User talk:Guy M/LVwiki Compliance to GFDL

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[edit] VegasWiki compliance

Correction, LVwiki. Previously known as lasvegaswik, later changed to LVwiki for reasons of brevity. Guy M/LV ^(praise) 02:54, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

I get the impression that the Las Vegas Wiki is your project. If not, and you're not in management there, maybe you can pass this comment on. As I understand the GFDL, VegasWiki is not in compliance. The GFDL allows re-use of material but requires that credit be given to the principal authors. That's commonly done by linking back to the original article's history page, or at least to the original article. I looked at an article that I started here: New York-New York Hotel & Casino. The LV Wiki uses the Wikipedia text, which is fine, and credits Wikipedia, which is good, and references a local copy of the GFDL, also good -- but there's no link back to the history of the original article, or to the text of the original article, or even to Wikipedia itself. (The reference to Wikipedia links to http://wiki.gmnow.com/index.php/Other:Wikipedia, which I gather is the LVWiki article about Wikipedia.)

When I've used material from one wiki on another, I've followed what I think is the preferred format. For example, in SourceWatch, this article is taken from Wikipedia. When I ported it over, I added this credit:

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia article "McCarthyism". The list of authors can be found here.

I think that's the way it's supposed to be done. I'll admit, though, that I'm no expert on the requirements of the GFDL. If you want to get the thoughts of some people who are experts, you might try posing any specific questions at Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks. That project page is used to catalog the sites using Wikipedia content and to report their degree of compliance with GFDL requirements. VegasWiki is doing better than some sites but I think you're not yet in full compliance. Also, I'm not sure if the Wikimedia Foundation would want VegasWiki called a "branch of Wikipedia" if they don't control it.

While you get these legalities squared away, I have no problem with your use of my LV-related work, such as the NY-NY article. It's just that, for the long term, it would be better off to make sure the site is doing everything correctly. Good luck with the project! JamesMLane 06:54, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. As I said, I'm no expert, but your position appears to me to be inconsistent with the positions taken by most of the participants in Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks, and with the practice for describing other sites in Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. As I understand it, the thinking is that a link to the history page (or possibly a link solely to the article) satisfies the "five principal authors" requirement because the five principal authors are listed on that page; the thinking is that listing all the authors is compliance, without trying to identify the top five.

If LVwiki is now in the form you expect it to keep, then probably it should be listed on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/GFDL Compliance under Undetermined or disputed. Sooner or later (probably later), the people who occupy themselves with GFDL issues will get around to taking a look at it and letting you know if they think further steps toward compliance are necessary. Does that step seem reasonable to you? JamesMLane 11:03, 8 May 2005 (UTC)