Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2020/July

Feedback on movement names
. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. if necessary.

There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.

Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.

Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.

Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement, --The Brand Project team, 19:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

''Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.''

Editing news 2020 #3
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter



Seven years ago this month, the Editing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:


 * More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
 * More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
 * The visual editor is increasingly popular . The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
 * In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage has increased every year.
 * Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
 * On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor. 🚀 👩‍🚀
 * Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode.  You can enable it in your preferences.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

12:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Announcing a new wiki project! Welcome, Abstract Wikipedia
Hi all,

It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia, a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more contributors and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.

This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May 2020 after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the energy and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not make it to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and feel like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers create and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.

The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of knowledge to create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into their own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to read about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.

As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to make this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member in July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at Wikimedia Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation. We are very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on this project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.

It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project, and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may offer some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less. Every language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate whether or how they would use content from this project.

We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to advance knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also invites us to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation with the communities to think through these important questions.

There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing list. We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also recognize its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.

Yours,

Katherine Maher (Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation)

Sent by m:User:Elitre (WMF) 19:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC) - m:Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/July 2020 announcement


 * A fundamentally flawed premise, the same conceptual blunder as Wikidata: imagining that knowledge is limited to what can be lined up in neat formulas. Such a representation either fails to satisfy people because it cannot capture understanding, or it succeeds in satisfying people by getting them to abandon understanding. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:46, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Importing CC BY 4.0 text to  Wikibooks
Hello all, I would like to import some CC BY 4.0 text into Wikibooks. I suspect that it may be possible if the text after importation also includes information about the text also being licensed under CC BY 4.0 (licensing in addition to the CC BY -SA 3.0 licensing from Wikibooks).

Anyone have any thoughts or comments on this?


 * Yes, you can do this. I would include attribution in the edit summary and the talk page to be safe. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)


 * It's my understanding (having consulted with someone more expert in copyright than I) that 4.0 doesn't allow 3.0. This has, iirc, been a problem for the entire wikimedia sisterhood, that they'd all have to go to 4.0 at once because if just some projects went to 4.0, their content would no longer be exportable to the ones that were still using 3.0.  (And good luck getting everyone to agree to go to 4.0.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Seems like this kind of backwards-compatible use is explicitly allowed:
 * “The ShareAlike licenses require that licensees make their contributions to adapted material available under the same terms and conditions, or, where the license allows, under a license designated by CC as compatible… Starting with the release of the 2.x license suites, CC expanded compatibility by allowing contributions to adapted material to be created under the same or later version of the original license, including other ported versions of the same or later version of the license. The 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike goes one step further, by allowing those contributions to be licensed under under a “Creative Commons Compatible License,” defined to mean licenses approved by CC as essentially equivalent to the 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike license.”
 * As a not-lawyer, seems like they're saying that 3.0+ recognizes that licenses with the same kinds of restrictions are allowable. (cf. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/) Am I missing something? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:46, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * A document that has been released under 3.0 can be released under 4.0, as I understand it, but a document released under 4.0 is not automatically allowed to be released under 3.0. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't have to re-license the entire document, as the contributions are by a license with compatible restrictions. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, there is a difference between CC BY 4.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0. I don't really understand it, but apparently CC BY 4.0 is acceptable, but CC BY-SA 4.0 is not. This is by looking at w:Help:Adding open license text to Wikipedia which states this; if it is acceptable for Wikipedia use, then I would presume it is OK for Wikibooks use.
 * {| cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"


