subject: [Wikipedia-l] species directory

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:

>On Monday 23 August 2004 17:06, Benedikt Mandl wrote:
>
>
>>>And finally, what content would this have that is not just as
>>>appropriate for WP, and do the WPers agree with setting that
>>>boundary? For instance, the full list of papers reporting every
>>>sighting of a species of plant seems too detailed for WP, but I
>>>could imagine a parallel set of "dig deeper" articles that go all
>>>out on that sort of thing.
>>>
>>>
>>Your example is a good one. Also, a determination key might be useful and
>>generally a lot of details that are not relevant in an encyclopedia.
>>Schematic drawings. Keys for text-only browsers that can be read on PDAs
>>for field work. A range of things that WP would not want to provide.
>>
>>
>
>I'd like to see the set of characters by which taxonomists determine that a
>particular plant belongs to, say, the Rosales. Delta/Angio has this for
>flowering plant families, but it's in highly technical jargon. Which suggests
>another thing that should be in it: an explanation of all this jargon (cyme,
>raceme, gamosepalous, bitegmic, Polygonum-type, etc.).
>
"Characteristics" rather than "characters" :-)

Explaining these should remain a part of Wikipedia, even with a
Wikispecies.  What Wikispecies may be more suited to is the development
of differential keys with questions like, "Does the leaf have smooth or
serrated edges?"

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mike Halterman

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mintguy RFC

body:
I find all of this behavior from Netoholic to be utter rubbish. If you need me to certify the basis for the dispute, I will gladly do so.

-Mike H (TheCustomOfLife)

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> I have read with amusement the arguments why the Wikispecies project
> may not be a good idea by some of the ToL people. As much as I admire
> the work that went into the ToL and still goes into the ToL, it is
> also a project that has proven in the past that it is not open and
> willing to cooperate outside of its own project. When I asked to
> consider cooperation to come to a universal wikipedia taxobox, the
> answer was look at all our previous discussions things have been
> decided,, no we won't have that all over again.

This is an interesting observation for the general situation.  It is
quite a typical occurrence as systems mature.  As a project grows it
develops ways of doing things that work to the satisfaction of the
majority, and a if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mentality sets in.
That's both good and bad.  It preserves what works, but tends to shut
out innovation.

I've encounterred Gerard's innovation in another context where I have
been doubtful of its applicability.  The problem with innovation is that
there are often unforseen implications that can disrupt other
practices.  Simply telling someone to read the past discussions is
evasive.  Saying that an issue has been decided, and that the need for
further discussions has been obviated is not very wiki.

Ec


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Duties of Mailing List admins

body:
Anthere,

I have placed my idea of what a mailing list admin should do, here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list#Duties_of_administrator

Ed Poor
WikiEN-l admin emeritus

P.S. "Emeritus" means you weren't fired and didn't quit, but you're not
actively doing it any more -- but can be called back into service if
needed.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
An interesting assignment, but the teacher made a major error by requiring
this: "Choose two topics that are appropriate", requiring a NEW article.
That might have worked 2 years ago when for example the article,
[[Colorado]] was a new article. But now the experience is much more about
making existing articles better.

I think a better assignment would be. Pick a Wikipedia article at least 10
editors have edited within the last month and make an edit which
substantially improves the article.

This mission, of course, might be quite adventurous, involving geting
reverted, having to justify one's edit, but would expose the students to the
flavor of a wiki.

Ending up on VfD is much more sour and negative experience.

Fred

> From: "Anthony DiPierro" <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 08:23:57 -0400
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now on VFD
>
> Just wanted to bring this discussion to the mailing list, as this is "*the*
> place for meta-discussions about the nature of Wikipedia."  From what I've
> gathered, a Wikipedia user (possibly just a lurker as their user has not
> contributed before the 20th), [[User:Pcw]] gave his class an assignment
> which involved Wikipedia
> (http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~cs4/S2004/hw/hw6.html).  The assignment asks
> the students, who are non-majors taking a computer science class, to create
> two new Wikipedia articles.  It specifically points them to [[What Wikipedia
> is not]] and [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].
>
> Lots of articles were contributed, and many are now listed on VFD.  Probably
> many others are not.  Those listed range from [[Dartmouth Beer Pong]], which
> seems to be completely unverifiable original research, to [[Winter
> Carnival]], which although ambiguously named seems like a good example of
> just what Wikipedia is.  [[Newton North High School]] also looks like it's
> going to survive, since we have a precedent for keeping pages about high
> schools.  Others:
>
> [[Dartmouth dodecaphonics]]
> [[Dartmouth cords]]
> [[Dartmouth Rockapellas]]
> [[Winter Carnival]]
> [[5 Die]]
> [[Snell Family Farm]] (maybe)
> [[Lob pong]]
> [[Exit 38 climbing area]] (probably)
> [[Dartmouth Wind Symphony]]
> [[Chorus of Westerly]]
> [[The Harlequins]]
> [[Dartmouth Night]]
> [[Dartmouth Mountaineering Club]]
> [[Dartmouth Ski Patrol]]
> [[Dartmouth Beer Pong]]
> [[Dartmouth Womens Crew Team]]
> [[Dartmouth film society]]
> [[Dartmouth Rockapellas]]
> [[Chi Gamma Epsilon]]
> [[Dartmouth College Men's Reserve Team]]
> [[Dartmouth broadcasting]]
> [[Native Americans at Dartmouth]]
> [[Newton North High School]]
> [[The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College]]
>
> I may be missing some others.
>
> "Delete stuff by Dartmouth people. Ambi 10:40, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)"
>
> That seems to sum up the current majority opinion.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] "Today's Featured Article" by email

body:
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:15:25PM -0300, Jeff Warnica wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-23-08 at 12:34 +0100, Kate wrote:
> > On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 03:38, Jeff Warnica wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2004-21-08 at 09:35 +0100, Kate wrote:
> > >
> > > > The easiest way to do this would be via a mailing list which users
> > > > subscribe to
> > > Why would you want to use a full blown MLM system?
> >
> > Because it's designed to do exactly this, and it's already there with
> > little effort required.  What is the problem with using a mailing list?
>
> I think that you have come up with a solution before you have correctly
> identified the problem. The question is not: What is the best mailing
> list system to use for feature-of-the-day? but: What is the best way to
> distribute feature-of-the-day by email? It may be that doing so with an
> (existing) MLM is the best way, but a full blown MLM is not the only way
> to distribute large volumes of mail.

The advantage of a MLM system is that there is an infrastructure to avoid
someone subscribing under a wrong email address and that it already knows
how to handle bounces.

Regards,

JeLuF


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] PATCH: (un)watch this page X --> autoreturns to this
 page X (not to MainPage)

body:
When you are on page X and click on "watch this page" or "unwatch this
page", the 1.3.1 MediaWiki returns to the Main_Page.

However, as already implemented in eg. the User_Login procedure, I
prefer to be returned to last visited page, i.e. page X.

In module Article.php in function watch() change the last call
$wgOut->returnToMain(false);
to
$wgOut->returnToMain(true,$link);

Tom


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now on VFD

body:
Just wanted to bring this discussion to the mailing list, as this is "*the*
place for meta-discussions about the nature of Wikipedia."  From what I've
gathered, a Wikipedia user (possibly just a lurker as their user has not
contributed before the 20th), [[User:Pcw]] gave his class an assignment
which involved Wikipedia
(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~cs4/S2004/hw/hw6.html).  The assignment asks
the students, who are non-majors taking a computer science class, to create
two new Wikipedia articles.  It specifically points them to [[What Wikipedia
is not]] and [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].

Lots of articles were contributed, and many are now listed on VFD.  Probably
many others are not.  Those listed range from [[Dartmouth Beer Pong]], which
seems to be completely unverifiable original research, to [[Winter
Carnival]], which although ambiguously named seems like a good example of
just what Wikipedia is.  [[Newton North High School]] also looks like it's
going to survive, since we have a precedent for keeping pages about high
schools.  Others:

[[Dartmouth dodecaphonics]]
[[Dartmouth cords]]
[[Dartmouth Rockapellas]]
[[Winter Carnival]]
[[5 Die]]
[[Snell Family Farm]] (maybe)
[[Lob pong]]
[[Exit 38 climbing area]] (probably)
[[Dartmouth Wind Symphony]]
[[Chorus of Westerly]]
[[The Harlequins]]
[[Dartmouth Night]]
[[Dartmouth Mountaineering Club]]
[[Dartmouth Ski Patrol]]
[[Dartmouth Beer Pong]]
[[Dartmouth Womens Crew Team]]
[[Dartmouth film society]]
[[Dartmouth Rockapellas]]
[[Chi Gamma Epsilon]]
[[Dartmouth College Men's Reserve Team]]
[[Dartmouth broadcasting]]
[[Native Americans at Dartmouth]]
[[Newton North High School]]
[[The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College]]

I may be missing some others.

"Delete stuff by Dartmouth people. Ambi 10:40, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)"

That seems to sum up the current majority opinion.

