User talk:Michael Snow/Archive (Aug 2004)

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[edit] Blocking

Are you going to make the same suggestion to Guanaco, or am I singled out for persecution? RickK 20:30, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Great. Looks like I'll be flooding the Vandalism in progress page, since so few others seem to care about the quality of vandalized articles. RickK 20:38, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ryan524

I've replied on RfA. —Kate | Talk 21:42, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)

[edit] Guanaco RfC

I'm not entirely sure what certifying it means and it's probably best to delete both if you're going to delete one. I'm not sure I see the point in RfC anyway and I'm sorry I got involved in it since it doesn't seem to have solved anything. Angela. 22:50, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ALargeElk Blocking

Hello, Michael,

Thank you for explaining to me why it was a mistake to use the block to enforce a wikibreak at the request of the user. I had no idea that was against policy, and promise to be more careful in future. I thought I was doing her a favour. Oh well, now I know. David Cannon 12:49, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] SubStubs

I see that you have changed a number of articles from substubs to stubs, but they don't qualify to be stubs. Why is that?

Example: MGR Medical University, Krithi, Dr. Ambedkar Law Univesity

Sridev 20:14, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Changing substubs to stubs

So you're the one who's been changing all the substub messages to stub ones. Please stop doing that. Numerous people, including myself, have spent many hours inserting those messages, and it takes a long time to fix them all. I'm just giving you a warning, because what you're doing may amount to vandalism. [[User:Mike Storm|Mike∞Storm]] 23:40, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

Am I supposed to be grateful? You've just forced me to spend about two more hours fixing what you've done, and you did it all for a test? Good God. Wow. And I'll accuse you all I want, because what you've done is vandalism, and it will be dealt with accordingly. [[User:Mike Storm|Mike∞Storm]] 23:59, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You astound me. Other people and myself spent hours inserting all those messages, and just for the hell of it, you undo all of that hard work, and then act like it's no big deal. Thanks for nothing. [[User:Mike Storm|Mike∞Storm]] 02:31, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What? Of course I don't own any of those articles. All right, maybe I was a bit surprised when the number of substubs went from 294 to 78, but just please don't do anything like that again without a bit of warning. It would help us all out. [[User:Mike Storm|Mike∞Storm]] 16:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Ah, looks like the old mailing list-wiki disconnect again. The mailing list is a bit obsolete (IRC has overtaken it for Wikipedia's purposes) but it continues to battle on because Jimbo sets great store by it.

As I understand it Jimbo's position (which he made a decree way back when) is

take advantage of fair use - the GFDL doesn't restrict us from doing this (Clause 7)
don't use encumbered images - they are not GNU-free.

That Jimbo's decree has not been taken very far is probably because there is not a groundswell of support for it. I certainly need the logical difficulties of his position unwound in my head

- we can use fair use images even if they couldn't be used by all downstream users (because it won't be fair for them) - however we cannot use non-commercial-only images because they couldn't be used by all downstreams users.

Pcb21| Pete 17:03, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A question on "fair practice"

Michael,

you wrote at the Village pump:

Fair use is specifically US, but other countries have fair dealing, and for a more international basis, the Berne Convention has fair practice. Determining what's "fair" tends to be case-by-case analysis, and the US may well be the most liberal jurisdiction in that regard, but the principle is internationally available.

That may well be true, but as I read the Berne Convention, it does not require signatory states to provide any exemptions from copyright protections except requiring the right for citing (Art. 10(1)). Art. 10(2) allows other exemptions, but doesn't define which ones, and certainly doesn't require any. Art. 10(3) requires crediting in any case. And the whole document doesn't define what "fair practice" is, anyway.

Hence "fair use" or "fair dealing" images need not only evaluated on a case-by-case basis here on Wikipedia: each and every re-user will have to re-do this case-by-case analysis to see whether the copyright laws in his country do actually have any copyright exemptions in the sense of 10(2) of the Berne Convention. For instance, the German "Urheberrecht" [1], Para. 44 - 63, does have a few exemptions, but typically for private reproduction (or within a closed audience), and typically only for non-commercial purposes. The Swiss Urheberrecht [2], Art. 19 - 28, is similar, but only allows private uses. Both the German and the Swiss law allow citing, and allow news reporting to re-use works relevant to the news item, as far as necessary for the news report. French law is also similar: private uses, short citations, and news reporting are allowed, but no other exemptions exist [3].

