there are messages on the ml that are against me, often ignoring important things (ie, that I already apologised)?
I am willing to drop this here and now but honestly it doesn't seem like everybody else is, though I appreciate those who are.
People live around the world in different time zones. They came on line at times that are best suited to their own lives. Thus, even after taking the appropriate steps it still needs a good 24 hours before the effect is felt.
Some of us who were annoyed by your actions are also annoyed by the overreaction of others.
Ec
On 23 Sep 2004, at 04:07, Phil Sandifer wrote:
since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC,
What? WHAT !?!?!?
Are you ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN [[en:User:Node ue]] did have an IRC conversation with [[en:User:Sonjaaa]] some time BEFORE he went on his content removal spree??
If that's true then to me that's an absolute bombshell, because--say what you might--I (for one) would certainly see that as sufficient proof of malicious intent. And malicious intent is a whole lotta worse than daftness.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
I am certain that Node has conversed with Sonjaa in IRC, and that at least one of these conversations happened prior to this. I don't think this proves malicious intent - I just think it shows yet another sensible avenue for concern that node could have taken instead of being aggressive.
-Snowspinner
On Sep 23, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Jens Ropers wrote:
On 23 Sep 2004, at 04:07, Phil Sandifer wrote:
since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC,
What? WHAT !?!?!?
Are you ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN [[en:User:Node ue]] did have an IRC conversation with [[en:User:Sonjaaa]] some time BEFORE he went on his content removal spree??
If that's true then to me that's an absolute bombshell, because--say what you might--I (for one) would certainly see that as sufficient proof of malicious intent. And malicious intent is a whole lotta worse than daftness.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I don't really see it that way - I asked Sonja about copyright and she made it clear she was not wanting to discuss Toki Pona. It was a couple of days later that this happened, and the Toki Pona website which is always willing to talk about Toki Pona says "(c) Toki Pona ..." blah blah blah blah blah.
--node
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 14:21:44 -0500, Phil Sandifer sandifer@sbcglobal.net wrote:
I am certain that Node has conversed with Sonjaa in IRC, and that at least one of these conversations happened prior to this. I don't think this proves malicious intent - I just think it shows yet another sensible avenue for concern that node could have taken instead of being aggressive.
-Snowspinner
On Sep 23, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Jens Ropers wrote:
On 23 Sep 2004, at 04:07, Phil Sandifer wrote:
since I know you've had a conversation with Sonja on IRC,
What? WHAT !?!?!?
Are you ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN [[en:User:Node ue]] did have an IRC conversation with [[en:User:Sonjaaa]] some time BEFORE he went on his content removal spree??
If that's true then to me that's an absolute bombshell, because--say what you might--I (for one) would certainly see that as sufficient proof of malicious intent. And malicious intent is a whole lotta worse than daftness.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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