Anthony


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
Not related, but I would definitely like to see a supposed article headed
somewhat like this:

Homo Sapiens
---------------------
Common Name: Human
---------------------
(biological information on humans, etc.)
---------------------
Kingdom:                      <---- in a sidebar/side table on the right of
the page
Phylum:
Subphylum:
:
---------------------

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Manske
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:21 AM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> If your interested I have a 80Mb MS/Access database with plant
> taxonomy that could be used for its datadesign. It is inherently
> relational and non wiki. It is not perfect but I know what is wrong
> with it.

If the information in that database is public domain, it should be used on
wikipedia as well.

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


body:
> An interesting assignment, but the teacher made a major error by requiring
> this: "Choose two topics that are appropriate", requiring a NEW article.
> That might have worked 2 years ago when for example the article,
> [[Colorado]] was a new article. But now the experience is much more about
> making existing articles better.

I can understand why the teacher would make this a rule, though.  It's much
easier to grade.

> I think a better assignment would be. Pick a Wikipedia article at least 10
> editors have edited within the last month and make an edit which
> substantially improves the article.

I think in the future a better assignment might be to pick an article from
the list of requested articles.  Or maybe even just pick a red link.

Of course, I would question the ethics of a professor forcing his students
to release their assignments under the GFDL in the first place.  Is this
even allowed under school policy?

>  Fred

Anthony


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Aug 24, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>> An interesting assignment, but the teacher made a major error by
>> requiring
>> this: "Choose two topics that are appropriate", requiring a NEW
>> article.
>> That might have worked 2 years ago when for example the article,
>> [[Colorado]] was a new article. But now the experience is much more
>> about
>> making existing articles better.
>
> I can understand why the teacher would make this a rule, though.  It's
> much
> easier to grade.

As someone intending to give his students a Wikipedia writing
assignment in the spring, I would say that ease of grading is not
really the most important point here.

> I think in the future a better assignment might be to pick an article
> from
> the list of requested articles.  Or maybe even just pick a red link.

My intended assignment is "Add 1000 words to Wikipedia."

> Of course, I would question the ethics of a professor forcing his
> students
> to release their assignments under the GFDL in the first place.  Is
> this
> even allowed under school policy?

Probably demanding that student work be released under the GFDL in
general is not allowed. However, a single assignment to contribute to a
specific project is very different. A lot of schools are big on having
classes, particularly first year writing classes, apply the writing
skills to a project other than a paper that will only ever be read by
the professor. Wikipedia is a great choice for this.

Furthermore, it probably depends on the context. I'll be assigning the
Wikipedia writing assignment in the course of a first year writing
course focusing on intellectual property and copyleft. What was the
Dartmouth professor assigning Wikipedia for?

-Snowspinner


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
I have read with amusement the arguments why the Wikispecies project may
not be a good idea by some of the ToL people. As much as I admire the
work that went into the ToL and still goes into the ToL, it is also a
project that has proven in the past that it is not open and willing to
cooperate outside of its own project. When I asked to consider
cooperation to come to a universal wikipedia taxobox, the answer was
look at all our previous discussions things have been decided,, no we
won't have that all over again.

The Wikispecies can have aspects that the current ToL does not have. It
could have all published names with links to the author and the people
making up the author attribute and obviously the publication. It could
specify the basionym. It could specify what the next revision of a
description is with the author, the persons, the publication data. It
could have the scientific description as they are inherently public
domain. It could have pictures from WikiCommons. It could have the nomen
nudum, the nomen

If your interested I have a 80Mb MS/Access database with plant taxonomy
that could be used for its datadesign. It is inherently relational and
non wiki. It is not perfect but I know what is wrong with it.

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] WikiHiero

body:
Is there a way to make the output of WikiHiero display with _inline_ tables?  This is meant to represent text and not just pretty pictures standing alone, no?

WikiHiero syntax produces an effect like http://en.wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ivory&oldid=93429 ;
I was able to make it display properly, linking the images by hand, instead of using WikiHiero syntax:  http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ivory

It'd be much more convenient if we could use the wikihiero syntax itself for this purpose.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
--- Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > > Looks essentially what a wikispecies should look like, I guess.  I guess
> a
> > > w-species would focus more on the biology, history, genealogy, genetics,
> or
> > > what, so that it's different from the w-pedia?
> >
> > All that should be covered in the Wikipedia article.
>
> My impression is that Wikispecies' goal is to catalog *every* existing
> (and extinct?) species.  We're talking about, what, hundred thousands
> of articles.  This is similar to documenting every town and village,
> no matter what the size, and such attempts have historically not been
> appreciated within Wikipedia.  This is why I think Wikispecies should
> be developed separately.

A great many species will only be covered at the genus level since there isn't
much known about them individually. This is not a problem.

The overlap between this proposed project and Wikipedia is simply too great and
will thus harm our coverage of taxa and species by dividing that aspect between
two different projects.

-- mav

_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> If your interested I have a 80Mb MS/Access database with plant
> taxonomy that could be used for its datadesign. It is inherently
> relational and non wiki. It is not perfect but I know what is wrong
> with it.

If the information in that database is public domain, it should be used
on wikipedia as well.

Magnus


body:
> As someone intending to give his students a Wikipedia writing
> assignment in the spring, I would say that ease of grading is not
> really the most important point here.

It's certainly not the most important point.  But it's a factor, and forcing
yourself to wade through random edits all over Wikipedia seems like
masochism to me.

>  My intended assignment is "Add 1000 words to Wikipedia."

Should be interesting.  Do you think you could at least give us a heads up
preferably with a list of usernames so we can keep an eye on things?  Some
might want you to actually walk the students through the Wikipedia policies,
but depending on your goals this may be counterproductive.

> Probably demanding that student work be released under the GFDL in
> general is not allowed. However, a single assignment to contribute to a
> specific project is very different. A lot of schools are big on having
> classes, particularly first year writing classes, apply the writing
> skills to a project other than a paper that will only ever be read by
> the professor. Wikipedia is a great choice for this.

I'm sure a school like Dartmouth has a rule about who owns the copyright of
student created projects.  Personally I don't feel it's right to force a
student to release his work under a certain license, though.  It seems too
much like pushing an agenda.  Maybe there won't be any objection, probably
even as the GFDL is not very widely disliked.  But the idea reminds me of
those professors who force their students to run their papers through some
plagiarism detection service, thereby licensing their works to the services.

> Furthermore, it probably depends on the context. I'll be assigning the
> Wikipedia writing assignment in the course of a first year writing
> course focusing on intellectual property and copyleft. What was the
> Dartmouth professor assigning Wikipedia for?

COSC 4 - Concepts in Computing, a survey course for non-CS majors.

>  -Snowspinner

Anthony


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: "Today's Featured Article" by email

body:
Jeff Warnica wrote:
> On the other hand: It disturbs me that the prefs are in a BLOB (rather
> then say, a prefs table).

Historical reasons.

> This itself may be reason not to make this a
> preference, as the following would likely take a very long time:
>
> select user.user_email from user where user.user_options like "%
> featuredbymail=1%";
>
> I don't know how, or if, MySQL could optimize that. I believe it would
> have to do a comparison on every record in the user table.

Yes, it would have to check every record. The usual thing to do would be
to change the schema of the user table, adding an indexed field for this
particular preference.

> Is there some regular daily processing that inspects every user record
> already?

No.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>
>
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> If your interested I have a 80Mb MS/Access database with plant
>> taxonomy that could be used for its datadesign. It is inherently
>> relational and non wiki. It is not perfect but I know what is wrong
>> with it.
>
>
> If the information in that database is public domain, it should be
> used on wikipedia as well.
>
> Magnus
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
The database is public domain and it could be used in wikipedia as well.
However, at this moment in time there are 70.143 records discrete names.
There are 4.924 basonym information records, there are 948 standardised
persons (who participated in descriptions and are part of an author
label), there are 18.780 author labels. They are all mostly about cacti
and succulents. Most of the names are not valid any more. Scientifically
the names are _all_ valid. Cladistics are not part of this database.

Given the amount of attention in ToL to cacti at present, I do not think
ToL is able to handle this load. In the current taxobox there is no room
for an author like "(Ascherson & Barbey ex Durand & Barratte) S.Brullo &
F.Furnari" (/Scilla barba-caprae/) .

The point is not that it cannot be used, the point is that a wikispecies
does serve a function. The official (Latin and/or English) scientific
description _is_ public domain for all names. This does not fit in the
ToL as it is.

The ToL does not have what I call "Taxonominal systems" which are the
links between names before and after a revision. I think this would make
Wikispecies stand out if we get a lot of these on-line. In contrast to
the publications of new names these are the hardest to get hold off.

Do not get me wrong, I do admire the ToL. It just does not cover
everything that would be important in a scientifically important
resource. There is a need for some additional tables to cope with the
requirements that should be considered to make Wikispecies relevant.

Thanks,
  Gerard


from_name: Nikola Smolenski

body:
On Monday 23 August 2004 04:38, Jeff Warnica wrote:
> could be done with a very long alias :) Users have exactly one option:
> get the mail, or not. Make it a mediawiki preference.

Why would only users have access to this?

Frankly, I am surprised that someone isn't offering this already, of course
coupled with sleazy ads...


