from_name: Ryan Norton

body:
> 1) They actively encourage removal of material that is accurate

While I mostly agree with your argument here especially [[Spoo]], if
one edits the articles Jimmy watches the chance of you getting a
mailing list post or a usenet group post source to stick is very low,
even if it isn't documented anywhere else.

For example (just one of several :)), I ran into this problem trying to
explain
a key part of the [[Merkey]] history as there is sort of a "reliable source
blackout" on some periods that were clearly "notable" to the subject.

So, perhaps that is the "de-facto policy" there.

> I think that our problem may be that,
> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
> order to achieve more

I disagree and IMHO anyone who is a fact-tagger for a while on more
mundane articles will see the issue quickly.

Often, when I would {{fact}}-tag something,
someone would remove the tag and instead go into a five-page essay on
why a certain point was "correct" or not. Usually it was, but sometimes
it clearly was dubious; and usually needed attribution anyway. It is
difficult to attribute something when you don't know its source :).

The good part is that usually they just go "OH!" when you let them
know that all they needed to do was source the thing; which ends up
with a solid source almost every time :).

Maybe this has something to do with David's theory about the encyclopedia
being written mostly by anons/new users (my own theory is that it is sort of
40/60,
but anyway). I'm assuming at some point, if this is true, then there will be
some kind
of software measure to make sure something added is sourced.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Christoph Seydl

subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution?

body:
I assume that Jimbo means that only material that is verifiable with
reference to reliable, published sources should be used. And if we
remove all unsourced statements, Wikipedia will shrink and grow less
fast. However, there are reliable sources even for the most simple
objects. According to Norstedts svenska ordbok och uppslagsbok, a bucket
is a "cylindrical vessel with a carrying handle for the transport of
liquids sand or the like".

As Jimbo said, several editors will stop contributing, if all material
has to be sourced. At the same time, the motivation to provide sources
will increase, whereas there is almost no motivation to source
statements, if they will not be removed.

No matter how a codification of verifiability will look like, there
should be at least a statement on verifiability at Foundation Issues in
my opinion. There are several options how verifiability can be defined:
- Everything must be sourced, what Jimbo seems to prefer.
- Only critical material (e. g. negative information about living
  persons, disputed issues, hard facts, quotes,...) must be sourced.
  Statements on everyday objects (cf. bucket example) may not be
  sourced.
- Source what you like.
- Abolish sourcing at all.

Chris

Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl <Christoph.Seydl at students.jku.at>:
>> Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough.    There seems to be
>> a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative
>> 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs
>> a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be
>> sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of
>> negative information about living persons.    I think a fair number of
>> people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy
>> writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude
>> and frustration.)"
>> (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
>
> But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can show
> that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean that
> we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If so,
> there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we accept
> without source and what not?


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 9/17/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can show
> that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean that
> we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If so,
> there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we accept
> without source and what not?

There is currently a poll on the German Wikipedia whether new articles
that cite no sources should be deleted:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Quellenpflicht_f%C3%BCr_neue_Artikel

The proposal, translated literally: "New articles may only be created
if they cite sources.These citations should be listed in the edit
summary [*] and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources for
an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used.
(...) New articles without sources can be deleted without further
discussion through a speedy deletion request."

[*] The German Wikipedia calls the standard edit summary field
"Zusammenfassung und Quellen," i.e. "Summary and Sources".

The poll is currently 2:1 against. In this discussion,
[[m:Verifiability]] has been cited to argue that verifiability is, in
fact, not negotiable and that the poll result itself should be
ignored; articles without sources should be deleted anyway. In fact,
one administrator added it to the criteria for speedy deletion already
while the poll was running. I reverted that change, and oppose this
notion of verifiability.

While citing sources is crucial, so is NPOV, and so is the consistency
of the flow of argument within an article. Articles are gradually
improved, and problems are pointed out and identified, to fix them
systematically later. The idea that articles can magically appear as
perfect, feature quality texts is anathema to the wiki principle of
working and contributing in small chunks. I strongly oppose any
foundation-level verifiability policy that would make it impossible to
contribute small pieces of work. I would also suggest reading
Anthere's comments when the French Wikipedia reached 50,000 articles:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikifr-l/2004-August/001911.html

Verifiability, "no original research", and so on, exist as policies to
help us create high quality encyclopedia articles. They are not and
should never be unquestionable dogma. When policy flies in the face of
reason and common sense, policy needs to be questioned, and quite
often, revised. I am frankly disappointed whenever people want to
support their arguments by asking for the help of Jimmy Wales or the
Wikimedia Board. This suggests to me that their arguments are either
wrong, or that they have not spent the effort to make them clear and
understandable.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[Foundation-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
 will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> It's not about "taking over", but about taking useful resources and doing
> additional things with them. We of course celebrate and applaud any serious
> undertaking to make use of Wikipedia content.

Totally.  If Larry is able to produce quality information derived from
Wikipedia content, then we can easily make use of it... that is the
whole point of the copyleft license.

--Jimbo


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
> to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
> articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
> rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
> on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
> flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.

If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine
expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the
social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of
whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.

We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts.  We
have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the
trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from
time to time.  But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does
not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than
wasting time arguing with idiots.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
On 9/17/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:53 PM, stvrtg wrote:
> > Even worse is the apparent usage of Template:Combi to sidestack
> > templates;
> > in contradiction of the Wikipedia:Sidestacking policy.
>
> Please, please tell me this is not actually a policy.

It's a bit disingenuous for Stevertigo to write
[[Wikipedia:Sidestacking and pinching]] himself, CLAIMING IT TO BE
POLICY, and then invoke it as policy to try and get his way.

It comes complete with a warning template {{sidestack}} and an
abbreviation redirect WP:SAP.

All of these are orphans, unlinked by the rest of Wikipedia, and thus
not subject to anyone else's input.

Someone has, fortunately, since edited this "policy" and reclassified
it as essay.

-Matt


from_name: Kim van der Linde

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> Our attitude should be "add information first, and if the
> information looks dodgy we'll challenge it."

And I think this is exactly why Wikipedia is so unreliable. Because it
does not get challenged.

Kim


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

body:
It's simply crazy.

I know that the article [[:de:Wikimedia CH]] has been cancelled in
the past because we are working to have this chapter and it is not
established.

Now Wikimedia CH is alive, it's working, we have a lot of
references, documentation but... the article in german Wikipedia?
It's lost.

I repeat... crazy, absolutely crazy.

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: eloquence at gmail.com
Data: 17.09.06 13.38
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution?

On 9/17/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can
show
> that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean
that
> we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If
so,
> there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we
accept
> without source and what not?

There is currently a poll on the German Wikipedia whether new
articles
that cite no sources should be deleted:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
Meinungsbilder/Quellenpflicht_f%C3%BCr_neue_Artikel

The proposal, translated literally: "New articles may only be
created
if they cite sources.These citations should be listed in the edit
summary [*] and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources
for
an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be
used.
(...) New articles without sources can be deleted without further
discussion through a speedy deletion request."


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
On 9/17/06, stvrtg <stvrtg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not sidebars - sidestacked sidebars. Tool of the devil. See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Combi
>
> For me, these all force any or most article text beneath  them.

I do have to agree with you - these are ugly and really poor style.
Seems to me that it's because several people created infoboxes or
series boxes that apply and everyone wanted THEIRS to be at the top
...

Also, Template:Combi breaks what the developers have asked: that we
not use templates that begin, but do not end, a table.

-Matt


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:

>
>
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>> Our attitude should be "add information first, and if the
>> information looks dodgy we'll challenge it."
>
> And I think this is exactly why Wikipedia is so unreliable. Because it
> does not get challenged.

Except... it's not unreliable.

-Phil


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
Is it just me, or is template expansion on en.wp suddenly broken?
(See for example [[Fur]], which is currently displaying "Template:Otheruses"
and "Template:Main" verbatim, without expanding them.)


body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> On Sep 17, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:
>
>>
>> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>>> Our attitude should be "add information first, and if the
>>> information looks dodgy we'll challenge it."
>> And I think this is exactly why Wikipedia is so unreliable. Because it
>> does not get challenged.
>
> Except... it's not unreliable.

Well, I disagree on this to the point that I would not allow students to
use Wikipedia as a source. Period.

Kim


body:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:02 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:

>
>
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>>
>> On Sep 17, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>>>> Our attitude should be "add information first, and if the
>>>> information looks dodgy we'll challenge it."
>>> And I think this is exactly why Wikipedia is so unreliable.
>>> Because it
>>> does not get challenged.
>>
>> Except... it's not unreliable.
>
> Well, I disagree on this to the point that I would not allow
> students to
> use Wikipedia as a source. Period.

