subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Suggestions

body:
Then what's the point of having an encyclopedia?  Why not just have an article title and list all of the citations?

RickK

Ira Stoll <irastoll at hotmail.com> wrote:
That's exactly what I'm getting at. The wikipedia should be packed with
clickable citations.The reason why I've always loved encyclopedias so much
is the quality of the information, and the impartial manner in which it was
presented. Citations (particularly linkable) bring with them evidence for
belief, and an option for the reader to learn further, investigate for
themselves (by clicking on it). A basic of polite discourse (and a policy in
my debate club) was to accept another's argument so long as it is logical,
and to accept their premise so long as you could not disprove it (like thru
a citation). What I Don't like about the wikipedia is when the truth (or a
way of interpreting it) is removed from an article, regardless of the
quality of citation, due to overriding majority POV. My suggestions are
meant to address that. JackLynch

>On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Rick wrote:

>Wikipedia is not a list of citations.
>
>RickK
>Ira Stoll wrote:
>
>*only replace text that you know to be wrong (inaccurate), and replace it
>with something that has a citation to back it up. If they have a reasonable
>difference, based on citation, allow both POV to be presented
>
>I don't understand your POV, Rick. Are you saying that we should have _no_
>citations or mention of references so readers can verify facts or
>quotations?
>If so, wouldn't that undermine the credibility of Wikipedia?

>Geoff

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Kevin Baas

body:
Fred wrote:
>I would suggest you request mediation of him and the mediation
>committee

Let's not forget the other steps in the conflict resolution process that come
before that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_resolution

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bylaws V

body:
Kurt wrote:
>From http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000652.html

Exactly my point. A partner of an owner is a co-owner *not* an employee.
Larry was an employee.

--mav


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Packed with clickable citations

body:
Ugh.  I'm glad I haven't tried to read that.  How tedious.

RickK

"Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com> wrote:
As for "Wikipedia is not a list of citations"?fine; neither is
Lauren Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," but every
darn statement she make in that readable, popular bestseller is
documented and attributed.

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

body:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>
>Currently, we have almost no references (I would
>estimate 1 in 50 articles have references). To require
>citations on all of them would be ridiculous.
>
Why? Notice how 1911EB has a little para of refs glued onto the
end of each article, and they're not much noticed, but their length
is easier to see if you turn into bulleted list. Modern "real"
encyclopedias have refs on every article too, in very small print
typically.

Lack of refs is just another way for an article to be incomplete.
Adding refs is more complicated than it needs to be however,
and I've been designing a scheme to make it easier by using
a new namespace a la images.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] CafePress Wikipedia items

body:
LDan wrote:
>That's mildly ironic, considering that Wikipedia
>was banned in China.

IIRC that was a rumor that was found to be false.

-- mav


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Kevin Baas

body:
The clarifications on this list of 'WP norms' and 'WP due process' are very
welcome.

There is an ongoing problem, as far as I'm concerned, with [[User:Kevin
baas]].  As anyone who reads his home page can see, he has a certain
research program in mind.  As far as I can see, it has no merit; but that's
not really the point.
Comments such as his (on [[Talk:Real computation]]) "don't you guys have a
sense of shame?" cause a deterioration of the atrmosphere. The current
[[Real computation]] page seems to me eminently sensible.  I don't think
this kind of bullying comment should be applied, just because the page
content casts doubt on Kevin's research 'proposal'.

A long series of related discussions, going back months, on
[[Talk:Hypercomputation]]and [[Talk:Super-Turing computation]] have left the
pages in reasonably good order - but the latter is vacuous (it is really
'some people say' about super-Turing computation).  Kevin has consistently
attacked the good faith of those who clearly know more.

The [[Fractional paradigm]]  and  [[Fractional probability]] pages are his
'walled garden' pages here.  I think they have zero useful content.
Fractional electromagnetics, anyone?
 On [[Talk:Fractional probability]] Michael Hardy has patiently been trying
to get some sense out of Kevin, for half a year.  [[Fractional calculus]]
and  [[Talk:Fractional calculus]] are somewhat different cases, snce the
topic is real rather than bogus.  I'm not convinced that they consist of
more than formulae copied out of books, though, without proper
understanding.  In case of the Weyl fractional derivative formula, I thought
it was for periodic functions only.  I could be wrong, but I've not got an
answer over the course of some months.

At [[Talk:Intermediate treatment of tensors]] there is a backlog of
unresolved stuff about another, more prominent page that looks to me like
Kevin copying half-understood stuff out of books.

Summary:

Kevin Baas is rather clearly trying to use WP space for his own,
non-encyclopedic purposes.  I don't find his contributions, apart from the
formulary on the fractional calculus pages to be useful; and I find none of
it authoritative.  Some of it is wildly POV and unreliable, which is quite
serious in a maths/computing area.

My conclusions:

Kevin Baas is in mathematical matters a bluffer.  When engaged in discussion
he resorts to: profanity; invocations of Socrates, Kant and the Pope;
accusations of snobbery and so on.  He is a timewaster, who makes himself
difficult to deal with by retreat into interdisciplinary niches.

Required actions:

Some of the pages he has created ([[Fractional paradigm]] , [[Fractional
probability]] and probably [[Super-Turing computation]]) are vanity pages
beyond saving - the last of these should be merged into
[[Hypercomputation]], against all his protests.  His other stuff could be
sorted out, absent his hostility.

I think dealing with this kind of elusive pretentitiousness is something
that ought to fall within the remit of WP recognised procedures.  I realise
that this is all on my say-so.  I'd be grateful if others would comment on a
way ahead.  This sort of contribution saps the authoritative standing of WP.

Charles

http://www.speakingasaparent.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] copyrights issues

body:
Anthere wrote:
>Could someone give us a link to a draft page of emails to send
>to someone using wikipedia content without respecting the
>terms of the licence ?

The wiki is damn slow right now, but here are the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content
Tracks compliance progress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_GFDL_violation_letter
It is what it is.

--mav


body:
That's why all that material is in the endnotes, not cluttering up the text.
References are the foundation of the building, not the living room
furniture.

Stan

Rick wrote:

>Ugh.  I'm glad I haven't tried to read that.  How tedious.
>
>RickK
>
>"Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com> wrote:
>As for "Wikipedia is not a list of citations"?fine; neither is
>Lauren Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," but every
>darn statement she make in that readable, popular bestseller is
>documented and attributed.
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>
>


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l]  Policy Suggestions

body:
>Then what's the point of having an encyclopedia?  Why
>not just have an article title and list all of the
>citations?
>
>RickK

That's not what they're saying. They're saying that it
would be better if we had citations in addition to the
articles so as to suppliment the article, since the
sources will always have more information that
Wikipedia's condenced article.

LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2

body:
RickK wrote:
>I request Sean Barrett's removal from the arbitration committee.

Well if you can arbitrarily request the removal of Sean, I guess I can
arbitrarily deny your request. Request denied. ;)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

body:
I have no problem whatsoever in having a list of references at the end of the article.  I must not have understood what was being proposed.  The original proposal sounded as if the requester wanted a citation next to each assertion.  That I would oppose.

RickK

Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>
>Currently, we have almost no references (I would
>estimate 1 in 50 articles have references). To require
>citations on all of them would be ridiculous.
>
Why? Notice how 1911EB has a little para of refs glued onto the
end of each article, and they're not much noticed, but their length
is easier to see if you turn into bulleted list. Modern "real"
encyclopedias have refs on every article too, in very small print
typically.

Lack of refs is just another way for an article to be incomplete.
Adding refs is more complicated than it needs to be however,
and I've been designing a scheme to make it easier by using
a new namespace a la images.

Stan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] maverick

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>On Wednesday 21 January 2004 10:27 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>
>>And I must add that I find it very scary that the Air Force is looking
>>for that kind of information in a freely-editable encyclopedia....
>>
>>
>
>I get the impression that Dawn Chavez was asking this out of personal
>interest. But it would be prudent not to use a .mil email address for those
>sorts of things. I did get a bit of a laugh out of that one, though. ;-)
>
>
Don't laugh too much, military personnel often have a terrible time
getting good
information. Remember the tank guy calling the SCO help line from his M1A1
in Desert Storm? Military info systems are not all rotating whizzing 3d
cross
sections like you see in the movies.

Stan


body:
So what's the months-long procedure to get rid of a committee member?  Where are the pages of rules on how to go about doing it and the fifty or so steps required?

RickK

Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
RickK wrote:
>I request Sean Barrett's removal from the arbitration committee.

