from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: DF <dragons_flight at yahoo.com>
>
>I posted this question at the Village Pump last night,
>but it hasn't got much response (perhaps because most
>everyone was asleep at the time I wrote it).
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#How_many_Arbitrators_should_we_have.3F
>
>The crux of my point is that the number of active
>editors in Wikipedia has grown nearly 10 fold since
>ArbCom was created 2 years ago, while the number of
>Arbitrators has remained constant at 12.
>
>Perhaps this just means we should expand the pool of
>Arbitrators and elect 20 or 30 this time around as
>some people had proposed (though one might have
>trouble finding enough people to run).

I think the main issue is that the Committee can't seem to keep 12 *active*
arbitrators - I think the most it's ever hit has been around 8, and
typically there are only 5 or so active aribtrators.

Jay.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fl Celloguy

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: How many Arbitrators should we have?

body:
<snip> The current mediation process doesn't work very well, for exactly
those reasons, and should not be used an an example of what to do w
the ArbCom. They are making changes and improvements, but it is
despite, rather than because of their selection process, that it is
occuring.

Jack (Sam Spade) </snip>

Can you clarify what you mean, Sam Spade? Thanks.

Flcelloguy
>From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

>From: wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>Reply-To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 55
>Date: Thu,  6 Oct 2005 16:39:20 +0000 (UTC)
>
>Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
>	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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>
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>
>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>
>
>Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: How many Arbitrators should we have? (Michael Turley)
>    2. Re: Trademarked images and image use policies in	non-English
>       Wikipedias (Andrew Gray)
>    3. Re: How many Arbitrators should we have? (Kat Walsh)
>    4. Re: Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability (Sean Barrett)
>    5. Re: How many Arbitrators should we have? (Jack Lynch)
>    6. Re: Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability (Andrew Gray)
>    7. Re: Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability (Tony Sidaway)
>    8. Re: Trademarked images and image use policies in	non-English
>       Wikipedias (Justin Cormack)
>    9. Re: How many Arbitrators should we have? (Kelly Martin)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 12:11:32 -0400
>From: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?
>To: Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com>
>Cc: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<d148b6870510060911h6afdb564n35144b918e003186 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > There are a lot of current administrators that I've either voted to
> > > support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their RfA that I
> > > would never consider supporting in the position of an arbitrator.
> > > If I'd thought that one future day they'd get handed the authority
> > > to arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can (by blocking,
> > > page locking, etc) it would certainly have been less "no big deal"
> > > and a lot more "let's screen these people very carefully".
> >
> > All right, then. How would you suggest we choose them?
>
>By the same process we do now, just create more vacancies to fill.
>
>--
>Michael Turley
>User:Unfocused
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 17:16:28 +0100
>From: Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Trademarked images and image use policies in
>	non-English Wikipedias
>To: Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia
>	<wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <f3fedb0d0510060916u2c157cd2i at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On 06/10/05, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd be really interested in reading about what decisions the other
> > language versions of Wikipedia made and why.
> >
> > Can someone point me to a place where I can discuss this (preferably
> > in English)?
>
>Wikipedia-l may be a good idea, or if you ask on meta there might be
>someone knowledgeable. The en.wiki articles on foreign-language
>editions may or may not have brief summaries of such policies, but not
>really the reasoning behind them.
>
>--
>- Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 3
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 12:18:24 -0400
>From: Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<8e253f560510060918i3abd1bf3k56e0ee0667637a87 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > There are a lot of current administrators that I've either voted to
> > > support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their RfA that I
> > > would never consider supporting in the position of an arbitrator.
> > > If I'd thought that one future day they'd get handed the authority
> > > to arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can (by blocking,
> > > page locking, etc) it would certainly have been less "no big deal"
> > > and a lot more "let's screen these people very carefully".
> >
> > All right, then. How would you suggest we choose them?
> >
> > - - Ryan
>
>I can see something like the current Mediation Committee request
>process working: a sort of unstructured request, with general
>agreement from the community and no veto by the arbcom, to form a pool
>of people to draw from.
>
>I do think as some others have that not every suitable admin would be
>a suitable arbitrator/magistrate/clerk -- though quite a few would.
>It's a few additional skills and a more specific sort of personality
>required.
>
>-Kat
>[[User:Mindspillage]]
>
>--
>"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
>escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 4
>Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 09:24:03 -0700
>From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability
>To: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>,	English Wikipedia
>	<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <43454FA3.3050205 at epoptic.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>David Gerard stated for the record:
>
> > On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>David Gerard wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>- is too stupid (possibly wilfully stupid) to understand without
> >>>falling afoul of it. As we've seen from this thread, even then they
> >>>frequently can't or won't learn.
> >
> >
> >>Well, after warning someone about the 3RR because I saw that he had
> >>reverted twice in a couple hours (with some snippy edit summaries), he
> >>made the following elaborate argument that he had done nothing wrong.
> >>You can see my painful, and ultimately fruitless, attempt to explain
> >>the situation to him at [[User talk:Freemarkets]].
> >>"According to baseball rules, if one has "more than 2 strikes" called
> >>against him while at bat, that player will be called "out." In other
> >>words, each batter is "entitled" to 2 strikes before being called
> >>"out." According to Wikipedia rules, if one edits a page "more than
> >>three times" in a 24 hour period, he is subject to being blocked. How
> >>is it, then, that that rule does NOT "entitle" an editor to "three
> >>reverts" without being called out? If one must break a rule to be
> >>blocked, and one cannot break the rule without reverting more than 3
> >>times in 24 hours, then how have I violated the rule, and how would I
> >>be subject to being banned? Further, of what use is your
> >>warning?--Freemarkets  11:40, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"
> >
> >
> >
> > What a pity being that wilfully clueless isn't a blocking offence. At
> > least not the first time.
>
>Something to add to [[WP:NOT]]: Wikipedia is not a game of baseball.
>
>- --
>  Sean Barrett     | It is dark, and you are likely to
>  sean at epoptic.com | log off the wrong account.
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
>iD8DBQFDRU+jMAt1wyd9d+URAtYOAJ4k5auqmO1VeuFVNj9jMvC1Wq9PHQCfdYTE
>F/J4nxsoB4YM1Ir0SDSAmNE=
>=fgTQ
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 5
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 18:27:05 +0200
>From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<49bdc7430510060927h2b597b4cnee3477890eeaf3d3 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>The current mediation process doesn't work very well, for exactly
>those reasons, and should not be used an an example of what to do w
>the ArbCom. They are making changes and improvements, but it is
>despite, rather than because of their selection process, that it is
>occuring.
>
>Jack (Sam Spade)
>
>On 10/6/05, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Michael Turley wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > There are a lot of current administrators that I've either voted to
> > > > support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their RfA that I
> > > > would never consider supporting in the position of an arbitrator.
> > > > If I'd thought that one future day they'd get handed the authority
> > > > to arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can (by blocking,
> > > > page locking, etc) it would certainly have been less "no big deal"
> > > > and a lot more "let's screen these people very carefully".
> > >
> > > All right, then. How would you suggest we choose them?
> > >
> > > - - Ryan
> >
> > I can see something like the current Mediation Committee request
> > process working: a sort of unstructured request, with general
> > agreement from the community and no veto by the arbcom, to form a pool
> > of people to draw from.
> >
> > I do think as some others have that not every suitable admin would be
> > a suitable arbitrator/magistrate/clerk -- though quite a few would.
> > It's a few additional skills and a more specific sort of personality
> > required.
> >
> > -Kat
> > [[User:Mindspillage]]
> >
> > --
> > "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
> > escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 6
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 17:33:17 +0100
>From: Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <f3fedb0d0510060933x31f3ffb7l at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On 06/10/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
>
> > > What a pity being that wilfully clueless isn't a blocking offence. At
> > > least not the first time.
> >
> > Something to add to [[WP:NOT]]: Wikipedia is not a game of baseball.
>
>Should we add that the 3RR is also not cricket? ;-)
>
>--
>- Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 7
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 17:36:08 +0100
>From: Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<605709b90510060936p74a9c87aq857a4511018832e8 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>Wikipedia is not baseball.
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 8
>Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 17:41:13 +0100
>From: Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Trademarked images and image use policies in
>	non-English Wikipedias
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <1128616874.19912.4.camel at scrod.vision>
>Content-Type: text/plain
>
>On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 10:48 -0500, Nyenyec N wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > In HuWiki there's an ongoing debate over trademarked images, such as
> > company logos. On the one hand, they're usually copyrighted so they
> > shouldn't be uploaded, on the other hand they can be used to
> > illustrate encyclopedia articles about the specific company without
> > the fear of anyone suing us.
>
>Except that they might implicitly be taken to imply endorsement, or we
>might be asked to remove them.
>
>WHat is the summary of the argument on HU?
>
> > I know that they cannot be uploaded to commons (since they're
> > copyrighted) and I think the German Wikipedia also doesn't allow such
> > images, since they don't have a free license.
> >
> > I'd be really interested in reading about what decisions the other
> > language versions of Wikipedia made and why.
>
>en is overlax and allows upload of pretty much any copyrighted image at
>the moment. Clearly this is going to have to change. I wouldnt use the
>policies of en as a basis for anything else. Also it depends on the fair
>use policy of the country in question (as that is where it will largely
>be used). Germany has no fair use right in law apparently, hence their
>decision.
>
> > Can someone point me to a place where I can discuss this (preferably
> > in English)?
>
>Here, or wikiproject fair use on en.
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 9
>Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 11:38:51 -0500
>From: Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?
>To: Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com>,	English Wikipedia
>	<wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<bd4c411e0510060938k13f93177hcff5643bad070341 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There are a lot of current administrators that I've either voted to
> > support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their RfA that I would
> > never consider supporting in the position of an arbitrator.  If I'd
> > thought that one future day they'd get handed the authority to
> > arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can (by blocking, page
> > locking, etc) it would certainly have been less "no big deal" and a
> > lot more "let's screen these people very carefully".
> >
> > Keeping adminship "no big deal" has to include keeping the authorities
> > granted to them in the same general class.
>
>I'm also in agreement that the notion of letting any admin volunteer
>to act as an adjudicator on any dispute is a bad idea.
>
>First, you have the issue that adminship is currently "no big deal".
>If we give admins the right to make unilateral binding decisions (even
>if subject to appeal) with the full authority of the ArbCom, then
>suddenly adminship is no longer "no big deal".  We'd really need to
>reconfirm all our current admins to this new standard, and I bet a lot
>of them would fail to meet it.
>
>Second, allowing people to pick and choose what issues they will offer
>justice on is an open invitation to bias.  If a candidate jurist has a
>POV on a particular issue, he will want to judge it in order to impose
>his POV.  I oppose any system in which assignment to cases is on a
>voluntary basis; all of our jurists should take the cases as they
>come, with the option (and obligation) to recuse in case of conflict.
>
>As to the problem of getting people to want to serve as magistrates
>(which is, frankly, a really nasty job, almost as bad as that of
>arbitrator, and with less prestige and power): the one selling point
>is that it stands to reason that magistrates will naturally be the
>most probable candidates to become future arbitrators, and are likely
>to be called on to serve as temporary arbitrators to fill vacancies
>and so forth.  Combine that with the fact that there are some crazy
>people who enjoy being jurists, and I think we can scare up enough
>qualified people to at least blunt the storm somewhat.
>
>And, on top of that, I will personally buy a round of drinks for
>anyone who serves as a magistrate, at every Wikimania I attend. :)
>
>Kelly
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 55
>****************************************

