subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fundraising

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Fantasy wrote:
>
>>Hi Mav (or Jimbo),
>>Re http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fundraising.html
>>In your function of Treasurer for the board,
>>
>
>Er, ah, I just volunteered to be treasurer if nobody else who was
>qualified/motivated didn't want the position. Nothing official at all at this
>point.
>
Hmmm! It's not about who will be treasurer, but about how we choose our
treasurer.

>>"What is this Wikimedia-Fondation", "Why should
>>we trust this people",
>>
>So far the Foundation is just Jimbo and the reason you should trust him is
>because he has never given any reason not to be trusted while being in a
>position that could cause the end of the project on a simple whim (or to
>bastardize the concept by making it commercial; have you ever seen an add on
>Wikipedia?). He is now legally subordinate to the Foundation but as I said he
>is the Foundation so far. I still trust him completely though.
>
Sigh!! This is not about trusting Jimbo.  Such questions will continue
as long as there are new newbies.

>>Maybe with a little bit of transparency we could
>>show them that this is a really "Open" Organisation.
>>
>Slow down - we still need to set the darn thing up. Yes, it legally exists but
>a great deal of work still has to be done by the community to make the
>Wikimedia Foundation actually become more than just Jimbo.
>
But it is set up ... and who is "we" anyway?  A document had to be filed
with the Florida government to be incorporated in the first place.  One
of the questions that Florida asks on its form is how the directors will
be chosen.  That document and the statement from the state government
that Wikimedia is recognized as a foundation is a good starting place.
 These could easily be scanned and put on the appropriate website.

>IMO, all we really should be worried about (especially at first) is pure
>numbers and dates, not who contributed how much. The "who" has to be kept
>confidential at least until we get a way for people to indicate that they
>wouldn't mind having this info made public. Even then it should be a
>community decision on whether or not to make the 'who' info easily available;
>last thing we need is for people to think that the size of their donations
>somehow gives them more power in our community. Merit and a good track record
>should still be the number one criteria we consider for that type of thing.
>
There has never been a community decision to keep this information
secret.  The POV that the "who" has to be kept confidential is pure
fiction.  Community decisions work both ways; there is no basis for
assuming that either position is the correct default position.

The argument for openness is just as strong as the fear that people's
opinions will be influenced by the size of another's contributions.  The
sociology of this phenomenon could be a discussion by itself.

>>If the users see that the amount send was officially
>>stated/received somewhere, maybe they would put
>>more trust (and money) into Wikimedia/pedia.
>>
>For now at least, this info will have to be placed on a page on meta. I think
>I heard that we have received about US$1,000 in donations so far and that
>Jimbo put a couple thousand in the account when he opened it.
>
>IIRC from skimming Wikitech-l, what we have right now in funds is almost what
>we need to upgrade our current servers, but there has been some talk about
>also buying a US$6,000 server in a few months (giving us a three server
>set-up).
>
This is not about Jimbo's well-known generosity, which needs to be
appropriately celebrated.  Nor is it about Mav's generosity for his
expenses in securing a long list of domain names, which also needs
recognition.  It's about openness which allows even newbies to feel that
they belong and have a stake in what is happening.

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a
	WIKIArticle--]

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> [3] The famous equation E=mc^2 does not support special relativity.
> (This is stated explicitly by the imminent physicist John Wheeler on
page
> 148
> of his famous book _Spacetime Physics_ {1963}, wherein he noted the
fact
> that Einstein presented an SR-free derivation of E=mc^2 in order not
to
> have this famous and important fact associated with a mere theory.)

Not a helpful comment, but I think it's highly amusing that John Wheeler
is imminent.

I have a strong suspicion his "Spacetime Physics" claim is a misleading
paraphrase, especially since our disputant is calling E=mc^2 a "famous
and important fact" but special relativity a "mere theory",
demonstrating the standard misunderstanding of the scientific meaning of
the word "theory".


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 50

body:
Anthere-
>> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages
> he idiotically
> created
>> now.
>>> Regards,
>>> Erik

> After trying so much for the pages precisely not being
> deleted ?

I never tried to keep the Deletexxxx pages from being deleted. I would
prefer the content to be merged into the User talk page.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Templates / duplication of information and meta data

body:
Jurriaan Schulman wrote:

>After writing some articles on animals I noticed two things which I would
>like to discuss. I would like to know how I can help to improve them.
>
>1) wikipedia seems to duplicate a lot of information which could be avoided.
>2) there currently seems to be no way to change information in more than one
>article at once.
>
>I would like to give a few examples to illustrate this:
>
>
>Ad 1: Most articles on animals use some kind of table, which is duplicated
>for each article. Also, many articles may use the same references which are
>duplicated on many pages. This is seen in a lot of other articles too and is
>a huge waste of hard disk space and performance.
>
See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life]].  The "Taxoboxes" provide a
taxonomical position for the life form under consideration, as well as a
list of the beings in the major rank immediately below it.

>Ad 2: when I write many articles about closely related species, I may use
>one article as a template and copy parts of it. If I discover a typo in this
>copied part, I have to change it for each article by hand.
>Another example would be if we decide to change the background colour of the
>table used by most articles on animals. This may be no problem for a few
>articles, yet with hundreds or thousands of articles it is a huge waste of
>human resources.
>
The pink background colour is to indicate that we are dealing with an
animal species.  Green is used for all plants. What colour change would
you be proposing.

>The solution would probably be to use meta data. I tried to discuss this on
>wikipedia, but the discussion was moved to feature requests. An argument
>against the use of meta data and templates was that it would make it harder
>to contribute to wikipedia. An Argument which I do not really understand.
>
Please explain your use of meta data for this type of article.

>So my real questions are: who is currently working on the database schema
>for wikipedia and who decides if it would be useful to change this schema?
>
Go to the talk page for the above cited page.

Eclecticology

>


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] EntmootsOfTrolls still causing severe problems

body:
--- Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org> wrote:

> >The guy lives in Canada (Toronto area IIRC). Since when can the
> FBI harass
> >our
> >friends to the north?
>
> They probably can (and I'll spare us all a political rant at this
> point), but
> the appropriate agency to call in this case would be the RCMP.

Actually,

You still call the FBI. Now, it's called international terrorism, and
the  US has a bunch of agreement with foreign governments to
cooperate on this sort of things.

If the RCMP gets a call from Joe Shmoe in Kansas, they file it as "Oh
Well", however, if they get a call from FBI supervisor William
Wentsworth in Washington DC's DOJ office, they take up the ball like
it was a hot potato.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] articles about Serbian history

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
>>> We really don't want links to this particular site
>>> because of its agenda.
>>> Fred
>>>
>>
>>
>> Well, then that's just because of its POV. We link to
>> POV sites.
>>
>
> I still think it's a bit sketchy, and things like this may hurt
> Wikipedia's credibility.  If, for example, the initial version of the
> Martin Luther King article was taken from a KKK site (under the GFDL),
> people would be rightfully skeptical of our editorial stance if it
> said at the bottom "this article incorporates text originally from [a
> KKK site]".  This seems likewise a bad idea to me, since it makes it
> far too easy for people, seeing the cited source, to simply dismiss
> Wikipedia as highly biased, even if the text has in fact been NPOVed
> in the meantime.

An article about MLK by the KKK would not last long.  Similarly, the
best thing to do with these Serbian history items is to edit them
severely,  Forbidding the article in the first place accomplishes
nothing except getting people upset.  The energy is better spent
editing.  Wikipedia's credibility is not much of an issue when something
doesn't last here for very long.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Yes, it's a tough problem -- I've generally deliberately tried to be
>"too slow" on the banning process, which has it's costs of course.
>
>Basically, if we're too slow, we risk alienating good users who have
>to put up with too much.  And if we're too fast, we run the very real
>risk of creating more trouble than we're solving.
>
I agree with the go slow process.  If you give these guys the time to
dig their graves, there will be no doubt about what hole they belong in.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Banning processus

body:
John Robinson wrote:

> You bet I was heated up, I still am.  However, after having read Tim's
> response and after some discussion I realized it was best to wait
> until Jimbo could get to the list and read the thread before
> continuing.  Sorry for not bringing that to the list earlier.
>
> I find it interesting though that of all the objections to banning
> this account I've seen here on the list and on various talk pages have
> been based solely on procedure.  I find nothing anywhere along the
> lines of "this person doesn't deserved to be banned, this person's not
> a troll, this person's a fine contributor"; what I mainly see is "we
> haven't discussed it enough yet."

Procedure is important.  At the same time procedure does not mean
endless discussion.  When a banning proposal is put to the mailing list
it is often to a lot of people who have never encountered the accused.
 It's easy for any two people to work on very different topic areas
without encountering each other in a project that's so big.  If you're
going to use the list to propose a ban you wan't to make sure that the
facts are documented, and that you lay them out.  If you don't you risk
being identified as a whiner.

