Wikipedia talk:Nupedia and Wikipedia

differences between Nupedia and Wikipedia

This page does not discuss the differences between Nupedia and Wikipedia. I am not very much enlightened! i.e. are they simply in competition, or are the trying to achieve different aims?

Nupedia Chalkboard

I see that we shouldn't add articles from the Nupedia Chalkboard, but what about Nupedia's articles in progress?. There are articles that have been stranded in there, with no visible movement, since late 2001. Do these have the same status as chalkboard articles, or can they be assumed to be released under the GFDL? It would be a pity to not use them as many of them would make excellent stubs and it would be a pity if they disappeared down into /dev/null simply through inactivity at Nupedia. -- Lexor 09:19, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Jimbo and others on the wikipedia-l list archive thread: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-August/thread.html#11582 seem to concur that nupedia a-i-p qualify under the GFDL. Also mav confirmed this on my talk page:

Yes. Jimbo said it is OK so go ahead and use the Nupedia articles under development under the GNU FDL. It was the intent of the authors anyway to have their work under the GNU FDL, so I don't see a problem so long as proper credit is given. --mav

so I'm going to update this meta page saying that Nupedia a-i-p can be ported to wikipedia. --Lexor 08:34, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Copying from the village pump so that it somebody who looks for Nupedia from this page will know that it's been reported: -- Lexor 13:16, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nupedia.com/Nupedia.org is gone, please bring it back

It appears that http://nupedia.org and http://nupedia.com are both gone, which is a great pity because I was trying to port across some of the articles in process, see Wikipedia:Nupedia and Wikipedia. There was no mention that this site was going to disappear, no announcement that it was about to go. Most unceremonius.

In discussion with Jimbo and Mav, (see above) it appears that I could port the old articles in progress under the GFDL, further, there were actually at least one officially posted article that hadn't been transferred at all. Not mention all the attribution links for the source material, history of Nupedia, etc. that are now gone and old contributors to Nupedia might be a little miffed about this. Can we get it back please (at very least the content of the database so I can continue the port)? I certainly hope something like this doesn't happen to wikipedia some day. --Lexor 11:24, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

GFDL license statement and the Title page

Looking at the article Imperative programming I see that there is some attribution text atop the article that the history comments says should not be removed because it is a "Title Page" required by the GFDL. Is this advice correctly stated? Bevo 01:18, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I removed it. It is non-standard and ugly. See Wikipedia:Copyrights. We deal with that issue by having detailed history pages linked before articles. RMS is well-aware of us and how we operate - he would have said something ages ago if we were doing something wrong. --mav 01:50, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It may be non-standard. It may be ugly. It is also correct. RMS is not god, nor is he well aware of the precise details of how we operate, nor has he stated a position on this particular issue. If you disagree with my interpretation of copyright law, you are welcome to explain why. Martin 19:48, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's certainly not like anything I've seen elsewhere on the 'pedia - articles based on the 1911 Britannica or FOLDOC generally have a note at the bottom, but this seems to be out of politeness rather than anything else. - IMSoP 01:55, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) [Comment written simultaneously to mav's]

From the article talk page

Mav, why did you remove the history and title page text? It's required under the GFDL for making a modified version, in this case from Nupedia. You said "see wikipedia:copyrights", but I can't tell to what you refer. Martin 16:10, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He's under the delusion that the convoluted interpretation of the GFDL given on wikipedia:copyrights is the only interpretation that can be made. Anthony DiPierro 16:19, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If so, the point is that just because Wikipedia has a certain interpretation of the GFDL when others use our work, doesn't mean that we're allowed to use the same interpretation of the GFDL when we use the work of others. Now, if the authors of the Nupedia article in question to indicate that they share our interpretation, then that's great. However, if they do not (and they have not yet to date, AFAICT) then we should follow a comparatively strict interpretation to ensure that we are not violating copyright. Martin 16:38, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If the text is felt to be needed, I would favour a note at the bottom of the page similar to the one used for 1911 or FOLDOC articles, which would seem to contain the same information in a less obtrusive and more standard (in the sense of consistent within Wikipedia) way. Something like:

This text, or a previous version of it, was written by Stan Seibert for Nupedia.

Would that cover the potential copyright issues do you think? - IMSoP 18:56, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No, the text needs to go on the "Title Page", as that text is defined in the GFDL:

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

See sections 4A, 4B, 4C of the Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License. Martin 19:48, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, that is pretty clear isn't it. I guess we need to hash out a standard text to go unobtrusively at the top of the articles then. Taking the suggested text on Nupedia and Wikipedia as starting point, how about:

An earlier version of this article was posted on Nupedia; editor: Robert Dyer, lead reviewer: James Allan Evans , lead copyeditors: Charles Peyser and Jeri Bates. This version has been modified by Wikipedia users and published by Wikimedia

Unwieldy, I know, but seemingly necessary for strict adherence to the licence. - IMSoP 20:51, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I thought it would look better to have a short note at the top of the page, and a longer note at the bottom of the page, but I'm open to suggestions. :) Martin 21:19, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, as I understand it, that would be fudging the licence requirement somewhat (as you quote above: "...preceding the beginning of the body of the text...") - but I guess not by much, and let's face it, the FDL wasn't written with such short texts in mind. - IMSoP 22:19, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In fact, the page on Nupedia and Wikipedia has a suggested text, but of the half-dozen links I followed, only one had actually used it, and no two were alike. Perhaps someone needs to go through and make them consistent? [Although the attribution may be awkward with the site unavailable] - IMSoP 19:06, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Internet Archive sees all. The other articles will be fixed in due course. Martin 19:48, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Aha, good thinking! Now we just need to decide how to format the information... - IMSoP 20:51, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As a side note - in our article about Nupedia, don't you think it's time we declared them dead? The site has been gone since september. I think it's fair to say they aren't coming back. →Raul654 19:09, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

