from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
On 9/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a serious problem with undeletion policy, rendering it incompatible
> with other Wikipedia policies.
>
> Firstly undeletion requires a majority (50%). Wikipedia is not a democracy,
> we should do changes by consensus.
>
> Secondly the undeletion policy is inconsistent with deletion policy. The
> main principle of deletion policy is "if in doubt, don't delete". It follows
> that a consensus should be required to keep a page deleted.

Hmm, I never knew it was that bad. It *definitely* has to change.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] re:Indefinite bans with no oversight

body:
Zephram Stark wrote:
<snip>
> I can think of one reason: total disclosure would not be loyal to the
> cause.  The faithfulness I see amongst administrators is important to
> the smooth operation of an association.  Yet historically, it has
> also been the breeding ground for corruption.  Exclusion is a sure
> warning sign that methods of punishment are forming and malfeasance
> is creeping into the system.  When it gets to the point that
> administrators like Jayjg and SlimVirgin don't even try to tie
> punishment back to any rule or standard of Wikipedia, we can know for
> certain that their actions are driving off good editors and
> contributors to this work.
>

Dear sir,
I find your ideas intriguing / interesting and wish to subscribe to your
newsletter / journal.

> At some point, the corruption becomes so blatant that it is
> impossible to get much of anything productive accomplished.  At that
> point, the system fails.  I hope you will not wait that long.  When
> there is ample evidence of two of your administrators using their
> power to bias the content of articles, it is time for them to
> relinquish that power.  Loyalty can include all Wikipedia editors
> when our editing power is equal.
>

1. Make everyone a sysop.
2. ???
3. Profit!

YHBT YHL HAND.

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

body:
On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden <zscout370 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are
> they technically orphans?
>
> Regards,
>
> Zachary Harden

the softwear doesn't think so

--
geni


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

body:
On 15/09/05, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:

> What if we forked off the user namespace into its own project shared
> among all other project (like the image mainspace was /kind of/ forked
> into commons)? We could put that whole project into a more restrictive
> license, and give it its own dump. Of course that depends upon another
> pipe dream, that of single signon across all projects, which is on top
> of some people's wish list already...

users.wikimedia.org? A very interesting corollary to single-login,
though it might prove a bit of a steep learning curve having to
interwiki everything...

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Mark

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia API?

body:
Michal Migurski wrote:
> MediaWiki does not seem to have a public-facing API, is that right?
> Are there any F/OSS projects that provide such functionality without
> requiring screen-scraping? Alternatively, is there any way to
> interface with the internals of the MW, *without* invoking an entire
> request, i.e. the stuff that requires the MEDIAWIKI constant? Failing
> *that*, does documentation exist that explains MW's DB schema so I
> can begin to write my own?

There is a Perl client library:

  http://search.cpan.org/~markj/WWW-Mediawiki-Client-0.27/

--
--
=================================================================
-- mark at geekhive dot net --


subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

body:
On 9/16/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/09/05, grm_wnr <grmwnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What if we forked off the user namespace into its own project shared
> > among all other project (like the image mainspace was /kind of/ forked
> > into commons)? We could put that whole project into a more restrictive
> > license, and give it its own dump. Of course that depends upon another
> > pipe dream, that of single signon across all projects, which is on top
> > of some people's wish list already...
>
> users.wikimedia.org? A very interesting corollary to single-login,
> though it might prove a bit of a steep learning curve having to
> interwiki everything...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

problem is that there is a geni over at the german wikipedia who isn't me.

--
geni


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
There is a serious problem with undeletion policy, rendering it incompatible
with other Wikipedia policies.

Firstly undeletion requires a majority (50%). Wikipedia is not a democracy,
we should do changes by consensus.

Secondly the undeletion policy is inconsistent with deletion policy. The
main principle of deletion policy is "if in doubt, don't delete". It follows
that a consensus should be required to keep a page deleted.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wrongly deleted articles from AfD: List of power
	ballads

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm writes:
>
>
> "Is there any article that was wrongly deleted within
> the past 3 days as a result of ignorance of the nominator or sheep
> voting by others without check the article and possible sources?"
>
> Sorry, that was my fault.  I wasn't following the discussion properly and
> thought it was about speedies.  My apologies for dragging us briefly (if
> entertainingly, at least for me) up the wrong trouser leg.
>
> Your timescale for this is a little short, but never mind.  Let's take a
> look at the deletion log, this time only AfD deletes.
>
> Well it was hard searching, because of the way in which the AfD link gets
> screwed when an article is deleted.  So I stopped when I reached the first
> deletion that I think is rather dodgy.
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_power_ballads
>
<snip summary of votes>
> There you are, apparently the one person in the entire discussion who had
> read and understood the deletion policy.  Looking at the list of "Problems
> that may require deletion", I have to agree: this article seemed to be
> very far from falling into any of those categories.
>

I'd really love to start a VfU on this, but I have IRL things to get on
with...

--
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list: foundation-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory

body:
Just to say that I was thinking about something similar. As well as I
support this idea.

This would solve te problem of sep11.wikipedia, too.

On 9/16/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the comments, Mav.
>
> In my conception (hardly original or final), Wikimemory would focus on
> common, significant, historical *experiences* rather than the
> individuals.  The top level categories in Wikimemory would, then, be
> historical experiences: "The Vietnam War," "The Cultural Revolution,"
> "Encounters with Jimmy Carter," "The Red Sox winning the World Series,"
> "The Beatles Final Concert," "Hurricane Katrina" and so on.  Pretty much
> anything with a witness, a place, a date and a bit of significance to
> "your community" (very broadly defined) would fit.
>
> Both Wikipeople and (to a lesser extent) Wikimemorial seem focused on
> individuals, and that seems to me to be a separate, important kind of
> information.  Does that make sense?
>
> Linking the experiences recorded in Wikimemory with entries on the
> witnesses in Wikipeople is a great idea, though.
>
> Best, Marshall
>
>
> Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
> The Atlantic Monthly
> 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
> Washington, DC 20037
> 202-266-6511
> mpoe at theatlantic.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory


subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
On 9/16/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Secondly the undeletion policy is inconsistent with deletion policy. The
> main principle of deletion policy is "if in doubt, don't delete". It follows
> that a consensus should be required to keep a page deleted.

yeah but to get as far as vfu its already been through that so if
there has been a consenus one way it seems fair there should be a
conensus to overturn it.

--
geni


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Violation of Blocking Policy

body:
It seems the alleged "violation of policy" involved blocking you for
repeatedly and unexplainedly removing a piece of information from the
article without anywhere questioning its accuracy. You simply unilaterally
removed it, over and over again.

In this case, I invoke the ultimate policy on unblocking: You've got to find
an admin willing to removec it. This one won't.

-FCYTravis at en.wikipedia

On 9/15/05 7:28 PM, "Brian Brockmeyer" <brianbrockmeyer at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> My user name is 'Brian Brockmeyer' and my IP address is 66.254.232.219.<sz


subject: [WikiEN-l] On speedying "halfway decent stubs"

body:
On 9/16/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> The very thought of speedying a halfway decent stub strikes me as both a
> very bad idea, and very dangerous to the encyclopaedia. How many featured
> articles started out as stubs?

dunno how many stubs are still a stub a year latter? In practice from
what I have seen of how artilcles I appear on wikipedia I suspecy not
many  featured articles started as stubs.
--
geni


body:
On 9/16/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> The very thought of speedying a halfway decent stub strikes me as both a
> very bad idea, and very dangerous to the encyclopaedia. How many featured
> articles started out as stubs?
While I agree, you *did* see the size of those stubs, right? Two more
sentences and I doubt they would have been speedied. Probably put on
afd though. We really should encourage adding more information in one
edit.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
On 9/16/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> There are over 500 admins. If you can't find an admin to support you I
> suggest that people should stop and think why.

Absolutely. I think more editors should use this method of appeal, since
listing an article that can be seen and edited on a forum that requires a
consensus to delete stands a far, far better chance of success than
appealing for the undeletion of an article that most people cannot see and
nobody can edit, and that requires a quorum and a majority vote to undelete.

However this only highlights the absurdity of the extremely onerous VFU
requirements. Taken alongside the worrying trend on VFU to deprecate the
function of reconsidering the merits of neglected arguments, anyone would
think we were trying to *avoid* remedying mistaken deletions.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/16/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > I was talking about an argument that doesn't involve anything de facto.
> > While most people consider presidents clearly notable, I explained the
> > reasons you could use to point it out.
> >
> > My government also designates whether the field behind my house will
> > be designated as a residential area or a green place. That doesn't
> > neccesarily mean the place warrants an article.
> >
> > It's exactly the comments that claim a certain category of articles is
> > worth an entry by default (or not) that I'm trying to avoid here.
> > Those are the cause of endless inclusionist vs. deletionist debates.
> >
> > Can you actually point out any reasons that don't depend on de facto
> > or by default notability?
>
> The state has decided to spend money not only to buy the right-of-way
> and maintain the road but to post markers that indicate that to the
> public and help them identify the road as a more important road. That to
> me says "notable".

sorvrin states have spent money on may things over the years. That
doesn't make them notable.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
On 9/16/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Absolutely. I think more editors should use this method of appeal, since
> listing an article that can be seen and edited on a forum that requires a
> consensus to delete stands a far, far better chance of success than
> appealing for the undeletion of an article that most people cannot see and
> nobody can edit, and that requires a quorum and a majority vote to undelete.
>
> However this only highlights the absurdity of the extremely onerous VFU
> requirements. Taken alongside the worrying trend on VFU to deprecate the
> function of reconsidering the merits of neglected arguments, anyone would
> think we were trying to *avoid* remedying mistaken deletions.

