Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Magic

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Contents 1 Methods/Exposure - New proposals 1.1 Strict application of WP:Attribution 1.2 Intellectual property law 2 Ditching magic collaboration of the week 3 Re-booting the project

[edit] Methods/Exposure - New proposals

Discussion also posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The issue of publishing magic methods seems to be a recurrent source of controversy but the various attempts to achieve a clear policy seem to keep fizzling out. Having recently begun writing articles in the hope of injecting some new life into the Magic WikiProject I would hate for the whole thing to become diverted into (and bogged down by) another round of edit wars.

Because there are people in the magic community who hold vehement views on what they call "exposure", which they consider immoral, there is clearly a risk of any article that contains details of methods being targeted by sustained campaigns. I disagree with these people and I do not think Wikipedia should be bullied into following the selective norms of a specialist community. However I also think it is important to try to understand the criticisms that are being made of Wikipedia and to try to respond in a rational way rather than just saying "sod these people we're just going to ignore them". We also need to be practical. If we simply carry on as things are then every so often the Magic project will get bogged down in fighting vandalism, with the result that effort will be diverted away from the more important business of expanding and improving the articles.

I therefore propose the following:

[edit] Strict application of WP:Attribution

Because the publication of magic methods is controversial it is especially important that any attempt to do so should adhere strictly to the established policies and guidelines that are Wikipedia's foundation. In particular I think WP:Attribution is significant. If information about a method is quoted from another freely available source then it becomes more difficult for magicians to argue that Wikipedia is the point at which exposure is occurring. I would add here that some articles contain methods that are unsourced and seem speculative and inaccurate, which undermines the quality of the Magic Project generally and contravenes WP:NOR

If a method is added to an article but no reference is provided we should apply the section of WP:Attribution that says: "Any edit lacking attribution may be removed, and the final burden of evidence lies with the editor wishing to add or retain the material."

Normally I would add an "unreferenced" tag and leave the text for a while to see if someone could add a source, however because this is a controversial issue I think the material should be kept out of the article until it can be properly referenced.

[edit] Intellectual property law

Because the concept of intellectual property often forms part of arguments about exposure of methods and because magicians have occasionally resorted to the courts in an attempt to suppress publication of methods it is important that attention is paid to relevant areas of law. The Wikipedia policy on Copyright problems deals with part of this but there might also be additional issues to do with information that is covered by laws on confidentiality (eg. this might be because it is covered by a Non-disclosure agreement but could also be because, in some jurisdictions such as the UK, there are laws that automatically give certain information a confidential quality). The article on Intellectual rights to magic methods is good but is not yet comprehensive - in particular it should be noted that, even though international treaties have resulted in a certain amount of commonality, intellectual property law does vary from one country to another - the current entry has an American focus.

In any case I am not trying to pre-empt proper legal advice, which Wikipedia already has provisions for. I certainly don't want this to be taken as an argument in favour of prior restraint. It is merely intended as cautionary advice. What I suggest is that, before adding material concerning methods, contributors should take reasonable steps to confirm the material is not covered by copyright or confidentiality. Obviously there is a debate to be had about what constitutes "reasonable steps", but to some extent the solution again resides with application of WP:Attribution.

Circusandmagicfan 23:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

Re: Legal position on publication of methods. Can anyone get hold of the wording of any judgement or ruling in the case LA Superior Court BC190153, Robert J. Gurtler aka Andre Kole v. Nash Entertainment, Bruce Nash, Fox Broadcasting Co. This apparently dealt with publication on television of a method to an illusion and might be a firm source for the legal position. I can find a listing for it in the Entertainment Law Digest but I have no access to the content. Circusandmagicfan 08:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

See Trade secret for a good non-technical discussion. A key portion in this context is " a third party is not prevented from independently duplicating and using the secret information once it is discovered." DGG 16:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Another key passage appears to be: ...With sufficient effort or through illegal acts (such as break and enter), competitors can usually obtain trade secrets. However, so long as the owner of the trade secret can prove that reasonable efforts have been made to keep the information confidential, the information remains a trade secret and generally remains legally protected as such.

Circusandmagicfan 09:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

• While exposure can generally attributed to a source, the problem is that those sources are violating intellectual property law by sharing material that isn't theirs. It's technically not copyright violation, but that doesn't make it acceptable. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we're broadly in the same territory. I'm uncomfortable with wholesale posting of methods for the sake of it

My argument is twofold. First that some of the methods that have been added to articles are actually inaccurate - which is a quality issue. Wikipedia policy is pretty clear about addressing that sort of thing by requiring properly cited references. Second, there's more to "intellectual property" than just copyright - breach of confidence and breach of contract torts being two potential pitfalls.

On the other hand one has to be careful when talking about people publishing knowledge that isn't "theirs". The posting above seems to be saying in one sentence that something is illegal and in the following sentence that it's not illegal. Something is either legal or it's not.

I think it's dangerous to start trying to assign some sort of moral rights that apply only to magic. The law is society's method of codifying morality. We may not always like it but it's kind of the bottom line hammered out by society. If the law says no one "owns" or has "rights" to a piece of knowledge then there's no reason why it shouldn't be published. Magicians sometimes overstep the mark in claiming or assigning "rights". Just because it is commonly thought amongst magicians that a particular method is associated with a particular performer or publisher does not mean that person necessarily holds legal rights like those conferred by a patent. Quite apart from the limitations of copyright, it is perfectly possible there might be what is sometimes referred to as "prior art". Many magic methods are variations or rediscoveries of tricks that date back a long way. Just because someone discovers or reinvents one of those ideas and makes it part of their act or publishes a book on it doesn't mean they own the underlying concept. They might have copyright over the particular act or form of words they use and they might be able to protect their knowledge as a trade secret by taking reasonable steps to keep it confidential, but magicians are are not above the law and do not have extra rights that the rest of humanity doesn't have. Again, citing of sources should help to ensure Wikipedia remains on firm ground.

