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And directly related (I just noticed this, too):

http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/103/10307.jpg.htm

From that same F-35 Lightning article, images that were actually deleted as
non-free images. How are we distributing this?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/JSF_Images

How closely was this all vetted, exactly?

Joe




On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com> wrote:

> Danny Wool mentioned this on his blog today, and I had not noticed it
> myself at first--doesn't the current thing we've created, for example, at
> http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/f/F-35_Lightning_II.htm violate GFDL? It
> actually says,
>
> "This Wikipedia Selection is sponsored by SOS Children<http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/c/Children_Charity.htm>, and consists of a hand selection from the English Wikipedia articles with
> only minor deletions (see www.wikipedia.org for details of authors and
> sources)."
>
> But is this compliant with the GFDL?
>
> - Joe
>
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2008/10/24 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com>:
> Danny Wool mentioned this on his blog today, and I had not noticed it myself
> at first--doesn't the current thing we've created, for example, at
> http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/f/F-35_Lightning_II.htm violate GFDL? It
> actually says,
>
> "This Wikipedia Selection is sponsored by SOS
> Children<http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/c/Children_Charity.htm>, and
> consists of a hand selection from the English Wikipedia articles with
> only minor deletions (see www.wikipedia.org for details of authors and
> sources)."
>
> But is this compliant with the GFDL?

The copyright and disclaimer page says: "The original authors or
creators of content from Wikipedia may be found by going to the
article in the English Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) with the same article name
and tracing content via the page history."

I'm not entirely sure that is enough to satisfy the GFDL. There ought
to at least be a link to the Wikipedia history page on each article,
any that only really works for the online version. Was a lawyer
consulted on this before going live?

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2008/10/24 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com>:
> And directly related (I just noticed this, too):
>
> http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/103/10307.jpg.htm
>
> From that same F-35 Lightning article, images that were actually deleted as
> non-free images. How are we distributing this?
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/JSF_Images
>
> How closely was this all vetted, exactly?

That's unfortunate and the selection should be immeadiately patched to
remove such images when found, but I don't think it would have been
reasonable for them to check every image and extract of text to make
sure it wasn't a copyvio (they trusted Wikipedia/Commons to do that,
and it just happened a little late).

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On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 2:16 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> 2008/10/24 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com>:
> > And directly related (I just noticed this, too):
> >
> > http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/103/10307.jpg.htm
> >
> > From that same F-35 Lightning article, images that were actually deleted
> as
> > non-free images. How are we distributing this?
> >
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/JSF_Images
> >
> > How closely was this all vetted, exactly?
>
> That's unfortunate and the selection should be immeadiately patched to
> remove such images when found, but I don't think it would have been
> reasonable for them to check every image and extract of text to make
> sure it wasn't a copyvio (they trusted Wikipedia/Commons to do that,
> and it just happened a little late).
>


Late? When were these custom pages put together--this deletion discussion
was way back in August. Trusting Wikipedia/Commons to do vetting and editing
on something this potentially "big" is just sloppy. Grammatical errors,
typos--stuff like that always slips through, even in major encylopedias,
novels, what have you. But flagrant copyright violation images that are
actually carrying a big bold "This image is up for deletion because of a
possible copyright violation" notice??

- Joe
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Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
general copyright statements?


"The copyright and disclaimer page says: "The original authors or
creators of content from Wikipedia may be found by going to the
article in the English Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) with the same article name
and tracing content via the page history."

I'm not entirely sure that is enough to satisfy the GFDL. There ought
to at least be a link to the Wikipedia history page on each article,
any that only really works for the online version. Was a lawyer
consulted on this before going live?"



--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

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2008/10/24 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@gmail.com>:
> Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
> the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
> contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
> general copyright statements?

The WMF doesn't own the content, so what the WMF does and doesn't
approve of doesn't really matter legally.

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On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> 2008/10/24 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@gmail.com>:
> > Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
> > the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
> > contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
> > general copyright statements?
>
> The WMF doesn't own the content, so what the WMF does and doesn't
> approve of doesn't really matter legally.
>

And schools-wikipedia.org is owned by that UK charity, so they are
ultimately responsible for any libel or copyright violations they are
redistributing (like the example one I gave) but it makes the WMF look
awfully dumb if we're violating GFDL in this project, and giving them these
articles with copyright violating images. Did we assemble the pages and
selections, and edit them down, or did the SOS people?


- Joe
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On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:20 AM, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 2:16 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 2008/10/24 Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi@gmail.com>:
>> > And directly related (I just noticed this, too):
>> >
>> > http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/103/10307.jpg.htm
>> >
>> > From that same F-35 Lightning article, images that were actually deleted
>> as
>> > non-free images. How are we distributing this?
>> >
>> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/JSF_Images
>> >
>> > How closely was this all vetted, exactly?
>>
>> That's unfortunate and the selection should be immeadiately patched to
>> remove such images when found, but I don't think it would have been
>> reasonable for them to check every image and extract of text to make
>> sure it wasn't a copyvio (they trusted Wikipedia/Commons to do that,
>> and it just happened a little late).
>>
>
>
> Late? When were these custom pages put together--this deletion discussion
> was way back in August. Trusting Wikipedia/Commons to do vetting and editing
> on something this potentially "big" is just sloppy. Grammatical errors,
> typos--stuff like that always slips through, even in major encylopedias,
> novels, what have you. But flagrant copyright violation images that are
> actually carrying a big bold "This image is up for deletion because of a
> possible copyright violation" notice??

