Mailing List Archive: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing

Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing

Jan 14, 2009, 4:54 PM

Post #1 of 37 (2378 views)

Hi,

I've been following with great interest the endeavour to relicense Wikipedia
for some time, though this is my first meaningful contribution to it.
Attribution is an important and sensitive issue but I think the discussions
so far are missing a great opportunity to promote Wikipedia itself while
further simplifying (and thus fostering) re-use. Focus so far has been on
arduous processes for identifying authors and linking to revision histories
which runs the risk of continuing to stifle adoption of content even after
re-licensing.

It appears that it would be adequate (as a minimum acceptable standard) to
specify the CC-BY-SA license and refer to the Wikipedia article - certainly
the license section 4(c) allows for significant flexibility in this regard.
The attribution itself would then be something like "Wikipedia 'Widgets'
article" which is enough in itself for a user to be able to find the article
and associated revision history (concise attributions are critical
especially for print work, on t-shirts, etc.).

My primary concern is that it can be essentially impossible to reliably
identify key contributers, and that doing so in an environment of stigmergic
collaboration can be very misleading as to the value of each contribution
(even the most minor of edits play a critical role in the building of
trust). It is also a potential source of significant contention, both
internally between editors and externally with editors individually seeking
attribution from content consumers.

Take for example the cloud
computing<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing>article which I
[re]wrote last year, the vast majority of which is to this
day still my work. In this case it is clear from the
statistics<http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en.wikipedia&page=cloud%20computing>that
I am the primary/original author but had I have confined my updates to
a single edit there would be no way to reliably identify me, short of
tracking the owner of each and every character (and even this is far from
perfect). In any case my contribution was intended to further the objects of
Wikipedia and if I need to derive recognition for my work then I will
reference it directly myself.

Please consider adopting as low a minimum acceptable standard for
attributions as possible so as to derive the full benefit from this exciting
transition by lowering the barriers to participation.

Kind regards,

Sam
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 1:07 PM

Post #2 of 37 (2308 views)

2009/1/14 Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>:
> It appears that it would be adequate (as a minimum acceptable standard) to
> specify the CC-BY-SA license and refer to the Wikipedia article - certainly
> the license section 4(c) allows for significant flexibility in this regard.
> The attribution itself would then be something like "Wikipedia 'Widgets'
> article" which is enough in itself for a user to be able to find the article
> and associated revision history (concise attributions are critical
> especially for print work, on t-shirts, etc.).

There are a couple of counterpoints to this:

* For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
author. If you are the photographer of a high resolution panorama that
you've contributed to Wikipedia, I think it's a reasonable expectation
to be named ("Photo by Sam Johnston"), as opposed to being referred to
as "Photo from Wikipedia". This is equally true, I think, for articles
where there is just a single author, or for pictures which have been
subsequently edited a few times.

* The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie
between the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any
future use of the content. If someone creates a better alternative to
Wikipedia where the content is used, why should it be continued to be
attributed to Wikipedia, rather than the authors?

I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
out the author credit in the article footer.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

removed at example

Jan 16, 2009, 1:11 PM

Post #3 of 37 (2311 views)

I like Sam's point.

Do you really want to print this on a t-shirt?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=history

Also, it makes specific reference to Wikipedia.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 2009/1/14 Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>:
> > It appears that it would be adequate (as a minimum acceptable standard)
> to
> > specify the CC-BY-SA license and refer to the Wikipedia article -
> certainly
> > the license section 4(c) allows for significant flexibility in this
> regard.
> > The attribution itself would then be something like "Wikipedia 'Widgets'
> > article" which is enough in itself for a user to be able to find the
> article
> > and associated revision history (concise attributions are critical
> > especially for print work, on t-shirts, etc.).
>
> There are a couple of counterpoints to this:
>
> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
> author. If you are the photographer of a high resolution panorama that
> you've contributed to Wikipedia, I think it's a reasonable expectation
> to be named ("Photo by Sam Johnston"), as opposed to being referred to
> as "Photo from Wikipedia". This is equally true, I think, for articles
> where there is just a single author, or for pictures which have been
> subsequently edited a few times.
>
> * The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
> Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie
> between the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any
> future use of the content. If someone creates a better alternative to
> Wikipedia where the content is used, why should it be continued to be
> attributed to Wikipedia, rather than the authors?
>
> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
> out the author credit in the article footer.
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 1:31 PM

Post #4 of 37 (2314 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:

> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
> out the author credit in the article footer.
>

Eh? Which should it be? A requirement, or a best practise?

