This thread is to discuss the proposed wiki policy.
There is also discussion available in the related talk page.

Proposed structure:

• Behavioral: standards for behavior.
• Content: which topics are welcome.
• Enforcement: what action authorised users can take to enforce other policies.
• Deletion: deleting articles that are considered undesirable.
• Legal and copyright: firm rules about what material may be used here, and remedies for misuse.

A good starting point would be categorizing each TOS into these categories.

Legal and copyright is amusing, we use images from wikipedia without permission - e.g. fooby screenshot.

edit: rather without crediting + adding gfdl notice. we don't need permission as such

I believe that the case you are refering to falls into fair use. I may be wrong though.
I doubt Peter would have any issues with using a screenshot of foobar in the official foobar wiki

Of course he won't, the point is that you still supposed to say it's his, and not your original work (i.e. you didn't press PrintScreen to get it). Otherwise it's plagiarism. Just because you probably won't get punished for it, doesn't make it any less a plagiarism.

That is something to be addressed by the wiki policies (legal and copyright category). Until then, this kind of thing will most likely happen frequently.
Volunteers would be more than welcome to contribute. Specially people with knowledge about copyright such as rjamorim or yourself (apparently).
A lot of work is needed in the wiki and up till now we have only 3 or 4 brave individuals contributing on a regular basis (apart from the ones that contribute on a not so regular basis).

the thing about the low contribution rate is that most members of HA (myself included) are users/consumers, we know little to nothing, there are guides that tell us which switches to use, and we use them under assumption that people who made those posts know what they are doing. that's all there is to it, for most of us anyway.

I understand that, but I am sure there are specific areas where people can contribute. You know, the wiki is not only technical stuff.
For instance, due to your comment regarding copyright in this thread I assume you know something about the subject. So you could contribute your knowledge to the wiki. Even if your knowledge is limited it would still bring value and someone could correct possible mistakes later.

No, it's nicked from a GFDL image in wikipedia without saying it's GFDL. That isn't fair use, it's illegal. We can just add the GFDL image and link back to the one on wikipedia's foobar page and it'll be fine.

lol in that case, it'll probably be easier for someone to just hit PrintScreen again and upload that

as for my knowledge of copyright, it's actually fairly low, I'm just somewhat versed in the subject of plagiarism (having to write a bunch of papers almost every week, and even smallest plagiarism resulting in automatic failure, profs are not as easy going as teachers in schools on this subject)

I'd like to have the opinion of the admins to the proposed wiki policy (so far). Maybe Jan (and others) could provide some input as to if we are on the right track and not missing anything obvious.

... and it shouldn't go beyond the scope of the scientific stuff either. The only reason that's there to deal with DSP related topics that relate to what we are doing here. It's very time consuming task to write guides for the wiki I don't mind doing it myself, but you need to work on it one step at a time. It depends on what the users needs are too. I noticed that software tends to be very important to a lot of users so it's good to expand out in that area. There are quite a few users that would like to see CDex ported over to Linux, etc. Also there is no reason to police the wiki. This is not wikipedia. I am sure they might be a few copyright violations here and there, but there is nothing substantial. References are important however.

I agree with HotshotGG.

I don't think "Policing" is necessary... but more "prevention". And if we do come across something, know how to fix it.

BTW, I don't think a screencap is copyright-able.

The Korean Wikipedia takes fair use very seriously. Since Korea doesn't have any fair-use laws, no screenshots of non-free programs may be uploaded there.

Screencaps are allowed under US law through fair use.

At the English Wikipedia.

Yes... yes it is. It is very much so. Just add a link back to the image and the appropriate tag, you can find them on WP's foobar page. I was just making a point.

And "policing" is neccessary on every wiki, IMO. Otherwise they become spamfests.

No kidding... I mean I am not trying to duplicate a program's functionality here, just wanting to show what the program is doing at a certain moment in time?

Yep, it's stupid. But surely we can use the one from the official site if we link to it and add a fair use description?