If this is, indeed, a requirement, it's going to be impossible to do it by editing every single article and putting it there, and making sure it stays there. It's going to have to be done by the operating system in an section which is not editable. RickK 21:14, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There aren't that many Nupedia articles, so it shouldn't be too difficult. The FOLDOC articles are more of a challenge, though. Martin 21:42, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Taking a comment out of line...

Imsop: there are two seperate pieces of text we require: firstly, we require some text on the "title page", under 4A, 4B, 4C. I think Imperative programming satisfies that, so I don't think we need to add any more to it.

Secondly, we require some "History" text on the article. Now the History text doesn't have to go on the title page, so we can shuffle it off to the bottom and put it in small. Does that clarify? Martin 22:34, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Blimey, aren't licences hard work! I suppose you're right that the current note at Imperative programming is OK for the "Title Page", as long as Stan Seibert can be considered the sole "principal author" of the original work. I'm not overly fond of the wording - I'd certainly prefer it if "a previous version" was in there somewhere, because potentially there may be very little of the original text left, so we don't want to make it look like the Nupedia author was the principal author of this text. Oh, and you spelled "modified" wrong :p - IMSoP 22:49, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, I'm an idiot. :)

I guess a longer wording would be much clearer - that's a fair point. I like what you've just done regards "incorporates text written by..."

One alternative to all this is to put something on the main page, and consider Wikipedia a single "Document" with that as its "Title Page", but I think that would be heavily resisted, so I'll stick to fixing things on a per-article basis.

And yes, licenses suck. :-/ Martin 23:15, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Considering the Wikipedia a single work would be a really bad idea. In a single work a site which wished to infringe the GFDL could do so by making a single contribution, then exploiting precednets saying that joint authors may not sue each other. It's important that each article be the single work. Note how we're reacting to it as well and consider that our use of GFDL imposes what we dislike on reusers of the WiKipeida. There's more to be learned from this than just what we need to do in this case - the GFDL requirements are causing us to choose to rewrite rather than reuse a GFDL work. Jamesday 03:26, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On Wikipedia the title page is the article itself and the history section and list of authors are combined on the article's history page. So moving the author note from the start of the article to the references section and indicating that the history section you wrote was on this talk page, is above and beyond what is needed. --mav

The main problem I see is that the GFDL seems to stipulate that the author list go on the Title page, not in the history section. --Delirium 11:55, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Mav, your interpretation of the GFDL is a novel one. You appear to be claiming that the entire article plus the "page history", plus the Talk page is all one big "Title Page". However, the Text of the GFDL states:

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

The entire article cannot be considered to be "near" the most prominent appearance of the work's title. Nor can it be considered to be "preceding the beginning of the body of the text", as it is the body of the text. A plain reading of the text of the GFDL does not support your interpretation. Martin 19:46, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Further, your interpretation has severe negative consequences for Wikipedia or another person producing a printed version, as to do so they would be absolutely forced to print out the entire page history. Nobody can sanely argue that some text is "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title", when it is in fact only available by logging on to the internet (and the user may not have internet access) and browsing to a URL. This interpretation, even if it were valid, would thus severely damage the freeness of Wikipedia. Martin 19:46, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My point is indeed that it is not "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title" currently, while the GFDL requires that it be in that location. Note that this is onoly for materials the license requires on the title page, which does not include the history. It does however, include the authors list. To my reading, the GFDL does not anywhere allow the authors list to be buried in a link on the internet. It requires the authors list to be on the Title page, or in materials lacking a title page, to be "near the most prominent apperance of the work's title". In fact, I don't understand your argument at all: you seem to be arguing that because Wikipedia does not place this in a prominent location, that it is therefore not in a prominent location, which is true. But it doesn't change the fact that the GFDL requires it in a prominent location. --Delirium 00:50, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Ahh, I was replying to mav, and it seems I misread his comments: I thought he said "On Wikipedia the title page is the article itself and the history section and list of authors", whereas in fact he said "On Wikipedia the title page is the article itself", and the mention of the history section is a seperate clause. My apologies: I have edited the text in question. Martin 01:01, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is the title page notice a permanent mark? Can I simply rewrite the article entirely and avoid it? Bevo 14:56, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Certainly if you rewrite the article from scratch you can delete the title page notice (and the history section). That's absolutely fine.

If you rewrite the article so that it shares nothing in common with the original external GFDL article, then you can probably (99% sure) likewise remove the title page notice and history section.

You can also ask the contributing author to license their text under a less restrictive license than the GFDL.

Of course, IANAL, and this is not legal advice. Martin 19:46, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Bevo 20:09, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nupedia attribution

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Nupedia_and_Wikipedia . In reviewing Nupedia sourced articles from the list kept there, I don't see any uniformity of attribution style for this requirement. I also see that the links to the original Nupedia articles are now deadends. Is there a simple phrase that would suffice to meet the requirement? - Bevo 19:54, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)