Wikivoyage talk:Copyleft

See also: Wikivoyage talk:Copyleft/old-en-archives

Why two non-identical English language "Copyleft" pages?

Any reason not to merge en:Project:Copyleft into wts:Copyleft then redirect the former to the latter? ~ 203.189.134.3 08:48, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

Nope, go ahead. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 11:36, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

Absolutely Not. -TheCount2018 (talk) 22:53, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Compatible licences

I just added a "Compatible licences" section. Should anything else be listed? ~ 203.189.134.3 09:47, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

What about "PD" - Public Domain - ? ~ 202.71.45.37 08:02, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

PD isn't really a "license", because it's entirely unconditional. But yes, we should mention that PD works are allowed. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 11:36, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

asking permission to use forum reply at Wikivoyage

I have received a valuable knowledge from other person on a forum/blog outside Wikivoyage. Does someone have a template for a message asking whether pieces of that text can be used at Wikivoyage? And I think this a good question for our FAQ here. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 08:31, 26 January 2008 (EST)

I have the following text--how good is it for the above purpose?

Hi (person name).

Do you mind if I use some pieces of your post (its URL) to contribute to an article on Rome at Wikivoyage, a free online travel guide written and edited entirely by travelers from around the globe?

The current edition of the article I am going to update is here: http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Rome#Eat.

Wikivoyage requires that all the content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license. Basically this means that your content:

- can be distributed by others, as long as you are credited as the author

- may be further edited by other contributors

So do you mind if I use your text at Wikivoyage?

(signature)

--(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 15:05, 27 January 2008 (EST)

That looks fine to me. It's also good practice to post your request, and their reply, on the Talk page of any article with such content. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 08:55, 28 January 2008 (EST)

OK if I add the above text to FAQ section of this article? Or is there a better place for it? --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 15:34, 29 January 2008 (EST)

Fine with me. I've taken the liberty of tweaking the English a little bit. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 07:04, 1 February 2008 (EST)

Thanks. I've posted the text in FAQ: Copyleft#How should I ask for permission to use forum reply at Wikivoyage?. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 09:11, 1 February 2008 (EST)

I just realized an issue in this: with template like this, we promise attribution but don't actually add original author's name into "Based on work by ...". What we can do with this? --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 03:51, 9 February 2008 (EST)

Nothing. It Would Be Nice If(tm) we could add names to the attribution list somehow, but I don't think the Mediawiki software allows it. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 06:39, 9 February 2008 (EST)

But the license requires us do provide attribution whatever it takes from us in terms of software (or manual work), doesn't it?

I'll ask at en:Project:Travellers' pub#Attribution and article translations whether guys have something that can be useful in my situation. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 12:59, 10 February 2008 (EST)

I've created a draft template: en:Template:Attribution, you can see it in action in en:Rome, en:Rome/Campo de' Fiori. Does it look good enough to be mentioned in this guideline? --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 15:07, 11 February 2008 (EST)

Revisions

Our copyleft has been rather neglected over the years, and is currently confusing and inadequate to explain how licensing works on Wikivoyage (IMHO). I'd like to propose these revisions to the copyleft. Here's the revised version in my sandbox: User:(WT-shared) Peterfitzgerald/Copyleft. These changes, I think, should at the very least clarify how we have been doing things over the past several years, and would provide a basis to make necessary updates to several other outdated policies (most notably, en:Project:How to re-use Wikivoyage guides). Do these changes seem reasonable? Have I gotten anything wrong? --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 02:35, 21 February 2008 (EST)

Personally, I believe that the current page assumes a great deal of understanding of licensing from a reader--and is hard to understand by others. Q&As like "how can I re-use texts from forum replies" would seriously help, in my belief. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 04:19, 21 February 2008 (EST)

Fair enough, I've now added more basic information for contributors to the FAQ section. I think it's important to keep the "licensing" section clear and precise, regardless of how confusing it may be for the uninitiated. The problem is that the article serves different groups of readers—those looking to redistribute & create derivative works, and those simply trying to understand what they need to do to start contributing. Hopefully the new FAQ entries should help with this. I will mention, though, that a side benefit of moving our site licensing from CC-by-SA 1.0 only for text to CC-by-SA any, is that it would significantly simplify our site licensing and make these issues less confusing. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 19:09, 21 February 2008 (EST)

Thanks; q&as like these are definitely helpful. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 04:17, 22 February 2008 (EST)

Any objections to implementing the revisions as I made them at (WT-shared) in my sandbox? Otherwise, I'll make them live (and will be sure to preserve Denis' last edit). --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 16:29, 23 February 2008 (EST)

Alright, implemented. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 16:32, 24 February 2008 (EST)

Protection?

Should we protect this page against anon edits longer term? It's a serious spam magnet lately, and being one of our most important pages, do anon's really ever need to edit it? – (WT-shared) cacahuate ^talk 18:45, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

I protected the local spam blacklist recently, because of the same reason. However, it feels like the spammers target the different Wikivoyage sites in turn - sv: was swamped a few months ago, but with loads of cleaning and blocking spam accounts and IP's, they stopped and currently they seem to be here. The reason I doubt, in this case, is that protecting a page is not something we do happily. Could the spammers spam to make us protect or lock the page and thus prevent contributions? Some sort of hidden agenda? Personally, I do not think so, not as long as the spam do not enter the guide articles. In other words - meta pages, which are fairly stable and with few edits in itself, could be temporarily protected from anonymous contributions. (WT-shared) Riggwelter 17:12, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm generally against a lot of page protections, but this is just such an important page and I doubt the need for anons to edit it without discussing on talk page first anyway – (WT-shared) cacahuate ^talk 19:07, 8 May 2008 (EDT)

This is a really important page, and for that reason alone (combined w/ the spam problem), I am sympathetic if not enthusiastic for an anon-level protection. But I'd like to add that it's really important that everyone keep in mind that this is an editable & collaborative policy, not some sort of set-in-stone law of Wikivoyage. If we do protect, we should remain amenable to temporary un-protects to help anon editors revise this policy upon requests. And we should consider only protecting for a month or so, to see if the spammers move along. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 14:07, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

Wise words, and I concur. Besides, it is apparent that the spammers' interest is rather periodic. (WT-shared) Riggwelter 14:54, 12 May 2008 (EDT)

Attribution and article translations

Swept in from en:pub:

(WT-shared) DavidSaldanaSage just brought up a good point: according to our copyleft, shouldn't we have to credit original contributors when translating articles between language versions? What is our policy for dealing with this? Do we just indicate somewhere on the article or the talk page that it is a translation and the original version is at X? --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 10:23, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Yes, my solution on de: has been to use de:Vorlage:Attributieren. The only potential problems is someone can remove an author's name or delete the template. -- 10:35, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Ah, cool. How does that template work exactly? Do you need to enter the original authors one by one each time you use it? Or does it automatically import them? And if so, is it set up to import only from :en? --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 10:45, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Well, there is another way: We could establish a policy that when preparing to translate an article that the article be exported and the imported as a first step. -- (WT-shared) Mark 10:42, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Yes, that probably would be a good way of doing things for complete translations, but I think a lot of partial translation also gets done, that is, added material translated from another language version to an existing article. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 10:48, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

