Mailing List Archive

what is partnership ?
Hmmmm.

Let's see.
I could cite you two examples which were recently discussed.
Early february, I was invited to a meeting in France, TIC21. Regular fee was a couple of hundred euros, nothing I was ready to pay by myself. Finally, one of the organiser invited me for free and told me my leaflets could be welcome on his booth. He considered us partners (his website and Wikipedia). I explained that we could not really be. First because being partner with wikipedia meant the community agrees with the partnership and second because his site, though giving free content, and though sharing some principles with us, is also a very biaised one (planetecologie.org).
Still, when I went to the meeting, I discovered wikipedia logo on its poster, and on its CD.
A bit as if, all organisations inviting Jimbo for a speech considered themselves partners with us from the moment they paid for him to come.
Still, the "partnership" is for now limited but for the fact there are attempts to push us to get involved in things I do not wish us to get involved to. No big deal.

Another example which was abundantly discussed on fr, is the issue of telebotanica, a network of botanists making a free and free site of botanical species. Several of us met his director (I did at TIC21 myself). Very straight guy. Goals exactly fitting ours. The perfect partner.
Still... the question left was "what is a partnership here", "what would it encompass" and "who should agree with it".
For example, some mentionned we could put his association logo on our main page. Hmmm, no, I do not think we can do this.
Also, there was some discussions to have an official contract (the idea was that the most general content could be worked on wikipedia, which would link, for each botanical article, to their specialised file). Still, why would an association have the authority to say "from now on, all botanical articles have a back link to botanica" ? There could be a declaration of intent such as "we share common goals, we share information, and we try to redirect to each other", but imposing to the community the content of the article on forcing a link, is just not an option.

From this, I can just propose a collection of thoughts.

What is partnership, what does that exactly mean ? For each of us ?

This terms seem to be very much in use now, but I think it recovers different realities. I think that as soon as we are doing something with someone, we are partners with him. If I work with you on wikipedia, we both are partners (please, consider that with straight ideas... do not let this comment put you to wander in some strange areas).

A partnership may be a sort of moral agreement, each partner abilities being complementary of the other ones.
There is a difference between financial or technical partners. It may be privately owned firms, foundations, public or private organisations, governments...And professional partners may just create something different, depending on their implication (just bringing a little bit of immediate knowledge or help, or maybe much much more...)

It is certainly a bit strange that we should use the same word to define very different realities. I think Lost Oasis is a partner. A private firm giving funds for Wikimania will be a partner. Using google search right now, is a partnership. Us using MediaWiki is a partnership. People like JoiIto or Sunir Shah, are partners as well. Kennisnet might be a partnership. Telebotanica might be a partnership. And BBC doing things with Angela is also a partnership. Should we display all these logos ? How to measure value of each ? Often, it just mean : we share some values.



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what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Forgot...

We can not currently be "partners" with Telebotanica, because we do not share same license.
Some of their editors agree with ours, but others insist to stick to a non commercial one.

Ant




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Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Anthere wrote:

>Hmmmm.
>
>
[...]

>
>It is certainly a bit strange that we should use the same word to define very different realities. I think Lost Oasis is a partner. A private firm giving funds for Wikimania will be a partner. Using google search right now, is a partnership. Us using MediaWiki is a partnership. People like JoiIto or Sunir Shah, are partners as well. Kennisnet might be a partnership. Telebotanica might be a partnership. And BBC doing things with Angela is also a partnership. Should we display all these logos ? How to measure value of each ? Often, it just mean : we share some values.
>
>
>
>
I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to be
partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process for
registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I believe
that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend its
trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the rights over
that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].

The Foundation urgently needs an official policy before anything
damaging occurs to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia brand. An official partner
list page would be a good idea: so the Foundation can say "if you're not
on this page, you're not an official partner, and here's how to apply to
be a Wikimedia partner, dear Bill/Melinda [delete as applicable]"

-- Neil
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
--- Neil Harris <usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to
> be
> partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
>
> brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
> recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process
> for
> registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I
> believe
> that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend its
> trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the rights
> over
> that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].

Any value the wikipedia brand has comes from the content of the
wikipedia. The content itself does not "belong" to the Wikimedia
Foundation. The brand, well, I could not care less. Be careful that
you recognize value where it really is.

