body:
Perhaps if you're a scientist the experiments are better designed.  I, for
one, often create experiments simply to see if something will work better
than it did before.  I believe that is the definition being used here by
Jimbo.  Moreover, most people seem to hold this definition of the word.

Finally, despite all the philosophy regarding human nature, I will continue
to apply good faith in this situation until such time as I feel that it can
not be used.  Yes, we as humans tend towards centralization of control and
of all things for the purposes of simplification; I do not see that as being
the root cause of this issue, though.  There was a problem, and it
demonstrated an inherent problem  in the system.  To solve that problem
steps have been taken in an attempt to see if the problem will be corrected.

--Martin

On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Perhaps my newness to the encyclopedia (member as of March, 2005) has
> left
> > me feeling naieve.  However, I'm inclined to give Jimbo the benefit of
> the
> > doubt.  He says it's an experiment, so I'm inclined to go with that.
> >
> > On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy change"
> in
> > the guise of an experiment?
>
> Primarily because experiments are better designed. I think part of the
> problem is that what I'm thinking of as an experiment is different
> from how Jimbo's using the word. He's probably just using it to mean
> "I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of what will happen,
> even though I'm pretty sure it'll be good."
>
> Whereas I expect "experiment" to mean "I'm making a change and I don't
> know what will happen, but I've put in place mechanisms to measure as
> many of its effects as I can, so that I will be able to determine
> whether it is good or not."
>
> My suggestion is also based in a little appreciation for the
> immutability of human nature, which suggests that all institutions
> institutionalize, that is, tend towards restrictiveness, hierarchy,
> and centralization of control. Steps in that direction are rarely
> reversed. This is a small step, but its direction is clear.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kai Kumpf

subject: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability, some clarifications

body:
Dear all
although I am really glad that i spurred such a lifely discussion over
"stability" matters, let me make a few remarks as to what I think is
taking the wrong direction.

First of all, I never proposed a filtered view on WP for the general
public. There are deficiences, vandalisms and all in it and I can see
simply no way to come up with a stable version however you might define
that out of the blue at this stage. Some of your comments indicated that
there should be editing in the background of the article that should
somehow be promoted to the front - given the changes have reached a
qualitatively satisfying level. Frankly, I do NOT believe in such a
method which would require splitting the community into less and more
equal editors.

On the contrary, my proposal was and still is: Leave the view on the
data alone, do not try to nominated a board of editor's editors but
RAISE the threshold for offhanded edits by absolutely requiring a
minimum of reference / source information besides the comment line. This
information should be as immutable as the comment line and not included
in the article ("==References=="). This should make it successively
harder and harder for matured articles to insert contradicting
information (I am not mentioning confusing information due to the
editor's lack to express him/herself!)  So far nobody has convinced me
of the contrary.

The question remains what we should mean by "matured" and which
indicators we should use for quantifying maturity of an article. The raw
number of edits is completely out of question if the length of the edit
(insertions/deletions/modifications) is not taken into account for
weighting them - effectively making the weight of the edit proportional
to something like the Mahalanobis or the edit-distance known from
bioinformatics.
Please, folks, read again carefully and try to get away from "filtered
view" phantasies. Let's not revolutionize WP. Let's simply raise the
minimal editing standards just a wee little bit - which would be
revolutionary enough - for my taste.
Kai (kku)


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability,
	some clarifications


list: foundation-l

from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?

body:
On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> For the record, I very strongly support this. This is due to the fact
>> that almost all, not just most, new pages created by anons on the
>> English Wikipedia are borderline to complete crap.
>
> Do we have stats on that?

New, usable articles created by anons accounted for around 40% of all new
articles.  This ignores speedied articles, etc which might inflate the
figure in favor of anon-creation.

Lots of them need wikification and start life as stubs; I wouldn't call
that "crap".

SJ


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > I still want to change AfD to explicitly be a "quality assurance"
> > function.  Right now it's slanted toward deletion by its very name,
> > and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
>
> Articles needing Verification?

Any serious problem, be it a lack of verification or referencing,
needing major cleanup, or just not suitable for inclusion.  The
problem right now is that AfD is being used for all of these things,
but it's *called* "articles for deletion" and so the process is
prejudiced toward deletion when it really needs to be about ensuring
quality.

Kelly


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikis and blogs in science in Nature

body:
Jakob wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In the current issue of Nature there are some editorials on the free
> flow of data where wikis and weblogs are mentioned. Things are moving in
> the scientific community but I'm afraid they'll choose a non-commercial
> license
>
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438531a.html
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438548a.html

Interesting fact: The Human Genome Project considered using an
open-source style licence for the gene sequences, but ultimately
rejected it in favour of public domain.

Sir John Sulston, former head of the Sanger Centre which was one of the
major locations where the sequencing took place, talks about this in his
autobiography "The Common Thread" and contains a good argument why it's
better (for everyone) for scientific data to be in the public domain
rather than copyrighted in any way.

Chris


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] David Hager is listed as convicted rapist

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>> If the person is dead, they certainly can't sue us for libel (of
>> course, they can't sue *us* for libel anyway, only the person who
>> actually added the libelous statement).
>>
> That's a poor criterion for justifying our actions.  It may be legally
> correct, but ethically it sucks.

Agreed.  Our core passion is to *get it right*.

--Jimbo


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

body:
On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy change" in
> > the guise of an experiment?
>
> Primarily because experiments are better designed. I think part of the
> problem is that what I'm thinking of as an experiment is different
> from how Jimbo's using the word. He's probably just using it to mean
> "I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of what will happen,
> even though I'm pretty sure it'll be good."
>
I took it to mean "I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of
what will happen, but after a few weeks I'll re-evaluate whether or
not it was a good idea."

> My suggestion is also based in a little appreciation for the
> immutability of human nature, which suggests that all institutions
> institutionalize, that is, tend towards restrictiveness, hierarchy,
> and centralization of control. Steps in that direction are rarely
> reversed. This is a small step, but its direction is clear.

Well, yeah, institutions tend to do this, because this tends to be a
good thing.  Stuff tends to not get done otherwise.

Of course, Wikipedia is released under the GFDL, so if those that
control the institutions make the wrong decisions, they will find that
they are soon not in control of very much of anything.

Anthony


from_name: Chip Berlet

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
Sounds like a plan, I will go hibernate for a week, then check back to see if I feel a need to add any comments to the arbitration.

-cb

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Fred Bauder
Sent: Wed 12/7/2005 2:25 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Cc: Fred Bauder
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

And I'll take another look at the evidence he has put up. I have not
really gone through all of it.

Fred

On Dec 6, 2005, at 6:58 PM, Chip Berlet wrote:

> Hi,
>
> If Sam Spade needs time to take his finals, I have no problem
> suspending
> the arbitration process for a week in order to give him time to gather
> any more evidence he thinks would be pursuasive. I am currently
> taking a
> break from editing pending the arbitration outcome, but I suspect Wiki
> will not collapse without my input. I can also take a break from
> discussion pages and replying to the arbitration pages.  I have
> recently
> been converted to the eventualist camp. My keyboard thanks you.  :-)
>
> Chip "incompetent abrasive commie stooge" Berlet
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Spade
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 8:50 PM
>> To: English Wikipedia
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck
>>
>>
>> I "threw" evidence regarding Cberlet, what did that result in?
>>
>> Sam Spade
>>
>> On 12/7/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>
>>> Sam Spade wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Please, don't bother w the false indignation. You have
>>>>
>> given me no
>>
>>>> reason to believe you would be swayed by any evidence, no
>>>>
>> matter how
>>
>>>> clear. I had begun to waste my time looking into the long
>>>>
>> history of
>>
>>>> conflict between Jayjg and I.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Rather than, say, presenting no evidence because you have
>>>
>> no evidence
>>
>>> that wouldn't be laughed out of the room? So far you've
>>>
>> thrown mud and
>>
>>> presented nothing to back it up.
>>>
>>>
>>> - d.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> If Butch Cassidy wasn't convicted that decides it unless there are other
> *clearly* defined criteria.. I think it's important to be scrupulous in
> avoiding a lynch mob mentality.