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] The 3RR is an electric fence, not an entitlement.

body:
>I'm not inclined to care a whole lot.  People who hit the 3RR have
>already gone beyond reasonable editing.  Whether they get blocked for
>24 hours or a week is not that great of a concern to me.

Seconded. The 3RR is an electric fence, not an entitlement. It *really
doesn't matter* if the article is on [[m:The Wrong Version]] for a
while longer. It really doesn't. Consistently running up 3 reversions
every 24 hours is prima facie evidence of failure to work with others.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 2 unrelated questions

body:
On 10/6/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:
> > 1. I notice that whenever one uses an accent in a Category, it puts
> > it all out of order. For instance, if I wish to write ?frica in the
> > Category - it ends up after Z rather than amongst the As - is there a
> > trick to fixing that up?
>
> Yes, re-writing the string comparator in PHP...
>

See also http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Brian Haws wrote:
>
>
>>I have to ask, you used the word notable a couple times in your reply
>> but in the actual AFD entry description here you used verifiable
>>information as a standard to judge inclusion.
>>
>>Do you see notablility as a inclusion standard? Or is notability just
>> a another way to express that something can be verified. And as such
>> doesn't have a separate meaning (in AFD debates) to judge Wilipedia
>>inclusion standards?
>>
>>
>Yes, I very strongly think that notability is a valid inclusion standard.
>
What's frightening about this statement is the tendency of some members
of this community to view it as an absolute ''ex cathedra"
pronouncement.  In the light of your other comments on this matter, it
is clear that your views are considerably more textured.  Some editors
frown upon texture.  Idiotic as it may be, it is a fact of life that
some editors will say, "Delete, not-notable," or "Keep, notable," as
their entire justification for action with respect to some article.

>And the best way to judge notability, socially, is verifiability.  But
>even things which are verifiable can and should in many cases be
>deleted.
>
I'm sorry, but this sounds a little weaselly.  The first sentence makes
sense, but then verifiability is a relatively objective criterion that
stands alone.  If something is not verifiable that's it, and whether it
leads to a determination of notability is moot.

Of course there are verifiable materials that should still be deleted.
There are any number of perfectly acceptable criteria that allow us to
do this

>It would be quite possible to start posting detailed
>information about private individuals by combing through online tax
>records. We could even have a bot to do it.  And it would all be
>
>
>verifiable from reliable sources.  But I think it clear that we would
>not do that because detailed information about private individuals is
>not notable.
>
Respect for privacy will handle this without regard to notability.

My primary objection to the notability criterion remains the high degree
of subjectivity that goes into determining whether it applies.  While
notability can be a factor in some deletion decisions, it is unwise to
use it as a stand-alone reason for deletion.

>And we should recognize that some social problems we have been having
>lately can be traced back to flamewars between non-notable people on the
>Internet spilling over into Wikipedia.  This case is probably the best
>example.
>
I am not particularly interested in the Ashida Kim matter, have not
followed it, and have no intention to find out anything about it.
Nevertheless if it is nothing more than flame war spillage it should
certainly be treated as non-encyclopedic whether or not the participants
are notable.

Ec


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] How many Arbitrators should we have?

body:
On 10/6/05, DF <dragons_flight at yahoo.com> wrote:
> How about a mixed system?  First, have a Supreme Court
> (or whatever we want to call it) whose membership is
> fixed in number and determined through an election
> process such as governs Arbcom now.  And then have
> lesser courts/magistrates/whatever confirmed through a
> process of community consensus such as occurs in RFA
> now?

That approach seems the most reasonable one I've heard of yet.  I
would add the provision that the ArbCom (or whatever you call the
highest level judicial body) has the authority to veto candidates for
magistrates, and to dismiss those who prove unsuitable later on.

Kelly


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikimania-planning-l] Re: [Wikimania] Wikimania
	2006 - host city contest, latest update

body:
Absolutely no problem with me.

But who is "WE" ? and where and when was it agreed
upon ?

Ant

--- Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/4/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > * So I was told.  The original jury was set up
> before Boston was a
> > candidate city.  Now that I am the contact for
> Boston, I am not on the
> > jury, nor involved with its private discussions.
>
> We have agreed to let Andrew Lih ([[User:Fuzheado]])
>  join the jury,
> since he was also very much involved in the last
> wikimania, especially
> in the area where Sj had remarks to make, namely
> speakers and
> programme.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Delphine
> --
> ~notafish
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-planning-l mailing list
> Wikimania-planning-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoblocking, reverts, and verifiability

body:
On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/05, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's what I saw, too.  Perhaps the threat of 3RR was an unseen
> motivation to encourage everyone to actually try to work it out rather
> than insist on one's own version.  I know it has been for me at least
> once, so even if I don't get bitten, the guard dog helps secure the
> property.  ;-)    It helps me pay attention a little better.  (!)
>
>
> --
> Michael Turley
> User:Unfocused

Or it was a subject you would never have edit wared over anyway. A
truely skilled edit warrior doesn't view the 3RR as a problem. It's
just part of the landscape.
--
geni


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

body:
Yes, this is precisely why it's a 3RR rule, not a 1RR or 2RR rule :P
This kind of editing is very common and to be encouraged, you two
communicated with eachother and worked out an agreement. However, if
any of you had, instead, actually broken the 3RR there would have been
atleast 7 reverts (4 for the one who broke the rule, and 3 for the
other) of the article. That is not healthy. The 3RR is there to force
editors, just as it did with you guys, to work stuff out, outside of
the edit summaries.

Unfortunatly, not everyone has the amount of common sense you guys have :P

--gkhan

On 10/6/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > If the autoblocker causes so much problems for 3RR blocks, then we
> > could ask the developers to make autoblocking optional. Have a nice
> > clickable 3RR box in the block screen which switches off autoblocking
> > for 3RR blocks.
> >
> > Of course, if one would follow a 1 or 2RR this wouldn't even be an issue.
> >
>
> A few days ago, I noticed a grammatical error in an article which I
> figured must have been fixed at some point past.
>
> Sure enough, looking through the history, I found the point at which the
> change had occurred.
>
> Dubious of the factual accuracy of the change, I reverted it and left a
> note on the editor's talk page to let them know that I had done so,
> since there was no source for the claim that was being made.
>
> Within a few minutes I recieved a reply, giving a source and telling me
> that they'd reverted my change.
>
> No worries, I thought to myself, so I checked the article and sure
> enough, the grammatical error was still there.
>
> So I went and fixed it.
>
> Only in my haste, I "fixed it" in the wrong spot.
>
> Within another few minutes, the other party had corrected my change.
>
> Four edits by two parties in the space of ten minutes. We discussed our
> changes (on talk pages and in edit summaries), made one revert each, and
> ended up fixing the article.
>
> Who needs the 3RR when you have common sense?
>
> - --
> Alphax                      |   /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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> =4n+h
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> _______________________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] The New Cliche: "It's the Wikipedia of..."

