Re: Re: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

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Craig Franklin

29 Jun 2005 29 Jun '05

3:06 a.m.

Scríobh Mark Williamson:

...

I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference and you don't like any of them, I can understand.

But I do have an opinion. The positions of all the candidates seem to be essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV". I see no dramatic proposals on the topics of copyright, promotion, hardware or managing growth. The candidates all propose to increase community input to the board, but don't say exactly how they will do this. They all talk about guiding the board, but offer no suggestions as to what direction they will guide it in. Nobody, in particular, has expressed an opinion on the Chinese Wikinews issue. In summary, I voted blank. Sláinte, - Craig ------------------- Craig Franklin PO Box 764 Ashgrove, Q, 4060 Australia http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art, and Culture.

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Mark Williamson

29 Jun 29 Jun

3:21 a.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Why do you have to vote based on what they said? Of course, it's all political drivel. I voted based on the fact that I know these people. I voted for the ones I trust most with such a position. Mark On 29/06/05, Craig Franklin <craig(a)halo-17.net> wrote:

...

Scríobh Mark Williamson:

I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference and you don't like any of them, I can understand.

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Erik Moeller

4:02 a.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Hello Craig,

...

But I do have an opinion. The positions of all the candidates seem to be essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV".

I don't think that's accurate at all, but even if you do think that, you should look at the track record of our current trustees to get an idea what their future actions are likely to be. To wit:

...

topics of copyright

A new, semi-private mailing list, juriwiki-l, was created to discuss and resolve these issues as they occur, in collaboration with legal specialists. Angela and Anthere also use the Wikimedia e-mail ticketing system, OTRS, to respond to copyright inquiries. Indeed, from what I know, I would say that the Board is spending a great amount of time to deal even with the silliest complaints and threats. There have been discussions with the FSF and Creative Commons to improve the GFDL, but moving this forward is not just up to the Board. Copyright, in my opinion, is such a large issue that the community needs to be highly involved in forming policy. The Board has allowed this to happen on the Commons, on Wikinews, with the ESA licensing effort, in the different language communities, etc., while generally keeping a watchful eye on what is going on, even in languages they do not speak, relying on trusted individuals to relay information.

...

promotion

The Board has tried to energize promotion efforts by establishing a logo and trademark policy. Local promotion efforts are up to individual chapters where they do exist. The Board has helped with official press releases, a newsletter (the Wikimedia Quarto), and the Foundation website. It has also appointed a press officer (Elian). Given our limited budget and our natural growth, I think it would be unwise to allocate a significant amount of resources to promotion at this point. Instead, the Board should continue to do what it has done in the past: encourage the community to design and distribute promotional materials.

...

hardware

A hardware officer advises the Board on what machines to purchase. This has so far worked very well. The successful cooperations with Kennisnet and Yahoo! and the negotiations with Google were coordinated by the Board, and I think it has played exactly the role it should: Establishing partnerships while leaving the implementation details to qualified individuals. Wikimedia is probably also the only major non-profit whose President (Jimbo) not only looks over every hardware order, but who also installs the machines and makes sure they are working. There are at any given time secret, confidential discussions underway, some of which fail because of unacceptable demands from would-be sponsors.

...

or managing growth.

The fundraising efforts, hiring of Brion and Chad, appointment of a CTO, CRO and Hardware Officer, partnerships, attempts to build spare capacity, efforts to eliminate points of failure, and so forth, have all served this goal. I would indeed say that the Board has made this one of its key activities, and that this has been possible at all on the budget we're operating on (while similarly large websites employ a staff of hundreds) is a testament to Wikimedia's efficiency.

...

The candidates all propose to increase community input to the board, but don't say exactly how they will do this.

Both Angela and Anthere have generally tried to listen and to fully document what the Board is doing. The various surveys such as http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda/Open_questions and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser are good examples of this. As Chief Research Officer, I also see it as my role to communicate technical needs from the community to the Board. You have had a lot of time to ask the candidates questions already, and you can continue to do so. I think engaging in dialogue is a much more constructive use of your time than a blank "protest vote." I find it somewhat saddening that we have so few candidates this year, but it is also an expression of respect for the work Angela, Anthere and Jimbo have done -- for no pay, and indeed, often investing their own money in phone calls and travel. The Board is not above criticism, but given the exceptional job it has done so far, such criticism should be well-founded. Best, Erik

Ray Saintonge

10:28 a.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Craig Franklin wrote:

...

Scríobh Mark Williamson:

I would discourage this. Unless you really don't have an opinion, why not vote for your preferred candidates? If you don't have a preference and you don't like any of them, I can understand.

With such deficient candidates on the ballot, and with a little patience, maybe you can wait until the next election to declare your candidacy. :-) Ec

Anthere

2:35 p.m.

New subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Hello Craig and Gregory Well... I think Erik said what I meant to say with more eloquence than I could ;-) So there is little to add here. Thanks a lot Erik. I'll repeat one point which I think is important. The 3 weeks dedicated for candidates statements are in most part envisionned as an special time to have the opportunity to ask all candidates questions. For all of us (but Sj who candidated at the last minute), talk pages were available for you to ask us to clarify what is necessarily heavily summarized in a 1000 caracters statement. I invite you to ask more questions here as well as on the appropriate candidate talk page if you feel it necessarily. Another point I'll add is that if all candidates seem to hold the same views to you (a strange statement for me anyway), then you should go further and consider personalities. The 6 candidates are very very different, and even though they probably agree on some points, they will use different methods to reach certain goals. Lastly... It is not of my opinion that it is necessarily good a candidate has a strong opinion on everything and is able to answer to each question by a "I believe in this and to achieve that goal, I will do that". Some certainties are certainly important, but to my opinion, a board member must not only rely on his or her strong certainties, but also simply listen to the people around, and make his or her opinion according to what s/he hears and according to his or her internal ideals and beliefs. The final decision will be a balance of everything. The good point of this is probably that if you offer the proper reasonable arguments, you may make the person change his mind. If you ask for someone with strong opinions on everything, then you are looking for another type of board member, one who will lead you on a path while explaining to you what is good for you and what is not. please, if you have a question left, ask it. Anthere Erik Moeller a écrit:

...

Hello Craig,

But I do have an opinion. The positions of all the candidates seem to be essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV".

I don't think that's accurate at all, but even if you do think that, you should look at the track record of our current trustees to get an idea what their future actions are likely to be. To wit:

topics of copyright

promotion

hardware

or managing growth.

The candidates all propose to increase community input to the board, but don't say exactly how they will do this.

Gregory Maxwell

3:08 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/29/05, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

I invite you to ask more questions here as well as on the appropriate candidate talk page if you feel it necessarily.

Well, in my reasoning I thought I was fairly clear that a lot of my motivation was not based on a dislike of any of the candidates, but more because two years is too long and because the editors, myself included, are not being given quite enough information about longer-term issues. I don't think 'questions' are a good solution to the lack of information in the statements because we can not expect a large enough audience to read the discussion. But since I'm being invited to ask questions, I'd like to ask a question of all of the candidates; please pardon its length. Perhaps this is more directed at Angela, since she mentioned the GFDL in her statement, but I'd like to hear comments from all. What is your long-term position with respect to the GFDL, particularly with respect to attribution? Specifically, I've read the new CC-wiki license and I'm very concerned that it creates a special right for site operators (as opposed to first editors or publishers). The requirements of the CC-wiki are fairly similar to the not quite GFDL-compatible attribution suggestions we make on our licensing page, which is a big reason why I would even mention CC-wiki when talking about Wikipedia licensing. Obviously Wikipedia could never be licensed as CC-wiki, and I have great faith that the Free Software Foundation would not make unwise changes to later versions of the GFDL... but I think that we would all benefit from finding out exactly what changes the board would request on our behalf. I feel confident that the community will not tolerate a change to the licensing which grants Wikimedia special legal rights which would inhibit the ability of the community to fork should the board somehow lose its mind and act against what the community feels is its best interest. This would require that the license not provide a special attribution loophole that allows only attributing to the site where the material was originally created. I would like a direct assurance that the board members will make no attempt to achieve such a change for GFDL-licensed content on Wikipedia, Commons, or Wikibooks. I'd also like to know how each board member thinks the board to incorporate community input into licensing-related discussions. I believe that most people would agree that the use of our content could be enhanced by some degree of carefully thought out change, but I know I'd like to have the ability to provide input; for example, my point on the non-negotiability of the legal ease of forking. Thanks!

Angela

5:59 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/30/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I don't think 'questions' are a good solution to the lack of information in the statements because we can not expect a large enough audience to read the discussion.

The lack of information in the statements can be explained by the 1000 character limit on those. I disagree about the questions not being a good solution though. Last year, I only wrote my candidate statement after the questions were asked because that process highlighted what points were actually important to the community.

...

What is your long-term position with respect to the GFDL, particularly with respect to attribution?

My position is that the GFDL, as it currently stands, is almost impossible to adhere to for modified versions. I did already make some comments about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela/Election_questions_2005 Work is underway to make the process of reusing the content much simpler.

...

Specifically, I've read the new CC-wiki license and I'm very concerned that it creates a special right for site operators (as opposed to first editors or publishers).

I don't feel that the draft license at <http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5> which has the requirement to attribute the original site gives that site any special rights. It isn't actually a new license, but a re-branded version of the cc-by-sa with the only major difference being that the wiki is attributed rather than the authors. In practice, this is how people are already interpreting the GFDL. I am aware of very few mirrors who credit the authors rather than simply crediting "Wikipedia" and linking to the original article.

...

