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Erik Moeller | 1 Sep 2005 04:44
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Wikinews writing contest underway!

The first International Wikinews Writing Contest (IWWC) is now underway. 
If you are a contestant, please register (link) your contributions every 
day in the log, e.g. under

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_Wikinews_Writing_Contest#September_1

for today. If you are not a contestant, you can still sign up today 
without incurring article debt -- after then, every day you wait is an 
additional article you have to write later.

The prizes so far:
- 300$ in cash for the 3 winners
- A full distribution of SuSE Linux 9.3 on DVD
- 3 basic web site designs
- A free MediaWiki site hosted by myoo.de
- An Opera 8 registration code
- Lots of GMail invites :-)

Please continue to spread the word about the contest to your local 
language editions. Let's hope that it becomes a truly international event.

Best,

Erik
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Amgine | 8 Sep 2005 05:49

Wikinews Licensure Poll

The Wikinews Licensure Poll, which was delayed until 2000 UTC
September 6th, is currently open for voting. The poll is to learn the
community's opinion as to an appropriate copyright licensure for
Wikinews, to inform the Wikimedia Foundation Board as they consider
options for the project. The poll is located at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll

There are many options in the poll, including:

    * BSD license
    * CC-by 2.5
    * CC-by-sa 2.5
    * GFDL
    * Wikinews License v 0.1
    * Wikinews License v 0.2

As well there are options for various multilicensing options.

The poll is an open vote, meaning anyone may vote for as many options
as they feel would be appropriate, and community members may vote both
for or against options. Votes are being polled with Wikinews
contributors for/against, and other Wikimedians for/against, so there
can be a comparison of opinions if there is a difference.

Please take a moment to look at the options and give your opinion, to
help the board out in their considerations.

Amgine
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Dariusz Siedlecki | 20 Sep 2005 22:10
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The Wikinews Licensure Poll is closed

After two weeks of voting, the Wikinews community has chosen which
license they'd like for their project. I won't post the full results
here, but you can view them on Meta -
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll

Now... The winner is CC-By 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki. The
license is one-way-compatible with the GFDL. It gained 27 votes of
support from Wikinewsies with only four votes against.

It needs to be mentioned, that the GFDL gained 11 opposing votes from
Wikinewsies, with only one vote of support. But the combination of
GFDL and CC-By 2.5 gained 8 votes of support, with only one opposing
vote.

The Wikinews License 0.2, based on the BSD license, gained 14 votes of
support, but 8 people were against it.

Not many people were interested in the other licenses, so... I think
that's it. The Wikinews community choosed CC-By 2.5 for the Wikinews
project. Now it's up to the Board to decide on the project license.
So... What does everyone say?

--

-- 
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
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Angela | 20 Sep 2005 22:34
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Re: The Wikinews Licensure Poll is closed

On 9/20/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> After two weeks of voting, the Wikinews community has chosen which
> license they'd like for their project. I won't post the full results
> here, but you can view them on Meta -
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll
> 
> Now... The winner is CC-By 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki. The
> license is one-way-compatible with the GFDL. It gained 27 votes of
> support from Wikinewsies with only four votes against.

Also, vote counts are at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll/Results

Angela.
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Jean-Baptiste Soufron | 23 Sep 2005 15:28
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Re: The Wikinews Licensure Poll is closed

As for myself, I will read the various feedback from opposers to WNL 0.2 
and modify it to answer their remarks.

I guess Amgine will help me on this.

Dariusz Siedlecki a écrit :
> After two weeks of voting, the Wikinews community has chosen which
> license they'd like for their project. I won't post the full results
> here, but you can view them on Meta -
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll
> 
> Now... The winner is CC-By 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki. The
> license is one-way-compatible with the GFDL. It gained 27 votes of
> support from Wikinewsies with only four votes against.
> 
> It needs to be mentioned, that the GFDL gained 11 opposing votes from
> Wikinewsies, with only one vote of support. But the combination of
> GFDL and CC-By 2.5 gained 8 votes of support, with only one opposing
> vote.
> 
> The Wikinews License 0.2, based on the BSD license, gained 14 votes of
> support, but 8 people were against it.
> 
> Not many people were interested in the other licenses, so... I think
> that's it. The Wikinews community choosed CC-By 2.5 for the Wikinews
> project. Now it's up to the Board to decide on the project license.
> So... What does everyone say?
>
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Angela | 25 Sep 2005 00:01
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Wikinews is now CC-BY

The Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License was the most supported
license in the recent poll at
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll>.