You can't have it both ways.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

geniice at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 1:34 PM

Post #5 of 37 (2315 views)

2009/1/16 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> I like Sam's point.
>
> Do you really want to print this on a t-shirt?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=history
>
> Also, it makes specific reference to Wikipedia.
>
>

Since you would also have to include complete copies of the GFDL and
GPL I wouldn't worry overmuch.

--
geni

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

removed at example

Jan 16, 2009, 1:35 PM

Post #6 of 37 (2314 views)

I am talking about CC-BY-SA geni.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:34 PM, geni <geniice@gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/1/16 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> > I like Sam's point.
> >
> > Do you really want to print this on a t-shirt?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=history
> >
> > Also, it makes specific reference to Wikipedia.
> >
> >
>
> Since you would also have to include complete copies of the GFDL and
> GPL I wouldn't worry overmuch.
>
>
> --
> geni
>
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 1:56 PM

Post #7 of 37 (2310 views)

2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
>> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
>> out the author credit in the article footer.
>>
>
>
> Eh? Which should it be? A requirement, or a best practise?

What I meant is, 'requiring attribution-by-history-reference seems
like the most reasonable attribution requirement, at least
unless/until attribution is more visible on the article page itself.'
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 2:09 PM

Post #8 of 37 (2324 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
>
>> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
>>> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
>>> out the author credit in the article footer.
>>>
>>>
>> Eh? Which should it be? A requirement, or a best practise?
>>
>
> What I meant is, 'requiring attribution-by-history-reference seems
> like the most reasonable attribution requirement, at least
> unless/until attribution is more visible on the article page itself.'
>

If you are going to qualify things as finely as "seems like
the most reasonable attribution requirement"; wouldn't
it be much more useful to use language like "recommend"
or "suggest" instead of "require"?

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

removed at example

Jan 16, 2009, 2:29 PM

Post #9 of 37 (2324 views)

What is an attribution-by-history-reference? How come it has to be a
url and not something like:

The term Bushism is a neologism that refers to a number of peculiar
words, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, and semantic or
linguistic errors that have occurred in the public speaking of United
States President George W. Bush. (Wikipedia, Bushism)

Isn't this the spirit of the new license? It lets you know that
somewhere in the history of the Wikipedia article on Bushism you can
find the author(s) of this piece of text. You could make it easier to
find the author by allowing per-article history search in the
software.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> 2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
> > Erik Moeller wrote:
> >
> >> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
> >> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
> >> out the author credit in the article footer.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Eh? Which should it be? A requirement, or a best practise?
>
> What I meant is, 'requiring attribution-by-history-reference seems
> like the most reasonable attribution requirement, at least
> unless/until attribution is more visible on the article page itself.'
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 4:06 PM

Post #10 of 37 (2315 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/1/14 Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>:
>
>> It appears that it would be adequate (as a minimum acceptable standard) to
>> specify the CC-BY-SA license and refer to the Wikipedia article - certainly
>> the license section 4(c) allows for significant flexibility in this regard.
>> The attribution itself would then be something like "Wikipedia 'Widgets'
>> article" which is enough in itself for a user to be able to find the article
>> and associated revision history (concise attributions are critical
>> especially for print work, on t-shirts, etc.).
>>
>
> There are a couple of counterpoints to this:
>
> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
> author. If you are the photographer of a high resolution panorama that
> you've contributed to Wikipedia, I think it's a reasonable expectation
> to be named ("Photo by Sam Johnston"), as opposed to being referred to
> as "Photo from Wikipedia". This is equally true, I think, for articles
> where there is just a single author, or for pictures which have been
> subsequently edited a few times.
>
I have no intention of in any shape or form binding myself
to the views expounded by Anthony on this or any other
list, but really, this goes beyond the pale.