Obviously Wikipedia could never be licensed as CC-wiki, and I have great faith that the Free Software Foundation would not make unwise changes to later versions of the GFDL... but I think that we would all benefit from finding out exactly what changes the board would request on our behalf.

The only request has been the fairly general one of making the license easier to understand. Personally, I would not want anything that would remove the rights of authors, which seems to be what you are implying might happen.

...

I feel confident that the community will not tolerate a change to the licensing which grants Wikimedia special legal rights which would inhibit the ability of the community to fork should the board somehow lose its mind and act against what the community feels is its best interest.

I can't imagine any way in which later versions of the GFDL would do that beyond what the current version does. Wikimedia doesn't control the GFDL, and is far from being the only user of it. Also, if the changes made by the FSF were so awful you wanted to fork, you could still do so under the terms of the old license. Current content can be reused under the current license, even after a new version is introduced. Because of this, you can be fairly confident that any adoption of a new version of the license would have to be approved by the community, and not only by the Board. If you have specific requirements for what should or should not be part of the next license, it would be useful to make those at a page such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:GFDL_upgrade (or the page on meta linked to there by pcb21 that has not yet been created) so this can feed into any discussions between Wikimedia and the FSF.

...

This would require that the license not provide a special attribution loophole that allows only attributing to the site where the material was originally created. I would like a direct assurance that the board members will make no attempt to achieve such a change for GFDL-licensed content on Wikipedia, Commons, or Wikibooks.

In practice, this is already being done as I mentioned above. The section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Example_notice seems to be widely supported by the community at the English Wikipedia, and a similar statement exists on other projects (see <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lizenzbestimmungen#Praktische_Anwendung_in_Online-Medien> for example). If this is not the case, then the community needs to make a decision to change the wording, which all contributors are currently agreeing to (since that copyrights page is linked from the edit page). However, perhaps the fact that the authors are attributed in the page history, which is linked from the Wikipedia article that the mirrors are being asked to link to, is seen as sufficient attribution. I wouldn't agree to anything which allowed the complete removal of that attribution, but allowing a situation where readers had to make a few clicks to get to it, in order to make re-using the content easier, would not necessarily be something I would oppose.

...

I'd also like to know how each board member thinks the board to incorporate community input into licensing-related discussions.

The main issue here seems to be the next version of the GFDL, which neither the board nor the Wikimedia community has any control over. In terms of discussions prior to a new license, I would hope anyone interested would contribute their opinions on the page I previously linked, or on meta to make it more international, or on any of the relevant mailing lists. The more important question might be how the discussions are managed after a new version of the GFDL is introduced. I don't know if the FSF release draft versions as the CC do. If they do, this would be an ideal opportunity for the Wikimedia communities, as well as for anyone else using the license, to have an input into this discussion. If that is not the case, then there will need to be discussion after the release of GFDL 2.0 whereby the community as a whole could decide whether it was appropriate to change to that new license. Imposing a new version without any sort of community discussion and consensus is something I aim to avoid.

...

I believe that most people would agree that the use of our content could be enhanced by some degree of carefully thought out change, but I know I'd like to have the ability to provide input; for example, my point on the non-negotiability of the legal ease of forking.

Perhaps you and others with opinions on this could form some sort of special interest group (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_interest_group>) where these issues can be discussed, agreed upon, and then presented to the FSF in a more formal way. Do you think that could be a useful way to ensure input on this rather than relaying opinions only through the Board? Angela.

Gregory Maxwell

7:01 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/29/05, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

A fair enough point, and in any case there is no need we need to agree on everything.

...

A basic feature of mediawiki is to present a list of the editors at the bottom of each article. For electronic distribution that and a copy of the GFDL would provide compliance. It is obviously unsuitable for some medium so there could be some improvement, I agree.

...

Specifically, I've read the new CC-wiki license and I'm very concerned that it creates a special right for site operators (as opposed to first editors or publishers).

This is a substantial change, I'm quite aware of the license and what it is... I disagree very strongly with the nature of the altered attribution.

...

In practice, this is how people are already interpreting the GFDL. I am aware of very few mirrors who credit the authors rather than simply crediting "Wikipedia" and linking to the original article.

I made it clear in my email that I was already aware of the wikipedia copyright page, and it's lack of strict conformance with the GFDL. I mentioned it clearly and specifically and quite frankly I am somewhat offended that you paid my message little enough credit or attention that you failed to notice this. As a community we have chosen to be lenient on the enforcement of our license rights in exchange for some increased visibility. I agree that it is a valuable pragmatic choice today, but I am unsure that it is the best course in the long run. But importantly it does not change the nature of legal status of our work.

...

Easier to understand is a fair request. However, with the text "Work is underway to make the process of reusing the content much simpler.", you contradict yourself. Which is it?

...

I can't imagine any way in which later versions of the GFDL would do that beyond what the current version does. Wikimedia doesn't control the GFDL, and is far from being the only user of it.