A delete via VFD/AFD means in thoery that you have consensus to
delete. Another consenus should be needed to overturn this. Pure admin
descissions should be overtunable by any other admin (at least that is
the position I took back when I was the main inforcer of the 3RR.)

If what you say is correct then we have a problem over at VFU that it
is trying to apply thr same set of standards to two differnt
situations.~~~~

--
geni


body:
On 9/16/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> dunno how many stubs are still a stub a year latter?

The Warsaw radio mast took about nine months to grow beyond three
paragraphs. It's now one of our more impressive articles, in my opinion.

In practice from
> what I have seen of how artilcles I appear on wikipedia I suspecy not
> many featured articles started as stubs.
>

Graffiti started out as a rather sketchy little thing. It sat around four
months before getting its second edit, and after twelve months it showed
scarcely any improvement. It was accepted for Featured Article status early
this year, more than three years after the first edit.

Technetium also started out as a feeble thing. No references, just a
mercifully brief stream-of-consciousness braindump. It was accepted for FAC
in May.


body:
And this is my all-time favorite stub:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commodore_64&oldid=244909
"A home computer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_computers> of the
1980s<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s>.
It used a 8 bit 6502
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technologies_6502>microprocessor and
had 64
*kilo*bytes of RAM <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM>. The programs used at
that time may be still run on an
emulator<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator>."
-2 December 2001

Accepted for Featured Article Status 22 June 2005

Today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki dump organization

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
>>This would triple the disk space requirements for the data dumps
>>(quadruple after the next major upgrade, quintuple the time after
>>that...)
>
> Surely it should only double the disk space requirements? XML format
> dumps I would say are the same size, or possibly even slightly larger,
> than SQL dumps.

Don't forget that 1.4 and 1.5 have completely different page database
layouts; 1 + 2 = 3.

> Besides, most people I think probably don't want every revision ever.
> Nor do they probably want talk pages. In other words, one extra file,
> namely the SQL version of pages_public.xml.gz, whose size is going to
> almost the same. For EN, the largest of all, that's only ~ 900 megs.
> For 900 meg it stops people whining.

If you can narrow down the request a bit that makes it more likely we'll
slip something into the backup script. :)

Is that actually what people want? In which version? What about everyone
who wants something slightly different?

 > And what's the point of every user who wants an SQL dump downloading
 > the XML version, downloading mwdumper, downloading mono, setting up
 > mono, running mwdumper, and creating the dump?

Why do that when MediaWiki comes with an import tool built-in? ;)

Which version of MySQL do you want that dump for? (Or did you want it
for PostgreSQL? Or Oracle?)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Afd "votes" with no real reasons given

body:
On 9/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dan Grey wrote:
> > On 15/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>Count the number of articles that go up to AFD every day, and ask
> >>>yourself if you think its reasonable that everyone write a paragraph
> >>>- or even a short explanation - on everything they vote for. Simply
> >>>*voting* on everything would take an hour a day at least.
> >
>
> Just to be clear, Ryan Delaney wrote that, not me.
>
>
I meant to respond to Ryan on this. As a AfD closer, I do expect all
participants in the debate to spend a few minutes, or whatever it takes,
reading the article, and then read the other comments in the debate, and
have a bit of a poke around the subject, possibly look at the article
history. If they're not doing at least the first two of those, they're not
making an informed comment. If I see them write a few words in the context
of the debate, I'm happier that there has been an informed discussion.

This evening I was privileged to spend two hours closing a discussion on the
proposed deletion of a minor book on a controversial subject. About fifty
people participated, so it took me a long time to perform my customary
backfground checks on the contributors. Debate was good-natured, given the
inflammatory subject matter, and the sense of serious engagement I got from
that debate made it a pleasure.

Had everybody just typed "keep/delete" there would have been two effects:
one or two people who originally voted redirect would not have changed their
votes to delete and redirect; three people would not have been convinced by
points and facts raised in the discussion and changed their vote from keep
to delete.

In short, it would not have been a *debate*.

I could have closed it in half the time (especially since there would have
been fewer radical edits towards the end by people who thought the
discussion was getting out of hand). But it would not have been right.


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] On notability and speedies

body:
Tony,

Fair point in that I used the words wrongly

However, I feel that my words have been taken out of context. I was
responding to a admin who was claiming that the word notable should not be
used in AfD discussions and he would speedy keep any votes in which the word
was used.

My point was, and remains, that notability is a central concept in AfD
discussions as much as verifiability. If a user wishes to assert that the
article is worthy of an A7 speedy delete on the grounds that it isn't
notable, it should be open for him or her to do so.

I feel that my words have been taken out of context in this thread.

On 9/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
> Keith Old writes:
>
>
> "After all, one of the reasons for Speedy Deletion is that an article has
> not
> established notability of the subject."
>
>
> No. Lots of our articles don't *establish* notability, and they're not
> speediable at all. The A7 CSD is for articles that don't *assert*
> notability. If an article contains a (reasonably credible) claim of
> notability, that is enough to take it out of the category. The criterion
> is somewhat elastic, but there is apparently some ongoing work to tighten
> it, by providing illustrative examples or otherwise. So if you write an
> article "Bobby Moore, a player for West Ham, was the captain of the 1966
> World Cup winning England football team", it stop far short of
> establishing notability (no references) but it does undeniably *assert*
> notability.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why changing the deletion process is a bad idea

body:
Andrew Venier wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Speculation is not proof.  The "Guinness Book of World Records" has
>> been consistent best seller in the past century, as was Joseph P.
>> Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates" during the previous century.  Both
>> contained an enormous amount of trivia.
>
> Other consistent non-fiction best sellers of the past century include
> Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "The
> Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook".  Being a bestseller does not make
> a work instructive as to what an encyclopedia ought to contain.

I don't think that the Carnegie book had the kind of structure that
would lead to the kind of debates about "encyclopedic" that we have
tended to have.  We have, however, had considerable debate about whether
recipes should be included in Wikipedia.

You have reversed my argument.  They were not encyclopedic because they
were bestsellers; rather thay became bestsellers because they were
encyclopedic.  With events like the recent hurrican Katrina it is not
unusual for people to ask, "What was the biggest previous hurrican?"  or
"Were there any other famous hurricanes that began with the letter
'K'?"  You underestimate the thirst that people may have for information
that may otherwise be trivial or useless.  If they can come to us to
discover these things that they could not find anywhere they will come
back.  We need only insure that even our trivial information is
verifiable.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on user pages

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Alphax wrote:
>
>
>>Well, the Firefox and Wikipedia logos are both copyrighted and
>>trademarked. Recreating them from scratch would at least solve the first
>>issue.
>>
>>
>That's just wrong.  Recreating them from scratch would not solve the
>first issue at all.
>
>That's like saying that if I type in all of a Harry Potter book from
>scratch, it's no longer copyrighted.
>
>Please, I ask people, don't speculate on legal matters unless and until
>you've learned more about them.
>
>
The kind of thing that he may be thinking about would only operate in
very limited circumstances, and not at all in trademarks or patents.

If two people _independently_ produce identical pieces of work they can
both have copyright protection, and neither has infringed upon the
other.  The horde of monkeys who managed to reproduce the Britannica
would not be infringing because it could probably be proven that they
did not even know how to read the original work,  Practically, the
situation is next to impossible in anything but the shortest works.
Legal cases involving music copying can often hinge on whether the
alleged infringer had the idea independently.  For Wiktionary it can
happen when someone independently uses the same definition as appears in
a published dictionary.  It could be the only plausible or even possible
definition.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] On notability and speedies

body:
Oops, I did it again. What I meant to say is that if a user wishes to vote
for a speedy delete on the grounds that an article does not assert
notability it should open for him or her to do so.

As to the more important issue that you raised, notability is in my view a
central point as AfD has evolved. For example, I could write an article on
the street where I live. It is in street directories and the ACT Department
of Urban Services has a directory of street names saying how each street in
Canberra got its name. There is verifiable information as to when it was
built I could even write that I lived there because I am in the electoral
roll which is another source of verifiable information.

The point is that my street is probably not of any interest to anyone living
outside the suburb of Hughes in the ACT, Australia and there shouldn't be an
article on it in Wikipedia. Thus notability has evolved to be a key issue as
to whether or not articles are worthy of retention.

