Requests for comment/Update standard license for Wikinews

This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

Proposal

I propose that the standard license for Wikinews be updated from CC-BY-2.5 to CC-BY-4.0 on February 1, 2025.

Background

The wikis like Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, etc., generally all have the same standard license, CC-BY-SA-4.0. Wikidata is an exception, as the license is CC0, and Wikinews has the default license CC-BY-2.5. The license was chosen in 2005 per Wikinews/Licensure Poll when the other wikis used the license GFDL.

In November 2023, I asked on English Wikinews about an update of the license, and after some discussions, I started a formal vote. I also asked a few other Wikinewses. In May/June 2024, I wrote to all Wikinewses that were not closed.

It is clear that the Wikinews community sees a benefit in all versions of Wikinews having the same license. But it is not easy to get a strong consensus on all Wikinews to update the license and choose the same license.

I have been trying to coordinate it on n:Wikinews:2024 Copyright license upgrade/other-Wikinews. The current results are as follows:

ar.wikinews chose CC-BY-SA-4.0 and changed the license in August 2024. (Phab:T372730)
en.wikinews, pl.wikinews, and he.wikinews chose CC-BY-4.0 and changed the license in December 2024. (Phab:T381421)
de.wikinews will try to change to CC-BY-SA-4.0 in January 2025. (Phab:T381946)
fr.wikinews, ro.wikinews, and zh.wikinews may be close to a result about a change of license. Update: fr chose BY-SA and ro and zh chose BY.
A few other Wikinewses may be discussing it.
The rest have not responded to my suggestion for a change.
Update: pt.wikinews have chosen CC-BY-4.0 and requested a change on Deceber 21, 2024. (Phab:T382649)

During a request on Phabricator at Phab:T381421 for the change of three Wikinewses, it was suggested to do a general task and notify all Wikinews communities instead of changing all one-by-one.

On one side, each community decides on their own, but on the other side, all Wikipedias, for example, have the same license, and the license is updated centrally. So it has been hard to find a way to update all Wikinewses at the same time by discussing locally.

I have decided to make this RfC based on this:

I have tried to make communities make a choice for more than six months.
It was suggested on Phabricator to make a general request.
The license is coordinated centrally for Wikipedias and other wikis.
Requesting wiki configuration changes states that "In the case of a very small and low-activity community, it should be enough to show that you have tried to gain consensus, and that you have given an opportunity for objections."

Given that a number of Wikinews editors have stated that they prefer BY instead of BY-SA because BY makes it easier to reuse articles from Wikinews, and considering that the existing default license is BY, I have suggested keeping BY as the default. So the update is only to go from 2.5 to 4.0.

One exception is hu.wikinews, which changed to CC-BY-3.0 some time ago but is now closed. It could either remain on 3.0 or change to the default license.

Implementation

The license is listed in Phabricator at around line 11130 to 11145. The exact line number will change every time someone changes the code. But the code looks like this:

'wgRightsUrl' => [
...
	'default' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.$lang',
	'arwikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.ar',
	'enwikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/',
	'hewikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/',
	'huwikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/',
	'plwikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/',
...
	'wikinews' => 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/',
],
'wgRightsText' => [
	'default' => 'Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0',
	'arwikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0',
	'enwikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 4.0',
	'hewikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 4.0',
	'huwikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0',
	'plwikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 4.0',
	'wikinews' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.5',
...

As you can see, there is a default 'wikinews' and some 'foowikinews'. So a change of the default will affect those Wikinewses that have not chosen another license. Therefore, the change will make no difference for the wikis that have already made their choice. I can imagine that to make the code look pretty, it would be preferred to delete the lines where the license is the same as the default, but users will never notice that.

If a Wikinews wants to choose CC-BY-SA-4.0 instead or to stay with CC-BY-2.5, all they have to do is decide that locally and leave a message here or at n:Wikinews:2024 Copyright license upgrade/other-Wikinews saying that. Then they can be added to the list of Wikinewses with a special license.

I have already left a note on all Wikinewses suggesting a license change. The latest note was at the beginning of December with a message that English Wikinews would change on December 16, 2024, and with a question if Foo Wikinews would also change the license.