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> [...] You presume that little is known about many species, when there
> is traction among the serious amateurs and the professionals, you will
> be amazed how much is known about things on a species, subspecies,
> variety and forma level.
>
That's because there are many for which little is known - I just
recently added a beetle family (Glaresidae) for whom none of the
larvae have never been identified, nor is anything known about their
life history, not even what they eat.

> The scientific descriptions of taxons are inherently public domain,
> there is no single resource that collects them. I know of a Yahoo
> group that has some descriptions on line for cacti. There are more of
> these small resources. By having an open place where these things can
> be posted with some assurance that they will remain there, you already
> have something that adds value beyond the current ToL and gives
> validation to the idea of a Wikispecies.
>
The implied comment here is that really-detailed WP content runs
the risk of being deleted, but as far as I know that's never
happened to species descriptions, and there are a bunch of valued
pages discussing obsolete taxa. Adding detailed info and making
sure it's accurate is simply a painstaking process, and there
aren't very many people doing it; most of the time I just get
the basics written down and move on, on the theory that breadth
is more useful than depth, if one only has so much time. For some
beetle families WP now has the sole English description to be found
online anywhere, believe it or not, so we're not quite to the point
of needing every beetle species yet.

So the value of a separate wikispecies hangs on where Wikipedia
draws the line on its content; as far as I know, no one has
ever actually drawn a line at less than "everything known about
a species".

By contrast, if I proposed importing my database of 147,000+ types
of postage stamps, about half of all types known, I bet a lot of
people would say "too much detail for the encyclopedia!" :-)

Stan


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Link placeholder problems

body:
The link placeholders are causing lots of problems in 1.4: links that do
not appear in the body text end up with the placeholder comments but are
never replaced with the actual links.

For example, the user name in the subtitle for Special:Contributions.
This may be behind http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/206 also.

This is kind of a problem. Do we need a way to turn the placeholdering
on and off, or should we have distinct makeLink* functions for making
placeholder links?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Rick

body:
Unfortunately, even though the class assignment required that the articles created by the students meet Wikipedia requirements, now that most of them have been listed on VfD, the instructor is trying to claim that they do meet our requirements.  It seems if the vast majority of the articles have made it to VfD, then not only has the majority of the class failed the assignment, but the instructor doesn't understand the nature of Wikipedia.  If the majority of a class fails an assignment, that has to say something about the instructor, as well.

RickK

---------------------------------
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Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Capitalisation off for nl:wiktionary

body:
Some time ago, I requested to turn off the capitalisation for
nk:wiktionary. From things that I read on the en:wiktionary I was led to
believe that for a sysop it is an easy little time consuming
manipulation. The big thing is to get things right afterward.

Can someone please turn the capitalisation off. The longer the wait the
more there is to fix.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wikipedia-l] New projects (was Re: Developers needed!)

body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am interested in such a project, and I think it could have a life on
> its own, with some of its information being in wikipedia as well.
> I tend to consider Wikipedia as a "generalist" encyclopedia, which
> should try to stay simple, readable to most, and avoid jargon and very
> specialised information. Wikipedia can be a central reference, with
> surrounding projects, smaller, and more specialised.

Such a project must not overlap with Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia project
in any significant way. For example, creating a war and conflict Wikimedia
project would be unwise since that would divert energy now used to improve that
aspect of Wikipedia. But that is not to say that creating a textbook on the
subject would be a bad idea to have on Wikibooks (in fact, such a textbook
would be most welcome). However, that is different than having individual
articles on individual topics (which is the role of an encyclopedia).

> I still need to see better what this project should be, but I think it
> should be separated, but with strong interactions with Wikipedia.

It sounds like an openly editable relational database is needed. That way small
amounts of info could be used and searched for in Wikispecies while prose and
encyclopedic info can be kept in Wikipedia. Such software could also be used
for other database info on just about anything, so limiting this to just
species and taxa may be unwise.

But I will not support any fork of our bilogy section. Any Wikispecies project
*must* be complimentary to Wikipedia and cause no harm to it. The burden of
proof is on those who want to start such a project if they want it to be hosted
by Wikimedia.

This also brings up a very important general point: We need to develop a clear
process for starting new projects (language versions are a separate matter).
For example, proposals need to be made, then debated and refined. A list of any
software 'must haves' and wants needs to be developed (these are very
significant for Wikispecies) and then we need to determine if the project can
start without the 'must haves' or if it has to wait until the software is
ready. An assement on whether or not the proposed project concept could be
absorbed into an existing Wikimedia project and if that proposed project would
welcome also needs to be conducted. Pros and cons need to be devloped. Then we
need to have a Wikimedia-wide vote to certify the project and launch it (if the
software needed to run it has been developed).

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikispecies

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> I have read with amusement the arguments why the Wikispecies project may
> not be a good idea by some of the ToL people. As much as I admire the
> work that went into the ToL and still goes into the ToL, it is also a
> project that has proven in the past that it is not open and willing to
> cooperate outside of its own project. When I asked to consider
> cooperation to come to a universal wikipedia taxobox, the answer was
> look at all our previous discussions things have been decided,, no we
> won't have that all over again.

I think you are bringing your own baggage to the debate here and are
uncriticising most ToL participants unfairly.

Only mav has out right said he doesn't like the idea of a separate
wikimedia wikispecies project.

I asked to proceed cautiously, wanting to understand more about the two
projects would interact before giving it my support.

The other 20-odd people listed as ToL participants have said nothing at
all on this thread, and some have indicated to Benedikt in private that
they are very pleased about the project.

Further the ToL project participants _have_ tentatively gone down the
internationalization route - the templates are called {{Regnum}} not
{{Kingdom}} etc, for example. What other WikiProjects have decided to
help out internationalization to the detriment of their local project? I
know of none.

> The Wikispecies can have aspects that the current ToL does not have. It
> could have all published names with links to the author and the people
> making up the author attribute and obviously the publication. It could
> specify the basionym. It could specify what the next revision of a
> description is with the author, the persons, the publication data. It
> could have the scientific description as they are inherently public
> domain. It could have pictures from WikiCommons. It could have the nomen
> nudum, the nomen

I agree that a proper database would be the right way to do this in the
context of providing advanced searches, rather than trying to cobble
something together with templates and categories in mediawiki.

That said, the information you specify would, I am sure, be welcome in
ToL pages.


from_name: Benedikt Mandl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] starting wikispecies

body:
Could somebody help us out:

Do you think you could use your data and wiki software to set up a
>beta-test-version of wikispecies? I could set the wikispecies.org to any
URL at any time.
>
Benedikt
>
The current software and data that I have is easy to provide. However,
to create a Wikispecies based on what I have is non-trivial. The
complicating factor is that I am not a PHP programmer and, I am not a
MySQL man I am a relational database man. I am also involved in
wiktionary, there I am trying things that are complicated as well. This
is in the nurturing stage. I cannot do everything.

Gerard

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
--- Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> What is this overlap? Given that ToL only covers the most recent names
> and loads of names have been validly published and still have relevance,

No we do not. We give the scientific names and also alternate names as well,
including old and no longer used ones. All that info can and should be in
Wikipedia articles.

> I fail to see where the overlap is. You presume that little is known
> about many species, when there is traction among the serious amateurs
> and the professionals, you will be amazed how much is known about things
> on a species, subspecies, variety and forma level.

Then put that info in Wikipedia. Done.

> The scientific descriptions of taxons are inherently public domain,
> there is no single resource that collects them.

Why can't Wikipedia play that role? Oh wait, we are trying to that already.

> I know of a Yahoo group
> that has some descriptions on line for cacti. There are more of these
> small resources.

I know of an online encyclopedia that is working on doing this for every taxa
both extant and extinct. Maybe you have heard of it (hint: it has a funny
name).

> By having an open place where these things can be
> posted with some assurance that they will remain there, you already have
> something that adds value beyond the current ToL and gives validation to
> the idea of a Wikispecies.

And the wiki process does not do that? You are working from a false assumption
that good info is somehow lost in Wikpedia.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Logs of DOOM

body:
Let me be the first to tell you that this is mucho appreciated, while at
the same time demanding a converter for the existing logs into the new
table :-)

Magnus

P.S.: I, for one, welcome our new logging overlords!

