subject: [WikiEN-l] <ref> and {{reference}}

body:
On 3/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
> > message news:f1c3529e0603010717g578b025cw7b6a88b7f8f0cbe4 at mail.gmail.com...
> > > On 3/1/06, The Cunctator
> > > <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> How do I cite sources? There is no clear, concise guide that I've been
> > >> able to find.
> > >> In short, can reference templates and the <ref> tag be used together?
> > > IMHO, the ideal method of citation would allow you to do something like
> > > this:
> > [almost perfect example of how <ref> tags work snipped]
> > > ...but I'm asking a lot. :)
> >
> > Erm...
> >
> > You need to run to this page:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php
>
> I am very, very pleasantly surprised :) I think I must have looked at
> an earlier version of how the ref tags worked and they weren't quite
> as advanced. Or I'm just losing my marbles.
>
Huh. It does work! Strange.. either I'm losing my marbles too
(probably) or something i tried earlier doesn't work.

Example:

A trillion articles is a million<ref name="million">{{news reference
|url=http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/02/006208.shtml
|org=Slashdot
|title=Wikipedia Reaches 1,000,000 Articles
|date=March 1, 2006
}}</ref> million<ref name="million" /> articles.

<references/>


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on iPod (Encyclopodia) available now

body:
On 3/2/06, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:

> The only way the high quality can be assured, and wikipedia can stay
> reputable (with the press penchant for negative stories) is to clearly
> identify what is the original source "wikimedia foundation"
> data/information/articles and what is not.

But the information in question *is* original source wikimedia
foundation data/information/articles.  However, the Wikimedia
trademarks, at least in theory (IANAL), disallow someone from making
that clear.

> Otherwise, forks that start with
> wikipedia articles and then change them (in ways that gain notoriety), or
> include gobs of advertising, etc., if allowed to use wikpedia trademarks,
> dilute the value of wikipedia in users minds, create bad press, and harm the
> reputation of the encyclopdia and the open edit model.
>
> Jim

And as far as I can tell, none of that is happening here.  As I
understand it, these articles weren't changed at all, and there isn't
any advertising.

Anthony


list: wikien-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> A better wording would be:
>
> "New material added to an article that lacks a reputable source is
> likely to be removed without warning. It is courteous for the editor who
> removes this material to re-insert it on the talk page of the article,
> along with a note about why it was removed."

Why do we keep coming back to this strange policy? It doesn't make
much sense (95% of Wikipedia is "likely to be removed without
warning"?), and it certainly doesn't reflect current practice.

This situation is starting to remind me of police who tell the public
"if you do X or Y, you WILL be caught", when the actual apprehension
rate is vanishingly small.

Is it not silly to have the most fundamental policy we have be so far
removed from a) current practice, and b) what we actually want? We
want sources, but we also want material to be added - we don't
actually remove material except as a last resort. Maybe we need
something like:

"When considering removing unsourced material, take into account the
likely factual accuracy of the material, the possible harm that could
be done by leaving it, and the chance that a subsequent editor could
find a source for it. Libellous material or copyright violations
aside, it is polite to move the material to the talk page with an
explanation for your removal."

Steve


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Trademark and Logo Policies

body:
On Tuesday 28 February 2006 18:11, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also -
> I sent you an offlist question
> about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo. Again -
> did you get permission to do that?

I have been following this discussion to some extent, and have often
wondered about the Wikipedia policies but never really looked into it
substantively. However, this thread inspired me -- or rather disappointed
me -- and so I looked around a bit and thought I would make a couple,
hopefully productive, comments.

At the W3C, I worked with our counsel to develop the various copyright and
trademark policies for the W3C. There, like here, we wanted our content --
specifications -- to be as widely as accessible as possible but also
preserve the integrity of the specification. The challenges then, from the
point of trademark were to:
1. Follow practices that would permit us to apply for and keep our marks.
One of the great difficulties here was getting W3C staff to use the the
marks descriptively (an adjective). Sun is great at this with their Java,
if you look at the page, Java what is never used as a noun:
  http://java.sun.com/
Wikipedia is commonly used as a noun, and I'm surprised that did not cause
any problems in the registration, and wonder if the will calls problems in
the future.