> The Foundation urgently needs an official policy before anything
> damaging occurs to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia brand. An official
> partner
> list page would be a good idea: so the Foundation can say "if
> you're not
> on this page, you're not an official partner, and here's how to
> apply to
> be a Wikimedia partner, dear Bill/Melinda [delete as applicable]"

Do we? Is it so important that we "recognize" our "partners"?

I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says: "It
does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the wikipedia.
Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.

It would be kind of like saying "This unbiased beverage report
brought to you by our Partner: Pepsi"

Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan@yahoo.com
chris.mahan@gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/



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Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>--- Neil Harris <usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to
>>be
>>partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
>>
>>brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
>>recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process
>>for
>>registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I
>>believe
>>that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend its
>>trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the rights
>>over
>>that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].
>>
>>
>
>Any value the wikipedia brand has comes from the content of the
>wikipedia. The content itself does not "belong" to the Wikimedia
>Foundation. The brand, well, I could not care less. Be careful that
>you recognize value where it really is.
>
>
>
The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent. The
community is deeply tied up with the Wikipedia name and reputation; if
there's no community, there will be no encyclopedia. The name (and
logo) are a banner for everyone to unite around.

Trust me, the brand is worth a great deal, in both moral and monetary
terms: people want to contribute to "the" Wikipedia, not a fork, for
example, and donors want to fund the "real" Wikipedia project, not one
of the hundreds of knockoffs. The brand symbolically holds the community
and initiative together, and symbols have great power. Even the
strongest Free Software advocates like Richard Stallman and Linus
Torvalds jealously protect the GNU and Linux brands; and for good reason.

If things were to fall apart, the community _could_ realign around a
different organization, with a different name: consider x.org vs.
xfree86 -- however, that would be an option of last resort, after some
assumed failure of the current Wikimedia initiative, which is what the
Foundation exists to prevent. Hence the important of good branding and
trademark policies.

>>The Foundation urgently needs an official policy before anything
>>damaging occurs to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia brand. An official
>>partner
>>list page would be a good idea: so the Foundation can say "if
>>you're not
>>on this page, you're not an official partner, and here's how to
>>apply to
>>be a Wikimedia partner, dear Bill/Melinda [delete as applicable]"
>>
>>
>
>Do we? Is it so important that we "recognize" our "partners"?
>
>
>
Yes it is. Partnership implies two-way consent. On the other hand, the
GFDL makes all the content available to anyone, without any need for
recognition or permission save that explicitly given in the GFDL. And
letting self-designated "partners" use the trademarks without explicit
permission leads down the slippery path to genericization, which has the
potential to severely damage the project.

>I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says: "It
>does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
>way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the wikipedia.
>Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.
>
>
>It would be kind of like saying "This unbiased beverage report
>brought to you by our Partner: Pepsi"
>
>Chris Mahan
>
>
I agree with you on this. Partner recognition should be kept well clear
of the content. Which is why I recommend having partnership info on the
Wikimedia Foundation site, not in the project content.

-- Neil
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Neil Harris wrote:

> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>
>> --- Neil Harris <usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to
>>> be partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
>>> brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
>>> recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process
>>> for registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I
>>> believe that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend
>>> its trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the
>>> rights over that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].
>>
>> Any value the wikipedia brand has comes from the content of the
>> wikipedia. The content itself does not "belong" to the Wikimedia
>> Foundation. The brand, well, I could not care less. Be careful that
>> you recognize value where it really is.
>
> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and
> increasingly, the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright
> agent. The community is deeply tied up with the Wikipedia name and
> reputation; if there's no community, there will be no encyclopedia.
> The name (and logo) are a banner for everyone to unite around.
>
> Trust me, the brand is worth a great deal, in both moral and monetary
> terms: people want to contribute to "the" Wikipedia, not a fork, for
> example, and donors want to fund the "real" Wikipedia project, not one
> of the hundreds of knockoffs. The brand symbolically holds the
> community and initiative together, and symbols have great power. Even
> the strongest Free Software advocates like Richard Stallman and Linus
> Torvalds jealously protect the GNU and Linux brands; and for good reason.
>
> If things were to fall apart, the community _could_ realign around a
> different organization, with a different name: consider x.org vs.
> xfree86 -- however, that would be an option of last resort, after some
> assumed failure of the current Wikimedia initiative, which is what the
> Foundation exists to prevent. Hence the important of good branding and
> trademark policies.
>
>>> The Foundation urgently needs an official policy before anything
>>> damaging occurs to the Wikipedia/Wikimedia brand. An official
>>> partner list page would be a good idea: so the Foundation can say "if
>>> you're not on this page, you're not an official partner, and here's
>>> how to
>>> apply to be a Wikimedia partner, dear Bill/Melinda [delete as
>>> applicable]"
>>
>> Do we? Is it so important that we "recognize" our "partners"?
>
> Yes it is. Partnership implies two-way consent. On the other hand, the
> GFDL makes all the content available to anyone, without any need for
> recognition or permission save that explicitly given in the GFDL. And
> letting self-designated "partners" use the trademarks without explicit
> permission leads down the slippery path to genericization, which has
> the potential to severely damage the project.
>
>> I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says: "It
>> does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
>> way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the wikipedia.
>> Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.
>>
>> It would be kind of like saying "This unbiased beverage report
>> brought to you by our Partner: Pepsi"
>>
>> Chris Mahan
>
> I agree with you on this. Partner recognition should be kept well
> clear of the content. Which is why I recommend having partnership info
> on the Wikimedia Foundation site, not in the project content.

