The Wikimedia Foundation is a common carrier, essentially an internet service provider. They aren't liable for the libel or defamation because they didn't write the information, as a policy they don't even patrol or perform editorial control over the content, and thus Wikipedia is a public forum.
The editor who wrote the article is certainly liable from a legal standpoint. That is assuming you can identify who it is and they are in the jurisdiction of the court. The Wikimedia Foundation also does not shield their volunteers either from such liability. The same applies to Slashdot I should note as well. The Wikimedia Foundation does routinely take down content which is asserted to be libelous or a violation of copyright (through the OTRS group), or at least brings the issue up to the editors of the page where it may happen.
Their "no original research" policy has been completely braindamaged ever since it was first created, and it's not getting any better over time.
I don't think you understand the purpose of the "no original research" principle. The #1 reason for its adoption in the first place was to stop people like Richard Hoagland from writing up an article about some crazy UFO theory of his like the hollow moon of Mimas and to present it as fact, or to discussion the decades old colony on Mars at Cydonia that the USAF has been running since the Reagan Administration. You wouldn't believe the crackpots that have posted stuff on Wikipedia in the name of science, and the "no original research" policy is really just a polite way to tell these guys to get lost.
On the whole, I find that that "no original research" policy tends to make much better articles on WIkipedia as it raises standards for what is acceptable.
In terms of saying that you aren't a reliable source for your own work, you should have published some of that information.... sort of like how you did anyway. I am impressed that they let a blog be sufficient as frequently those get removed as unreliable sources as well. There is one article that I've worked on from time to time that the standard is a formally published source in a respected peer-reviewed journal... in part because so many crackpot idiots keep posting all sorts of nonsense on blogs or other self-published websites. That happens to be an alternative energy article, where stuff like that seems to ooze out of the woodwork and people involved have never heard of the laws of thermodynamics and don't "believe" that the speed of light applies to their invention. I'm talking some pretty basic factual errors in their understanding of things in this universe that goes deep into what is charitably called "pseudoscience" for a pretty good reason.
That is the reason Wikipedia insists that everything added to an article must be verifiable. Claiming that you are the person that the article is all about is something hard to legitimately verify.
Sock puppets have power when administrators let them. They don't need to be useful at all and for me seems to be a waste of time to even try. I have used multiple accounts on Wikimedia projects before, mainly for specialized tasks like running bots or doing something of a core clerical task or simply trying to get a "new user" experience. I have never needed to use sock puppets on discussion pages as I let my arguments speak for themselves.
I've also been able to turn around entire discussions simply by bringing up a powerful argument or alternative. Alternative solutions seem to work best, especially if you can turn it into a "win-win" situation to the two warring factions in the argument (assuming it is two different factions that are involved). I've even "won" the argument when I started out as clearly the minority opinion but bringing out important points that needed to be considered and rational editors were able to see my point of view. I'm not saying that it is easy to do that, but it can be done and done without sock puppets. It gets frustrating when I'm accused of being a sock puppet of another user's account... usually when somebody is decidedly losing the argument.
It is a problem with newer administrators who perform vote counts or other silly things that they aren't supposed to be doing but is done anyway. That kind of behavior is what encourages sock puppetry. In theory, one very strong argument that is based upon previously agreed policies and precedence with other articles should trump a hundred contrary arguments that are more like "I think this is ugly". That is Wikipedia policy, but it isn't followed as often as it should be.
Sometimes you need to compromise and realize you are writing content jointly with almost all of the rest of humanity (at least those who care about the article in any way). That is the point of the talk pages on Wikipedia, so you can collaborate in the development of the article.
You can't compromise or collaborate with someone who doesn't accept cited facts that are contrary to their worldview. That's the OP's point, and it went whooshing about ten feet over your head.
That is the reason you can speak up to the wider Wikipedia community when that happens. If they aren't willing to compromise with you and at least acknowledge alternative viewpoints, they are violating Wikipedia policies and will be smacked down eventually.
I know it isn't perfect, but the issue here is that you are dealing with another human being and not some computer. It includes all of the fickle and even downright petty problems of having to deal with anybody else that exists in any other endeavor. Sometimes those folks are crude, rude, and insensitive. Just like you can walk down what is supposedly the safest street in the world and get mugged and robbed, you can have ugly people do something similar when contributing to a random article on Wikipedia as well. You can also have corrupt cops that may be the ones doing the mugging on that supposedly "safe" street. That is sort of called real life and not some sort of computer game like some folks keep thinking is happening on Wikipedia.
What else are you expecting here? I agree that policing of these kind of bullies needs to happen more, but that is a tough nut to crack in terms of how you get that to happen.
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
For contentious edits blogs are rarely considered reliable. They're not really supposed to be considered reliable at all.
Re-read the policy again if you believe this. Certainly blogs from some random schmo spouting stuff off the top of his head is not considered reliable. If on the other hand the article is about something like Tesla Motors and the person's blog happens to be Martin Eberhard (co-founder of the company), the blog entry is much more significantly important and valid for inclusion in the article. The same could be said if it was a famous physicist or composer (for a relevant Wikipedia article). Just because it is a blog doesn't mean it can't be reliable, you just need to be careful with how you use it and it is largely considered a primary source. The same could be said about tweets from Twitter or other "new media" sources. It really is no different than somebody quoting letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail, even though it is a very rich source of information of high importance to historians.
Primary sources can also be referenced on Wikipedia.... with caution and maintaining a neutral tone to the article. Primary sources also shouldn't dominate the article, so it is still good to seek after secondary articles.
For some articles where very little information is available editors might decide that a blog, or that simply the fact that some of the editors are very familiar with the subject and all agree, is sufficient. There was recently a discussion on the common English name for one of the many transliteration systems used for Chinese. Anyone know where we could get a reliable source for that? One name, "bopomofo" that was known to be in use was also claimed to be not simply the name of that one system, but also a common for any of the transliteration systems for Chinese (since those are the first four sounds they use). Anyone know where we can find an English language reference?
If you really are serious about trying to find an answer to this question, there are places to look. Again it is a matter of knowing the subject matter in plenty of detail and deferring to experts when there is something you really don't know so much about. In this particular case, I would suggest looking up Chinese-English dictionaries and reading the preface and introductory sections of those dictionaries for some information about the transliteration of Chinese to English and the other way around. Unfortunately most of that is in print and not something you can look up on the Internet... at least not in English. I don't know what this has to do with a blog, unless somebody writing in the blog is talking about this particular issue and that is the only quick reference you can find on Google.
I tend to stay away from the politically charged pages precisely because of stuff like this. I have never even tried to participate in writing something for the articles about George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Those articles have such a churn rate on them that they are permanently semi-protected and take some balls of iron to even consider making an edit. I would imagine the AGW article is somewhat similar.
