body:
On 4/1/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Excerpt from NY Times Magazine, "Questions for Douglas Hofstadter",
> 4/1/07:
>
>
> Q. Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many
> students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence.
>
> A. I have no interest in computers. The entry is filled with
> inaccuracies, and it kinds of depresses me.
>
> Q. So fix it.
>
> A. The next day someone will fix it back.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01wwlnQ4.t.html
>
> My thoughts:
>
> It strikes me that there is really a crisis of confidence in people
> that editing Wikipedia will have any long term effect. I have heard it
> many, many times from people on the web and in person as well as seen
> it in print. "Why bother, someone will just change it back later, or
> erase it?"
>
> I think it is too important to be dismissive about this approach. Even
> correctly cited things can be removed or butchered, even incorrectly
> cited things can stay on. I'm not sure that increased calls for
> citation will solve or even mitigate the problem. Any academic can
> tell you that citation is hardly a gold standard; it is not what
> convinces people of the accuracy of any claim. In the end that comes
> down to trust, and that comes down to authorship, and that comes down
> to things that Wikipedia doesn't, won't, and maybe can't do right.
>
> At this point, Wikipedia's epistemology privileges the persistant, the
> dedicated, and those with a lot of free time on their hands. Which is
> a set of qualities which describes both the best _and_ the worst
> editors.
>
> I don't have an answer though. Just something to muse on, in the face
> of some rather derisive high-brow publicity from an immensely popular,
> immensely intelligent person.
>
> FF
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Depending on how Stable versions will be implemented, they could stop the
butchering of proper citations and avoid the addition of well-cited but
incorrect material.

Mgm


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] "So fix it." "The next day someone will fix it back."

body:
On 4/1/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe that is just what wikipedia is. We have a great system that can
> produce great articles in fairly uncontroversial subjects, or at its
> best controversial ones where there is a large group of people with a
> cross-section of views interested. But we are crap at low-notability
> controversial subjects, and particularly bios. Maybe trying to change
> policies to correct that systemic fact is misguided.
>
> However, the conclusion to that may well be to say that *if open,
> inclusive, wikis can't do this type of thing, then we should stop
> trying*......Maybe we need a different type of project to do
> low-notability bios, one that is willing to say - *where we can't have a
> decent fair bio, we should have no bio at all*.
>
> Should we stop trying to be anything other than a wiki - but now accept
> the limits of that method.
>
> Doc

Notability is fairly objective, but the degree of notability is as
subjective as it gets. Determining what is low-notability is not feasible.
Also, this plan would mean you're giving in to vandals and POV pushers. Just
because people are causing problems, doesn't mean we should get rid (delete)
or shun such articles to the side. We should somehow handle the people
causing the problems. There's plenty of bios you would consider
low-notability that aren't causing any problems and they would be collateral
victims if they were treated as problem material.

Mgm


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

body:
On 31/03/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> I did this some time ago for the contents of [[Category:Rapists]] and
> its ilk; unsourced claims were removed, and in the few cases where
> they constituted the entirety of the article, were replaced with a
> prod tag saying "no verifiable assertion of significance is left after
> defamatory unsourced assertions removed, so a contentless article", or
> words to that effect.
>
> I suspect I had about a one in three success rate and a lot of people
> screaming about disruption... and sourcing their articles.

A quick analysis - I prodded 11 articles this way. Two were deleted;
nine survived. Of those, eight are now sourced and one is still
unsourced. The prodded people were entirely those whose notability
depended solely on an unsourced assertion of criminal behaviour. This
doesn't include a half-dozen more sportsmen, etc, where defamatory
unsourced claims were removed and the article still asserted
notability.

I did a swathe of "non-notable criminals" at the same time - people
who had been convicted of some offence or another, ranging from rape
to 'abuse of trust', and were being listed in Wikipedia, The Sex
Offender Registry You Can Edit, albeit with sources. About one in
three of those were deleted, which isn't bad going.

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
I think Samuel Klein suggested that the difference, though conceivable
in theory, may be like between 20cents and 10cents. I have to agree
that it might be the case. (I don't have a good idea).

I am not very informed about the amount of checkuser abuse or
legal consequences of the abuses. For one thing, check user
log is not open to the public (which I think has its own
merits). I know one checkuser was demoted on Japanese Wikipedia,
and no public explanation was given on that.

Legal consequences may include, though I am not a lawyer and this
involves my own uneducated speculation, improperly giving an IP address
to an outsiderwho in tern sues the wikipedian; improperly filing a
complaint to an objectionable Wikipedian's ISP and get his
service contract terminated; improperly filing a complaint to an
objectional wikipedian's workplace or a school and get him punished
institutionally.

I have no idea if these things have happened or how likely those
turn of events are. I wish someone with proper access and legal knowledge
have thought about this...

By the way, just to answer another point Samuel raised -
my understanding (okay, speculation, I should say) is that the
Wikimedia Foundation does not have to monitor outside contractors'
privacy compliance as much as its own (volunteer) staffs'.

Well, I am not sure how much help this was, but that all I can
say so far..

Best,

Tomos

Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com>:

>I'll give the IANAL disclaimer right up top here.
>
>On 4/1/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I don't know how much risk there really is here, or what kinds of case
>> studies in the rest of the real world represent parallels that might shed
>> light on the question.  This all seems rather hypothetical...
>
>The main issue is that CheckUser is governed by Foundation policy.
>Regular editing has legal consequences, of course, but the
>consequences can be borne only by the editor, and not by the
>Foundation.
>
>So the issue with CheckUser is the Foundation's legal exposure.
>Whatever it may be, it is likely lessened if CheckUsers are not
>minors.
>
>--
>Stephen Bain
>stephen.bain at gmail.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
I'll give the IANAL disclaimer right up top here.

On 4/1/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't know how much risk there really is here, or what kinds of case
> studies in the rest of the real world represent parallels that might shed
> light on the question.  This all seems rather hypothetical...

The main issue is that CheckUser is governed by Foundation policy.
Regular editing has legal consequences, of course, but the
consequences can be borne only by the editor, and not by the
Foundation.

So the issue with CheckUser is the Foundation's legal exposure.
Whatever it may be, it is likely lessened if CheckUsers are not
minors.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Apr 1, 2007, at 2:28 PM, Anthony wrote:
>
> > On 4/1/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is
> >>> true
> >>> or false, such as the paragraph I removed?
> >>
> >>
> >> {{fact}}
> >>
> > Is this your personal opinion, or policy?  Because I swear I've read
> > emails from a certain prominent Wikipedian suggesting otherwise (I'll
> > look up the email first, then name him).  And I should point out this
> > *is* a biography of a living person we're talking about.
>
> There is nothing even remotely potentially libelous about the
> statement that Hofstadter, who writes about artificial intelligence,
> had influence in computing.

First of all, that wasn't what the statement that I removed said.

Secondly, so what?  Are you seriously suggesting that we should only
remove libelous statements?  Was the statement about blackboards being
considered by some to be politically incorrect a libelous statement?

> It's not something that should be deleted
> wholesale except to disruptively prove a point.
>
> Which is something you of all people should know better than to do.
>
Look, get the facts straight about what the hell you're talking about
first.  Then come back and try again.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 1 Apr 2007 at 15:41, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is nothing even remotely potentially libelous about the
> statement that Hofstadter, who writes about artificial intelligence,
> had influence in computing. It's not something that should be deleted
> wholesale except to disruptively prove a point.

