body:
On 12 Nov 2006 at 12:41, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:

> If I read, "You should avoid doing X", I would assume the writer
> meant, "you should generally not do X" or "you should do X only
> under exceptional circumstances" or "you shouldn't do X unless
> you know what you're doing".  (I'd assume those interpretations
> anyway, but I'd *especially* assume them in an environment that
> includes WP:IAR.)  If X really was forbidden or prohibited,
> I would expect the policy to say, "you should not do X", or
> "you must not do X", or "X is forbidden", or "X is prohibited",
> or "X is illegal".

The Internet RFCs have a very specifically defined set of terms for
use in such contexts; they define what SHOULD means versus MUST, and
similarly SHOULD NOT vs. MUST NOT.  (The all-caps words are used to
emphasize that they have specific meanings when used in RFCs.)

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


list: commons-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Diego Renato

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
Will you ban me? It is not a good idea.

Diego UFCG

On 11/12/06, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >From some time I've observed very strange thing:
>
> Most of uploaded on commons copyvios is made by users who has
> spanish-like nicks, write in looking in this manner language, etc.
>
> Because I see very large time coincidence with closing upload on
> es.wiki, I have (I hope) very good method of solving that:
>
> I'm going to ban every user who will look like from es.wiki to me,
> without any warning after first upload.
>
> Maybe than complains of such users will force them to open upload :)
>
> AJF/WarX
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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list: wikien-l

from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
aye, them too

On 11/12/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Don't forget those great garage bands!
>
> On 11/12/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > pfft. we need a7, that's how we get rid of the myspace teens and the
> > wanna-be-a-big-businesses.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] On style sheets

body:
On 11/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I've reverted r17507 and r17518 after getting massive complaints
> immediately after they went live in today's site update.
>
> I'd like to ask that people please try to refrain from changing core
> styles like this without testing it against the actual site usage; for
> instance the prominent main pages of English and German Wikipedia and
> their site-specific CSS/JS.
>
> We've gone through this dance enough times in the last few weeks I think
> we should all be able to realize that it's kind of disruptive and should
> be avoided.

Sorry, sorry . . . it's rather poor of me to constantly forget about
custom styles when most of what I'm committing is UI stuff.
Unfortunately some disruption is inevitable for this kind of stuff,
which I suppose suggests it should be condensed and spaced out to the
extent possible, with ample forewarning every time a batch is going to
be committed.  Maybe I should make a branch where this kind of
potentially disruptive stuff can be committed, and then we can let
stuff accumulate there for a couple of months and until we announce
all the changes and merge to trunk?  Does that sound like a good idea?


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd:  Dispute Resolution

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com>
Date: Nov 9, 2006 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dispute Resolution
To: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>

On 11/9/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I think I was in error. This is a spill over from legal conventions
> that is probably inappropriate on Wikipedia
>
> Fred
>
>

Thanks, Fred.  What are my Appeal Rights in getting my ban lifted and
modification of the probationary period since this error affected
presentation of defense and the subsequent course of the proceeding?

nobs01

WP:RS/History now states,

"To be verifiable, research must be based on the primary documents."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS#History

(note the term "must")

Nobs01 stated exactly this as such,

"I insist on primary source data"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Venona_project&diff=prev&oldid=23890908

Nobs01 view in dispute mediation is now Official Wikipedia Policy.

Please review Evidence nobs presented in the locus of dispute, which
was ignored, i.e.User: Cberlet's inclusion here,

"Note identifying "KANT" as Harry Magdoff is not in original
transmission, and contradicts the text of the transmission. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage&diff=19799622&oldid=19799404

whereas the primary source

https://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/b35.gif

clearly identifies Magdoff as KANT, twice.

Retrieved from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and
others/Workshop/General Discussion (available here
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Workshop&diff=29624873&oldid=29620731#General_discussion)

":#Here is a classic illustration of Cberlet in action. This series of
edits [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19650792&oldid=19645622][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19651425&oldid=19650966][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19651648&oldid=19651425][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19653907&oldid=19653575][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19711937&oldid=19711580][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I._F._Stone&diff=19724352&oldid=19723074]
Cberlet demands citations from another editor 6 times in 24 hours;
simultaneously in interaction with nobs, Cberlet deletes citations
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Magdoff&diff=19793302&oldid=19744536][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Magdoff&diff=next&oldid=19796034]
and adds original research
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage&diff=19799622&oldid=19799404][http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Magdoff_and_espionage&diff=19799814&oldid=19799622].

I don't know what others call this, by I view it as lack of good faith
editing at minimum. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] 21:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Lack of Good Faith, violation of the Harassment Policy, and an abuse
of process by pursuing dispute resolution entirely based upon
his Original Research.

I request a limited reopeing of the case so a modification of the
Probationary period can be considered.  Thank you.

Nobs01


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Lennert B?hm <lennert.boehm at gmx.de> wrote:
> But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
> Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
> to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
> you are trying to make them regret their decision?
> I don't believe this to be a good way of action.

And perhaps the Eswiki decision has showed us an error in our thinking.

It is true that just blanket banning is the wrong course of action,
but it does seem clear that we have problems.. Our Spanish speaking
volunteers are not as great in number as what eswiki has and we can
never expect that to change.

Perhaps we should say that commons is the repository that experienced
wikimedians should use... After all, it's easy enough to move content
between Wikis.

I think that even without the language barriers it would be important
that commons content is a higher quality than the basic uploads on the
Wikis. It seems clear to me that many of commons quality problems are
caused by ignorance on the part of the uploaders.

Not asking newbies to upload here may be a good start.


subject: [Commons-l] Alexa (was: Re: FW: Commons != kindergarden)

references:
<HCEBJHBGLNDEFMFPMHPNCEDCDFAA.plugwash@p10link.net>
	<ea8e5e7f0611120854j4065fb30r4cefe4f2d2b54b83@mail.gmail.com>
	<1e6691340611120956w7fbf33b2l8670f0ad5e00f04c@mail.gmail.com>
	<45576372.305@free.fr>

body:
On 11/12/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> Alexa's numbers are derived from measurements done from users of Alexa's
> toolbar, which is available only in English. As a consequence, its
> measurements are meaningful only for anglophone users. Alexa's numbers
> CANNOT be used to compare the number of accesses of the various languages!

Based on *editing rate* you could claim that Alexa over represents
Spanish wikipedia. :)


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

references:
<ea8e5e7f0611120756rf4be046m8b99be7e0b9d12eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.tiwu2jsgi30c6k@lennert>
	<e692861c0611121048y6a8ebcfbl58aadeab64bb96c0@mail.gmail.com>
	<fbad4e140611121051m48aeaf13jdfce3040b50d7666@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think that even without the language barriers it would be important
> > that commons content is a higher quality than the basic uploads on the
> > Wikis. It seems clear to me that many of commons quality problems are
> > caused by ignorance on the part of the uploaders.
> > Not asking newbies to upload here may be a good start.
>
> Possibly we should start a separate project ... a service project for
> other Wikimedia projects to use as an image repository, to avoid
> duplicated images between wikis. Since Commons thinks it's toooo
> haaaard to stoop to that any more. Does that sound like it might be a
> useful idea?

I think that would be kinda redundant.

I think an image should be given the proper QA before it gets spread
across multiple wikis where the language barriers will make proper QA
difficult.

I don't think I've seen anyone on commons claim that duplicate images
are too hard to stop (or that they are a major problem when we can't
stop them).. rather, it's impossible to fix the copyright status of an
image when a drive-by user uploads since they never set an email, and
never check back (most likely they create a new account for their next
upload). ... and even when we can get their attention we often find
ourselves understaffed in the language the uploader speaks.


from_name: Ryan Wetherell

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
Oh, "systematic bias", that's exactly the term I was looking for.

On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/12/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > None of these involve establishing quotas - they involve considering
> > > issues of gender (or race, or sexuality, or anything else you're
> > > invested in here) in making choices.
>
> > That's all fine and good, but it just seems irrelevant and
> > out-of-touch with Wikipedia's open nature.  I see it as inherently
> > unfair to evaluate somebody based on what they are-and-can't-change.
>
>
> It's more a recognition of systemic bias and that this is probably not
> a good thing.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
On 11/12/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
[snip]
> The problem is that merging sets is fairly fundamental to the way AntiSpoof
> works -- i.e. by calculating a canonical representation of the username,
> storing it and indexing it.
[snip]

Two pass:

Use the current high compression function to locate candate matches
nice and quickly from a non-unique index.

Then take the real potential match names and compare them directly
using a more intelligent comparison. (i.e. 'n'!='H').

The compression function could be made more lossy so that it will
identify a large but not unreasonable number of potentials.