I don't allow my students to cite Wikipedia, but I don't let them
cite Britannica either. The reason isn't reliability, though - it's
that encyclopedias aren't academic sources.

You've seen Alan Liu's guide to citing WIkipedia, right? (Liu is a
big name humanities figure - highly respected writer on digital
media) http://kairosnews.org/developing-a-wikipedia-research-policy

It's a good example of a commonsense citation policy, and should
probably be taken as a model for us.

-Phil


subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
I wrote:
> Is it just me, or is template expansion on en.wp suddenly broken?
> (See for example [[Fur]], which is currently displaying "Template:Otheruses"
> and "Template:Main" verbatim, without expanding them.)

Well, they're working fine on other articles, but something's
definitely screwed up on [[Fur]].  Strange.

To be clear: it's not displaying the expanded templates, or even
the unexpanded templates.  It's just displaying the strings
"Template:Otheruses" and "Template:Main", as if someone had typed
[[Template:Otheruses]] and [[Template:Main]].  But the source
does say {{otheruses}} and {{Main|Fur clothing}} as it should,
and I can't see what would be turning template expansion off.


subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Er... yes, it showed as a link, but after purging has gone,

Right.  (Can someone remind me how to do that?)


from_name: Carl Peterson

body:
On 9/17/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 17 Sep 2006, at 17:20, Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:14 AM, David Mestel wrote:
> >
> >> On 17/09/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> In essence, we have written a set of policies that fail to reflect
> >>> how we do work, should work, or could possibly work. And, due to the
> >>> frighteningly large number of contributors who, given a piece of bad
> >>> policy, will follow it rigidly without thinking about it, this is a
> >>> solidly dangerous thing. (Something to remember: IAR is our most
> >>> ignored rule.)
> >>
> >> I have to disagree with you on the IAR point - I just clicked on the
> >> "random article" button five times, and not one of the resulting
> >> articles had a single source.  I think that our problem may be that,
> >> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
> >> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
> >> order to achieve more...
> >
> > It should be noted what IAR means, though. The heart of IAR is that
> > the rules are not and cannot be a substitute for actually thinking.
> > Carelessly leaving out sources is not following IAR. Citing J.
> > Michael Straczynski's web posts in a Babylon 5 article because you
> > know they're reliable no matter what [[WP:RS]] says is following IAR.
> >
> > Put another way, following policy for policy's sake violates IAR.
>
> There's an interesting parallel to IAR in the New Testament.
> Jesus complains that they are just parroting prayers without
> really thinking about what they mean, and says they should
> make up a relevant prayer each time. They ask him for an
> example of what such a prayer would be like.
>
> He gives them the Lord's prayer.

While I'd disagree with your application, the point is valid. We all IAR
when we feel there's a superceding principle to uphold. Isn't there a
military reg that says you can disobey an order under certain circumstances
(conscience, legality, etc.)? In the case of spoo (and being a B5 fan
myself), I'd say that who said it is more important than where it was said.
JMS clearly said something, and whether it was on Usenet or in personal
correspondence, I'd say it qualifies as a valid source, especially given the
relationship JMS had and has with the franchise (being more than just the
creator/exec, but having written the vast majority of the material in one
way or another).


body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
> I don't allow my students to cite Wikipedia, but I don't let them
> cite Britannica either. The reason isn't reliability, though - it's
> that encyclopedias aren't academic sources.
>
> You've seen Alan Liu's guide to citing WIkipedia, right? (Liu is a
> big name humanities figure - highly respected writer on digital
> media) http://kairosnews.org/developing-a-wikipedia-research-policy
>
> It's a good example of a commonsense citation policy, and should
> probably be taken as a model for us.

Well, it is a convenient way around the issue of determining whether
Wikipedia is reliable or not. But it is besides the point. People DO use
Wikipedia as their reliable source. And thanks for the link. If we need
that kind of instructions for students before they can use Wikipedia as
a potential source, it is quite clear how unreliable Wikipedia is.

Kim


subject:
[Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution? Current German
	proposal

body:
Actually, the proposal is a little bit longer. Maybe, some non-German
speakers are interested in the whole proposal:

"- New articles may only be created if they state sources. These
references should be listed in the edit summary and/or in the article
itself. To cite the main sources*) for an article, the sections
'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used. (...)**) New articles without
sources can be deleted without further discussion through a speedy
deletion request.

- Right of continuance for existing articles. Articles which were
created before the introduction of compulsory sourcing may not be
deleted just because of missing references. The long-term goal is,
however, to make to make the sources of all articles traceable.

Definition of the term 'Source/Reference': For the time being, it is
primarily about to state whereupon an article rests; even knowledge from
school or own experience are considered as source in this respect. Of
course, such diffuse declarations bring about that the article is
challenged. but that is a absolutely wanted effect. Hence, the
obligation for sources should not stop anybody to continue writing
article just on the basis 'I just know it', how is done often, but they
are clearly labelled."

*) Main source (Hauptquelle): A concept in the German Wikipedia that the
literature the article is stated once and every information that draws
to this material may not have any explicit reference to this material.
**) Just a cross-reference to [[w:de:Wikipedia:Quellenangaben]]
([[w:de:Wikipedia:Reference]]).

/Chris

Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 9/17/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is currently a poll on the German Wikipedia whether new articles
> that cite no sources should be deleted:
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Quellenpflicht_f%C3%BCr_neue_Artikel
>
> The proposal, translated literally: "New articles may only be created
> if they cite sources.These citations should be listed in the edit
> summary [*] and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources for
> an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used.
> (...) New articles without sources can be deleted without further
> discussion through a speedy deletion request."
>
> [*] The German Wikipedia calls the standard edit summary field
> "Zusammenfassung und Quellen," i.e. "Summary and Sources".

--
Christoph SEYDL                Phone: (+43-7435) 57859
Rubringer Stra?e 41            Mobile: (+43-699) 81439550
A-4300 St. Valentin            E-mail: Christoph.Seydl at utanet.at
                               http://home.tele2.at/seydl


body:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:22 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:

>
>
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>> I don't allow my students to cite Wikipedia, but I don't let them
>> cite Britannica either. The reason isn't reliability, though - it's
>> that encyclopedias aren't academic sources.
>>
>> You've seen Alan Liu's guide to citing WIkipedia, right? (Liu is a
>> big name humanities figure - highly respected writer on digital
>> media) http://kairosnews.org/developing-a-wikipedia-research-policy
>>
>> It's a good example of a commonsense citation policy, and should
>> probably be taken as a model for us.
>
> Well, it is a convenient way around the issue of determining whether
> Wikipedia is reliable or not. But it is besides the point. People
> DO use
> Wikipedia as their reliable source. And thanks for the link. If we
> need
> that kind of instructions for students before they can use
> Wikipedia as
> a potential source, it is quite clear how unreliable Wikipedia is.

Nonsense. I could write that many words about using the New York
Times as a source. You seem to be laboring under the misconception
that there is some well of magically reliable sources that can be
cited without critical thought.

-Phil


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

body:
"David Mestel" wrote

> I think that our problem may be that,
> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
> order to achieve more...

The policy on sources is satisfactory: we are against mistakes and nonsense, and requiring a source is one of those 80 for 20 moves that zaps much of the nonsense and errors. It is entirely possible to lie through your teeth, from the point of view of NPOV, while selectively using adequate sources, but that's not an issue.

What I have not found satisfactory about the sources policy is the discussions it brings. As if one has wandered into a meeting of unreconstructed 1930s logical positivists, in fact. As if there was a known 'protocol' for verifying an article, by requiring sources and checking that nothing has squeezed into the article that was not so sourced.

I think this can have an impact, particularly, on history. It reminds me of the discussion on 'Namierism', in fact also from the 1930s really. A question: would reading through the very many biographies of US politicians we have (and there are many thousands) really allow one to discuss US politics? The point being that biographical facts are verifiable, deals in smoke-filled rooms not, and the underlying being dynamic far from something naively to be sourced (the point made against Lewis Namier).

I see I'm on #499 of my technical articles on mathematics. A high proportion of those were actually written straight out of my head, as I saw the need. I do have books to hand, Google at need, and so on. Of course it all used to be more free-wheeling.

Charles

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Names of places in unrecognized countries

body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote

> Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/Moldovan spelling
> (Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayeshty

Google has many more hits for Malaiesti. This is not always a good criterion, but here it might be.