In fact, he even created a couple of programming languages... to
illustrate a point in a book rather than for actual use on computers,
but he still did it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlooP_and_FlooP

Though he personally identifies more with the arts-and-literature
crowd than the techie-geek one, he's certainly expressed plenty of
ideas that are relevant to tech topics, and have influenced them.

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


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
>
>> on 4/1/07 10:09 AM, Andrew Gray at shimgray at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Do you feel we should - a) ban or restrict that user and let people
>>> get on with their work; or b) some other remedy which essentially
>>> maintains the status quo?
>>>
>>> Marc Riddell wrote:
>>>
>> Thanks for this very clear explanation. As for me, I would go with solution
>> a) for a period of time, while - and this is the important part - working
>> with and trying to help this contributor understand the problems they are
>> causing. That, to me, would be a solution fair to both the contributor and
>> the project.

on 4/1/07 5:24 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
>>
> Nice idea, doesn't work in practice. Way back when, I tried to help
> problematic editors a number of times, and there were exactly two
> outcomes; the person understood what they were doing wrong after getting
> the one hint, or never understood, no matter how many times it was
> explained. We get a *lot* of borderlines, and one always hopes that just
> one more rephrasing will cause the light bulb to come on - but these
> folks have more serious problems than can be solved with talk page notes.
>
> You should try your hand at it, will be valuable for insight - pick a
> problem editor, such as one who's come up in an RfC, Arbcom case, etc,
> and assign yourself to help them.
>
Stan,

This idea is very tempting.

We each bring our own individual professional backgrounds and skills to the
building of the WP Project. In this bringing, the focus is still,
nevertheless, applied to the substance of the encyclopedia. I believe what
you are suggesting goes beyond this and into the WP Community itself.

My particular involvement would be much trickier than, say, someone with
math skills offering to tutor someone in the Community who is struggling
with understanding the basics of arithmetic. But, in both cases, before such
a relationship could have any hope of succeeding, the person in need of this
help would need to ask for that help.

I would be willing to make myself available to render such help, but, again.
it would be up to the person to ask for this help. I'm not sure how this
process would work in the Project. Still, it is an intriguing idea.

I'm open to suggestions on how to make it work in WP.

Marc Riddell
--
To fly - you must first suspend your belief in gravity.


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Extensive Link Errors related to
	Proper Names - Needs Fixing

body:
Jeff Merkey takes care not to post to en:wp or its mailing lists, but
he just posted this to foundation-l after analysing an en:wp data
dump.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
Date: 01-Apr-2007 06:23
Subject: [Foundation-l] Extensive Link Errors related to Proper Names
- Needs Fixing
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia
Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

I have been compiling a machine compiled lexicon created from link and
disambiguation pages from the XML dumps.  Oddly, the associations
contained in [[ARTICLE_NAME | NAME]] form a comprehesive "real time"
thesauraus of common associations used by current English Speakers in
Wikipedia, and perhaps comprise the worlds largest and most comprehesive
Thesaurus on the planet emedded within the mesh of these links within
the dumps.

While going through the dumps and constructing associative link maps of
all these expressions, I have noticed a serious issue with embdded
linking with proper names.  It appears there may be a robot running
somewhere that is associating Proper Names listed in articles about
relationships between people
by linking blindly to any entry in Wikipedia that matches a name in an
article.

Some of the content may create controversy to post examples here, so I
will complete the thesaurus compilation, and folks should go through the
encyclopedia.  Articles about movies stars and other "gossipy" type
articles seem to have the highest errors linking proper names to
unrelated people without proper disambiguation pages.  It could be
interpreted as violations of WP:BLP and some of the error linkages could
be troublesome for the foundation.

Whomever is running bots that link between articles should look at
proper name links based on categories and check into this.  I found a
large number of these types of errors.  They are subtle, but will most
probably show up when browsing through articles unless you can analyze
the link targets and relationships in the dumps.

Jeff

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


from_name: Versageek

subject: [WikiEN-l] Weekly cycles to Wikipedia traffic

body:
Use Alexa's comparison feature to compare wikipedia.org and google.com,
they seem to mirror each other quite closely in terms of the sawtooth
pattern.

I have no idea what it means, but it's worth noting.

Sunday, April 1, 2007, 11:47:07 AM, you wrote:

DRT> Looking at the Alexa stats for Wikipedia:
DRT> http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=wikipedia.org

DRT> you see some interesting patterns.  The graphs seem to have a
DRT> sawtooth shape with a weekly period, but the specific days of the
DRT> week where it peaks differ depending on whether you're looking at
DRT> reach, traffic rank, or page views.

DRT> Can anybody venture any theories (original research!) about why this
DRT> is the case?


from_name: Jim & Beth Boyle

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to
	be%0A%09deleted

body:
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.18.18/733 - Release Date: 3/25/2007


body:
On 01/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> OK, but what about information which I have no idea whether it is true
> or false, such as the paragraph I removed?

{{fact}}

- d.


body:
On 01/04/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
> > if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
> > be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
> > gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.

> Following AGF, I would agree with you somewhat on just about
> everything, except articles about people who are still converting
> oxygen into CO2. Incorrect but plausible sounding information can hurt
> people in real life. It needs a source even if it's something you
> "just know" is correct.

Living bios are an exception - we have good reason to be really
hard-arsed on sourcing and content for those.

- d.


body:
On 4/1/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2007 at 15:41, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There is nothing even remotely potentially libelous about the
> > statement that Hofstadter, who writes about artificial intelligence,
> > had influence in computing. It's not something that should be deleted
> > wholesale except to disruptively prove a point.
>
> In fact, he even created a couple of programming languages... to
> illustrate a point in a book rather than for actual use on computers,
> but he still did it:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlooP_and_FlooP
>
That doesn't seem particularly relevant to anything currently in the
article, but I wouldn't object to it being mentioned somewhere.
Trivia section, maybe?

> Though he personally identifies more with the arts-and-literature
> crowd than the techie-geek one, he's certainly expressed plenty of
> ideas that are relevant to tech topics, and have influenced them.
>
That's pretty indisputable, though the second half of it is rather
bland.  Sure, he's influenced techies - he's a professor of cognitive
science after all!  And sure, he's expressed ideas relevant to
technology, but unless you're going to describe this in more detail
and give examples (which would presumably involve citing sources), it
just leaves the reader thinking "yeah, I knew that" or wondering what
you're talking about.

The first half, that he personally identifies more with the
arts-and-literature crowd, is more interesting and would probably make
a good intro to the paragraph I added about how he' says he's
"uncomfortable with the nerd culture that centers on computers"
(please feel free to add it, I won't because mailing list posts aren't
automatically GFDL), but only if it's followed up with some details
with, you know, sources.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
On 01/04/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

> > Adding new limits to everyone except admins is IMO no different in
> > practical terms from giving admins more powers.

> Assuming this does get implemented, how do you suggest we handle current
> event articles if not in the way I suggested?

I would answer: don't bother, because it will be such an utter
clusterfuck and PR disaster (relevant since it's basically a PR-driven
initiative) that the fine details really don't matter.