On 9/16/05, f crdfa <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/15/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Tony,
> >
> > Fair point in that I used the words wrongly
> >
> > However, I feel that my words have been taken out of context. I was
> > responding to a admin who was claiming that the word notable should not
> be
> > used in AfD discussions and he would speedy keep any votes in which the
> > word
> > was used.
> >
> > My point was, and remains, that notability is a central concept in AfD
> > discussions as much as verifiability.
>
>
>
> No. With the exception of biographical articles, attempts to incorporate
> notability into the deletion policy have repeatedly failed. Verifiability
> is
> rightly central to all wikipedia editing policy. Notability is and will
> likely remain an ill-defined concept, only grudgingly accepted, if that.
>
>
>
> There is a fairly large minority of Wikipedians who follow a precept
> articulated once by Jimbo Wales: that when people use the word notability,
> what they're really getting at is verifiability. An obscure individual
> about
> whom nothing can be ascertained except what he himself, or his mother,
> wrote
> into a Wikipedia article, can be described as non-notable in that sense.
>
> That is not a widely accepted meaning of the word--far from it--but I
> think
> it's the only one that even comes close to a useful definition. It would
> only gain anything like wide acceptance if we could agree on a method of
> quantifying the verifiable information available, and I fear that would be
> far too ambitious a project for this little encyclopedia.
>
>
> If a user wishes to assert that the
> > article is worthy of an A7 speedy delete on the grounds that it isn't
> > notable, it should be open for him or her to do so.
>
>
>
>
> Absolutely not. The A7 speedy says nothing about whether an article is
> notable, only whether it contains an assertion of notability. This is,
> unless that CSD is changed, non-negotiable.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: new request for ASL/English wikipedia

body:
> Hi Gerard,
> Please read further down the thread, you will see that Mark addressed
> this issue already. There is a sizeable number of people in favour of
> signed Wikipedias; what remains to be seen is *how* it will be done.

I also addressed the issue of how it should be done. In short, my
proposal was advocation of using sign synthesis software, the likes of
which already exists.

> Yet again I am forced to ask: Is there
> any existing literature in sign language?)

In American Signed Language, yes. That's if you define "literature" as
written only. I personally would include the signed version of "oral
literature" (perhaps "manual literature"?), because much more of that
exists. However, there is printed literature in ASL. The writing
systems used vary widely.

> Oh, and if all these people for whom sign language is their primary
> language have only a 4th-grade reading level, how are they supposed to
> even get on the internet and contribute to a signed Wikipedia? The last
> time I checked, teaching literacy was *not* a primary goal of the
> Wikimedia Foundation.

Most people with 4th grade reading levels should be able to connect to
the internet.

Mark


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory

body:
I still think these kinds of projects don't really belong to
Wikimedia. Why not Wikicities?

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


subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Topic warriors

body:
We all know about "POV warriors." I'm fortunate or wimpy enough not
to have been involved in articles with serious long-standing POV
wars, but my impression is that _for the most part_ these things seem
to stay under reasonable control.

On the other hand, I think we are developing "topic warriors" who
feel that a specific subject area deserves very detailed coverage,
systematically watch VfD for any cases where articles on their pet
topic are nominated for deletion, and oppose deletion of _any_
article on their topic on principle, regardless of the quality of the
article.

Unlike POV, a relatively small number of topic warriors CAN
effectively achieve their goal. (And, of course, they are assisted by
Wikipedians who do _not_ accept the premise that "Wikipedia is not an
indiscriminate collection of information.")

NOTE NOTE NOTE ---> topic wars are FAR, FAR less damaging to
Wikipedia and FAR less of a concern than POV wars.

Some Wikipedians undoubtedly feel that topic wars do not damage
Wikipedia at all. My feeling is that they do,  because they
deliberately _create_ systemic bias, and  create an area in which the
average quality of the articles  is lower than the rest of Wikipedia.

They certainly damage the Wikipedia community by factionalizing it,
creating an "us versus them" mentality, and, in some cases, publicly
gloating over their "success."

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia the go-to place for trademark bodies

body:
For those who are unaware, there was recently a high profile (and, IMO, very shady) attempt in Australia to trademark the term Linux. In order to receive a trademark, the applicants had to demonstrate the term Linux is generic. While reading the article, this caught my eye:

"The applicant used Wikipedia and Google to back its claim but IP Australia dismissed the examples. 'The entry from the Wikipedia encyclopaedia indicates 'Linux is a computer operating system and its kernel' ... demonstrating generic use rather than trademark use.'"
- http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Linux_trademark_bid_rejected/0,2000061733,39212227,00.htm

Ok, I admit, I smiled a bit.


from_name: HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

body:
To help in the discussion of the ASL/English wikipedia I have made a sample
(http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerc). The hand icon there is there to
indicate the paragraph is signed. Click on the number one after it to go to
the page with the signing that is housed off the Wikipedia site. The deaf
adults and students who have seen this are ready to start building more as
they see it as a very valuable and accessible tool for acquiring
information.

While it is possible to use simple Wikipedia to build a sign augmented
simple wikipedia there are several problems. One the word "simple" can have
a negative connotation," simple" meaning "not smart" as in Simple Simon.
That would infuriate many in the deaf community and doom the project.
If videos were housed on each users individual server then a person who
wants to change the video that does not have access to that particular
server would be unable to do so thus defeating the goal of wiki.

Videos could be stored on the Commons and linked to from the English text
page but the video file size limit would need to be increased dramatically
from 2MB. The sample video in the link above is about 1.5 minutes and is
16MB.

Making Wikipedia able to handle video will make it more up-to-date. Text
and pictures were top-o -the-line in the '80's.

To reiterate an earlier point. ASL is a natural language and deserves a
Wikipedia like any other natural language. The users of ASL are bilingual
in ASL and English to varying degrees (some totally fluent in both, most
more fluent in only ASL) and the languages influence each in the deaf
community. ASL has many signs borrowed from English orthography. There is
no common ASL orthography. Attempts at using SignWriting and other
orthographies have not caught on even after 20 years.

Making an ASL/English Wikipedia will provide the deaf community
particularly students a powerful learning tool. An encyclopedia is a
learning tool, not simply a collection of articles.


from_name: Michael Turley

body:
On 9/16/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> No one said anything about the votes being discarded. He merely
> informed us he checks whether people are being mindless sheep in their
> voting, which in my opinion is a good thing. When people say "All X
> deserve an article", they obviously didn't read the article. They'd be
> basing their vote of the subject rather than the article itself.

I have frequently stated "all schools are notable" in VfD/AfD, and
used that as my vote.  However, every single school AfD vote I've ever
placed was preceeded by reading the article,  a brief google search,
and a visit to the school's official home page, if it had one.

Claiming to know "they obviously didn't read the article" is a failure
to assume good faith, and in fact is frequently wrong, considering
I've used phrases just like the one you claim is an indicator that I
didn't read the article.

Because all schools are notable, I find them interesting enough to
read each of their articles and check their home pages when I run
across them.  Reading articles I find inherently notable... hmm...
what a concept.  I would suggest that you accept that other Wikipedia
editors have different interests than you and leave it at that.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Afd "votes" with no real reasons given

body:
On 9/16/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:

> ISRTBC HTH HAND

ISRTBC?

WTF?

I've been away from Usenet too long, and don't like or use IRC or IM.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 9/16/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/16/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The very thought of speedying a halfway decent stub strikes me as both a
> > very bad idea, and very dangerous to the encyclopaedia. How many featured
> > articles started out as stubs?
> While I agree, you *did* see the size of those stubs, right? Two more
> sentences and I doubt they would have been speedied. Probably put on
> afd though. We really should encourage adding more information in one
> edit.
>
Indeed, those articles were stubs as they contained more than just one
tiny sentence. We should indeed encourage more than one-sentence edits
to start articles. One sentence is not a stub but a substub.


body:
On 9/16/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I meant to respond to Ryan on this. As a AfD closer, I do expect all
> > participants in the debate to spend a few minutes, or whatever it takes,
> > reading the article, and then read the other comments in the debate, and
> > have a bit of a poke around the subject, possibly look at the article
> > history. If they're not doing at least the first two of those, they're not
> > making an informed comment. If I see them write a few words in the context
> > of the debate, I'm happier that there has been an informed discussion.
>
>
> I don't think it's your business to decide what is and isn't an "informed
> decision". The person casting the vote thought their decision was informed
> enough or they wouldn't be voting. If you think someone isn't well informed,
> you inform them. You don't just discard their votes without comment.
>
> - Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
No one said anything about the votes being discarded. He merely
informed us he checks whether people are being mindless sheep in their
voting, which in my opinion is a good thing. When people say "All X
deserve an article", they obviously didn't read the article. They'd be
basing their vote of the subject rather than the article itself.


from_name: Sascha Brockmeyer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pagerights in MediaWiki

body:
Hi!

I  have a problem with my wikimedia page. I want to safe all existing and
all in future time existing articel.

How can i safe articels in a way, that only SYSOPS can change anything or
create new texts.

Sry for the worse english.

-----

Hi, wie kann ich bei meinem MediaWiki sch?tzen, das nur SysOps Articel
erstellen und bestehende auch nur von SysOps bearbeitet werden k?nnen?

Thanks
Sascha Brockmeyer
Brockmeyer.S at atlas.de


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Criteria for deletion (was: Afd "votes" with no real
	reasons given)

body:
The real question is whether admins are mere vote-talliers.

Can users simply:

(1) Tag any article as "unmergeable" for a five-day period, to
(2) Force a vote on whether it should be kept or deleted?

If so, is it the job of the admin simply to count the votes and then
judge whether the percentage constitutes a "consensus" one way or
another?

Apparently this custom has acquired the strength of Policy.

