from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Projects linking

body:
Hi G?rard.

I disagree with you on one point.

You say "The fact that dictionary information has no place in Wikipedia is also an established and respected fact."

It is not as true as you seem to imply. It is roughly what is done, but it is not so widely established.
I think this might be a very cultural issue :-) The french wikipedia long hesitated, and I would say some users
still consider the encyclopedia and the dictionary content may be available in one common place.
I have personnaly no problem with an encyclopedic article containing some dictionary content, and when I see some
I certainly do not remove it.
However, I recognise that some dictionary articles have no encyclopedic content, so are not so welcome
in the encyclopedia. Hence, it is best that there is a dictionnary :-)

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

For the other issues you mention, I strongly agree we have a serious problem of communication between projects.
I do not mean human communication (though...) but just plain communication between information.

Within the dictionary, there is no possibility to access automatically and directly to the same article in other languages.
Within wikipedia, there is no possibility to access automatically and directly to wiktionnary.
Within wikipedia, there is no possibility to access automatically and directly to wikibooks (this would be especially useful for wikibooks).
Etc...

We patch the best we can by putting links between our projects as external links, as if each project was independant, while it should NOT be independant, but an interconnected network. This is exactly what I was saying about food and recipees just 3 days ago, we are here not only to create information, but also to make it available. Information stored, but not available proeminently within a couple of click is LOST. It may exist somewhere, but it is of little use.

And I find extremely miserable that some of us try to put links to interconnect projects, while others are busy deleting those links (typical example are recipees being transwikies, then links to recipees being removed).

Consider the fugu.

Dictionnary :
The fugu is as a poisonous fish, being used as food, especially in Japan, after poisonous organs have been removed.
Add pronounciation.
* Link to translations in other languages (other wiktionaries)
* Link to recipee of fugu (link to wikibooks)
* Link to biological, environnemental and cultural background (link to encyclopedia)

Wikipedia :
Full article about the fish itself. Background on fugu cultural weight. Who died eating it. Who are the most famous chef preparing fugu. Decoration. Delicacy etc...
* Link to other articles in other languages for more information (other wikipedias)
* Link to have pronounciation and exact writing in japanese (link to wiktionnary)
* Link to recipees (link to wikibooks)
* Link for more biological information (link to Wikispecies)
* Link to wikinews (last minute : Bush mistakenly poisonned in a japanese restaurant ! )

Wikibooks :
List of recipees and pictures
* Link to short descriptive of the fish (wiktionnary)
* Link to biological, environnemental and cultural background (Wikipedia)
* Link to movie showing how big chef prepare the fish (Wikicommons)

Etc...

Contrary to languages, I presume one article in one project should only lead to one article in another project.
So, on top of all international links, for each article of each project, there should be the possibility to link to an "sister article" in any other project we have.
A nice way to do this would be to add to the tool bar (well, say, the area where interlanguage links are displayed), a little icon of the sister project. The click on the icon would lead to the appropriate page.

Then the wikipedia article on Fugu would display
*all international links, plus
*a little book icon (to represent wiktionary),
*plus a little pan (to represent wikibooks)
*plus a little bee (to represent wikispecies) (or whatever icons)

It would look good, using small graphics would help readers identify links for navigation from toolbar links, and it would be much useful.

It was several time discussed that international links had nothing to do in the body of the article. Nor should categories. Nor should probably interproject links.

What about then working on a new special area, which would provide a sort of form, with
Wiktionary : "empty space to put the name of the article in wiktionary"
Wikibooks : "empty space to put the name of the article in wikibooks"
Wikispecies : "empty space to put the name of the article in wikispecies"
And an area for all the internlinks ?

No ?

Anthere

Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at myrealbox.com> wrote:
Hoi,
There is an acrimonious discussion on nl:wikipedia. This has to do with
some people who consider wiktionary to be external to wikipedia and,
they consider the information that a dictionary supplies to be of no
additional value to wikipedia.

I want to diffuse this situation and I need the help from the
developpers for that. The content of other wikipedia's can be found by
clicking on the left hand side under "in other languages". I would like
a method that allows us to link to the wiktionary article in that
general area.

*This will remove any standard references to wiktionary from the
wikipedia article itself.
*The content of a sister article in another wikipedia should
(theoretically) not add information to a wikipedia article as, it should
only present the information in another language. As the referal to
other wikipedia's is an established fact, the inclusion in that space of
wiktionary information should not be a problem as wiktionary DOES add
relevant information to the wikipedia article (translations, etymology,
pronounciation etc)
* Technically, the link requires a parameter as some wiktionaries do not
have first character capitalisation.

The link from Wiktionary to Wikipedia is not a problem; here it is
accepted that encyclopedic information should find its way in Wikipedia.
The fact that dictionary information has no place in Wikipedia is also
an established and respected fact.

Thanks,
GerardM

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Cool wiki tool

body:
Sheldon-
> Here's a very cool wiki tool that adds structure to unstructured Wiki
> pages. It would be interesting to see if this approach could be
> integrated with the category system now implemented on MediaWiki.

See my Wikidata proposal:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata

Thanks to the ongoing schema work by Brion and others, it will be
reasonably straight-forward to treat every wiki page as a set of wikidata
name/value/type triples, and to define the allowed/required triples,
relations and input form layout on a per-namespace basis.

Stuff I didn't see in the Jot demo:
- data relations (so that the available selections in one form come from
the content of another table, for example)
- element or page histories and diffs
- recent changes of forms
- details on the form syntax, which looked rather convoluted (but they
want to do a visual form designer)
- namespaces were mentioned, not sure about the implementation
- internationalization; I doubt they have put much effort into it, for us
it is crucial: Which parts of a form can be internationalized, which parts
*must* be internationalized, and which ones never have to be?

What else is there in Jot?

Scripting: They have some simple XML-based application development
language. I think the template syntax will develop into that direction.

Interfaces with proprietary databases: not of immediate usefulness to us.

Attachments: I dislike the concept of attachments in wikis, but
simplifying link-collections to external files may be desirable. They also
have auto-indexing, probably including Word files and the like - important
in a business context, not so important for us.

E-mail to wiki gateway: Is part of the advanced LiquidThreads gateway
ideas. Only really makes sense for discussions, in my opinion.

WYSIWYG: Easy to do if you break wikitext editability, hard to do if you
want to maintain both. Not sure if they have tried to solve the hard
problem - if so, maybe something worth looking into. Otherwise not.

Anything else? I've applied for a beta just in case. Can someone do a
patent search on this stuff?

Regards,

Erik


list: foundation-l

from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Losing valuable contributors--some thoughts

body:
Hello

With several prominent editors (Adam, Zero, and Viajero) declaring their
intention to cut back their edits, quite a few thoughts spring to mind. I want to
share them:

1. This is a great loss. In their own way, each of these people contributed
significantly to Wikipedia, and really helped improve the quality of articles,
especially in controversial areas.
2. I can understand their frustration. I myself have stopped editing most of
the articles in which my professional expertise lies quite a long time ago. It
can be annoying to argue with people who are not as invested in subject
matter as we, who have devoted a large part of our professional and personal lives
to, are.
3. In the end, no one is irreplaceable. People come and go. It is the nature
of the Internet and of life. I say this with the deepest respect to the above
contributors, and in the sincere hope that they will reconsider their
decisions in some way or another.
4. The points they raise are real, and should be addressed.
5. It is inevitable that there will be controversy over the articles they
write. There is such heated controversy over them in real life. I laud their
efforts to dive into the fray (Zero and Viajero on the Middle East question; Adam
on a broad range of topics)
6. One person's NPOV is another person's bias.
7. Many newcomers, who will shoot down the compromise materials and reopen
old wounds, are totally unaware of the hours that went into forging an
acceptable compromise.
8. Some people, unfortunately, are here for the sole purpose of pushing their
POV, whether this is known to them or not.
9. The solutions that we developed to these kinds of problems when Wikipedia
was smaller may not be effective at our current size.
10. Nevertheless, people have recognized that the problems they point to are
inherent in the system from quite a while ago.
11. Resolving these issues is vital if we are to really grow--they are
certainly questions that potential funders will ask.
12. Lots of creative suggestions have already been made. See for example,
[[Article validation]] on meta for some ideas.

All that said, I urge Adam, Zero, and Viajero to rethink their decisions. I
also ask them to contribute more actively to the discussion about validation
that is taking place on meta, so as to help us find a solution to their concerns
that is both viable and in keeping with Wikipedia's renown for openness.
Flagging peer-approved versions may be one such option, but there are certainly
others.

Until a method is reached, I urge you to continue contributing to your other
areas of expertise: Adam--Australian and ancient history; Zero--mathematics;
Viajero--opera. At the same time, I also urge you to participate in more
intense discussion of validation options, reform of arbitration procedures, and
creative handling of rogue users. These should help to reduce the issues you
raise.

I am posting this to Foundation as well, because I think that many of the
issues you raise apply to other projects, and not just English.

Danny


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Losing valuable contributors--some thoughts


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV Pushers (was: The "months later" effect)

body:
Mark wrote about:

"POV pushers who don't actually violate any of our rules, or even good
contributors who are very biased and very motivated on one particular
issue, are a major problem.  The neutral arbiters tend to be people
without a personal stake in the subject, and it's hard for any of them
to match the time commitment and passion that the POV pushers bring to
the editing process."

He's right as usual: Highly motivated, biased contributors are the
problem. (Sometimes I have been in this group -- sorry!)