2. Permit others to use those terms in a way that did not seem heavy-handed,
but did not weaken the mark. One of the innovations there, I think, was the
trademark license:
  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/trademark-license-20021231
In it, others can use the trademark but only if they identify the owner,
described the W3C "product", and accurately disclose its status. Otherwise,
"4. Marks may not be used to indicate any kind of endorsement by the W3C,
official status with respect to the W3C, or any kind of relationship with
the W3C aside from a representation that the above requirements (1-3) have
been met."

Wikipedia is noted as a registered trademark at the bottom of every page,
but it is not easy to discern where the trademark is registered, whether
common law trademark claims or otherwise made, and what policies govern its
usage -- even to say "send an e-mail here."

I will also point out the logo policies :
  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/logo-usage-20000308

So, for Wikipedia's sake, it would probably be useful to have a link any
legal footer to a basic policy and how to request exceptions to it.


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
On 3/2/06, Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?
>
>  Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.
>
>  What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.

Err, how would the elder find Wikipedia?

I think it's safe to say, at least for the time being, that most of
our article writing will be done by people in countries that have
access to modern libraries.  If/when we start seeing any substantial
amount of content added by people who cannot use published sources
(but nevertheless have a decent Internet connection and a working
knowledge of English), we can deal with possible exceptions to policy.

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] We've Hit One Million

body:
--- Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a pretty big accomplishment. Good job, everyone. Our next milestone
> will be 1,000,000 featured articles, sometime in March 2050.

I'm afraid it's a little worse than that. The following is an announcement from
Wikipedia's founder:

Jimbo: In a little while, you'll find out that your userboxes have all been
deleted. Well, they're in safe hands. If you want them back, you'll have to
write...ONE MILLION ARTICLES!

Number Two COUGHS.

Jimbo: Sorry. ONE-HUNDRED BILLION ARTICLES!

(with apologies to
http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/clarke/38/scripts/Austin-Powers.htm , and
Jimbo of course...)

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> With any luck it's keeping the original research out.

Is undetected original research a big problem in practice? Is this
policy going to have any effect on undetected original research?

My point is: *Detected* original research is easy to deal with, and
doesn't need such a heavy handed policy. And in any case, WP:OR is the
place to deal with that problem.

> Don't forget that we're working towards 1.0 and a million featured
> articles...

With all the time in the world ;)

> Good, much better than my version. But we also need to encourage people
> to cite their sources (where possible) and remind them that anything
> which doesn't seem quite right *is likely to be removed*.

I'm glad you've made the distinction between an unsourced edit and
"anything which doesn't seem quite right". They're not the same.
People should never hesitate to remove material which is factually
incorrect and unsourced. But correct and unsourced is another matter.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Maps integration

body:
I hadn't see that before - very nice.

Paul

On 3/2/06, Dschwen <lists at schwen.de> wrote:
> > "There's a fundamental problem trying to integrate Wikis, Google Maps and
> > Internet Explorer. If you can find a way past this one hurdle, then the
> > rest should be straight forward.
>
> Uhm, but there are serveral Google Maps extensions, and at least one of them
> (http://www.schwen.de/wiki/GMap) works hapily in IE (6.0).
>
> --
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dschwen
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dschwen
> http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dschwen
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dschwen
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:
> I really don't want to poke in any further, but just to make this clear for
> the other readers of this thread:
>
> > [...] the first set was offlist,
> > but when that set was not answered adequately I restated the questions on
> > the list.
>
> Just want to make clear that I had answered the offlist question immediately,
> several hours before Daniel asked the same question again on this list. My
> answer even included an apology. So I hope you understand why -- after Daniel
> pretended not to have received my reply and asked me the same question again
> on this list -- I got the impression he wanted to annoy me.

My original offlist email to you was made quickly and thus may not have been as clear as it should
have been. I apologize if that is the case. I also want to be clear that I think your use of
Wikipedia content is absolutely wonderful. The only issues I had pertained to the use of the
trademark that went well-beyond giving credit. All the major issues and most of the minor ones now
seem to be moot due to your quick changes - at least as far as the webpage is concerned. I still
have not heard whether or not the logo that appears to be on a splash/intro screen on the iPod has
been removed (IANAL, but if images are allowed in articles on the iPod, then, of course, the logo
would be fair use in the article about Wikipedia ; but fair use would not apply to use on an
intro/loading/splash screen).

Our legal officer will have a standard trademark and logo use agreement ready in a while though.