Last month I tested this policy by removing what I felt was a
hastily-applied vfd tag and merging the information into a new article.
The response had all the fervor of a personal attack: how dare I, don't
I know (being an admin), etc.

But here's the point: if I had found out some other way besides seeing
the VFD template, that the article was unsuitable in its current state -
and read the reasons it was deemed unsuitable, I would have DONE EXACTLY
THE SAME.

The only difference is some Deletionist claimed the right to stop all
merges until the end of the 5-day vote.

This is BAD because

1. It requires me to come back to the article 5 days later, and
re-acquaint myself with the matter (twice as much mental preparation
work).

2. It stops everyone else from repairing the article (if all it needs is
a merge and/or redirect).

3. It's un-wiki: the saying "anyone can edit any article, any time" no
longer applies to this.

4. "Be bold" is suspended: I was bold, and get my wings clipped in a Big
Hurry. (I can't remember now whether this resulted in an RFC on my
action, but I worried about this at the time. How can editors be bold,
if they have to worry about being the Target of a Public Hearing just
for merging and redirecting info from a sub-standard article?)

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

> Tony Sidaway [mailto:f.crdfa at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 7:37 AM
>
> I cannot discard a stated good faith opinion, even if I am
> not sure it was
> well informed. But I would certainly be justified in giving
> it less weight
> than an opinion that clearly showed serious thought, in
> determining whether
> consensus had been reached.

[snip]

> We're not mere clerks tallying votes.

[snip]

> Afd
> participants cannot just run down the list of debates ticking
> keep/delete
> according to their prejudices, and then expect their opinions
> to be given
> equal weight with those who consider the question seriously.
>
>


body:
> So where will reference material come from? Primarily translations from
> texts in spoken languages?

Yes.

> Oh, and the next question is: What's the literacy rate of any written
> forms (as in, something you can put on paper) of signed languages
> amongst the deaf population? Or are the orthographies symbolic in such a
> way that reading it is similar to watching someone actually sign?

No idea, but it's definitely very low. Thus the need for sign synthesis.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

body:
How is it that computer-generated videos are not generally accepted?
Their level of proliferation is extremely low, for one, so it's not
like they've had much of a chance.

Second of all, even though it may not be perfect, sign-synthesis
technology is certainly at such a level where it should be
comprehensible to anybody.

Perhaps rather than asking Kennisnet if they're willing to host
content in signed languages, you should ask if they're willing to host
over a terrabyte of data for every signed language in Wikipedia.

And the further issue that signed language boundaries and spoken
language boundaries don't always coincide is a major one. What of ASL
users in Mexico? Would it be user-friendly to make them use a
bilingual English-ASL Wikipedia?

Mark

On 16/09/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
> >On 9/16/05, HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us <HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Videos could be stored on the Commons and linked to from the English text
> >>page but the video file size limit would need to be increased dramatically
> >>from 2MB. The sample video in the link above is about 1.5 minutes and is
> >>16MB.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >You are kidding, right?  You want a 16MB video attached to each
> >article in enwiki?  That would take up, what, about 10TB?  Are you
> >going to pay for that storage array?  How about the added bandwidth?
> >
> >ASL (like all sign languages) should be a text encyclopedia written in
> >a generally accepted orthography for ASL; users who cannot read the
> >orthography (illiterate users) may utilize tools to generate
> >computer-generated signed videos from the text, the same way that an
> >illiterate English-speaking person may use a speech synthesis tool to
> >have an article in English read to him.
> >
> >Kelly
> >
> Hoi,
> The question of cost is something that is something that should be
> seperate from this discussion. In the past I have informed the Wikimedia
> community that Kennisnet would be willing to undertake the streaming of
> content for Wikimedia. I did ask Jan-Bart if Kennisnet would be willing
> to host signed content. I have not had an answer yet.
>
> Many organisations are willing to spend a considerable sum of money to
> help people like the deaf to have the resources that other people take
> for granted. The idea that because of the "cost of video" we would not
> be able to do these things is therefore premature. The conclusion that a
> signed language needs to have an orthography is not necessarily correct.
> Mark has informed us quite correctly that many deaf people do not know
> how to write their signed language in one of the representations of
> signed languages. Technically I am not sure that you can call them
> orthographies.
>
> There is *no* generally accepted orthography for any of the signed
> languages. Even the computer generated videos are not generally
> accepted. Calling people who cannot read one of the "orthographies"
> illeterate is a bit of a stretch. Typically illitereate is used for the
> inability to understand the pervasive written language. Typically this
> would be written English in America. When you require people to write
> one of the "orthographies" in order to contribute to an ASL wikipedia,
> you will disqualify most of the people who can sign ASL. This means that
> what you want a Wikipedia to be (the ability of everyone to contribute)
> a dream. "I have a dream ...."
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [WikiFR-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] fr, nl, ja wikipedias locked

body:
On 9/16/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> ja.wikipedia.org and fr.wikipedia.org are now back online as well. All
> should be working, with all data retained from the 11 hours with the
> server misconfigured.

Merci Brion, and all those who helped put this back together.

Cheers,

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

body:
> To help in the discussion of the ASL/English wikipedia I have made a sample
> (http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerc). The hand icon there is there to
> indicate the paragraph is signed. Click on the number one after it to go to
> the page with the signing that is housed off the Wikipedia site. The deaf
> adults and students who have seen this are ready to start building more as
> they see it as a very valuable and accessible tool for acquiring
> information.

We all believe you already. That's not the issue here.

> Videos could be stored on the Commons and linked to from the English text
> page but the video file size limit would need to be increased dramatically
> from 2MB. The sample video in the link above is about 1.5 minutes and is
> 16MB.

I hope you realise that 16MB is a lot of space just for one article.
At that rate, just 1000 articles will vastly deplete server resources.
The Sicilian Wikipedia reached over 2000 articles within less than a
year of its creation. If we expect the same of an ASL Wikipedia using
streaming video, the space and bandwidth requirements will be
astronomical.

> Making Wikipedia able to handle video will make it more up-to-date. Text
> and pictures were top-o -the-line in the '80's.

Wikipedia is already able to handle videos. Small videos. Like a video
of hands clapping, or of fireworks. Not videos that are 1.5 minutes
long.

> To reiterate an earlier point. ASL is a natural language and deserves a
> Wikipedia like any other natural language. The users of ASL are bilingual
> in ASL and English to varying degrees (some totally fluent in both, most
> more fluent in only ASL) and the languages influence each in the deaf
> community. ASL has many signs borrowed from English orthography. There is
> no common ASL orthography. Attempts at using SignWriting and other
> orthographies have not caught on even after 20 years.

You're actually wrong here, surprisingly enough. There are plenty of
ASL users from Mexico who know no English, also from other countries
where ASL is used but English is not taught to most deaf people.

Mark


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

body:
On 9/16/05, HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us <HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us> wrote:
> Videos could be stored on the Commons and linked to from the English text
> page but the video file size limit would need to be increased dramatically
> from 2MB. The sample video in the link above is about 1.5 minutes and is
> 16MB.

You are kidding, right?  You want a 16MB video attached to each
article in enwiki?  That would take up, what, about 10TB?  Are you
going to pay for that storage array?  How about the added bandwidth?

ASL (like all sign languages) should be a text encyclopedia written in
a generally accepted orthography for ASL; users who cannot read the
orthography (illiterate users) may utilize tools to generate
computer-generated signed videos from the text, the same way that an
illiterate English-speaking person may use a speech synthesis tool to
have an article in English read to him.

Kelly


from_name: Traroth

subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory

body:
Well... Why not ? Are you people OK with testimonies
like "I was there when US army shooted on Hotel
Palestine in Bagdad" or "I was in the jails of Abu
Graib" ?

Traroth

--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> a ?crit :
>
> Well the idea is to also focus on events where lots
> of people died. Not unlike
> what the Sep11wiki was supposed to be but not
> focused on any one event.
>
> That would cover at least part of what you?d like to
> do with Wikimemory. I?m
> just not sure if there would be enough overlap to
> merge the proposals or not.
>
> -- mav
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

___________________________________________________________________________
Appel audio GRATUIT partout dans le monde avec le nouveau Yahoo! Messenger
T?l?chargez cette version sur http://fr.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
>From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>
>There is a serious problem with undeletion policy, rendering it
>incompatible
>with other Wikipedia policies.
>
>
>Firstly undeletion requires a majority (50%). Wikipedia is not a democracy,
>we should do changes by consensus.

I'm not sure why people continue to try to make this false distinction.  On
Wikipedia, "consensus" means a majority of editors agreeing with one option,
ranging from 66% to 80%, depending on the issue.

>Secondly the undeletion policy is inconsistent with deletion policy. The
>main principle of deletion policy is "if in doubt, don't delete". It
>follows
>that a consensus should be required to keep a page deleted.

The second premise doesn't follow from the first.  The fact that someone
might want to have an article undeleted does not necessarily mean there is
any doubt it should have been deleted.  As well, when something is deleted
that means there was a consensus it should have been deleted; VfU is not
intended to be "AfD round two"; if it's just another AfD, then it should be
consolidated into AfD and deleted.

Jay.