As I said, "and I have great faith that the Free Software Foundation would not make unwise changes to later versions of the GFDL", but specifically I was requesting confirmation that the foundation was not even *requesting* changes in the future versions which would grant Wikimedia special rights which a fork of Wikipedia would not have because the community (or just parts of the community) must have the right to fork the project and not face an artificially unfair competitive environment against WikiMedia due to special permissions in some later version of the license.

...

Also, if the changes made by the FSF were so awful you wanted to fork, you could still do so under the terms of the old license. Current content can be reused under the current license, even after a new version is introduced.

I am well aware of this, however, it would be unacceptable for Wikimedia to be granted a special right over the material in the fork simply because Wikimedia hosted the content first.

...

Because of this, you can be fairly confident that any adoption of a new version of the license would have to be approved by the community, and not only by the Board.

Since the license on the site is already granted 'or later versions' if Wikimedia were to convince the Free Software Foundation to change the terms Wikimedia could distribute content under a new license against the will of the community, the community could fork and Wikimedia would maintain an unfair competitive advantage in the marketplace because of the special distribution rights. (if you get your content from Wikipedia then you can just credit wikipedia, if you get your content from FreeWikipedia then you can.. credit all of the authors or.. the Wikimedia Wikipedia). Considering my past correspondence with with FSF and their long term track record, I would gauge the chance of them approving such a change to be something near a snowballs chance in hell... Because of this, I was simply looking for the confirmation that the board wasn't even trying to request such a thing. If anything your reply has only increased my concern. As what is almost certainly the single largest user of the GFDL, and probably one of the most important it would be foolish to assume we have no clout.

...

If you have specific requirements for what should or should not be part of the next license, it would be useful to make those at a page such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:GFDL_upgrade (or the page on meta linked to there by pcb21 that has not yet been created) so this can feed into any discussions between Wikimedia and the FSF.

A simple requirement is that no change to the license discriminate against a fork which provides all of the appropriate attribution that the wikimedia wikipedia provides, and that no change make provide any additional legal means for wikimedia to prevent forks. I will submit that there. I will also be following up with the Free Software Foundation with the simple message that, while working with the board is fine, that the material on Wikipedia is entirely the authorship of the community and it is the rights and freedoms of the community and the world which are significant in matters related to our licensing.

...

And as I said "The requirements of the CC-wiki are fairly similar to the not quite GFDL-compatible attribution suggestions we make on our licensing page, which is a big reason why I would even mention CC-wiki when talking about Wikipedia licensing." I am aware of it, and consider it a kludge to address a practical issue.

...

<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lizenzbestimmungen#Praktische_Anwendung_in_Online-Medien> for example). If this is not the case, then the community needs to make a decision to change the wording, which all contributors are currently agreeing to (since that copyrights page is linked from the edit page).

When I last read the page, it was fairly clear that it was a limited permission grant and not a term of the license. If you believe that adding additional terms to a page separate from the licence notice that every contributor sees somehow permits the wikimedia foundation to redefine the GFDL then you are sorely mistaken and are potentially putting the foundation in a legally precarious situation. Even if you ignore that fact that contributors only agree to license you their text under the GFDL and have never even seen that page (for example, I only read it long after I started contributing because I was already well aware of the GFDL), you run into the fact that we have GFDLed text included from other authors who have never seen the wikipedia. For example, wikipedia includes some of my text from a GFDLed linux documentation project document which I wrote ages ago and was contributed by someone else before I ever contributed to the wikipedia.

...

However, perhaps the fact that the authors are attributed in the page history, which is linked from the Wikipedia article that the mirrors are being asked to link to, is seen as sufficient attribution. I wouldn't agree to anything which allowed the complete removal of that attribution, but allowing a situation where readers had to make a few clicks to get to it, in order to make re-using the content easier, would not necessarily be something I would oppose.

I'd be quite agreeable to alterations in that ilk... In an electronic medium following hyperlinks for source or attribution is acceptable within reasonable bounds. When you start granting rights preferentially is when I find it concerning. Any part of the wikipedia community, should have an equal right to make a proper fork (i.e. one that provides all attribution, GFDL, prefered form, etc) and sever all ties to the Wikimedia Foundation. Such forks should have an equal right to redistribute the work to others whom redistribute it again with 'condensed attribution' which link to their choice of proper forks (as our adhoc enforcement rules allows improper forks to do towards Wikipedia).

...

I'd also like to know how each board member thinks the board to incorporate community input into licensing-related discussions.

The main issue here seems to be the next version of the GFDL, which neither the board nor the Wikimedia community has any control over.

This is inaccurate. As one of the largest users of the GFDL it would be foolish to deny that we have some degree of influence.

...

In terms of discussions prior to a new license, I would hope anyone interested would contribute their opinions on the page I previously linked, or on meta to make it more international, or on any of the relevant mailing lists. The more important question might be how the discussions are managed after a new version of the GFDL is introduced.

Fair enough.

...

