from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject:
[Foundation-l] Status of Wikimedia (was: Status of Serbia and
	Montenegro chapter)

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:

> I see only two solutions: (1) To find enough
> linguists/anthropologists/sociologists who would check all exotic
> requests and articles or (2) not to be the formal part of the
> organization (this means as it is written "not formal part", this
> doesn't mean that we would stop to work on Wikimedian projects or
> that we don't want to have any relation with other local chapters and
> WMF).

On 1 september I sent the following email to the board:
[...]
| In the last open board meeting there was a discussion about having a
| seed wiki and a committee deciding policies for it.
| So, here a proposal how to deal with new language requests (not new
| projects)
| * community elects a committee of seven people on meta-wiki (one-year
term)
| * requests for new languages will be submitted to the committee on
meta-wiki
| * committee will create a catalogue of criterias over time
| * they examine the case (check if language or dialect, spread of
| language, number of the people willing to work on it, consult
| experts)
| * they decide, three sorts of decisions are possible: accept, reject
in general (because no real language etc.), reject in
| this case (not enough support) but can be later again proposed if
| conditions have changed
| * have a developer create the wiki if approved
|
| This way, we can maybe get rid of these pending requests:
| http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
[...]
| If the committee does its job well, it could later also get the
| competence to filter new project proposals.
| Add your suggestions and criticisms and say yes or no.
|
| I'd be willing to help with the election but I don't have the time
| for an extensive community debate and slow process on the
| mailinglists and wikis with no decision at all after months.

In the three answers I got, I was refered back to the community and told
that the problem will eventuall sort out by creation of the seed wiki.

Now I see that the situation hasn't become better but even worse.

> In other words: If Wikimedian community can't defend herself from
> people such as Mark, we don't want to be the formal part of it.

As officer of the Wikimedia Foundation I can't welcome your decision and
would question your competence to speak for the whole of the not yet
existing serbian Wikimedia chapter.

As wikipedian who dedicated myself to the creation of a high quality
free encyclopedia in as many languages as are _needed_ to make human
knowledge accessible to everybody, I can very well understand your feelings.

What shall I tell a journalist who asks the press officer about the
zlatiborian language wikipedia? "Eh yes, it's ridiculous, but you see, a
few people who don't even speak this city dialect pressured the
community into it. Cantonese? Oh yes, the same thing happened.
Wikiversity? Ah well, sorry, we're still looking for a concept. There's
rubbish on wikibooks like the "How to get a girl manual"? See, people
are working on the encyclopedia, there are not enough people to look
into the other projects and control them for quality. You found a
copyvio on suaheli wikiquote? Sorry, I don't speak suaheli - and the
three suaheli speakers in Wikimedia are busy with the encyclopedia. Why
are there so many corn field related news on german Wikinews while XY
isn't treated? Oh well, now this is a funny story...

Wikimedia has accomplished great things: An encyclopedia, written by
common people and volunteers, slowly getting better and better, to the
point of being a serious alternative to classical encyclopedias. There
are its established sister projects, slowly evolving and becoming useful
(btw, the category:philosophy on commons is a mess).

But to maintain and improve this standard of quality requires constant
work and attention. New contributors have to be welcomed and taught the
"way of the wiki", policy proposals which would result in deteriorating
the quality have to be turned down, conflicts between good authors have
to be mediated and last but not least over 3 million articles in over
150 languages need to be checked for vandalism and are waiting to be
improved and still a lot more are waiting to be written.

I came here in August 2002 to help creating a free encyclopedia. Later I
became involved in "meta" affairs - organizing wikipedia booths at
conferences, designing promotion material, joining global policy
discussions, coordinating cooperations with organisations and companies,
dealing with press requests, organizing Wikimania.

If someone wondered lately why there's almost no elian anymore around in
Wikimedia affairs, that's why.

I went back to the real thing, the encyclopedia in my language - which
is nor Bavarian, neither M?nchnerisch although I am from this region and
city but german, a language almost everybody in Germany speaks and is
able to understand (except he's maybe turkish or serbian or arabic).
There's still a lot of work to do even if some newspapers rate us
already as better than brockhaus.

Tell me when you've stopped discussing and voting on genial new projects
and obscure dialects, when you've kicked the language fanatics from the
mailing lists, when you've closed the unwatched spam traps, when you've
settled on a checkuser and logo policy, when someone has had the guts to
introduce single login instead of just talking about it and when you are
serious about this human knowledge thing.

good bye,
elian


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia (was: Status of Serbia and
	Montenegro chapter)


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Serbia and Montenegro chapter

body:
On 07/11/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> When the matter goes as far as Milos saying that the Serbian and
> Montenegro Chapter does not want to be part of Wikimedia, I think you
> should really try to evaluate what damage you have caused.

The damage *I* have caused? I think that the damage here has been
caused mostly by Milos and the other Serbian nationalists who have
decided to try to prevent the Zlatiborians from having their own
Wikipedia.

> I am going to ask you to finally make your point and stop playing
> around. I have reread this whole thread and am now convinced this is
> all a hoax. Great. Very funny. Can you please make your point and let
> us be finished with this whole thing?

Again, you're making it sound as if this is all my fault. I, who have
not proposed this new Wikipedia in the first place. It was proposed by
User:SellackAlex. I merely supported it.

It wasn't a real problem until Milos and the other anti-Zlatiborians
decided to make a big fuss to try to prevent the glorious people of
Zlatibor from getting the Wikipedia they so richly deserve in their
beautiful native language, and for petty political reasons.

> I am also going to ask you to consider one thing, you the paragon of
> forgotten languages and languages in general. You seem to have
> forgotten one very important thing. You have been leading this whole
> hoax in English, using irony and double-meanings, with emphasis and
> great sentences. But you are dealing with people (myself included) who
> are not native English speakers. And who, as you may have noticed,
> have failed to see the irony and have taken the matter at heart. In
> short, you have been using them.

You've lost me with that paragraph. Come again?

> As a non-native English speaker, and yet someone who strives to master
> the language, I am probably best placed to say how the most difficult
> thing to catch in a language is humour. And how when humour is lost on
> someone and you see it drift in seriousness, you should just hold you
> hand up and say "stop! I was joking". Hurting feelings and making fun
> of people because they don't speak your language is about the worst
> thing I can see happening in this supposedly "multicultural"
> community. Most of us are making efforts to address you in a language
> you master, you have not made that effort. Not even one little bit.

I'm not sure what humour has to do with this. If you want to address
me in some other language, though, I'll try as hard as I can to
understand it. It was my choice to write in English because it is the
language in which I am most comfortable. Nobody forced you to respond
in English. If you were to respond in French, it would be difficult
for me but with some effort I could understand what you said. Now,
don't tell me I haven't made an effort when it is by your own choice
that I have not had an opportunity to make such an effort.

As far as making fun of people, I certainly agree. Nobody should be
made fun of because of their ability or lack thereof in any given
language.

> On another note, I am sorry to tell you that you have, on top of
> playing with people's feelings, failed to make your point. At least,
> *I* have failed to see where you were leading. Blame it on my
> non-English-speaker-ness, or whatever else suits your funny self. But
> hey, target missed. Game over.

Again, you've lost me.

> I will add just one thing. You and all of the other native English
> speakers who played along and never tried to clear things up should
> really once try and put themselves in our shoes. Once. Just once. I
> believe it would help. Really.

Wha??

Mark

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Frando

subject: [Wikitech-l] Thoughts on wikidata

body:
Hey guys,

I've read a lot on the whole wikidata thing in the past view
month. The whole project will IMO be a enourmous advantage not only to
mediawiki and wikipedia but also to the whole idea of free information.

I think, however, that most of you concur with me in this point.

There are loads of amazing ideas in the minds of all us and in
meta.wikimedia.org, so this is not the point ;)

What the project lacks of at the moment is a better coordination and
organisation.

I think that we should link the idea of wikidata with some other
improvements that mediawiki needs, especially better semantic web
abilities, iow. a xml in- and output implentation, the possibilty to
tag articles with a standart (as for Jimbo's "1.0"-proposal) and maybe
also a improved discussion system (liquidthreads).

So I propose to take all this together and call it MediaWiki 2.0 resp.
phase4.
I know, the idea of MediaWiki 2.0 existed all the time as a "dream for
the future" with no atcual plans for the moment.

But why not start working more target-aimed?
When to start, when not now?

Even if you think that this is too much for one task, IMO we should do
this just for wikidata as well.

So I propose to do the following:

  - create a newsgroup "gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki.wikidata"
    or "gmane.org.wikimedia.mediawiki.2-0" to discuss the stuff
    there instead of on [[talk:wikidata]]
  - and, which is very important, decide ASAP how to implent
    wikidata into the database, there are quite a few models flowing
    around in meta.wikimedia.org
    (e.g. after a last regarding of pros and cons of the different
     models in the newly created newsgroup ;) )
  - decide ASAP in which areas of the current mediawiki code major
    changes are needed
    (e.g. if we want to rewrite the parser to support different output
    formats natively or if we just include a xml/rdf output abilty into
    the existing code

when all this is and further discussion is done we should

  - create a new cvs branch 'mediawiki20' (or use the wikidata tag that
    does already exist) or a new module 'phase4'
  - create a roadmap which shows the *concrete* steps towards
    the realisation

I think we have enough guys out there who're more than willingly to help
coding, but the problem is that no one really knows where to start ..