I certainly wouldn't recommend even touching an article like that if you are just starting out in Wikipedia. Instead, I'd suggest looking at the article for your hometown (especially if it is a small town) and possibly fixing up or even creating an article about your high school (which is generally considered notable according to several Wikipedia policies and numerous discussions on the issue). You also can't go too wrong by writing up an article about an asteroid in the 10k+ range, or writing up something about a new planet discovered by the Kepler satellite. A little more iffy is to write up something about an upcoming movie being released by a major stuido or a brand new television show you may like... but those will be pretty calm in comparison. Finding an obscure mineral or animal are also nice articles to write about and relatively pain free in terms of vitriol or chest thumping.
I guess it is what you want to be involved with. There certainly are some excellent articles on Wikipedia that avoid the problems that happen to "popular" articles. The only real problem I have when playing out on the edge like this is finding some idiot who slaps on a AfD template and thinks whatever it is that you are working on isn't notable or some other nonsense in spite of your having a dozen or more independent sources about the topic. It isn't notable to them, therefore it isn't notable... so you need to go through the ugly AfD process.
I once got an "F" in Computer Science for an assignment that produced output identical to what everybody else in the class had done. My only difference is that I used a completely different algorithm from the rest of the class rather than copying something from the textbook. That my program used fewer instructions, compiled to a smaller binary, and produced the results in a shorter amount of time seemed to go over the head of the instructor.
I did end up appealing the grade to the department head in that case. The one thing I couldn't be accused of doing in that case was plagiarism, as literally nobody else in the class wrote the software in the way that I had.
One day, all copies of Goatse will be lost to the universe. Most of us won't view that as a tragedy.
Sadly, of all of the great works ever created by a human mind, I think that is the last thing that will remain as a testament to what mankind will ever accomplish and survive until the heat death of the Universe.
I still curse CmdrTaco for linking to the site in the first place. Somebody e-mailed it to him and it was subsequently put on a random list of funny websites. By now it has been duplicated and copied so much that I'm sure it is already on the Moon, Mars, and enroute to other stars at the moment.
It wouldn't be a tragedy if it was to disappear, but that is the kind of thing that will stick around forever.
If you can't trust it as a single source then why is it trustworthy for a school assignment? You make no sense
You need to be educated about how information is acquired in the first place. Also note what was said:
Don't trust any single source
You shouldn't trust a single source. But you can trust multiple independent sources which back each other up. You need to ensure that they are indeed independent sources (just because they are different URLs doesn't make them independent) and other scholarly evaluation of the sources need to take place, but that is in general scholarship and a skill that takes time to acquire.
Most teachers who ask you to write a paper usually ask for multiple sources as well, for the very same reason. Don't trust a single source of information, particularly Wikipedia. Don't even trust the references listed in a Wikipedia article, and be aware that sometimes references not included in the article may be relevant and important as well.
Then you revert the Edits back into the article with a note: "It is a violation of wikirules to remove properly cited material. If you think it should be removed, goto Talk page and justify your case."
And then you get accused of starting an "edit war", and punish with a week or two of "time out".
Reverting once or twice isn't a problem on Wikipedia. It is the lack of communication and acting as though you are the only person who could possibly be editing that article which gets you into trouble. Sometimes you need to compromise and realize you are writing content jointly with almost all of the rest of humanity (at least those who care about the article in any way). That is the point of the talk pages on Wikipedia, so you can collaborate in the development of the article.
I can understand that you don't want to waste any more of your time fixing what was a casual edit. If the edit gets accepted, be grateful, otherwise don't let it piss you off.
Actually, the Wikipedia primary source policy including the ability to reference web pages, blogs, and forums even includes exceptions to include material like this. It just sounds like there were a bunch of anal retentive idiots editing the page who were more caught up in policy than trying to actually write an article with useful information.
There are some editors who act as gate keepers from time to time on Wikipedia articles. They are called "article owners", and something that is also considered against Wikipedia policy. Sadly they don't get slapped down often enough even when what they are doing is contrary to policy.
It is important to note that the information is reliable, and a talk page is certainly a good place to discuss such things. I've quoted blog entries and stood up to people who pulled things like this out (reverting their edits and responding on talk pages) where I've had these kind of "no blogs are allowed" believers to re-read the actual policy and back down. It does take weighing sources and judging them for credibility, and sometimes people are just lazy not wanting to put in extra effort to verify the source for themselves.
That in your case it was put into a secondary source sort of makes life easier, but I've seen secondary sources misquote the primary sources as well. The key work here is "scholarship", which sadly is not an easy skill to acquire. Writing a quality encyclopedia article is hard work and harder than it looks. It can be a learned skill acquired by participating on Wikipedia and learning from "the school of hard knocks", but it does take time and effort.
There are a bunch of folks on Wikipedia that seem to think that primary sources are evil and should be avoided at all costs. Many of these same folks also seem to think that paper sources don't exist, so if you can't Google the information or reference it from a URL, it doesn't exist.
Regardless, sometimes you need to stand up to these bullies (that is what they are) who hang around Wikipedia and act like idiots. More often than not they usually get what is coming to them as somebody does stand up to them and either gets them to back down or perhaps they even get brought forward to an ArbCom case and get slapped down real hard or even banned from the project. The problem is that they do a whole lot of damage in the meantime and sadly drive away people like yourself.
I've encountered more than a few idiots on Wikipedia over the years like this. Karma can be a bitch when it bites them back, and I sometimes get guilty pleasure seeing them on their way out the door. I'll also note that it is a very small minority of the Wikipedia editor community who act like this as well, even if sometimes they seem to dominate discussions. Because anybody can slap on warning banners and complain or even revert all sorts of edits, realize that there are a bunch of people who do stuff like that who are just being trolls too.
The sad part is that often a great many people just don't have the time or energy to fight these trolls. I certainly understand if you don't. Hopefully they don't damage the project too badly before they get their hand caught in the cookie jar and kicked out.
That is the point of the Internet Archive and other similar repositories. Hopefully the information can be found somewhere, otherwise information is just lost to the universe.
The same thing happened when the Library of Alexandria was burned down, and would be the same thing if the Vatican Library was to burn down (or the Library of Congress for that matter). The best way to preserve information is to duplicate it as much as possible and send it to as many places as possible. That way, even if 99.9% of all copies are destroyed, at least that 0.1% is still around somewhere and can be further copied and spread around.
The problem with your thinking is that copyright and other "intellectual property" is keeping that process from happening, so information is lost to the universe. That should be viewed as a tragedy.
It took a meeting with the principle for the grade to be set straight.
What was the problem with the grade? Wasn't there symbolism, which you missed?
You can simply ignore the grade altogether and consider that the educational system that most people are in is a total joke, including idiot teachers/professors who really don't know what they are talking about.
The problem is that kind of attitude also means you need to carry that attitude on after you get out of the system, or that you are about ready to tell off the educational ivory tower altogether and try to prove yourself in another venue. There are consequences to that action though, where things like degrees and diplomas need to be further dismissed. Sadly, a great many people even outside of academia are caught up in credentialism and expecting a certain set of letters after your name before you can act, including government bureaucrats that would just as soon throw you into prison because you didn't earn those stupid letters after your name even though you know better than most other folks in that "profession".