I don't know if the FSF release draft versions as the CC do. If they do, this would be an ideal opportunity for the Wikimedia communities, as well as for anyone else using the license, to have an input into this discussion.

New license versions are a rare event for the FSF. I'm sure if we asked for the ability to see and comment on a draft we'd be granted it..

...

If that is not the case, then there will need to be discussion after the release of GFDL 2.0 whereby the community as a whole could decide whether it was appropriate to change to that new license. Imposing a new version without any sort of community discussion and consensus is something I aim to avoid.

That is good.

...

Yes, that would be an excellent step which I will follow up with. Thank you for your time and your thoughts.

Angela

8:28 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/30/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

In practice, this is how people are already interpreting the GFDL. I am aware of very few mirrors who credit the authors rather than simply crediting "Wikipedia" and linking to the original article.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't not notice it. I just wanted to clarify it for others on this list. :)

...

> The only request has been the fairly general one of making the license > easier to understand.

...

Easier to understand is a fair request. However, with the text "Work is underway to make the process of reusing the content much simpler.", you contradict yourself. Which is it?

I see these as the same point. If the license is easier to understand, reusing the work is much simpler. One problem now is that people simply don't know how to adhere to the GFDL. There's no simple version like the CC have with their "human-readable summaries" meaning the board address frequently gets mails from people asking whether they can use the work, and what they need to do.

...

We're not requesting any changes that would hinder a fork while benefiting the Foundation. Our aim is to make use of the content easier, not to make use of the content by forks harder.

...

I am well aware of this, however, it would be unacceptable for Wikimedia to be granted a special right over the material in the fork simply because Wikimedia hosted the content first.

The fork could choose to maintain the current content under the current GFDL, so any changes to the license could not guarantee Wikimedia any rights over that forked content.

...

Considering my past correspondence with with FSF and their long term track record, I would gauge the chance of them approving such a change to be something near a snowballs chance in hell... Because of this, I was simply looking for the confirmation that the board wasn't even trying to request such a thing. If anything your reply has only increased my concern. As what is almost certainly the single largest user of the GFDL, and probably one of the most important it would be foolish to assume we have no clout.

No, we're not trying to request any changes that would grant Wikimedia additional rights.

...

If you believe that adding additional terms to a page separate from the licence notice that every contributor sees somehow permits the wikimedia foundation to redefine the GFDL then you are sorely mistaken and are potentially putting the foundation in a legally precarious situation.

That isn't what I meant to imply. It might be useful for Jimmy to give some feedback from his recent meeting with Eben Moglen on this point.

...

The main issue here seems to be the next version of the GFDL, which neither the board nor the Wikimedia community has any control over.

This is inaccurate. As one of the largest users of the GFDL it would be foolish to deny that we have some degree of influence.

I agree it has influence over it, but that's not the same as control. Angela.

Anthere

30 Jun 30 Jun

12:18 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Gregory Maxwell a écrit:

...

On 6/29/05, Anthere

<anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

...

I invite you to ask more questions here as well as on the appropriate candidate talk page if you feel it necessarily.

Hi I am sorry because I prepared a long answer... and my computer crashed :-((( I just can't feel the courage to do it all again. Sorry, I will make it quite short and probably very badly expressed. But I have to finish something quickly for wikimania tonight and will be away for the week end.

...

But since I'm being invited to ask questions, I'd like to ask a question of all of the candidates; please pardon its length. Perhaps this is more directed at Angela, since she mentioned the GFDL in her statement, but I'd like to hear comments from all. What is your long-term position with respect to the GFDL, particularly with respect to attribution? Specifically, I've read the new CC-wiki license and I'm very concerned that it creates a special right for site operators (as opposed to first editors or publishers). The requirements of the CC-wiki are fairly similar to the not quite GFDL-compatible attribution suggestions we make on our licensing page, which is a big reason why I would even mention CC-wiki when talking about Wikipedia licensing. Obviously Wikipedia could never be licensed as CC-wiki, and I have great faith that the Free Software Foundation would not make unwise changes to later versions of the GFDL... but I think that we would all benefit from finding out exactly what changes the board would request on our behalf. I feel confident that the community will not tolerate a change to the licensing which grants Wikimedia special legal rights which would inhibit the ability of the community to fork should the board somehow lose its mind and act against what the community feels is its best interest. This would require that the license not provide a special attribution loophole that allows only attributing to the site where the material was originally created. I would like a direct assurance that the board members will make no attempt to achieve such a change for GFDL-licensed content on Wikipedia, Commons, or Wikibooks. I'd also like to know how each board member thinks the board to incorporate community input into licensing-related discussions. I believe that most people would agree that the use of our content could be enhanced by some degree of carefully thought out change, but I know I'd like to have the ability to provide input; for example, my point on the non-negotiability of the legal ease of forking. Thanks!