Many of the options had very few voters. Of the options with more than
12 voters, the GFDL had only 21% support, and the Wikinews License 0.2
had 60% support (or 64% from Wikinewsies). Fewer people voted on the
Wikinews License option than on the Creative Commons one, meaning 31
people in total supported CC-BY, compared to just 17 supporting WNL
2.0.

With over 87% support from Wikinewsies in the poll, and 82% support
overall, CC-BY has now been agreed upon by the Wikimedia Foundation to
be the new license for all existing and future versions of Wikinews.
Any edits made previously remain public domain - it is only new edits
that will need to be under this Creative Commons License.

The license can be read at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
(that page links to other language versions of the license, and the
full legal code).

Brion has changed the site settings, so the meta data of the wikis
should state they are now CC-BY. However, manually created pages such
as http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Copyright will need to be
updated. MediaWiki namespace pages may need changing if they had been
edited previously. Pages that might need changing include:
[[MediaWiki:Copyright]], [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]],
[[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2]], [[MediaWiki:Copyrightpage]],
[[Project:Copyrights]].
(Continue reading)

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Angela | 25 Sep 2005 02:51
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Re: Wikinews is now CC-BY

On 9/25/05, Aphaia <aphaia@...> wrote:

> > Any edits made previously remain public domain - it is only new edits
> > that will need to be under this Creative Commons License.
>
> you meant in fact "remain public domain or the other licence which
> each project had chosen", I suppose.

Yes, that is what I meant. Edits remain whatever they originally were
(often PD, but I realise this wasn't the case for some wikis). If any
text was licensed under something not compatible with CC-BY, it might
be best to protect those pages and note on them that they were
licensed under <whatever>.

> One technical question: can "CC-By-2.1-(a certain country) or later"
> switch to merely "CC-By-2.5" or "CC-By-2.5-(another certain country)?

I don't know enough about the iCommons licenses to know whether that
switch is permitted.

Angela
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Angela | 25 Sep 2005 10:51
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Re: Wikinews is now CC-BY

On 9/25/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio@...> wrote:
> Quick question - does that mean Wikinews is going out of Beta now?

No, it doesn't. I'd say it's certainly a step towards moving out of
beta, but not the only condition.

It's probably more useful to think about specific language versions
going out of beta rather than Wikinews as whole doing so, since some
will reach that stage much sooner than others. Erik proposed some
criteria earlier this year, which suggested that before moving out of
beta, a Wikinews site should have a large number of new stories every
day, RSS feeds, regular original reporting and associated policies,
solid fact-checking, review and an archival process. See
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2005-March/000079.html>
and related mails in that thread.

Angela.
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Jean-Baptiste Soufron | 25 Sep 2005 15:52
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uncertainty of CC (Was: Re: Wikinews is now CC-BY)

Well I guess it will be my turn to "try" to explain the meaning and the 
legal issues of the CC licenses.

But, this legal uncertainty will stay for long (there are several other 
issues), it is the reason why I strongly recommended the WNL License for 
precision and legal safety, as well as dual-licensing for good and 
simple compatibility with other projects.

I hope the legal policy will continue evolving between WN emerges from 
beta to its final stage.

Angela wrote:
>>> Any edits made previously remain public domain - it is only new edits
>>> that will need to be under this Creative Commons License.
>> you meant in fact "remain public domain or the other licence which
>> each project had chosen", I suppose.
> 
> Yes, that is what I meant. Edits remain whatever they originally were
> (often PD, but I realise this wasn't the case for some wikis). If any
> text was licensed under something not compatible with CC-BY, it might
> be best to protect those pages and note on them that they were
> licensed under <whatever>.
> 
>> One technical question: can "CC-By-2.1-(a certain country) or later"
>> switch to merely "CC-By-2.5" or "CC-By-2.5-(another certain country)?
> 
> I don't know enough about the iCommons licenses to know whether that
> switch is permitted.

Being the translator of the CC licenses for France and an IP license
(Continue reading)

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Jean-Baptiste Soufron | 25 Sep 2005 18:42
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Re: uncertainty of CC (Was: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikinews is now CC-BY)


> Is it possible for Wikinews to be dual-licensed with both CC-BY 2.5
> and WNL? If it is, it should be.

Of course it would be possible, and I would say that it would be one of 
the best solution. Maybe even WNL+CCBY2.5+GFDL

> I think a lot of people voted for BY 2.5 because they recognize the CC
> "brand" without understanding the full legal implications of the
> license, while at the same time not believing that an effective
> license could be as short and simple as our home-grown WNL.

Exactly.

And that's why I hope the license policy of wn will evolve.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron,
CERSA-CNRS PARIS 2
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Gmane