Wikiversity talk:Policies

Original Policies
I propose that Wikiversity start by adopting existing Wikipedia policy. The Wikiversity community can then discuss the creation of new policies that will diverge from Wikipedia's policies. New Wikiversity policies should reflect the education-oriented mission of Wikiversity as defined in the Wikiversity project proposal that was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. --JWSchmidt 13:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * For me, this seems too much. Wikipedia has tons of policies, the vast majority of which are specific to its needs. I think we should only begin with the most basic of Wikimedia policies, Civility, and then develop our own. NPOV, for example, doesn't even fit with what I believe education to be all about - education, for me, is more along the lines of "What do you think? Do you agree/disagree?". Cormaggio 13:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * We know that Wikipedia policy provides a viable way to run a wiki project. I suggest using Wikipedia policy as a temporary set of rules; Wikipedia policy would provide stabilty while the Wikiversity community creates new policy. As soon as the Wikiversity community creates its own rules, the Wikipedia rules would no longer be in effect. --JWSchmidt 13:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, but why bother adopting them all to begin with? There are so many which are obviously irrelevant - though I say civility is a basic one - and the rest we can work out as we go along. No projects are forced to adopt any principles but the core Wikimedia values (and NPOV, like I've said, is one that i think should go for a start). Cormaggio 14:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia policy could provide a starting point. The approach would be "easy come, easy go". It is easy to adopt Wikipedia policy as a default for when no Wikiversity policy exists. When new Wikiversity policy is constructed by the community it would automatically displace the default Wikipedia policies. In other words, it would be easy for the Wikiversity community to decide which Wikipedia policies are not relevant, either explicitly or implicitly just by ignoring them. Some Wikipedia policies could be modified to suit Wikiversity needs rather than having to start each Wikiversity policy from zero. --JWSchmidt 14:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Take into account that there are lots of Wikipedias, not just one. And they have different policies each. I think there shouldn't be that automatic Wikipedia policy. You can add a line stating Wikipedia general policies should be followed but no more. Common sense does the rest, and there's usually an intention to follow it. But don't set that on the policy, please. It only helps (vandal?, troll?) people saying, this hidden wikipedia policy says so, and it's stupid to apply this here, but we must obey, so you all are wrong. Platonides 14:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I think it would be pertinent to import the ground rules, e.g. Civility, Copyrights and Be Bold. Everything beyond that should be created here (but taking into account experiences made elsewhere). Sebmol 14:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like we need a list of proposed Wikiversity policies. --JWSchmidt 15:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed, here's what I think would be a good start:
 * Observe copyrights (IMO very important so the project doesn't end up getting shut down after all this work because Wikimedia gets sued by some textbook publisher)
 * Civility, Wikiquette, no personal attacks, and the like (This is especially important in a quasi-academic setting. I would imagine that some of the material covered here might be pretty controversial so it's additionally important not to resort to personal attacks)
 * Be bold (In the beginning stages and with few people involved, initiative is often times more important than that all agree to a plan of action. Things that go in the wrong direction can be corrected fairly easily with the technology we have available)
 * Thoughts? What else would be good? -- sebmol ? 15:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Added: Diversity (With that I mean, that in a learning environment, it's more important to have a diversity in material than a basis in scientific verifiability. Teaching literature or poetry isn't really science, inherently POV, but obviously important nonetheless. So we should create an environment where people feel comfortable creating and discussing controversial materials as well, even if science doesn't back them up.)