Ec


from_name: tarquin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a
	WIKI	Article--]

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
>Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
>are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
>made here?
>
doubtful.
That article seems to draw in the crackpots like {insert image of choice
here}.
It is a waste of our time to go over their theories with them (the guy
who said measuring with a stick was a "more direct way of measuring"
wasted HOURS of my time).

I have recently been tempted to wipe most of that article's talk page
and leave only discussion about the article itself, and add a big notice
saying "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOUR OWN THEORIES".


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] New logo and further process

body:
We have a new logo! See

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/Results

for the contest results.

What now? As you may have noticed, I have taken the liberty to put the
logo on the English Wikipedia already. However, this is not necessarily
permanent but primarily serves to demonstrate how the logo looks in real
world use. The above URL contains a link to the logo discussion page. You
can make proposals for changes to the logo, and any change that finds a
consensus can be made. There is no time limit on this.

Now for the tricky part. Each Wikipedia can choose to "ratify" the new
logo, or to keep its current one. This was an idea by Anthere (I think),
and it seems reasonable to avoid hard feelings and to see if we have
strong enough support for the new logo. If not enough people participate
in this vote, the logo is automatically ratified.

Thanks for participating, and let's do this again in two years ;-)

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Logo, third voting phase

body:
Hein ? ...speechless...no...I do not think I said that
Or if I did, it was not understood the way I meant it
I fear.

I am all for a common logo. I could go for variations.
But all my contributions to the topic have been in the
direction of us having a common one, under which we
could all be recognised as ONE project. I think what I
suggested once in a discussion was that old logos
could be kept, but I meant a global vote would decide
this. A wikipedia wide vote, where people would
globally agree to use the new one, or to keep the
current set as is. This was precisely the last option
of the second part of the vote. Option 12.

My opinion is that it is curious to have asked people
to vote for the 12 option globally, to again ask them
locally. The option 12 specified that only "the set"
was an option, and now we suggest that actually the
individual option is ok.

I am very unhappy to be here associated with that
third part, which I do not support. I supported the 12
option, not this.
Should one wikipedia choose that individualistic path,
I would consider that a failure for the current
process. If some of my comments are responsible for
this last part, I deeply regret them.

I have been unhappy for 2 years with our illigitimate
logo. I supported this competition very much, I spent
a lot of time trying to make logos myself and to get
french people involved, I do not want to be associated
to this third part, which is just going against all my
wishes.

I want us to take decisions together, to work deeply
on that. Not to pretend working together, to be
allowed at the last step to be sessionnists.

The current french logo has a very deep history to
carry. I want to say again that I respect and
appreciate very much his original author, a very nice
fellow. And to say again that I know he was doing what
he thought the *best* at that time. He was acting in
good faith.
When the logo was changed, we were very few, still in
phase I, with extremely little communication between
wikipedias, and a software decision process entirely
centred on en, which was strongly resented by several
internationals.

"Our" logo was not a community work
"Our" logo choice was not a community decision. One
person draw it one day, then sent it to Jason, asking
him to install it. Jason, quite naturally, said "let's
ask the community first". The original author got in a
frenzy, indicating the english people had no
legitimity over french choices. So the logo was
installed, with no french giving his opinion; just
discovering it one day on Wikipedia. The decision to
change the logo was made by one person, with no
discussion whatsoever. For this, it is illegitimate as
a community choice imho.

Besides, this affair raised tensions between Jimbo and
the french wikipedia, and it also raised tensions
between the french wikipedians as well. Some very
harsch words were exchanged. Some talk of forking
then.
I was a one or two months old newbie, so I only
protested, but let the logo in place. Just tried to
explain to Jimbo what happened. Thanks for Brion for
soothing people at that occasion. I hope people
realise how important Brion is in the existence of the
international wikipedias. Not only for software
details, but just for his very helpful way to help
people understand one another.

Were that logo change happen today, I would boldly
revert a change that would be "today" said anti wiki.
Actually, I think that anyone boldly changing the logo
with an entirely new one that way today would be
labelled a problematic user at best, a vandal at
worse.

Consequently, not only do the logo has no right to be
there, since no opportunity was given to "discuss" it
and to "choose" together, but it also carry the weight
of separatism.

This is bad for a common project to exist under
different logos. A logo is precisely a message of
unity. As I already said, variations are ok to me, as
long as it is obvious to externals that they belong to
a common network. But our logo was quite different
from the original one, and would be even more
different of the new one. I just fail to see it as
acceptable.

Somewhere, in the french definition of consensus,
there is a notion of "blocking position". If we were
deciding upon consensus, I would use this right. Since
we are currently using democracy, I can't.
However, if the french choice is to keep the current
logo, officially showing to the world, a clear desire
of independance, I think this will require to be
seriously worked on.
If it is just an aesthetic choice (clearly, not
everyone is happy with the new one), I wonder if I
won't set a voting session every few months, to check
if the group did not change his mind :-)))

And in any case, asking people to vote three times is
bad.

-----

Since some people are not very happy with the new one
they consider cluttered, why would not we adopt that
logo for now.

And then a couple of artists quietly work on a few
less variants, and make new propositions in a couple
of months ?

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from_name: Steve Vertigum

body:
--- Richard Grevers <lists at dramatic.co.nz> wrote:

> Yay - months of process and what do we get? The
> worst result - the logo
> that has the biggest technical problems in terms of
> reproduction in other
> media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear
> because it is far too
> busy.

I took issue with PM about it, and there was some
confusion about whether final was final-- I nagged
Erik a bit about the problem--- that if little details
like clutter were to derail a good logo concept, how
collaborative would that be--

Erik made it clear, as he did in the last message that
the "final logo version" is a concept piece-- its
minor details (like how much junk to throw on it) to
be worked out by consensus. PM agreed to open up the
creation process for his logo, so that people can take
a crack at it themselves, seeing that a great concept
should not have to sink on the weight of its merest
bugs, if the original designer cant think of
everything themselves.

It might even be cool to try out different things,
maybe photos (like the sunflower) mapped to the PM
puzzle-sphere-- maybe a change like that weekly for
the main... it would be easy to get carried away....
But some simple color mods will likely be the way to
go to select a solid "final final" from, that will
have dispensed with some of the commonly noted bugs.

Until a better idea comes along,
~S~

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subject: [WikiEN-l] "Jerk"

body:
-- cprompt <cprompt at tmbg.org> wrote:
> I meant that off-list to Adam, and the word jerk was
> intended
> lightheartedly. I tried to reply to my own posting
> to explain that,
> after I realized I had addressed the list..only that
> time, the reply WAS
> offlist, and shortly after I received a reply.
>
> I apologize for being offensive and insulting, even
> if (and especially
> if) it was targetted at someone who was not intended
> to hear it.

Fair enough.
~S~

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Corporate Responsibility

body:
>From comments on the thread of fundraising as to lack of interest:

I suggest the creation of a mailing list dealing specifically with
the governance of the Wikimedia.

That place should include discussions on what else needs to be done.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use and inline links

body:
From: Andre Engels <engels at uni-koblenz.de>

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Anthere wrote:

>> So...Brion...could you please remove the
possibility
>> of making online linking from the international
>> wikipedias please ?
>
>> It is a consensus reached by those who worked
>>clearing
>> up the topic these past 10 days. With no opposing
>> voices. Thanks.

>If you just make them impossible, it would break
quite >a numer of pages.
>So IF you do this, and I do not agree with Anthere
>that the fact that noone said anything means that we
>all agree, then I think it will be
>better to keep the possibility to have this
>inter-Wikipedia, and just
>forbid such links to the outside world.

>Andre Engels

Hi Andr?

Glad you answered :-)
If you do not, how could I know you disagree ? :-)

To the point : you appear to agree with forbidding
links from outside world. Are you aware of some people
disagreeing with this, and if so, for which reasons ?

I agree with you it would be interesting to allow
inwiki linking. Uploading really  is a pain, and that
make sense to share a common resource.

However, our users should be given the copyright
status of the information provided. Text is gfdl.
Images...not always so. They may prefer not to use
fair use images, or cp pictures, with author
permission to wikipedia. The problem of inline
linking, is that the user have no easy access to that
information. He could look for the internet link. See
the image displayed, and now what ? How could he know
how to tweak the link to get to the image description
?

If we keep inwiki linking, the user should have a way
to access the description file of the image. Do you
have a suggestion  to do so ? I myself do not know.

Anthere

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body:
A design will never please anyone unfortunately.

But, should we shut the very numerous voices that
scream "clutter" ? That have been screaming this for
at least 2 weeks, and certainly before the second vote
started (when it was quite obvious this one was an
leader) ?

What about a three voting choice rather

* agree for this logo to be THE logo
* will postpone my decision after some variants are
made
* want to keep my old washing power barrel ?

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from_name: james duffy

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Adam acting the ass again *sigh* (and he is only just
	back)

body:
I'm afraid Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] is acting the ass again in exactly the same way as
he did before. He new stunt was to try to edit the [[Talk:List of
heterosexuals/delete (final archive)]] page.

