Re: [Wikimedia-l] New essay on the ambiguity of NC licenses

[Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l]

 Most of the proposal for NC usually pushed for a separate infrastructure, as 
far as I know. I'm not a fan of a unified archive, for example I am fine with a 
separate one. 

As I said, I also see it as a great way to experiment many features we can't 
have on Commons, maybe even a truly multimedia archive with both files and 
texts in a distant future, but I digress here.

Since there are hints in this discussion, I also hoped such infrastructure to 
act as a "preparation" environment of legal transition of copyright works into 
the public domain, where it is possible to prepare files with metadata and so 
on, so they can be moved on January, 1st with a click. it's a good compromise, 
you can keep maybe non-fully free files on Wikipedia for strict educational 
purpose as long as you provide a high quality description on such archive. it 
catalyzes content and quality.

For example, I handle a dozen of potentially ambiguous files every month, i 
would love to have a platform designed to host those, where I can put all the 
useful information I have discovered in any case (date, author, etc) without 
losing them because I cannot be sure 100% the files are free or some user will 
not ask me later to prove they are as ancient as they claim to be. With a good 
Wikidata-centric structure, it can really work. 

If we really want to go in that direction, we can handle it with clear rules 
for the upload, the access or the download.

This reminds me of a similar discussion about hidden copyright violations. if 
100s sysops can still see them, why not 500s patrollers or 5000s certified 
long-term autopatrolled users? Where is the difference? They are still not 
public in any case, I simply have to ask a sysop to tell what's there, using 
minutes I could use to create content. If you are fine with this access by some 
users, or with the limited views of versions to be validated on some wikis, you 
can understand a restricted access in general, you just need to establish its 
role. It simply needs a functional role to be declared in the infrastructure, 
and we have some ideas. We can debate later how much such files can be seen by 
the general public or by only registered users. For example you can declare 
that the logos of a company can be seen by all Wikipedias in ns0 (but non 
Wikisource or Wikiquote or Wikivoyage, for example), or that the access is 
totally restricted for the general public, or that the link it's in the 
articles like what you can find for Commons categories but the download is 
limited, o the resolution is.

Also,if you just put a limit of files per person or a threshold of cross-wiki 
edit to or a special flag for the upload, it can grow naturally for many years 
without exploding, more in agreement with a functional growth of the content 
that we are hosting.
Alessandro

Il lunedì 3 agosto 2020, 00:53:11 CEST, Samuel Klein  ha 
scritto:  
 
 I don't think we should mix NC with free-knowledge licenses .
I do absolutely think we should maintain an archive, visible to the public
with at most a simple hoop to jump through, of material that is offered to
us in any legal way but not yet free.
This would include: material currently under a CC or other non-fd license,
material that can be reasonably assumed to belong to the uploader but has
not yet been so demonstrated and (c) cleared by our various processes, free
material whose use and classification is otherwise under debate.

Primary uses of such an archive:
~ Capturing the first step of any freely-licensed sharing: having a
persistent copy of the work, with initial license + uploader information,
and a nominal contact to pursue
~ Centralizing subsequent public discussions about how to make interesting
materials free : by relicensing, recreation, or other method
~ Preserving work done to annotate/classify works where license turns out
to be ambiguous
~ Simplifying other deletion and license discussions that are inefficient
and confusing now

If there are motivational reasons to make the result of such archiving "not
as visible online" or "not as convenient as Commons", that's easily done
without restricting public access or {item name resolution}.

S




On Mon., Jul. 13, 2020, 2:24 a.m. Pete Forsyth, 
wrote:

> Erik, thanks for posting the essay here. Glad to see the interest in this
> topic.
>
> I wrote this because I have found that when somebody asks me about the NC
> provision, I often want to point them to a simple webpage (rather than
> "reinventing the wheel" every time it comes up). There are some pages out
> there (I listed some in the "See also" section), but I have yet to find
> somewhere this particular point -- the need of a general license to issue
> clear guidance -- articulated anywhere in a concise, accessible way.
>
> I'm surprised (and a little disappointed) to see that the possibility of
> Wikimedia generally accepting NC-licensed work is being discussed. But
> apart from that discussion, I think many of you in 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New essay on the ambiguity of NC licenses

[Samuel Klein]

I don't think we should mix NC with free-knowledge licenses .
I do absolutely think we should maintain an archive, visible to the public
with at most a simple hoop to jump through, of material that is offered to
us in any legal way but not yet free.
This would include: material currently under a CC or other non-fd license,
material that can be reasonably assumed to belong to the uploader but has
not yet been so demonstrated and (c) cleared by our various processes, free
material whose use and classification is otherwise under debate.