 * I think there should be a modified NPOV policy. I think NPOV should apply to the Wikiversity namespace of Wikiversity. An NPOV policy would help guide the meta discussion that will take place in the Wikiversity namespace: "where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted" --JWSchmidt 15:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

---

I think that the original "5 pillars" should be perhaps copied over and used in theory, but I have to agree with Cormogo that the policies that exist here should be ones that the users for Wikiversity need and use come up with. There are some policies (such as What Wikiversity is not and others) that should be copied over from Meta. I'll start them as proposed policies to begin with, and certainly the original research guidelines need to be discussed as well. --Robert Horning 16:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Open discussions for setting polices is a great way to acquire initial ideas, however, polls are not condusive to gathering the best language for a sound policy. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams appointed themselves dictators and designers of the US Constitution before they later delegated the refinements (ammendments) over to the American people. Wikiversity, in my opinion, should appoint a very small committee to draw up basic policy. This committee should be in total agreement with Wikiversity's Mission Statement. These policies should reflect the intent and charactor of Wikiversity and not the whims of the world community. Wikiversity can tweek the policies of any great education entity to suit its own intent and personality. A time saver. you will never please everyone. In summary: be the dictator for now, appoint your own policy making team, and tweek it as you go to reflect the Mission Statement. Everyone with a rearend has an opinion. This is mine. User: TigreNoir


 * Honesty/integrity should be one policy. This is notable, because, unlike in wikipedia, here one may say things which are tentative.  Yet one must not intentionally mislead;  one must not claim something that he cannot support. As one learns more, she may adjust her statements.  But one must always let others know the status. Confucius:「知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也」--Hillgentleman 09:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

GDFL and copyright
If this has been discussed before, please forgive me. But I was just thinking about GDFL and copyrights. Suppose a class on Wikiversity requires the students to write papers (original work of their own). Will those papers be posted on Wikiversity, and if so, are they automatically GDFL, as are contributions to Wikipedia? I imagine that many people will not want their hard work so easily given away. Some people might think it's great, or not care, but if down the road we have people writing 20+ page final papers, will they really want them distributed on the internet? I am just brainstormin here. --Fang Aili 15:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that in general, we should use GFDL or cc-by-sa. I personally would prefer the latter because it doesn't come with all the complications of the GFDL and was created for content such as ours. As to papers, from the university I've attended, the university took over the rights for all papers submitted by students so they could use them for publications, contests, future courses, etc. I therefore don't think that would really be a problem here either. What we can do, howeve, is having those pages excluded from search engines so they won't be distributed as easily. -- sebmol ? 16:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"all the complications of the GFDL" <-- please list them "created for content such as ours" <-- what is different from the GFDL?

