Bitcoin Wiki

[kiba]

Bitcoin encyclopedia started by MT: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page

[MagicalTux]

So, after discussions on IRC we have resulted in the creation of a new bitcoin wiki at https://en.bitcoin.it/

Why, you are going to tell me, do we have a new wiki while there's already one on bitcoin.org ?

Well, I'll give the three main reasons:

• People do not want to add community-related subjects to the official bitcoin wiki. Probably because nobody said if it was OK or not, but since the wiki is labelled as "Documentation", only technical stuff have ended in there. I believe the community should have its own wiki too (it may contain technical stuff in the end, why not)
• Dokuwiki is ugly. This is not really a fact, but more like a shared opinion. If you like dokuwiki more, you are free to stay there
• The wiki on bitcoin.org cannot be mirrored easily. bitcoin.org went down once for a fairly long time, which is not reassuring. This new wiki can be mirrored easily by anyone since the mediawiki xml dump files are available for download. Extensive documentation on mediawiki mirroring is available on Internet.

So anyway, come and share your bitcoin experience on https://en.bitcoin.it/ (other languages available on request)

[sirius]

Distribution to multiple servers is good. What do you think, should we keep the "Documentation" wiki, or link straight to bitcoin.it? I think the wiki might become better and more complete documentation than a separately maintained documentation page.

[MagicalTux]

Distribution to multiple servers is good. What do you think, should we keep the "Documentation" wiki, or link straight to bitcoin.it? I think the wiki might become better and more complete documentation than a separately maintained documentation page.

For the documentation wiki, I think we should wait until at least the same informations are available on bitcoin.it. It could be a good idea indeed to link directly there, in which case we might have to give priority to have an acceptable documentation on the new wiki.

We can also link the dokuwiki from the future documentation page while it is being put together.

[theymos]

I like DokuWiki. Just rename the "documentation" link on bitcoin.org to "wiki".

[RHorning]

I really miss the "discussion" pages from MediaWiki, something that dokuwiki doesn't do automatically.  There are also some nice extensions to MediaWiki that also add some really nice features, such as putting in LaTeX-style mathematical formulas into the text of the wiki and some fun charting features that can be edited too.  You can also do some advance templating that also adds some strong features.

BTW, I like distributing the content around a bit, especially since bitcoin.org seems to have some stability issues lately.  Nothing personal to Satoshi, and this might allow some extra flexibility anyway for the project.

[jgarzik]

I like DokuWiki. Just rename the "documentation" link on bitcoin.org to "wiki".

Or call the link "documentation wiki" to cover all bases.

[sirius]

BTW, I like distributing the content around a bit, especially since bitcoin.org seems to have some stability issues lately.  Nothing personal to Satoshi, and this might allow some extra flexibility anyway for the project.

Stability problem was due to processes being killed by out of memory error. I doubled the server memory and usage stays below 50% now, so it's not a problem anymore. Still, it's good if we don't have to rely on a single server. Imagine Wikileaks having just one rackspace vps... 

The wiki was my quick choice for ease of install and it was set up before the slashdotting, when the community was way smaller. We could upgrade to MediaWiki if we wanted, but that's not very useful as we have bitcoin.it now.

[theymos]

WTFPL is not an appropriate license, in any case. It would have the same legal problems as declaring that something is in the public domain. It is also incompatible with the CC-A license used on the Bitcoin wiki.

[sirius]

What's wrong with WTFPL, besides the name?

[kiba]

The intention of WTFPL is to show that you don't care a shit about copyright laws. At least that's my interpretation.

I don't even care about attribution. That why I asked MT to use WTFPL rather than anything else.

[MagicalTux]

WTFPL is not an appropriate license, in any case. It would have the same legal problems as declaring that something is in the public domain. It is also incompatible with the CC-A license used on the Bitcoin wiki.