-- mav

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
>>so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.
>>
>
>The email conversation contained numerous emails.  You have not seen
>them all.  Stop making gratuitously false accusations.
>
 From a practical point of view, email I haven't seen does not help me
develop or enforce policy. If the existing policy has been changed on
the basis of this email conversation, then I think it's reasonable to
expect someone in the know to update the appropriate policy pages. Is
the new policy to delete all non-free-licensed images? I'm not keen on
it, but as an admin I'll do my duty and help enforce it.

I think what troubles people is that there are all these hints of a
major policy change that seems to have been decided upon, and yet nobody
has changed any of the relevant policy pages. Has policy been changed,
or not?

Stan


subject: [Wikitech-l] Changing interface's language by hacking code

body:
At

http://www.giswiki.de/

Users can change the interface from Deutsch to English and back.

Anyone on the list from GISWiki?

Paul

On 3/2/06, Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com> wrote:
> thomas Armstrong wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > I'd like to allow users to change Wiki interface's language, by clicking a link,
> > instead of modifying their preferences.
> >
> > I've been browsing the code, and I guess I must change a property of
> > $wgContLang, but I don't find which one.
> >
> > Any suggestion? Thank you very much.
>
> You can tack "?uselang=xx" onto the end of the URL, where xx is the
> language code, to display a particular page in xx language. So you could
> create links like:
>
> [{{fullurl:Foo|uselang=es}} Foo en espanol]
>
> This approach has a problem, though: the change isn't permanent, so as
> soon as the reader clicks on a link at the Foo page, the interface
> reverts back to the default language. Perhaps you could modify
> [[MediaWiki:Monobook.js]] (and all the other skin scripts) to tack the
> uselang parameter onto every URL in the page.
>
> --
> Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
> AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of MacGyverMagic/Mgm

> Unless the celeb in question open admitted their sexual
> preference, speculation about the issue is totally pointless.

It has the effect of making those who are uncomfortable with their own
homosexuality feel more at ease. Homosexuality didn't just arise in the
second half of the Twentieth Century apart from a few indisputable cases.
Alexander the Great and his bosom buddies. It's always been around, even if
not openly admitted. If the great men of the past can be identified as
homosexual, then the less famous men of today can rightly feel more positive
about themselves.

This is not to say that homosexual folk are any better or worse than anyone
else, but I think we heterosexuals can attempt to understand their attitude
when for so much of history they were oppressed, abused and vilified. Oscar
Wilde was imprisoned for what today wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

I don't think that this is really good for the encyclopaedia, but if we can
understand why this behaviour is occurring, then we can manage it.

Pete, getting to the root cause


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Escaping the GFDL -- can it be done?

body:
On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Fastfission wrote:

> It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
> seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
> convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
> very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
> Wikipedia).

A revised version of the GFDL wouldn't help us because Wikipedia
would still be licensed under the old version.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of MacGyverMagic/Mgm

> Bottom line. Even if Powell was gay, it doesn't make him a
> pedophile so why should it be at all important to Scouting?

Hmmm. That's the bottom line, is it?

Pete, just kidding


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Jon wrote:

>Stop wikilawyering.
>
>  It was clear that these images were going to go. That's the important thing.
>
>  Ok, TBSDY cut to the chase - but he got the job done. "Process" is not some god to be bowed down to. Now, ok, if TBSDY deleted images wholesale where there was a realistic possibility that after going through a fuller process they would have stayed, then there would be some point in asking him not to do the same thing in the future  - and even then you shouldn't rake him over the coals for actions clearly conducted in good faith. However, in this case, noting this email, there is no doubt - the images were doomed and the only action worth doing in response is thanking TBSDY for carry out the administrative chore.
>
Actually, it's not clear at all. TBSDY even asked about fair use rationales
for TIME covers on the fair use project, and I answered with some ideas for
what might constitute fair use, but instead of continuing with the
discussion,
seems to have gone ahead and acted to delete anyway. If that's going to be
the extent of "discussion", then please just stop with the charade and
delete
all fair use images right now - the fait accompli will make some people
happy
and save me wasting my time on this whole issue (not necessarily a bad idea,
since I have a personal backlog of at least 2,000 images to add to commons).

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Ahh!  That's the same rule that applies to sourced edit.  If that's the
> case why bother even having the rule at all?

