Discussion about wiki page Finding_the_paths_of_Total_Comman

[white]

User Alextp created the Total Commander Wiki page Finding_the_paths_of_Total_Commander_files.

At the top he wrote:

Note: Please don't edit the text, corrent the typos only. Text is copyrighted. If you have comments, writem them to the Discussion page.

At the bottom he wrote:

Alexey Torgashin
© 2007

In my opinion he is abusing the Total Commander Wiki here. I started a discussion about this at the talk page Talk:Finding_the_paths_of_Total_Commander_files. Please join the discussion either on that talk page or in this thread.

[sqa_wizard]

2white: I agree with you: A Wiki entry should not be copyrighted.
On the other hand I honor the effort Alextp has spend on this article (as I do for every article btw)

The line better reads :

Code: Select all

Note: Please don't edit the text, correct the typos only.  If you have comments, write them them to the Discussion page.

=>No copyright, but the usual, gentle way to handle a wiki entry. Otherwise the entry will be changed all the way forth and back by Alextp and the other "contributors" ...

[m^2]

+1.

[icfu]

Looks like Alextp has either completely misunderstood the Wiki idea or he wanted to post his article on http://knol.google.com/ and has only mistyped the URL.

Anyway, I had a good laugh when I read the copyright notice, thanks for that!

Icfu

[Stance]

First of all, discuss it in the Wiki, not in the forum.
You will have audience here, that have never contributed a single word in the TC-Wiki. I don't think this is your intension.

When You find copyrighted Material in the Wiki, it used to be removed, you can either delete the "(C) Copyright by Whoever"-Nonsense by yourself. Do you want somebody else do that for you ?

Zitat:

As I know Alextp is a Software Developer, I appreciate his afford to contribute in the Wiki and would not touch any of his pages regarding his own programms.

What would you do when C.Ghisler act in that way, asking for not to edit any page and using the discussion Tab first ? Would you act the same way - discuss it here in the wild, or deleting his article ? I doubt that to.

[icfu]

First of all, discuss it in the Wiki, not in the forum.

The Wiki discussing feature should be used for discussing article content, not general guidelines about violations of the Wiki philosophy. This is not only interesting for contributors but all people using the TC-Wiki, so a notice in the forum, which is still the number one information source of the TC community, is a must.

What would you do when C.Ghisler act in that way, asking for not to edit any page and using the discussion Tab first ? Would you act the same way - discuss it here in the wild, or deleting his article ? I doubt that to.

If he would use the same words as Alextp, there is no reason why there should be made any difference.

Using the discussion tab in a Wiki is a must only if the editor is unsure, his knowledge about the article content is limited, or the changes he want to apply are so huge that there is a danger of information lost after the edit.

No matter what, adding copyright notices and asking people to ask for even minor changes on the discussion tab, so the original author can afterwards implement them, is a poor joke. I would never do that, not because I don't respect other people's work but because there are no Wiki users which are more equal than others, besides those with administrative rights.

People who want to protect their work from being modified by a community, should not post in a Wiki but on their private homepages, Knol or other places with as much copyright notices as they want, nothing wrong with that at all. Afterwards they may post a link on the Wiki tutorials page if they want to.

Icfu

[Stance]

It took one minute to delete all copyright references on that page. TC-Wiki is public domain.

[white]

TC-Wiki is public domain.

I think you are mistaken. The text in the wiki is copyrighted automatically under the Berne Convention by the wiki contributors. However that does not automatically mean the text may not be altered. Compare it to the situation where I would write a poem on your T-shirt. In that case the poem would be copyrighted by me, but that does not mean I can forbid you to wear the T-shirt. But you would not be allowed to create and sell multiple T-shirts with the same poem without my permission.

I think it is safe to assume that anyone who contributes to the Total Commander Wiki implicitly grands to all people free access to the content and the right to modify the content in the wiki. Other than that I think it is wise to create a copyright statement for the Total Commander Wiki to which all contributors must agree. See for an example the copyright statement on the Wikipedia wiki.

[Stance]

Sorry, if I did wrong. I dont have the time to argue here any longer about such a pity.
It took me one minute to delete the "copyright-nonsense" out of that page, it may take one minute of your time to recover that page. I cannot understand your motives. I don't know what you want to achive. Take it or leave it.

[white]

Sorry, if I did wrong.

You didn't.

I cannot understand your motives.

I wanted a discussion because, like icfu explained very well, I think it is important for all people using the TC-Wiki. Maybe this discussion can be used as a reference later on. By the way, thanks to all people who participated so far.

Concerning the wiki page in question, I wanted to either consider the page to be a regular wiki page and remove the lines quoted in my first post, or to consider the page to be a personal page and put a delete request on it or move it to the user's namespace. I didn't want to do either of these things without discussing it first.

I now tend to consider the page to be a regular wiki page. If Alextp does not want that he should speak up.

[ghisler(Author)]

Here is my opinion about copyrighted texts in the Wiki:

In principle people are free to post copyrighted material and mark it accordingly as he did. However, it contradicts the idea of a Wiki, where everyone is allowed to edit what others have written, e.g. to correct errors or add more information.

You may consider to put up just a _link_ to your article hosted by a free or for pay hosting company (so it cannot be edited by others), and put a shorter summary in the Wiki which others can edit too. Otherwise your article isn't protected from vandalism.

[white]

In principle people are free to post copyrighted material and mark it accordingly as he did.

The way I see it he did not put copyrighted material on a wiki page and marked this material accordingly, but used the Total Commander Wiki as a free editor and free hosting provider to create and publish a personal wiki page and tried to use the community to improve his personal document. I think this is abusing the Total Commander Wiki. Don't you?

In a way this is hijacking part of the wiki for personal use. Suppose I put the same copyright marks on the wiki page about Total Commander not allowing anyone but me to edit that page. Would that be alright?

The behavior is destructive for the Total Commander Wiki. If more people are going to do this we are getting a bunch of wiki pages moderated by the authors of the pages. I therefor call upon the community to edit pages like this removing the contents and replacing it by new content that may be edited by everybody.

..and put a shorter summary in the Wiki which others can edit too. Otherwise your article isn't protected from vandalism.

In this case I consider creating such page in the wiki to be vandalism and editing the page by others to be normal wiki behavior.

Anyway the copyrighted material not only is not protected from vandalism, it is also not protected from removal by someone who wants to improve that page. Which I think would be perfectly alright and even preferred.