Charles

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from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikilinked dates in ISO-format and anon users

references:
<ee8j29$lsv$1@sea.gmane.org> <45080D9F.8000701@pobox.com>
	<eebmfo$t74$1@sea.gmane.org> <200609141637.53928@bloodgate.com>
	<eebtcs$q1p$1@sea.gmane.org> <45099FF8.7080507@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<eej6es$ks2$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 9/17/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> So if this is the preferred syntax, we really should think about sitting
> onto http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions and implement:
>
> {{#date:2006-09-14}} or {{#date:|2006-09-14}}, and additionally
> {{#uldate:2006-09-14}} or {{#uldate:|2006-09-14}} (for unlinked date?)
>
> How difficult would it be to extend ParserFunctions to implement
> {{#date:2006-09-14}}?

This doesn't really strike me as part of what ParserFunctions are
intended to be at all: calculations, not an implementation of user
preferences.  If this is going to be used, which I really don't think
it should (the current format is much less obtrusive and confusing for
new editors), it should definitely be in the core package as now,
whether as a parser function or what ever.


subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
On 9/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Platonides wrote:
> > Er... yes, it showed as a link, but after purging has gone,
>
> Right.  (Can someone remind me how to do that?)

Add ?action=purge to the URL (or, if it already has a ? somewhere in
it, &action=purge).


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:53 PM, stvrtg wrote:

>
> Even worse is the apparent usage of Template:Combi to sidestack
> templates;
> in contradiction of the Wikipedia:Sidestacking policy.

Please, please tell me this is not actually a policy.

-Phil


from_name: Stephen Streater

body:
On 17 Sep 2006, at 14:55, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> Bogdan Giusca wrote
>
>> Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/
>> Moldovan spelling
>> (Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayeshty
>
> Google has many more hits for Malaiesti. This is not always a good
> criterion, but here it might be.

I'd use the spelling the people living there use.


from_name: geni

body:
On 9/17/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> I'd use the spelling the people living there use.

Problem is that spelling is kinda political in that area. The
goverment would not respond well to people spelling it Malaiesti
rather than something cyrillic alphabet.
--
geni


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
stvrtg wrote:
> As everyone knows, Libertarianism is just the kind of wishy-washy
> non-philosophy that poses the greatest threat of giving birth to some new
> quasi-intellectual incarnation of tacky backwater-class totalitarianism
> disguised as futuristic and innovative societal reform.
>

I'm sorry, but POV warriors aren't welcome on the Wikipedia project.

I do think sidebars should be generally used much less frequently than
they are, but some sort of feverish political crusade isn't the right
way to do it.

-Mark


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto

body:
----- ???????? ????????? -----
??: "Akash Mehta" <draicone at gmail.com>
????: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
??????????: 16 ???????? 2006 ?. 10:58
????: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Create new article - module ?

> Well, when I want to create an article, I just go to the article URL
> (nowadays I even type the name into the box in the Wikipedia FF
> toolbar)

Me too :) Just type the name and get offered the chance to "Do it yourself"
:) Nevertheless, it's not that obvious for newcomers...

B?rto


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
Kim van der Linde wrote:
> Delirium wrote:
>
>
>> No, I can say quite confidently, as a scientist active in academic
>> publishing, that when reviewing a field (which is what encyclopedia
>> articles are), science works on consensus, unless you are specifically
>> writing a "critical review" unapologetically from a particular point of
>> view.
>>
>
> Maybe that your field of expertise works by consensus, mine does not
> (and honestly, students who think that science works by consensus need
> to retake philosophy-of-science 101). Consensus is not the same as
> agreement, and if a topic is really well explored, there might be
> general agreement among scientists on that topic.
>

I'm discussing specifically the issue of writing review articles, not of
doing original research, since that's the closest to what we we're
doing.  If you're writing a review article about a field that is
currently in flux and not agreed upon, and you claim it to be an attempt
at a fair summary of the current debate (not a "critical review"), isn't
consensus what you're going for, and what journal editors will require?
A paper like that will typically get farmed out to several reviewers
from multiple viewpoints, and you'll have to revise it until you reach
a... consensus... between the author and the reviewers that the paper
represents a fair summary of the current state of the debate.  If your
initial review gives short shrift to one of the major camps, for
example, you're going to have to revise that part until the reviewer
from that camp is satisfied that you're at least summarizing his views
accurately.  That's basically what we're doing here, isn't it?

-Mark


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

body:
The current naming policy for less-known placenames (those with no
name in English) is to use the spelling in the language of the country
where the place is located.

Now there's a problem with unrecognized countries: i.e. countries
which declared their independence, but which are not recognized internationally.

I have an example in Transnistria:

The town of Malaiesti (population ~5000) is officially in Moldova, but
practically, it is under Transnistrian control.

Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/Moldovan spelling
(Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution? Question for Jimbo!

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

>Dear Jimbo:
>
>I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>
>''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
>the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
>on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
>between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
>7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
>there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>
> From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
>
>Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to
>provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this
>just because it is unreferenced?
>
In theory, there is probably a reference and legal basis for this kind
of thing in Bangkok city hall, but unless we are challenging the way
that the Bangkok city fathers are numbering streets it would be an
incredible waste of time to track it down.  I am willing, on a
provisional basis, to accept the observations of someone who has lived
in that city.  If I doubted the facts I could always go to Bangkok to
verify the facts by walking the streets.  The information is right there
for everybody to see.

Ec


body:
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 4:55:20 PM, charles wrote:
> Bogdan Giusca wrote

>> Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/Moldovan spelling
>> (Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayeshty

> Google has many more hits for Malaiesti. This is not
> always a good criterion, but here it might be.

Actually, I think the Google test is not good in here, because most
hits for "Malaiesti" refer to other places with the same name in
Romania and Moldova.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%83l%C4%83ie%C5%9Fti

Also, I tried to avoid Requested Moves, because usually, on this kind
of issues, the "patriotic votes" (Your Country Needs Your Vote!) make
the decision. :-)


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject:
[Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution? Current German
 proposal

body:
Christoph Seydl wrote:

> Actually, the proposal is a little bit longer. Maybe, some non-German
> speakers are interested in the whole proposal:

I guess many who read these summaries in English will get the
impression that fascism is a part of German lifestyle that didn't
end in 1945, that every German wants to be as nasty as possible to
their neighbors, with or without a Fuhrer.  Those who put forward
such proposals should perhaps bear that in mind.  That this
proposal came from a German-speaking Swiss doesn't change the
impression of a Prussian attitude.  The knee-jerk reaction to
propose new and harder rules is one that must actively be fought
against, and this didn't happen in this case.  Identifying fake
(or harmful or pointless) rule proposals is just as important as
identifying fake articles.

Now, the German voting page actually begins with a problem
description.  It describes a real problem and tries to find a
solution for it.  However, the problem is never quantified and the
overly broad proposed solution is jumped to without considering
its possible harmful effects.  Even I cannot completely escape the
suspicion that somebody is out to create (and enforce) rules,
rather than writing a useful encyclopedia.

The problem description goes like this (my translation):

: Wikipedia contains ever more narrowly specialized articles,
: whose correctness without source citations can be verified only
: with much difficulty.  Over and over again, this leads to false
: informations and completely made-up articles remaining in the
: encyclopedia for months or years.  As an illustration of the
: latter we have User:Gestumblindi/Fakemuseum .  Falsified
: articles can, as seen from this, be dressed in full seriousness.
: And still such total falsifications without external citations
: are often speedily deleted, as soon as somebody sees them (which
: can take some time, if the nonsense is prepared in a
: Wikipedia-conformant manner).  It is all the more difficult to
: detect partial fakes, that is when untruthful information is
: embedded in existing subjects.  The usefulness of Wikipedia as a
: citable and reliable source suffers because of the often missing
: source citations.  "Then everybody can just write what fits him"
: is an often heard prejudice.  Articles that are created with
: source citations can help to counter this rumour of
: unseriousity.

The next section of the German page provides statistics about how
many new articles cite sources, but the page doesn't quantify the
*problem*.  How many new articles were created and how many were
really of the fake kind? How "often" is this accusation heard,
from whom, and what kinds of articles are part of the problem?
Did the accusations come from commercial publishers, teachers and
librarians with a self-interest in the old authoritarian
encyclopedias, and is there any evidence that these accusations
would stop if Wikipedia adjusts its policies? The introduction of
the problem description mentions narrowly specializied topics, so
why not find a solution that is limited to that kind of articles?
If somebody wants to write a fake article, isn't it just as easy
to invent fake sources?  Enforcing the proposed policy would
require citations to be in the article, but who is going to the
library to check that these sources exist and are in agreement
with what the article says?

