Faedra

Wikipedia the free lunch.

How often in life do you get anything for nothing is the question raised in this item.

Seldom, must be the answer, unless you are very fortunate or have some legal claim. A good example of the something for nothing culture has evolved into the Wikipedia free encyclopaedia.

Yes, it has been stated that any individual surfing the net, may freely copy a wikipedia article, but you can copy just about anything from the WWW, and once it has been de compiled and re associated with other material, it is difficult to really claim any previous copyright to have been violated.

I have copied many pages from Wikipedia, read them, and asked myself what have I gained, very little in fact, given the public access to original material available to any interested party in the modern world. Further as a contributor for several months having provided over 100 original pages, I find I have gained even less. A considerable amount of effort has to be put into into compiling an objective, accurate and useful article for any encyclopaedia, and the satisfaction from such effort does not come from seeing it at Wikipedia, or even on the web, but in fact from the effort stated.

Wikipedia has such a weak grip on its own content, having chosen to assimilate its content under the form of the GNU, that its material is redistributed by numerous other agents, many of whom seem to be providing a useful service to the educational establishment, the instrument of its downfall seems most likely in that it states itself to be a community. As such it is flawed, and heading for problems. Many authors initially happy to contribute to Wikipedia, have indicated that feel the 'community' a bunch of arrogant pirates, and full of their own self importance, (it is widely recognised how this behaviour is self defeating). This however is not the problem with the legality of the GNU, in the context of Wikipedia.

Whilst a statement exists on all pages that any contribution is licenced under the GNU, no method of obtaining a verification of this proposition is presented to the beginner. Whilst a simple javascript could be employed, it can not be back dated. I will, if compelled therefore challenge the Wikipedia GNU and present my 'wikified' texts to an independent publisher, with the intention of exposing this absurd proposition, a form of free licensing aimed at escaping responsibility, and duty of care for intellectual property.

I am not easily upset by genuine critism, but will not tollerate arrogance. Thousands of websites are available for those inclined to upload material of any sort, the math does not add up, when it is considered objectively, Wikipedia is rotten from the inside, and this is only noticeable after some experience with its methods of utilising the good will of its users. It remains potentially a valued resource for education, but is criticised for exploiting its members, beyond reasonable cause. If it is ever to evolve into a useful institution major reforms are required.

My first interest in the website manifest when I discovered that it was possible to make direct edits to existing pages, and encouraged by the advise, and warnings about responsibility whilst so doing I begun to take an active part in the program. However I soon noticed how very few people actually have anything of merit to contribute, and how most changes are simple at best, or just useful corrections made at random, by readers, in passing.

Whilst I am content to allow my contributions to be edited beyond recognition I have noticed that the main preoccupation of many 'Wikipedians' seems to be in spending time criticising work submitted, without taking the appropriate amount of time to make any alterations they might deem required, and this I find a mark of gross ignorance. I can find fault in just about anything if I wish to be negative, but this freedom does not give me the right to assume I am correct.

I am not so preoccupied that I fail to notice failings around this website, and wish them to be addressed. I am not bothered if my contributions are unwelcomed but would appreciate it if someone would tell me so. I thought perhaps some one might appreciate my imput, but it is not compulsion.

I concede readily however that many Wikipedians are exceptional people with rare talents and congratulate them for their efforts.

The kind of opinion that indicates arrogance and self importance, to be avioded in a public forum:

An implacable command states that you the user must obey at all times all the guidelines and agreed conventions that other people have gone to the trouble to create.

No such file from Fester.

Of related interest:

Lord Warden

No problem. It's always nice to see people with an interest in British history here. Proteus (Talk) 08:49, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Deleted pages

Hi. The page Early National Socialism/draft was deleted several months ago by a consensus vote. You "reconstructed" this deleted page and put it back on wikipedia as European National Socialism. Please do not resurrect pages that have been deleted without first conducting a vote to "undelete" the article. Please see Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Early_National_Socialism/draft for the earlier debate on why that page was inappropriate for wikipedia. AndyL 16:51, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I have also contributed alot to this site but what unnerves me is the constant editing and the slanting of articles that approximate censorship. A particular fellow runs after me editing and censoring a certain author I use. He is deleting all reference to him. I do a lot of research only to find that it is clearly deleted and thrown over. It doesn't make for an enjoyable time. It is sometimes worthless to try. I feel your pain on your other points as well.WHEELER 17:35, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In many ways I do agree with you. I often smile when I consider the votes for deletion, which many take awfully seriously, forgetting, it seems, that just anyone can sign up and have a vote! It's quite arbitrary who bothers. You are also very right that there is relatively little construction to match the deconstruction, because so much effort is put into little things. However, perhaps you should take into account that the contributors are very keen and the process rather addictive and perhaps this is the best outlet they could find for their urge to get involved. I noted your frustration with the rules lawyers that have a grip on the place. You just have to shrug that off. There are always going to be people who rather than try to convince you they are right will appeal to "the guidelines", forgetting the spirit that they are intended to represent and making out they are inscribed in stone. But that is not everyone here. I'm sure there are many who will engage in constructive debate. I hope you will not be discouraged and will continue to contribute.Dr Zen 07:24, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Dixieladye

Hi. I notice you are back, using the name User:Dixieladye. Let's hope for a better result this time. Deb 19:10, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image:Blue-Circle Barge, Thames Barge Race at Gravesend.Gif

Hi! Thanks for uploading Image:Blue-Circle Barge, Thames Barge Race at Gravesend.Gif. I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the image and I'll tag it for you. Thanks so much, – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 23:10, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Hoo Peninsula

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi Faedra, wanted to ask a few things about this article, on which you did all the spadework, but looks like you've thrown in the towel. Just on the off-chance you may still be looking/caring...

I've started a separate article for Cooling, Kent (before working out who to contact), as it was such a large section in Hoo. Plan is to keep brief descrip in Hoo, with x-ref to main Cooling article. Hope this OK with you.

Kingsnorth power station (Isle of Grain): are you sure about the dates of 1948 and 1953 for building and start-up? I have a CEGB visitor's guide to Kingsnorth which gives 1963 and 1967.

The original text seems to give the B2003 as the road to Cliffe, thru Cliffe Woods. Unless it's changed recently, shouldn't that be the B2000?

I'm loathe to change stuff when I don't understand _why_ it seems inaccurate - but you don't ref your work, so it's kinda hard to check your sources against mine (and I'm from Cliffe, so agree that I am likely to be 'arrogant' about my level of info over yours here ...)

I'm sorry if you've really given up on Wiki - I for one will miss your contributions... JackyR 19:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

Image Tagging for Image:Allhallows-on-Sea_sunset.jpg

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 11:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)Reply