Talk:Etherpad

Research and etherpads

I'm designing a research participation framework based on etherpads with the wikiversity (french for now). As I consider the pads as "research material" describing the participation (its articulation, chronological observation), I intend to "store them". But to enable collaborative research, make these material freely available (under cc-by-sa) seems important.

For now, I simply made the pad content available [1] But I'd like to store the ".etherpad" export in order to keep colors, keyboard-chatting, and chronological evolution. For instance this pad 'time-framed' with the webinar live on youtube[2] stress out the contributors behaviors giving keys to re-design the next participation experiment.

Would wikimedia see interest in "storing" research material (such as etherpads) ?

Do any "wikimedian researchers" have on-going work in this field ?

BR

--RP87 (talk) 11:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Admins?

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T236753

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T242010

@Quiddity (WMF): is there any documentation on the WMF administration of our etherpad instance? We have ticket that would require administrative action ticket:2019102110005428. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 16:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I saw the technotes on wikitech, the primary item I'm looking for is: "How to intake a request the etherpad administrators". — xaosflux ^Talk 16:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

this note suggests that WMF T&S may be in charge of this? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I've filed a task for this specific one, and added instructions to that section of the docs for next time. Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Quiddity (WMF): thank you, I copied your instruction to here as well. Would you let me know when the ticket is resolved so we can close the OTRS ticket please? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:54, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I CC'd you both after filing it :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Add copyright license to default starting text

The current default text of the Wikimedia Etherpad is

---

Welcome to the WMF etherpad installation. Please keep in mind all current as well as past content in any pad is public. Removing content from a pad does not mean it is deleted. Keep in mind as well that there is no guarantee that a pad's contents will always be available. A pad may be corrupted, deleted or similar. Please keep a copy of important data somewhere else as well

---

I propose that we add a statement of copyright license to this to facilitate the migration of text from Wikimedia Etherpad instances into Wikimedia projects. For remote Wikimedia meetups including these listed at WikiProject remote event participation, our meetings start by telling participants that whatever they post to the Etherpad will get moved to Meta-wiki and that anyone who posts to the Etherpad must consent to a compatible license. However, as we are scaling up use of Etherpad, we should be more thoughtful about appropriate copyright licensing.

I propose using the Wikidata license which is Creative Commons Zero or Public Domain. This is easiest to use. Etherpad has no good way of attributing authorship, so a CC zero license is easiest license with which we can comply.

Thoughts? Does anyone here have opinions about how I should proceed with this conversation? My first stop for soliciting comments will probably be WikiProject Remote Participation, then those linked projects I mentioned which have already been heavy users of Etherpad and who also have a long history of mentioning the copyright license at meetings, then the general wiki public. I suppose I should contact WMF lawyers immediately also, right? Thanks for any comments or suggestions from anyone here already minding the etherpad. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• This makes sense because it's hard to copy the names from the history and most people don't seem to care about attribution to them anyway (it's rare for users to set recognisable pseudonyms). Please no links to Wikidata, link the actual license/waiver URL like https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (which also has translations). Nemo 12:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed new text

version 1

Welcome to the Wikimedia Etherpad. Users contributing text to do so under the same licensing terms as contributors to Wikidata. See the Wikidata copyright license at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Text_of_the_Creative_Commons_Public_Domain_Dedication

All current as well as past content in any pad is public. This document is not an archive and may automatically delete at any time. Please keep a copy of important data somewhere else as well, such as by transferring it to a Wikimedia project page.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to mention Wikidata in the note. Also, Wikidata uses CC-BY-SA for text, and only uses CC-0 for structured data. --Yair rand (talk) 19:30, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree that (i) it is useful to clarify the licensing, (ii) that CC0 is the best choice, (iii) there is no need to mention Wikidata. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• @Killiondude: Can you comment here? You removed the text where I described the copyright of etherpad content as "???". Can we adopt this text to clarify? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
• I like the idea of including licensing information in etherpad, but I recommend a different approach. Some pads may contain content that is not CC0. If we want a copyright license (or waiver) to be effective, we may also need the assent of the authors. I recommend adjusting the default text to say this is up to the pad's author(s) to figure out, like: "Users contributing to this pad are encouraged to specify a free license. We recommend the CC0 dedication, available at https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ... " Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
  • That doesn't help with the large majority of cases where users will just delete the placeholder text without putting anything in its place. Better state that there are default terms but exceptions are possible if another free license is specified (consistent with the general rule in the Terms of use). Nemo 08:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
    • We'd want to include a persistent link to the default terms to be effective. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to add that in the etherpad interface, but I think that adjusting the default text is a workable interim solution for some cases if it has flexibility. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
      • Thanks. Do you think it would be good next to "About Powered by Etherpad-lite" in the panel which opens when you click the cog? I don't see many other suitable options in the interface. Nemo 06:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
        • Yes, that's a good spot to include it. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• I like this idea in nature, and agree that a Wikidata link is probably not the best idea. Stephen raises a good point about text occasionally needing a different license and I like Nemo's proposed solution that we simply add a disclaimer that exceptions are possible. Killiondude (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Move Etherpad -> Wikimedia Etherpad

I propose to move

Etherpad -> Wikimedia Etherpad

Etherpad is the general software, but this documentation page is for the Wikimedia installation of this.

Any comments or objections? Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Phabricator is a local installation and is not located at Wikimedia Phabricator. I think simple pagenames are better. Killiondude (talk) 19:29, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Unless we're going to have an article about Etherpad in general as opposed to Etherpad in Wikimedia context, I don't see a need for disambiguation either. Nemo 12:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Resolved.

Okay, I agree, no name change. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Terms of use?

Is this service meant only for use related to Wikimedia in some way? I get the impression that it is, but the inclusion of it here is confusing. Darylgolden (talk) 03:24, 19 May 2021 (UTC)