I find no trace of empirical evidence that such a policy would
help the rumour of Wikipedia as a reliable source.  What I do find
is a proposed rule of the fascist kind that makes it a lot harder
to contribute to Wikipedia.  So the easy conclusion is that this
proposal is pushed by somebody with fascist tendencies.  Now
*there* is a rumour that the German Wikipedia has to deal with.

Did I just accuse user:Gestumblindi of walking around in a brown
shirt with a swastika on his arm?  No, of course not.  Before
putting forward this proposal, he has been collecting a nice
"museum" of fake articles found in the German Wikipedia.  He's
ambitious and takes fact control seriously, which is a general
trend on the German Wikipedia.  It's just that the solution he
proposes is to introduce a draconian rule that (1) can't really
solve the problem anyway, because the serious vandals will conform
and invent sources, and (2) threatens to stop all serious
contributions to Wikipedia.  And jumping to stricter rules is
indeed a trend on the German Wikipedia.  Instead, I think he
should turn his promising "fake museum" into a WikiProject where
more volunteers are encouraged to help in tracing down fake
articles.  That's the way to build something rather than
introducing harmful rules.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


body:
> Put another way, following policy for policy's sake violates IAR.
>
> -Phil

Ah, but ignoring IAR for the sake of IAR _doesn't_ violate policy. Or something.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
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from_name: Jean-Denis Vauguet

subject: [Foundation-l] Abuja Conference report

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Hello all,
> snip

Thank you Florence for the feedback. Very instructive, I assume one
could use it as a base for defining priorities and action regarding the
"Africa and Wikimedia" topic.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Abuja Conference report

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Hello all,
> snip

Thank you Florence for the feedback. Very instructive, I assume one
could use it as a base for defining priorities and action regarding the
"Africa and Wikimedia" topic.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Abuja Conference report

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Hello all,
> snip

Thank you Florence for the feedback. Very instructive, I assume one
could use it as a base for defining priorities and action regarding the
"Africa and Wikimedia" topic.

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subject: [Foundation-l] Abuja Conference report

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Hello all,
> snip

Thank you Florence for the feedback. Very instructive, I assume one
could use it as a base for defining priorities and action regarding the
"Africa and Wikimedia" topic.

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body:
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 5:35:39 PM, freakofnurture wrote:

f> Use the spelling most frequently used by english speakers, regardless of
f> local politics, and even if the spelling itself is of non-english origin.

The English speakers usually never even heard of such village.
Romanian/Moldovan sources in English use Malaiesti, while
Russian/Transnistrian sources in English use Malayeshty. :-)


body:
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 5:08:35 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 17 Sep 2006, at 14:55, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>>> Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/
>>> Moldovan spelling
>>> (Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayeshty
>>
>> Google has many more hits for Malaiesti. This is not always a good
>> criterion, but here it might be.
>
> I'd use the spelling the people living there use.

For Malaiesti, most are Moldovans, but what about the places with
mixed population? :-)


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl <Christoph.Seydl at students.jku.at>:
>
>
>>Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough.    There seems to be
>>a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative
>>'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs
>>a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be
>>sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of
>>negative information about living persons.    I think a fair number of
>>people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy
>>writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude
>>and frustration.)"
>>(http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
>>
>>
Dear Jimbo:

I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:

''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''

 From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi

Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to
provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this
just because it is unreferenced?

With kind regards, from a wikipedia that if this is put through
rigouresly will shrink with 90%,
Waerth


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> Maybe that your field of expertise works by consensus, mine does not
> (and honestly, students who think that science works by consensus need
> to retake philosophy-of-science 101).

All fields work by consensus.  Grant committees, journal editors and
reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.

The individual findings of research are at one level not subject to
consensus (the experiment either shows X or does not show X), and at
another are (others in the field agree that the experiment was good,
valid, properly designed, and does show X).

It's not just a matter of doing an experiment and gathering data.
It's also a matter of convincing others that your results are correct.
 Individual facts are not "known" to a field until multiple
researchers believe that the result is credible.  There have been
plenty of fringe results which were ultimately unrepeatable, and have
not been adopted as consensus truth by a scientific field.

Certain subjects are less prone to this, in that the discovery process
is pretty self-documenting for those practicing in them, math in
particular.  But even some proofs are disputed over time...

While not formally part of the "scientific method", these are
important parts of the scientific process.  The process assumes
fallability of individual researchers and results, and demands a
higher standard.

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


body:
On 17 Sep 2006, at 17:20, Phil Sandifer wrote:

>
>
> On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:14 AM, David Mestel wrote:
>
>> On 17/09/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> In essence, we have written a set of policies that fail to reflect
>>> how we do work, should work, or could possibly work. And, due to the
>>> frighteningly large number of contributors who, given a piece of bad
>>> policy, will follow it rigidly without thinking about it, this is a
>>> solidly dangerous thing. (Something to remember: IAR is our most
>>> ignored rule.)
>>
>> I have to disagree with you on the IAR point - I just clicked on the
>> "random article" button five times, and not one of the resulting
>> articles had a single source.  I think that our problem may be that,
>> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
>> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
>> order to achieve more...
>
> It should be noted what IAR means, though. The heart of IAR is that
> the rules are not and cannot be a substitute for actually thinking.
> Carelessly leaving out sources is not following IAR. Citing J.
> Michael Straczynski's web posts in a Babylon 5 article because you
> know they're reliable no matter what [[WP:RS]] says is following IAR.
>
> Put another way, following policy for policy's sake violates IAR.

There's an interesting parallel to IAR in the New Testament.
Jesus complains that they are just parroting prayers without
really thinking about what they mean, and says they should
make up a relevant prayer each time. They ask him for an
example of what such a prayer would be like.

He gives them the Lord's prayer.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fairy tales (was Re: Citizendium - feel free to
 insert your own ironic comment here)

body:
Austin Hair wrote:

> On 9/17/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Think about this fairy tale about this girly with a red riding hood..
>> She may have been eaten by the wolf but it was the wolf that ended up
>> down in the well with a belly full of stones.
>
> The Dutch must tell a different version of this story; the one I grew
> up with ends with a woodsman laying the wolf open with an ax.  (The
> wolf in our version was also a communist.)

European versions of fairy tales do indeed often vary from their
American counterparts. There's a tendency toward more ambiguity and some
things get edited to leave out the more unsettling bits. Children's
books and Disney versions are particularly responsible for this; more
faithful interpretations can be found with a little effort.

--Michael Snow


body:
On 9/17/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, I don't. The closest thing [[WP:V]] says is "some editors may
> object if you remove material without giving people a chance to
> provide references."

No that is the policy. The relationship between policy and process is
complex and this isn't the time to examain it but the process can be
found at:

[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources#How_to_ask_for_citations]]

> No - I want policy pages based on a book. Do try to read what I'm
> saying before you respond. I know you like unhelpful one-line
> replies, but they're not really my thing. The relevant sections of
> Craft of Research are about ten pages long, and could easily be
> summarized further.
>
> -Phil

Well just try to keep it under 42Kb.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
>> to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
>> articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
>> rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
>> on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
>> flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
>>
>
> If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine
> expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the
> social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of
> whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
>
That's what I initially thought, but as Sangers clarified his ideas in
his responses to Slashdot comments, it appears that he *does* plan to
have most users and article writers be non-experts.  He proposes that
experts should have an "editorship" type role, to "gently guide" the
work of non-experts.  It's unclear what exactly this will involve, but
it doesn't seem like it will be the place for experts who want to avoid
interacting with the general public---the only advantage is that in
those interactions they may be given some official levers to use (but
still be expected to use them "gently").

-Mark


from_name: stvrtg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
I'd like to enlist people's help in de-spamming personal articles which use
Template:Libertarian . Its placement on various pages here and there is
offensive to the eye as well as the ear, and its apparent excessive usage is
no doubt 'Droidian in nature, if not altogether Randian in intent.

Even worse is the apparent usage of Template:Combi to sidestack templates;
in contradiction of the Wikipedia:Sidestacking policy. The WLH for
Template:Combi shows that this is not by any means limited to Libertarian
articles, small-l or not, but its formation was no doubt originally
propagated by Libertarians and for libertarians. My basic evidence of this
is the unreadability of pages which have been thusly formatted.

As everyone knows, Libertarianism is just the kind of wishy-washy
non-philosophy that poses the greatest threat of giving birth to some new
quasi-intellectual incarnation of tacky backwater-class totalitarianism
disguised as futuristic and innovative societal reform.