For people who may not know, to preserve long debates that used to be moved
to talk pages from the VfD but which then ended up deleted if the article
and talk page were both deleted, and to avoid the problem of inconclusive
delete debates on talk pages, where the debate got sidetracked as debates on
deletion and on the article blurred together, a recent innovation is now
being used by increasing numbers. A special /delete page is created and
attached to the talk page. A set of rules are followed:

1. /All/ the delete debate is focused there, not on the talk page.

2. A strict timetable is followed. The article is created on 'x'. A decision
is taken on 'x + 7' meaning that debates no longer meander on for ever but
are decided at the end of a week.

3. The /delete page is kept, even if the article and talk page isn't, and
preserved on a page linked to the VfD page, meaning that we will now have a
back archive of these debates for people researching the history of wiki to
review.

4. Once the page being debated is deleted, the debate ends, the page ceases
to be 'live' and becomes a record of the debate that decided the issue.

Everyone has been following this. All debates have ended when a decision was
taken. But Adam, in one of his tantrum-throwing spoiled child moods, decided
as so often in the past that he wants to be above the rules. The vote on
that page ran from 31 August to 8 September. 70%+ voted to delete the
article. It was deleted, then the /delete page closed, archived and linked
to the [[Archived delete debates]] on the VfD page. Adam however doctored
the archive page to add in his vote and comments, weeks after the page was
closed. I reverted back the archive version that has been sitting there
untouched for weeks. Adam again doctored the page. Ed Poor protected it but
inadvertently preserved the wrong version. I corrected to the archive
version that everyone had originally signed off on and left the protection.

Adam is now going ballistic, throwing accusations of censorship and
bizarrely demanding the right to vote in a vote that finished on 8th
September as to whether to delete a page that was deleted on the 8th of
September. It is so bizarre it is like an episode of Fawlty Towers. He is
alone complaining on the [[Problem Users]] page, where no-one has supported
him and he has been attacked for his behaviour by RickK, Angela, and Cyan.
(I also commented.)

However, all past experience of Adam is that he starts off like that and
keeps at it, childishly setting off edit wars the way some children set off
fire alarms. We all expected that /this/ time he would stop acting the ass
and grow up. It doesn't say much for the future when within days of
returning he is acting /exactly/ as he did as Lir, as Vera, as Susan Mason,
as Dietary Fiber, as Pizza Puzzle, etc.

This behaviour has got to be nipped in the bud immediately or we are going
to have weeks if not months of it, as he plays his little games. I was one
of the first to say Adam should be allowed back, but that was only if he
behaved himself.

IMHO Jimbo, he needs to be told clearly, unambiguously and explicitly - STOP
THIS NOW. Any more antics like that, any more returning to the spoiled child
antics and you will be banned immediately, permanently and for life. No more
warnings. You are back because people, even after all they put up with
before, agreed to give you /one/ more chance. But even the slightest whiff
of your old foot-stomping 'I want my way' screwing around with articles and
you are gone for good.

That /has/ to explicitly spelt out to him now, not one week or one month
later when he has done it 5, 10 or 20 times elsewhere. Wiki doesn't need to
have to put up with Adam acting the ass again if that is his game plan. And
his behaviour on this one article tonight suggests that he has every
intention of acting as before and thinking he can get away with it. He needs
to know, bluntly and directly, that he cannot, ever again.

And for the record, I don't want Adam banned. But he has to stop acting like
a spoiled 9 year old throwing tantrums and seeing how many fights he can
start. Adam has shown for long enough that 'softly softly' doesn't work with
him. The rules have to spelt out to him unambiguously and forceably.

JT

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from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BuddhaInside banned

body:
> The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
> BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a case
> of simple and obvious vandalism.
>
> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically created
> now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

If you had looked a little closer you would have seen that it wasn't
done on purpouse.

BL


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and 'new physics'

body:
Well, it's against my role as 'the Jimbo' around here to call people
crackpots, so I'll avoid that word here.  But you'll all know what I
mean anyway.  ;-)

It has been my long experience, too, that there are many, uh, creative
minds, who are drawn to theorizing about the puzzles and mysteries of
physics.  Their struggles against the tyranny of the mainstream are
romantic and lonely; they are voices of reason, crying out in the
wilderness.

I think this presents challenges for our NPOV policy, but not
_special_ challenges.  As with any controversial subject, and many
uncontroversial ones, there are mainstream views, minority views, and
singular views.

NPOV does not require us to present all these views as if they are
equal!  This is one of the things that's hardest to remember about
NPOV.  If a view is the majority view of a broad consensus of
scientists, then we say so.  If a view is a minority view of some
scientists, scientists who are respected by the mainstream that
differs with them on this particular matter, then we say so.  And if a
view is held only by a few people without any traditional training or
credentials, and if that view is dismissed by virtually all mainstream
scientists, then we can say that, too.

The reason we can do all of that is that, usually, those statements
are not controversial to any of the parties in the debate.  We could
have a problem if someone insists that their peculiar views are shared
by all scientists, but that's usually not the case.  Usually the
creative alternative-physics types will readily agree that virtually
no mainstream physicists would agree.

And we can use all of that as a reasonable grounds for dividing up
articles.  Usually, mainstream and minority views are treated in the
main article, with the mainstream view typically getting a bit more
ink, but the minority view presented in such a fashion that both sides
could agree to it.  Singular views can be moved to a separate page and
identified (disclaimed) as such, or in some cases omitted altogether.

There's a popular view of bias in journalism, held more in practice
out of laziness I think than held as an actual theory of bias, that
the way to be unbiased is to present both sides of an argument without
prejudicing the discussion for or against either one.  "Some say that
the earth is round, others say that it is flat."

Our approach is more sophisticated, I think.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Banning processus

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >Yes, it's a tough problem -- I've generally deliberately tried to be
> >"too slow" on the banning process, which has it's costs of course.
> >
> >Basically, if we're too slow, we risk alienating good users who have
> >to put up with too much.  And if we're too fast, we run the very real
> >risk of creating more trouble than we're solving.
> >
> I agree with the go slow process.  If you give these guys the time to
> dig their graves, there will be no doubt about what hole they belong in.

Right, I agree.  I know it's frustrating to old-timers that I'm so
slow about it, but I think it's really important for _credibility_,
because that's really the only way to make these things stick.

By going slow, I ensure that by the time the ban comes, people can say
"Oh, yeah, well, you know, what else could be done?  Geez."

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fundraising

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> There has never been a community decision to keep this information
> secret.

What's secret?  There are no secrets here.  I just posted all the
details of the current account balances at the bank and at PayPal a
few days ago.

Here's a link to the Florida state government website with information
about the nonprofit filing:
http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?a1=DETFIL&n1=N03000005323&n2=NAMFWD&n3=0000&n4=N&r1=&r2=&r3=&r4=WIKIMEDIAFOUNDATION&r5=

The nonprofit corporation exists, and most of the organizational
details are to be in the bylaws.  I'm working (slowly, and I apologize
for that, but I want to get it right) with Alex (our pro-bono attorney
who has given generously of his time in helping me with such stuff) to
put the bylaws together carefully to be exactly the way I want them.

--Jimbo


from_name: Roy Royce

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a
	WIKIArticle--]

body:
First, let me thank Mr. Wales for his reasonable reply.

But I find it sad that some people are willing to dismiss a simple
fact without even trying to check the cited source.

Here are the relevant quotes from Wheeler's book, _Spacetime Physics,
page 148 (1963 edition):

"Commentary: The equivalence of energy and mass is such an important
consequence that Einstein very early, after his relativistic derivation
of this result, sought and found an alternative line of reasoning that
leads to the same conclusion."
"[A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik, 20, 627 (1906)]"

"However, to secure a derivation free of all direct reference to
relative principles, he [Einstein] based the conclusion p = E on
the following elementary argument." [etc., etc.]

The fact that E=mc^2 does not support SR is not merely "my fact."

Also, posting to the Newsgroups per se does not make one a crank.

I challenge anyone here to find where I lost any argument to anyone
in the Newsgroups.

I hate to say this, but Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an
easily-fooled person because I have never - by any stretch of anyone's
imagination - except Starling's - suggested "a direct test of some
aspect of relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even
technically impossible." And I have never ignored "the huge body of
slightly less direct tests of the same theory," and I have not then
"obliquely suggested some sort of conspiracy theory to explain why
no-one is spending millions of dollars on his simple test." And it
is complete balderdash to say of me that "Everywhere he goes, he
feels persecuted by co-conspiring mainstream physicists, who are
out to suppress the 'truth' he has discovered."

Mr. Starling, I demand either an apology or some proof of the above
serious accusations.

Now that I have proved the validity of the E=mc^2 fact, I should be
taken seriously when I note the one-way light speed facts that not only
has no one ever made such a measurement using two clocks, but such a
measurement (sans man's interference by definition or convention) is
physically impossible.