Yes!  I see now that my earlier agreement with JayJG was a touch
premature, as least to the extent that I agreed with what was probably a
very short summary of his view.

Conviction is a sufficient standard.  A lack of a conviction should
strong predispose us against listing a person in this sort of category,
but there could be other *clearly defined* criteria which would do work
for us similar to a conviction.

The lynch mob mentality is worse than failing to have some criminals
listed.  Calling someone a 'criminal' is a contentious matter which
ought to be done only very carefully, cautiously, and conservatively.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category of
	images

body:
On 12/6/05, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> How exactly should these images be treated? I'm talking about the image
> tag <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikipedia-screenshot>
> and it's category
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Screenshots_of_Wikipedia>. The
> template only says that Wikipedia text is licensed under GFDL and that
> Wikipedia is copyright of Wikimedia, but it doesn't rely address the issue
> of the copyright status for the image itself.
>
> According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags>
> it's a "fair use" tag (that's where it's listed anyway), but we are not
> currently treating it as such. Gmaxwell's bot originally tagged these
> images as "far use orphans" if they where not used in articles, but after
> a storm of protests (well 3-4 anyway, I raised some questions myself back
> then) he (reluctantly) excluded them from his bot. Problem is you can't
> rely argue that they are free images, as many of them include either
> copyrighted GUI elements from the users browser and OS, and a lot of
> others include copyrighted "fair use" images from articles.
>
There's also the fact that many of them contain the Wikipedia logo,
which as I understand it is not GFDL or even free.

> The way I see it we have 3 choices.
>
> 1) Keep using it as a semi-free "special" case, maybe we can argue that
> the screenshot as a whole give enough context to declare the inclusion of
> copyrighted images to be within fair use or some such (IANAL).
>
> 2) Make it a GFDL tag, and run an extensive cleanup project to crop, blur
> or otherwise remove all copyrighted elements from the screenshots (and
> clean out other mis-tagged junk).
>
> 3) Confirm that it's a fair use tag, and delete all the images that have
> not been used in any articles for at least 7 days (in other words most, if
> not all of them).
>
> Any thoughts? Whatever status they should have needs to be made more clear
> IMHO.
>
> --
> [[User:Sherool]]

Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
well as "fair use" anyway).

Anthony


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Since practical reasons prevent us from doing that, we'll have to
> compare statistics to the last few month. We should also take opinions
> (yes!) from the "new pages patrol" people into acount, wether the
> creation of junk pages has dropped noticably.
>
> Ultimately, to see if reality matches your hypothesis, you'll have to
> apply the conditions of that hypothesis to reality and see if it matches
> the expected outcome. That's what we are doing. If the results do not
> match our expectations, thus proving our theory wrong, we'll take the
> changes back; I have no doubt about this.

We also have to measure whether or not the problem has just shifted from anons to new users
(really, anons who?s only motivation to create an account was being prevented from creating a new
page). If that is the case, then we may need to extend the experiment to newly created user
accounts as well.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Jakob

body:
Hi,

In the current issue of Nature there are some editorials on the free
flow of data where wikis and weblogs are mentioned. Things are moving
in the scientific community but I'm afraid they'll choose a
non-commercial license

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438531a.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7068/full/438548a.html

Greetings,
Jakob


from_name: Delirium

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Ah, now I see: This "experiment" is, truth be told, an Alzheimer
>prevention program to make you remember your password! :-)
>
>Seriously: While a scientific experiment is open in its outcome, it is
>in some way designed along an expectation, namely that your working
>hypothesis is correct. Only if the experiment shows that this hypothesis
>is false, you will consider altering or abandoning it.
>
>
At least in the science I'm familiar with, you might personally think
that your hypothesis is correct (or else you would have hypothesized
something else), but the *experiment* is supposed to be designed from
the point of view of a skeptic who believes it to be false.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] About our disclaimer and what I wish...

body:
On 12/6/05, Taco Deposit <tacodeposit at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Would it make sense to have '[[Siegenthaler
> > incident]]?' article on en.wiki? As always, NPOV would
> > requires that we avoid unnecessarily diplomatic
> > language.
>
> There is an article at [[John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography
> controversy]]. It is up for deletion.
>
> TD

Does that mean that someone actually opposes keeping it as a redirect
to [[John Seigenthaler Sr.]]?  Or is this just an obvious example of
AfD being used for questions completely unrelated to deletion?

Anthony


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>New users and anons can?t upload since undoing that is something that only admins can do.
>Creating new pages is also something that only admins can undo. Ergo?
>
>
In a very narrow sense that's true, but any user (admin or not), may tag
an article (or image) for speedy-deletion, which is in effect as good as
deleting it (speedy-tagged articles rarely last more than an hour before
an admin comes along and clears them out).

-Mark


body:
--- Ilya Haykinson <haykinson at gmail.com> wrote:

> When I found Wikipedia, I had no intentions of registering. At some
> point when I created my first article (err...stub) I was just an anon.
> I only registered after I saw how that new article got picked up by
> the community and expanded and made usable:  I got hooked watching the
> history of that first article.

Recruitment like that is certainly a benefit and should be considered (the smaller the wiki, the
more important recruitment is). But we also have to consider the bad effects as well. At least on
the larger wikis the bad effects on anon article creation seem to greater than the positive. The
larger wikis also have a much higher reader to editor ratio, so concentrating more effect on
improving existing articles vs creating new ones that themselves need to be maintained may in fact
be the better course of action.

> When you first approach the Wikipedia community it seems overwhelming,
> and registering is a pretty big step.

If setting aside 10 to 20 seconds to create an account is too big of a step, then that person
really should not be increasing the maintenance burden on the community. Smaller wikis excepted
since the likelihood of any one reader becoming an editor is much greater than on larger wikis.

> I highly suspect that a large
> number of people who registered did so after the success of an article
> they created as an anon -- like me -- and wouldn't have created the
> article if they had to take a step of registering.  Becoming part of a
> community is not something that some people take lightly, especially
> as active and complex a community as Wikipedia is.

Having a user account does not a community member make. We all have all sorts of user accounts on
the Internet. That does not mean we belong to communities associated with those accounts.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
>>>>it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
>>>
>>>Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
>>>there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
>>>methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
>>>change and move on.
>>>
>>>Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
>>>start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
>>>
>>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>>
>>I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
>>actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
>>with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
>>inappropriate.
>
>
> I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
> to question his motives.
>
> In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
> questioning authority is considered inappropriate.

Much apologies Anthony, but you are incorrect here. Tc is not only fully
empowered to question Jimbo's motives and actions, but it *important*
that he does so.
Not only because the points he makes may be valid, but even more because
he reminds everyone that we must not feel we are in an organisation
where our input is discouraged. It is not healthy to rely only on one
person to make all the good decisions and have all the good ideas.

And Jimbo understands that.

I think you can understand that as well, being yourself most of the time
on the questioning side :-)

Besides, tc is very civil. So politely making valid points and hinting
that there might be "other solutions" than the path chosen is absolutely
not "way over the top".

It is healthy.

Ant


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 7 Dec 2005, at 01:18, Sherool wrote:

> How exactly should these images be treated? I'm talking about the
> image tag <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikipedia-screenshot>
> and it's category <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Category:Screenshots_of_Wikipedia>. The template only says that
> Wikipedia text is licensed under GFDL and that Wikipedia is
> copyright of Wikimedia, but it doesn't rely address the issue of
> the copyright status for the image itself.
>
> According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags> it's a "fair use" tag (that's where
> it's listed anyway), but we are not currently treating it as such.
> Gmaxwell's bot originally tagged these images as "far use orphans"
> if they where not used in articles, but after a storm of protests
> (well 3-4 anyway, I raised some questions myself back then) he
> (reluctantly) excluded them from his bot. Problem is you can't rely
> argue that they are free images, as many of them include either
> copyrighted GUI elements from the users browser and OS, and a lot
> of others include copyrighted "fair use" images from articles.
>
> The way I see it we have 3 choices.
>
> 1) Keep using it as a semi-free "special" case, maybe we can argue
> that the screenshot as a whole give enough context to declare the
> inclusion of copyrighted images to be within fair use or some such
> (IANAL).
>
> 2) Make it a GFDL tag, and run an extensive cleanup project to
> crop, blur or otherwise remove all copyrighted elements from the
> screenshots (and clean out other mis-tagged junk).
>
> 3) Confirm that it's a fair use tag, and delete all the images that
> have not been used in any articles for at least 7 days (in other
> words most, if not all of them).
>
> Any thoughts? Whatever status they should have needs to be made
> more clear IMHO.