I used to do that until I was told it was bad and could harm the website/server. Plus, you can't import pages with more than a certain number of "versions" (history). If you export the "last version" it doesn't attribute all of the authors, just the last person to have edited the page. IB, I would appreciate it if you could stabilize the server to allow me to import articles. Also, fix the issues with the attribution of the export/import feature. -- (WT-shared) Sapphire • (Talk) • 10:57, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

I guess you're replying to Andrew? I'm not sure how the template works, but it occurs to me that the exporter idea will have problems because of the fact that usernames are not necessarily the same across language versions. -- (WT-shared) Mark 10:53, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately, each author has to be entered individually. Ie. {{Attribution|[[:ru:User:(WT-ru) X|(WT-ru) Real name]], and |[[:de:Benutzer:(WT-de) Sapphire|(WT-de) Sapphire]].}} Currently, I have 30 value fields that will allow you to enter 30 names. If you need to attribute more than 30 people you can also use the 30th field to write something like this {{Attribution|.....|[[:en:User:(WT-en) X|(WT-en) real name]], [[:en:User:(WT-en) Q|(WT-en) real name]], [[:en:User:(WT-en) T|(WT-en) real name]], and anonymous users of Wikivoyage.}}. -- (WT-shared) Sapphire • (Talk) • 10:57, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Whew, that could take a lot of time in some cases. Could perhaps a simpler, quicker template do the job by saying "This article is based on a translation of article X", with a link to that article, where the original authors are cited? Or would that not be enough to satisfy the terms of CC-by-SA 1.0? Such a template could link to the version in the history from which it was translated.

Perhaps this sort of quick template could suffice in the meantime, but I feel a feature request for IB brewing here. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 11:24, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

I might have a solution, but I'm not sure if it'd be legally kosher. Check User:(WT-shared) Sapphire/Template:AttributionAlt in a few minutes. -- (WT-shared) Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:30, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Done. The new template says 'We took content from this article, which is based on work by this list of authors.' I'm not sure if pointing to a list of authors is sufficient enough, or not. -- (WT-shared) Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:42, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Nice job! That looks like good enough for the time being. I'll make translations of that into Russian and Spanish. But for a more permanent solution, perhaps we should ask IB on shared for a way to automatically get the names from the original language version into the translated page credit box. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 11:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Sweet. I'd love to see more translating between language versions - I've always meant to raid the Japanese Wikivoyage for eat/drink/buy entries for Japan articles. (WT-shared) Gorilla Jones

Forgive my legal retardation, but if it's in another language, are we positive that it has to be attributed at all? If I can take a paragraph from a copyrighted website, paraphrase it and jumble it up a little and then use it here without attribution, what's the difference if it's being translated into another language entirely? – (WT-shared) cacahuate ^talk 03:28, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

Yep. The Creative Commons website actually lists translations as one of their two examples of derivative works requiring attribution. The big difference is that the structure and idea behind the structure of the work is the same. For example, Wikivoyage:Копилефт is certainly not a word-for-word translation of Wikivoyage:Copyleft, but the structure of the article clearly comes from the original (there are also some sections pretty close to the original text). And jumbling up a paraphrasing of an incompatible source actually is copyright infringement. You need to totally rewrite, using your own words and organization, but using the source as just a reminder of the facts. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 03:44, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

Where on the page have you been putting the attribution template? At the very bottom? On the talk page? Somewhere else? (WT-shared) Gorilla Jones 10:00, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

I put it at the bottom of the page so it can be next to the attribution in the footer. -- (WT-shared) Sapphire • (Talk) • 11:16, 1 September 2007 (EDT)

Is there a template now at en: that can be used for manually listing other authors, from outside Wikivoyage? Is creating a Template:Attribution a best way to go with this? Background for my question comes from wts:Talk:Copyleft#asking permission to use forum reply at Wikivoyage where we created a template and guidelines for using content from external forums, by explicit permission of original author. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 13:14, 10 February 2008 (EST)

I don't believe there is such a template, but it sounds like a good idea to me to create one—I can't think of any better way to provide attribution. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 02:02, 11 February 2008 (EST)

I've created a draft template: Template:Attribution, you can see it in action in Rome, Rome/Campo de' Fiori. Any comments/criticism is appreciated. --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 15:08, 11 February 2008 (EST)

Oops, I don´t understand so many technical terms. I am spanish and I would like to translate part of an article about Santa Fe. Would I be "breaking the law"?

Mira por favor la plantilla en español. Si no entienda, yo la añadire. In other words, don't worry about it ;) --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 18:06, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Similar to the above, how do we attribute authors of a merged article? (WT-shared) LtPowers 18:28, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

We don't, and probably should. Another template would do the trick for future merges at least, if that's how we want to continue tackling this problem. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 18:30, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Thank you Peter! I was concerned about author attribution. Although the original message is that any submitted work can be re-used or modified, it seems that not everybody agrees on that. I think that the Santa Fe article is a great one. I am not interested in translating the whole article or either writing my name. I would like to use part of the information to encourage people to visit USA (not only NY)and help those that don´t understand english.--Lucía

Well, the license does require attribution for all modification & re-use--that's the problem. But I'd be thrilled if you translate the Santa Fe article to Spanish regardless. It is a great article, and a great destination for Spanish speakers (since more people there speak Spanish than English!). --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 13:19, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

I created Template:Mergecredit for articles with merged content, based on Template:Attribution. (WT-shared) LtPowers 20:13, 1 September 2008 (EDT)

38.105.67.2 and Hyatt listings

Swept in from en:pub:

User:38.105.67.2's rate of adding new Hyatt hotel listings (most seemingly copied from their web sites) is accelerating and I'm having trouble keeping up. Is everyone boycotting the site over the stupid ad kerfuffle? (WT-shared) LtPowers 17:32, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm not seeing a problem -- the listings need some detouting as usual, but otherwise look okay. -- (WT-shared) Colin 17:48, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

In some corporate boardroom, somewhere...

Chairman of the Board: "You mean, we place ads all over their site for free"

Adguy: "Yep"

C: "And these guys, they give up their free time, to reformat our ads, as traveller information?"

A: "Thats right, we just post the promotional material we already developed for our website"

C: "So, we spend no time or money, provide no destination information, no research...."

A: ".... and these guys incorporate it into their guide free. But best of all, when they have finished, the travellers can't tell our promotion from real information.."

C: "Why would they do that? Are you sure you are not making this up?"

--(WT-shared) Inas 20:14, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

Yes, it's the detouting I'm having trouble keeping up with. (WT-shared) LtPowers 22:13, 16 September 2008 (EDT)

If any listing consists of material copied verbatim or almost so from another web site, shouldn't that listing just be deleted ipso facto? It's potentially a copyright violation, certainly inappropriate, and in my opinion ought to be specifically against policy if it isn't already. (WT-shared) Sailsetter 11:22, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Nah, I think just deleting the description (where the touting is) and keeping the basic info (address, phone #, etc.) will suffice. Then either they can come back with a more honest description or someone else can jump in with their own description. (WT-shared) PerryPlanet 13:15, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I don't agree with that. A listing with no description isn't of much value in itself and encourages other people to make similarly basic listings. (I think it is far more likely to just sit there than to be expanded by someone as the above assumes.) I say better to delete such things. (WT-shared) Sailsetter 19:31, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Are you suggesting we delete any listing without a description? That we require every listing to have a description? I don't think that's going to help. Like LtPowers said, there's good things about just including a listing, even if you have hardly anything (or nothing) to say about it. And yes, while it is more likely that the listing is going to sit without a description for a while, I don't think we should delete a listing on the presumption that no one is going to add that info. I mean, we don't delete the "Buy" section in an article because no one's gotten around to adding a shop yet. (WT-shared) PerryPlanet 21:17, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