Its spammage on various pages is no doubt further evidence of this fact, and
I'd like people to consider that its application should be restricted to the
reasonable and not excessive; to the detriment of freedom and what passes
for it.

Thanks,
- sv

"One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing." -Mencken


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki Spam

body:
Maybe a url would be helpfull? ~~~~

2006/9/16, ROSC Director <resourcesofsheboygan at yahoo.com>:
> All Wiki Members,
>
>   Please share your thoughts on Wiki Spam, Wiki Spamers, and just Spam. The Resources of Sheboygan Club is working on a plan to stop Spam on our forums, guestbooks, and forms.
>
>   Please share your thoughts on this issue as this will help the Resources of sheboygan Club and some ideas will be pasted on.
>
>   Please send feedback or thoughts to ROSCDirector at gmail.com
>
>
>   Yours Truly,
>       The Resources of Sheboygan Club
>        Club Director & Founder
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Get your own web address for just $1.99/1st yr. We'll help. Yahoo! Small Business.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki Spam


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template cruft

body:
stvrtg wrote:
>>> As everyone knows, Libertarianism is just the kind of wishy-washy
>>> non-philosophy that poses the greatest threat of giving birth to some new
>>> quasi-intellectual incarnation of tacky backwater-class totalitarianism
>>> disguised as futuristic and innovative societal reform.

Well, ironically perhaps, despite this inappropriate and irrelevant
political rant, and the very POV title this thread started with, stvrtg
actually raises a legitimate _editorial_ issue which applies _without
regard to political position_.

These things can get rather a bit ugly.

--Jimbo


from_name: Akash Mehta

subject: [WikiEN-l] 100K challenge page up

body:
168 editors working two hours a day - I say we can easily have 1344
editors working 15 minutes a day, and doing other things as well. FA
criteria should be relaxed a lot though.

On 9/15/06, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Am I the only one who thinks this is absolutely impossible?  I'm thinking
> 2,500, and even that's ambitious.  Per WP:100K, each FA requires 50
> editing-hours- that's 5,000,000 editing-hours for 100,000 FAs. Dividing that
> by 8760 hours in a year, that's over 570 editors working 24/7/365.  More
> realistically, we'd have editors working on average maybe 2 hours a day at
> most, so multiply that number by 12. That's 6840 editors working 2 hours a
> day, 7 days a week for a year, solely on articles that they will make
> featured.
>
> 2,500 FAs would require only 125,000 hours, when dividing by the hours in a
> year it works out to be a bit over 14 editors working 24/7/365 and 168
> working 2/7/365 only on creating FAs.
>
> On 9/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 14/09/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Surely they can co-exist. It could only lead to more featured articles.
> > > Danny's contest is focussed on referencing specific articles. If we want
> > to
> > > reach 100,000 we need a lot more than the ones he listed.
> >
> >
> > I've mentioned WP:DC on WP:100K, and should probably mention it the
> > other way too.
> >
> >
> > - 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Austin Hair

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] Citizendium, a new venture,
	will "fork" off from online encyclopedia Wikipedia]

body:
On 9/17/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Think about this fairy tale about this girly with a red riding hood..
> She may have been eaten by the wolf but it was the wolf that ended up
> down in the well with a belly full of stones.

The Dutch must tell a different version of this story; the one I grew
up with ends with a woodsman laying the wolf open with an ax.  (The
wolf in our version was also a communist.)

Austin


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 9/16/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You mean that's why much of the interesting discussions are right now
> taking place on the comcom list where very little people have access ?
>
> Okay. I'll forward them to internal instead.

Another list to which very few people have access.

Kelly


from_name: P. Birken

subject: [Foundation-l] Reviewed and Unvandalized Versions

body:
Hi List,

D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
information in english about all this.

When Jimbo visited Germany in June, me and other members of the german
community approached him about stable versions. After some discussion,
he decided that it would be good to finally start with stable versions
and, as this is a very fundamental change,  to use one project as a
testing ground before starting this everywhere. As you know, we are
the lucky ones ;-)

A few parameters were agreed upon, namely that it should be kept
simple, in particular that what version is marked and what is not,
should not be the result of some voting process and that we need to
seperate two issues of stable versions: fighting vandalism and
controlling the factual accuracy. Thus, a concept was then worked out,
based on the discussions on meta, en and de and Brion was assigned
with implementing it, which he is still busy with and it will still be
some months before this actually goes life.

A first decision was not to call this stable versions, as this is a
term where everybody understands something different. Therefore, the
following are the concepts:

i) Unvandalized versions
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gesichtete Versionen). An
unvandalized version is a version of an article that has not been
vandalized. The right to flag a version like this is given to accounts
by an automatic process, based on the number of edits and the time
passed since account creation. We will start the test with 30 edits/30
days. Versions can be flagged similar to the small changes mark with
some features to make life easy, like automatic marking of articles
newly created by users with this right.

ii) Reviewed versions
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gepr?fte_Versionen). The
meaning of this version is that the article contains no factual errors
and that there are no misleading omissions, while not requiring any
other form of completeness. The right to flag an article like this is
given by a bureaucrat. This flag can also be removed again and the
same version may be flagged by multiple users. We agree that the
reviewers should come from an active portal in the wikipedia. The
discussion on qualifications from within the wikipedia respectively
from outside the wikipedia is going on. The notion of outside experts
is also discussed.

iii) Who sees what? Nothing is changed for logged in users. IPs see
the latest reviewed or unvandalized versions, meaning that the
reviewed version has no priority over an unvandalized version. If the
version the IP sees is not the current one, a warning is shown with
links to the current version. If no version of the article was ever
flagged, a warning is shown. Note that this point is subject to
MediaWiki settings, meaning that if in your project/wiki, this sounds
like a contraproductive idea, you can turn it off, which is important
for example in young wikipedias.

Sincerely yours,

de:P. Birken


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:
> iii) Who sees what? Nothing is changed for logged in users. IPs see
> the latest reviewed or unvandalized versions, meaning that the
> reviewed version has no priority over an unvandalized version. If the
> version the IP sees is not the current one, a warning is shown with
> links to the current version. If no version of the article was ever
> flagged, a warning is shown. Note that this point is subject to
> MediaWiki settings, meaning that if in your project/wiki, this sounds
> like a contraproductive idea, you can turn it off, which is important
> for example in young wikipedias.

Some preliminary thoughts of my own, particularly on this last point
and the role of reviewers, can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/WikiQA
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Comments on main pages

body:
> although of course oddness would result on
> talk pages proper, edit pages, etc. if you picked that message,
> anyway.
He could use parser extensions to #if / #switch it only for some namespaces


subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
"Steve Summit" wrote:
> Is it just me, or is template expansion on en.wp suddenly broken?
> (See for example [[Fur]], which is currently displaying
> "Template:Otheruses"
> and "Template:Main" verbatim, without expanding them.)
Er... yes, it showed as a link, but after purging has gone, so doesn't seem
important.


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:

> D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
> discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
> germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
> information in english about all this.

Danke Philipp, das ist genau was ich mir vorgestellt hatte f?r eine
Zusammenfassung.

I find it very important that this be shared among the languages so
that all communities can discuss how to best implement these features
on their own wikipedia.

I have forwarded this to translators-l, but please do forward it to
all relevant lists. And those of you who speak German and English, if
you can sum up the discussions and bring them to your wikipedias, that
would be grand.

Again, thank you Philipp.

Delphine (ohne ? ;-) )
PS. clickable links:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gesichtete_Versionen
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gepr%C3%BCfte_Versionen

--
~notafish


from_name: Frank Schulenburg

subject: [Foundation-l] Some news from the German Wikisource

body:
Hello all,

since the beginning of 2006 the German Wikisource is evolving in a very
positive way and I would like to share some news with you.

== Digitization of a precious 16th-century handwritten mathematical
schoolbook ==
In may 2006 Wikimedia Germany (the "Verein") financed the digitizing of
a handwritten mathematical schoolbook called "Drei Register
Arithmetischer ahnfeng zur Practic". The precious 16th-century
manuscript has been scanned at the Center for Retrospective Digitization
of the Lower Saxony State and University Library in Goettingen. Today
about a quarter of the 210 pages has been transcribed and annotated in
the German Wikisource. Actually a project in the German Wikiversity is
dealing with the analysis of the book.