*Neither* of those options are right or just.

That you are representing it as a choice between those
two options is a great travesty.

Attribution here can only be a very *minimal* requirement,
I cannot see how the whole history of alterations could be
somehow swept under the carpet...

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 4:11 PM

Post #11 of 37 (2313 views)

2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
> Attribution here can only be a very *minimal* requirement,
> I cannot see how the whole history of alterations could be
> somehow swept under the carpet...

Are you referring to indicating changes? Per CC-BY-SA, 3.b:

... to create and Reproduce Adaptations provided that any such
Adaptation, including any translation in any medium, takes reasonable
steps to clearly label, demarcate or otherwise identify that changes
were made to the original Work. For example, a translation could be
marked "The original work was translated from English to Spanish," or
a modification could indicate "The original work has been modified.";
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 4:18 PM

Post #12 of 37 (2314 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> * The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
> Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie
> between the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any
> future use of the content. If someone creates a better alternative to
> Wikipedia where the content is used, why should it be continued to be
> attributed to Wikipedia, rather than the authors?
>

I must be a moron or at least functionally illiterate, since
I simply cannot parse the previous paragraph in a way
that makes logical sense.

Let me try though...

Okay. Content should be attributed to authors... Ouch!

Wait... Sorry, still can't parse it in context...

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 4:31 PM

Post #13 of 37 (2313 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
>
>> Attribution here can only be a very *minimal* requirement,
>> I cannot see how the whole history of alterations could be
>> somehow swept under the carpet...
>>
>
> Are you referring to indicating changes? Per CC-BY-SA, 3.b:
>
> ... to create and Reproduce Adaptations provided that any such
> Adaptation, including any translation in any medium, takes reasonable
> steps to clearly label, demarcate or otherwise identify that changes
> were made to the original Work. For example, a translation could be
> marked "The original work was translated from English to Spanish," or
> a modification could indicate "The original work has been modified.";
>
That talks about translations, rather than editing images.

I don't know if you are well acquainted with the long and
arduous debate over whether translations are creative acts...

Editing an image is not usually an act that even by
pre-supposition is an adaptation or rendition that is
intended to approach a faithfully "ad-equate" (as
distinguished from "adequate") translation. When
editing an image departs from being a faithful
representation from what the original work of art
presented, of course it would not be a mere
"adaptation".

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 4:45 PM

Post #14 of 37 (2310 views)

2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>> * The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
>> Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie
>> between the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any
>> future use of the content. If someone creates a better alternative to
>> Wikipedia where the content is used, why should it be continued to be
>> attributed to Wikipedia, rather than the authors?
>>
>
> I must be a moron or at least functionally illiterate, since
> I simply cannot parse the previous paragraph in a way
> that makes logical sense.

:-)

Imagine that:

1) The Wikimedia Foundation is taken over by evil reptilian kitten eaters;

2) Wikipedians join forces to fork Wikipedia into Freependium, which
has an explicit policy to not eat kittens (FP:DONOTEAT);

3) Two years later, nobody uses Wikipedia anymore except for a few die
hard kitten eaters;

4) Yet, millions of Freependium users need to continue to reference
the kitten eating Wikipedia because of the attribution requirements.

Unlikely? Perhaps - though some people say that the evil reptilian
kitten eater takeover has already begun. The way around this is to
formulate attribution requirements that do not require specific
reference to Wikipedia, but only to the individuals who contributed
the text.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 4:51 PM

Post #15 of 37 (2312 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
> author.
This is of course very far from the truth. If you did
create the media file from your very own brain-pan,
yes, this would be accurate, but to say that that this
is "often" the case, is somewhat quizzical to say the
least.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 4:55 PM

Post #16 of 37 (2317 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
>
>> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>> * The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
>>> Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie
>>> between the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any
>>> future use of the content. If someone creates a better alternative to
>>> Wikipedia where the content is used, why should it be continued to be
>>> attributed to Wikipedia, rather than the authors?
>>>
>>>
>> I must be a moron or at least functionally illiterate, since
>> I simply cannot parse the previous paragraph in a way
>> that makes logical sense.
>>
>
> :-)
>
>
I whole-heartedly apologize to you for previously
intimating that your ability at humour is at the
native level of Germans everywhere around the
globe.

