User talk:Cnwalter

 Hello and Welcome to Wikiversity Cnwalter! You can contact us with questions at the colloquium or me personally when you need help. Please remember to sign and date your finished comments when participating in discussions. The signature icon above the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy, Civility, and the Terms of Use policies while at Wikiversity.

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You do not need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:25, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Stories for Language Learners
Thank you for your recent contributions to Wikiversity! Please note: For sourced content that is out-of-copyright, please add it to Wikisource rather than here. That's what Wikisource is for. Then link to those resources as you build reading lessons.
 * 1) Wikiversity is organized by learning project. We use subpages, more like Wikibooks, rather than individual pages for each article as Wikipedia does.
 * 2) Wikiversity doesn't duplicate other Wikimedia projects. Several of the resources you added are already available at . We link to existing content whenever possible rather than duplicating it.
 * 3) Everything we add to Wikiversity that we don't write ourselves must have a source referenced.

For content that is under copyright that you believe may be posted here under Fair Use, please reference the source. Let me know if you have any questions. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:33, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

--- Hi!

I appreciate the information you shared above. Thank you for helping me learn the ropes here at Wikiversity. To explain: everything I will be adding was written by teachers at the Stories First Foundation. Our volunteer writers waive copyright for all stories. You can learn more here: http://storiesfirst.org/greatstoryreadingproject/

Also, thank you for sharing your concern that "Wikiversity doesn't duplicate other Wikimedia projects." To clarify, the texts we are sharing here are not duplicates. To non-educators, these stories may look similar, but these original adaptations were written by language teachers for language learners. Many of these texts were written by skilled educators who have spent years honing the very unique skill of writing for language learners. I am very proud of our foundation's contributions to World Literacy, and I hope these texts find a larger audience here at Wikiversity.

From :

Hi Dave Braunschweig. My name is Claire Walter. I am a director at the Stories First Foundation. Since 2017, we have hosted a wiki of our own at storiesfirst.org/GreatStoryReadingProject. We adapt stories in simplified French, Spanish, German, English, etc. We have over 700 stories that were donated by teacher volunteers. But we have recently started migrating our stories to Wikiversity.

As we move our stories in, it is important to keep as much of the text intact as possible. For this reason, I'm going to undo two edits you made to The Billy Goats Gruff and the Frog and the Bull earlier today. These stories have been simplfied by skilled language teachers who have worked hard to create texts specifically for language learners. Our nonprofit's goal is to share free reading materials with language learners and their teachers...so that no one has to buy expensive, boring language textbooks.

FYI: if you know anyone who is interested in learning to read beginning Spanish, French, English, or German, our nonprofit also provides FREE books for language learners at StoriesFirst.org.

Thanks for your help and patience as I learn to navigate Wikiversity.

--Cnwalter (discuss • contribs) 06:01, 22 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Claire! Thank you for considering Wikiversity for this project. Some things we can work around, others we can't. Duplicating content from other Wikimedia projects can be appropriate, depending on the structure of the learning project.
 * Copyright is a different story. Anything contributed by someone else on another site must be referenced when posted here. Best practice would be to reference the contributor, but a link referencing the source it has been copied from will also work, assuming that source makes it clear that the content is either public domain and/or openly licensed. Content cannot be published here without clear copyright and/or license status.
 * Regarding language translations, there is a way to publish translations on Wikiversity. See . The main page (or main subpage) is always English, with no language designation. Language code subpages are used for each translation.
 * I strongly encourage you to use separate subpages for each story. Putting all of the stories on the same page limits the ability for others to select or re-sequence the content to better meet their needs. There are ways to create collections of subpages so that they read without navigation while allowing others to create their own sequences. See IT Fundamentals/Collection for an example.
 * Let us know whenever you have any questions. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

-

Hi again,

Thanks for your detailed message. I wanted to address your concerns below. 1. These are not translations. They are adaptations. They can not simply be translated word for word. Our texts are educational materials designed by and for teachers. As such, they belong on Wikiversity.

2. These texts are free of copyright. Please read our community's copyright policies here: https://storiesfirst.org/greatstoryreadingproject/one-page-express/register1/. Like Wikiversity itself, our foundation states clearly that all texts must be free of copyright and all contributors waive copyright so that teachers can freely print and distribute materials to students. In fact, our copyright-free policy is even more stringently enforced than on Wikiversity itself. Our attorney encouraged us to take an added step and require any user to first agree to waive copyright before they were allowed to create an account, edit, or add anything.

But also, it's common sense. Teachers submitted these stories because they WANT to share with other teachers. We are a 100% volunteer-run organization and you'll see on our website that no was was paid for their stories and we do not sell any teaching materials. There are no copyright concerns for any of our stories. However, I appreciate that you are just doing due diligence. Please look over our website and let me know if you still have concerns.