*
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Pressemitteilungen/Rechenbuchprojekt
(press report)
*
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Drei_Register_Arithmetischer_ahnfeng_zur_Practic:106
(example page)
*
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Drei_Register_Arithmetischer_ahnfeng_zur_Practic.djvu?page=181
(the new DjVu-extension on Commons)
*
http://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/A_und_B_haltten_einen_Stich_umb_Pley_und_Papyr
(example from the project in the german Wikiversity)

== Third volume of the "Zimmerische Chronik" transcribed ==
At the beginning of September 2006 the third volume of the so called
"Zimmerische Chronik" (a chronicle written by count Froben Christoph von
Zimmern in the 16th century and published 1881 by the german historian
Karl August Barack) had been transcribed. The transcription of the
4-volume work is one of the biggest projects in the German Wikisource.
The e-text-edition was initiated by a historian of the University of
Freiburg im Breisgau, who actually acts as a scientific advisor for the
project.

* http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zimmerische_Chronik

== First publication of a handwritten letter of Fredrick Accum ==
Today German Wikisource announces the first publication of a handwritten
letter of the german chemist Fredrick Accum to his brother Philip (April
26th 1816). Accum emigrated to London in 1793 and became professor of
chemistry and mineralogy at the Surrey Institute around 1803. Fredrick
Accum, who is largely forgotten today, is one of the pioneers of the
commercial production of coal gas for gas lighting. In his letter he
gives a lively picture of the economic condition in London after the end
of the napoleonic wars.

*
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Brief_Friedrich_Accums_an_seinen_Bruder_vom_26._April_1816
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Accum

To faciliate the work of the german Wikisource community in the future,
the german "Verein" provided a budget of 1.500 EUR (about 1.900 USD) for
the digitizing of old books and manuscripts. The members of the
community themselves will decide conjointly how to spend this money on
new projects.

Greetings,
Frank Schulenburg

Board member of Wikimedia Germany
Phone +49 (0)551 2726447
Frank.Schulenburg [at] wikimedia.de


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

body:
And how should the Foundation ensure the election for
these delegates are handled in the proper manner?
Would the delegates be issused by langage or
community?  How would you define a language?  Or else,
How would this affect requests for new language
creations for projects?  Would all communities have
the exact same sufferage requirements or could they
come to their own consensus?  Who would verify and
enforce any rules the Foundation requires for these
elections?  Would people then be allowed to vote for
several delegates if they meet the sufferage
requirements of several communities?  I think this
proposal is quite beyond the capability of this
organzation.

Birgitte SB

--- Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I personally would like rather to provide equal
> amount of information
> > to "every" language communities. I don't welcome
> nor that only English
> > editors can access the information about the
> people they are voting
> > for nor that there is enouous different of amount
> which voters can
> > consider between editors having English competence
> and not. It would
> > mean the elected one cannot represent the
> community as a whole, but
> > not only a part of it, community of a certain
> language, in the worst
> > case, I am afraid.
>
> Actually, the translation issue is a very strong
> argument against
> direct election of Board members.  Indirect
> election, via elected
> delegates at each project (or other appropriate
> grouping), would avoid
> much of this issue.  It would also curtail the
> "popularity effect" of
> enwiki -- we could use a diminishing-returns
> allocation of delegates
> to minimize the "hulking gorilla" effect that enwiki
> otherwise has on
> popular polling within Wikimedia.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
On 9/17/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, but POV warriors aren't welcome on the Wikipedia project.

Then who would be left?

I do think sidebars should be generally used much less frequently than
> they are, but some sort of feverish political crusade isn't the right
> way to do it.

Not sidebars - sidestacked sidebars. Tool of the devil. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Combi

Some examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bastiat#Views
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

For me, these all force any or most article text beneath  them.

-sv


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
>> discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
>> germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
>> information in english about all this.
>
> Danke Philipp, das ist genau was ich mir vorgestellt hatte f?r eine
> Zusammenfassung.
>
> I find it very important that this be shared among the languages so
> that all communities can discuss how to best implement these features
> on their own wikipedia.
>
> I have forwarded this to translators-l, but please do forward it to
> all relevant lists. And those of you who speak German and English, if
> you can sum up the discussions and bring them to your wikipedias, that
> would be grand.
>
> Again, thank you Philipp.

I've been bold before getting either this or translators-l email and
translated Birken's report to Wikifr-l :)

I assume it's important each local community is provided with a smart
report of what's going on within de: on this major project,
"stable-but-not-labeled-as-such versions".

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body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
>> discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
>> germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
>> information in english about all this.
>
> Danke Philipp, das ist genau was ich mir vorgestellt hatte f?r eine
> Zusammenfassung.
>
> I find it very important that this be shared among the languages so
> that all communities can discuss how to best implement these features
> on their own wikipedia.
>
> I have forwarded this to translators-l, but please do forward it to
> all relevant lists. And those of you who speak German and English, if
> you can sum up the discussions and bring them to your wikipedias, that
> would be grand.
>
> Again, thank you Philipp.

I've been bold before getting either this or translators-l email and
translated Birken's report to Wikifr-l :)

I assume it's important each local community is provided with a smart
report of what's going on within de: on this major project,
"stable-but-not-labeled-as-such versions".

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body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
>> discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
>> germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
>> information in english about all this.
>
> Danke Philipp, das ist genau was ich mir vorgestellt hatte f?r eine
> Zusammenfassung.
>
> I find it very important that this be shared among the languages so
> that all communities can discuss how to best implement these features
> on their own wikipedia.
>
> I have forwarded this to translators-l, but please do forward it to
> all relevant lists. And those of you who speak German and English, if
> you can sum up the discussions and bring them to your wikipedias, that
> would be grand.
>
> Again, thank you Philipp.

I've been bold before getting either this or translators-l email and
translated Birken's report to Wikifr-l :)

I assume it's important each local community is provided with a smart
report of what's going on within de: on this major project,
"stable-but-not-labeled-as-such versions".

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body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> On 9/17/06, P. Birken <pbirken at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> D?lphine told me that the news about stable versions has led to
>> discussions in several projects. As the discussion on the
>> germanlanguage Wikipedia are, well, in german, here is some short
>> information in english about all this.
>
> Danke Philipp, das ist genau was ich mir vorgestellt hatte f?r eine
> Zusammenfassung.
>
> I find it very important that this be shared among the languages so
> that all communities can discuss how to best implement these features
> on their own wikipedia.
>
> I have forwarded this to translators-l, but please do forward it to
> all relevant lists. And those of you who speak German and English, if
> you can sum up the discussions and bring them to your wikipedias, that
> would be grand.
>
> Again, thank you Philipp.

I've been bold before getting either this or translators-l email and
translated Birken's report to Wikifr-l :)

I assume it's important each local community is provided with a smart
report of what's going on within de: on this major project,
"stable-but-not-labeled-as-such versions".

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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 9/17/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
> sake of syntax (ad-hoc rule: "No syntactic sugar templates"? ;-), which
> in this case I feel is a suboptimal idea as there aren't any editorial
> display format decisions to isolate (There is no "moving target" about
> the question how to display a date from an editorial viewpoint. There
> are just culture/language dependent display formats to choose from.)

How so? I'm not really sure why I seem to keep being told that my
preferred date format is "9 July 2004". Personally, "9th of July,
2004" would be better. Nor am I convinced that editorial judgment
never comes into this. In some fields perhaps it makes sense to use
condensed dates like 2004-7-9, while in others, more verbose formates
are preferred? Similarly, it would be nice to have dates in some
places not show the year (ie, "on July the 9th that year...") while
linking or not linking as preferred..

So the editorial target isn't moving a long way, but it's not
necessarily a sitting duck either ;)

Steve


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> have most users and article writers be non-experts.  [Sanger] proposes that
> experts should have an "editorship" type role, to "gently guide" the
> work of non-experts.  It's unclear what exactly this will involve, but
> it doesn't seem like it will be the place for experts who want to avoid
> interacting with the general public---the only advantage is that in
> those interactions they may be given some official levers to use (but
> still be expected to use them "gently").

We already plan to give reviewership roles to certain users who know about certain subjects and
can thus tag certain article versions as reviewed. Larry's plan seems to require the use of real
names and declarations of credentials for an analogous 'editorship' role.

Not much more seems to be different. We could simply give reviewers the option of verifying their
real names and credentials if  that aspect of Larry's project seems to work.

I only see benefits to Wikipedia by Larry's experiment; we can copy the improvements to articles
and any process improvements.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Kim van der Linde

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:

> Nonsense. I could write that many words about using the New York
> Times as a source. You seem to be laboring under the misconception
> that there is some well of magically reliable sources that can be
> cited without critical thought.