The fact that no one has ever used two clocks to measure the one-way
speed of light is a part of scientific history.

The fact that this has long been technically feasible is also a part
of scientific history.

The only fact that is personally mine is the obvious conclusion that
such an experiment cannot be performed.

If any of you still insist that it is possible, then the burden of
proof is on you to show how it can be done without first forcing your
pre-chosen (and baseless) result (by using some definition of clock
synchronization).

In other words, can anyone out there in WIKI-land tell us the step-by-
step process for using two clocks to measure light's one-way speed sans
any interference from man?

If not, then my final fact has been validated by you all.

(And that fact tells us that there can be no light postulate because
where there is no experiment, there can be no prediction (or postulate)).

(Bear in mind that Einstein's light postulate pertained only to the
one-way speed of light. He did not have to postulate re the round-trip
case because it had already been essentially closed by the round-trip
Michelson-Morley experiment.)

Factually yours,
------RR------
(Sorry for using imminent for eminent, but I wrote it a little
too quickly!) (Nobody's perfect, and certainly not me!)

>From: Tim Starling <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce at hotmail.com: --A Request RE a
>WIKIArticle--]
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 11:07:09 +1000
>
>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
>>Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
>>are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
>>made here?
>
>A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity
>crackpot. See:
>
>http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.telenet-ops.be&rnum=2
>
>>
>>----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> -----
>>
>>From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com>
>>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
>>To: jwales at joey.bomis.com
>>Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
>>
>>Dear Mr. Wales,
>>
>>Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies
>>to the
>>addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
>>seems to
>>be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical -
>>facts to the
>>Wiki special relativity article.
>
>That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are
>considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of the
>process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.
>
>
>>I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following
>>statements for
>>yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
>>
>>[1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one
>>way).
>>
>>[2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the
>>lack
>>of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
>>making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
>>version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
>>wonder
>>why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)
>
>If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:
>
>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting.google.com&rnum=1
>
>Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r, where
>he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using is a
>typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of relativity
>which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically impossible. He
>ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of the same theory, and
>then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy theory to explain why
>no-one is spending millions of dollars on his simple test. Everywhere he
>goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring mainstream physicists, who are
>out to suppress the "truth" he has discovered. It's a common story.
>
>>My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
>>relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
>>encyclopedia.
>
>Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us,
>Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals
>who want to expose the shocking truth.
>
>-- Tim Starling.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Get McAfee virus scanning and cleaning of incoming attachments.  Get Hotmail
Extra Storage!   http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: articles about Serbian history

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:
>
> Or, to put it another way, is deleting external links that one doesn't
> like similar to deleting material in the Talk: pages one doesn't like?
>

No, deleting external links should be legitimate, if the linked website
contains propaganda or garbage.

Some editors of the Balkan articles have perfected a way of feignedly
sticking to NPOV, but effectively breaking it: they write a very short
article, and then add "Further information can be found here", pointing to
a biased page. There was even a page (which I currently cannot find
again), where the external links were spread all over the text; that's
about how it looked:

"When the Serbian army [1] entered Bosnia [2], resistance was high [3]..."

Every [x] was linking to a one-sided website. We should carefully watch,
what kind of external links is added to this sort of pages, where a
violation of NPOV is likely to come.

However, when I find time, I will have a look at all these Serbia pages
and try to rewrite them, so that we can get rid of these freesrpska.org
links.

Mirko.


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BuddhaInside banned

body:
BL said:

> > The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
> > BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a
case
> > of simple and obvious vandalism.
> >
> > I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically
created
> > now.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Erik
>
> If you had looked a little closer you would have seen that it wasn't
> done on purpouse.
>
> BL

Do you mean the move of the main page was not done on purpose?  How could it
have been an accident? from what others have said this needed a hand-edited
URL - it wasn't just a mistaken click of a link.  Can you elaborate?

Thanks

sannse


from_name: Adam Bishop

body:
The first runner-up may be simpler, but I find it as ugly as you find the
winner. I assume others feel the same way, since it didn't win.

Adam Bishop

>From: tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New logo and further process
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 10:02:46 +0100
>
>
>
>Gutza wrote:
>
>>Richard Grevers wrote:
>>
>>>Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the logo
>>>that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction in other
>>>media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because it is far too
>>>busy.
>>>You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks, so
>>>everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.
>>
>>
>>Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so it's
>>not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo stinks big
>>time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a country this way.
>>
>>Gutza
>>
>>(Before y'all start with me, yes, I had a few logos in the competition
>>myself, and mine was obviously not chosen, but I would've been happy if we
>>chose the first runner-up, which is not mine either. That would've been a
>>logo, and a good one at that IMNSHO. The one we chose is neither good, and
>>not even a real logo. It's a coloured puzzle ball for Chrissake!)
>
>I am in complete agreement with you!
>It's horrible, it's too complex, and the first runner-up would be much
>better,
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


from_name: cprompt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome back Adam

body:
He hasn't used PP in 3 days. Perhaps he's switching to Lir fulltime.

On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 09:24, viajero at quilombo.nl wrote:
> On 09/18/03  at 11:42 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> said:
>
> > In my earlier message on this topic, I said that Adam could edit under
> > the name 'Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]'.  He didn't object to that, but on my own, I
> > realized that I don't really care what name he uses as long as it's
> > consistent.  A consistent name will let him earn the reputation that he
> > deserves, based on his edits.
>
> By the look of things, he is using two logins at the moment. See:
>
>  http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Lir&limit=100&offset=0
>   http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pizza+Puzzle&limit=100&offset=0
>
> FWIW.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Anthere wrote:

> So...Brion...could you please remove the possibility
> of making online linking from the international
> wikipedias please ?
>
> It is a consensus reached by those who worked clearing
> up the topic these past 10 days. With no opposing
> voices. Thanks.

If you just make them impossible, it would break quite a numer of pages.
So IF you do this, and I do not agree with Anthere that the fact that
noone said anything means that we all agree, then I think it will be
better to keep the possibility to have this inter-Wikipedia, and just
forbid such links to the outside world.

Andre Engels


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] File Upload?

body:
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 09:10, Jim Guide wrote:
> When will File Upload on www.wikipedia.org be re-enabled? I'm trying to get
> an artist's permission and I need to take a screenshot of his image in situ
> with copyright recognition (which I will do by editing article and taking
> screenshot without saving the edit). Thx, JDG.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Announcements

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


body:
Gutza-
> Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so it's
> not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo stinks big
> time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a country this way.

First, you are free to make suggestions to improve the logo. Paullusmagnus
has said that he is open to ideas. Different people will perceive the logo
differently because brains work differently. What we see as annoying
clutter is simply ignored by other people's brains.

If the current logo is not ratified by any of the Wikipedias, we could
proceed by letting them vote on whether they want to ratify the runner-up.
However, let's talk about that first when it happens to avoid total chaos.

As for having one common logo, I agree that this would be the best
outcome. I hope that the voters will agree, too. This is basically an
experiment in the Wikipedia constitution -- are individual Wikipedias to
be treated like nations, or like states within a nation? I personally
favor the last option, but in order to accommodate those who seek greater
independence for their Wikipedias, I have chosen to make the ratification
process reflect that. This was also always the initial proposal --
"Individual Wikipedias will get an opportunity to hold their own votes on
whether they will use the 'official' logo." (from [[International logo
vote]]).

Regards,

Erik


body:
Message: 12
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 12:22:20 -0400
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fair use and inline
links
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID:
<002a01c3844a$5cd0a5d0$7cfea8c0 at COMPAQAlex02>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>

> However, our users should be given the copyright
> status of the information provided. Text is gfdl.
> Images...not always so. They may prefer not to use
> fair use images, or cp pictures, with author
> permission to wikipedia. The problem of inline
> linking, is that the user have no easy access to
that
> information. He could look for the internet link.
See
> the image displayed, and now what ? How could he
know
> how to tweak the link to get to the image
description

If this is going to be done it is all the more reason
for the image description page to be completed with
specific information. Remember that the image use page
can never be "fair use" it is the use of that image
that is fair use, thus all images that are used as
fair use must have copyright information, i.e. where
it was from, who took the photo, etc., otherwise a
subsequent editor will never be able to determine if
their use of the image will be fair use. If the
copyright owner appears and says, yes you can use the
image in this article but we do not agree with using
it in that article, it would be easier if both
articles (<!-- in hidden text -->) explained the
rationale for fair use, then if Wikipedia wanted to
say that it could use the images it would have some
idea why the uses are fair use. Otherwise the material
will just have to be deleted.

Alex756

-------------

That means it would be interesting to add some
"fields" in the upload page,
* perhaps one field explicitely for the cp status,
public domain, gfdl, cp with permission, cp without
permission, field that would be mandatory
* one field for author name
* perhaps one for source

If the image is cp, that means the one linking the
image to a page would have to respect a certain
process when linking it to a page perhaps ?

