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Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

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phoebe.wiki at gmail

Apr 24, 2008, 11:08 AM

Post #51 of 61 (1553 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:06 AM, Mary Murrell <mary_murrell[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd like to see a book publishing contract that is committed to GFDL. Does anyone have one they could share?

"How Wikipedia Works," a book about using and contributing to the
English Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects by myself
(en:user:phoebe), Charles Matthews (en:user:Charles Matthews) and Ben
Yates (en:user:Tlogmer) is due to be published this spring/early
summer by No Starch Press under the GFDL. More details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe/book

[[No Starch]] is a small technical press based in San Francisco; they
have typically published books about Linux and other open source
software. Their books are distributed by O'Reilly, so you'll see them
in lots of shops, and they are typically very high quality. We had
some negotiation about what license to use; and agreed that for a book
about Wikipedia, maintaining GFDL-compatibility would be important.
(Unfortunately, CC license compatibility still seems a bit far off for
this project).

It's a risk for the publisher to take -- they are putting in lots of
editing time on our manuscript, and obviously the license means others
could reprint that text. Nonetheless, they are enthusiastic about
supporting open content and free culture, and (regardless of how our
book turns out) they should be commended for that.

In the meantime, I am struggling with the details of adhering to the
letter of the GFDL -- because there is little precedent we are having
to work things out as we go. Someday, I would love to see a "dummy's
guide to publishing under a free content license" -- half of the
problem of using many licenses, even CC, is they're hard to figure out
for the average person.

best,
Phoebe Ayers

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 24, 2008, 11:53 AM

Post #52 of 61 (1556 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/24 phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki[at]gmail.com>:

[What a strange attribution line Gmail has taken to.]

> In the meantime, I am struggling with the details of adhering to the
> letter of the GFDL -- because there is little precedent we are having
> to work things out as we go. Someday, I would love to see a "dummy's
> guide to publishing under a free content license" -- half of the
> problem of using many licenses, even CC, is they're hard to figure out
> for the average person.

Has anyone *ever* gotten an answer from licensing[at]fsf.org regarding a
GFDL question that is more helpful than a Magic 8-Ball? "Reply hazy,
try again later, ask your own lawyer."

- d.

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geo.plrd at yahoo

Apr 26, 2008, 12:14 AM

Post #53 of 61 (1542 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

Out of curiosity, how many pages would it take to package the English Wikipedia?

----- Original Message ----
From: David Gerard <dgerard[at]gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:03:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

On 23/04/2008, Andre Engels <andreengels[at]gmail.com> wrote:

> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.

A well-formed English Wikipedia article - and evidently a German
Wikipedia one too - should have a lead summary section that
constitutes an informative short article in itself, and be written as
an inverted pyramid. The first sentence should be informative and
standalone, the first paragraph should be informative and standalone,
the intro as a unit should be informative and standalone. See
[[:en:WP:LEAD]].

So it's not as good as having the whole thing right there, but it
supplies more information than none for someone who wants the
ten-second summary. A book of those could be quite useful.

And it comes with a free website you can go to for expanded versions
once you know you want one ;-)

- d.

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oldakquill at gmail

Apr 26, 2008, 1:50 AM

Post #54 of 61 (1548 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/26 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd[at]yahoo.com>:
> Out of curiosity, how many pages would it take to package the English Wikipedia?

In its entirety?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg
:

"Using volumes 25cm high and 5cm thick (some 400 pages), each page
having two columns, each columns having 80 rows, and each row having
50 characters, ≈ 6MB per volume. As English Wikipedia has around 7.5GB
of text (August 2007, length of wikitext counted by myself) ≈ 1250
volumes. Note that this is a conservative estimate, as it doesn't
include images, tables etc. which take up more surface than the text
which describes them."