- d.


from_name: K P

body:
On 4/1/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I think it is too important to be dismissive about this approach. Even
> > correctly cited things can be removed or butchered, even incorrectly
> > cited things can stay on. I'm not sure that increased calls for
> > citation will solve or even mitigate the problem. Any academic can
> > tell you that citation is hardly a gold standard; it is not what
> > convinces people of the accuracy of any claim. In the end that comes
> > down to trust, and that comes down to authorship, and that comes down
> > to things that Wikipedia doesn't, won't, and maybe can't do right.
> >
> > At this point, Wikipedia's epistemology privileges the persistant, the
> > dedicated, and those with a lot of free time on their hands. Which is
> > a set of qualities which describes both the best _and_ the worst
> > editors.
> >
> > I don't have an answer though. Just something to muse on, in the face
> > of some rather derisive high-brow publicity from an immensely popular,
> > immensely intelligent person.
> >
> > FF
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> Persistence can win over truth and neutrality - unless the persistent
> one is so blatantly inserting falsehoods that he is identified as a
> vandal and blocked.
>
> On high profile articles this matters not, as the persistence of the one
> pov-pusher will be undone by the more apathetic action of the many.
>
> The problem is with low notability articles, where one persistent pusher
> can own the article for months or years.
>
> To harp back on to my subject of bios, here there is a real problem, not
> of the outright libeler but one someone persistently making sure the
> article includes all negative commentary (often well cited) and no
> positive. These hatchet jobs are a real problem as what really need is
> someone to equally persistently research the other side and then keep
> it balanced. The admin called to the scene seldom had the time or
> interest.
>
> Maybe that is just what wikipedia is. We have a great system that can
> produce great articles in fairly uncontroversial subjects, or at its
> best controversial ones where there is a large group of people with a
> cross-section of views interested. But we are crap at low-notability
> controversial subjects, and particularly bios. Maybe trying to change
> policies to correct that systemic fact is misguided.

There is a small but dedicated group of editors who think that these small
bios are rather important to Wikipedia--in fact, I think they are where
Wikipedia can shine.  Please don't throw our work in the trash.  Check out
Daniel Rodriguez sometimes, for example, and look at the tooth pulling we
had to do to polish this article up.

The problem, imo, is the lack of notice of these articles, and the cat
fights at AfD for anybody who doesn't have a ten-page spread in Britannica.
It's too small to be a FA, and GA status is not much.  It will never be on
the front page, and fighting its owner to just improve the English, much
less the content of the article took down at least 3 editors and an admin.
The editors have to fight to keep in the small biographies all of the time
by the deletionists (and yes, they exist), they're not often adopted by
projects, again because they're not big names.

We don't crap at "low-notability controversial subject, particularly bios."
It's just the editors can't spend all their time fighting every single thing
about the article and produce a good article.  The person who put this
article up attacked me and two other editors for every edit we made, no
matter how dramatically it improved the article.  The article was an
unreadable piece of shit to begin with.  We had to fight in AfD to keep it
on Wikipedia at all.

Rodriguez isn't particularly controversial, other than whether he's notable
at all, but I offered a sound solution to the recent bio on what's her name
and the use of blogs, namely quote from the blogs and then show the blogs
are notable because OTHERS have quoted from them, but it was ignored.
Wikipedia and this list both have a lot of inertia.  The ideas are there,
the people are there, but they're being ignored.  So are the small
biographies, unless and until someone complains or edit wars about them.
This is an area where Wikipedia can, and imo, should shine, because
you can't find this type of information in one place elsewhere on the web,
succinct, well-researched and good biographies of minor notables.

I think minor biographies of living people should be featured on the front
page, just like FA, get all those award chasers interested in them, show
people Wikipedia cares about biographies of living people.  Strike out,
again, in solitude against the big boy encyclopedias, by showing what you
can do on the web that you can't do in print, namely include lots of minor
notables, polish them up, and display them proudly.

There's too much reactionary response to supposed crisis.

KP


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Report on board meeting in Florida

body:
Hello,

Thanks for your mail. It is always interesting to know what's going on
inside the organisation.

Florence Devouard a ?crit :
> Hello community,
>
(...)

I don't have anything to say or ask except about this point:

* further work on license issues (details confidential)

I don't understand several things here. What could be confidential about
licence issues? May be not knowing for which material licence is
discussed explains that. I suppose that if it would about a licence for
the project the community would be involved. I don't even understand why
the board needs to discuss licence issues. The only recent issue I know
of is the adoption are the license policy, and I don't see what could be
confidential about that.

Well, if it is really confidential, don't tell us. Consider that I am
just thinking alone loudly. ;o)

> Thanks
>
> Florence Devouard

Best regards,

Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Biblioth?que libre
http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 4/1/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> I don't understand several things here. What could be confidential about
> licence issues?

There are ongoing negotiations on the issue of license compatibility.
These are very strategic in nature & involve multiple organizations.
As soon as the process and the positions have stabilized a bit, we'll
take it into the open.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
"Ron Ritzman" wrote

>I would say that if
> a contributor continues to do "X" after several good faith "please
> don't do X" requests from reasonable people, then that person is no
> longer a "good faith contributor" and any of his contributions with
> "X" in them are not "good faith contributions".

> Therefore, Arbcom is not being "unfair" to such a person by ruling against him.

It is rarely so simple.

One of the reasons is that our policies are not drafted by legal professionals. Therefore the assumption that they can be used as the basis of an entirely judicial approach to resolving disputes is flawed from the outset. The policies, for most editors, are a rough indication of what Wikipedia expects in the way of behaviour. That's good enough for most editing.

ArbCom cases are not 'everyday situations' (thank God). They cover all possible variations on editing that transgresses or tries to exploit policy. If someone is working with a misconception of what policy means, or is in effect wikilawyering by sailing very close to the wind, there does come a point at which Arbitrators look at the substantive effect of editor behaviour, not the letter of policy.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 4/1/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> > Sorry to say, but in this case it's Hofstadter, not us, who is wrong.
> > His book _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ in particular *has* inspired many
> > students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence,
> > whether to not he likes that fact.
>
> I started to wonder about that after my first post in this thread. Is
> it possible that the AI inspiration thing is a phenomenon that
> Hofstadter was unaware of.
>
> > The claim should be better
> > referenced, but that's not too hard to do since there are dozens of
> > prominent researchers who have cited his book as an influence.
>
> But until good citable references are produced, it remains something
> that "everybody just knows" and should stay out of the Article.

And he seems to imply there are other errors too.

In any case, I don't see this as a problem in reference to specific
errors. Whether he's right or they're right or whatever _doesn't
really matter here_.

What's important is this _attitude_ and it is one that is _persistent_
and it is _not entirely unfounded_. And it is why a lot of very smart
people dismiss Wikipedia and would never think of participating even
in a very small way. And in a sense, they're not at all incorrect, in
my view.

FF


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikisource-l] A successful request not yet
	fulfilled (was Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
Hi, thanks for your reply. Now the discussion continues on
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Wikisource:Language_domain_requests_versus_m:Meta:Language_proposal_policy

On 4/1/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> The developers usually want approval by the subcommittee or the board
> before creating a new language subdomain. The language subcommittee
> has developed the language proposal policy
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP> to provide a clear
> step-by-step policy on getting approval, but the Wikisource creation
> policy is not equivalent.
>
> Unfortunately, this means that most or all requests on the
> multilingual Wikisource do not fit the requirements and will need to
> be re-opened under the language proposal policy, in particular
> regarding the use of arguments rather than simple votes.
>
> Fortunately, the existence of an active test project (whether on the
> incubator or the multilingual Wikisource) will mean that the request
> can be fast-tracked if there are insufficient arguments against in the
> new request. Requests for more projects in a language already
> established in another project can be fast-tracked even further.
>
> I apologize for the delay and inconvenience; once the new process is
> fully settled in there should be much less hassle.
>
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikisource-l mailing list
> Wikisource-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
>


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:
> Assuming good faith comes easily to some people. I'm just naturally
> suspicious. I don't assume bad faith, I just don't assume good faith
> readily. There needs to be a balance between gullibly believing
> everything any random tells us, and disbelieving everything anyone
> tells us until they show proof.