So sadly, the silly letter grade really does matter even if you are cynical about the educational establishment and want to tell it to go to hell.
Also, Neil Gaiman claims he made up a "fact" in American Gods, which Wikipedia put in unreferenced. Another website used Wikipedia as a source for this fact. Wikipedia then referenced the other website. Neil Gaiman thinks it's too funny to spoil, by actually telling anyone what the "fact" was.
Citogenesis in action.
It sounds like reliable sources weren't really followed. The person to blame here is not "Wikipedia" in general and certainly not the "Wikimedia Foundation", but rather the people who participated in the development of that particular article.
The fact that you know about this bit of trivia and are doing nothing about it sort of puts the responsibility of trying to fix this "issue" on you, or in this case with Neil Gaiman as well since he is openly bragging about it.
If you like Wikipedia and use it on a regular basis, it sort of seems like good karma to try and make it better when you can. Not everybody can be experts on everything, but they are usually experts at something, which is precisely how Wikipedia was written in the first place. Get over the fact that you are used to hierarchical organizations where there is a "boss" that will be in charge to fix stuff like this. Such stuff doesn't really exist on Wikipedia as it is much more of an anarchy than anything else.
For myself, I get out of Wikipedia as much as I put in, and I'm glad that I've been able to help clean up my own little corner of the project from time to time and make improvements along the way. I don't spend a whole lot of time writing on it, but when something seems wrong or out of place, or simply missing a whole lot of information that I can easily find, I start to contribute.
The Wikimedia Foundation almost never gets involved in disputes about content or users thumping each other's chests in some show of primal dominance. That is entirely dealt with on individual projects unless it becomes something like a project bureaucrat that is going rogue and being a real pain in the behind.
There is even a group of "overseers" that are volunteers (using Wikimedia terms, they are called "Stewards") who have broad powers across multiple projects to clean up messes of this nature. Usually their main purpose is to "promote" somebody to the status of a "bureaucrat" when one doesn't exist on a local project or to grant some special privileges like the "oversight" rights that permit some users to dig into page histories and determine who might be sock puppets with information that generally isn't available to the general public.
About the only thing the Wikimedia Foundation does, besides frivolous spending of donations, is to maintain the server farms running the website. On a very rare occasion they do get into some broad policy discussions, and they are also involved in accepting new projects such as the move of Wikitravel community to a Wikimedia sister project. The Wikimedia Foundation also manages the development of the MediaWiki software, but that is more like the Debian Foundation or even the Free Software Foundation for similar kinds of software projects. Jimmy Wales used to be much more into local project administration (particularly English Wikipedia) but even that has all but stopped. Larry Sanger is nowhere to be found and isn't even involved in the Wikimedia Foundation at all, certainly not on this level to be sued for content on Wikipedia.
Besides, thanks to the DMCA, you can't sue the WMF for defamation. Read up on the law, it might be educational. You might be able to sue an individual contributor to Wikipedia for defamation, but if you think suing some 16 year old kid is going to make any bit of difference (assuming you can even find the actual identity of "User:RockStarz421" or whatever the name is that they are using, and assuming they are even in a jurisdiction where you can sue them), good luck.
What you are complaining about here is just one other fellow editor being a prick. You should be aware that there are all sorts of pricks in this universe, so live with it. They don't have any more authority to act than you do, just try to be nice and don't be a jerk yourself.
Who decides who these official arbiters are? Does it have to be an established, traditional publishing house? What if it's a self-published e-book?
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
Hopefully those who are active on the talk page of a given article are sufficiently interested in the topic to also be knowledgeable about most of the available sources which can discuss the topic in the first place, so they are after a fashion "subject matter experts" who can properly evaluate what is a reliable source and what isn't. Discussions about what counts specifically as a reliable source are extremely common debates on article talk pages, including where there are multiple opinions as to what counts and what doesn't.
I fall into the camp that thinks primary sources are just fine... within reason and as long as they don't dominate the article. But the funny thing about Wikipedia is that it depends on those who are active and willing to join into the discussions about such things. It isn't really some hierarchical authority but rather simply those who care to chime in can, and if for some reason you disagree with the decision being made you can also "appeal" to the greater Wikipedia community... particularly when a group of people are acting against general Wikipedia policies.
If somebody is being a real asshat and doing constant edit wars, ignoring discussions or group consensus on what works, they can be "moderated" by wiki admins. There is even a formal judicial procedure called "ArbCom" (the "Arbitration Committee") where you can lay your disputes out before a group of very experienced users who can make a final determination and take action if necessary including imposing a user ban or editorial restrictions like "User X can't edit or participate in Comic Book discussions and articles for the next six months". BTW, the ArbCom is an elected office determined by the Wikipedia community and needs to be re-elected in order to maintain the position. Generally Arbcom doesn't get into disputes about individual sources though but rather dealing with users who don't care about what is happening on Wikipedia but know enough of the rules to stay on the fringe and not get immediately banned.
The fact that these were volunteers and not paid employees is going to have a huge role in the lawsuit. The fact that these volunteers had no contract they were working under other than the fact their contributions needed to be released under the terms of the CC-by-SA license is also going to play a huge part as well. The copyright license was the only contract term they even agreed to at all, which makes almost everything else being asserted sort of moot.
Sure they can include device drivers for hardware that doesn't yet exist. That isn't even remotely a problem, as long as the specifications for the hardware are done and the software interface has been defined as well. Heck, I've written software drivers for hardware that didn't exist. It helped that the electrical engineer making the hardware was in the desk next to mine when I was writing the drivers, but it can be done. That isn't even remotely an excuse.
That the drivers may not be completely tested when the hardware comes out is a problem, but that is what software bug patches are all about, and can even be shipped to customers after the hardware + software is already in the hands of the customer. You would prefer not to do that, but bug fixes are pretty typical in the computer industry.
What it takes is establishing a relationship between the operating system vendor/distributor and the hardware manufacturers. Microsoft and Apple do a very excellent job of doing that and encouraging hardware manufacturers to be providing device drivers on all of their equipment and even drivers for upcoming equipment that has yet to be released into the general public. Because sales to Linux distros is typically considered extra profit, a great many equipment manufacturers are now developing device drivers for Linux as well. Some are purely proprietary drivers, but some are also "open source" fitting more in line with Linux. While purists like Richard Stallman might not approve of proprietary device drivers on their computer, it certainly can happen with Linux and doesn't invalidate the GPL for anything else running on that operating system.
Keep in mind that most people typically buy a whole computer all at once, and when the computer is obsolete they discard that computer in some way and buy a whole new computer. That new computer uses typically the latest operating system of whatever flavor they care to be using, which includes up to date device drivers for the current generation of hardware. I don't see how that is a problem for an ordinary user if that is how they install operating systems. If you are opening up your box to add and remove cards or trying bleeding edge equipment, you are not a typical ordinary user.