If standard inline linking is used, all that
information won't be available, but perhaps the user
could hide information in the page.

__________________________________
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from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE
	aWIKIArticle--]

body:
Mr. Royce,

Please do not call other list members names or otherwise make nasty
personal remarks.

    "Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person."

Ed Poor
List Administrator
Wikien-l


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 04:36 PM 9/26/03 +0300, Gutza wrote:
>Ok, I promised I'd shut up, but I just thought of something: I dare anyone
>to stand by the following phrase in public and not feel like a retard:
>
>"For the logo of a serious encyclopedic project contributed by thousands
>of people world-wide and trying to compete world-famous encyclopedias
>worth thousands of dollars a copy, I, Vicki Rosenzweig, am against the
>concept of a stylized human silhouette and I support the concept of a ball
>made of coloured puzzle pieces".

Happy now?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>>I have recently been tempted to wipe most of that
>>article's talk page
>>and leave only discussion about the article itself,
>>and add a big notice
>>saying "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOUR OWN
>>THEORIES".
>>
>>
>
>I think wiping talk pages is against Wikipedia policy
>unless they're copyvios,
>
*refactoring* talk pages is ok -- cleaning up and summarizing.
I think removing swathes of discussion that is not relevant to the
article would be a good idea. Having it there shows other crackpots
they're welcome.


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome back Adam

body:
> By the look of things, he is using two logins at the
> moment. See:
>
>
>
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Lir&limit=100&offset=0
>
>
http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pizza+Puzzle&limit=100&offset=0
>
> FWIW.

We still don't have definitive word that Pizza Puzzle
is Adam, and I don't see why he'd want to use two
logins.
LDan

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The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and 'new physics'

body:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Well, it's against my role as 'the Jimbo' around here to call people
> crackpots, so I'll avoid that word here.  But you'll all know what I
> mean anyway.  ;-)
>
Isn't it the policy of Wikipedia NOT to include original research?
In other words, if someone has made a discovery concerning relativity,
schizophrenia, the existence of jesus Christ, et cetera, et cetera,
Wikipedia is not the proper place for these findings, but rather the
relevant Usenet group or peer-reviewed journal?

> It has been my long experience, too, that there are many, uh, creative
> minds, who are drawn to theorizing about the puzzles and mysteries of
> physics.  Their struggles against the tyranny of the mainstream are
> romantic and lonely; they are voices of reason, crying out in the
> wilderness.
>
> I think this presents challenges for our NPOV policy, but not
> _special_ challenges.  As with any controversial subject, and many
> uncontroversial ones, there are mainstream views, minority views, and
> singular views.
>
I'm wondering if the proper crieria for inclusion/exclusion is the
fact that any theory, beit mainstream, minority or other, is whether
or not it is available in print. And I'm willing to be generous in
defining what exactly is meant by "print" as being any book or periodical
since 1960 with an ISBN number -- but not needing said ISBN number
before 1960.

(Why do I insist on an ISBN number? Anyone who seriously attempts to sell
a book -- be it through a for-profit publisher or self-published --
will obtain one for her/his publication. Unfortunately, they aren't all
that common before -- I'm guessing -- around 1960.)

I'm sorry, but a post to Usenet or a statement on a webpage just isn't
convincing enough for little old me. But that's my POV. ;-)

Geoff


from_name: tarquin

references:
<8uaLLJqSpVB@erik_moeller> <oprv27kyu4zs1r4a@localhost>
	<3F73FA71.7070108@moongate.ro>

body:
Gutza wrote:

> Richard Grevers wrote:
>
>> Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the
>> logo that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction
>> in other media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because
>> it is far too busy.
>> You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks,
>> so everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.
>
>
> Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so
> it's not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo
> stinks big time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a
> country this way.
>
> Gutza
>
> (Before y'all start with me, yes, I had a few logos in the competition
> myself, and mine was obviously not chosen, but I would've been happy
> if we chose the first runner-up, which is not mine either. That
> would've been a logo, and a good one at that IMNSHO. The one we chose
> is neither good, and not even a real logo. It's a coloured puzzle ball
> for Chrissake!)

I am in complete agreement with you!
It's horrible, it's too complex, and the first runner-up would be much
better,


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Now for the tricky part. Each Wikipedia can choose to "ratify" the new
>logo, or to keep its current one.
>
The whole point of this lengthy voting process was to have ONE common logo!
*wail*


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BuddhaInside banned

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I
>>have banned
>>BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's
>>approval since it was a case
>>of simple and obvious vandalism.
>>
>>I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages
>>he idiotically created
>>now.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Erik
>
>
> How did he vandalize the main page? It's protected.
> LDan

He found a security flaw. If a page was protected, no move page link
showed up in the sidebar. However, there were no checks for page
protection in the move page code itself, so it was trivial to move a
protected page with a hand-edited URL. When a page is moved, the
redirect left behind at the original location is not protected.

This is now fixed. I implemented a simple patch about an hour after the
problem arose, and Brion did it properly shortly thereafter.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: Jim Guide

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 53

body:
> From: Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
>
> A design will never please anyone unfortunately.
>
> But, should we shut the very numerous voices that
> scream "clutter" ? That have been screaming this for
> at least 2 weeks, and certainly before the second vote
> started (when it was quite obvious this one was an
> leader) ?
>
> What about a three voting choice rather
>
> * agree for this logo to be THE logo
> * will postpone my decision after some variants are
> made
> * want to keep my old washing power barrel ?
>

Yes, we should shut those voices. They were outvoted, and not by a small
margin. Sorry if this is a bit arrogant, but I just think that those who
have major problems with Puzzle Sphere wouldn't know a good logo if it came
up to them and winked while wiggling its hips. And for you graphic designers
who also hate it, well, maybe you should get into a new line of work. Puzzle
Sphere Rules! It looks so great on the Main Page-- just the right touch of
graphic interest, perfect reflection of the colored tables. It actually
manages to convey a strong sense of spherical volume in a tiny space, making
it much more interesting that the usual flat characteroid logo. I'm just
grateful taste prevailed. Now let it rest.... JDG


subject: [Wikitech-l] Afrikaans wikipedia down

body:
On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 09:44, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
> The Afrikaans wikipedia seems to be down:
> http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki.cgi
> returns
>
> Internal Server Error
> The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable
> to complete your request.
> Please contact the server administrator, lee at piclab.com and inform them of
> the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have
> caused the error.

Error log is not terribly helpful:

[Fri Sep 26 16:39:31 2003] [error] [client 64.163.244.225] Premature end
of script headers: /home/usemod/wiki-af/work-http/wiki.cgi

On quick examination, it seems to be doing this only on the HomePage. I
can go to other pages:
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki.cgi?Recent_Changes
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki.cgi?Ghana
etc

I managed to get in to edit the homepage:
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki.cgi?action=edit&id=HomePage

added a few dots at the end, saved it, it's fine now. Took the dots back
off, saved it, still fine.

I dunno... weeeeeird.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
>Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
>are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
>made here?
>
I'll match my competence to deal with physics with Jimbo's at any time.

The fact is that these eccentric theories do exist, and more energy is
spent trying to discredit them then the originator put into developing
the theory.  In a similar way, what keeps trolls alive is the generous
amount of nourishment supplied by their detractors.  The behaviour of
some of the advocates of "science" in the preservation of their "bodily
humors" is such that if ever there were a Pope of Science they would
make fine candidates for that office.

There is a place for these theories, even as most of them (often
deservedly) are cast aside in the history of science.  Some do lead
somewhere, though it is not apparent at the time; an example here could
be Alexander Bain's 1843 patent of the teleautograph, an early attempt
at transmitting pictures by telegraph.

Allowing Mr. Royce's views at the appropriate place(s) is just fine.
 There these views should fairly represent what the proponents are
trying to say without the need to have those views interrupted by
constant bickering about every tiny detail.  Later the after the
proponent has finished his explanation, there will still be plenty of
room to express disagreement.  Sometimes only a simple sentence like,
"The above ideas have not been accepted by mainstream science," will be
more than enough to fulfill all NPOV requirements.  Why should it be so
easy for the supporters of "sciene" to forget that the primary burden of
proof for any new theory lies with the proponents?  When they have
failed to carry that burden, a simple remark to that effect is all that
is needed.  There is no need to mount a thorough attack; there is no
need to find an excuse (such as promoting one's own theories) for
censoring out these articles.  If they begin to infect other more
accepted concepts, it could be enough to say at the infected site, "An
alternative view of this is expressed at [[...]]."

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request
	RE	aWIKIArticle--]

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Mr. Royce,
>
>Please do not call other list members names or otherwise make nasty
>personal remarks.
>
>    "Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person."
>
Yes, he has fallen into the same sewer as those who called him a
crackpot. ;-)

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIKI
	Article--]

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
> Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
> are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
> made here?