For what it's worth, I don't think assuming good faith prevents us from
watching for potential troublemakers. It's like "trust, but verify".
Checking things out allows us to turn our assumption into a sincere belief.

Even when people are clearly up to something, I think it's still worth
assuming the best possible motives. A great example is {{uw-joke1}} and
related templates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-joke1

Yes, after the eleven millionth reversion on [[Bong]] or [[Dildo]],
their jokes aren't remotely funny. Ditto for those "testing" Wikipedia
by inserting junk. But both are mistakes I well could have made once
upon a time, and with the best of intentions.

William


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
How is this hurting the man? It doesn't harm him at all.

Mgm

On 4/1/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It should be fixed back.
> >
> > Don't remove information you believe to be true from Wikipedia even
> > if it is unsourced. This is a central tenet of sourcing that needs to
> > be preserved in order to keep sourcing from becoming a bludgeon to
> > gut articles for POV or other churlish reasons.
>
> Following AGF, I would agree with you somewhat on just about
> everything, except articles about people who are still converting
> oxygen into CO2. Incorrect but plausible sounding information can hurt
> people in real life. It needs a source even if it's something you
> "just know" is correct.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 4/1/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > If this was to be implemented it would be for a limited amount of time
> and
> > applied for creation of a specific set of articles. It is not to give
> admins
> > more powers, it is to focus the attention of editors on fixing existing
> > articles instead of creating new articles. It is easier to fix what we
> have
> > if there isn't a constant influx of new material that doesn't get the
> eyes
> > it needs.
>
> Adding new limits to everyone except admins is IMO no different in
> practical terms from giving admins more powers.

Assuming this does get implemented, how do you suggest we handle current
event articles if not in the way I suggested?

Mgm


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> How about things we delete for violation of policy, not copyright (e.g. NC/ND
> stuff)? Or as dupes? It would be reasonable for people to want to keep using
> such images even after we deleted them.

The dupe issue will hopefully be solved after we get image redirects. ;)

Even in the case of NC/ND material we don't want our name being
associated with such files.

Other policy issues, sure, but this isn't trivially addressable so
long as all deletions look the same to the software. :)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2007 16:46:33 +0200, "Andries Krugers Dagneaux"
<andrieskd at chello.nl> wrote:

>I understand that. But topic banning an editor whose edits on that topic
>were desribed by the arbcom as "generally responsible" and without diffs
>that show disruptive editing on that topic is neither fair nor does it
>help the encyclopedia.

Wasn't the problem here one of conflict of interest, though?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Daniel Kinzler

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> What this does: Allows any MediaWiki installation to transparently
> load (and cache) images from a central repository like Commons,
> provided the repository permits it.

Cool! I have been waiting for something like that for quite a while.

> It doesn't seem to create a log entry for the 'borrowed' images, but
> still creates image page s for them (but doesn't link to the source in
> any way, which is a bit weird).
> probably wiki admins would like to know which images have been 'borrowed'.

Linking back to the original page is essential, of course. Also, links to the
uploader's user page (and also the author's page, if different) have to work to
fulfill the attribution requirement. (I can check if they do, the demo site
appears to be down).

But most importantly: what happens if an image is deleted from commons? Does it
vanish from the sites using it via InstantCommons? Or does it just stay? That
would not be good legally...

Ideally, the image would be replaced by a warning icons, and local admins can
decide if they want to delete, or "really" import their cached copy, and take
responsibility.

> No idea why Erik didn't post here as well, as if we're not interested  :)

Well, maybe he'll tell us :)

-- Daniel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
On 01/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Apr 2007 16:46:33 +0200, "Andries Krugers Dagneaux"
> <andrieskd at chello.nl> wrote:

> >I understand that. But topic banning an editor whose edits on that topic
> >were desribed by the arbcom as "generally responsible" and without diffs
> >that show disruptive editing on that topic is neither fair nor does it
> >help the encyclopedia.

> Wasn't the problem here one of conflict of interest, though?

No, it's that the editors in question have been attempting to get
Andries kicked off those articles for the last three years and they
finally rules-lawyered it through.

This was *not* a good ArbCom decision, not at all.

- d.


body:
> Raw page views seem to peak on Sunday and are lower at other times of
> the week, though there's a smaller second sawtooth around Wednesday.

Compare that to google.com in the same form, which also experiences the same
cycle.  Interesting.
--Mets501


subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Because the feature still needs quite a bit of work, and the full
> specifications at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InstantCommons answer
> some of the questions that would inevitably come up. We've already
> dealt with these questions, as well, when we originally proposed the
> project to WMF and the Board of Trustees. I will answer them again in
> some depth when the feature has been implemented up to specs.

Yes, and I whined about the copyright issues then, and I've yet to see
fully satisfactory answers.

With around 200k out of 1.5million images deleted thus far and more
every day,I do not believe commons is yet at a point of maturity where
the automatic redistribution of our images would be a socially
responsible action.

In order to get there I think we need to take at least two major steps
forward in the quality of our work. We're making good progress but,
like all things, it takes time.

We need to be mindful that one of the major differentiators between
commons and other user contributed online image repositories is our
responsiveness to copyright infringement concerns. We are remarkably
more responsive than most other user contributed image repositories,
and and automated image-live-mirror system without automated
revocation puts that status in jeopardy.

It can be argued that we're already have the mirror problem with text,
but text has a long term trend of far fewer copyright complaints per
item than media, and with things like automated text copyright
violation detection
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Suspected_copyright_violations)
our review mechanisms for text are clearly more sophisticated.

Text mirrors also tend to be either fairly spammy sites whos
violations no one would fault us for, or live feed recipients which
preserve our responsiveness.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Jim Breen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed

body:
Frankly I don't see what is wrong with having a Klingon dictionary.
If Wikipedia can have an entry like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breen
why get picky about yet-another artificial language.

Jim
--
Jim Breen
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I, for one, think it entirely unfair that you guys can just usurp a
so-far very successful process.

I think most people will agree that there were flaws with requests for
NEW languages, but I think you will find it more difficult to find
people who think we had any problem with Wikisource and Wikinews
requests.

I think (and this is just my opinion, but I would imagine at least
someone out there agrees with me) that you should leave Wikinews and
Wikisource be as they were before to process their own requests.

Mark

On 01/04/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The developers usually want approval by the subcommittee or the board
> before creating a new language subdomain. The language subcommittee
> has developed the language proposal policy
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP> to provide a clear
> step-by-step policy on getting approval, but the Wikisource creation
> policy is not equivalent.
>
> Unfortunately, this means that most or all requests on the
> multilingual Wikisource do not fit the requirements and will need to
> be re-opened under the language proposal policy, in particular
> regarding the use of arguments rather than simple votes.
>
> Fortunately, the existence of an active test project (whether on the
> incubator or the multilingual Wikisource) will mean that the request
> can be fast-tracked if there are insufficient arguments against in the
> new request. Requests for more projects in a language already
> established in another project can be fast-tracked even further.
>
> I apologize for the delay and inconvenience; once the new process is
> fully settled in there should be much less hassle.
>
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:
> But most importantly: what happens if an image is deleted from commons? Does it
> vanish from the sites using it via InstantCommons? Or does it just stay? That
> would not be good legally...
>
> Ideally, the image would be replaced by a warning icons, and local admins can
> decide if they want to delete, or "really" import their cached copy, and take
> responsibility.
>
Probably the same mess as now at the WM wikis :) They would need a
CommonsTicker, or whatever.

Bryan


from_name: Andries Krugers Dagneaux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
>> Therefore, Arbcom is not being "unfair" to such a person by ruling
against him.