Well if you can arbitrarily request the removal of Sean, I guess I can
arbitrarily deny your request. Request denied. ;)

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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from_name: Delirium

body:
Rick wrote:

> I second Sascha's concerns.  If you're an official representative of
> Wikipedia and are serving on a committee designed to make sure that
> people are following the policies, then it's not your place to pick
> and choose which policies you will enforce.

My problem with this is that it's very unclear what is and is not
Wikipedia policy.  There are a lot of pages which purport to be policy,
but some of them have been written by a single person and mostly ignored
by everyone else, so at best can be called "one person's attempt at a
proposed policy".  There are some others that have some support, and
multiple contributors, and still others than have a good deal of
support.  Then there are some procedural things, like VfD and the
sysop-request process, that are de facto policy by virtue of the fact
that they do what they say they'll do.  But, apart from the fact that we
strive for a "neutral point of view", I'm not aware of anything else
that can be said to be "official policy", just a lot of things that have
greater or lesser degrees of support as policy.  For example, "no
autobiographies" is a proposed policy with some support, but can't
really be said to be official policy.  "No personal attacks" likely has
much more support, but I see it as quantitatively different rather than
qualitatively--it should be given more weight since it has much more
support, but none of our "policies" are really set in stone, since any
of them can be modified at any time.  In fact, the Wikiquette page was
modified by User:168... just yesterday!  So which version is official
policy?  The new one, or the old one?  My answer would be
neither--they're both proposed policies, with greater or lesser degrees
of support.

-Mark


body:
Rick wrote:

> So what's the months-long procedure to get rid of a committee member?
> Where are the pages of rules on how to go about doing it and the fifty
> or so steps required?

As far as I can tell, the current process is "elections once per year",
presumably with intervention by Jimbo for egregious problems that arise
in the interim.  All subject to modification of course.

-Mark


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] bylaws III

body:
Alex T. wrote:

>From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
>
>>Anthere wrote:
>>
>>>What do we define as approval by the general membership ?
>>>
>>Normally this would refer to a meeting of all members;  including this
>>reference suggests that a vote at other times, such as by a general vote
>>on a Meta page, would not be valid.
>>
><..snip..>
>
>Why can't members vote without a meeting? It says the board may vote
>without a meeting in art. IV, sec. 4 then members can vote without a meeting
>too.  We have already had voting on meta, there is nothing here that says
>we can't continue to do that as long as some kind of balloting process is
>respected.
>
The passage in question was in the definition of Honorary Member:
"approval by the general membership at the General Meeting of the
Foundation".  This seems to imply that one would be held, but the idea
of a general meeting of members is mostly left undefined, and appears
nowhere else in the by-laws

><..snip..>
>
>>Unfortunately, no provision has been made in the by-laws for such a
>>
>meeting.
><..snip..>
>
>Just because it does not state anything does not mean it cannot occur,
>the Board of Trustees has the authority in Art. XIX, sec. 5 to do anything
>that is not inconsistent with the bylaws.
>
>Maybe you just need to ask the Board of Trustees to pass a resolution
>calling a membership meeting.
>
Yes, they could do that.

>>There is also nothing in
>>the by-laws to define "Board of Directors".  The simple fact that the
>>term was used suggests that it is at least something different from the
>>Board of Trustees.
>>
>
>Maybe it was a typo? There seem to be a few typos in the document.
>Maybe this is why it is not signed. That would seem to indicate that it
>is a draft.
>
Agreed, because several of the problems could be improved by rewording
without changing the apparent intent.  One clear typo is that "Article
XIX" should really read "Article IX".

Ec


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia Project
	Committees

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already
>> have the freedom to develop each project independently of any
>> hierachical control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists
>> primarily to provide material support (ie, servers and hosting) and
>> maintain 'brand awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?
>
>
> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
> another impression by reading the bylaws.

My understanding is that the bylaws are almost entirely legal
statements, not really meaning to document "everyday practice".  In
theory, the board of directors controls everything.  Why?  Well, because
the Wikimedia Foundation owns the servers, and the board of directors
controls the Wikimedia Foundation, at least legally.  But in practice,
they don't *run* Wikipedia.

I consider it highly unlikely that the board will be involved in the
day-to-day running of any of the Wikipedias, which ought to continue to
operate as they see fit.  Meaning the English Wikipedia decides its own
matters, the German Wikipedia decides its own matters, and so on.  Each
Wikipedia can formulate its own process (the English Wikipedia has
recently instituted a mediation committee and an arbitration committee
to resolve disputes), but these aren't *legal* processes (since that'd
be a real pain to set up), they're just the internal organization of
each Wikipedia.  The legal setup is that the Board of Directors runs the
non-profit organization, but in a presumably hands-off manner.

-Mark


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sean Barrett

body:
I think I'd rather wait and see how arbitration actually goes with him on
the committee and see what his expressed attitudes actually mean in
practice. He has been quite open about hostility to certain policies. Others
on the committee may also have trouble with certain policies, but haven't
voiced their policy preferences so openly. I certainly haven't, although my
attitudes are notorious enough. The question is, sitting on a Wikipedia
committee, the purpose of which is to carry out Wikipedia policy, are you
willing to do that; or do will you use your role as an arbitrator to
continue policy debate, picking and chosing which policies deserve
enforcement, which don't.

But then, some policies are more important than others. That we can expect
to see reflected in the nature of matters which users bring to the attention
of the mediation and arbitration committees.

Fred

From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 15:58:42 -0800 (PST)
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration progress report #2

I request Sean Barrett's removal from the arbitration committee.

RickK

Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> I question your suitability for the role of arbitrator based on your
> condescention towards those who want the wikipedia policies enforced.

You told me to work to have the policy changed; I tell you to work to
have me removed. Jimbo appointed me; convince him to remove me. As
an alternative, if a simple majority of my fellow arbiters ask me to
step down, I will.

> The only argument you have given
> against enforcing such rules is that your time is too precious.

I haven't even given that argument, and I don't intend to give any
arguments. I simply refuse to be compelled to arbitrate the way you
think I should.

> So would it be correct to conclude that you either you think that nobody will
> be driven away by personal attacks, or it is not worth your time to retain
> these contributors?

Co nclude what you like. I am a free man. You cannot compel me to
rule on a case I don't choose to rule on. I encourage you, however,
to work on impeaching me from the arbitration committee.

> I will also put to you my opinion that in cases where
> there has been a gross violation of policies such as "no personal attacks",
> all the arbitration committee will have to do is the following:

And I suspect that in cases where there has been a gross violation of
the "no personal attacks" policy, there will be contemporaneous
violations such as edit warring, which I agree rise to a level
requiring arbitration.

> Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Don't forget to inform the arbitration committee of my dereliction of
duty, and impress upon Jimbo the urgency of appointing arbiters who
will always rule the way you tell them to.

--
Sean Barrett | To bite off your shadow is neither easy
sean at epoptic.com | no r painless. It demands a single-mindedness
| that is almost unknown in this day.

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Footnotes/Endnotes - a proposal for a new MediaWiki
	feature

body:
There has been a lot of talk on WikiEN-l about the need for citations in
articles. I tend to agree with that. But our current system of wiki refs only
encourage the creation of footnote-like references to external websites
(which is less than ideal).

I have put together a proposal that, if enacted, would create a more
wordprocessor-like footnote system that could be used for all types of
footnotes (web, ISBN, journal articles, and written out dead tree citations).

See and respond on:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footnotes

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Footnotes/Endnotes - a proposal for a new MediaWiki
	feature


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Footnotes/Endnotes - a proposal for a new MediaWiki
	feature


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unobtrusive Ways of Citing Authority

body:
There are several ways of adding citations that do not clutter up the text.

1. A superscript which point to a footnote.

2. A hypertext link to the source like
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_wet] which will display [1].

3. Using comments while editing that do not show up in the displayed text:

<!--  via Wikipedia: Pierre de Fermat

      last updated: 2004-01-01T18:44:37Z
      193.230.240.14

-->

Fred

> From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:28:50 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Packed with clickable citations
>
> That's why all that material is in the endnotes, not cluttering up the text.
> References are the foundation of the building, not the living room
> furniture.
>
> Stan
>
> Rick wrote:
>
>> Ugh.  I'm glad I haven't tried to read that.  How tedious.
>>
>> RickK
>>
>> "Daniel P.B.Smith" <dpbsmith at world.std.com> wrote:
>> As for "Wikipedia is not a list of citations"?fine; neither is
>> Lauren Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," but every
>> darn statement she make in that readable, popular bestseller is
>> documented and attributed.
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> Do you Yahoo!?
>> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Alex T.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia Project Committees

body:
Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
projects;
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees

The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
projects, the
freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical control by
the Board of Trustees.

