body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>>From: "K P" <kpbotany at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Yes, this is problematic, but if the "experts" use so much jargon
>> that the
>>
>>lay reader cannot use the article, which is often the case, then it's as
>>good as no article, because experts probably aren't consulting Wikipedia for
>>information in their field.  This is another area where it is hard to get
>>some Wikipedia editors to see the problem, that using jargon, first isn't
>>necessary, and that second, blue-linking jargon doesn't make it acceptable,
>>and that third, if you can't explain it without the jargon maybe someone
>>else should be writing it.
>>
>>
>KP,
>
>I absolutely agree with you. As I said somewhere else, the real test of an
>"expert" is their ability to explain something to someone who isn't. There
>are many, many fields I don't have a technical clue about, but I do have the
>curiosity to want to know something about. Therefore, my questions are going
>to be very basic ones, and it's a joy to come across a source that has the
>ability to answer these basic question in terms I can understand.
>
>In Wikipedia, if an Article is written by an "expert" in the field, and it
>cannot be understood by someone who is not, it should be edited by another
>"expert" in that field with the ability to make it understood.
>
I'm led to believe that we have many articles on mathematics that could
use this kind of treatment. :-)

People familiar with the jargon tend to be blind to the effect on the
learnng of others.  The use of WP: shortcuts on this mailing list is an
example of this.

Ec


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: thomasasta at gmx.net

subject: [Foundation-l] wikiseek is out

body:
Andre,

you can do this as well with one node indexing each wikipedia in each country with the local database of a www.yacy.net node installation.
Just one desktop-pc or server for each wikipedia language country.

http://www.yacy-forum.de/viewtopic.php?p=30239
http://start.xiando.org/sitesearch

see the search fields, you can adjust to search only from the local wikipedia site (you get your language search) and you can filter our all related keywords, if you choose one hop indexing.

and then you can search the internet, which could as well refer to a local database, if the yacy node is not connected to the network, then is is like a local search engine, wikipedia alreay has.

Why wikiseek is evil, you can read it here:
http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/2007-January/000186.html

:-)

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:35:46 +0100
Von: "Andre Engels" <andreengels at gmail.com>
An: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> One thing I find a pity is that wikiseek seems to only search the English
> Wikipedia. It would be nicer to be able to search any languages, perhaps
> with 'all languages' as a default.
>

--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] wikiseek is out


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2007/1/15, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>:
>> While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>> content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>> allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>>
>> Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>> for fair-use media?
>>
>
> It's not a substitute, but I don't think it's worse. Fair use means that the
> picture can be used by Wikipedia on a specific page in a specific way
> because we don't need permission. Non-commercial means that Wikipedia can
> use it, as well as anyone using Wikipedia non-commercially, however they
> please because we have permission. I'm not happy with the second, but it
> surely is closer to what we want than the first.
>
>

IMHO it's quite simple:

If we have a "fair use" image, any mirror with ads can use it at their
peril, but we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "non-commercial" image, no mirror with with ads can use it,
and we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "no derivatives" image, we're not allowed to thumbnail it
to put it inline, crop it, recolour it, and neither are our mirrors with
ads, and neither can these things be done to it when it goes on a DVD.

...

"Fair use" is a right granted by US law (and there are similar rights in
some, not all countries) which means we can use it under *very specific*
circumstances. It's not a Free image though.

"Non-commercial" has been widely propogated by the Creative Commons
movement and people who think "Oh! I don't want my work exploited by
some large company!", but it's still not a Free image (Erik and Rama
have written essays and drawn cartoons, respectively, on this issue).

"No derivatives" is perhaps the worst of the lot: you're only allowed to
use the image in the exact form that the creator provided it in. You
gain very few freedoms - you can reuse it - and it's most definately not
a Free image.

...

Fair use is rather a tricky one. It used to be that ONLY the English
Wikipedia allowed them - perhaps because it was thought that most
traffic would be from the USA (which has now been shown to be false) -
but gradually more and more caved in. I believe that this is
unacceptable - we should have a goal of removing ALL "fair use" images
by 2008. Unfortunately we have literally hundreds of the things arriving
every day - Commons is particularly bad because we take 100% of the
uploads for es.wikipedia and pt.wikipedia (it appears that Spanish and
Portuguese speakers are very fond of anime and US law and not very fond
of reading instructions) - but every time I see that some other project
is arguing "oh yes, allowing Fair Use would make us look so much
better", or someone goes and replaces a 100% Free image with a Fair Use
image "because it looks better", I want to reach out across the internet
and strangle someone.

...

I joined Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia projects) because I was
intrigued by the idea of a FREE encyclopedia (dictionary, quote
database, book collection, image repository, etc.), not just a
user-filtered set of Google results stealing from everyone possible.
Please, let's not EVER get to the point where we're sacrificing the
fundamental ideals of freedom of content.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2007/1/15, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>:
>> While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>> content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>> allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>>
>> Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>> for fair-use media?
>>
>
> It's not a substitute, but I don't think it's worse. Fair use means that the
> picture can be used by Wikipedia on a specific page in a specific way
> because we don't need permission. Non-commercial means that Wikipedia can
> use it, as well as anyone using Wikipedia non-commercially, however they
> please because we have permission. I'm not happy with the second, but it
> surely is closer to what we want than the first.
>
>

IMHO it's quite simple:

If we have a "fair use" image, any mirror with ads can use it at their
peril, but we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "non-commercial" image, no mirror with with ads can use it,
and we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "no derivatives" image, we're not allowed to thumbnail it
to put it inline, crop it, recolour it, and neither are our mirrors with
ads, and neither can these things be done to it when it goes on a DVD.

...

"Fair use" is a right granted by US law (and there are similar rights in
some, not all countries) which means we can use it under *very specific*
circumstances. It's not a Free image though.

"Non-commercial" has been widely propogated by the Creative Commons
movement and people who think "Oh! I don't want my work exploited by
some large company!", but it's still not a Free image (Erik and Rama
have written essays and drawn cartoons, respectively, on this issue).

"No derivatives" is perhaps the worst of the lot: you're only allowed to
use the image in the exact form that the creator provided it in. You
gain very few freedoms - you can reuse it - and it's most definately not
a Free image.

...

Fair use is rather a tricky one. It used to be that ONLY the English
Wikipedia allowed them - perhaps because it was thought that most
traffic would be from the USA (which has now been shown to be false) -
but gradually more and more caved in. I believe that this is
unacceptable - we should have a goal of removing ALL "fair use" images
by 2008. Unfortunately we have literally hundreds of the things arriving
every day - Commons is particularly bad because we take 100% of the
uploads for es.wikipedia and pt.wikipedia (it appears that Spanish and
Portuguese speakers are very fond of anime and US law and not very fond
of reading instructions) - but every time I see that some other project
is arguing "oh yes, allowing Fair Use would make us look so much
better", or someone goes and replaces a 100% Free image with a Fair Use
image "because it looks better", I want to reach out across the internet
and strangle someone.

...

I joined Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia projects) because I was
intrigued by the idea of a FREE encyclopedia (dictionary, quote
database, book collection, image repository, etc.), not just a
user-filtered set of Google results stealing from everyone possible.
Please, let's not EVER get to the point where we're sacrificing the
fundamental ideals of freedom of content.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2007/1/15, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>:
>> While I think fair use media is more integral to the English Wikipedia's
>> content than you do, I agree with your reasoning. Whether or not we
>> allow fair use, non-commercial media is unjustified.
>>
>> Can everyone here agree that non-commercial media is not a *substitute*
>> for fair-use media?
>>
>
> It's not a substitute, but I don't think it's worse. Fair use means that the
> picture can be used by Wikipedia on a specific page in a specific way
> because we don't need permission. Non-commercial means that Wikipedia can
> use it, as well as anyone using Wikipedia non-commercially, however they
> please because we have permission. I'm not happy with the second, but it
> surely is closer to what we want than the first.
>
>

IMHO it's quite simple:

If we have a "fair use" image, any mirror with ads can use it at their
peril, but we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "non-commercial" image, no mirror with with ads can use it,
and we can't put it on a DVD.

If we have a "no derivatives" image, we're not allowed to thumbnail it
to put it inline, crop it, recolour it, and neither are our mirrors with
ads, and neither can these things be done to it when it goes on a DVD.

...

"Fair use" is a right granted by US law (and there are similar rights in
some, not all countries) which means we can use it under *very specific*
circumstances. It's not a Free image though.

"Non-commercial" has been widely propogated by the Creative Commons
movement and people who think "Oh! I don't want my work exploited by
some large company!", but it's still not a Free image (Erik and Rama
have written essays and drawn cartoons, respectively, on this issue).

"No derivatives" is perhaps the worst of the lot: you're only allowed to
use the image in the exact form that the creator provided it in. You
gain very few freedoms - you can reuse it - and it's most definately not
a Free image.

...