Good point. There probably shouldn't be a "rule" about when to remove
unsourced edits. Just some guidelines to be applied with common sense.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

> On 3/1/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > Would we produce a great encyclopaedia if we all thought and worked
> > the same way? I'm thinking that a certain degree of
> tension, conflict
> > and competition helps us go beyond the banal. Some of the best
> > features of Wikipedia are produced as a way of handling
> conflict. 3RR,
> > for instance. It's silly, but it works.
>
> We would definitely have more POV problems. Imagine a group
> of like-minded anti-abortionists sitting down to work,
> uninterrupted, on [[Abortion]]. You wouldn't have a single
> revert, edit war, personal attack, RfC or arbitration. But
> would the article end up with 73 references, and at least a
> passing resemblence of NPOV?
>
> On the other hand, at a certain level, excessive conflict
> clearly does interfere with getting the job done. Just like
> how a workplace with no coffee breaks loses morale, a
> workplace with more coffee break time than work time is
> clearly even more inefficient.
>
> Are we far from the happy medium?

I'm not comfortable with the idea that we should promote even a small degree
of conflict as a means to a better encyclopaedia. But we are in the happy
position that conflict emerges naturally so it doesn't have to be promoted
and mandated to a specific level. I think it is important that we recognise
that we are never going to have a Wikipedia without conflict, and so we
should find mechanisms to handle it without detracting from the overall
quality of the thing.

Clearly if conflict escalates to the point where good articles and
information are being blanked out because someone wants to score a point
against an enemy, then the encyclopaedia is being harmed. Likewise, if good
articles are left unwritten because the potential writers are too busy
disputing amongst themselves, then we are falling short of optimum.

The userbox affair is a case in point. A lot of time and effort expended
over what is essentially trivia.

I agree that conflict is inevitable, but I think that when it turns into
incivility and personal abuse, then we have gone too far, and someone should
step in and kick out the miscreant for a cooling off period.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 10:45:25 +0100, you wrote:

>Is undetected original research a big problem in practice?

It is in biographies, for sure.

> Is this
>policy going to have any effect on undetected original research?

Yes.  It gives unambiguous grounds for removing things which cannot be
verified from reliable secondary sources (Wikipedia is not a publisher
of first instance) and makes it less easy for people to use Wikipedia
as a soapbox.  It ends sterile edit wars over the insertion of
personal opinion.

I don't see why it's a problem, myself.  It's not as if it's a new
thing.  Sure most things don't actually cite a source, but most of
them *could* cite a source if necessary.  It's the ones that can't
which are a problem.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 19:30:54 +1100, you wrote:

>This was hived off to a sub article with the agreement of both sides who
>had been warring about what went into the main article.

So was Jack Hyles Controversy.  And a wider audience decided that it
was a bad idea, for very good reasons.  Right now this gives undue
weight to a *theory*.  An interesting theory, but a theory all the
same.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:

>Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?
>
>  Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.
>
We're nowhere near that level of detail on Africa however. Check out the
"Historical Dictionary" series of books on African countries - typically
we have just 3-4% coverage of the topics listed in each of those, and
the dictionaries include bibliographies listing another thousand or more
works. We have many years of effort ahead just working from what's
already in print, and already sitting in the average university library.

(A sobering exercise actually - go into university library, pick a
book completely at random, see if we have articles adequately covering
the subjects in the book. We're missing a lot of stuff...)

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] We've Hit One Million

body:
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 18:42:17 -0600, you wrote:

>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/Wikipedia_hits_milestone_1_million_English_articles

Indeed.  And luckily it wasn't Brian Peppers (internet meme) or Brian
Peppers (meme), both of which were created last evening, and at least
one of which was deleted several times in a few minutes, along with a
nonsense biography of some guy's girlfriend, with pictures (deleted
six times) and various other foolishness.  I wonder if the millionth
counter was perhaps fudged *ever so slightly*, since I saw a mass of
dross on newpages and very few decent articles!
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 3/2/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Fastfission wrote:
>
> > It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
> > seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
> > convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
> > very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
> > Wikipedia).
>
> A revised version of the GFDL wouldn't help us because Wikipedia
> would still be licensed under the old version.

Wikipedia is licensed under all versions of the GFDL starting with
version 1.2.  From [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]]:

"Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this
document under the Gnu Free Documentation License, version 1.2 or any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation"

This means that if GFDL 2.0 comes out as a verbatim copy of the
Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution Share-Alike license, then all of
Wikipedia is effectively dual-licensed under GFDL 1.2 and CC-BY-SA
2.5, and anyone re-using the content can pick whichever license they
want.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] <ref> and {{reference}}

body:
On 3/2/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> What I want to be able to do is
<snip>
> c) be able to use named references so I don't have to type the same
> reference info every time i use it.