I would be interested in any comments. Perhaps we can present it to the
Board of
Trustees for approval soon.

Alex R. (en:user:alex756)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] bylaws III

body:
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> Anthere wrote:
> > What do we define as approval by the general membership ?
>
> Normally this would refer to a meeting of all members;  including this
> reference suggests that a vote at other times, such as by a general vote
> on a Meta page, would not be valid.
<..snip..>

Why can't members vote without a meeting? It says the board may vote
without a meeting in art. IV, sec. 4 then members can vote without a meeting
too.  We have already had voting on meta, there is nothing here that says
we can't continue to do that as long as some kind of balloting process is
respected.

<..snip..>
> Unfortunately, no provision has been made in the by-laws for such a
meeting.
<..snip..>

Just because it does not state anything does not mean it cannot occur,
the Board of Trustees has the authority in Art. XIX, sec. 5 to do anything
that is not inconsistent with the bylaws.

Maybe you just need to ask the Board of Trustees to pass a resolution
calling a membership meeting.

> There is also nothing in
> the by-laws to define "Board of Directors".  The simple fact that the
> term was used suggests that it is at least something different from the
> Board of Trustees.

Maybe it was a typo? There seem to be a few typos in the document.
Maybe this is why it is not signed. That would seem to indicate that it
is a draft.

Alex756


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server shuffle

body:
More shuffling of servers.

Note that some of the DNS entries are no longer in sync with the
internal names of the machines. (gurrrgle!) Hopefully we'll get that
fixed up.

Web:
* ursula (130.94.122.203) -- serving all web but en and foundation [as
130.94.122.197], and also mail
* pliny (168.143.185.150) -- serving just en and foundation [as
130.94.122.199]

Database:
* gunther (168.143.185.149) -- master db server
* susan (168.143.185.147) -- backup dumps, and by tonight database slave

Idle:
* larousse (168.143.185.151) -- Perhaps we could move the mail server
here?
* geoffrin (130.94.122.204) -- given the weird memory problems we were
getting, I'm not willing to put this machine back in production use
until it's been replaced by Penguin. :(

Folks with login accounts; things are a little screwy. Home directories
from pliny are now stashed on ursula and accounts need to be set back
up. Larousse should still be accessible, but on the other IP.

Jason: we may want to think about fixing up the DNS entries to point
sensibly at things. :)
If we move the mail server, mail.wikipedia.org will need to be changed
to match. Also, please double-check that the IP I chose for larousse
doesn't conflict with anything.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Web servers shuffled

body:
en.wikipedia.org is now running on a much faster machine. Between that
and the database tweaks we've done in the last couple days, I hope this
should keep things more or less smooth for the next few weeks until the
new server farm is set up in Florida (thanks to all those who
donated!).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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_______________________________________________
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Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Web servers shuffled

body:
en.wikipedia.org is now running on a much faster machine. Between that
and the database tweaks we've done in the last couple days, I hope this
should keep things more or less smooth for the next few weeks until the
new server farm is set up in Florida (thanks to all those who
donated!).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Web servers shuffled

body:
en.wikipedia.org is now running on a much faster machine. Between that
and the database tweaks we've done in the last couple days, I hope this
should keep things more or less smooth for the next few weeks until the
new server farm is set up in Florida (thanks to all those who
donated!).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ira Stoll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Suggestions

body:
I am really impressed with the quality (and sunstance) of the debate on
this. I agree with Rick that citations can get out of hand, and I also agree
with others, who say that "non-clickable" citations are also quite good
(references to books, or other sources of information).
This is what I want: a hierarchy of citations. If it ever gets to the point
(I think it VERY rarely will) where an article has too many citations,
making it take up too much room, or it clutters too much (this would seem to
be aleviated by putting them at the bottom of the page, but whatever) then
you simply raise the standard. As I said in my original suggestion, the
quality expected of citations should be based on the number of them
presented. What is REALLY important to me is that differing citations be
allowed, so long as they are from reliable sources (and such reliability
should be based on the investigations of interested parties, perhaps even a
"citation arbitration board" could be formed, if ever needed, to judge
qualities of citations) and that differing interpretations be allowed,
expressing that "some hold XYZ POV based on ABC interpretation of [1]
information, but others...". This would be wonderful, and would definately
improve the information quality, as well as the egalitarian acceptance of
all legitamate (based on citation) POV's as being legitamately worth hearing
(and IMO, drastically reduce disputes among non-troll editors). I am NOT
saying everything needs to be cited, only things which are disputed should
have to be. But the more citations the better, IMO. JackLynch

_________________________________________________________________
Scope out the new MSN Plus Internet Software ? optimizes dial-up to the max!
   http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/plus&ST=1


from_name: Daniel P.B.Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Citations

body:
> Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
>
>> I agree completely. Lack of citation and traceability is IMHO a big
>> glaring
>> deficiency in traditional encyclopedias, and it's one that should be
>> remediable
>> in a hypertext encyclopedia. tter Wiki-apparatus for the purpose).
>
> But this seems to assume that the citations will all be to websites,
> which isn't likely to be the case--most respected, reliable information
> is still not available online.  So citations of that sort will have to
> be to books or journal articles, which in many cases won't be
> accessible
> through hypertext.

What I meant was that I don't understand why
citations--to books, websites, "personal
communications," what have you--aren't used more often.
I don't personally care so much what the format is, so long
as they're _there_. By "hypertext," I just meant that it
provides possibilities for presenting the text in a way
that doesn't interrupt flow for the casual reader, while
still allowing the references to be visible to the reader
who wants to see the citations.

The way it was done in "Seabiscuit," and which
is becoming very popular for nonscholarly nonfiction,
is a technique for which I don't know a name, which I
will call "invisible endnotes." That is, there are no markers
in the text at all, but at the end of the book the citations
are referenced by chapter number, page number, and
starting phrase of the sentence. This seems to me to
be close to ideal--but it wouldn't work very well in
Wikipedia, at least not without some technical apparatus
that isn't in place yet, because Wikipedia articles don't
have numbered pages and are subject to constant
editing.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] A chapter system is much better (was: foundation
	of a	German registered association)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> I agree - we should look into that. I also agree that a chapter system would
> be the best way to go. Then, if needed, we could have an affiliate in Europe
> that would coordinate national or lower level chapters in Europe (or we could
> just have chapters).

I agree with you that organizing the wikimedia projects in chapters
would be the best way to proceed. The status and role of the chapters
should be regulated in the bylaws.

> Their "Primer for Creating a Local ISOC Chapter"
> http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/application/primer.shtml also mentions
> incorporation as one of the final steps of chapter formation and how the ISOC
> needs to sign-off on that (before that it mentions that the ISOC needs to
> approve the chapter's bylaws). So a chapter so formed (assuming it was
> incorporated as a tax-exempt non-profit) would have tax-deductible status and
> would firmly be part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> IMO, creating "sister" organizations is a bad idea for the reasons Jimbo gave.
> Plenty of organizations are international in nature so we should put our
> efforts into making Wikimedia into an international organization.

Such a chapter in Germany would have to be an e.V. (Verein) - a
"foundation" in Germany is a totally different legal form. For example a
foundation in Germany can have no members, but only trustees.

Maybe you were mislead by the word "sister project" - the plans about
the German e. V. are in fact to create such a chapter, not an
independent organization.

> Please everybody be patient though - the bylaws were only recently adopted

When did this take place? Where was this announced?

> I would suggest then for people to start to think about who they want to be on
> the board. I assume we will be having elections for that in the next month or
> so.

There I would ask you to proceed slowly. Discussions on the German
mailing list show many concerns about the bylaws in their present form.
Before any election takes place, we should resolve these concerns,
otherwise we risk loosing some of the most valuable contributors of the
German wikipedia if not worse things.

Please everybody, be careful what you write in your postings here. This
is a sensible topic, and it's easy to step on one's toes.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Optim

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Minor changes by anonymous user

body:
I agree.

--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Why do we remove the checkbox anyway? It's
> stupid, and I find it very
> annoying when I happen to be making a quick
> edit while not logged in.
>
> In fact I find it downright insulting that I'm
> not trusted to mark a
> spelling correction as "minor" without logging
> in.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Unadmissible Evidence

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> What went on in mediation should simply not be
> considered at the arbitration
> stage. So claims, true or false, are irrelevant.
>
> Fred

Why are you being so formal? This isn't a court of
law, it's just a discussion. When you put all of these
formalities like inadmissible evidence in, what you
have is a month-long court case, not just a short talk
to stop an edit war.