Fair use is rather a tricky one. It used to be that ONLY the English
Wikipedia allowed them - perhaps because it was thought that most
traffic would be from the USA (which has now been shown to be false) -
but gradually more and more caved in. I believe that this is
unacceptable - we should have a goal of removing ALL "fair use" images
by 2008. Unfortunately we have literally hundreds of the things arriving
every day - Commons is particularly bad because we take 100% of the
uploads for es.wikipedia and pt.wikipedia (it appears that Spanish and
Portuguese speakers are very fond of anime and US law and not very fond
of reading instructions) - but every time I see that some other project
is arguing "oh yes, allowing Fair Use would make us look so much
better", or someone goes and replaces a 100% Free image with a Fair Use
image "because it looks better", I want to reach out across the internet
and strangle someone.

...

I joined Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia projects) because I was
intrigued by the idea of a FREE encyclopedia (dictionary, quote
database, book collection, image repository, etc.), not just a
user-filtered set of Google results stealing from everyone possible.
Please, let's not EVER get to the point where we're sacrificing the
fundamental ideals of freedom of content.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Undelete title search

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Originally, the Special:Undelete front page listed every page in the
deleted page archive. Pretty quickly that became _too big_ to list for
Wikipedia, and we hackily disabled it, with a pointer to the deletion log.

But the original code stayed, and a default MediaWiki still tries to
show everything. That's potentially a lot... especially after an upgrade
to 1.9 which deletes a thousand-plus MediaWiki:foo pages!

In my ongoing effort to merge or otherwise rid all our live code hacks,
I've patched up Special:Undelete a bit.

Instead of the full list or the hacked-in hardcoded message, the pointer
to the deletion log is now localizable/customizable. Additionally,
there's a search field: type in a page title or title prefix, and it'll
list out (up to 100) matching titles.

It's a simple prefix match, but should still be pretty handy.

This change is live as of some minutes ago.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] No consensus

body:
Looking at current practice, there are several alternatives that may occur:
I. The most persistent win
Ia. the most highly skilled at WP dispute resolution win.
II. The parties continue to compromise until all agree on a bland version
III. One side starts a page from a different aspect (I almost said different
POV)
  or on a subtopic.
IIIa. If really skilled, one side constructs the articles for all possible
aspects and
  subtopics ahead of time & hopes to win on all fronts

There's a new version of Ia. if one loses at dispute resolution. Let the
other side make a
   page to its liking, and try to delete it. Repeat every few months until
success.

All the above are in technical conformity to the rules

On 1/16/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's very nice in Wikipedia to work with consensus. But what if no
> consensus
> is found? How is it decided then?
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail archives and Google

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Timwi wrote:
> Is there any specific reason why the mailing list archives are
> explicitly marked as 'noindex'? That makes it next to impossible to find
> an old message by keywords; otherwise Google would be pretty useful.

Allow me to quote you from your post of November 6, 2006 about this very
topic:

> Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you'll /still/ receive
> complaints that things people posted are visible publicly, even if it's
> not googlable. Then hopefully you'll reinstate Google's indexing.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
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from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] wikiseek & wikiwax is out

body:
Please reexamine what *free* knowledge means in the context of Wikipedia
and the GFDL. Wikipedia's sense of "free" includes other people's
freedom to profit from the work.

Regarding brands, "wiki" is not one. Wiki is a type of technology and
(possibly) a type of community. Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and Wikia are brands.

And before you accuse Wikiseek of being a corrupt commercial preemption
of Wikiasari, you should remember something: not only does Wikiasari
only exist in rumor, it's probably also commercial. Neither Wikiasari
nor Wikiseek is a charitable project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

thomasasta at gmx.net wrote:
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:09:33 -0600
> Von: David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>
>
>> I don't understand the critical reaction to Wikiseek. No one here would
>> criticize a new search engine that indexed the whole web *including*
>> Wikipedia, so there's no reason to criticize a search engine that
>> indexes *only* Wikipedia.
>>
>
> - google does not brand itself wiki
> - google is not doing this before a wiki *open search* launch is done
> - it is a trojaner, as google is behind it with its ads.
> - it shows, that wikimedia needs an own open search engine for wikipedia content and links/web outside.
>
>> I also don't see how Wikiseek could hurt Wikipedia. If anything, more
>> avenues to Wikipedia will *increase* the number of readers and editors.
>
> - one is making money from my work, searching hoursly for the best weblinks for the article of "pregnancy"? They are doing money with my free editors work and manual linksearch, either they make the database open or this is a GPL violation.
> - it is a misleading of the brand for wikipedia and for wikia?s wikiasari open search
> - ir opens the hint for google?s bribery of wikipedia, as the advertisements of google finance wikipedia
> - it is a google trojaner in disguise for wikiasari
>
>> And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
>> receive some sizable contributions.
>
> Totally wrong: we do nto want that money. Wikipedia?s contimbution it the community and not money from the google syndication ads. Google cannot buy the community. This is a hit for corruption.
>
> and what about the second clone:  http://www.wikiwax.com/
>
> ????

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body:
Please reexamine what *free* knowledge means in the context of Wikipedia
and the GFDL. Wikipedia's sense of "free" includes other people's
freedom to profit from the work.

Regarding brands, "wiki" is not one. Wiki is a type of technology and
(possibly) a type of community. Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and Wikia are brands.

And before you accuse Wikiseek of being a corrupt commercial preemption
of Wikiasari, you should remember something: not only does Wikiasari
only exist in rumor, it's probably also commercial. Neither Wikiasari
nor Wikiseek is a charitable project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

thomasasta at gmx.net wrote:
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:09:33 -0600
> Von: David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>
>
>> I don't understand the critical reaction to Wikiseek. No one here would
>> criticize a new search engine that indexed the whole web *including*
>> Wikipedia, so there's no reason to criticize a search engine that
>> indexes *only* Wikipedia.
>>
>
> - google does not brand itself wiki
> - google is not doing this before a wiki *open search* launch is done
> - it is a trojaner, as google is behind it with its ads.
> - it shows, that wikimedia needs an own open search engine for wikipedia content and links/web outside.
>
>> I also don't see how Wikiseek could hurt Wikipedia. If anything, more
>> avenues to Wikipedia will *increase* the number of readers and editors.
>
> - one is making money from my work, searching hoursly for the best weblinks for the article of "pregnancy"? They are doing money with my free editors work and manual linksearch, either they make the database open or this is a GPL violation.
> - it is a misleading of the brand for wikipedia and for wikia?s wikiasari open search
> - ir opens the hint for google?s bribery of wikipedia, as the advertisements of google finance wikipedia
> - it is a google trojaner in disguise for wikiasari
>
>> And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
>> receive some sizable contributions.
>
> Totally wrong: we do nto want that money. Wikipedia?s contimbution it the community and not money from the google syndication ads. Google cannot buy the community. This is a hit for corruption.
>
> and what about the second clone:  http://www.wikiwax.com/
>
> ????

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body:
Please reexamine what *free* knowledge means in the context of Wikipedia
and the GFDL. Wikipedia's sense of "free" includes other people's
freedom to profit from the work.

Regarding brands, "wiki" is not one. Wiki is a type of technology and
(possibly) a type of community. Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and Wikia are brands.

And before you accuse Wikiseek of being a corrupt commercial preemption
of Wikiasari, you should remember something: not only does Wikiasari
only exist in rumor, it's probably also commercial. Neither Wikiasari
nor Wikiseek is a charitable project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

thomasasta at gmx.net wrote:
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:09:33 -0600
> Von: David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>
>
>> I don't understand the critical reaction to Wikiseek. No one here would
>> criticize a new search engine that indexed the whole web *including*
>> Wikipedia, so there's no reason to criticize a search engine that
>> indexes *only* Wikipedia.
>>
>
> - google does not brand itself wiki
> - google is not doing this before a wiki *open search* launch is done
> - it is a trojaner, as google is behind it with its ads.
> - it shows, that wikimedia needs an own open search engine for wikipedia content and links/web outside.
>
>> I also don't see how Wikiseek could hurt Wikipedia. If anything, more
>> avenues to Wikipedia will *increase* the number of readers and editors.
>
> - one is making money from my work, searching hoursly for the best weblinks for the article of "pregnancy"? They are doing money with my free editors work and manual linksearch, either they make the database open or this is a GPL violation.
> - it is a misleading of the brand for wikipedia and for wikia?s wikiasari open search
> - ir opens the hint for google?s bribery of wikipedia, as the advertisements of google finance wikipedia
> - it is a google trojaner in disguise for wikiasari
>
>> And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
>> receive some sizable contributions.
>
> Totally wrong: we do nto want that money. Wikipedia?s contimbution it the community and not money from the google syndication ads. Google cannot buy the community. This is a hit for corruption.
>
> and what about the second clone:  http://www.wikiwax.com/
>
> ????