The key point bears repeating:

* The neutral arbiters tend to be people without a personal stake in the
subject.

That's why, so many times, I've been able to mediate certain conflicts.
I really didn't care one way or another -- whether out of ignorance, or
whatever -- what the article SAID; I just wanted to get both sides to be
able to come to a mutually satisfying agreement.

Every mediation I've taken on has succeeded. My unbroken record of
success comes, however, not from talent or wisdom or "mysterious occult
powers", but from regarding one simple principle that Mark pointed out.
You can't mediate if you have an "interest" in the outcome. You must be
what judges and lawyers call a "disinterested" party. (not
'uninterested', which means you're bored by it!)

Gary D. (at [[Prem Rawat]]) and many others have done the same -- and
usually much more smoothly and politely than me, of course!

We need mediators who can stand ABOVE the controversy and
dispassionately describe all the reported facts, and all the advocated
points of view. That means I can't help [[global warming]] or [[asbestos
abatement]] or the use of [[DDT]] in preventing malaria. (Like, I won't
go to a dinner party if I know Molly has been invited, because she
always brings up gun control and we always have a big, disruptive debate
about this: no matter how many times I promise my wife that I'll be
"calm, fair, decent", etc. If I can't control myself in that situation,
I just have to stay out of that situation.)

Okay, now, we all agree on the problem. But what is the solution?

Issue #1: Can we mark an article version as a sort of milestone? Shall
we give users and search engines the milestone version as a default? Or
at least as an opt-in preference?

Issue #2: Can we exclude certain users from editing certain articles?
(How about starting on a small scale as an experiment: let admins "ban"
NON-SIGNED-IN contributors, i.e., IP's, on a per-article basis -- and
see how this works out. The [[Prem Rawat]] series would benefit.)

The wikiwiki idea is brilliant, and my hat's off to man who invented it.
But any invention can be improved upon. I call upon Geoffrey, Mav, Fred,
Rebecca, Elian, Jay, Mark, Erik and the whole gang:

Let's put our heads together and come up with an idea. Then let's try it
out. If it doesn't work, we can try something else.

Ed Poor


from_name: Mike Halterman

subject: [WikiEN-l] User talk:Cheung1303

body:
I had a friend named Cheung in high school. I'm almost 100% sure it's Chinese and not Korean.

"Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:Cheung sounds like Korean. Should I try? Or maybe we could ask that
contributor who writes about [[Korean language]] topics (I forget the
name right now).

Ed

> -----Original Message-----
> From: KNOTT, T [mailto:tknott at qcl.org.uk]
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 6:38 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] User talk:Cheung1303
>
>
> It has just occurred to me that the reason this user keeps
> ignoring please for copyright info on the various pictures
> he's uploaded is because he doesn't understand them. He has
> contributed articles in English but his grasp of the language
> might not be good enough to understand what we require. I
> don't know what country he is posting from (perhaps someone
> with a knowledge of buses can tell?) but even if I did I
> don't know any Asian languages anyway) Can someone else give
> it a go please? He doesn't look like a vandal, I don't think
> blocking him is a good option, but unless he is willing to
> communicate with someone I don't see any other option.
>
> Theresa
>
>
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Loosing more of our best contributors

body:
zero-

> If viewed as a whole, Wikipedia is one of the truly
> great web projects and its success cannot be questioned.
> However, the model by which Wikipedia operates has its
> limits and for some things it doesn't work.  One of the
> things it cannot do is to make high quality articles on
> controversial topics.

We definitely have problems in this area. My current thinking, briefly
summarized:

1) Be very inclusive. NPOV can only work if everyone gets a fair chance to
have their point of view included in an article (even if not the main
article).

2) Center discussions around issues rather than people. Conduct systematic
peer review in different categories for every article. Highlight
unsourced/unattributed claims in the article.

3) Facilitate forking. It should be easy to create and maintain forks of
controversial articles written from a specific group's point of views -
not necessarily within the Wikimedia framework, but outside of it. Others
can then take Wikipedia, Wikinews or Wikibooks entries and develop them
according to their respective belief systems.

4) Eliminate edit wars. The most obvious solution seems to be a "Ban to
talk page" feature that does not protect the whole page, but only forces
the users involved in an edit war to discuss the issue.

5) Faster response when people violate the rules, by randomly selected
trusted user committees or something similar. Milder, but quicker
punishments. Less talk, more action.

2)-5) require changes to the software. Have patience, they will come. Some
related proposals and documents are on Meta, particularly LiquidThreads
and Wikiflow.

In the meantime, my advice is to either keep stirring, or to bookmark the
last revision of the page which you find acceptable and wait for things to
improve.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Open Mapping

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>> PS - the whole idea of copyrights on spatial data seem to be absurd
>> to me; how
>> could anybody claim to *own* any exact digital reproduction of the
>> street
>> network for Paris or the exact location and shape of the Zaire River?
>> And yet
>> this type of thing is *very* common in the GIS world (but I also
>> think it is
>> absurd for people to copyright *natural* DNA sequences and patent their
>> *natural* products ; I guess I'm weird that way). Argh!
>
> While I basically agree with both notions, I can see that someone
> investing money in getting to Zaire and taking precise measurements,
> or in sequencing some DNA and determining what it does (broadly
> speaking), should get something in return. If the question is no
> information vs. information to pay for, the latter is preferable,
> IMHO. But, patents are likely the wrong way, and Wikipedians traveling
> to Zaire and taking down coordinates would certainly be best :-)

It seems to me that before we get people into the Zaire jungles taking
measurements we should probably take full advantage of available aerial
photographs. :-)

Ec


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The "months later" effect

body:
Mirko Thiessen wrote

> If you reached general
> agreement about a version then there should be a fast process of
> barring a new generation of POV pushers from tearing all the success
> down. It is not reasonable that we should go through the painfully
> long processes of mediation and arbitration again and again while
> these new POV pushers have time enough to undo all the progress in an
> article.

Well, I don't like this.  My experience in the mathematics side is that you
get actual experts, of whom there are not so many, coming along indeed
months after pages are first worked on.  And that's what I'd like to see.

Please, can we not reason from the worst-case behaviour of the system?
Taking anecdotal evidence as decisive, rather than trying to define the
scale of admitted problems, is unworthy of the project.  Systems that lock
up pages can be useful (PlanetMath for mathematics, for example); but that
is not what WP does well.

Charlrs


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
This is one remedy the arbitration committee has been applying to dedicated
POV warriors. Not always, it is not policy itself, just a way to deal with
determined violaters of NPOV and other policies. But it could be policy.
However it may prove difficult to separate editors who insist on the
integrity of the article, like Adam Carr, from editors who insist on a
biased article.

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 07:47:14 -0700
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] POV Pushers (was: The "months later" effect)
>
> Issue #2: Can we exclude certain users from editing certain articles?
> (How about starting on a small scale as an experiment: let admins "ban"
> NON-SIGNED-IN contributors, i.e., IP's, on a per-article basis -- and
> see how this works out. The [[Prem Rawat]] series would benefit.)


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Methodology for handling alternate ways of writing
	in wiktionary

body:
Hoi,
I have just posted the methodology of handling alternate ways of writing
in Wiktionary on Meta
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternate_writing_in_Wiktionary. This
method is, as used on the nl:wiktionary and it follows a previous post
on this mailing list where I asked for comments on this subject.

This method handles both the descriptions of alternate spellings (colour
vs color) as alternate spellings and the different usage of
charactersets (eg simplified and traditional Chinese)..

As always I am happy to receive your comments as these allow for the
improvement of the methodology. One recent change implemented for
instance is the use of categories to indicate words in a language. As
almost all words have been touched by a database change recently, the
categories that are populated from the language templates, will show
their content. (Currently there are 375 Dutch words and 185 English
words on a total of 5414 articles). 125 more to go to reach the 500 mark
for Dutch words :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Henry H. Tan-Tenn

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Switching Wiki-based and LanguageCs.php-based
	translations

body:
Tim Starling ti 2004/10/10 EP 11:26 sia-kong:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> This intermittent problem has been around much longer than tugela has
>> existed, hasn't it? Probably the same issue under memcached.
>>
>
> It seems to be more frequent now. The key expires after 24 hours (I
> thought it was a week, did someone change it?), and you'd expect to see
> the message cache stop working for a few seconds each time it expires. I
> always assumed it was just this problem. But we've had a sudden increase
> in the number of reports, and the problem persists for longer than a few
> seconds. Not exactly conclusive, it would be nice to have a theory about
> why this happens.

I can confirm an increase in incidence in the last 3~4 days.  This is
quite obvious in zh-min-nan:, whose interface has periodically reverted
to the default English (possibly causing problems for editors less
familiar with that language).


from_name: Mirko Thiessen

body:
Elian wrote:

> NPOV policy should be: "authors should write from a neutral point of view."

> Of course, that's an ideal. You can never completely leave your personal
> views aside. But the important is: you can try. People who openly work
> for pushing POV in an article, shouldn't be allowed to edit that article
> at all. NPOV policy is not about "I insert my propaganda into an article
> and let others do the tedious taks of neutralizing it", it's "do your
> best to write from a neutral point of view. And if you are unable to do
> so, leave the article alone". And this policy should be enforced by the
> community.

I support Elian's idea. And I concur with the conclusions Rebecca made in
an earlier posting. I decided myself to leave the English Wikipedia
one year ago
after getting tired of fighting POV vandals for months. Their names
changed but their ways remained the same. I had great hope when the
arbitration committee was founded but soon I felt that this committee
is not an adequate measure for the problem.