Concerning myself, I think I will not be able to write too much of code
myself, because my little freetime is already rather occupied, but I'd
love to contribute to the project as much as possible.

best regards,
Frando


list: wikien-l

from_name: Brown, Darin

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Re: Press badges

body:
Alphax wrote:

> What? Since when are people *paying* for Wikimedia content???
>
> Where is the comparison here?

Wikimedia accepts donations, if not for the people doing the groundwork,
then to run the servers and the administrative costs. Part of the agreement
(as I understand) with regard to the donations is that it is going to
support endeavors with a NPOV policy. Of course, people aren't paying
directly, but I think it would be disingenuous to solicit donations, even
for running costs (and these costs are growing day by day) under the guise
of NPOV and then adopt first-person reporting equivalent to other media.

But the issue of whether someone is paying or not is moot, I think.
First-person reporting (beyond photography, which BTW seems perfectly
acceptable to me) just seems incongruent with the aims of the project. If it
would be okay to introduce POV via first-person reporting into wikinews
simply because "no on is paying for it", what's the problem with allowing
POV in wikipedia? I don't see how money has any bearing on it.

Again, I did not know that the original intent was simply to get
photographs. I see no inherent problem with this.

darin


from_name: Cyberjunkie

subject: [WikiEN-l] Try out the rating scheme

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Sittler [mailto:kiaparowits at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 7 November 2005 3:34 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Try out the rating scheme

> No, but I thought really hard about it :-)

>> Aww. So once again, we go right up to the brink and then back off?

>>> Throw ze svitch!

>>>>Seconded.

>>>>> Go for it.

Be bold!

--Cyberjunkie


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Thoughts and measurments related to a new storage
	framework for large wikis.

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I'd like to propose a new framework for storage of archive versions. I
> will then back up this concept with some measurements.

Can your new approach replace RCS, CVS, Subversion, Bitkeeper and
Linus Torvalds' new "git" as a software development versioning
backend?  If not, perhaps you should include a comparison with
some of these?  I think a standard for all would be great, if this
could be achieved.  Git operates on directories of files (as
opposed to RCS which uses a long linear textfile), and a
filesystem can be a virtual thing (like /proc) that actually has a
MySQL storage and your code below the surface.  Think of it.  You
could call it WikiVersion, WikiKeeper, or Wit.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zlatiborian, again

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:
> Mark, you are completely fool.

Milos, if you are arguing with a fool.  What does that make you?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Request for the creation of a Nedersaksisch
	Wikipedia

body:
Arbeo M schreef:
> Hello Wikitechnicians!
>
> Hereby I would like to request the creation of the
> Nedersaksisch Wikipedia (request filed 2005-06-12) as
> soon as possible.

There is already a wikipedia that says it is "neddersassisch". Very
confusing.

http://nds.wikipedia.org

--
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Re: Press badges

body:
steve v wrote:

>the U.S. has a large mentally retarted population.
>
>
It's nice to see that the quality of discourse remains high.

-Mark


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zlatiborian, again

body:
On 11/7/05, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Milos Rancic wrote:
> > Mark, you are completely fool.
>
> Milos, if you are arguing with a fool.  What does that make you?

:)


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] abusive blocking

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

kermit blue wrote:
> user Seancdaug is abusively deleting valid external links to 'Final
> Fantasy video games' including a website that is referenced in the
> article. he enlisted the help of an admin to block me from editing, in
> an abuse of that power. i request other administrators to deal with this.
>
>

They were both following policy. You were blocked in accordance with
that policy.

BTW, I think your computer's clock is wrong.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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from_name: Tels

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Monday 07 November 2005 23:29, Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Arbeo M schreef:
> > Hello Wikitechnicians!
> >
> > Hereby I would like to request the creation of the
> > Nedersaksisch Wikipedia (request filed 2005-06-12) as
> > soon as possible.
>
> There is already a wikipedia that says it is "neddersassisch". Very
> confusing.

I am also confused. Does this mean we will have wikipedias for every
German dialect (saxionian, bavarian etc), too? *confused*

How does "nedersaksisch" relate to "nieders?chsisch"?

Best wishes,

Tels

>
> http://nds.wikipedia.org

- --
 Signed on Tue Nov  8 00:00:37 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "If Duke Nukem Forever is not out in 2001, something's very wrong." -
 George Broussard, 2001 (http://tinyurl.com/6m8nh)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Serbia and Montenegro chapter

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Milos Rancic wrote:
> On 11/7/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>As a bystander here I am really, really confused about
>>Zlatiborian!
>
>
> I can explain a little bit of situation here.
>
> For example, relation Moldovan-Romanian is almost the same as relation
> Montenegrin-Serbian. Except Montenegrins don't have well described
> standard such Moldovans have. Political situation is almost the same:
> Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts says that it is the same
> language as Serbia, but parliament and alternative academy (Duklanian
> Academy) say that this is different language. Only 22% of Montenegrin
> inhabitants say that their native language is Montenegrin (around 60%
> say that their native language is Serbian; others are minorities). So,
> this is a political question and I am supporting now the article
> "Montenegrin language" on English Wikipedia (against one Serbian
> nationalist) as well as I would support existance of Montenegrin
> Wikipedia (if demand comes before we complete our software).
>
> Linguistic area in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia is divided
> into four dialects: Torlakian, Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kaykavian.
> ALL standard languages (including "Zlatiborian", too) are based on the
> part of Shtokavian dialect called Neo-Shtokavian.
>
> The problem is that there is no Zlatiborian ethnicity/nation. All of
> that people feel as Serbs, not as anything else. Zlatiborian is only
> regional attribute.
>
<snip>

So "Zlatiborian" is equivalent to "Londoner", "New Yorker", or "Parisian"?

AND THEY WANT THEIR OWN WIKIPEDIA?????!?!!?

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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from_name: Autymn D.C.

subject: [WikiEN-l] disputing block: 69.108.172.162, lysdexia

body:
Rdsmith4 is misrepresenting and libelling me, and abusing his
joke-of-a-power again by blocking me again after I had insisted and
enforced that an article be put in an accurate grammatic mood to fit
the context, which was not real but ideal.  A short exchange is at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:
Lysdexia#Grammar_at_Black_Body>.  There, I pointed out that his and
others' calling my edits only "trolling and disruption" was a fraud, as
every edit I've ever made to Wikipedia was, in this order: cleanup,
fact checking, factual disputes, linking, added or alternate
explanations, expansions.  I checked the block policy page and saw that
nothing I've done calls for blocking me; in deed, every incident that I
was in was caused by someone ignorant, irrational, and uncouth
reporting me to the administrators because I had done something to
correct or improve a space that /they/ /did not/ /understand/.  Every
mistake that they claimed I'd made elsewhere was /their/ mistake of
being an ignorant fool.

Lately I've been bringing out my contentions to the Talk pages before
editing over the articles, and I hadn't even broken the three-revert
rule when I was reverting when I found that I was blocked after trying
to fix some numbers in an Order of magnitude article.  Here's the note
that's related to my work then:
<http://egroups.com/group/message/free_energy/20090>.  I was logged in
then, and found that the block was for a day; but the next time I found
that my cookies expired, for Yahoo! and Wikipedia, so I had to log in
again.  But before I did, I saw what happened when I tried with the
numeric IP.  The same block screen came up, so I logged in and found
that the block was advanced another day!  I seem to recall this
happening before, and I didn't deserve it then either.  Note that every
time this rogue took abusive action against me, he gave no warning
before so that I could reply instead of doing whatever he was told that
I shouldn't, against policy, and that he calls my edits of fake value,
also against policy.  This person has no clue what he's doing, and I
really need to update my article, as I have a life outside edit or
dispute wars.

-Aut


from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
Hi,

I think the recent discussion here shows a very
worrying recent trend in Wikipedia: growing
intolerance towards the diversity of the community and
a growing distancing of Wikipedia's original community
structure: a free community that was known for doing
things differently.

Ever since I came here, one of the reason why I loved
the Wikimedia community was because it was tolerant
and it was very inclusive and respectful of minority
rights. The support for endangered and minority
languages is very important, and must be maintained.

While not being the primary aim, supporting endangered
languages is one way through which Wikipedia is
contributing to human knowledge... it's preserving a
very important element of human culture. As soon as we
stray away from that goal, Wikipedia loses its special
status, by becoming yet another encyclopedia.

Raphael Wiegand said, "We are (or
better we want to be) a project trying to set up an
encyclopedia
everyone can access and understand and nothing else."

This is wrong, in my opinion. While writing an
encyclopedia is the primary aim, I think we can also
achieve the secondary aim of protection for minority
languages, all of which contribute to Wikipedia's
breadth of knowledge. Having a complete encyclopedia
in 40 languages is a good thing. Having an
encyclopedia in 250 languages is an excellent one.

The other thing that makes me worried is the growing
pressure on new language contributors. We must
remember that Wikipedians are *volunteers* and most,
except vandals, are always adding knowledge to the
community. Pressuring them into reaching a certain
guideline for their language is abuse, in my opinion.
If only because we're abusing their love for their
language - their desire to promote it - by forcing
them to meet ever more stringent guidelines for
setting up Wikipedias in new languages. New
contributors must be encouraged, not discouraged. I
think making a subdomain a privelege is nonsensical.
Wikipedia is not like free web hosting - it's not the
one giving away free stuff. The contributors are
giving away their time and knolwedge freely for
Wikipedia!