There is also the case that came up yesterday of screenshots
including definitely non free
wikimedia foundation logos.

My view is that they should only be allowed if they only include free
content and then can be
tagged as GFDL (or GFDL+CC if they include some CC images).

Justinc


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>>My questions are, has the wikipedia foundation received advice on how it
>>is affected by libel law in England and Wales?
>
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is not subject to the law of England or Wales
> (since it lacks a legal presence there), and a judgment found against
> the Foundation in that jurisdiction would be subject to a First
> Amendment analysis under United States law before enforcement might be
> had in the United States.  Such analysis would defeat most libel
> judgments based on English or Welsh law, rendering them unenforceable.
>  Furthermore, there are defenses in United States law that render the
> Foundation immune to defamations actions for the actions of its
> volunteer editors; those defenses would also be available in a hearing
> to determine whether to enforce a foreign judgment.
>
> It would be advisable for the Wikimedia Foundation to avoid
> establishing a legal presence within the jurisdiction of countries
> which lack adequate protections for free speech, however.

Hmmm.  Does Wikimedia have a legal presence in the European Union?  If
so I'd keep an eye on what the EU do with regards to proposal for a
regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the law
applicable to non-contractual obligations.  That could lead to Wikimedia
being open to suit in England and Wales.

Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
remove it completely from the edit history?

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 06/12/05


body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Not allowing anons and newbies to upload images limits the amount of crap
> images we have to deal with.

Odd. I just created a new user account and was able to upload an image. I was sure that new user
accounts could not upload. That might have been a temporary measure to combat a group of vandals.
Oh well.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
> suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
> remove it completely from the edit history?

I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.

--
geni


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Perhaps my newness to the encyclopedia (member as of March, 2005) has left
>>me feeling naieve.  However, I'm inclined to give Jimbo the benefit of the
>>doubt.  He says it's an experiment, so I'm inclined to go with that.
>>
>>On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy change" in
>>the guise of an experiment?
>>
>
>Primarily because experiments are better designed. I think part of the
>problem is that what I'm thinking of as an experiment is different
>from how Jimbo's using the word. He's probably just using it to mean
>"I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of what will happen,
>even though I'm pretty sure it'll be good."
>
>
There's a difference between "experiment" and "scientific experiment".
The former is appropriate for speaking of "youthful experimentation"
for instance, which is rarely pursued in a properly controlled way. :-)

Tightening up of WP openness and process is very much akin to what
has happened to the Internet as a whole, in response to systematic
assaults on people's computers. It wasn't that long ago that a number
of idealists routinely made their passwords and other access info
public, in the name of openness (I personally logged in as RMS a
couple times, strictly for legitimate reasons! :-) )  Nowadays
machines will get pwned within minutes - a sad statistic on the
number of evildoers running rampant in the world.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
geni wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>>Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>remove it completely from the edit history?
>
>
> I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>

No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
Look at it this way:

* Newspaper editors are often named in suits, at least within the UK.
* The reason they are named is that they authorise content which is
published.
* By saving a page, I am creating an edition which is published.
* I am called an editor.

Also note the [[McLibel case]].

Those sued did not make the statements, they simply distributed them.

I would think a lawyer will make a good argument that it is possible we
can be named in a suit if we have edited a page containing a libellous
statement and failed to remove it.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 06/12/05


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Jihad in Defense of Objectivity (Was: Enforcing
	WP:CITE)

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Maybe complicated isn't what I'm looking for.  But consider the
>>>following and whether or not you'd enjoy editing it by hand:
>>>
>>>'''Roy [[cite:ISBN:123456789:p. 7|"Roy Orbison's middle name is
>>>Kelton"|"Kelton"]] Orbison''' ([[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.9|"He was born
>>>in Foo, Bar on April 23 of 1936"|"[[April 23]], [[1936]]"]] –
>>>[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.11|"He died that same year, on the 6th of
>>>December"|"[[December 6]], [[1988]]"]]),
>>>[[cite:ISBN:123456789:p.13|"They called him "The Big O""|"nicknamed
>>>"The Big O""]], was ...
>>>
>>>
>>Interesting example!  Correct bibliography should not override reality
>>checks.  Saying that someone born in 1936 died in "that same year",
>>which also happens to be 1988 leads me to the conclusion that
>>1936=1988.  :-)   This may not have been Anthony's intention, but if
>>what we are trying to say becomes so obscured by citations this is an
>>omen of our future problems.
>>
>>
>Well, yeah, that was intentional.
>
Great!  I suspected that possibility, but couldn't be sure.

> As I was performing the exercise I
>thought about how not all references are going to be as neat and clean
>as containing the exact statement in the original.  What if the
>reference has a big long paragraph starting with "In 1988, Orbison
>began [blah blah whatever]" and ending with "He died that same year".
>Do you quote the whole paragraph, do you use ellipsis (in hindsight I
>guess that would be the best solution), do you just add [1988] after
>"that same year" (in which case why bother with the exact quote in the
>first place)?  It's not so cut and dry.
>
It needs to be adaptable to the different writing styles of different
authors.

>I was thinking about this yesterday and I imagined some even cooler
>things that could be done, such as scanning in the actual page itself
>(it could be hosted on a separate site, with lots of access
>restrictions, under fair use).  But now we're talking even more of a
>pipe dream than the original plan.
>
It will be interesting to watch how Google gets throught the courts with
its book search feature.  If we're lucky the courts will give us some
valuable guidance on points that matter to us.

>>>Maybe I'm misunderstanding how these cites would be used, because that
>>>was hell; it was even worse than I had thought before going through
>>>the actual exercise.
>>>
>>>I don't think wiki markup is the proper solution for this.  And that
>>>means significant redesign.  Feel free to prove me wrong here, though,
>>>and show us a working model which is just as easy to edit as
>>>Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>I think it's a great idea, I just think it's years ahead of its time
>>>(and that assumes it's designed independently of Wikimedia, cramming
>>>it through Wikimedia development processes would only hinder it).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Perhaps.  When I asked my own question about what the rest of us can do
>>I was not interested in a lot of theoretical material about what library
>>scientists put into card catalogues.  I was considering the point of
>>view of a normal Wikipedian (assuming such an animal exists) who is
>>about to write an article and who already has adequate references that
>>he is ready, willing and able to use.  His problem is to find a
>>practical way to enter the citations in a way that will scale with the
>>proposed theoretical framework.
>>
>>
>Well, I think a good starting point would be to simply put the
>reference(s) in the comment field.  Then someone or some software
>could later go through those references and apply them to the
>appropriate text (based on the diff).  I go back and forth as to
>whether or not it'd be a good idea to have a separate field for this
>(and whether or not to require it to be filled out, at least for
>non-minor edits).
>
>Putting in a reference with every single edit is probably a good idea
>(reverts of vandalism being at least one exception), but I can't even
>force myself to do it, so I guess it's best kept as some elusive
>target rather than a real requirement.  It'd certainly slow down
>editing, especially if you got carried away with it (fixing a spelling
>error and referencing the page in the OED).
>
When I was doing more with Wikisource I raised the possibility of
synchronized side-by-side edit boxes.  I had translations in mind at the
time, but it could work equally well for annotations and references.
For word references, I look forward to having Wiktionary fulfill that
function, but even with 106,000 entries we are still far from being
comprehensive enough to do that well.