This is easy using the Cite.php style.

When you mention a reference work for the first time, mention it with
the first form of the <ref> tag, like this:
     <ref name="somename">( insert reference here )</ref>

The system will internally call the reference "somename" and you can
insert the same reference info later on with the second variant of the
<ref> tag:
     <ref name="somename"/>
Note the lack of </ref>.

HTH
[[en:User:Kimchi.sg]]

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Steve's version is definitely an improvement. "It is polite" is still a
> little wimpy; "editors are strongly advised" might be better.  I would

Agree, though I have a preference for imperatives: "Please move it to..."

> also make a small addition to have the one phrase read "the possible
> harm that could be done by leaving or removing it."  Another thing that

Hmm...I was trying to make a point about factual inaccuracies being
harmful to people doing research, and indirectly to WP's reputation.
If you want to add 'removing', perhaps it should be done in a way to
emphasise that the two sorts of harm are completely different.

> could be taken into account is the nature of the material to reflect
> that the standards applied to commentary on video games will be much
> lower than those applied to biographies of real people.

Yes - though some people will disagree with you. If it's not there
already, the special case of living people needs to be highlighted.
WP:LIVING definitely trumps WP:V on any tolerance of unsourced
material.

> What needs to be stressed is a balanced approach to editing.  For some
> editors enthusiasm far outstroips judgement., and techniques that would
> moderate their behaviour would be welcome.

The recent survey of 100 articles leads me to think there is a greater
problem with reticence to add more information, than the small number
of editors who add too much information to articles on frivolous
subjects. Well...that's a pretty big claim to make. But if 90% of our
content is stagnant, 5% is overflowing with low quality additions and
5% is just right, then let's work more on de-stagnating the 90%?

Steve


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Frankly, you've not shown anything to contradict or even introduce an
element of doubt into even one of my claims, so I find it hard to
believe. You're asking me to take on faith that you know better than
me, despite all evidence to the contrary. Sorry, that's not how I do
things on Wikipedia or in my professional life.

I don't think I'm asking for too much.

Here are my claims simplified:
1. TBSDY was speedying large amounts of images labeled as "fair use"
as being copyvios.
2. There are no CSD provisions for speedying images as copyvios (or at
least, were not any at the time he was doing this; I haven't checked
them since then).
3. TBSDY claimed that Jimbo gave him the right to speedy images as
copyvios in a private e-mail.
4. TBSDY produced the e-mail, and it said that TBSDY could nominate
the images for deletion (the proper policy), and if that failed, Jimbo
might decide to speedy them. It did not say TBSDY could speedy images,
or any other admin, as copyvios.

My conclusions: TBSDY did not, in fact, have the authority to speedy
images as copyvios, and was acting against policy. I'm perfectly happy
to assume good faith on this and assume he misunderstood Jimbo's
e-mail or something like that -- nothing dishonest is posited.

That's it. Show me where I'm wrong on any of those counts, and I'll
happily agree with you and be part of those seeking to smooth this
over. Until then, please don't expect me to just agree that I am wrong
in the face of no evidence. I find it hard to believe that you'd do
the same thing in a similar situation, though even if you would, it
changes very little.

This is, of course, a case of transparency at its heart. "Evidence" as
a standard for proof and accountability in science, law, and politics
is based on the principle of open and free examination (Cf. Yaron
Ezrahi, "The Descent of Icarus: Science and the Transformation of
Contemporary Democracy"). Appeals to secret evidence can only be taken
on faith. I've seen no evidence to warrant such a leap of faith in
this instance, given the evidence against it. Of course, I know that
evidence can be problematic, requires interpretation to make sense of,
and other important epistemological points. So feel free to indicate
where I've gone astray in your eyes, if it is just a matter of
interpretation, and I'll be happy to think about it.

On the issue of "faith" -- I have a lot of faith in Jimbo, and even if
I didn't, I know this is largely his show and what he says goes. If he
wants to go outside of policy on something, it doesn't bug me too
much. It does bother me if others do so, though, without any explicit
allowance for that made by Jimbo. And I didn't see that in this case.

But I don't want to be told by you, TBSDY, or anyone else that I don't
have the right to ask perfectly reasonable questions. There is no
provisions either in Wikipedia's terms of use, or in general ethical
conduct, which prohibits the good faith asking of questions.