Which is why I propose that we take a second to look
into the problem with a bit of perspective, and
realise  the depth that minority languages have added
to Wikipedia. As I said before, it's one thing to say
you've got an encyclopedia in German, and another to
say you've got one in Samogitian, or in Voro, or in
Aromanian.

For a new language to be formed, I think the present
policy is good enough. A community should be
demonstrated, and a test wiki should be founded, but
nothing more than that. Otherwise, we risk
discouraging new contributors who are insipring people
that are full of enthusiasm. Otherwise Wikipedia
becomes elitist (or is that word too controversial to
use in the Wikipedia context!?!)

Thanks,

Ronline

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
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from_name: Raphael Wiegand

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
Mark Williamson schrieb:

>>I went back to the real thing, the encyclopedia in my language - which
>>is nor Bavarian, neither M?nchnerisch although I am from this region and
>>city but german, a language almost everybody in Germany speaks and is
>>able to understand (except he's maybe turkish or serbian or arabic).
>>There's still a lot of work to do even if some newspapers rate us
>>already as better than brockhaus.
>>
>>
>
>So, you think that we should close down the Alemannisch and Platt WPs
>because all of those people speak Hochdeutsch? What about the Catalan,
>Basque, Galician, Asturian, and Aragonese WPs? Don't those people
>speak Spanish, French, or Portuguese as well? What about Occitan,
>Breton, Corsican, Walloon? Can't they speak French? Or Scots, Scottish
>Gaelic, Irish, Manx, Welsh, and Cornish? Can't they speak English?
>
>
>
Just this point: I think what Elian wanted to say is that we should have
a real clear policy for the creation of new language WPs - NOW. But this
policy would not collide with language/dialect WPs already existing:
those editions of WP will not be closed down. The idea is to prevent WP
becoming a project to keep endangered languages "alive". We are (or
better we want to be) a project trying to set up an encyclopedia
everyone can access and understand and nothing else. We have to stop
stupid creating of new Wikipedias which will surely never be filled
enough to be accepted as encyclopedias. Acting like this only comsumes
power of many people which would better be concentrated on more
important things in our all day Wikipedia life...

This is how I understood Elian's message and - as well - my own opinion.

rdb


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
Direct contribution is indeed very important, but I
think supporting endangered languages is something we
can do without too much pain and is something that
should be done.

As to the 250 Wikipedias are better than 40 argument,
what I was referring to is the fact that what sets
Wikipedia apart from other encyclopedias - one of the
things that sets is apart - is that it is available in
so many languages, many of which don't normally
receive Internet exposure. I find it amazing that
there's a Wikipedia in Voro, or that there's a
Wikipedia in so many Filipino languages, or in Breton,
or in Cornish!

Of course, having a Wikipedia in dialects or accents
shouldn't be done at all. The things that's worrying
me is that people are now starting to say that as long
as we reach all people with the languages we've got,
that's OK. In Europe, if you have a Wikipedia in every
national language, you've reached 99.99% of people.
But is that the climate we want at Wikipedia?

That's why I say that for every new proposal, we need
concensus on whether that proposal is a language, but
nothing else - none of this "is it necessary?"
business, which I think sets a dangerous precent. The
Low Saxon Wikipedia is useful, the Frisian Wikipedia
is useful, the Voro Wikipedia is useful. All of these
Wikipedias should stay and similar cases should be
approved in the future.

As I said before, there's a difference with proposals
such as Zlatiborian, "Bostonian", etc. In fact, I am
also against languages being renamed for political
reasons, like Moldovan, Montenegrin, etc. I'm also not
particularly favourable to projects like Bavarian,
etc. *However*, as long as we force speakers of
legitimate regional languages like Samogitian, Vlax
Romany, Megleno-Romanian, Sorbian, etc, that haven't
yet got a Wikipedia, to go through an over-rigorous
proposal phase, we're going too far.

I think most of us here are smart enough to
distinguish before languages which are never mentioned
on the internet and have no written standard - and are
therefore "invented" by the person who proposes them -
and legitimate minority languages that need all the
help we can get (if for every paragraph typed arguing
about the Zlatiborian hoax someone wrote one
template-based article at the Voro Wikipedia, we would
have had about 40 articles extra and helped save a
wonderful part of Europe's lingustic heritage...)

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
In response to Sabine,

I think that saying that people can make their own
wiki somewhere else is not a good thing. Wikipedia is
already established, and the more regional languages
we offer, the richer the encyclopedia becomes. Just
transferring languages to Wikicities won't work,
because over there, those certain Wikipedias stop
becoming a free encyclopedias and disintegrate into
something a bit more than community forums, often not
respecting NPOV. It's sort of what happened with the
Enciclopedia Libre episode...

In fact, I think the isolation of Toki Pona and
Klingon from the Wikipedia community are both negative
precedents that shouldn't be repeated again. It is
exactly this attitude that I am worried about, which
consists of two points:

1. That languages which aren't used predominantly be a
certain population aren't important and can be treated
as "second-class", just because they don't help in the
narrow goal of making an encyclopedia accessible to
all.
2. That users of these languages must "prove
themselves" somehow that their Wikipedia is "worthy"

By the way, how do you get cascading replies? I'm
using Yahoo Mail... is it possible?

---

Sabine said:

"Well what stops a person to set up an own wiki and
just start writing if
it is not possible to do this within wikipedia? Who
knows me, excactly
knows that if I really want something I get it - well
if someone really
wants something he/she can get it - but: he/she must
make facts and not
only words."

__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
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from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Look

body:
We're going to lose a perfectly good potential bureaucrat to a
pusilanimous beauty contest if you don't get down  and at least
consider whether Kelly Martin deserves your vote.


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikitech-l] {{CURRENTSECOND}}

body:
On 11/7/05, Mig de Jong <migdejong at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi developers,
>  would it be possible to make a function {{CURRENTSECOND}}, in order to be
> able to have a sort of random function. What I wat to do is the following: I
> want to give the protal I've build a random logo. ''ll make several logo's
> and have one popped-up randomly. With a function {{currentsecond}} this
> would be possible.
>  Another request, way much less important is whether one could refresh the
> speciaal:wantedpages in the Dutch wiki (nl). Thanks for listening

It might make more sense to install the random selection extension
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Algorithm/RandomSelection>) so
you can do this without having to make lots of new pages. See
http://games.wikicities.com/wiki/Dice and
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Template:Stub for examples of the
extension in use.

Angela.


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>Nowhere does it say that we are credentialed by the board of the WMF.
>>
>>
>
>Nor should it ever. But the implication is that Wikinews itself credentialed
>these people. Wikinews is not an organization in any legal sense and thus can't
>grant anything. The Wikinews community, however, can be - if the board agrees -
>to be its agent in the selection of trusted users for accreditation.
>
>
Well, Wikinews is a community, and communities can grant whatever
invented titles they want to grant.  The term "credential" has no legal
meaning in general.

I much dislike these constant gratuitous attempts to grab power from the
community, especially through baseless legal threats.

-Mark


from_name: Arbeo M

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Request for the creation of a Nedersaksisch
	Wikipedia

body:
Hi Tels!

Thanks for your inquiry. This can be a bit confusing
indeed. That's part of the reason why discussion took
so long here.

> I am also confused. Does this mean we will have
> wikipedias for every
> German dialect (saxionian, bavarian etc), too?
> *confused*

> How does "nedersaksisch" relate to
"nieders?chsisch"?

1. I believe and hope there will be no Wikipedias for
German or any other dialects. I am quite strictly
against creating Wikipedias for individual dialects.
That's why I voted against WPs for Bavarian and
Ripuarian (please cf. 'Requests for new Languages'
page on Meta).

2. However, Low Saxon (=Nedersaksisch, Nieders?chsisch
or Plattd??tsch) is almost unanimously considered a
separate language and not regarded as is belonging to
the German language. As a German, I can confirm and
assure that the two languages are not mutually
intelligible.

3. Low Saxon consists, like most languages, of various
dialects. They are sometimes even considered separate
languages (but for the most part mutually
intelligible).

4. Low Saxon is spoken in Germany as well in the
Netherlands.

5. Due to historical reasons, the dialects of Low
Saxon used in Germany are highly influenced (loan
words, technical expressions, fixed expressions and
especially spelling) by the German language while
those spoken in the Netherlands show many Dutch
characteristics because of a century-long influx
coming from the national, official language.

6. There is a Low Saxon Wikipedia already (nds).
However, this Wikipedia solely comprises content
written in Low Saxon from Germany (where the clear
majority of Low Saxon speakers lives). The possibility
of including content written in "Dutch" Low Saxon was
discussed widely earlier this year at Wikipedia-l (see
archives) but considered not possible by the vast
majority of participants, especially by all
participants coming from Germany and from the
Netherlands. This was not due to any nationalistic
reasons or the like but solely due to practical
reasons (intelligibility).

7. Thus, the varieties of Low Saxon used in the
Netherlands are currently de facto excluded from
Wikipedia. That is why numerous Dutch "Low Saxons"
have requested a new Wikipedia.

8. "Nedersaksisch" (=Low Saxon) is the most common way
of referring to the language as a whole in the
Netherlands. That is why is has been agreed upon as a
designation for the new Wikipedia. Btw: it has been
suggested that it can be referred to as "Low Saxon
(NL)" or the like in other languages where a
translation is needed.

