Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 April 20

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April 20

wikipedia

wikipedia is controlled by a NPO. Now i want to know is it legally possible for an individual or a corporation or another NPO to purchase/take control of wikipedia? --Ghoulbuster (talk) 13:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia certainly has assets which could be purchased, such as the databases, the servers, the name itself, etc. However, given that those assets are wholly controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation, there's no means to forcably "take control" of those assets; the WMF would have to willing sell those assets to another party. When you say "take control", that implies a takeover, which only works when the ownership of the assets are distinct from the management of the assets; for example when the prosepctive buyer takes control of a voting majority of shares of a publicly traded company, and uses that controling interest to force a merger against the wishes of the company's board. In the case of Wikipedia, there is no mechanism to do that. Of course, the WMF has the means and authority to willingly divest itself of Wikipedia (it may be a complex process, but technically feasible), but that wouldn't involve anyone "taking control" of it, just it willingly transfering control to a purchaser. --Jayron32 13:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I used wrong language, I mean willingly selling Wikipedia to another party. --Ghoulbuster (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the legalities of selling a Non-profit to a corporation. But this website could certainly be sold.

The licensing of the encyclopedia's content is tricky. I'm not sure how much of the content's copyright would become property of the new owners, but it doesn't matter. Because of the way it's licensed, everyone would still be free to copy everything on Wikipedia except the logo.

So if tomorrow Wikipedia was sold to EvilCorp, Inc, you could download the database, draw a new logo, and put up your own copy.

I think it's safe to say that whatever happens to the foundation, there will always be a free copy of Wikipedia available for as long as people are interested and as long as it's possible to distribute things for free on the Internet. APL (talk) 14:32, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Some of the points made in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 83#Selling Wikipedia?? may be relevant. Deor (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

An involuntary sale could occur if there were a large judgement against the project, beyond the funds that it could raise, such as the judgement which put the Saturday Evening Post out of business in 1969, for a time, as a result of losing a defamation suit for $3 million. The project seems to be run on a shoestring, compared to its prominence on the Web. Granted, any slander or libel in an edit is generally considered to imperil the offending editor rather than the project, but if somehow defamation were left in place willfully by the project after a request to remove it, mightn't Wikipedia then be liable for a judgement which would result in the sale of all assets? Imagine if some libel of a business or person were left in Wikipedia after a request to remove it; an AFD left it in place, and a request to the office to delete it was not honored for some reason. The libelled party sues and gets a multimillion dollar judgement, beyond what donors or any insurance could cover. Could a court order the resources sold to pay the judgement? Then Evilcorp might buy up the servers and the name, and any other intellectual property or "goodwill" belonging to the project. It would seem that the content licensing for existing articles would not change, but Evilcorp could then add advertisements and do lots of things that social networking websites now do. They could even pay admins and content contributors. They could prevent anonymous or throwaway account vandalism, and could eliminate articles which are mere vanispamcruftisements or trivial directory listings. The average quality of an article might actually improve, so far as a reader seeking information is concerned. For that matter, they could write articles to say good things about advertisers, like most newspapers and magazines do. Any content that was created for hire could be copyrighted and could replace the old free articles over time(the references are not copyrighted, only the text, right?) This would not stop someone from creating a free clone of old Wikipedia, with editing open to all, and it would be left to viewers which they preferred. Edison (talk) 19:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Who is J.B. Morris ?

I need information about J.B Morris (Chemist) thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.63.158.171 (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You mean this one? Or another one? --NellieBly (talk) 17:47, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

=/ another one i think the one im looking for is dead i think ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.63.158.171 (talk) 18:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you know the sort of area J.B. Morris might live/have lived in, and the rough dates he was born (and died if applicable). With that information you could start building up a picture from local council data or census information if the person lived a long time ago, and phone books and local directories if they are live now. Prokhorovka (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Do you know if he was American, British, Canadian, etc., and do you have any details about his life (does he have a scholarship named after him, was he a full professor at a university, did he discover anything notable)? The problem is that "J.B. Morris" is an astonishingly common name, even for chemists. PS: at the end of your comments, type four tildes like this ~~~~ so we know who we're talking to. Our Sinebot, which added the tildes for you above, isn't always that quick. --NellieBly (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think he graduated from Harvard (or Howard(?)) university. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.63.158.171 (talk) 18:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you know (even roughly) which year? Especially if you are a relative of his they may well be prepared to share some of the records they will likely have on him, such as what he graduated in and possibly contact details afterwards. Prokhorovka (talk) 18:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually our teacher told me to research about some of his papers but I haven't found anything so far.In fact the search results is more for our teacher's name! --178.63.158.171 (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.63.158.171 (talk) 18:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

According to this there was a JB Morris Foundry Company in Cincinnati Ohio at one point. Maybe a lead? --Jayron32 20:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Why not ask your teacher for a link to either information about him or his works, and then go from there? Prokhorovka (talk) 07:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Merging?

Hi,

I am not sure I am writing at the right place, if no, please forward my message. I am translating an article into french and I am in front of Demolition belt. It seems to be the same thing as No man's land but it is not merge, so my question is: Is demolition belt = No man's land? Thanks for your help. Skiff (talk) 20:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

No. The two terms can, in some instances, apply to the same terrain, but they are not synonymous. For example, a no man's land may not be a demolition belt. It simply needs to be disputed territory that is occupied by neither opposing force. Likewise, an armed force might choose to make the edge of the territory that they control a demolition belt, even though it is not a no man's land. Marco polo (talk) 20:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree with above. Sometimes similar, but not mutually exclusive. Quinn ^CLOUDY 02:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I have understood. Thank you. Skiff (talk) 20:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)