:-)))

> Imagine that:
>
> 1) The Wikimedia Foundation is taken over by evil reptilian kitten eaters;
>
> 2) Wikipedians join forces to fork Wikipedia into Freependium, which
> has an explicit policy to not eat kittens (FP:DONOTEAT);
>
> 3) Two years later, nobody uses Wikipedia anymore except for a few die
> hard kitten eaters;
>
> 4) Yet, millions of Freependium users need to continue to reference
> the kitten eating Wikipedia because of the attribution requirements.
>
> Unlikely? Perhaps - though some people say that the evil reptilian
> kitten eater takeover has already begun. The way around this is to
> formulate attribution requirements that do not require specific
> reference to Wikipedia, but only to the individuals who contributed
> the text.
>

I really laughed at this.

Still waiting for a substantive reply though.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

Jan 16, 2009, 5:03 PM

Post #17 of 37 (2313 views)

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 1:45 AM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> Unlikely? Perhaps - though some people say that the evil reptilian
> kitten eater takeover has already begun. The way around this is to
> formulate attribution requirements that do not require specific
> reference to Wikipedia, but only to the individuals who contributed
> the text.
>

I appreciate that it is difficult for Wikimeida Foundation to *require*
others to credit Wikipedia, however what I have proposed is that this be
*allowed* as a minimum acceptable standard.

That is, you must at least reference Wikipedia and the article, but it may
be appropriate to additionally *or* alternatively refer to individual
contributor(s).

In your example, this approach would allow Freependium to credit individuals
rather than the kitten eaters, but would not require it so as not to raise
the 'barrier to reuse'.

Sam
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 5:25 PM

Post #18 of 37 (2310 views)

2009/1/16 Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>:
> That is, you must at least reference Wikipedia and the article, but it may
> be appropriate to additionally *or* alternatively refer to individual
> contributor(s).

Yes - I agree with this. The only question would be whether referring
to the history or to the article are substantially different in terms
of attribution. In community-developed guidelines regarding GFDL
re-use, both standards have existed; re-use recommendations in en.wp's
Wikipedia:Copyrights refer to the article URL, for example. The
current recommendations are intended to be based on a lowest common
denominator among WMF- and community-developed interpretations of
reasonable GFDL attribution obligations for re-users, to ensure that
the licensing regime we may implement in the future is consistent with
the expectations of volunteers who have made contributions in the
past.

Let's broaden the question a bit:

Provided that,
- the site footer for articles is modified to name contributors if
there are fewer than six;
- the site footer also refers to the page history for credit -

Are there participants in this discussion who would consider
attribution-by-history-URL for pages with > 5 authors acceptable, but
who would consider attribution-by-article-URL unacceptable? I think if
we lower the requirements in this regard, it needs to be based on more
than a discussion here, but it would be good to get some informal
feedback on the question first.

--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

Jan 16, 2009, 5:28 PM

Post #19 of 37 (2309 views)

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single author. If
> you are the photographer of a high resolution panorama that you've
> contributed to Wikipedia, I think it's a reasonable expectation to be named
> ("Photo by Sam Johnston"), as opposed to being referred to as "Photo from
> Wikipedia". This is equally true, I think, for articles where there is just
> a single author, or for pictures which have been subsequently edited a few
> times.
>

I would consider this an exception rather than the rule and in any case the
content author could always approach a content consumer to request
attribution. The consumer then has the option to cater to the author's
request but doesn't have to stop the presses for fear of an injunction as
giving them the option avoids any possibility for conflict. If contributors
are more interested in self-promotion than the community then they should
probably be selling on stock photo sites and writing Knols ;)

I do think the potential for internal and external conflict needs to be
carefully considered as there could be serious repurcussions in terms of
injunctions, bad will, etc.