I think it is correct to mostly direct these questions to Angela, as indeed, they are not part of my platform, nor were last year. I try to keep up with such matters as much as I can, but it certainly is not the part I can best help, nor to be entirely fair with you, the part I am most interested in ;-) And given our time restraints, I truely think it is best that each board member try to focus on certain matters rather than to disperse himself in myriads of issues. This said... I was confronted many times during the past year to the issue of our license and the implication of reuse rules to respect. I am not entirely sure I agree with Angela when she says she knows very few mirrors compliants to the reattribution rule. Each time I had the opportunity to do so for the reusers of the french content this year, I mentionned amongst *requirements* the fact of doing a direct link to the article or to the history of the article. And most to my surprise, most reusers absolutely followed this requirement.and link the article itself. I do believe that at least for all electronic medias, it is possible to insist on this requirement and see it followed. It might be that we need to clarify for readers who the authors of an article are but I really would not support attributions being removed from editors to be given to the Foundation. I mostly see a major issue with the GFDL with regards to all printed work. It makes little sense to print the entire GFDL license, nor the entire list of authors, at the end of a book in which a little bit of gfdl content has been included. It makes no sense either when part of an article in included in a newspaper. No editor will ever follow that burden. This is a problem which needs to be solved and I would support having some of the requirements made simpler in these cases. One thing I would like to insist upon is that there is no reason you should feel you do not have the power to make things change yourself once you decide to do it. In the current discussions on licensing issues, two immediately pop up in my mind. First is the issue of being allowed to reuse images from other organisations, which will probably involve some consensus over the license used in the end. For this, I invite you to read the very recent report by Submarine http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ESA_images. This is an ongoing action lead by french and german editors. Please, feel free to get involved. The second issue will probably become more and more proeminent in the future. It is simple. First, Commons seem to contain many images which are not free by our standards. Second, an image does not have necessarily the same status depending on the country. Perhaps editors such as Foenyx or Aurevilly could explain you better all this. And if you read french, I invite you to read Soufron's thoughts here : http://soufron.free.fr/soufron-spip/plan.php3 Just this to say that when you say "I'd also like to know how each board member thinks the board to incorporate community input into licensing-related discussions." (with a word missing probably), I do not think the board "incorporate" community input into discussions, I think the community discussion drive many licensing issues. Maybe what is missing for you, is the knowledge of where the discussions take place or what initiatives are taken. In any cases, you are correct to raise such an issue... and as Cimon recently told me, we need more public board meeting. I think it could be good to suggest one in fall to discuss the issue. Sorry, I was probably very unclear. I am a bit tired. ant

Erik Moeller

6:08 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Gregory Maxwell:

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This is a substantial change, I'm quite aware of the license and what it is... I disagree very strongly with the nature of the altered attribution.

Your disagreement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There is no "special right" inherent in saying "This article was originally written by members of the Wikipedia community", and it does not preclude anyone from forking. It is a historical statement that is much more practical than "This article was written by these 250 people:...", or much more wiki-like than "This article was originally started by Erik" (as CC-BY would require). I strongly support the CC-WIKI license. It is the most practical solution to the attribution problem. If you're worried about forking being difficult, then you haven't read the GFDL very carefully, as it is probably the most forking-unfriendly license there is in the field of free content. Erik

Gregory Maxwell

7:54 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/30/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:

...

I am well aware of the terms of the GFDL. Just because I do not agree with you does not me I do not understand. If you'd like to discuss anything specifically, please be my guest... I may be able to clear up any misunderstanding you have related to it. The important difference you've missed here is that CC-wiki grants special rights to the originating wiki. As things currently are, the Wikimedia Foundation has the same obligations under the GFDL as I would have if I were to make a fork. So if I grabbed the databases, setup media wiki, and fixed the graphics so that I wasn't walking on any trademarks my position would be just as legal as the Wikimedia Foundations position. That's pretty fair and friendly: if I do the same things I'm all good. With CC-wiki this wouldn't be the case at all. My fork would be a second class citizen. Even if all the editors moved to edit on Gregpedia, people would still need to credit www.wikipedia.org for the material. The content of Wikipedia is not the property of the Wikimedia Foundation. The content of Wikipedia is the creation and property of the contributors and thus the community and it was created for the benefit of the entire world. As such the right and control of our content must rest in the hands of the community, and creating special grants for the Foundation removes that control from the community. I agree that GFDL conformant attribution is an issue in some media (although I disagree that it is an issue for electronic sources, if you can mirror the ~2ish GB of text in cur, then you could also manage the contributor names). These issues can be addressed in ways which do not create a new form of ownership for the originating wiki's site operators as the CC-wiki license does.

Erik Moeller

8:30 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Gregory Maxwell:

...

