[WikiEN-l] Please remove user data and talk pages from database dumps!

Fri Dec 30 18:52:16 UTC 2005

I personally don't think "Sucks, don't it?" is the right answer here.

Two possible solutions, neither very easy, come to mind:

1. Make database dumps include user data material OPTIONALLY. Most people
replicating our content have no need and probably no interest in such pages,
but they don't have an option when doing a dump. But filtering by namespace
would probably require a far more sophisticated dumping script than we
currently use.

2. Add a clause to our license somelike the the ones that certain CC
licenses have, that allow someone to be REMOVED from an author list of a
re-user if they request it. For example, if I wrote an essay about the
Holocaust and released under CC-BY-SA, I would not be helpless if someone
took it, changed its wording in a few places to turn it into a Holocaust
denial piece, and re-published it. Now, I couldn't tell them not to print
the piece -- I did, after all, release it to public use and I that means I
accept the fact that it could be used in ways I don't approve -- but I could
force them to take my name off of it as an author.

If the two of these were implemented, it would solve a lot of things. Of
course at least point number two could not be done lightly and would take a
lot of thinking out by people who know about such things, and it would
probably also require the ability in Mediawiki to remove individual author
names from edit histories.

I don't think my name should have to be attached to things which are used in
ways radically different than how I intended them or would want to be
associated with. I happy with people using the content itself however they
want -- that's part of the free-content deal -- but that doesn't necessitate
claiming me as an active collaborator with their derivative work if I'd
rather not be associated with it.

FF

On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:
>
> > Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
> >> here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
> >> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
> >
> > It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
> > Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
> >
> > On the Nazipedia, it would say:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>
> Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>
> -Phil Sandifer
>
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