Thus stating that the principle was "internationally available" is a bit misleading. Lupo 14:27, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer, Michael. I'm glad to see that apparently my layman's understanding of the matter is not too far off the mark. (I suppose you'd have told me if I were seriously mistaken.) Of course "fair use" may be allright for re-users subject to U.S. law, but I find this U.S.-centric argument strangely inconsistent with Jimbo's declared goal of distributing Wikipedia in other parts of the world (and not necessarily via the Internet through servers based in the U.S., but through local publishers in Africa, the UK or elsewhere). I have no idea about copyright laws in African counties, but for a re-user based in the UK (or in France, or Germany, or Switzerland, and I suspect in fact in a whole slew of other countries) "fair-use" images are in fact not free at all. I just cannot understand how this can be reconciled with the idea of a free (as in "libre") encyclopedia.
And because I don't understand this, I cannot understand Jimbo's dislike of "free for non-commercial use only" images. Such images are - in all the countries mentioned above - at least as "free" or "un-free" as "fair use" images, and for non-commercial re-users in these countries even more free, because they are not subject to any "fair practice" copyright exemptions that may differ between countries or even may be non-existent at all in some countries, but can be re-used legally by any non-commercial publisher anywhere. Lupo 11:58, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] International fair use

Hi, I was wondering if you could point me to any relevant case law where a copyright holder and copyright infringer were citizens of different countries. Specifically, I'm trying to determine what would the result in the following scenarios:

  1. Wikipedia uses an image whose copyright is held by a US citizen under the fair use doctrine on a website hosted and accessed in Germany.
  2. A German citizen uses an image whose copyright is held by a US citizen under the fair use doctrine on a website hosted and accessed in Germany.
  3. Wikipedia uses an image whose copyright is held by a German citizen under the fair use doctrine on a website hosted and accessed in Germany.
  4. A German citizen uses an image whose copyright is held by a German citizen under the fair use doctrine on a website hosted and accessed in Germany. This situation is actually clear though, the copyright holder can sue the infringer in German court and win.

Substitute "German" for any country other than the US. What I'm trying to find out is where such a case would take place, and whether or not fair use would apply. I don't expect you to actually answer the question, but I was hoping you could at least point me in the right direction. If you're not sure, perhaps we could take this question to the mailing list?

anthony (see warning) 16:26, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You say that "citizenship per se is not usually a decisive issue." I suspected that this was the case.

Now, you mention a US citizen having "a copyright under German law" and the initial publication taking place in Germany. Your answer here makes sense, but my question goes to the case where the initial publication takes place in the US (does this make it "a copyright under US law" as opposed to "a copyright under German law"?).

What I really want to know the answer to doesn't have a well defined location of infringement, but to simplify things I'm just putting everything in one location.

So, clearly a German is not protected under the fair use doctrine for infringment of a German work (first published in Germany), when that infringement takes place solely in Germany. And by the fact that citizenship is not generally a decisive issue, it's unlikely that a US citizen would be protected under the fair use doctrine for infringement of a German work (first published in Germany), when that infringement takes place solely in Germany. By taking place solely in Germany I mean that the server serving the infringing work is located in Germany and it is being accessed by clients in Germany. Presumably this wouldn't be affected by the fact that the US citizen lives in the US and uses a shell account to set up and run a website which serves the work. Whether or not this would change with a server located in the US and clients accessing the site from Germany is less clear, but I would think that likewise the location of infringement would be Germany (admittedly I'm basing this on precedent in US law, though, such as the Sklyarov case). All of this assumes, of course, that there is some sort of incentive for the lawsuit to be made in the first place. For instance, perhaps the US infringer has some sort of revenue coming in from Germany which the German courts could somehow garnish.

Now, changing the work to a US work (first published in the US), things become unclear to me. Since we're assuming the citizenship doesn't matter, I'll present a single scenario. A German citizen copies a US work (first published in the US) in violation of German copyright law. The copying indisputably takes place solely in Germany. This copying would be legal under US copyright law, under the fair use doctrine. Does the copyright holder have any recourse against the copyright infringer? Presumably the case would take place in German court (or at least it could), but would the doctrine of fair use apply?

I ask this question because one of the biggest arguments against having so called "fair use images" in Wikipedia is that these images cannot legally be redistributed outside the US. But it seems that this is not the case, at least not for US works (first published in the US).

Once again I understand if you can't answer my questions definitively, and in some cases there might be no one who can. I did look at the Itar Tass case, but that seemed to only bring up more questions rather than answer any.

anthony (see warning) 19:38, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


But then what you're saying is that the citizenship, in this case, might be the decisive issue. Or are you saying that a US citizen could (successfully) sue another US citizen in a German court for engaging in copyright infringement in Germany which would have been perfectly legal (under fair use) had it been done in the US? Or maybe you're saying that a German court just isn't going to take such a case between two Americans? I guess that last possibility is plausible.