As things currently are, the Wikimedia Foundation has the same obligations under the GFDL as I would have if I were to make a fork. So if I grabbed the databases, setup media wiki, and fixed the graphics so that I wasn't walking on any trademarks my position would be just as legal as the Wikimedia Foundations position. That's pretty fair and friendly: if I do the same things I'm all good. With CC-wiki this wouldn't be the case at all. My fork would be a second class citizen. Even if all the editors moved to edit on Gregpedia, people would still need to credit www.wikipedia.org for the material.

Material written on Wikipedia would be credited to the Wikipedia community. Material written on Gregpedia would be credited to the Gregpedia community. This seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me and does nothing to preclude you from running and operating your fork, it simply notes the historical fact that your content was originally created by a different community, rather than misrepresenting it as originating with you. You are correct that under the terms of the GFDL, I do not have to mention Wikipedia with a single word. I can, in fact, import the author histories into my Foopedia and create a new site that seems to have written 610,000 articles out of nowhere. I can even pretend that all these users have accounts on my site and import their user pages (if they have added "originally from .." templates, I can remove those). Many users will go to Foopedia and get the impression that I, as founder and operator, have made this thing happen, and that thousands of people have worked for/with me. They might even get the impression that all these people are right-wingers because I have Republican party advertising all over Foopedia. Now, I would argue that this would be a gross misrepresentation of the historical facts, and that, if you want any licensing at all, a fair and reasonable license should acknowledge the community origins of the content, rather than allowing implicit or explicit false attribution to an entirely different community.

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The content of Wikipedia is not the property of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia, however, is not just a bunch of random people doing things that they would be doing anyway if Wikipedia didn't exist. It is people collaborating in a specific framework, working together as members of a specific community under specific rules. CC-WIKI is not about granting special rights to an organization, it is about acknowledging the community identity over the identity of individual writers. As long as the emphasis is on community, rather than on organization, I think CC-WIKI is exactly the right approach.

...

I agree that GFDL conformant attribution is an issue in some media (although I disagree that it is an issue for electronic sources, if you can mirror the ~2ish GB of text in cur, then you could also manage the contributor names).

Many mirrors and forks are set up by people who are either not knowledgeable about licensing, or who do not have the resources to comply with the technical requirements (we do not make this easy for them). It's fine if you argue that you feel individual authors deserve attribution over the community as a whole -- that is a legitimate position to hold, although I disagree with it. But if you claim that you want to make forking and mirroring easier, then you are misrepresenting your position, because it does the exact opposite. CC-WIKI makes forking simpler and acknowledges the work of the community as a whole rather than that of individual contributors. Erik

Gregory Maxwell

8:33 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/29/05, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Some how I managed to omit part of my reply to this... I had also intended to quote from the copyrights page which you say all contributors are currently agreeing to: "The English text of the GFDL is the only legally binding document".

Gregory Maxwell

9:02 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

On 6/30/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:

...

With CC-wiki this wouldn't be the case at all. My fork would be a second class citizen. Even if all the editors moved to edit on Gregpedia, people would still need to credit www.wikipedia.org for the material.

But you can't draw nice little boxes around 'communities', in effect trying to achieve this additional restriction in our licensing will grant the right to the site operators, not to the community.

...

You are correct that under the terms of the GFDL, I do not have to mention Wikipedia with a single word. I can, in fact, import the author histories into my Foopedia and create a new site that seems to have written 610,000 articles out of nowhere. I can even pretend that all these users have accounts on my site and import their user pages (if they have added "originally from .." templates, I can remove those). Many users will go to Foopedia and get the impression that I, as founder and operator, have made this thing happen, and that thousands of people have worked for/with me. They might even get the impression that all these people are right-wingers because I have Republican party advertising all over Foopedia.

Of course, this was part of the intention of invariant sections in the GFDL which we quite rightfully realized were not good things to include in our work... But yet here we go, wishing to reinvent them. It's a silly argument to claim that someone could claim to be the actual author of the work, the contributions are right there.. Many people edit with their offline names (and hopefully those who don't should realize the weaker attribution representation it gives them). I agree that freedom can bring unfavorable things, this is unfortunate, but it is not a reason to eschew freedom.

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Now, I would argue that this would be a gross misrepresentation of the historical facts, and that, if you want any licensing at all, a fair and reasonable license should acknowledge the community origins of the content, rather than allowing implicit or explicit false attribution to an entirely different community.

So how do you address this situation: Wikimedia loses its mind, puts porno spam all over wikipedia. I create a fork called FreePedia, and the entire community moves to FreePedia. ... Now we have to credit Wikipedia? But why? the community is here? There is no clear way to credit the community, it's dishonest to claim that by building in a credit to the Wikimedia Foundation operated site that you are crediting the community. Sure that example is far out, but things like that are possible.. For a more realistic scenario, what happens if a substantial part of the community leaves and the community has split in two. This certainly has been seen on other wikis.

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Right, but to suggest that the work wouldn't be possible without the Wikimedia Foundation is silly. There is a reason why copyright applies to a specific work and not to similar works of independent origins. It isn't like Jimbo was the first and only person to think of a GFDLed free content encyclopedia. (although, wow, what an amazing job everyone has done making it happen... Which is why we have a community)

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As long as the emphasis is on community, rather than on organization, I think CC-WIKI is exactly the right approach.

