Wiki.jonathancoulton.com talk:Moderators

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Hi there! If you've got a JoCopedia-related question or request, please leave a note on this page (don't forget to sign your name by typing --~~~~ ) and I or one of the other mods will get back to you about it. Hope you're enjoying the wiki! --Bry 21:21, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

Some pages that appear to be superfluous

Moved to JoCopedia talk:Moderators/Archive (2008-05-11)

Some questions about songs

Moving the questions I posed in the forum over here, since Talk pages seem to be where it's at. Sweet!

Where should alternate versions of lyrics should go? Some examples:

  • Linked version of the Flickr lyrics. I just put it at the bottom of the existing lyrics - does that seem best?
  • In wiki terms, it seems like the demo versions of songs listed under other projects shouldn't have their own page; they're not different songs, just different versions. Just wanted to test that before editing the Songs page to link the demos to the existing pages (or should they be redirects?). Anyway - if that's the desired route, how to handle alternate lyrics like the demo vs. released final verses of Soterios Johnson? Just add the additional verse and note its provenance?
  • I've been thinking that there might be some use to a non-ellided version of the Re Vos Cerveaux lyrics, which might be more readable by some folks. But clearly that wouldn't be the canonical version.

--Thomast 00:16, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for all your work, Thomas! I really appreciate it. My thoughts on Re Vos Cerveaux/Lyrics and Flickr/Lyrics will be on their talk pages shortly (and I'll add them to Category:RFC), but I'm not sure where to put the demo discussion, so I'll leave my thoughts here for the time being.
I'm inclined to think that demos should have their own pages, but I can see both arguments -- I don't disagree that they're the same songs, but it's in some ways messier to have to combine demos. For instance, demos can be purchased separately, they have their own song-detail page in the Store, they (as you note) occasionally have different lyrics -- I don't know. I wouldn't be against combining demos and "official" releases, provided those (relatively minor) concerns are dealt with somehow. --Bry 00:51, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

Copying outside sources for Wiki Help pages?

As I was checking our original model, This Might Be A Wiki, I noticed a really extensive help section that had a What Is A Wiki page, a Basic Wiki Formatting and a few others. So I gotta ask ... what's the legality/formality/propietary/anything else-aty of chopping some of that up and using it here? --MitchO 22:38, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Eep hopefully none, because I've sporked a lot from Uncyc. I've changed it to fit here though.
From my understanding, wiki's are free from copyright as detailed below the edit window. ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 02:44, 06 May 2008
Mitch: Well, that help text's not original to TMBW, as a cursory Googling tells me. However, I haven't traced it to its source, which means I can't tell you that it's usable. We're using a Creative Commons license, and it's more than possible that that text was released under a different license, I'm not sure which. So I'd hold off on taking it directly -- if you must, link to their pages until we can write up our own version. Or else search for a Creative Commons-licensed MediaWiki help text... --Bry 22:48, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
Actually, according to TMBW's Copyrights page, the text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which means we have to cite our source (in this case, TMBW), not profit from it, and JoCopedia must be under the same license. That is, ShareAlike means that anything derivative from that must also be ShareAlike, etc. That would be the catch -- we're currently Attribution-Noncommercial, but not ShareAlike. --Bry 22:51, 5 May 2008 (EDT)
Ugggh this stuff always gives me a headache. Can I lift text from Uncyc, change it and then reuse it here? ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 02:54, 06 May 2008
Well, not that I want to get anyone in trouble, but in terms of the low level legality of some internet stuff ... honestly, if that text is in SO many places, I would think we'd "blend in" rather safely. --MitchO 22:58, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Creative Commons - +ShareAlike?