We are not yellow page, are we? Why include a hotel if we can't be serious about recommending it? --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 17:41, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

My own preference would be for an explicit policy that listing descriptions should be concise, but listings with no description at all would be first in line to be deleted if the number of listings got too many. (WT-shared) Sailsetter 10:37, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm fine with that, but I don't think "too many listings" is a problem we're faced with here in these articles with these Hyatt listings. (WT-shared) PerryPlanet 15:12, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

Well there is some value in just knowing what's available. Maybe not a lot, but some. Even just including it tells the reader some information: namely, that this particular establishment is not a complete dump and has at least enough redeeming value to be listed. (Of course, that would be true of any Hyatt, but we've moved to generalities here.) (WT-shared) LtPowers 19:48, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

If other hotels are sold out (pretty common in some resort areas if one just shows up) there is a great value to having just a phone number listing. (WT-shared) Alingelb 19:25, 29 September 2008 (EAT)

We encourage business owners to add their hotel listings. See Wikivoyage:Welcome, business owners. -- (WT-shared) Colin 21:13, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

It seems to me extremely clear that extensive, uncredited quotes from other web sites shouldn't be put into Wikivoyage, even by the owner of the other site. I think there ought to be a specific policy against this. If there isn't, where can I propose it? (WT-shared) Sailsetter 19:29, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

We allow reuse of one's own work or work with permission. Now, normally we'd prefer the guy to say "yeah I'm from XYZ corporate and have permission to add this text", but it's pretty clear in cases like this that that is exactly what is going on. -- (WT-shared) Colin 21:13, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

It seems to me there's a whole tangle of issues here. What if a destination article has extensive verbatim quotes from the Rough Guide or Frommers web site? Are we to assume that the quotes are done with permission, or without? What if a listing for a Four Seasons resort is a quote from the Four Seasons web site? Are we to assume that it was done with permission? Sure we can say people can quote their own stuff, but how do we know it's the owner who's doing the quoting? What if the destination page for, say, Rome, has extensive sites from the English language version of the official Italian government Rome tourist site? Are we to assume that the Italian government won't object? And then there's the larger principle issue of whether Wikivoyage should to any extent be an anthology of passages from other web sites. A policy saying "no quotes" would at least simplify all these issues. (WT-shared) Sailsetter 22:16, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Using text from other sites is fine, as long as the text is PD or licensed under a license compatible with CC-by-SA 1.0. If the user copying text is the author, he/she/it should leave a clarifying message on the talk page of the article to which he/she/it is adding the text. If none of these criteria are met, I say feel free to revert or delete as the situation needs.

Regarding this case, if a user comes along and adds the same message to countless pages, even if it's not copied from another website, that's clearly touting, and I would be liable to revert it. It might be ideal to instead delete the touting text and save the listing, but that takes 3-4x the time to revert, so that's not always feasible. So "clean up" > "revert" > "leave mess." --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 22:29, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I see two problems with the above. 1) If I notice that a Wikivoyage page has quoted text from another website, should it be incumbent on me as an ordinary contributor to try to figure out the licensing situation before deleting it? If that's the case, in practice no typical user is ever going to take the trouble. And 2) I have never, ever, on any of the very numerous Wikivoyage talk pages I've looked at, seen a message from someone saying "I was quoting my own web site's text." (WT-shared) Sailsetter 22:36, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

If you've already figured out what website the text comes from, it should be immediately apparent whether it is properly licensed. If it is CC-by or CC-by-SA, it will say so prominently on the website (as does ours). It is PD only if it says so prominently, or is the work of the U.S. Federal Government. And yes, those talk page messages are rare, but I have seen a few. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 10:58, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

I notice that on Wikivoyage Shared it says the following:

Can I copy text to Wikivoyage from other sites? No. That is, unless you are the original author of the text, or the text on the other website is either Public Domain or has been explicitly licensed as compatible with Creative Commons Attribution/Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.

I take this to mean that text on a Wikivoyage page which is 1) copied verbatim or nearly verbatim from another web site which is 2) not clearly in the public domain and without 3) being annotated on the Talk page by the person adding it saying they are the owner, may be deleted. (I still think though that the owner's permission shouldn't justify such quoting.) (WT-shared) Sailsetter 19:38, 24 September 2008 (EDT)

At the end of the day, this is really not your or even Wikivoyage's problem. Like wikis everywhere, we assume good faith, and if IB gets a DMCA takedown from the copyright holder, they're still "safe harbored" under [Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act OCILLA] as long as they nuke the content then. (WT-shared) Jpatokal 13:12, 25 September 2008 (EDT)

Maps created with GMT

Is it possible to upload maps created with the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)? On wikimedia commons there is the template GFDL-GMT for such maps. I am aware that I cannot upload images under GFDL, but maybe under another license? Specifically I'd like to upload a modified version of this map with roads/rails added. (WT-shared) Bamse 04:29, 24 February 2009 (EST)

It appears to me that we cannot use GMT material, as they state that "GMT is [released under the GNU General Public License." [1] There's a part of that, though, that doesn't make much sense to me. I thought the GMT was a set of tools for manipulating data, not the data itself? If so, then others could distribute and modify the tools under the GNU FDL. But if the data was public domain... Anyway, it seems to me that we cannot use GMT content, but I don't understand this fully—perhaps someone else could better answer your question. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 13:48, 26 February 2009 (EST)

My reading of the situation is that the licensing of the output files is restricted only by the license of the map data set itself. For the Bolivia example given, the map data is public domain, so the output image plus any additional user modifications could be licensed any way you like. The GPL applies to the GMT program itself, but we're not distributing the program; same way that the GNU C compilers themselves are GPL'd, but that doesn't automatically apply to a program built with them - only the license on the source code of that program matters. - (WT-shared) Dguillaime 16:37, 27 February 2009 (EST)

That makes sense to me. --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 16:44, 27 February 2009 (EST)

National Park Service info use

swept from en:pub:

I understand that text from the NPS websites are public domain. Does the same apply to pictures, maps, and other media? Thanks! 24.42.128.242 14:57, 15 February 2010 (EST)

See the "Ownership" section on http://www.nps.gov/disclaimer.htm. There are a number of pictures and maps on the NPS web site that they have licensed from private individuals, so those cannot be freely re-used, but provided that there isn't an author or copyright specified the default for NPS content is that it is released into the public domain. -- (WT-shared) Ryan • (talk) • 15:08, 15 February 2010 (EST)

CC0

I would like to propose that we incorporate the new CC0 license wavier into our licensing options. It's very similar to public domain, but designed to be applicable in jurisdictions that prohibit public domain releases. Image:Sarahan view.jpg is an example of an image whose original source is released under CC0. (WT-shared) LtPowers 16:30, 16 August 2010 (EDT)

By all means, although I don't think it necessary to add to the drop down menu on the upload form. I believe that this license, interestingly enough, granted me the option to release the image into the Public Domain, which I did ;) --(WT-shared) Peter ^Talk 23:59, 18 August 2010 (EDT)

That's an interesting interpretation. The legalities of that are beyond my ken, though, which is why I would prefer a CC0 template that removes that uncertainty. (WT-shared) LtPowers 09:10, 19 August 2010 (EDT)

auto-translated CC:SA is still CC:SA?