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

body:
geni wrote:
> On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden <zscout370 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are
>>they technically orphans?
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Zachary Harden
>
>
>
> the softwear doesn't think so
>
>

Pyjamas? :)

--
Alphax                      |   /"\
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from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for AS/English Wikipedia

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Phroziac wrote:
>
>> On 9/14/05, HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us <HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us> wrote:
>>
>>> Some of you have mentioned SignWriting   (at www.signwriting.org) as a
>>> textual way of displaying ASL. The problem is less than a handful of
>>> people
>>> know SignWriting. Video of ASL is needed to  make a true ASL wikipedia
>>
>>
>> How exactly do you edit a video like wikitext?
>
>
> Maybe a sign language Wikipedia should wait until technology exists to
> automatically convert SignWriting, or any other form of writing sign
> languages, to video.
>
> Timwi

Hoi,
In my experience if you want something to happen, something like Wikis
in sign languages, you should not wait for everything to be perfect. It
is the stimulus of the itch that make people scratch. Commons was
created before it was possible to use its content in other projects and
this really did stimulate coding and mindshare. As such it proved really
wiki to start and find solutions because of the need that was felt, not
the issues that were expressed.

Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on user pages

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>
>>Well, the Firefox and Wikipedia logos are both copyrighted and
>>trademarked. Recreating them from scratch would at least solve the first
>>issue.
>
>
> That's just wrong.  Recreating them from scratch would not solve the
> first issue at all.
>
> That's like saying that if I type in all of a Harry Potter book from
> scratch, it's no longer copyrighted.
>

Argh, I meant in the same style, not the exact same thing... so if
someone created an image of white globe with a chunk taken out of the
top and letters all over it, and an orange stylised fox wrapped around
it... would that be any better?

> Please, I ask people, don't speculate on legal matters unless and until
> you've learned more about them.
>

As an aside: I've replaced some of the images in question (at least on
[[User:NSR/userboxes]] with icons from the Nuvola icon set for KDE
(shameless plug: these are going on Commons, linked from
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nuvola), which are licensed under the
LGPL, so if anyone wants to complain about the copyright or whatever on
them, they can ask David Vignoni (the author) about them.

--
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body:
Alphax wrote:

>Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/09/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
><snip>
>
>
>>>I can see very little difference between providing
>>>[[en:Wikipedia:Spoken Wikipedia]] for those who have a problem with
>>>their sight and providing [[en:Wikipedia:Signed Wikipedia]] for
>>>those who have a problem with their hearing.
>>>
>>>If the idea takes off and a great many articles are converted into
>>>Sign Language, and someone comes up with a brilliant way of editing
>>>Sign Language in a wiki-like manner, then this material could be
>>>used to jump-start a new Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>It seems to me that we could get a great deal done using the
>>>material we already have, rather than waiting for the requisite
>>>wheel to be invented.
>>>
>>>I sit ready to be corrected, of course, and I await developments
>>>eagerly.
>>>
>>>
>>Again, there are many different mutually incomprehensible signed
>>languages. Countries where English is the primary language don't all
>>have the same signed language (British sign language is not even
>>related to American sign language), and American Sign Language is
>>also used in countries where English is NOT the primary language
>>(most notably in parts of Mexico).
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>
>>
>
>It sounds an awful lot to me like sign language is an othorgraphy, not a
>distinct language. Having "American sign language" to the exclusion of
>Auslan, British sign language, et. al. is incredibly US-centric.
>
>Can I ask just one question: how many deaf people with Internet access
>are illiterate in whatever the audible version of their language is?
>Any? Are there any websites which are "written" in sign language?
>
>Until these questions are answered, I don't see why (or indeed *how*)
>Sign Language Wikipedias can exist.
>
Hoi,
There is no "audible" version of a sign language. With an ASL wiki there
is also room for wikis for the other sign languages.
Thanks,
    GerardM


body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> On 15/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Count the number of articles that go up to AFD every day, and ask
>>>yourself if you think its reasonable that everyone write a paragraph
>>>- or even a short explanation - on everything they vote for. Simply
>>>*voting* on everything would take an hour a day at least.
>

Just to be clear, Ryan Delaney wrote that, not me.

--
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http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \


body:
Michael Turley wrote:
> On 9/15/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Ryan Delaney wrote:
>>
>>>Right now, if band and business vanity...
>>
>>...Business vanity mostly turns out to be spam...
>
>
> Please excuse all the cutting, but this is a personal irritant that I
> find very hard to ignore.  Vanity doesn't apply to businesses.
> Businesses are either important, influential, recognizable or
> otherwise worthy of writing an article about them, or they aren't.
>

In which case they will violate [[WP:NOR]] and [[WP:NOT]] a business
directory.

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body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
<snip>
> For instance today's front page contains an article about the
> Krag-Petersson repeating rifle which doesn't manage to give any dates
> at all until the second paragraph (and then only the date of adoption
> by the Norwegian Navy), although the most significant thing about the
> rifle is that it was "the first repeating rifle adopted by the armed
> forces of Norway"  How did the editors manage to miss the date out of
> the first sentence?  How did it pass FA in that state?
>

Vote stacking on IRC.

/me runs

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subject: [WikiEN-l] On notability and speedies

body:
Keith Old wrote:
> Oops, I did it again. What I meant to say is that if a user wishes to vote
> for a speedy delete on the grounds that an article does not assert
> notability it should open for him or her to do so.
>
> As to the more important issue that you raised, notability is in my view a
> central point as AfD has evolved. For example, I could write an article on
> the street where I live. It is in street directories and the ACT Department
> of Urban Services has a directory of street names saying how each street in
> Canberra got its name. There is verifiable information as to when it was
> built I could even write that I lived there because I am in the electoral
> roll which is another source of verifiable information.
>
> The point is that my street is probably not of any interest to anyone living
> outside the suburb of Hughes in the ACT, Australia and there shouldn't be an
> article on it in Wikipedia. Thus notability has evolved to be a key issue as
> to whether or not articles are worthy of retention.

Feel free to add this information to [[Hughes, Australian Capital
Territory]].

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion policy

body:
>From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>
>However this only highlights the absurdity of the extremely onerous VFU
>requirements. Taken alongside the worrying trend on VFU to deprecate the
>function of reconsidering the merits of neglected arguments, anyone would
>think we were trying to *avoid* remedying mistaken deletions.

The assumption being that many of the articles raised on VfU have actually
been mistakenly deleted.
Jay.


body:
On 9/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
> > Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> >> On 9/16/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> ISRTBC HTH HAND
> >>
> >>
> >> ISRTBC?
> >> WTF?
> >
> >
> > In sanktam regem tenet benedictus claudandus? No, seriously, I have no
> > idea. I wish people would stop using such acronyms at all. I notice that
> > Wikipedia articles are often full of them. Somewhere in the middle of an
> > article the non-American reader is suddenly expected to know what the
> > ACLU is (often much more obscure ones, this is just one that came to
> > mind). It's really frustrating, especially when there is also no
> > article, redirect or disambiguation page under that acronym.
> >
> > Searching for ISRTBC, Google asks if I may have meant "ISRC", while
> > dictionary.com suggests "ASARABACCA"...
> >
>
> I got one meaningful result for ISRTBC, and it's by Phil Boswell on
> [[Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text/Archive 1]]. I'm seriously
> starting to wonder if this is some secret shorthand for "YHBT YHL" or
> similar.

Secret shorthand for secret shorthand?  Are you sure TINC?

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


subject: [WikiEN-l] Notes pages idea

body:
steve v wrote:
<snip>
> "This article is in an embryonic [[notes]] stage,
> where notes are being compiled. You can add to
> [[/notes|these notes]], or bring bring the article to
> the [[WP:STUB|fetal]] level."
>

Oh great, next thing we'll have Wiki abortionists.

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body:
On 9/16/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/16/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > The only difference is [someone] claimed the right to stop all
> > merges until the end of the 5-day vote.
> >
>
>
> That is unusual. You should be able to merge during the AfD, and this should
> be taken into account by the closer. You'd have to leave the AfD tag around.
> Don't get phased by the rule lawyers, if what you do makes sense there
> shouldn't be much of a problem.

I agree with Tony Sidaway, however, the problem I've seen with merging
during an AfD discussion is that the person doing the merge fails to
include all the information from the article being discussed,
therefore giving the appearance of significantly changing the topic of
discussion by fiat.

If the merge is handled as a two step process, it may reduce the
complaints.  The two steps I suggest are:
1: Copy the article into the merge target verbatim, making absolutely
no changes or edits.  Note this in the edit summary.
2: Edit the merged article using your judgement.  Note as appropriate
in the edit summary.

In this way, the content of the article is undeniably still present,
even to people who don't know enough to look back at the redirect's
history, and any accusations of a "stealth delete" can be fully
dismissed.  The argument can then proceed about whether the
information was worth saving or not, or can proceed to a revert war
over the merge, but at least this way if anything is removed,
everything is very clear and open about how the content "survived the
merge, but then was edited out by use of an editor's judgement".

