Here is a possible explanation (found at http://enciclopedia.us.es/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia).
Esta enciclopedia surgi� como una escisi�n de la versi�n en castellano de la wikipedia tras un anuncio sobre la posibilidad de que hubiese publicidad en la versi�n original.
Translation: This encyclopedia split off from the Castilian version of wikipedia after an announcement of the possibility that there would be advertising in the original version.
Sigh�
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesn�t happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past). Specifically, we might want to revisit the idea of wikipedia becoming a non-profit (preferably a European one). That way, anti-Americanism and distrust of Boomis (which is both an American company and, /gasp/, for-profit) wouldn�t weigh on anybody�s mind.
I for one completely trust Jimbo and his company to continue doing only good for Wikipedia � but others are instinctively distrustful of both Americans and for-profit companies and will over-react when certain capitalistic ideas are put forward or American influence is perceived to be expanding. I wouldn�t mind at all contributing 10 Euros/dollars a month to keep Wikipedia (all languages) afloat (esp. if my donation were tax deductible). Oh and there would be no reason why a non-profit Wikipedia.org couldn�t have a corporate sponsor. ;-)
--maveric149
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On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesnt happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can still copy articles from them and vice versa, right? But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site?
-- Jan Hidders
I am not sure you really realise what you are writing here Jan.
Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we can still copy articles from them" and vice versa - thank you for it actually, some of us that do great copies of the en.wiki do put the link each time. Not so much to give you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis together rather than making separate wikis... Now, if you understand french (are you belgian ?), we would be most delighted to see you copy an article from the fr.site one day...
Also consider very carefully the "does our license then FORCE them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site" That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to know what the licence says about that !
But you gave me an idea. I didnot put much on the en.wiki. But, do you think I should insist it was from french langage originally ? LOL. never crossed my mind before !
Let's be serious. I consider great that some french speaking come and visit from time to time. We must somehow get over these cultural differences.
--- "Jan.Hidders" hidders@uia.ua.ac.be wrote:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesn�t happen (I hear members
of
the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the
past).
Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can still copy articles from them and vice versa, right? But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site?
-- Jan Hidders [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 02:58:39PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
I am not sure you really realise what you are writing here Jan.
That could be, I am not a native English speaking person, so my remarks are sometimes a bit unpolished. I hope you understand. :-)
Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we can still copy articles from them" and vice versa - thank you for it actually, some of us that do great copies of the en.wiki do put the link each time. Not so much to give you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis together rather than making separate wikis... Now, if you understand french (are you belgian ?), we would be most delighted to see you copy an article from the fr.site one day...
I have been living and working in Belgium for a year, but am Dutch by birth. Unfortunately I don't really speak French although I usually can manage to read a French newspaper, but since I am living in Belgium I'm slowly trying to pick up again the French I was taught for six years in school. So maybe I will, one day. :-) But I digress...
I was not really thinking about copying between the English wikipedia to wikipedias in other languages, but from wikipedias at wikipedia.com to forks in the same language. The "us" in my remark was not the English wikipedia but the whole of wikipedias at wikipedia.com. This is probably because I have no idea about the fights that have been fought over the possible forks of non-English wikipedias, so my ideas of "us" and "them" might be different from yours. I have the feeling that you have concluded that I am one of "them".
I also have the impression that you think that I would be against copying things from wikipedia. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole reason that I find wikipedia interesting is that its contents are open and placed under a licence that keeps it open. It is very important to me that Bomis does not own the contents of wikipedia.
Also consider very carefully the "does our license then FORCE them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site" That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to know what the licence says about that !
It wasn't a comment, it was a question. But I have to admit that I mainly asked it to see what Jimbo's opionion would be. Did you read the GFDL on this, especially section 4? There's more to the GFDL than just that the modified work should again be under the GFDL.
Let's be serious. I consider great that some french speaking come and visit from time to time. We must somehow get over these cultural differences.
Well, here in Belgium they seem to have several cultures within a single country. It's not always easy but in general they make it work here. I don't see why that couldn't be the case for wikipedia.
Sincères amitiés
-- Jan Hidders
Thanks for your nice answers Jan. I have been living in Antwerpen for a while, also moved quite a bit further north. Though the climate was terrible, the people were really great.
I forgot this morning to make you all benefit of the new address of the french wiki :
For those of you who understand a little bit of french (though it might not matter really...), check out
http://www.locus-solus.org/machine/getUrl.asp?page=http://fr.wikipedia.com/
Thanks Lars ! J'en ris encore...
--- "Jan.Hidders" hidders@uia.ua.ac.be wrote:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 02:58:39PM -0700, Anthere wrote:
I am not sure you really realise what you are
writing here Jan.
