There is no such creature as a vanished user. There never has been. It is
a fallacy that was created based on some internet meme from ancient times
and was designed for websites where attribution was not a condition of
licensing. All edits are attributed. If one digs deeply enough, and has
the right access levels, one can always find the original account name. We
should never have pretended that this was a realistic option; what is done
is done, but we should stop pretending now that it's 2015 and we've pretty
much never actually "vanished" anyone. It's not even an option in the
majority of Wikimedia projects.
We need to stop pretending that users can "vanish". They can't. they can be
renamed. Their accounts can be blocked. But there is no such thing as a
vanished user on Wikimedia projects, where the licensing conditions have
always been that all edits are attributed to either a username (which can
be changed to "vanished user 1111111") or an IP address. Nobody vanishes
from Wikimedia projects; the records are akashic. It's right there in the
licensing conditions, and always has been.
Risker/Anne
On 18 August 2015 at 05:04, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Thanks Nathan,
Whether other projects follow what we do on EN wiki is up to them.
Licensing choices vary by project, EN wiki allows Fair use which neither
DE wiki nor Commons allows.
Re Risker's point, there is no difference in the current copyright between
vanished users and others, but logically there should be. By attribution
means you want to be attributed, vanishing means you don't. It seems
logical to me that the process of vanishing at least include the option of
waiving attribution.
On 17 August 2015 at 16:34, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 11:07 AM, Oliver Keyes
<okeyes(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
This is not a conversation for the -en list, this
is a conversation
for the lawyers and/or wikimedia-l. Individual projects should not be
messing with licensing, wherever possible; it creates a highly
confusing and contradictory environment.
No danger in a discussion, wherever it happens.
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