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>What is a dermatology atlas?
>
>Dermatology, I understand. Atlas, I understand. But what is a
>dermatology atlas? A book of maps of the skin?
>
>
The term "atlas" is commonly used in medicine to refer to a picture book
within the particular specialty.  Thus an atlas of dermatology would
have pictures of different skin conditions to assist doctors in
diagnosing conditions that they may not often see.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tag-teaming

body:
On 10/6/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> This can be addressed by encouraging (requiring?) Admins to log all
> their 3RR blocks in one place.

We already do. [[WP:AN/3RR]]

--
geni


list: wikitech-l

from_name: SAM

subject: [Wikitech-l] Romanian wikimedia installation error

body:
I tried to install the wikimedia package on a server using Romanian as the
default language and I got this error message. Does anyone know what the
problem might be?

S Matei smatei at yahoo.com

Checking environment...

?? PHP 5.0.4: ok

?? PHP server API is cgi-fcgi; using ugly URLs (index.php?

title=Page_Title)

?? Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.

?? PHP's memory_limit is 8M. If this is too low, installation

may fail! Attempting to raise limit to 20M... ok.

?? Have zlib support; enabling output compression.

?? Turck MMCache not installed, can't use object caching

functions

?? Found ImageMagick: /usr/local/bin/convert; image

thumbnailing will be enabled if you enable uploads.

?? Found GD graphics library built-in.

?? Installation

directory: /home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cultura

?? Script URI path: /~smatei/cultura

Notice: Undefined index: linktrail

in /home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cultura/languages/LanguageRo.php on line
1347

Notice: Undefined index: linktrail

in /home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cultura/languages/LanguageRo.php on line
1347

Notice: Undefined index: linktrail

in /home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cultura/languages/LanguageRo.php on line
1347

?? MySQL error 1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'web.ics.purdue.edu'
(using password: NO)

?? Trying regular user... ok.

?? Connected to database... 4.1.13-log; enabling MySQL 4 enhancements

?? Database smatei exists

?? Creating tables... done.

?? Initializing data...

?? Created sysop account CulturaModernaAdmin.

??

Notice: Undefined index: 1movedto2_redir in
/home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cult

Notice: Undefined index: aboutsite in
/home/champion/u3/smatei/www/cultura/la


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Tag-teaming, 3RR, logging,
	all admins are intrinsically evil

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>This can be addressed by encouraging (requiring?) Admins to log all
>their 3RR blocks in one place. It could be a section of:
>* [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]

Sounds like [[m:instruction creep]]. Admins don't even bother logging
their page protections in practice. Rather than require admins to log
3RR, you should be able to go to [[Special:Log/Block]] and search
blocking reasons for the string "3RR".

As [[m:instruction creep]] implies, if this sort of thing can be done
in software it should be.

- d.


from_name: Phroziac

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

DF wrote:
> On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Michael Turley wrote:
>>
>>
>>>There are a lot of current administrators that
>
> I've either voted to
>
>>>support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their
>
> RfA that I
>
>>>would never consider supporting in the position of
>
> an arbitrator.
>
>>>If I'd thought that one future day they'd get
>
> handed the authority
>
>>>to arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can
>
> (by blocking,
>
>>>page locking, etc) it would certainly have been
>
> less "no big deal"
>
>>>and a lot more "let's screen these people very
>
> carefully".
>
>
>>All right, then. How would you suggest we choose
>
> them?
>
> I also agree with what has been said by Turley and
> others.  Arbitration is not something I would trust to
> every admin, and there are at least a couple admins
> that I would shudder to see given binding judicial
> powers.
>
> How about a mixed system?  First, have a Supreme Court
> (or whatever we want to call it) whose membership is
> fixed in number and determined through an election
> process such as governs Arbcom now.  And then have
> lesser courts/magistrates/whatever confirmed through a
> process of community consensus such as occurs in RFA
> now?
Sounds good to me. Maybe we should make the current Requests for
arbitration into a supreme court, rename it. Then make the lesser courts
be called Requests for arbitration. These would be seperated like page
RFCs are. "Excessive reverters", "complete trolls", "POV pushers", etc.
Then the supreme court (whatever it's called) could be appealed to like
me do to Jimbo, and they could accept the case and look into it. There'd
still be Jimbo above them, but hopefully less people would appeal to
him. He's very busy, as we all know. Doesn't everyone in arbitration
appeal to him currently?

- --
Phroziac                    |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xC2AF5417  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/anya2    |   / \
(Computer clock currently thinks it should be set to UTC.)

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list: wiktionary-l

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Georgian and other stuff

body:
Hoi,
For your information, the last weeks several wiktionaries have changed from
all uppercase articlenames to lowercase. The latest that changed was the
ka.wiktionary.. Georgian does not have capitals in its script, but it does
help for the other languages that may end up their. It will certainly help
when we start working on a conversation to the Ultimate Wiktionary.

For the Ultimate Wiktionary we cannot show the progress that I hoped for on
the development. A big factor contributing to this is the fact that I have
taken a job. For me it is a dream come true; I am now working at Logos in
Modena (Italy). My job is to make the Ultimate Wiktionary happen and to make
the content of the dicologos dictionary more important.

To do this their are many things that can be done. There are some technical
things that will clean up the content. We, and I am happy to be included,
will be more open to our user and editor community. We will have many of the
trappings that we take for granted in Wiktionary. We are going to make
dicologos GFDL like we already did with the Verba Volant. We really want to
cooperate with the Wikimedia Foundation and create one lexicological
resource that will be truly stellar.

Thanks,
GerardM


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock my account or mark pages so I can extract the
	content

body:
jmerkey wrote:

Note from listadmin: This is apparently [[Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]]. Mr.
Merkey wrote another message which I rejected for incivility. He is
currently unsubscribed; should he subscribe, he is likely to remain on
moderation.

- d.


body:
On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe we should add the "guard dog" analogy to the rule, since guard
> dogs sometimes go a little outside the bounds of their confines at
> unexpected times.  This would also support admins such as yourself,
> who are attempting to apply the spirit of the rule rather than just
> enforcing to the letter.
>
> --
> Michael Turley
> User:Unfocused

It's been tried. It is less than popular.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Afd nominations

body:
Stefan Sittler wrote:

>I know, I know: how about the Capulets and Montagues? Crips and the
>Bloods? Yeah! Or the Sharks and the Jets. Then there could be a tender
>story of children of the warring Associations thrown together by fate
>and passion, tossed on the winds of information, tenderly editing each
>others articles, realizing the narrow creed they followed was nothing
>when it came to verifying AND including their love for another, each
>one spouting verse on the others talk page in the middle of the night,
>being bold, breaking the 3RR together, only to be cut down and burned
>out in a brutal flamewar  ending only in tragedy as one takes the
>poison of AfD and the other falls on his own WP:POINT in a message to
>all, and eyes are opened by this tragedy, leading to a historic
>agreement as Jimbo Wales eulogizes over their young but lifeless
>accounts, complete with tender homilies about community and vision and
>how he C0ntr0lz Teh Un1v3rs3.
>Or not.

SUBSCRIBE

You so need to put this on Uncyclopedia.
(http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia)

- d.


body:
On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe we should add the "guard dog" analogy to the rule, since guard
> dogs sometimes go a little outside the bounds of their confines at
> unexpected times.  This would also support admins such as yourself,
> who are attempting to apply the spirit of the rule rather than just
> enforcing to the letter.

No. The current wording (including the bit about the electric fence)
expresses the spirit quite accurately, down to the bit about its
electric fence nature.

Bottom line: unless it's to fix simple vandalism as defined at
[[Wikipedia:Vandalism]], there is no right way to revert more than
three times in 24 hours. If you break 3RR, you are doing something
completely wrongly.

- d.


from_name: Kat Walsh

body:
On 10/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well, the amount of policy a person has to absorb to become socialized
> > at Wikipedia IS stupefying.  There's a lot to think about and remember
> > when you just get started.
>
> I never really noticed that.  I was here for months before I read all
> that much of policy.  There are quite a few I still haven't read and
> I've been an admin since June.
>
> If you have some basic common sense, and access to a trusted peer
> group (i.e. Kat, who *has* read all of the policy and is easy to talk
> to on IRC...) who also has common sense, you barely need to read the
> published policy.
>
> Kelly

By this she means that I've spent too much time burying my head in the
Wikipedia namespace and hanging around chattering instead of doing
anything useful. ;-)

I do think that the Simplified Ruleset should be enough policy for
anyone to jump in with, and that newbies should get a lot of leeway
for a while if they're genuinely trying to contribute well.