A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity
crackpot. See:

http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.telenet-ops.be&rnum=2

>
> ----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> -----
>
> From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
> To: jwales at joey.bomis.com
> Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
>
> Dear Mr. Wales,
>
> Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies to
> the
> addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
> seems to
> be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical - facts
> to the
> Wiki special relativity article.

That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are
considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of
the process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.

> I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following statements
> for
> yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
>
> [1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one way).
>
> [2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the lack
> of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
> making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
> version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
> wonder
> why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)

If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting.google.com&rnum=1

Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r,
where he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using
is a typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of
relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically
impossible. He ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of
the same theory, and then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy
theory to explain why no-one is spending millions of dollars on his
simple test. Everywhere he goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring
mainstream physicists, who are out to suppress the "truth" he has
discovered. It's a common story.

> My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
> relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
> encyclopedia.

Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us,
Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals
who want to expose the shocking truth.

-- Tim Starling.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donating a PC

body:
You could send this to wikitech-l, but really a machine like this is going
to be way too slow and weak to really help us very much, and our space in
the colocation facility is really configured primarily to handle rackmount
servers, which are very dense (small).

What would help more would be money to help us reach the $6000 goal
for the Opteron/Xeon/IA64 server.  Even small contributions are very
much appreciated!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome back Adam

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> We still don't have definitive word that Pizza Puzzle
> is Adam, and I don't see why he'd want to use two
> logins.

You must have overlooked (easy to do in this crowded list!) the post
where I said that Adam admitted to me that he was Pizza Puzzle.

But I think now he's using Lir, and that's that.  He was just using
Pizza Puzzle as an interim measure until the Lir account was
unblocked.

--Jimbo


body:
Gutza wrote:
> Ok, I promised I'd shut up, but I just thought of something: I dare
> anyone to stand by the following phrase in public and not feel like a
> retard:
>
> "For the logo of a serious encyclopedic project contributed by thousands
> of people world-wide and trying to compete world-famous encyclopedias
> worth thousands of dollars a copy, I, {your name here}, am against the
> concept of a stylized human silhouette and I support the concept of a
> ball made of coloured puzzle pieces".

Well, I spend my days vacillating between feeling 'like a retard' as
you so elegantly (?) put it, and feeling like a diabolical genius, so
I have a hard time with the assignment no matter what, depending on
the time of day.  ;-)

But seriously, although I voted the way you did (well, in the
preliminary vote, at least... I neglected to vote in round 2, I'm
sorry to report), lots of people *did* vote that way, right?  So,
unless they are like me, they probably did so without feeling
retarded.

--Jimbo


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Table markup + lists?

body:
David Friedland wrote:
> Not quite what I was thinking: What I want is an unordered list with a
> mix of text and a table in each item. Something similar to this:
>
> * apricot
>   +-----+---------------+---------------+
>   |     | AmE           | BrE           |
>   +-----+---------------+---------------+
>   | (1) | ["{.pr at .kAt]  | ["{.pr at .kQt]  |
>   | (2) | ["eI.pr at .kAt] | ["eI.pr at .kQt] |
>   +-----+---------------+---------------+
>
>   Both (1) and (2) are standard and are listed in most dictionaries.
>
> * arctic
>   +-----+------------+------------+
>   |     | AmE        | BrE        |
>   +-----+------------+------------+
>   | (1) | ["Ar.tIk]  | ["A:.tIk]  |
>   | (2) | ["Ark.tIk] | ["A:k.tIk] |
>   +-----+------------+------------+
>
>   The debate is whether or not the <ct> cluster is pronounced [kt] or
>   just [t]. M-W lists both, with (1) first, but OED only lists (2).
>   Generally, the same pronunciation for the <ct> cluster is used for
>   both ''artic'' and ''antarctic''. However, M-W lists (2) first for
>   ''antarctic''.

OK, so why not like this:

+-----------+------------------------+---------------------+
| Word      |  Americal English      | British English     |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+
|           |     (1)    |   (2)     |   (1)   |  (2)      |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+
| apricot   |  ...       |    ...    |   ...   |   ...     |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+
|           |  Some debate                                 |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+
| arctic    |  ...       |    ...    |   ...   |   ...     |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+
|           |  Some debate                                 |
+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+

Which would like this :
{|
! Word !!colspan=2!AmE !!colspan=2!BrE
|--
! !!(1)!!(2)!!(2)!!(2)
|--
|apricot||...||...||...||...
|--
| ||colspan=4|Some debate
|--
|arctic||...||...||...||...
|--
| ||colspan=4|Some debate
|}

> The wiki syntax for tables will prove to be most useful in many
> circumstances, I am sure.

Are you sure the problem is with the table markup, and not with the list
markup? The one-line-rule was there since the beginning. Squishing a
whole HTML table into one line using HTML markup sure looks more ugly
than the above code, no?

> However,
> * Tables are supposed to only be used for presenting tabular
> information, not for layout. I don't think that the word itself and the
> description are tabular information, and so they shouldn't be in a table.

Well, at least the word is (see above). If we'd display the description
right of the BrE colunm in above example, it would also become "tabular
information". It just wouldn't look very pretty.

We're already using tables to display right-aligned images plus caption.
Is that pretty markup? No. Is is tabular information? No. Is it abusing
a table for layout purposes? Yes. Why do we do it? Because it's the best
we can! (CSS+<div> won't wrap the caption text).

> * Do we really want tables that extend across the entire page?

Why wouldn't we? And how would that be really different from having a
zillion small tables extending across the entire page?
OK, a single table would be less code, meaning less transfer time, but
otherwise...

> * This solution also requires using the colspan= option for first and
> last row in the table for each word, which arguably decreases the
> readability of the wiki source.

Only for the discussion (see above).

> * Would make every cell holding a pronunciation as wide as the longest
> pronunciation.

Would spare us the AmE/BrE header for *every single word*!!!

> * If we can embed tables in tables, why shouldn't we be able to embed
> tables in unordered lists?

You can embed unordered lists in tables, though ;-)

Seriously:
* Because list items shouldn't span a dozen lines or so.
* Because it would complicate the markup, which is a Bad Thing (TM).
Tables are bad enough already.
* Because I don't have time to code it, since I spent all my time today
on this mail ;-)

> I think, in general, being able to extend the content of a list item
> across multiple lines of wiki source would be convenient. For example,
> on the current page I have a <br> between the pronunciations and the
> description text, but I think the wiki source would be more readable if
> I just put it on a separate line.

Oh there, it's the list markup, not the table after all! :-)

> As for how to implement it, maybe the syntax could be that if a line
> containing a list item ends in a \, then the next line is also part of
> that list item, and if the next line begins a table, the whole table is
> part of that list item. I haven't studied the PHP for processing wiki
> syntax, so I don't know how hard that would be to implement, though.

IMHO that would make the wiki code not more, but *less* readable.

> I just want to reiterate that I think the wiki syntax for tables is a
> really great idea! I just wish I could use them on this page. Magnus,
> again, thanks for taking the initiative and making tables available in
> wiki syntax.

Thanks for the praise! :-)

Magnus


from_name: Jurriaan Schulman

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>>
>> Ad 1: Most articles on animals use some kind of table, which is duplicated
>> for each article. Also, many articles may use the same references which are
>> duplicated on many pages. This is seen in a lot of other articles too and is
>> a huge waste of hard disk space and performance.
>>
> See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life]].  The "Taxoboxes" provide a
> taxonomical position for the life form under consideration, as well as a
> list of the beings in the major rank immediately below it.

Yes, but I mean that there is a copy of this table used for *every* article,
which uses disk space. Normally, if you use a relational database you use a
reference to a table (the structure). The table template is stored only
once, only the field data (the content) is saved to disk and is unique for
every record.

>> Ad 2: when I write many articles about closely related species, I may use
>> one article as a template and copy parts of it. If I discover a typo in this
>> copied part, I have to change it for each article by hand.
>> Another example would be if we decide to change the background colour of the
>> table used by most articles on animals. This may be no problem for a few
>> articles, yet with hundreds or thousands of articles it is a huge waste of
>> human resources.
>>
> The pink background colour is to indicate that we are dealing with an
> animal species.  Green is used for all plants. What colour change would
> you be proposing.

It was only an example. I am quite happy with the pink colour. But imagine
that a few years from now the wikipedians decide it is better to use yellow,
or the text shouldn't be centered, or be bold or italic or... They would
have to alter the background colour for *every* table by hand, which may be
hundreds of thousends tables by then.
On the other hand, if you use one table as a template and derive all others
from it, you would only have to alter this one template table, you see? It
is a bit like "Styles" in MS Word, you define the style once and when you
change it, all text with this style is changed too. This may not be
important for a letter, but if you write a book with hundreds of pages, it
saves a huge amount of time.

>
>> The solution would probably be to use meta data. I tried to discuss this on
>> wikipedia, but the discussion was moved to feature requests. An argument
>> against the use of meta data and templates was that it would make it harder
>> to contribute to wikipedia. An Argument which I do not really understand.
>>
> Please explain your use of meta data for this type of article.