We could even assign points to varrious kinds of matches and deny past
a threshold. This would also make it easier to support bi/trigram
triggers such as  cI ~= d .. which perhaps get more interesting when
we consider the entire UTF-8 charset.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

body:
On 11/12/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
>
> > > That may be consistent with your view of the "ordinary person", but
> > > others may see it differently.  Avoidance is a restriction that one
> > > applies on one's own self.  It does not depend on the imposition of
> > > external authority.  It favours the exercise of judgement and the
> > > ability to know one's own limits.
> >
> > My point is that anyone who reads that will interpret the *intentions of the
> > writer* to be that the act is not allowed.  It doesn't matter what he thinks
> > avoidance is, but what he thinks the policy-maker meant by it.
>
> Really, whenever we say "avoid doing X", what we're trying to say
> something like "don't do X without a damn good reason, and by that we
> mean something which we would consider a damn good reason, not
> something which happens to be important to you."
>
> It's just kind of hard to put it snappily. Suggestions appreciated.
>
I think it's phrased fine if that's what you want it to say.

I just don't think we should be saying that about participating in a
deletion discussion "about articles related to your organization or
its competitors". (*)

Anthony

(*) Unless it's meant as a subset of the suggestion that everyone
avoid deletion discussions on any topic, in which case it's probably a
good suggestion.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
Exactly.

On 11/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
> > can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
> > effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
> >
> > --Oskar
>
> Authors remove prods. Then what?
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: ikiroid

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
Still, there is a difference between non-encyclopedic content (PROD) and
total crap (A7).


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
On 11/12/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> A hybrid approach I've contemplated (but not implemented, so I
> can't prove it works) is to use the canonical representations to
> generate expansive sets of candidate collisions, but then to do
> a more sophisticated (perhaps distance-based) comparison of just
> those candidates, to weed out the false positives.
[snip]

Woops.
/me reminds self to read thread before replying.

Yes, this is an interesting idea.  If anyone codes whats proposed, it
would be useful to extend it to support multiple compression
functions, for example in addition to the simmar chacter metric it
would be useful to have a comparison based on double metaphone:

dmetaphone('Sterling') == dmetaphone('Starling')  //Indexed lookup
levenshtein('Tim Starling','Tim Sterling') == 1  //Second pass

(I have no clue if php has handy standard library functions for
dmetaphone and levenshtein distance.. I'm using the ones in
postgresql.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
well, make prods stricter. say prods cannot be removed by author or
substantive contributor

On 11/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Exactly.
>
> On 11/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
> > > can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
> > > effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
> > >
> > > --Oskar
> >
> > Authors remove prods. Then what?
> >
> >
> > --
> > geni
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 2:06 PM, geni wrote:

> On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
>> can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
>> effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
>>
>> --Oskar
>
> Authors remove prods. Then what?

I've long supported authors not being allowed to remove PRODs, as
with CSDs.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

 >


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
On 11/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> (I have no clue if php has handy standard library functions for
> dmetaphone and levenshtein distance.. I'm using the ones in
> postgresql.)

Levenshtein has a library function:
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.levenshtein.php

DoubleMetaPhone has at least one PHP implementation, which appears to
be maybe free enough for us to use (and I'd guess the author would
license it to be free enough if it's not):
http://swoodbridge.com/DoubleMetaPhone/


subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
On 11/12/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> We've been having quite a few complaints about false positives from the
> AntiSpoof extension -- an extension which attempts to prevent registration

Sorry to post again, another thought on this:

It would probably be useful to reduce the comparison to the set of
users with no non-deleted edits. Who care if someone spoofs a deleted
user?

A quick DELETE FROM antispoofwhatevertable WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM revision WHERE rev_user_text=whatevertable.user limit 1);    or
the like would accomplish that and cut down on the false positives.


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that would be kinda redundant.
>
>
> Well, uh, *yeah*.
>
> Commons was not started as a free-culture media repository of
> spectacular cultural potential. It was started as a shared image
> repository service project for the Wikimedia projects. Here we have
> Commons admins claiming it's toooo haaaard to do the job Commons was
> invented for, so they'll start behaving in an actively hostile manner
> to other Wikimedia projects.

It fails as a shared image repository service when the language
barriers cause it to do a worse job than the projects working alone
would do.

One person has suggested (hopefully jokingly) that he should behave
with hostility. No one else is taking up that charge but we are
interested in working towards solutions which improve things for
everyone.

> So when a new language starts using Commons for its images - the way
> all projects are supposed to with their free-content images - then
> Commons needs to add an admin or two from that project.

Okay sure, I've added it to our budget and we now have two open FTEs
for Spanish speakers. The position requires fluency in multiple
languages, a comprehensive understanding of international copyright
law, and terrific people skills. We'll start interviewing right away,
but with a salary of $0 and no benefits it might take us a while to
fill the openings.

> If Commons
> can't do the job with the admins it has now, it needs to add a new
> procedure to allow admins from said projects to be trusted to do the
> same job on Commons.

You've failed to make any argument why two stage upload from content
from new users is in any way inferior to cramming it all into commons
directly.

> Else Commons fails in its original purpose, and will need replacing
> with a project that will work.

You're such a troll David.
:)

With nearly a million images I think we're long past the point were
anyone could reasonably call it a failure.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
exactly.

On 11/12/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Nov 12, 2006, at 2:06 PM, geni wrote:
>
> > On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
> >> can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
> >> effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
> >>
> >> --Oskar
> >
> > Authors remove prods. Then what?
>
> I've long supported authors not being allowed to remove PRODs, as
> with CSDs.
>
> Best,
> Phil Sandifer
> sandifer at english.ufl.edu
>
> You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
> boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
>
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
Oh, yikes, I misread that one.

On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Oh, "systematic bias", that's exactly the term I was looking for.
>
>
> Not quite ;-) "systematic bias" implies it's deliberate; "systemic
> bias" implies it isn't, and is a symptom of something about the system
> itself.
>
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias]]
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
It's unfortunate, yes, but it's not broken.  Why fix it?

On 11/12/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 12, 2006, at 6:41 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > On 12/11/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Oh, "systematic bias", that's exactly the term I was looking for.
> >
> >
> > Not quite ;-) "systematic bias" implies it's deliberate; "systemic
> > bias" implies it isn't, and is a symptom of something about the system
> > itself.
>
> In other words, systemic bias is when our administrator and
> arbitrator pools are disproportionately white American males.
> Systematic bias is when I went and banned all of the black Australian
> women on Wikipedia last night.
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, bawolff <bawolff+wn at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is
> you can't get in touch with the majority of uploaders, and you don't
> have enough people to get in touch with the ones you can. That is very
> hard to fix.

Exactly.
This is why David's claims that we're just whining is just a load of rubbish.

If an eswiki hits upload, he's brought to commons and told to make an
account. He makes one, uploads, and then goes back to eswiki where he
probably doesn't have an account. We can leave messages until we turn
blue in the face. He'll never get them.

If he uploaded locally, he'd be able to get messages from local
users... if not right away, then hopefully the next day because his
browser will still be logged in. Not a sure thing, but much better.

Once we have (1) SUL (with log login logs in them all), (2) cross
project message notices (which is not planned AFAIK), then we'll be
doing better but even then there are problems. They create an account,
upload, we leave a message but we couldn't tell what language they
speak.. so the message is either in the wrong languge or using one of
our giant multilanguage boilerplate boxes which people obviously
ignore because they look automated and too complex.


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> For the same reason anyone can edit. Our usual practice is to get the
> maximal contribution input then clean it up afterward, rather than try
> to limit it before the fact.

If a user uploads an image without information and we're unable to get
ahold of them we must delete it.  This is a pretty different situation
from a user who makes a few copyedits to the text of an article.

This substantial difference is demonstrated clearly by the relative
deletion rates of images and article on enwiki.   Images are deleted
at a much higher rate relative to new image uploading than articles
are relative to new article creation.

I welcome contributions from new users on commons... but I think it's
both unfair and masochistic to demand users who are currently
unwilling to undertake the burden of participating in a multilingual
project to make their uploads to commons.

It's so trivial to move a properly sourced/tagged image after the
fact, I just don't see why you are whining David.

I'd like to consider your views but considering your poor ratio of
commons contributions to mailinglist outspokenness right now
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/David_Gerard)
I'm having a difficult time seeing your messages as anything other
than a waste of my time.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 3:08 PM, ikiroid wrote:

> Still, there is a difference between non-encyclopedic content
> (PROD) and
> total crap (A7).

There's also a difference between total crap (A1 and G1-3, as well as
G10) and "no assertion of notability," which is what A7 is supposed
to be. If A7 has become total crap, A7 is nod performing as desired.