We should keep Wikiversity under the GFDL because nearly every project is. Some things (particularly on Wikibooks) will have to be copied to here, so it'd be easier to keep things uniformly licensed. The only exception is Wikinews, and consequently, things can't be copied from other projects to Wikinews because of license incompatibility. Messedrocker 01:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Growing and maintaining the commons is precisely Wikiversity's primary mission. We happen to focus on learning where several other Wikimedia projects focus on high quality reference works. The GFDL has been proven in the past and is a well known copyleft mechanism. Further, there is a separate Foundation (GNU Foundation) dedicated to maintaining and protecting it as a viable copyleft mechanism. If a learner has a valuable paper it certainly should not be published here until their organization is setup to exploit the valuable innovation has a large lead to market. We could change this in the future perhaps as Wikiversity grows and has an advanced grid like capability to mix and match specific teams and sponser with all applicable necessities such as secrecy and access management. For now I think we would be wise to keep things as simple as possible until we have the size, experience and dedicated resources to manage a complicated mix. In short, wiklars wiklars should not publish valuable proprietary information on wikiversity. The submittal form currently makes this crystal clear for any who read it. There is nothing to stop a local learner from publishing under copyright at another web site and then referring to the material with a link embedded in local FDL'ed overview materials. Mirwin 07:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Original Research Guidelines
I know this needs to be turned into a whole different page for ongoing discussion, but as Anthere made mention in her announcement on Foundation-l (see http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-August/009046.html for details), the original research provisions of Wikiversity are going to be something the board of trustees will look at very carefully. This is also something that needs to turn into a formal policy discussion at this point. --Robert Horning 16:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * From what I've heard, part of the reason why Wikinews started up is additionally to function as a reliable source for Wikipedia. See, original research is allowed on Wikinews, but the condition is that you must supply evidence and a way to verify it. One of the "students" could do some investigating involving Wikiversity resources, and publish a thesis based on it. The "student" should subsequently, however, provide verifiable proof on the discussion page. Once everything is checked over and peer reviewed, that page could function as a usable source for Wikipedia. Just my thoughts, though. Messedrocker 01:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Voting is evil
This is not the appropriate way to start policies.--69.111.161.61 01:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Right now, the votes allow us to judge which policies need discussion. --JWSchmidt 01:59, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The advantage of this poll is that it's a good way to have a rudimentary set of policies quickly implemented, considering that some of these are a given (like Be bold). Additionally, this still allows discussion, and if people agree with a point made by a certain user, they may change their votes accordingly. Voting in itself is not evil, but voting and not allowing discussion is. Messedrocker 02:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a very bad start, frankly. It is not sensible to try to set rules a priori, before the problems we may or may not face are even particularly well understood.  Voting has always been the best way to get the worst outcome in a wiki.  This is a grand way to kill the project and get it off on the wrong foot from the very beginning.  Wikis are about wisdom, not control, about freedom in a spirit of kindness, not about rules.  Trust yourselves, trust each other, love each other, and work together in a spirit of helpful togetherness and we might just do something spectacular here.  Go down a path of rules-making from day one, and you will kill the very spirit that makes a wiki run.--69.111.161.61 02:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If we have no standards, then we have nothing to strive for. And if the rules fail us, we invoke WV:IAR and decide that the rules are no good and should be changed. There is discussion, not only on Policies, but on Colloquium and the mailing list. The poll, based on what JWSchmidt says, is not a binding decision, but helps shows which are a given and which are a bit controversial. Messedrocker 02:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Aghast!!!
This whole page leaves me aghast! To be complete it needs only one further policy: "All students shall seek permission before leaving class to go to the washroom." Those who have proposed these rules seem more fit to run a borstal than a university. To me it is not a matter of whether I think this policy good, and that one bad. It is a completely wrongheaded approach totally unsuited to any kind of free and open education. In some instances it even seems that certain Wikipedians are taking this as an opportunity to have their most disliked policies rendered inapplicable in Wikiversity. It establishes the presumption that by virtue of being there at the beginning a certain cabal has earned the right to dictate policy that may be difficult alter when it must be applied to real world situations. If we really believe that we are taking a new and imaginative approach to education let's act in a manner consistent with that. Policy should follow practice; it should not dictate it. I am not so naïve as to believe that we will never need policy, but I at least recognize that they must evolve as and when they are needed.

The voting should be completely removed from the page, and it is a great temptation to act unilaterally to do this. I will instead add an additional section petitioning that the voting process that has been undertaken be viewed as fundamentally flawed. In doing so I would ask that all who have already "voted" remove all their votes without regard to the specific policy in question.