> * The attribution terms should avoid requiring specific reference to
> Wikipedia, so that it's clear that there is not necessarily a tie between
> the project in which collaboration currently happens, and any future use of
> the content. If someone creates a better alternative to Wikipedia where the
> content is used, why should it be continued to be attributed to Wikipedia,
> rather than the authors?
>

I was not proposing to *require* attribution to Wikipedia (indeed there
would be Wikipedians bearing pitchforks were WMF to try this on), rather
merely to *allow* it in order to foster re-use and avoid conflicts.

> I think requiring attribution-by-history should be the best practice
> for heavily edited articles, at least until we more prominently point
> out the author credit in the article footer.
>

The history for heavily edited articles is essentially opaque and claiming
that there is value to be derived from it is likely to mislead consumers.
Even if we were to provide statistics (say under a new 'Contribut[ions|ors]'
tab) we all know that edit counts are notoriously unreliable indicators and
besides, all legitimate edits are valuable.

Sam
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 5:40 PM

Post #20 of 37 (2310 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:
>
>> I must be a moron or at least functionally illiterate, since
>> I simply cannot parse the previous paragraph in a way
>> that makes logical sense.
>>
>
> :-)
>
> Imagine that:
>
>

...

> Unlikely? Perhaps - though some people say that the evil reptilian
> kitten eater takeover has already begun. The way around this is to
> formulate attribution requirements that do not require specific
> reference to Wikipedia, but only to the individuals who contributed
> the text.
>

This actually looks fairly good on the surface, if that would
in fact be all there was to it...

If there really was a superordinate goal of requiring
reference to the individuals who contributed the text,
I would be the first to applaud you, Erik. It seems though
that the _prospect_ of very speculative and indecisively
defined new ways of showing editors _on_ wikipedia
pages fringes (not requiring it downstream even), is
what is really concretely even hinted at...

So, come on... we just aren't buying the spiel.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

delirium at hackish

Jan 16, 2009, 5:50 PM

Post #21 of 37 (2311 views)

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
>> author.
>>
> This is of course very far from the truth. If you did
> create the media file from your very own brain-pan,
> yes, this would be accurate, but to say that that this
> is "often" the case, is somewhat quizzical to say the
> least.
>

I can see that for music---there's often songwriting, performance, etc.
copyrights. But for photographs I would think it's not only "often" the
case, but "usually" the case, that there is a single author, the
photographer. The only common exceptions I can think of are photographs
of copyrighted works, which have the copyright of the work being
photographed attached to them also. There's also the relatively rare
case of derivative works of free-licensed photographs, where the editing
is creative enough to qualify for an independent copyright (i.e. not
just resizing or applying a Photoshop filter).

-Mark

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Jan 16, 2009, 5:55 PM

Post #22 of 37 (2309 views)

2009/1/16 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com>:

> It seems though
> that the _prospect_ of very speculative and indecisively
> defined new ways of showing editors _on_ wikipedia
> pages fringes (not requiring it downstream even), is
> what is really concretely even hinted at...

The downstream requirement that we're talking about right now is:
a) If there are up to five authors, name them directly alongside the article;
b) If there are more than five, you can refer to a copy of the history.

The only issue here is that Wikipedia itself is not consistent with
this principle of 'giving visible attribution when it can be
reasonably expected to do so', because WP itself only ever attributes
by link to the page history. So, the reason to add usernames to the WP
footer in case of a) would be precisely to have consistent rules for
all users of WP content. (It would also simplify determining the five
names for re-users.) I don't view such a change as part of the
proposed license update; I think it needs to be a separate discussion.

In this thread, the argument has been made that these requirements are
going too far, or not far enough. The reason they are formulated as
they are is to be consistent with the expectations set forth by the
GFDL itself, and the re-use guidelines implemented throughout WP and
other WMF projects.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

Jan 16, 2009, 6:19 PM

Post #23 of 37 (2328 views)

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 2:25 AM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 2009/1/16 Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net>:
> > That is, you must at least reference Wikipedia and the article, but it
> may
> > be appropriate to additionally *or* alternatively refer to individual
> > contributor(s).
>
> Yes - I agree with this. The only question would be whether referring
> to the history or to the article are substantially different in terms
> of attribution.