If I Google Translate fr: Wikivoyage article to en: and include the content into an en: article, does it comply with our license? --(WT-shared) DenisYurkin 15:05, 4 April 2011 (EDT)

Violating books on Amazon (I think)

These Kindle books:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Jason%20Hale

Copied from Wikivoyage, being sold for $1.19/£0.77

I downloaded one, and scrolled all the way to the end, it has the following notice:

"Copyright

A list of contributors is available at the original article on Wikivoyage. Content in this book from Wikivoyage.org is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license." The terms contributors, Wikivoyage, and licence are all hyperlinked to the appropriate place.

However the licence is, it seems, being breached:

"If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and (iv) , consistent with Ssection 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). *The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.* "

Specifically it seems to me that the requirement for the credit to be "at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributiong authors" is being violated, however the works are clearly marketed as 'Jason Hale' author, which is not 'at least as promiment' as the Wikivoyage credited tucked away on the very last page.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dubai-Concise-Travel-Guide-ebook/dp/B006D7DL0U

81.141.31.216 16:59, 22 March 2012 (EDT)

That seems pretty blatant. Steps for reporting ebook copyright infringement to Amazon can be found at [2]. Anyone willing to go through that process to report this guy? -- (WT-shared) Ryan 17:49, 22 March 2012 (EDT)

I dunno... if it's not in compliance, it's very close to so. Based on the description, I can only see two major differences between this and Wikivoyage Press books: WTP books say "Edited by ____" on the cover, and they include a full contributor list in the credits. (WT-shared) LtPowers 09:36, 23 March 2012 (EDT)

Wikivoyage Press is fairly clear that the source is Wikivoyage, and as you've noted includes a list of authors. From the description above and a search on Amazon, it looks like this guy has copied several hundred Wikivoyage articles verbatim and is passing them off as his own work, with a single sentence at the end saying "look at Wikivoyage to see contributors". At a minimum I think it needs to be clear to anyone purchasing the book that he is NOT the sole author, which you would never know from the Amazon listings. -- (WT-shared) Ryan 10:47, 23 March 2012 (EDT)

I agree. To me, his reference is clearly insufficient to comply with the requirements of the license. Indeed, the mention should be as prominent as the credits for the guy himself. The license is very clear about these things. That means, a reference to Wikivoyage should be on the cover and frankly, a non-hyperlinked reference to a contributor list on Wiktravel really is pushing the limits. There's no compelling reason why it would be unreasonable to expect normal compliance from a printed / downloadable book like this one. I think a list of at least the most prominent contributors should be included in the work, somewhere.

I'm a big fan of re-use, but the rules should be followed at least in spirit, for the whole free license system to work. Isn't this something Bobi or someone from the IB legal team could pursue? Just as a way to support the site and community? (WT-shared) Justme2 04:01, 24 March 2012 (EDT)

First, a reference to Wikivoyage on the cover could be legally problematic due to trademark issues. Second, there's nothing IB can do to repair copyright issues such as this; they lack standing because they are not the copyright owner. Wikivoyage's contributors retain the copyright to all of their contributed content; IB only uses the content under license. (WT-shared) LtPowers 20:24, 30 March 2012 (EDT)

More violating books

Mr. Hale has vanished, but there are others: [3] Rather blatant 81.141.25.58 10:57, 9 May 2012 (EDT)

Contributor credits at article foot

Swept from the pub:

At (legacy)Wikitravel, there is still a contributor credits block at the end of each article page.

At http://wts.wikivoyage.org/wiki/How_to_re-use_Wikivoyage_guides#About_our_license it still says:

"Every page on Wikivoyage has a credits block at the end of the page; for pages where all the authors names will fit in it, this should be sufficient for attribution." /old-en-archives/wts-archive and, indeed, this contributor credits block is still there on the German and Italian pages of Wikivoyage.

When will we see this contributor credits block restored on the English language pages (now that we've gone public) please? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 13:56, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

Basically, it would not be too hard to display the contributors together with source work attribution and the authors of the source work. We do so on de: and it:. However, the Wikipedia does not show a contributor block at all. I would like to leave it up to WMF folks do decide whether to display contributors or not. Currently, I'd rather tend to not displying it and adapt the How to reuse page. -- Hansm (talk) 14:31, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

If it's an easy thing to do, I would like to see it restored (not least, because it is a little incentive to contribute).

Although we are all hoping to join Wikimedia sooner rather than later, we do have substantial differences of policies (not least our "be fair" stance rather than NPOV), style and substance with Wikipedia and this would be one little constant reminder of our separate stance at the bottom of each and every page.

I take it there is no current move afoot to remove the contributor credits block on the German and Italian pages of Wikivoyage? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 16:11, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

@Frank: I think if we could move in the direction of Wikimedia policies without the immediate need to change anything, then i would prefer the approach of Hansm. I understand your point that contributors might see this as an incentive to further work but everyone who contributes more than once will know how to look at the history. Conclusio: I see this topic with a very low priority. Jc8136 (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

As far as I know, the WMF does not have a policy one way or the other on this and would be happy to accede to our wishes.

Never forget that, although Wikipedia is currently by far and away the most high profile of its projects it is by no means the only one! --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 16:25, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

We had this on WT until... IB decided to remove it! The discussion is here, and I had a hell of a time finding it, since it had been deleted :/ --Peter ^Talk 17:40, 26 September 2012 (CEST)

Thanks for taking the time to search that out, Peter! --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 21:14, 1 October 2012 (CEST)

The relevant LocalSettings.php variable to turn this on is (this would set it to show a maximum of 20 credits):

               $wgMaxCredits = 20;

See mw:Manual:$wgMaxCredits for details and related system messages. This is a good community _friendly_ way to summarize who has been helping with a page. And it is a way our community is used to, which is worth something. Recent changes is a bit technical and just not good reading for most ordinary folks. The credits block functions as a readable lightweight social networking element of a page that links to editors userpages. It apparently exercise the database a little; I don't know how much. Setting a reasonable $mgMaxCredits, I posit 20 only because 20 names seems more reasonable, and more readable, to me than say 50 names, shows who has most recently edited the page in a tidy place at the bottom without using lots of space. Nice. --Rogerhc (talk) 18:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

However, if spam becomes a rampant problem on a wiki, this pollutes the credits block so much that it becomes better to simply not show it. Something to remember, should we find ourselves in that boat. --Rogerhc (talk) 21:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Can it be switched on or off for individual articles or is it only a global setting? -- Alice^✉ 04:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I've missed this feature and want to bring it back for the reasons given above. Do we have a consensus to restore credits in the footer? Say yea and I'll request this on Buzgilla (I guess...). --Peter ^Talk 00:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I honestly never really liked the feature - if someone wrote 90% of an article and then twenty other people and I made minor formatting changes, the original author dropped out of the credits and a bunch of folks who didn't really do much of substance replaced them. It always seemed arbitrary, and especially now that real names are no longer being recorded I'm not sure I see any advantage. That said, if a few people feel strongly about re-enabling it then I don't feel strongly enough against the feature to stand in the way of bringing it back. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Isn't there any way to show names of only those authors who contribute at large to that particular article? --Saqib (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Are we dual-licensing GFDL...?