Frankly, I don't think I'm the one who needs to "show some self
control." I think you have been unfathomably rude to me and others on
this issue. You've treated me like I was some sort of common troll.

FF

P.S. I've decided to CC the list on this. I didn't judge it to contain
anything compromising, and I think this is still completely in line
with the discussion on transparency. Hope that isn't too irritating,
but I'd really rather you communicated with me on this subject via the
list, because I do, in the end, believe in openness.

On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > And I think I was aware of the facts
>
> Please accept that you were not, are not, and probably will not ever
> be aware of the facts of this case.  Your criticism of Ta bu shi da yu
> was woefully misplaced, and your statement that I bent the fact was
> completely without foundation.  Please show some self control.
>


from_name: Anthere

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 3/1/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Poking my head in:
>>
>>I don't have an particular argument, but this whole discussion feels
>>very wrong.  Wikipedia should not be acting like a corporation -- it
>>is not trying to make a profit; its mission is to spread knowledge.
>>Period.
>>
>
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation *is* a corporation, and it should act like
> one.  That said, I'd describe the problem here is more a lack of
> Wikimedia acting like a corporation.
>
> A corporate response to this would be simple, they'd refer the
> situation to their licensing department - not argue about it on a
> public mailing list.

We did not *argue* about it. We *explain* the issue (in particular since
that might help some of you explain yourself the issue in the next cases
:-)).

We also referred the situation to the licensing department in *gently*
asking Robert to send an email to the board. Generally we assume good
faith from anyone using the logo and the mark, and generally, assuming
good faith is what is bringing in the best and more courtous feedback,
and allow development of harmonious relationships in the future.

Another solution would be to send a legal notice by a lawyer for any
infringment to anyone using the logo with no permission. But frankly, do
we really want to do that ?

  A corporation would have a written trademark
> licensing policy which any volunteers who want to poke their heads
> into things could refer to (the referral Ant gave to
> board at wikimedia.org serves nearly the same purpose, though).

Hmmmm. Correct. This said, I would suggest that the *written* trademark
license policy would be best not widely public. In particular when a
financial agreement is concerned :-) Agreements also need to take into
account the situation (is that an agreement for chapter use ? Or for
commercial use ? Or for educational use ?). But, generally I agree, we
need clearer guidelines on the matter and Soufron and others are working
on this.

The board address is also a good way to track permission and agreements
as all emails are stored in OTRS ;)

> Anthony

Ant


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] <ref> and {{reference}}

body:
"Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:f1c3529e0603010717g578b025cw7b6a88b7f8f0cbe4 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 3/1/06, The Cunctator
> <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> How do I cite sources? There is no clear, concise guide that I've been
>> able to find.
>> In short, can reference templates and the <ref> tag be used together?
> IMHO, the ideal method of citation would allow you to do something like
> this:
[almost perfect example of how <ref> tags work snipped]
> ...but I'm asking a lot. :)

Erm...

You need to run to this page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Escaping the GDFL -- can it be done?

body:
And now... for something completely different.

The GFDL is a document with great goals, great principles, and I agree
with all of the basic elements of Free Content. Let's just get that on
the table first. I've read quite a lot of Stallman's texts, and works
by other players in these sorts of debates like Lessig, Raymond,
Boyle, etc., and I think I understand the terms of the debates over
this, and some of the legal aspects, though I don't claim to be an
expert in either domain.

But there are some ways in which it is not ideal in its
implementation. Some of these have been gone over in some detail on
here, but the basic summary is that it is a license made primarily for
software manuals and is not always best adapted for Wikipedia's
specific technical and informational purposes. There are, to say the
least, sections which could be clarified, improved, or dropped
altogether. And there are also places where we could imagine
improvements added (such as allowing authors to be dis-associated with
re-used content if used in a way which would be defamatory to them --
the old case of the Holocaust deniers using our articles as a base for
their own literature and then claiming that Jimbo was an author).

But how to escape? The GFDL is viral -- once you license something as
it, you can't undo it. What is made GFDL stays GFDL -- that's the
purpose anyway. And, in principle, I agree with that: the goal of this
is to make sure that what was "free content" not only stays "free
content," but generates more "free content." And it improves
Wikipedia's credibility to be committed to a license maintained by an
external source: nobody can claim that someday WP will turn around,
change its license, and suddenly have proprietary content. In order to
accomplish that at present, we'd have to do a hostile takeover of the
Free Software Foundation. Let's assume, our of the principles of
practicality and good faith, that this will never be an option on the
table.