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from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] pro & con Wikiseek

body:
On 1/16/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just so everyone is clear - Wikiseek is *not* a Wikimedia project and to
> my knowledge, *not* a Wikia project either.  Funding, although announced
> on the wikiseek site, is not a formal agreement with WMF.

I can confirm that. Although Wikia helped them to find beta testers
and hosts a community wiki for them, the project is not a Wikia
project and we have no affiliation with searchme.com which is the
company running Wikiseek.

Angela

--
Angela Beesley
Wikia.com


subject: [Foundation-l] pro & con Wikiseek


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

David Gerard wrote:
> On 16/01/07, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Jesus Christ!
>> I can't say words without having some God-given "policy" read into them.
>> I made a general recommendation not to go running around saying THE SKY
>> IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING about templates BASED ON SUPPOSITION AND
>> PARANOIA.
>> Try to use some common sense, people.
>> There's no "policy" here. Just *sense*.
>
>
> Fortunately, this has been written up as policy: [[m:Don't be dense]].
> Phew! Writing it up as policy should fix the problem!

*cries*

:)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikien-l

from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Searching an article history

body:
If an article is pretty active, it can be quite a chore
to locate the edit where a particular text was added.
Is there any sort of tool to help with that?

Thanks.
Zero.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for earth-friendly autos?
Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center.
http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/


from_name: "Thomas Müller"

subject: [Foundation-l] [Search-l] Re:  pro & con Wikiseek

body:
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:13:45 +0000
Von: Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
An: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Betreff: [Search-l] Re: [Foundation-l] pro & con Wikiseek

> On 1/16/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just so everyone is clear - Wikiseek is *not* a Wikimedia project and to
> > my knowledge, *not* a Wikia project either.  Funding, although announced
> > on the wikiseek site, is not a formal agreement with WMF.
>
> I can confirm that. Although Wikia helped them to find beta testers
> and hosts a community wiki for them, the project is not a Wikia
> project and we have no affiliation with searchme.com which is the
> company running Wikiseek.
>
> Angela
>
> --
> Angela Beesley
> Wikia.com

It?s google, and with google syndication advertisements and undergrabbing the goal of having an open source search engine independent from google.
It is nice to have it, but not at that time and with that name, as the wikiasari search is still not out ! It is at this moment total contraproductive and why not in chinese language to show to be really open...?

--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


body:
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:09:33 -0600
Von: David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>

> I don't understand the critical reaction to Wikiseek. No one here would
> criticize a new search engine that indexed the whole web *including*
> Wikipedia, so there's no reason to criticize a search engine that
> indexes *only* Wikipedia.
>

- google does not brand itself wiki
- google is not doing this before a wiki *open search* launch is done
- it is a trojaner, as google is behind it with its ads.
- it shows, that wikimedia needs an own open search engine for wikipedia content and links/web outside.

> I also don't see how Wikiseek could hurt Wikipedia. If anything, more
> avenues to Wikipedia will *increase* the number of readers and editors.

- one is making money from my work, searching hoursly for the best weblinks for the article of "pregnancy"? They are doing money with my free editors work and manual linksearch, either they make the database open or this is a GPL violation.
- it is a misleading of the brand for wikipedia and for wikia?s wikiasari open search
- ir opens the hint for google?s bribery of wikipedia, as the advertisements of google finance wikipedia
- it is a google trojaner in disguise for wikiasari

> And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
> receive some sizable contributions.

Totally wrong: we do nto want that money. Wikipedia?s contimbution it the community and not money from the google syndication ads. Google cannot buy the community. This is a hit for corruption.

and what about the second clone:  http://www.wikiwax.com/

????
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exposure of magic on Wikipedia

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

David Gerard stated for the record:
> That reminds me, [[Robert Anton Wilson]] is really pretty skimpy. Also
> needs a few more <!--fnord-->s.
>
>
> - d.

It already has plenty ... can't you see them?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | The Bible has some pretty specific things to say
 sean at epoptic.com | about killing. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on
                  | the subject of kneecaps. --Shepherd Derrial Book
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFrkR5/SVOiq2uhHMRAnR+AJ4lzgPPBS6L97bSyuKnPZsxkVO3WQCg0mxD
7zkGOrqi5unhT6BLAbCmmnQ=
=Nvb2
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from_name: Cheney Shill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
--- Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Am I wrong? Is the list just a glorified form of
> advertising? Or is

The list would be reasonable without external links.
There's no reason to see the pages directly.  The model
isn't a unique form of page design or artistic expression.
The model just is their approach to selling and could be
done with or without  the Web.  It could be a model for a
daily infomercial.

Wiki links for companies like Woot that have a Wikipedia
entry are OK.  OTOH, Woot's entry really needs cleaning.
Yes, it got some independent publicity, some fluff business
articles, but the article is even promoting and linking to
podcasts.  This is a great example of Wikipedia being
abused to advertise and promote, if not straight product
placement and shilling.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> [...] If Larry wants an encyclopedia free of its biases, he should
> work on one. But he shouldn't call it an encyclopedia run by experts
> if he's going to dismiss the experts.
>
There are plenty of experts going at each other with knives on WP;
expertise is simply a fund of knowledge, and does not magically confer
diplomatic, communication, or collaboration skills. In fact, great
knowledge tends to breed arrogance, making conflict more likely, not
less so. CZ adds real names and attributions to the mix, raising the
stakes even further by introducing the possibility of effect on one's
careers. The organizer would need the superior political skills of an
Ivy League dean to make it all work, but Larry's forum postings don't
evidence much improvement at diplomacy since the times he was angering
editors on WP.

Stan


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraiser thank-you notice

body:
I don't know whether it has legal connotations or was written from a
manual of style or similar, but to me, 'Thank you to all those who
donated from the Wikimedia Foundation!' looks funny. I think 'The
Wikimedia Foundation thanks all those who donated [to us/to the
Wikimedia Foundation] during [the/our] fundraiser'.

Jm2p...
--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Nina Stratton

references:
<mailman.9239.1168977506.11809.wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
	<45AD689E.10345.AE6C7ACA@dan.tobias.name>
	<0ABBB41D-AF92-4329-A9E4-B6F632788AEB@gmail.com>
	<45AE4AC7.2020708@earthlink.net>

body:
+!

On 1/17/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
> >
> > [...] If Larry wants an encyclopedia free of its biases, he should
> > work on one. But he shouldn't call it an encyclopedia run by experts
> > if he's going to dismiss the experts.
> >
> There are plenty of experts going at each other with knives on WP;
> expertise is simply a fund of knowledge, and does not magically confer
> diplomatic, communication, or collaboration skills. In fact, great
> knowledge tends to breed arrogance, making conflict more likely, not
> less so. CZ adds real names and attributions to the mix, raising the
> stakes even further by introducing the possibility of effect on one's
> careers. The organizer would need the superior political skills of an
> Ivy League dean to make it all work, but Larry's forum postings don't
> evidence much improvement at diplomacy since the times he was angering
> editors on WP.
>
> Stan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Sincerely,

Nina
"Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and
conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work." - Abdul Kalam


from_name: Florence Devouard

subject: [Foundation-l] Audit update

body:
Hello,

During the board meeting in Rotterdam, it was decided that the audit
committee for the coming year would be made of
* Michael (treasurer)
* Oscar
* Dedalus
* myself (ex officio)

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Audit_Committee_Jan07

We will be working on an audit committee charter. The committee is
directed to take all steps necessary to prepare quarterly or semi-annual
reviews (next review is early february), and the next financial year
external audit. The committee will also work to help implementation of
some of the suggestions made by the audit firm in november 2006.

You'll notice that one of the audit committee members is Dedalus, who
contacted us last november when we published the audited financial
statement, and identified himself as an auditor. We met him last week in
Rotterdam. I am very happy we'll receive help from a professional, who
also happens to be a wikipedian.

Thank you

Florence Devouard
Chair of WMF


subject: [Foundation-l] Audit update


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 17 Jan 2007 at 12:10, "Abigail Brady" <morwen at evilmagic.org>
wrote:

> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [[Marti Pellow]] had some vandalism that made the media - it said for
> > five hours on Friday that he was dead. If people could watchlist it,
> > that would be good (that should be enough for now).
>
> Note, same IP claimed that Dec, of Ant and Dec, was dead: and this
> stayed until yesterday. :(

[[Kellie Pickler]] was listed as dead on her article recently too.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


body:
On 17 Jan 2007 at 11:30, "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > Conspiracies are never straight.
>
> Well, the good ones aren't, anyway.

They're gay?

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
On 13/01/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 09:10:29 -0800, "K P" <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:

> >The overall problem though is that there are guidelines and they're ignored
> >in favor of deletionists proposing articles for deletion because of their
> >poor quality regardless of the subject, or for a dozen other reasons not
> >related to suggested guidelines for deletion (the play only opened a week
> >ago so the article should be deleted).

> There is no such thing as a deletionist, only different levels of
> inclusionism.  If you think you are an inclusionist, go and visit
> [[Special:Newpages]], a.k.a. the Firehose of Crap.