3. Regarding subpages, I will look over the resource you shared, reach out to other Administrators, and revisit the best way to organize our stories. Thanks again for your input.

I will create new pages for each story if it is truly necessary. I serve hard-working K-12 public school teachers because I am one. I volunteer my time sharing these stories with other teachers because I think teachers deserve free resources. We deserve to work less, not more, and anytime I can help out a fellow teacher, I will.

Creating individual pages for each story would be an enormous amount of extra work, but I am not opposed to that if it is necessary. Thank you for your patience as I investigate this matter further.

--Cnwalter (discuss • contribs) 23:15, 22 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the project that you are developing and the work required to make it available to others. However, you've also made some assumptions about Wikiversity that I need to clarify.
 * This is the English Wikiversity. There are separate Wikiversities for French, Spanish, German, and other languages. All Wikimedia projects are organized by language. When content in other languages is hosted here at the English Wikiversity, it is with the intent of learning that language. Beyond that, Spanish stories should be hosted at Wikiversidad. French stories should be hosted at Wikiversité, etc. We can certainly link to those resources from here, but we shouldn't be so bold as to assume the rest of the world must adopt an English-first perspective to access and build on this content. There are Spanish-, French-, and German-speaking Wikiversity users here who can help build equivalent pages on the appropriate language Wikiversity when you are ready.
 * Regarding copyright, there is a very important difference between the approaches used by Stories First and the Wikimedia Foundation. The Stories First approach is that contributors give up copyright. The Wikimedia approach is that all contributors retain copyright and provide a license specifying terms of reuse. The terms are listed at the bottom of each page and are based on Creative Commons CC-BY-SA licensing. To be consistent with Terms of Use, we need to have the original source referenced for any contributions that have been copied from another source. In this case, you are copying from the Stories First website and need to provide a link back to the Stories First page(s) the contributions are being copied from. Future contributions will depend not on having no copyright, but instead that the contribution is a Fair Use of the original copyrighted work. It is very likely that all of the contributions will be consistent with Fair Use, but to be fair, the use must include a reference to the original work that is being adapted. The only exception would be for anything out of copyright, but that depends on age and location of the original publication. The best way to know that is with a reference back to the original source or some other source, such as Wikipedia, indicating the origin of the story.
 * We have ways to automate content editing. Add all stories to a single page by level for now. I can help you automate the process of splitting them out if and when you are ready.
 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I again, I appreciate your messages above. That is fantastic that you can help me automatically create new pages! Thanks! Also, I did as you requested and created a page for our Spanish stories at: https://es.wikiversity.org/wiki/Historias_para_estudiantes_de_espa%C3%B1ol

Soon after, I got this notice: "En breve, un administrador trasladará esta página a Wikisource. Motivo: Esta página cumple con el quinto estándar de lo que Wikiversidad no es y por lo tanto se trasladara en breve."

It says it will be deleted soon but there was nothing specific explaining why.

I'm afraid I will have to have the same talk with a moderator at the language sites for each and every language. I hate to duplicate efforts for so many moderators. Is there any way around this? Thanks again!

--Cnwalter (discuss • contribs) 12:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The page indicates that they intend to move the resource to Wikisource, which is where content like this typically would reside. You will need to contact them to explain why it is a learning project rather than source content storage. Perhaps User:Hasley has additional suggestions. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:58, 24 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for making me aware of this. As Dave Braunschweig pointed out above, the best I can suggest is to contact with them (or an administrator; mayhap Antur can help you).


 * However, I am concerned about copyright problems, specifically the statement “All copyright waived for non-commercial use only. All commercial use prohibited.” at the bottom of storiesfirst.org. Non-commercial licenses are not compatible with Spanish Wikiversity's CC-BY-SA, and copyright issues should be resolved first. &mdash;Hasley talk  20:26, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, The Great Story Reading Project owns all rights. Contributors sharing works with our foundation waived their copyrights (commercial and non-commercial) to us.

Of course, we are happy to waive all copyright-both commercial and non-commercial. We understand that's what we are doing by posting works here. If you need a statement by the board of directors to this effect, please let me know. We have an attorney who helps us with copyright matters but we would prefer not to bother him. I don't think that would be necessary because again, we are the copyright holders and we are waiving all copyright in agreement with Wikiversity's policies.

If it helps, our nonprofit is ending our wiki. Almost all of these stories will soon be deleted from our website - so we can instead focus on publishing (free for non-commercial purposes) books. To avoid confusion, we would prefer NOT to be cited after we delete our stories from our website.

