User talk:Meksikatsi

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Savant

I have moved the discussion to my talk page, but you may prefer it on yours (to which I have no objection and which might be better all around). DCDuring TALK 21:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Just feeling my way around at the moment so I'll go with your feeling on a move; I see you've got a lot going on. Meksikatsi 21:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Savant is a small publisher, local to the Monterey Bay, California, an area with thousands of artists and writers. A box of materials consisting of books of poetry, treatises, papers, and art published by Savant has been passed on to me by the estate of Mr. Peter Pestoni, whose name is the In Care Of Name for the non-profit. There are no ISBN numbers or copyright notices on any of the materials, although there are multiple examples of some of them. I suspect that the materials were never registered as they are specifically donated by the authors and copyright-free. The Savant non-profit reference that I posted earlier does not list the details of their fictitious name statement or Fed ID number, unless you pay, but documents in the box in my possession do have that information listed. I do have first hand knowledge that the non-profit still exists as it's fallen to me to categorize these materials and hand them over to the new administration. Some of Mr. Pestoni's personal notes in his notebooks, which are present, requested such disposition and public categorization, which I am trying to accomplish. A couple of further points - these works don't seem to be self-published as there are probably 30 different authors represented. There are also newspaper clips present about several of the authors and even the newsclip (Legal Notice) when the organization filed a fictitious name statement as "Savant Nonprofit Publications". That would seem to alleviate any concern that Savant was not a literary, non-profit publisher. Meksikatsi 17:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to make you jump through hoops, but we are now clearly in a gray area. Usually we don't have to go back to first principles when verifying an entry. Let me think about this a bit before you do any more. I will put something about the issues raised on Beer Parlor for discussion. There is a minimum of 30 days for an RfV. If it is controversial, it can and almost always does stay longer. Once the discussion is going on WT:BP, I'll make an explicit link at the RfV to reduce the risk of premature deletion (which is reversible). Might it be possible and useful to put Savant publications on Wikisource or get them scanned by Google? I am not a lawyer, but I do know that the exact terms under which Savant published these authors' works can matter. For example the GFDL that WMF uses is not the same as other "free" licenses. DCDuring TALK 18:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

No issues with the "hoops" here. That's what it's all about, no? My participation in this particular discussion came about when I saw a reference to one of the publications put up on Wikisource. My goal is exactly as you stated, to put up all the works Savant published, but that will take time. There are statements in the Articles of Incorporation, State of California, to the effect that Savant publications must all be donated and free of copyright, if that is the issue here...I'm just not certain where to post them...maybe under a heading in the Savant article...publisher's terms to authors...maybe? Anyway, if you guys think it would be helpful to put up the works cited in this article first, I can do that. Meksikatsi 19:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikisource would be the folks to talk to about licensing, scanning, and other issues. can you reach the authors or their heirs if necessary? It might be better to start with one work that has everything going for it to determine whether there are complications. I will proceed shortly to investigate any precedents in Wiktionary practice. DCDuring TALK 21:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this under your wing. While you're undertaking the precedents I'll endeavor to track down some verbage in the documents. A statement by an author or the editor may be enough if posted...but where? I'm thinking in the Savant article with a pointer to wikisource...guess I'll try to track that down with them as well. Meksikatsi 21:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem is identifying who is empowered to grant Wikisource a GFDL-type license, I think. As an example, if Savant had the power, but has not paid annual corporation filing fees, then what happens to its property. Does it revert to the authors by default? I suspect something like that. Publishers have people who work full time on "copyright clearance", which covers this I think. Wikimedia Foundation is a bit poverty stricken and may not have such. DCDuring TALK 00:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight. Let's see if I can clear it by learning more about licensing myself and tracking it down. At least by reading more about GFDL I see more the fine points involved (it's going to take some study to "get it".) The other route would be to have an author definitively release the work, as I have contact info on a few - then there is a copyright tag for that. Is it enough for me to see the release or should it be posted somewhere on Wikimedia? Meksikatsi 10:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC) Meksikatsi 10:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

WikiSource would probably be the place to go for that answer. DCDuring TALK 11:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

An interesting development. I see documentation concerning the release of one of the author's works. This release contains the verbage "as all Savant publications are required by the by-laws of the corporation to be free of copyright..." Does this not meet GFDL requirements? It's obvious that a GFDL notice could not be associated with these works as they are published prior to GFDL inception, however, since they have no copyright notice, there is no copyright tag that exactly fits this criteria, i.e., there is no copyright holder to release anything. I believe that a "PD-author-release" would fit that simply says "This work is in the public domain worldwide because it has been so released by the author." Since Savant by-laws require this release prior to publication, the publication of such works, without a copyright, has the intent of meeting GFDL licensing, even though Savant administrators had no way of knowing about GFDL requirements. So, ironically, we find ourselves discussing IF we can allow publication of a free copyright pioneer to a free copyright publication, Wikisource. Meksikatsi 11:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Now we're getting somewhere. Don't the works themselves contain some kind of notice? DCDuring TALK 11:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

No. Since the document is a general reference to works published by Savant, I'm thinking about posting it to the Savant article as a general policy with references to the works and including the new tag with each. Meksikatsi 14:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Savant article has been annotated with the free copyright information and linked to some works on Wikisource. More of the publications will be added and linked as time allows. Meksikatsi 21:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The attestation value of the sources will probably be established by being on Wikisource, but it would be nice if there were a library that had the works and recorded their ownership in Worldcat (universities do). Stanford? Santa cruz? DCDuring TALK 21:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. And you're suggestion started me thinking that may be the case. I know that the present editor is a Franciscan Priest who is on some kind of retreat and I have a snail mail to him asking him some pertinent questions as of today. From the documents and events newsclips, it's clear that some kind of non-profit library was set up by Savant. I would assume that might hold some of their publications but there is no catalog with this lot. I'll stick with this, checking out the libraries, and appreciate your working with me on my project. If you want to move this to my talk page, I'm feeling more confident that I'll be able to handle it now. Meksikatsi 00:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Beer Parlor discussion

See discussion near/at bottom of WT:BP. DCDuring TALK 01:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)