[WikiEN-l] RE: copyright and NOR policies re: math and science

[Brown, Darin]

> Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:03:53 -0400
> From: Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RE: copyright and NOR policies re: math and
> 	science
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<98dd099a0510270903hb290f71p4456375b4dba13ee at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> Two things:
>
> >And what about a proof?  One can always
> > paraphrase a proof, but at the end of the day, you're really violating
> > copyright in spirit under the above interpretation as much as if you
> copied
> > verbatim.
> 
> I'm pretty sure mathematical proofs would not be copyrightable.

That's funny...given that a lot of mathematical papers consist almost
entirely of proofs, are you saying that copyright does not apply to them?  I
think the publisher would beg to differ.

> I could write my own
> version of the same facts in a given book and have full claim to a
> copyright in this instance.

This is my point -- statements of theorems don't have different "versions"
of themselves.  (Maybe *equivalent* versions, that's another issue.)  Or at
least, there's very little room for tinkering.

> I think a good line of work with NOR is to say that every fact which
> could be reasonably contested should be cited. That is, if I write an
> article the History of X, and I say that on such-and-such a date,
> so-and-so did something, I might from the get-go assume that this is
> common knowledge (at least among specialists). If someone comes to the
> talk page and says, "Hey, I don't know about that," then it is my duty
> to pull out some other source which says it. I think citation is
> allowed to be an evolving thing.

Yes, I understand; my point is that in math, there exists non-original
research which cannot be cited.  There is no "big book" containing every
possible true statement and valid argument in math.  Say someone comes up
with a particularly nice proof of some calculus result, but can't find it in
any reference in exactly the same way.  And suppose it's not a terribly
novel thing -- just a couple tweeks that make it more appealing.  Is this
original research?  Most math people would say, "no".  Even if it *were*
original enough to publish in CMJ, say, if it were never submitted, it would
*still* not require publication before being written up in
wikipedia...because it is something easily verified by any professional in
the field.  The difference between, say, history and math, is that in
history, the verification is the historical record (primary or secondary
sources), whereas in math, the "verification" lives inside the
mathematicians' brains.  It's hard to cite that.

Really, this is has not been much of a problem, so far.  In fact, the math
people have kind of interpreted these "rules" as they went along, as they
saw fit, collectively.  So, you might wonder why I go on.  I just want
people to realize that policies and rules require a fair amount of latitude
and interpretation from situation to situation.  A lot of people seem to
have the attitude that the way the policies are implemented and interpreted
in their little domain of existence is the "right" way and should be imposed
on everyone else.  I would hesitate (I hope I have hesitated in the past) to
tell the people in the biology project, or the history project, or a project
on some hobby or craft, how the policies should be interpreted in their
domain.  But several times I've seen a math person raise an issue like this
outside of the math community, and people just pounce on them -- imposing
their own view of a policy to a situation they don't even understand.

darin