 * + Accepted license
 * CC BY-SA icon.svg
 * CC BY-SA versions 1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, but not version 4.0
 * CC BY icon.svg
 * CC BY, all versions and ports, up to and including 4.0
 * CC-Zero-badge.svg
 * CC0
 * Public Domain
 * Work in the public domain is not "licenced" because it is not copyrighted. We treat it similarly to CC0
 * }-- Jules (Mrjulesd) 23:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You know what, I should relook as I didn't consider the -SA requirements. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes its easy to miss. Apparently SA means "Share alike", which means that it can only be shared under the same or similar licence as the original. The problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is it demands that it must republish only under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is a further restriction addendum: as pointed out below the main problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is its restrictiveness for imports. So CC BY-SA 4.0 is extremely restrictive for which license it can be share under, which creates the problem. By dual licensing I presume that content can also be relicensed under the GFDL, and therefore exported to the GFDL. However importing from GFDL is not possible because of the nature of the share alike licensing. Or at least that is how I understand it. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * GPL v. 3 is explicitly allowed for CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/ —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:15, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Public Domain
 * Work in the public domain is not "licenced" because it is not copyrighted. We treat it similarly to CC0
 * }-- Jules (Mrjulesd) 23:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You know what, I should relook as I didn't consider the -SA requirements. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes its easy to miss. Apparently SA means "Share alike", which means that it can only be shared under the same or similar licence as the original. The problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is it demands that it must republish only under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is a further restriction addendum: as pointed out below the main problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is its restrictiveness for imports. So CC BY-SA 4.0 is extremely restrictive for which license it can be share under, which creates the problem. By dual licensing I presume that content can also be relicensed under the GFDL, and therefore exported to the GFDL. However importing from GFDL is not possible because of the nature of the share alike licensing. Or at least that is how I understand it. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * GPL v. 3 is explicitly allowed for CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/ —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:15, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You know what, I should relook as I didn't consider the -SA requirements. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes its easy to miss. Apparently SA means "Share alike", which means that it can only be shared under the same or similar licence as the original. The problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is it demands that it must republish only under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is a further restriction addendum: as pointed out below the main problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is its restrictiveness for imports. So CC BY-SA 4.0 is extremely restrictive for which license it can be share under, which creates the problem. By dual licensing I presume that content can also be relicensed under the GFDL, and therefore exported to the GFDL. However importing from GFDL is not possible because of the nature of the share alike licensing. Or at least that is how I understand it. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * GPL v. 3 is explicitly allowed for CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/ —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:15, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

But note that the GNU General Public License (GPL) is different to the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL); but what difference this makes if any I don't know. Also note that the transference is only one way. "Note that compatibility with the GPLv3 is one-way only, which means you may license your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 4.0 materials under GPLv3, but you may not license your contributions to adaptations of GPLv3 projects under BY-SA 4.0. " So if you have GPL content you can't export them to CC BY-SA, but you can export CC BY-SA content to GPL. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:32, 9 July 2020 (UTC)


 * thanks for looking into this into some detail.


 * Just started examining the licence texts and Wikibooks terms to try to figure out the answer to this issue. According to my initial analysis, CC BY 4.0 material cannot be imported into Wikibooks without the original licensor(s) agreeing to it being re-licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. I came to this conclusion through the following logic:


 * 1) The Wikibooks terms seem to mandate that contributed material is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
 * 2) The CC BY 4.0 terms appear not to allow sub-licensing.


 * I know this conclusion somewhat clashes with the Wikipedia guidance quoted by Mrjulesd, but I'm inclined to believe that the guidance might be wrong, partly because my prior experience with Wikipedia in respect of their user agreement left me feeling that they weren't quite 'on the ball' in respect of licensing.