There is no possible way for you to suggest any possible value to "cracked" software packages. Indeed I would dare say that the supposed "revenue" here you claim to have lost is moot because these people would not have purchased the game in the first place.
The operating system is not the issue, but rather the people who are using the operating system. It doesn't matter if it is on Linux, Windows, or some other operating system, people who don't want to pay for games or other software simply won't. It isn't lost sales, it is instead people who are simply using the software without paying for it. Period.
Those who are going to pay for software will pay for it. It is up to the software publisher to provide incentives to the end users for a reason to pay for the software, such as keeping the software adware, spyware, and other malware out of the software, offering support services for end-users, and in general offering really good customer service. Far too many computer software publishers think that having a piece of software is a license to print money, as the incremental cost of duplicating the software is minimal. Unfortunately each customer who is using your software needs to be treated as a customer, treated with dignity and respected. If you respect and support your customers, they will support you back. For those customers who don't give a damn about you, you can also return the favor.
Except Tomothy Lord is an employee of Andover.net with a specific employment contract and policies that he has agreed to follow.
In the case of the admins of WikiTravel, there were no policies governing their use of the mailing lists and administrative tools... other than "use common sense" and "don't be an ass". Those are hardly contractual requirements to avoid at least suggesting that all of the admins have moved on to another website and it would be nice if they would follow along. There were policies about the interaction with users in regards to deleting content, but those were mainly guidelines anyway. Most wikis (even Wikipedia) has pretty loose policies in regards to administrators and expects them to be mature and not doing things rashly.
In this case, apparently the WikiTravel admins did come to some sort of group consensus and if the Migration FAQ is any indication, the group e-mails did have a sort of official standing.... from the group of admins who had been running the site previously.
This is apparently the current "bureaucrat" in charge of the site. Note that several of the previous bureaucrats had even desysoped this user (an employee of Internet Brands apparently) and it sort of is the current hotbed of discussion... or at least what is left.
The sad part: I think this particular person is also going to become a bit of a scape goat for Internet Brands. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
However most copyleft licenses are not revokable. The CC-by-SA 2.0 license in particular can't be revoked for anybody who has obtained content distributed in that manner. Ditto for something like the CC0 1.0 license that goes even further and is essentially placing something in the public domain... but with legalese to make sure it stays there.
Most licensing arrangements outside of the "copyleft" type are much more restrictive, such as granting exclusive sales for a region or country. In order for them to be revokable, they also need to include a clause so they can be revoked.
Billy Joel, to use an example of a musician who signed away the rights to much of his music through a more traditional contract license agreement, took decades to finally reacquire the rights to his own music when he wanted them back. He could have put a revokable clause into that contract, but for whatever reason he didn't.
The smart thing would be for Internet Brands to settle and settle quickly.
One other fly in the ointment is how Internet Brands, realizing that they were losing the community, contacted the Wikimedia Foundation themselves and offered to go into a joint venture with the Wikimedia Foundation for a travel related website.... to keep their fingers in the mix but still try to offer something resembling accommodation with the community.
The Wikimedia Foundation said thanks but no thanks and for Internet Brands to get a life (but a bit more diplomatic and full of lawyer speak).
I think it is very likely that gesture on the part of Internet Brands may have sunk their case too. Their lawyers may have thought the offer was necessary in order to proceed to litigation in the way they have done so far, but acknowledging that these former admins (I presume they are now former, since they are targets of the litigation) could move over to a new site jointly operated by the WMF and Internet Brands would be plenty to show that they acknowledge that the community could move.
The real issue is that Internet Brands has fallen into the tar pit of open source licenses and volunteer communities, where things like contracts and user agreements are pretty clear and simple.... such as "you agree to license your contribution under the terms of the CC-by-SA license". On top of that, they pissed off the volunteer community in a major way, and that is what makes projects like WikiTravel and Wikipedia even work. Without those dedicated volunteers and the core group which keeps the site running, there isn't anything left to the site.
No, that's only one factor. The other important one is willingness to pay for software. It doesn't matter if there are a billion users of the platform, if they don't tend to pay for software, it's a waste of time for commercial developers.
Well... there's always the adware route. That's what Android developers typically end up doing because those users don't tend to pay for software either.
I will admit that there is a tendency of Linux users to be rather belligerent about paying for software, thinking that all software needs to be open source. Because there are several very stable software packages doing common commercial tasks (like Open Office, to give an example), it is harder for a commercial software development company to be involved in trying to compete against those "free" software alternatives. That is also simply the market place too I should add.
For most of the software packages I've been involved with developing (which perhaps is a minority situation.... I'll accept that even), the customers were willing to pay big bucks (on the order of thousands of dollars or more per copy of the software) and really didn't care what operating system it worked on as long as it got the job done. If the overall project is costing millions of dollars and the software is mission critical for getting the project to work, a few thousand more for software is trivial.
There is also no reason for a company like Electronic Arts to ignore Linux as a platform other than the fact that the market share is so small that it isn't worth the developer time to try and get it to work. Perhaps it could also be argued that Linux is a cesspool of hackers and crackers that will remove copy protections or simply ignore copyright altogether and spread the stuff around in Bittorrents or other such schemes so nobody can effectively make money on Linux.
I consider that to be unlikely in a general case anyway, but that does take a leap of faith.
The real trick I suppose is trying to get people who aren't so wrapped up with geekdom to try Linux. I think the Linux desktop is ready for prime time for ordinary users like my mother, who is hardly on the bleeding edge of technology. It does take getting used to another way of doing things, but that would be true for switching to any other operating system. About the only thing that can then be said is that people get used to one way of doing things and don't like to switch.
Then again that is why so many people are still using Windows XP in spite of two, soon to be three major updates that have come out since that was first released.
I guess all of that is up to a judge and jury to decide, if these folks want to go forward.
The awesome thing is that the Wikimedia general counsel is essentially offering his services (with permission of the WMF board of trustees) to act as their attorney so this can set a precedent to tell would be idiots like Internet Brands to suck an egg. They have the WMF at their back.
As for if it was a lie or not, that is also the point of this going to adjudication. I really don't think IB is going to succeed here.
I would have to presume that some sort of "consensus" happened among the admins to speak in this manner. Perhaps what is being portrayed elsewhere is also a lie to suggest that a vast majority of the admins are making the move together with a large number of regular contributors. There will always be stragglers being left behind, but the bulk of the community is moving. Perhaps you have some evidence to the contrary, but that seems to be the situation. To quote:
Wikitravel's administrators have agreed unanimously to leave the website Wikitravel, hosted by Internet Brands, and to create a new site that will initially begin with the same content.
I'd be curious who is going to be left after all of these experienced admins are gone? There might be a few people who are newly promoted admins, but unless they have substantial experience in running a high traffic wiki they are going to be quickly overwhelmed. This Slashdot story alone is going to flood the site with trolls that is going to test the patience of the admins. Certainly the heart and soul of the site are going to be gone.