Brion Vibber wrote:

> Been meaning to do this for ages... I've just checked in a replacement
> for the old wiki page-based LogPage system which uses an actual table,
> and Special:Log as a viewer.
>
> Why do wiki-based log pages suck? Let me count the ways:
>
> * Timestamps can't be shown in the user's local timezone and format.
> * Links in the log can break assumptions (image use, wantedpages, etc)
> * Broken or long markup in comments often breaks the logs beyond
> legibility
> * They get *really long* really quick on big wikis like en.wikipedia.org
> * Archiving them manually is a pain in the butt and makes it hard to
> look up past information
> * The way it overwrites the current revision breaks history/contribs
> so they don't behave like normal pages anyway.
> * When someone changes the translation for the log name the log breaks
> continuity.
>
> Why does a log table rock?
>
> * Like page history, only shows the most recent N items but can dig
> arbitrarily far backwards
> * Won't break when someone 'archives' or renames the page.
> * Can limit the display to actions by a particular user
> * Can limit the display to actions on a particular page
> * Can limit the display to actions in a particular date range
> * Can combine all logged actions in a single display, or keep them
> separate
> * Links don't stink up the link tables!
> * Comments don't get fouled up with unintended markup.
> * Timestamps use user's timezone and format preference.
>
> I had to modify the recentchanges table to allow signed namespaces in
> order to include Special:Log updates in RC. Right now they list kind
> of ugly, as eg 'Special:Log/delete' but RC could be hacked to display
> a localized name as a special format (as we have a special format for
> page moves). Be sure to run patch-logging.sql to update the tables.
>
> There are probably still some rough spots: please try out all the
> loggable things and make sure the result is more or less pleasant.
> Messages probably need updating to look nicer or point at the new log
> location.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
--- Benedikt Mandl <benedikt.mandl at gmx.at> wrote:
> The defined target refered to the question whether wikispecies should cover
> all species that were described or not. It would be wonderful if this was
> possible, but yet it is too big of a project to define - others have done
> that before and failed (see the busted http://www.all-species.org/).
>
> In terms of users: I think that there actually would be some overlapping
> information of wikipedia and wikispecies - for that reason a stron
> connection between the two would be very important and beneficial for both.
> On the other hand I think that the niche for a specifically biology
> dedicated, taxonomic database such as wikispecies is big and the potential
> potential applications different enough to justify the existance of a
> wikispecies in addition to the wikipedia.

OKay - you first state that others have tried and failed. Then you state that
it would better to fork this aspect of Wikipedia into a separate project while
maintaining overlap. How is dividing the potential workforce between two
projects going to be successful?

> When it comes to biologists to contribute contents, I am sure that it will
> be MUCH easier to convince them to work on a species directory with pure
> bio-applications rather than a general encyclopedia.

Because Wikipedia is not paper, it is far more than a general encyclopedia - it
is a collection of many inter-related and connected encyclopedias. From the
Wikipedia one could derive a great many specialist encyclopedias by selection
alone. That is one reason why categories are so important and why the
WikiReader concept will work. Again, you have noted another project that tried
to specialize and failed.

As a biologist you should be well-aware of the dangers of overspecialization.
Species that overspecialize are very vulnerable to extinction due to the fact
that changes in its environment will leave it with adaptations that cannot
exploit those changes.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
This sounds interesting...

--- Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de> wrote:
> How to implement this technically speaking, I don't know, but how about
> this:
>
> - The Wikispecies interface only shows article tagged with
> Category:Wikispecies (or whatever is the best category).
>
> - This project uses a specific parser, allowing for the implementation
> of tree navigation and a more "scientifically" looking output of data
> (that can be found in the taxabox).
>
> - Maybe other data is in the articles used as source for Wikispecies and
> hidden somehow (via a special comment mode or some other specialized tag
> in the article, or even as additional stored data in a separate db,
> accessed via the article name = scientific species name as key)
>
> - "Edit this entry" in the Wikispecies interface would bring up a window
> consisting of:
>
>         - the wikipedia edit window showing the source text
>         - additional data input fields
>
> - A user in the wikipedia proper will only see the wikipedia article,
> but not the additional data. The only thing other for them is the
> "Category:Wikispecies" tag (which would explain, when opened as article,
> what Wikispecies project is and how to access it in the "scientific"
> interface).
>
>  __ .
>  / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
> . .
>   . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
>   . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
>   . . . . .
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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from_name: Eugene Gill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mintguy RFC

body:
I stopped posting to this newsgroup a long time ago, because I found it an overwhelming effort to keep up-to-date with everything that was going on. So it's been quite a while since I have found it necessary to post on here.

Although I have disagreements with other users from time to time, just recently I found myself coming into conflict with a number of users simultaneously and I have been hitting the rollback button far more than normal. My wiki-stress level is at boiling point.

I have had a disagreement with Bobblewik about the removal of the words "Great Britain" from articles when I have judged that the use of Great Britain rather than United Kingdom (or other)  is contextually accurate. This caused me to start an RFC for Bobblewik. This RFC didn't receive popular support and I have not pursued the issue. I have since found myself in conflict with this user in another matter.

I ended up a revert war with that well-known troll Kenneth Alan and after both he and I had reached and exceeded the three-revert-rule, I decided that the only course of action was to block his account for 24 hours. When KA came back from this ban he directly obscene language at me and I blocked the account for 48 hours. I now recognise that I overstepped the mark in terms of my rights to block him. My actions here were caused by frustration at the fact that no progress had been made on doing something about this user on RFC. After consulting with other users, I decided that I should go through the arbitration process with KA. This action is now in progress.

Now we come to the most recent conflict which has ended up with me being listed on RFC.

A few days ago I and a number of other users noticed that pages related to TV programmes were being moved by User:Netoholic, so we questioned him about it he said that he was moving them under the guidelines at [[Wikipedia: Naming conventions (television)]]. When I looked at this page I discovered that the policy had been written by Netoholic just a few hours earlier. So on the talk page I queried the situation. The talk page showed there was a straw poll in progress on the subject of what should be used to disambiguate television programmes, but there was no indication of when the poll was due to finish. The so-called convention that Netoholic had adopted and was in the process of implementing had 5 votes and one of the other options had 2 votes. Several users argued with Netoholic that this straw poll had not received enough publicity and that no result had been declared. It was therefore queried as to why this user was unilaterally moving pages when no formal decision had been made. I ended up in a revert war with Netoholic on [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions]] because in my opinion he was falsely claiming that some kind of consensus had been reached, when in actual fact more people had complained to him about the policy he was implementing than had actually voted for it. Netoholic clamed that because I edited this page 4 times I had broken the three-revert rule. But in my opinion my first edit was not a revert, and so I hadn't. While this argument was running, back on the [[Wikipedia: Naming conventions (television)]] page several more people cast their votes on the straw poll, and the policy that Netoholic had unilaterally declared to be the accepted convention, was now losing by 8-5.  I made a proposal that the straw poll be declared null and void; that the so called policy be declared a draft proposal; and that we restart a new poll with proper procedures and sufficient publicity. Several users agreed with this and [[User:Gtrmp]] drew up a poll and put it in his user space. Netoholic decided to ignore the suggestions of starting with a clean sheet. He drew up his own poll which rather than list different options, is just to decide whether the policy he drew up should be endorsed or not. Furthermore he has put a time limit 20 days on it. So if we are to change his policy it would need 20 days before we even got to the stage of beginning the vote on an alternative, and then I guess another 20 odd days before any change in policy is implemented.

It appears that Netoholic has decided to change the disagreements over a naming convention very personally and has sought to turn the whole thing into a personal matter between him and me. He has sought to dig-up evidence against me, in order to suggest that I am unfit to retain my admin status. This evidence now forms the basis of the complaint at RFC. Among the list of charges brought against me are the incidents related to Kenneth Alan. I have nothing to be ashamed of  in the list of other charges with one possible exception. I blocked a user called narythegreat for a period of 10 minutes, because he was systematically changing instances of the word "theatre" to "theater" in articles related World War II and was not listening other users concerns about this. When he began to revert everything back, I made this block, just so that his re-reversions could be checked without going through the whole revert-re-revert procedure. If this was over-stepping the mark then I apologise.

Regards

User:Mintguy


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > Looks essentially what a wikispecies should look like, I guess.  I guess a
> > w-species would focus more on the biology, history, genealogy, genetics, or
> > what, so that it's different from the w-pedia?
>
> All that should be covered in the Wikipedia article.

My impression is that Wikispecies' goal is to catalog *every* existing
(and extinct?) species.  We're talking about, what, hundred thousands
of articles.  This is similar to documenting every town and village,
no matter what the size, and such attempts have historically not been
appreciated within Wikipedia.  This is why I think Wikispecies should
be developed separately.

Consider another hypothetical project:  Wikibibliography, that
catalogs and reviews all books ever printed, which would be something
like the OCLC WorldCat on an open content basis.  Any such project has
goals that have a rather small overlap with that of Wikipedia.
However, that overlap (a few thousand articles) might be interesting
enough that compatible licenses and some coordination could be useful.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
--- Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de> wrote:
> What do you think of the proposal I sketched out somewhere further up in
> this thread -- to make Wikispecies not a different database, but only a
> different interface on the same db, maybe using additional tables,
> indices?

I think it is an interesting idea that should be explored. Forking is out of
the question since it divides the contributor base. Other than ec's idea of
providing keys (which is really something that Wikibooks should do), I have not
seen any data proposed to be put into this project that could not be added to
Wikipedia.

Improving Wikipedia is the key here.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
All species would mean a detailed review by experts and I think that the
dimensions of such a project are too big to be even estimated. At this
point I think we should rather talk about wikispecies as a species
directory without limitations rather than the demand of becoming
"complete".

First of all, I think it would be attractive for people interested in
limited groups of species; according to distribution, taxon, ecology,
behaviour, etc.

What we should define as a target: Wikispecies should become the most
extensive directory of its kind and not specialise exclusivly on a
particular group of species (as fishbase does, for example) nor users (NOT
for scientists only, for example).