>It is rarely so simple.

>One of the reasons is that our policies are not drafted by legal
>professionals. Therefore the assumption that they can be used as the
basis >of an entirely judicial approach to resolving disputes is flawed
from the >outset. The policies, for most editors, are a rough indication
of what >Wikipedia expects in the way of behaviour. That's good enough
for most >editing.

>ArbCom cases are not 'everyday situations' (thank God). They cover all
>possible variations on editing that transgresses or tries to exploit
policy. >If someone is working with a misconception of what policy
means, or is in >effect wikilawyering by sailing very close to the wind,
there does come a >point at which Arbitrators look at the substantive
effect of editor >behaviour, not the letter of policy.

>Charles

I think that the arbcom has made decisions that diverge quite strongly
from the existing policies and guidelines. For example, cited evidence
against me was repeatedly linking to a website maintained and authored
by the subject of the article. My behavior was okay according to
[[WP:EL]]. I had made every effort to follow dispute resolution.

When there is such a big difference between guidelines and the ruling of
the arbcom then the decision of the arbcom is not fair to the
contributor, even if the decision helps the encyclopedia.

Andries Krugers Dagneaux


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 31/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >> on 3/31/07 12:00 PM, Oldak Quill at oldakquill at gmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> How do you even define "harm"? Physical damage? Mental upset?
>
> > On 31/03/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> To cut someone's head is to hurt them - this will heal.
> >>
> >> To decapitate someone is to harm them - this will not heal.
>
> on 3/31/07 1:24 PM, Oldak Quill at oldakquill at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > This is not a definition of harm I recognise.
>
> It is, however, most precise.

Putting this back into the context of en.wikipedia, the worst we could
do to someone does not come close to your definition of harm.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Daniel Kinzler <daniel at brightbyte.de> wrote:

> It would be in our interest to block access to sites which continue to
> distribute copyright infringements which we have deleted.

Right. On another note, has a policy been thought out about mediawiki
installations which would bar their users from uploading images
locally and ask them to do so on Commons?

Does the Wikimedia Commons community have the strength to deal with
potentially thousands of new users not aware of our "free" policies
and uploading images to Commons?

Is there a requirement that the websites allowed to use InstantCommons
host free content? Or can every Tom Dick or Harry use InstantCommons?

Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] More on reliable sources

body:
If you fool the NYT, they'll HUNT YOU DOWN!

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/03/the_great_metro.html

- d.


from_name: Ron Ritzman

body:
On 4/1/07, Jim & Beth Boyle <corgijim at alltel.net> wrote:

> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.18.18/733 - Release Date: 3/25/2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

body:
On 4/1/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > I would answer: don't bother, because it will be such an utter
> > clusterfuck and PR disaster (relevant since it's basically a PR-driven
> > initiative) that the fine details really don't matter.
> >
>
> I hadn't thought about it in that light, but you're completely right.
>
> It would be a major tech news story, and a lot of them wouldn't be
> positive. It could be easily written as a "Wikipedia admits Wikipedia
> model a failure" story. Even friendly ones would ask why, and the
> headline could well end up as "Wikipedia bans new articles after
> 'ruining lives'".
>
>
> That's not to say it isn't the right thing to do if the model really is
> a failure. But I'm not there yet.
>
>
> William

I disagree entirely, it could quite easily be spun positively. "Wikipedia
changes focus to fixing errors." That's already what Jimbo's been saying, so
it's not much of a change. Yes, perhaps we'd lose some people, but what
about the thousands of people who've heard about how unreliable Wikipedia is
because of all the news stories about how we fucked up somewhere? We need a
better reputation, and the only way to get that is to fix our problems. No,
we might not get a shift of contributions from new article creation to
cleaning up, and many of those people might stop contributing altogether
until the lock is lifted, but it still gives the cleaning crews time to
catch up. Right now, thousands upon thousands of articles need fixing, and
that grows every day. If we can get that down to a reasonable level, we
might be able to keep up with the new articles later, instead of sticking
them in a category for a year before they're first looked at.


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
I find the emphasis on PR troubling.  Wikipedia is a work in progress
and is emphatically not finished.  We won't be able to fake this
convincingly anyway, so why are we thinking of trying?

-Matt


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 1 Apr 2007 at 19:32, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/1/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> > Though he personally identifies more with the arts-and-literature
> > crowd than the techie-geek one, he's certainly expressed plenty of
> > ideas that are relevant to tech topics, and have influenced them.
[snip]
> The first half, that he personally identifies more with the
> arts-and-literature crowd, is more interesting and would probably make
> a good intro to the paragraph I added about how he' says he's
> "uncomfortable with the nerd culture that centers on computers"
> (please feel free to add it, I won't because mailing list posts aren't
> automatically GFDL), but only if it's followed up with some details
> with, you know, sources.

I haven't researched sources, but I hereby release the above text
that I wrote into the public domain so that anybody who cares to do
the research to add appropriate sources may use any part of it as
appropriate in whatever they end up writing.  (It's probably too
short a bit of text to be copyrightable anyway.)

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Clearly, our goal should be to source just about everything.  Granted
>that it would be impossible to do that in one fell swoop.  Therefore,
>the quality of Wikipedia will improve in stages.
>
Most ideals are completely impossible.  This doesn't mean that we stop
striving in that direction.  The improvements can only come in stages.

>The key is that the community of good editors needs to give good strong
>firm social support to people who are doing this.
>
Not all good editors support a hard-assed approach.  Clearly some feel
that all these problems can be solved by more and better policies that
can be strictly enforced.  At the other end of the scale there is the
belief that the best way to accomplish this is through polite
negotiation and consensus building.  Both are likely acting in good
faith, and both can easily feel that the other side operates only to
thwart their efforts.  There needs to be more effort put to bringing
these sides together rather than driving them apart.

Using an obviously contrived example: If the strict people propose to
ban anyone who adds the word "shit" to an article, there will be an
immediate response that there are circumstances where including the word
"shit" is perfectly appropriate.  It's important to find a neutral point
somewhere between these two views.

>Imagine there is a small wikipedia out there which is just starting up,
>an important language in the developing world which is just getting a
>community.  They might choose to be incredibly tolerant of someone who
>would write something like "Tokyo is the largest city in Japan with a
>population of 40 million."  It is not a harmful statement, but it is
>wrong.  But it is better than nothing.
>
We need to be more sophisticated than that.  Just as small wikipedias
need time and room to grow, so too do broad subject areas within a
Wikipedia, narrower specialties within a broad subject area, and
individual articles within a specialty.  This is necessary for
maintaining growth,  and ensuring that the general right for everyone to
edit is protected.

>English Wikipedia is not at that stage anymore.  We should not accept
>random "I heard it somewhere" information nearly as easily as we would
>when we were young... even information that is not harmful per se.
>
Clearly, "I heard it somewhere," is the stuff that urban legends are
made of.  I agree that we should be more strongly disinclined to reject
that kind of argument, but some lattitude still needs to be given to new
and plausibly valid articles.  It takes time before other editors take
note, and start adding alternate views, expanding the scope of the
article and adding sources.  Remember too that the vast majority of
articles are not about controversial subjects.  It is understandable
that editors who narrowly engage in these peaceful areas would resent
having some rigid rule thrust upon them when their right to even
participate in the making of that rule was seldom more than theoretical.