9. "Plattd??tsch" (=Low [or, literally 'flat'] German)
is the most common way speakers refer to this language
in Germany. It is also the self-designation of the
existing "nds"-Wikipedia. This designation reflects
the fact that its speakers have been part of the
German nation for many centuries. It rather alludes to
geographical (it is spoken in the low-laying, coastal
areas of Germany) than to linguistic facts. Including
the component "German", this name is not used in the
Netherlands, of course.

10. "Nieders?chsisch" is simply the German
(linguistic) term for the language. ("Plattdeutsch" is
another, less formal name).

Hope this helps a little bit to understand the
background of this request.

Thanks for your consideration!

Arbeo

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from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Privacy policy and editing anonymously notice.

body:
On 10/31/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> [...]. Maybe "click 'Save'" would be best.

Please don't ever tell people to click something in MediaWiki
messages, not everybody browses with a mousepointer, say something
like "follow the link" or "submit the form" etc.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I do think we need some serious reform of our
> language policy to end what I see as an ongoing
drive
> to reclassify every dialect in the world into a
> standalone language.

In my opinion the most important point would be having
an official policy on this issue at all. Currently,
there is a big vacuum only partly filled by some
nonofficial guidelines. This naturally causes
expectations that can't really be fulfilled as well as
a disproportionate amount of discussion. Both of which
is not constructive with regard to our primary aims.

As pointed out already, various users have put quite a
bit of effort into developing a proposal for a
workable policy regarding new languages for Wikimedia
projects. However, at the same time most people have
been aware that turning this proposal into "something
official" would be the harder part (or, in other
words, more or less impossible). As far as I recall,
even a board member was asked in September I think if
the Board could decide some general guidelines here
(only general guidelines, no decisions on individual
cases) because it looks like this issue is not really
solvable within the community.  However, as far as I
remember, the notion back then was that this is up to
the community.

However, my impression is that we don't have any real
mechanisms here for implementing such fundamental
decisions within any reasonable span of time. Thus, a
board decision based upon the community's input
concerning the issue would probably mean a real step
forward.

Arbeo

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from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Serbia and Montenegro
	chapter

body:
On 11/8/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> Soon enough, the Zlatiborians will wage a struggle for independence
> against their evil Serbian oppressors, and they will emerge
> victorious! Finally, the inhabitants of Mt Zlatibor will be able to
> live free from the shackles of Serbian oppression, and their culture
> will be admired internationally for its glory and beauty!
>
> When that time comes, the enemies of the Zlatiborian people, yourself
> included, will meet with swift justice, and let me tell you it will
> not be pleasant!

Mark,

When the matter goes as far as Milos saying that the Serbian and
Montenegro Chapter does not want to be part of Wikimedia, I think you
should really try to evaluate what damage you have caused.

I am going to ask you to finally make your point and stop playing
around. I have reread this whole thread and am now convinced this is
all a hoax. Great. Very funny. Can you please make your point and let
us be finished with this whole thing?

I am also going to ask you to consider one thing, you the paragon of
forgotten languages and languages in general. You seem to have
forgotten one very important thing. You have been leading this whole
hoax in English, using irony and double-meanings, with emphasis and
great sentences. But you are dealing with people (myself included) who
are not native English speakers. And who, as you may have noticed,
have failed to see the irony and have taken the matter at heart. In
short, you have been using them.

As a non-native English speaker, and yet someone who strives to master
the language, I am probably best placed to say how the most difficult
thing to catch in a language is humour. And how when humour is lost on
someone and you see it drift in seriousness, you should just hold you
hand up and say "stop! I was joking". Hurting feelings and making fun
of people because they don't speak your language is about the worst
thing I can see happening in this supposedly "multicultural"
community. Most of us are making efforts to address you in a language
you master, you have not made that effort. Not even one little bit.

I feel this is not only inconsiderate, but also plain nasty.

On another note, I am sorry to tell you that you have, on top of
playing with people's feelings, failed to make your point. At least,
*I* have failed to see where you were leading. Blame it on my
non-English-speaker-ness, or whatever else suits your funny self. But
hey, target missed. Game over.

I will add just one thing. You and all of the other native English
speakers who played along and never tried to clear things up should
really once try and put themselves in our shoes. Once. Just once. I
believe it would help. Really.

Cheers,

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for the creation of a Nedersaksisch Wikipedia

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

> Arbeo left out the part where there was lots of
> fighting over the request.

I left it out because the "fighting" is over now.

> The proposal for Veluws got 7 support votes and 2
> oppose, one of who is Arbeo himself and the other
> which is conditional and may convince
> to change.

Correct. And the proposal for Nedersaksisch got 17
support votes and 2 oppose (Mark + one anonymous).

> The "Nedersaksisch" proposal, on the other hand, has
> 17 support votes after a period of over 5 months,
and > there is still significant opposition.

Incorrect. There is no significant opposition. There
is only one user trying to block something the rest of
the community accepts.

> It seems that, in the long term, it will be better
to > allow the mutually unintelligible Low Saxon
languages > in the Netherlands have their own
Wikipedias.

Wikitech-l is actually not the right place to discuss
such details. Only the result matters here. Matter of
fact is that nobody from the area concerned shares
this individual opinion (actually, nobody from Europe
altogether).

A.

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from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Vote to create Wikiversity 2 sides

body:
In response to the idea that Wikiversity as a learning community might
compete with, or preclude partnerships with, existing educational
projects :

What impresses me most about Wikimedia is not the growing content
repository, but the growing body of knowledge-seekers who write to,
teach and learn from one another, all about and through free
knowledge.  A large community of people with whom I can geek out about
best practices for writing bios on forgotten mathematicians, or the
kind of information to include in the history of a hurricane season,
or how to distinguish languages from dialects, or how to distinguish
environmental science from environmental politics.

Wikipedia is *already* a teaching and learning community.  It is not a
community of savants who fit in a few hours of transcription and
writing into their weeks.  One of its regular services is facilitating
the teaching of passionate people how to become better writers, how to
remove bias from their observations, how to argue logically with
others, how to produce quality translations.

I imagine that a Wikiversity would be founded in teaching without
teachers, and certainly without thought given to accreditation of
either instructors or degrees -- but instead founded in
 a) identifying fields, courses, and syllabi
 b) gathering up free texts, cheatsheets, problem sets, exams, and
other materials
 c) facilitating groups of interested students -- at many levels of
knowledge and teaching experience -- who want to learn together, form
study and reading groups, and teach one another.
 d) bringing together interested educators and related programs
worldwide, to contribute ideas and content, try out new teaching
methods via wikis, and more.

Adding new software functionality, while always a lovely thing to do
(software can do anything, after all :) could come after everything
else on this list.

This would not be "e-learning" in the trademarked (sic) sense.  This
would be unlike every big online educational project to date.  For one
thing, it would naturally scale without assigned 'staff' and related
overhead.  For another, I know educators who dearly hope to see
someone try out this such a student-to-student learning project; and I
know of no major initiatives with which such a project would compete
(if they exist, I would love to learn of them!).

++SJ

>> Cormac writes:
> >>I think you're raising some interesting points here - I think what's
> >>emerging for me is that some people are quite nervous about
> >>Wikiversity being a Wikimedia project - if it aspires to be an
> >>e-learning resource. I don't personally see the problem, as long as we
> >>start small, stay realistic and grow from there, but it is clear that
> >>more thinking (and probably research) needs to be done. This should be
> >>collated on Meta, probably on a new page like
> >>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Moving_Wikiversity_forward - please
> >>feel free to add any ideas to related pages. I think at this stage we
> >>need practical proposals, but also practical questions.

> Anthony writes:
> > Maybe a more narrow focus to start out would alleviate some of the concern.
> > From the project page there are two parts to the project, creating teaching
> > materials and then using them to teach. The first fits a lot better in with
> > Wikimedia...  The actual teaching part, I think can wait, but if there are a few people
> > really dedicated to making it happen they should get together and start
> > doing it, Wikimedia project or not.

Anthere adds:
> It seems to me the first part is pretty uncontroversial... though some
> people seem to consider it could entirely fit under wikibooks (the main
> problem being that many wikibooks do not agree with this).
<
> The second part, the e-learning platform (ie, making possible to follow
> on-line courses, whith the collection of issues such as "credential of
> teachers", "diplomas" etc...) is highly controversial. It will directly
> compete with schools and universities (while making e-teaching material
> is likely to get teachers involved very much and likely to set up
> collaborations with schools). It will meet full face with the fact not
> all countries rely on the same educational organisation. It will stale
> in face of "diplomas" granting.
<
> I believe we should not try to "replace" what currently exist, but we
> should rather seek to provide information or other formats of
> information to "enrich" what already exist.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Well, Wikinews is a community, and communities can grant whatever
> invented titles they want to grant.

For internal purposes, yes. But when those titles are used to gain access to
events the possessor would not otherwise be able to attend in the outside
world, then we must be *very* careful. Oversight is needed. Also needed is
permission to use the marks and logos in that way. This is needed to protect
the foundation and thus everything it supports.

> The term "credential" has no legal meaning in general.

It has a very distinct meaning in the news media. It means that an organization
is vouching for an individual.

> I much dislike these constant gratuitous attempts to grab power from the
> community, especially through baseless legal threats.

This is not a power grab from the community. I in fact want what the community
is doing to be officially sanctioned but with necessary oversight. Saying that
is a power grab is a baseless accusation and frankly, trolling.