Circusandmagicfan 16:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

In my opinion, the best way to proceed on this, is to propose a guideline page either directly on the WikiProject page or perhaps as a subpage of the Magic WikiProject, like at Wikipedia:WikiProject Magic/Guidelines. On that page, include not just information about intellectual property, but all of the thises and thatses that go into formatting a magic article. Which templates to use, which categories we recommend, what format to use for an article about a trick, etc. And also include a paragraph similar to what you've got above, about how secrets should not be released unless they can be firmly cited to an outside source, and even then should be prefaced with {{magic-spoiler}}. Once the guideline page is written, we provide a link to it here, and if there's consensus to "make it so," then there's something easy to refer to if any questions come up on other articles. For an example, take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships or Wikipedia:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines. --Elonka 19:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Another good "example" wikiproject is Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. They've got elaborate instructions there on improving and standardizing articles. My own current pet project (non-magic at the moment) is an article on the Knights Templar, which I've put though the MilHist Peer Review, and is now at official Good Article status. My ultimate goal is to get it to Featured Article status, and then to Wikipedia's mainpage for a day of glory in October of this year. One thing that might help motivation here at the Magic WikiProject, is to identify which magic-related articles (if any) have achieved Good or Featured status, and listing them on the page. And if we don't have one at that level yet, then we should definitely pick a subject that's well-documented (such as Harry Houdini perhaps), and push it through to GA status. It's a good team-builder, a great way to educate folks on the most exacting of Wikipedia standards, and will definitely be a source of pride. It's a real rush to see an article that you've worked on, show up on Wikipedia's mainpage as "Today's Featured Article." :) --Elonka 18:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The current policy on exposure seems to turn off most people who know enough about magic to create well written and well referenced articles, making it difficult for a magic page to get to Good Article status. Kleg 23:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm continuing this thread in a new section below (see Re-booting the project). Circusandmagicfan 16:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

[edit] Ditching magic collaboration of the week

I propose we delete this feature of the project. As far as I can tell from its page this feature has been inactive since at least 2005. The level of activity on the project as a whole is currently pretty low. Most of the editing seems to be a case of occasional and infrequent visits by people who take an interest in specific articles. There appear to be only a very small number of editors taking an interest in the project as a whole. Even if the full efforts of all these people could be focused for a week it would not be sufficient to make a huge amount of progress. I don't mean to belittle anyone's efforts (because this "little and occasional" approach is one of the things Wikipedia harnesses to useful effect). What I am saying is that with project activity at its current level and with effective limits on the frequency and duration of editing activity that can be expected from anyone, a week amounts to rather a short length of time. Even if we changed to "Collaboration of the month" it might still be too short a timeframe to see big transformations.

As an alternative we should have a seies of project strands that are given varying priority levels based on need for content or improvement. Initially at least these could be based around the elements in the "Magicbox" template. For example:

• Magicians' biographies
• History of magic
• Stage illusions
• Card magic
• Mentalism
• Street magic
• Escapology

...and so on.

I will leave this for a couple of weeks to see if anyone has comments or objections and if so to see if a consensus can be achieved. Beyond that I will feel free to apply WP:BOLD

Circusandmagicfan 11:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

• I already posted to Circusandmagicfan's talk page, but I think it's a good idea to mark it inactive instead of going through deletion. It makes revival a lot easier should the need ever arise. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

That's fair enough - I agree we should keep the template "in reserve"

Circusandmagicfan 15:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

"Collaboration of the week" is definitely not effective. However, it might be worth renaming it as "current collaboration," putting a date on it, and adding a note saying that it's okay to changing the "current collaboration" to some other article if it appears to have had no new activity for a certain period of time (maybe a week?). --Elonka 18:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think "current collaboration" is a good suggestion. I'm not sure about the time span though - a week is definitely too short. Maybe a month? Circusandmagicfan 08:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

I'm continuing this thread in a new section below (see Re-booting the project). Circusandmagicfan 16:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

[edit] Re-booting the project

Following Elonka's suggestion I'm drafting a proper set of guidelines for the project. Also, further to other discussion about the structure of the project, it seems the most useful thing to do is to incorporate the guidelines into a re-vamped project page. Having looked around at articles and categories it's apparent that a bit of work needs to be done on sorting out categories, as these have a significant impact on the structure of the project. At the moment there are some anomalies and inconsistencies - I aim to work on sorting these out and I will incorporate that strand of work into a section of the new project page dealing with structure. If anyone has comments or thoughts on how the category structure should work please post here a.s.a.p. My intention is to put up a draft version of the new page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Magic/draft magic project page and if there are no major objections I will then swap it into the existing project page. I hope to have something ready within the next week to ten days.

Circusandmagicfan 16:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan

I have now completed the draft for the new project page and moved it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Magic/draft magic project page for consultation. I have tried to retain as much of the essence of the old page as possible while adding elements that reflect recent discussion here. I have then tried to build that into a better structure drawing on the example of WikiProject Military history. So what do you think?

Circusandmagicfan 14:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Circusandmagicfan