LDan

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body:
but I see everything in my Recent Changes,
including the minor ones. There is a checkbox
"dont show minor in RC". Of course I haven't
checked this checkbox. It would be very stupid to
do that.

--Optim

--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski <taw at users.sf.net> wrote:
> There are serious historical reasons for that.
> As in older wikis,
> "minor" on Wikipedia used to mean "don't show
> in Recent Changes by default".
> Because of that, there was a lot of vandalism
> that went unnoticed.
> So this was introduced as a quick fix. It was
> not stupid.

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia	ProjectCommittees

body:
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of
> trustees the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the
> same answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now,
> but we have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years,
> it should be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the
> policies of the welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and
> so on.
>
> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running,
> collecting funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but
> not for enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all
> projects.

I'm not sure how you can really get an absolute guarantee of that
though.  If the Wikimedia Foundation owns the servers, it has de facto
control over everything, whether the bylaws say so or not.  And even if
the bylaws set up some sort of "self-government" for sub-Wikimedia
entities, the bylaws can always be changed by a future Board of
Trustees.  Unless each Wikipedia is to purchase and administer its own
servers, and choose its own name (other than "Wikipedia"), I don't see
how we can have projects not be subordinate, at least in a legal and
technical sense, to the main organization.

-Mark


body:
I agree with Brion.

It is really very stupid to hide the minor edits.

--Optim

--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> <rant>
> A ruthless minority of people who chose to use
> the "hide minor edits"
> feature decided they were too lazy to look
> through all edits to find
> vandalism and bitched until the minor edits
> checkbox was taken away to
> get them to shut up.
> </rant>

__________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] PHP acceleration

body:
When PHP scripts are loaded they're compiled to bytecode, then the
bytecode is executed. Stock versions of PHP just throw away the
bytecode when they're done, so scripts are recompiled every time
they're loaded -- ie, a million times a day or so. :P  Any sensible
PHP-based site uses a cache plugin of some sort; the PHP folks
themselves sell a proprietary product that does this, Zend Optimizer,
but there are alternatives.

Once upon a time we used APC, the Alternative PHP Cache, on Wikipedia's
servers. It's open source, but at least at the time it had a lot of
problems with not updating or getting stuck on old versions of scripts,
and wasn't as fast as some of the alternatives.

At some point we switched to PHP-Accelerator, which is noncommercial
but not open-source. It was faster and not as troublesome, but still
occasionally did get stuck; particularly when class definitions changed
it would become very confused. Also not being an open source component
was a ding to our FOSS pride.

Another alternative is Turck MMCache. It's open source and claims
performance as good or better than the competition. A couple people
have tried it out and confirmed it works with MediaWiki... Since pliny
has had a fresh operating system install with its new hard drive, I've
gone ahead and put MMCache on it instead of installing PHPA.

So far so good, we'll see how it goes. (Pliny is now serving
en.wikipedia.org.)

Info: http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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body:
Checking for vandalism means we check all edits,
no matter whether they are minor or not.

if an admin fails to notice vandalism because
he/she hides the minor changes from RC, I
consider it his/her own fault.

--Optim

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Brion-
> > In fact I find it downright insulting that
> I'm not trusted to mark a
> > spelling correction as "minor" without
> logging in.
>
> On which basis should you be trusted? When
> you're not logged in, nobody
> knows that it is you. I've seen quite a few
> vandals who liked to test
> Wikipedia's defenses by claiming to make
> spelling fixes while in reality
> vandalizing the article. Marking edits as minor
> has one primary purpose:
> Being able to filter them from RC. And that
> should only be possible if
> there is a basis for trust.
>
> In addition to the trust factor, there's also
> the advantage of a simpler
> user interface for first time users.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at Wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] look, that is funny

body:
the server is down at 06:11AM UTC+02 = 04:11AM
UTC.

--- Anthere <anthere8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://twenkill.dyndns.org/wikimap/ircgraph.png
>
>  From [[w:fr:Utilisateur:Hashar]]

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from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] copyrights issues

body:
Could someone give us a link to a draft page of emails to send to
someone using wikipedia content without respecting the terms of the
licence ?

I saw several times great emails examples published on the list (the
last one was really good). Does someone know the link ? Or is there
somewhere a page from which we can inspire ourselves to make a standard
copyright violation notice ?

Thanks

the non respect of the licence is there
http://www.voyagenow.com/travel-references/fr/wikipedia/b/be/belize.html

there is no reference to wikipedia as source in the page.
the only link to wikipedia is the [[edit]] link that goes to fr:


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia
	ProjectCommittees

body:
From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
> >
> >> Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
> >> projects;
> >> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
> >>
> >> The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
> >> projects, the
> >> freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical
> >> control by
> >> the Board of Trustees.
> >
> > Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have
> > the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical
> > control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide
> > material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand
> > awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?

If you want Wikimedia to be a real NPO it has to have some kind of
structure.

Jimbo has decided to make it a membership organization, members get into
disputes and they look to someone for resolution of those disputes.  This is
an attempt to give them a way to deal with those issues and to make sure
that there is a clear distinction between the "official" board of trustees
and
any other structure that might exist so that there is no "hierarchy" between
the Board of Trustees and the various projects beyond that which is
necessary
for the projects to legally be part of Wikimedia.  If you want the benefits
of
NPO tax exempt status you need some structure. My suggestion is to make
it as minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you want no
structure,
some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I agree with you Brian, each
project is independent but with so many people complaining that the Board of
Trustees are a bunch of shills of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line
drawn in the sand. This proposal is that line.

Regarding edit disputes, members already deal with that, this is just
recognizing
that the community of each Wikipedia project will have the right to decide
these
disputes in the way that they see fit with no interference from the outside
power
structure.

> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
> another impression by reading the bylaws.
>
Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are just a
general
governing body document, they don't have anything to do with the day to day
activities
of the various Wikipedia projects, once again this is my point, keep the two
things
separate by saying they are separate and keeping some structure. The
reporting
requirement will be useful for Wikimedia's fundraising efforts and reporting
to the
IRS each year.

Alex756


body:
From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
> >
> >> Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
> >> projects;
> >> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
> >>
> >> The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
> >> projects, the
> >> freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical
> >> control by
> >> the Board of Trustees.
> >
> > Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have
> > the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical
> > control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide
> > material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand
> > awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?

If you want Wikimedia to be a real NPO it has to have some kind of
structure.

Jimbo has decided to make it a membership organization, members get into
disputes and they look to someone for resolution of those disputes.  This is
an attempt to give them a way to deal with those issues and to make sure
that there is a clear distinction between the "official" board of trustees
and
any other structure that might exist so that there is no "hierarchy" between
the Board of Trustees and the various projects beyond that which is
necessary
for the projects to legally be part of Wikimedia.  If you want the benefits
of
NPO tax exempt status you need some structure. My suggestion is to make
it as minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you want no
structure,
some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I agree with you Brian, each
project is independent but with so many people complaining that the Board of
Trustees are a bunch of shills of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line
drawn in the sand. This proposal is that line.

Regarding edit disputes, members already deal with that, this is just
recognizing
that the community of each Wikipedia project will have the right to decide
these
disputes in the way that they see fit with no interference from the outside
power
structure.

> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
> another impression by reading the bylaws.
>
Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are just a
general
governing body document, they don't have anything to do with the day to day
activities
of the various Wikipedia projects, once again this is my point, keep the two
things
separate by saying they are separate and keeping some structure. The
reporting
requirement will be useful for Wikimedia's fundraising efforts and reporting
to the
IRS each year.

Alex756

_______________________________________________
Intlwiki-l mailing list
Intlwiki-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l


from_name: Sascha Noyes

body:
On Saturday 24 January 2004 07:45 pm, Fred Bauder wrote:
> There are several ways of adding citations that do not clutter up the text.
>
> 1. A superscript which point to a footnote.
>
> 2. A hypertext link to the source like
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_wet] which will display [1].
>
> 3. Using comments while editing that do not show up in the displayed text:
>
> <!--  via Wikipedia: Pierre de Fermat
>
>       last updated: 2004-01-01T18:44:37Z
>       193.230.240.14
>
> -->

Or my personal favourite:

<sup>[[Articlename#References|<nowiki>[</nowiki>1<nowiki>]</nowiki>]]</sup>

Best,
Sascha Noyes

--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Brion-
> In fact I find it downright insulting that I'm not trusted to mark a
> spelling correction as "minor" without logging in.