There are some very important points here in the matter of intellectual
property law. I have long believed that in terms of copyrights the big
argument will not come over the inclusion of copyvio material in some
Wikipedia article, but over the willingness of Wikimedia to defend the
collective rights of its multitude of licensors. The collective has a
history of removing copyvio material when it is found, often to an
extent that far exceeds what may be required by law. We only need to be
aware of the copyvio material before we act.

So far, I believe that those who have used the Wikipedia material have
been reasonably willing to be compliant when advised of the GFDL. What
happens if someone bluntly and stubbornly refuses? What tools do we
have that we are willing to use to enforce compliance? Who has the
personal responsibility to take the necessary legal steps? Prosecuting
cases can be more difficult than defending them. The fact that our
collective rights are primarily not fiscal ones makes protecting them
more difficult in a judicial system that reduces all disputes to dollar
values as the lowest common denominator. A lawyer working on
contingency fees knows how to calculate 30% of nothing.

I remember well the first "24" who was chased away when I arrived three
years ago. (He should not be confused with the more recent and now more
familiar one who really was a PIA.) Anyways, the first 24 was concerned
with a set of ideas in economic theory based on different kinds of
capital. He considered such things as social capital, educational
capital and environmental capital, all of which should appear on some
kind of balance sheet. IIRC he was mostly criticized for presenting
original research, but some of which I had heard already heard about in
other sources. The point in raising this is that we need to look at
capital in other than monetary terms, because that may be the one common
idea that underpins all movements for the free distribution of knowledge.

In the matter of partnerships being big has certain advantages; it
allows us to be in the driver's seat. We can, for example, charge a fee
for the right to call oneself a Wikipedia partner while doing very
little else in return. A single page which shows the logos of all our
partners would be enough. That would only be there as verification that
someone that calls himself a partner really is.

Picture this: We have, by volunteer effort alone, created a
half-billion dollar gorilla that can't be sold (though not for a lack of
willing buyers). Its physical assets are a tiny depreciating server
farm, and a little pocket change in the bank. Enron could only wish to
have done so much with so little? That's the ultimate futures trade by
the libertarian capitalist king of a socialist monarchy.

Ec
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Neil Harris wrote:

> I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to be
> partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
> brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
> recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process for
> registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I believe
> that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend its
> trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the rights
> over that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].

Other organizations identifying us as their partners is not that great
of a threat to trademark status, although it does create some potential
for brand confusion. The scenario in which our trademarks would become
genericized is if, for example, we allow anybody to call some wiki, or
even a non-wiki reference site, a "wikipedia". That's the kind of
situation that would really call for action.

--Michael Snow
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Neil Harris wrote:

> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
> the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent.

Please avoid statements like this, as they are potentially misleading.
While it is theoretically possible that at some point in the future, the
Foundation might take legal action against people who misuse content
taken from Wikimedia in violation of the licensing terms, contributors
do not assign their copyrights to the Foundation, and the Foundation
does not assume a duty to protect these rights. The sense in which the
Foundation is an official agent for copyright issues (actually the agent
is Jimbo personally) is with respect to third parties who have
complaints about their copyrighted material being infringed by use on
Wikimedia projects.