I just think we should try to design a template for articles on animals (or
any other subject for that matter) with field like "scientific name", "
distribution" etc. If everyone would use this template it would be easier to
search certain patterns (which species lives in Africa? --> search the
distribution field) and to alter things (see above).

>
>> So my real questions are: who is currently working on the database schema
>> for wikipedia and who decides if it would be useful to change this schema?
>>
> Go to the talk page for the above cited page.

I already tried that a few weeks ago and got no answer :-(

Cheers,

Jurriaan


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV and 'new physics'

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:
> > Well, it's against my role as 'the Jimbo' around here to call people
> > crackpots, so I'll avoid that word here.  But you'll all know what I
> > mean anyway.  ;-)
> >
> Isn't it the policy of Wikipedia NOT to include original research?

Yes, that's exactly right.  I forgot to mention that, but that's another
perfectly good reason for excluding at least some of that.

However, in defense of the fellow who wrote in to complain, he did
make reference to some book or other published in the past, and so at
least as far as *that* complaint goes, 'this is original research'
wouldn't really be a good comeback.

> I'm wondering if the proper crieria for inclusion/exclusion is the
> fact that any theory, beit mainstream, minority or other, is whether
> or not it is available in print.

I think that's a very valid way to look at it, yes, absolutely.  And
this helps to tie the policy here in with parallel policies in other
areas, i.e. 'verifiability' has long been accepted as a decision rule.
Writing about a 'religion' that has exactly one prophet and exactly
one follower, who happens to be the same guy, presents NPOV problems
because it's just too small to verify.

> I'm sorry, but a post to Usenet or a statement on a webpage just isn't
> convincing enough for little old me.

That's right, although I can imagine some hypertechnical sticklers
abusing this notion.  Some facts can be found more or less only
online, particular facts about contemporary Internet culture.  Who
is the current maintainer of BIND?  Probably that isn't in a book, but
it's an uncontroversial fact that could be looked up online.

--Jimbo


from_name: viajero at quilombo.nl

subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome back Adam

body:
On 09/18/03  at 11:42 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> said:

> In my earlier message on this topic, I said that Adam could edit under
> the name 'Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]'.  He didn't object to that, but on my own, I
> realized that I don't really care what name he uses as long as it's
> consistent.  A consistent name will let him earn the reputation that he
> deserves, based on his edits.

By the look of things, he is using two logins at the moment. See:

 http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Lir&limit=100&offset=0
  http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Pizza+Puzzle&limit=100&offset=0

FWIW.


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce@hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIK
	I Article--]

body:
I used to hang out on sci.physics, but was driven away by the crackpots.
IIRC al.sci.physics.new-theories was created especially to keep them off
sci.physics.relativity. It didn't work, they just crossposted. I think we
need a separate policy just for physics crackpots, because they are in a
class of their own.

I'm in favour of wiping the talk page of special relativity. ( it's strange
that they always go for special relativity not general relativity)

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Starling [mailto:ts4294967296 at hotmail.com]
Sent: 26 September 2003 02:07
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce at hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIKI
Article--]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
> Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
> are not mainstream?  Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
> made here?

A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity
crackpot. See:

http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.te
lenet-ops.be&rnum=2

>
> ----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> -----
>
> From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
> To: jwales at joey.bomis.com
> Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
>
> Dear Mr. Wales,
>
> Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies
to
> the
> addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
> seems to
> be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical -
facts
> to the
> Wiki special relativity article.

That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are
considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of
the process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.

> I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following
statements
> for
> yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
>
> [1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one
way).
>
> [2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the
lack
> of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
> making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
> version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
> wonder
> why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)

If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting.
google.com&rnum=1

Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r,
where he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using
is a typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of
relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically
impossible. He ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of
the same theory, and then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy
theory to explain why no-one is spending millions of dollars on his
simple test. Everywhere he goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring
mainstream physicists, who are out to suppress the "truth" he has
discovered. It's a common story.

> My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
> relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
> encyclopedia.

Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us,
Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals
who want to expose the shocking truth.

-- Tim Starling.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Gutza

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:

> Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the
> logo that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction
> in other media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because it
> is far too busy.
> You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks,
> so everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.

Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so it's
not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo stinks big
time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a country this way.

Gutza

(Before y'all start with me, yes, I had a few logos in the competition
myself, and mine was obviously not chosen, but I would've been happy if
we chose the first runner-up, which is not mine either. That would've
been a logo, and a good one at that IMNSHO. The one we chose is neither
good, and not even a real logo. It's a coloured puzzle ball for Chrissake!)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Adam acting the ass again *sigh* (and he is only
	just	back)

body:
So what's the fuss?  I would personally find [[List of heterosexuals]]
to be as completely useless as [[List of right-handed people]], but I do
understand that some people view that differently.  I really don't care
if that page is deleted or not.  If Adam's vote and comments had simply
been allowed to stay that would have been the end of the matter.  Since
he was still banned during the stated voting period he could not make
his comments then.  The deletion of his comments was the provocative
act.  In that light his reaction is perfectly understandable.  Would the
result have been any different if he had posted to the
[[.../restoration]] page.

The alleged rules strike me as an attempt to impose a tyranny of the
majority.  Perhaps it is a place where the rule "Ignore all rules"
should apply, since their appear to be some Wikipedians that would apply
this set rigidly.

In the meantime please stop developing excuses to make Adam a scapegoat.

Ec

james duffy wrote:

> I'm afraid Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] is acting the ass again in exactly the same
> way as he did before. He new stunt was to try to edit the [[Talk:List
> of heterosexuals/delete (final archive)]] page.
>
> For people who may not know, to preserve long debates that used to be
> moved to talk pages from the VfD but which then ended up deleted if
> the article and talk page were both deleted, and to avoid the problem
> of inconclusive delete debates on talk pages, where the debate got
> sidetracked as debates on deletion and on the article blurred
> together, a recent innovation is now being used by increasing numbers.
> A special /delete page is created and attached to the talk page. A set
> of rules are followed:
>
> 1. /All/ the delete debate is focused there, not on the talk page.
>
> 2. A strict timetable is followed. The article is created on 'x'. A
> decision is taken on 'x + 7' meaning that debates no longer meander on
> for ever but are decided at the end of a week.
>
> 3. The /delete page is kept, even if the article and talk page isn't,
> and preserved on a page linked to the VfD page, meaning that we will
> now have a back archive of these debates for people researching the
> history of wiki to review.
>
> 4. Once the page being debated is deleted, the debate ends, the page
> ceases to be 'live' and becomes a record of the debate that decided
> the issue.
>
> Everyone has been following this. All debates have ended when a
> decision was taken. But Adam, in one of his tantrum-throwing spoiled
> child moods, decided as so often in the past that he wants to be above
> the rules. The vote on that page ran from 31 August to 8 September.
> 70%+ voted to delete the article. It was deleted, then the /delete
> page closed, archived and linked to the [[Archived delete debates]] on
> the VfD page. Adam however doctored the archive page to add in his
> vote and comments, weeks after the page was closed. I reverted back
> the archive version that has been sitting there untouched for weeks.
> Adam again doctored the page. Ed Poor protected it but inadvertently
> preserved the wrong version. I corrected to the archive version that
> everyone had originally signed off on and left the protection.
>
> Adam is now going ballistic, throwing accusations of censorship and
> bizarrely demanding the right to vote in a vote that finished on 8th
> September as to whether to delete a page that was deleted on the 8th
> of September. It is so bizarre it is like an episode of Fawlty Towers.
> He is alone complaining on the [[Problem Users]] page, where no-one
> has supported him and he has been attacked for his behaviour by RickK,
> Angela, and Cyan. (I also commented.)
>
> However, all past experience of Adam is that he starts off like that
> and keeps at it, childishly setting off edit wars the way some
> children set off fire alarms. We all expected that /this/ time he
> would stop acting the ass and grow up. It doesn't say much for the
> future when within days of returning he is acting /exactly/ as he did
> as Lir, as Vera, as Susan Mason, as Dietary Fiber, as Pizza Puzzle, etc.
>
> This behaviour has got to be nipped in the bud immediately or we are
> going to have weeks if not months of it, as he plays his little games.
> I was one of the first to say Adam should be allowed back, but that
> was only if he behaved himself.
>
> IMHO Jimbo, he needs to be told clearly, unambiguously and explicitly
> - STOP THIS NOW. Any more antics like that, any more returning to the
> spoiled child antics and you will be banned immediately, permanently
> and for life. No more warnings. You are back because people, even
> after all they put up with before, agreed to give you /one/ more
> chance. But even the slightest whiff of your old foot-stomping 'I want
> my way' screwing around with articles and you are gone for good.
>
> That /has/ to explicitly spelt out to him now, not one week or one
> month later when he has done it 5, 10 or 20 times elsewhere. Wiki
> doesn't need to have to put up with Adam acting the ass again if that
> is his game plan. And his behaviour on this one article tonight
> suggests that he has every intention of acting as before and thinking
> he can get away with it. He needs to know, bluntly and directly, that
> he cannot, ever again.
>
> And for the record, I don't want Adam banned. But he has to stop
> acting like a spoiled 9 year old throwing tantrums and seeing how many
> fights he can start. Adam has shown for long enough that 'softly
> softly' doesn't work with him. The rules have to spelt out to him
> unambiguously and forceably.
>
> JT


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: BuddhaInside banned

body:
Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> What I claim is that BuddhaInside (BI) wasn't intentionally
> vandalising the Main Page even though that is what happened.