Oh well, there goes most of my hope on making things simple. I think Wikipedia benefits greatly from the ability to use fair use, and in any event I think Wikipedians are unwilling to give up that ability. But at the same time I find it troublesome that Wikipedia produces and distributes a so called "free" product which is illegal for citizens in just about any country other than the US to distribute. I'm starting to fear the only real solution is for Wikipedia to get big enough to obtain free licenses for the content it intends to distribute, at least licenses which allow redistributions in encyclopedias. And that's a long way away.

As for the issue of the Berne Convention, I was actually arguing the opposite: that it protects the rights of non-US citizens in the US. I guess I didn't phrase it very well, as you and Raul both (mis)interpreted what I was saying the same way.

anthony (see warning) 22:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"I think the answer is that if a US citizen publishes a copyrighted work in the US, then sues another US citizen in German court, for copying that work in Germany, then the fair use defense under US law is probably not available." I guess that's just one of the many reasons companies like to rely on licenses (which are usually easy to obtain) rather than fair use. It would make things strange, though. It is illegal to distribute "Pretty Woman", the 2 Live Crew parody, outside the United States? anthony (see warning) 12:54, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I appreciate it. :) Ambi 03:09, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Your vote needed at George_W._Bush

Please go here, ASAP and vote.

Rex071404 07:11, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New Bush vote now under way - please vote

Here [4]

Rex071404 16:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Acegikmo1 21:40, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks.

Thanks for your friendly comments on my talk page about the U.S. infobox. You're right, the new image could cause confusion and was displayed improperly anyway. 21:12, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


[edit] RFA rv

Right, you asked why, so ok, here's the postmortem:

  • Usually the general rule is that it's not considered polite or helpful if people remove content pertaining to themselves. I saw an edit by Neutrality pertaining to Neutrality, and hit revert.
  • I wasn't aware that RfA was slightly different (and couldn't find any mention in the documentation).
  • It would have been (even) better if a 3rd party had done the removing. When a 3rd party indeed did so, I didn't rerevert them.

That was the reasoning at the time anyway. The outcome was incorrect, I made an error. Fortunately it was corrected quickly. My apologies for any trouble!

Kim Bruning 11:34, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

I can see that you want to remain neutral in disputes, but does it make sense to have duplicate articles Tomas Batista and Tomás Batista, and Agustin Stahl and Agustín Stahl? Since the correct spelling uses the accents and since we include accents in titles everywhere else, those two articles should not be exceptions. I already tried to reason with Marine, but to no avail. Would you mind reverting the non-accented articles to redirects? Gzornenplatz 22:58, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Not Fade Away (album)

Those files were degraded, 30 second clips. Are those still against policy? And if you're going to try and "correct" problems such as this, take care to not delete information that does belong, such as the track listing, which you did. -Joseph 21:41, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

Ah, I will review the possibility of using the dreaded .ogg format. -Joseph 21:46, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

[edit] Agustin Stahl

Hi Michael, I read your comments in the "Talk Page of Agustin Stahl" and was impressed by your POV. I think that User:Gzornenplatz was very disrespectful and rude when he made a referrence a "rare crank editor", don't you agree? I think that it was totally uncalled for and that we as wikipedians deserve an apology, don't you agree? Thanks for reading. User:Marine 69-71

O.K., I agree with you about the apology thing. About the Joaquin Phoenix issue, I didn't know an article already exsisted, it was a total misunderstanding, but eventually both articles were merged and everything turned out fine. I just want t know when is it proper to use accents on titles, that's all. I do have an idea thuogh. If a person is born in a country where accents are used, then the title should carry the accent. Just an idea. User:Marine 69-71

[edit] re: adminship

I've often wondered how I'd fare in a vote for adminship. If you think I'd be qualified, I would certainly work to live up to the responsibilities. Thank you for thinking of me. Rossami 02:03, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] adminship

Dear Michael Snow,

Yes, I will treat the "keys to the mop closet" well. :-)
Thank you very much for your vote in support of my nomination for adminship.

-- PFHLai 03:49, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted question?