Documenting is tedious business.  With the meaning of words in
particular I find that people add meanings from their own memories, and
that can be far from accurate.  That sphere also has an ongoing debate
between descriptivism and prescriptivism.  It's easy to spend an hour
documenting a single word in simple cases.  Common words can be far more
problematical.

As much as we may want to see everything documented a reasonable balance
needs to be found that will still encourage contributors to go as far as
they want beyond minimum standards.  We need to establish minimum
standards that can even vary with the type of article.  Biographical
articles about living persons would certainly require a higher standard
than biographies of Pok?mon characters.

Ec


from_name: Brock Batsell

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5.2 installation Error

body:
Kostas Panagiotopoulos wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am trying to install mediawiki-1.5.2.on Windows NT. I have installed
> apache_2.0.55-win32-x86-no_ssl , mysql-5.0.15-win32 and
> php-5.1.1-Win32. I also have done the appropriate configuration(I
> tthink so!).
> After I untar the mediawiki-1.5.2.tar inside Apache2\htdocs and try to
> install it, I receive the following message:
> ________________
> MediaWiki 1.5.2 installation
> Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation
> problems.
>
> Checking environment...
>
> Warning: dl() [function.dl]: Not supported in multithreaded Web
> servers - use extension=mysql.so in your php.ini in C:\Program
> Files\Apache
> Group\Apache2\htdocs\mediawiki\mediawiki-1.5.2\install-utils.inc on
> line 17
> Could not load MySQL driver! Please compile php --with-mysql or
> install the mysql.so module.
> _______________
>
> I'm a newbie and I could use as much help as possible.
> Thanks in advance.

MySQL support is disabled by default in PHP 5+.  You can enable it by
following the directions in PHP's documentation under Windows/PHP5:

http://us3.php.net/mysql

--bbatsell


body:
On 12/7/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 11:02 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
> > because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
> > based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
> > for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
> > well as "fair use" anyway).
>
> You are not being very clear. What do you think the misconception is?
>
The misconception is that it has something to do with whether or not
it is legal to have these images.  The truth is that we don't want to
rely on fair use, because *reusers* of the content can't necessarily
rely on it.

> Commons is for potentially unused images, and many of the images in this
> category could go there. The others are under a wide variety of licenses
> depending on the content, but they should be no less free than the
> content they cover.
>
Why aren't these images being moved to commons instead of being deleted, then?

Anthony


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 12/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Commons is for potentially unused images, and many of the images in this
> > category could go there. The others are under a wide variety of licenses
> > depending on the content, but they should be no less free than the
> > content they cover.
> >
> Why aren't these images being moved to commons instead of being deleted, then?

Because Commons doesn't take fair use images.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam Curry

body:
Martin Osterman wrote:

>I hadn't kept abreast of this; which articles in particular should an eye be
>kept on?
>
>--Martin
>
>
I believe the main victim is [[Podcasting]].  Article on said incident
can be found here:
http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/12/wikipedia_caugh_1.html

--bbatsell


from_name: Martin Osterman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam Curry

body:
I hadn't kept abreast of this; which articles in particular should an eye be
kept on?

--Martin

On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> So, lost in the press uproar over the Seigenthaler incident is the Adam
> Curry / podcasting incident.
>
> A friend who knows about the podcasting community tells me that our
> article is currently not very good.  I personally think that the problem
> is the age old problem which happens when partisans with a fight from
> somewhere else on the Internet spill over into Wikipedia to have their
> fight.
>
> The solution is: get rid of the partisans, and focus the attention of
> good Wikipedians on the topic.  Input from various factions is fine, but
> we also need to take a firm stand on not allowing any of them to hijack
> or subvert the article in an attempt to win points in their own external
> fight.
>
> I have no policy recommendations, but I do hope this email will prompt
> several people to add these articles to your routine patrols.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
*Martin Osterman*

Student Manager, Ball State Weather Station (http://www.bsu.edu/weather)
Contributor, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)
Amateur Photographer (http://martino84.deviantart.com)


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>New users 	3241 	6370 (!)
>The increase in number of users seems out of proportion; he theorizes
>that this has more to do with our massive press coverage than anything
>else.

"They can say what they like, just spell my URL right." How many hits
does wikipedia.com (not .org) get as a percentage, btw?

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 06/12/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > That's not going to be its purpose, or even its secret intended purpose.
> > Current plan is not in fact to give money to the WMF unless and until
> > we're absolutely sure it's clearly allowable under UK charity law if the
> > people we wanted least to know about it were to kick up a fuss.
>
> Oh? So what is the purpose?

To be locally based lackeys for WMF. We don't give them money, we give
them useful assistance of a form yet to be specifically determined.
Also, the chapter will have headed paper and a familiar name, which
has the potential for interesting applications in the door-opening
line.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] Possible uses for Wikimedia UK (was Libel law)

body:
>To be locally based lackeys for WMF. We don't give them money, we give
>them useful assistance of a form yet to be specifically determined.
>Also, the chapter will have headed paper and a familiar name, which
>has the potential for interesting applications in the door-opening
>line.

I was speaking to a politician a few days ago about what I do with
myself. Let me say that one startlingly important thing we can do is
to double-check and make sure *every* politician above the dog-catcher
level in the UK has a decent-quality article. (This one does.)

[cc to wikimediauk-l]

- d.


body:
--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Odd. I just created a new user account and was able to upload an image. I was sure that new
> user
> > accounts could not upload. That might have been a temporary measure to combat a group of
> vandals.
>
> Perhaps you confused uploading with page moving? The newest registered
> users can't move pages.

That's it. My point is that we have already moved in that direction and the ability is already in
the software to ID new users.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam Curry

body:
Thanks!  I'll add it to my watch list and see what's going on!

--Martin

On 12/7/05, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
> Martin Osterman wrote:
>
> >I hadn't kept abreast of this; which articles in particular should an eye
> be
> >kept on?
> >
> >--Martin
> >
> >
> I believe the main victim is [[Podcasting]].  Article on said incident
> can be found here:
> http://www.podcastingnews.com/archives/2005/12/wikipedia_caugh_1.html
>
> --bbatsell
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
*Martin Osterman*

Student Manager, Ball State Weather Station (http://www.bsu.edu/weather)
Contributor, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)
Amateur Photographer (http://martino84.deviantart.com)


from_name: sydney poore

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Yes!  I see now that my earlier agreement with JayJG was a touch
>premature, as least to the extent that I agreed with what was probably a
>very short summary of his view.
>
>Conviction is a sufficient standard.  A lack of a conviction should
>strong predispose us against listing a person in this sort of category,
>but there could be other *clearly defined* criteria which would do work
>for us similar to a conviction.
>
>The lynch mob mentality is worse than failing to have some criminals
>listed.  Calling someone a 'criminal' is a contentious matter which
>ought to be done only very carefully, cautiously, and conservatively.
>
        Moreover, practicality must reign. If the person is living and
        never sentenced to spend a day in jail for the crime, one minute
        on a list is too long. If someone is decades dead and buried,
        weeks of debate on talk pages to form consensus is probably fine.

        Sydney


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> geni wrote:
>
>> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>> suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>> remove it completely from the edit history?
>>
>> I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>
> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> Look at it this way:
>
> * Newspaper editors are often named in suits, at least within the UK.
> * The reason they are named is that they authorise content which is
> published.
> * By saving a page, I am creating an edition which is published.
> * I am called an editor.
>
> Also note the [[McLibel case]].
>
> Those sued did not make the statements, they simply distributed them.
>
> I would think a lawyer will make a good argument that it is possible
> we can be named in a suit if we have edited a page containing a
> libellous statement and failed to remove it.

Your hypotheseis leads to an absurd result.  If I edit this page
containing an alleged libel for matters unrelated to that statement how
am I supposed to know what is libellous in that article?  By your line
of reasoning, if I want to be safe I might as well delete the entire
article.  Your reading would make busibodies of us all.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
>> post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
>> just as we already don't allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
>> is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.
>
> New users can't upload images?  I must have missed that one.  Is this
> just on en, everywhere, in selected places?  What is considered a new
> user?