Ec

Ec


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Mark Ryan wrote:
>
>
>>Are we sure the inaccuracy wasn't inserted by Fanning herself, in
>>order to find something to complain about in the interview?
>>
>>
>I think that's more or less irrelevant and not a very helpful line of
>inquiry in either the current case or with respect to the broader issue.
>
>I chatted with her, on the air, and on the phone afterwards.  She was
>friendly and funny and a bit bemused by it.  So, I am sure she did not
>add it herself.  And I think trying to cast doubt back on her is not at
>all what we should be doing here: the error was ours.
>
I agree.  Assuming that someone would insert things into her own
biography for the purpose of facilitating this sort of mischief is to
assume bad faith.  I don't doubt that there are people who would do this
kind of thing, but the burden of proof is on the accuser.

Ec


subject:
[Foundation-l] Robert Mugabe's daughter - news
 story	originating from Wikipedia?

body:
Jake Nelson wrote:

>Firstly, calling them "anonymous" as we do is silly, and is part of
>why some of the people opposed to registration used to complain about
>being asked to create accounts... "You want to take my anonymity! I'm
>secret!". IP users are far less anonymous than the majority of our
>pseudonymous users.
>
I agree with this of course, but you are attacking some of our most
sacred jargon, and attacks on jargon tend to be fruitless. :-)

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-04-02

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r20904).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


body:
Last I had seen, you could get most of the messages from the local Special:Allmessages page, with the output format set to PHP. Either way, having an extension is always cool. ;)

By the way, if anyone is curious about this, but don't know if their language is fully translated, they can check the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Localization_statistics page, which is almost self-explanatory...

Another way to get internationalization of messages is through BugZilla. It isn't as efficient as sending the message file, but it is better than having no file...

???????,

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:24 AM
To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org; mediawiki-i18n at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"

Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.

I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.

Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
all about.

I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
to that.

We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr?m for his
patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
order.

The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
international goals in mind.

While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
contribution.

I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
to use.

Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
can't, who can help us out in a major area.

Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
gratitude, as well as that of all our users.

There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).

Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,

Rob Church
MediaWiki developer
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"


body:
Blah blah blah...

On 02/04/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> As I stated before, I am quite happy when new projects for existing
> languages are started. I said so in an earlier message. The only thing that
> makes sense is that it is made sure that the localised messages are part of
> MediaWiki because it prevents that the messages have to be done again.
>
> When there is to be one policy, it will as far as I am concerned do exactly
> what I outline above; leave in essence the policy and make sure that the new
> project beneftits from the work that has been done before.
>
> So you are (again) barking up the wrong tree.
>
> Thanks,
>    GerardM
>
> On 4/2/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I, for one, think it entirely unfair that you guys can just usurp a
> > so-far very successful process.
> >
> > I think most people will agree that there were flaws with requests for
> > NEW languages, but I think you will find it more difficult to find
> > people who think we had any problem with Wikisource and Wikinews
> > requests.
> >
> > I think (and this is just my opinion, but I would imagine at least
> > someone out there agrees with me) that you should leave Wikinews and
> > Wikisource be as they were before to process their own requests.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 01/04/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > The developers usually want approval by the subcommittee or the board
> > > before creating a new language subdomain. The language subcommittee
> > > has developed the language proposal policy
> > > <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP> to provide a clear
> > > step-by-step policy on getting approval, but the Wikisource creation
> > > policy is not equivalent.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, this means that most or all requests on the
> > > multilingual Wikisource do not fit the requirements and will need to
> > > be re-opened under the language proposal policy, in particular
> > > regarding the use of arguments rather than simple votes.
> > >
> > > Fortunately, the existence of an active test project (whether on the
> > > incubator or the multilingual Wikisource) will mean that the request
> > > can be fast-tracked if there are insufficient arguments against in the
> > > new request. Requests for more projects in a language already
> > > established in another project can be fast-tracked even further.
> > >
> > > I apologize for the delay and inconvenience; once the new process is
> > > fully settled in there should be much less hassle.
> > >
> > > Yours cordially,
> > > Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
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subject: [Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

body:
Perhaps you would get further with our developers if you were a bit
more polite and understanding? "It only takes you an hour" does not
seem very considerate to me. I know that if I were a developer, I
would not want to cooperate with someone with an attitude like that.

Mark

On 02/04/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> It only takes you an hour.. And yes you are programming some stuff for me.
> You are however free to do whatever in your free time.
>
> PS You will need database access.. You have SVN access for what is required.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 4/2/07, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 12:53:48PM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > > If you can find a friendly developer to create these message files in
> > > Incubator, when the basic messages have been translated, we LOVE to have
> > > more projects.
> >
> > I could actually start doing this, but Gerard won't let me until I finish
> > some other
> > stuff. :-P
> >
> > <dodges the whip>
> >
> > Maybe in a week or two?
> >
> > read you soon,
> >         Kim Bruning
> >
> > --
> > [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
> > gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
> > 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
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body:
No, there's no reason. (well, there are some, but they are relatively
minor -- that is, messages on Wikipedia may be customized for our
site, so that instead of actually using {{SITENAME}} or that sort of
thing like they're supposed to, they might just use the word
"Wikipedia" because it displays the same in the UI when useed with
Wikipedia (but not when used on another site).

Just that nobody's done it, and nobody cares to for some unknown reason.

In fact, it would be very easy to do.

On 02/04/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Regarding this, there is something I don't quite understand. zh-cn and
> zh-tw show similar translation completion stats of about 35%, but if I
> go to zh.wikipedia.org, I sincerely doubt I will find many English
> system messages.
>
> So is the problem that some projects don't propagate their changes
> from the MediaWiki namespace back to the MessagesXX.php files (which
> is what "qualifies" as being translated)?
>
> I think it must be. In the stats dv has 0% but dv.wikipedia.org looks
> pretty sweet. certainly more than 0%. :)
>
> So, is there some reason it would be a bad idea to run a script to
> gather up these messages and just make the MessagesXX.php from them?
> Could it really be so hard?? (I mean, Unicode aside... ok, maybe it
> could be...)
>
> cheers
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> PS> I have a suspicion MediaWiki is the most i18sed software out
> there, open source or otherwise. does anyone know of any more complete
> or comprehensively translated software?
>
>
>
> On 02/04/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Last I had seen, you could get most of the messages from the local Special:Allmessages page, with the output format set to PHP. Either way, having an extension is always cool. ;)
> >
> > By the way, if anyone is curious about this, but don't know if their language is fully translated, they can check the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Localization_statistics page, which is almost self-explanatory...
> >
> > Another way to get internationalization of messages is through BugZilla. It isn't as efficient as sending the message file, but it is better than having no file...
> >
> > ???????,
> >
> > Titoxd.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church
> > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:24 AM
> > To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org; mediawiki-i18n at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"
> >
> > Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.
> >
> > I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.
> >
> > Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
> > all about.
> >
> > I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
> > discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
> > starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
> > to that.
> >
> > We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
> > front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr?m for his
> > patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
> > Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
> > long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
> > German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
> > order.
> >
> > The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
> > vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
> > problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
> > international goals in mind.
> >
> > While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
> > MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
> > launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
> > available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
> > software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
> > contribution.
> >
> > I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
> > Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
> > on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
> > hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
> > will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
> > MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
> > tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
> > to use.
> >
> > Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
> > and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
> > update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
> > language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
> > submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
> > forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
> > can't, who can help us out in a major area.
> >
> > Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
> > GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
> > the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
> > credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
> > gratitude, as well as that of all our users.
> >
> > There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
> > http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
> > interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
> > shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
> > who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).
> >
> > Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
> > MediaWiki developer
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
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body:
Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:

>On 3/30/07 1:13 AM, "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Offering subjects to delete on request is a bad idea IMO. If they can't
>>handle sourced criticism, we can't possibly have neutral articles on anyone.
>>
>>
>The problem often is not that "they can't handle sourced criticism." The
>problem is that an article about a borderline-notable person consists of a
>stub written by a detractor, which contains nothing but negative minor
>minutia about their marriage or the one time they had a DUI, rather than
>what the person's actually done to be encyclopedic.
>
Simple deletion on request is not the way to go because it leaves the
impression that such a request will work whenever the subject doesn't
like the article.  This has nothing to do with whether the article is
good or bad, however those terms are defined.  We delete articles
because they are bad, not because the subject asked.

