Mailing List Archive: Wikipedia: Wikitech

Special:Export with license...

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chuwiey at gmail

May 16, 2008, 8:00 PM

Post #1 of 20 (291 views)
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Special:Export with license...

Hello all,

Seeing as several of the GNU licenses and CC licenses require
attribution, it would stand to reason that Special:Export should have
the option to produce the article with a small attribution.. In the form
of a system message or some other way..

This also makes it easier to export/import pages since you don't need to
go through each imported page and add the attribution.

I've gone ahead and created a small patch for Export.php that enables
the wiki admin to specify whether or not exports should be done with a
license or not ($wgExportWLicense), and also to specify what that
attribution would be ($wgExportLicense). The code checks whether
$wgExportWLicense = True and then adds whatever is in the
$wgExportLicense to the top of the latest revision. The patch is
available on bugzilla as bug 14048
(https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14048).

I realize of course that the best way to do this wouldn't be through a
global var but rather through a system message, however, there are some
questions that need answering before I do that.. that's why I am posting
it to wikitech-l for a discussion on the best way to go about this, and
whether the community thinks this is a good idea..

Things to consider:
1) Whether this should happen to all revisions.. or only the latest
revision?

2) If this should be an admin setting (ie. localsettings) or a setting
the exporting user can select on the special:export page? or both?

3) Should the attribution appear on the top of the page or on the
bottom? (I don't think the attribution should go anywhere else (i.e talk
page) since the GFDL requires the attribution to be on the page itself).

4) Should licensing be added to non-content namespaces? (i.e templates,
talk pages, images, categories etc..) - my view on this is yes, they are
all licensed under the site license anyway..

Thanks,

Ben / Wiredtape

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beesley at gmail

May 16, 2008, 9:57 PM

Post #2 of 20 (279 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> 3) Should the attribution appear on the top of the page or on the
> bottom? (I don't think the attribution should go anywhere else (i.e talk
> page) since the GFDL requires the attribution to be on the page itself).

Isn't the attribution only required in the "history" section, not on
the page itself? If that's the case, you could simply adapt
Special:Export to have a link in the page history to the author on the
original wiki rather than a link to a user account that may or may not
exist and may or may not be the correct person on the current wiki.

Like this, but with the links actually going to Wikipedia rather than
being a pseudo-account:
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Simetrical&action=history

Angela

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chuwiey at gmail

May 17, 2008, 6:50 AM

Post #3 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Angela wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>> 3) Should the attribution appear on the top of the page or on the
>> bottom? (I don't think the attribution should go anywhere else (i.e talk
>> page) since the GFDL requires the attribution to be on the page itself).
>
> Isn't the attribution only required in the "history" section, not on
> the page itself? If that's the case, you could simply adapt
> Special:Export to have a link in the page history to the author on the
> original wiki rather than a link to a user account that may or may not
> exist and may or may not be the correct person on the current wiki.
>
> Like this, but with the links actually going to Wikipedia rather than
> being a pseudo-account:
> http://scratchpad.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Simetrical&action=history
>
> Angela

Actually, attribution as far as I understand it talks about two things:
1) Linking back to the original document from which you took the text..
(i.e any import must contain a link back to the original document)
2) There needs to be attribution to the people who wrote the article,
however, I think once you link back to the original document and the
list exists there, then you have fulfilled this requirement.

Specifically about your suggestion: I'm not so sure that having a link
back to the latest revision writer (in the original wiki) fulfills the
requirement of attribution, especially since a current revision usually
includes info from several contributors...

-Wiredtape

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cbrown1023.ml at gmail

May 17, 2008, 7:02 AM

Post #4 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 9:50 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> Specifically about your suggestion: I'm not so sure that having a link
> back to the latest revision writer (in the original wiki) fulfills the
> requirement of attribution, especially since a current revision usually
> includes info from several contributors...
>

She didn't say "only the latest revision writer" and if you look at
the link she gave you, you can see that it includes all of the
authors.

--
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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May 17, 2008, 7:11 AM

Post #5 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 11:00 PM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> Seeing as several of the GNU licenses and CC licenses require
> attribution, it would stand to reason that Special:Export should have
> the option to produce the article with a small attribution.. In the form
> of a system message or some other way..
>
Is there an example of how this would work? I like the idea a lot,
but it's highly dependent on the implementation.