Wikipedia enumerates five pillars, of which one, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" is by its nature not applicable to the sister projects. This is the pillar of identity which each project must develop in its own way over in the course of its own development. The other four: neutrality, freedom, civility and initiative could be considered broadly applicable. This does not so much as imply that the elaborative comments at w:Wikipedia:Five pillars are also pertinent to Wikiversity. The elaboration in this project will come over time. "Free Content" does not imply that we are necessarily bound by GFDL and only GFDL, and Neutral Point Of View does not imply that there can be no mutually conflicting views or discourse on the path that leads to an idea's centre of gravity. Eclecticology 17:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You're not the only one that sees it like this. There's a reason I removed all the discussion from the page and moved it to the respective talk pages. I'm not happy at all at the bureaucratization that was attempted here in the beginning. The policies that were adopted are the ones you were talking about btw. -- sebmol ? 17:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Let me second the comment above. Don't worry, this project is still in its infancy, and there are other editors who share your concerns. --HappyCamper 17:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I should elaborate - I'm quite worried myself actually, but with so much activity going on right now, one can only do so much, and trust that the Magic of the Wiki will prevail. I hope that at minimum, there will be those special nooks and crannies around Wikiversity which would emulate the "ideal" that much of us are thinking about. --HappyCamper 17:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The level of activity is indeed a problem because of the opportunities it provides for those people who just love to make rules. It is trite to say that great vigilance is required to keep that process from getting out of hand, but some of us would prefer engaging in more fertile pursuits. Eclecticology 19:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that in some sense, Wikiversity will create much of its "identity" in future years, but the Wikiversity community did not start from scratch on August 15, 2006. The development of policy at Wikiversity is being guided by the contents of an approved project proposal. Wikiversity is not a university. Voting is useful as a quick way to help judge consensus; nobody takes sensible people do not view voting as something to get excited about. --JWSchmidt 18:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That in itself is porbably a source of contention that we should recognize. As for what to do about it, well, I'm not sure anyone really knows precisely what that would be. For myself, I don't think this point would be something to worry about necessarily. --HappyCamper 18:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Voting is evil. Since voting is "not ... something to get excited about" we can avoid using it.  While there are times when a poll can be used to gain a sense of the opinion, the premature institution of a vote has the effect of excluding any middle ground that might be discovered in a reasonable discussion.


 * In my view Wikiversity is a university in the finest and broadest sense of that term. This has nothing to do with granting degrees, a practice which I would personally oppose.  Any prehistoric discussions that took place before August 15 can only be viewed as arriving at a provisional consensus.  If someone wants to maintain a policy that was developped there it still needs to be reviewed, and will stand or fall on its own merits. Eclecticology 19:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No policies were included in the Wikiversity project proposal. The approved project proposal defines a plan for this project that was accepted by the Board of Trustees. The approved proposal explicitly describes the components of the original proposal that were rejected by the board (see: Original proposal). The Board of Trustees had good reasons for rejecting some elements of the original proposal. The approved proposal is an agreement between the Wikiversity community and the Foundation. If the Wikiversity community works towards the goals that were proposed and approved then the community will have the support of the Foundation. All Wikiversity participants need to recognize that efforts to do an end-run around the expressed wishes of the Board can be damaging to the success of the project and also risk termination of Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 20:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The points raised in the reasons for the original rejection are limited enough. Nobody is seriously suggesting granting degrees, and there would already have been sufficient development in the idea of e-courses to not be too concerned about that.  The rejection in the resolution was only three lines long so I don't see the point of making it more elaborate than it is.  Nobody is even talking about an end-run around foundation policy. Eclecticology 21:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Common voting page
While I agree with sebmol that the voting needed to be taken off of this page, I disagree that the voting should all be done on the discussion pages for each policy. The main concern is for something to happen like the Privacy policy that was moved to official status when obviously there wasn't even a vote on the topic. Or to see somebody "railroad" a policy into enforcement before there could be a community concensus on the subject.

I simply don't have the hours of the day to devote to Wikiversity 24/7/365 and keep up on all of the discussions and be able to monitor each and every policy page. I will try to add my voice to the discussions when I have an opinion, but I am very concerned about these "stealth policies" being created and then significant custodian action happen as a result of these policies going to enforced status. I say this because I've seen it happen on other projects.

All I'm suggesting is that we create a common "vote" page that lists all of the policies that are currently up for discussion. Perhaps to also establish some kind of criteria for when policy is going to be going before the community for formal approval as well, as there have been a number of policies put up for a vote that were clearly in need of major overhaul and substantial changes being made after the voting started. This is not good for Wikiversity.