-Phil


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sourcing "popular culture" items

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote

> I'm not about to be intimidated by your veiled threats.

One hardly needs to threaten those who swallow Anthony's canards. Hand them the orange sauce, and they will probably pour it over themselves, without prompting.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:

> I'm sorry, but the last thing we need on Wikipedia is affirmative
> action.

To equate a concern over the fact that there is an imbalance in the
representation of various groups on Wikipedia with "affirmative
action," a term so broad as to have minimal meaning beyond the
pejorative, is unnecessary, and serves largely to stifle legitimate
discussion and concern.

Is there a specific proposal or course of action on the table that
you object to? Or are you throwing heated terms into the debate for
the fun of it?

-Phil


subject: [Wikitech-l] On style sheets

body:
On 11/12/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 11/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > I've reverted r17507 and r17518 after getting massive complaints
> > > immediately after they went live in today's site update.
> > >
> > > I'd like to ask that people please try to refrain from changing core
> > > styles like this without testing it against the actual site usage; for
> > > instance the prominent main pages of English and German Wikipedia and
> > > their site-specific CSS/JS.
> > >
> > > We've gone through this dance enough times in the last few weeks I think
> > > we should all be able to realize that it's kind of disruptive and should
> > > be avoided.
> >
> > Sorry, sorry . . . it's rather poor of me to constantly forget about
> > custom styles when most of what I'm committing is UI stuff.
> > Unfortunately some disruption is inevitable for this kind of stuff,
> > which I suppose suggests it should be condensed and spaced out to the
> > extent possible, with ample forewarning every time a batch is going to
> > be committed.  Maybe I should make a branch where this kind of
> > potentially disruptive stuff can be committed, and then we can let
> > stuff accumulate there for a couple of months and until we announce
> > all the changes and merge to trunk?  Does that sound like a good idea?
> >
>
> Changes to the layout should be proposed before they are made. They need to
> be tested with current wiki dumps on the largest projects so the actual
> effects of the changes can be determined. Once that is done, common and skin
> custom stylesheets can be adapted. And only after all that's done, they
> should be committed.
>
> The current way of doing things is a nightmare from a customer service
> position because users will notice that something's wrong, some of them will
> ask at the VP or equivalents, and very few will even know what the problem
> is or what caused it. So some of those few end up running to IRC to find a
> developer who can help fix things by either reverting or explaining. All the
> while, discussion continues, often at a level quite beyond what one would
> expect based on the triviality of the actual issue. Then accusations are
> made that somebody was arbitrarily deciding "major things" without process.
>
> Unfortunately, I'm not making this up. This actually all happened when the
> category trees were added and the way category pages were displayed changed.
> Ridiculous? Absolutely. Yet ample reason to work so it doesn't happen again.

I don't think it's a good idea to jump through hoops when adding new
features.  That's just silly.  Clear announcement is necessary when a
change will *break preexisting functionality* such as user
customizations.  I don't think discussion or announcement is necessary
for the implementation of
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1578, for instance.

On 11/12/06, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not related to this specific change, but since some weeks ago someone
> changed something and now every table displayed in some namespaces in some
> wikis is... white.
>
> Examples
>
> http://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Especial:Newpages
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost

They were like that forever until I bugged the devs to supply a patch,
but that broke other things so I reverted it later.  It's due to a
flawed implementation of non-main-namespace coloring that many wikis
have adopted, not a software issue: in Monobook the backgrounds of all
namespaces are white.

Adding the following to MediaWiki:Monobook.css *should* fix it
(filling in the correct color instead of #F8FCFF, which is the color
used by enwiki):

table { background-color: #F8FCFF; }
.ns-0 * table { background-color: white; }


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 3:58 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:

> Sigvardsson seemed to be suggesting that we need to do something to
> "fix" the gender imbalance issue on Wikipedia.  I think that nothing
> can be done, people will and should come and go as they please,
> regardless of gender.  I'm not really sure what kinds of ideas
> Sigvardsson might have other than, as Barrett pointed out, quotas,
> which are totally ridiculous and unnecessary in these circumstances.
> Sorry if my inference was incorrect/mangled.

Quotas are not the only way to encourage female participation in
aspects of Wikipedia.

1) Encourage female friends who are knowledgeable about subjects to
contribute
2) Encourage female contributors to stand for adminship and the arbcom
3) Consider the importance of gender balance in arbcom in making your
selections in the arbcom elections.

None of these involve establishing quotas - they involve considering
issues of gender (or race, or sexuality, or anything else you're
invested in here) in making choices.

-Phil


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> If a user uploads an image without information and we're unable to get
> ahold of them we must delete it.  This is a pretty different situation
> from a user who makes a few copyedits to the text of an article.
>
> This substantial difference is demonstrated clearly by the relative
> deletion rates of images and article on enwiki.   Images are deleted
> at a much higher rate relative to new image uploading than articles
> are relative to new article creation.
>
> I welcome contributions from new users on commons... but I think it's
> both unfair and masochistic to demand users who are currently
> unwilling to undertake the burden of participating in a multilingual
> project to make their uploads to commons.
>
Your problem and solution don't seem to be properly coordinated.  The
problem is people who come to commons, create accounts, and then never
check those accounts.  It really has little to do with
multilingualism.  If English WP shut off uploads and sent people to
commons it would be mostly the same problem.

Commons isn't ready for a large influx of contributions by what I'll
call "drive-by contributors from other projects".

It probably will be some day.  I hope we are all in agreement that
that's what we want, even if we can't agree on whether or not to start
working on it *now*.

I wonder if it's time to take this to foundation-l, as it's a major
issue which affects pretty much all of the projects.

Anthony


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sometimes I dream about project Commons^2 working in parallel with
> current, but allowing upload only some way verified material from
> Commons.
>
> But even that will not stop conversion of our Commons into giant swamp.
>
> AJF/WarX
>
> ps. How to explain people that not every ''shitty image'' they produce
> is worth publishing on Wikimedia projects?

Don't.  Hard drive space is cheaper than instilling common sense into
people.  :), but I'm essentially serious.

Anthony


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

body:
On 12/11/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> I should really get a blog...

wikitech.livejournal.com

Even lj user=brionv posts there ... sometimes ...

- d.


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Don't.  Hard drive space is cheaper than instilling common sense into
> people.  :), but I'm essentially serious.

Hard drive space is cheap as long as you don't consider any secondary
costs of storage. Ask Brion how our backups for commons images are
doing.

More importantly: categorization, verification, search, etc are not
cheap. Nor is the time of the users we serve.  We'd do a great
disservice by allowing commons to become a disordered dumping ground.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] On style sheets

body:
I've reverted r17507 and r17518 after getting massive complaints
immediately after they went live in today's site update.

I'd like to ask that people please try to refrain from changing core
styles like this without testing it against the actual site usage; for
instance the prominent main pages of English and German Wikipedia and
their site-specific CSS/JS.

We've gone through this dance enough times in the last few weeks I think
we should all be able to realize that it's kind of disruptive and should
be avoided.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: theProject

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
I'm starting to become a bit concerned at the rate at which we're applying
semi-protection to our articles. This morning I decided to punch in a whole
bunch of country names into WP to see what would show up. As you can see,
we're starting to see that padlock icon more and more frequently these days.

Australia -- not protected
Brazil -- not protected
Canada -- sprotected
China -- sprotected
- People's Republic of China -- not protected
- Republic of China -- sprotected
France -- sprotected
Germany -- sprotected
Italy -- sprotected
Japan -- sprotected
Korea -- not protected
- North Korea -- sprotected (to be fair, this was unprotected, then
re-protected by me)
- South Korea -- sprotected
Mexico -- sprotected
Russia -- not protected
Spain -- sprotected
United Kingdom -- not protected
United States -- sprotected

Now, this isn't completely unacceptable, but I think we can do a little
better. What are the implications of holding back a bit more on the use of
semi-protection (other than the obvious)? Could we do a bit more
vandal-fighting work to make our encyclopaedia more open?

--
theProject


from_name: peter green

subject: [Commons-l] FW:  Commons != kindergarden

body:
dear spanish wikipedia admins/users

There has been a thread on commons-l recently relating to you and i think it would be a good idea to bring you into the loop so this can be resolved without interproject conflict.

The initial posting on the thread was the following by Artur Fijalkowski [wiki.warx at gmail.com]
>From some time I've observed very strange thing:
>
>Most of uploaded on commons copyvios is made by users who has
>spanish-like nicks, write in looking in this manner language, etc.
>
>Because I see very large time coincidence with closing upload on
>es.wiki, I have (I hope) very good method of solving that:
>
>I'm going to ban every user who will look like from es.wiki to me,
>without any warning after first upload.
>
>Maybe than complains of such users will force them to open upload :)

This was followed by the following reply by Lennert B?hm [lennert.boehm at gmx.de]
>But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
>Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
>to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
>you are trying to make them regret their decision?
>I don't believe this to be a good way of action.