No, that's nowhere.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
>> post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
>> just as we already don't allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
>> is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.
>
> New users can't upload images?  I must have missed that one.  Is this
> just on en, everywhere, in selected places?  What is considered a new
> user?

No, that's nowhere.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
>> post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
>> just as we already don't allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
>> is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.
>
> New users can't upload images?  I must have missed that one.  Is this
> just on en, everywhere, in selected places?  What is considered a new
> user?

No, that's nowhere.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
>> post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
>> just as we already don't allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
>> is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.
>
> New users can't upload images?  I must have missed that one.  Is this
> just on en, everywhere, in selected places?  What is considered a new
> user?

No, that's nowhere.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from Wikipedia's proxies

body:
The Hooded Man wrote:
> It's not that my user agent is blocked, because it's sending: Mozilla/4.0
> (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1).  I would send my own user agent
> string and not fake another, but from what I hear that's not necessary for
> most minor projects such as mine.

If we find you doing this, you will be blocked from access to Wikipedia.
Falsifying user-agents is a fraudulent tool used by leeches trying to evade blocks.

*Always* use a real user-agent string which identifies you, including enough
contact information (e-mail address or URL) that you can be reached in case
you're running a legitimate bot of some sort that's causing problems by accident.

> Could my IP be blocked, and if so, could I find out why?  If not, are there
> any little tricks I need to know about a PHP script connecting to Wikipedia?

Might be, but we can't tell if you won't say what it is.

If you are grabbing pages live from Wikipedia and displaying them on your site
with ads attached, or some other such, you will indeed be permanently blocked
when you're discovered.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> To give maximum choice, I have just written a new MediaWiki extension
> which allows for *one* revision of an article to be declared "stable".

[snip]

Neat!

Magnus, it'd be great if you could pop into #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net from
time to time and chat with the boys; Tim was already working on a tagging system
which does this sort of thing, expanding from Salvatore's earlier
partial-protection experiment. We'll see how the pieces fit together. :)

I'll go look it over...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Foundation-l] Typo on the WMF site

body:
On the page http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters
official channel for Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia France is
"#wikimedia-pl".


subject: [Foundation-l] Typo on the WMF site


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
>>>>>it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
>>>>there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
>>>>methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
>>>>change and move on.
>>>>
>>>>Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
>>>>start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
>>>>
>>>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
>>>actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
>>>with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
>>>inappropriate.
>>>
>>>
>>I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
>>to question his motives.
>>
>>In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
>>questioning authority is considered inappropriate.
>>
>>
>Your comment at the end wasn't even just questioning, it was accusing.
> But anyway, I'm not sure I agree with you that a functional society
>must constantly question the motives of everyone voluntarily given any
>power.  I'd even question just how much "authority" Jimmy does have.
>He has authority over how to spend the money donated to the foundation
>(so long as he does so for charitable purposes), and not a whole lot
>more.
>
I don't see Anthere's comments as being an accusation of any sort.  I do
see her comments as representing a significant philosophical and ethical
perspective.  If a functional society depends on questioning there can
be no exclusions.  When we exclude someone from questioning we begin a
process of deification; we hand to that person the power to game our
ethics.

Cunc has a track record of questioning, and he's not afraid to ask the
hard questions.

>I don't think society can function without some basic level of trust.
>To question whether or not Jimmy Wales is "actually trying things to
>make Wikipedia better" seems to me to be way over the top.  Anyway,
>since you're the one who suggested it, maybe you can tell us just what
>you think Jimmy *is* trying to do.
>
Yes, some level of trust remains necessary.  There is no usually need to
question every little action, or to take on a confrontational stand to
every possible issue. Sometimes one needs to consider the alternative to
criticising; there is, after all, the risk that you you may have to face
the consequences of being right.  If, in my own mind, I question Jimbo's
commitment to a fully democratic wiki then I need to be prepared for the
possibility that he might say, "Yes, you're right, the lunatics should
have more control over the asylum."  Invariably, the lunatics put us in
a position where we need to put strings on our democracy.

Ec


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
To give maximum choice, I have just written a new MediaWiki extension
which allows for *one* revision of an article to be declared "stable".

A select group of users can declare an article version as "stable". In
the default setup, the "select group" is everyone, but that would have
to be tightly restricted in an live setup. For this purpose, I propose
the creation of a new user group, like buerocrats and sysops, called
"prozacs" - after all, they are supposed to stabelize the wiki ;-)

My implementation supports only one stable version per article. If a new
stable version is selected, the information about the "last" stable
version is removed. The advantage is that this setup works without any
additional database reads (of course it still has to write information
on setting a new stable version).

Setting a version as stable is currently not logged; this isn't a
technical problem, but sheer lazyness on my part.

There is a problem with templates; even a stable version will use new
templates. I do not have a neat soultion for that, except generally
limiting write access to templates. However, misinformation through a
template will be hard to achieve anyway, compared to directly editing
article; also, template changes will be noticed rather quickly.

This complements the validation feature and the external "import-wiki".
Now all the community has to do is chose. Simple, eh? ;-)

Tech stuff:
* CVS, module "extensions", file "StableVersion.php" (note the database
change described at the beginning of the file)
* requires latest MediaWiki from CVS (because of hooks)
* does not log "stable version setting" (yet)

Magnus


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Frankly, I really don't get it.  Siegenthaler is supposedly a defender
> of free speech rights.  Doesn't he realize that making ISPs liable for
> content spoken by others would stifle free speech?  Doesn't he agree
> that the ability to speak anonymously is absolutely critical to free
> speech?

I think, like a lot of people who grew up in an age when free speech
was something only accredited journalists and their sources exercised,
he preferred that system.  Today's "everyone can be a journalist"
Internet bothers a lot of people.

-Matt


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/6/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> There's actually quite a lot we can do other than send money to Florida
> for database servers, important though that is at present.
>

That's what i'm interested in, and thanks for the suggestion of
articles for politicians. (Any more can be collated at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Possible_projects_of_Wikimedia_UK .)

By the way, I'm blogging all this - as my own reflective part of my
research on the UK chapter:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/wikimediauk/ - if you have an issue
with this, please let me know.

Cormac


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 12/6/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>On 12/6/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>But preveneting anons from creating new pages is a different matter, and
>>>>>it seems a worthy time to make an experiment of it.
>>>>
>>>>Don't call it an experiment if it's not. If it is an experiment, then
>>>>there should be clear conditions for its start and finish, and clear
>>>>methods for taking measurements from it. Just admit that it's a policy
>>>>change and move on.
>>>>
>>>>Unless you're willing to state an end date for this. Or *at a minimum*
>>>>start collecting good data on the effects of the change.
>>>>
>>>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>>>
>>>I think these comments are way over the top.  Jimmy *is* interested in
>>>actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.  You may not agree
>>>with the methods, but to call into question his motives is
>>>inappropriate.
>>
>>I think if you ask Jimbo, he'll say it's perfectly appropriate for me
>>to question his motives.
>>
>>In fact, a clear sign of a dysfunctional society is one in which
>>questioning authority is considered inappropriate.
>
>
> Your comment at the end wasn't even just questioning, it was accusing.
>  But anyway, I'm not sure I agree with you that a functional society
> must constantly question the motives of everyone voluntarily given any
> power.  I'd even question just how much "authority" Jimmy does have.
> He has authority over how to spend the money donated to the foundation
> (so long as he does so for charitable purposes), and not a whole lot
> more.

Actually... not willing to play on words here, but since the topic has
been discussed a lot amongst ourselves, I will more exactly say :

Jimbo has the authority over how to spend the money donated to the
foundation, within the budget voted by the board (and a certain
percentage of excess to allow smooth management).

In short, to take an example : Jimbo can decide to hire someone to
say... take care of seeking grants... but only IF a budget including the
salary and charges amounts for the employee has previously been agreed
upon by the board in the budget.