There is some language in [[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]] about
appointing the Foundation as an agent for downstream copyright
compliance issues. That page is a draft, most of it now more than a year
old, and has never been adopted as official policy. As things currently
stand, contributors have every right to enforce their own copyrights
against outside parties as they see fit, and don't need for the
Foundation to get involved.

--Michael Snow
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow a écrit:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
>> the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent.
>
>
> Please avoid statements like this, as they are potentially misleading.
> While it is theoretically possible that at some point in the future, the
> Foundation might take legal action against people who misuse content
> taken from Wikimedia in violation of the licensing terms, contributors
> do not assign their copyrights to the Foundation, and the Foundation
> does not assume a duty to protect these rights. The sense in which the
> Foundation is an official agent for copyright issues (actually the agent
> is Jimbo personally) is with respect to third parties who have
> complaints about their copyrighted material being infringed by use on
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> There is some language in [[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]] about
> appointing the Foundation as an agent for downstream copyright
> compliance issues. That page is a draft, most of it now more than a year
> old, and has never been adopted as official policy. As things currently
> stand, contributors have every right to enforce their own copyrights
> against outside parties as they see fit, and don't need for the
> Foundation to get involved.
>
> --Michael Snow

I might however, add to this, that at least according to french law, the
foundation hold another responsability by being the owner of the servers
hosting the data. As such, copyright violation is not the only issue,
but presence of illicite content also is. In case of problematic
content, the author of the content is liable of the words written and
ideas conveyed, and the foundation is liable of letting the content stay
from the moment it was told it is there and problematic.

Ant
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Ray Saintonge a écrit:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>>
>>> --- Neil Harris

>> I agree with you on this. Partner recognition should be kept well
>> clear of the content. Which is why I recommend having partnership info
>> on the Wikimedia Foundation site, not in the project content.
>
>
> There are some very important points here in the matter of intellectual
> property law. I have long believed that in terms of copyrights the big
> argument will not come over the inclusion of copyvio material in some
> Wikipedia article, but over the willingness of Wikimedia to defend the
> collective rights of its multitude of licensors. The collective has a
> history of removing copyvio material when it is found, often to an
> extent that far exceeds what may be required by law. We only need to be
> aware of the copyvio material before we act.
>
> So far, I believe that those who have used the Wikipedia material have
> been reasonably willing to be compliant when advised of the GFDL. What
> happens if someone bluntly and stubbornly refuses? What tools do we
> have that we are willing to use to enforce compliance? Who has the
> personal responsibility to take the necessary legal steps? Prosecuting
> cases can be more difficult than defending them. The fact that our
> collective rights are primarily not fiscal ones makes protecting them
> more difficult in a judicial system that reduces all disputes to dollar
> values as the lowest common denominator. A lawyer working on
> contingency fees knows how to calculate 30% of nothing.
>
> I remember well the first "24" who was chased away when I arrived three
> years ago. (He should not be confused with the more recent and now more
> familiar one who really was a PIA.) Anyways, the first 24 was concerned
> with a set of ideas in economic theory based on different kinds of
> capital. He considered such things as social capital, educational
> capital and environmental capital, all of which should appear on some
> kind of balance sheet. IIRC he was mostly criticized for presenting
> original research, but some of which I had heard already heard about in
> other sources. The point in raising this is that we need to look at
> capital in other than monetary terms, because that may be the one common
> idea that underpins all movements for the free distribution of knowledge.
> In the matter of partnerships being big has certain advantages; it
> allows us to be in the driver's seat. We can, for example, charge a fee
> for the right to call oneself a Wikipedia partner while doing very
> little else in return. A single page which shows the logos of all our
> partners would be enough. That would only be there as verification that
> someone that calls himself a partner really is.
>
> Picture this: We have, by volunteer effort alone, created a
> half-billion dollar gorilla that can't be sold (though not for a lack of
> willing buyers). Its physical assets are a tiny depreciating server
> farm, and a little pocket change in the bank. Enron could only wish to
> have done so much with so little? That's the ultimate futures trade by
> the libertarian capitalist king of a socialist monarchy.
> Ec

Nod.

And again, partnership should be an exchange. "Selling" our logo (ie,
exchanging monetary resources in exchange of the use of a name, a
logo...) is only one way to do partnership.