The peer group is useful. For all the criticism the IRC channel gets,
I've seen quite a few people talked out of poor decisions and helped
with procedures and understanding of them;  the immediacy of responses
and the large numbers of people around does help, when there are
people around who will offer good advice. (When there aren't, well...
not so much.)

-Kat
[[User:Mindspillage]]

--
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams


from_name: Guettarda

body:
> How about a mixed system? First, have a Supreme Court
> (or whatever we want to call it) whose membership is
> fixed in number and determined through an election
> process such as governs Arbcom now. And then have
> lesser courts/magistrates/whatever confirmed through a
> process of community consensus such as occurs in RFA
> now?
>
> -DF

I'm not sure if a mixed system is the right way to go. Are there really
people you would vote magistrates but not arbitrators? In addition, it would
mean that we have to come up with a system in which there are rules as to
what cases can be appealed, and what cases can't.

I am drawn towards a less hierarchical structure. If we could draft enough
people in (and it should be easier if we can guarantee a lower work load) it
might make sense to have several "courts" - new cases would be assigned to
one of the courts (based on current load?) and arbitrators assigned to that
court could then agree to hear or not hear a case. If too many had to recuse
themselves, then the case could go to a different court.

The reason this appeals to me is the fact that people don't like having
other people look over their shoulder. People brought before the magistrates
are going to say "you can't judge me, I am appealing directly to the 'real'
arbcomm" (like people now appeal to Jimbo). We should have a mechanism by
which any individual arbitrator can review the decisions of another court,
be privy to the discussions on the arb-listserv, can make comments in the
workshop, but they would not be this hierarchy standing in judgement.
Something like 3-5 co-equal courts, each with 8 members would probably be
able to serve our needs. If there need to be more, then maybe we could add
new courts, through new elections.

Ian


body:
On 10/6/05, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure if a mixed system is the right way to go. Are there really
> people you would vote magistrates but not arbitrators?

Yes.  I have a number of people in mind who I think would make good
magistrates but who I would not (yet) trust with the duties of
Arbitrator.  Also, magistrate is likely to be a more manageable load
than Arbitrator, especially if we let people volunteer to work at
controllable work load levels (i.e. let individual magistrates specify
whether they are open to accept more cases or not; the ArbCom doesn't
have that luxury).  More people may be willing to make the commitment
to be a magistrate (especially ) than the much greater commitment of
an Arbitrator.

> I am drawn towards a less hierarchical structure. If we could draft enough
> people in (and it should be easier if we can guarantee a lower work load) it
> might make sense to have several "courts" - new cases would be assigned to
> one of the courts (based on current load?) and arbitrators assigned to that
> court could then agree to hear or not hear a case. If too many had to recuse
> themselves, then the case could go to a different court.

This leads to venue-shopping, which I'd prefer to avoid, and to
circuit conflict.  I don't want to put Jimbo into the position of
resolving conflicts between circuits of the ArbCom.  If we did do
circuits, to avoid this problem we'd have to allow appeal to the
ArbCom en banc, which is likely to be a mess, especially with the
proposal for 30 to 40 Arbitrators.  I also doubt that we can find 40
competent and qualified Arbitrators who enjoy the support of a
substantial portion of the community.

> The reason this appeals to me is the fact that people don't like having
> other people look over their shoulder. People brought before the magistrates
> are going to say "you can't judge me, I am appealing directly to the 'real'
> arbcomm" (like people now appeal to Jimbo).

They will learn not to do that when the ArbCom summarily dismisses
their appeals.

Kelly


body:
On 10/6/05, Michael Turley <michael.turley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > No. The current wording (including the bit about the electric fence)
> > expresses the spirit quite accurately, down to the bit about its
> > electric fence nature.
> > Bottom line: unless it's to fix simple vandalism as defined at
> > [[Wikipedia:Vandalism]], there is no right way to revert more than
> > three times in 24 hours. If you break 3RR, you are doing something
> > completely wrongly.

> The electric fence analogy gives people the false impression that they
> can walk *just up to the edge* and even reach their finger toward it.
> This is why we keep seeing fourth reverts at 24 hours and a few
> minutes after the first.
> I'd rather we were more clear that people are not "safe" walking right
> next to the fence like so many think they are.  Electric fences don't
> move when necessary to protect the Wiki.  3RR does (and should) move
> occasionally.
> Further, a guard dog can catch the scent of an intruder in disguise,
> much like we sniff out sock puppets.

Honestly, I think that anyone who reads [[WP:3RR]] and fails to understand:

    "The three-revert rule is not an entitlement, but an "electric
fence"; the 3RR is intended to stop edit wars. It does not grant users
an inalienable right to three reverts every 24 hours or endorse
reverts as an editing technique. Persistent reversion remains strongly
discouraged and is unlikely to constitute working properly with
others."

- is too stupid (possibly wilfully stupid) to understand without
falling afoul of it. As we've seen from this thread, even then they
frequently can't or won't learn.

- d.


from_name: Jack Lynch

body:
you can view the source of apage w/o being unblocked. There is a
button which says "view source" or some such instead of "edit". Try
that.

Cheers,

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 10/5/05, jmerkey <jmerkey at utah-nac.org> wrote:
>
>
> I have written several articles on wikipedia.  I no longer wish to have
> an account due to the fact Mr. Wales promises were hot honored regarding
> an article written about me which contains false and misleading content
> (Jeffrey Vernon Merkey).  A 23 year old admin, Frank V. Waveren (fvw)
> has continued to block my account making claims I am a sockpuppet user
> and allowing stalkers to harrass me on this site.  I have setup my own
> wiki at en.wikigadugi.org and am moving my editing and authorship to
> this site.  I do not wish to have an account on this site any longer.  I
> would, however, like to be able to retrieve the source from the articles
> I have written.  The new site isn't GNU based, and the content is
> copyrighted and will remain so.
>
> I have reviewed the blockage of this admin (fvw) and have noted he
> himself has been recently blocked for violating site rules.  I have not
> made legal threats, and I have a hard time accepting the judgement of a
> 23 year old and tolerating this level of harassment and false edits.  I
> have also noted this admin abuses his authority on this site repeatedly
> and is basically an "enforcer" of the Linux Community.  This admin has
> also obtained and posted private logs from kernel.org to this site, and
> has succeeded in getting my accounts at kernel.org revoked.
>
> I ask I be unblocked long enough to retrieve materials origianlly
> authored by me, at which point I wish my account (gadugi) to be deleted
> from this site.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jeff V. Merkey
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 10/6/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ed Poor wrote:
>
> >This can be addressed by encouraging (requiring?) Admins to log all
> >their 3RR blocks in one place. It could be a section of:
> >* [[Wikipedia:Account suspensions]]
>
>
> Sounds like [[m:instruction creep]]. Admins don't even bother logging
> their page protections in practice.

Oh they do, for the most part. That *is* important simply because page
protection doesn't automatically expire. Until recently we had some logged
protections that went back weeks. Khmer Rouge was protected for 90 days out
of 100, probably as part of a deliberate strategic move by some of the
editors.

And when I checked further I found some unlogged protections that went out
to the middle of August. It isn't good for the wiki to have temporary
protection drag on for months.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Why would Wikipedians be hamstrung in this way?

Fred

On Oct 6, 2005, at 9:07 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
>
>> Kelly Martin wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I would prefer to keep the ArbCom at its current size (or close to
>>> it) and establish lower courts to filter off the relatively easy
>>> stuff and to organize the cases into a form so that when they do
>>> appeal the ArbCom doesn't have to waste as much time marshalling
>>> the case.
>>>
>>> A few Arbitration Assistants would not be remiss, either.
>>>
>>> Kelly
>>>
>>>
>> I really like this idea. It seems to work pretty well in the U.S.
>> courts: The higher court would simply refuse to hear the appealed
>> case
>> unless they think something went /procedurally/ wrong in the lower
>> court. This would give us near-infinite scalability while still
>> maintaining accountability for the higher "judges" if you will. There
>> aren't really any drawbacks either. I would be in favor of creating a
>> proposed policy to this end.
>>
>>
> Appelate courts also do not permit new evidence to be brought
> forth.  They judge on points of law rather than facts.  It would be
> up to the lower ranking tribunal to sort through the mass of
> irrelevant material that is often raised.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 10/6/05, Phroziac <phroziac at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Jack Lynch wrote:
> > you can view the source of apage w/o being unblocked. There is a
> > button which says "view source" or some such instead of "edit". Try
> > that.
> Actually it still says "edit", and blocks your IP for 24 hours every
> time you click it...

 Jeff, use [[Special:Export]] to retrieve the source.
 Instead of starting your own wiki, why not join up with us at Jnanabase?
 Anthony


body:
The same obligation would apply to everyone.