That could be, I am not a native English speaking person, so my remarks are sometimes a bit unpolished. I hope you understand. :-)
Consider carefully the "it wastes effort but we
can still copy articles
from them" and vice versa - thank you for it
actually, some of us that do
great copies of the en.wiki do put the link each
time. Not so much to give
you credit maybe, than to try to link our wikis
together rather than
making separate wikis... Now, if you understand
french (are you belgian
?), we would be most delighted to see you copy an
article from the fr.site
one day...
I have been living and working in Belgium for a year, but am Dutch by birth. Unfortunately I don't really speak French although I usually can manage to read a French newspaper, but since I am living in Belgium I'm slowly trying to pick up again the French I was taught for six years in school. So maybe I will, one day. :-) But I digress...
I was not really thinking about copying between the English wikipedia to wikipedias in other languages, but from wikipedias at wikipedia.com to forks in the same language. The "us" in my remark was not the English wikipedia but the whole of wikipedias at wikipedia.com. This is probably because I have no idea about the fights that have been fought over the possible forks of non-English wikipedias, so my ideas of "us" and "them" might be different from yours. I have the feeling that you have concluded that I am one of "them".
I also have the impression that you think that I would be against copying things from wikipedia. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole reason that I find wikipedia interesting is that its contents are open and placed under a licence that keeps it open. It is very important to me that Bomis does not own the contents of wikipedia.
Also consider very carefully the "does our license
then FORCE them to put
a link on every article that they have copied from
the original site"
That's an interesting comment. Indeed I'd like to
know what the licence
says about that !
It wasn't a comment, it was a question. But I have to admit that I mainly asked it to see what Jimbo's opionion would be. Did you read the GFDL on this, especially section 4? There's more to the GFDL than just that the modified work should again be under the GFDL.
Let's be serious. I consider great that some
french speaking come and
visit from time to time. We must somehow get over
these cultural
differences.
Well, here in Belgium they seem to have several cultures within a single country. It's not always easy but in general they make it work here. I don't see why that couldn't be the case for wikipedia.
Sinc�res amiti�s
-- Jan Hidders [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 12:56:16PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesnt happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
Is that really such a big problem? I know it wastes effort but we can still copy articles from them and vice versa, right?
If the arguement is on a superficial issue, i.e. banner adverts, there is no reason why the backends (i.e the articles) of both projects can't essentially be mirrors of one another.
But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site?
No, what the licence does say is that,
1) They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they have to rename.
2) They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute Wikipedia.
3) For at least the next four years they will need to acknowledge wikipedia.com as the source, but this can be done on a "History" page and need not be on every article.
IANAL. But I'm familiar with copyleft licences and their application to non-software content.
Imran
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:
But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site?
No, what the licence does say is that,
- They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they
have to rename.
- They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the
case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute Wikipedia.
But in Wikipedia articles aren't necessarily anonymous; there's a history that describes who wrote what. That's why it was suggested that a link to the original article (and thereby its history) could replace the list of original authors.
-- Jan Hidders
On 10 Jul 2002, at 2:34, Jan.Hidders wrote:
On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:46:32PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
On 9 Jul 2002, at 23:07, Jan.Hidders wrote:
But does our license then force them to put a link on every article that they have copied from the original site?
No, what the licence does say is that,
- They can't use the name Wikipedia without permission, i.e. they
have to rename.
- They can't remove the name of the authors of articles, in the
case of anonymous articles, this might mean they have to attribute Wikipedia.
But in Wikipedia articles aren't necessarily anonymous; there's a history that describes who wrote what.
I was referring to people who hadn't logged in rather then wikipedia as a whole.
That's why it was suggested that a link to the original article (and thereby its history) could replace the list of original authors.
On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesn't happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
There are two ways: 1) Be the better alternative (like former West Germany), or 2) Build a Berlin Wall and shoot any defectors (like former GDR).
The French Wikipedia runs the old software. The "Home Page" and "Recent Changes" links are not translated into French. ISBN numbers to French titles (such as on http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Langage_C) lead to U.S. online bookstores that don't sell French titles. Page titles have Every Word In Caps, which is against French language use. I don't speak French, but these deficiencies are just so obvious, so showstopping.
I cannot understand how the French Wikipedia in its current state can succeed in attracting any new contributors.
If I were an active contributor to the French Wikipedia, I would fork now before the wall goes up, since there is nothing that indicates that Bomis has alternative (1) as their strategy for fr.wikipedia.com.
Here is a nice looking French Wiki with 600 pages and a weird kind of humor that I could show to my French-speaking friends, if I wanted to explain the Wiki concept to them, http://www.weaki.org/
LOL !!!! excellentissime !!!!
C'est � se pisser dessus !
hahahahahahahahahahhahah
Thank you very much Lars for that HUGE laugh this morning.
I am sorry I didnot have more than a couple of minutes, but I am looking forward fully appreciating it this evening
Good job !