On which basis should you be trusted? When you're not logged in, nobody
knows that it is you. I've seen quite a few vandals who liked to test
Wikipedia's defenses by claiming to make spelling fixes while in reality
vandalizing the article. Marking edits as minor has one primary purpose:
Being able to filter them from RC. And that should only be possible if
there is a basis for trust.

In addition to the trust factor, there's also the advantage of a simpler
user interface for first time users.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 6, Issue 105

body:
Daniel-

> The Go button isn't very predictible. If you want to
> be more specific, then just type the name of the
> article into the title bar of the web browser (ie.
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can ).

Ahem. It's not like the Go button picks pages randomly. "Tin can" does not
exist. As a last ditch effort before falling through to the search, the Go
button tries to find a near match for the entered phrase. This often means
that only one of the terms in the query is matching.

However, given that this rarely leads to good results, it would probably
be better to
1) improve capitalization tests (e.g. "duke of edinburgh" should match
"Duke of Edinburgh")
2) fall through to the search when there's no exact match, or at least
require all search words to be contained somewhere in the title.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:30:25AM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2004, at 03:51, Timwi wrote:
> >If the bug is that the POST request just simply accepts the
> >wgMinorEdit variable even for anonymous users, then it is pretty
> >trivial to exploit. Just add the checkbox to your edit screens using
> >something like Proxomitron.
>
> Why do we remove the checkbox anyway? It's stupid, and I find it very
> annoying when I happen to be making a quick edit while not logged in.
>
> In fact I find it downright insulting that I'm not trusted to mark a
> spelling correction as "minor" without logging in.

There are serious historical reasons for that. As in older wikis,
"minor" on Wikipedia used to mean "don't show in Recent Changes by default".
Because of that, there was a lot of vandalism that went unnoticed.
So this was introduced as a quick fix. It was not stupid.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] look, that is funny

body:
http://twenkill.dyndns.org/wikimap/ircgraph.png

 From [[w:fr:Utilisateur:Hashar]]


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Rick wrote:

> I didn't say that.  I said it is not a LIST of citations.  Do we really
> want to have to have a citation beside every single sentence of every article?
>
Rick, what you originally wrote was --

> On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Rick wrote:
>
> > Wikipedia is not a list of citations.
> >
> > RickK

And that was all. I didn't know what you meant, so I asked for a clarification,
& expressed a response to a possible answer thusly:

> I don't understand your POV, Rick. Are you saying that we should have _no_
> citations or mention of references so readers can verify facts or quotations?
> If so, wouldn't that undermine the credibility of Wikipedia?
>
I fail to see why had to be so antagonistic in your response.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> >
> >Currently, we have almost no references (I would
> >estimate 1 in 50 articles have references). To require
> >citations on all of them would be ridiculous.
> >
> Why? Notice how 1911EB has a little para of refs glued onto the
> end of each article, and they're not much noticed, but their length
> is easier to see if you turn into bulleted list. Modern "real"
> encyclopedias have refs on every article too, in very small print
> typically.
>
> Lack of refs is just another way for an article to be incomplete.
> Adding refs is more complicated than it needs to be however,
> and I've been designing a scheme to make it easier by using
> a new namespace a la images.
>
This is exactly what I had in mind: each article in Wikipedia *should*
have a number of entries of print materials under the "References" section,
especially of authors referred to in the article body. (For example, if
the article quotes one John Schmuck as saying, "This theory stinks", then
there should be a proper citation to the print source whence Schmuck's
quotation came.) However, I also acknowlege that it is possible that
certain topics probably don't lend themselves to a Reference section.

I think it would be desireable for articles to also have links to relevant
webpages, but due to the ephemeral nature of most web pages -- & the
widely uneven quality of most material on the web -- I acknowledge that
this resource won't be as widespread.

Geoff


from_name: Dan Drake

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Mr. Natural Health has refused mediation with the
	community

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 09:37:25 UTC, Anthere
<anthere8 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dan Drake a ?crit:
>
> > We do understand, of course, that if mediation doesn't succeed, and
> > someone takes the same case to arbitration, a person who is not of good
> > will is certain to complain that he's being put on trial twice and having to
> > defend himself against the very same things that came up in mediation.
>
> A mediator is not a judge. He is not there to put someone in accusation.

Yes, that's kind of my point (see below). So long as everyone remembers
that, and remembers to pay no attention whatsoever to such a complaint,
all is fine.

Perhaps my faith that such nonsense will be properly and completely
ignored has been undermined too much by watching this painful process of
trying to assure utter unimpeachable fairness in what is not (as you say)
a judgment process.

> He
> > may even make false claims about what went on in mediation; hence, the
> > full legalistic set of rules will have to include some kind of waiver of this
> > confidentiality.
>
> full legalistic set of rules ?
> May we keep the whole process simple, without setting up 15 pages rules
> please :-(

Thank you for the reassurance; I was getting the opposite impression from
what has been said on this list. Namely, the difficulty in setting up a
flawless mediation procedure, when the arbitration must by its nature be
even more difficult to set up.

> It does not matter really if the disputant makes false claims about what
> went on in mediation; as far as mediation is concerned, the case will be
> closed

And as far as arbitration is concerned? It will never allow itself to be
distracted by any kind of claim or complaint about what the acused's evil
enemies did during the mediation process.  Excellent.

I'm not being sarcastic, just maybe having some doubts about what will
happen in practice. We all remember that people who are accused of being
dedicated troublemakers are in some cases dedicated troublemakers, expert
in tactics of distraction, confusion, and putting everyone else in the
wrong.

>...
> >
> > MNH having declined mediation, he and the mediation process are now
> > irrelevant to each other. Anyone who holds that something ought to be
> > done about him needs to forget the mediation process and concentrate on
> > getting arbitration working.
>
> The last I knew, MNH agreed to mediation for the article issue, but
> requested arbitration for the human dispute issue.

Sorry; I misunderstood.  I see that he's relevant to both processes.

> ...
> > I'm not sure what this means -- someone on his side who will watch the
> > proceedings and form an opinion (for whose benefit?) on their propriety?
> > Fine, if the parties want it. But again, since mediators have no power --
> > presumably not even power to send the case to arbitration -- what does it
> > matter?
>
> This is not a question of putting someone on one side or another, this
> is a question of having a neutral observer watching to guarantee the
> process is fair.

That's what I wonder about. Mediation is supposed to be fair and impartial
in the first place. If a mediatee decides that the mediators are biased,
he/she tells them to b---er off. What's the need for an observer here?

What happened in mediation cannot be brought up in any later arbitration,
as we just agreed; so, again, who would later need the opinion of a
neutral observer of the mediation?

Of course, if somebody *wants* an observer, and the other party doesn't
have a problem, go ahead. But I still don't understand why it would be a
significant part of the process.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unadmissible Evidence

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 12:15:53 UTC, Anthere
<anthere8 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Just thought of mentionning that thought the below mail make it so
> appear I wrote that comment, I did not.
>
> I agree with Fred entirely.
>
> Anthere

Me too (pardon the expression). It hadn't been clear to me that this was
part of the package.

>
> Fred Bauder a ?crit:
> > What went on in mediation should simply not be considered at the arbitration
> > stage. So claims, true or false, are irrelevant.
> >
> > Fred
>


body:
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 01:00:48PM -0800, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2004, at 12:22, Erik Moeller wrote:
> >Brion-
> >>In fact I find it downright insulting that I'm not trusted to mark a
> >>spelling correction as "minor" without logging in.
> >
> >On which basis should you be trusted?
>
> Same reason I'm allowed to edit pages at whim and describe my change as
> a "spelling correction".

The "minor changes" (in the meaning it has in traditional wikis) feature is dead.
We don't support it any more. Now the "minor changes" is only an additional
part of description, so the rationale there was when this prohibition was introduced
is not valid any more. As far as I am concerned, you can go on and remove it,
but there are others who may want to keep it for some different reason than the
original one.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration progress report #2

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 02:16:55 UTC, Sean Barrett
<sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> > I question your suitability for the role of arbitrator based on your
> > condescention towards those who want the wikipedia policies enforced.
>
> You told me to work to have the policy changed; I tell you to work to
> have me removed.  Jimbo appointed me; convince him to remove me.  As
> an alternative, if a simple majority of my fellow arbiters ask me to
> step down, I will.
>
> > The only argument you have given
> > against enforcing such rules is that your time is too precious.
>
> I haven't even given that argument, and I don't intend to give any
> arguments.  I simply refuse to be compelled to arbitrate the way you
> think I should.
> ...