Following this RfC, I will leave a new notice on all Wikinewses about this RfC, and for the Wikinewses that have not chosen or are not discussing, I will start a formal vote/request to change the license. I will set the end date to January 20, 2025. It will give some time to prepare the change per February 1, 2025.

After that, I will request a change at Phabricator with a link to this RfC. If any Wikinewses have chosen a different license, I will add that to the request so they get special lines like ar.wikinews, for example.

Info about the different versions of licenses

As a lazy and poor fact, I can start by telling that 4.0 > 2.5. It means it's a newer license. All other Wikiprojects use 4.0, so I imagine/hope that many good people have judged 4.0 to be a better license :-)

Sadly, there is no easy way to compare 2.5 with 4.0 because the changes explained describe version 3.0 with 4.0.

At https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/License_Versions#License_Versioning_History, there is some guide about the changes, and the changes from 3.0 to 4.0 are explained in https://creativecommons.org/Version4/. There is also some info about changes from 2.0 to 3.0 in https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Version_3, but as I said, not directly from 2.5 to 4.0.

In short, 4.0 should:

have better internationalization and be more global
have better coverage for moral rights
be more compatible with other licenses now
be better at handling "rights outside the scope of copyright"
have implemented a "common-sense attribution" that is better suited to reflect accepted practices (for example, using a link) and also a "30-day window to correct license violations" (making it harder to sue someone for a tiny mistake)
have increased readability

Creative Commons is forward compatible, so it is possible to copy text licensed 2.5 to a text licensed 4.0 but not the other way around. So any Wiki that changes to 4.0 can copy text from a Wiki that is licensed 2.5 or 4.0. But a Wiki that stays with 2.5 can no longer copy text from, for example, English Wikinews.

The BY-SA (ShareAlike) license requires that works licensed BY-SA stay BY-SA. This license is chosen as the standard for all other Wikiprojects because it ensures that the works stay free. It means that any Wikinews that chooses BY-SA can copy text from any other Wikinews or from Wikipedia, etc. But if a Wikinews chooses BY, they can only copy from other Wikinews that are also licensed BY. The BY license, however, makes it easier for reusers to use the articles as they please.

Discussion

I'm not a native English speaker, and when I write on different Wikinewses, I have to use a translation tool. In most cases, I include both an English text and a translated text because I hope it will make it easier to understand. So I might have written something that you find hard to understand or just poorly written. In case you find something, you are welcome to help fix the text or ask me what I mean.

I look forward to hearing from you! And you are very welcome to help spread the word! --MGA73 (talk) 15:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MGA73 Hello and thank you for your work on this subject so far.

As a sysop and bureaucrat of french Wikinews, I have observed firsthand how the current CC BY license impacts content reuse and contributions back to the project. I would like to share my opinion, but english is not my first language, I can do mistakes.

Since its beginnings, Wikinews has operated under the CC BY (Attribution only) license, with the expectation that its maximum permissiveness would encourage broad and easy reuse of its content, including by commercial entities. However, after years of experience, this choice appears to have yielded more theoretical than practical benefits.

The theoretical promises of CC BY:

By removing the requirement for ShareAlike, CC BY was intended to attract a wide range of reusers, including those looking to incorporate content into proprietary works.
Without the SA (ShareAlike) clause, CC BY is less legally restrictive, which was expected to make Wikinews content more appealing.

The practical reality:

Despite its permissiveness, Wikinews under CC BY has not seen significant adoption by media or commercial entities. Content under CC BY-SA, like that of Wikipedia, is often just as attractive.
In practice, the additional permissiveness of CC BY has not shown significant benefits compared to CC BY-SA, which better safeguards the values of free sharing while still enabling broad reuse.

Switching to CC BY-SA by default could align Wikinews with the Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use and other Wikimedia projects (such as Wikipedia), facilitating content exchanges (which is an issue on french Wikinews). The SA clause would ensure that modifications or enrichments remain within the free domain, amplifying Wikinews' impact on free culture.

Cheers! SleaY (talk) 23:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I appreciate the effort to harmonize licensing decisions across different language editions of Wikinews. However, I feel that this discussion would have been more appropriate to initiate on Meta rather than being influenced by the decision already taken by the English Wikinews community.