The New York times is a primary source, an encyclopaedia is a
tertiary source. Tertiary sources should be much more reliable than
primary. The way you approach Wikipedia is more as if it was a primary
source.

You went from claiming that Wikipedia was reliable to saying that
everything is unreliable. So, the issue we talk about is the degree of
unreliability, and my contention is that Wikipedia for a tertiary source
is to unreliable to be used as a source for research. Wikipedia
unfortunately is often a primary source, with articles that are not more
than a first year essay on a topic.

Kim
--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


body:
On 9/17/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> I personally would like rather to provide equal amount of information
> to "every" language communities. I don't welcome nor that only English
> editors can access the information about the people they are voting
> for nor that there is enouous different of amount which voters can
> consider between editors having English competence and not. It would
> mean the elected one cannot represent the community as a whole, but
> not only a part of it, community of a certain language, in the worst
> case, I am afraid.

Actually, the translation issue is a very strong argument against
direct election of Board members.  Indirect election, via elected
delegates at each project (or other appropriate grouping), would avoid
much of this issue.  It would also curtail the "popularity effect" of
enwiki -- we could use a diminishing-returns allocation of delegates
to minimize the "hulking gorilla" effect that enwiki otherwise has on
popular polling within Wikimedia.

Kelly


from_name: Gordon Joly

body:
At 18:18 +0100 17/9/06, Stephen Streater wrote:
>On 17 Sep 2006, at 17:20, Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>  On Sep 17, 2006, at 2:14 AM, David Mestel wrote:
>>
>>>  On 17/09/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>  In essence, we have written a set of policies that fail to reflect
>>>>  how we do work, should work, or could possibly work. And, due to the
>>>>  frighteningly large number of contributors who, given a piece of bad
>>>>  policy, will follow it rigidly without thinking about it, this is a
>>>>  solidly dangerous thing. (Something to remember: IAR is our most
>>>>  ignored rule.)
>>>
>>>  I have to disagree with you on the IAR point - I just clicked on the
>>>  "random article" button five times, and not one of the resulting
>>>  articles had a single source.  I think that our problem may be that,
>>>  because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
>>>  bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
>>>  order to achieve more...
>>
>>  It should be noted what IAR means, though. The heart of IAR is that
>>  the rules are not and cannot be a substitute for actually thinking.
>>  Carelessly leaving out sources is not following IAR. Citing J.
>>  Michael Straczynski's web posts in a Babylon 5 article because you
>>  know they're reliable no matter what [[WP:RS]] says is following IAR.
>>
>>  Put another way, following policy for policy's sake violates IAR.
>
>There's an interesting parallel to IAR in the New Testament.
>Jesus complains that they are just parroting prayers without
>really thinking about what they mean, and says they should
>make up a relevant prayer each time. They ask him for an
>example of what such a prayer would be like.
>
>He gives them the Lord's prayer.
>

Exactly when was this story written down?

And by whom?

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
George Herbert wrote:

> All fields work by consensus.  Grant committees, journal editors and
> reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.

Well, either Wikipedia or you are wrong. Make your choice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus#Examples_of_non-consensus

Kim
--
http://www.kimvdlinde.com


from_name: Steve

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Creation Of Wikimedia Batch Accounts and Athentication
	For External Links

body:
Evening All,

I was put in charge of administering a wikimedia site, and I'm still a bit new
to all of it's functionality. Here are my two questions:

1)I need a way to create 50 accounts quickly. In other words to Batch create
accounts. All the permissions are the same. So, in my attempts I made this
script: (changed the names of host user and dbpass for security in the real
script the match) similar to:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2005-October/007558.html

The problem with this script is that the accounts get created but it seems that
that the passwords are not. So I'll have accounts a, b, c, but the password
fields are left blank for some reason. I tried checking the passwords an the
back end but they are salted for security. Why is this happening? Or is there an
easier way to batch create accounts?

2) I have a wiki and in this wiki some of the pages can be viewed without login
in and the rest you need to be logged in. Now say that I want to have a link
from my other website into my wiki?s password protected section. Is there a way
that I could authenticate myself  without  using the wiki?s login page, -say
maybe pass the credentials in the header? Any other suggestions?

Steve


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 9:55 PM, Kim van der Linde wrote:

>
> The New York times is a primary source, an encyclopaedia is a
> tertiary source.

Erm, no, the NYT would be a secondary source.

> Tertiary sources should be much more reliable than
> primary.

This is true only insofar as you decide to equate the purposes of the
two, which seems silly.

> The way you approach Wikipedia is more as if it was a primary
> source.
>

No... (And certainly Liu's policy doesn't do this.)
> You went from claiming that Wikipedia was reliable to saying that
> everything is unreliable.

Again, no, I didn't. I argued against the notion of some magic
reliability that can be taken uncritically. If you are trying to
direct your students to sources that require no thought and critical
evaluation, you're fighting a doomed battle. If you're trying to
teach your students how to use sources, Wikipedia is both good enough
to use and good enough to be worth teaching.

> So, the issue we talk about is the degree of
> unreliability, and my contention is that Wikipedia for a tertiary
> source
> is to unreliable to be used as a source for research.

I'm not sure what sort of research you're talking about here. At
least in my world, no research-based project on an undergraduate
level or above should be relying on tertiary sources at all.

> Wikipedia
> unfortunately is often a primary source, with articles that are not
> more
> than a first year essay on a topic.

Examples?

-Phil


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into PNG on MediaWiki
	1.7.1

body:
I have been working on this problem for a few weeks, and I am not able
to get the rasterization of inline conversion of SVG into PNG to work
properly with rsvg.  ANy help on setup instructions for this would be
appreciated.

Thanks

Jeff


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Inline rendering of SVG images into PNG on
 MediaWiki 1.7.1

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>I have been working on this problem for a few weeks, and I am not able
>to get the rasterization of inline conversion of SVG into PNG to work
>properly with rsvg.  ANy help on setup instructions for this would be
>appreciated.
>
>Thanks
>
>Jeff
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
And if its just plain broken, someone let me know this fact.

Jeff


subject:
[Wikitech-l] importDump.php spews "TEX divps" messaes out of its
	tailpipe in 1.7.1

body:
The importing of the 20060911 XML dumps produces a lot of garbage in the
output of importDump.php in MediaWiki 1.7.1
(in additional to running about 50 times slower that 1.6.8 during import
of XML dumps 1.6.8 avg is 56 pages/second, 1.7.1 is .8 pages/second):

100 (1.2361754306537 pages/sec 1.2361754306537 revs/sec)
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2322' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmmi12.pfb><cmr12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2322' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmsy10.pfb><cmr8.pfb><cmex10.pfb><cmmi8.pfb>
<cmmi12.pfb><cmr12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2322' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmr12.pfb><cmr8.pfb><cmmi12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2322' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmr12.pfb><cmr8.pfb><cmmi12.pfb>[1]
200 (0.86948243858959 pages/sec 0.86948243858959 revs/sec)
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2324' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmr12.pfb><cmmi12.pfb>[1]
300 (0.77232476934321 pages/sec 0.77232476934321 revs/sec)
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2325' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmmi12.pfb><cmr12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2325' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmmi12.pfb><cmr12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2326' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmsy10.pfb><cmr12.pfb><cmmi12.pfb>[1]
This is dvips(k) 5.95a Copyright 2005 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)
' TeX output 2006.09.17:2326' ->
<tex.pro><texps.pro>. <cmsy10.pfb><cmr12.pfb><cmmi12.pfb>[1]
400 (0.80568079080928 pages/sec 0.80568079080928 revs/sec)

Jeff


body:
On 9/17/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> And how should the Foundation ensure the election for
> these delegates are handled in the proper manner?
> Would the delegates be issused by langage or
> community?  How would you define a language?  Or else,
> How would this affect requests for new language
> creations for projects?  Would all communities have
> the exact same sufferage requirements or could they
> come to their own consensus?  Who would verify and
> enforce any rules the Foundation requires for these
> elections?  Would people then be allowed to vote for
> several delegates if they meet the sufferage
> requirements of several communities?

All of these are good questions.  All of them can, and should, be
answered, but not in the space of a single email message.

> I think this
> proposal is quite beyond the capability of this
> organzation.

That's a very disappointing statement.  Why do you believe that?  More
importantly, what do you think needs to be changed so as to not make
it beyond the capability of this organization?

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] Sanger's first post to Citizendium-l

body:
Kat,

This guy is crazier than I am (hard to believe). He is attempting to
trade on Wikimedia's goodwill to
create publicity. This could get very down and dirty. Best thing is to
restrict discussions to the chat rooms
to avoid leaving trails of bread crumbs for him to read on this list.
That's his intent, to create controversy
and generate publicity. Be assured, he may start airing dirty laundry in
public if momentun is not
forthcoming.