>Adding positive sources does nothing to fix the problem - the problem is
>that their marriage or their DUI has absolutely nothing whatsoever with why
>they're encyclopedic. Biographies of living persons should not be scandal
>sheets.
>
Yes.

>The details of personal lives - who they had an affair with, why
>they got fired from a job, etc. - are generally irrelevant and should not be
>on Wikipedia unless there is a compelling reason which makes those details
>encyclopedic.
>
More or less yes.

>We have too many people who spend too much time hunting down negative stuff
>to write about people who have Wikipedia articles, so that their articles
>can be "balanced." That is not balance - that is sensationalism. If
>someone's article reads like vanity, tone it down and clean it up - don't go
>Lexis-Nexis-searching for that one time he wound up in the local paper when
>he injured someone in a car wreck 20 years ago. That doesn't help the
>encyclopedia.
>
What you describe is an eccentric view of NPOV: that an article which
does not mention criticisms somehow fails the NPOV criterion.  In
reality people can still be encyclopedic without ever having done
anything wrong.

Ec


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikisource-l] A successful request not yet
 fulfilled (was Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2007, Mark Williamson wrote:

> I think most people will agree that there were flaws with requests for
> NEW languages, but I think you will find it more difficult to find
> people who think we had any problem with Wikisource and Wikinews
> requests.
>
> I think (and this is just my opinion, but I would imagine at least
> someone out there agrees with me) that you should leave Wikinews and
> Wikisource be as they were before to process their own requests.

I am inclined to agree with Mark... the less process overhead, the better.

SJ


body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 3/30/07 10:21 AM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs at earthlink.net wrote:
>
>
>>On the
>>contrary, the personal lives of famous scientists have always been
>>interesting to historians, and they've spent many hours in parish
>>registers and city archives to get the particulars.
>>
>>
>Parish registers and city archives will only give you the what. The problems
>begin when amateur psychologists try to come up with the why.
>
On the other hand, if a deceased subject was also a writer details in
the registers and archives could be useful to someone trying to track
down whom to ask for permission to use copyrighted material.

Ec


body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 30/03/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>And there's another thing: did Amin have 40 children, or was it 22?
>>Google is inconclusive.
>>
>>
>The OxDNB says "thought to have fathered some fifty children"...
>
He could have named them all Idi in the way that George Foreman named
all his sons George.  Both were boxers!

Ec


subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> Ideally, the image would be replaced by a warning icons, and local admins can
>> decide if they want to delete, or "really" import their cached copy, and take
>> responsibility.
>
> It would be in our interest to block access to sites which continue to
> distribute copyright infringements which we have deleted.

How about things we delete for violation of policy, not copyright (e.g. NC/ND
stuff)? Or as dupes? It would be reasonable for people to want to keep using
such images even after we deleted them.

-- Daniel


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/1/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> No idea why Erik didn't post here as well, as if we're not interested :)

Because the feature still needs quite a bit of work, and the full
specifications at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InstantCommons answer
some of the questions that would inevitably come up. We've already
dealt with these questions, as well, when we originally proposed the
project to WMF and the Board of Trustees. I will answer them again in
some depth when the feature has been implemented up to specs.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
Domas disabled it in "miser mode" for performance reasons.

The search is particularly useful on Commons to find, for example, all
the latest SVGs  or OGGs that have been uploaded. What exactly is it
that makes it so slow? Could it be reactivated at least on Commons, or
for certain predefined searches?

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Wikitech-l] Saving pages from WP with stylesheet

body:
On 3/25/07, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dunno, but I'll observe that that syntax was probably used rather than
> <link> to stop CSS 1 clients from downloading the stylesheet.

Is that for bandwidth or display reasons? It would be lovely if we
could work around this issue in Firefox and IE somehow, as it directly
impacts the usefulness of saved pages for millions of readers. Aside
from the relation between layout and readability, a person who has no
idea what a stylesheet is may, from the very drastic visual
differences, infer that something went seriously wrong with the saving
process, and just give up.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 10:18:51PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
> On 3/31/07, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Generally agreed. I would only point out 18 is not world-wide age
> considered as adult who make their legal decision without the consent
> of their parents. In Japan, the age is 20. If you think it important,
> we are better to amend this part "at least 18 and explicitly or over
> the age at which they are capable to act without the consent of their
> parent in the country they reside".

For the curious:
There's a strange exception still in the dutch lawbooks where in one
situation you can be treated as a legal adult as young as 15 [1](It's
one of those strange old laws that's still in the books, but probably
hasn't been used for a century).

Oh, but actually,  but that does give me an idea on how to apply the [[KISS
principle]] and make the line shorter:

"Checkusers should be legal adults in the jurisdiction in
which they reside."

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

[1] For the terminally curious: If you are under 18, you are still
permitted to marry, provided you have parental permission, and provided
you are older than 15. As soon as you are married, you become a legal
adult. I don't think anyone has actually done this in the last 100
years, but it's still technically possible, AFAIK.

--
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subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


body:
On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 12:53:48PM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> If you can find a friendly developer to create these message files in
> Incubator, when the basic messages have been translated, we LOVE to have
> more projects.

I could actually start doing this, but Gerard won't let me until I finish some other
stuff. :-P

<dodges the whip>

Maybe in a week or two?

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

--
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body:
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 10:54:49PM +0100, David Gerard wrote:

Oh heck, maybe they should put me on the committee, shouldn't
be a big deal. Then they have svn access. Problem solved. [1]

read you soon,
	Kim

[1] Partially. I'd still need to make sure Brion doesn't yell at
me... or Rob Church... brrr! ;-)

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subject:
[Foundation-l] Saves me some time Re: Communication is required
	(was Re: Language Prevention Committee created)

in_reply_to:
<460A7332.9060803@wikimedia.org>;
	from brion@wikimedia.org on Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 09:52:50AM -0400

body:
On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 09:52:50AM -0400, Brion Vibber wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Please cut the drama, folks.
>
> There are several developers who work primarily on localization updates,
> including Nikerabbit and recently Raymond; updates which are sent to
> bugzilla usually get through in a relatively timely fashion.

Ah, saves me some time then O:-)

(long thread this)

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subject: [Commons-l] Wikimedia's Open Source Toolset

body:
I've started the following page:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Toolset

to collect a list of open source tools & open formats that are
commonly used to support Wikimedia projects. Mainly, this is for
external tools, rather than those developed within our community,
though I don't mind if it is expanded to cover both.

The purpose of having this page is to better inform decision-making
processes on all levels:
* directing volunteers who want to help us to work on particularly
useful open source projects
* directing editors to tools that help them with their day-to-day work
* possibly, even (when the Foundation is a bit more sustainable)
considering awarding development grants to some of them, or at least
helping them to pursue them by endorsing their grant proposals to
other organizations
* identifying key "missing pieces" that are not covered or not covered
well by the existing toolset (this might be a separate list).