Somebody is certainly telling a lie here. My gut reaction is to suggest when terms like "unanimous" are thrown around, that it really means something.
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The Wikimedia Foundation is a common carrier, essentially an internet service provider. They aren't liable for the libel or defamation because they didn't write the information, as a policy they don't even patrol or perform editorial control over the content, and thus Wikipedia is a public forum.
The editor who wrote the article is certainly liable from a legal standpoint. That is assuming you can identify who it is and they are in the jurisdiction of the court. The Wikimedia Foundation also does not shield their volunteers either from such liability. The same applies to Slashdot I should note as well. The Wikimedia Foundation does routinely take down content which is asserted to be libelous or a violation of copyright (through the OTRS group), or at least brings the issue up to the editors of the page where it may happen.
Their "no original research" policy has been completely braindamaged ever since it was first created, and it's not getting any better over time.
I don't think you understand the purpose of the "no original research" principle. The #1 reason for its adoption in the first place was to stop people like Richard Hoagland from writing up an article about some crazy UFO theory of his like the hollow moon of Mimas and to present it as fact, or to discussion the decades old colony on Mars at Cydonia that the USAF has been running since the Reagan Administration. You wouldn't believe the crackpots that have posted stuff on Wikipedia in the name of science, and the "no original research" policy is really just a polite way to tell these guys to get lost.
On the whole, I find that that "no original research" policy tends to make much better articles on WIkipedia as it raises standards for what is acceptable.
In terms of saying that you aren't a reliable source for your own work, you should have published some of that information.... sort of like how you did anyway. I am impressed that they let a blog be sufficient as frequently those get removed as unreliable sources as well. There is one article that I've worked on from time to time that the standard is a formally published source in a respected peer-reviewed journal... in part because so many crackpot idiots keep posting all sorts of nonsense on blogs or other self-published websites. That happens to be an alternative energy article, where stuff like that seems to ooze out of the woodwork and people involved have never heard of the laws of thermodynamics and don't "believe" that the speed of light applies to their invention. I'm talking some pretty basic factual errors in their understanding of things in this universe that goes deep into what is charitably called "pseudoscience" for a pretty good reason.
That is the reason Wikipedia insists that everything added to an article must be verifiable. Claiming that you are the person that the article is all about is something hard to legitimately verify.
Sock puppets have power when administrators let them. They don't need to be useful at all and for me seems to be a waste of time to even try. I have used multiple accounts on Wikimedia projects before, mainly for specialized tasks like running bots or doing something of a core clerical task or simply trying to get a "new user" experience. I have never needed to use sock puppets on discussion pages as I let my arguments speak for themselves.
I've also been able to turn around entire discussions simply by bringing up a powerful argument or alternative. Alternative solutions seem to work best, especially if you can turn it into a "win-win" situation to the two warring factions in the argument (assuming it is two different factions that are involved). I've even "won" the argument when I started out as clearly the minority opinion but bringing out important points that needed to be considered and rational editors were able to see my point of view. I'm not saying that it is easy to do that, but it can be done and done without sock puppets. It gets frustrating when I'm accused of being a sock puppet of another user's account... usually when somebody is decidedly losing the argument.
It is a problem with newer administrators who perform vote counts or other silly things that they aren't supposed to be doing but is done anyway. That kind of behavior is what encourages sock puppetry. In theory, one very strong argument that is based upon previously agreed policies and precedence with other articles should trump a hundred contrary arguments that are more like "I think this is ugly". That is Wikipedia policy, but it isn't followed as often as it should be.
You can't compromise or collaborate with someone who doesn't accept cited facts that are contrary to their worldview. That's the OP's point, and it went whooshing about ten feet over your head.
That is the reason you can speak up to the wider Wikipedia community when that happens. If they aren't willing to compromise with you and at least acknowledge alternative viewpoints, they are violating Wikipedia policies and will be smacked down eventually.
I know it isn't perfect, but the issue here is that you are dealing with another human being and not some computer. It includes all of the fickle and even downright petty problems of having to deal with anybody else that exists in any other endeavor. Sometimes those folks are crude, rude, and insensitive. Just like you can walk down what is supposedly the safest street in the world and get mugged and robbed, you can have ugly people do something similar when contributing to a random article on Wikipedia as well. You can also have corrupt cops that may be the ones doing the mugging on that supposedly "safe" street. That is sort of called real life and not some sort of computer game like some folks keep thinking is happening on Wikipedia.
What else are you expecting here? I agree that policing of these kind of bullies needs to happen more, but that is a tough nut to crack in terms of how you get that to happen.
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
For contentious edits blogs are rarely considered reliable. They're not really supposed to be considered reliable at all.
Re-read the policy again if you believe this. Certainly blogs from some random schmo spouting stuff off the top of his head is not considered reliable. If on the other hand the article is about something like Tesla Motors and the person's blog happens to be Martin Eberhard (co-founder of the company), the blog entry is much more significantly important and valid for inclusion in the article. The same could be said if it was a famous physicist or composer (for a relevant Wikipedia article). Just because it is a blog doesn't mean it can't be reliable, you just need to be careful with how you use it and it is largely considered a primary source. The same could be said about tweets from Twitter or other "new media" sources. It really is no different than somebody quoting letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail, even though it is a very rich source of information of high importance to historians.
Primary sources can also be referenced on Wikipedia.... with caution and maintaining a neutral tone to the article. Primary sources also shouldn't dominate the article, so it is still good to seek after secondary articles.
For some articles where very little information is available editors might decide that a blog, or that simply the fact that some of the editors are very familiar with the subject and all agree, is sufficient. There was recently a discussion on the common English name for one of the many transliteration systems used for Chinese. Anyone know where we could get a reliable source for that? One name, "bopomofo" that was known to be in use was also claimed to be not simply the name of that one system, but also a common for any of the transliteration systems for Chinese (since those are the first four sounds they use). Anyone know where we can find an English language reference?
If you really are serious about trying to find an answer to this question, there are places to look. Again it is a matter of knowing the subject matter in plenty of detail and deferring to experts when there is something you really don't know so much about. In this particular case, I would suggest looking up Chinese-English dictionaries and reading the preface and introductory sections of those dictionaries for some information about the transliteration of Chinese to English and the other way around. Unfortunately most of that is in print and not something you can look up on the Internet... at least not in English. I don't know what this has to do with a blog, unless somebody writing in the blog is talking about this particular issue and that is the only quick reference you can find on Google.
I tend to stay away from the politically charged pages precisely because of stuff like this. I have never even tried to participate in writing something for the articles about George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Those articles have such a churn rate on them that they are permanently semi-protected and take some balls of iron to even consider making an edit. I would imagine the AGW article is somewhat similar.