So how to escape?, he asks again. I've been puzzling over this for
some time (think of it as on of my hobbies, the sort of thing I muse
about in the shower). Here are some thoughts I had.

The idea of multi-licensing has been pursued on the project at
different times, whereby contributions are indicates as being
licenseable under the GFDL or another, similarly "free" license (i.e.,
CC-BY-SA or CC-SA). There was also the big push, awhile ago, to get
users to put templates on their user pages indicating that their
present, future, and, I think, *past* contributions were
multi-licensed as well -- I believe it had to do with making certain
articles compatible with WikiCities' license. The basic idea was to
run a bot to find all of the "authors" the articles in question and
see if they would agree to this. I don't know how this worked out, but
it was an interesting idea.

Based on this principle: can one really ask users to
re-(multi)-license their PAST contributions? That is, can I say, "All
those contributions I said were under the GFDL? Well, now I want them
to also be GFDL or CC-BY-SA." Legally, I'm suspicious, but I'm also
not a lawyer.

If this principle works -- couldn't we change the terms of use? That
is, instead of every edit being licenseable under the GFDL, couldn't
we change it to say that "this contribution, and any other
contribution I have previously made, is licenseable under the GFDL or
any other similarly 'free' license"? It wouldn't necessarily get *all*
of the content out of the GFDL but, if we assume that many of the
editors now were editors previously, it would potentially "free up" a
very large amount of content. If an individual editor objected to this
for some reason (I can't imagine why, but let's just say they did),
then they'd be prohibited from editing, the same way we do when people
suddenly claim that the intent to retain copyright on their edits.

It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
Wikipedia).

Just a thought, not a clarion call. Getting out of the GFDL may not
even be necessary, but I think thinking about it as an option might be
worthwhile (though again, not because I disagree with its principles
in the slightest, just some aspects of its implementation).

I'm very interested in what others will have to say about this, and
hopefully it will be seen in the spirit I intend it, which is more on
the level of inquiry than policy.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.

From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at ....com> Mailed-By: wikia.com
To: Arbitration Committee mailing list <arbcom-l at wikipedia.org>
Cc: ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com, Tony Sidaway
Date: Feb 19, 2006 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Arbcom-l] ta_bu_shi_da_yu believes over 200 Time
magazine covers pose a serious liability and bad PR
         threat

I'd like to see a bulk AfD on these things.  And if the answer is wrong,
then I'll personally delete them anyway and use this as a good example
of what's broken about AfD.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################

I think my interpretation is correct that this did not give TBSDY
authority to speedy the images. As we know, AFD is about the polar
opposite of speedying, for better or worse.

FF

On 3/2/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 11:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> > Here are my claims simplified:
> > 1. TBSDY was speedying large amounts of images labeled as "fair use"
> > as being copyvios.
> > 2. There are no CSD provisions for speedying images as copyvios (or at
> > least, were not any at the time he was doing this; I haven't checked
> > them since then).
> > 3. TBSDY claimed that Jimbo gave him the right to speedy images as
> > copyvios in a private e-mail.
> > 4. TBSDY produced the e-mail, and it said that TBSDY could nominate
> > the images for deletion (the proper policy), and if that failed, Jimbo
> > might decide to speedy them. It did not say TBSDY could speedy images,
> > or any other admin, as copyvios.
> >
> > My conclusions: TBSDY did not, in fact, have the authority to speedy
> > images as copyvios, and was acting against policy. I'm perfectly happy
> > to assume good faith on this and assume he misunderstood Jimbo's
> > e-mail or something like that -- nothing dishonest is posited.
>
> Seems like an amount of misunderstanding.
>
> Can we see the email?
>
> Justinc
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes.   I cannot discuss the contents of email communications with you,
> but I can say that Ta bu shi da yu's actions had the full support of
> Jimbo Wales.

Well, then I guess this is just a great case in point about
transparency and the sort of attitudes it breeds on both sides of the
line of secrecy.

It breeds mistrust outside it, and elitism inside it.

> > despite all evidence to the contrary.
>
> There is no evidence to the contrary.  You're being unbelievably
> obtuse and grossly offensive, but you have absolutely no grounds to
> attack Ta bu shi da yu in this way and no grounds for your repeated
> false claim that I have misrepresented the facts.