I know many of you use specialized tools that are not well known.
There are also sure to be glaring omissions in the current list. I
would therefore appreciate all help to complete it.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia's Open Source Toolset


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikimedia's Open Source Toolset


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia's Open Source Toolset


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Wikimedia's Open Source Toolset


from_name: Seraphim Blade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
Generally, "being right" is not a defense to NOR. NOR helps to
preserve relevance and importance of information as well as
correctness of it. If no one else has seen fit to investigate this
matter or publish that conclusion, why should we be the first? If the
guy's that concerned, tell him to suggest the story to a newspaper. If
the paper decides it's correct and important enough to publish,
there's the source!

Seraphimblade

On 4/2/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:48:52 +0100, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Glancing at the talkpage - if it was an authorised design it would be
> >published in X; it's not published in X; ergo unauthorised.
>
> Proof of a negative, of course.
>
> I tagged it as needing a citation.  We should probably be fine as long
> as we restrict ourselves to what is said in reliable secondary
> sources.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote of the day

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 02/04/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> I don't know what this is called specifically, but it's definitely a logical
>> fallacy.
>>
>
>
> Some of the CitiZens on that thread also advocate blatantly violating
> copyright on Wikipedia material and forcing the issue to court - it
> appears more than a few of the people at CZ are primarily motivated by
> the urge to fuck over Wikipedia at any cost, and never mind their own
> quite healthy project. Hopefully they can be reined in by their more
> sensible colleagues.
>
>
Heh, apparently IQ isn't among the credentials that CZ looks at. :-)
More than a few corporate lawyers have seen $$$ opportunities in
trashing GNU licenses (personal conversations, sorry no cite), but in
the end thought better of crossing swords with Eben Moglen.

If GFDL is overturned, then people are going to need to license my
material from me directly. Hmm, OK, I'll charge WP 0$/year for the
license because I like them, and CZ $50,000/year because they've
irritated me.

Stan


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
On 3/31/07, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> "This is a very important role" is not a reason to discriminate based on
> age.  "This is a role that requires being responsible" is likewise not
> appropriate.  "This is a role that requires being legally accountable for
> one's actions" is...

Agreed. The age barrier in this case seems sensible, though we should
resist the urge to consider it sacrosanct -- there may be ways to find
exceptions even to this rule. Certainly something for a future Legal
Coordinator to look into.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Seth Finkelstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
> How *on earth* do you get this as being a violation of copyright?
> The BBC don't own facts about the show.

	Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. However, for certain reasons,
this particular subtopic of copyright is, err, very dear to my heart,
and I will immodestly boast of having argued down at least one
mistaken lawyer over it.

	Under US law, the keywords you would want to understand
are called "compilation copyright".

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

"A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling
of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or
arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes
an original work of authorship."

	And actually, "facts about the show" CAN be owned!

http://www.rcfp.org/news/1998/0824i.html

"SECOND CIRCUIT--A trivia quiz book testing readers' knowledge and
recollection of lines from the 'Seinfeld' television show does not
qualify as a "fair use" and as such constitutes copyright infringement ..."

	In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get
useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out
to a mailing list and debating them from intuition.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php


body:
Agreed. Allowing "straightforward interpretation" guts NOR. What is
straightforward, and what is over the line? What if I think my
interpretation is straightforward and you don't? And why should we be
fulfilling (or usurping) the role of secondary sources-distinguishing
not only what is true and factual, but is important and relevant?

Seraphimblade

On 4/2/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Apr 2, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 06:18:49 -0700, "Seraphim Blade"
> > > <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Generally, "being right" is not a defense to NOR. NOR helps to
> > >> preserve relevance and importance of information as well as
> > >> correctness of it. If no one else has seen fit to investigate this
> > >> matter or publish that conclusion, why should we be the first? If the
> > >> guy's that concerned, tell him to suggest the story to a
> > >> newspaper. If
> > >> the paper decides it's correct and important enough to publish,
> > >> there's the source!
> > >
> > > I completely agree.
> >
> > I completely disagree.
> >
> > Straightforward interpretation of primary sources is not original
> > research. It never has been, and it needs to remain that way because
> > of the number of notable articles about which there are not good or
> > usable comprehensive secondary sources.
> >
> > -Phil
>
>
> We're a tertiary source. If we go about the business of citing primary
> sources when there are no extant secondary sources, we've deviated from our
> purpose as an encyclopaedia.
>
> Johnleemk
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>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Top 10 Firefox bugs which affect MediaWiki

body:
The "save page" issue gave me the idea that we could submit an
official input from the WMF to the Mozilla Foundation on 10 key issues
that affect users of MediaWiki (an thereby, WMF). We have a fairly
good relationship with Mozilla & I think they'd be willing to give
these issues some priority if we ask nicely. A quick search on
bugzilla.mozilla.org suggests there are plenty of issues; if someone
wants to take the lead on this, I've started a stub here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_10_Firefox_bugs

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [WikiEN-l] Weekly cycles to Wikipedia traffic

body:
On 1 Apr 2007 at 19:09 -0400, Versageek <wiki at versageek.com> wrote:

> Use Alexa's comparison feature to compare wikipedia.org and google.com,
> they seem to mirror each other quite closely in terms of the sawtooth
> pattern.

Interestingly, youtube.com shows a sawtooth pattern that's almost
completely the inverse of that of google.com and wikipedia.org.  This
apparently reflects a distinction between "serious research and
information" sites that are used at work / school (or that one can at
least get away with surfing at such environments even if it's really
for fun) versus "frivolous entertainment" sites that are mostly used
at home in one's free time.

The fact that Sunday gets more Wikipedia traffic than Saturday could
reflect the general cultural norm (excluding Orthodox Jews who
strictly observe a sabbath from Friday night to Saturday sundown)
where Saturday is the day people are out and about doing everything
from shopping to partying, while Sunday is a day for relaxation at
home; as a result, TV ratings are higher on Sunday (Sunday night
prime time is a very popular TV night in the United States), and
maybe people are also surfing the Internet more.

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


from_name: Rob Church

body:
Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.

I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.

Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
all about.

I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
to that.

We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr?m for his
patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
order.

The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
international goals in mind.

While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
contribution.

I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
to use.

Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
can't, who can help us out in a major area.

Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
gratitude, as well as that of all our users.

There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).

Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,

Rob Church
MediaWiki developer


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 2 Apr 2007 at 12:03:04 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> >How *on earth* do you get this as being a violation of copyright? The
> >BBC don't own facts about the show.
>
> The same way that the UK Top Ten is the property of the company that
> publishes it, and a list of No. 1 hits in the UK is asserted by them
> to violate that copyright.

Under U.S. precedent (the Feist decision) (of course, law in the U.K.
and elsewhere may vary or be unsettled) if the selection and
arrangement of a list is entirely by objective criteria which could
be performed mechanically, then the list is factual information that
is not copyrightable (the case in question involved a telephone
directory, including all listed numbers in a given town arranged
alphabetically).  If there's some subjectivity involved (like a list
of the best songs of all time according to some critic or group of
critics) then it's probably copyrightable.

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


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> When we have to explain that people aged 15 can do a responsible job, we can
> do that in two ways
>
>    - show how a particular person has done so in the past
>    - show how they do a job compared to people who are more mature
>
> When people want to be skepticle, they assume .. and assumptions are the
> mothers of most fuck-ups. The notion that a person who is young cannot be
> responsible is as believable as the notion that someone is responsible
> because he is legally mature.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>

There's no doubt that a "minor" can act responsibly. There's no doubt
that an "adult" can act irresponsibly. What is in question is whether a
minor can "be" responsible -- whether they can be held accountable in a
legal sense or in a PR sense.

-Rich


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...