In any case, is there currently an easy method to get a list of all
authors of a particular article? That alone would greatly simplify
complying with the license during the export/import process.

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chuwiey at gmail

May 17, 2008, 7:21 AM

Post #6 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Casey Brown wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 9:50 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>> Specifically about your suggestion: I'm not so sure that having a link
>> back to the latest revision writer (in the original wiki) fulfills the
>> requirement of attribution, especially since a current revision usually
>> includes info from several contributors...
>>
>
> She didn't say "only the latest revision writer" and if you look at
> the link she gave you, you can see that it includes all of the
> authors.
>

I understand.. I was referring to what it would like on the importers
wiki, and whether that complies to the license.. specifically since
someone might import without the complete history (latest rev) - then if
someone were looking at the history of the page, they would see only one
user and link to the original history. True, once clicked, that link
would take them to the history of the page, however, I'm not sure that
complies with the attribution, but it might.

More specifically, I don't know if including the attribution only in the
history fulfills the license terms as well.. As far as I can tell, it
requires that you link back to the original document (and specific
revision) you imported/copied from..

-Wiredtape

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chuwiey at gmail

May 17, 2008, 7:22 AM

Post #7 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Anthony wrote:
> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 11:00 PM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seeing as several of the GNU licenses and CC licenses require
>> attribution, it would stand to reason that Special:Export should have
>> the option to produce the article with a small attribution.. In the form
>> of a system message or some other way..
>>
> Is there an example of how this would work? I like the idea a lot,
> but it's highly dependent on the implementation.
>
> In any case, is there currently an easy method to get a list of all
> authors of a particular article? That alone would greatly simplify
> complying with the license during the export/import process.

Well, I don't know about getting a list of all authors, but my patch in
bug 14048, does allow you to display an export license for any exported
document... which I think fulfills the requirements of the GFDL...

-Wiredtape

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May 17, 2008, 7:46 AM

Post #8 of 20 (275 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> More specifically, I don't know if including the attribution only in the
> history fulfills the license terms as well.. As far as I can tell, it
> requires that you link back to the original document (and specific
> revision) you imported/copied from..
>
The GFDL doesn't say that. It says you have to preserve any link to
the document, but it doesn't say you have to add one if one doesn't
already exist.

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chuwiey at gmail

May 17, 2008, 8:10 AM

Post #9 of 20 (275 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Anthony wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>> More specifically, I don't know if including the attribution only in the
>> history fulfills the license terms as well.. As far as I can tell, it
>> requires that you link back to the original document (and specific
>> revision) you imported/copied from..
>>
> The GFDL doesn't say that. It says you have to preserve any link to
> the document, but it doesn't say you have to add one if one doesn't
> already exist.

Really? I was sure that it required linking back to the source.. I based
this on: "and must acknowledge the main authors (which some claim can be
accomplished with a link back to that article on Wikipedia)" found in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#License

-Wiredtape

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May 17, 2008, 9:26 AM

Post #10 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>>> More specifically, I don't know if including the attribution only in the
>>> history fulfills the license terms as well.. As far as I can tell, it
>>> requires that you link back to the original document (and specific
>>> revision) you imported/copied from..
>>>
>> The GFDL doesn't say that. It says you have to preserve any link to
>> the document, but it doesn't say you have to add one if one doesn't
>> already exist.
>
> Really? I was sure that it required linking back to the source.. I based
> this on: "and must acknowledge the main authors (which some claim can be
> accomplished with a link back to that article on Wikipedia)" found in:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#License
>
I'd say "some claim" is the operative phrase in that sentence. In any
case, even that sentence doesn't say that you must link back to the
article. It says that some claim you can satisfy the acknowledgment
clause by linking back to the article.

For me there are two major problems with that claim. 1) The GFDL
doesn't say that; and 2) What if the original article gets deleted?
I'd much rather have a convenient way to download the list of authors.
Then I could just add a section at the bottom:

==History==
*[url title], From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, by authors

See, for instance,
http://wiki.p2pedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nibart-Devouard (and if I could
somehow automatically extract all the authors of a particular
*section* of an article, it'd be even better).