Again ? monikers up to now, such as administrator, only give people authority
to act within our community. Saying somebody is a credentialed journalist is
*very* different since that relates to that person?s interactions with the
outside world. Everything they do in our name is therefore a reflection on all
of us and the foundation.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
On 11/8/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote
> I find it amazing that there's a Wikipedia in Voro, or that there's
> a Wikipedia in so many Filipino languages, or in Breton,
> or in Cornish!

Yep :)

> *However*, as long as we force speakers of
> legitimate regional languages like Samogitian, Vlax
> Romany, Megleno-Romanian, Sorbian, etc, that haven't
> yet got a Wikipedia, to go through an over-rigorous
> proposal phase, we're going too far.

Don't "force" them -- just give them a place where they can create all
the content they want, whether or not they have met key milestones.
This is compatible with requiring certain levels of activity and
content before creating a new language domain.  I don't see any
contributors saying "I really want to start a Sorbian project, but I
will ONLY DO SO on a new domain..."

Similarly, I think one can distinguish between, say, Armenian and
Tokipona projects -- even in a very visible and obvious way -- without
too much elitism, 'isolation', or hard feelings.

SJ


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 'Proper' languages and bumper stickers

body:
[ Mark writes ]
> You think that you can claim that just because I am not
> a Serbian, I know nothing about this issue. Well, I have seen images
> of Zlatibor on television, and I read all about the Serbian
> occupation. I have a bumper sticker that says "Free Zlatibor Now!
> Boycott Serbia!", and I own some books on Zlatiborian language. My
> deepest hope is that after the Serbian tyranny ends, I may travel to
> Zlatibor and witness the beauty firsthand.

Boy, I would give an eyetooth for one of those bumper stickers.  Trade
you for a pair of "Zapatistas of the world, untie!" shoe decals...

As long as rants about language acceptance are benig exchanged, here's
something that has been bothering me lately:

It has been suggested more than once that we should get professional
linguists / a small group of Wiki[m]edians to determine what new
languages are 'proper' or acceptable, before asking the community to
discuss and reach consensus.  But should Wikimedia be making decisions
about the officialness of languages at all?  It seems to me we can
neutrally defer this to a higher authority*.

The ISO handles ISO 639-1 and -2 reasonably well; these are standards
designed to identify written documents, and to include those languages
'most frequently represented in the total body of the world's
literature' -- which seems appropriate.  I put some specific
information on meta:
      http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ISO_criteria_for_defining_new_languages

If you think we can do better than the ISO, please comment on that
talk page**...

SJ

*  "Wikipedia includes 74 major and 7 minor[1] languages with over
1000 articles. ...
   [1]  'Major' languages are defined as those with two-letter ISO
639-1 codes, a set of languages considered to be most frequently
represented in world literature."

**  Perhaps we can have a standard procedure that assumes an ISO-2
code language, and provide for exceptions.  Some current non-ISO
wikipedia languages, illustrating various reasons different users
might have not to stick blindly to such a standard :
 - zh_min_nan (1,200 articles; listed in places as "taiwanese") ,
 - tpi (tok pisin, recent conlang, 160 articles),
 - fiu_vro (V?ro, 105 articles & activity),
 - roa_rup (Aromanian; 29 articles & little activity, but just got ISO
639-2 approval for "rup" in September).
 + Current well-received /proposals/ for non-ISO languages include pdc
(Pennsylvania dutch), which already has a 500-article site independent
of Wikimedia).


body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I believe we should not try to "replace" what currently exist, but we
> should rather seek to provide information or other formats of
> information to "enrich" what already exist. In short, not to become a
> monopole others will fear, but to add our abilities and products to the
> already existing set. To be seen as partners rather than competitors.
>
> This suggest to me that the e-learning part of the project should be
> dropped and that should rather focus on making the best material ever,
> and set collaborations with other e-learning projects. If these projects
> are set-up by wikipedians, so much the better probably. If they do not
> put ads on their site, we might even become partners without editors
> screaming :-)

I could not agree more. I?ve been to a couple conferences that were attended by
librarians and teachers. Each time I mentioned the possibility of Wikiversity
being a school unto itself I got a lot of negative feedback. I mean, who is
going to teach for free? Teaching is a multi-month effort that requires a lot
of daily time. But I got *very* positive responses when I described it as a
common resource for teachers and students at existing schools to develop and
use class material. There is a HUGE amount of needless duplicated effort in
creating things like lesson plans, quizzes, and other course material.
Wikiversity could help reduce a lot of wasted effort.

So, pitching Wikiversity as a common resource is a non-threatening and neutral
way to go about this. This is the type of approach that IBM took with its
support of GNU/Linux; they could have put all their money and effort into
creating their own distribution, but instead they supported GNU/Linux in
general. Thus IBM was a largely neutral force and their effort was seen as a
big success for deploying IBM products for Linux and as helping the GNU/Linux
platform in general. Corel took the opposite route; they created their own
distribution and launched Word Perfect for Linux. Well, it would be better to
call it WordPerfect for Corel Linux since it was widely perceived as not
working very well with other distributions (to a certain extent, this was true,
but I think the perception was stronger than reality). The result: Corel Linux
and WordPerfect for Linux lost a lot of money and didn?t create any long term
benefits to GNU/Linux. If instead, they supported GNU/Linux in general, then I
think that WP for Linux would have had a much better chance to succeed.

In short: We should launch Wikiversity as a neutral resource. The courses would
be developed to the point where a self learner could use them to learn entire
courses for free. That?s fine. Others will use the same courses while being
guided by a teacher from a school that is not affiliated with Wikimedia. That
student will get credit from that school ? not from us. If and when there is
ever a big push to start an actual school, then those people would be more than
welcome to start their own school. But it should not be part of Wikimedia. We
should remain neutral.

-- mav

__________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page!
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translations between different wikipedias, and GFDL

body:
On 11/7/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > On 11/6/05, Gerrit Holl <gerrit at nl.linux.org> wrote:
> >
> >>Habj wrote:
> >>
> >>>According to GFDL, one must always state what work under GFDL the
> >>
> >>present
> >>
> >>>work is based on. Is this true also for translations between different
> >>>wikipedias? I have heard both "yes" and "no" stated as an answer to
> >>
> >>this.
> >>
> >>If I take that literally, article revision N should always explicitly
> >>state that it's based on article revision (N-1), or does it?
> >>
> >>Gerrit.
> >
> >
> > Well, the only sane way to apply the GFDL to Wikipedia is to treat the
> > revisions as contributions toward a joint work, not to treat each
> individual
> > edit as creating a new version under the GFDL. All of this is just
> > speculation, though, there isn't really an explicit statement as to
> exactly
> > how to apply the GFDL to Wikipedia.
> > For translations the previous version should be stated in the section
> > entitled history. The most straightforward way to do that would be to
> add a
> > section entitled history to the article itself. One could argue that
> this
> > requirement is met by simply adding a note in the edit summary, but this
> is
> > a somewhat tenuous argument. You could also argue that there is an
> implicit
> > license, or that any co-author in a joint work has certain rights beyond
> the
> > GFDL, but these would be completely untested waters.
> >
>
> I believe that the revision history itself is considered part of the
> work (since it contains the authorship infomation); the annotations
> provided in the edit summaries, which may included statements such as
> "translated from (interwiki)(article)(revision)" are a significant part
> of this. Where talk pages exist, these too rightly form part of the
> article, especially where the history of a transwiki is contained in them.
>
> Further discussions on this matter should probably go to juriwiki-l...
>
> - --
> Alphax | /"\

If indeed the revision history itself is considered part of the work, and
that is considered the section entitled "History", then that entire section
must be copied into any derivative. That section must be included, in its
entirety, in any print version. The database dumps must have the information
(even just the current dumps). The static version of Wikipedia, if it is
resurrected, would have to have the information. The contents of
Special:Export arguably should even have the information.

Now you'd like to add talk pages, but only sometimes. These aren't even
arguably sections entitled "History" in most cases. And it wouldn't be
enough to just include talk pages, because the talk page doesn't always
contain the information itself, it sometimes refers to another page. Not to
mention that the requirements of the History section aren't met (no
publisher, no title). And there are plenty of copy/paste moves on top of
that. And you can't know the title information without looking at the move
histories, so better include that too. And according to some people you've
gotta include the user pages.

It doesn't seem like a reasonable interpretation to me. In fact, I think
such an interpretation would completely subvert the intention of the GFDL,
which is to make a work actually reusable. Again, I think the only sane way
to apply the GFDL to Wikipedia is to treat the entire article (at the least)
as a single work by multiple authors. That's the way the GFDL was intended
to be applied. If two people work on a textbook, the GFDL doesn't require
them to have a history section listing every single typo that was fixed by
one or the other. No, they are joint authors of a single text. You only get
into Modified Versions if someone comes along and forks the text.

Now look, you can argue that this isn't the case, but if you are doing so
you're saying that Wikipedia is out of compliance with the law, because
Wikipedia is clearly out of compliance with the GFDL (and not just with
regard to the History section).