Benedikt

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > > Looks essentially what a wikispecies should look like, I guess.  I
> guess a
> > > w-species would focus more on the biology, history, genealogy,
> genetics, or
> > > what, so that it's different from the w-pedia?
> >
> > All that should be covered in the Wikipedia article.
>
> My impression is that Wikispecies' goal is to catalog *every* existing
> (and extinct?) species.  We're talking about, what, hundred thousands
> of articles.  This is similar to documenting every town and village,
> no matter what the size, and such attempts have historically not been
> appreciated within Wikipedia.  This is why I think Wikispecies should
> be developed separately.
>
> Consider another hypothetical project:  Wikibibliography, that
> catalogs and reviews all books ever printed, which would be something
> like the OCLC WorldCat on an open content basis.  Any such project has
> goals that have a rather small overlap with that of Wikipedia.
> However, that overlap (a few thousand articles) might be interesting
> enough that compatible licenses and some coordination could be useful.
>
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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from_name: leercontainer-wikimedia at yahoo.com

subject:
Wikispecies and why splitting up does not benefit information
	production (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!)

body:
Let me first say that I have supported Daniel Mayers objections on this
issue on his talkpage because I find it much easier than answering a
mailinglist digest, but here I am. Until now, I find Till's approach
the best one, if not dismissing it altogether (as a Wikimedia project)
is.

> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 20:47:47 +0200
> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com>
<snip>
> > By contrast, if I proposed importing my database of 147,000+ types
> > of postage stamps, about half of all types known, I bet a lot of
> > people would say "too much detail for the encyclopedia!" :-)
> >
> > Stan
<snip>
> >
> Stan,
> When you want to import your database on stamps, I personally would
> not
> mind. Propably it would be a great thing if it is were accompanied by
>
> pictures. I am pretty sure there are loads of people who would really
>
> welcome it. It would make wikipedia an important resource on stamps.
> On
> nl: we have a chess entheuasiast. He has written a zillion articles
> on
> chess including chess players. Why not ?

I also welcome your stamps database, please bring it in.

> A scientific description of a taxon is in Latin sometimes in English.
> It
> is latin gooblediegook. It is relevant for those who can read it. I
> fail
> to see that several hundred thousant articles like this (overly
> optimistic, this will only happen in 25 years if at all, not that
> these
> articles do not exist) would be appreciated by the average Wikipedia
> user. When an authorised version of the scientific description is
> uploaded, it should be locked against further editing. The value is
> in
> it being the original description.

I don't think that the average user would "appreciate" [[D?mt]] (800 BC
kingdom in Ethiopia, from my watchlist) much either, but does it thus
belong in "Wikihistory"?
What you describe above is not wiki, hence it will not benefit from the
wiki process, or the wiki community, it also does not fit with
"_Wiki_media" (I am not hereby defining the means of which the
Wikimedia Foundation may use to reach their goals).

I am sure there are many subjects on the wikipedia that I do not
understand, but that does not mean that they belong to another
wikiproject.

I could imagine that one of these rare species have some special
relation to my homecounty (infact I know there are many), thus they
should be mentioned in Wikipedia articles concerning f.ex. [[Mushrooms
of my homecounty]]. If I was interested (and I imagine I would be) I
could continue to the taxa information, learn, and if you're lucky
contribute (by spelling the homecounty mention right). If you were to
lock this down to "scientifically approved members" you would never
benefit from all the "scientific amateurs" out there.

Off course it would be nice to make a professional advanced database
maintained by scientist and all, but what is wiki in that? Why use the
Wikimedia foundation?

I'd also like to comment on Anthere's reply. She seemed to imply that
there is some kind of limit to what the Wikipedia should describe.
AFAIK there is the NPOV rule, no original research, encyclopedic rule
and then the noticeability rule (?) so frequently cited on vfd.
It is the last one that can be really limiting, where would you put the
line? The line could have been drawn at "what Encyclop?dia Brittanica
include", but then we would never become "the biggest" encyclopedia.

The information that Wikipedia (or Wikimedia) produces, however, can be
distributed in all the ways that the GFDL permit. Wikipedia CD /
Wikipedia 1.0 / Wikipedia scientifically peer-reviewed / Wikipedia
Brittanica, and so on. The more things are split up, the less they will
benefit from the breadth of the community, the less they will benefit
from each other. If the Wikipedia at an early point was split up in the
Technical Pedia, Medical Pedia, and so on we wouldn't be anywhere near
where we are today (I think).

The above mentioned points emphasize why it is so important to get a
universal login where you can have a universal watchlist, recent
changes etcetera for all the MediaWiki projects and languages. Then
they could truly start to benefit from each other.
And when you could move and copy (for translation) articles between
projects, we would have an easy way to move and use content between the
projects without breaking the GFDL (contributor history).

If we are to effectively expand from making an encyclopedia to
producing useful, factual, NPOV and free information for the world (or
as the by-laws state "encourage the further growth and development of
open
content, social sofware WikiWiki-based projects [...] and
to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of
charge") I think we need to focus more on how to most effectively
produce this information. The first major step is to give users one
interface from where they can work on and monitor all projects in all
languages, using the interface-language of their own choice.

I know I have gone lenghts outside this thread now, but I hope I am
within the boundaries of the list. I have been wanting to say a lot of
this for a long time now, but it has been timeconsuming and diffcult to
"put on paper", hope I didn't fail miserably or just repeat what others
have said tens of times before.

<snip>

> PS on http://www.zin.ru/Animalia/Coleoptera/eng/glaresi.htm there is
> a
> picture. As this is a Russian website it may be public domain..

Why does Russian imply PD?

<snip>

--Dittaeva


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Article on "Jews as a chosen people"

body:
In a previous letter to this forum, I mentioned problems
that I was having with Danny on the article about [[Jews as
a chosen people]]. In response, Danny sent an e-mail:

> I claimed that the translation you gave of two verses is
> interpretive and not literal.

Well, if you had merely said that, there would have been no
problem. Instead, you did mention the above point, but only
in the context of a stream of ad homenim abuse. *That* was
the problem. Your intellectual disagreement, in of itself,
is fine and appropriate.

Danny writes:
> Oh, and "falsely claiming" is AH "

It is audacious to make such a claim, given the abuse you
sent my way. Ironically, there was no problem leading up to
this. I was making changes to another article in accord
with the constructive criticisms that Danny had given. I
even made a change to the article in question on precisely
the point Danny made. I also stepped back for four days and
gave him space to make any edits he wanted without any
interference. Few people here are that flexible, I'll tell
you that!

> I am not arguing the content of the article.
> I am arguing the interpretation of a sentence.
> However, if you must bring this up, you have given
> these sources with the added information of which
> you like and which you dont.

I have given views which I may happen to like, and also
views which I may happen not to like. And the text I added
is not the end of the article; further contributions and
edits from you and others are welcome. In fact, I stayed
away from this article (and all others) for the last four
days to give you a chance to do whatever you want.

I notice that Danny has made no edits, however, which
indicates that he doesn't have a big problem with the
content of the article.

> No, I am attacking '''you''' as ignorant. Do you
> actually speak Hebrew and understand the intricacies
> of its grammar, or are you just ranting?

See, this is the big problem. I simply did NOT offer my own
translations, or commentary about translations. These all
came from Jewish scholars, all of whom are well versed in
Hebrew and Jewish theology. In response, Danny makes ad
homenim attacks towards me. Danny certainly knows Hebrew
well, but his irritation at other Hebrew speakers who
translate differently than him is palpable. He has every
right to disagree with them, and he certainly may offer a
good case. Just stop making it personal, and
misrepresenting me as the translator of anything. That is
dishonest.

Danny writes:
> You are arguing from authority, not from knowledge.
> I do not respond to meaningless rhetoric. Perhaps if you
> knew Hebrew grammar...

(A) The people who made these translations _do_ know Hebrew
grammar quite well.

(B) A recurring problem with Wikipedia, as Larry Sanger
repeatedly wrote, is that many of our contributors have
little respect for published authorities in the field, and
prefer their own POV to others POVs. When we demean
published authorities and hew to our own points-of-view,
this can damage the scholarship of the article, and lead to
edit wars. This is one of the primary reasons why Larry
Sanger is correctly worried about the future of Wikipedia
in general.

Fortunately, this problem hasn't occured for this article.
Danny has made no edits to this article at all in recent
months, and those changes he suggested have already been
made by me, to some extent. (And more can be made in the
future.)

Still, I find it disappointing that Danny uses the phrase
"meaningless rhetoric" when I backed up my position by
citing sources. Worse, no one here objected. When writing
NPOV articles, haven't we always encouraged people to move
away from personal research and translations, and cite
mainstream scholars in the field? (And of course, minorotiy
points of view can be cited as well.)  We should always be
vigilant towards those who say and do otherwise.

The good news is that Danny's rhetoric doesn't match his
actions in editing Wikipedia articles. When making edits to
articles, Danny does rely on established sources, and he is
well versed in many subjects. (Although he always assumes
that he is the only one...)

Still, his knowledge is why he is a valued contributor. I
know that such praise from me is neither desired or
appreciated by him, but it is true. I just wish he wouldn't
be so overtly arrogant to me.

