[Wikimedia-l] ⠠⠺⠓⠁⠞⠄⠎ ⠍⠁⠅⠊⠝⠛ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠓⠁⠏⠏⠽ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠺⠑⠑⠅⠦ / What's making you happy this week? (Week of 20 May 2018)

[Pine W]

*Between the Brackets*
Yaron Koren produced a 30 minute digest of previous episodes of this
podcast. Much of the episode will be understandable by people who are not
developers but are familiar with how MediaWiki works. I enjoyed listening
to this: https://betweenthebrackets.libsyn.com/episode-8-btb-digest-1



*WMF awards of Project Grants and Rapid Grants*
* Nine Rapid Grants, with maximum amounts of $2000 each, were awarded to
promote readership:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/16/rapid-grants-awarded/
* Eleven Project Grants, totaling $354,654, were awarded for diverse
projects:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-May/090291.html.
There will be a Project Showcase video meeting on June 14.


*Reports from Wikimedia Conference 2018 participants*
I especially appreciated this detailed report from Peaceray and Joe Mabel
which mentions a wide range of subjects including Structured Data on
Commons, Learning Days, possible ways to incorporate more diverse citations
into Wikipedia, lightning talks, libraries and partnerships, and general
thoughts about the conference:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_Wikimedians/2018_Wikimedia_Conference_report.
Conference reports are currently available in English, Thai, French,
Ukrainian, Latvian, German, and Polish:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2018/Further_reports.


*Report from the Wikimedia Conference 2018 Strategy Track*
Significant good-faith effort appears to be invested in the strategy
process:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2018/Documentation/Movement_Strategy_track


What's making you happy this week? You are welcome to comment in any
language.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Solve legal uncertainty of Wikidata

[Rob Speer]

I would like to not limit the discussion to interwiki links; it also
applies to Wikipedia infoboxes and Wiktionary tables, for example.

On Thu, 17 May 2018 at 20:55 Denny Vrandečić  wrote:

> Rob Speer wrote:
> > The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
> > versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
> > resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
> > Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use
> DBPedia
> > and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
> > Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
>
> The comparison to DBpedia is interesting: the terms for DBpedia state
> "Attribution in this case means keep DBpedia URIs visible and active
> through at least one (preferably all) of @href, , or "Link:". If
> live links are impossible (e.g., when printed on paper), a textual
> blurb-based attribution is acceptable."
> http://wiki.dbpedia.org/terms-imprint
>
> So according to these terms, when someone displays data from DBpedia, it is
> entirely sufficient to attribute DBpedia.
>
> What that means is that DBpedia follows exactly the same theory as
> Wikidata: it is OK to extract data from Wikipedia and republish it as your
> own dataset under your own copyright without requiring attribution to the
> original source of the extraction.
>
> (A bit more problematic might be the fact that DBpedia also republishes
> whole paragraphs of Text under these terms, but that's another story)
>
> My understanding is that all that Wikidata has extracted from Wikipedia is
> non-copyrightable in the first place and thus republishing it under a
> different license (or, as in the case of DBpedia for simple triples, with a
> different attribution) is legally sound.
>
> If there is disagreement with that, I would be interested which content
> exactly is considered to be under copyright and where license has not been
> followed on Wikidata.
>
> For completion: the discussion is going on in parallel on the Wikidata
> project chat and in Phabricator:
>
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193728#4212728
>
> https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Project_chat#Wikipedia_and_other_Wikimedia_projects
>
>
> I would appreciate if we could keep the discussion in a single place.
>
> Gnom1 on Phabricator has offered to actually answer legal questions, but we
> need to come up with the questions that we want to ask. If it should be,
> for example, as Rob Speer states on the bug, "has the copyright of
> interwiki links been breached by having them be moved to Wikidata?", I'd be
> quite happy with that question - if that's the disagreement, let us ask
> Legal help and see if my understanding or yours is correct.
>
> Does this sound like a reasonable question? Or which other question would
> you like to ask instead?
>
>
> On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 4:15 PM Rob Speer  wrote:
>
> > > As always, copyright is predatory. As we can prove that copyright is
> the
> > enemy of science and knowledge
> >
> > Well, this kind of gets to the heart of the issue, doesn't it.
> >
> > I support the Creative Commons license, including the share-alike term,
> > which requires copyright in order to work, and I've contributed to
> multiple
> > Wikimedia projects with the understanding that my work would be protected
> > by CC-By-SA.
> >
> > Wikidata is engaged in a project-wide act of disobedience against
> CC-By-SA.
> > I would say that GerardM has provided an excellent summary of the
> attitude
> > toward Creative Commons that I've encountered on Wikidata: "it's holding
> us
> > back", "it's the enemy", "you can't copyright knowledge", "you can't make
> > us follow it", etc.
> >
> > The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
> > versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
> > resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
> > Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use
> DBPedia
> > and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
> > Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
> >
> > On Wed, 16 May 2018 at 21:43 Gerard Meijssen 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hoi,
> > > Thank you for the overly broad misrepresentation. As always, copyright
> is
> > > predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the enemy of science and
> > > knowledge we should not be upset that *copyright *is abused we should
> > > welcome it as it proves the point. Also when we use texts from
> everywhere
> > > and rephrase it in Wikipedia articles "we" are not lily white either.
> > >
> > > In "them old days" generally we felt that when people would use
> > Wikipedia,
> > > it would only serve our purpose; share the sum of all knowledge. I
> still
> > > feel really good about that. And, it has been shown that what we do;
> > > maintain / curate / update that data that it is not easily given to do
> as
> > > well as "we" do it.
> > >
> > > When we are to be more pre