Look at the editing history of User:Amarkov. An editor who edits
NOTHING but deletion debates, apparently in all hard-working
sincerity.

- d.


from_name: shi zhao

subject: [Foundation-l] wikiseek is out

body:
wikiseek only English :(

2007/1/17, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>:
> I don't understand the critical reaction to Wikiseek. No one here would
> criticize a new search engine that indexed the whole web *including*
> Wikipedia, so there's no reason to criticize a search engine that
> indexes *only* Wikipedia.
>
> I also don't see how Wikiseek could hurt Wikipedia. If anything, more
> avenues to Wikipedia will *increase* the number of readers and editors.
>
> And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
> receive some sizable contributions.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>

--
Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/

[[zh:User:Shizhao]]


subject: [Foundation-l] wikiseek is out


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
On 1/17/07, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Fifth?  I know about Nupedia, Wikipedia, one whose name I can't
> remember, and Citizendium, but what one am I missing?

Encyclopedia of Earth and "Digital Universe Encyclopedia".


list: commons-l

from_name: Larry Pieniazek

subject: [Commons-l] Image maps

body:
Image maps work on commons too?

Thanks for making us aware of this, Bri!

Larry Pieniazek
Work mail:   lpieniaz at us.ibm.com
Hobby mail:  lar at miltontrainworks.com

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:55:50 +1100
> From: "Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Commons-l] Image maps enabled;	useful
> Javascript support
> 	functions now available
> To: commons-l <commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<d20d84ea0701162255u1abb0965qd82f2b7852d1060d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi all,
>
> Some useful tips from the English Wikipedia Signpost:
>
> Image maps are now enabled. See
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap for syntax usage.
>
> For user Javascript scripts, such as Extra-tabs and
> Quick-delete and the like, these functions will be useful:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/wikibits.js
>
> WP:POST: 'addPortletLink() will conveniently add a link to
> any of the "portlets" in Monobook, including the content
> actions, personal tools, navigation sidebar, and toolbox.'
>
> cheers,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Peter Ansell

body:
On 17/01/07, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Dan
>
> [1] Yeah, yeah. Technically they're not votes.
>

You mean !votes right. I wouldn't necessarily equate "not voting" with
"!voting"... Its like a new terminology has come up to satisfy the
competing "vote/dont vote" parties and the result is actually that
there is no change in 99% of the cases.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Brian Salter-Duke

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Talk before you type: Interesting paper on growth
	in	Wikipedia talk pages

body:
On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 05:44:33PM +1100, Keith Old wrote:
> G'day folks,
>
> Researchers at IBM's Visual Comnunication Lab have published an interesting
> paper called "Talk Before You Type: Coordination in Wikipedia" at the 40th
> Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences held recently.
>
> http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_40/decisionbp/03_04_07.pdf

This is indeed an interesting study. I wonder - do we have a page that
lists all citable academic studies of wikipedia published in journals or
conference proceedings? Of course it would not be in article space. It
would be a usefull help for anyone writing an article on wikipedia. If
we do not have such a page, should we? and what do we call it?
[[Wikipedia:Academic studies on Wikipedia]]?

Brian (Bduke)

> It shows an interesting representation of edit wars and looks at a strong
> growth in talk and user talk pages. It was posted on Chris Lott's blog which
> is also worth a look.
>
> http://www.chrislott.org/2007/01/15/visualizing-wikipedia-change/
>
> Regards
>
> *Keith Old*
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 42, Issue 110
> *****************************************

--
          Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
               [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
           Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail archives and Google

body:
Is there any specific reason why the mailing list archives are
explicitly marked as 'noindex'? That makes it next to impossible to find
an old message by keywords; otherwise Google would be pretty useful.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Could we tone down the language a bit?

body:
On 15/01/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Scientology: the denial system for the ages.

Despite considerable conflict between Scientologists and critics on
the articles - and I speak here as a moderately well-known critic -
our Scientology articles are surprisingly good. It's nice what
referencing to the hilt can manage.

- d.


from_name: Sage Ross

body:
> >The people slogging for tenure will do it? The professors won't delegate it to the grad students? The grad students won't be the people who are already writing for us?
> >
> >If Larry gets tenure-track people to believe it will help them, then it really might be a breakthrough.
> >
> >Charles
> >

I think the first scenario would still be a major breakthrough;
requiring graduate students to write their literature papers for
Wikipedia is a whole different beast from (a few idealistic) graduate
students writing on top of their other duties.  Any sort of
large-scale validation within the academy of the value of writing for
Wikipedia would be a huge step forward, even without formal
recognition mechanisms for tenure-track people.  In the humanities at
least, the book-writing culture is pretty solidly entrenched.  There's
more flexibility at the pre-degree and post-tenure stages.

>
> I think any of us, if asked, should be willing to write recommendations for contributors. Whether they will have traction will depend on how knowledgeable and intelligent the person considering it is.
>
> Fred
>

That's an excellent idea.  When the time comes that I need letters of
recommendation, I'll call on a Wikipedian or two; even if it doesn't
help me, it might help someone down the line as a precedent.

-Sage


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 1/17/07, thomasasta at gmx.net <thomasasta at gmx.net> wrote:
> Von: David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com>
> > And in the event that Wikiseek is successful, the Foundation might even
> > receive some sizable contributions.
>
> Totally wrong: we do nto want that money.

Excuse me. Can you please explain, who "we" is exactly?

Arne


from_name: Delirium

body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm fine with book and album covers in an article substantially
>> dealing with the book or album or its cover specifically - that's
>> clearly fair use. It's when e.g. it's a general illustration on an
>> artist article that it's pushing it.
>>
>>
>>
>
> Why? If you want to view images as quotes then their use only makes
> sense when the article talks about the images.
>

That's not true at all---quotes can be used to illustrate a more general
topic as well, or as supporting evidence for a hypothesis, or many other
things other than specifically talking about the work being quoted.  For
example, [[en:anarchism]] quotes sentences or paragraphs from several
political-science authors who have written books about anarchism, which
is perfectly fine despite the page not being specifically about those books.

-Mark


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

body:
PeruvianLlama wrote:
>
> Good questions, and I support the label of "pedantry" if the only reason
> to be had for moving the Main Page is that it "violates" any suffix of
> WP:. But what are we to do if something does come along that deserves an
> article called "Main Page"?

So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"?  "Portal:Main Page"?  But
what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?

See also:
[[Category:Articles whose titles conflict with an existing namespace]].

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Conspiracies are never straight.

Well, the good ones aren't, anyway.


body:
> >All images have to be released under the GFDL, or something
> > compatible with it (ie. lets you do everything the GFDL lets you do,
> > and more - hardly comparable to some parts of a site being under a NC
> > license, and the rest under GFDL). (NB: Fair use is not a license.)
> >
>
> False the GFDL lets you release derivative images under the GFDL. Free
> art, CC-by-SA, CeCILL, GPL, and LGPL ( I really don't understand how
> images count as source code but that isn't my problem) wont let you
> release derivatives under the GFDL

I don't follow you. Derivatives of what? If the original image is
released under GFDL, then you can (and I think must, in most
circumstances) release the derivative under GFDL, but multiple
licenses doesn't come into it, so it's an irrelevant point...


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

body:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 01:44:06 -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:

> But the original code stayed, and a default MediaWiki still tries to
> show everything. That's potentially a lot... especially after an upgrade
> to 1.9 which deletes a thousand-plus MediaWiki:foo pages!

On a related note, is there a simple way to make these pages disappear
when upgrading to 1.9?  I think maintenance/nukePage.php does something
like this, but would have to be called once per page.  A script to nuke
the whole namespace may be useful for small wikis that normally have only
a few items in the deletion log.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
Firstly, I don't see how such a list could be exhaustive. Secondly,
your mistake (in my view) was in linking to their websites - you
should have linked to their Wikipedia articles, just as we do in any
other list (if they aren't notable enough for Wikipedia articles, they
aren't notable enough to be in the list).