I don't think so - they are intrinsically linked like the cover of a book
(where this stuff traditionally belongs), however it could be good to state
the obvious ala:

"All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License. (See Copyrights for details *and History for contribut[ions|ors])."

It would also be possible (but not necessarily sensible) to list everyone,
even for large contributor lists:

The following users have contributed to this article: X, Y, Z.

Finally, one could introduce a concept of article 'owners' or 'editors'
similar to open source projects, though that would be a significant
deviation from the status quo and would likely cause more problems than it
would fix.

In community-developed guidelines regarding GFDL
> re-use, both standards have existed; re-use recommendations in en.wp's
> Wikipedia:Copyrights refer to the article URL, for example.

That's fine for the Web but not so good elsewhere (like on t-shirts,
articles, books, prints, etc.). Short URLs (ala http://tinyurl.com/) may
help but better to avoid the problem altogether by being flexible. Brian's
Bushism example before was a good one.

> Let's broaden the question a bit:
>
> Provided that,
> - the site footer for articles is modified to name contributors if
> there are fewer than six;
> - the site footer also refers to the page history for credit -
>
> Are there participants in this discussion who would consider
> attribution-by-history-URL for pages with > 5 authors acceptable, but
> who would consider attribution-by-article-URL unacceptable? I think if we
> lower the requirements in this regard, it needs to be based on more than a
> discussion here, but it would be good to get some informal feedback on the
> question first.

Another important point to consider (aside from the fact that it would
require non-trivial changes and promote useless edits for 'credit whoring')
is that we're often not talking about 'Photo by Sam Johnston' but rather
having to credit the likes of:

- Fükenwulf
- Bastard Soap
- Justjihad
- AnarcistPig
- Cheesypoo

And these are just some of the ones that were recently *allowed* on review.
Reality is that many (most?) Wikipedia usernames are not suitable for public
consumption and are often disassociated from real identities anyway.

For a real life example, an ex-partner of mine recently referenced the cloud
computing article in his blog, apparently without realising that I wrote it.
I don't particularly care but apparently he does because the link is now
nowhere to be found. There's a handful of people I wouldn't want to credit
either for whatever reason (competitors in company documents for example)
but that shouldn't preclude anyone from reusing Wikipedia content.

Sam
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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 6:34 PM

Post #24 of 37 (2308 views)

Delirium wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> * For pictures, sound files, etc., there is often just a single
>>> author.
>>>
>>>
>> This is of course very far from the truth. If you did
>> create the media file from your very own brain-pan,
>> yes, this would be accurate, but to say that that this
>> is "often" the case, is somewhat quizzical to say the
>> least.
>>
>>
>
> I can see that for music---there's often songwriting, performance, etc.
> copyrights. But for photographs I would think it's not only "often" the
> case, but "usually" the case, that there is a single author, the
> photographer. The only common exceptions I can think of are photographs
> of copyrighted works, which have the copyright of the work being
> photographed attached to them also. There's also the relatively rare
> case of derivative works of free-licensed photographs, where the editing
> is creative enough to qualify for an independent copyright (i.e. not
> just resizing or applying a Photoshop filter).
>
>

First of all, even though you grant my thesis in terms of
music, that is still not even a major segment of sound
files, though perhaps the segment with the highest
profile in terms of intellectual property rights contentiousness.

But in terms of pictures, photographs is a very very minor
segment indeed. Discussing the matter solely in terms
of photographs is very diversionary.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: Wikipedia Attribution and Relicensing [ In reply to ]

cimonavaro at gmail

Jan 16, 2009, 6:44 PM

Post #25 of 37 (2314 views)

Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> In this thread, the argument has been made that these requirements are
> going too far, or not far enough. The reason they are formulated as
> they are is to be consistent with the expectations set forth by the
> GFDL itself, and the re-use guidelines implemented throughout WP and
> other WMF projects.
>

I think the argument that I have been making consistently
is that you have been dancing all around the field about
where you actually stand on these issues, and persistently
refuse to state your real preferences, much less where your
"red lines" are set.

And that furthermore, many of your statements flatly
contradict each other logically. Sadly.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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