Why did you delete my question "Dealing with growing page (References to Star Trek)" from the village pump so soon? If you've moved it, where is it now and why wasn't that mentioned in the edit summary? This is the diff for your edit. – Foolip 12:03, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I see, thank you for restoring my question (which has now gotten an additional answer!) Having been a wikipedian for longer than I, perhaps you know where to report bugs like this? – Foolip 22:00, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rfc

No problem. I too wasn't quite sure what to do, and I wish you luck with this endeavour. Thanks, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 05:43, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

[edit] Mr. Grinch

Thanks for sending me the message. I've put my signature on the page as well. FWIW, does this mean that "Childlove movement" has a chance for deletion...? — Lucky 6.9 06:04, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Childlove movement has already been up on Vfd, and it was just saved from deletion. I'm pretty sure that any admin who deletes it now will be looking at an RFC. — [[User:33451|Mr. Grinch (Talk)]] 17:35, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like it. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do. I've tried reasoning with the guy, but he's convinced he's right. — Lucky 6.9 06:23, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • I do NOT believe it. The "In the News" BS was back on BJAODN, but it was put there by Guanaco! He said in the edit summary that it wasn't illegal to post it. Why the guy would put it back, I'll never know. Anything you can do about him? — Lucky 6.9 07:38, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User:BigCat

How were my edits to User:BigCat misleading or inappropriate? His user page says that he's a pedophile (which he misspelled), and I simply added a link on it. — [[User:33451|Mr. Grinch (Talk)]] 13:47, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Adminship?

Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence. I'd certainly be interested in becoming an administrator. I think I have decent familiarity with most of the Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list, and have just read over Administrators, Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide, and Wikipedia:Administration FAQ. Thanks again. [[User:Siroxo|—siroχo

—siroχo]] 19:49, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

[edit]  ;-)

Not so much anonymity, except as a side-effect. It's just a lot harder to become involved in politics as an anon - which is what I'm after. Take care, 24.123.221.2 01:39, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] RfC again.

G'day Michael

User:Maveric149 is out of town until Monday, and there are now several sections added to the end of Wikipedia:Requests for comment that are IMO completely out of order there. I've left a message for one of the authors (who asked for comments!) but no reply.

Angela was my next stop, and she suggested that you would be the best one to ask. The situation seems to be deteriorating IMO.

Suggestions? Andrewa 17:46, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for attending to this. I take your point that you don't own the page, but I felt that I might just make things worse if I blundered in. Andrewa 18:03, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On another matter, you might like to take a look at Wikipedia talk:Deletion of user subpages if you haven't already done so. This is a proposal to add a new section to RfC and to use this instead of VfD for user pages and subpages. While not perfect (what ever is), it's now to the stage that I'd be happy to implement it. Basically I'm just clarifying phrasing now.

There's still a week and a bit before the proposed date for freezing and voting on the proposal, and nobody has yet criticised these proposed dates so I'm assuming that they will happen. Comments welcome. Andrewa 18:16, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The summary that you requested of the discussion about Michael is now at User:Michael/Proposal. Angela. 19:04, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] IRC

Swap "IRC" for "mailing lists" and I'd fully agree, but I don't think decisions are being made on IRC. If a few people are giving that impression, it is more likely that they are doing so in order to try and win an argument than reflecting what was actually the case on IRC. I don't see what solution there is since you can hardly shut down the channel because you don't want people discussing Wikipedia off-site. Angela. 01:57, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Since Snowspinner has also added to the discussion, I have replied on my own talk page. Angela 02:55, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 33451/Mr. Grinch

I think you should know that I've updated my response at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/33451. Please check this and update your rebuttal. By the way, is there any reason you didn't respond to my last comment here? — 33451 | Talk 14:08, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You said that I should stop "making up excuses" and "take responsibility". You'll notice that no excuses have actually changed since my original version. What kind of a response would you like from me? If I take responsibility will you be more likely to let things go? — 33451 | Talk 18:28, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and another issue: I wasn't refferring to my earlier comment about the childlove article, I was referring to my comment about User:BigCat above. — 33451 | Talk 18:43, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sigh...So what kind of response would you accept from me? If I take responsibility will you be more willing to work with me to put all this behind me? If you take a look at my contributions, you'll see that I've made several well-meaning edits to the Wikipedia. If I take responsibility for my mistakes will you allow me to put this behind me and continue my good-faith editing? — 33451 | Talk 11:30, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay...So what is the proper way to go about taking responsibility? Should I do it here or on the RfC page? My edits were vandalism, but I was seeing how the vandalism would be handled. I'm not sure I understand the thing about self-references, but that's probably beside the point. Where should I apologize and take responsibility? — 33451 | Talk 18:44, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I've updated my response at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/33451 to take responsibility. It's not really a major point, but I found it interesting that you mention Peacefire in your response, becuase, if you'll check the history, I was the one who added Peacefire to wikipedia. Being under 18, I support Peacefire and its goals — 33451 | Talk 19:40, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Thanks for the heads-up, Michael. Good job. Grinch, glad to have you on board as a real contributor. - Lucky 6.9 20:53, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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