If you reached general
agreement about a version then there should be a fast process of
barring a new generation of POV pushers from tearing all the success
down. It is not reasonable that we should go through the painfully
long processes of mediation and arbitration again and again while
these new POV pushers have time enough to undo all the progress in an
article.

I regard Adam Carr as one of the best editors Wikipedia ever had in
the history sector. With the current system you can only hope that new
NPOV defenders come and go to fight the POV pushers. The main
arguments against a stable version policy appear to be dogmas about
what a wiki should be. At last you need to come to a sort of content
arbitration or locking selected versions from major edits. If not, I
fear that one day the potential NPOV defenders will be used up.

Mirko

--
Mirko Thiessen, aka Baldhur
mailto:baldhur at mirko-thiessen.de


subject: [Foundation-l] Formal request: Wikiversity project

body:
Rebecca wrote:

>I just don't see why it makes any sense to have Wikiversity as part of
>Wikibooks. The two projects would be likely to feed off each other -
>as the development of courses would thus need textbooks, which would
>help Wikibooks.
>
>But they're not one and the same. Wikibooks is about making textbooks.
>Wikiversity would be about learning stuff through organised courses.
>
>It'd be ideal if the faculty system that's already templated out on
>Wikibooks was taken live, because if they then organised themselves,
>they'd have a much better chance of putting together a textbook that
>made any sense. That would then be used as part of a course - and also
>put on Wikibooks, benefiting both communities.
>
When I first spoke of a Wikiversity more than a year ago, I don't know
if it was original but it was certainly independent, I included a smiley
face.

If the "Idea of a Wikiversity" (to paraphrase Cardinal Newman) were to
proceed to fruition there would be nothing wrong with taking the first
steps under the umbrela of Wikibooks.  To have a Wikiversity we would
need to be able to provide a broad range of material which together
would allow us to offer a completion certificate of some kind.  I
hesitate to use the term "degree".

A qualifying programme must include a wide selection of individual
courses that will include more than courses that are limited to a narrow
specialty.  What would we want as our parallel to a "general B. A." or
"general B. Sc."?  What must those programmes include?  If we can get to
the point where all the elements of these two programmes are in place
then maybe we will be ready to migrate from Wikibooks to Wikiversity.

A Wikiversity should be more than a collection of textbooks.  In any
given course a textbook helps to give coherence to the course.  In some
areas, such as beginning calculus, it will be essential.  But even there
some consideration needs to be given to questions about how people
learn, and how do we provide individual help to the student when that is
needed?  How are we able to determine that a student has completed the
required work?  What can we do to provide a learning experience that is
superior to what may be found in a traditional university?

A Wikiversity would bring learning available to a greater population
than what the universities have been able to do.  It's one logical
extension to Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if we can pull it off.

Ec


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
> I have just posted the methodology of handling alternate ways of
> writing in Wiktionary on Meta
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternate_writing_in_Wiktionary. This
> method is, as used on the nl:wiktionary and it follows a previous post
> on this mailing list where I asked for comments on this subject.

I had a look at nl.witktionary.org and yes: this is the way to go. I'll
add the codes to my language list.

>
> This method handles both the descriptions of alternate spellings
> (colour vs color) as alternate spellings and the different usage of
> charactersets (eg simplified and traditional Chinese)..
>
> As always I am happy to receive your comments as these allow for the
> improvement of the methodology. One recent change implemented for
> instance is the use of categories to indicate words in a language. As
> almost all words have been touched by a database change recently, the
> categories that are populated from the language templates, will show
> their content. (Currently there are 375 Dutch words and 185 English
> words on a total of 5414 articles). 125 more to go to reach the 500
> mark for Dutch words :)

Here you can add the planets in some days - only 10 words, but in quite
many languages ;-)

I am contacting colleagues of mine to complete the list.

Ciao, Sabine

>


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice please

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:

>1) Was I right to block him or did I act too hastily?
>
>
I'd say it's justified.  People can make whatever legal threats they'd
like, but we're under no obligation to provide write access to our
website as a forum for them to do so.

-Mark


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Indicationg consensus (was: Losing more of our
	best contributors)

body:
On 10/11/04 8:48 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> I was deliriously happy to read what Mark wrote below, because it gave
> me an idea:
>
>> the wiki method means that any random POV pusher can come in and
>> mangle the article, which has happened on [[Anti-Zionism]] on
>> numerous occasions.  Unless a group of knowledgeable people are
>> willing to waste their time baby-sitting an article, which usually
>> amounts to revert-wars (since rarely are the additions even
>> remotely helpful), the articles go rapidly downhill, wasting the
>> effort of the people who painstakingly put together a quality
>> article on a contentious subject.
>>
>> I'd have to say I agree with that criticism.  I've wasted some
>> time myself on some of these contentious subjects, only to come
>> back a few months later and find an abysmally horrid article in
>> its place.
>
> I propose that we agree upon a scheme for marking a particular version
> of an article as "the consensus version". And then show this by default
> to new users and to search engines like Google.
>
If we did this, we wouldn't still be Wikipedia.

We would be some weird bastard child of Nupedia.

This would be astoundingly bad.

We'd have cliques of editors forming to game the system (of course, in their
view, they'd just be enforcing an honest perspective of the truth), locking
down articles all over the place.

Every so often there would be extremely negative disputes involving
dimetrically opposed factions who would find it impossible to build comity.

We *should* make it much, much easier for people on the outside to link to a
version of an article they like.

We *should* make some form of atomization general policy. If an article
contains enough to engender honest dispute, it should be broken into more
manageable parts. This *does not* mean breaking off "xx controversy"
articles, which just avoids dealing with the issue.

imho.

tc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice please

body:
On 10/11/04 10:02 AM, "Delirium" <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> KNOTT, T wrote:
>
>> 1) Was I right to block him or did I act too hastily?
>>
>>
> I'd say it's justified.  People can make whatever legal threats they'd
> like, but we're under no obligation to provide write access to our
> website as a forum for them to do so.
>
Threatening users with legal action is just as bad as threatening Wikipedia.
Worse, really.

Unless you think he was just blowing off steam the (unfortunately) correct
thing to do was to ban him, especially if you first/simultaneously explained
why it's wrong to do so.


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
What exactly is the reason to get a separate wikiversity fot this, and
not make it a sub-project of Wikibooks? What can be done in
Wikiversity that would not be okay in Wikibooks? I am afraid that
splitting off will work negative rather than positive on the
contribution rate.

Andre Engels

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 12:29:18 +1000, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> The idea of creating a Wikiversity to supplement Wikibooks has been in
> the pipeline for a long time. The domain name (www.wikiversity.org)
> has been registered forever and I think there's a sufficient amount of
> support to proceed.
>
> I believe that it would *significantly* help Wikibooks, which  appears
> to be struggling with a low contribution rate.
>
> There's already a structure for the entire site up on Wikibooks. I've
> been meaning to request this forever - I'd really like to see
> Wikiversity get out of beta, and finally go live.
>
> - ambi
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Enforcing NPOV policy (was: The "months later" effect)

body:
Elian wisely wrote:

'Of course, that's an ideal. You can never completely leave your
personal
views aside. But the important [thing] is: you can try. People who
openly work
for pushing POV in an article, shouldn't be allowed to edit that article

at all. NPOV policy is not about "I insert my propaganda into an article

and let others do the tedious task of neutralizing it", it's "do your
best to write from a neutral point of view. And if you are unable to do
so, leave the article alone". And this policy should be enforced by the
community.'

This is the best description I've ever read about the problem of writing
a Wikipedia article on a contentious subject. I want to highlight the
points Elian made:

* You can never completely leave your personal views aside.

We all know this is true. Some of us even abstain from editing "certain
articles", because we KNOW that we can't write neutrally about them. The
desire to be RIGHT takes precedence over the desire to conform to
policy. I generally leave the environmental controversies alone, because
I don't have the necessary detachment: I KNOW that I'm right about
global warming. And I really WISH that I could set aside my personal
feelings, but I just have not been able to. It's puzzling, but I'd be
crazy (or at best, a highly anti-social pest!) to deny the fact that I
just can't write neutrally about global warming. Sigh.

* You can try.

I really love the Unification Church, and it's HARD for me to write
neutrally on it. Somehow, though, I've been able to step back and
appreciate the POV of critics. Maybe because my best friend is the VP
for Public Relations, or maybe because after 27 years in the church I
know it so thoroughly that I don't feel threatened by other POVs. "Oh,
they think that? Ha, ha, how silly! Here, let me explain it to them..."
Anyway, I've been able to pace myself and avoid edit wars by delaying
any reverts for days and weeks at a time.

* People who openly work for pushing POV in an article, shouldn't be
allowed to edit that article at all.

There are people who don't try. And I agree with Elian: just ban them
from that article. The software change is not too hard, and it's
something Jimbo has put his seal of approval on too. I'd like to see a
formal vote on this, if there's enough consensus to put it to a vote.
And if the arbcom bans me from editing [[urban heat island effect]], I
might be a bit disappointed but I will STILL support the idea of
per-article bans. (Of course, I'd like to think that a warning or two
would get my conscience to kick in. ;-)

* NPOV policy is not about "I insert my propaganda into an article and
let others do the tedious task of neutralizing it"

This is the key point!! Articles are not for promoting propaganda. They
are for NEUTRAL DESCRIPTIONS OF POVs. Not, 'the UN is right about this',
or 'Israel is wrong about that' -- but:

=> The UN's point of view is this, and Israel's POV is that.

