Wikipedia Moves To Delete the Free Speech Flag

decora writes "After a version of the PS3 Free Speech Flag (from the Yale Law & Tech blog) was deleted from Wikipedia, for being a copyright violation, discussion turned to the original Free Speech Flag, from the HD DVD / AACS encryption key controversy. The result is that this flag too (currently in use on six different wikipedias) has now been nominated for deletion."

Comments

5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[unity100]

This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.

this is ridiculous. someday, someone will be able to claim 'rights' in the arrangement that someone's crap makes when out of their ass.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[OverlordQ]

This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.

No, this is Wikipedia process-wankery and why they're losing editors in droves.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[natehoy]

Meesa poopsa?

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[DJ Particle]

Many companies incorporate a US flag, or an avatar of it, in their logos

For example: America's Best eyewear

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[unity100]

nielsen can still sue wikipedia even if you put up a public domain version of something.

thats the fault of american system - the one with the money wins the court.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[Haedrian]

You're taking things too broadly. Its a case of encoding.

Its very possible for me to grab something which has a copyright, convert it to binary and then convert it into:

1. Colours
2. Strings
3. Numbers
4. Music

So while "Owning Arrangements of Colour" sounds stupid in principle, what you could do if this was not the case would completely destroy copyright on many things. Now you could say that's a good thing, but meh.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[Hatta]

This is where we are down to, with this copyright/intellectual property shit. i mean, now arrangements of colors are being owned/dominated.

The funny thing is that the flag is MORE worthy of copyright protection than the original key. If you pick 5 random colors and put them on a flag, that's creative work worthy of copyright protection. An arbitrary encryption key is the result of a purely mechanical process and should not meet the threshold of originality.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[TheGratefulNet]

tl;dr version: some people just want to watch the world burn.

Re:5 fucking color stripes in a square.

[Psychochild]

Why is it so vital to classify stuff as "garbage" and "non-garbage"? (The fact that you chose to use the word "garbage" with negative connotation says a lot.) Good stuff gets looked at, the rest (shallow self-promotion, astroturfing, libel, etc.) gets corrected if it's something a lot of people will run into. Given the cost of running Wikipedia already, it's not like a few tens of thousands of pages is going to make a difference in a digital world.

The thing I loved about Wikipedia back in the day was the ability to find obscure stuff. Yeah, I could search for it online, but that didn't give me the context. It was a real joy to just lose yourself reading links in Wikipedia. But, after seeing a bunch of articles I care about get removed, it's less of a joy because I have to wonder what other information was deemed "not notable" enough for me to read.

The ultimate problem with "deletionism" is that people with no real knowledge of the topic are often the ones calling for deletion. Or, worse, you get someone who has a personal interest in deleting an article as "revenge", as in the case of the Old Man Murray issue from last week.

Here's my "faling out of love witih Wikipedia" story: An article on "Dragon Kill Points" (DKP) was deleted back in the day by someone who thought it wasn't notable; as a respected MMORPG developer, I argued it was a very notable and important concept to the field. I managed to help put off two deletion attempts on the basis of "not notable" in the span of a few months, only to have the article deleted later in a "speedy" process. The first two proposals came from the same person (after the first one was an unambiguous "keep" result), and the three requests came all within 4 months of each other. This seems a bit beyond someone wanting to "clean up" the site. Of course, the article was added back some years later, but it's a shadow of its former self and not nearly as useful.

Lesson learned! Not is a lot of potentially useful information missing, I also learned that anything I contributed in my field might be wiped out by someone who just doesn't like it. I'll spend my time doing something more useful than contributing or using Wikipedia, thanks.

Is this even a thing?

[iluvcapra]

How many of you were aware there was such a thing AS the "Free Speeg Flag"? I wasn't (I was half expecting to see an article about a bitfield struct.). How many of us have actually seen one, and not some SVG but an actual cloth banner on a pole, in an actual context in the RL? Does the Important Movement of Our Time, AKA ripping movies and posting them on a torrent, really need a flag?

This thing looks like it was invented by some self-aggrandizing dweeb who is now trying to get a slashdot flash mob to save his "original research."

Re:Is this even a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that once I read up on the "Free Speech Flag", I completely failed to see how it was about Free Speech at all. I could see how it was a 'clever' encoding of some decryption key, and now that's all it seems to represent to me.. somebody's idea of sneaking-in-plain-sight a decryption key past some manner of perceived Big Brother that comes down hard on those who dare publish it 'as is'.

Free Speech would be just publishing the key, in relevant articles, period. Not hiding it behind 'flag colors', or pointing out that the key exists in the digits of pi at digit #whatever, or any other sort of obfuscation.

If they're trying to show the opposite - that one has to go through such lengths in order to publish (privileged) information at all, then it still fails because the key -is- published up the wazoo on the internet. Just because a particular site doesn't want it published through their avenue - for whatever reason - doesn't mean you can't have it published and available to a wide audience.

Re:waiting for my patent on "0" to be approved

[sqlrob]

In some ways it makes sense, but there needs to be better defined limits.

Everything is representable as a number. Software, this post, a scan of the Mona Lisa. Where do you draw the line?

Wikipolice?

[margeman2k3]

I find it interesting (and maybe a little disturbing) that Wikipedia, which was supposed to be open for everyone, and always seemed to represent freedom, democracy, etc. now has a "secret police" system. There are a group of editors there who can just make pages... disappear. The logs are hidden from everyone (even the admins).
It's like those pages just never existed.

It makes you wonder what else is going on inside Wikipedia.

Why the surprise?

[Chas]

Wikipedia hasn't been about free speech since about thirty seconds after inception.

It's about control of information by a cabal (admittedly a very LOOSELY affiliated cabal, but a cabal nonetheless) of editors. All of whom have their own particular agendas and axes to grind. And it's not about what you know, but whom.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Dachannien]

Oh, Wikipedia? Okay. For a second there, I thought you were talking about Anonymous.

Re:Why the surprise?

[TheGratefulNet]

or, just life, in general.

who do these kids, today, think they are? the world is just as broken as it was years ago. why do they expect justice and fairness when the world was NEVER supposed to be like that?

in life, it has always been about 'who you know'. in a way, wiki helps teach that. ugly lesson but no one (other than your pastor and some stupid disney movie) said life was fair or just.

Re:262144 pixels on a grid.

[kthreadd]

The point is not about the flag, it's about the number that they claim that they own copyright to.

I claim 5. Everyone who wants to use a 5 out there better contact me because I'm taking licensing fees.