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chuwiey at gmail

May 17, 2008, 9:44 AM

Post #11 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Anthony wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anthony wrote:
>>> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> More specifically, I don't know if including the attribution only in the
>>>> history fulfills the license terms as well.. As far as I can tell, it
>>>> requires that you link back to the original document (and specific
>>>> revision) you imported/copied from..
>>>>
>>> The GFDL doesn't say that. It says you have to preserve any link to
>>> the document, but it doesn't say you have to add one if one doesn't
>>> already exist.
>> Really? I was sure that it required linking back to the source.. I based
>> this on: "and must acknowledge the main authors (which some claim can be
>> accomplished with a link back to that article on Wikipedia)" found in:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#License
>>
> I'd say "some claim" is the operative phrase in that sentence. In any
> case, even that sentence doesn't say that you must link back to the
> article. It says that some claim you can satisfy the acknowledgment
> clause by linking back to the article.
>
> For me there are two major problems with that claim. 1) The GFDL
> doesn't say that; and 2) What if the original article gets deleted?
> I'd much rather have a convenient way to download the list of authors.
> Then I could just add a section at the bottom:
>
> ==History==
> *[url title], From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, by authors
>
> See, for instance,
> http://wiki.p2pedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nibart-Devouard (and if I could
> somehow automatically extract all the authors of a particular
> *section* of an article, it'd be even better).

Agreed, however, right now i don't know if its possible to pull the list
of all the users.. (probably could be done.. ) but it's rather easy to
implement what angela suggested per revision.. so essentialy you would
have the history list.. and adding the : ==history== section is even
easier (with a link back to the history page in the authors word).. the
question is, which one to go for?

-Wiredtape

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May 17, 2008, 10:09 AM

Post #12 of 20 (274 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Ben <chuwiey[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> however, right now i don't know if its possible to pull the list
> of all the users.. (probably could be done.. ) but it's rather easy to
> implement what angela suggested per revision.. so essentialy you would
> have the history list.. and adding the : ==history== section is even
> easier (with a link back to the history page in the authors word).. the
> question is, which one to go for?
>
Maybe this could be part of the *import* function rather than the
export function. Then the importer can decide for herself which
method to use. Personally I'd prefer adding the ==History== section.
It's more compact, more useful, takes up less disk space, uses less
bandwidth, and in my opinion it follows more closely with the
requirements of the GFDL.

Along those lines, I've been meaning to hack up an import by url
feature, similar to the upload by url feature.

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Platonides at gmail

May 17, 2008, 1:16 PM

Post #13 of 20 (264 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Ben wrote:
> Well, I don't know about getting a list of all authors, but my patch in
> bug 14048, does allow you to display an export license for any exported
> document... which I think fulfills the requirements of the GFDL...
>
> -Wiredtape

Back to the original message, i don't like how you do it. You're
modifying the latest to prepend the License. That is intrusive and
breaks the attribution (latest editor appears as if he had added the
license text).
IMHO the right way would be to add into the XML a section like
<license>
<name>GFDL</name>
<version>1.2</version>
<url>http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html</url>
<text>The GNU Documentation License and so on...</text>
</license>

Name: License identifier.
Version: Version license.
Url: A link to the license content (if you don't want the whole text to
be included).
Text: License content (to provide the license text, or if you're using a
non-standard license).

Then the import feature would do something from it, such as storing the
license along the page (for wikis where pages can have different
licensing conditions, eg. Citizendium) or simply accept/reject the
import based on several compatibility rules ("Sorry, this wiki is GFDL
and you're trying to import Cc-by-sa content. These licenses are not
compatible.").

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chuwiey at gmail

May 19, 2008, 1:27 PM

Post #14 of 20 (230 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Platonides wrote:
> Ben wrote:
>> Well, I don't know about getting a list of all authors, but my patch in
>> bug 14048, does allow you to display an export license for any exported
>> document... which I think fulfills the requirements of the GFDL...
>>
>> -Wiredtape
>
> Back to the original message, i don't like how you do it. You're
> modifying the latest to prepend the License. That is intrusive and
> breaks the attribution (latest editor appears as if he had added the
> license text).
> IMHO the right way would be to add into the XML a section like
> <license>
> <name>GFDL</name>
> <version>1.2</version>
> <url>http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html</url>
> <text>The GNU Documentation License and so on...</text>
> </license>
>
> Name: License identifier.
> Version: Version license.
> Url: A link to the license content (if you don't want the whole text to
> be included).
> Text: License content (to provide the license text, or if you're using a
> non-standard license).
>
> Then the import feature would do something from it, such as storing the
> license along the page (for wikis where pages can have different
> licensing conditions, eg. Citizendium) or simply accept/reject the
> import based on several compatibility rules ("Sorry, this wiki is GFDL
> and you're trying to import Cc-by-sa content. These licenses are not
> compatible.").