It looks like a subtle difference, but it's a crucial one: endorsing a
POV vs. describing a POV.

I want to thank Elian for reminding us how hard it is to deal with
personal views. Elian is one of Wikipedia's finest writers. We disagree
diametrically on Middle East topics, but have never had a reversion war,
because Elian SETS A GOOD EXAMPLE FOR ME when it comes to NPOV writing.

I hope we can come to a community consensus on enforcing the Wikipedia's
NPOV policy.

Ed Poor


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> What exactly is the reason to get a separate wikiversity fot this, and
> not make it a sub-project of Wikibooks? What can be done in
> Wikiversity that would not be okay in Wikibooks? I am afraid that
> splitting off will work negative rather than positive on the
> contribution rate.

Wikibooks rather, would be a sub-project of Wikiversity. Finished textbook
editions would be used in Wikiversity courses (all editing toward creating new
textbook editions would still be on Wikibooks).

Just as a university is different from a textbook-writing house, Wikiversity
will be different from Wikibooks (textbooks are only one part of the materials
needed for a course; lesson plans, test question databases, classroom forums,
and other things are needed for online courses). Although, I did a long time
ago suggest expanding the focus of Wikibooks to be Wikiveristy, I am now of the
opinion that the two functions (creating textbooks and creating courses) would
best be separated.

But I am suspending judgment as to if this is the right time to launch
Wikiversity since I'd like to see some more development of the idea and focus
toward improving our repository of textbooks first. We may also, for example,
wish to obtain a grant to develop a few specific courses prior to any launch.
Until then the idea could further be developed on Meta and Wikibooks.

BTW, I own Wikiversity.org and Wikiversity.com and hereby give those domains to
the Foundation.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Open Mapping

body:
--- Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> While I basically agree with both notions, I can see that someone
> investing money in getting to Zaire and taking precise measurements, or
> in sequencing some DNA and determining what it does (broadly speaking),
> should get something in return. If the question is no information vs.
> information to pay for, the latter is preferable, IMHO. But, patents are
> likely the wrong way, and Wikipedians traveling to Zaire and taking down
> coordinates would certainly be best :-)

It also takes effort and money to obtain a photograph of a painting whose
copyright is in the public domain. Yet the resulting photograph is not
protected by copyright.

-- mav

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User talk:Cheung1303

body:
Cheung sounds like Korean. Should I try? Or maybe we could ask that
contributor who writes about [[Korean language]] topics (I forget the
name right now).

Ed

> -----Original Message-----
> From: KNOTT, T [mailto:tknott at qcl.org.uk]
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 6:38 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] User talk:Cheung1303
>
>
> It has just occurred to me that the reason this user keeps
> ignoring please for copyright info on the various pictures
> he's uploaded is because he doesn't understand them. He has
> contributed articles in English but his grasp of the language
> might not be good enough to understand what we require. I
> don't know what country he is posting from (perhaps someone
> with a knowledge of buses can tell?) but even if I did I
> don't know any Asian languages anyway) Can someone else give
> it a go please? He doesn't look like a vandal, I don't think
> blocking him is a good option, but unless he is willing to
> communicate with someone I don't see any other option.
>
> Theresa
>
>


body:
Charles wrote:

> Figures: around 360 articles marked as NPOV disputed, out of
> 360,000 on Wikien.  That's 0.1%.

Can we make "NPOV disputed" into a category flag? That is, don't just
expand the boilerplate text, but let someone click on the NPOV-disputed
category and automatically get an alphabetically-sorted,
automatically-generated list of disputed pages.

Ed Poor


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Indicationg consensus (was: Losing more of our
	bestcontributors)

body:
Rebecca rather ambivalently wrote:

> This would be one solution - and thank you very much for
> proposing one, instead of saying "I don't care if people
> leave, so nyah!"

Well, I think I hold the record for leaving Wikipedia more times than
anyone else. My longest time was 6 weeks.

When Wikipedia was smaller, and what I did or didn't do actually seemed
to have some effect *bowing modestly* I hardly dared announce my
departure, because vandalism always rocketed up immediately (!).

Or I'd get several messages imploring me to come back. Grin: the last
time I quit, only Bcorr even noticed...

But I always think of solutions, because I'm a software engineer:
solving problems is my job.

Ed Poor
Problem-causer or problem-solver? (You decide!)


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Article forks (was Re: Loosing more of our best
	contributors)

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> In the long term it will be desirable to have multiple views on an article
> besides NPOV, whether it's a Wikinews story or a Wikipedia article.
> Duplication can be avoided using powerful diff/merging tools as they are
> already used in the open source development world (darcs, BitKeeper etc.).
> Each view will be managed by a group of people who make their own rules as
> to who else is allowed to add information, with NPOV being the "mother
> view" from which other views can be extracted (as NPOV is the most
> inclusive).

That is moving away from NPOV and creates POV editor groups; both are dangerous
to the project. I don't expect you will get any traction in that direction, so
I won't waste much time on this topic.

But having NPOV articles that described in detail the views of particular
groups of people are fine; they just need to be correctly titled and qualified.
This is just a more focused form of NPOV where less relevant material gets an
appropriate amount of coverage. It is a fallacy to assume that NPOV means we
can only have very general articles (not that I'm saying you ascribe to that
fallacy).

If people want to have a biased instead of an NPOV encyclopedia, then they can
start one any time they wish, but it will not be part of Wikimedia.

-- mav

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from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Petr Kadlec wrote:
> In the recent week, we have experienced random switches between
> wiki-based (MediaWiki:*) and PHP-based message translations on the
> czech Wikipedia. And because the translations in LanguageCs.php are
> quite obsolete, those switches are very visible and unpleasant.
>
> So I have two questions:
> 1. Why do those switches happen? Is it only some transitional problem,
> or is this going to happen regularly in the future?

We're looking into that problem. It's probably an occasional transient
problem with tugelacache, the memcached replacement which was recently
put into production. Approximately 12 hours ago, Domas implemented a
workaround in MediaWiki which should minimise the effect of such errors.
So hopefully you won't notice it anymore.

> 2. What could I do to get the LanguageCs.php updated? Should I just
> send the updated version here? (AFAIK we do not have any developer on
> the cs: wikipedia.) Maybe someone could just get the Special:Allpages
> in PHP format and dump them to the PHP file, as those are the most
> differing entries.

Submit it either here or to meta at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageCs.php

Note that you can obtain most of the interface text in the appropriate
format from:

http://cs.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Speci%C3%A1ln%C3%AD:Allmessages&ot=php

-- Tim Starling


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] User talk:Cheung1303

body:
It has just occurred to me that the reason this user keeps ignoring
please for copyright info on the various pictures he's uploaded is
because he doesn't understand them. He has contributed articles in
English but his grasp of the language might not be good enough to
understand what we require. I don't know what country he is posting from
(perhaps someone with a knowledge of buses can tell?) but even if I did
I don't know any Asian languages anyway) Can someone else give it a go
please? He doesn't look like a vandal, I don't think blocking him is a
good option, but unless he is willing to communicate with someone I
don't see any other option.

Theresa


from_name: Viajero

body:
Hi Zero,

Just saw your message posted via the list. Sorry to hear that you have
given up, but I fully understand; I've also gotten burnt out. I may edit
non-controversial articles again in the future or I may not.

All the best!

V.


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Indymedia and FBI

body:
Hi,

Le Monday 11 October 2004 02:50, Delirium a ?crit :
> In case anyone is still following up to this, it turns out that the
> server seizure was ordered by the Swiss and Italian governments, who
> requested that the FBI carry it out as it was hosted by a
> US-headquartered company (Rackspace). The FBI apparently is bound by a
> legal assistance treaty it has with the two European governments, so
> honored the request.
>
> Unwieldy URL:
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1509&ncid=738&e=6&u=/afp/20
>041008/tc_afp/us_internet_justice

What's disturbing in this story is that this treaty which is made to fight
"international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering" is subverted for
dealing with a political issue. Indymedia might be wrong, but using against
them this kind of treaty made for criminal cases really endangers free speech
and democracy.

How this is different that what the Chinese government does?

> -Mark

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Indymedia and FBI


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice please

body:
Well, *I* would ignore it, but IANAL.  (If you hadn't blocked him, I would have.)

RickK

"KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk> wrote:
Today I blocked a user for making legal threats. See User:Gordy and
Vandalism in progress. Since doing that I have received two emails
threatening to take me to court

"You claim to have banned me for threatening wiki with legal action. at
no time did I do this. I may well have suggested that to personal users,
including yourself, and believe me, I am serious in my threat, so
serious in fact that I already have draft writ produced in the time that
I have waited on you getting back to me."

He goes on to write

"The whole impression that you have created of me is derogatory,
defammatory and extremely distressing. Such actions can be remedied
legally, and believe me, I you continue to push me on this one, you
better have a good lab technicians salary, because I'll take you
personally to the cleaners. Your actions can be addressed by way of writ
for interdiction/ and or damages, because on at least two counts you
have interfered in a matter which I did not believe was any concern of
yours."

And in a separate email he writes:

"Having secured wiki's legal owners, I shall then be compelling them by
order of court to provide me with the full names and addresses of the
individuals who have attacked me on this unbelievable place, whereby I
can raise personal actions against those individuals without harming
wikipedia."

So it's not just me, he intents to sue others as well. There is actually
a lot more but it's mostly just rant.

