CZ Talk:Reusing Citizendium Content

This page was first created and discussed in this forum thread. --Warren Schudy 09:02, 4 January 2008 (CST)

Notes

Removed "approximately 15% of its total corpus." This number is likely to change, and whatever we write should be extensible. (I thought it was much higher, besides.)

"While anyone anywhere may reuse CC-by-sa and GFDL texts, within certain conditions, the two may not be intermixed...yet." This is just false. (We intermix them.)

I think whoever wrote interpreted "intermix" as mixing them within one article, whereas you've interpreted it as mixing them within one encyclopedia. Warren Schudy 10:00, 5 January 2008 (CST)

The Q&A format is a bit constraining...

If you're going to make a {{cz}} template for the use of reusers, please rename it (and delete {{cz}}) to {{cz-gfdl}}, and then also create a similar {{cz-ccbysa}} template.

What's the use of the cz-ccbysa template since they aren't allowed to import cz-ccbysa material? Warren Schudy 10:00, 5 January 2008 (CST)

This whole article should actually live at CZ:Reusing Citizendium Content and should not be titled so that it specifically concerns Wikipedia. --Larry Sanger 08:54, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Purpose of page?

Now that I've included text from the license essay on CZ:License (I asked someone to do this and thought it was already done, but apparently not), my question to those of you working on this page is: what exactly is the purpose of this page? Is it an "instruction page" that just necessarily repeats and overlaps with the official license information page? --Larry Sanger 09:22, 5 January 2008 (CST)

I'm just going to consider it an instructional page. A little bit of overlap is OK, I guess. --Larry Sanger 09:44, 5 January 2008 (CST)

My feeling is that the license page should be the official policy, whereas this page provides a summary of that policy for Wikipedians. One use case I'd imagine for this article is referring Wikipedians to it when we discover copyright violations. For that use case, the article should specifically and directly discuss the consequences for Wikipedia. Warren Schudy 10:12, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Good point (the latter). We should add a section to that effect. --Larry Sanger 10:16, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Good point indeed. I'll add text. Stephen Ewen 19:08, 5 January 2008 (CST)

More notes

"We require this sort of attribution because we all contribute with our real names and have experts on board with real-life reputations to maintain." Interesting claim, but I've removed it. I've never heard of such a thing before. I don't see how attributing content to CZ either supports or undermines the real-life reputations of our editors. In any case, no one has ever offered that as a reason for the "by" part of CC-by-sa; it was quite simply taken for granted, as far as I recall. So the claim ("...because...") is strictly speaking false! --Larry Sanger 09:44, 5 January 2008 (CST)

This section just seems unnecessary--I removed it:

I can't wait until the CC-by-sa and GFDL are compatible. What can I do?

Until the CC-by-sa and GFDL are made explicitly compatible, Citizendium content licensed under the CC-by-sa may not be imported into Wikipedia. However, like Wikipedians, Citizens retain copyright to their work. Therefore, if the authors of a CC-by-sa article give permission for it, you can reuse their work under the GFDL (or any other terms to which they agree, for that matter). You might also check the userpages of individual authors, since some have multi-licensed their contributions. If you receive permission from Citizendium authors to release their work under the GFDL, you should attribute their content in the manner to which they agree, or in the absence of such, follow the selfsame guidelines as for media in the below section.

Do we really need to explain to people how they can do this? I don't think so. So few people will want to do it, or care, that it just wastes the reader's time. --Larry Sanger 09:48, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Reusing articles with content from both Citizendium and Wikipedia

The article writes:

Note that this will change after Wikipedia finalizes its decision to allow relicensing of its contents under CC-by-sa.

How so? --Warren Schudy 10:15, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Well, once Wikipedia allows relicensing, third parties will be able to publish our stuff using CC-by-sa. --Larry Sanger 10:18, 5 January 2008 (CST)

The previous paragraph of the article focused on credited both CZ and WP, so I thought you were implying that would change. I clarified the article. Warren Schudy 10:35, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Termination of your right to use Citizendium content

What's this new section for? My vision of this article is a friendly guide for Wikipedians, not a replacement for CZ:License threatening people if they don't comply. If that section belongs anywhere outside the actual legal licenses, it's in CZ:License, not here. Warren Schudy 19:50, 5 January 2008 (CST)

See the discussion under Purpose of page? above. I don't see it as unfriendly to let people know that fact up front. I consider it fake to have only an uppity positive-only tone. Stephen Ewen 20:16, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Steve, my problem with it isn't that it's not all puppy dogs and roses, it's that it's either unnecessary or silly, or both: "Breaches of the terms under which Citizendium content is made available results in automatic termination of your rights to use Citizendium content." If someone breaches the terms under which CZ content is available, that doesn't "terminate" anyone's rights. Rather, simply, the content isn't available under conditions that aren't allowed by the license. The claim is tantamount to saying "a breach is a breach, and don't do that!" Not necessary. Moreover, if the claim amounts to any more than that, then (1) you're making a claim on our behalf that we haven't discussed, and (2) it's quite possibly contrary to the terms of the license. If you want to say anything along these lines, we might say, "Please respect the terms of our contract." But that again is pointless.

What we might want to say is that our volunteers will be on the lookout for violations of the terms of our license, and will not be shy about pointing them out. That might be helpful and it might even be true! --Larry Sanger 22:47, 5 January 2008 (CST)

Well, we've discussed the licensing issue quite a lot.  :-D You are simply incorrect when you state, "If someone breaches the terms under which CZ content is available, that doesn't "terminate" anyone's rights." That is, in fact, precisely what happens as an inherent part of the licenses, i.e., it automatically terminates the breacher's rights to use the material, which material then reverts to default copyright all rights reserved status for the breacher. These licenses are really nothing more than contracts. All my addition does is (perhaps poorly, I did not consider it done) paraphrase what the licenses say:

GFDL

"You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License."

CC-by-sa

"This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License."

Both licenses provide for the licensee to stipulate how attribution should be done. If we do that, and we have, and it is not honored, the licenses automatically terminate as an inherent part of the licenses.

Stephen Ewen 01:40, 6 January 2008 (CST)

See CZ:Reusing_Citizendium_Content#The_bad_stuff for a rewrite I did of the section. Stephen Ewen 02:05, 6 January 2008 (CST)

Stephen is right that the licenses do include those terms, but that doesn't mean this page should include it! Mentioning that legalistic detail will waste the readers' time and annoy them (who wants to be threatened?) without helping anybody. The legal license exists as a separate document; we don't need to reproduce it here. Warren Schudy 11:50, 6 January 2008 (CST)

I was hoping to get further comment on this issue. I understand Warren's point. That "bad stuff" is not at CZ:License, though. Another compromise idea is to add it there and make sure the link is clear from here to there. Stephen Ewen 21:03, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Indeed, Steve--this is an example of an issue that we should finish discussing on the talk page, and then add to both places (or not). --Larry Sanger 21:20, 14 January 2008 (CST)

I still believe mentioning the auto-termination clause is a waste of the readers' time. The reader already knows that bad stuff, such as being sued, may happen if they disobey the license. If they want to know details, they can read the license or ask a lawyer. I currently suggest against having the mention of auto-termination either here or CZ:License, but an explanation of how that clause would dramatically modify the outcome of lawsuits might change my mind. The compromise of mentioning it in CZ:License but not here is acceptable. Warren Schudy 22:22, 14 January 2008 (CST)

Well, most people just don't read the licenses, which is why I think it is important to mention. The GFDL is particularly a bear. But I am content to remove the portion to CZ:License. Stephen Ewen 22:43, 14 January 2008 (CST)