Each language version has its own context, challenges, and needs, and starting the conversation on Meta would have ensured that all communities were equally involved from the beginning. This would also have avoided any perception that other versions are being asked to follow the English Wikinews decision without fully considering their specific circumstances. SleaY (talk) 01:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello SleaY, thank you for your input. Personally I would prefer BY-SA too because its the same license the other wikis use :-)

I have thought a lot about how to do this and also if a RfC on Meta was the right way. The "problem" is that each community can decide for their own Wiki. If we do a RfC we risk that only 10 people comment and the question is then if we can change the license on all Wikinewses based on that? That is why I tried to make every Wikinews decide on their own.

I tried to start the discussion on all Wikinewses before English Wikinews made the final choise. For exaple n:fr:Wikinews:Salle café/2023/décembre. I admit I was "lazy" at first so I only wrote in English and I may not have said "come and join the discussion". But some from Chinese, German and Polish Wikinews jumped to English Wikinews and commented too.

I agree that now it is no longer a fully free discussion because some Wikinewses have allready made their choise so its more a choise who you would like to follow. Perhaps when it is time to upgrade to 5.0 there could be a new RfC for all Wikinews. --MGA73 (talk) 07:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MGA73 I appreciate your openness about the challenges of organizing such a discussion and I understand your concern that a RfC on Meta might not gather enough input, but I believe it still would have been an important step to ensure a more unified approach from the start.

I also recognize your effort to engage the local Wikinews communities individually, which was a good initiative. However, as you mentioned, the sequence of events, where English Wikinews took a final decision before other editions had concluded their discussions might have made it harder for these communities to feel fully autonomous in their decision-making process.

Looking back, it’s clear that the initial question about updating the license on French Wikinews may not have attracted much attention for several reasons:

The tone of the message was quite general and didn’t actively invite participation or emphasize the importance of the topic for French Wikinews specifically. It felt more like a broad suggestion than a call to action. And the phrasing, such as "I hope you would use that opportunity to update license here too," gave the impression that the update was expected to follow automatically rather than being a matter of independent discussion and reflection.
On French Wikinews, licensing changes have been a recurring topic, but with no pressing need identified, this message may have been perceived as part of an ongoing discussion rather than an immediate priority.
Since the message came from someone outside the Wikinews community, it may not have carried the same weight or urgency as a proposal initiated by an active community member.

Perhaps for future decisions of this magnitude, like an upgrade to 5.0, we could consider initiating a global conversation on Meta before local discussions, even if a strong decision is not taken on Meta.

Thank you again for your work on this, and I look forward to continuing the conversation on how we can align Wikinews editions while respecting each community's independence. SleaY (talk) 14:03, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SleaY I agree that next time it can be done better. --MGA73 (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather these all harmonize on CC-BY-SA 4.0. What is the good reason not to? There is an argument above about not being "appealing" - but to whom? Our primary target should be our readers. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Xaosflux all it takes is enough users that think BY-SA is better than BY. I have chosen BY because it is not as big a change as to change to BY-SA. So far most users have preferred BY because it makes it easier for the readers/reusers to use the news. --MGA73 (talk) 14:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bardzo dziękuję za zaangażowanie MGA73 w proces zmiany licencji. Mam nadzieję że przy następnej zmianie będzie więcej aktywnych społeczności. Swoją drogą myślę że potrzebujemy większej współpracy międz wersjami Wikinews. Mam nadzieję że przy następnej zmianie (5.0) uda się zrobić żeby wszystkie wersje Wikinews miały tą samą licencję. Osobiście wolę BY żeby każdy mógł swobodnie korzystać. Ale jeśli wszyscy zdecydują się na BY-SA nie będę protestował. Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 21:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(google translate: Thank you very much for MGA73's involvement in the license change process. I hope that the next change will have more active communities. By the way, I think we need more cooperation between Wikinews versions. I hope that the next change (5.0) will make it so that all Wikinews versions have the same license. Personally, I prefer BY so that everyone can use it freely. But if everyone decides to BY-SA, I won't protest.) Marek Mazurkiewicz (talk) 21:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Info French Wikinews have chosen BY-SA and may change the same time as German Wikinews. Romanian and Chinese Wikinews have chosen with BY. --MGA73 (talk) 13:20, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Portuguese Wikinews have chosen BY and filed Phab:T382649. --MGA73 (talk) 15:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]