Robert (RK)

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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Developers needed!

body:
Lars Aronsson a ?crit:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>>>Looks essentially what a wikispecies should look like, I guess.  I guess a
>>>w-species would focus more on the biology, history, genealogy, genetics, or
>>>what, so that it's different from the w-pedia?
>>
>>All that should be covered in the Wikipedia article.
>
>
> My impression is that Wikispecies' goal is to catalog *every* existing
> (and extinct?) species.  We're talking about, what, hundred thousands
> of articles.  This is similar to documenting every town and village,
> no matter what the size, and such attempts have historically not been
> appreciated within Wikipedia.  This is why I think Wikispecies should
> be developed separately.
>
> Consider another hypothetical project:  Wikibibliography, that
> catalogs and reviews all books ever printed, which would be something
> like the OCLC WorldCat on an open content basis.  Any such project has
> goals that have a rather small overlap with that of Wikipedia.
> However, that overlap (a few thousand articles) might be interesting
> enough that compatible licenses and some coordination could be useful.

I tend to agree with Lars here.
I am interested in such a project, and I think it could have a life on
its own, with some of its information being in wikipedia as well.
I tend to consider Wikipedia as a "generalist" encyclopedia, which
should try to stay simple, readable to most, and avoid jargon and very
specialised information. Wikipedia can be a central reference, with
surrounding projects, smaller, and more specialised.

I still need to see better what this project should be, but I think it
should be separated, but with strong interactions with Wikipedia.


from_name: Till Westermayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies (was: Developers needed!)

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

>>I don't know much about the "category system," but if you were to
>>use Kingdom, Phylum, Subphylum, Family, Class, Order, etc. down
>>to Genus and Species as categories, that'd make it quite simple.
>>I don't know how you'd work that, but it would make things
>>simpler.
>I have mixed feelings about the proposal.  While the textual
>material might be better in the existing encyclopedias, there are
>probably data structural advantages that could be derived from the
>proposal, though I would see it as a single project that could be
>interlinked with the various Wikipedias.  The idea of having a
>separate Wikispecies for each language would be a tremendous waste
>of resources.

Couldn't Wikispecies be a true subset of Wikipedia, i.e. just another
interface, but the same underlying database? Say, all articles in the
Categories forming the Tree of Life, accesible with an specialized
interface with functions not only for edit, but also for, say, search
only in the Families or only in the whatever, helped by some specialized
indices? Also there could be specialized tree navigations etc.

This would automatically have the same actuality on wikipedia proper and
wikispecies, but would give the feeling of a distinguished project for
biologists, which could be helpful for them.

+------+
| db   | <------ interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
|  ....|
|  :   | <--- other interface -> WIKISPECIES
+------+

instead of

+------+
| db   | <----- interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
|      |                                        +----+
|      | <-- manual updating ---------------->  |db2 | -> WIKISPECIES
+------+                                        +----+

What do you think?

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
Yes, I do bing my baggage with me. That is normal. Yes, it was only mav
who was strongly negative. But give me credit, I do, and say so
publicly, admire the effort that goes into the ToL. A lot of good people
put a genuine effort in it and the quality is of an increasingly high
standard.

With regard to the Taxobox, the nl:wikipedia uses something like the
current en:taxobox. The one thing we do not like is the compulsary label
of "binominal name" / "trinominal name" that is really redundant. But as
no discussion was possible, we did not come to a unified taxon box. This
is a real shame. The internationalisation with the use of messages like
{{regnum}} was a great improvement. This does help the placement of
taxoboxes on the nl:wikipedia a lot. With the latest iteration it became
a lot more difficult to use the Taxobox. Discussions on the new taxobox
format are ongoing on nl:

I would think that wikipedia and the ToL is not the best place to have
all taxonomic data. It would result in extreme cases in 100 referalls to
one plant. All 100 valid scientific publications with discrete names. I
would keep the ToL like it is; an article for a currently valid name. A
link from within ToL to Wikispecies would be great. The reason is that
the public for wikipedia is a different public for wikispecies.
Therefore ToL and Wikispecies will complement each other rather than
that one takes away from the other.

GerardM


body:
> +------+
> | db   | <------ interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
> |  ....|
> |  :   | <--- other interface -> WIKISPECIES
> +------+
>
> instead of
>
> +------+
> | db   | <----- interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
> |      |                                        +----+
> |      | <-- manual updating ---------------->  |db2 | -> WIKISPECIES
> +------+                                        +----+
>
> What do you think?
>
I think that this option would have considerable advantages, as long as we
can make sure that the db provides specific information for wikispecies
users that wikipedia users might find too detailed/specialised. If the
wikispecies db will be organised like in your suggestion, we would have to
be able to create an interface that makes it clear that it is a unit and
not a general encyclopedia and provide similar search functions as other
species databases (as www.fishbase.org - according to the needs of a
certain taxon).

Benedikt

--
Superg?nstige DSL-Tarife + WLAN-Router f?r 0,- EUR*
Jetzt zu GMX wechseln und sparen http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
> Unfortunately, even though the class assignment required that the articles
created by the students meet Wikipedia
> requirements, now that most of them have been listed on VfD, the
instructor is trying to claim that they do meet our
> requirements.  It seems if the vast majority of the articles have made it
to VfD, then not only has the majority of the class
> failed the assignment, but the instructor doesn't understand the nature of
Wikipedia.  If the majority of a class fails an
> assignment, that has to say something about the instructor, as well.

>  RickK

Says something about how well we explain our requirements as well.  Or in
this case, how well we agree on our requirements.  Most of the articles
listed *did* meet our requirements.  VfD is broken.  It probably never
worked in the first place.

Anthony


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
Marco Krohn wrote:

>On Tuesday 24 August 2004 22:50, James R. Johnson wrote:
>
>>Why don't we see a few example web pages of what the wikispecies will look
>>like, or have several different examples, perhaps somewhere on Wikimedia,
>>so we can refine the interface/idea?
>>
>
>that would be nice, in particular for "outsiders" like me who probably do not
>understand the core of the problem. What I have seen at fishbase.org and from
>what I know about the scope of Wikipedia I don't see the problem yet. If
>additional features are needed for wikispecies we should discuss if it's
>possible to add these to the existing software.
>
>
One thing that may not be obvious at FishBase is that the screens
are mostly database dumps, not free text, and much updating of it
works by clicking on checkboxes and selecting from popups. I brought
this up a while back as a general consideration, namely how to
effectively support general databases in a wiki framework, but
didn't get much feedback. Tabular data in WP now is maintained
manually with considerable effort, and as the quantity grows, I
think it's gradually exceeding editors' capacity to manage.

>The only problem I see at the moment is the remark that articles should be
>locked, which I can understand, but I think at least the accepted wikispecies
>experts should be able to modify the article.
>
FishBase' main requirement of contributors, as I understand it, is
that a literature citation is required with each addition, and the
references get their own table in the database. I don't think a
"accepted wikispecies experts" concept is going to get very far
in any Wikimedia-sanctioned project...

Stan


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
One thing that Wikispecies will not have is having a high reliance on
"vernacular names". Vernacular names are highly un-scientific with same
names covering many species, with many species without vernacular names,
with species being covered by many often regional names.

When Wikispecies is to interface from wikipedia, one obivous place to
put the links are the Taxoboxes. They would relate to the current
correct name for a taxon. This would imply that this should be a two-way
street. When Wikspecies decides that a name is not longer the currently
valid name; it would flag the taxobox as problematic.

The problem with one unified database is, that all users would find all
wikispecies data in the wikipedia space. But, WHICH wikipedia space?
Consequently having one database is impossible. As to the Wikispecies
being multi-lingual, at this moment in time two languages are the
languages of taxonominal science: English and Latin. So the question is
why should Wikispecies be multi-lingual, and should it be Latin or
English :) ? Obviously, Wikispecies would be a resource available from
within all wikipedia by the same syntax.

Using the taxons (species genus kingdom etc) as a category is in my view
not a great idea. The taxobox would be part of each article and
consequently the information would already be there.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Austin Hair

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Russian pictures - copyright rules

body:
> AFAIK and IANAL, Russian laws on copyright do not exist. Therefore
> Russian resources are different. It may be that after the collapse of
> the USSR the copyright laws have changed, but I am not aware of that.

This is certainly incorrect.  It *is* widely believed that Soviet texts
dating prior to 1973 (when the USSR became party to the relevant
convention) may be freely used and considered public domain, but this is
almost certainly untrue from a legal standpoint, and copyrighted
material produced subsequent to that date is as protected as this
message (moreso, perhaps).  I, too, ANAL, but I've had numerous
long-winded discussions with real, live lawyers on the subject, and I do
my best to keep up with it.  Perhaps one of our fellow legal hobbyists
(James?) can elaborate?

--
Austin D. Hair <austin at austinhair.org>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Callidus
http://www.austinhair.org/
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikispecies

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Benedikt,

>> +------+
>> | db   | <------ interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
>> |  ....|
>> |  :   | <--- other interface -> WIKISPECIES
>> +------+
>>
>> instead of
>>
>> +------+
>> | db   | <----- interface ----> WIKIPEDIA
>> |      |                                        +----+
>> |      | <-- manual updating ---------------->  |db2 | ->
>> WIKISPECIES +------+
>> +----+
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>I think that this option would have considerable advantages, as
>long as we can make sure that the db provides specific information
>for wikispecies users that wikipedia users might find too
>detailed/specialised. If the wikispecies db will be organised like
>in your suggestion, we would have to be able to create an
>interface that makes it clear that it is a unit and not a general
>encyclopedia and provide similar search functions as other species
>databases (as www.fishbase.org - according to the needs of a
>certain taxon).