1) Was I right to block him or did I act too hastily?

2) Should I respond to his email or ignore it?

(3. I've just typed ~~~~ instead of my name does this mean I'm a
wikiaddict?)

Theresa

_______________________________________________
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body:
Delirium wrote

> I don't think we're doubting that there are Wikipedians.  What's doubted
> is that these Wikipedians are, in the current system, producing quality
> articles on controversial topics.

It is not proved, to my satisfaction, that there is any system that really
will produce worthy articles on the core contentious topics.  Which are
basically: the more acrid parts of US politics, the Middle East.

I don't believe that the Oder-Neisse line controversies, which Delirium
referenced, are as bad as they were.  I think the issue of how to deal with
communist history, which appears to have been the last straw for Adam Carr,
is not one that is a daily problem.

Baby and bathwater: I'll take the word of those that look at it all the time
that the Israeli-Palestinian area has suffered some 'balkanisation'.  A
point I have made before is that if you try to write contemporary history,
especially without enough primary materials, you have a self-imposed
problem.

Solutions: I'd be quite happy if the ArbCom did crank up its sanctions for
egregious POV editing, but there is never going to be a shortage of POV
editors until the world changes.  I still like rapid pendulum arbitration
and short-term page protection to take the heat out of edit wars.

Charles


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: The "months later" effect

body:
I'm not so sure that creating a "stable" version is a good idea. We
just need to have more means of dealing with POVpushers. There's *far*
too much tolerance given to people with extremist views and the desire
to push them on the encyclopedia. If I was to create a sockpuppet
tommorrow and attempt to rewrite all the topics in an area to support
my point of view, it'd take *months* to get rid of it, and *months* to
return the articles to any sort of neutral state. This isn't healthy,
and we've seen the sort of articles it results in.

There's no need to sell out the idea of a freely editable article. But
if you can't edit neutrally, after repeated warnings, you shouldn't be
here - and we need an ArbCom that is willing and able to keep the
POVpushers in line.

I believe the "alternate article" problem is something that we may
have to encode in policy, as well. We've seen stuff like [[Occupation
of Palestine]] kept, despite it being a rant piece that duplicated
existing articles. On the other hand, [[Australian left history]]
(duplicating [[Communist Party of Australia]]) was VFDd, which was
something, at least.

Survival of the fittest is not the way to create excellent articles.
There's a reason why we have all of one featured article on American
politics, despite the interest levels, and so few other ones on
contentious topics.

- ambi


body:
The idea of creating a Wikiversity to supplement Wikibooks has been in
the pipeline for a long time. The domain name (www.wikiversity.org)
has been registered forever and I think there's a sufficient amount of
support to proceed.

I believe that it would *significantly* help Wikibooks, which  appears
to be struggling with a low contribution rate.

There's already a structure for the entire site up on Wikibooks. I've
been meaning to request this forever - I'd really like to see
Wikiversity get out of beta, and finally go live.

- ambi


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV Pushers

body:
Adam Carr was banned for personal abuse, not for POV edit warring. In a few
cases we have banned editors entirely from their POV area of interest.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:11:15 +0000
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] POV Pushers
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> This is one remedy the arbitration committee has been applying to dedicated
>> POV warriors. Not always, it is not policy itself, just a way to deal with
>> determined violaters of NPOV and other policies. But it could be policy.
>> However it may prove difficult to separate editors who insist on the
>> integrity of the article, like Adam Carr, from editors who insist on a
>> biased article.
>
>
> His one-day ban was for personal abuse. And it should be noted that he has
> a long history of personal abusiveness, particularly in edit summaries
> (don't take my word for it, check his contributions).
>
> I should note that I often completely agree with his comments along these
> lines. But that doesn't make them the right way to do things, and a record
> of good contributions *still* isn't an excuse for bad and (and this is the
> point) intimidatory behavior.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tolerance of multiple views (was: Article forks)

body:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> > Each view will be managed by a group of people who make
> their own rules as
> > to who else is allowed to add information, with NPOV being
> the "mother
> > view" from which other views can be extracted (as NPOV is the most
> > inclusive).

> Mav replied:
> That is moving away from NPOV and creates POV editor groups;
> both are dangerous to the project. I don't expect you will
> get any traction in that direction, so I won't waste much
> time on this topic.
>
> But having NPOV articles that described in detail the views
> of particular groups of people are fine; they just need to be
> correctly titled and qualified. This is just a more focused
> form of NPOV where less relevant material gets an appropriate
> amount of coverage. It is a fallacy to assume that NPOV means
> we can only have very general articles (not that I'm saying
> you ascribe to that fallacy).

I think it all depends on how much you're willing to tolerate the
expression of multiple points of view:

1. Non-controversial stuff (like gravity makes rocks fall downward, Rome
is in Italy, or Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa)

We all want one well-written, comprehensive article which tells the
objective truth about what the world is like, and what people have done
in it. These rarely have edit war, and the NPOV policy is irrelevant,
because there are no competing versions of reality on these topics.

2. Mildly controversial stuff (like my religion is true, but yours
isn't)

Almost all of us choose to "agree to disagree". We regard religion as a
realm of personal opinion, and even the most ardent believers are tame
enough to soft-pedal it for Wikipedia. Edit wars are rare, but the few
that crop up are blatantly obvious (like [[Prem Rawat]]).

For most of these mild controversies, it's possible to create a
consensus version that everyone can agree states all points of
disagreement fairly.

3. Highly controversial stuff (people go to jail or to war over these
issues)

No matter how many of us agree to treat these topics "neutrally", the
POV-pushers become unmanageable. Article is in constant turmoil, and
even contributors who are widely held to be NPOV-champs find themselves
sucked into the endless squabbling.

Summary:

If there is only one point of view of a topic, it's easy to write. Just
find out the facts and describe them. If there are two POVs which don't
arouse rancor, we can create a consensus article which describes them
and their differences.

But if there are severely antagonistic POVs, there's no way to reach
consensus, because the POV-pushers refuse to tolerate any mention of
opposing POV but one which condemns it.

So it really depends on how much we can tolerate divergent points of
view.

Ed Poor


from_name: Anthere

body:
Daniel Mayer a ?crit:
> --- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>3) Facilitate forking. It should be easy to create and maintain forks of
>>controversial articles written from a specific group's point of views -
>>not necessarily within the Wikimedia framework, but outside of it. Others
>>can then take Wikipedia, Wikinews or Wikibooks entries and develop them
>>according to their respective belief systems.
>
>
> Absolutely not within Wikimedia! That flies directly in the face of NPOV, leads
> to needless duplication in what we are doing, and transfers edit wars to all
> articles that link to the forked versions (with each edit warrior would want to
> orphan his opponent's version).
>
> -- mav

Jee, I was just ready to jump on Erik for the same reason. I second you
Mav. Ant


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Fw: New Wikipedia langage solresol

body:
oboenfan a ?crit:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "oboenfan" <oboenfan at hotmail.com>
> To: "Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins at gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 1:27 AM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia langage solresol
>
>
>  Hi Rowan
>
>  Thank you very much to you personally. Your message did really comfort me
> last week.
>
> But I did find this matter really absurd: The administration of Wikipedia
> looks as a really terrible giant animal and to occupy too much a lot of
> people.
>
> This forum is alone a surprising kind to loose the time...
>
> I don't give up and realize without discussion with a lot of people and
> loosing of time a dictionary and all my other projects concerning old,
> menaced and artificial languages at the new anarchopedia. I did create
> French, German main pages, Spanish will follow in the next hours, and
> Interlingue, Solresol, Frater and more will follow in the next days.All that
> is new. I have to rectify a lot of text errors in a second time but it
> exists now. I is a good work for a short week where I have to go to my
> professional occupations.
>
> I did observe different problems in the approach of the things at Wikipedia
> and I work at anarchopedia that this don't appears in the new project. I
> think my technical approach of dictionary better and start for this reason a
> lot of languages myself. My first word, the first entry in the new multi
> language dictionary was of course a word in "a", naturally the word
> "anarchy". And if you compare the content of 2 dictionaries you can see a
> completely other view of our world. Anarchy is not conform to the bad
> definition in Wikipedia... At the letter "I" I will introduce in the next
> days as first word the word "idealism" ;-)
>
> Less bureaucracy (be quite: I didn't redefine in the first time at the
> letter "b" the word "bureaucracy" - "birth" is really more important!)
>
> Je veux remercier tr?s sp?cialement Anthere, mon fier concitoyen, pour son
> intervention contre mes petits efforts anarchistes (je ne pensais pas le
> moins du monde ? une telle d?finition de mes efforts il y a seulement 8
> jours) car sans cette petite querelle vraiment juste au bon moment, je
> n'aurais jamais fait connaissance ? cette date du projet des autres
> anarchistes! Mes visions de mon pays dans le continent qui l'h?berge et
> surtout mes visions du r?le de mon continent en tant que r?alit? politique
> et sociale ne semble pas ?tre totalement ?quivalentes aux v?tres!
>
> Perhaps is this the decisive reason why a Wikipedia can't be enough.
>
>  Yours truly
>
>  Fran?ois

Je veux remercier tr?s sp?cialement Anthere, mon fier concitoyen, pour
son intervention contre mes petits efforts anarchistes blablabla

Anthere, ma fi?re concitoyenne s'il te plait :-)
J'y tiens...

Pour le reste, je n'ai pas tr?s bien compris. Es tu certain que nous
sommes concitoyens ?