On est pas pr�t de faire une encyclo avec �a et cela ne va pas am�liorer notre image de marque de dilettantes !!!
Mais...j'en glousse encore
hihihihihihih
anth�re
Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote: On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, Daniel Mayer wrote:
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesn't happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
There are two ways: 1) Be the better alternative (like former West Germany), or 2) Build a Berlin Wall and shoot any defectors (like former GDR).
The French Wikipedia runs the old software. The "Home Page" and "Recent Changes" links are not translated into French. ISBN numbers to French titles (such as on http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Langage_C) lead to U.S. online bookstores that don't sell French titles. Page titles have Every Word In Caps, which is against French language use. I don't speak French, but these deficiencies are just so obvious, so showstopping.
I cannot understand how the French Wikipedia in its current state can succeed in attracting any new contributors.
If I were an active contributor to the French Wikipedia, I would fork now before the wall goes up, since there is nothing that indicates that Bomis has alternative (1) as their strategy for fr.wikipedia.com.
Here is a nice looking French Wiki with 600 pages and a weird kind of humor that I could show to my French-speaking friends, if I wanted to explain the Wiki concept to them, http://www.weaki.org/
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Translation: This encyclopedia split off from the Castilian version of wikipedia after an announcement of the possibility that there would be advertising in the original version.
That's right. But I think it was about more than that, really.
We should consider doing some strategizing to make sure another fork doesnt happen (I hear members of the French wikipedia threatened a fork in the past).
I think that one was a very isolated incident. The story is that a French guy sent a new logo to Jason. Jason did not feel authorized to just install it without asking someone. I was not available, so he asked 'the community'. He wrote to the fellow a nice note explaining this.
But this was taken the wrong way. It was taken as a rejection, I think, and as lacking in respect for the French community. Why should the English-speaking mailing lists have so much power? That's a legitimate question, but his response was -- in my opinion -- overly harsh, and overly sensitive.
This was resolved quickly by me installing the fellow's logo and declaring that we don't want to fight over it. Also, as here, I blamed the whole matter on confusion about Jason's role. Jason works for me, as an employee, so he doesn't just randomly go around doing things he's not sure about without talking to me first.
-----
The big issue is that not only are our languages different, but our cultures are different, our ways of interacting are different. My belief is that Americans (myself most emphatically included) are blunt, simple, plain-talking people.
I have studied Japanese language, and Japanese culture. My wife is half-Japanese. I'm not an expert by any means, but some things are well-known about the differences between Japanese and Americans. From the American point of view, Japanese are perplexing because they do not like to say 'no' to any request. That doesn't mean that they are pushovers and will do whatever is asked, it's just that it is rude in their culture to just say flat-out 'no' in the way that Americans do.
Businesses trying to deal with Japanese companies find this frustrating. A deal or partnership is offered, and the Japanese do not just say "no", they say that they will think about it, that they have to have a meeting, etc. If Americans understood that this means 'no', then there would be no problem. Japanese deal with each other very well.
This is all an oversimplification, of course. But it illustrates the kinds of problems we will have.
The Europeans report that we seem "pushy" to them. This is baffling to us. We're just being Americans, dealing with each other just fine in the way that we deal with each other. But this seems pushy to Europeans.
We could argue forever about who is "right" or "wrong" or which method of dealing with each other is better. It doesn't matter, though. The point is, there will be misunderstandings no matter what we do, BUT we can and should try to minimize these by remembering that we are all from different cultures. What seems rude to Americans will seem normal to French people, and vice-versa.
Specifically, we might want to revisit the idea of wikipedia becoming a non-profit (preferably a European one). That way, anti-Americanism and distrust of Boomis (which is both an American company and, /gasp/, for-profit) wouldnt weigh on anybodys mind.
I agree with the non-profit part. The American part, I don't know. I don't really care. My plan is to continue supporting Wikipedia with bandwidth, machinery, and as much programming as I can afford. And I anticipate that there will never be any financial returns to me, at all. This is now a hobby, a passion.
So, to me, the institutional structure is more or less unimportant.
It will cost some money to set up the nonprofit, and I chose recently to buy wikipedia a new $3000 server rather than set up some useless legal rigamarole.
But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if the current situation leads to mistrust.
Oh and there would be no reason why a non-profit Wikipedia.org couldnt have a corporate sponsor. ;-)
Sure, but I think that "sponsor" is really not the right word. I think "patron" is more accurate.
A sponsor gets something in return -- advertising space. Based on the reactions against such ideas when floated in the past, and based on the overall low cost of keeping wikipedia going, I don't need that. I'm happy to be a small-time benefactor.
So long as wikipedia is part of Bomis, Inc., my costs are tax deductible as ordinary business expenses, with no paperwork and no complicated justifications to the IRS. I just spend money, the company is that much less profitable, and that's that. Any benefit to Bomis is highly intangible, but that's fine.