This was followed by the following reply by Lukasz Garczewski [tor at oak.pl]
>Lennert B?hm napisa?(a):
>> But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
>> Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
>> to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
>> you are trying to make them regret their decision?
>> I don't believe this to be a good way of action.
>
>Me either.
>
>However, Artur has a poin there, or rather - he has hinted at a very
>serious problem we're facing right now.
>
>On one hand using Commons should be easy and fun (it's still a wiki,
>right?). On thee other, however, if we make it to easy we may not be
>able to cope with the amount of copyvios.
>
>I am 100% for moving all uploads to Commons, but I believe we have to
>have a procedure for that. I.e. some things should be done well *before*
>local uploads are disabled on a given wiki.
>
>Some of those might include:
>* translating most of the interface
>* translating key project and help pages (the commons community should
>complie a list of those)
>* translating key templates
>* having at least N active Commons admins speaking the language of the
>wiki in question at level 2 or higher (where N is... well... I don't
>know, you tell me ;))
>
>I'm not sure if that's all. Any other ideas?
>
>The main idea is: yes, let's do this. But let's do it one step at a
>time, based on a common process.

As you can see from theese posts the commons admins are rather unhappy about you essentially dumping your copyvio problems on them when they are ill equipped to handle it.

the way i see it there are three ways out of the situation.
1: spanish wikipedia reenables uploads and goes back to dealing with most of thier own copyvio problems.
2: the spanish wikipedia users/admins make a significant effort to help deal with the copyvio problems with spanish users on commons.
3: commons adopts and extreme zero tolerance policy towards anyone who appears spanish

Of the ways out the third option is the least favorable, but it is also the only option that can be implemented without your help.


from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
>From some time I've observed very strange thing:

Most of uploaded on commons copyvios is made by users who has
spanish-like nicks, write in looking in this manner language, etc.

Because I see very large time coincidence with closing upload on
es.wiki, I have (I hope) very good method of solving that:

I'm going to ban every user who will look like from es.wiki to me,
without any warning after first upload.

Maybe than complains of such users will force them to open upload :)

AJF/WarX


from_name: Lennert Böhm

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
you are trying to make them regret their decision?
I don't believe this to be a good way of action.

Lennert B


subject: [Commons-l] FW: Commons != kindergarden

body:
> 2006/11/12, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net>:
> > the way i see it there are three ways out of the situation.
> > 1: spanish wikipedia reenables uploads and goes back to dealing
> with most of thier own copyvio problems.
> > 2: the spanish wikipedia users/admins make a significant effort
> to help deal with the copyvio problems with spanish users on commons.
> > 3: commons adopts and extreme zero tolerance policy towards
> anyone who appears spanish
> >
> > Of the ways out the third option is the least favorable, but it
> is also the only option that can be implemented without your help.
>
> There is 4th way:
>
> 4. Do something with this:
>
> http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Upload
>
> Do not send people directly on commons - prepare a manual with most
> important informations in Spanish language, that everybody should know
> and write, that if you understand that, you can go to commons (and
> link to commons at this moment, not earlier).
Doing that would still require cooperation from the admins on es, also while it would improve things i'm not convinced it would improve them enough that we would feel comfortable handling them without help (btw how many active spanish admins does commons have at the moment?).

> I think, that 4 is easier than 1,2 and less brutal than 3.
indeed but will it be sufficiant or will people just ignore the documents and find thier own way to commons once they realise that is where they need to go.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 5:07 PM, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:

>
> I think this is a really bad idea. PRODs get put on articles that are
> very new, so few people have probably seen them or got them on their
> watchlist other than the author. It will just make many authors,
> who have
> their work deleted with no opportunity to debate it, to go
> ballistic. I
> have yet to have any of my creations PRODed, but if it happened I
> would
> want to argue why I created it.
>

So use the {{hangon}} template on the PROD, and trust the admin who
looks at it to make a judgment call. Or just ask nicely for it to be
undeleted, and someone probably will. You only need to persuade one
person in a five-day period to block a PROD.

> I would also suggest that articles that are put to AfD should not be
> speedy deleted. Once thay are there give people a chance to see
> them and
> comment. Maybe only cut short the closure if there are 20 delete
> "votes"
> and no keep "votes". I often see a speedy closure of a AfD debate and
> are curious about what was in it.

The fulfillment of curiosity does not seem to me to outweigh the
value of minimizing the number of AfD debates running at any given
moment. Furthermore, it is often beneficial to establish a precedent
of "kill it with a stick" instead of "debate it a whole lot."

-Phil


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
Lennert B?hm napisa?(a):
> But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
> Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
> to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
> you are trying to make them regret their decision?
> I don't believe this to be a good way of action.

Me either.

However, Artur has a poin there, or rather - he has hinted at a very
serious problem we're facing right now.

On one hand using Commons should be easy and fun (it's still a wiki,
right?). On thee other, however, if we make it to easy we may not be
able to cope with the amount of copyvios.

I am 100% for moving all uploads to Commons, but I believe we have to
have a procedure for that. I.e. some things should be done well *before*
local uploads are disabled on a given wiki.

Some of those might include:
* translating most of the interface
* translating key project and help pages (the commons community should
complie a list of those)
* translating key templates
* having at least N active Commons admins speaking the language of the
wiki in question at level 2 or higher (where N is... well... I don't
know, you tell me ;))

I'm not sure if that's all. Any other ideas?

The main idea is: yes, let's do this. But let's do it one step at a
time, based on a common process.

--
TOR


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
06-11-12, Diego Renato <diego.renato at gmail.com> napisa?(a):
> Will you ban me? It is not a good idea.

No... I really don't like banning anyone (or I simple can't people I want :P)

Main problem (hidden in the topic), is that:

People uploading copyvio images are not BAD, they are simple not
informed well !!

I don't know Spanish, so I can't check it by myself, but I have bad
feeling that closing upload on es.wiki was made in tihs way:

OK - we have same politics of licenses as commons, so we can close
upload on our wiki.

And now people come to commons, they don't know anything about
copyrights/licenses, they are unable to find anything in Spanish
language about it, so they do what they think is good...

This assumption is based on another observation:

Lots of uploads are fair use images from en.wiki and images from
'random' webpages.

On pl.wiki we have LARGE and clear instruction: If you don't know what
you are doing, don't even think of moving images from en.wiki and web,
and I think it works ...

So as said TOR: closing upload is OK, but it must be made with care
cause Commons is very very vulnerable project.

AJF/WarX


from_name: geni

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Lennert B?hm <lennert.boehm at gmx.de> wrote:
> But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
> Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
> to) be uploaded to Commons?

Not going to happen. You will get fair use off wikipedia when you
prise it from it's cold dead hands.

>Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
> you are trying to make them regret their decision?
> I don't believe this to be a good way of action.
>
> Lennert B

Commons just doesn't have the resources at the moment.

--
geni


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Wikitech-l] On style sheets

body:
Not related to this specific change, but since some weeks ago someone
changed something and now every table displayed in some namespaces in some
wikis is... white.

Examples

http://pt.wikisource.org/wiki/Especial:Newpages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost

On 11/12/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/12/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 11/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > I've reverted r17507 and r17518 after getting massive complaints
> > > immediately after they went live in today's site update.
> > >
> > > I'd like to ask that people please try to refrain from changing core
> > > styles like this without testing it against the actual site usage; for
> > > instance the prominent main pages of English and German Wikipedia and
> > > their site-specific CSS/JS.
> > >
> > > We've gone through this dance enough times in the last few weeks I
> think
> > > we should all be able to realize that it's kind of disruptive and
> should
> > > be avoided.
> >
> > Sorry, sorry . . . it's rather poor of me to constantly forget about
> > custom styles when most of what I'm committing is UI stuff.
> > Unfortunately some disruption is inevitable for this kind of stuff,
> > which I suppose suggests it should be condensed and spaced out to the
> > extent possible, with ample forewarning every time a batch is going to
> > be committed.  Maybe I should make a branch where this kind of
> > potentially disruptive stuff can be committed, and then we can let
> > stuff accumulate there for a couple of months and until we announce
> > all the changes and merge to trunk?  Does that sound like a good idea?
> >
>
> Changes to the layout should be proposed before they are made. They need
> to
> be tested with current wiki dumps on the largest projects so the actual
> effects of the changes can be determined. Once that is done, common and
> skin
> custom stylesheets can be adapted. And only after all that's done, they
> should be committed.
>
> The current way of doing things is a nightmare from a customer service
> position because users will notice that something's wrong, some of them
> will
> ask at the VP or equivalents, and very few will even know what the problem
> is or what caused it. So some of those few end up running to IRC to find a
> developer who can help fix things by either reverting or explaining. All
> the
> while, discussion continues, often at a level quite beyond what one would
> expect based on the triviality of the actual issue. Then accusations are
> made that somebody was arbitrarily deciding "major things" without
> process.
>
> Unfortunately, I'm not making this up. This actually all happened when the
> category trees were added and the way category pages were displayed
> changed.
> Ridiculous? Absolutely. Yet ample reason to work so it doesn't happen
> again.
>
> sebmol
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

body:
On 12/11/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:

> > That may be consistent with your view of the "ordinary person", but
> > others may see it differently.  Avoidance is a restriction that one
> > applies on one's own self.  It does not depend on the imposition of
> > external authority.  It favours the exercise of judgement and the
> > ability to know one's own limits.
>
> My point is that anyone who reads that will interpret the *intentions of the
> writer* to be that the act is not allowed.  It doesn't matter what he thinks
> avoidance is, but what he thinks the policy-maker meant by it.

