UESPWiki:Administrator Noticeboard/Archives/A Mail for UESP.net from Germany

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A Mail for UESP.net from Germany =)

At the beginning I must say that I wrote a mail to your technical Adminstrator (uesp@sympatico.ca). He answered that I should write it here and now i am here ;) Actually I wanted to write it privately by mail, but i think I don't need to hide this suggestion. Thanks for all your comprehension =)

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Dear UESP.NET team,

my name is Frank Schwalb (Nickname: Deepfighter) and I come from Germany. I am one of the few german TES Lore masters and besides adminstrator of the largest german encyclopedia about The Elder Scrolls, called Tamriel Almanach (www.tamriel-almanach.de). We exist since May 2006 and currently have more than 2550 articles and 1200 pictures. Apart from a few “stubs” like each site has, there are many very good, or better said excellent articles in our knowledge base. But I don't write to you to introduce myself. I have an proposal to you.

What do you think about some kind of cooperation between both sites, the UESP and the Tamriel Almanach? If this sounds interessting to you we should discuss this further, as these things need a special planning.

I think a cooperation between our two sites offers many advantages. For example we could develop a network together, exchange pictures, translate articles, create common projects and in the future we even might think for example about additional languages. However I also see one problem. At Tamriel-Almanach we have a different site structure than you have on UESP. You differentiate between the The Elder Scrolls games, we do not, we consider TES as one single large universe. But I work at special portal pages for the TES games. In these you can find summaries and overviews of all articles about each game. This will look similar to your structure, so I do not consider those different site structures as a big problem.

Of course I hope for an Answer. If you have questions (which you probably have) please ask me,

Greetings from Sweden (I live there temporarlly) and naturally from Germany and the remainder of our team.

sincerly yours
Frank Schwalb aka Deepfighter
www.tamriel-almanach.de - www.scharesoft.de
--Deepfighter 09:09, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

My first thought is that it's a great idea. There are already one or two pages (eg this) in other languages but by and large it's an English-only site. If we can get more content in other languages, that's got to be good. My second though is that there are legal problems. I am not a lawyer so I have no idea exactly how this affects things, but we use the by-sa license and you use by-nc. That might mean we would have to have messages everywhere pointing out that some content comes from another site, and it gets even more complex if people start editing one site's content on the other's pages.

I'm sure there are solutions to any problems and maybe the problems aren't as big as I imagine. In any case, I still think it's a great idea. Thank you for suggesting it. Now let's see what other people think. --Rpeh^Talk 09:57, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Was ist jetzt los? I've taken German in school, and I could probably help with the task of doing translations and such, to some degree. If nothing else, I can try and give your Almanach a boost, with what knowledge I've gained here. I'm not one to ask about the legal things, but I'm enthusiastic and willing to help! Somercy 10:20, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Hi! I'm another sysop from the Tamriel-Almanach. I've been surfing the ues-pages for quite a while. There're an astonishing library for all game related contents in the TES series. But i've missed the lore. That's what keeps the game interesting for years. I've been willing to add some of this knowledge, but I didn't find the proper place for this. I hope that we can arrange some cooperation between our sites. Hopefully, --Killfetzer 17:59, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Glad you both found the site and enjoy it! The UESP has always been mostly a walkthrough/hints/tips type of site. Most of the lore would be within the Tamriel section of the site although this is probably the least edited section of the site (other editors can correct me here). I know a good deal of work has been (and is being) done on the books but not a whole much elsewhere. I think the main reason for the omission is merely a lack of a devoted editor(s). That and we simply don't want to copy information from other ES lore sites such as yours or the Imperial Library.

As for translations of the UESP it has been brought up before but hasn't gone anyway do to lack of interest and lack of willing and capable editors. Any large translation project probably should be discussed in more detail before people dive into it. -- Daveh 18:40, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

I'm definitely interested in some type of cooperation between the two sites, but I must say that due to my own schedule, I won't be able to help all that much. I would really like to see our Lore based section (Tamriel) become larger. The problem with enlarging it has always been the monopoly that the Imperial Library enjoys as an English based lore site, so most Lore masters are pretty entrenched over there. As for difficulties in working together, there is the license problem, as the two sites use different (though similar in my non-lawyer opinion) licenses.--Ratwar 19:37, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

Several points:

• I'll state more clearly what others have mentioned. The incompatible licenses means that our articles (under cc-by-sa) cannot be copied/translated to a cc-by-nc site. And vice versa -- articles from a cc-by-nc site cannot be copied/translated to our cc-by-sa site. This is not a small deal, and the licenses are not "almost" the same -- they are quite different in what they allow and don't allow. Were we to allow our articles to be posted there, we would be violating the license under which we gain articles from users. Same reasoning for you, if articles from your site were posted here, then they would violate the license under which you gain contributions from users. Breaking the terms of such licenses is guaranteed to raise havoc with a community. (And is just plain wrong.)
• The implication of this is that there really can't be "cooperation" between the two sites, other than say linking. Of course, individual contributors can contribute to both sites -- so long as the respective licenses aren't violated. (E.g., if I write a totally new article, then (as sole copyright holder), I can add it to both sites (with the one here being under by-sa, and the one there being under by-nc. But I couldn't modify an existing an article on one site and post it to the other site, since the modified work is a derivate work (protected by copyright) and under the terms of the respective licenses, can only be copied to another site where it is hosted under the same license.
• Of course, if you want to contribute (new content) to our Tamriel section, please do. But as has been pointed out, the existence of the excellent Imperial Library will probably prevent us from being the premier ES lore site.
• Likewise, if our content is translated to german and placed here, that's fine. However, despite earlier discussion, this does not seem to have happened. (Note that since the preceding link is to an archive page, it should not be edited -- any new discussion should be here).

I'm sorry that this comes across as a bit negative -- I certainly look for cooperation whenever practical (e.g., supporting easy translation of my tools into German and other languages), but conflict between our licenses nixes most forms of cooperation. --Wrye 21:15, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

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Hej, thanks for all your answers =)

To be honest, I did not consider the matter with the licenses. Unfortunately this implies the impossibility of an exchange of content like it should be considered normal in such a close cooperation. However it should be possible to work together more closely.

1. AS an example, I think we can put simply a link under our articles, we make this on our wiki and you on yours. The link on UESP could be titled "Further reading in german" and point to the Tamriel Almanach article about that topic. On our wiki the link title would consequently be in german and point to the UESP article.

2. I've thoght also of the use of interwiki links in the navbar. This is according to our technical administror only a small change in the config so that our sites kann use this feature.

3. We have for example this page: Uebersetzungsreferenz

There we try to provide a reference for translations between German and English and there we also could cooperate more closely. Partnerlinks on both pages are also possible.

There are possibilities for an co-operation, without to break a rule or a license. I think we should collect ideas what we can do together, the article translation was only a first thought, which took care of itself now.

@Wyre None ensures, it was very well that you said this important notes. If it is not possibly, we can do nothing. Better be safe than sorry.

--Deepfighter 06:32, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

Well, having been to your site, gentleman Deepfighter, I have an idea. Maybe since you can understand English, and I can understand German...I can translate the pages in your site to English for your site's purposes, and vice versa for us. Perhaps. Maybe. Somercy 08:35, 4 October 2007 (EDT)