It is also nice to do a quick glance at the list of policies up for review and see what ones you still need to get involved with, if you havn't expressed a positive or negative opinion on the policy. I suggest this so that we can have even more participation with forming community concensus, as holding votes on individual policy discussion pages seems to serve as a deterrant, especially if the voting gets lost somewhere in the middle of the discussion page or there are multiple voting sections from previous attempts to get it approved. --Robert Horning 23:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories of Other?
Anyone who knows which category the "Other" policies are supposed to be in, let me know.

update
I just updated the lists to reflect which proposed policies have been adopted. Please check to see if I missed anything.--mikeu 18:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: apparently the voting on Cite sources was against and the voting on Verifiability was split. See . Can't see why you did this Mike, other than reasons of academc enlightenment. --McCormack 13:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * More likely it was a mistake on my part. I did ask for others to proofread to see if I got anything wrong.  I actually discovered the cite sources in the wrong cat this morning and started to fix it before seeing your note.  It looks like JWS made this change to Verifiability.  --mikeu talk 17:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Update, it looks like I made changes based on this edit. My attempt back then was simply to clarify what status each policy had.  Looking at it now I can realize I should have looked much closer.  --mikeu talk 17:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see that the process for making policy has improved. Two forms of evidence are clear to me: a) the sheer number of people who have left the project and b) the reluctance of capable people to step into leadership roles. Policy, guidelines and process are functions of how and why people collaborate and participate as members of a learning community. Wikiversity has tremendous opportunity at this particular time to develop its own identity within the larger community. We need to look at 1) the process - 2) a guideline or two -3) a proposal or two - 4) then some proposed policy - and 5) some policy if it's needed - not the other way around. The process can be clearly seen here. --CQ 05:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not really seeing b), personally. But maybe it's just me.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 01:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Introduction
My I suggest that, for the time being at least, all teaching and class/lecture based courses constructed and carried out on Wikiversiry be aimed no higher than Secondary, and/or are only skills based (eg, computer programming, etc).

Reasons
(a list of a few, if anyone wishes to add more, please add them)


 * Subjects of Higher the Secondary contain materials which stretch the human imagination, and in some areas, go beyond. Courses can no long be based on a person’s intuition, and formalisation of terms and definitions are a must to carry on some areas (eg. Mathematics). --Fattony 4001 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * People may start to teach ideas which have not been Peer Reviewed or that might not have been accepted by the intellectual community. --Fattony 4001 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Secondary Education (and those below) are well regulated by Governments and Professional Bodies, and specifications exist that courses and classes can be based on. --Fattony 4001 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It is not sufficient to know things at Post-Secondary Education, but to also understand them, so if a student was to ask a teacher a question such as “Where did Mathematics originate?” The teacher gives a better answer than “Ancient Greece” The not so short answer here. --Fattony 4001 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A lot of material Post-Secondary level that is not skills based is very specialised, and very few people would be interested in it. For example, I could run a course on: Set Theory without the Axiom of Choice. This is a very difficult, conceptually, and much of the subject matter has not been discussed or verified, and there are only a handful of specialists in the world that could talk to you about it. Another even better example of this is concerning the  Axiom of constructability. There exists only two people in the world who talk about ordinal Turing machines (one a PhD student at the University of Bristol, and one resides in Germany). This means that out of about six and a half billon people, only two have knowledge or understanding, enabling them to teach subject matter based on this idea, and such ideas would only interest Pure Mathematicians and Philosophers. --Fattony 4001 20:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Objections
(Please list objections here)

It seems silly to me to attempt to tell volunteers what level of pedagogical materials meeting the standards of the community they can or cannot engage in exchanging on Wikiversity. While no doubt some volunteers will show up willing to attempt to regulate others, other volunteers have no obligation to pay any extra special attention to them or their list of proscribed materials. Peer review or disclosure requirements or accurate labeling are different from saying no advanced materials. Clearly perpetual motion schemes will eventually attract volunteers demanding fair disclosure and labeling. user:mirwin

Final Thoughts
I would not be opposed to Discussion Groups or Seminars, nor creating material for those currently in education above Secondary, however to teach it must be postponed until a clear set of guidelines about teaching Post-Secondary subject matter has been formulated and set in stone. --Fattony 4001 20:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