(note: this discussion may, at some point, want to move to Talk:Main Page. Or it might not. I don't mind leaving it here for now. --Lex (talk - contribs) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (EDT) My thoughts exactly. Well, close to. Mine is more along the lines of if its not for profit, who cares? Lets just leave it at close enough ;) /me doesn't want to get a lecture on copyright again ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 03:01, 06 May 2008

Pragmatically speaking, Mitch, no doubt you're right, but I don't think much of that as a policy. I'm not going to get on a soapbox and do the whole "JoCo cites Creative Commons as one of his greatest inspirations and he's jumped through hoops to keep aboveboard, copyright-wise, including taking When I'm 25 or 64 off his CDs, etc., etc." bit, but I wouldn't look too favorably on copying help text. Alternatively, we could change our license to incorporate ShareAlike, in which case we could "steal" away. --Bry 23:06, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Quick question, can I lift text from Uncyc, change it and then reuse it here? If I change it, is it kosher? I don't know/get how all this CC stuff works ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 03:37, 06 May 2008
I'm in favor of making the original JoCopedia content licensed as +ShareAlike. TMBW excepts those items whose copyright is held by TMBG, and all the lyrics pages have a copyright with date on them. Could we do something similar? What's the downside, real or perceived, to ShareAlike?
The original JoCopedia had the ShareAlike. I dropped it for two reasons:
  1. To mirror JoCo's own CC license
  2. Because I find ShareAlike to be unnecessarily restrictive on people who want to use the content.
This discussion is exactly my point with point 2. We can't use that content unless we adopt ShareAlike (or let the particular page on which we steal content be licensed as ShareAlike). I don't want other people to have to license their work with ShareAlike, or CC at all. Just my 4 pence ;) --Lex (talk - contribs) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (EDT)


Officially, we can't use any material from any site that uses Creative Commons with the Sharealike clause or the GFDL. That is, stuff from TMBW, Uncyclopedia, and Wikipedia is technically off-limits. However, for smaller things (templates and the like) that are behind-the-scenes, I doubt they'd point lawyers at us. And if they do send us a Cease-and-Desist letter, we can definitely remove the offending material pretty easily.
Help pages are getting into the gray area though. Copying their help pages (and other visible pages) may not incur their legal wrath, but it might seem to be in bad taste. Where possible, though, we should copy the heck out of the public domain MediaWiki public domain documentation instead. — Wesley | 05:44, 6 May 2008 (EDT)
I agree with Lex (above) that I'd rather not take JoCopedia to ShareAlike. I think Wesley's suggestion of taking the public domain help pages (and adapting them / adding JoCopedia-specific ones) is excellent. Off to start WikiProject:Help Pages. --Bry 16:53, 6 May 2008 (EDT)
Agreed, even though I personally believe that well-traveled page is much better written. Shame. --MitchO 17:00, 6 May 2008 (EDT)
I don't believe there's any problem with using the TMBW help pages as a starting point, though. Our page should develop organically, like a tomato vine, and their existing page can be the stick that the tomato vine climbs up. Ours should be similar--but never mistakable--for their page. (Yay tasty analogies.) — Wesley | 20:06, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
Does this relate only to text or is code considered part of it too? Because I've sporked a few utility templates from Uncyc and some haven't been changed much if at all. I don't have the know how to code them myself, only adapt them. Do I have to QVFD all of them and wait for some code-whizz to rebuild them? Uncyc is a parody/joke site of which I am a member, I can ask them how they feel about their words/code being used and get permission if that helps? ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 12:44, 09 May 2008
In lieu of any more discussion here I have identified which pages I've liberated and am (hopefully) calling in help to recode/rewrite them so they can be considered JoCopedia work not stolen Uncyc work. My to-do list shows the progress of this as well as other tasks. ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 05:19, 10 May 2008

This Day in JoCo box

Moved to JoCopedia talk:Moderators/Archive (2008-05-11)

Fan Projects

No one's commented on the discussion there in over a week, so I'm going to assume it's safe to start moving one-shot creations off of that page. Try and stop me if you like.

(Oh, and please help out. I'm not going to start moving anything quite yet, I think, at least not until various things I need to finish get finished.) --Bry 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

I finally got around to finishing this. All done. --Bry 00:25, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

Videos sections and Fan Content

Currently, the sections on each video page are divided into Live Performances and Fan Videos. Mark suggests that Fan Videos should be further bifurcated into Covers (or rerecordings, or something) and Fan Videos (that use JoCo source tracks). It seems to make sense, and I'm all for the change.