As a matter of urgency, he could naturally take the decision to hire
that person and use the funds in the "reserve" to do so... but may have
to break the contract if the spending is not approved at the next budget
by the board.

Ant


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> I'm not saying this is necessarily bad (though I do have my opinions
> about it) but that it is untrue that Wikipedia is completely open.
>
> Let me make a practical example: say I, a longtime user, want to
> create a new article but I'm not at my home computer. To do so I have
> to log in again; I have absolutely no memory of my password. Before
> Monday, I could still easily create the password. Now I have to have
> the system send me a new password, open up my email, enter the new
> password, and remember to change my settings at home with the new
> password. These are new hurdles that I may not want to go through, so
> no new article.

So you're saying that if someone can create a new article, but chooses
not to, Wikipedia is not completely open?  That's a very tight
definition of open that I'm not sure exists in actuality.

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 06/12/05


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> If *too many* anons that would have created crap articles as IPs start to create user accounts to
> post new pages, then it would be logical to extend the new page creation ban to new user accounts
> just as we already don't allow new users to upload images. Slippery slope? Not really since there
> is already a ledge to land on that was created with the upload policy.

New users can't upload images?  I must have missed that one.  Is this
just on en, everywhere, in selected places?  What is considered a new
user?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anons banned from creating articles

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
>>to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]
>>
>>I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
>>he meant "restricted".
>
>
> That's rather a bit over the top, isn't it?  Wikipedia is still
> completely open to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate
> contribution.
>
> --Jimbo

This is an invitation to test :-)

ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages and GFDL

body:
According to intellectual property laws, no one should claim he is the
author of a work who someone else authored.

So...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silicone_rubber&action=history

and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation#Silicone_Rubber_Manufacturing_by_adpol.co.uk

Who is the author of the article ?

Anthere


from_name: Leon Goldovsky

subject: [Wikitech-l] creating pages in batch mode

body:
Hi,

I am just starting using the Mediawiki, I would like to create an
initial website that will contain pre-created pages for users to modify
and expand. Is there an option to create pages in batch mode?
Any help will be extremely apriciated.

Many thanks
Leon


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>
>
> Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
> essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
> make Wikipedia better".
>
> --Jimbo

I think, unless I read english improperly today, that here, tc only says
  he has ideas to make things better. And would share them with anyone
interested.

I do not read that he implies other ideas than his are bad. Nor does he
imply that others are NOT trying to make things better themselves.

But I suppose a linguistic misunderstanding between the two of you is
the root of the mail exchange ?

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>From what I can gather, neither the article nor these comments were
>libellous (but the fact that I don't have a copy of the article limits
>my ability to speak with regard to it).  Since you think these
>comments are "more libellous" than what was in the article, maybe
>Siegenthaler should write another article blasting Wikipedia and
>whinging about how he isn't able to sue BJ?rn or anyone else (he leave
>out the paragraph on anonymity this time).  And then Jimbo can go on
>CNN and say that he is wiping, this post and all the others that
>contain the allegedly libellous statement, from the archive website.
>
We don't know what Seigenthaler would have done with the information if
he had been able to track down the writer.  His promary complaint was
the incredibly high hurdles he would have had to jump in order to find
out.  We have no basis to speculate about what he would have done had he
succeeded in identifying his "biographer."

>Frankly, I really don't get it.  Siegenthaler is supposedly a defender
>of free speech rights.  Doesn't he realize that making ISPs liable for
>content spoken by others would stifle free speech?  Doesn't he agree
>that the ability to speak anonymously is absolutely critical to free
>speech?
>
I'm not an expert in US constitutional law; it's not my country.
Sometimes it does happen though that one right can interferes with
others.  Reconciling those rights may lead to limitations on one or the
other.  I don't think that it would be fair to conclude that free speech
condones defamation.  Whether actual defamation could be proven cannot
be established unless the person has the right to face his accuser.

>What does Siegenthaler want?  Does he want Wikipedia to stop allowing
>volunteer contributors?  Does he want Congress to remove the
>protections given to ISPs for merely carrying content produced by
>others?  Does he want to take away the ability of Internet speakers to
>be anonymous?  Does he want to start licensing or bonding people who
>produce content to distribute over the Internet?
>
Maybe he just wants more awareness around the problem, which certainly
more complex than Wikipedia's involvement in the issue.

Ec


body:
Kai Kumpf wrote:

> Dear all
> although I am really glad that i spurred such a lifely discussion over
> "stability" matters, let me make a few remarks as to what I think is
> taking the wrong direction.
>
> First of all, I never proposed a filtered view on WP for the general
> public. There are deficiences, vandalisms and all in it and I can see
> simply no way to come up with a stable version however you might
> define that out of the blue at this stage. Some of your comments
> indicated that there should be editing in the background of the
> article that should somehow be promoted to the front - given the
> changes have reached a qualitatively satisfying level. Frankly, I do
> NOT believe in such a method which would require splitting the
> community into less and more equal editors.
>
> On the contrary, my proposal was and still is: Leave the view on the
> data alone, do not try to nominated a board of editor's editors but
> RAISE the threshold for offhanded edits by absolutely requiring a
> minimum of reference / source information besides the comment line.
> This information should be as immutable as the comment line and not
> included in the article ("==References=="). This should make it
> successively harder and harder for matured articles to insert
> contradicting information (I am not mentioning confusing information
> due to the editor's lack to express him/herself!)  So far nobody has
> convinced me of the contrary.

So I write that this guy was suspected to be involved in the JFK
assassination. As source, I cite a magazine article from that year.

Who's going to bother checking this? More precisely, who, of all the
people who could have checked all the time the article was there
containing bogus information, would check now that there's a source given?

Citing sources is good to defend a claim. But the claim in the above
case was never disputed in the first place. Because noone bothered.
Noone felt responsible. And if there's a source given which is not
available through a mouse click, noone will bother either.

The only way to assure quality for the (casual) reader is to
* say "noone checked this article" *or*
* say "this article (in that version) was checked and approved by User:XYZ"

*Only then* the reader will know someone sincere checked this article.
Currently, we do no such thing; we present every article "as is", giving
the impression that it is an encyclopedia article, which implies (again,
to the casual reader) that it has in fact been checked. Which is the
whole problem with the now-famous JFK story.

Magnus


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Typo on the WMF site

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:
> On the page http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters
> official channel for Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia France is
> "#wikimedia-pl".
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundationf

fixed

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Typo on the WMF site


from_name: The Hooded Man

body:
I'm trying to access a Wikipedia page with the PEAR::HTTP_Request class in
PHP.  When I try to access http://en.wikipedia.org/, the request is as
follows:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/

The following error was encountered:

	* Access Denied.
		Access control configuration prevents your request from
being allowed at this 		time. Please contact your service provider
if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is wikidown at bomis.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Generated Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:34:13 GMT by srv6.wikimedia.org
(squid/2.5.STABLE12)

It's not that my user agent is blocked, because it's sending: Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1).  I would send my own user agent
string and not fake another, but from what I hear that's not necessary for
most minor projects such as mine.

Could my IP be blocked, and if so, could I find out why?  If not, are there
any little tricks I need to know about a PHP script connecting to Wikipedia?

Thank you,

-HoodedMan
"Wind to thy wings.  Light to thy path.  Dreams to thy heart."


from_name: Heinz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
Does there exist a page within the en-wp discribing the first results
and observations on this experiment?

Heinz


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>>>suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>>>remove it completely from the edit history?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>>>
>>>
>>No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
>>hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
>>Look at it this way:
>>
>>
>Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
>by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
>that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
>the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
>legal presense in the UK).
>
It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
"Ugly American".

The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
same world as the rest of us.