List of official policies
As of June 2008, the list of official policies on this page was mainly put together by User:Mu301 in March 2007, probably on the basis of him looking at the tags on the top of the policies, rather than at any votes. As the tags on the top of policies may have been changed (by other users, at earlier stages) without consensus or voting, some policies crept into the official list through this backdoor route of. As it has been argued that lack of objection may be seen as agreement with this, I am registering my objection to this process. Proposed policies remain proposed until properly agreed upon. --McCormack 08:35, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Dissagree. The beginning policy makers had a much higher advantage... we should really be making policies more freely... people should be allowed to add 1 every 6 months up until the point they've proven to do more harm than good... no wonder these tactics are happen as you say because no other polcies will get passed... Philosophical policies work best (removing policies based on logical fallicies which are viewable on wikipedia than opinion poles.)

Policy Discussion
With all of these Proposed Policies how long do some of them take, most of them have been around since 2006 and it's now 2008 shouldn't they have already been approved now - or are they still being proposed and altered. DarkMage 18:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. I would like to see policies developed in learning projects after they are developed there. They should be put through a period of "take this out, add this" and then put to vote. Once approved there should be a measure of their effectiveness. All approved policies should be reviewed as part of the same learning project. The learning project should strip the policies to the bare bones of what wikimedia want, analyse them and then put their future to vote. We also need a procedure for every policy so we have no repeat of the nonsense that has been occurring here the last month and a time-scale for voting and repeated analysis. That' my complete view on things. Two years is a long time. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 22:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I sympathise with both of you. However the problem with the original policy discussion in August 2006 (and why it was boycotted by some) was that the community was too small to produce meaningful decisions. Today the members of the active community are mostly different, but not any larger. Opinions among current editors are also more varied than you might realise. I'm not sure a large policy discussion will get anywhere at the current time - unfortunately. --McCormack 04:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Now it's 2016 and much haven't happened. I have begun working toward an approval for the naming conventions, so see that talk page. /Patrik Näsfors (discuss • contribs) 00:43, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Voting is ...
HERE!

VOTE this September for the President of the Wikiversity Board of Regents!
 * I don't understand what Messedrocker was talking about, but i like him/her + i'm a custodian so kiss my ...
 * Where did this come from, CQ? The Jade Knight (d'viser) 19:02, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * From voting is evil ^up there^ --CQ 15:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Advertisement
I'm looking for guidelines regarding advertisement. Can anyone help me? What is considered advertisement? Timboliu (talk) 12:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Protection Policy
This is what I was just about to write after reading the "Please Note" as my idea to solve this crisis... it may not be in line to this discussion but hope it gets seen.

Wikiversity terms of use should state that it does not permit plagiarism. - That is, any content created by an individual is either removed (for other policy reasons to not conflict with this one) or uploaded not for other people take and use for their own financial gain. - In some instances, someone could spend most of their time on a page and someone else random see's this and uses the whole section to print in a book... the individual who has created the original work, should be able to point to this policy listed within a civil matter of their own if they had spent ages on their work and the plagiarist had made money from the work (caught).

- Why this would work is because it stands as a witness statement protecting individuals on here if they ever have problems within their own endovours (reduces theoritical hazard rather than awaiting assumption of risk.)

A second policy should be made after this stating; If ever the above policy is removed, it was consented to that, if the writer posted their work within the duration of the policy existing, it is still not agreed for their work to be plagorised even on account of this policy being removed or both removed as of that duration. - (You'd have a counter-claim atleast)

- The reason for these is that, comparable to... "You uploaded it, you had chosen to give it to someone else"... You'd give no one fair ground for their own endevours. I see more reason to protect orignal writers than give them nothing... infact, popularity would arguably heighten here if this were the case. (Just for this matter, I'd claim on behalf of writing this first edition.)

So I've concluded this; At the editing terms;

Please Note:

To copy from an editor on wikipedia, you agree to not plagiarise or redistribute the copy for commercial gain including while the edit/context is or was made with this rule enforced if the edit was written while it was enforced. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly (although no factual content may be removed on fact based articles) or redistributed by others, do not submit it. Only public domain resources can be copied without permission—this does not include the vast majority of web pages or images. See our policies for more information on editing.