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Ros’ Haruo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Query on ASL

body:
About the existing ASL orthographies such as Stokoe and SignWriting,
aside from the issue of copyrighted or patented or whatever systems,
and aside from the issue of their not being (currently) known by a
majority of ASL signers, I haven't seen the questions addressed (or
even asked) (1) are the systems relatively easy to learn if you
already know ASL ? rather like a phonetic alphabet or syllabary ? say
with a discrete symbol for each chereme and an intuitive way of
handling stress exaggeration or whatever you call the way a sign can
be exaggerated in whole or in part (sort of like lengthening a
syllable's duration in spoken Chinook Jargon, e.g. anq?ti "-ed",
aaanq?ti "-ed quite a while ago", aaaaaaaaaaaanq?ti "-ed when
dinosaurs ruled the earth" - the ? is a schwa in case it doesn't come
through the email mill) ? or is it relatively difficult to learn if
you already know ASL, say like Japanese kana majiri?

Haruo
--
Meet the Whole World Halfway ? Learn and Use Esperanto!
http://www.scn.org/~lilandbr/lang_tax.html ? http://lernu.net


from_name: Juanma Barranquero

subject: [Wikitech-l] Upgrading from 1.4.9 to 1.5rc4

body:
Yesterday I upgraded my (tiny) 1.4.9 installation to 1.5rc4, which was
a relatively trouble-free affair (I used the web install with the same
values as on the original install, instead of running "php
update.php").

I spent quite a while trying to determine how to set up the navigation
toolbar; the only reference to it is in RELEASE-NOTES, and erroneously
mentions MediaWiki:navbar. Fortunately, after a (long) while I
discovered the MediaWiki_FAQ on the web, which nicely explains the
whole issue. Not a big deal.

More puzzling was the fact that I was getting errors about unknown
variables while loading an extension. From LocalSettings.php I load
extensions/MyExtensions.php, which starts with the following code:

  function __autoload($class_name) {
      require_once($class_name . '.php');
  }

  require_once('MyFunctions.php');

  SpecialPage::addPage(new UnlistedSpecialPage('MyExtension'));

For some reason, that used to work OK on 1.4.9, but on 1.5rc4 I was
forced to add

  require_once('SpecialPage.php');

before the call to addPage(). Is that expected?

Now, the only thing I miss is a way to customize $wgBookstoreListEn
which doesn't involve hacking languages/language.php (because I must
remember to update it every time I upgrade, which is a PITA). Setting
it in LocalSettings.php does not work. Any ideas?

--
                    /L/e/k/t/u


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

body:
On 9/16/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is *no* generally accepted orthography for any of the signed
> languages. Even the computer generated videos are not generally
> accepted.

Then it sounds to me like ASL is not yet mature enough, as a language,
to merit a Wikipedia of its own.  If ASL signers are not willing to
accept synthetic signing, then I suggest that they need to adjust
their attitudes (or else improve the quality of sign synthesis
software).  It's not practical to record hundreds of thousands of
videos to facilitate access for a relatively small community.  Also,
having to rerecord the video every time an edit is required basically
means that the ASL Wikipedia won't be a true Wikipedia, just a
translation of parts of the English Wikipedia.

Basically what I'm saying is that it's not unreasonable for us to
expect the deaf community to "meet us halfway" on this issue.

Kelly


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Random Plugging

body:
On 9/16/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Its been a while, but Ive just started using the
> random page link to just surf for minor edit handling.
> I kind of like it --about half of the articles have
> rather basic formatting, disambiguation, tag, image,
> and link handling problems, and banging away at these
> was a reasonably productive use of an hour.
>
> A feel a "Random Pluggers" WikiProject coming on.
>
>
Go for it! When I first encountered Wikipedia I spent many a happy hour just
pressing random page and doing minor format edits, cats wikification and the
like.


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] mirror the talks in a mailing list?

body:
Sorry if that message has been already sent, but I can't see it in the
gmane interface.

Hello

I apologise if this question has already has been asked or is
elementary, but is there any possibility that the discussion, the
talks about a specific topic could be mirrored in a mailing list or
newsgroup? For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sumer

It seems that I can contribute to that discussion, after having logged
in, but I would prefer a more familiar interface such as the emacs
editor.  If such discussions were mirrored in a mailing list, I could
use that editor for this purpose.

Now I see for example the daily-article mailing list which is mirrored
in gmane as gmane.org:gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia but there
seems no response posted.

Uwe Brauer


body:
On 9/16/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> One sentence is not a stub but a substub.
>

I'll have to politely disagree with you there. The thing that makes a stub
useful is the informational content, not how many full stops it contains.

"John Lennon (1940-1980), a Liverpool-born songwriter, singer and guitarist,
and sometime political campaigner, with Paul McCartney formed the core
songwriting team of The Beatles and later achieved considerable success as a
solo artist."

It's far from telling you everything there is to know about John Lennon--for
instance it misses out the assassination because this would overload the
stub and focus overmuch attention on the manner of Lennon's death. It tells
you nothing of his checkered personal life or the creative hiatus of the
late seventies. But I contend that it's a useful stub.

Actually looking at the current overblown version of the John Lennon
article, with its stilted "leading [rock music] towards more serious and
political messages" and overambitious classification of Lennon as an
"artist, actor and author", I think I prefer the stub. A biography must not
be left solely to the fans! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing>


from_name: Roth Philippe

subject: [Wikitech-l] Modification Navigation et ToolBox

body:
Bonjour ? tous,

Comment est-il possible de modifier le module de Navigation et la ToolBox qui sont disponibles sous MediaWiki?
Comment ajouter ou enlever des ?l?ments?
J'ai vu aussi qu'il est possible d'ajouter l'option "Version Imprimable". Comment peut-on ajouter cette option?
Existe-t-il d'autres options? Lesquelles? Sont-elles r?f?renc?es? O??

Merci d'avance ? tous,
Philippe Roth


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Article deletion

body:
Timwi wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
>
>>
>> The state has decided to spend money [...] That to me says "notable".
>
>
> Does that make every citizen of a country that spends money on issuing
> passports automatically notable?
>
No. If you had taken the time to read the whole thing, I also said that
the state has decided to mark these roads with special signs to make it
easier to get around. Stop trolling.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Recherche sous Wikimedia

body:
Bonjour ? tous,

Quelle est la meilleure mani?re de configuerer la recherche sous WikiMedia?
Google ou la recherche int?gr?e?
Autrement?

Merci d'avance,
Philippe Roth


body:
On 9/16/05, Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> For those who are unaware, there was recently a high profile (and, IMO,
> very shady) attempt in Australia to trademark the term Linux. In order to
> receive a trademark, the applicants had to demonstrate the term Linux is
> generic.

Actually that should be non-generic. A generic term--one that is not
commonly associated with a particular brand--cannot be trademarked..


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] My Watchlist RSS Feed

body:
On 16/09/05, John Anthony Hartman <john at websage.org> wrote:
> I am trying to solve a problem and hope that someone might have already
> considered or actually done this already. I was wondering if any one had
> created any code that would collect My Watchlist data and published it as an
> RSS feed. If no one has can someone please point me in the right direction
> in the code to accomplish this myself?

This is an oft-discussed but not-yet-implemented feature: see
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471

The basic problem is that people see the watchlist as private
information - watching someone else's could facilitate anti-social
users "stalking" those pages, etc. RSS feeds, on the other hand, tend
to be public resources - there's not really a standard way of making
them secure. See previous discussions (e.g. the one linked from that
bug report) for details.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper speedy taggings

body:
The whole of its content was just:

"Matti H?yry is Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy of Law at the
University of Manchester. He studied philosophy and ethics in
Helsinki, Finland, and he is Adjunct Professor of Practical Philosophy
at the University of Helsinki."

Where's the assertion of notability? Being a fellow with a job which
you went to school for is not in itself notable to the world at large,
even if that job is being professor at a prominent university. What
*is* an assertion of notability? Perhaps that's what needs to be
clarified. To me, an assertion of notability would be a statement
about something this fellow has *done*, not the job he happens to
hold. Unless that job is in itself notable, which I suppose is where
you and I probably differ on this (I don't think that being a
professor is in-and-of-itself notable, but that might be because
everyone I spend time around is planning on being a professor
somewhere or another, eventually).

FF

On 9/16/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
> Check this halfway decent stub, and the history:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matti_H%C3%A4yry
>
> It was tagged as a speedy, under A7, but there is an assertion of
> notability. We need better wording for the speedy policy page.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


body:
On 9/16/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I meant to respond to Ryan on this. As a AfD closer, I do expect all
> > participants in the debate to spend a few minutes, or whatever it takes,
> > reading the article, and then read the other comments in the debate, and
> >
> > have a bit of a poke around the subject, possibly look at the article
> > history. If they're not doing at least the first two of those, they're
> > not
> > making an informed comment. If I see them write a few words in the
> > context
> > of the debate, I'm happier that there has been an informed discussion.
>
>
> I don't think it's your business to decide what is and isn't an "informed
> decision". The person casting the vote thought their decision was informed
> enough or they wouldn't be voting. If you think someone isn't well informed,
> you inform them. You don't just discard their votes without comment.
>

I cannot discard a stated good faith opinion, even if I am not sure it was
well informed. But I would certainly be justified in giving it less weight
than an opinion that clearly showed serious thought, in determining whether
consensus had been reached.