Fred

On Oct 6, 2005, at 10:38 AM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> Second, allowing people to pick and choose what issues they will offer
> justice on is an open invitation to bias.  If a candidate jurist has a
> POV on a particular issue, he will want to judge it in order to impose
> his POV.  I oppose any system in which assignment to cases is on a
> voluntary basis; all of our jurists should take the cases as they
> come, with the option (and obligation) to recuse in case of conflict.


body:
On 10/6/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe (this is just one
> flippant example) put a star by their name for every success, and
> remove on for every failure. Some process whereby good mediators are
> rewarded, and bad mediators either learn from their mistakes, or move
> on.

The failure of a mediation is usually not the fault of the mediator.

Kelly


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

DF wrote:

>
>How about a mixed system? First, have a Supreme Court
>(or whatever we want to call it) whose membership is
>fixed in number and determined through an election
>process such as governs Arbcom now. And then have
>lesser courts/magistrates/whatever confirmed through a
>process of community consensus such as occurs in RFA
>now?

Sounds good to me. I think we're getting to the point where we can
think about starting to write a policy proposal.

- - Ryan
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from_name: Fl Celloguy

body:
>Thats all true, but there are measurable affects, and I think I'm far
>from alone in wishing that more benefits were reaped. I donno about
>arbiters, but we could use acouple hundred more mediators. The
>mediation commitee selection process is an error which should not be
>perpetuated.

>Jack (Sam Spade)

Sam Spade, what do you think is wrong with the mediation selection process?
We can't exactly hold elections, because there's a variable amount of us. Do
you have any reforms/opinions?

Regarding the effectiveness of mediation: it is true that Requests for
mediation (RfM) was backlogged a few weeks ago. However, there's been a wave
of new mediators/ applicants, and the MedCom is up and running again. The
reason, in my opinion, why there's no immediate effect by the functioning of
the MedCom is the nature of the work itself - unlike the ArbCom, we don't
determine who's "right" and who's "wrong", we can't dole out punishments,
and our word isn't binding. On the contrary, we strive to resolve the
disputes before they reach the ArbCom. This is often difficult to
accomplish, because disputes that have reached the stage of mediation are
already very demanding, and even with the best mediator, it is doubtful that
the dispute can be resolved completely. It is human nature that once you
have a bad experience with another user, even after mediation, your views
will not be altered significantly. Mediation is also a extremely long and
time-consuming process; unlike the ArbCom, there is no definitive "end" to
mediation. While the job is tough, I consider it worthwhile if the two
disputees gain even an inch more respect and understanding for each other.
Thus, I beleive in that sense, mediation has been working.

In another sense, though, the MedCom has failed. If I am correct, the
original intentions of the WikiQuette Committee (the predecessor to the
MedCom) was to lighten the load from the ArbCom. This has not happened; a
cursorary glance at the current cases facing the ArbCom show that almost
none attempted mediation. In fact, the vast majority of ArbCom cases over
the past year have not gone through the MedCom.

Thus, I am going to make a suggestion: re-introduce and emphasize the role
of the MedCom in the dispute resolution process. While the MedCom should by
no means be doling out punishment or determining findings of facts, if even
one-fourth of the current cases went through MedCom first, I believe the
mutual respect between the involved parties would often increase - if only
somewhat. Though it is doubtful that the MedCom would prevent any of these
cases from going to the ArbCom, by having attempted mediation, not only
would the mutual respect increase (hopefully), but also show the ArbCom that
both sides have made good-faith efforts at resolving the conflict.

A second suggestion: hand the MedCom more power. In other words, make the
MedCom serve as the "lower court" that has been proposed, except that
instead of deciding cases, the MedCom could attempt to mediate, reject the
case, or refer to the ArbCom. Thus, the MedCom would serve as a "filter"
before the ArbCom, only referring to the ArbCom cases which they believe
warrant arbitration, thus filtering out cases where mediation could possibly
work and cases that are too ridiculous to reach the ArbCom. Of course, if
mediation does not resolve the dispute, the MedCom can always refer the
dispute to the ArbCom.

It is my opinion, as demonstrated above, that the MedCom should be more
involved in the dispute resolution process than it currently is. While it
may not be the solution that we are searching for regarding the ArbCom
reforms, I certainly think that placing a greater emphasis on attempting
mediation first is worthwhile.

Also, let me take this opportunity, in the spirit of Esperanza, to thank
each and every one of you for your wonderful work on Wikipedia. Without you,
this great project would not be possible. I know that it is easy to feel
underappreciated, but know that many of us all admire and appreciate your
work. Also, let me wish all the ArbCom candidates best of luck at this time,
and to prepare - and warn- you of the long road ahead of you.

As always, I am seeking input on my views and value your opinions.

Regards,

Flcelloguy
>From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >- is too stupid (possibly wilfully stupid) to understand without
> >falling afoul of it. As we've seen from this thread, even then they
> >frequently can't or won't learn.

> Well, after warning someone about the 3RR because I saw that he had
> reverted twice in a couple hours (with some snippy edit summaries), he
> made the following elaborate argument that he had done nothing wrong.
> You can see my painful, and ultimately fruitless, attempt to explain
> the situation to him at [[User talk:Freemarkets]].
> "According to baseball rules, if one has "more than 2 strikes" called
> against him while at bat, that player will be called "out." In other
> words, each batter is "entitled" to 2 strikes before being called
> "out." According to Wikipedia rules, if one edits a page "more than
> three times" in a 24 hour period, he is subject to being blocked. How
> is it, then, that that rule does NOT "entitle" an editor to "three
> reverts" without being called out? If one must break a rule to be
> blocked, and one cannot break the rule without reverting more than 3
> times in 24 hours, then how have I violated the rule, and how would I
> be subject to being banned? Further, of what use is your
> warning?--Freemarkets  11:40, 29 September 2005 (UTC)"

What a pity being that wilfully clueless isn't a blocking offence. At
least not the first time.

- d.


from_name: Ryan W. (Merovingian)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: The 3RR is an electric fence,
	not an entitlement.

body:
Let me clarify myself.  It is one thing to revert; it is another to work with the other side.

--Ryan

> From: actionforum at comcast.net
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: The 3RR is an electric fence, not an
> 	entitlement.
>
> -------------- Original message --------------
> > I agree whole-heartedly. Reverts should really only be seen from
> > trolls and POV-pushers, who find the edit summary or talk page
> > irrelevant.
>
> Don't edit pages with POV pushers on them, if you aren't
> willing to revert, it will put you at a disadvantage.  Some of
> those pages are among my favorites.  The real problem
> is not POV pushers, but POV suppressors, who won't
> let any other POV on a page.
>
> I seldom have trouble with POV pushers, because I am tolerant
> of other POVs.  If the other POV has any legitimacy and
> at all, I usually am tolerant of it as long as it is fairly characterized,
> will will usually assist in fairly characterizing it.
>
> Some pages are guarded by POV suppressors, and some busy
> pages have whole cliques of POV suppressors.
>
>                           -- Silverback

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Four edits by two parties in the space of ten minutes. We discussed our
>changes (on talk pages and in edit summaries), made one revert each, and
>ended up fixing the article.
>
>Who needs the 3RR when you have common sense?
>
For some editors that is a very steep requirement. :-)


from_name: Ryan Hudy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Changes to the Skin Preferences section

body:
Ryan Hudy <rthudy at ...> writes:

>
> Sorry if this has been asked before, but I have created a skin that uses a
> form that enables users to add necessary classification markup. The issue I
> have is that I need to set/change the preferences listing so that this skin
> is the default and cannot be changed by the user through the preferences
> section. Is this possible?
>
> Ryan
>

I figured out how to do this by using $wgSkipSkin, but now I'm looking to take
the Skin link off the preference page. I think I need to be looking at the
SpecialPreferences.php file, but what excatly am I looking for?

Ryan


from_name: Gerrit Holl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] 2 unrelated questions

body:
> On 10/6/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Why would we start a Tetum Wiktionary first? Wiktionaries generally
> > don't hold new contributors as well.
GerardM wrote:
> Well Mark,
> I am sure you have figures on that. You have obviously done loads of
> research on this. Or you prefer as usual to have Wikipedias. That is in
> itself fine but please leave off with spreading FUD.

I think it's obvious. Writing an encypclopedia provides more
satisfaction, is better suitable for the wiki-style (more edits), and
Wikipedia is far more famous.

Gerrit.

--
Temperature in Lule?, Norrbotten, Sweden:
| Current temperature   05-10-06 16:39:54   15.3 degrees Celsius ( 59.5F) |
--
Det finns inte d?ligt v?der, bara d?liga kl?der.


body:
Michael Turley wrote:

>I wanted to make sure my edits were "proper" before committing them,
>after all, they are in the edit history FOREVER ;-), so I did more
>than an afternoon's worth of reading before my first logged-in post.
>My initial thoughts were "What would be worse for establishing your
>reputation than having a crappy first edit?"  Yet I still neglected to
>use an edit summary!  Doh!