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Oct 10, 2004, at 6:27 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
>
>> We're looking into that problem. It's probably an occasional transient
>> problem with tugelacache, the memcached replacement which was recently
>> put into production. Approximately 12 hours ago, Domas implemented a
>> workaround in MediaWiki which should minimise the effect of such
>> errors. So hopefully you won't notice it anymore.
>
>
> This intermittent problem has been around much longer than tugela has
> existed, hasn't it? Probably the same issue under memcached.
>

It seems to be more frequent now. The key expires after 24 hours (I
thought it was a week, did someone change it?), and you'd expect to see
the message cache stop working for a few seconds each time it expires. I
always assumed it was just this problem. But we've had a sudden increase
in the number of reports, and the problem persists for longer than a few
seconds. Not exactly conclusive, it would be nice to have a theory about
why this happens.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
At 01:05 PM 10/11/2004 +0200, Anthere wrote:
>Daniel Mayer a ?crit:
>>Absolutely not within Wikimedia! That flies directly in the face of NPOV,
>>leads
>>to needless duplication in what we are doing, and transfers edit wars to all
>>articles that link to the forked versions (with each edit warrior would
>>want to
>>orphan his opponent's version).  -- mav
>
>Jee, I was just ready to jump on Erik for the same reason. I second you
>Mav. Ant

And I. I think the other ideas were good, though.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Indicationg consensus (was: Losing more of our  best
	contributors)

body:
At 05:48 AM 10/11/2004 -0700, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>We should clearly indicate that the consensus version is just a
>MILESTONE along the path of article development. We should remind our
>readers that any article can be edited any time, and that newer versions
>of this article are likely to appear.

Ooo, I like that! Simply changing the name from "stable version" to
"milestone" conveys a whole new sense of what this special version of the
article is - not something that's fixed and unchanging, but rather
something that's been clearly identified as a good waypoint along the
article's never-ending journey towards the unattainable Perfect Version.

Terminology is important, it sets the tone of discussion and creates "first
impression" assumptions that mold how people consider the issue. I'm going
to use "milestone" from now on, unless an even better name comes along.


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
Rebecca wrote

> With all respect to Andrew and Charles, I think they're both missing the
point.
>
> No one is disputing that there are many areas of Wikipedia that work
> brilliantly, such as mathematics. Both these answers seem to be along
> the lines of "well, lots of it works, so don't criticise it at all!"
>
> The problem lies in the controversial articles. Saying "let them burn
> out, and hope someone comes along to replace them" is a really, really
> bad idea - both for the growth of Wikipedia (losing good contributors
> who were making other contributions), and for the articles (they then
> become unusably bad, without someone willing to fend off the
> POVpushers).

Figures: around 360 articles marked as NPOV disputed, out of 360,000 on
Wikien.  That's 0.1%.

With all due respect to Adam Carr, Zero and other good editors who engage in
the toughest areas: when I come across you guys, I say to myself '"that
inflexibility isn't the best way".  You may be right much more often than
not - still, patience is a virtue, and burn out is waiting for those who
want it fixed this minute, not in the longer term.

> I've suggested solutions, and so have numerous others. Attacking the
> messenger doesn't make our handling of controversial articles any less
> problematic.

Have to take the community with you: that's the problem here.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice please

body:
At 07:07 AM 10/11/2004 -0700, Mike Halterman wrote:
>In the case of Mr. Treason (is this Mr. Treason?)...he keeps threatening
>court but then he acts like a 15-year-old and goes around calling people
>queer fucks and faggots and, I believe, "stunods", whatever the hell that
>last one is. In any case, it just cements how juvenile and grade nine it
>all is.

You denigrate grade nine students.

I like "stunods", I'm going to have to find out what it means now and start
using it myself. :)


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I'd like to see this idea tried out with more people involved.

Fred

> From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: 11 Oct 2004 21:17:00 +0200
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Article forks (was Re: Loosing more of our
> best contributors)
>
> David-
>> I believe you have just described Wikinfo, Fred Bauder's fork of Wikipedia.
>> That is, it's already been done.
>
> Wikinfo is an example, yes, although they do the keeping-in-sync part
> manually. I actually wrote a little script that makes the merging of
> Wikinfo and Wikipedia articles easier a while ago, not sure if anyone uses
> it. In the long term, I want multiple such forks with specific purposes
> (views) and I want to facilitate the cooperation between these different
> variants of our content. Mav's concerns about doing this within Wikimedia
> are understandable, but false. I will prove this when the time comes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
At 03:14 PM 10/11/2004 +0100, Charles Matthews wrote:

>Bryan Derksen wrote
>
> > Does that address your concerns about stasis?
>
>Isn't it basically the case that the moment when the current WP community
>starts taking the attitude that it knows better than prospective newcomers
>is also going to be the moment when WP stops being hot, and looks more like
>a mutual admiration society/

The version that gets picked as the "milestone" won't always _remain_ the
milestone. Eventually the selection mechanism (still undefined - it could
very well include some voting system that allows oldsters and newcomers
alike to participate in it) will revisit the article and if there's been
any improvement the current version will become the _new_ milestone. And
under the approach I suggested in the email you're responding to, all of
this would be going on invisibly behind the scenes so people would still be
defaulting to the current "working" version when they visit that article.

There are already aspects of Wikipedia operation where the current WP
community takes the attitude that it knows better than prospective
newcomers - things like the voting process for admin status (one needs a
certain number of edits in one's history to plausibly succeed), the
Arbitration Committee, etc. None of these strike me as particularly
egregious, and I don't think a low-key method of marking "milestones" is
going to be worse than that. Just make it clear that the process is an
ongoing one, and that good new edits will ultimately be included in a
milestone version at some point.


from_name: info at konservativ.se

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Need urgent help! (Wikipedia)

body:
Hello! And greetings from Sweden!

I would like to get in contact with any of the international organizers/leaders
of the Wikipedia project!

Over here in Sweden, I have problems with the correct information of political
parties. Different political groups apparently rearrange each others pages.
>From my point of view, I would like to secure the proper information in the
interest of the public and the democratic community! Thus each party or
political group should have control of their own pages, rather than to let
their political opponents have the control.

Who could I discuss this topic with?

All the best! And good luck with a great project!

Carl-Johan Swaerdenheim, SWEDEN
The Swedish Conservative Party


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project

body:
I am embarassed by the rules proposed on meta.

I do not really support them as being okay in the spirit of Wikimedia as
I perceived it.

And even if I agree that we could give a start to this project, and hack
the rules later on, I also know that there will be rather few people
involved at first, so that it is likely that the rules drafted here
become the rules on the project anyway.

Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me. I understand that it
might be a requirement for outsiders, however, I think Wikipedia has
reached the success with thriving on openness, not requesting real
identities.

If the requirement of real names for trust comes from outside, one name
to certify the article will be enough, and no one needs to see the back
kitchen. But if only real names must be displayed to prove the article
may be trusted, I wonder how credit will be given to those who really
wrote the article without giving their real name. Will Wikinews be under
GFDL ?

If the requirement of real name for trust comes from inside, I think it
is a blow in the face of what Wikipedia currently is

------
 >The process of accredition will therefore be similar to the process of
 >applying for adminship on many Wikipedias, and it will in fact be
 >directly tied to it: all sysops are Wikinews reporters and vice versa.

The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and
all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well. Because
in effect, some one trusted by the community, but not willing to give
his real name, will not be able to fully participate as he could in
every day management. In a press group, I doubt very much management is
put in the  hand of all reporters.

 >Traditional media offer their audience editorials on current issues.
 >Wikinews could offer editorials written from all points of view and
 >retain its neutrality. In order to do this, there would have to be a
 >period where the different groups can form and start working on their
 >respective editorials.

Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In
short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to
respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one
view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?

 >After a time limit has been reached, the editorials would then be
 >copyedited one last time and published. In order to deal with trolls
 >from the other side, a group could use standardized mechanisms of
 >exclusion.

Trolls from the other side ? You mean when you belong to one editorial
group and consider the other editorial group from another point of view ?

I may not well understand here. On one topic, will we have ONE article
or several articles ?

Perhaps, what I fear the most, is that it will divide our forces. Hence
resulting in a rather short reporter team. I am trying to figure out
such a system for french language (the 4th largest group) and I fail to
envision more than say 3 people interested. Hopefully some will be ready
to contribute with real names.

How do we handle neutrality of edition and choice of editorial within a
group of 3 ?
I several times battled to avoid having banner on the main page, such as
"vote for Kerry" or "support Indymedia" (okay, just pushing a bit here,
but hardly) and I believe reason won mostly thanks to the number of
people following NPOV principle.
In truth, with only 3 accredited reporters, I do not think it will be so
successful. NPOV comes from multiple influences. The requirements
suggested for being an accredited reporter worry me that it will backfire.

Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this
project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.

I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying
"the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only
acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for
agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)

So... I would like to hear more about what people think, and how they
feel like toward the licence (could you give more precision), the real
name issue, the NPOV divided over several editorials and the
accreditation system as proposed.