--Cnwalter (discuss • contribs) 21:21, 24 June 2021 (UTC)


 * No one posting on Wikiversity waives copyright. Copyright is explicitly retained. That's why moving the content here is somewhat challenging. By posting it, you now effectively own the copyright to everything posted. In addition, you have shared it with a CC-BY-SA license. CC-BY-SA allows commercial use. Please review https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . This is why the attribution aspect is so important. If you don't credit a source, you are the source, and we already know that's not the case. If you really want it to be public domain, each page with the public domain content needs to explicitly state that it is both PD (using ) and CC-BY-SA. It still needs to have the source referenced somehow. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:19, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello sir. Thanks again for your prompt reply. You stated: "No on posting on Wikiversity waives copyright." That is correct. The Stories First Foundation is not waiving, as in signing over our copyrights to Wikiversity specifically. We are giving our works to the Creative Commons.

The phrase "waiving copyright" is one you could have seen at storiesfirst.org. Our contributors waived copyrights to the Stories First Foundation. Before they could get an account with us, they agreed to give over copyrights to us. After a contributor clicked "submit" the words "Copyright The Stories First Foundation" was automatically posted at the bottom of every page. The Stories First Foundation formerly held the copyrights to all stories. We waived the copyrights for non-commercial use. We only maintained copyrights for commercial use. In theory, if Pearson had used one of our stories in a textbook, the Stories First Foundation could have sued.

But you are right, that Wikiversity has a different policy. You use a Creative Commons license that allows commercial use.

"By posting it, you now effectively own the copyright to everything posted." ...again, we already did own the copyrights to everything posted at storiesfirst.org. We owned it *before* it was posted at wikiversity. But we do not own the copyright any more.

"you have shared it with a CC-BY-SA license." Yes, a few days ago, as soon as we clicked "sumbit" at to create our page at Wikiversity with the CC-BY-SA license at the bottom, the Stories First Foundation gave any visitor to Wikiversity the right to use it for any purpose: commerical or non-commercial. Our works are now in the Creative Commons. That is what we want. We are now agreeing to a CC-BY-SA license. Just like any other person or organization who contributes to Wikiversity, we gave up our copyright to the Creative Commons. But of course, we understand that we can't go "backwards" and one day claim copyright...no need to worry about that. We understand that we owned copyright before, but we do not own the copyright any more.

"If you don't credit a source, you are the source, and we already know that's not the case." Our nonprofit's wiki, the Great Story Reading Project, is the source of everything on these pages. These educational materials are our community's original content. One person started the story, the next changed the ending. The next teacher created a simplified version. The next adapted it with the alternate ending to Chinese, etc. Everyone understood it to be a group effort, so much so that out of 2,000 members who participated in writing and editing 700+ stories, only a dozen of them used any names, usually to say "I borrowed this story from so-and-so (another teacher).

The collection will be taken down soon, but for a little while longer, you can browse stories and see that 98% of our stories do not contain by-lines. If they did write their names, they did so understanding that, per our policies, we would try to keep their by-line intact, but their by-line might become obsolete or be deleted over time. Any individual contributor's ideas would be mixed with others' works and adapted (not translated) from language to language, ability level to ability level.

I know Wikiversity has different policies, and I appreciate you taking the time to communicate your policies. Our organizations are so different and it's a lot to wrap your head around. Please consider emailing me. Or we can even arrange a Skype call if you think those would be easier ways to communicate. My address is: claire at storiesfirst.org

Thanks! -Claire --Cnwalter (discuss • contribs) 05:01, 25 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the update.
 * Yes, we agree that your nonprofit is the source of everything on these pages. That must be stated explicitly somewhere in the contributions. It can be in the comment in the edit history. It can be on the talk page. It can be on the page itself. But it must be stated in at least one of these places on each page. It's not Claire's work, and Claire needs to reference the source (link to the nonprofit) somewhere. From a Wikiversity perspective, we don't care that there were 2,000 contributors to the nonprofit. As long as there is a reference back to the nonprofit, it's up to the nonprofit as to how it wants to reference its contributors (or not). The same will be true when anyone reuses the content here. They must provide a reference to Wikiversity, typically with a link. Wikiversity's page history provides attribution to each contributor.
 * Copyright and license are separate. You continue to own the copyright on all of this content. When copyright is stated, the typical approach is "copyright year so-and-so. All rights reserved.". With open content, the copyright is "copyright year so-and-so. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License." When copyright isn't stated, it must be assumed to be all rights reserved. Copyright on your contributions has not changed. You still own it and can do whatever you want with it. You've simply specified the requirements for others who want to reuse the content. The requirement is they must reference the source and they must use the same CC-BY-SA license on any derivative works.
 * Several of us have had serious problems with off-wiki contacts, ultimately involving death threats and police reports. Unfortunately, there are crazy people in this world and we have to take reasonable steps to protect ourselves. One of those steps is we don't meet off-wiki. You can use the email feature in the wiki software to contact someone privately, but that's as far as we go. Thanks for your understanding.
 * Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:39, 25 June 2021 (UTC)