And if an AfD result were to be challenged I would be inclined to present
such sheep voting as evidence on behalf of the appellant's case for a
review. An Afd closer has to climb right inside the debate, to wear it like
a piece of clothing. We're not mere clerks tallying votes. The debate I
closed last night--at the request of someone who found the task too
daunting--was exemplary. I don't often see that level of engagement. Afd
participants cannot just run down the list of debates ticking keep/delete
according to their prejudices, and then expect their opinions to be given
equal weight with those who consider the question seriously.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Pages

body:
Ben E. wrote:
> I'll do it. One has to simply tell him that his heading is not allowed per
> the licensing requirements of Wikipedia. We can ask him to take it down. If
> he doesn't, per [[Wikipedia:User pages]] or something like that, another
> user can remove it. Heading over to talk page as we speak.
>

Good luck; the database is locked - see http://tinyurl.com/cseoo

--
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from_name: Brian Brockmeyer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Violation of Blocking Policy

body:
Brian Brockmeyer wrote:
>User:Arigold reported me on the Wikipedia:Administrators'
>Noticeboard/3RR for alleged violation of the 3-revert rule, which was
>not the case.  Phroziac, who handled Arigold's complaint, readily
>acknowledged that there had been no 3RR violation, writing:
>
>"Maybe I'm blind, but i don't see any four reverts from him that fall
>into a 24 hour period. However, that is gaming the system, and I have
>blocked him for 24 hours. In the future, please sign posts on pages like
>this with ~~~~ --Phroziac (talk) 15:20, 15 September 2005 (UTC)"
>
>By Phroziac's own admission, I did not violate the 3RR, yet he proceeded
>to block me anyway with no basis in Wiki's Blocking Policy.
>
>His claim that I was "gaming the system" amounts to nothing more than an
>affirmation that I did NOT violate the 3RR.  Even still, it lacks all
>merit, since there were merely 4 reverts in a 5 day span (19:36
>September 9 to 19:54 September 14, the date of my last reversion that
>precipitated Phroziac's block), which hardly evinces any kind of intent
>to manipulate and exploit the 3RR.  The 3RR prohibits 3 reverts within a
>24-hour window.  I made 4 in 100+ (interestingly enough, the same # as
>AriGold, who was NOT blocked).  Neither the 3RR was violated, nor its
>spirit, was violated.  Not even close.

Alphax wrote:
>>Actually, it was. You continued to revert without discussing why you
>>were doing so on the article's talk page, or the talk page of the other
>>editor who was reverting you. /That/ is why we have the 3RR

Actually, it wasn't.  You should familiarize yourself with Wiki's policies.
The policy on blocking for "excessive reverts" reads as follows:

"Excessive reverts
Sysops may block users who violate the three revert rule by reverting any
page more than three times within a period of 24 hours. In the cases where
multiple parties violate the rule, sysops should treat all sides equally.
It is helpful to leave a notice of the block, with links to the differences
that demonstrate the violation, on the user's talk page."

By Phroziac's own admission, there were no 3 reverts within a period of 24
hours, and, hence, no basis for blocking.

As the matter does not fall under any other grounds for blocking in Wiki's
Blocking Policy, and that policy is acknowledged as an "exhaustive list" of
situations that justify blocking, Phroziac clearly abused his administrative
authority by issuing a block in contravention of Wiki's Blocking Policy.
The block should be lifted and Phroziac should be called to the carpet for
his violation of Wiki policy.

--Brian Brockmeyer

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee?
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963


from_name: Travis Mason-Bushman

body:
[[WP:NOT]] overly legalistic or bureaucratic. That's what [[WP:IAR]] is for.
Nobody's going to "call to the carpet" Phroziac for issuing a perfectly
respectable block against someone who is clearly gaming the system. You
still haven't explained why you kept unilaterally removing information
without ever discussing anything. As I said, the ultimate check on blocking
is that there are more than 500 Wikipedia admins capable of blocking and
unblocking. The fact that not one of them has done anything speaks volumes
about your case, or lack thereof.

-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia

On 9/16/05 9:41 AM, "Brian Brockmeyer" <brianbrockmeyer at hotmail.com> wrote:

><snipped a lot of policy pleading>


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: New Proposal: WikiMemory

body:
Sounds like a great idea... BUT...

Why does it need to be wiki (editable by anyone for all time)? Sounds
more like you would want to catch a moment, and imortalise that
moment, not keep updating it.
Also, how does it fit with wikimedia's mission?

paz y amor,
-rjs.

On 9/16/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
> Dear Friends:
>
> I've proposed a new wiki--Wikimemory (or Wikimemoir, or IWasThereWiki,
> or something better).  It's logged in the Meta section on new proposals.
> Here's the pitch:
>
> The idea is to provide a place where anyone can record his or her
> memoirs of historically significant events. Most everyone has
> participated in such occurrences. Take, for example, the hundreds of
> thousands who were affected the recent tragedy in New Orleans.
> Unfortunately, there is no repository for the storage of the memories of
> such people. Their experiences can neither be shared with others today
> (I, for one, would like to read first-hand accounts of the New Orleans
> floods), and they will be lost to history tomorrow. In ten, one hundred
> or one thousand years, the memoirs of those "who were there" will be
> very valuable. Wikimemory will, I hope, allow people all over the world
> to record their experiences, share them with others, and pass them to
> the future. I've created a mock-up of the site at
> http://memoirbank.com/.
>
> A nice tag line for the site: "Everyone has a story. Make yours
> history."
>
> I'd love to hear what you think.
>
> Best,
>
> Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
> The Atlantic Monthly
> 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
> Washington, DC 20037
> 202-266-6511
> mpoe at theatlantic.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Show me the way to go 127.0.0.1, i'm tired and i want to go to bed...

Hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
Jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
Upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"Ryan Delaney" <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote
in message news:eecbb0630509152024421173d4 at mail.gmail.com...
On 9/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > ... If I see them write a few words in the context
> > of the debate, I'm happier that there has been an informed discussion.
> I don't think it's your business to decide what is and isn't an "informed
> decision". The person casting the vote thought their decision was informed
> enough or they wouldn't be voting. If you think someone isn't well
> informed,
> you inform them. You don't just discard their votes without comment.

I wonder if you might be taking [[assume good faith]] a little too far. In
several cases I have observed, voters use the phrase "non-notable" as a
synonym for "I haven't heard of that". Given the vast depths of my own
ignorance, I would be surprised if I had heard of more than a very few of
the people and things described on Wikipedia before reading the relevant
article. If an article says that the subject is a "notable" member of their
profession (or whatever) I tend to think this means that someone who
actually knows the field would recognise the name, rather than that "Joe on
the Street" ought to.

> You don't just discard their votes without comment.

>From whence do you gain the impression that Tony "discards" those votes? My
take on his comment was that he felt more satisfaction closing a discussion
which appeared more "informed", rather than having his conclusion affected.

ISRTBC HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Topic warriors

body:
On 9/16/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Usually the content of deletable articles isn't needed to create a
> nice article/stub. If it is, temp undeletion or history undeletion
> requests can be placed.
>

I've got some sympathy with that point of view. However I didn't have to
search long to find that list of power ballads case. That was a case where
deletion didn't make much sense; it just seems to have been a result of
failure of imagination on the part of those involved in the debate. As a
regular closer, I'd say this probably happens a lot more than you think.

Although I don't agree with everything Kelly says on the subject of AfD, and
I am actually one of AfD's greatest cheerleaders, there is a strong tendency
for people to congregate there whose views seem to be untempered by any
knowledge of deletion policy. For them "if in doubt, don't delete" sounds
like inclusionist claptrap rather than an accurate quote from the deletion
policy. For them, the lists of "Problems that don't require deletion" and
"Problems that may require deletion" might as well not exist. They'll ask
for deletion because an article is a mess, or because the content has POV
problems, or because it's deteriorated but was once good, or because the
subject does not merit an article (for which the remedy is of course a
merge) . There is a serious problem here, and saying "well we don't really
need that content, we can always rewrite it/temp undelete it/whatever" isn't
really an adequate defense for what is often a quite shocking miscarriage of
deletion policy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on user pages

body:
Laura Scudder wrote:
> IANAL, but wouldn't icons such as
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nuvola_apps_licq.png be
> trademarked still?
>

Take it up with the author, his homepage is http://www.icon-king.com

--
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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body:
Michael Turley wrote:
> On 9/15/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
<snip discussion about business link spam>
>>
>>In which case they will violate [[WP:NOR]] and [[WP:NOT]] a business
>>directory.
>
>
> Sure, while you're making that blanket statement without considering
> each case individually, try nominating [[Wal-Mart]] to AfD and see
> what happens.  (No, don't.)  Businesses are, generally speaking,
> excellent subjects for articles because of the multiple sources of
> verifiable NPOV information about them.  I'd find a better example of
> one that started out even smaller, as a meager little stub, but the
> server isn't responding right now.
>

[[Wal-Mart]] has references, so it's not original research, and in this
case the article does more than say "Wal-Mart sells anything you want,
in over 20 billion stores nationwide".

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body:
On 9/16/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Ryan Delaney" <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote
> in message news:eecbb0630509152024421173d4 at mail.gmail.com...
>
> > You don't just discard their votes without comment.
>
> >From whence do you gain the impression that Tony "discards" those votes?
> My
> take on his comment was that he felt more satisfaction closing a
> discussion
> which appeared more "informed", rather than having his conclusion
> affected.
>
>
This was my original meaning. However I take issue with the apparent
implication that an Afd closer must give equal weight to all expressions of
opinion.