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Little Napoleans

body:
phoebe ayers wrote:

>On 1/13/07, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>On 1/13/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>'I've run afoul of the rules lawyers on Wikipedia many times. It's
>>>>getting to the point where >you can't even say the sky is blue
>>>>without one of these little Napoleans squawking, "Original
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>research! Need citation!"'
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>Problem is whith that classic example is that the sky often isn't
>>>blue. It spends a fair bit of time being black with white bits.
>>>Depending on where you are grey may be popular and red/pink may appear
>>>as much as twice a day.
>>>
>>>
>>Yeah, and remember the song from South Pacific: "When the sky is a
>>bright canary yellow/I forget every cloud I've ever seen./So they
>>call me a cockeyed optimist,/Immature and incurably green..."
>>
>>Actually, I've been brooding about this topic since it came up last
>>year, and I've been troubled by the meta-question:
>>
>>WHY is "the sky is blue" taken as the emblematic unchallengeable
>>fact, since it's not even close to being true?
>>
>>I think the answer is that we've been brainwashed by being _told_ in
>>elementary school that "the sky is blue," and we continue to believe
>>it as having some quality of magical truth to it, even though we can
>>see with our own eyes that it is false.
>>
>>
>Or perhaps because when the sky *is* blue, it's so universally true: it
>doesn't take any formal training or cultural reference or even particularly
>sharp observation skills to determine that the sky is a particular color,
>and to eventually figure out that color is associated with the absence of
>clouds and storms. I'm reaching here, being no meteorologist, but I'd
>imagine that every person everywhere who can see the sky has at some point
>in their life seen it be a blue color. If true, this then is closer than
>most things to being an universal shared external experience. Sky color is a
>convenient reference (it's always there, after all), and thus a highly
>convenient metaphor: it's not that anyone is literally talking about the
>sky, any more than a child's drawing is a completely accurate portrait of
>something. It's rather a good way to insert {{universally recognized
>metaphor here so you have some idea of how I feel about this other thing
>that I'm actually talking about}}, only in less words. Rather than wonder at
>how children learn to view the world in colors, I'm amazed by how kids pick
>up verbal metaphors and symbolism so easily.
>
If one examines the etymology of "blue" back to Latin times one ends up
with "flavus" which meant "yellow".  For "blue" they used "caeruleus"
which is clearly derived from "caelum", the Latin for "sky".  The
English "cerulean" is a poetic word for "blue".  The sky belongs to the
definition of "blue" more than the reverse.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Talk before you type: Interesting paper on growth in
	Wikipedia talk pages

body:
On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 12:21:19AM +0000, Cormac Lawler wrote:
> On 1/16/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> >On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 05:44:33PM +1100, Keith Old wrote:
> >> G'day folks,
> >>
> >> Researchers at IBM's Visual Comnunication Lab have published an
> >interesting
> >> paper called "Talk Before You Type: Coordination in Wikipedia" at the
> >40th
> >> Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences held recently.
> >>
> >> http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu/hicss_40/decisionbp/03_04_07.pdf
> >
> >This is indeed an interesting study. I wonder - do we have a page that
> >lists all citable academic studies of wikipedia published in journals or
> >conference proceedings? Of course it would not be in article space. It
> >would be a usefull help for anyone writing an article on wikipedia. If
> >we do not have such a page, should we? and what do we call it?
> >[[Wikipedia:Academic studies on Wikipedia]]?
>
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> there is
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_in_academic_studies>,
> which is, as it says, "incomplete". As for studies
> including-but-not-limited-to Wikipedia, you can see
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Research_Bibliography>, as well
> as an excellent bibliography, using Wikindx (and linked to from that
> page), but apparently down for some time now. I'm including Jakob Voss
> in this mail, to see if he can tell us more - generally, that would be
> my first stop - no question..

Many thanks. I thought the first one was about using wikipedia in
studies, not studies of wikipedia, so I did not go there. It needs the
artcile that started this (the meta artcile already has it), so I'll add
it.

Cheers, Brian.

> Cheers,
> Cormac

--
          Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
               [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
           Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity


subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
> Yes, but the flaw in that reasoning is that lack of article does not
> mean lack of notability. In most cases it's probably just that no one
> can be bothered writing the article. I normally agree that it's much
> preferable to link to the article about the website - but if there's
> no article, do you redlink, weblink, or not link? The idea of creating
> 12 stubs about websites of perhaps borderline notability makes my
> stomach churn.

If there is no article, but the website is notable, you have a choice
of redlinking, or making a stub. Either is good.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
[[Marti Pellow]] had some vandalism that made the media - it said for
five hours on Friday that he was dead. If people could watchlist it,
that would be good (that should be enough for now).

The Independent, Tue 16 Jan

===
Pellow fans upset by death reports

Fans of the Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti Pellow were left stunned yesterday
after the online encyclopedia Wikipedia reported that he had died last
Friday. One fan, Sophie Cornwell, said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I
read that he was dead - I was absolutely shell shocked." Natasha Mensah,
Pellow's publicist, confirmed he was "definitely still alive". A Wikipedia
spokesman, David Gerard, said: "We would like to apologise for any distress
we may have caused... but occasionally pranksters change details on the
site."
===

(Thanks to Steel359 for typing it in. Article was a tiny space-filler on p12.)

I'm sure what I actually said was "Yeah, we get this sort of rubbish
all the time ..." But newspapers are a reliable source, so that must
be what I actually said.

By the way, this article did not have a {{WPBiography}} template on
the talk page. Every bio should have one of these, particularly living
bios. If you EVER spot a bio, particularly a living one, with a
red-linked talk page, please put {{WPBiography}} on the talk page!
[[Template:WPBiography]] lists how to fill it in.

- d.


body:
On 17/01/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Conspiracies are never straight.

> Well, the good ones aren't, anyway.

That reminds me, [[Robert Anton Wilson]] is really pretty skimpy. Also
needs a few more <!--fnord-->s.

- d.


from_name: Abigail Brady

subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> [[Marti Pellow]] had some vandalism that made the media - it said for
> five hours on Friday that he was dead. If people could watchlist it,
> that would be good (that should be enough for now).

Note, same IP claimed that Dec, of Ant and Dec, was dead: and this
stayed until yesterday. :(

--
Abi


body:
On 17/01/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Andrew Gray wrote:

> > In theory, we require that material used under fair-use has full
> >source and copyright details. It would seems sensible to interpret
> >this to cover including a reference to any non-free license or
> >conditions, of whatever form, if there is one.

> Requiring this is important to the extent to whatever extent we may
> allow fair use.  With this in hand a potential downstream user has the
> tools for determining whether his own use would qualify as fair use.

Any fair use image without these needs to be marked for immediate
attention and then deletion if not remedied. "Fair use" is fair use in
a given context (hence the {{fairusein}} template).

I'm a great fan of fair use images on en:wp when used properly -
quoting images is as important to being able to discuss things at all
as quoting text is - but as far as I can tell, really quite a lot of
the allegedly "fair use" images on en:wp should be taken out and shot.

[cc'd to wikien-l for discussion]

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this
	week


subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 17/01/07, Abigail Brady <morwen at evilmagic.org> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > [[Marti Pellow]] had some vandalism that made the media - it said for
> > five hours on Friday that he was dead. If people could watchlist it,
> > that would be good (that should be enough for now).

> Note, same IP claimed that Dec, of Ant and Dec, was dead: and this
> stayed until yesterday. :(

Huh, thought that one had been fixed. He also claimed Dec was 3'7" tall ...

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
> What if the website isn't *that* notable? I'm not that familiar with
> the notability standards for websites, but it must be a tough barrow
> to shove sometimes. Is it a contradiction to say a website is notable
> enough for some given list, but not for a whole article?
>
> Actually I'm sure it's not...you could easily imagine a list in an
> article that was "websites set up by John X". They would be noteworthy
> for that context, but not noteworthy in general.

For some lists, it makes sense to include less notable items, but I
don't think it does in this case. The business model is notable
because it is used by notable sites - if the sites it's used by turn
out not to be notable, then the list shouldn't even exist. A website
set up by John X is notable (although maybe not enough for an article)
because it was set up by John X, rather than John X being notable for
setting up the website - it's the other way around.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incivility, re: psychosis

body:
Christopher Thieme wrote:

>I just got admonished by "Mark" for being "uncivil" on this list with regard
>to a comment I made in my initial message on "Moving the Main Page."
>
>I don't think I was.  At least, from how I read the strict construction of
>the policy, I didn't say anything ruled to be incivility by the dictates
>of WP:CIVIL.
>
>And going back to my post on what psychosis might be hidden in some of
>users, I forgot one of the biggest problems underneath the surface of
>Wikipedia...
>
>We have too many humorless people.
>
In the spirit of this comment I apologize for taking your proposal to
move the Main Page as a serious one.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
On 16/01/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:

> Jesus Christ!
> I can't say words without having some God-given "policy" read into them.
> I made a general recommendation not to go running around saying THE SKY
> IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING about templates BASED ON SUPPOSITION AND
> PARANOIA.
> Try to use some common sense, people.
> There's no "policy" here. Just *sense*.

Fortunately, this has been written up as policy: [[m:Don't be dense]].
Phew! Writing it up as policy should fix the problem!

