Guidelines on soliciting input?

[Mike South]

Hi,

Here is something I mailed to a list member:

Would you have any objection to having your description of that fix put on vanagonwiki.net?

We get the hosting for free, but everything we put there must be made available under a particular creative commons license, which says people can re-post or make derivative works, but they can't use it commercially and they have to make their derived thing available under the same license.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

You mentioned being willing to post pictures--they would be welcome there, too.

I can post it, or help you post it, if you are unfamiliar with wikis, or just if you want me to do it.

Thanks,

mike

I think it might be good for us to have something of a standard about how we solicit input for the wiki from list members.  I am not trying to lay down rules or dictate anything, just making a suggestion, which I will have no power to enforce :).

I think it's most fair to ask people off list.  If they want to refuse, they ought to be able to do that without feeling like we made them do it in front of the whole community.

I think we need to tell them what the licensing terms of contributions are--just asking someone "hey can I put this on the wiki?" is not really adequate disclosure, because what we're actually doing is asking them to license their content for unlimited reproduction and derivative works by any noncommercial entity.  It's not really fair (even if it were legal) not to tell them that in advance.  Technically if we just point them to the wiki and say "put your content there", it would be them that made the contribution and their responsibility to read the licensing terms, but that's still not really a fair disclosure.  We should let them know what the deal is and let them make their decision with full understanding of the implications.

Those are my thoughts.

mike

[Marius Strom]

Hey Mike – can you post the “solicitation” to the wiki?  That way, we can just point people at it directly.

[Mike South]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 9:43 PM, Marius Strom <mar...@thestroms.org> wrote:

Hey Mike – can you post the “solicitation” to the wiki?  That way, we can just point people at it directly.

I could, but you asked me on-list and I just don't want to feel pressured into releasing it under that license...

just kidding.

http://www.vanagonwiki.net/wiki/Solicit_content

[Peter DiFalco]

I took a stab at it while you were posting that, using my own language, incorporating your own suggestions. Put that stuff on the page - anybody's welcome to revert it or edit it up, of course. Thanks for bringing this up so timely.

Cheers,

Peter

[Mike South]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:11 PM, Peter DiFalco <peter....@gmail.com> wrote:

I took a stab at it while you were posting that, using my own language, incorporating your own suggestions. Put that stuff on the page - anybody's welcome to revert it or edit it up, of course. Thanks for bringing this up so timely.

I noticed your changes when I was looking at the recent changes page (somehow missed this post), and I think your version is a significant improvement--much better "soft sell" of the idea.

mike