Talk:Law of the Horse

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Note on authorship[edit]

Most of the wording of this article was written by the person behind the "A Horse with no name" identity at wikipediareview.com. I read the original, along with that person's wish that it was a Wikipedia article. [1] I looked over every word and every source to check for accuracy, found that a footnote needed to be added (the one to Lessig's paper) and added it, then made some minor wording changes, which I think improve the article. I take responsibility for the wording and sourcing at the time of my edits here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noroton (talk • contribs) 16:54, 5 October 2009

Seems a good article on an interesting topic (one that perhaps the original author is well suited for, snicker), but the sources probably should be checked carefully. I see no issue with standing behind it if you do so. ++Lar: t/c 23:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm concerned about the copyright. Has the horse in question released this? Skomorokh, barbarian 00:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, he can't come here and say he's releasing it under the GFDL... but see this post:

"I actually wrote up an article for One on "Law of the Horse" (which he half-jokingly requested) but he never put online. If anyone wants to post it, be my guest -- it is all formatted and ready to run:"...

Note that it's also been posted at WikiSage which uses GFDL 1.3: [2] ... but if they're in copyvio for picking it up, that does us no good. ++Lar: t/c 01:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you in contact with the author? Can you ask them to clarify the copyright in the same forum they published the material? We can't rely on other wikis. I see many requests from for example corporations allowing text to be published on Wikipedia, but that is not adequate as we need text to be published freely for re-use and adaptation. Skomorokh, barbarian 01:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked for some clarification on direct intent already. I agree we need to get this clarified but there's not a particular rush, it's fairly clear to me that the author wanted to contribute the work. Since they're an ex admin we can assume they're familiar conceptually with the basics of GFDL, we just need the proper forms. ++Lar: t/c 01:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and to "we can't rely on other wikis", I think we can... IF we have reason to believe that they've properly sourced the material, it's not a copyvio, and they release it under GFDL or another compatible free license. We bring stuff over from Citizendium, after all. (in this particular case that other wiki has the same exact problem of validating intent to release that we do though) ++Lar: t/c 01:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that there's no haste, prepared to wait for clarification. Skomorokh, barbarian 01:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we've gotten as good as we're going to get. Further statements by the user indicate they feel the original statement is clear enough, and they have declined to make a pro-forma recitation of "I license this contrib to en:wp under GFDL" or similar. So I'm not sure what next. I'd tend to leave it as is, good enough permission was granted, reasonable care taken, etc, but I'm not going to stand in the way of someone else taking some other view. ++Lar: t/c 04:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually been released into the public domain which is enough, I believe. –xeno^talk 04:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Generally speaking, quality contributions from banned editors should be welcome, but we have to be very careful. Unless publishing content of unclear copyright seems to be morally questionable, I lean to the "wait 'til someone sues" persuasion. The problem in the case of banned editors is opening ourselves up for being taken for a ride – "not only have you committed [insert list of deplorable crimes here] by banning me, but after making clear my superlative skills are not welcome you go ahead and steal my work – this just proves Wikipedia is a demonic expert-massacring paedophile ring et cetera". However, in this post, the author declares "The article is public domain", and seems to want to put the issue to rest, so I agree that good faith is not beyond the pale here. Skomorokh, barbarian 04:45, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. Good analysis. ++Lar: t/c 03:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's more to write about[edit]

This article doesn't have to be a stub. We can list different law schools, and whether they follow Easterbrook's philosophy. The article can and should be a fuller representation of the debate on the epistemology of law - how it is that students best learn about the art and craft of legal analysis and argument. There can be sections for Easterbrook's reasoning, and an opposing section for Lessig's reasoning. It will be important to present both sides as arguments attributed to individual people, maintaining an objective tone. Drozycki16 (talk) 01:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]