Using pages with dimensions described here; 400 pages x 1250 volumes =
500 000 pages of text in August 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes uses another
method to calculate size in volumes, using a live measure of size, and
arrives at "equivalen[ce] to 766 volumes of the Encyclopædia
Britannica". 500 x 766 = 383 000
Britannica-sized leaves. Again, this seems to ignore images, tables, &c.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill[at]gmail.com)
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oldakquill at gmail

Apr 26, 2008, 1:55 AM

Post #55 of 61 (1539 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/26 Oldak Quill <oldakquill[at]gmail.com>:
> 2008/4/26 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd[at]yahoo.com>:
>
> > Out of curiosity, how many pages would it take to package the English Wikipedia?
>
> In its entirety?
>
> From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg
> :
>
> "Using volumes 25cm high and 5cm thick (some 400 pages), each page
> having two columns, each columns having 80 rows, and each row having
> 50 characters, ≈ 6MB per volume. As English Wikipedia has around 7.5GB
> of text (August 2007, length of wikitext counted by myself) ≈ 1250
> volumes. Note that this is a conservative estimate, as it doesn't
> include images, tables etc. which take up more surface than the text
> which describes them."
>
> Using pages with dimensions described here; 400 pages x 1250 volumes =
> 500 000 pages of text in August 2007.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes uses another
> method to calculate size in volumes, using a live measure of size, and
> arrives at "equivalen[ce] to 766 volumes of the Encyclopædia
> Britannica". 500 x 766 = 383 000
> Britannica-sized leaves. Again, this seems to ignore images, tables, &c.

By strange coincidence, when I sent this message, my e-mail inbox
contained exactly 766 unread conversations.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill[at]gmail.com)
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cbrown1023.ml at gmail

Apr 26, 2008, 3:13 PM

Post #56 of 61 (1536 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

However, the thing to keep in mind is that this is most certainly not
*all* of the German Wikipedia... it is just a part of it with selected
articles, much like <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:0.5>.

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 3:14 AM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
> Out of curiosity, how many pages would it take to package the English Wikipedia?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Gerard <dgerard[at]gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:03:12 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"
>
> On 23/04/2008, Andre Engels <andreengels[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> > taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> > anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> > feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> > be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> > are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> > reduced to one-paragraph stubs.
>
>
> A well-formed English Wikipedia article - and evidently a German
> Wikipedia one too - should have a lead summary section that
> constitutes an informative short article in itself, and be written as
> an inverted pyramid. The first sentence should be informative and
> standalone, the first paragraph should be informative and standalone,
> the intro as a unit should be informative and standalone. See
> [[:en:WP:LEAD]].
>
> So it's not as good as having the whole thing right there, but it
> supplies more information than none for someone who wants the
> ten-second summary. A book of those could be quite useful.
>
> And it comes with a free website you can go to for expanded versions
> once you know you want one ;-)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
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>
>
>
>
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Cbrown1023

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geo.plrd at yahoo

Apr 26, 2008, 7:31 PM

Post #57 of 61 (1536 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

So then a english print version would have to be restricted down to absolutely essential information?

----- Original Message ----
From: Oldak Quill <oldakquill[at]gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 1:55:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

2008/4/26 Oldak Quill <oldakquill[at]gmail.com>:
> 2008/4/26 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd[at]yahoo.com>:
>
> > Out of curiosity, how many pages would it take to package the English Wikipedia?
>
> In its entirety?
>
> From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_in_August_2007.svg
> :
>
> "Using volumes 25cm high and 5cm thick (some 400 pages), each page
> having two columns, each columns having 80 rows, and each row having
> 50 characters, ≈ 6MB per volume. As English Wikipedia has around 7.5GB
> of text (August 2007, length of wikitext counted by myself) ≈ 1250
> volumes. Note that this is a conservative estimate, as it doesn't
> include images, tables etc. which take up more surface than the text
> which describes them."
>
> Using pages with dimensions described here; 400 pages x 1250 volumes =
> 500 000 pages of text in August 2007.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes uses another
> method to calculate size in volumes, using a live measure of size, and
> arrives at "equivalen[ce] to 766 volumes of the Encyclopædia
> Britannica". 500 x 766 = 383 000
> Britannica-sized leaves. Again, this seems to ignore images, tables, &c.

By strange coincidence, when I sent this message, my e-mail inbox
contained exactly 766 unread conversations.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill[at]gmail.com)
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____________________________________________________________________________________
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magnusmanske at googlemail

Apr 27, 2008, 2:43 PM

Post #58 of 61 (1604 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:31 AM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
> So then a english print version would have to be restricted down to absolutely essential information?

I wonder if we can squeeze all the Pokemon articles into 1000 pages...

