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Contents 1 On Material which already exists elsewhere 2 proper usage

On Material which already exists elsewhere

What is our view in re-posting material which exists on other sites, for example the history of The Tour de France, or information from Sheldon Brown's website? E-rock 09:19, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

Depends on the copy right level. Wikipedia, based on reading their copyright policy, has an attribute share alike Copy Left police, so we can actually copy large swaths of material, if we provide a link to the page it came from. I'm not sure about that though. I'd prefer to hold off on "scraping" lots of material for a little while.

Sheldon Brown's website is probably not cool. That's his material, and it wouldn't have been cool to copy it when he was alive, so I don't see any difference. I also don't think it would be cool to copy his material and the alter it, because then it would be unclear what was his etc. When this wiki is a little more of a resource I suggest we contact his estate and ask if they want to have a protected area of the wiki to put his articles in. What were you thinking E-rock?

Alex 10:49, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

I was more concerned with the first issue where there are large amounts of information that I think would be good to include on this page, but there's already extensive posts about them on wikipedia.E-rock 13:45, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

I'm confused. Example? Alex 13:47, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

pedals vs. pedal wiki E-rock 13:53, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

Eric, at this time that question has more to do with the politics of this project than it does with if it's appropriate or not. For now I'm saying we should not copy articles from elsewhere. This is likely to change when the project is more mature.

What we eventually would want to do is get the approval of the people at the Cycling project at Wikipedia to copy things. That would likely lead to a large influx of active editors, which we aren't prepared to handle currently. There would be disputes, and a lot of Wikipedia style arguments, and we simply don't have the policies in play to resolve them.

On the other hand, if we simply scrape their content without seeking their blessing first we're likely to burn a lot of valuable bridges before we've built them. As well, if we started to bring in the EXTENSIVE content at wikipedia, we would likely overwhelm the cultural aspects here, which Wikipedia does not have, and lose the initiative to document local culture that we have.

In terms of trajectory I think the right move is not to scrape. First build something of independent value, which you guys are doing, and then gradually we can incorporate outside resources.

Thoughts?

Alex 14:15, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

Sounds good, I agree, and will continue building up the "in-jokes" and "culture"

E-rock 14:18, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

With wiki writing as with all writing, the thing to keep in mind at all times is the reader. Why is she here? Why did she come to this site in particular? Along those lines, I really have to wonder how many people are going to come to this wiki looking for general information about bike mechanics and racing. I know that this is a bike wiki, not just a "bike culture" wiki, but realistically don't you think most people will come here looking for information about urban street riding, social group riding, fixed gears, freak bikes, the LA scene and its personalities, etc.? It won't hurt to have any of that information, but I wouldn't personally consider it an essential service.

Anyway, why would information about bike mechanics or racing have to be copied from somewhere else in the first place? Are our typing fingers broken or something? I guess what I'm trying to say is: generally, if it's worth putting in here at all, it's worth writing it yourself. Percival Cornelius 15:24, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

+3.14159 to what PC wrote. It's good for us to write. I have insane ambitions for this wiki, so I picture it being a better resource for history of bikes than Wikipedia - 9 or more months from now. For the present the definite attraction of this wiki is as a resource for undocumented underground bike culture. The more general content will come, if and when the more appealing and unusual local and topical content establishes itself.

Official & temporary ibikeu policy - no scraping content. Alex 15:30, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

proper usage

bike or bicycle?

E-rock 09:40, 18 April 2008 (PDT)

I say use both. Whichever. Is it important? Probably for large key articles one should start off with a few bicycles so that the search engine results are correct and not confused with motorcycles, but after that bike is alright in my opinion. Alex 10:50, 18 April 2008 (PDT)