I would give some humble advice to deprive him of the forum to do so
(unless he wants to visit the chat room).

:-)

Jeff

Kat Walsh wrote:

>Sanger has made his first post to the Citizendium list:
>
>https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2006-September/000000.html
>
>Select quotes and a bit of commentary:
>
>"I have a suggestion from someone very high up in the Creative Commons
>organization that we should dual-license (CC and GFDL), which I simply
>hadn't thought of.  I'm inclined to think it's a good idea."
>
>I'd like to know how that would be compatible with working from
>Wikipedia content.
>
>"Speaking of naysayers, sure there have been a few on the blogosphere,
>but what was especially striking to me is that Wikimedia's lawyer and
>chief engineer both have said nothing but encouraging things to us.
>How wonderfully refreshing of them!  And huge numbers of people on
>Slashdot and elsewhere have come out saying that this is a good idea,
>and that we have every right to do it."
>
>Well, of course! That's what the "free content" bit is for, and I'm
>interested in seeing how well this one works. I'd actually like to see
>more projects coming from people who want to differ on some
>fundamental point; Wikinfo is perhaps the best go at this so far.
>
>"Personally, "Citizendium" rolls right off my tongue."
>
>OK, that part I find hard to believe. :-)
>
>-Kat
>
>
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Verifiability: Constitution?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>I am frankly disappointed whenever people want to
>support their arguments by asking for the help of Jimmy Wales or the
>Wikimedia Board. This suggests to me that their arguments are either
>wrong, or that they have not spent the effort to make them clear and
>understandable.
>
>
I too am disappointed by those requests, but I would draw a more
sinister conclusion.  It may have more to do with people being unwilling
to accept responsibility for their own actions.  In the [[Milgram
experiment]] the subjects would often turn to the experimenter for
confirmation that they were doing the right thing when the voltage
administered to the "learner" for wrong answers seemed too high.  If the
experimenter indicated that he would take responsibility for anything
that might go wrong with the experiment, the subject became willing to
administer potentially fatal voltages in response to wrong answers.

Authority, even benign authority,  is antithetical to freedom of
thought, and without free thought there can be neither free speech or
free action.  When Jimbo's opinion is sought an appeal to authority is
made.  When he answers it diminishes the freedom of the project.  It
doesn't matter if his answer is perfectly sensible and logical; it is
enough that it builds a pattern of authority and diminishes the
questioner's acceptance of responsibility.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Expert editors

body:
Kim van der Linde wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
>
>
>> All fields work by consensus.  Grant committees, journal editors and
>> reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.
>>
>
> Well, either Wikipedia or you are wrong. Make your choice:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus#Examples_of_non-consensus
>

The peer review article points out that this varies by journal and
field.  In computer science, for example, the process typically *is*
consensus driven: Reviewers write reviews; authors can write short
rebuttals; and the reviewers then discuss among themselves to reach a
decision.

In other fields the final decision is made solely by the editor, so it's
more of a degenerate case of consensus-of-one.

-Mark


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libertarian spam

body:
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 10:15:33 PM, Delirium wrote:

D> stvrtg wrote:
>> As everyone knows, Libertarianism is just the kind of wishy-washy
>> non-philosophy that poses the greatest threat of giving birth to some new
>> quasi-intellectual incarnation of tacky backwater-class totalitarianism
>> disguised as futuristic and innovative societal reform.
>>

D> I'm sorry, but POV warriors aren't welcome on the Wikipedia project.

D> I do think sidebars should be generally used much less frequently than
D> they are, but some sort of feverish political crusade isn't the right
D> way to do it.

I say that sidebars should be used only on the articles actually listed
in that sidebar. Putting a generic template in a specific topic is not very
helpful for navigation, it would be better to try making some more specific
templates or simply let it without any templates.


from_name: Ligulem

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates broken?

body:
Steve Summit wrote:
> To be clear: it's not displaying the expanded templates, or even
> the unexpanded templates.  It's just displaying the strings
> "Template:Otheruses" and "Template:Main", as if someone had typed
> [[Template:Otheruses]] and [[Template:Main]].  But the source
> does say {{otheruses}} and {{Main|Fur clothing}} as it should,
> and I can't see what would be turning template expansion off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur looks fine for me.

The error report smacks like the new template limits for me
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_limits)

IIRC, if a limit is hit, the name of the template is displayed and not
transcluded any more.

But [[Fur]] and its templates are far away from any such limit. The html
of [[Fur]] contains:

<!--
Pre-expand include size: 2772 bytes
Post-expand include size: 717 bytes
Template argument size: 142 bytes
Maximum: 2048000 bytes
-->

--Ligulem


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-09-18

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Template infinite loop... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


body:
Bogdan Giusca wrote:

>The current naming policy for less-known placenames (those with no
>name in English) is to use the spelling in the language of the country
>where the place is located.
>
>Now there's a problem with unrecognized countries: i.e. countries
>which declared their independence, but which are not recognized internationally.
>
>I have an example in Transnistria:
>
>The town of Malaiesti (population ~5000) is officially in Moldova, but
>practically, it is under Transnistrian control.
>
>Which spelling should be used for its article name? The Romanian/Moldovan spelling
>(Malaiesti) or the Russian speling (Malayeshty)?
>
The fact that Moldovan is already written with the Roman alphabet is a
strong argument in its favour.  A Russian form still needs to be
transliterated from the Cyrillic.  Legally, Transnistria is a part of
Romania, and it should not be up to us to decide whether it should be an
independent country.

Ec


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

body:
On 9/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> > Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
> > to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
> > articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
> > rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
> > on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
> > flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
>
> If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine
> expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the
> social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of
> whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
>
> We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts.  We
> have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the
> trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from
> time to time.  But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does
> not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than
> wasting time arguing with idiots.

Yes, this is unfortunatly very true.

That is why I think we should look at this as an opportunity, since
Sanger is going to use an open license (I'm assuming, since he is
going to import from wikipedia, the GFDL forces him to) this could be
a great source for wikipedia articles. The experts are left in peace
to develop their articles, and the wikipedians will fight the battles
over our content.

If he really does deliver on what he says he will, I see no reason to
consider Citizendium the competition, we should consider them
partners!

--Oskar


references:
<ee8j29$lsv$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<45080D9F.8000701@pobox.com>	<eebmfo$t74$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<200609141637.53928@bloodgate.com>	<eebtcs$q1p$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<45099FF8.7080507@tonal.clara.co.uk>	<eej6es$ks2$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0609171150o780d7368pfe38c5cc1a6e20ec@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 9/17/06, Ligulem <ligulem at pobox.com> wrote:
>> sake of syntax (ad-hoc rule: "No syntactic sugar templates"? ;-), which
>> in this case I feel is a suboptimal idea as there aren't any editorial
>> display format decisions to isolate (There is no "moving target" about
>> the question how to display a date from an editorial viewpoint. There
>> are just culture/language dependent display formats to choose from.)
>
> How so? I'm not really sure why I seem to keep being told that my
> preferred date format is "9 July 2004". Personally, "9th of July,
> 2004" would be better. Nor am I convinced that editorial judgment
> never comes into this.

I think we are completely out of sync here.

The idea I had was that <date>2006-09-18</date> would for example be
displayed as "September 18, 2006" on en.wikipedia.org *as defined by a
per wiki setting* (an editable page in MediaWiki namespace?). An admin
on en could change that to "18 September 2006" or whatever that wiki
wants it (Duh, that would invalidate the cache of all pages. Smells like
being the killer of that idea... :( ).

Users with a login could override that setting and use their personal
date display from the list shown in their preferences. As we have it now
(but only for the dates displayed

If editors on an article don't want to use the site wide display format
for dates, then they can simply write the date as they do it today.

Ok. I think I had some interesting feedbacks on this now. Thanks
everybody for reading and commenting. Seems really to be the best thing
not to mess with the date display for anons.

--Ligulem


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

Brion,

Hope things are going well, Please delete my last post on this thread
from the archives if possible. Kat and I have taken the discussions off
list. I was
attempting to just respond to Kat OFFLIST and for some reason this
posting ended up on the list.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/010065.html

Love Ya,

Thanks

Jeff


subject:
[Foundation-l] Cherokee Language Machine Translations 20060911
 Posted to Meta Machine Translation Project

body:
Cherokee Language translations posted to links at:

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

This run is against enwiki-20060911 XML dumps.

Jeff