It took me a few days to realise it used a version control system and
that the edit summary was equivalent to the CVS commit message ;-)

- d.


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php

I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share
the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it
is free.  It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better
quality, period, free or non-free.  We should strive to be the best.

But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific
embarassment.  [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.

Why?  What can we do about it?

--Jimbo


list: textbook-l

from_name: Karl Wick

subject: [Textbook-l] Re: Wikibooks

body:
Yeah, and I wrote back to him and to Ryan. Thanks for the connection,
maybe we will be written up in a nice piece somewhere. I don't speak
any French though so I don't know if I will understand any of
Laurent's article.

Karl

On 10/6/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Karl Wick wrote:
>
> > Ryan, (and Laurent),
> >
> > On 10/5/05, rpenner at mail.utexas.edu <rpenner at mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>Karl,
> >>I'm not sure if my last message went through, so I'll try again. If you got my
> >>other questions, disregard them and respond to this email instead. I'd like to
> >>start the interview through email, and I'll call you if I have any follow up
> >>questions. If you could answer any or all of these questions, I would really
> >>appreciate it!
> >>
> >>First, how did you get started with Wikibooks, and why? Was the site mostly your
> >>idea, or was it a collaboration?
> >>
> >
> >
> > The one who opened his mouth was me, but the idea seems pretty obvious
> > and I am sure that someone else would have said something soon if I
> > hadn't. It has been a collaboration from the very beginning, with the
> > faceless tech guys at Wikipedia who set up the software to Maveric149
> > who bought the domain name space to each person who has dedicated time
> > to writing and editing textbook modules, and especially Jimmy Wales
> > who got Wikipedia started and was the one who gave the go-ahead for
> > the Wikibooks project.
> >
> >
> >>To get some sort of time frame, when did the idea for Wikibooks come about, and
> >>when did the site actually go up?
> >>
> >
> >
> > I started writing my OChem book on Wikipedia at the beginning of the
> > summer 03 quarter at Cleveland State University, and on July 10, 2003
> > the new site went up. The delay was probably a month.
> >
> >
> >>How big was the site when it was started, and how big is it now? What do you
> >>hope to accomplish with Wikibooks in the future?
> >>
> >
> >
> > When the site started it had no content, and now it has 11,600+
> > modules in English and several thousand more in other languages,
> > although like Wikipedia, English has the most developed content.
> >
> > The vision that I had when I started Wikibooks was that we would
> > eventually have free versions of textbooks in all subjects at all
> > levels from preschool to the most advanced postgraduate, any and every
> > subject that traditional textbooks currently serve. My idea is that
> > when there is a good base of information for a book, that is, a decent
> > book all developed and online at the site, teachers and students can
> > use that information online, people can print out hard copies to
> > distribute and sell, but that individuals can also take the content
> > and modify it for their very private uses. A teacher can decide which
> > modules to use, what order to use them in, pick between different
> > modules that serve more or less the same purpose, etc. And of course,
> > for the person who is already well served by a traditional textbook,
> > he or she can use the wikitext just as it is, without those laborious
> > changes.
> >
> > My dream is that when any  book is finished and online, new
> > developments can be included as they happen, and the texts can avoid
> > the problem of traditional texts that get outdated fast. Also the fact
> > that it is all online means that you can use multimedia right there in
> > your computer and otherwise interact more than with a printed book.
> >
> > Another great thing about it all is that errors are corrected in real
> > time so, unlike traditional books, when errors are there they can be
> > pointed out and corrected. Also, students can take an active part in
> > their own education by writing about the things that they are learning
> > about, especially while the project is relatively new and there are
> > huge holes in content still. Teachers can work together and decide as
> > a team what material to include and how to present it, and even have
> > different options for students with different learning styles. We now
> > know that different learners have quite different preferences for
> > their own learning, and having alternative modules customized for a
> > couple of different styles of learners, with localized examples,
> > cultural sensitivity according to the end user, the list goes on and
> > on.
> >
> >
> >>This is the most important question for me: is there a possible application of
> >>Wikibooks at the university level? If so, to what extent can Wikibooks be used
> >>in a college classroom?
> >>
> >
> >
> > Part of the answer is above. The answer is absolutely YES. In fact, it
> > was a university level book that was the first to be started. I think
> > that study guides are a natural first step, and a study guide fleshed
> > out could become the outline of a whole textbook.
> >
> >
> >>Is there a problem with the open-source nature of the site? Specifically, it
> >>seems like since anybody can write whatever they want on any subject, there may
> >>be credibility or authenticity issues. Also, might authors with good intentions
> >>mistakenly take information from bad sources and use it for their
> >>contributions? Do any of these issues limit in any way the usability of
> >>Wikibooks in colleges?
> >>
> >
> > The material will depend on the quality of the contributions made. The
> > more teachers, professors, involved students, and other experts we can
> > have involved, the better the quality of the books and other teaching
> > materials. Jimmy Wales has focused in on the benefits for the
> > developing world and I agree, but I also think these texts can make
> > learning better for users in the developed world, too. My original,
> > immediate goal was to work with and help out other pre-med students in
> > the US developing college-level science texts. I think that the more
> > the students are involved in the process, and the teachers, the better
> > the final product can be.
> >
> >
> >>That's it for now. Thanks a lot for all of your help.
> >>
> >
> >
> > No problem, I hope that these answers help you out! Have a great day,
> > Karl
> >
> >
> >>-Ryan Penner
> >>Daily Texan
>
> hiya
>
> By the way, did you get the message from the french journalist
> interested by Wikibooks ?
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


from_name: ilooy

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Need help with ACLE vandalism

body:
Hi,
I pushed hard to get the
subdomain lad.wikipedia.org
established. And now that
it is up and running it has
become a target of vandals.

Earlier I'd asked how to get
admin/sysop access to be
able to administer the wiki
but I haven't heard.

Could someone help?

I'm willing to administer the
wiki and help promote and
aid its progress, but we need
someone who can grant admin
rights. If it is not done soon there's
going to be a lot of vangalism and
this is just not right.

Could someone please help?

Thanks,
Jay B.
[[User:ILVI]]

--
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] GET requests to preview additions to the Wikipedia no
	longer working?

body:
Hi All,

You used to be able to use GET requests to preview edits to the Wikipedia.

For example, this link worked in January 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=East_Balmain&wpTextbox1=%23REDIRECT+%5B%5BBalmain+East%2C+New+South+Wales%5D%5D&action=edit&wpSummary=Redirect+to+%5B%5BBalmain+East%2C+New+South+Wales%5D%5D&wpPreview=1

Clicking this link used to preview adding a redirect at the "East
Balmain" article, with the article text being "#REDIRECT [[Balmain
East, New South Wales]]", and the edit summary being "Redirect to
[[Balmain East, New South Wales]]". All the user had to do then was
click "Save". It was incredibly useful, because it meant software
could generate new possible articles and redirect, and then a human
could yes/no veto them. It also meant that these possible items could
be listed on the Wikipedia itself, because the Wikipedia allows GET
arguments but not POST arguments in links - and this in turn allowed
the Wikipedia to be used to extend the Wikipedia - it was, in short,
extremely useful.

( Of course this functionality could be abused, in the same way that
_any_ technology can be used for both positive and negative purposes.
An example of project that used this in a positive way can be seen
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nickj/Redirects )

Now however it seems like these GET requests no longer work. Have I
missed something obvious (i.e. it's just a dumb-user problem with the
GET request) ? Or is it something to do with the Wikipedia itself
(i.e. a server-side thing) ? If so, is it intentional? If it's not
intentional, can we please have this functionality back? (At least for
new articles: I can understand why it's a bad idea for edits to
existing articles because it allows thoughtless overwriting of
previous content - but this argument doesn't apply if there isn't
something there already).

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiFilter and spidering/bots?

body:
David Reynolds wrote:
> Since the archives are fairly opaque on the subject, does anyone know if
> it's possible to spider the database dumps offline through the use of
> WikiFilter? Or do you have to be running the full MediaWiki software
> locally?

I don't know what WikiFilter is so I couldn't say what it can or can't do.

But you certainly are free to process the dumps however you like; one
thing you can do with them is import them into a MediaWiki instance, but
that's just one thing.

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps for some more information
on the dumps we provide and the format.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Andrew Gray

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Trademarked images and image use policies in
	non-English Wikipedias

body:
On 06/10/05, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd be really interested in reading about what decisions the other
> language versions of Wikipedia made and why.
>
> Can someone point me to a place where I can discuss this (preferably
> in English)?

Wikipedia-l may be a good idea, or if you ask on meta there might be
someone knowledgeable. The en.wiki articles on foreign-language
editions may or may not have brief summaries of such policies, but not
really the reasoning behind them.

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


from_name: Chip Berlet

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
Hi,

Just out of curiosity, what specifically about the Jane Fonda entry is "crap?"

POV?  Writing Style? Focus of Content? Rough text?

Help us out here.