I certainly wouldn't recommend even touching an article like that if you are just starting out in Wikipedia. Instead, I'd suggest looking at the article for your hometown (especially if it is a small town) and possibly fixing up or even creating an article about your high school (which is generally considered notable according to several Wikipedia policies and numerous discussions on the issue). You also can't go too wrong by writing up an article about an asteroid in the 10k+ range, or writing up something about a new planet discovered by the Kepler satellite. A little more iffy is to write up something about an upcoming movie being released by a major stuido or a brand new television show you may like... but those will be pretty calm in comparison. Finding an obscure mineral or animal are also nice articles to write about and relatively pain free in terms of vitriol or chest thumping.
I guess it is what you want to be involved with. There certainly are some excellent articles on Wikipedia that avoid the problems that happen to "popular" articles. The only real problem I have when playing out on the edge like this is finding some idiot who slaps on a AfD template and thinks whatever it is that you are working on isn't notable or some other nonsense in spite of your having a dozen or more independent sources about the topic. It isn't notable to them, therefore it isn't notable... so you need to go through the ugly AfD process.
I once got an "F" in Computer Science for an assignment that produced output identical to what everybody else in the class had done. My only difference is that I used a completely different algorithm from the rest of the class rather than copying something from the textbook. That my program used fewer instructions, compiled to a smaller binary, and produced the results in a shorter amount of time seemed to go over the head of the instructor.
I did end up appealing the grade to the department head in that case. The one thing I couldn't be accused of doing in that case was plagiarism, as literally nobody else in the class wrote the software in the way that I had.
One day, all copies of Goatse will be lost to the universe. Most of us won't view that as a tragedy.
Sadly, of all of the great works ever created by a human mind, I think that is the last thing that will remain as a testament to what mankind will ever accomplish and survive until the heat death of the Universe.
I still curse CmdrTaco for linking to the site in the first place. Somebody e-mailed it to him and it was subsequently put on a random list of funny websites. By now it has been duplicated and copied so much that I'm sure it is already on the Moon, Mars, and enroute to other stars at the moment.
It wouldn't be a tragedy if it was to disappear, but that is the kind of thing that will stick around forever.
If you can't trust it as a single source then why is it trustworthy for a school assignment? You make no sense
You need to be educated about how information is acquired in the first place. Also note what was said:
You shouldn't trust a single source. But you can trust multiple independent sources which back each other up. You need to ensure that they are indeed independent sources (just because they are different URLs doesn't make them independent) and other scholarly evaluation of the sources need to take place, but that is in general scholarship and a skill that takes time to acquire.
Most teachers who ask you to write a paper usually ask for multiple sources as well, for the very same reason. Don't trust a single source of information, particularly Wikipedia. Don't even trust the references listed in a Wikipedia article, and be aware that sometimes references not included in the article may be relevant and important as well.
Then you revert the Edits back into the article with a note: "It is a violation of wikirules to remove properly cited material. If you think it should be removed, goto Talk page and justify your case."
And then you get accused of starting an "edit war", and punish with a week or two of "time out".
Reverting once or twice isn't a problem on Wikipedia. It is the lack of communication and acting as though you are the only person who could possibly be editing that article which gets you into trouble. Sometimes you need to compromise and realize you are writing content jointly with almost all of the rest of humanity (at least those who care about the article in any way). That is the point of the talk pages on Wikipedia, so you can collaborate in the development of the article.
I can understand that you don't want to waste any more of your time fixing what was a casual edit. If the edit gets accepted, be grateful, otherwise don't let it piss you off.
Actually, the Wikipedia primary source policy including the ability to reference web pages, blogs, and forums even includes exceptions to include material like this. It just sounds like there were a bunch of anal retentive idiots editing the page who were more caught up in policy than trying to actually write an article with useful information.
There are some editors who act as gate keepers from time to time on Wikipedia articles. They are called "article owners", and something that is also considered against Wikipedia policy. Sadly they don't get slapped down often enough even when what they are doing is contrary to policy.
It is important to note that the information is reliable, and a talk page is certainly a good place to discuss such things. I've quoted blog entries and stood up to people who pulled things like this out (reverting their edits and responding on talk pages) where I've had these kind of "no blogs are allowed" believers to re-read the actual policy and back down. It does take weighing sources and judging them for credibility, and sometimes people are just lazy not wanting to put in extra effort to verify the source for themselves.
That in your case it was put into a secondary source sort of makes life easier, but I've seen secondary sources misquote the primary sources as well. The key work here is "scholarship", which sadly is not an easy skill to acquire. Writing a quality encyclopedia article is hard work and harder than it looks. It can be a learned skill acquired by participating on Wikipedia and learning from "the school of hard knocks", but it does take time and effort.
There are a bunch of folks on Wikipedia that seem to think that primary sources are evil and should be avoided at all costs. Many of these same folks also seem to think that paper sources don't exist, so if you can't Google the information or reference it from a URL, it doesn't exist.
Regardless, sometimes you need to stand up to these bullies (that is what they are) who hang around Wikipedia and act like idiots. More often than not they usually get what is coming to them as somebody does stand up to them and either gets them to back down or perhaps they even get brought forward to an ArbCom case and get slapped down real hard or even banned from the project. The problem is that they do a whole lot of damage in the meantime and sadly drive away people like yourself.
I've encountered more than a few idiots on Wikipedia over the years like this. Karma can be a bitch when it bites them back, and I sometimes get guilty pleasure seeing them on their way out the door. I'll also note that it is a very small minority of the Wikipedia editor community who act like this as well, even if sometimes they seem to dominate discussions. Because anybody can slap on warning banners and complain or even revert all sorts of edits, realize that there are a bunch of people who do stuff like that who are just being trolls too.
The sad part is that often a great many people just don't have the time or energy to fight these trolls. I certainly understand if you don't. Hopefully they don't damage the project too badly before they get their hand caught in the cookie jar and kicked out.
That is the point of the Internet Archive and other similar repositories. Hopefully the information can be found somewhere, otherwise information is just lost to the universe.
The same thing happened when the Library of Alexandria was burned down, and would be the same thing if the Vatican Library was to burn down (or the Library of Congress for that matter). The best way to preserve information is to duplicate it as much as possible and send it to as many places as possible. That way, even if 99.9% of all copies are destroyed, at least that 0.1% is still around somewhere and can be further copied and spread around.
The problem with your thinking is that copyright and other "intellectual property" is keeping that process from happening, so information is lost to the universe. That should be viewed as a tragedy.
It took a meeting with the principle for the grade to be set straight.
What was the problem with the grade? Wasn't there symbolism, which you missed?
You can simply ignore the grade altogether and consider that the educational system that most people are in is a total joke, including idiot teachers/professors who really don't know what they are talking about.
The problem is that kind of attitude also means you need to carry that attitude on after you get out of the system, or that you are about ready to tell off the educational ivory tower altogether and try to prove yourself in another venue. There are consequences to that action though, where things like degrees and diplomas need to be further dismissed. Sadly, a great many people even outside of academia are caught up in credentialism and expecting a certain set of letters after your name before you can act, including government bureaucrats that would just as soon throw you into prison because you didn't earn those stupid letters after your name even though you know better than most other folks in that "profession".