Really, whenever we say "avoid doing X", what we're trying to say
something like "don't do X without a damn good reason, and by that we
mean something which we would consider a damn good reason, not
something which happens to be important to you."

It's just kind of hard to put it snappily. Suggestions appreciated.

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


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, ?ukasz Garczewski <tor at oak.pl> wrote:
> Lennert B?hm napisa?(a):
> > But isn't Commons supposed to be the repository of images of all the
> > Wikis, so that at some point in the future, all files will (are supposed
> > to) be uploaded to Commons? Finally there's a Wikipedia that does that and
> > you are trying to make them regret their decision?
> > I don't believe this to be a good way of action.
>
> Me either.
>
> However, Artur has a poin there, or rather - he has hinted at a very
> serious problem we're facing right now.
>
> On one hand using Commons should be easy and fun (it's still a wiki,
> right?). On thee other, however, if we make it to easy we may not be
> able to cope with the amount of copyvios.
>
> I am 100% for moving all uploads to Commons, but I believe we have to
> have a procedure for that. I.e. some things should be done well *before*
> local uploads are disabled on a given wiki.
>
> Some of those might include:
> * translating most of the interface
> * translating key project and help pages (the commons community should
> complie a list of those)
> * translating key templates
> * having at least N active Commons admins speaking the language of the
> wiki in question at level 2 or higher (where N is... well... I don't
> know, you tell me ;))
>
> I'm not sure if that's all. Any other ideas?
>
> The main idea is: yes, let's do this. But let's do it one step at a
> time, based on a common process.
>

N would be about 1000 for english. Currently less than 500 items are
deleted from commons per day. To bost that to the level of some of our
pedias would be a massive increase in workload.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On 11/12/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> pfft. we need a7, that's how we get rid of the myspace teens and the
> wanna-be-a-big-businesses. Do you have an example of an article that was
> "unfairly" deleted? If it's used improperly, remove the tag. Either way, the
> admin won't delete it if it isn't really nn.
>

Oh they might. Problem is that we have no other deletion method that
could cope if we removed A7

--
geni


from_name: Kayle Clark

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
> On Nov 12, 2006, at 3:58 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
>
> > Sigvardsson seemed to be suggesting that we need
> to do something to
> > "fix" the gender imbalance issue on Wikipedia.  I
> think that nothing
> > can be done, people will and should come and go as
> they please,
> > regardless of gender.  I'm not really sure what
> kinds of ideas
> > Sigvardsson might have other than, as Barrett
> pointed out, quotas,
> > which are totally ridiculous and unnecessary in
> these circumstances.
> > Sorry if my inference was incorrect/mangled.
>
> Quotas are not the only way to encourage female
> participation in
> aspects of Wikipedia.
>
> 1) Encourage female friends who are knowledgeable
> about subjects to
> contribute
> 2) Encourage female contributors to stand for
> adminship and the arbcom
> 3) Consider the importance of gender balance in
> arbcom in making your
> selections in the arbcom elections.
>
> None of these involve establishing quotas - they
> involve considering
> issues of gender (or race, or sexuality, or anything
> else you're
> invested in here) in making choices.

I think that's the wrong approach there. We've gone
from we need to establish quota's to everyone should
take other factors into account when deciding to
elect. We should look at wiki-philosophy, maturity,
and contributions. If nobody revealed anything about
themselves (ie Gender, race, local, biases), then
that's what we'd do. Asking us to vote for someone
because of a reason that isn't related to DR or
ArbComm at all is silly. Next thing will be that we
need more people who self identify as anarchists,
communists, and facists on the ArbComm.

-[[en:User:Royalguard11]]

__________________________________________________
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subject: [Commons-l] FW: Commons != kindergarden

body:
2006/11/12, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net>:
> the way i see it there are three ways out of the situation.
> 1: spanish wikipedia reenables uploads and goes back to dealing with most of thier own copyvio problems.
> 2: the spanish wikipedia users/admins make a significant effort to help deal with the copyvio problems with spanish users on commons.
> 3: commons adopts and extreme zero tolerance policy towards anyone who appears spanish
>
> Of the ways out the third option is the least favorable, but it is also the only option that can be implemented without your help.

There is 4th way:

4. Do something with this:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Upload

Do not send people directly on commons - prepare a manual with most
important informations in Spanish language, that everybody should know
and write, that if you understand that, you can go to commons (and
link to commons at this moment, not earlier).

On pl.wiki we have something like that:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Upload

Most important info is in read, there are links to some help pages,
etc. and it works good - not much copyvios on commons and pl.wiki (but
of course they are)

I think, that 4 is easier than 1,2 and less brutal than 3.

AJF/WarX


from_name: Luna

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
Auto-expiring protection sounds like a very interesting idea -- has anybody
submitted this to  Bugzilla?

On 11/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 11/13/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I believe it's been brought up to use an edit-approval program where new
> > accounts would have to get their edits approved if they're new -- this
> would
> > be in place of semiprotection.
>
> I oppose this. It undermines the assumption of good faith, whereas S-P
> is specifically used on pages that have a record of vandalism.
>
> It makes more sense to expand the protection model to allow for
> auto-expiry (as well as automatic labeling of protected pages).
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
On 11/12/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm starting to become a bit concerned at the rate at which we're applying
> semi-protection to our articles. This morning I decided to punch in a whole
> bunch of country names into WP to see what would show up. As you can see,
> we're starting to see that padlock icon more and more frequently these days.
>
>
> Australia -- not protected
> Brazil -- not protected
> Canada -- sprotected
> China -- sprotected
> - People's Republic of China -- not protected
> - Republic of China -- sprotected
> France -- sprotected
> Germany -- sprotected
> Italy -- sprotected
> Japan -- sprotected
> Korea -- not protected
> - North Korea -- sprotected (to be fair, this was unprotected, then
> re-protected by me)
> - South Korea -- sprotected
> Mexico -- sprotected
> Russia -- not protected
> Spain -- sprotected
> United Kingdom -- not protected
> United States -- sprotected
>
> Now, this isn't completely unacceptable, but I think we can do a little
> better. What are the implications of holding back a bit more on the use of
> semi-protection (other than the obvious)? Could we do a bit more
> vandal-fighting work to make our encyclopaedia more open?

semi-protection isn't much of an impediment; anyone who really cares
can get an account and wait briefly.  Can you explain a bit more as to
why you think that using it is a problem?  I think it's generally
widely seen as the smallest of many possible evils today, though I
certainly don't think that we will never be able to come up with
better mechanisms.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 11/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>>On 11/13/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I believe it's been brought up to use an edit-approval program where new
>>>accounts would have to get their edits approved if they're new -- this would
>>>be in place of semiprotection.
>>>
>>>
>>I oppose this. It undermines the assumption of good faith, whereas S-P
>>is specifically used on pages that have a record of vandalism.
>>
>>
>Personally, I've always been in favor of changes which reduce the
>exposure of completely unchecked material to the general public who is
>generally unaware and disinterested in the internal operation of
>Wikipedia.  There are a number of people who oppose this notion, but I
>wonder if their tune will change after the first highly publicized
>death which can be linked back to obviously incorrect information in
>Wikipedia.
>
When this came up at Wikimania there seemed to be at least an acceptance
there to flag articles as checked for obvious vandalism.  I would have
gone further.  We were going to wait to see the results of a similar
pilot proposal on de:wp.  Has that gotten anywhere.