- d.


from_name: Marc Riddell

body:
> From: "Nina Stratton" <ninaeliza at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 08:20:48 -0800
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium
>
> +!
>
> On 1/17/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>>>
>>> [...] If Larry wants an encyclopedia free of its biases, he should
>>> work on one. But he shouldn't call it an encyclopedia run by experts
>>> if he's going to dismiss the experts.
>>>
>> There are plenty of experts going at each other with knives on WP;
>> expertise is simply a fund of knowledge, and does not magically confer
>> diplomatic, communication, or collaboration skills. In fact, great
>> knowledge tends to breed arrogance, making conflict more likely, not
>> less so. CZ adds real names and attributions to the mix, raising the
>> stakes even further by introducing the possibility of effect on one's
>> careers. The organizer would need the superior political skills of an
>> Ivy League dean to make it all work, but Larry's forum postings don't
>> evidence much improvement at diplomacy since the times he was angering
>> editors on WP.
>>
>> Stan

Ya know what we need in WP, an Article on Expertaphobia: The fear of, and
seeming intimidation by, people who know stuff about things.

Someone, I don't recall who it was, wrote that they would never work on
something where experts were involved. Really? Who would you go to if you
needed heart surgery, or wanted to learn how to play a violin?

Don't look now, but you are working with the aid of experts right now! Those
marvelous persons behind the scenes of this computerized market place who
make all of this possible. Without them we would be typing into the ether.

Ease up!

Marc Riddell
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Nina
> "Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and
> conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work." - Abdul Kalam
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incivility, re: psychosis

body:
Pilotguy wrote:

>Sorry, this is not a place for you to play around Chris. This is a serious
>project and we have serious work to do here. We do not have time for all the
>nonsense that goes on these days. What one may view as "incivilty" may be
>viewed by another as an entirely different thing. The point is simply, to
>cool down and keep things serious here. We're not here to entertain people.
>
Try not to take things too seriously; you could hurt yourself. :-)

Ec


from_name: phoebe ayers

body:
On 1/17/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> "David Gerard" wrote
>
> > Larry Sanger seems to be doing a lot of one-to-one outreach to
> > academia. If he can work out a way for contribution to a GFDL
> > encyclopedia to enhance an academic career, the growth in quality
> > contributions to the open content pool should be fantastic.
>
> The people slogging for tenure will do it? The professors won't delegate
> it to the grad students? The grad students won't be the people who are
> already writing for us?
>
> If Larry gets tenure-track people to believe it will help them, then it
> really might be a breakthrough.
>
> Charles

Ah, this is related to my own dream: that someday the accessibility of the
knowledge resources that you contribute to will be taken into account as an
important quality. Accessibility is recognized somewhat now in the academy
for tenure, but only obliquely -- while the very prestigious journals like
"Nature" and "Science" are also highly-subscribed to, most of the time
people make tenure based on publications that have only seen the light of
day in expensive journals and books that have very few holdings and thus
very few readers. Sure, this is an encyclopedia, and therefore never going
to count for original research for tenure (much as writing print
encyclopedias or textbooks now generally doesn't get you as many tenure
points) but it would be pretty grand to be able to make the argument that
because you're contributing to a world-wide freely accessible resource
you're actually helping thousands more people than you would by publishing
any other way. If Larry or anyone else can help swing the perception of
working on Wikipedia/Citizendium/whatever away from "wasting time on the
Internet" and towards "helping the world learn about my field," that will be
a good thing indeed.

-- phoebe


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-13

body:
On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 11:45:13AM -0500, Simetrical wrote:
> On 1/15/07, Edward Z. Yang <edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com> wrote:
> > WEll, it totally depends on the culture you've made regarding unit
> > tests. Here, it's "Oh, it's unreasonable to think that all the
> > parsertests will pass" but in other places its "Unit tests are super
> > important and no development goes forward until all tests pass". I
> > myself fall into the latter camp.
>
> In case you didn't notice, though, 18 of the 19 failing tests are
> actually unimplemented features, not regressions.  :)  Maybe it would
> be best if we removed the TODOs altogether.  Then we would get,
> appropriately, passes when we have no regressions, and failures on
> regressions.  People might actually even notice when regressions crop
> up!  (How long has that 1887 part 2 thing been regressed?)

I concur that this seems an excellent idea.  If the terror level, er,
um, error level is always greater than 0 then no one will pay any
attention to it.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 04:16:02PM +0000, Rob Church wrote:
> We also now have the [[Wikipedia:Everything Brion says is gospel]]
> policy, which means we also have [[Wikipedia:Brion is on crack]] and

ROTFL.  Really.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
On 1/17/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/16/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/16/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You seem to know more about it.
> > > Are you saying her accusations are unfounded?
> > >
> > > Mgm
> > >
> >
> > No idea. It's not an area I know much about since other than a few
> > skirmishes it isn't something that chemistry has much in the way of
> > dealings with.
>
> The problem is the categorization of disciplines can be a very
> controversial issue even if the discipline itself does not come with
> specific and explicit political or cultural agendas, much less tied up
> in questions of identity or the ability of individuals to make
> decisions on account of their cultural heritage.
>
> There is absolutely no easy answer to it. The question of where
> ethnic/gender studies (and its variants) fall within the organization
> of knowledge has been something the American academy has been
> periodically battling with for forty years (Peter Novick's _That Noble
> Dream_ has some great accounts of how the discipline of History in the
> US struggled with these issues in the 60s and 70s). The question of
> disciplinary disputes (what sociologists sometimes call "boundary
> work") has existed since before Copernicus (the question of whether
> mathematicians could make statements which impinged on areas of
> philosophy was a big one in his era). Categorization of knowledge was
> one of the most radical aspects of the original Encyclopedie, and some
> scholars (Robert Darnton in particular) have argued that it was in
> categorizing religion in the same tree as black magic (rather than a
> source of revealed truth) that really invoked the ire of the Church
> (rather than the snippy little asides poking fun at the Eucharist).
>
> Which is just to say that while I don't think this is necessarily any
> example of systemic racism or sexism on Sanger's part (there are
> legitimate reasons for not considering these fields to be top-level
> categories, one need not attribute such opinions to philosophies of
> prejudice), it is an example of what some of the difficulties with an
> "expert-driven" system will be. The problem is, experts don't even
> agree on very basic things at times, such as whose knowledge counts as
> genuine, such as how knowledge should be organized, such as where a
> discipline stops and ends. No matter what decision is made in these
> sorts of issues, they will alienate entire disciplines of experts.
>
> I think Wikipedia gets around it, paradoxically enough, by not
> pretending to have any expert rule, as well as having a relatively
> democratic categorization system (things can be redundantly
> categorized). If you don't make the assumption that the material is
> heavily mediated by experts, then you don't feel quite as bad if it
> doesn't align with one point of view or the other. Or maybe experts
> just don't pay a lot of attention to issues like this on Wikipedia for
> one reason or another.
>
> In any case... it will be interesting to see how Sanger works this out
> over time. He really can't afford to alienate the entire humanities
> and if he is perceived as shutting out or, god forbid, segregating
> ethnic/gender studies he will probably end up doing just about that.
> (I'm not saying he's doing that, I'm just talking about how he will be
> perceived.) If he insists on making determinations like this on his
> own (if that is indeed what he has done), he will likely end up
> stepping on a lot of toes.
>
> FF

This is a really insightful post. Categorization, and how one categorizes
knowledge (any kind of knowledge) is very far from being cut and dried; and
how one decides to organize the world does say a great deal about how one
perceives it. (Though Geni doesn't see discipline debates affecting
chemistry much, I bet that he doesn't think chemistry is a part of alchemy
anymore either). People sometimes make their entire academic careers around
arguing over classifications, by developing new subdisciplines and branches
when the old ones aren't good enough; this seems to be part of what the
citizendium conflict is about.

I think Fastfission is right that Wikipedia gets around most controversies
by being redundant, allowing people to categorize as they see fit, and by
allowing do-overs: nothing has to be permanently decided. Sure, it's
inefficient in a lot of ways, but it also (like the whole project) provides
a fascinating map of the world and how topics are perceived. It seems like
this particular debate in Citizendium comes from taking a much more
traditional view of deciding that topics have to go in a particular order,
as if the work existed in a hierarchical link structure or was going to be
printed.

-- phoebe


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incivility, re: psychosis

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>>On 1/15/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The best reaction would have been to reply with something to the
>>>effect of 'okay, I won't call people's arguments "b.s." or suggest
>>>that they be "taken out and shot"'. Not to turn around and claim that
>>>I am equally uncivil (for violating the "etiquette" which somehow
>>>demands that people who do the wrong thing not be told they are doing
>>>so), humourless, suffering from some sort of psychosis, and a dick.
>>>
>>>If you cannot see that calling people's arguments 'specious' and
>>>'b.s.', and suggesting that the founder of such arguments should be
>>>'taken out and shot' can be interpreted to be personal attacks, then
>>>I'm not sure anything I say to you is going to do any good.
>>>
>>>
>I would like to both agree and disagree; this should not be so serious
>that people cannot lighten up.  Workplaces and projects with low
>communal humor do terrible things to their participants.
>
>That said, I don't think that the comments which started this all came
>across as funny, I agree that they came across as abusive, and whether
>we have a laugh from time to time or not, abusive is a bad idea.
>
The explanation mixes up two very different points.  I see no problem
with using euphmisms such as "specious" of "b.s." when what is meant is
plain old "bullshit".  Not saying so would indeed be engaging in an
"'etiquette' which somehow demands that people who do the wrong thing
not be told they are doing so."  Such a comment is strictly "ad rem"; it
is about what a person says.  Bullshit and specious arguments are common
fare around here.