I assume that the arbitration process, like any other that I can think of,
will allow some choice to the arbitrees in the selection of arbitrators.
This raises an interesting question: the built-in advantage of people who
have participated in Wikipedia for a while over the newcomer.  The former
are likely to know something of the arbitrators, and can protect their
interests by making better-informed judgments.

It would be only fair, though I suppose it would be impractical, to create
profiles of the arbitrators. Then a newbie would know what positions the
various people have taken on the subject of arbitration, and would not
make the mistake of accepting someone who simply refuses to enforce some
published policy of Wikipedia because he doesn't feel like it and nobody
can make him.  Just fpr example.


body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 06:41:17 UTC, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Sean Barrett wrote:
>
> >So forget having me impeached -- call the Thought Police!
> >
> The thought of impeaching arbitrators even before the arbitration
> process is in place is not very encouraging.
>
> Ec

If the aribtrees don't have some such power for their particular cases,
then why call it arbitration?


from_name: Rob Hooft

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> The "minor changes" (in the meaning it has in traditional wikis) feature is dead.

Would it be possible to automatically detect what are small changes?
e.g. a small change would have:
*only interwiki changes
or:
*no more than two adjacent characters changed in the text and not more
than 10 in total possibly excepting the addition or removal of [[ and ]]
(but even that could be vandalism if in excess).

If that would be implemented, the checkbox could go altogether.

Rob

--
Rob W.W. Hooft  ||  rob at hooft.net  ||  http://www.hooft.net/people/rob/


from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bylaws V

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
>> When the next elections take place, will there be 2 trustees to elect,
>> or 4 ?
>
> Two (2) to be elected.  If there were any more there would be a serious
> risk that democratic control would subvert the purposes of the
> organization.

Thanks, Ray, for putting the cynicism into words.

Kurt


body:
From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Alex T. wrote:
>
> > My suggestion is to make it as
> > minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
> > what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you
> > want no structure, some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I
> > agree with you Brian, each project is independent but with so many
> > people complaining that the Board of Trustees are a bunch of shills
> > of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. This
> > proposal is that line.
>
> And IMO seems to be a good line.
>
> >> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I
> >> got another impression by reading the bylaws.
> >>
> > Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are
> > just a general governing body document, they don't have anything to
> > do with the day to day activities of the various Wikipedia projects,
>
> The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of trustees
> the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the same
> answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now, but we
> have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years, it should
> be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the policies of the
> welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and so on.
>
> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
> funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
> enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

There must be some ultimate forum for enforcing rules whomever makes them
up. What this committee structure is stating is that each Wikipedia and
other
wikimedia project makes them up. The board of trustees is who has to deal
with lawsuits, not individuals who are only voluntary commitees. The rules
are ONLY enforceable by the Board, they may delegate them, let members
make them up and do whatever they want but the Board is the final arbiter
of those as it is protecting the corporate entity which is not just the
servers, it
is the sum of what Wikipedia is, that is what people are giving money for,
to
make sure Wikipedia keeps running, not just to make sure there is server
hardware and bandwidth.

As far as what is going to happen in twenty years no one knows. The Bylaws
do not give anyone any more certainty in this regard. They can be changed,
any corporate document can be changed.  Right now it can be changed by
three people, later it will be five.  I would rather that they delegate
their
authority to governing committees and let the governing committees run the
individual Wikipedia and other wikimedia projects. As far as the future is
concerned this is not the United States of Wikipedia or the European Union
of Wikipedians, it is just a small group of volunteers having the time of
their
life creating the world's largest knowledge base encyclopedia.  At this
point
that encyclopedia can exist even if Wikimedia dies a sudden death, so
what is the big deal about a few bylaws that are required for a bunch
of accountants and lawyers to justify their jobs. Let them have their
bylaws I say and let's get on with making more Wikipedias!
No one is going to start telling the Welsh Wikipedians what
to do, except more Welsh speaking volunteers, you know that don't you?
Isn't that obvious? What is Jimbo going to do, start finding translators to
read every page on every different language Wikipedia to make sure that
no one is breaking the rules?  No, it is obviously going to be self
enforcement.
Each individual project makes its own rules, if there is some need for a
final
statement, i.e. you are banned from this project, then the Board of
Wikimedia
can just make a final statement for that committee. The committee can then
rely upon the Board to make sure that the decision is implemented and in
a way the Board of Trustees becomes a limited type of appeal just to make
sure that there is nothing that would call Wikimedia's not-for-profit status
into question. That's all. Why don't you see that?

Alex756


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up
	Wikimedia	ProjectCommittees

body:
From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Alex T. wrote:
>
> > My suggestion is to make it as
> > minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
> > what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you
> > want no structure, some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I
> > agree with you Brian, each project is independent but with so many
> > people complaining that the Board of Trustees are a bunch of shills
> > of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. This
> > proposal is that line.
>
> And IMO seems to be a good line.
>
> >> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I
> >> got another impression by reading the bylaws.
> >>
> > Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are
> > just a general governing body document, they don't have anything to
> > do with the day to day activities of the various Wikipedia projects,
>
> The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of trustees
> the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the same
> answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now, but we
> have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years, it should
> be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the policies of the
> welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and so on.
>
> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
> funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
> enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

There must be some ultimate forum for enforcing rules whomever makes them
up. What this committee structure is stating is that each Wikipedia and
other
wikimedia project makes them up. The board of trustees is who has to deal
with lawsuits, not individuals who are only voluntary commitees. The rules
are ONLY enforceable by the Board, they may delegate them, let members
make them up and do whatever they want but the Board is the final arbiter
of those as it is protecting the corporate entity which is not just the
servers, it
is the sum of what Wikipedia is, that is what people are giving money for,
to
make sure Wikipedia keeps running, not just to make sure there is server
hardware and bandwidth.

As far as what is going to happen in twenty years no one knows. The Bylaws
do not give anyone any more certainty in this regard. They can be changed,
any corporate document can be changed.  Right now it can be changed by
three people, later it will be five.  I would rather that they delegate
their
authority to governing committees and let the governing committees run the
individual Wikipedia and other wikimedia projects. As far as the future is
concerned this is not the United States of Wikipedia or the European Union
of Wikipedians, it is just a small group of volunteers having the time of
their
life creating the world's largest knowledge base encyclopedia.  At this
point
that encyclopedia can exist even if Wikimedia dies a sudden death, so
what is the big deal about a few bylaws that are required for a bunch
of accountants and lawyers to justify their jobs. Let them have their
bylaws I say and let's get on with making more Wikipedias!
No one is going to start telling the Welsh Wikipedians what
to do, except more Welsh speaking volunteers, you know that don't you?
Isn't that obvious? What is Jimbo going to do, start finding translators to
read every page on every different language Wikipedia to make sure that
no one is breaking the rules?  No, it is obviously going to be self
enforcement.
Each individual project makes its own rules, if there is some need for a
final
statement, i.e. you are banned from this project, then the Board of
Wikimedia
can just make a final statement for that committee. The committee can then
rely upon the Board to make sure that the decision is implemented and in
a way the Board of Trustees becomes a limited type of appeal just to make
sure that there is nothing that would call Wikimedia's not-for-profit status
into question. That's all. Why don't you see that?

Alex756

_______________________________________________
Intlwiki-l mailing list
Intlwiki-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unadmissible Evidence

body:
From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
> > What went on in mediation should simply not be
> > considered at the arbitration
> > stage. So claims, true or false, are irrelevant.
> >
> > Fred
>
> Why are you being so formal? This isn't a court of
> law, it's just a discussion. When you put all of these
> formalities like inadmissible evidence in, what you
> have is a month-long court case, not just a short talk
> to stop an edit war.

L'Dan I agree with your idea of informality, but I think that
Fred has a valid point too. Mediation is supposed to be
confidential between the parties, if someone starts using
what one person states in a mediation against them and
the arbitrators allow that this will have a chilling effect upon
the mediation process. Mediation is much prefered to
arbitration as it is consensual. Arbitration is something
that is imposed by the arbitrators upon the parties, they
have no control over what the arbitrators do, wheresa
mediation is what is agreeable to both parties, people
must be encouraged to talk and discuss things in mediation,
not think that what they say will be used against them.

BTW I think the term is inadmissible evidence, I have never
heard the term "unadmissible" used (maybe it is used some
where else than where I have been, excuse my ignorance
if that is true).