So sadly, the silly letter grade really does matter even if you are cynical about the educational establishment and want to tell it to go to hell.
Also, Neil Gaiman claims he made up a "fact" in American Gods, which Wikipedia put in unreferenced. Another website used Wikipedia as a source for this fact. Wikipedia then referenced the other website. Neil Gaiman thinks it's too funny to spoil, by actually telling anyone what the "fact" was.
Citogenesis in action.
It sounds like reliable sources weren't really followed. The person to blame here is not "Wikipedia" in general and certainly not the "Wikimedia Foundation", but rather the people who participated in the development of that particular article.
The fact that you know about this bit of trivia and are doing nothing about it sort of puts the responsibility of trying to fix this "issue" on you, or in this case with Neil Gaiman as well since he is openly bragging about it.
If you like Wikipedia and use it on a regular basis, it sort of seems like good karma to try and make it better when you can. Not everybody can be experts on everything, but they are usually experts at something, which is precisely how Wikipedia was written in the first place. Get over the fact that you are used to hierarchical organizations where there is a "boss" that will be in charge to fix stuff like this. Such stuff doesn't really exist on Wikipedia as it is much more of an anarchy than anything else.
For myself, I get out of Wikipedia as much as I put in, and I'm glad that I've been able to help clean up my own little corner of the project from time to time and make improvements along the way. I don't spend a whole lot of time writing on it, but when something seems wrong or out of place, or simply missing a whole lot of information that I can easily find, I start to contribute.
The Wikimedia Foundation almost never gets involved in disputes about content or users thumping each other's chests in some show of primal dominance. That is entirely dealt with on individual projects unless it becomes something like a project bureaucrat that is going rogue and being a real pain in the behind.
There is even a group of "overseers" that are volunteers (using Wikimedia terms, they are called "Stewards") who have broad powers across multiple projects to clean up messes of this nature. Usually their main purpose is to "promote" somebody to the status of a "bureaucrat" when one doesn't exist on a local project or to grant some special privileges like the "oversight" rights that permit some users to dig into page histories and determine who might be sock puppets with information that generally isn't available to the general public.
About the only thing the Wikimedia Foundation does, besides frivolous spending of donations, is to maintain the server farms running the website. On a very rare occasion they do get into some broad policy discussions, and they are also involved in accepting new projects such as the move of Wikitravel community to a Wikimedia sister project. The Wikimedia Foundation also manages the development of the MediaWiki software, but that is more like the Debian Foundation or even the Free Software Foundation for similar kinds of software projects. Jimmy Wales used to be much more into local project administration (particularly English Wikipedia) but even that has all but stopped. Larry Sanger is nowhere to be found and isn't even involved in the Wikimedia Foundation at all, certainly not on this level to be sued for content on Wikipedia.
Besides, thanks to the DMCA, you can't sue the WMF for defamation. Read up on the law, it might be educational. You might be able to sue an individual contributor to Wikipedia for defamation, but if you think suing some 16 year old kid is going to make any bit of difference (assuming you can even find the actual identity of "User:RockStarz421" or whatever the name is that they are using, and assuming they are even in a jurisdiction where you can sue them), good luck.
What you are complaining about here is just one other fellow editor being a prick. You should be aware that there are all sorts of pricks in this universe, so live with it. They don't have any more authority to act than you do, just try to be nice and don't be a jerk yourself.
Who decides who these official arbiters are? Does it have to be an established, traditional publishing house? What if it's a self-published e-book?
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
Hopefully those who are active on the talk page of a given article are sufficiently interested in the topic to also be knowledgeable about most of the available sources which can discuss the topic in the first place, so they are after a fashion "subject matter experts" who can properly evaluate what is a reliable source and what isn't. Discussions about what counts specifically as a reliable source are extremely common debates on article talk pages, including where there are multiple opinions as to what counts and what doesn't.
I fall into the camp that thinks primary sources are just fine... within reason and as long as they don't dominate the article. But the funny thing about Wikipedia is that it depends on those who are active and willing to join into the discussions about such things. It isn't really some hierarchical authority but rather simply those who care to chime in can, and if for some reason you disagree with the decision being made you can also "appeal" to the greater Wikipedia community... particularly when a group of people are acting against general Wikipedia policies.
If somebody is being a real asshat and doing constant edit wars, ignoring discussions or group consensus on what works, they can be "moderated" by wiki admins. There is even a formal judicial procedure called "ArbCom" (the "Arbitration Committee") where you can lay your disputes out before a group of very experienced users who can make a final determination and take action if necessary including imposing a user ban or editorial restrictions like "User X can't edit or participate in Comic Book discussions and articles for the next six months". BTW, the ArbCom is an elected office determined by the Wikipedia community and needs to be re-elected in order to maintain the position. Generally Arbcom doesn't get into disputes about individual sources though but rather dealing with users who don't care about what is happening on Wikipedia but know enough of the rules to stay on the fringe and not get immediately banned.
The fact that these were volunteers and not paid employees is going to have a huge role in the lawsuit. The fact that these volunteers had no contract they were working under other than the fact their contributions needed to be released under the terms of the CC-by-SA license is also going to play a huge part as well. The copyright license was the only contract term they even agreed to at all, which makes almost everything else being asserted sort of moot.
Sure they can include device drivers for hardware that doesn't yet exist. That isn't even remotely a problem, as long as the specifications for the hardware are done and the software interface has been defined as well. Heck, I've written software drivers for hardware that didn't exist. It helped that the electrical engineer making the hardware was in the desk next to mine when I was writing the drivers, but it can be done. That isn't even remotely an excuse.
That the drivers may not be completely tested when the hardware comes out is a problem, but that is what software bug patches are all about, and can even be shipped to customers after the hardware + software is already in the hands of the customer. You would prefer not to do that, but bug fixes are pretty typical in the computer industry.
What it takes is establishing a relationship between the operating system vendor/distributor and the hardware manufacturers. Microsoft and Apple do a very excellent job of doing that and encouraging hardware manufacturers to be providing device drivers on all of their equipment and even drivers for upcoming equipment that has yet to be released into the general public. Because sales to Linux distros is typically considered extra profit, a great many equipment manufacturers are now developing device drivers for Linux as well. Some are purely proprietary drivers, but some are also "open source" fitting more in line with Linux. While purists like Richard Stallman might not approve of proprietary device drivers on their computer, it certainly can happen with Linux and doesn't invalidate the GPL for anything else running on that operating system.
Keep in mind that most people typically buy a whole computer all at once, and when the computer is obsolete they discard that computer in some way and buy a whole new computer. That new computer uses typically the latest operating system of whatever flavor they care to be using, which includes up to date device drivers for the current generation of hardware. I don't see how that is a problem for an ordinary user if that is how they install operating systems. If you are opening up your box to add and remove cards or trying bleeding edge equipment, you are not a typical ordinary user.
There is no possible way for you to suggest any possible value to "cracked" software packages. Indeed I would dare say that the supposed "revenue" here you claim to have lost is moot because these people would not have purchased the game in the first place.