Suggesting that someone be "taken out and shot" or that someone is
psychotic is just as clearly "ad hominem", and should be viewed as
objectionable.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] New mediawiki diff and blamemap extension is live

body:
On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 04:10:10PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> On 17/01/07, Roman Nosov <rnosov at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can take a look at live demo.
> > Sample blamemap:
> > http://217.147.83.36:9001/wiki/Freebsd?trackchanges=blamemap&oldid=1524
> > Can track even a single character change:
> > http://217.147.83.36:9001/wiki/Freebsd?trackchanges=diff1&oldid=1516
> > Handles text swap:
> > http://217.147.83.36:9001/wiki/Freebsd?trackchanges=diff2&oldid=1513
>
>
> Nice!
>
> Cosmetic question: does it have to flash like that? I'm using SeaMonkey.

No flashing here; FF1.5.0.>

Any change you have a more... traditionally edited page on there to aim
the blame map at?  :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/17/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>  but sometimes "how do we
> organize this information" is a much harder problem, often requiring
> professional help.
>

We get by. The answer appears to be "in as may ways as posible".

--
geni


body:
On 1/17/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't follow you. Derivatives of what?

The image

> If the original image is
> released under GFDL, then you can (and I think must, in most
> circumstances) release the derivative under GFDL, but multiple
> licenses doesn't come into it, so it's an irrelevant point...
>

Yes they do. If an image is under free art you have to release any
derivitivies under free art and can't release them under the GFDL.
Thus callinging them compatible is false.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
On 1/17/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I feel like a baby for coming crying to the list, but so be it.
>
> I created [[One deal a day]], a business model used by certain
> web-based retailers. I added a list of retailers that use this
> model.[1] I linked them to their websites. Another user deleted the
> whole list as spam, citing our "Wikipedia is not a repository of
> external links" guideline.
>
> I contend that this alleged "list of links" is distinct from a normal
> list of advertising links as:
>  - the list is intended to be exhaustive
>  - the interest is in the retailer appearing in the list, not in
> sending the user to the website for further information

DMOS is that way.

>  - there is genuine interest in the list for its own sake: you could
> make a table and build further information about the entries, and you
> could easily conceive of someone doing research based on the list
>
> Am I wrong? Is the list just a glorified form of advertising?

It doesn't really matter since I can porbably come up with quite an
interesting set of policies that prevent it. no original research for
example.

--
geni


body:
On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17/01/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Andrew Gray wrote:
>
> > > In theory, we require that material used under fair-use has full
> > >source and copyright details. It would seems sensible to interpret
> > >this to cover including a reference to any non-free license or
> > >conditions, of whatever form, if there is one.
>
> > Requiring this is important to the extent to whatever extent we may
> > allow fair use.  With this in hand a potential downstream user has the
> > tools for determining whether his own use would qualify as fair use.
>
>
> Any fair use image without these needs to be marked for immediate
> attention and then deletion if not remedied. "Fair use" is fair use in
> a given context (hence the {{fairusein}} template).
>
> I'm a great fan of fair use images on en:wp when used properly -
> quoting images is as important to being able to discuss things at all
> as quoting text is - but as far as I can tell, really quite a lot of
> the allegedly "fair use" images on en:wp should be taken out and shot.
>
>

You want to try telling the WikiProject Album that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Album_covers_and_fair_use

--
geni


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam and advertising dilemma

body:
I agree with Thomas, link internally rather than externally on lists.

Mgm

On 1/17/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, but the flaw in that reasoning is that lack of article does not
> > mean lack of notability. In most cases it's probably just that no one
> > can be bothered writing the article. I normally agree that it's much
> > preferable to link to the article about the website - but if there's
> > no article, do you redlink, weblink, or not link? The idea of creating
> > 12 stubs about websites of perhaps borderline notability makes my
> > stomach churn.
>
> If there is no article, but the website is notable, you have a choice
> of redlinking, or making a stub. Either is good.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is this valid on an userpage? is this other
	on	articles?

body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/15/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>This photo may be in the public domain by abandonment.  This would
>>happen when an otherwise copyright item has been widely re-distributed
>>for a long time, and the copyright owner does nothing about it.  This
>>photo was taken by a professional wildlife photographer who should have
>>a basic understanding of the rules.  He uploaded the photo himself.  Is
>>there any record of his complaining about its general use?
>>
>>
>Yes. To us. Ask the foundation for details.
>
Fine.  Since I'm not going to pursue this matter, I don't need to track
down the details.  That a real owner has commented is significant.  The
courts may still decide that he has abandoned his coprights, but I'm
happy to let that be somebody else's fight.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 17/01/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I'm a great fan of fair use images on en:wp when used properly -
> > quoting images is as important to being able to discuss things at all
> > as quoting text is - but as far as I can tell, really quite a lot of
> > the allegedly "fair use" images on en:wp should be taken out and shot.

> You want to try telling the WikiProject Album that?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Album_covers_and_fair_use

I'm fine with book and album covers in an article substantially
dealing with the book or album or its cover specifically - that's
clearly fair use. It's when e.g. it's a general illustration on an
artist article that it's pushing it.

- d.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 1/17/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> >From: geni [mailto:geniice at gmail.com]
> >On 1/17/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>  but sometimes "how do we
> >> organize this information" is a much harder problem, often requiring
> >> professional help.
> >
> >We get by. The answer appears to be "in as may ways as posible".
>
> That is really an excellent answer. Most of the trouble we have results from trying to impose some pattern on knowledge, which, as we know, wants to be free.

Yeah, I agree.  I wasn't trying to suggest that WP has any problem
with this.  We're flexible enough that we've accommodated most of the
reasonable ways of looking at taxonomy, and the organization stuff
works ok.

But the way it's evolved has had a lot of input from experts helping
with the taxonomy...

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
> The word "reported" is very telling of how we are still misperceived.
> We're not a news site. Why do people think we are?

Because the principle of "anyone can edit" means we're often more
up-to-date than many news sites. Short of introducing a policy saying
we don't add anything to an article until 24 hours after it is
published in another source (which could be a good idea, but I don't
think so), there isn't much we can do about that.


body:
On 1/17/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
> Experts, to function well on Wikipedia, need to more than just proclaim
> themselves an expert and regurgitate what they learned in school.
> Particularly they must be familiar with the literature and be able to cite it.
> That may be a rare talent, as is excellent teaching, the underlying skill
> that is involved in writing an introductory textbook, which is what a
> Wikipedia article is, in part.

Side benefit of Wikipedia: we're teaching legions (well, thousands) of
people who otherwise never would have had the opportunity how to do
good, well researched and cited academic type writing.

You can see this in how some professors are making Wikipedia articles
be "the class writing project" for some courses...  Even they consider
it an environment where both the process and final products are good
practice for that.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


body:
> Yes they do. If an image is under free art you have to release any
> derivitivies under free art and can't release them under the GFDL.
> Thus callinging them compatible is false.

I never said free art was compatible with GFDL. There are licenses
which are compatible (I'm no expert, so I'm not going to try and name
any), those are the only images that can be on Wikipedia that aren't
released (explicitly) until GFDL (excluding fair use).


from_name: habj

body:
2007/1/17, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com>:
> I don't know whether it has legal connotations or was written from a
> manual of style or similar, but to me, 'Thank you to all those who
> donated from the Wikimedia Foundation!' looks funny. I think 'The
> Wikimedia Foundation thanks all those who donated [to us/to the
> Wikimedia Foundation] during [the/our] fundraiser'.

I dare to agree, although I am not a native speaker. The first version
makes me confused.

I also wonder if it would have been possible to send out this text,
and the "thank you" page, like a week before it was actuallly needed?
If you are serious about wanting it translated, that is a must. If it
does not matter, well then you can launch the pages the minute they
are needed.

/habj


subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Fans of the Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti Pellow were left stunned yesterday
> > after the online encyclopedia Wikipedia reported that he had died last

> The word "reported" is very telling of how we are still misperceived.
> We're not a news site. Why do people think we are?

I actually spoke at some length about this with the person who called
me - death notices often do in fact show up on Wikipedia before almost
anywhere, e.g. the death of [[Andrea Dworkin]], where it went straight
from a feminist mailing list to her article and only hit the media
during the following day. Being *current* is one of our really strong
suits, and the readers know this.

- d.


body:
On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm fine with book and album covers in an article substantially
> dealing with the book or album or its cover specifically - that's
> clearly fair use. It's when e.g. it's a general illustration on an
> artist article that it's pushing it.
>
>

Why? If you want to view images as quotes then their use only makes
sense when the article talks about the images.