I like crediting the community. But the community isn't a single object we can credit. To claim that we can is a gross oversimplification at best.

...

I agree that we do not make it easy for them, we have even disabled features in our software which make it easier (credits at the bottom, though I presume for technical reasons rather than to discourage compliance). We make it easy to make illegal forks and suggest hyperlinks as a bandaid... while we slowly back away and disclaim all liability. It is not pretty. Our webpages clearly say that other sites must follow the GFDL, and that our little bandaid isn't legal protection. We muddle the otherwise straightforward waters (to be legal, do what we do) by trying to get people to do the respectable thing and link back to us as well.. We don't even manage to give a consistant story on our webpages: Compare, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Users.27_rights_and_oblig… and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verbatim_copying#History_Section The latter is far more clear that our recommendation is legally questionable. Some of the emails we send out to places asking for advice even omit the instructions for actual compliance entirely. We claim this is because it is too hard, but it really isn't "Do what we do" is sufficient.

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It's fine if you argue that you feel individual authors deserve attribution over the community as a whole -- that is a legitimate position to hold, although I disagree with it. But if you claim that you want to make forking and mirroring easier, then you are misrepresenting your position, because it does the exact opposite. CC-WIKI makes forking simpler and acknowledges the work of the community as a whole rather than that of individual contributors.

Fundamentally *forking* is already easy, you grab our complete database dumps (rather than just one part of them). The storage requirements for the entire dumps are large, but a small amount of time with an awkscript can extract just the attribution data if the wish is only to provide that. Considering the amount of advertisements that some of the forks manage to cram in... I doubt they would have any troubles doing what they need to do. CC-Wiki doesn't make forking harder, it makes making a completely equal fork impossible. It grants part of the essences of the exclusive copyright (the right to be credited) to another party simply by virtue of hosting a site. It grants nothing to the community, because there is no unambiguous way to even define what the community is... On the other hand, changes to attribution requirements would make some forms of reproduction much easier. It is an interesting area to explore, but we shouldn't go down the road of creating special rights for site operators, or reinventing invariant sections.

Erik Moeller

9:28 p.m.

New subject: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

Gregory Maxwell:

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But you can't draw nice little boxes around 'communities', in effect trying to achieve this additional restriction in our licensing will grant the right to the site operators, not to the community.

The community is identified by its name. As long as you are writing on Wikipedia.org, you are writing as a member of the Wikipedia community. If you leave that community and start writing somewhere else, this doesn't change the fact that the material you wrote in the past was written as a member of that community. So, I disagree, you can very much draw a box around the community by identifying it with its given name.

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If you don't want any requirements, use the public domain as I do. But if you do want requirements, these should be a reasonable reflection of the interests of the community as a whole. I think CC-WIKI is the best effort to date to address this.

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First of all, no license grant precludes you from granting permission to any partcular site to do what it likes. For instance, FreePedia in its sign up form could ask users to put their past and present contributions udner a particular license. If indeed the entire community moves, everything is fine. Furthermore, such a scenario wouldn't alter the fact that the content was originally written by members of the Wikipedia community. So, stating that "originally this was written by members of Wikipedia, but now many of them have split away from Wikipedia and formed Freepedia, for [[these reasons]]" would be a historically accurate statement, informative, and sufficient to comply with the license. The achievements of the Wikipedia community, in its present incarnation, should not be denied credit because of potentially undesirable future incaranations.

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There is no clear way to credit the community, it's dishonest to claim that by building in a credit to the Wikimedia Foundation operated site that you are crediting the community.

I don't think it's dishonest at all, I think it's very accurate, even if that community should fundamentally change in the future -- in the present it is very much identified as "Wikipedia". Even if that should change, this identification would still be a historical fact.

...

Sure that example is far out, but things like that are possible.. For a more realistic scenario, what happens if a substantial part of the community leaves and the community has split in two. This certainly has been seen on other wikis.

Acknowledging historical facts doesn't take anything away from anyone. All that being said, I think it is completely reasonable to try to improve the way in which CC-WIKI credits the community, and to trace the community history as best as possible without placing onerous requirements on third parties. I suggest you work with the Creative Commons folk to make this happen: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC_Wiki

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CC-Wiki doesn't make forking harder, it makes making a completely equal fork impossible.

I think that's a reasonable thing to do. Forks are *not* completely equal. They take the work produced by thousands and try to do something new with it.

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It grants nothing to the community, because there is no unambiguous way to even define what the community is...

That's what you say. I say starting by identifying it by name, and trying to ease community transitions, is the way to go for wiki licensing. Erik

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Angela
Anthere
Craig Franklin
Erik Moeller
Gregory Maxwell
Mark Williamson
Ray Saintonge