Fatalities caused by incorrect Wikipedia information seems far-fetched.
The concern about inaccurate medical information has always been there.
It's hard to imagine the extent to which people will misunderstand
information.

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: A. Özgür Erdemli

subject:
[Foundation-l] subcommittee dedicated to creation/removal of
	language projects is approved

body:
The SPC has been authorized the creation of a *subcommittee* dedicated to
creation/removal of language projects with initial members of Asc?nder,
Sabine Cretella, Berto d'Sera, Jhs, GerardM and Timichal. Their purpose will
be to recommend policies for starting such projects and setting related
standards, such as their abbreviations. A report back to SPC about its
formation is expected as soon as possible.

Good luck :)

Dbl2010
As a member of SPC


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 6:41 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> On 12/11/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Oh, "systematic bias", that's exactly the term I was looking for.
>
>
> Not quite ;-) "systematic bias" implies it's deliberate; "systemic
> bias" implies it isn't, and is a symptom of something about the system
> itself.

In other words, systemic bias is when our administrator and
arbitrator pools are disproportionately white American males.
Systematic bias is when I went and banned all of the black Australian
women on Wikipedia last night.

-Phil


from_name: Dan Collins

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
you banned the black aussies! damn you!

On 11/12/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Nov 12, 2006, at 6:41 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > On 12/11/06, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Oh, "systematic bias", that's exactly the term I was looking for.
> >
> >
> > Not quite ;-) "systematic bias" implies it's deliberate; "systemic
> > bias" implies it isn't, and is a symptom of something about the system
> > itself.
>
> In other words, systemic bias is when our administrator and
> arbitrator pools are disproportionately white American males.
> Systematic bias is when I went and banned all of the black Australian
> women on Wikipedia last night.
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
ST47
Editor, en.wikipedia


list: textbook-l

from_name: Andrew Whitworth

body:
Thanks for pointing this out Erik, I have been working with this project now
for some time, and I know they were preparing to make a public announcement
about the project by the end of this month.

I would like to invite all wikibookians, and all wikimedians who are
interested, to help with a final effort to proof-read these e-primers, to
ensure that the transfer process was completed succesfully. All of these
e-primers are also available from the APDIP website in PDF and DOCBOOk
formats. Specifically, the footnotes and citations need alot of work, and
some books are going to need new reference templates to link to the
appropriate "notes" pages.

Also, I would like anybody who is available to ensure that all the pages in
these books are properly categorized, and that all these books properly
appear on bookshelves.

Hopefully, this project will bring a little much-needed publicity to our
little project.

--Andrew Whitworth (User:Whiteknight)

>From: "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
>Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
>To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>,"Wikimedia
>Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>Subject: [Textbook-l] APDIP Donates 15 e-Primers to Wikibooks
>Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 06:55:32 +0100
>
>Discovered this by coincidence -- haven't seen anything on it in the
>mailing list archives.
>
>http://www.apdip.net/news/wikibooks
>
>APDIP Donates 15 e-Primers to Wikibooks
>
>APDIP realizes how fast a published book gets out-of-date, especially
>in the fast-moving field of information and communications technology
>for development (ICT4D). APDIP has therefore donated 15 of its
>e-Primers to Wikibooks for free use and update (see list below).
>
>15 e-Primers are now available on Wikibooks for all to use and update.
>
>Nine of the e-Primers are part of APDIP's "e-Primers for the
>Information Economy, Society and Polity" series that detail the
>concepts, issues and trends surrounding different aspects of ICT4D,
>including e-commerce, education, e-government, Internet governance,
>legal and regulatory issues, and ICT for poverty reduction.
>
>Six of the e-Primers are part of the "e-Primers on Free/Open Source
>Software (FOSS)" series that introduce various aspects of FOSS,
>including education, government policy, licensing, localization and
>open standards. The FOSS series of e-Primers is developed by the
>International Open Source Network (http://www.iosn.net), an initiative
>of UNDP-APDIP supported by the International Development Research
>Centre of Canada.
>
>Wikibooks is our chosen platform because it facilitates collaboration.
>Every day, volunteers are improving Wikibooks, making many changes,
>writing, updating, and correcting books. Wikibooks maintains quality
>control and has policies and guidelines that users need to follow.
>Wikibooks are also available for all to freely distribute and
>reproduce as covered by the GNU Free Documentation License.
>
>We would like to invite you to visit the Wikibooks and contribute your
>knowledge and experiences in the relevant ICT4D topics. Forthcoming
>APDIP e-Primers on network infrastructure and security, open content
>and other topics will all automatically be donated to Wikibooks.
>
>The original published e-Primers will remain in
>http://www.apdip.net/elibrary#iesp (and, in the case of the e-Primers
>on FOSS, at http://www.iosn.net/publications/foss-primers), and the
>version in Wikibook will be linked to these. This way any user will be
>able to see the original version alongside the (modified) Wikibook
>version.
>
>
>e-Primers for the Information Economy, Society and Polity
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:ICT4D_Books
>
>1. The Information Age
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Information_Age
>
>2. Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Legal_and_Regulatory_Issues_in_the_Information_Economy
>
>3. Nets, Webs and the Information Infrastructure
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nets,_Webs_and_the_Information_Infrastructure
>
>4. Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Alleviation
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Information_and_Communication_Technologies_for_Poverty_Alleviation
>5. Internet Governance
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Internet_Governance
>
>6. e-Government
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/E-government
>
>7. e-Commerce and e-Business
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/E-Commerce_and_E-Business
>
>8. ICT in Education
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ICT_in_Education
>
>9. Genes, Technology and Policy
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Genes,_Technology_and_Policy
>
>
>e-Primers on Free/Open Source Software
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:FOSS_Books
>
>10. Free/Open Source Software: A General Introduction
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_A_General_Introduction
>
>11. Free/Open Source Software: Education
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Education
>
>12. Free/Open Source Software: Government Policy
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Government_Policy
>
>13. Free/Open Source Software: Licensing
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Licensing
>
>14. Free/Open Source Software: Localization
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Localization
>
>15. Free/Open Source Software: Open Standards
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Open_Standar
>
>--
>Peace & Love,
>Erik
>
>Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
>DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
>in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
>position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Commons-l] FW: Commons != kindergarden

body:
[sorry for people from wikies-l, this message is only in English because I
cannot speak Spanish ]

On 11/12/06, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net> wrote:
>
>
> > 2006/11/12, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net>:
> > > the way i see it there are three ways out of the situation.
> > > 1: spanish wikipedia reenables uploads and goes back to dealing
> > with most of thier own copyvio problems.
> > > 2: the spanish wikipedia users/admins make a significant effort
> > to help deal with the copyvio problems with spanish users on commons.
> > > 3: commons adopts and extreme zero tolerance policy towards
> > anyone who appears spanish
> > >
> > > Of the ways out the third option is the least favorable, but it
> > is also the only option that can be implemented without your help.
> >
> > There is 4th way:
> >
> > 4. Do something with this:
> >
> > http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Upload
> >
> > Do not send people directly on commons - prepare a manual with most
> > important informations in Spanish language, that everybody should know
> > and write, that if you understand that, you can go to commons (and
> > link to commons at this moment, not earlier).
> Doing that would still require cooperation from the admins on es, also
> while it would improve things i'm not convinced it would improve them enough
> that we would feel comfortable handling them without help (btw how many
> active spanish admins does commons have at the moment?).

I have recently rebuilt the fr:wp upload page, and another sysop has
replaced the link to Specia:Upload in the toolbox by a direct link to this
help page :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aide:Importer_un_fichier

The aim is to guide people before sending them to Commons. Maybe the
Spanish-language Wikipedia could do something similar.

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

references:
<ea8e5e7f0611120756rf4be046m8b99be7e0b9d12eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.tiwu2jsgi30c6k@lennert>
	<e692861c0611121048y6a8ebcfbl58aadeab64bb96c0@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 12/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that even without the language barriers it would be important
> that commons content is a higher quality than the basic uploads on the
> Wikis. It seems clear to me that many of commons quality problems are
> caused by ignorance on the part of the uploaders.
> Not asking newbies to upload here may be a good start.

Possibly we should start a separate project ... a service project for
other Wikimedia projects to use as an image repository, to avoid
duplicated images between wikis. Since Commons thinks it's toooo
haaaard to stoop to that any more. Does that sound like it might be a
useful idea?

- d.


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

references:
<ea8e5e7f0611120756rf4be046m8b99be7e0b9d12eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.tiwu2jsgi30c6k@lennert>
	<f80608430611120943v45359fcbycc80ff0fa9742b87@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Sorry for that, obviously I meant those that comply with our license. I'm
 from de:WP, you don't have to tell me that Fair Use is pure evil ;)

Lennert B


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
Brian Salter-Duke wrote:

> I think this is a really bad idea. PRODs get put on articles that are
> very new, so few people have probably seen them or got them on their
> watchlist other than the author. It will just make many authors, who have
> their work deleted with no opportunity to debate it, to go ballistic. I
> have yet to have any of my creations PRODed, but if it happened I would
> want to argue why I created it.