The deletion discussion was started in August, but was only closed
last week. This reflects the general slowness of deletion requests on
Commons where many requests linger for months. But you are right that
the big red box is fairly noticable if anyone had checked things
manually, which they probably didn't.

-Robert Rohde

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To clarify: the 2008/9 Wikipedia Selection for Schools, including
schools-wikipedia.org, is a project of SOS Children UK. We've given
them trademark permission to use the Wikipedia name and logo on
relatively short notice as it would have been difficult for them to
change the branding of the project shortly before its release, and
they had a prior agreement from which they made the good faith
assumption that we would extend it.

But, in general, we're tightening licensing rules on the trademark and
the puzzle globe, and we've already made clear that the strong
Wikipedia branding right now (including the schools-wikipedia.org
domain name) is uncomfortably potentially confusing. It's an
interesting tension in the free culture movement between giving
content away & controlling the use of name & identity - cf. Mozilla's
conflict with the Debian project about the Firefox trademark. We're
developing a secondary mark that will be more easily usable.

It's not been developed with WMF staff resources, but some Wikipedia
volunteers have helped along the way. Andrew Cates, who coordinated
the project, commented on the Wikimedia blog regarding the
licensing/attribution issue:

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/10/22/sos-childrens-villages-presents-wikipedia-for-schools/#comments

Currently articles on the website say:
"This Wikipedia DVD Selection is sponsored by SOS Children , and
consists of a hand selection from the English Wikipedia articles with
only minor deletions (see www.wikipedia.org for details of authors and
sources)."

I think a direct link to the relevant history on each article page
would be preferable, but this to me is also an example of why we need
clear, simple & easy to follow attribution systems.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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> I think a direct link to the relevant history on each article page
> would be preferable, but this to me is also an example of why we need
> clear, simple & easy to follow attribution systems.

Indeed - such disputes are only going to become more common if we
don't sort out a standard system. I agree with you about a direct link
be preferable. What are your views on the offline version where there
can't be an actual link (since it is specifically intended for users
without internet access), just a URL?

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2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
> Indeed - such disputes are only going to become more common if we
> don't sort out a standard system. I agree with you about a direct link
> be preferable. What are your views on the offline version where there
> can't be an actual link (since it is specifically intended for users
> without internet access), just a URL?

My view is that a practice as described by Gregory here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions#Proposed_attribution_text

makes sense. IMO there are two different needs here:

* History for the purposes of tracking down who wrote what when. This
is the purpose of the GFDL "History" section, as far as I can see. A
full history (not just including names but dates etc.) can be a huge
document, and a URL seems to be an appropriate way to provide this
information. A copy alongside the other files in an electronic medium
would be doable, but I don't think this should be a legal requirement.
* Attribution for moral reasons. I think we should work towards a
situation where, if there are 1-10 clear principal authors, and we can
easily name them, we will do so. Re-users shouldn't have to worry
about this -- they would just find those names listed at the bottom.
And, if there are more, i.e. history pages with thousands of names, I
think it should be sufficient, in any medium, to credit it as
"Multiple authors, see [URL] for a full list and change history."

But that's just my take -- I don't think there's a clearly codified
"organizational position" on this issue yet, and of course then
there's the letter of the GFDL which can be interpreted to impose
fairly heavy requirements on re-users. Historically, WMF has advised
re-users online to link to the history, and re-users in print to
provide author lists, though this is an interesting middle ground case
(offline but electronic medium).

Does anyone know how it was done in the German Wikipedia DVD?

Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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> Does anyone know how it was done in the German Wikipedia DVD?

According to Andrew Cates on the UK mailing list thread on this
subject, the German DVD does have a local list of authors (but I don't
think they have a detailed history with diffs and everything).

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2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
> 2008/10/24 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@gmail.com>:

>> Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
>> the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
>> contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
>> general copyright statements?

> The WMF doesn't own the content, so what the WMF does and doesn't
> approve of doesn't really matter legally.


And I don't work for the Foundation.


- d.

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2008/10/24 David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:
> 2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
>> 2008/10/24 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@gmail.com>:
>
>>> Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
>>> the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
>>> contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
>>> general copyright statements?
>
>> The WMF doesn't own the content, so what the WMF does and doesn't
>> approve of doesn't really matter legally.
>
>
> And I don't work for the Foundation.

No, but you do represent the foundation as an official press contact.
That it's not a paid position doesn't make a lot of difference.

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2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
> 2008/10/24 David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:
>> 2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
>>> 2008/10/24 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@gmail.com>:

>>>> Since according to themselves this project i" in coordination with
>>>> the Wikimedia Foundation",giving David Derard as the foundation
>>>> contact, does that mean that the WMF approves officially of such
>>>> general copyright statements?

>>> The WMF doesn't own the content, so what the WMF does and doesn't
>>> approve of doesn't really matter legally.

>> And I don't work for the Foundation.

> No, but you do represent the foundation as an official press contact.
> That it's not a paid position doesn't make a lot of difference.


Er, I'm a named volunteer press contact therefore the Foundation is
responsible for GFDL violations? That theory's on crack.


- d.

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> Er, I'm a named volunteer press contact therefore the Foundation is
> responsible for GFDL violations? That theory's on crack.

I never said that. The theory presented was that the foundation's
involvement, which includes you being listed as a press contact,
negates the GFDL compliance issues. You tried to counter that by
pointing out that you aren't a foundation employee, which isn't a good
counterargument since you do hold an official position and being
listed under that position does mean the foundation is involved
(according to Erik, the involvement is limited to little more than a
trademark agreement, but that's still an involvement). The theory is
still nonsense because of the ownership issue I pointed out, of
course.

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