Once Wikipedia is a separate entity, then there are all sorts of rules that will partially inhibit my ability to simply freely spend money. I don't really know what *all* the ramifications are. One ramification is that I have to spend time learning more tax law, ugh! :-)
-------------
One idea, once we get a nonprofit, is to set up a bank account strictly for hardware expenses. I'll continue to supply bandwidth, but other contributors will contribute to the hardware fund. We'll set up a credit card merchant account and let people make one-time donations *and* to set up for monthly billing. You might sign up at the $20 level, and every month we'd autobill your credit card for $20. ALL the money would be strictly earmarked for hardware, to be owned by the nonprofit entity.
Later, if I get tired of paying for the bandwidth (which is not important right now, because the total traffic on wikipedia is a mere fraction of my bandwidth across my network of web sites), that fund would start paying for bandwidth.
If levels of contribution were eventually high enough, then we could float proposals to the donors for other potentially worthy projects. Individual donors could earmark money as they see fit, perhaps. We might earmark money to hire a fulltime editor again, although in the wikipedia system, this seems unnecessary.
We might earmark money to hire a programmer, although that's expensive of course.
But anyhow, that's one of the big benefits of a nonprofit... it makes it easier for people to donate money to help out.
--Jimbo
On 10 Jul 2002, at 4:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if the current situation leads to mistrust.
Maybe a good way to progress would be to alter the software so that wikipedia can be run over multiple machines (at the rate wikipedia is growing at the moment it'll need to be able to be distributed/load balanced sometime anyway), with one machine handling the editing and the others just mirroring the static content/search/stats pages.
That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.
As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
Imran
Imran Ghory wrote:
That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.
I'm not opposed to this, but from a technical point of view, it is complex to do it in a robust way. I.E., with a central URL, we don't get links to things that disappear, etc.
Also, the cost of bandwidth/hardware/etc is not that high.
As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
This is possible, but we would be giving control away from our community, to another organization which might have different goals, and might not respect our ways.
--Jimbo
On 10 Jul 2002, at 14:06, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Imran Ghory wrote:
That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.
I'm not opposed to this, but from a technical point of view, it is complex to do it in a robust way. I.E., with a central URL, we don't get links to things that disappear, etc.
I didn't mean to split articles over multiple sites, but rather all the sites mirror all the content. For instance, mirror 1 would contain all the pages from the main site, but would change all non-edit links from www.wikipedia.com to www1.wikipedia.com.
As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
This is possible, but we would be giving control away from our community, to another organization which might have different goals, and might not respect our ways.
We wouldn't have to surrender control, but rather use them as an umbrella org, i.e. they could collect the donations and put them under the control of a "wikipedia board".
Imran
As for the donations, it might be possible to
bring wikipedia under
the wings of an already non-profit organization
which everyone
trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one
of the open source
education groups) that way we could get tax-free
donations without
the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
This is possible, but we would be giving control
away from our
community, to another organization which might
have different goals,
and might not respect our ways.
We wouldn't have to surrender control, but rather use them as an umbrella org, i.e. they could collect the donations and put them under the control of a "wikipedia board".
Imran
Hmmm... that sounds like a good idea to me. If we were to go this route, I think Ibiblio might be the most appropriate choice, as it specializes more in "content" projects, rather than software. Although I think "The Nupedia Foundation" sounds cool. ;-)
-- Stephen G.
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On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 10:42:35PM +0100, Imran Ghory wrote:
On 10 Jul 2002, at 4:46, Jimmy Wales wrote:
But I know that this can not continue indefinitely, particularly if the current situation leads to mistrust.
Maybe a good way to progress would be to alter the software so that wikipedia can be run over multiple machines (at the rate wikipedia is growing at the moment it'll need to be able to be distributed/load balanced sometime anyway), with one machine handling the editing and the others just mirroring the static content/search/stats pages.
There isn't really that much static about wikipedia, almost all special pages are dynamic. If there are performance issues at the moment then this is not because the hardware cannot handle it but rather because the programming until recently has been, how shall I put this, less performance oriented.
Actually, I wonder if we should not do exactly the opposite: have one code base with one database that serves all wikipedias. I have the feeling that in terms of software maintenance the non-English wikipedia's are getting a very raw deal indeed; reported bugs are fixed earlier on the English wikipedia and the major software changes always happen there first. I assume this creates a feeling of being left out there in the cold. Having one common system would in my opinion also strengthen the sense of community.
Apart from that we could also tackle some practical issues more easily such as checking if an uploaded file is used anywhere in the wikipedia and having centralized translation tables.
However, this is all far far far away, because we first need to update all wikipedias to the new code base.
-- Jan Hidders
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