I like your approach... I think this would be the best way to go about
it.. and perhaps add a small licensing box at the end of an article
(which was successfully imported) like that of categories.

The question, going back to the comments that were made, is if there
should be an additional section for original content contributors..

<license>
<name>GFDL</name>
<version>1.2</version>
<url>...</url>
<text>...</text>
<original>Copied from *articlelink* and was written by *link to
original article history* </original>
</license>

This might make it easier down the road for importing pictures as well..

-Wiredtape

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Platonides at gmail

May 19, 2008, 2:31 PM

Post #15 of 20 (229 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Ben wrote:
> The question, going back to the comments that were made, is if there
> should be an additional section for original content contributors..
>
> <license>
> <name>GFDL</name>
> <version>1.2</version>
> <url>...</url>
> <text>...</text>
> <original>Copied from *articlelink* and was written by *link to
> original article history* </original>
> </license>
>
> This might make it easier down the road for importing pictures as well..
>
> -Wiredtape

The link to the original would be nice :)
But i'm not sure about the best way to fit it into multiarticle exports.
Probably we should restrict to the original site.

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chuwiey at gmail

May 20, 2008, 1:17 PM

Post #16 of 20 (219 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Platonides wrote:
> Ben wrote:
>> The question, going back to the comments that were made, is if there
>> should be an additional section for original content contributors..
>>
>> <license>
>> <name>GFDL</name>
>> <version>1.2</version>
>> <url>...</url>
>> <text>...</text>
>> <original>Copied from *articlelink* and was written by *link to
>> original article history* </original>
>> </license>
>>
>> This might make it easier down the road for importing pictures as well..
>>
>> -Wiredtape
>
> The link to the original would be nice :)
> But i'm not sure about the best way to fit it into multiarticle exports.
> Probably we should restrict to the original site.

By multiarticle exports do you mean articles that were copied from
multiple resources? or what exactly?

-Wiredtape

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roan.kattouw at home

May 20, 2008, 1:19 PM

Post #17 of 20 (220 views)
Permalink

Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Ben schreef:
> By multiarticle exports do you mean articles that were copied from
> multiple resources? or what exactly?
>
>
No, he simply means exporting multiple articles, who of course have a
different set of authors.

Roan Kattouw (Catrope)

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rolf.lampa at rilnet

May 21, 2008, 8:21 AM

Post #18 of 20 (207 views)
Permalink

Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Ben skrev:
> Hello all,
>
> Seeing as several of the GNU licenses and CC licenses require
> attribution, it would stand to reason that Special:Export should have
> the option to produce the article with a small attribution.. In the form
> of a system message or some other way..

Why not stamp each article with a template, like so:

{{export attribution wpen|{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{REVISIONID}}}}

At the end of the xml export list you append the template. In this way you can
even "update" already existing references back to WP in the mirror database...

Different template names ("wpen", "wpsv" etc) in different wikis would point
the references to the correct domain - article - revision.

The template could present a link to the (latest) article, the revision AND the
history page. And whatever.

// Rolf Lampa

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May 21, 2008, 8:22 AM

Post #19 of 20 (207 views)
Permalink

Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Rolf Lampa schreef:
> Ben skrev:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Seeing as several of the GNU licenses and CC licenses require
>> attribution, it would stand to reason that Special:Export should have
>> the option to produce the article with a small attribution.. In the form
>> of a system message or some other way..
>>
>
> Why not stamp each article with a template, like so:
>
> {{export attribution wpen|{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{REVISIONID}}}}
>
Templates are more than capable of using {{FULLPAGENAME}} and
{{REVISIONID}} themselves, you don't need to pass those as parameters.

Roan Kattouw (Catrope)

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rolf.lampa at rilnet

May 21, 2008, 9:03 AM

Post #20 of 20 (204 views)
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Re: Special:Export with license... [In reply to]

Roan Kattouw wrote:
> Rolf Lampa wrote:

>> Why not stamp each article with a template, like so:
>>
>> {{export attribution wpen|{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{REVISIONID}}}}
>>
> Templates are more than capable of using {{FULLPAGENAME}} and
> {{REVISIONID}} themselves, you don't need to pass those as parameters.

Ah, of course yes.

// Rolf Lampa

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