There are other ways to do so. For example, when a website or an
organisation offers us some of its content, it is sharing knowledge with
us. It has value. It is "instructional capital". When Telebotanica
offers us to work together (ie, we together work to build a common
resource), it is "human capital". When some one offers us a server, it
is "infrastructural capital". When Sunir Shah made suggestions earlier
in Wikipedia life, it was "individual capital". Etc... All these are
partnerships. We just do not consider them so, because when we think
partnership, we think "asking money for the other one to use our logo"
or "exchaning links to increase google rank".

Our perspective is not modest. We now usually approach partnership with
a superior opinion. As a financial and bureaucratic thing.

When it is just about saying "We are collaborating on something. We have
a relationship of some sort".


We were more modest 3 years ago.
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow a écrit:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
>> the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent.
>
>
> Please avoid statements like this, as they are potentially misleading.
> While it is theoretically possible that at some point in the future, the
> Foundation might take legal action against people who misuse content
> taken from Wikimedia in violation of the licensing terms, contributors
> do not assign their copyrights to the Foundation, and the Foundation
> does not assume a duty to protect these rights. The sense in which the
> Foundation is an official agent for copyright issues (actually the agent
> is Jimbo personally) is with respect to third parties who have
> complaints about their copyrighted material being infringed by use on
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> There is some language in [[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]] about
> appointing the Foundation as an agent for downstream copyright
> compliance issues. That page is a draft, most of it now more than a year
> old, and has never been adopted as official policy. As things currently
> stand, contributors have every right to enforce their own copyrights
> against outside parties as they see fit, and don't need for the
> Foundation to get involved.
>
> --Michael Snow

Copyrights are not the only issue.

Now, there is no doubt that just blanking a page can be done by anyone.

In case there is a request to permanently delete some versions in the
history of an article, only developers can do it.

But developers being volunteers, they can just decide they do not feel
like doing it.

In this case, suppose some one request a history is deleted. No one does
it. The one doing the request goes to the tribunal and show he informed
the website owners of the issue and nothing was done to fix it.

What will happen ? Is the site owner still responsible, even if he can
not technically fix the issue ? Or is the fact he asked developers to
fix it and nothing was done enough to assume he acted in good faith
rather bad faith toward the request ?

In case you need a practical example, see my request on wikitech, and
the fact it will possibly not get done.

What is the next step ?
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow a écrit:
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
>> the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent.
>
>
> Please avoid statements like this, as they are potentially misleading.
> While it is theoretically possible that at some point in the future, the
> Foundation might take legal action against people who misuse content
> taken from Wikimedia in violation of the licensing terms, contributors
> do not assign their copyrights to the Foundation, and the Foundation
> does not assume a duty to protect these rights. The sense in which the
> Foundation is an official agent for copyright issues (actually the agent
> is Jimbo personally) is with respect to third parties who have
> complaints about their copyrighted material being infringed by use on
> Wikimedia projects.
>
> There is some language in [[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]] about
> appointing the Foundation as an agent for downstream copyright
> compliance issues. That page is a draft, most of it now more than a year
> old, and has never been adopted as official policy. As things currently
> stand, contributors have every right to enforce their own copyrights
> against outside parties as they see fit, and don't need for the
> Foundation to get involved.
>
> --Michael Snow

Copyrights are not the only issue.

Now, there is no doubt that just blanking a page can be done by anyone.

In case there is a request to permanently delete some versions in the
history of an article, only developers can do it.

But developers being volunteers, they can just decide they do not feel
like doing it.

In this case, suppose some one request a history is deleted. No one does
it. The one doing the request goes to the tribunal and show he informed
the website owners of the issue and nothing was done to fix it.

What will happen ? Is the site owner still responsible, even if he can
not technically fix the issue ? Or is the fact he asked developers to
fix it and nothing was done enough to assume he acted in good faith
rather bad faith toward the request ?

In case you need a practical example, see my request on wikitech, and
the fact it will possibly not get done.