[ducks]

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oldakquill at gmail

Apr 28, 2008, 1:47 AM

Post #59 of 61 (1544 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/28 Aphaia <aphaia[at]gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:44 AM, Waerth <waerth[at]asianet.co.th> wrote:
> > Look at it from another side. A Pokemon encyclopedia might bring in a
> > lot more money than a serious one!
>
> But is it worth to make a deal with Nintendo, even their Seattle
> headquarters (not in Kyoto), and pass their quality control check
> (they are very keen to keep quality of derivatives, seeing the Atari
> shock impact in '80s) and pay them loyalties? IMHO it would not the
> best way of using Foundation staff's energy ... Even it may bring a
> lot of money, it would better to be done with a third party.

Since Wikipedia is largely run by volunteers, why not make it a
volunteer effort? I have no interest in Pokemon, but would happily
help compile a Pokemon encyclopedia to be published if it were to
raise funds for Wikimedia Foundation. I'm sure there are many other
Wikipedians, Pokemon fans or not, who would also help with such an
effort (or similar efforts).

Some Wikimedia Foundation staff time would be necessary to OK the
project with Nintendo, to seek trademark usage rights, to supply
Nintendo with drafts of the project and to act as general liaison
between Wikipedia and Nintendo. Even so, I don't think this would be a
massive drain on Wikimedia Foundation resources, and in light of the
funds the project hopes to source for the Wikimedia Foundation, I
think it would be worth it.

What's more, I'm only using Pokemon as an example here - there are
many potential projects that could do the same thing: fictional
worlds, special-interest areas (stamps, trains, planes, WWII info...),
&c.

--
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magnusmanske at googlemail

Apr 28, 2008, 2:49 AM

Post #60 of 61 (1529 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 9:47 AM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/4/28 Aphaia <aphaia[at]gmail.com>:
>
> > On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:44 AM, Waerth <waerth[at]asianet.co.th> wrote:
> > > Look at it from another side. A Pokemon encyclopedia might bring in a
> > > lot more money than a serious one!
> >
> > But is it worth to make a deal with Nintendo, even their Seattle
> > headquarters (not in Kyoto), and pass their quality control check
> > (they are very keen to keep quality of derivatives, seeing the Atari
> > shock impact in '80s) and pay them loyalties? IMHO it would not the
> > best way of using Foundation staff's energy ... Even it may bring a
> > lot of money, it would better to be done with a third party.
>
> Since Wikipedia is largely run by volunteers, why not make it a
> volunteer effort? I have no interest in Pokemon, but would happily
> help compile a Pokemon encyclopedia to be published if it were to
> raise funds for Wikimedia Foundation. I'm sure there are many other
> Wikipedians, Pokemon fans or not, who would also help with such an
> effort (or similar efforts).
>
> Some Wikimedia Foundation staff time would be necessary to OK the
> project with Nintendo, to seek trademark usage rights, to supply
> Nintendo with drafts of the project and to act as general liaison
> between Wikipedia and Nintendo. Even so, I don't think this would be a
> massive drain on Wikimedia Foundation resources, and in light of the
> funds the project hopes to source for the Wikimedia Foundation, I
> think it would be worth it.
>
> What's more, I'm only using Pokemon as an example here - there are
> many potential projects that could do the same thing: fictional
> worlds, special-interest areas (stamps, trains, planes, WWII info...),
> &c.

I'd volunteer my Wiki2XML script to compile a book as DocBook, ODF, or
something, at least to get an impression of what it might look like
during creation.

That said, I don't think a WWII book (for example) would be a success
- there's enough of that around. Finding a cool, interesting topic
that
* includes lots of (good) Wikipedia articles
* hasn't been covered by thousands of "experts" already
is the real first challange IMHO.

Then, who'd publish it? A group of users could easily put a PDF on
lulu.com and pay for an ISBN, but would this group be liable for
copyright infrigment if it is discovered after the book has been
printed 10K times?

Magnus

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 28, 2008, 2:53 AM

Post #61 of 61 (1522 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/28 Magnus Manske <magnusmanske[at]googlemail.com>:

> That said, I don't think a WWII book (for example) would be a success
> - there's enough of that around. Finding a cool, interesting topic
> that
> * includes lots of (good) Wikipedia articles
> * hasn't been covered by thousands of "experts" already
> is the real first challange IMHO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles

That's a book waiting to happen!

> Then, who'd publish it? A group of users could easily put a PDF on
> lulu.com and pay for an ISBN, but would this group be liable for
> copyright infrigment if it is discovered after the book has been
> printed 10K times?

That's why doing it through a commercial publisher and licensing the
name and puzzle globe would be a suitable way of doing it :-)

- d.

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