Anthere

Erik Moeller a ?crit:
> I hereby formally request the creation of Wikinews, in all major Wikimedia
> languages, under the domain
>
>         wikinews.org
>
> which I have registered and pointed to Wikimedia's nameservers.
>
> The current Wikinews proposal ist at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews
>
> According to that proposal, we can immediately start working on Wikinews
> as soon as the site is set up. Some software changes will be useful in the
> long term, but are not immediately needed.
>
> The details of the proposed policies can be worked out on the live site as
> they currently are on the Wikimedia Commons. The question right now is if
> there is a rough consensus to start a Wikimedia project whose goal is
> * to provide summaries of external news sources
> * to do original, neutral reporting around the world.
>
> If there are no serious objections, I'd like to start ASAP.
>
> I believe this project has the potential to be as relevant as Wikipedia,
> if not more so.  I'd love it if we could prove to the world that, using
> wiki principles, we can create a neutral, reliable news source for
> everyone.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Open Mapping

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>PS - the whole idea of copyrights on spatial data seem to be absurd to me; how
>could anybody claim to *own* any exact digital reproduction of the street
>network for Paris or the exact location and shape of the Zaire River? And yet
>this type of thing is *very* common in the GIS world (but I also think it is
>absurd for people to copyright *natural* DNA sequences and patent their
>*natural* products ; I guess I'm weird that way). Argh!
>
>
>
While I basically agree with both notions, I can see that someone
investing money in getting to Zaire and taking precise measurements, or
in sequencing some DNA and determining what it does (broadly speaking),
should get something in return. If the question is no information vs.
information to pay for, the latter is preferable, IMHO. But, patents are
likely the wrong way, and Wikipedians traveling to Zaire and taking down
coordinates would certainly be best :-)

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice please

body:
Today I blocked a user for making legal threats. See User:Gordy and
Vandalism in progress. Since doing that I have received two emails
threatening to take me to court

 "You claim to have banned me for threatening wiki with legal action. at
no time did I do this. I may well have suggested that to personal users,
including yourself, and believe me, I am serious in my threat, so
serious in fact that I already have draft writ produced in the time that
I have waited on you getting back to me."

 He goes on to write

"The whole impression that you have created of me is derogatory,
defammatory and extremely distressing. Such actions can be remedied
legally, and believe me, I you continue to push me on this one, you
better have a good lab technicians salary, because I'll take you
personally to the cleaners. Your actions can be addressed by way of writ
for interdiction/ and or damages, because on at least two counts you
have interfered in a matter which I did not believe was any concern of
yours."

And in a separate email he writes:

"Having secured wiki's legal owners, I shall then be compelling them by
order of court to provide me with the full names and addresses of the
individuals who have attacked me on this unbelievable place, whereby I
can raise personal actions against those individuals without harming
wikipedia."

So it's not just me, he intents to sue others as well. There is actually
a lot more but it's mostly just rant.

1) Was I right to block him or did I act too hastily?

2) Should I respond to his email or ignore it?

(3. I've just typed ~~~~ instead of my name does this mean I'm a
wikiaddict?)

Theresa


from_name: Arvalux

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image:/Bild: malfunctions

body:
Hello.

I installed WikiMedia at home.

I cannot include framed images by using "[[Bild:bildchen.png|framed|ein
Bildchen...]]" (english:"[[Image:pic.png|frame|a picture...]]")

en.wikipedia.org says: use "frame";
see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax&a
ction=edit&section=1

de.wikipedia.org says: use "framed";
see here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bilder#Originalgr.C3.B6.C3.9Fe_mit_Ra
hmen

in both Wikipedias it takes effect.

Why I cannot use it in my local WikiMedia?
(other options like "thumb" do not take effect as well)

My WikiMedia Spezial:Version (Special:Verion) site says:
    MediaWiki (http://wikipedia.sf.net/): 1.3.5
    PHP (http://www.php.net/): 4.3.3 (apache)
    MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/): 4.0.15-max-debug

Arvalux.


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote

> Does that address your concerns about stasis?

Isn't it basically the case that the moment when the current WP community
starts taking the attitude that it knows better than prospective newcomers
is also going to be the moment when WP stops being hot, and looks more like
a mutual admiration society/

Charles


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP Safe Mode = on => no Pictureupload ?

body:
On Oct 11, 2004, at 3:24 PM, tic at tictric.net wrote:
> I believe /home/www/web17/html/wiki/images/ needs to be world
> writeable in your case.
> You can change that with your ftp client.

The trouble is that safe mode only lets you write new files to
directories owned by the owner of the running script. This creates a
fun no-win scenario where if your script creates a subdirectory, it's
owned by the 'apache' or 'web' user and the script isn't allowed to put
any files in it!

Uploaded files are divided up into subdirectories, and the
subdirectories are created by the script on demand, so you get the
problem. There are two workarounds: one is to hack up the code to not
use the subdirectories; the other is to create all the subdirectories
ahead of time as your main user.

It's sixteen subdirectories, each with sixteen subdirectories of its
own. On a Unix bash shell you can create the directory layout like
this:
   for x in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
   do for y in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
   do mkdir -p $x/$x$y; done; done

If you have shell access you can do that directly on the server, or run
them on your computer and upload the set via ftp/sftp.

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

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus-
>based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness
>reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews
>reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original
>reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
>
>
I certainly hope it can be done in a reasonable way, but I'm wondering
if there's been any thought as to how to differentiate this from
Indymedia?  From what I can tell, Indymedia does use bylined reporters
for many of its articles, but they still end up generally being, well,
not very neutral.  Hopefully Wikinews would end up rather more credible
than Indymedia, but how to ensure that?  I could definitely see a
potential for highly biased stories---probably not outright fabricated
ones, but certainly ones with the facts selectively reported and a large
dose of opinion thrown in.  I envision there would be some hardcore
reporter types working on the project---people who have no vested
interest in what they're reporting on, but just want information out.
But somehow it seems like it'll naturally attract more of the other sort
of people---activists who are reporting with a particular agenda in
mind.  That tends to lead to the facts being arranged to fit the
pre-held agenda, rather than the other way around...

-Mark


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:16:08 +0100, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Mirko Thiessen wrote
>
> Please, can we not reason from the worst-case behaviour of the system?
> Taking anecdotal evidence as decisive, rather than trying to define the
> scale of admitted problems, is unworthy of the project.  Systems that lock
> up pages can be useful (PlanetMath for mathematics, for example); but that
> is not what WP does well.

I've been waiting for this voice of reason. As much as I appreciate
Adam Carr's work, scores of useful contributors have come and become
valuable members of the community.

There are about 500-700 very active Wikipedians in EN recently, up
from 300 at the beginning of the year. Let's try to get beyond the
anecdotal.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image:/Bild: malfunctions

body:
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 15:04:09 +0200, Arvalux <arvalux at yahoo.de> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I installed WikiMedia at home.
>
> I cannot include framed images by using "[[Bild:bildchen.png|framed|ein
> Bildchen...]]" (english:"[[Image:pic.png|frame|a picture...]]")

Due to the historical nature of the "extended image syntax", you need
to set $wgUseImageResize=true; in your LocalSettings.php for any of
these options to be available (even those that require no resizing,
such as |frame| and |right|). Enabling this with no GD library or
ImageMagick utility available will likely lead to errors if anyone
uses |thumb| and/or |<NUM>px|; I don't *think* these have any security
implications, but do not take this as any sort of guarantee. To avoid
this, you could try commenting out the references to "$mwThumb" and
"$mwWidth" in "includes/Skin.php"; again, I do not guarantee the
effects of doing this.

Of course if you have, or can install, either a GD library or a
standalone ImageMagick utility (for the latter, set
$wgUseImageMagick=true; in LocalSettings.php) then setting this option
should be completely safe, and will also allow the image resizing and
thumbnailing facilities.

Once enabled, |frame|, |framed|, and even |enframed| should all be
synonyms that create this behaviour.

This will probably be fixed in a future version; it is filed in our
bugzilla at http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recipees

body:
That would be "Alice B. Toklas brownie".

David Friedland wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>
>> Talking about recipees....
>>
>> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook%3ASpecial_brownies
>>
>> should not it be really and seriously deleted ?
>
>
> Ah, but Anthere, the marijuana brownie holds a special place in the
> hearts of the subculture of non-legal cookery, that is to say foods made
> with controlled substances (cuisine ill?gale?). You can even buy them in
> certain parts of the US.
>
> - David


from_name: Petr Kadlec

body:
> > 2. What could I do to get the LanguageCs.php updated?
>
> Submit it either here or to meta at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageCs.php

OK, I have merged the MediaWiki-based messages into
meta:LanguageCs.php (which has been _really_ outdated).
So, my current questions are:

1. What is required for this LanguageCs.php to go live?
2. I have not tested the file in MediaWiki (I do not have a local
MediaWiki installation), I have tried to run the file in PHP, and
fixed the parse errors. Is there anything (except installing MediaWiki
and testing the file under it) I could do to test the file for
validity?
3. Is there some documentation of wiki features that may be used in
the messages? (I mean, when should I use HTML markup and when wiki
markup? Are there any limitations of variables like {{SITENAME}} ?
...etc.)

Thanks,
Mormegil


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV Pushers

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> This is one remedy the arbitration committee has been applying to dedicated
> POV warriors. Not always, it is not policy itself, just a way to deal with
> determined violaters of NPOV and other policies. But it could be policy.
> However it may prove difficult to separate editors who insist on the
> integrity of the article, like Adam Carr, from editors who insist on a
> biased article.

His one-day ban was for personal abuse. And it should be noted that he has
a long history of personal abusiveness, particularly in edit summaries
(don't take my word for it, check his contributions).

