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  • From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj AT gmail.com>
  • To: Chitu Okoli <Chitu.Okoli AT concordia.ca>
  • Cc: "AcaWiki general \(listserv\)" <acawiki-general AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [acawiki-general] Proposal: AcaWiki to BY-SA
  • Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 19:01:04 -0500

The right software solution is to also add a user pref that lets you set your default license pref.  (including 0, BY, SA).  Yes, we could have an "SA troll" who comes by and edits all pages once with minor edits to set their license; yes, flagged revs would catch this.  But even if this happens via "real" edits, it would satisfy me: the default editor who flies by, posts a few summaries, and leaves, will have their initial contribution available in history under BY. 

And it lets me contribute my own work under [BY] in a much more recognizable way than by posting to a SA-only site and having an impossible-to-find personal subpage noting "all my contributions are also available under CC-0".  

Warmly,
SJ


On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Chitu Okoli <Chitu.Okoli AT concordia.ca> wrote:
I reorganized the wiki according to SJ's recommendation, and added his recent comments.

In addition, I made the following proposal for implementing SJ's "Default BY, opt-in BY-SA" option:
  1. A new SMW property "License" will be created.
  2. All existing articles will be filled in with the default value "BY".
  3. In the page edit view, users will be given the option to set the license for each edit they contribute.
  4. The default value for all new edits will be "BY".
  5. Users will have the option to set the license for their edit to "BY-SA". There might be a brief text encouraging BY contributions, but requiring BY-SA in the case of incorporating BY-SA content.
  6. If a user sets their edit to "BY-SA", then that article's license will switch irrevocably to "BY-SA"; no editing of the license property will henceforth be permitted (except perhaps by an administrator or bureaucrat)--this could be perhaps enforced with a protected template.
  7. Perhaps creating a BY-SA article can be done by anyone, but switching license for an existing article from BY to BY-SA would be a flagged revision requiring verification by an administrator.
 ~ Chitu
22 février 2013 16:07
+1 to SJ's proposal. -Jodi

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj AT gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
The whole point of BY is to make reuse easier, especially in the far future.  SA bodies of work slowly grow year by year, making everything that touches or interoperates with them SA.  If you want abstracts and summaries in general to be BY - and they will of course build on one another, use the same templates and formats, merge and split - you have to build a primarily-BY repository.  

I see two kinds of reusers:
a) casual reusers who can't be arsed to figure out copyright details, and
b) other archives / scripted knowledge-mining reusers, looking for comprehensive sources for other large-scope projects.

For the first group, the reuse page can start with the sentence
"You can use any material from this site under a BY-SA license."

For the second group, we should generate as much CC-BY material as possible, since that material will be much more broadly reusable in any complex multi-element derivative.  For them, it can say

"Some material is also available for use under CC-BY: for details see <copyrights page>"

To really be a good archive, it would also say
"Some material such as categories and other metadata are available under CC-0; for details see <c. p.>"

 
21 février 2013 22:19
I hope SJ doesn't mind, but I added his variation to the wiki discussion: http://acawiki.org/AcaWiki:License_change_proposal. I also I added my comment to it: I think this variation would be too confusing and burdensome on reusers--they would have to dig through and interpret history pages to verify the correct license that applies to the current version.

I apologize for arguing so strongly, since I'm a newcomer, but this point has really always kept me from getting more involved with AcaWiki. (Please note that I tend to agree with SJ that CC-0 is even better than CC-BY for some use cases--open data comes to mind--but I personally don't think it is the best license for a resource like AcaWiki.) I could offer an alternate proposal that could possibly permit both BY and BY-SA versions of articles in a simpler format, but before I do that, I would really like to see some more compelling reasons given in support of CC-BY for AcaWiki.

I seem to remember a discussion or mention or implication some time back that CC-BY would facilitate widespread public dissemination of AcaWiki summaries. Other than reuse on CC-BY-SA sites like Wikimedia, are there other examples where AcaWiki summaries have been used in outlets that make scholarly research more visible and accessible to the general public? I really don't know, so I'm sincerely asking.

I remember observing many years ago the discussion that went behind the licensing of WikiNews, which I believe is the only Wikimedia project that is not licensed CC-BY-SA (I might be mistaken, though). It was originally public domain, and is now CC-BY. The main reason for the decision was to facilitate widespread dissemination and reuse of the articles. I really don't know for sure, but it is my impression that although the project maintains a very active group of contributors, its goal of having its articles widely disseminated has never been realized.

Are there other reasons for keeping AcaWiki CC-BY? I ask this with a genuine desire to learn, as I'm new here and I only know bits and pieces of the history.

~ Chitu

21 février 2013 17:31
I support a variation on this theme:

State that Acawiki will not add any licensing restrictions that included or transwikied material doesn't require. 

So: Any page that is solely the work of its acawiki author would be CC-BY.  Pages that incorporate CC-SA material would become CC-SA.

It is always safe to use material you find on Acawiki under CC-SA restrictions; but if you confirm that it was purely the result of edits on Acawiki, you can use it under CC-BY.

SJ

* CC-0 is actually my license of choice.  CC-BY is second best.  I don't want to conflate the two points by bringing up the BY-vs-0 discussion here.





--
Samuel Klein          @metasj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266
20 février 2013 22:59
Thanks, Mike! On the page you created, I started a list of some sites I'm aware of with BY-SA academic summaries (though many of them might not quite fit AcaWiki's standards). Hopefully, others can add to the list.

I should probably disclose now that I have two websites (which I added to the list) that have a bunch of summaries which I really hope could find a permanent home on AcaWiki. As I said, though, I'm not sure if their formats quite fit.

~ Chitu

20 février 2013 22:24


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Samuel Klein          @metasj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266



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