Wikipedia talk:Terms of use (proposal)

Hmmm... you mean that the only resolution to a dispute between a contributor and the Wikipedia is an arbitration committee exclusively appointed by the Wikipedia? Would you advise me to enter into ANY contract where the other side appointed the whole arbitration committee? :) Jamesday 04:36, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It happens all the time. Besides you are a member of Wikipedia and the arbitration committee is supposed to be elected if I remember. Also this is why that I demanded that the arbitrators be chosen by the one-two-three method. First the each side picks an arbitrator of their choice, then the two arbitrators pick a third to be a tie breaker. This is the regular fair method. I know that when I brought it up everyone hemmed and hawwed (sp?) that it seemed too complex. I tried to explain that this was the way to make sure that the arbitration was final (you are right if there is a lot of unfairness then it might be overturned by a judge). Of course everyone around here thinks lawyers just want to push them around, they don't realize that there are reasons (of course, James generally speaking you are very sensitive to legal issues and I have no complaints about your enthusiasm in this regard). [[User:Alex756|&#8212; Alex756 talk]] 06:23, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Good to hear that your arguments on the makeup of the arbitration commitee prevailed - they have great merit IMO. So long as it's of the composition you've described, that resolves my primary reservation. I'll look it over more fully to see if it contains such things as requirements to attend in person in Florida or other items which would unduly impair the ability of arbitraton to do it's job, by giving the Wikipedia party an inherent structural advantage of some sort.

Lawyers always have reasons for the clauses they want - and sometimes they can have unexpected implications. That's why I'm approaching this in part from the viewpoint of keeping things free in the face of a Wikimedia board trying to go proprietary and prevent distribution without payment of fees. It's the most adversarial future which I can reasonably conceive of, potentialy pitting the board against most past contributors. I'm not confident that there's adequate protection against that possibility yet. Jamesday 07:55, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I am not quite sure how Wikimedia could "go proprietary and prevent distribution without payment of fees." Surely the GFDL means that everything that is created can be forked and many people download backups on a regular basis. Even if that weren't true, how could the board impose user fees, it is a not-for-profit organization and the charter says that there will be a "free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world". If they change the charter that will put any tax exemption into jeopardy. [[User:Alex756|&#8212; Alex756 talk]] 01:22, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Hello, Alex and others. This is just letting you know that at Japanese wikipedia, we have been discussing similar matters (disclaimer, wikipedia:copyright, etc.)
 * We are just finishing the examination of the relation between GFDL and working of Wikipedia's interface. There are drafts for ja:Wikipedia:&&#12289;ja:Wikipedia:&&#65288;Copyright and Disclaimer, respectively&#65289;that we have been revising. We would also change the text below "Save page" button to make those changes effective.
 * We don't have arbitration and other rules yet. (It is practiced, but not codified in any way).
 * It is too early to say how we conclude our discussion; right now, only a few are involved. It is not very accessible unless one is reading GFDL and researching other legal issues. So the tentative conclusion would be explained to the wider general japanese wikipublic, and that could be another round of discussion and revision (or maybe not).
 * But there is a discussion that japanese wikipedians might want to choose Japanese laws than American laws, because, among other things, the liabilities are smaller that way, etc.
 * Partly because of the possibility that Japanese court would not necessarily be willing to take GFDL as liberally as indicated by English Wikipedia, we are trying to stick to the word of the GFDL more than En does.
 * There is also different practices - at Japanese Wikipedia, we are assuming that admins could be held liable according to a Japanese law under certain condition (for example, when admins have had the knowledge of a copyright infringement, and the means to stop the infringement by deleting the page, but did not stop it). We do not preserve past versions when there is an appearent copyright infringement (we delete the whole page, or ask version-specific deletion to a developer).
 * We also have been (on this issue rather widely) discussing if text including a quote, image of a registered trademark, and other stuff can legally be provided under GFDL. We might decide differently than en., where fair use is still accepted.
 * That's all for now. I hope we could discuss about these (perhaps on the wikilegal-l, or meta) before things get finalized so that there won't be inconsistencies or severe compatibility issues, etc. Tomos 19:56, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing Tomos. You should make these terms to be appropriate to the particular project. The users on each project are allowed to make their own rules within the limits of the overarching principles of Wikipedia. Did you see my proposal about Wikipedia governing committees on Meta? [[User:Alex756|&#8212; Alex756 talk]] 00:26, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Sure I did. I thought that was reasonable enough. And I don't think the terms being developed for Japanese wikipedia is something that would upset the Board of Trustees. :-) Tomos 02:49, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)