Protection Policy (within it's own category)

To copy from an editor on wikipedia, you agree to not plagiarise or redistribute the copy for commercial gain including while the edit/context is or was made with this rule enforce if the edit was written while it was enforced. 90.220.157.192 (discuss) 12:20, 19 December 2015 (UTC) Anonymous 573462i (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

In support of this proposal, the user added the following sections to the policy:

Creator Protection
To copy from an editor on wikiversity, you agree to not plagiarise or redistribute the copy for commercial gain, this includes edits/contexts made while this policy is enforced and if edits/contexts were made within duration of this policy being enforced (as of the potential circumstance of this policy becoming rejected or revised). This policy is not to protect plagorism performed on wikiversity.

Fairness of agreed Protection
This acts as an insurance policy for the protection of the "Creator Protection" policy to assure editors their protection if they wish to submit edits/contexts within any time frame of the "Creator Protection" policy being enforced. This policy is not within dispute to be rejected as it only protects those who chose to submit while the "Creator Protection" is/was enforced and serves to remove the potential voting loop-hole of removing protection altogether. Rejecting or removing or unfairly revising this policy should be treated as vandalism.


 * Thank you for your contributions to Wikiversity. Please note that there is no crisis.  The discussion you are responding to is more than 9 years old.  Regarding creator protection, all contributions are covered through CC-BY-SA licensing.  CC-BY-SA does not restrict commercial gain.  It only requires attribution.  There is a CC-BY-NC-SA that covers only non-commercial use, but that is not the licensing used on WikiMedia projects.


 * Please feel free to discuss any policies that concern you, but it is best not to make changes to policy without first seeking consensus from the community. Thanks!  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:18, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I guessed that would be the case reading the edit's warning, but since wikiversity is for original research, are we completely unable to make these rules happen if we wanted? What if someone literally takes someone's work as whole, copy-rights it, deletes the article claiming copy-right and fully profits from the scenario. Shouldn't this be fully avoided? Despite this is arguably 1 of the forseeable reasons why people don't submit on wikiversity. It's halting me in all honestly. We should have some fair restraint... and being able to vote on a rule seems like a somewhere near middle ground answer?. Also, where you've mentioned "Supporting this proposal, are you in favour or were you referencing to me?" :) Anonymous 573462i (discuss • contribs) 14:26, 19 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Contributions to Wikiversity can't be deleted. For example, your contribution to the policy page will always be available at .  Custodians can hide edits, but they can't delete them.  Even deleted pages are still visible to other custodians, so it would be possible for anyone to make a claim and request that the original content be reviewed and/or restored if necessary.  So, to address what I understand to be your first concern, there is always proof of contributions here.  Regarding your second concern that others could potentially profit from your contributions, it would be difficult for them to do so legally.  Any derivative works must be shared under the same licensing.  It would be possible for them to charge for whatever it is they do, but they would also have to make it available free.  As an example, (not exactly the same but gets at the idea), many companies provide and charge for supporting open source software.  But the software itself remains free.  The contributions you make to Wikiversity must be available free if they are used elsewhere, and you must receive credit for those contributions, either in name or by link to the original source.  I hope this allays some of your concerns, and that you will consider contributing your original content to Wikiversity.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Not unless the policy has changed (if it's still applicable) but cheers. Anonymous 573462i (discuss • contribs) 15:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Native American rites.
As pertaining to land rites and resource value reimbursement's. This is not a hot button, issue from me as a Pomo,Wialaki, Wintu native. I am not in any way inviting a antagonistic response from any person,persons ie.groups or governments. Any such would not beneficial to a discussion on this topic. Please feel free to give any positive comments,thoughtful help on how to reach a positive outcome. Be it actual legal advice or guidance or just your own thoughts on an important subject to myself and family. Sincerely yours, Travis Roy Sanders 50.37.147.236 (discuss) 20:08, 17 August 2022 (UTC)