Unlike "public domain", WTFPL explicitly states what you can or can't do. Its phrasing may be a bit crude, but as far as I know it does not have the legal problems "public domain" has (the FSF lawyers do not see any problem with that either).

If enough people believe the license is a problem, we can switch back to a CC license (since people who submitted content under WTFPL explicitly allow us to switch to another license), however switching from a CC license to WTFPL is impossible, that's why the initial choice was the broadest one.

Now this is a community wiki, so you can suggest a license change to CC-by or CC-by-sa and list your arguments.

The CC-by license on the bitcoin wiki is indeed an issue, however if all the contributors of this wiki (who are not that many) give their authorization, changing the license wouldn't be that complex. We need to list pros and cons for both cases.

[theymos]

I desire attribution for my contributions. WTFPL, at least, seems to suggest that I would be OK with people plagiarizing, which I am not. Copyright should be abolished, of course, but I don't want to encourage people to take my work without attribution.

There are probably legal problems with it. Compare it with the similar CC0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
One sentence is not going to cover all of the legal issues. Potentially someone could sue us for using our own stuff.

WTFPL is less restrictive than CC-A, so legally copying material from the Bitcoin wiki would require you to get permission from all page authors.

I prefer CC-A -- including a link back to the page is not a huge legal burden, and it clearly indicates that plagiarism is not acceptable. No one's going to sue anyone, anyway. I wouldn't mind CC0 or any of the more restrictive CC licenses.

[MagicalTux]

I desire attribution for my contributions. WTFPL, at least, seems to suggest that I would be OK with people plagiarizing, which I am not. Copyright should be abolished, of course, but I don't want to encourage people to take my work without attribution.

There are probably legal problems with it. Compare it with the similar CC0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode
One sentence is not going to cover all of the legal issues. Potentially someone could sue us for using our own stuff.

WTFPL is less restrictive than CC-A, so legally copying material from the Bitcoin wiki would require you to get permission from all page authors.

I prefer CC-A -- including a link back to the page is not a huge legal burden, and it clearly indicates that plagiarism is not acceptable. No one's going to sue anyone, anyway. I wouldn't mind CC0 or any of the more restrictive CC licenses.

CC-by makes sense for many people, I see how this can be interesting.

The intention of WTFPL is to show that you don't care a shit about copyright laws. At least that's my interpretation.

I don't even care about attribution. That why I asked MT to use WTFPL rather than anything else.

I guess you won't care if we thank you for your work. Anyway this whole license issue is a problem to copy content from the current wiki, so I believe the switch to CC-by-3.0 is pretty much obvious. If anyone has an objection, please state it here.

[Anonymous]

I think there's space for at least two Bitcoin wikis. Each will develop its own emphasis and character. So why not have one that's CC-BY and one that's WTFPL? One that has more emphasis on technical documentation, and one that has more emphasis on everyday bitcoin topics?

Thats a good solution.

[MagicalTux]

We could also do like meta and have some pages under WTFPL.

In fact being under WTFPL bars us from using content from the existing wiki, and some people seem to mind it. On the contrary I do not think anyone who would write content under WTFPL would have any objection to write it under CC-by-3.0.

Would be a shame if people (ie theymos) are not able to contribute to one of the wikis because of the license.

[MagicalTux]

Ok, after some finalizing discussions on IRC, it seems obvious that people willing to submit under WTFPL will not mind CC-by-3.0, however people who want attribution will mind WTFPL.

I'll be switching the license to CC-by-3.0 for https://bitcoin.it/

[Gavin Andresen]

Feel free to take anything I've written here on the forums or on the wiki and do whatever you like with it.

And, for what it is worth, I like the new wiki more than the old wiki; the new one is prettier and more powerful.

[sirius]

The wiki link at bitcoin.org now points to bitcoin.it.

[da2ce7]

we should start a bitcoin entry for http://encyclopediadramatica.com if we want to get more fans.    maybe my jokes won't be deleted then....  and now we have a bounty: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2361.0