Re: Irisregister and the Wiki

["R. Dennis Hager" <hager@aredee.com>]

John,
I am not a copyright attorney, but you raise an interesting point. Your 
question may be about "fair use", but the real zinger is that the AIS Board 
may be representing both sides on this issue. Sounds like a personality 
disorder to me.

I would first ask a few hypothetical questions:

1.  If someone posted registration information to an unrelated WIKI or 
published it in any other way, what course of action, what action should or 
would the Board take?

2.  Do we know for a fact that the information is being entered from the 
electronic checklist as a copy & paste, or is it being keyed in from a hard 
copy?

3.  With the development of the WIKI, by what amount should we expect 
electronic checklist revenues to decrease?

4.  Has anyone addressed ways that the WIKI could generate revenue?

5.  Has anyone polled electronic checklist subscribers to see how they feel 
about it? If so, how did they phrase the question?

BTW, my subscription to the electronic checklist expires in 2015. Love the 
electronic checklist. Love the WIKI. Want both to include as much accurate 
information as possible.

Thanks.

Dennis Hager




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John I Jones" <jijones@usjoneses.com>
To: <aisdiscuss@aisboard.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 1:25 AM
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Irisregister and the Wiki


> I have been pondering an issue for some time and feel that it is time  to 
> bring it before the board to make sure that what is happening is  what the 
> board wants,
>
> The issue is what irisregister information should be allowed in the  Wiki.
>
> The Wiki is moving forward and entries are being made as you read  this. I 
> has become apparent that people entering the irises into the  Wiki in 
> addition to what ever description and pictures they  personally add, are 
> also copying the full text entry for that iris  from the irisregister into 
> the Wiki entry.
>
> If this is what the Board wants then so be it, but I think that we  should 
> consider the impact of such action.
>
> The irisregister has been a significant source of revenue for AIS  since 
> its inception garnering over $16000.00 since 2003— almost  $2300.00 per 
> year. The effect of putting the irisregister information  in the Wiki is 
> to give the information away for free to anyone (since  the Wiki will be 
> open to anyone at no cost).
>
> There are also lots of people that have paid for 3, 5, and 10 year 
> subscriptions to irisregister who will now see that we are giving  that 
> information away for free.
>
> It is true that irisregister will still have some advantages over the 
> wiki.
> - the search engine has greater flexibility and control than the Wiki
> - Irisregister gets updated with new and corrected information 
> particularly on older irises
> - Irisregister has the reserved names included in its database
>
> People use irisregister primarily for:
> - Getting descriptions of irises for sales or their own database(s) - 
> Wiki will provide the same
>
> Other (but far less) uses for irisregister:
> - doing research on parentage - Wiki probably won't be able to do  this as 
> well
> - doing name searches for new introductions - Wiki won't do this as  well 
> because it will lack the reserved names
>
> The irisregister information can be kept out of the Wiki because  every 
> entry to the Wiki must be reviewed by the "docents" for  propriety and 
> they can easily recognize an irisregister entry. The  Wiki has some 4000 
> entries already, but that should not be a major  effort to correct. I am 
> sure that not all of the entries have  irisregister excerpts in them.
>
> The Wiki's real claim to fame is that it has pictures (up to 20 per  iris) 
> and I applaud its value in that regard. I am, in fact, against  having 
> pictures as part of the official AIS registration primarily  because of 
> the inconsistency of photographic and display technologies  and vagaries, 
> and in that regard Wiki provides a valuable resource.  The full 
> registration descriptions are of limited additional value in  the Wiki 
> unless people want to copy them out for their own purposes.
>
> The Wiki will also have some advantages because the newest  introductions 
> can be placed in the Wiki whereas there is a delay in  placing the newest 
> R&I information in irisregister.
>
> I think the Board needs to proactively decide what, if any,  irisregister 
> information should be allowed in the Wiki. I think we  need to consider 
> the monetary impact on the AIS through loss of use  of the irisregister. 
> No I don't know the magnitude of that impact,  but I can tell you that the 
> majority of irisregister use is to get  descriptions.
>
> John
>
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