Swept in from the pub

The edit interface says, "By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. "

Is that correct, or just an error in the MediaWiki: files? If it's an error, can someone fix it? If it's correct, can we update Wikivoyage:Copyleft? --EvanProdromou (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we agreed it was useful in case content was migrated to WP for any reason,that new contributions were dual licenced in this way. It doesn't change underlying licence of WV. --Inas (talk) 18:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Where wast that discussed? I'd like to know more about this. --Rogerhc (talk) 19:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we can retroactively dual-license the migrated content, though, without a lot of work. --EvanProdromou (talk) 19:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

That's correct. I think what happened is that the default licensing text got left in there, and when someone wondered if we should remove it, it was reasoned that it did little harm. Now if there was text that asserted that everything was available under GFDL, that would be a problem, but I don't think there is. LtPowers (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it should go. It may be necessary for WP, which started out with GFDL, but for us it is just an unnecessary complication.

I asked about this on the mailing list a few days back & someone said they'd check with the WMF legal dep't. Pashley (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The WMF's legal department is looking into it. I've asked one of our staff attorneys to weigh in. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

It's safer to take it out for now and consider putting it back later, if that's what people really really want. Me, I'd rather just stick to the BY-SA. -- MarkJaroski (talk) 22:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Philippe asked me to weigh in here. I agree that the GFDL should be removed from the edit interface, such as:

By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I've made the change.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

This is actually fairly tricky to do consistently, for the following reasons:

1) There's more than one Wikivoyage language edition, and we'll need to consistently update all of them.

2) Users can set a different UI language, in which case they'll see the default text again (which includes the GFDL licensing grant).

To do this correctly and consistently requires a small amount of code and the translation of a new user interface message that has all the required legalese but lacks the GFDL licensing grant. Unless legal thinks the dual-licensing actually does harm, I'm going to consider that relatively low priority, but have filed a bug here: bugzilla:44023 --Eloquence (talk) 05:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Since this also applies to other languages, and needs to be done in a manner independent of the configured user interface language, I've filed a bug to consistently

FYI, this page needs to be updated accordingly: Wikivoyage:Why Wikivoyage isn't GFDL. AHeneen (talk) 04:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Unattributed copying to Wikitravel

Swept in from the pub

On a separate issue, this same Washington DC IP editor has been trying to make Wikitravel look like Wikivoyage (has s/he been trying the reverse, too?) and s/he's been called on it now over at our original home. --103.9.41.192 03:44, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@103.9.41.192: And the ridiculous thing is, sharing is allowed/encouraged but impossible because there is a filter that bans the word "Wikivoyage" over there. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:06, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

IB deliberately makes effective attribution impossible - that's why "sharing" is problematical. However, even if that was not the case, I'm really not sure that it is helpful to either (and certainly not for the poor confused traveller) for whole sections of Wikivoyage and Wikitravel to be carbon copies of the other: http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Hong_Kong&diff=2682085&oldid=2682084 and http://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Hong_Kong&diff=2256728&oldid=2256727 with each edit made at the same time. --103.9.41.192 05:12, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@103.9.41.192: Cf. here. I can change the local blacklist there but I can't even edit it to allow "wikivoyage" on a page. I just tried. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't have much issue with someone adding the same content to WV and WT (SEO concerns aside), however WV content being removed in order to sync with WT should not be acceptable. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:54, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@Andrewssi2: Agreed, no doubt. We should definitely have a high standard of having the best information for the traveler. In addition, even if the words on the guide are identical, we offer things here that do not exist there: interlinked Wikimedia projects, slippy maps from OpenStreetMap, more media from Commons, etc. Our guides are not simply the text (although that is obviously the bulk of it). Also, the use of tags and templates here is significantly more machine-reader friendly making for scraping and creating apps in the future. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:59, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree; we have to respond in some type of way. The filter that Wikitravel has put in place to remove the possibility of attribution to Wikivoyage is a blatant violation of the terms of the Creative Commons license - and to be perfectly frank, if my work here at Wikivoyage were copied lock, stock and barrel onto another site that is openly hostile to the concept of proper attribution, and there were no efforts toward redress on the part of the Wikivoyage community, it would make me think twice about continuing to contribute here. Speaking for myself, I release my work under the Creative Commons license for a reason; if I wanted it to be public domain, it would be.

This is a slippery slope we're heading down here - at the risk of running afoul of w:WP:BEANS, there are any number of ways unscrupulous individuals at WT could make use of our contributors' work to preserve what's left of their rapidly dwindling SEO advantage. At the very least, someone who still has login credentials at WT should revert the changes and state the reason as clearly as their filter allows in the edit summary; if IB gives us trouble over it, we should encourage editors whose work has been copied without attribution to pursue a cease-and-desist order (possibly with the help of WMF Legal, if they're willing).

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Certainly, if they do anything which violates the CC-BY-SA licence, any right to use the material under that license ends. From the licence text, "7. Termination: This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License. Individuals or entities who have received Adaptations or Collections from You under this License, however, will not have their licenses terminated provided such individuals or entities remain in full compliance with those licenses. Sections 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 will survive any termination of this License." K7L (talk) 16:59, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the process for dealing with unattributed use of your writing on Wikivoyage (or any site) is to file a DMCA takedown notice. It must be filed by the person who actually wrote that content, not just anyone on the wiki. The Wikimedia Foundation cannot do this for you. There are probably detailed instructions at en.wp or Commons on how to protect your rights to the work that you created. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@AdnreCarrotflower: The IP claims to have edited travel before voy, so there's extra nothing we can do. It's his right to post material at both sites and if the direction is travel first, then he can properly attribute here. I've talked to an IBadmin before about removing the AbuseFilter setting but I don't think it will happen. If you can find instances of material being ported from here to there and that user wants to license his work with a Creative Commons license and he's interested in filing a DMCA notice, that's another point entirely but it will require a lot of sleuthing. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

The CC-BY-SA licence is "non-exclusive" (see section 3), so a contributor is free to grant WT a licence and separately to grant a similar licence to WV, and indeed to grant a completely different licence to another publisher. There is no need for the contributor to give any attribution - that only is required if somebody different copies the content. It actually helps the traveller if a good edit is made to both sites - it is only an issue from a SEO perspective. AlasdairW (talk) 21:19, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm looking at the changes made to Hong Kong International Airport on Wikivoyage and WT, and the result is indeed that large swaths of content are now the same. (Probably the same for Hong Kong and other articles that this user has worked on).

If this stands then it will be terrible from an SEO perspective. I believe that our SEO has been improving as we have spent the time and energy to produce distinctive content, and copying and pasting wiki source from WT to WV will basically lose this.

I'm mindful that the user may not be intentionally trying to cause issues for WV, however the edits actually do harm our project.

What is the appropriate response in this context? 1) Undo all changes? 2) Rewrite the new content? 3) Other? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:27, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@Andrewssi2: Well, the traveler comes first, so if the additions are genuinely good and useful then reverting them for our SEO rankings isn't traveler-friendly. Plus, it means that Wikitravel has stronger content than we do. The best solution is to re-write what's written here. Bots don't crawl all our content every instance, so if we are steadily refactoring this material, then search engines would never notice. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, no new content was added. In fact existing content was deleted and therefore it is subjective whether the WT version would be 'stronger'.

Probably the best course of action is to wait for the editing to subside and then merge the deleted content back in.