Isn't juriwiki a closed mailing list? I seem to remember trying to sign up
there and getting auto-rejected.


body:
On 11/8/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In response to the idea that Wikiversity as a learning community might
> compete with, or preclude partnerships with, existing educational
> projects :
>
> What impresses me most about Wikimedia is not the growing content
> repository, but the growing body of knowledge-seekers who write to,
> teach and learn from one another, all about and through free
> knowledge. A large community of people with whom I can geek out about
> best practices for writing bios on forgotten mathematicians, or the
> kind of information to include in the history of a hurricane season,
> or how to distinguish languages from dialects, or how to distinguish
> environmental science from environmental politics.
>
> Wikipedia is *already* a teaching and learning community. It is not a
> community of savants who fit in a few hours of transcription and
> writing into their weeks. One of its regular services is facilitating
> the teaching of passionate people how to become better writers, how to
> remove bias from their observations, how to argue logically with
> others, how to produce quality translations.
>
> I imagine that a Wikiversity would be founded in teaching without
> teachers, and certainly without thought given to accreditation of
> either instructors or degrees -- but instead founded in
> a) identifying fields, courses, and syllabi
> b) gathering up free texts, cheatsheets, problem sets, exams, and
> other materials
> c) facilitating groups of interested students -- at many levels of
> knowledge and teaching experience -- who want to learn together, form
> study and reading groups, and teach one another.
> d) bringing together interested educators and related programs
> worldwide, to contribute ideas and content, try out new teaching
> methods via wikis, and more.
>
> Adding new software functionality, while always a lovely thing to do
> (software can do anything, after all :) could come after everything
> else on this list.
>
> This would not be "e-learning" in the trademarked (sic) sense. This
> would be unlike every big online educational project to date. For one
> thing, it would naturally scale without assigned 'staff' and related
> overhead. For another, I know educators who dearly hope to see
> someone try out this such a student-to-student learning project; and I
> know of no major initiatives with which such a project would compete
> (if they exist, I would love to learn of them!).
>
> ++SJ

You say that "Wikipedia is *already* a teaching and learning community." And
you're right, it is. But I think it's significant that the community isn't
the purpose of the project, building an encyclopedia is.

Likewise, I believe if a project is started to create e-learning materials,
I think it's natural that some people will use that project to organize
self-study courses and maybe even to discuss more traditional courses. I
don't think we should stop them, and the organization of self-study courses
pretty much falls under the creation of e-learning materials anyway.

In fact, if essentially what you just wrote was what was on the project page
when I read it, I would have gotten a completely different picture of what
the project was. Looking back I see it in parts of the description. I wonder
if maybe the name of the project could be reconsidered to better portray
this goal. That would have pros and cons, though.

Anyway, if votes still matter, you can count mine as a yes I guess.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
> ...regarding the quality of our work:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kosebamse/Twenty-random-pages_test
>
> Plus ?a change, plus c'est la m?me chose. Kosebamse

I would not call 20 random pages "unscientific", even if your evaluations are necessarily subjective.

I have formatted your user subpage into a table, for easier viewing and consolidated your results:

7 bad:
  2 fancruft,
  1 not of encyclopedic standard,
  1 list of marginal interest,
  1 needs work,
  2 non-articles

8 stubs:
  3 salvageable,
  4 average / acceptable,
  1 decent

5 good:
  3 decent or fine,
  2 acceptable / "short but informative"

Based on this, I give Wikipedia a score of 25% - a failing grade.

But all is not lost. If we mark articles as bad or stub, we could keep them somewhat hidden from the public.

Volunteer contributors could see them, of course, by "opting in". Everyone else (call them "general readers") would be told that we don't have an article on the subject yet BUT that we are working on it.

"And would you like to see the work in progress?"

Ed Poor
Quality Maven


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press badges

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Chip Berlet
> Sent: Tuesday, 8 November 2005 00:40
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press badges
>
> Hi,
>
> As a former board member of the Underground Press Syndicate
> in the U.S. I certainly agree that Wiki could issue press
> credentials, but it is a bit more complicated. We used to
> issue our own press cards to member journalists.

Thanks, Chip!

Your experience, your *practical* experience and knowledge, is extremely
useful in this discussion.

> In the U.S., press credentials that allow access to
> situations controlled by police, fire, and other government
> agencies are photo ID's issued by a state agency, even though
> journalists are not licensed.
>
> Self-generated press credentials can (and have) been abused
> by people just trying to get into concerts and other
> entertainment venues, so many venues only accept the
> state-issued credentials, or credentials from media outlets
> they recognize as major.

These are vital points. I think that the last thing we want are Wikifolk
making a nuisance of themselves. That cannot help our reputation.

> Covering breaking news with a press credential is, by
> definition, original research, which is not allowed on
> Wikipedia, and thus I am not sure that Wikipedia should be
> issuing press credentials. That would seem to be done more
> appropriately by alternative media on the political left,
> center, and right; then published in print or online, and
> then brought onto Wikipedia as a published report.

I agree entirely. However, the original poster raised the issue of
photographs, and this is something where better access could improve
Wikipedia. Images of movie stars, for example, would seem to be particularly
hard to get without some form of restriction. We don't allow original
research, (though on reading Wikipedia one might not immediately gain that
impression), but original photography is allowed and is extremely useful
because of the licensing benefits.

> Wikinews, however, is a form of alternative media, and should
> fee free to issue press credentials to members of the
> Wikinews community who have a track record of regular and
> substantive contributions, and a willingness to recognize
> that they are carrying the reputation of Wikinews with them;
> and thus should behave in appropriate ways given local
> country/city media standards--even if they disagree with
> those standards.

I'm not entirely happy with original reporting - yet. Some of the articles
I've seen run perilously close to POV propaganda.

> Also, in some circumstances and some states/countries,
> issuing press credentials entails certifying someone as an
> agent, and may create an issue of liability in terms of
> defamation or other legal issue.

This is probably your most important point. I'm in two minds about it. In
litigation-happy America, do we want to expose ourselves to lawsuits? Win or
lose, these things are expensive to fight.

But at what point do we stand up and take responsibility for our actions? If
an accredited WikiNews photographer comes up with nude photographs of
Hillary Clinton (say). Who goofed? The wikicommunity in issuing the
credentials that allowed access to the private fund-raiser, or the
photographer in an apalling lapse of judgement?

To my mind, this is an area where wikimanagement with access to proper legal
advice and the wider wikicommunity are going to have to work together to
find the best solution, not just one that feels good.

Peter (Skyring)

(And I'm only joking about Hillary Clinton. No offence intended. Feel free
to substitute the Queen, the Duchess of Cornwall, Chelsea Clinton or the
Pope according to personal taste or lack thereof.)


body:
--- Traroth <traroth at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> a ?crit :
> >Credentials are given by organizations - not by just some people on the
> >Internet (which is all any Wikimedia project is by itself). Using that term
> >in the real world where it has a specific meaning - to describe that process
> >is very misleading. Using that term and the Wikinews mark implies an
official
> >connection that does not exist. That is dishonest and an abuse of the mark.
>
> Does it mean Wikinews is not an organisation in itself ? I disagree. It is.
> And that means that Wikinews can choose the way it wants to give out
> credentials.

Sorry, but in any legal sense it is not. Wikinews is a project of the Wikimedia
foundation. Noting more from a legal perspective. The Wikinews community is a
collection of people who work on that project but who don?t have any legal
membership in it. All authority to use the Wikinews mark outside of that
community falls to the registered owner of that mark; the Wikimedia Foundation.
If the foundation wants to use the Wikinews community as its agent to select
people to be credentialed and thus be able to use the Wikinews mark on badges,
then that is fine.

But the foundation must make that permission explicit and should put in place
reasonable oversight measures that would be used in case anybody abuses the
privilege of being credentialed. Again, in almost all cases, the community
should be the foundation?s agent in deaccreditation and reaccreditation. But
community processes are slow and in really bad cases the foundation should be
able to quickly remove credentials of offending users or even suspend the whole
process if it ever gets out of hand.

All I want to do is protect the foundation and the good name of its projects.
It is simply potentially dangerous for people to use the foundation?s name
and/or the name of its projects to gain access and authority in the real world
they would otherwise not be able to have. For one thing, they need permission
to do that, for another, we need to have some type of official oversight on
this.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/8/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/5/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>   > If we use bsdiff (http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/ fast and
> > efficent, if you ignore the anti-social license) rather than diff -du,
>
> It uses the BSD license without an advertising clause, what's
> anti-social about it?

Ha, if only.  It uses the "BSD Protection License" which looks a lot
like the BSD License unless you actually look at it, then you notice
that it's free for any use *except* use with a non-X11 equivalent open
source license. Microsoft could use it in Windows, yet you couldn't
legally use it inside SVN. It's a very odd license.  I suppose it's no
more 'anti-social' then any other license that makes you jump through
hoops, but that it doesn't look like it does to a quick glance...


from_name: Poe, Marshall

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
Regarding Jimbo's (and other's) sentiments re new proposals and
new-language proposals, and the frustration of our Zlabitorian friends,
allow me to suggest a possible solution: start your own wiki. That's
what I did.

I proposed a project to gather memoirs of historical events. After some
discussion on foundation-l, I didn't get much support.  Justifiably so,
because the project was half-baked and not proven.  (Thanks to the
community for gently pointing this out!)  So, with the help of a kind
Wikipedian (much appreciated, Erik!), I set up www.memorywiki.org myself
in order to refine the concept, work out the kinks, and see whether it
would do the world any good. I'm still doing all those things, and
invite you to judge for yourself. If you like what you see, I'd
appreciate your help.

The point is that wikimedia might benefit from a "minor league" policy.
If someone has an idea for wiki project, help them set it up, and tell
them to refine their project.  There is no teacher like experience.  If,
after an appropriate period of testing and development, the wiki looks
like it might be a good candidate for inclusion as an official Wikimedia
project, then the community can vote to bring it in. If the community
votes 'yes,' then the project moves to Wikimedia; if it votes no, then
the proponents *still* have a wiki and if they believe in it, they can
continue to develop it.  Everybody wins.