What is the next step ?
Re: Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Michael Snow a écrit:
>
>> Neil Harris wrote:
>>
>>> The content belongs to its original copyright owners, and increasingly,
>>> the Wikimedia Foundation is their official copyright agent.
>>
>>
>>
>> Please avoid statements like this, as they are potentially
>> misleading. While it is theoretically possible that at some point in
>> the future, the Foundation might take legal action against people who
>> misuse content taken from Wikimedia in violation of the licensing
>> terms, contributors do not assign their copyrights to the Foundation,
>> and the Foundation does not assume a duty to protect these rights.
>> The sense in which the Foundation is an official agent for copyright
>> issues (actually the agent is Jimbo personally) is with respect to
>> third parties who have complaints about their copyrighted material
>> being infringed by use on Wikimedia projects.
>>
>> There is some language in [[en:Wikipedia:Submission Standards]] about
>> appointing the Foundation as an agent for downstream copyright
>> compliance issues. That page is a draft, most of it now more than a
>> year old, and has never been adopted as official policy. As things
>> currently stand, contributors have every right to enforce their own
>> copyrights against outside parties as they see fit, and don't need
>> for the Foundation to get involved.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>
>
> Copyrights are not the only issue.
>
> Now, there is no doubt that just blanking a page can be done by anyone.
>
> In case there is a request to permanently delete some versions in the
> history of an article, only developers can do it.
>
> But developers being volunteers, they can just decide they do not feel
> like doing it.
>
> In this case, suppose some one request a history is deleted. No one
> does it. The one doing the request goes to the tribunal and show he
> informed the website owners of the issue and nothing was done to fix it.
>
> What will happen ? Is the site owner still responsible, even if he can
> not technically fix the issue ? Or is the fact he asked developers to
> fix it and nothing was done enough to assume he acted in good faith
> rather bad faith toward the request ?
>
> In case you need a practical example, see my request on wikitech, and
> the fact it will possibly not get done.
>
> What is the next step ?

Hoi,
I think, that when we DELETE the article and then copy back those parts
that are proper, we will only lose the history of the article. For
moderators and for legal reasons we will be still able to show what was
there. To the public there is nothing to be seen of the content that
should not be there. In my opinion this is an acceptable solution.

There could/should be some mention of this in the talkpage to explain
that/how this issue is resolved.

Thanks,
GerardM
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
> What is the next step ?

Hoi,
I think, that when we DELETE the article and then copy back those parts
that are proper, we will only lose the history of the article. For
moderators and for legal reasons we will be still able to show what was
there. To the public there is nothing to be seen of the content that
should not be there. In my opinion this is an acceptable solution.

There could/should be some mention of this in the talkpage to explain
that/how this issue is resolved.

Thanks,
GerardM



Okay.
How do we do this when the comments are on the pump ?
And are now in ... say... 40 or more subsequent versions ?

Ant




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Re: Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Anthere wrote:

>>What is the next step ?
>>
>>
>
>Hoi,
>I think, that when we DELETE the article and then copy back those parts
>that are proper, we will only lose the history of the article. For
>moderators and for legal reasons we will be still able to show what was
>there. To the public there is nothing to be seen of the content that
>should not be there. In my opinion this is an acceptable solution.
>
>There could/should be some mention of this in the talkpage to explain
>that/how this issue is resolved.
>
>Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
>
>Okay.
>How do we do this when the comments are on the pump ?
>And are now in ... say... 40 or more subsequent versions ?
>
>Ant
>
>
Hoi,
With pain, and only if we must. When you delete the pump, there will be
only one left. So you only loose the stuff that is removed from the pump
which is a rare occasion indeed.
GerardM
Re: Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Michael Snow wrote:

> Neil Harris wrote:
>
>> I agree: there can be many partners, and there's no reason not to be
>> partners with many people and organizations. But with the Wikipedia
>> brand becoming more and more valuable, and official trademark
>> recognition in the offing, there needs to be an official process for
>> registration of Wikipedia/Wikimedia partners. In particular, I
>> believe that the Foundation will have a legal requirement to defend
>> its trademarks Real Soon Now, and not doing so risks losing the
>> rights over that trademark and becoming a [[genericized trademark]].
>
> Other organizations identifying us as their partners is not that great
> of a threat to trademark status, although it does create some
> potential for brand confusion. The scenario in which our trademarks
> would become genericized is if, for example, we allow anybody to call
> some wiki, or even a non-wiki reference site, a "wikipedia". That's
> the kind of situation that would really call for action.

That being said, we really can't complain about those people who call us
"the" Wikipedia since that phrase has overtones of uniqueness.

Ec
Re: what is partnership ? [ In reply to ]
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says: "It
> does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our
> way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the wikipedia."
> Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.

Nothing about NPOV prohibits us from recognizing people or
organizations who help us in an appropriate place in an appropriate
and tasteful fashion.

--Jimbo