Speedies get looked at by, maybe, three people - the author the the
article, the tagger, and the deleting admin.  Prod's get possibly
hundreds of eyes looking at them during prod patrols.

Perhaps not allowing the authors to remove prods might be useful, and a
{{disputedprod}} tag would be very helpful to add to that.
>
> I would also suggest that articles that are put to AfD should not be
> speedy deleted. Once thay are there give people a chance to see them and
> comment. Maybe only cut short the closure if there are 20 delete "votes"
> and no keep "votes". I often see a speedy closure of a AfD debate and
> are curious about what was in it.
>

This I wholeheartedly agree with, and I may have proposed to a
resounding silence at one point.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Barcex

subject: [Commons-l] FW: Commons != kindergarden

body:
2006/11/12, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com>:
>
>
> Do not send people directly on commons - prepare a manual with most
> important informations in Spanish language, that everybody should know
> and write, that if you understand that, you can go to commons (and
> link to commons at this moment, not earlier).
>
>
  Actually, users who select the "upload file" menu item are sent to

   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload?uselang=es

  That page explains that a free license is required and gives links to
several guidelines (in Spanish) . It also says that if in doubt the user
should ask in the Spanish Wikipedia village pump.

   Before the upload there is a red text saying: "Si no indicas una licencia
e informaci?n de origen adecuadas, tu fichero ser? *borrado sin aviso previo
*. Gracias por tu comprensi?n."

  Translated it looks something like: "If you dont add the proper source and
license data your file will be deleted without notification."

  I agree that educating better to the users could help, but it will never
stop the problem, because people just don't care, they just want to upload
an image, and they do not care about licensing, and I'm not very optimistic
in that sense. Most of them are new users. The problem is seen on the
Spanish Wikipedia users just because it is a very active Wikipedia (the
second in number of accesses according Alexa) which does not allow local
uploads. As soon as you close uploads on other Wikipedias, you will have the
same problem with them.

Barcex
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On Nov 12, 2006, at 6:01 PM, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:

>
> Killing with a stick is top-down admin activity that prevents others
> from actually knowing what it was that was killed. I would prefer
> killing by consensus after the community has at least had an
> opportunity
> to see it. How much good stuff is going down the gurgler because of
> speedy deletion by admins who know nothing about what the article was
> about and that it needed help and TLC not killing?

The rush of crap in many areas (fanfic, corporate vanity, garage
bands, and other such major problems ) far outstrips the capacity for
AfD. None of these things survive AfD, and ought never even go there.
Speedying off of AfD is a way of saying "Please do not clog AfD with
this, just kill it." We don't have time to have high-quality debate
about everything. In fact, we don't even have time to have high-
quality debate about everything we're trying to have high-quality
debate about.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
> can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
> effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
>
> --Oskar

Authors remove prods. Then what?

--
geni


from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Commons-l] Alexa (was: Re:  FW: Commons != kindergarden)

body:
Barcex wrote:

>   I agree that educating better to the users could help, but it will
> never stop the problem, because people just don't care, they just want
> to upload an image, and they do not care about licensing, and I'm not
> very optimistic in that sense. Most of them are new users. The problem
> is seen on the Spanish Wikipedia users just because it is a very
> active Wikipedia (the second in number of accesses according Alexa)

PLEASE (this is offtopic for the conversation but I think it's important
to set this straight)

Alexa's numbers are derived from measurements done from users of Alexa's
toolbar, which is available only in English. As a consequence, its
measurements are meaningful only for anglophone users. Alexa's numbers
CANNOT be used to compare the number of accesses of the various languages!

(If I were to make a wild guess, I'd think that the large number of
hispanophones with the Alexa toolbar are from the "Hispanic" population
in the US.)


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 12/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Possibly we should start a separate project ... a service project for
> > other Wikimedia projects to use as an image repository, to avoid
> > duplicated images between wikis. Since Commons thinks it's toooo
> > haaaard to stoop to that any more. Does that sound like it might be a
> > useful idea?

> I think that would be kinda redundant.

Well, uh, *yeah*.

Commons was not started as a free-culture media repository of
spectacular cultural potential. It was started as a shared image
repository service project for the Wikimedia projects. Here we have
Commons admins claiming it's toooo haaaard to do the job Commons was
invented for, so they'll start behaving in an actively hostile manner
to other Wikimedia projects.

> I don't think I've seen anyone on commons claim that duplicate images
> are too hard to stop (or that they are a major problem when we can't
> stop them).. rather, it's impossible to fix the copyright status of an
> image when a drive-by user uploads since they never set an email, and
> never check back (most likely they create a new account for their next
> upload). ... and even when we can get their attention we often find
> ourselves understaffed in the language the uploader speaks.

So when a new language starts using Commons for its images - the way
all projects are supposed to with their free-content images - then
Commons needs to add an admin or two from that project. If Commons
can't do the job with the admins it has now, it needs to add a new
procedure to allow admins from said projects to be trusted to do the
same job on Commons.

Else Commons fails in its original purpose, and will need replacing
with a project that will work.

- d.


from_name: Will

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On 12/11/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> well, make prods stricter. say prods cannot be removed by author or
> substantive contributor
>
> On 11/12/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Exactly.
> >
> > On 11/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
> > > > can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
> > > > effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7
> > > >
> > > > --Oskar
> > >
> > > Authors remove prods. Then what?
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > geni
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ST47
> Editor, en.wikipedia
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

My thoughts exactly, I was about to say the exact same suggestion.


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 12/11/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > If Commons
> > can't do the job with the admins it has now, it needs to add a new
> > procedure to allow admins from said projects to be trusted to do the
> > same job on Commons.

> You've failed to make any argument why two stage upload from content
> from new users is in any way inferior to cramming it all into commons
> directly.

For the same reason anyone can edit. Our usual practice is to get the
maximal contribution input then clean it up afterward, rather than try
to limit it before the fact.

- d.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
I believe it's been brought up to use an edit-approval program where new
accounts would have to get their edits approved if they're new -- this would
be in place of semiprotection. That way, vandalism gets filtered and good
edits can come through.

On 11/12/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm starting to become a bit concerned at the rate at which we're applying
> semi-protection to our articles. This morning I decided to punch in a
> whole
> bunch of country names into WP to see what would show up. As you can see,
> we're starting to see that padlock icon more and more frequently these
> days.
>
>
> Australia -- not protected
> Brazil -- not protected
> Canada -- sprotected
> China -- sprotected
> - People's Republic of China -- not protected
> - Republic of China -- sprotected
> France -- sprotected
> Germany -- sprotected
> Italy -- sprotected
> Japan -- sprotected
> Korea -- not protected
> - North Korea -- sprotected (to be fair, this was unprotected, then
> re-protected by me)
> - South Korea -- sprotected
> Mexico -- sprotected
> Russia -- not protected
> Spain -- sprotected
> United Kingdom -- not protected
> United States -- sprotected
>
> Now, this isn't completely unacceptable, but I think we can do a little
> better. What are the implications of holding back a bit more on the use of
> semi-protection (other than the obvious)? Could we do a bit more
> vandal-fighting work to make our encyclopaedia more open?
>
> --
> theProject
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: gwern branwen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Google's experimental/feedback search engine

body:
On 11/12/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just reading a slashdot article
> (http://slashdot.org/articles/06/11/12/1425219.shtml) about an
> unbranded test search engine (http://www.searchmash.com/) created by
> Google to "test innovative user interfaces in order to continually
> improve the overall search experience for our users".
>
> Upon searching it asks the user for feedback:
> > Were these results useful to you?
> > Web Pages Yes / No
> > Images Yes / No
> > Wikipedia Yes / No
>
> I suppose Google is trying to see whether users actually like getting
> Wikipedia results so much. The outcome of this feedback could have an
> impact upon us.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)

We'll get the feedback we deserve, I suppose. It's too bad we haven't
implemented even a basic voting system for articles, but this might
work out to a very indirect substitute.

--Gwern


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Opinions of commentators

body:
On 11/11/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So I think there should be a policy that can be used to keep
> quoted commentaries within reasonable bounds.  It would say that
> common threads of opinion should be succinctly summarised with
> citation of some examples - say what the choir is singing but don't
> try to quote each of the members of the choir.