Well, it's irrelevant now, because I was going to ban him anyway if he
didn't have a chat with me or come to the mailing list to talk about
the problems people were having with his edits.  His time would be up
for that by now, anyway.

And still, of course, if he wants to write to me to talk about being
reinstated, he can.  Or to the list.

But he was really causing a LOT of trouble for a LOT of people, and it
was really just too much.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Corporate Responsibility

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:

>>From comments on the thread of fundraising as to lack of interest:
>
>I suggest the creation of a mailing list dealing specifically with
>the governance of the Wikimedia.
>
>That place should include discussions on what else needs to be done.
>
That sounds like a constructive suggestion.

Ec


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] logo, page design

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:
> I disagree. I think you're trying to be NPOV which isn't really necessary on
> wikibooks. The title may be a bit grand at the moment but once it starts
> getting edited by a number of contributors it will soon become the best.

Yes, NPOV *is* necessary on wikibooks.

--Jimbo


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 11:36:01AM +0300, Gutza wrote:
> Richard Grevers wrote:
>
> >Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the
> >logo that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction
> >in other media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because it
> >is far too busy.
> >You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks,
> >so everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.
>
> Plus it's horrible. No offence to anyone, the thing already won, so it's
> not a matter of offending the author anymore, but that logo stinks big
> time. If this is democracy in action, imagine running a country this way.

OK, we've seen voting in action twice - first with article count reform,
now with a logo. And both times with a horrible results. If anyone wasn't
convinced that voting is bad, he can definitely see it now. So can we stop
making decisions this way now ?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] File Upload?

body:
When will File Upload on www.wikipedia.org be re-enabled? I'm trying to get
an artist's permission and I need to take a screenshot of his image in situ
with copyright recognition (which I will do by editing article and taking
screenshot without saving the edit). Thx, JDG.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Voting versus consensus

body:
Without drawing any conclusions for future decisionmaking, I'll just
point out that one of the negative side-effects of voting that has
been alleged is that voting encourages partisanship rather than
co-operation.

That is, if we are voting between A and B, then people who are in
favor of A have an incentive to speak badly of B, and people who are
in favor of B have an incentive to speak badly of A.  And both have an
incentive to publicly posture in favor of their own candidate,
minimizing the flaws and maximizing the benefits.

A consensus process, though, and I'm talking primarily here about the
wiki process for actually settling on good versions of articles,
encourages people to try to see the best in what the other side is
saying, and to try to incorporate that into their own version, and to
produce a new synthesis that has all the strengths of prior proposals
with none of the weaknesses.

It seems that in the current case, those potential incentive problems
of voting are on display.

Now, as I say, I'm not drawing any conclusions.  After all, I can't
think of how a wiki process could create a logo.  Perhaps the Gimp
(GNU free image creation program similar to the proprietary PhotoShop)
people could be encouraged to implement collaborative image editing
features, ha ha?

So for decisions like this, voting might be the only way to go.

But, I think it *does* encourage bickering and partisanship, and I
think that's unfortunate.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alex R.

body:
From: "Anthere" <anthere6 at yahoo.com>

> However, our users should be given the copyright
> status of the information provided. Text is gfdl.
> Images...not always so. They may prefer not to use
> fair use images, or cp pictures, with author
> permission to wikipedia. The problem of inline
> linking, is that the user have no easy access to that
> information. He could look for the internet link. See
> the image displayed, and now what ? How could he know
> how to tweak the link to get to the image description

If this is going to be done it is all the more reason for
the image description page to be completed with
specific information. Remember that the image use page
can never be "fair use" it is the use of that image that
is fair use, thus all images that are used as fair use
must have copyright information, i.e. where it was from,
who took the photo, etc., otherwise a subsequent editor
will never be able to determine if their use of the image
will be fair use. If the copyright owner appears and
says, yes you can use the image in this article but
we do not agree with using it in that article, it would be
easier if both articles (<!-- in hidden text -->) explained
the rationale for fair use, then if Wikipedia wanted
to say that it could use the images it would have some
idea why the uses are fair use. Otherwise the material
will just have to be deleted.

Alex756


from_name: David Friedland

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New logo and further process

body:
tarquin wrote:
>
>
> Gutza wrote:
>
>>
>> Ok, but what can you do? The voting has been fair (give or take, but
>> the overall result can't be contested). That's what people want, what
>> can you do? Really, what *can* you do?
>>
> Well since we can "ratify", I'm voting to ratify a different finalist.
>
> The current winner should be disqualified on technical grounds -- it
> simply does not meet the design brief of the competition.

I agree. Indeed, the current winner should have been disqualified when
people first raised their objections to it. There doesn't seem to have
been made any effort to ensure that the submussions met the
requirements, as if they were merely suggestions. I also think that the
fact that currently there are 73 votes on the English Wikipedia
ratification, and 41% are against is a strong sign that there are a lot
of others who agree with me and tarquin. I think that in an organization
that prides itself on consensus, some effort should be made to address
the dissenters' concerns.

Part of the problem perhaps is that no one has been able to clearly
articulate exactly why the current winner will make a bad logo. Here's
my attempt:

(1) A logo should be simple. It should be possible to grok it entirely
in moments. It should be unambiguous. A logo should not be a diagram.
The current winner fails all these tests.

(2) The purpose of this logo selection is not just to select an image
for /upload/wiki.png. It is to selet an identity for the entire
Wikipedia project. It may be used on letterhead, clothes, hats, pens,
mousepads, etc. It will be used in tiny places, so it should look good
(not just "acceptable") in small sizes. The advice for logo designers I
once read is "if it's not simple enough to work as cufflinks, it's not
simple enough". The current winner will not look good at small sizes.
(It barely looks good at the current size).

(3) It will be used in conjunction with other visual elements. It should
  be able to blend in aesthetically with a wide diversity of other
elements and not stand out or clash. It should be able to be used in
grayscale environments and black-and-white environments.

(4) *** This is the biggest one: a logo should NOT contain words that
are not part of the name or the slogan of the organization it
represents! I recognize that Wikipedia is mostly about text, but the way
that has been symbolized in the current winning logo, fails. The best
way to symbolize text is with 1, 2 or maybe 3 graphemes or as lines on a
page, but not a whole mess of them, reduced to point of illegibility.

My biggest objection to the current winner is all those words. I imagine
myself encountering it for the first time, and asking myself: What do
they mean? What is their significance? Why can't I read them all? Is
there some essential aspect of the Wikipedia embedded in these words
that I can't understand? I must be missing something! Why should I be
interested in this project if I can't even understand the logo?

I have a feeling, but I am not certain, that there would be a lot less
objection to the winner if all the text was removed from it. I still
think it would be ugly, but it would at least be a workable logo in that
state.

I have gone to the effort of collecting some famous and successful logos
from around the web and put them at http://www.nohat.net/logos.html. I
put them at my personal web site because I'm not sure how well deep
linking would work on the meta wiki. What makes these logos successful
is they are all simple, memorable, and can work in a variety of environments

I understand that it may be frustrating to those who put in a lot of
effort on the vote and process to have the final result disputed, and I
really am sorry for those people, but such is the way of the wiki...

- David [[User:Nohat]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: New logo and further process


from_name: Imran Ghory

body:
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Richard Grevers wrote:

> Yay - months of process and what do we get? The worst result - the logo
> that has the biggest technical problems in terms of reproduction in other
> media. Its greyscale version is incredibly unclear because it is far too
> busy.
> You just doubled or tripled the cost of Wikimedia letterhead, folks, so
> everyone who voted for it had better donate extra.

The vote was wikipedia's logo, the Wikimedia Foundation is still
logoless.

Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran


from_name: Steve Vertigum

body:
--- Roy Royce <roy_q_royce at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Now that I have proved the validity of the E=mc^2
> fact, I should be
> taken seriously when I note the one-way light speed
> facts that not only
> has no one ever made such a measurement using two
> clocks, but such a
> measurement (sans man's interference by definition
> or convention) is
> physically impossible.

Reading inbetween the lines it appears as if Roy here
has an excellent 8th grade level grasp of the material
in question, and is perhaps confusing such basic
concepts as time and directionality, and is trying to
say something rather 3 dimensional about a 'thing'
with unknown dimensions.

Thats how I see it,
~S~

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