--
geni


body:
On 1/17/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes they do. If an image is under free art you have to release any
> > derivitivies under free art and can't release them under the GFDL.
> > Thus callinging them compatible is false.
>
> I never said free art was compatible with GFDL. There are licenses
> which are compatible (I'm no expert, so I'm not going to try and name
> any), those are the only images that can be on Wikipedia that aren't
> released (explicitly) until GFDL (excluding fair use).
>

umm we use Free art images on wikipedia.
[[Image:Heckert_GNU_white.svg]] for example.

--
geni


from_name: PeruvianLlama

subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"?  "Portal:Main Page"?  But
> what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?
>
Once it's out of the article namespace, nothing can come along that is
more deserving of the title "<prefix>:Main Page" than the Main Page
itself. I really don't think we're in any danger, if having moved the
Main Page into a project space, of things spiraling out of control and
the Main Page forever being moved from namespace to namespace for years
to come.

Things pop up in the "real world" that need new articles with new
titles. Nothing pops up in the project spaces except what the community
wants there, so something will have precedence over "<prefix>:Main Page"
if and only if the community really wants it to have precedence.

Cheers,
 - PeruvianLlama


from_name: Liz Kim

subject: [Wikitech-l] batch upload

body:
Hi..

Anyone know of any extensions for uploading a directory of multiple files at
once?

Thank you


subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, so what do we do when mostly we're right, we're occasionally
> laughably (or harmfully?) wrong, and we don't seem to have much
> control either way? Tough to implement any policies telling vandals
> how to behave when they're up to no good...

I've been trying to turn the phrase "Wikipedia is not a reliable
source" into a positive thing ;-)

"What people say is true, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. We can't
guarantee it. It's a useful source and we try to keep it useful, but
it's just written by people - read it critically, like you would any
web page. If you see something really surprising like that, check the
history tab and see if it was just added ..."

Journalists are a good audience to get this across to, because they
looove Wikipedia - it's the universal background resource (an area
where our breadth is a strength).

This is also useful for getting across to journalists that saying
"according to Wikipedia" is as appropriate as it would be using any
useful but non-canonical source. Attribute your sources!

- d.


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
"David Gerard" wrote

> 'Open content' itself is still unusual and remarkable in itself.
> Citizendium is working with great focus to get traction and
> credibility inside academia itself, which will further the reach of
> the concept.

Credibility is good. I think Wikipedia's oblique, zagging run in that direction has been very interesting, in fact. It is still not proven that doing the things that 'everyone' says are necessary for credibility in the academy is also sufficient.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
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Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


body:
On 17/01/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 17 Jan 2007 at 11:30, "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> > > Conspiracies are never straight.

> > Well, the good ones aren't, anyway.

> They're gay?

OH NOEZ THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!

- d.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Offer to improve PNG thumbnailing

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Platonides wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>> The hardest part would be restructuring the
>> thumbnail repository to allow thumbs in multiple formats to coexist.
>
> The thumbnail repository is made of folders, and thumbs keep their
> format extension, so Having 800px-Example.jpg and 800px-Example.png
> wouldn't be a problem.

Note that we already have alt-format thumbs, for rendering of SVG vector
images and DjVu pages to PNG and JPEG.

So something like this should not be a problem:

thumb/7/70/Example.png/800px-Example.png.jpg

> However, i think there was also a SQL table indexing them, which may
> need some little changes.

Currently there's no SQL table of thumbnails; the whole subdirectory is
simply wiped out (and its contents purged from squid cache) when the
source image changes.

> Also the auto-thumbnailing script (should be  easy).

*nod*

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:01:08 +0000, Rob Church wrote:

> On 17/01/07, Steve Sanbeg <ssanbeg at ask.com> wrote:
>> On a related note, is there a simple way to make these pages disappear
>> when upgrading to 1.9?  I think maintenance/nukePage.php does something
>> like this, but would have to be called once per page.  A script to nuke
>> the whole namespace may be useful for small wikis that normally have only
>> a few items in the deletion log.
>
> I don't see what's wrong with the existing method, apart from the fact
> that it floods the deletion log; we could do something about that, I
> expect.

It's not a big issue, but on small private wikis where deletions aren't
common, it should be fairly easy to find deleted pages, so flooding the
delete logs and recent changes probably isn't ideal.

It seems simple enough to modify nukePage to delete a namespace, and even
skip articles with multiple revisions; which would make for a cleaner
upgrade.
 -Steve


body:
On 17/01/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "David Gerard" wrote

> > 'Open content' itself is still unusual and remarkable in itself.
> > Citizendium is working with great focus to get traction and
> > credibility inside academia itself, which will further the reach of
> > the concept.

> Credibility is good. I think Wikipedia's oblique, zagging run in that direction has been very interesting, in fact. It is still not proven that doing the things that 'everyone' says are necessary for credibility in the academy is also sufficient.

Larry Sanger seems to be doing a lot of one-to-one outreach to
academia. If he can work out a way for contribution to a GFDL
encyclopedia to enhance an academic career, the growth in quality
contributions to the open content pool should be fantastic.

- d.


subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiDump Parsing

body:
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Harish TM wrote:
> I was trying to parse the Wikipedia dumps but unfortunately I find the XML
> file that can be downloaded a little hard to parse. I was wondering if there
> is a neat way to extract:
>                          1. The article title

/mediawiki/page/title

>                          2. The article content ( without links to articles
> in other languages, external links and so on )

The article content *contains* those links, so I guess you mean you want
to parse the text and remove certain elements of it?

>                          3. The category.

Again, that's part of article text.

> Also I find that there are a large number of tools that allow one to convert
> plain text to media wiki text. What if I want to go the other way and
> extract information exactly the way it appears on the wikipedia site.

Run the wiki parser on it.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Independent article

body:
On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > "What people say is true, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. We can't
> > guarantee it. It's a useful source and we try to keep it useful, but
> > it's just written by people - read it critically, like you would any
> > web page. If you see something really surprising like that, check the
> > history tab and see if it was just added ..."

> You know what would be great? Any text added less than 24 hours ago
> appears in a different colour, with a red background perhaps. No ifs,
> no buts. Wouldn't that solve a *lot* of problems?

Great idea! Go code it ;-p

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Is this valid on an userpage? is
	this	other	on	articles?

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Bryan Derksen wrote:
>>
>>
>>>To be valid fair use the article should be about that specific image in
>>>some significant way. If there was a paragraph or section of the article
>>>addressing it, perhaps - though in that case it would make more sense to
>>>have the image presented individually in that paragraph or section. I'd
>>>say it's best to assume not when the case is in doubt.
>>>
>>>
>>This, of course, reflects the English Wikipedia subset of fair use rules.
>>
>>
>This thread is on WikiEN-l so that should be assumed by default.
>
Never underestimate the capacity of some editors to extrapolate.

>>>Some editors are hypersensitive about this sort of thing. I still can't
>>>figure out why the original image of the O RLY? owl isn't fair use in
>>>the article [[O RLY?]], but endless battle isn't worth it.
>>>
>>>
>>This photo may be in the public domain by abandonment.  This would
>>happen when an otherwise copyright item has been widely re-distributed
>>for a long time, and the copyright owner does nothing about it.  This
>>photo was taken by a professional wildlife photographer who should have
>>a basic understanding of the rules.  He uploaded the photo himself.  Is
>>there any record of his complaining about its general use?
>>
>>
>I'm told he complained about it in some manner, though I never got to
>see the the actual complaint. Some of the gory details can be found at
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Orly.jpg> and
><http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review&oldid=50533958#Image:O_RLY.jpg>,
>though unfortunately not the specific reasons why the image was
>ultimately kept deleted.
>
This is why I so strongly support the notion that take down orders
should be made a matter of public record.  That would make it easier
when the matter comes up months or years later to point to the order as
the definitive word on the subject.  Then if someone wants to dispute
the matter they can try to convince those in charge that the order did
not meet legal requirements, or they can initiate a counterorder
indicating that they are personally willing to take it to court.

>Whether the copyright holder objects to fair usage or not shouldn't
>actually make a difference, as far as I understand the law; the whole
>point of fair use is that under those circumstances we don't _need_
>permission. I wish this case had been handled more transparently.
>
I agree.

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan at tobias.name]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 10:06 PM
>To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium
>
>On 16 Jan 2007 at 14:58, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It points to a fundamental flaw in Citizendium, and one that wouldn't
>> surprise anyone who saw Larry's name attached to it - it's an
>> encyclopedia that favors experts that's run by someone with a view of
>> the academy that is wildly out of step with current senses of what
>> mainstream academic thought is.
>
>Out of step with the leftist PC bullshit that's been piled high and
>deep on most campuses since the '60s, anyway.
>

That is certainly one way to look at it, but here we would called the "bullshit" a significant viewpoint which under NPOV ought to be fairly represented.

Fred