The distinction that I am trying to make is whether the edits genuinely make the article stronger, or are they just hacking away at WV existing content in order to align it with WT? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice to know the synchronising editor's motives.

In the absence of an explanation from the horse's mouth, lets give her/him the benefit of the doubt and assume they just thought it would be neat if both articles on each wiki got the benefit of their deathless prose... --103.9.41.192 21:35, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

UPDATE Wikitravel IBadmin IBobi wrote in their Pub at 21:17, 4 November 2014 (EST) (with an edit summary of attribution unnecessary):
"The short answer on attribution from other sources is: we don't allow content from other sources, so no attribution is necessary. We're the original source, they're the copy. Since we don't allow copied content from other sources (and since content written by the same author is not "copied" content, but original content added to more than one site), we shall always be a source of entirely original content. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Also, I think that 99.99% of the time, the idea of multiple users editing anonymously from the same IP AND copying content from another site is an extreme edge-case and we needn't worry ourselves about it. Nice work, everyone."
--103.9.41.192 02:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for making us aware of this conversation. I still feel uneasy about it, but if nobody on the WT side has a concern then it can likely be left and just regarded as esoteric behavior. Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:51, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@103.9.41.192:, @Andrewssi2:: For what it's worth. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

An employee of IB created a copy of Template:Pagebanner ([4]), and two other IB employees have since edited that template, but no attribution has ever been provided. It would be nice if someone who still edits there could raise that example to determine what exactly the "we don't allow content from other sources, so no attribution is necessary" statement means. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:09, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@wrh2: I actually have a decent relationship with that admin who has since left IB but still edits from time to time. The project of adding banners is moribund, for what it's worth. Obviously, that should be credited and it's possible that if Wikitravel attempted to create branding that was sufficiently similar to Wikivoyage, that could be a problem but it's more-or-less moot. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:01, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

UPDATE, there's a sequel posting from IBobi. Those who are interested can read the whole thing at Wikitravel's pub, but the drift of it was "...Other sites are sad, carbon-copy wannabes, and that's fine too. We can continue to ignore them. Just like Google does." --103.9.41.192 01:24, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

IBobi has already made it clear that no solution is forthcoming regarding the attribution issue on WT. Furthermore, it's no secret how he feels about Wikivoyage, and there's not much we can do about that. So I really don't see what purpose it serves to continue to report on the things he says about us. He is no longer a part of our community and we have bigger fish to fry. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

It's been clear for a long while that (except for destination articles' inferior Table of Contents) Wikivoyage has been the superior guide for many months now. Wikivoyage has more Wikimedia potential (such as pronunciation and headphone guides), interactive maps, better curators, less spam and more active development. However, Google's spiders are oblivious to all of that and, while the stick-in-the-mud attitudes to copy-cat H1, H2 and H3 headers and article naming are preserved, then Wikivoyage's readership will continue to lag far behind that of Wikitravel. That is not just a tragic waste of talent, it means that Wikivoyage will also suffer from a lack of those IP edits that update the trivial but useful minutiae of openings, prices, closures, and sneaky travel tips.

For now, there are no "bigger fish to fry" than removing Google's dupe penalties. --103.9.41.192 02:43, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Here we go again with this dead horse being beaten. On the exceedingly slim chance that you don't already know this from your previous iterations being told it, we've covered the topic of altering section headers many times in the past, and forum-shopping isn't going to change consensus. Pre-emptively, the same goes for relative image sizing, TOC alignment, etc. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:14, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Please don't change the indentation on what I write to make it look like I wanted to write a reply to what you wrote, User:AndreCarrotflower.

Having got that off my chest, one of the reasons little progress has been made on removing Google's duplicate penalties is that those who should know better inevitably play the messenger rather than actually examining the merits of the message.

Try and be part of the solution, rather than aggravate the problem. --103.9.41.192 05:28, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

@AndreCarrotflower:, @103.9.41.192:: For what it's worth, I think that Wikivoyage is generally a stronger product and is more useful to the traveler but it's also a serious problem if travelers never find this resource. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:42, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Minor procedural note

Swept in from the pub

Copying to Wikitravel I figured I would let everyone know that someone is copying to Wikitravel again but this time with attribution. Evidently, the filter has been modified to allow that. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Licensing status of materials produced by the Canadian government

Swept in from the pub

Hey folks. I'm very likely going to start work on Forillon National Park in the near future. On the Parks Canada website there is a really nice map of the park that, if possible, I would like to adapt for use here at Wikivoyage. I know from previous experience with Commons that as an organism of the U.S. federal government, works produced by employees of the U.S. National Park Service as part of their official duties are automatically released into the public domain, and I also know that at least one U.S. National Park article (Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park) uses an NPS-produced map. Does anyone know if the same is true for the Canadian government? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:20, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

@AndreCarrotflower: Have you seen this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:21, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

"Status unclear", then. Thanks anyway; that also answered another future question of mine, whether official Quebec provincial park service maps could be reproduced (no). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:26, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's just the US government that releases a huge blanket category of material to public-domain like status (which is why CIA maps and NASA material turn up in WP). K7L (talk) 04:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Importing open license text into Wikivoyage

Swept in from the pub

Hi

I've been working an easy way to import openly licensed text into Wikipedia which is now complete, I'm wondering how easy it would be to create something similar for Wikivoyage? It consists of:

1. A Visual Editor enabled Template:Open-source attribution
2. Simple instructions for both source editor and Visual Editor

To give an example of how this could be used, I've created a page to organise creation of en.Wikipedia articles of Biosphere Reserves using UNESCO descriptions, it uses a map fed by Wikidata to show which articles are missing. This could very easily be recreated if there was a template on Wikivoyage to use when importing open license text, here is an example of a Wikipedia article incorporating UNESCO text and using the template.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Interesting tool! In the case of Wikivoyage, where would the data come from? Wikidata does not contain the data that we need for the creation of even a stub article, I fear. I would be glad to be proved wrong though :-) Syced (talk) 11:52, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi Syced, I'm sorry for not being clear, it would not import data from Wikidata, the instructions describe how to copy openly licensed text from other sources and paste it into Wikipedia and the template provides the attribution needed. The Biosphere Reserve project is just a use of the instructions and template that uses Wikidata to organise the work, its a bit overly complicated really, I partly did it as a proof of concept. John Cummings (talk) 15:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Rephrasing of Template:AttributionAlt

Dear all, I would like to attribute work from foreign WV sites that I translate into English. However, I think that the current phrasing of Template:AttributionAlt does often overstates the importance of added content. In my experience, additional information contributes to 10% or less of the existing content. Saying "This article is significantly based on work ... " kind of degrades the work others already put into the existing content that did not come from the foreign article.

I know, in science significance can already be identified with 0.5%, even though there is no such fixed value, and it really depends on the examiner. However, from a language point of view "significantly" sounds actually like 50 % or more, which it often is not.

Hence, my question: Should we 1) create a second template, or should we 2) modify the existing one with a less degrading statement like: "This article is in parts based on work ..."?

I am in favour of modifying the existing one to not have too many discussions in the future whether added content requires one or the other template. So, if no one objects I will go ahead making the slight adjustement of the template.

Cheers, Ceever (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Probably something like "This article includes text originally found..." would be better. Powers ^(talk) 01:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I think Template:Translated has a better text so why not use that one instead; for example from one article I translated a while ago "This article has content that was translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikivoyage on 8 Jul 2017". It's then, of course, a different discussion where that template should be placed (as I said earlier, I've been placing it on the talk pages because this is what I've seen other people doing).