Primary uses of such an archive:
~ Capturing the first step of any freely-licensed sharing: having a
persistent copy of the work, with initial license + uploader information,
and a nominal contact to pursue
~ Centralizing subsequent public discussions about how to make interesting
materials free : by relicensing, recreation, or other method
~ Preserving work done to annotate/classify works where license turns out
to be ambiguous
~ Simplifying other deletion and license discussions that are inefficient
and confusing now

If there are motivational reasons to make the result of such archiving "not
as visible online" or "not as convenient as Commons", that's easily done
without restricting public access or {item name resolution}.

S




On Mon., Jul. 13, 2020, 2:24 a.m. Pete Forsyth, 
wrote:

> Erik, thanks for posting the essay here. Glad to see the interest in this
> topic.
>
> I wrote this because I have found that when somebody asks me about the NC
> provision, I often want to point them to a simple webpage (rather than
> "reinventing the wheel" every time it comes up). There are some pages out
> there (I listed some in the "See also" section), but I have yet to find
> somewhere this particular point -- the need of a general license to issue
> clear guidance -- articulated anywhere in a concise, accessible way.
>
> I'm surprised (and a little disappointed) to see that the possibility of
> Wikimedia generally accepting NC-licensed work is being discussed. But
> apart from that discussion, I think many of you in this discussion have, at
> one time or another, wanted to help guide someone toward using a more
> permissive license, rather than a NC license.
>
> For those who have, do you have favorite webpages you find helpful to
> share? Does this one seem like a useful addition? I'd appreciate any
> feedback or constructive edits to this essay; I also think it would be
> useful to have some of the other arguments, currently collected in longer
> documents, expressed in more "bite-sized" pieces like this, which could be
> linked together. Do others agree, and if so, are you inclined to help draft
> some complementary pages?
>
> -Pete
> [[User:Peteforsyth]]
>
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:23 PM effe iets anders  >
> wrote:
>
> > The question is however as well: how many open licensed content creators
> > would switch to NC if they were aware that this would be 'good enough'
> for
> > Wikipedia - even if that means in reality only English Wikipedia (but who
> > cares about other languages) and without actually allowing to build on
> top
> > of it?
> >
> > I have found the argument 'don't use NC because then it can't be used on
> > Wikipedia' rather convincing in the past. It will not always work, and I
> > also wish it would convince /more/ organizations. But then, I would also
> > wish that enwiki wouldn't use fair use exceptions - so maybe I'm not the
> > benchmark you'd be looking at anyway.
> >
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 5:32 PM James Heilman  wrote:
> >
> > > Yes one of the stronger reasons to reject all use of the NC license is
> > that
> > > it increases incentives for other organizations to actually adopt open
> > > licenses. I simply wish that such a position would convince more
> > > organizations. WHO has repeatedly told me that we, as a non-profit, are
> > > already free to use their work and if we chose not to, that is on us.
> > >
> > > James
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 6:19 PM Erik Moeller 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi James :)
> > > >
> > > > (This is my last reply for today, given the recommended posting limit
> > > > on this list.)
> > > >
> > > > > We all agree that NC licenses are exceedingly poor due to the
> reasons
> > > > > listed, yet we leave a lot of useful content (such as Khan academy
> > > > videos)
> > > > > less accessible to our readers because we disallow any such use.
> > > >
> > > > I completely agree. I'm wondering if efforts have been made at the
> WMF
> > > > or chapter level to partner with these organizations on new
> > > > initiatives, where a more permissive license could be used? This
> could
> > > > perhaps help to introduce CC-BY-SA/CC-BY to orgs like Khan Academy,
> > > > and help lay the groundwork for potentially changing their default
> > > > license.
> > > >
> > > > > This is a balance between pragmatism and idealism.
> > > >
> > > > I disagree with your framing here. There are many pragmatic reasons
> 

[Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2005 Flashback livestream in 2 hours

[Pharos]

An oral history and discussion of the world of Wikimedia from 2005 to the
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Wikimania 2020 was scheduled for August 5 to coincide with the 15th
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Thanks,
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