How to implement this technically speaking, I don't know, but how about
this:

- The Wikispecies interface only shows article tagged with
Category:Wikispecies (or whatever is the best category).

- This project uses a specific parser, allowing for the implementation
of tree navigation and a more "scientifically" looking output of data
(that can be found in the taxabox).

- Maybe other data is in the articles used as source for Wikispecies and
hidden somehow (via a special comment mode or some other specialized tag
in the article, or even as additional stored data in a separate db,
accessed via the article name = scientific species name as key)

- "Edit this entry" in the Wikispecies interface would bring up a window
consisting of:

        - the wikipedia edit window showing the source text
        - additional data input fields

- A user in the wikipedia proper will only see the wikipedia article,
but not the additional data. The only thing other for them is the
"Category:Wikispecies" tag (which would explain, when opened as article,
what Wikispecies project is and how to access it in the "scientific"
interface).

 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> AFAIK and IANAL, Russian laws on copyright do not exist. Therefore
> Russian resources are different. It may be that after the collapse of
> the USSR the copyright laws have changed, but I am not aware of that.
>
> PS correct me where I am wrong.

Yes you're wrong.  The idea that Russia does not have copyright laws is
totally bizarre.  In the absence of any information about the status of
copyright in a country one should begin from the presumption that at
least the Berne Convention's "life + 50" rule applies.  Presuming that a
country does not have a copyright law just because you don't know about
it is reckless.  Afghanistan may be the only country without copyright
relations.  See http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/okbooks.html#whatpd

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] image bug

body:
Could somebody please look at the situation of images on Wikisource.
All of them give 404 errors,  and "What links here" invariably shows
that nothing links to them.

Ec.

PS.  This was mentioned on the Bug reports there on August 11.  I then
let it sit to see if anything would happen; nothing did.  There's no
blame attached, because I can appreciate that there are just too many
projects to patrol for bugs.  Would it be possible to have the bug
report pages all redirect to a series of pages on the same project so
that they could be patrolled more easily?  Each of these pages could be
named in such a way as to identify which project is experiencing a bug..

Ec


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
--- Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> The lockdown would be only for very specific resources; they are the
> verbatim text of the original publication of a taxon. The only need for
> these to be changed is when they are not verbatim. Consequently, they
> are perfect or they are useless for scientific reasons. At this moment
> in time there are none on any wikipedia.

Source texts go to Wikisource. Again, there are no data in the proposed project
that could not be used to improve current Wikimedia projects.

-- mav

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subject: [Wikitech-l] image bug

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Could somebody please look at the situation of images on Wikisource.
> All of them give 404 errors,  and "What links here" invariably shows
> that nothing links to them.

Do the images exist? Did they ever exist? Are there image pages for
them? Are there upload log records? Are these just for pages copied
wholesale from another wiki, or newly written there?

Can you provide links to examples? Do newly uploaded images work? Can
you link to the bug report you mentioned please?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Dan Miller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 58

body:
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:41:50 -0400
> From: "Anthony DiPierro"
> <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth class project now
> on VFD
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <BAY10-DAV2oDyjtU6V10000c9c0 at hotmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> > Unfortunately, even though the class assignment
> required that the articles
> created by the students meet Wikipedia
> > requirements, now that most of them have been
> listed on VfD, the
> instructor is trying to claim that they do meet our
> > requirements.  It seems if the vast majority of
> the articles have made it
> to VfD, then not only has the majority of the class
> > failed the assignment, but the instructor doesn't
> understand the nature of
> Wikipedia.  If the majority of a class fails an
> > assignment, that has to say something about the
> instructor, as well.
>
> >  RickK
>
> Says something about how well we explain our
> requirements as well.  Or in
> this case, how well we agree on our requirements.
> Most of the articles
> listed *did* meet our requirements.  VfD is broken.
> It probably never
> worked in the first place.
>
> Anthony
>
>
>

I don't know if Vfd is broken. However, I can tell you
that the only way for people to learn it is to spend
time around it. I can say pretty well what will make
it through, but a new user would have no idea. We need
a set of guidelines more specific than [[What
Wikipedia is not]] to guide people. Really, the place
is so large and involved now that the only way to
learn is by staying with it.

Meelar

=====
There are more than 17,000 known Kennedys in Massachusetts alone, according to the Kennedy Tracking Center, which uses special collars equipped with GPS devices. Most of the Kennedys live on a large preserve set aside in the central part of the state, where they can roam and mate freely.
--Dave Barry

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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Tabular data in Wikipedia (Wikispecies ->
	Wikicommons)

body:
--- Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I think there is a growing sentiment that people do not want to fork
> Wikipedia to create Wikispecies.  This makes a lot of sense.  However, there
> is something important that is needed for Wikispecies which Wikipedia does
> not provide: efficient access of tabular data.

Yep.

> Think of what we would want to be able to do with Wikispecies.  Yes, the
> simplest of them could be handled by categories, and taxoboxes are a kludgy
> solution to some of the data input, but now what if I want a list of all
> endangered species in the phylum chordata?  There's just no efficient way to
> get that information from Wikipedia, even if I have access to the entire
> database dump.

Well that may be true in some cases but your example could be done if the
current category system were extended and an advanced search function added.
Such a search page could be used to SELECT ALL [endangered species] FROM
[Chordates] to RETURN a [Species] list.

In this example [endangered species], [Chordates], and [Species] would all be
categories. However since [endangered species] would be a subcategory of
[Species] there would be no need to have the [Species] category in those
articles. Nor would there be a need to have the [Chordates] category in those
articles since they would all presumably have a sub-sub-sub category of
[Chordates] that indicates wich genus the animal belongs to.

> It is possible that Wikipedia could adapt to handle this type of data, but
> this is a somewhat fundamental shift in the concept of a wiki.  We would
> essentially need an open access database, where even the table structure
> itself can be modified, complete with a history mechanism which can somehow
> allow us to revert poorly thought changes.

I think that this will be simpler and more wiki than it first appears.

> There is another benefit to Wikispecies, and it is the same thing we're
> seeing with the proposal of Wikicommons.  Species classification information
> is largely language-neutral.  It would be nice if we could somehow have a
> single database for all this information, and simply use it on the
> language-specific pages.  Once again, this could be done within Wikipedia
> though, and this change would be somewhat less of a fundamental shift.  In
> essence, we would simply move the taxoboxes to a common database, in latin,
> and translate into the local language on the fly (regnum->kingdom, etc.).
> There is a bit of coding involved here, but once Wikicommons is properly set
> up a lot of it will already be done.

Putting the taxoboxes in a common database does sound interesting (linking to
the scientific names shouldn't be a big deal since each species/taxon article
should have the scientific name redirected to it). The element tables are very
similar and would also benefit from a common database (sadly there was one
mistake I made that affected about 50 element tables I created but I noticed
and fixed it well-after other language Wikipedias started to copy and translate
those tables).

We also have the same database design problems with interlanguage links, user
accounts, and logins.

-- mav

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from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
>A great many species will only be covered at the genus level since there
isn't much known about them individually. This  >is not a problem.
>
>The overlap between this proposed project and Wikipedia is simply too great
and will thus harm our coverage of taxa and  >species by dividing that
aspect between two different projects.

>-- mav

For those species of dubious classification, known only at genus-species,
how about putting them into one of the Kingdoms (for animals, that's easy,
but with protozoa, bacteria, plants, that'd be a bit more difficult) or in a
category "Unknown Classification" and ask for more info on that species from
users.

James


from_name: Edward Peschko

subject: [Wikitech-l] new sister project (off of home page)

body:
hey all,

If I wanted to get a new sister project started off of the home page,
who would I talk to? What would I do? The project I have in mind doesn't exactly
fit any of the categories listed, yet I feel it would be a useful addition.

so - do I write a proposal? Discuss it on this mailing list? Go through meta-wiki?
Or some other method?

Thanks,

Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Dartmouth class project now on VFD

body:
Duncan Harris wrote:

> I've gone through most of these article, cross referencing all those
> on vfd.  Some are pretty good, only needing minor sweeps, but for
> every good article, there's atleast one bad one.  The pcw has a
> responsibility to provide us with a list of articles worked on.  He
> can accept what twaddle he likes for his assignment, but yes this does
> reflect badly on him and the university (especially with one idiot
> trying to defend the reserve football team by impersonating RickK).  I
> think people sweeping this rubbish should give themselves a round of
> applaus. pcw should be warned not to attempt this again in a similar
> form unless he changes the wording of his assignment, as it may
> constitute organised vandalism.

The proper term for this kind of response is "arrogance".

Why does he have any more responsibility to provide such a list than
anyone else?. Everyone on this project has the right to anonymity, and
you are promoting a breach of that privacy.   I think the type of
exercise offerred by this  prof was commendable, and more of it should
be encouraged.  Some of the articles may appear sophomoric and local,
but if people like you were not putting on such  superior airs more
might be encouraged to produce better material.