Ec


body:
Anthere wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>> Four years ago, Jimbo wrote "Wikipedia should remain permanently open
>>> to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate contribution." [1]
>>>
>>> I guess by "permanently" he meant "for a few more years" and by "open"
>>> he meant "restricted".
>>
>>
>>
>> That's rather a bit over the top, isn't it?  Wikipedia is still
>> completely open to everyone who is attempting to make a legitimate
>> contribution.
>>
>> --Jimbo
>
>
> This is an invitation to test :-)
>
> ant

one of my tests was pretty conclusive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_succession was created in less
than an hour and the history (though completely elliptique for anyone
outside the community) is at least refering to WP:AFC
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secondary_succession&action=history

Congrats Leithp :-)


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category
	of images

body:
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 11:02 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
> because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
> based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
> for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
> well as "fair use" anyway).

You are not being very clear. What do you think the misconception is?

Commons is for potentially unused images, and many of the images in this
category could go there. The others are under a wide variety of licenses
depending on the content, but they should be no less free than the
content they cover.

Justinc


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>> Why not just copy the source HTML of a reference stable revision at
>> the time of marking and serve
>> that? That way whatever was in the template at the time of the
>> snapshot will be displayed as the
>> stable HTML copy.
>>
> Copying the state of the template at the time sounds like the most
> foolproof solution, but it will have to be a copy of the wikitext
> rather than an HTML copy if we want to keep all our various
> user-configurable display features (e.g. date and link formatting).

Of course, the most *elegant* way to solve the template problem would be
to use the stable version of a template when displaying a stable
article. We don't want an immutable page, after all, just a "stabelized"
one, to assure quality. Right?

But somehow that screams "dependency and caching hell"...

Tech note : Besides page_latest, there's now page_stable (default=0),
which could be used for template queries (with page_latest as fallback).

Magnus


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category
	of	images

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> So that means we aren't an encyclopedia about anything then?  We're
> actually an encyclopedia about what suits commercial usages?  Fair
> play, we have to look out for commercial users, but what is more
> important here, the encyclopedia or the potential reuse of it?

We've never been *solely* an encyclopedia---we've explicitly been a
*free-as-in-freedom* encyclopedia.  The *entire point* of creating
Wikipedia is to make a reusable encyclopedia, not solely to make an
encyclopedia hosted on wikipedia.org and distributed by the Wikimedia
Foundation (if that were the goal, there would be no reason to have an
open-content license in the first place).  In the case of fair use, this
is a tradeoff: We want to make as unencumbered an encyclopedia as
possible, with maximal possible reuse by anyone for any purpose,
balanced against the fact that we'd like maximal coverage of everything
as well.  So, we allow fair use, but generally prefer free sources where
possible, and only use fair use where it ads something that makes it
worth the potential copyright difficulties for reusers.

-Mark


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>And that is two actions instead of one to remove patent nonsense (at least double the work). Thus
>it makes sense to limit the amount of patent nonsense we get (and thus that effort could be used
>somewhere else). Not allowing anons and newbies to upload images limits the amount of crap images
>we have to deal with.
>
>
But new page patrollers have had a consensus for a while (this was
previously discussed on the list) that this was never a major burden.
At any given time, 2-3 patrollers could deal with the stuff that came
in.  Often, when I did new page patrol, I was actually a bit bored by
the slow rate at which crap articles I could delete came in at.  This
seems like a solution in search of a problem, if that's the supposed
problem it's addressing.

-Mark


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 12/7/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Sorry for the derailing. To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
>>try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.
>
>
> I still want to change AfD to explicitly be a "quality assurance"
> function.  Right now it's slanted toward deletion by its very name,
> and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Articles needing Verification?

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 06/12/05


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>My suggestion is also based in a little appreciation for the
>immutability of human nature, which suggests that all institutions
>institutionalize, that is, tend towards restrictiveness, hierarchy,
>and centralization of control. Steps in that direction are rarely
>reversed. This is a small step, but its direction is clear.
>
and on another message he wrote

>To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
>try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.
>
I wonder if he intended some kind of connection between the two. ;-)

Ec


body:
Anthere wrote:

> According to intellectual property laws, no one should claim he is the
> author of a work who someone else authored.
>
> So...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silicone_rubber&action=history
>
> and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation#Silicone_Rubber_Manufacturing_by_adpol.co.uk
>
>
>
> Who is the author of the article ?

Someone not reading instructions. From [[WP:AFC]]:

"If you fulfil any of these requests using content posted on this page,
please note the requesting IP in the edit summary for GFDL
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL> compliance."

Also, assuming authorship just because someone created the database row
in MediaWiki is dubious anyway, since there are merges, copying from
other sources, etc... Yes, that should always be noted in the edit
summary. Yes, some people don't. But it's not a /new/ problem.

grm_wnr


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 10:25 -0600, Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> > > I still want to change AfD to explicitly be a "quality assurance"
> > > function.  Right now it's slanted toward deletion by its very name,
> > > and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
> >
> > Articles needing Verification?
>
> Any serious problem, be it a lack of verification or referencing,
> needing major cleanup, or just not suitable for inclusion.  The
> problem right now is that AfD is being used for all of these things,
> but it's *called* "articles for deletion" and so the process is
> prejudiced toward deletion when it really needs to be about ensuring
> quality.

Will you stop whingeing about this.

Design a process that merges AfD with the other article improving
tagging (maybe an unsalvageable tag or a nocontent tag on a scale
that includes unverified and needs wikifying, and has the general
improvement tags in) and a process that examines a queue of all
these articles.

Or shut up.

Justinc


body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>Let me make a practical example: say I, a longtime user, want to
>create a new article but I'm not at my home computer. To do so I have
>to log in again; I have absolutely no memory of my password. Before
>Monday, I could still easily create the password. Now I have to have
>the system send me a new password, open up my email, enter the new
>password, and remember to change my settings at home with the new
>password. These are new hurdles that I may not want to go through, so
>no new article.
>
>
Ah, now I see: This "experiment" is, truth be told, an Alzheimer
prevention program to make you remember your password! :-)

Seriously: While a scientific experiment is open in its outcome, it is
in some way designed along an expectation, namely that your working
hypothesis is correct. Only if the experiment shows that this hypothesis
is false, you will consider altering or abandoning it.

I think that's the case here as well. While the outcome is open, the
expectation is that it will help wikipedia and, thus, stay. If it turns
out that, *unexpectedly*, it does harm to wikipedia, I'm sure Jimbo will
be the first to get rid of it.

And for the situation you mentioned: Why not create a user account and
write, on the user page, "This is User:XYZ who forgot his password"?
That way, the new article can still be credited to you (through the user
page). If you, however, would create a new article as an IP, it would
not be credited to you.

Magnus


subject: [Bulk] [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from Wikipedia's proxies

body:
That's practically the same code as mine.  No luck.

-HoodedMan
"Wind to thy wings.  Light to thy path.  Dreams to thy heart."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Jeays
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 4:51 PM
> To: Wikimedia developers
> Subject: RE: [Bulk] [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from
> Wikipedia's proxies
>
> Are you sure you're setting the header correctly? The
> following works for
> me.
>
> $r = new HTTP_Request($url);
> $r->addHeader('User-Agent', 'User Agent String');
> $r->sendRequest();
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Mark Jeays

body:
Are you sure you're setting the header correctly? The following works for
me.