:-)

-Chip Berlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Jimmy Wales
Sent: Thu 10/6/2005 5:01 PM
To: wikien-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php

I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share
the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it
is free.  It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better
quality, period, free or non-free.  We should strive to be the best.

But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific
embarassment.  [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.

Why?  What can we do about it?

--Jimbo
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 26, Issue 45

body:
Thanks again Ashar and Tim for helping
with the Ladino Wiki setup.

I'd like to request instructions on how to
get admin rights and be able to give these
to those, specially native speakers, who
are willing to contribute to the project.

Unfortunately it is now quite wide open to
vandalism, and we desperately need someone
who is willing to check it against this and
administer the subdomain.

I'm willing and will need admin/sysop
access to this wiki.

Can one of you help with this?

With thanks,
Jay B.

2005/9/26, ilooy <ilooy.gaon at gmail.com>:
> Thank you so much Ashar and Tim,
> for the setting up of the new subdomains!
> With regards,
> Jay B.
>
>
> 2005/9/25, wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org <wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org>:
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 15:29:50 +0200
> > From: Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org>
> > Subject: [Wikitech-l] nap, war, lad wikipedias created
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > With the technical assistance of Tim Starling, I created three new
> > wikipedia projects which were pending somewhere on meta: .
> >
> > The projects are:
> >
> >   Ladino :  http://lad.wikipedia.org/
> >   Waray-Waray :  http://nap.wikipedia.org/
> >   Neapolitan : http://war.wikipedia.org/
> >
> > For any trouble with those newly created projects, please reply to
> > wikitech-l mailing list only (followup-to set).
> >
>
> --
> ilooy.gaon at gmail.com
>

--
--
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php
>
>I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share
>the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it
>is free.  It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better
>quality, period, free or non-free.  We should strive to be the best.
>
>But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific
>embarassment.  [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.
>
>Why?  What can we do about it?
>
1. We need more editors. Although the raw numbers are large, the
number of articles is even larger, and so there are not enough
editors to go around. It's kind of disturbing when a) I have to
create an article on a subject in which I'm not that knowledgeable,
because there is nobody more knowledgeable creating it, and b) I
learn more about the subject, realize I made a major factual error,
and go back to it six months later, only to find that the only changes
in the interim have been to disambiguate some links and recategorize
the article five times, while the howler has been carefully preserved.
Where are all the subject-matter experts?

2. We need a way to discourage well-meaning but less-able editors
from crumbling good articles. On my watchlist I see a lot of editors
(some logins, some anons) adding nonsequiturs or redundancies,
randomly rearranging text, adding useless templates en masse, etc.
They're not vandalism, but they're not improvements either, and
most of them I just let slide by because they're stylistic rather
than factual, and it's disheartening to argue with people about
style over and over. A vicious circle though, because if I feel
like an article is inexorably going downhill, I'm less and less
motivated to try to halt the slide. Not quite the same as article
rating, it seems more like we want articles to gradually get harder
to edit as they gradually get better.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
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Stan Shebs wrote:

>
> 2. We need a way to discourage well-meaning but less-able editors
> from crumbling good articles. On my watchlist I see a lot of editors
> (some logins, some anons) adding nonsequiturs or redundancies,
> randomly rearranging text, adding useless templates en masse, etc.

I've actually had some luck with this. If someone makes an edit that
doesn't hurt anything, but doesn't add anything either, I simply
revert with the edit summary "rv: not an improvement". This seems to
send a message to people that edits need to be constructive and have a
plan behind them. Just moving stuff around isn't good for the Wiki,
and a solitary edit like this could seem to have no effect, but in the
aggregate they can make for a ridiculously disorganized article that
is not at all a pleasure to read.

- - Ryan
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body:
On 06/10/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> > What a pity being that wilfully clueless isn't a blocking offence. At
> > least not the first time.
>
> Something to add to [[WP:NOT]]: Wikipedia is not a game of baseball.

Should we add that the 3RR is also not cricket? ;-)

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


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body: Wikipedia is not baseball.


subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
actionforum at comcast.net wrote:
> I haven't looked at the criticism or the articles, but your comment about
> readability, reminds me of several other articles.  However, I think you
> may be emphasizing the wrong standard of quality.  Instead of the type
> of quality you can only get with a uniform editoral staff, I think instead
> you should emphasize value and information.  Even an poorly written
> article can be more valuable than an encyclopedia Brittanica article.

Yes, but it should be both.  We should have quality information, well
presented.

> I would not hesitate to send students to wikipedia for this
> reason, I would have them also take advantage of the talk
> page, etc.  They are more likely to get all POVs on wikipedia.
> They should also learn to view information with a healthy
> dose of skepticism, and to verify information themselves.
> Wikipedia's state of flux, conflict and poor readability,
> will all be heathy reminders of this, while Britannica may
> lull the student into an uncritical trust.

Indeed, and don't get me wrong.  I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia. :-)

But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent
articles.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
Chip Berlet wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Just out of curiosity, what specifically about the Jane Fonda entry is "crap?"
>
> POV?  Writing Style? Focus of Content? Rough text?

In the current examples, I'm mainly focussed on writing style.

"Her nickname as a youth?Lady Jane?was one she reportedly disliked. She
traveled to Communist Russia in 1964 and was impressed by the people,
who welcomed her warmly as Henry's daughter. In the mid-1960s she bought
a farm outside of Paris, had it renovated and personally started a
garden. She visited Andy Warhol's Factory in 1966. About her 1971 Oscar
win, her father Henry said: "How in hell would you like to have been in
this business as long as I and have one of your kids win an Oscar before
you do?" Jane was on the cover of Life magazine, March 29, 1968."

This is a motley collection of facts, poorly expressed, poorly
organized, and without context.

--Jimbo


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 10:48 -0500, Nyenyec N wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In HuWiki there's an ongoing debate over trademarked images, such as
> company logos. On the one hand, they're usually copyrighted so they
> shouldn't be uploaded, on the other hand they can be used to
> illustrate encyclopedia articles about the specific company without
> the fear of anyone suing us.

Except that they might implicitly be taken to imply endorsement, or we
might be asked to remove them.

WHat is the summary of the argument on HU?

> I know that they cannot be uploaded to commons (since they're
> copyrighted) and I think the German Wikipedia also doesn't allow such
> images, since they don't have a free license.
>
> I'd be really interested in reading about what decisions the other
> language versions of Wikipedia made and why.

en is overlax and allows upload of pretty much any copyrighted image at
the moment. Clearly this is going to have to change. I wouldnt use the
policies of en as a basis for anything else. Also it depends on the fair
use policy of the country in question (as that is where it will largely
be used). Germany has no fair use right in law apparently, hence their
decision.

> Can someone point me to a place where I can discuss this (preferably
> in English)?

Here, or wikiproject fair use on en.


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
>From: "Chip Berlet" <c.berlet at publiceye.org>
>
>Hi,
>
>Just out of curiosity, what specifically about the Jane Fonda entry is
>"crap?"
>
>POV?  Writing Style? Focus of Content? Rough text?
>
>Help us out here.
>
>:-)

I think the problem is that there aren't enough pictures from Barbarella in
the article. ;-)

Jay.


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
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Michael Turley wrote:

>
>> I've actually had some luck with this. If someone makes an edit
>> that doesn't hurt anything, but doesn't add anything either, I
>> simply revert with the edit summary "rv: not an improvement".
>> This seems to send a message to people that edits need to be
>> constructive and have a plan behind them. Just moving stuff
>> around isn't good for the Wiki, and a solitary edit like this
>> could seem to have no effect, but in the aggregate they can make
>> for a ridiculously disorganized article that is not at all a
>> pleasure to read.
>
>
> If you're going to be that brusque, you should accompany your
> reversion with a comment on a talk page (article or editor) to tell
> them where you see the problem with their edits. "rv: not an
> improvement, see [[article:talk]]" is much better. This way, it's
> constructive rather than just blunt.
>
If you want to do that, you are welcome to. My intention was to give
him an idea on how to deal with this problem, not to lecture him on
manners.

- - Ryan
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from_name: Ben E.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tag-teaming

body:
And couldn't tag-teaming be counted as meatpuppetry?

-[[en:User:Bratsche|Ben]]

On 10/6/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/6/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > This can be addressed by encouraging (requiring?) Admins to log all
> > their 3RR blocks in one place.
>
> We already do.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Bratsche-It means "viola!"


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: a valid criticism

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific
>embarassment.  [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.
>
>Why?  What can we do about it?
>
>
This is a common problem we have, especially with biographies of living
people. They tend to develop by people adding various facts piecemeal,
without any attempt to think about how to organize an encyclopedia
article about the subject. At most they manage to accomplish a rough
chronological sequence, heavily weighted to recent events of course.
Unless somebody comes along to synthesize the material, it will remain
incoherent. So the solution, it would seem, is to encourage editors to
tackle an article in its entirety, or find more people willing to do so.
This is one reason the featured article process is so important, because
it's really this kind of treatment that is the key to featured status.