I know nothing about Dartmouth, but I did go to the article, [[Dartmouth
Film Society]], and found it perfectly acceptable.  A society that has
been active since 1947 is certainly worthy of mention.  I then looked at
a sample of other items that you had recommended for deletion, and they
certainly seemed worthy of articles.  The various articles about high
schools were talked about and generally found acceptable more than a
year ago.

Pcw appears to have acted in good faith; that's not vandalism.  If
there's any vandalism being practised it's by those individuals who
maintain a pogrom against anything that does not fit into their narrow
little worlds.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
Why don't we see a few example web pages of what the wikispecies will look
like, or have several different examples, perhaps somewhere on Wikimedia, so
we can refine the interface/idea?

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:45 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

--- Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> What is this overlap? Given that ToL only covers the most recent names
> and loads of names have been validly published and still have
> relevance,

No we do not. We give the scientific names and also alternate names as well,
including old and no longer used ones. All that info can and should be in
Wikipedia articles.

> I fail to see where the overlap is. You presume that little is known
> about many species, when there is traction among the serious amateurs
> and the professionals, you will be amazed how much is known about
> things on a species, subspecies, variety and forma level.

Then put that info in Wikipedia. Done.

> The scientific descriptions of taxons are inherently public domain,
> there is no single resource that collects them.

Why can't Wikipedia play that role? Oh wait, we are trying to that already.

> I know of a Yahoo group
> that has some descriptions on line for cacti. There are more of these
> small resources.

I know of an online encyclopedia that is working on doing this for every
taxa both extant and extinct. Maybe you have heard of it (hint: it has a
funny name).

> By having an open place where these things can be posted with some
> assurance that they will remain there, you already have something that
> adds value beyond the current ToL and gives validation to the idea of
> a Wikispecies.

And the wiki process does not do that? You are working from a false
assumption that good info is somehow lost in Wikpedia.

-- mav

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from_name: Marco Krohn

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
On Tuesday 24 August 2004 13:19, Benedikt Mandl wrote:

> What we should define as a target: Wikispecies should become the most
> extensive directory of its kind and not specialise exclusivly on a
> particular group of species (as fishbase does, for example) nor users (NOT
> for scientists only, for example).

Given this target I fail to see what the difference between wikispecies and
wikipedia is or should be. It would have made _some_ sense to me if the
audience would be different, e.g., if wikispecies targets scientists rather
than "normal" users AND if wouldn't be possible to serve both audiences
within wikipedia.

I am doing physics so my knowledge about biology is limited, but from what I
read here, in particular from the above defined goals, I am afraid that there
will be a big overlap of wikipedia and wikispecies. And I am even more afraid
that the wikispecies project will kill parts of the ToL project. Thus the
suggestion of wikispecies looks more like an attempt of a fork to me. Where
fork means a fork of the contributers.

best regards,
  Marco


subject:
Wikispecies and why splitting up does not benefit
	informationproduction (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!)

body:
The above mentioned points emphasize why it is so important to get a
universal login where you can have a universal watchlist, recent changes
etcetera for all the MediaWiki projects and languages. Then they could truly
start to benefit from each other.
And when you could move and copy (for translation) articles between
projects, we would have an easy way to move and use content between the
projects without breaking the GFDL (contributor history).

If we are to effectively expand from making an encyclopedia to producing
useful, factual, NPOV and free information for the world (or as the by-laws
state "encourage the further growth and development of open content, social
sofware WikiWiki-based projects [...] and to provide the full contents of
those projects to the public free of
charge") I think we need to focus more on how to most effectively produce
this information. The first major step is to give users one interface from
where they can work on and monitor all projects in all languages, using the
interface-language of their own choice.

I know I have gone lenghts outside this thread now, but I hope I am within
the boundaries of the list. I have been wanting to say a lot of this for a
long time now, but it has been timeconsuming and diffcult to "put on paper",
hope I didn't fail miserably or just repeat what others have said tens of
times before.

<snip>

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

I'd agree with this.  A universal login would be pretty cool, and useful.

James


subject: [Wikitech-l] image bug

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Could somebody please look at the situation of images on Wikisource.
>> All of them give 404 errors,  and "What links here" invariably shows
>> that nothing links to them.
>
> Do the images exist?

I have no way of knowing if they still exist.

> Did they ever exist?

Yes

> Are there image pages for them?

Yes

> Are there upload log records?

Yes at http://wikisource.org/wiki/Special:Imagelist

> Are these just for pages copied wholesale from another wiki, or newly
> written there?

No

> Can you provide links to examples?

Bryan Derksen added [[Advanced Automation for Space Missions]] in
February and March.  He included many illustrations. such as
[[Image:aasm-fig1-1.gif]].  It is linked from [[Advanced Automation for
Space Missions:Chapter 1#Chapter 1: Introduction|1 - Introduction]]

> Do newly uploaded images work?

No.  [[Image:Saint_thomas_d_aquin.jpg]] was thge most recent.

> Can you link to the bug report you mentioned please?

http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Bug_reports


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Developers needed!

body:
> On Tuesday 24 August 2004 13:19, Benedikt Mandl wrote:
>
> > What we should define as a target: Wikispecies should become the most
> > extensive directory of its kind and not specialise exclusivly on a
> > particular group of species (as fishbase does, for example) nor users
> (NOT
> > for scientists only, for example).
>
> Given this target I fail to see what the difference between wikispecies
> and
> wikipedia is or should be. It would have made _some_ sense to me if the
> audience would be different, e.g., if wikispecies targets scientists
> rather
> than "normal" users AND if wouldn't be possible to serve both audiences
> within wikipedia.
>
> I am doing physics so my knowledge about biology is limited, but from what
> I
> read here, in particular from the above defined goals, I am afraid that
> there
> will be a big overlap of wikipedia and wikispecies. And I am even more
> afraid
> that the wikispecies project will kill parts of the ToL project. Thus the
> suggestion of wikispecies looks more like an attempt of a fork to me.
> Where
> fork means a fork of the contributers.
>
> best regards,
>   Marco

The defined target refered to the question whether wikispecies should cover
all species that were described or not. It would be wonderful if this was
possible, but yet it is too big of a project to define - others have done
that before and failed (see the busted http://www.all-species.org/).

In terms of users: I think that there actually would be some overlapping
information of wikipedia and wikispecies - for that reason a stron
connection between the two would be very important and beneficial for both.
On the other hand I think that the niche for a specifically biology
dedicated, taxonomic database such as wikispecies is big and the potential
potential applications different enough to justify the existance of a
wikispecies in addition to the wikipedia.

When it comes to biologists to contribute contents, I am sure that it will
be MUCH easier to convince them to work on a species directory with pure
bio-applications rather than a general encyclopedia. Which doesn't mean that
wikipedia won't benefit from wikispecies - just the opposite.

Benedikt

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from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth follies

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> The instructor's perception is that there is actually an anti-Dartmouth
> animus among WIkipedian. I would have said both were wrong, but after a
> recent "second wave" I am actually starting to perceive such an animus.

As for me, I love Dartmouth.  I visited there this summer when I was
on vacation in New Hampshire, and loved it.  I would really love to
have an opportunity to speak there, or even better, to visit longer
term under some sort of "visiting scholar" arrangement.

And while I'm not close enough to the actual events to be able to judge
what happened here, I agree with this comment:

> It all has a beautiful tragic Rashomon-like quality to it.

--Jimbo


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dartmouth follies

body:
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:

> [...]

> Who cares if there's a page up for a month or so lauding the wonders
> of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center? These article all fall squarely
> in the "borderline" category. Get them cleaned up, but we don't need
> to drop everything and do it right away.

This should be tattooed on the back of each hand of every Wikipedian,
so it's visible while typing. :-)

Going by comments I've seen, I think it feeds some people's egos
to believe that they're saving WP's reputation from certain doom
by quick listing of obscure articles on VfD - but WP's reputation
is really made or broken by the quality of content in the articles
of general interest, since those are the ones that readers find.

Another thing that I see is a sense of urgency, as if all the
editing is going to come to a stop in 24 hours, and everything
needs to be perfect by then. Even some oldtimers seem to act
as if they don't really believe WP will be around next year,
the year after, and the year after that. (It will, right? :-) )

Stan


body:
Jens Ropers wrote:
> ,,,honestly, Anthony, I'm getting the impression that you are
> repeatedly finding
> ''all'' sorts of things about the Wikipedia that:
> (1) Don't Work At All ™
> and are
> (2) Broken By Design ®
> and need ''''radical''' fixing as well as a wide ranging discussion of
> basic principles.
>
> Would that be wide of the mark?

In defense of Anthony, since I was snippy with him on the list once
this week, and I need to make up for that, your assessment is
*correct*, but it's just a matter of personal style.  Anthony likes to
talk in terms of radical fundamentals as if everything is up in the
air.  Most of the rest of us like to talk about fundamentals, but in a
cautious and incremental fashion.

It's annoying, but if you keep in in mind, Anthony often has useful
things to say, albeit usually phrased a bit melodramatically.

(I've been prone to melodrama myself at times, of course.  I think you
can find me bitching about VfD being "broken" once upon a time,
although my view has softened considerably since then.  VfD actually
works pretty well most of the time, although of course it does seem to
come to problematic conclusions *sometimes*.)

--Jimbo