I also think that we should rethink the "related pages" for each song -- for one thing, there doesn't seem to be a logical place to put things like the audio recordings from Atlanta, GA: 2008-03-22 and Chicago, IL: 2008-05-03, and the "fan content" section, originally intended to encompass "everything fans make that isn't Video", has a confusing name that probably (along with there not, y'know, being all that much non-video fan content) discourages its use. (Full disclosure: The blame for deciding on the original "related pages" is mine, I believe; the credit for the suggestion to fix them belongs once again to Mark.) --Bry 23:12, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

"Create show"

This really needs to be an extension -- it's too bad the Shows calendar extension is kludgey enough that it'd need another extension to get it to play nice. But in the meantime, I dare you -- I dare anyone -- to try to create shows using this page. --Bry 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

PS: I'm going to clean up this page, particularly the stuff near the top, pretty soon. --Bry 16:54, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
Bry: In case you weren't aware, Inputbox is installed on here, and I'm fairly sure that's what they use on TMBW for their "new song" page helper. Whether or not that will work with your shows thing, I don't know. --Lex (talk - contribs) 17:31, 7 May 2008 (EDT)
I wasn't aware, Lex -- thanks for letting me know! Inputbox does some good things; for instance, type the proper page name for a show into this box:

and the proper things should happen, I think. The cheap hack I threw up there on User:Bry/Create show page handles things like linking to the proper page without your having to know the name of the page (and also it puts up a link to the page required by the Shows calendar), but I wouldn't call mine easier to use by a long shot. --Bry 17:46, 7 May 2008 (EDT)

"One-shot" live covers

There is a growing list of songs that JoCo has played in concerts once (often in response to something from the audience) but haven't been played again and seem unlikely to be played again. (Do They Know It's Christmas in particular, but others, like The Saturday Boy, etc., as well.) I'd be interested in shoving songs like that onto a "List of infrequently played live covers" or something less awkwardly titled -- then creating full pages for them if they get played again. Thoughts? --Bry 00:30, 8 June 2008 (EDT)

Agreed! I'm not in favour of one off covers being included in the full song catalogue. ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 01:37, 09 June 2008
I don't think we have enough of them to justify the conversation yet. Are they less important than random old things like Cobras or Sweet Information? --MitchO 21:51, 8 June 2008 (EDT)
Well, you might have an argument with Cobras, but I'd say Sweet Information (being at least the theme to many Hodgman-related things -- I believe the audiobook as well as LGB, but I can't verify that at the moment) is more important. Mostly I'm just thinking that not every song he plays needs a full page, or can even have anything more than a stub that says, "He played this here." The clearest difference, in my eyes, is that Cobras, Sweet Information, One More Score, etc., are JoCo originals -- the "infrequently played live covers" are a step further removed from the JoCo tree. --Bry 23:46, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

Forum's Page

It was suggested by Percephene (in the VFD for Bry's page), and I agree, that the forums should have a page. Before it is made I would like to ask/share my thoughts on how it should be done.
Firstly it would seem to me that there is no place currently on the wiki that it would fit in, so I propose that the link on the main page be changed to link to a wiki page, which contains the link to the forums.
Next, the content needs to be agreed on, what is written and in how much detail. Titles for sections could include such things as: History (when it was created, something about the server crash maybe), Etiquette (maybe some of the FAQ thread could fins a home here), In jokes (if there are any, none spring to mind). Basically I see it as holding an overview which could help new members and something that documents the history to an extent (JoCopedia is the repository of all JoCo related knowledge).
Making a link to the Bry page could be the motive for creating such a page but I think it could be an informative page. But would it fit in the wiki or not? --BenS 16:00, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

I have to agree, I don't feel the discussion being held on the JoCo forums is right. Discussions about the wiki should be held on the wiki IMO. I don't visit there (the JoCo forums) much and so I miss all the discussion about the site, a lot of which seems to be ppl asking for other ppl to make edits or create pages. Its a wiki! Just do it! But then of late I haven't had as much time to devote to the wiki so I can't complain too much ;) ~ Percephene ~ talk contribs 03:36, 14 June 2008
Are we talking about two different things here? I thought Ben meant that there should be a wiki article about the forums. (And I've been trying to put discussion here, but sometimes it's quicker just to ask in the forums.) --Bry 23:42, 13 June 2008 (EDT)