Alex756


body:
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:04:33PM +0100, Rob Hooft wrote:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
> >The "minor changes" (in the meaning it has in traditional wikis) feature
> >is dead.
>
> Would it be possible to automatically detect what are small changes?
> e.g. a small change would have:
> *only interwiki changes
> or:
> *no more than two adjacent characters changed in the text and not more
> than 10 in total possibly excepting the addition or removal of [[ and ]]
> (but even that could be vandalism if in excess).
>
> If that would be implemented, the checkbox could go altogether.

Yeah, sure, as if you couldn't find a way to vandalize within such limits.

Of course a Bayesian classificator of diffs would be really wonderful.
Any takers ? I thought so.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bylaws V

body:
Delirium wrote:

> It should
> also be made up of people who we know though--Jimbo I'm perfectly
> comfortable with, but I don't really recognize the other three as active
> Wikipedians (unless they go by a different name here?).

Tim Shell, and I guess also Michael Davis, are employees of Jimbo. They
are in a relationship of economic dependence to him.

Kurt


subject: [Wikipedia-l] serious technical problems with wikipedia-l

body:
There seems to be a serious technical problem with the mailinglist. I,
and at least one other member, didn't get the following mail. I also
can't find it in the archive. Please, could someone look into that? And
is there a way to find out which mails I might also have missed?

Kurt

On Saturday, January 24, 2004 8:38 PM
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:

 >> In force.  However, do keep in mind that they can be amended, so I'm
 >> eager to get feedback.  I've already got a collection of notes from
 >> a variety of people who have proposed changes, and I'm very receptive
 >> to all the changes proposed to me so far.
 >>
 >> Arne Klempert wrote:
 >>
 >
 >>>> On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 12:37 AM
 >>>> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
 >>>>
 >>
 >>>>>> Accessible now from
 >>>>>> http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/
 >>
 >>>>
 >>>>
 >>>> Short question from Germany:
 >>>>
 >>>> Is this a proposal or are these bylaws in force?
 >>>>
 >>>>
 >>>> Arne
 >>>> [[de:Benutzer:Akl]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] serious technical problems with wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Server shuffle

body:
On Jan 25, 2004, at 00:08, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
> Sounds good, thanks.  What's up with uploading to 'de'?

Oops, that should have gotten re-enabled after the servers were in
place.... Back now.

> Is it possible to make images uploaded to 'en' visible on other WPs?
> How?  Thus far I wasn't able to display 'de' picture on 'en' inline.  I
> tried something as follows:
>
> [[w:de:Bild:Nuernberg-burg-mitteltrakt-v-sw-unten-klein.jpg]]

Sorry, that doesn't work so far...

The Big Master Plan is to set up a central shared image handling system
of some sorts. I dunno if that'll happen in a timely fashion, though.

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

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unadmissible Evidence (dan)

references:
<40123CD5.4080503@yahoo.com>	<BC37AB1A.984%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<401261F9.3000801@yahoo.com>	<vhIsdqY67dTD-pn2-bMdEoxt4s3xs@localhost>
	<401383CB.4070201@yahoo.com>

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Dan Drake a ?crit:
>
>> Me too (pardon the expression). It hadn't been clear to me that this
>> was part of the package.
>
> Dan...why do you write "pardon the expression". Is that not correct to
> write "me too" ?

In internet culture, "me too" has come to be a somewhat notorious phrase
associated with AOL users and other "internet newbies".  It comes from
AOL message boards (and possibly Prodigy or other message boards before
that) where often when someone would post something about how they liked
a movie or song or something, there'd be 10 replies that basically just
said "me too".  Sometimes in more words ("I also like that!" or
something), but the effect was the same, so these became known as "me
too" posts.

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bylaws V

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>Tim Shell, and I guess also Michael Davis, are employees of Jimbo.
>>They are in a relationship of economic dependence to him.
>
> Please check your facts before making such a statement - it could lead to a
> dangerous misunderstanding. Tim Shell is a co-owner of Bomis and IIRC so is
> Michael Davis.

 From
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000652.html :

> As a side note, it is sort of funny to me when I read people
> discussing "Bomis" in the abstract.  Ultimately, that just means me,
> since I'm the final decisionmaking authority.

Kurt


subject:
[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia Project
	Committees

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
>
>> Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
>> projects;
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
>>
>> The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
>> projects, the
>> freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical
>> control by
>> the Board of Trustees.
>
> Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have
> the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical
> control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide
> material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand
> awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?

Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
another impression by reading the bylaws.

greetings,
elian


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
>
>> Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
>> projects;
>> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
>>
>> The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
>> projects, the
>> freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical
>> control by
>> the Board of Trustees.
>
> Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have
> the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical
> control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide
> material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand
> awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?

Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
another impression by reading the bylaws.

greetings,
elian

_______________________________________________
Intlwiki-l mailing list
Intlwiki-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Selection of Arbitrators

body:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 23:22:43 UTC, Delirium
<delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:

> Having some sort of grandiose process I'm afraid will actually encourage
> the overuse of the committee, as it makes it seem like it's normal to
> refer matters to be decided through this process.  I think instead the
> arbitration committee should be a "decision-making committee of last
> resort", to which only relatively extraordinary matters are referred.
> And so we could have a relatively minimalistic process: the committee
> just votes, and thereby makes a decision (including possibly making the
> decision "the committee declines to make a ruling on this matter").

This is probably a good idea; really, I'm not arguing for an elaborate
procedure, but reacting to what seems to be becoming one. But why call it
arbitration? "Committee of last resort" is a fine, descriptive name.

Even the arbitration clauses in the agreements for brokerage and
credit-card accounts (unconscionable because they are imposed by force and
not in a genuine agreement, but that's another issue) give the aggrieved
some power of selecting among the industry's pre-selected arbitrators to
hear their case. As an organization that's charged with preserving
Wilipedia's values (a good thing), "judges" would be a good term; but
Committee of Last Resort, if a little verbose, would be best of all.


from_name: John C. Penta

subject: [WikiEN-l] maverick

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2004 7:54 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] maverick

> Don't laugh too much, military personnel often have a terrible
> time
> getting good
> information. Remember the tank guy calling the SCO help line from
> his M1A1
> in Desert Storm?

Say WHAT?

You simply must tell this story, Stan.

John


from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server shuffle

references:
<841B8EBE-4EDD-11D8-A361-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<shn08cv4av.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>
	<34B4BA0C-4F0F-11D8-A361-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>

body:
Brion,

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 00:19:33 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> The Big Master Plan is to set up a central shared image handling system
> of some sorts. I dunno if that'll happen in a timely fashion, though.

do you need any help with this? I'm sure there's a few of us that would be
glad to help out so all the work doesn't fall on your shoulders.

Cheers,
Ivan


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2004 3:49 am
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unadmissible Evidence (dan)

> Anthere wrote:
>
> > Dan Drake a ?crit:
> >
> >> Me too (pardon the expression). It hadn't been clear to me that
> this
> >> was part of the package.
> >
> > Dan...why do you write "pardon the expression". Is that not
> correct to
> > write "me too" ?
>
> In internet culture, "me too" has come to be a somewhat notorious
> phrase
> associated with AOL users and other "internet newbies".  It comes
> from
> AOL message boards (and possibly Prodigy or other message boards
> before
> that) where often when someone would post something about how they
> liked
> a movie or song or something, there'd be 10 replies that basically
> just
> said "me too".  Sometimes in more words ("I also like that!" or
> something), but the effect was the same, so these became known as
> "me
> too" posts.

Prodigy, definitely. I first began living on the computer cuz of that during 1992.

It was as bad as AOL is now. Then again, I was 8 then, so I was a bit of a brat myself.:-)

John


body:
Alex T. wrote:

> My suggestion is to make it as
> minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
> what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you
> want no structure, some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I
> agree with you Brian, each project is independent but with so many
> people complaining that the Board of Trustees are a bunch of shills
> of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. This
> proposal is that line.

And IMO seems to be a good line.

>> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I
>> got another impression by reading the bylaws.
>>
> Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are
> just a general governing body document, they don't have anything to
> do with the day to day activities of the various Wikipedia projects,

The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of trustees
the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the same
answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now, but we
have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years, it should
be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the policies of the
welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and so on.

The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

greetings,
elian


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Intlwiki-l] Time to set up
	Wikimedia	ProjectCommittees

body:
Alex T. wrote:

> My suggestion is to make it as
> minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
> what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you
> want no structure, some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I
> agree with you Brian, each project is independent but with so many
> people complaining that the Board of Trustees are a bunch of shills
> of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. This
> proposal is that line.