Best, Marshall Poe

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Anthere

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> On 11/7/05, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 11/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>For my part I think Wikiversity is a great idea, but I don't see where
>>
>>it
>>
>>>benefits from being part of Wikimedia. Wikimedia is primarily a media
>>>company, and a university and a media company are only loosely tied with
>>
>>one
>>
>>>another. Yes, books need to be used by a university, but a) most
>>>universities don't make all their own books, and b) Wikibooks can handle
>>>that part of the project without being part of the university (but
>>
>>merely
>>
>>>working hand-in-hand with the university).
>>>
>>>If there is enough support for this project to be at all successful it
>>
>>would
>>
>>>be no problem to start it up as its own organization separate from the
>>>Wikimedia Foundation. That doesn't mean it would compete with the WMF,
>>
>>in
>>
>>>fact the two would likely co-exist quite amicably.
>>>
>>>The only way I really think it'd be reasonable to expect Wikiversity to
>>
>>work
>>
>>>as a Wikimedia project would be if this came from the top down, as a
>>
>>board
>>
>>>mandate. Even then, for Wikiversity and Wikipedia both to truly be
>>>successful they would probably have to be run as separate legal and/or
>>>economic entities. For Wikiversity to be successful it's going to
>>
>>require a
>>
>>>lot of money. This is not to say donations, it very well could be
>>>self-sustaining, but I bet a lot of Wikipedians are going to want to
>>
>>know
>>
>>>that their donations are going to Wikipedia and not to subsidize a
>>>university. Furthermore, there would probably be legal implications that
>>>would necessitate forming a separate entity, especially if the
>>
>>university
>>
>>>ever wants to be accredited (which I think it should).
>>>
>>>Maybe I'm just looking too far into the future. Or maybe I'm seeing this
>>
>>as
>>
>>>a bigger project than it really is. But that's just the way I think. I
>>
>>think
>>
>>>you've got to set your goals high and plan out the full path too those
>>
>>goals
>>
>>>early on - not to have everything written in stone but at least to have
>>
>>a
>>
>>>rough draft of what the future has in store.
>>>
>>>Anthony
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>
>>
>>There was a discussion about Wikiversity on IRC last night, as part of
>>the Wikimedia Research Network, details and log of which can be found
>>here:
>>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-11-06
>>
>>I think you're raising some interesting points here - I think what's
>>emerging for me is that some people are quite nervous about
>>Wikiversity being a Wikimedia project - if it aspires to be an
>>e-learning resource. I don't personally see the problem, as long as we
>>start small, stay realistic and grow from there, but it is clear that
>>more thinking (and probably research) needs to be done. This should be
>>collated on Meta, probably on a new page like
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Moving_Wikiversity_forward - please
>>feel free to add any ideas to related pages. I think at this stage we
>>need practical proposals, but also practical questions.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Cormac
>
>
>  Yeah, I'm not sure what the best way is to get a project like this started,
> but you probably need one or a small few people really dedicated to making
> it happen who all share the same vision. I have my own vision as to what I'd
> like to see Wikiversity as, but I don't have the time to really dedicate
> myself to the project.
>  Anyway, this is part of the trouble with voting on things like this. I
> voted no, primarily because I think Wikiversity would do better as an
> independent project, but at the same time I don't particularly object to
> Wikimedians trying to do it anyway.
>  Maybe a more narrow focus to start out would alleviate some of the concern.
>>From the project page there are two parts to the project, creating teaching
> materials and then using them to teach. The first fits a lot better in with
> Wikimedia, and I don't think there would be much if any objection to the
> foundation supporting this work. This could either be done on Wikibooks or,
> if there is objection from people on Wikibooks, then maybe it could be done
> as part of a new project.
>  The actual teaching part, I think can wait, but if there are a few people
> really dedicated to making it happen they should get together and start
> doing it, Wikimedia project or not.
>  All just my opinion,
> Anthony

I actually pretty much agree with Anthony here.

I have spent a long time reading all the past and recent discussions,
disseminated in several wikis in september to prepare the presentation
of Wikiversity in South Africa.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity#Presentation (ad)

I could clearly separate two parts in the project, one being the
production of e-teaching materials and the second being setting up a
e-learning platform.

It seems to me the first part is pretty uncontroversial... though some
people seem to consider it could entirely fit under wikibooks (the main
problem being that many wikibooks do not agree with this).
If we want to stick to "any" type of e-teaching material, we do have
either to create a new project, or to expand the goal of wikibooks. This
part will also need software implementation... which it seems no
developer is currently interested in. So, it also mean finding funds to
support the development of these tools.
Overall, setting up a recipiendary of material is highly within our
project goals generally. From a secondary perspective, I think that
supporting the development of tools which will allow collaboration over
material production is a "grand" goal. We could expand further than text
production, to other type of products.

The second part, the e-learning platform (ie, making possible to follow
on-line courses, whith the collection of issues such as "credential of
teachers", "diplomas" etc...) is highly controversial. It will directly
compete with schools and universities (while making e-teaching material
is likely to get teachers involved very much and likely to set up
collaborations with schools). It will meet full face with the fact not
all countries rely on the same educational organisation. It will stale
in face of "diplomas" granting.
As the first part, it needs software development (so, again, funds).
And it will set an entire new goal for our organisation.

I believe we should not try to "replace" what currently exist, but we
should rather seek to provide information or other formats of
information to "enrich" what already exist. In short, not to become a
monopole others will fear, but to add our abilities and products to the
already existing set. To be seen as partners rather than competitors.

This suggest to me that the e-learning part of the project should be
dropped and that should rather focus on making the best material ever,
and set collaborations with other e-learning projects. If these projects
are set-up by wikipedians, so much the better probably. If they do not
put ads on their site, we might even become partners without editors
screaming :-)

Anthere


body:
--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> But you could also say "encyclopedias are written by organizations -
> not by just some people on the Internet (which is all any Wikimedia
> project is by itself). Using that term - in the real world where it
> has a specific meaning - to describe that process is very misleading."

Comparing the way the content is created with the use of marks outside of the
community are very different things.

> I trust the content of Wikipedia because I trust the community behind
> it. I don't expect the Board to have approved the people editing it,
> or to have approved the content itself, and yet I'm still happy for it
> to be called an "encyclopedia", even though that term has meaning in
> the "real world" which implies a traditional process of peer review
> and publishing that Wikipedia doesn't have. I don't see the difference
> between this and Wikinews.

Again ? you are comparing development of content with the use of marks. That is
an invalid comparison.

> "Press credentials" have no more or less
> meaning than "encyclopedia".

Saying what we have created an encyclopedia is *very* different than saying
that you have Wikinews credentials in order to gain access to events you?d
otherwise not be able to.

> If we're challenging the "traditional"
> model of an encyclopedia by letting a community write it, why would we
> not do exactly the same for press credentials?

It would be nice if you read my proposal before attacking it. :) All I want is
for the current accreditation system to get the official blessing of the
foundation and for some (mostly theoretical) safeguards to be put in place.
This would allow those people who get accredited to use the Wikinews name and
logo on press badges. The community would decide who get accredited and
reaccredited in every case and would decide in almost every case who gets their
credentials revoked. The foundation would only get involved in really bad cases
that require immediate action.

This new type of user status is VERY different than anything the community has
created before because the whole point of the status is to gain some type of
authority in the outside world. It is therefore imperative for the foundation
to create reasonable safeguards to project its good name and the name of its
projects.

> Challenge this model of
> a higher authority and let the people involved work out who can be
> trusted. It's the only scalable approach, and the only one that will
> work across all 15 language editions.

Why are you mentioning that? That is a strawman due to the fact that I strongly
support the scalable approach.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Autymn D.C. stated for the record:

> I really need to update my article....

No, you don't.  Not only do you not /have/ an article,
but you also don't /need/ to update any article.

- --
 Sean Barrett
 sean at epoptic.org
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body:
--- Clare-Marie White <clare at thefriend.org> wrote:
> If you didn't have any system, then anybody would be able to claim they were
> writing for Wikinews, as in fact they can anyway.

If that is all they were claiming, then that would be fine. But the claim is
that they have Wikinews press credentials. That is a very big difference.

> I've seen no evidence that the system could get out of hand, indeed it is
> very conservatively used and applicants are quite rigorously grilled. If
> someone did start to offend, the same page could be used to make it clear
> that their activities did not meet with the approval of the community/board.

Again ? I don?t have a problem with the system. I?m concerned that it looks
official when it is not.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

body:
> I would like to point out that this is the same hysterical, nonsensical
> drivel that Mark was spouting on #wikipedia yesterday...
> Don't worry Mark, the men in black helicopters will be here shortly.

He's just disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point (that having separate
Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Wikipedias is as silly as having a
Zlatiborian one).