$r = new HTTP_Request($url);
$r->addHeader('User-Agent', 'User Agent String');
$r->sendRequest();

Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of The Hooded Man
> Sent: December 7, 2005 3:42 PM
> To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Bulk] [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from Wikipedia's proxies
>
>
> I'm trying to access a Wikipedia page with the PEAR::HTTP_Request class in
> PHP.  When I try to access http://en.wikipedia.org/, the request is as
> follows:
>
> ERROR
> The requested URL could not be retrieved
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> ----
> While trying to retrieve the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/
>
> The following error was encountered:
>
> 	* Access Denied.
> 		Access control configuration prevents your request from
> being allowed at this 		time. Please contact your
> service provider
> if you feel this is incorrect.
>
> Your cache administrator is wikidown at bomis.com.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> ----
> Generated Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:34:13 GMT by srv6.wikimedia.org
> (squid/2.5.STABLE12)
>
> It's not that my user agent is blocked, because it's sending: Mozilla/4.0
> (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1).  I would send my own
> user agent
> string and not fake another, but from what I hear that's not necessary for
> most minor projects such as mine.
>
> Could my IP be blocked, and if so, could I find out why?  If not,
> are there
> any little tricks I need to know about a PHP script connecting to
> Wikipedia?
>
> Thank you,
>
> -HoodedMan
> "Wind to thy wings.  Light to thy path.  Dreams to thy heart."
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>
>>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I have some other ideas for experiments, by the way, if anyone's
>>>>interested in actually trying things to make Wikipedia better.
>>>
>>>Plesae share your ideas.  And please Assume Good Faith in that
>>>essentially everyone here is interested in "actually trying things to
>>>make Wikipedia better".
>>>
>>>--Jimbo
>>
>>I think, unless I read english improperly today, that here, tc only says
>>  he has ideas to make things better. And would share them with anyone
>>interested.
>>
>>I do not read that he implies other ideas than his are bad. Nor does he
>>imply that others are NOT trying to make things better themselves.
>
>
> The key phrase is "if anyone's interested in actually trying things to
> make Wikipedia better". The phrase "if anyone's interested in actually
> trying to make Wikipedia better" clearly would imply that I don't
> think Jimbo is interested in making Wikipedia better.

Then, I read English improperly today :-) (not that it is the first
time...sigh)

> What I meant is that I'm skeptical that Jimbo is interested in doing
> experiments; admittedly, I don't think this is a deeply thought
> through plan to improve Wikipedia; it seems like a relatively hasty
> response to a major tantrum--after all, I wouldn't want to be hauled
> before Kyra Phillips and the like and be unable to say I'm not doing
> anything to protect people from having their lives ruined. The primary
> motive seems to be able to say "Look at the change we're making in
> direct response to this wonderfully valid complaint--look at how
> responsive and responsible Wikipedia is. When people point out
> problems by gosh, we fix them. It's the Wiki Way."

Yeah.
Well, I guess we are learning that media can be a wonderful tool to get
famous... as well as a great amplificator of problems. Any famous actor
or politician face that one day or another. Yesterday, I answered a
couple of journalists as well, after Jimbo's talk, who were wondering if
the restriction over anonymous were valid in all languages. And the
first generation articles published afterward contained several
mistakes. The second generation articles contained even more mistakes. I
fear now looking at the third generation :-)

As our leader and public figure, Jimbo directly benefits of many
approvals and cheers from our external supporters, but also has to
directly face the criticisms and the pain of having to defend the whole
community choices. This is also his job, right ? This is not easy for him.

It is important that we help him the best we can, so that the project
suffers the least from this public relations crisis. So, that he stays
powerful and convincing and strong in front of journalists clearly here
to make an audience :-)

There are many ways we can help him. And these ones are not necessarily
(or only) those which consist in approving after the crisis, all what he
does so that he appears 100% supported. Journalists care little about that.
We can receive councelling from professionals, such as PR agencies, who
have a certain experience in handling PR crisis and could make good
suggestions.
We can set up strategic teams to discuss beforehand which answers we
should give in such cases, who should give them, by which means... So
that when we have a crisis to handle, we are all united and ready to
speak with one voice.

In the past few weeks, we have seen increasingly criticism in the
english-speaking press (and recently, issues in the german-press as
well). Having bad press is bad for Wikipedia. Since we have a fundraiser
starting in a couple of days, I'll give only one example. Bad press -->
less money --> less new servers --> site stuck --> bad press.
Any attempt/experiment to decrease bad press (and Jimbo going to CNN
definitly stands here) is meant to improve Wikipedia.
Any attempt/experiment to increase quality is meant to improve Wikipedia
as well.

I think some of the answers we could have had in front of the journalist
would have been to talk about the quality tool or citation rules.
But.... the fact is... we have *already* annonced the quality tool...
and it still does not exist live, so it is hard to use that argument
over again.

So, what it teaches us is really that we have three different areas to
work on

* improve the quality of the content

* improve the perception of the quality of our content ---> make
promotion of new independant studies or new quality tools or rules.

* improve management of PR crisis

Some of this having to be discussed and worked upon publicly, some
privately. Some by the full community and some by a smaller team.

Not *questionning* what is being done is no way for improvement.

> Sorry for the derailing. To make a suggestion of a real experiment,
> try getting rid of ArticlesForDeletion.

no chance :-)

I also derailed from the issue experiment/QualityPlan versus
experiment/PR :-) Sorry about that...


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Experiment on new pages

body:
On 07/12/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Articles needing Verification?
>
> Any serious problem, be it a lack of verification or referencing,
> needing major cleanup, or just not suitable for inclusion.  The
> problem right now is that AfD is being used for all of these things,
> but it's *called* "articles for deletion" and so the process is
> prejudiced toward deletion when it really needs to be about ensuring
> quality.

"Articles for Kicking". I'd follow it.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


subject: [Foundation-l] Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?

body:
On 12/7/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> >And that is two actions instead of one to remove patent nonsense (at least double the work). Thus
> >it makes sense to limit the amount of patent nonsense we get (and thus that effort could be used
> >somewhere else). Not allowing anons and newbies to upload images limits the amount of crap images
> >we have to deal with.
> >
> >
> But new page patrollers have had a consensus for a while (this was
> previously discussed on the list) that this was never a major burden.
> At any given time, 2-3 patrollers could deal with the stuff that came
> in.  Often, when I did new page patrol, I was actually a bit bored by
> the slow rate at which crap articles I could delete came in at.  This
> seems like a solution in search of a problem, if that's the supposed
> problem it's addressing.
>
> -Mark

Maybe new page patrol needs to be more about researching and improving
new articles and less about "deleting crap".  The article that started
this whole discussion wasn't "crap".  It wasn't "nn cruft" or
"vanity".  But it did have some serious problems that could have been
resolved if more time was spent researching it.

I'm not saying this to lay blame, after all new page patrol is a
volunteer effort so any help is better than nothing.  But if you're
ever "bored" I can think of a few million things to do, things that
are more important than "deleting crap" anyway.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> And maybe the problem will shift from new articles to edits of
> existing articles...in which case we may need to extend the
> restriction to making edits as well?

This is not a slippery slope. We already don't allow newly-registered users to move pages. So
there is a ledge. As I said before: We should only lock things down slowly and only when not doing
so will cause more harm than good.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 11:02 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
>>>because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
>>>based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
>>>for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
>>>well as "fair use" anyway).
>>
>>You are not being very clear. What do you think the misconception is?
>>
>
> The misconception is that it has something to do with whether or not
> it is legal to have these images.  The truth is that we don't want to
> rely on fair use, because *reusers* of the content can't necessarily
> rely on it.

So that means we aren't an encyclopedia about anything then?  We're
actually an encyclopedia about what suits commercial usages?  Fair play,
we have to look out for commercial users, but what is more important
here, the encyclopedia or the potential reuse of it?

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/193 - Release Date: 06/12/05


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> "Ugly American".
>
> The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
> naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
> the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
> implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
> more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
> same world as the rest of us.

Dude, get the chip off your shoulder already.

Kelly


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>> What does Siegenthaler want?  Does he want Wikipedia to stop allowing
>> volunteer contributors?  Does he want Congress to remove the
>> protections given to ISPs for merely carrying content produced by
>> others?  Does he want to take away the ability of Internet speakers to
>> be anonymous?  Does he want to start licensing or bonding people who
>> produce content to distribute over the Internet?
>>
> Maybe he just wants more awareness around the problem, which certainly
> more complex than Wikipedia's involvement in the issue.

My read is that his reaction was fundamentally "OMG, I had no idea
all this was going on". The allegations would have been just as
problematic had they appeared on a random blog - freepers and
stormfronters would have been perfectly happy to have them posted
on their sites - so his complaints apply to most of the net, have
little to do with WP specifically (but of course we want to be
a much better reference than the average website).

People that are just now discovering the Internet are simply not
going to have any idea how deep it goes. WP is simply one novel
project among millions, even the experts have trouble keeping up
with the weird stuff that's being tried out every day (the dot com
bust has become a dot star boom...)

Stan