Due to the discussion in this thread I feel we have to elaborate the ownership of articles policy in the behavioral section of the wiki policy.
Apparently some members feel that a different policy should be applied to the user related pages. Well to me it makes sense to keep the user pages, well, personal in the sense that the user would have ownership and decide what to do with them.... However this is somewhat against the spirit of a wiki IMHO.
What do you think? Should we restrict editing of user pages to the users or keep it as is?

i think so. why would i want to edit your page?

Well, the talk page has to be editable by everyone so discussion can take place there. See an example: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=User_talk:Beto

What I mean is if the policy should restrict edits in the user pages to the user only. I don't know if it is technically possible to restrict editing of pages to regular users.


edit: clarification.

I think editions should remain unrestricted, in true wiki spirit. If someone messes with someone else's pages in a way that displeases him, he'd better have a good reason then. But I wouldn't mind if someone somehow noticed that my page was outdated (I'm 24 now) and fixed that for me...

The policy should be the same with other articles: if you fuck up, you'd better have a very good reason/excuse or face whatever punishment the wiki admins deem appropriate. In the particular case of the user pages, I'd say that, when in doubt, don't edit. But prohibiting editions altogether is a little too much and might come back to bite us later.



That would require some major hacks in MediaWiki. Big no-no.

I agree with rjamorim. For all I care, nuke the user pages (with appropriate notice so I can back certain things up). I believe that the user whose username is given on the user page should be the one who ultimately determines its content, be it a talk page or the actual user page. If the user edits out someone elses comment on his user page, it's obvious he's read and responded to it.

My opinion on wikis is that the way the software works goes above all (obviously), then for user: namespaces the users opinion, but other users may edit user pages, just as other users may revert it. Just my 2 cents.

I feel editing of other people's user pages should be strongly discouraged (except for fixing deadlinks or formatting errors, but no typo corrections.)

Adding messages to other people's user talk pages should of course be OK, but deletion of any content on user talk pages (even your own) should be discouraged. Archival should be OK.

edit: Notice how I said "discouraged" instead of "forbidden." These can be part of guidelines, rules that aren't policy.

What if we do something like this:

ORIGINAL


PROPOSED


Would that be too restrictive?

I would word it differently. I think that something along the lines of:
"The content a user's user page is theirs to decide. Feel welcome to add related content or fix issues. The user may object to or revert your change. If this happens, do not be offended. Instead, let the user control their user page. Their decision should be respected unless it clearly breaks policy."

No, that's good.

I do not think we should ever discourage editing in the policy. If we simply make it clear that a user's user page is under their control, the whole issue vanishes. All edits are easily reverted, making any unwanted alteration almost a non-issue.

Compiled properly with my version, I propose:



I have attempted to emulate the simple, straightforward style of the first sentence in the second. Indeed, simplicity and straightforwardness are our friends in policy. t could be pared down to the first and last sentences without losing much. The rest is aimed at avoiding the stupidity that occurred earlier.

I like your idea Canar.
I would be more concise and direct though. What about this?

I like it beto, thanks for your input. It simplifies my somewhat awkward phrasing. I'm kind of partial to the mention about breaking policy though. It seems to me that if I were to change someone's user page to comply with policy and they reverted such a change that they are in the wrong. I think a mention of that would be useful.

I'd suggest the last bit read like this:

I think we got a winner now

Alright! Any other comments? Elliott? kjoonlee?

None, (personally I'd treat "breaking policy" as including mediawiki technical conventions but that'd just start the crap earlier up again).

It is not listed in the policy anywhere that mediawiki technical conventions be treated as policy, which would render your interpretation incorrect.

But naming conventions *are* policy at wikipedia. [[WP:NAME]]

Other than that, I have no significant objections.

Likewise, it is not listed in the policy anywhere that Wikipedia policies be treated as HA KB policy.

Again, if either of these statements bother you, propose changes to policy. Until the policy is changed, however, please remember that the HA KB is not Wikipedia.

The most recent version of the text has been added to policy under the header "User pages".

I am in agreement with your stance