 * Anyway, of course I could be mistaken, so I'm leaving this issue open for the time being, in case I become enlightened in the short term. I'm also emailing Creative Commons for their advice about this.
 * Well I've been reading up about licensing, and I think that importing CC BY 4.0 into Wikibooks is fine. If you read https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the main thing you'll notice is that it is not a Share alike, which are quite restrictive on compatible licenses. In fact there doesn't seem to be any relicensing requirements at all. All it really requires is attribution: from my understanding you can then relicense derived works any way you wish, including CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL of Wikibooks.
 * My understanding of most license is that you are generally free to license derived works how you wish; obviously the original source remains under the original license. Now "share alike" licenses, and licenses like the GPL and GFDL, adn Apache License are quite restrictive in this regard. But other license, like public domain, are very open in this regard; derived works of public domain works can be relicensed any way you wish.
 * Also if you look at Creative Commons > Share your work > Licensing considerations > Compatible Licenses it only lists the share alike licenses; I feel this is because with their other licenses no compatibility problems occur. Also if you look at https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ only their share-alike licenses have the note "Adaptations must be shared under the same terms".
 * Now I understand your hesitancy, as I could be wrong in this regard. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to ask somewhere like the w:Wikipedia:Help desk? Its part of Wikipedia, but as far as I know licensing is identical for all WMF sites. Perhaps they can reassure you; if they tell you I'm wrong I'd be most perplexed! -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:07, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * furthermore, CC BY seems to be explicitly described as being compatible with Wikipedia (and therefore WMF projects) in their FAQ. To quote:
 * "Can I include a work licensed with CC BY in a Wikipedia article even though they use a CC BY-SA license?
 * Yes. Works licensed under CC BY may be incorporated into works that are licensed under CC BY-SA. For example, you may incorporate a CC BY photograph into a Wikipedia article so long as you keep all copyright notices intact, provide proper attribution, and otherwise comply with the terms of CC BY. Learn more about the licenses." -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 09:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes. Works licensed under CC BY may be incorporated into works that are licensed under CC BY-SA. For example, you may incorporate a CC BY photograph into a Wikipedia article so long as you keep all copyright notices intact, provide proper attribution, and otherwise comply with the terms of CC BY. Learn more about the licenses." -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 09:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * upon revisiting this issue, I think you are probably right. Just looked at the Wikibooks terms and conditions, and have just noticed that there is a separate section for importing works co-authored with others (didn't see it before). The section appears to allow what you say. Thanks for looking at this issue again.


 * If anyone's interested in the steps I plan to take in the process of importing such content to Wikibooks, you can see documentation of the steps on the Wikipedia site here    (wanted to transclude the content but doesn't look like inter-wiki transclusion is enabled?)

Are the servers, offices, and entity of Wikibooks, in the USA?
Just trying to comply with contractual obligations in respect of importing content from another service into Wikibooks. One of the terms is that I must comply with import/export restrictions and like sanctions, that are in force in the USA. In such regard, does anyone have an answer to the question in the subject text of this section?


 * Wikibooks is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. According to Tax Deductibility "Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit charity (tax ID number 20-0049703) established in the United States under the US IRS Code Section 501(c)(3). Donations from persons or entities located in the United States may benefit from tax deductible status." So it is a USA registered entity, but it is also multinational to some extent in that servers are hosted around the world, see Wikimedia servers; and there are local chapters: for example Wikimedia UK. For copyright purposes it acts like a USA entity, but it tries to respects local laws. e.g. see w:Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights, "Copyright status of a work in its home country is often important in evaluating its copyright status in the United States. Nevertheless, a work that is in the public domain in its home country can sometimes be under copyright in the United States and so can not be used on Wikipedia." Most countries feel that it respects local laws, although Wikipedia in particular is blocked in many countries: see Censorship of Wikipedia. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:45, 18 July 2020 (UTC)


 * thanks for this.


 * Does anyone have any ideas as to how one would be able to keep abreast of the current export/import laws and related sanctions of the USA? I use very many US software and services, and they very often stipulate that you must not violate such rules. So not only for the sake of this issue would I like to have greater cognisance of such rules, but anyway, simply for the sake of this issue I would like to find out whether anyone else has comments regarding keeping abreast with such rules.


 * Currently thinking that the page @ https://www.trade.gov/us-export-controls might be a good starting point. It seems to outline precise information on how to get information on all the other export regulations not covered by the site and that are applied by other agencies, by telling you where you can get a list of all the other agencies involved. If anyone has any comments on this, I would appreciate reading them (am not a US citizen).