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> If someone wondered lately why there's almost no elian anymore around in
> Wikimedia affairs, that's why.
>
> I went back to the real thing, the encyclopedia in my language - which
> is nor Bavarian, neither M?nchnerisch although I am from this region and
> city but german, a language almost everybody in Germany speaks and is
> able to understand (except he's maybe turkish or serbian or arabic).
> There's still a lot of work to do even if some newspapers rate us
> already as better than brockhaus.
>
> Tell me when you've stopped discussing and voting on genial new projects
> and obscure dialects, when you've kicked the language fanatics from the
> mailing lists, when you've closed the unwatched spam traps, when you've
> settled on a checkuser and logo policy, when someone has had the guts to
> introduce single login instead of just talking about it and when you are
> serious about this human knowledge thing.
>
> good bye,
> elia
> n

Hmmmmm.
Well, while I echo your sentiments up to a certain point, I also think
you are amongst those who put her feet in the sand and stay anchored in
the real very much. You are of unvaluable help for all these press
things, the documentation and presence at conferences and so on. So,
certainly, you going away is not helping and rather giving more power to
those who are more "dispersed" than you are.

This said, we need all types of people, the dreamers and irrealistic
ones as well, as they also have strikes of wisdom sometimes :-)

(pretty tired) Anthere

PS : a comment about the checkuser policy. Afaik, it is done. I asked
comments a week ago, and though Taw has not removed the fact he thought
it "terribly dangerous", I read no real opposition to it and several
supports.


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semapedia

body:
I just found this site:

http://www.semapedia.org

It is supposed to tag "physical objects" with the barcode of a wikipedia
URL. Basically, you enter the URL of a wikipedia article, and it prints
a chessboard-like box with black and white squares. You then glue this
sheet of paper onto the object (after asking permission!), for example,
a famous building.

The site also offers a Java software for cell phones with a camera.
Anyone with that software can now take a picture of the sheet of paper
with the cell phone, and the software will convert it back into a URL,
which you can then open on the cell phone to see the article about that
building.

I, for one, welcome our new tagging overlords! I am currently printing
the URL of my user page to glue it to my forehead, so people can find
out who I am without having to talk to me ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
2005/11/8, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com>:

> While not being the primary aim, supporting endangered
> languages is one way through which Wikipedia is
> contributing to human knowledge... it's preserving a
> very important element of human culture. As soon as we
> stray away from that goal, Wikipedia loses its special
> status, by becoming yet another encyclopedia.

I disagree. "Supporting endangered languages" is not what makes
Wikipedia special. "Direct contribution" is.

> Raphael Wiegand said, "We are (or
> better we want to be) a project trying to set up an
> encyclopedia
> everyone can access and understand and nothing else."
>
> This is wrong, in my opinion. While writing an
> encyclopedia is the primary aim, I think we can also
> achieve the secondary aim of protection for minority
> languages, all of which contribute to Wikipedia's
> breadth of knowledge. Having a complete encyclopedia
> in 40 languages is a good thing. Having an
> encyclopedia in 250 languages is an excellent one.

It depends. If it is an encyclopedia in 40 languages and a few pages
in 200 more, I don't see it as much of an improvement. If those 250
languages are just 40 languages unnecessarily split out, I don't see
it as much of an improvement either. We can easily add 2 or 3
languages with several hundreds of thousands of articles each by
taking the English Wikipedia and putting it through American, British,
Australian or whatever spell-checkers. But I don't think it would
improve Wikipedia much, to say the least. I am all for having
Wikipedia in minority languages, but I also think there are
boundaries; I don't think it's a good thing to promote each dialect to
a minority language deserving its own Wikipedia. 1 Wikipedia in a
language with 100,000 articles is in my opinion more useful than 5
Wikipedias with 20,000 articles each.

> The other thing that makes me worried is the growing
> pressure on new language contributors. We must
> remember that Wikipedians are *volunteers* and most,
> except vandals, are always adding knowledge to the
> community. Pressuring them into reaching a certain
> guideline for their language is abuse, in my opinion.
> If only because we're abusing their love for their
> language - their desire to promote it - by forcing
> them to meet ever more stringent guidelines for
> setting up Wikipedias in new languages. New
> contributors must be encouraged, not discouraged.

Yes, but encouraged to do what? In my opinion it's better to encourage
them to contribute to some existing Wikipedia than to encourage them
to set up their own. One thing that's so great about Wikipedia is that
many people are cooperating on a single project. This leads to a much
better Wikipedia than having people create their own project and
calling it Wikipedia. I know, I'm going into the extreme now, but it's
still good to have rules to avoid those extremes.

> I think making a subdomain a privelege is nonsensical.
> Wikipedia is not like free web hosting - it's not the
> one giving away free stuff. The contributors are
> giving away their time and knolwedge freely for
> Wikipedia!

Still, I prefer them to do that in an existing Wikipedia rather than
getting a Wikipedia for themselves with a few friends, and work on it
there.

> Which is why I propose that we take a second to look
> into the problem with a bit of perspective, and
> realise  the depth that minority languages have added
> to Wikipedia. As I said before, it's one thing to say
> you've got an encyclopedia in German, and another to
> say you've got one in Samogitian, or in Voro, or in
> Aromanian.

And yet another to say you got it in North, South and West Bostonian...

> For a new language to be formed, I think the present
> policy is good enough. A community should be
> demonstrated, and a test wiki should be founded, but
> nothing more than that. Otherwise, we risk
> discouraging new contributors who are insipring people
> that are full of enthusiasm. Otherwise Wikipedia
> becomes elitist (or is that word too controversial to
> use in the Wikipedia context!?!)

I disagree. If a new contributor loses enthousiasm because he cannot
create his own Wikipedia in his own local dialect, but has to work in
the more official language instead, or in a Wikipedia grouping
dialects together, then I'm not sure whether their enthousiasm is so
much wanted. And if that is elitist, then let me be elitist, but I
think saying that your pet project can be part of Wikipedia only if
you write it in some language with regular written communication is
not that much of a restriction...

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Try out the rating scheme

body:
Cyberjunkie wrote:

>Be bold!
>
>
Well, I guess just having a vote cascade on the mailing list isn't going
to work. Hrmph. Anyone know who specifically is "in charge" of deciding
what Wikimedia configuration to use? Or is the problem perhaps that
there _isn't_ anyone specifically in charge? :)


from_name: Brown, Darin

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 06:38:36 -0800
> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Totally unscientific investigation...
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> I have formatted your user subpage into a table, for easier viewing and
> consolidated your results:
>
> 7 bad:
>   2 fancruft,
>   1 not of encyclopedic standard,
>   1 list of marginal interest,
>   1 needs work,
>   2 non-articles
>
> 8 stubs:
>   3 salvageable,
>   4 average / acceptable,
>   1 decent
>
> 5 good:
>   3 decent or fine,
>   2 acceptable / "short but informative"
>
> Based on this, I give Wikipedia a score of 25% - a failing grade.
>
> But all is not lost. If we mark articles as bad or stub, we could keep
> them somewhat hidden from the public.
>
> Volunteer contributors could see them, of course, by "opting in". Everyone
> else (call them "general readers") would be told that we don't have an
> article on the subject yet BUT that we are working on it.
>
> "And would you like to see the work in progress?"
>
> Ed Poor
> Quality Maven

Are you being facetious?? If that were put into practice, nothing would
improve! The reason articles improve is *because* people see mediocre,
"failing" articles. "Shielding" them would only shield them from
improvement.

Besides, last time I checked my math, 25% of 800,000 was 200,000. That's
more *total* articles than we had less than 2 years ago. So, another way to
look at it is, in less than 2 years, *every* article has been improved to
"good". *100%*.

darin


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
Alphax wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA256
>
>Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>>No! I meant to say that... umm... they exist, but you won't find them
>>at your library because there are no printing presses in Zlatibor so
>>they have to write out copies manually!
>>
>>
>>
>
>So if there's no printing presses, let alone computers, exactly *who* is
>going to read this glorious Zlatiborian Wikipedia?
>
>

Someone will read printed articles out of that wikipedia I suppose -
just like I do for Neapolitan here in the town - I print some pages and
pass them to people that know Neapolitan, that love their language and
that sooner or later will contribute also passing me hand written stuff
to be integrated into wikipedia from which I then give back the printed
articles that can be copied etc.

Well: for Neapolitan we have a bunch of online contributors, but for
many languages this is not possibile, so why not choose this very
particular way of distributing knowledge?

Imagine how it was 35 years ago - I then was 5 years old - and every
week I went with my grandpa to the public library to get some new books
to read. Well in many countries (today) they don't even have these
public libraries, but just a place where someone has material at
disposal other people can read (and learn to read with). Imagine even a
handmade booklet of wikipedia articles that pass from one person to the
other to be read and that there are people out there that are really
keen on having information on learning on wanting this. Who are we to
say: well if they don't have a computer and internet access "they may
not have" their material. Sooner or later they will have internet access
- so why not help them to get things earlier? Why not have even only one
person as "mediator" to put things online? I know, these wikipedias will
grow slowly, but that does not matter at all - it is a start and where
there is a start sooner or later there will be people who do work on
that and o really great work since it is easy to have an encyclopedia in
a language millions speak, but veeeery hard to have one in a language
only a few thousand speak - it requires much more work and much more
being constantly involved of those few who "can do".

Hmmm ....

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
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http://mail.yahoo.it


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Status of Wikimedia

body:
Thank you for this one - there are many points in here I fully support -
sorry, I don't have much time to follow up things here, but be sure I
support the projects for minority or rare languages.

Ciao, Sabine

Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I think the recent discussion here shows a very
>worrying recent trend in Wikipedia: growing
>intolerance towards the diversity of the community and
>a growing distancing of Wikipedia's original community
>structure: a free community that was known for doing
>things differently.
>
>
.....

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it