Shouldn't the undue weight provision of NPOV already cover this one?
Perhaps just add a sentence or two to that page.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kill CSD A7!

body:
On 11/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/06, Dan Collins <en.wp.st47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > pfft. we need a7, that's how we get rid of the myspace teens and the
> > wanna-be-a-big-businesses. Do you have an example of an article that was
> > "unfairly" deleted? If it's used improperly, remove the tag. Either way, the
> > admin won't delete it if it isn't really nn.
> >
>
> Oh they might. Problem is that we have no other deletion method that
> could cope if we removed A7
>
> --
> geni

Isn't this pretty much exactly the reason we introduced PROD? If we
can get more admins to patrol it, and get people to use it
effectively, it might very well serve as a replacement for A7

--Oskar


from_name: theProject

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
On 11/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/12/06, theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm starting to become a bit concerned at the rate at which we're
> applying
> > semi-protection to our articles. This morning I decided to punch in a
> whole
> > bunch of country names into WP to see what would show up. As you can
> see,
> > we're starting to see that padlock icon more and more frequently these
> days.
> >
> >
> > Australia -- not protected
> > Brazil -- not protected
> > Canada -- sprotected
> > China -- sprotected
> > - People's Republic of China -- not protected
> > - Republic of China -- sprotected
> > France -- sprotected
> > Germany -- sprotected
> > Italy -- sprotected
> > Japan -- sprotected
> > Korea -- not protected
> > - North Korea -- sprotected (to be fair, this was unprotected, then
> > re-protected by me)
> > - South Korea -- sprotected
> > Mexico -- sprotected
> > Russia -- not protected
> > Spain -- sprotected
> > United Kingdom -- not protected
> > United States -- sprotected
> >
> > Now, this isn't completely unacceptable, but I think we can do a little
> > better. What are the implications of holding back a bit more on the use
> of
> > semi-protection (other than the obvious)? Could we do a bit more
> > vandal-fighting work to make our encyclopaedia more open?
>
> semi-protection isn't much of an impediment; anyone who really cares
> can get an account and wait briefly.  Can you explain a bit more as to
> why you think that using it is a problem?  I think it's generally
> widely seen as the smallest of many possible evils today, though I
> certainly don't think that we will never be able to come up with
> better mechanisms.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

Well, I know I personally don't have the patience to wait a few days and
then add my contributions. The way I see it, anon comes around --> sees he
can't edit without registering and waiting four days --> decides it's not
worth the hassle --> perfectly good contribution lost, maybe more -->
Wikipedia suffers more in the long run.

I also disagree with anything that presumes bad faith about anonymous
editors. Wikipedia built itself by being as open as possible. Can we diverge
from that path of openness as little as possible?

--
theProject


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/10/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 10, 2006, at 10:59 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >>>
> >> Agressive use of singular they generaly solves that proble,
> >>
> >>
> > So you're pushing bad grammar.
>
> Actually, if you scroll up, you'll find the post where I noted that
> the Chicago Manual of Style is relatively OK with this solution.
>
> -Phil

I'm generally in favor of using singular they, but sometimes it is a
bad idea. Saying "I hate them!" or "They can worry about themselves"
when talking about one person is just plain silly.

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/8/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/8/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > We have, so far, twenty announced candidates for next month's
> > Arbitration Committee election. To the best of my knowledge, none of
> > them is female.
> >
> > In previous elections, we also had very few female candidates, yet one
> > of them finished either first or second in each of the last two
> > elections. I'm sure we have some female contributors who would be
> > well-qualified and bring a valuable perspective to the arbitration
> > process, and I would encourage them to consider running.
> >
> > --Michael Snow
>
> Since when did we care about gender on wikipedia?

Since when is gender equality a bad thing on wikipedia? Or for that
matter, having many different perspectives?

If there is an overwhelming amount of males over females it usually
signifies something bad (with a few exceptions, like say professional
wrestling). We have a host of brilliant female editors but apparently
not many of them are running for arbcom. This is a very, very bad
thing. We should encourage gender equality whenever we can, just
saying "We are wikipedia, here gender doesn't matter" is naive. There
is obviously a problem here and we should work to fix it. We don't
want to be a boys-club.

--Oskar


body:
I do not claim that Alexa is accurate, I'm just pointing out that Spanish
Wikipedia has at least a significant amount of traffic and users in order be
very vidible on Commons. On the other hand, closing the uploads on a
1000-article Wikipedia of course won't impact on Commons.

Barcex

2006/11/12, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr>:
>
> Barcex wrote:
>
> >   I agree that educating better to the users could help, but it will
> > never stop the problem, because people just don't care, they just want
> > to upload an image, and they do not care about licensing, and I'm not
> > very optimistic in that sense. Most of them are new users. The problem
> > is seen on the Spanish Wikipedia users just because it is a very
> > active Wikipedia (the second in number of accesses according Alexa)
>
> PLEASE (this is offtopic for the conversation but I think it's important
> to set this straight)
>
> Alexa's numbers are derived from measurements done from users of Alexa's
> toolbar, which is available only in English. As a consequence, its
> measurements are meaningful only for anglophone users. Alexa's numbers
> CANNOT be used to compare the number of accesses of the various languages!
>
> (If I were to make a wild guess, I'd think that the large number of
> hispanophones with the Alexa toolbar are from the "Hispanic" population
> in the US.)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
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subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
2006/11/12, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
>
>
> Commons was not started as a free-culture media repository of
> spectacular cultural potential. It was started as a shared image
> repository service project for the Wikimedia projects. Here we have
> Commons admins claiming it's toooo haaaard to do the job Commons was
> invented for, so they'll start behaving in an actively hostile manner
> to other Wikimedia projects.
>
>
  Perhaps we should involve more active admins from Wikipedias into Commons.
For instance, there are just 6 Spanish Wikipedia admins that are also admins
on Commons of a total of 88 admins there.

Barcex.
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from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

body:
On 11/12/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Simply stating that a particular person/organization is going to match all donations made
> in a certain day of the drive is not advertising. It is simply giving credit where credit is due
> and inducing individual donations.

I agree that it's not really advertising, after all, buried in the
fundraising pages are lists of donors, if they choose to give their
name when donating (which could probably be more prominent - although
I understand there's a new system underway for tracking donations,
will it enable lists to be more prominent?). Lists of donors who will
match other donations is essentially the same thing.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising idea


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> If there is an overwhelming amount of males over females it usually
> signifies something bad (with a few exceptions, like say professional
> wrestling). We have a host of brilliant female editors but apparently
> not many of them are running for arbcom. This is a very, very bad
> thing. We should encourage gender equality whenever we can, just
> saying "We are wikipedia, here gender doesn't matter" is naive. There
> is obviously a problem here and we should work to fix it. We don't
> want to be a boys-club.

There don't seem to be many women participating in this discussion.
That, I would say, is the very very bad thing.

I'd say the last thing women need is a bunch of men deciding that
women are underrepresented by arb com and figuring out what to do
about it.

Anthony


from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
2006/11/12, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:

> So when a new language starts using Commons for its images - the way
> all projects are supposed to with their free-content images - then
> Commons needs to add an admin or two from that project. If Commons
> can't do the job with the admins it has now, it needs to add a new
> procedure to allow admins from said projects to be trusted to do the
> same job on Commons.
>
> Else Commons fails in its original purpose, and will need replacing
> with a project that will work.

Wrong direction!

The problem is not that there are not enough admins,  the problem is,
that there are not enough USERS, especially people who watches
special:newimages and catch copyvios, problematic users, etc. Of
course you can say, that it should be done by admins and if so, it
means, that there are not enough of them.

Commons is large project, even very large, but has to few people and
maybe software is not good enough to work with it :P

Sometimes I dream about project Commons^2 working in parallel with
current, but allowing upload only some way verified material from
Commons.

But even that will not stop conversion of our Commons into giant swamp.

AJF/WarX

ps. How to explain people that not every ''shitty image'' they produce
is worth publishing on Wikimedia projects?


subject: [Commons-l] Commons != kindergarden

body:
On 11/12/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Don't.  Hard drive space is cheaper than instilling common sense into
> > people.  :), but I'm essentially serious.
>
> Hard drive space is cheap as long as you don't consider any secondary
> costs of storage. Ask Brion how our backups for commons images are
> doing.
>
At the worst backups should require twice as much space as the images
themselves.  If Wikimedia's backups require much more Brion is doing
something really really wrong.

Note that I didn't even say hard drive space was cheap.  I just said
it's cheaper than education.

> More importantly: categorization, verification, search, etc are not
> cheap. Nor is the time of the users we serve.  We'd do a great
> disservice by allowing commons to become a disordered dumping ground.

You contradict yourself.  Being a disordered dumping ground doesn't
require categorization, verification, or search.

Anthony