This template states the article "has content" from a certain other article, it might be a little or a lot, depending on the article; it would be silly to use the "significantly based" thing if one has just translated a few paragraphs into an otherwise content-rich article. This template also states the date, which is good for two reasons; you can more easily find the edit (and translator) in the history, and secondly, find the right version of the article it was translated from. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:05, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I opted for the latter, which also seems to be used a little more. Thanks. Ceever (talk) 12:10, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Using Google Maps

I often get latitude information and general info about locations from Google Maps. I don't copy any original text, just phone numbers and things not actually created by Google Maps. This is allowed, right? SelfieCity (talk) 01:58, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely. Stuff like that isn't copyrightable. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:33, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

European copyright law changes

Swept in from the pub

At least to me, both the organisation whose site this on (EFF) and the writer (Cory Doctorow) are highly credible.

• The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia

Will this affect us & if so, how? Is it something we need to worry about or can that be left to WMF? Pashley (talk) 00:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Pashley, I think it's more of an issue for Wikipedia than us, although it could still be a problem: basically, it'll create more problems with external links. Selfie City (talk) 00:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

The other problem is false positives of copyvio detection. Every now and then the wording you use would be blocked. I think how to handle this technically can largely be left to WMF (checking how the solutions work for us), but politically, I urge every EU citizen to try to do something to stop it. --LPfi (talk) 04:50, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't it also prevent reuse and redistribution of our content (which is permitted and encouraged under copyleft), or worse potentially have our own content flagged as infringing the copyright of a mirror? ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:42, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Instead of setting up such copyrighted material databases and checking all uploaded content against it, I propose to simply move all the WMF servers to Switzerland. It may be a bit more work, and incur a higher cost intitially, but it's a better long term solution to the problem. ArticCynda (talk) 09:23, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't help. The proposed legislation does not affect USA directly, but it probably affects Switzerland (I do not know the details of the agreements between it and EU). Moving servers has been proposed many times, but every jurisdiction has its own problems. Reusing WV content would not be directly affected, as it is licensed as required, but would be affected by copyfraud and other false positives. The reverse problem could probably be solved by whitelisting existing content (including history not reverted as copyvio). --LPfi (talk) 10:11, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Switzerland doesn't follow EU copyright law (see Copyright law of Switzerland) since it's not part of the EU. Switzerland is also de facto immune to mass surveillance (unlike EU or USA) so I think it's a superior location for the WMF servers than the current situation. ArticCynda (talk) 10:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I do not see any mention in the linked article that Switzerland does not implement the EU copyright directive, or is not mandated to implement the possible changes. Switzerland is not part of EU, but it has a relation to EU resembling that of Norway & co (which belong to EEA). Is copyright exempted from the areas of coordination? --LPfi (talk) 16:59, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

May I suggest the topic about whether the WMF can move servers is best handled elsewhere (i.e. somewhere on Meta)? There is nothing we on Wikivoyage can do about which country our servers are hosted in, but we can try to establish what exactly the effects of the new law will be on our work and discuss how we're going to respond. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Update: As I understand it (from chatter at some of the other wikis), the vote didn't pass, which means that the legislation will be properly debated in the usual parliamentary style, and the real vote will take place later in the year. Also, I'm hearing that some parts of this proposed law are desirable changes (e.g., clarifications to the existing copyright laws). It's just Articles 11 and 13 that seem to have people upset. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

That is right. To be clear this would affect Wikivoyage *more* than Wikipedia. Anything added to either (as text, image, map) is potentially in violation of copyright, so would be required to be monitored to delete copyvios, but there is an exemption for "online encyclopedia" which would possibly allow Wikipedia a get out, but not Wikivoyage, or Wiki Commons, etc. JimKillock (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

The GFDL license on Commons

Swept in from the pub

This has been posted here because your wiki allows local file uploads. Please help translate to your language.

Commons will no longer allow uploads of photos, paintings, drawings, audio and video that use the GFDL license and no other license. This starts after 14 October. Textbooks, manuals and logos, diagrams and screenshots from GFDL software manuals that only use the GFDL license are still allowed. Files licensed with both GFDL and an accepted license like Creative Commons BY-SA are still allowed.

There is no time limit to move files from other projects to Commons. The licensing date is all that counts. It doesn't matter when the file was uploaded or created. Every wiki that allows local uploads should check if bots, scripts and templates that are used to move files to Commons need to be updated. Also update your local policy documentation if needed.

The decision to allow files that only have a GFDL license, or not allow them, is a decision all wikis can make for themselves. Your wiki can decide to continue allowing the files that Commons will no longer allow after 14 October. If your wiki decides to continue to allow files after 14 October that Commons will no longer allow those files should not be moved to Commons. — Alexis Jazz, distributed by Johan using MassMessage

18:11, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

GFDL is not one of the standard license types available on our upload page, so new uploads are unlikely to be a problem.

However I am concerned that this may stop the crop tool being used on GFDL images which are currently on commons. I regularly use the crop tool to create pagebanners. It isn't a problem if it uses the date on the original file, but it is a problem if commons sees a crop as a new upload with today's date. AlasdairW (talk) 21:34, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, do you have any information about simple modifications of GFDL-licensed images? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:45, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Cropping does not create new copyright, so no worries there. Some basic retouching, brightness adjustment or rotation doesn't create new copyright either. Alexis Jazz (talk) 17:11, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Livermore, CA

Continuation from Talk:Tabaco

Back when I was a newbie here, I didn't understand the copyleft very well. See here, just see the edit summary. I copied content from the LARPD (Livermore Parks District) website, but it was not with a Creative Commons license. After I did this copyvio, some revisions were made to the article (maybe 20+), and then I reverted my copyvio.

Basically, every revision between the copyvio and copyvio revert ought to be hidden. But at least one of the reversions between the copyvio and copyvio revert copies text from Wikipedia, legally. What should be done? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:16, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I think having copyvios in the history are usually not worth deleting. People copying our text will probably use the current version, not a version in history (unless possibly if the current version is significantly shorter). The copied text is available on the original website, so those who do not care about licences can get it from there more easily. As revision deleting copyvios that have gone undetected for some time is awkward (because of them having got mixed up with new content), people understanding the workings of the site should not depend on old versions being free. The copyvio is not about outstanding prose, so nobody should really care. Revision delete if the rights owners demand it, but otherwise just rewrite (which I suppose was done) and leave it at that. --LPfi (talk) 09:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Copyvio warnings?

Swept in from the pub

I had just read voy:fr:Discussion utilisateur:Luchy04, which led me to question whether we should have some sort of copyvio templates. Wikivoyage:Deny recognition won't work here, because we want the contributor to not copy from other sources, so I was maybe thinking Wikipedia style warning boxes? It doesn't work all the time (as with Luchy04) but it may help with new contributors copying from external sites. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I've created one: {{Copyvio-1}}. For those who want to see how it'll turn out. The warning is mostly just a translation of one of User:Omondi's warnings. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:17, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Or, something less fancy (i.e. without the border) to go with the likes of {{welcome}} {{tout}}? I fiddled with the wording in your version slightly.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:29, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

The sole reason for the border is to differentiate ourselves from frwikivoyage and enwikipedia and resemble something more like meta. I wonder what eswikivoyage uses since they don't seem to have a deny recognition policy from what I know, unless I haven't searched properly. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:39, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I detest the big warning boxes of Commons, but I haven't made up my mind here.