I generally take such expressions into account where the numbers seem to be
close to my personal comfort zones on consensus/no consensus, but in the
extreme case one edit that says "delete, this is a hoax documented at X" or
"keep, this fellow was President of Venezuela from 1976-1980, as documented
at Y, and I have edited the article to include this referenced fact"
outweighs any number of "delete, non-notable Miami beach bum" votes.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: My Watchlist RSS Feed

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:
> On 16/09/05, John Anthony Hartman <john at websage.org> wrote:
>
>>I am trying to solve a problem and hope that someone might have already
>>considered or actually done this already. I was wondering if any one had
>>created any code that would collect My Watchlist data and published it as an
>>RSS feed. If no one has can someone please point me in the right direction
>>in the code to accomplish this myself?
>
> This is an oft-discussed but not-yet-implemented feature: see
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471
>
> The basic problem is that people see the watchlist as private
> information - watching someone else's could facilitate anti-social
> users "stalking" those pages, etc.

I don't understand why this is a problem. The user will just have to
decide whether they prefer to have their watchlist public or to not use
RSS. A little checkbox (with a warning attached) would be all it takes.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Modification Navigation et ToolBox

body:
> Comment est-il possible de modifier le module de Navigation et la
> ToolBox qui sont disponibles sous MediaWiki? Comment ajouter ou
> enlever des ?l?ments?

Voyez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar pour un exemple,
puis modifiez votre [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]].

> J'ai vu aussi qu'il est possible d'ajouter l'option "Version
> Imprimable".

Tous les pages sont imprimables, donc il n'y a pas de necessit? pour
cette option.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Article deletion

body:
SPUI wrote:
>
> The state has decided to spend money [...] That to me says "notable".

Does that make every citizen of a country that spends money on issuing
passports automatically notable?


from_name: Dorożyński Janusz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wiki dump organization

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ... Timwi
| Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2005 9:37 PM
/
| He meant "until 23rd June" or "before 23rd June". He made
the same
| mistake three times, and it was obvious at least to me
what he meant.

Oooops! Thanks Timwi, you are right.

I'm really sorry - it's all my fault.

Yes, I meant that before 23rd June we can used .sql dumps to
succesfully loaded via mysqld.

	Reg., Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: All information?

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
>
> I have the hypothesis that "[[WP:NOR]] and [[WP:V]] dictate perfectly
> what should and should not be in WP". Someone prove that wrong

Suppose your hypothesis were true. Then there would be no disagreement
on what should and should not be in WP. Contradiction. QED.


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> Yeah, it is. But how are you going to get comments if people see a
> blanked article and think "Good riddance"?

The same way you "get comments" now. If there is a disagreement, you
initiate a discussion and link to that discussion. Only instead of AfD,
the discussion would be on the talk page. How's that any different from
the way it's now?


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> And how exactly are you going to determine there's consensus to
> delete articles that deserve deletion if you don't get 20+ delete
> votes?

How does AfD do it? Precisely. The same way.


from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper speedy taggings

body:
On Sep 16, 2005, at 12:31 PM, Fastfission wrote:
>

>  Being a fellow with a job which
> you went to school for is not in itself notable to the world at large,
> even if that job is being professor at a prominent university.
>

>
For what it's worth, I disagree. I think that in an encyclopedia,
which values peer-reviewed sources and academic knowledge
particularly highly, there is a real case to be made that professors
at accredited universities are notable. The way I see it, pretty much
all professors, whether PhDs, JDs, or whatever, have made some sort
of contribution to their field - law review articles, dissertations,
other publications. If we're the sum total of human knowledge, we'd
cover all those contributions. Thus articles on the professors seem
sensible by default.

I'll go one further, in fact. I think everyone who has been main or
sole author on a publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
deserves a Wikipedia article. Yes, this would include a whole lot of
grad students. But if they're making or have made verifiable
contributions to their field, we should be including them. No question.

-Snowspinner


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Topic warriors

body:
On 9/16/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> > We all know about "POV warriors." I'm fortunate or wimpy enough not
> > to have been involved in articles with serious long-standing POV
> > wars, but my impression is that _for the most part_ these things seem
> > to stay under reasonable control.
> >
> > On the other hand, I think we are developing "topic warriors" who
> > feel that a specific subject area deserves very detailed coverage,
> > systematically watch VfD for any cases where articles on their pet
> > topic are nominated for deletion, and oppose deletion of _any_
> > article on their topic on principle, regardless of the quality of the
> > article.
> >
>
> If you're talking about Wikiprojects, better get the asbestos underwear
> ready... However, I've also seen many articles on AfD improve immensely
> and end up being kept simply because someone knowledgable on the subject
> of the article came along and improved to the point where it was no
> longer suitable to delete the article.

We don't neccesarily need to keep a deletable article until it's
improved. If people want to improve coverage by fixing deletable
articles, all they have to do is go through old deletion listings and
create valid articles.

Usually the content of deletable articles isn't needed to create a
nice article/stub. If it is, temp undeletion or history undeletion
requests can be placed.


subject: [WikiEN-l] RSS feed not working for Google Personal

body:
[cross-posted to wikien-l and wikitech-l, adjust follow-ups as necessary]

I just tried to add the RecentChanges RSS feed to my Google Personal page at
http://www.google.com/ig and was met by a rude response.

I copied the link from [[Special:RecentChanges]] (
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss )
and pasted it into the appropriate box.

The response was as follows:
  Your search
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss
  was blocked by that feed's robots.txt.

What's going on?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
> "John Lennon (1940-1980), a Liverpool-born songwriter, singer and guitarist,
> and sometime political campaigner, with Paul McCartney formed the core
> songwriting team of The Beatles and later achieved considerable success as a
> solo artist."
>
> It's far from telling you everything there is to know about John Lennon--for
> instance it misses out the assassination because this would overload the
> stub and focus overmuch attention on the manner of Lennon's death. It tells
> you nothing of his checkered personal life or the creative hiatus of the
> late seventies. But I contend that it's a useful stub.
>
>
> Actually looking at the current overblown version of the John Lennon
> article, with its stilted "leading [rock music] towards more serious and
> political messages" and overambitious classification of Lennon as an
> "artist, actor and author", I think I prefer the stub. A biography must not
> be left solely to the fans! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawing>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Okay, let me rephrase: "One 5 or 6 word sentence or sentence fragment
is a substub. I should've focussed on the length of the sentence as
short ones tend to not contain enough info, if info at all. One
sentence with numerous well-placed commas and clauses is of course
quite valid.


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper speedy taggings

body:
On 9/16/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/16/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But I do win. And it is a struggle. A struggle to make an article so good
> > that it cannot be deleted. Otherwise why would anyone want to hang out on
> > AfD? And as a by-product Wikipedia gets some pretty good articles.
>
> You win against whom?  You may succeed.  But you don't win.  If you
> think you do, you should consider that everyone (well, near everyone)
> on Wikipedia wants to _improve_ it.  So your attitude of seeing
> victory is simply not helpful.

If the game is to improve an article to a point where the consensus is
"keep", then concensus has also decided that a win in this game
improves Wikipedia, and is therefore helpful.

Just as not all losses necessarily include a victor, not all victories
require losers.  Should delete nominators really consider it a loss if
the article is improved and the consensus "keep"?  Obviously not.

Tony's actions prove that he's going for win-win rather than win-lose.
 He's improving the encyclopedia.  I hope more people join him in his
game.

However, the win/lose jargon should be kept under close control by all
who use it.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


body:
> Actually that should be non-generic. A generic term--one that is not
> commonly associated with a particular brand--cannot be trademarked..
Often it happens the other way around, though. A trademarked name
turning generic.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article deletion

body:
On 9/16/05, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

> And I claim that they are notable if they are marked highways. Want to
> have this argument on every fucking vfd for a state highway?

arguments by assertion are really not very helpful and expletives
don't really add to thier loigcal strength.

--
geni


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on user pages

body:
Alphax wrote:

>geni wrote:
>
>
>>On 9/16/05, Zachary Harden <zscout370 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Though, one question I wish to ask about images on user pages is that are
>>>they technically orphans?
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Zachary Harden
>>>
>>>
>>the softwear doesn't think so
>>
>>
>Pyjamas? :)
>
Yes it helps to make the hardwear (Suit of armor) more comfortable.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: On notability and speedies

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> Tony, any chance you could stop editing the subject when replying?
> This debate is fragmented enough already.

There is nothing wrong with editing the subject at all, just make sure
that you use a mailer that properly sets the References header. I don't
get why so many don't. It is vital for keeping threads together.


subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>I like this idea as a repository of knowledge. Oral history is a remarkable
>took, when used correctly, as it personalizes major events and provides
>insights  into events that would not otherwise be available to researchers.
>Furthermore,  we live in one of the most exciting periods in history, with outstanding
>events  that need recording before the people who witnessed them are no
>longer around to  tell their story.
>
>I would support a project like this, however, I would ask that it follow
>certain strict guidelines so as to help sift through the  stories.
>
There also needs to be some clarity about the copyright.  I'm sure that
many interesting comments and tributes went to the White House in the
wake of the JFK assassination.  If anyone wanted to publish a selection
of the most interesting comments clearing the copyrights would be next
to impossible after even more than 40 years.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] New Proposal: WikiMemory