[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for CheckUser information?

Wed Apr 19 07:09:45 UTC 2006

Birgitte SB wrote:

>The main difference as I see is this.  Wikipedia is
>creating content.  WP could chose to make it's content
>free or not; they chose to make it free.  Wikisource
>has no control on whether our content is free or where
>it is free.  We can only choose whether or not to make
>it available.  Downstream users are going to have to
>evaluate whether they are free to use Wikisource
>contect individually unless they are in the United
>States.  Our material is under various licenses as
>well as public domain (as applicable in the US).  We
>cannot give anyone a blanket guarantee the content is
>free for them to use whether we include non-commercial
>or not.  They are still going to have to evaluate each
>license category and judge based on the laws they must
>abide by.  
>
Absolutely.  It's important to have broad principles like NPOV to guide 
all projects, but it's also important to recognize that not all projects 
will have the same priorities as Wikipedia.  For most of Wikisource NPOV 
is meaningless, as is the ability of downstream users to modify the 
material.  If the material is modified it is no longer the same 
material.  We can permit editing, translating and other commentary, and 
that will be subject to the usual rules for NPOV and modifiability, but 
unless there is a clear recognition of an inviolable source text it is 
all meaningless.  When a vandal wanted change a string of digits in the 
middle of "Pi to 1,000,000 places" on Wikisource I suppose it could be 
explained in terms of the right to modify, but the result was no longer pi.

It's also important to trust the leadership in each project.   Those who 
have taken on leadership roles in established projects are going to be 
known quantities who are not going to rush headlong into radical stands. 
(This may be different in newer or smaller projects, but even there as 
time goes on trust can be built.)  Trusted leaders are not about to 
allow others to recklessly ignore copyrights, but at the same time they 
are not going to take such disadvantageously narrow interpretations of 
copyright that would bar any material with a mere suggestion of a 
violation.  Removing the Security Council Resolutions would be a clear 
act of copyright paranoia.  I have heard of no complaint from the United 
Nations about it, and I'm sure that an understanding could be reached if 
they did complain.  The concern of governmental or quasi-governmental 
bodies about the republication of such documents has nothing to do with 
the loss of revenue, but with a belief that they might be reproduced 
inaccurately. 

Going out of our way to ensure that downstream users will be able to 
copy this material is ultimately an untenable position.  People must 
accept responsibility for their own actions.  We do well to warn them of 
possible problems, but we should have no obligation to hold their hands 
in the way that we would hold those of a child.  We can say that we have 
reasonable and supportable grounds for saying that a given document is 
in the public domain, or that it is covered by fair use (or dealing) in 
the server jurisdiction, and that we cannot vouch for its legal status 
in some other jurisdiction.  In saying this I make a specific statement 
that I do not consider public interest alone to be grounds for 
publishing most documents.

Too little attention has been paid to the perils of Wikipedia's success, 
a success that has also dragged the rest of the projects along with it.  
Protecting the Foundation from legal liability is a fine ideal, but the 
tone of that protection has changed in the 4+ years that I have 
participated.  An operation with a $1,000,000 annual hardware budget is 
not the same as one with a $10,000 annual hardware budget.  The 
willingness to take risks is replaced by the fear that we really could 
lose something, and that stiffles innovation.  The corporate world often 
protects itself through a series of corporate structures that would have 
the effect of creating firewalls between divisions to protect the others 
from collateral damage when any one of them runs into trouble.  Perhaps 
it's something the Foundation should be thinking about.

>I think new languages should be supported if they seem
>likely to suceed establishing an active community. 
>Before we can judge that or set up any guidelines we
>really need more information.  I would very much like
>to take the first step in this.  Which I believe is
>analizing what has worked or not in the past.  But
>right now some of the stats pages are months old and
>Wikisource has none at all for individual languages.
>I don't know that the information I can get from any
>updated stats would really tell what makes a community
>sucessfull.  However it should allow us to see what
>communities have a certain level of activity.  Then I
>think we should ask people from various communities to
>fill out a survey about the beginings of their
>community and maybe we can find some indicators we can
>use to answer your points.
>
I don't know that a survey will accomplish anything.  I still think that 
dividing Wikisource into separate language communities was a big 
mistake; that's the one issue that most influenced me to drift away from 
it and back to where most of my time is now spent dealing with Wiktionary. 

The leader in a project, as you now appear to be in Wikisource, needs 
vision.  That person needs an instinct to recognize what would divert 
the project into unproductive paths.  Of course, it takes great skill to 
shape an army of dilletentes into a productive force.

Formats can be a big time waster.  Some people are obsessed with the 
sense of order that clearly defined formats can bring into a project.  
For them having the world well ordered brings them a sense of 
professionalism, forgetting at the same time that we are all amateurs 
here.  For the most part that really doesn't matter.  The substantive 
content and information are what matter; a format is nothing more than a 
tool for making that information more accessible.  If the format fails 
in that mission it's not much good.

Ec