I think we should be very careful about the wording, as a template will have the same wording everywhere it is used, also in situations different from the typical ones. I note that the current wording may be understood to mean that copying from Wikipedia & al is fine, that any other source isn't (with some confusion on own texts), and a warning that is unjustified if copyright issues are in order, which they may very well be. It also says nothing about our wanting original text, regardless of copyright.

–LPfi (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure this would work. There is a risk, for one, of us becoming like WP, where templates are used to avoid real communication. Impersonal warnings are followed with blocks in a way that could be done by a robot. The response to a copyvio, instead of trying to resolve the individual situation and correct the problem, becomes to add a template. When I received my welcome message here on WV, I ignored it, because I assumed it was automatically added to new users' talk pages and therefore had no relevance to me. Copyvio warnings could take the same route. As each copyvio is different in nature and source, template copyvio warnings would be much worse than welcome messages, which aren't followed by a block.

There's also the concern of too many templates here, and that is valid. WV already has a learning curve due to formatting and template requirements, and I think we need to avoid making the curve even larger, given the challenges faced by new contributors such as from our recent expedition. While good-faith new users eventually learn the policies and guidelines here, we have to draw the line somewhere between no guidelines and too many, and more templates could discourage new users from taking on administrative tasks, which shouldn't be quite the "soulless functionary" roles to which they are sometimes referred, in jest. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

We already can easily post "Please read Wikivoyage:Copyleft" to user talk pages. I oppose the use of this new template and especially dislike the border. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• To quote the “you may be blocked soon” thread over at Commons, “Copyright is complicated. We should treat uploaders according to COM:AGF, recognising that many innocent errors can arise in this. We should work with uploaders to try and resolve these issues. If something needs to be deleted because it's not freely licensable here, then so be it - but we should never turn this into an excuse for witchhunting editors and trying to collect scalps. There are very few times when this template would be justified – this was not one of them, and it's a regular occurence.” (Andy Dingley) --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 20:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

It's a different story on commons, but these warnings are for obvious copyright violators who've just blatantly copied the text off. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:44, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

"Obvious". It is up to the person using the template to judge, and I suppose it will be used when somebody "blatantly" copies their own (or PD) text. Those who do violate copyrights mostly do it because they don't understand copyright law, or are used to copyright law not being something ordinary people have to care about. –LPfi (talk) 06:46, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

That's not always the case though. Luchy04 was blocked on fr.voy for a week for copyvios and yet still continued added copyvios, and they're still doing that on nl.voy now. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:49, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Past research on warning messages (focused on the English Wikipedia) indicates that the more the message appears to be a normal, hand-typed message from a real human, the more effective they are. Fancy boxes get ignored as just something that the website posts automatically.

Also, the text is wrong about copyrights. Copying from Wikipedia to here requires attribution (unless it's something you wrote yourself), but copying from a US government website doesn't.

SHB, you seem to be on a template-creating tear. Why are you doing this? Wikivoyage's goal is having the fewest number of templates. If you haven't already typed a message by hand a dozen times, we probably don't need a template for it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I have typed "Please read Wikivoyage:Copyleft" way more than a dozen times. I could support a template, but we have to be careful about what it says and how it looks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:08, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

See {{Copyvio-1-alt}} for one without the border. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:39, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

So first, the most common plagiarism I see that doesn't just require deletion and an indefinite block is from Wikipedia without credit. Second, though, this doesn't explain how to make copyrighted text available. It's a complex process with important implications for the copyright-holder. So I would support omitting it from any template. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:03, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes. I'd say key is advice on paraphrasing and adapting, to get text without copyright issues and suitable for Wikivoyage. Wikivoyage:Copyleft doesn't say much about that; we might want to create a page to link, which explains that we want text adapted specifically for Wikivoyage, and how to treat usable text from elsewhere. There is some advice spread around, which is valuable but hard to link in a way getting the target audience to read it. –LPfi (talk) 06:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I also think it's important for summarized or paraphrased content from Wikipedia to still be credited in an edit summary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:05, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Reviving the idea of copyright user warning templates

Swept in from the pub

We discussed this matter on Wikivoyage talk:Copyleft#Copyvio warnings?, but I think it's time to revive the concept of this idea. With the recent m:Explore Africa, we've been receiving an influx of copyvios and it's become tedious to try and explain that copying content from other websites is not allowed.

Some of my thoughts on this issue:

• This warning would be written like {{tout}} – it should contain all the links to what is necessary (that may include a link to meta if necessary); this is contrary to Wikipedia's four-strike-like system of warnings with disruptive editing.
• So just like we'd place {{tout}} when a user touts, {{uw-copyvio}} (if that's what we're going to call it) would be placed on their talk page
• This should somewhat take the burden out of trying to explain the seriousness of copyright from all users necessary.

I know that communicating to users in your own words is always better, but things get to a point where it becomes untenable, and I think the time has come for copyright violations. Plus, given the seriousness of copyright violations and the legal implications it could cause, I prefer to be firm and stringent with copyright violators, even if it means losing users or deleting an entire user's work (as we did with Grace789).

Other thoughts? Oh, and if we do go ahead, any ideas on a proposed wording?

--SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 04:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

How many users have you left copyright-related messages for this week? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Timmylegend,Haylad, Bilijin, Godstime Elijah, Ifedohlapo, Hopilo12, Tesleemah:

SHB2000 says we're having problems with people copying and pasting stuff from other websites. Is there a way for you to remind participants about writing in their own words?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Also no offence, but Tesleemah (one of the organisers you pinged) was blocked on this site this time last year for repeated copyright violations and the refusal to cooperate. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 23:17, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

That means we have at least one event organizer who already knows something about the copyright rules here.  :-D WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Not that many, but that's due to laziness of having to type out a customised message for each user (which is tedious). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 23:14, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Customized messages probably work better than boilerplate. I found these three messages about copyvios from you this month. They're great messages. They're very specific, they provide timely and relevant information (e.g., about deletion), they're mostly short (increases the likelihood of being read), they're obviously written by a human instead of automatic posts from a bot, you answer people when they reply – they are, in short, a model for others to follow, and any attempt to turn it into boilerplate will necessarily be worse.

If it were entirely up to me, I'd suggest that you keep doing this awesome job instead of doing a worse job more efficiently. If you would like to consider a half-way approach, have you considered writing out the most common sentences off wiki (e.g., in a Notes app), so you can copy and paste part of it, and customize it as needed? Or bookmarking one of the short messages here, to copy and update as needed for others? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Good idea. I might substitute such a message from my userspace if needed (which I hope I'll never have to do). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:21, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I hope I'm not interrupting the conversation, but I figured I could share my thoughts on this.

I think this is a good idea to introduce. Wikivoyage's policies are in place to ensure that the content on the site is accurate and trustworthy. Copyright violations damage the credibility of this site and undermine the work people have done on this site. Roovinn (talk) 03:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Copyleft trolls?

A Bug in Early Creative Commons Licenses Has Enabled a New Breed of Superpredator Pashley (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

This would seem to imply that WV & Commons should switch to to CC 4.0. Pashley (talk) 00:37, 26 January 2022 (UTC)