I should note that I often completely agree with his comments along these
lines. But that doesn't make them the right way to do things, and a record
of good contributions *still* isn't an excuse for bad and (and this is the
point) intimidatory behavior.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Article forks (was Re: Loosing more of our
	best	contributors)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Daniel-

>>Absolutely not within Wikimedia! That flies directly in the face of NPOV,
>>leads to needless duplication in what we are doing, and transfers edit wars
>>to all articles that link to the forked versions

> In the long term it will be desirable to have multiple views on an article
> besides NPOV, whether it's a Wikinews story or a Wikipedia article.
> Duplication can be avoided using powerful diff/merging tools as they are
> already used in the open source development world (darcs, BitKeeper etc.).
> Each view will be managed by a group of people who make their own rules as
> to who else is allowed to add information, with NPOV being the "mother
> view" from which other views can be extracted (as NPOV is the most
> inclusive).
> So you will get a version of the circumcision article approved and edited
> by the APA, or a version of the creationism article approved and edited by
> the Institute for Creationism.

I believe you have just described Wikinfo, Fred Bauder's fork of Wikipedia.
That is, it's already been done.

- d.


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] If you want to add info, then just do it. Ok?

body:
Fred Bauder writes:
> Turning articles in the area of communist history over
> to the tender mercies of 172 is not a solution. It's not
> a matter of experience, although newbie POV warriors are
> pretty bad too. It is a fact, that in practice, a
> determined (and experienced) POV pusher can get their
> way just by wearing down any opposition.
> Robert, who started this thread, is another major
> offender.

Huh?  How did I getinserted into this?  In any case, how
can you make this statement, after I have been working so
hard to comes to turn with you of late?  I especially have
been trying to find areas of argreement with you on the
Chiropractic medicine article.  Why won't you take "yes"
for an answer?

I find the same odd attitude from Danny and others. They
claim that they disagree with me, and that I push my views
too much. However, if you check the Talk pages of the
articles in question (as well as the recent archives of
this very list) you will see that I constantly invite
others to add their own points of view.  In fact, one can
reasonbly say that I have been begging Danny and others to
contribute to several articles, on several topics, on
precisely the points that they disagree with me on!  That -
by definition - is the best sign of good faith one can have
from a Wikipedia contributor.

My problem with Fred Bauder, Danny and others is that they
demand that I add material they agree with, and they want
me to write their own POVs for them.  As I have been
repeating here many times in the last month, if you have
some information that is useful for an article, by all
means please add it, in NPOV fashion.

Just stop attacking me for not writing the articles in the
way that you want to.  Is this so much to ask?

Robert (RK)

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body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> But having NPOV articles that described in detail the views of particular
> groups of people are fine; they just need to be correctly titled and qualified.
> This is just a more focused form of NPOV where less relevant material gets an
> appropriate amount of coverage. It is a fallacy to assume that NPOV means we
> can only have very general articles (not that I'm saying you ascribe to that
> fallacy).
> If people want to have a biased instead of an NPOV encyclopedia, then they can
> start one any time they wish, but it will not be part of Wikimedia.

Wikinfo has the Sympathetic Point Of View policy with parallel articles.
I would not claim that Wikipedia getting all the hits and publicity is
necessarily evidence their approach is worse - first-mover advantage and
network effect counts for a *lot* - but I do feel that, whereas SPOV will
make strident editors feel better, it doesn't really create better articles
for the *reader*.

(Much as I enjoy wasting time (and it is wasting time) on IRC, and attending
the occasional meet, I'm on Wikipedia for the buzz of creating an end
result, not for the social club.)

- d.


subject: AW: [Wikitech-l] Image:/Bild: malfunctions

body:
-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Rowan Collins
Gesendet: Montag, 11. Oktober 2004 18:10
An: Wikimedia developers
Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] Image:/Bild: malfunctions

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 15:04:09 +0200, Arvalux <arvalux at yahoo.de> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I installed WikiMedia at home.
>
> I cannot include framed images by using "[[Bild:bildchen.png|framed|ein
> Bildchen...]]" (english:"[[Image:pic.png|frame|a picture...]]")

Due to the historical nature of the "extended image syntax", you need
to set $wgUseImageResize=true; in your LocalSettings.php for any of
these options to be available (even those that require no resizing,
such as |frame| and |right|). Enabling this with no GD library or
ImageMagick utility available will likely lead to errors if anyone
uses |thumb| and/or |<NUM>px|; I don't *think* these have any security
implications, but do not take this as any sort of guarantee. To avoid
this, you could try commenting out the references to "$mwThumb" and
"$mwWidth" in "includes/Skin.php"; again, I do not guarantee the
effects of doing this.

Of course if you have, or can install, either a GD library or a
standalone ImageMagick utility (for the latter, set
$wgUseImageMagick=true; in LocalSettings.php) then setting this option
should be completely safe, and will also allow the image resizing and
thumbnailing facilities.

Once enabled, |frame|, |framed|, and even |enframed| should all be
synonyms that create this behaviour.

This will probably be fixed in a future version; it is filed in our
bugzilla at http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]

------------------------
Thanks,

for explaining the historical nature of the "extended image syntax". ;-)

I set $wgUseImageResize=true; and frames are available now.

Arvalux.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Projects linking

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Hi G?rard.
>
>
>
>I disagree with you on one point.
>
>You say "The fact that dictionary information has no place in Wikipedia is also
>an established and respected fact."
>
>It is not as true as you seem to imply. It is roughly what is done, but it is not so widely established.
>I think this might be a very cultural issue :-) The french wikipedia long hesitated, and I would say some users
>still consider the encyclopedia and the dictionary content may be available in one common place.
>I have personnaly no problem with an encyclopedic article containing some dictionary content, and when I see some
>I certainly do not remove it.
>However, I recognise that some dictionary articles have no encyclopedic content, so are not so welcome
>in the encyclopedia. Hence, it is best that there is a dictionnary :-)
>
Maybe I should have said, on nl:wikipedia it is accepted that dictionary
content has no place. On nl:wikipedia it is a reason to remove stuff.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: Projects linking


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Advice please

body:
KNOTT, T a ?crit:
> Today I blocked a user for making legal threats. See User:Gordy and
> Vandalism in progress. Since doing that I have received two emails
> threatening to take me to court
>
>  "You claim to have banned me for threatening wiki with legal action. at
> no time did I do this. I may well have suggested that to personal users,
> including yourself, and believe me, I am serious in my threat, so
> serious in fact that I already have draft writ produced in the time that
> I have waited on you getting back to me."
>
>
>  He goes on to write
>
> "The whole impression that you have created of me is derogatory,
> defammatory and extremely distressing. Such actions can be remedied
> legally, and believe me, I you continue to push me on this one, you
> better have a good lab technicians salary, because I'll take you
> personally to the cleaners. Your actions can be addressed by way of writ
> for interdiction/ and or damages, because on at least two counts you
> have interfered in a matter which I did not believe was any concern of
> yours."
>
> And in a separate email he writes:
>
> "Having secured wiki's legal owners, I shall then be compelling them by
> order of court to provide me with the full names and addresses of the
> individuals who have attacked me on this unbelievable place, whereby I
> can raise personal actions against those individuals without harming
> wikipedia."

Duh !

> So it's not just me, he intents to sue others as well. There is actually
> a lot more but it's mostly just rant.
> 1) Was I right to block him or did I act too hastily?

You were just correct.

> 2) Should I respond to his email or ignore it?

I would probably answer and try to cool him off :-)

> (3. I've just typed ~~~~ instead of my name does this mean I'm a
> wikiaddict?)
>
> Theresa


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Indicationg consensus (was: Losing more of our
	bestcontributors)

body:
Poor, Edmund W a ?crit:
> Rebecca rather ambivalently wrote:
>
>
>>This would be one solution - and thank you very much for
>>proposing one, instead of saying "I don't care if people
>>leave, so nyah!"
>
>
> Well, I think I hold the record for leaving Wikipedia more times than
> anyone else. My longest time was 6 weeks.
>
> When Wikipedia was smaller, and what I did or didn't do actually seemed
> to have some effect *bowing modestly* I hardly dared announce my
> departure, because vandalism always rocketed up immediately (!).
>
> Or I'd get several messages imploring me to come back. Grin: the last
> time I quit, only Bcorr even noticed...

Not necessarily :-)
But after you get to know people, you realise how they react.
Some resist to the latest end, and when they quit they are serious.
Others need some frequent wikibreak to stay healthy. After a while,
people realise this and just quietly wait, trusting you will be back
soon :-)

(Anthere - longuest off time 7 weeks from fr, but I cheated, I went to
en and meta instead)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Open Mapping

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>
> It seems to me that before we get people into the Zaire jungles taking
> measurements we should probably take full advantage of available
> aerial photographs. :-)

No way! We need to get the coordinates down to the micron! Otherwise,
imagine the NPOV disputes when it comes to national borders ("That hill
is *OURS*!!") :-)

Magnus


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Article forks (was Re: Loosing more of
	our	best	contributors)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> David-

>>I believe you have just described Wikinfo, Fred Bauder's fork of Wikipedia.
>>That is, it's already been done.

> Wikinfo is an example, yes, although they do the keeping-in-sync part
> manually. I actually wrote a little script that makes the merging of
> Wikinfo and Wikipedia articles easier a while ago, not sure if anyone uses
> it. In the long term, I want multiple such forks with specific purposes
> (views) and I want to facilitate the cooperation between these different
> variants of our content. Mav's concerns about doing this within Wikimedia
> are understandable, but false. I will prove this when the time comes.

What I don't understand is why you require that this be done within
Wikipedia. What I'm saying is there's a fork with the policy you want -
why do you require that Wikipedia's policy change?

- d.