Biographies generally are also very vulnerable to a form of POV-pushing
I call death-by-anecdote, and both of the examples Carr picked suffer
from it. The rambling recitation of chronological facts encourages
people to add all manner of trivial incidents, ephemeral news that does
not contribute to any greater understanding of the subject. Often
editors will key on mentioning every inconsequential matter they can
find to put the subject in a negative light (or alternatively to engage
in hagiography). Attempts to "NPOV" this produce a back and forth in
which the discussion of some trifle grows out of all proportion to its
significance.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Alphax

body:
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Phroziac wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>Many folks who run for arbitrator, and are elected, fail to work out,
>>as being a Wikipedia Arbitrator involves very tedious and time
>>consuming research into the edits made by the parties. I suggest that
>>all administrators be considered potential arbitrators. Those among  the
>>administrators who are willing and able to do the work involved  should,
>>by demonstration of their work, assume the role.
>>
>>I suggest that any administrator should be able to "accept" an
>>arbitration and then participate in resolving it.
>>
>>Fred
>
> Sounds good to me.
>

Agreed. If we can't trust admins, who *can* we trust?

- --
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How many Arbitrators should we have?

body:
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Michael Snow wrote:
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
>> I would prefer to keep the ArbCom at its current size (or close to it)
>> and establish lower courts to filter off the relatively easy stuff and
>> to organize the cases into a form so that when they do appeal the
>> ArbCom doesn't have to waste as much time marshalling the case.
>>
>>
> This is roughly what I suggested prior to the election last year:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-November/017170.html
> We would simply need to figure out the number of magistrates (my term
> for the people on the next level down) and how to select them.
>

Magistrates was exactly what I thinking when I read the proposal for the
"next level down".

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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
> On 10/6/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php
> >
> > I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share
> > the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it
> > is free. It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better
> > quality, period, free or non-free. We should strive to be the best.
> >

"It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better quality, period,
free or non-free." Geez, watch what you say. Before I noticed who made the
statement I took it to mean that you don't care if we're free or non-free.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

body:
On 10/6/05, Chip Berlet <c.berlet at publiceye.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Just out of curiosity, what specifically about the Jane Fonda entry is
> "crap?"
>
> POV? Writing Style? Focus of Content? Rough text?
>
> Help us out here.
>
> :-)
>
> -Chip Berlet

You know, if it was anyone else complaining about article quality, the
response would be something more like "{{sofixit}}".


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

subject:
[Foundation-l] Authoring on wikijunior : providing private
	information.

body:
On 10/6/05, foundation-l-request at wikimedia.org <
foundation-l-request at wikimedia.org> wrote:What I am asking for is that if
you want to claim copyright on your contribution, you need to give this
minimum amount of information for legal protection and to give a realistic
copyright claim on your contributions. As it stands right now, there is no
way that you can realisticly claim copyright on any of your contributions
right now, and certainly there is no way that you canresolve potential
copyright claims on material if it goes to court in a dispute.

Okay, suppose I didn't include my information, and I wanted to claim
copyright on content in Wikijunior.

I take the Foundation to court, saying "I CLAIM MY COPYRIGHT ON THIS!"

The defendant's lawyer says "But, you can't. On the website, when you
contribute anything to any Wikimedia project, it says that you're
contributing this info to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Like, seeing that I have my information on the "contributors" page, does
that mean I own part of the Wikijunior project, and thus can profit from my
"share" of the contribution? Every time one issue of the books is published,
$0.02 come rolling into my PayPal account? What? If that's the case, I'm
doing fifty edits under fifty different usernames.

I honestly am dumb-founded on what you consider "claiming [my] copyright",
on something solely copyrighten by the foundation.

Nick/Zanimum


from_name: Jack Lynch

body:
The current mediation process doesn't work very well, for exactly
those reasons, and should not be used an an example of what to do w
the ArbCom. They are making changes and improvements, but it is
despite, rather than because of their selection process, that it is
occuring.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 10/6/05, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Michael Turley wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > There are a lot of current administrators that I've either voted to
> > > support, or simply refused to vote oppose in their RfA that I
> > > would never consider supporting in the position of an arbitrator.
> > > If I'd thought that one future day they'd get handed the authority
> > > to arbitrate in any way stronger than they now can (by blocking,
> > > page locking, etc) it would certainly have been less "no big deal"
> > > and a lot more "let's screen these people very carefully".
> >
> > All right, then. How would you suggest we choose them?
> >
> > - - Ryan
>
> I can see something like the current Mediation Committee request
> process working: a sort of unstructured request, with general
> agreement from the community and no veto by the arbcom, to form a pool
> of people to draw from.
>
> I do think as some others have that not every suitable admin would be
> a suitable arbitrator/magistrate/clerk -- though quite a few would.
> It's a few additional skills and a more specific sort of personality
> required.
>
> -Kat
> [[User:Mindspillage]]
>
> --
> "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
> escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: David Reynolds

body:
Since the archives are fairly opaque on the subject, does anyone know if
it's possible to spider the database dumps offline through the use of
WikiFilter? Or do you have to be running the full MediaWiki software
locally?

Thanks; got a catch-the-mis-categorization project in mind.

Regards,
David R


body:
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Jack Lynch wrote:
> I'd been hoping for a long time that the position of adminship would
> be done away with, in favor of something more wikilike. This entire
> thread betrays the basics of why the wikipedia works (anti-elitism,
> ability of everyone to edit). These proposals perpetuate the idea that
> admins are somehow more competent for having won a popularity contest
> at RfA. That simply is not true, and eventually you'll discover the
> reason why the wikipedia works, and the nupedia didn't. Creating
> hegemony to the benefit of the few is no way to encourage
> volunteership. Skilled contributors don't donate their time in order
> to be made to feel like 2nd class citizens. Your damn lucky I enjoy
> reading the encyclopedia so much, or I wouldn't be wasting time w such
> an unrewarding process.

Oh, so you would rather that we let everyone vandalise and edit war
without restraint?

If RfA is a popularity contest, how did the people that "won" get so
popular in the first place?

And while we're at it, are you in the habit of conducting "experiments"
to press admins's buttons, to see just how much crap they are willing to
tolerate?

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body:
On 10/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
> >
> >
> Appelate courts also do not permit new evidence to be brought forth.
> They judge on points of law rather than facts. It would be up to the
> lower ranking tribunal to sort through the mass of irrelevant material
> that is often raised.
>
>
Oh please don't let's repeat the recent VFU idiocy again, refusing to look
at what's in front of our faces because of some sterile rules. Wikipedia
isn't a court system of a legislature.

Arbcom *should* look at facts, and make a judgement that fits the
circumstances, not some abstract law.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 2 unrelated questions

body:
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Giuseppe DAngelo wrote:
> 1. I notice that whenever one uses an accent in a Category, it puts
> it all out of order.  For instance, if I wish to write ?frica in the
> Category - it ends up after Z rather than amongst the As - is there a
> trick to fixing that up?
>

Yes, re-writing the string comparator in PHP...

>
>
> 2.  Is there a wikipedia for Tetum, the official language of the
> newest member of the United Nations, East Timor?
>
>

Not sure^H^H^H^H^H yet. The article on en: [[Tetum language]] doesn't
have ISO 639 -1, -2 or SIL codes. It's listed in [[ISO 639]] as "tet"
for -3.

It would probably be best to start a Tetum wiktionary first...

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from_name: Dan Libby

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki OpenID patch

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Dan Libby wrote:
>
>>Hi all, I've created a patch for OpenID login to MediaWiki. ( 1.4.10 )
>>
>>Details here:
>>http://wiki.www.videntity.org/wiki/MediaWiki_OpenID_Patch
>
>
> Can you port it on 1.5.0 and eventually try to get a patch for HEAD ? It
> would be interesting to get openid support for 1.6 (or later).

Yes, I can do that.

It should be noted though that this patch may not the best way to do
things long term.

A couple things:

1) this patch piggy-backs on top of SpecialUserlogin.  So if a username
contains "://" or '." then the OpenID code kicks in.  This does not
provide any sort of possibility for other login types, eg LID.  Also it
would break any pre-existing logins with those strings in them.

2) MediaWiki insists on upper-casing all titles, including usernames.  I
worked around that for actually storing the username, but it still
happens for display,which looks kinda nasty for eg:
"Http://danda.videntity.org/".    I'm not sure how to get around that as
the title normalization stuff is a bit, umm, inscrutable.

I'm wondering if someone on the core team could perform a code review of
the patch and either:

a) give it a tentative blessing, with some pointers for ways to deal
with the above issues.

b) reject it as "the wrong way" to do things.

If it has a tentative blessing, then I'm more inclined to port it to
1.5.0 and do whatever is necessary to make it "right".

I figure that even if it is the wrong way, at least it works now for my
wiki and anyone else who want to use it, and may prove useful as sample
code for someone to do it "the right way", whatever that might be.

regards,

Dan Libby