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Solve legal uncertainty of Wikidata

[Info WorldUniversity]

Hi Mathieu, Rob, Denny, and Wikidatans,

I'm writing to inquire about further Wikidata CC licensing clarifications.


Wikidata may be heading to
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
which allows for a) sharing b) adapting and even c) commercially

MIT OCW uses, by way of comparison,
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
which allows for a) sharing b) adapting but c) non-commercially


At a Wikimedia conference in early 2017, with Lydia and Dario present, I
think I learned that all books / WikiCitations in all 301 of Wikipedia
languages could be licensed, or heading to be licensed, with CC-0 licensing
- https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ - and per
- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193728 - which would allow them to be
data sources for online bookstores even. Is this the case. Could some of
Wikidata's data be licensed with CC-SA-4 (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) and other data be licensed
with CC-0?

Thanks.

Cheers, Scott


On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 8:39 AM, Rob Speer  wrote:

> > As always, copyright is predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the
> enemy of science and knowledge
>
> Well, this kind of gets to the heart of the issue, doesn't it.
>
> I support the Creative Commons license, including the share-alike term,
> which requires copyright in order to work, and I've contributed to multiple
> Wikimedia projects with the understanding that my work would be protected
> by CC-By-SA.
>
> Wikidata is engaged in a project-wide act of disobedience against CC-By-SA.
> I would say that GerardM has provided an excellent summary of the attitude
> toward Creative Commons that I've encountered on Wikidata: "it's holding us
> back", "it's the enemy", "you can't copyright knowledge", "you can't make
> us follow it", etc.
>
> The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
> versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
> resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
> Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use DBPedia
> and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
> Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
>
> On Wed, 16 May 2018 at 21:43 Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > Thank you for the overly broad misrepresentation. As always, copyright is
> > predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the enemy of science and
> > knowledge we should not be upset that *copyright *is abused we should
> > welcome it as it proves the point. Also when we use texts from everywhere
> > and rephrase it in Wikipedia articles "we" are not lily white either.
> >
> > In "them old days" generally we felt that when people would use
> Wikipedia,
> > it would only serve our purpose; share the sum of all knowledge. I still
> > feel really good about that. And, it has been shown that what we do;
> > maintain / curate / update that data that it is not easily given to do as
> > well as "we" do it.
> >
> > When we are to be more precise with our copyright, there are a few things
> > we could do to make copyright more transparent. When data is to be
> uploaded
> > (Commons / Wikipedia or Wikidata) we should use a user that is OWNED and
> > operated by the copyright holder. The operation may be by proxy and as a
> > consequence there is no longer a question about copyright as the
> copyright
> > holder can do as we wants. This makes any future noises just that,
> > annoying.
> >
> > As to copyright on Wikidata, when you consider copyright using data from
> > Wikipedia. The question is: "What Wikipedia" I have copied a lot of data
> > from several Wikipedias and believe me, from a quality point of view
> there
> > is much to be gained by using Wikidata as an instrument for good because
> it
> > is really strong in identifying friends and false friends. It is superior
> > as a tool for disambiguation.
> >
> > About the copyright on data, the overriding question with data is: do you
> > copy data wholesale in Wikidata. That is what a database copyright is
> > about. As I wrote on my blog [1], the best data to include is data that
> is
> > corroborated by the fact that it is present in multiple sources. This
> > negates the notion of a single source, it also underscores that much of
> the
> > data everywhere is replicated a lot. It also underscores, again, the
> notion
> > that data that is only present in single sources is what needs attention.
> > It needs tender loving care, it needs other sources to establish
> > credentials. That is in its own right what makes any claim of copyright
> > moot. It is in this process that it becomes a "creative" process negating
> > the copyright held on databases.
> >
> > I welcome the attention that is given to copyright in Wikidata. However
> our
> > attention to copyright is predatory in two ways. It is how can we get
> > around existing copyright and how can we protect our own.  As argued,
> > Wikidata shines wh