And IMO seems to be a good line.

>> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I
>> got another impression by reading the bylaws.
>>
> Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are
> just a general governing body document, they don't have anything to
> do with the day to day activities of the various Wikipedia projects,

The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of trustees
the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the same
answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now, but we
have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years, it should
be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the policies of the
welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and so on.

The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

greetings,
elian

_______________________________________________
Intlwiki-l mailing list
Intlwiki-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/intlwiki-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy Suggestions

body:
>I think it would be desireable for articles to also have links to relevant
>webpages, but due to the ephemeral nature of most web pages -- & the
>widely uneven quality of most material on the web -- I acknowledge that
>this resource won't be as widespread.

I would guess it will become increasingly more common, as information will
hopefully become more free and accessible online over time. At the present,
it amazes me how much is available. The goal here, IMO is to make the
wikipedia just such an easily clickable information resource, which others
might like to cite ;) JackLynch

_________________________________________________________________
Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers!
http://shopping.msn.com/softcontent/softcontent.aspx?scmId=1418


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Using language which represents events

body:
Instead of using the words "inadmissible evidence" I could have said,
"during arbitration the users shouldn't be able to drag in everything that
happened during mediation", but the short phrase (from law, after all I was
a lawyer) serves. It doesn't imply all the bullshit that goes with formal
court proceedings, after all we are talking about mediation followed by
arbitration for participants in a voluntary cooperative effort. Nevertheless
it is useful to use short hand exppressions which represent events or things
which otherwise have to be spelled out at length. Having to reinvent a new
language for our particular proceeding would be quite burdensome although we
probably will develop some language unique to our situation.

Fred

> From: Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 20:03:33 -0800 (PST)
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unadmissible Evidence
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>> What went on in mediation should simply not be
>> considered at the arbitration
>> stage. So claims, true or false, are irrelevant.
>>
>> Fred
>
> Why are you being so formal? This isn't a court of
> law, it's just a discussion. When you put all of these
> formalities like inadmissible evidence in, what you
> have is a month-long court case, not just a short talk
> to stop an edit war.
>
> LDan
>
> __________________________________
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> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration and Policy

body:
One of the things that will go on as we consider cases is that both the
arbitrators and the mediators will be looking at Wikipedia policies,
examining where they originated, (like who wrote the page, was it after a
considered discussion on the talk pages and mailing lists, how much support
particular policies have among the users, i.e. is the policy generally
followed or ignored, etc.).

And of course the artitrators can sound off about policy, mediators can be
in edit wars, Jimbo can edit all he wants, and like elephants we will never
forget or give up on anything.

Fred

> From: Anthere <anthere8 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: anthere8 at yahoo.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 10:54:18 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration progress report #2
>
> Do you suggest that any arbitrator have '''no''' right to participate to
> building policies from now on ?
>
> I suppose that similarly mediators have no right to participate in edit
> wars from now on as well ?
>
> Just as Jimbo has no right to edit articles ?
>
> If so, we might just forget the whole process entirely.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Me Too

body:
We want "Me Too" messages during this process of discussion as we want
decisions to reflect what everyone wants and that is how you communicate
agreement.

Fred

> From: "John C. Penta" <pentaj2 at UofS.edu>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 04:03:31 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unadmissible Evidence (dan)
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
> Date: Sunday, January 25, 2004 3:49 am
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unadmissible Evidence (dan)
>
>> Anthere wrote:
>>
>>> Dan Drake a ?crit:
>>>
>>>> Me too (pardon the expression). It hadn't been clear to me that
>> this
>>>> was part of the package.
>>>
>>> Dan...why do you write "pardon the expression". Is that not
>> correct to
>>> write "me too" ?
>>
>> In internet culture, "me too" has come to be a somewhat notorious
>> phrase
>> associated with AOL users and other "internet newbies".  It comes
>> from
>> AOL message boards (and possibly Prodigy or other message boards
>> before
>> that) where often when someone would post something about how they
>> liked
>> a movie or song or something, there'd be 10 replies that basically
>> just
>> said "me too".  Sometimes in more words ("I also like that!" or
>> something), but the effect was the same, so these became known as
>> "me
>> too" posts.
>
> Prodigy, definitely. I first began living on the computer cuz of that during
> 1992.
>
> It was as bad as AOL is now. Then again, I was 8 then, so I was a bit of a
> brat myself.:-)
>
> John
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] history

body:
Very very bad things indeed. All were deported, many of them tortured and
killed, the women raped, etc. This is covered in Wikipedia articles, or if
not, should be. But what is your point? That because of these terrible
things we should never forget, never forgive, and call Gdansk Danzig?

Fred

From: Zoltan <zoltanknowledge at shaw.ca>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 15:30:28 -0800
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Cc: "Zoltan Karolyi." <zoltanknowledge at shaw.ca>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] history

Hello Sir.

What happens with the German population Gdansk afterwards in 1945 and
Silesia ?

                                                       Regards Zoltan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Should the content of articles be subject to arbitration?

body:
Whether we deal with article-based disputes is a close issue. While I see
the need and advocate it, I recall great reluctance on the part of the
mailing list to allow arbitration of article content. I'm also posting this
to wikien-l for further comment by the mailing list.

Fred

> From: "Steve Dunlop" <steve-dunlop at nerstrand.net>
> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:39:45 -0600
> To: <arbitration at nerstrand.net>
> Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Jurisdiction - keep it simple?
>
> Item [4].  I believe that it is important that we remain available for
> article-based disputes.  Some of these will not be able to be resolved
> through mediation.  Since "interpersonal" disputes at Wikipedia have their
> roots in article disputes, I think the community would be best served to
> have a means of resolving article disagreements where mediation has failed.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] FW: Decisions, Opinions,
	Precedents and Learning from Experience

body:
----------
From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:55:43 -0700
To: Steve Dunlop <steve-dunlop at nerstrand.net>, <arbitration at nerstrand.net>
Subject: Decisions, Opinions, Precedents and Learning from Experience

I suggest that on any matter each arbitrator first state a conclusion such
as accept or don't accept then a brief (or lengthy as it suits them)
explanation of why. These votes and "opinions" should be available to all
users. As to precedents, lets not consider ourselves bound by what we have
done in the past but guided as it were by experience. In the case of matters
we refuse to hear we can watch what happens when we do refuse to hear a
matter. Likewise we can watch our difficulties and the consequences of
acceptance and that experience can guide as a similar matters arise in the
future.

Fred

> From: "Steve Dunlop" <steve-dunlop at nerstrand.net>
> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:39:45 -0600
> To: <arbitration at nerstrand.net>
> Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Jurisdiction - keep it simple?
>
> I also think it is important that we, as policy, do not give a reason for
> refusing to hear a dispute.  To do so adds considerable work for us since we
> would have to reach consensus on the reason and the wording for each case we
> refuse.  Such refusals may make precedents inadvertently so they would
> require careful work to construct.


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: bylaws part II

body:
From: "Anthere" <anthere8 at yahoo.com>
>
>
> Delirium a ?crit:
> > Alex T. wrote:
> >
> >> That process would seem to indicate that you could require the
application
> >> to be
> >> verified by a notary, thus ensuring that it is from a distinct
individual.
> >> That is usually
> >> what NPO membership coordinators due is verify membership status, so it
is
> >> not
> >> outrageous to ask someone to fill out a form, get it notarized and mail
it
> >> to someone
> >> to be entitled to vote.
>
> A notary ?!?
> Well...I never had the use of a notary, even to receive an heritage :-(

Ant, in the United States a "Notary" is not the same this as a "Notaire"
under the civil law.  A Notary Public is someone who takes oaths and
verifies the identities of individuals. They usually perform this service
for a small sum, you can usually go to a public shop such as a pharmacy or
perhaps a bank or savings and loan assocation or credit union and for a
couple of dollars they will verify your identity.  In Quebec we call this a
"Commissioner of Oaths".

> I suspect we will have to find easier ways to prove we are real
> citizens. Perhaps an id number, perhaps a copy of an official letter,

That is what it would be, basically a copy of an official statement that the
person who signed this paper brought their picture ID to me and signed this
document in front of me, very simple, really.

> perhaps a web site with enough standing references to prove we exist...

VeriSign has some services along this line:
http://www.verisign.com/products/asb/index.html

There are also online voter systems that exist:
http://www.votenet.com/eballot/index_associations.html