The operating system is not the issue, but rather the people who are using the operating system. It doesn't matter if it is on Linux, Windows, or some other operating system, people who don't want to pay for games or other software simply won't. It isn't lost sales, it is instead people who are simply using the software without paying for it. Period.
Those who are going to pay for software will pay for it. It is up to the software publisher to provide incentives to the end users for a reason to pay for the software, such as keeping the software adware, spyware, and other malware out of the software, offering support services for end-users, and in general offering really good customer service. Far too many computer software publishers think that having a piece of software is a license to print money, as the incremental cost of duplicating the software is minimal. Unfortunately each customer who is using your software needs to be treated as a customer, treated with dignity and respected. If you respect and support your customers, they will support you back. For those customers who don't give a damn about you, you can also return the favor.
Except Tomothy Lord is an employee of Andover.net with a specific employment contract and policies that he has agreed to follow.
In the case of the admins of WikiTravel, there were no policies governing their use of the mailing lists and administrative tools... other than "use common sense" and "don't be an ass". Those are hardly contractual requirements to avoid at least suggesting that all of the admins have moved on to another website and it would be nice if they would follow along. There were policies about the interaction with users in regards to deleting content, but those were mainly guidelines anyway. Most wikis (even Wikipedia) has pretty loose policies in regards to administrators and expects them to be mature and not doing things rashly.
In this case, apparently the WikiTravel admins did come to some sort of group consensus and if the Migration FAQ is any indication, the group e-mails did have a sort of official standing.... from the group of admins who had been running the site previously.
In fact, if you want to read a really interesting page (until it gets deleted), I'd suggest reading this:
http://wikitravel.org/en/User_talk:IBobi
This is apparently the current "bureaucrat" in charge of the site. Note that several of the previous bureaucrats had even desysoped this user (an employee of Internet Brands apparently) and it sort of is the current hotbed of discussion... or at least what is left.
The sad part: I think this particular person is also going to become a bit of a scape goat for Internet Brands. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
However most copyleft licenses are not revokable. The CC-by-SA 2.0 license in particular can't be revoked for anybody who has obtained content distributed in that manner. Ditto for something like the CC0 1.0 license that goes even further and is essentially placing something in the public domain... but with legalese to make sure it stays there.
Most licensing arrangements outside of the "copyleft" type are much more restrictive, such as granting exclusive sales for a region or country. In order for them to be revokable, they also need to include a clause so they can be revoked.
Billy Joel, to use an example of a musician who signed away the rights to much of his music through a more traditional contract license agreement, took decades to finally reacquire the rights to his own music when he wanted them back. He could have put a revokable clause into that contract, but for whatever reason he didn't.
The smart thing would be for Internet Brands to settle and settle quickly.
One other fly in the ointment is how Internet Brands, realizing that they were losing the community, contacted the Wikimedia Foundation themselves and offered to go into a joint venture with the Wikimedia Foundation for a travel related website.... to keep their fingers in the mix but still try to offer something resembling accommodation with the community.
The Wikimedia Foundation said thanks but no thanks and for Internet Brands to get a life (but a bit more diplomatic and full of lawyer speak).
I think it is very likely that gesture on the part of Internet Brands may have sunk their case too. Their lawyers may have thought the offer was necessary in order to proceed to litigation in the way they have done so far, but acknowledging that these former admins (I presume they are now former, since they are targets of the litigation) could move over to a new site jointly operated by the WMF and Internet Brands would be plenty to show that they acknowledge that the community could move.
The real issue is that Internet Brands has fallen into the tar pit of open source licenses and volunteer communities, where things like contracts and user agreements are pretty clear and simple.... such as "you agree to license your contribution under the terms of the CC-by-SA license". On top of that, they pissed off the volunteer community in a major way, and that is what makes projects like WikiTravel and Wikipedia even work. Without those dedicated volunteers and the core group which keeps the site running, there isn't anything left to the site.
No, that's only one factor. The other important one is willingness to pay for software. It doesn't matter if there are a billion users of the platform, if they don't tend to pay for software, it's a waste of time for commercial developers.
Well... there's always the adware route. That's what Android developers typically end up doing because those users don't tend to pay for software either.
I will admit that there is a tendency of Linux users to be rather belligerent about paying for software, thinking that all software needs to be open source. Because there are several very stable software packages doing common commercial tasks (like Open Office, to give an example), it is harder for a commercial software development company to be involved in trying to compete against those "free" software alternatives. That is also simply the market place too I should add.
For most of the software packages I've been involved with developing (which perhaps is a minority situation.... I'll accept that even), the customers were willing to pay big bucks (on the order of thousands of dollars or more per copy of the software) and really didn't care what operating system it worked on as long as it got the job done. If the overall project is costing millions of dollars and the software is mission critical for getting the project to work, a few thousand more for software is trivial.
There is also no reason for a company like Electronic Arts to ignore Linux as a platform other than the fact that the market share is so small that it isn't worth the developer time to try and get it to work. Perhaps it could also be argued that Linux is a cesspool of hackers and crackers that will remove copy protections or simply ignore copyright altogether and spread the stuff around in Bittorrents or other such schemes so nobody can effectively make money on Linux.
I consider that to be unlikely in a general case anyway, but that does take a leap of faith.
The real trick I suppose is trying to get people who aren't so wrapped up with geekdom to try Linux. I think the Linux desktop is ready for prime time for ordinary users like my mother, who is hardly on the bleeding edge of technology. It does take getting used to another way of doing things, but that would be true for switching to any other operating system. About the only thing that can then be said is that people get used to one way of doing things and don't like to switch.
Then again that is why so many people are still using Windows XP in spite of two, soon to be three major updates that have come out since that was first released.
I guess all of that is up to a judge and jury to decide, if these folks want to go forward.
The awesome thing is that the Wikimedia general counsel is essentially offering his services (with permission of the WMF board of trustees) to act as their attorney so this can set a precedent to tell would be idiots like Internet Brands to suck an egg. They have the WMF at their back.
As for if it was a lie or not, that is also the point of this going to adjudication. I really don't think IB is going to succeed here.
I would have to presume that some sort of "consensus" happened among the admins to speak in this manner. Perhaps what is being portrayed elsewhere is also a lie to suggest that a vast majority of the admins are making the move together with a large number of regular contributors. There will always be stragglers being left behind, but the bulk of the community is moving. Perhaps you have some evidence to the contrary, but that seems to be the situation. To quote:
--- http://www.wikivoyage.org/general/Migration_FAQ
I'd be curious who is going to be left after all of these experienced admins are gone? There might be a few people who are newly promoted admins, but unless they have substantial experience in running a high traffic wiki they are going to be quickly overwhelmed. This Slashdot story alone is going to flood the site with trolls that is going to test the patience of the admins. Certainly the heart and soul of the site are going to be gone.
Somebody is certainly telling a lie here. My gut reaction is to suggest when terms like "unanimous" are thrown around, that it really means something.