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Solve legal uncertainty of Wikidata

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
When you imply that I do not support Creative Commons and its work on
licenses, you are explicitly wrong. It is because of the CC that a
harmonisation has taken place. It it thanks to this harmonisation that a
lot of material gained a license, becoming accessible. This does not mean
that the practice of copyright is not evil, it means that thanks to CC
copyright became less open to abuse.

I am old school Wikipedia. I strongly believe that our mission is to "share
the sum of all knowledge". When people like you aim to claim copyright on
Wikipedia articles, you do not argue how this would play. You do not
consider how this is a knife that cuts both ways and most prominently will
hinder our quest to share the sum of all knowledge to all people. When a
company abuses our content by ignoring the license, they gain a public for
our content. When this is done right, we benefit; there is a symbiotic
relation with Google for instance. The only disadvantage happens when
because of a lack of attribution people do not come to Wikipedia or
Wikidata to curate the data. Practically the whole license issue of
Wikipedia is a mess because it is not enforced and because there are too
many copyright warriors claiming that things should be different, never
stop arguing  and never coming to a practical point.

What I am saying is that when multiple sources claim the same thing, it
follows that any and all of them can not claim exclusive copyright to it.
For me the databus that DBpeida will show how little is original in
databases. On the one hand this is cool because it will indicate that such
things are likely correct on the other hand it is cool because it will
indicate what to curate in order to gain a better understanding. It also
follows that in order to bring things into doubt, you must publish facts
and strongly support the underlying data in order to be noticed. This is
why the work on the gender gap is so important. This is why work needs to
be done where all of us / all the databases are weak. This is why fake news
is so easy, there is nothing that easily finds where the data goes off the
rails.

 so then we get to  This is why we need the databus of
DBpedia, this is why we should stop mocking DBpedia and collaborate with
them in stead of what some say: "everything you can do, we can do better".
The fact of the matter is that they do what we might do and we have to
learn to collaborate.

Now why would you use Wikidata when DBpedia by definition can include all
of Wikidata and is better equipped to bring all the data together? You
would because it is not the copyright, it is superior functionality.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 17 May 2018 at 17:39, Rob Speer  wrote:

> > As always, copyright is predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the
> enemy of science and knowledge
>
> Well, this kind of gets to the heart of the issue, doesn't it.
>
> I support the Creative Commons license, including the share-alike term,
> which requires copyright in order to work, and I've contributed to multiple
> Wikimedia projects with the understanding that my work would be protected
> by CC-By-SA.
>
> Wikidata is engaged in a project-wide act of disobedience against CC-By-SA.
> I would say that GerardM has provided an excellent summary of the attitude
> toward Creative Commons that I've encountered on Wikidata: "it's holding us
> back", "it's the enemy", "you can't copyright knowledge", "you can't make
> us follow it", etc.
>
> The result of this, by the way, is that commercial entities sell modified
> versions of Wikidata with impunity. It undermines the terms of other
> resources such as DBPedia, which also contains facts extracted from
> Wikipedia and respects its Share-Alike terms. Why would anyone use DBPedia
> and have to agree to share alike, when they can get similar data from
> Wikidata which promises them it's CC-0?
>
> On Wed, 16 May 2018 at 21:43 Gerard Meijssen 
> wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > Thank you for the overly broad misrepresentation. As always, copyright is
> > predatory. As we can prove that copyright is the enemy of science and
> > knowledge we should not be upset that *copyright *is abused we should
> > welcome it as it proves the point. Also when we use texts from everywhere
> > and rephrase it in Wikipedia articles "we" are not lily white either.
> >
> > In "them old days" generally we felt that when people would use
> Wikipedia,
> > it would only serve our purpose; share the sum of all knowledge. I still
> > feel really good about that. And, it has been shown that what we do;
> > maintain / curate / update that data that it is not easily given to do as
> > well as "we" do it.
> >
> > When we are to be more precise with our copyright, there are a few things
> > we could do to make copyright more transparent. When data is to be
> uploaded
> > (Commons / Wikipedia or Wikidata) we should use a user that is OWNED and
> > operated by the copyright holder. The operation may be by proxy and as a
> > consequence there