Well, I've tired in presenting my claims. Feel free to target any of
them, show me they are wrong in any way. Please do. I implore you. It
should be very easy to at least confront them directly. I've tried to
make them as straightforward as possible.

If you cannot, or will not, I'm not sure what a reasonable person is
supposed to conclude.

I somewhat resent being called "obtuse," but I'm happy with letting
that slide. I don't really see where I've been "grossly offensive"
under any definition, but okay, whatever, sure. I'm obtuse and
offensive -- just point out where I'm *wrong* and I'll be satisfied
and leave the whole issue alone.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
> > so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.
>
> The email conversation contained numerous emails.  You have not seen
> them all.  Stop making gratuitously false accusations.

Well, I cannot disprove such a possibility, of course, but I *can* say
that this particular e-mail is the one which TBSDY produced to show
that he had been given the authority. Do you deny that it is
insufficient in this function?

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
BTW -- here is the link to the posting of the e-mail at the RFC, just
to be clear about what I am referring to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Ta_bu_shi_da_yu_2#Jimbo.27s_email

FF

On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
> > > so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.
> >
> > The email conversation contained numerous emails.  You have not seen
> > them all.  Stop making gratuitously false accusations.
>
> Well, I cannot disprove such a possibility, of course, but I *can* say
> that this particular e-mail is the one which TBSDY produced to show
> that he had been given the authority. Do you deny that it is
> insufficient in this function?
>
> FF
>


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't need
> development (keep things simple!).
> >
> >   All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of
> the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying
> clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just
> tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
> >
> But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If
> people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability,
> not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR.
> Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the
> point is made right at the top of the page.

And sometimes, when they do get it, they try to remove it from the policy?
Why?  Because they imagine that they (via Wikipedia) can actually
disseminate the TRUTH, and if it so happens that the TRUTH is only found in
their own head,  or "everyone knows it", or (at best) it is found on some
personal or blatantly propagandistic website, well, so be it.

There are plenty of websites out there that disseminate the TRUTH; e.g. The
Truth about Hell (http://www.av1611.org/hell.html), The Truth about George
W. Bush (http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/), The Truth about Iraq (
http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/), The opposite Truth about Iraq (
http://www.truthaboutwar.org/home.shtml),  The Truth about Islam (
http://www.lamblion.com/New08.php), The opposite Truth about Islam (
http://www.twf.org/), oops, a different opposite Truth about Islam (
http://islamstrueface.blogspot.com/), The Truth about Black Helicopters (
http://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/), etc. - that last one is
intentionally funny, by the way, unlike the others, which are only
unintentionally so.

One of the brilliant things about Wikipedia is that it is not so arrogant as
to presume it can or should present "the TRUTH"; instead it presents
verifiable information from reliable sources, which is far more useful, and
almost always more truthful, than "the TRUTH".

Jay.


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
On 3/2/06, Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]]) <garzohugo+wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is quite a difference between unverifiable and something that is
> just difficult to verify. There are also overlaps with 'no original
> research' here. In the end, common sense needs to be factored in. What
> is common knowledge in one part of the world may not be in another.
> Verifiability should not be turned into a bureaucratic exercise, where
> information is removed because it hasn't filled its form in correctly.
> Of course, editors should be challenged to give supporting evidence
> for something, but it should not be rejected just because it cannot be
> supported by internet sources or an American/Australian/British
> library. Such a line would only increase the systemic bias towards
> English-speaking computer users in developed countries. The world is
> growing ever smaller, but it's not yet that small.
>
> Gareth Hughes.

As far as I can tell, that is the line.  A person can't just go and
interview a village elder - that would be OR.  Personally, I could see a
case being made for interviewing someone, adding the transcript to
Wikisource or something of the sort, and referencing that as what "Person X
has said".  As it stand though, I think it would fall afoul of NOR.

Ian


body:
--- Robert Bamler <Robert.Bamler.epodia at gmx.de> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> > least as far as the webpage is concerned. I still have not heard whether or
> > not the logo that appears to be on a splash/intro screen on the iPod has
> > been removed
>
> This must be a misunderstanding. Encyclopodia doesn't have a splash screen,
> the image in the Encyclopodia-installer [1] is just an illustration. I'll
> remove the Wikipedia-logo from that image soon.
>
> Sorry for that confusion,

Ah - Cool, thanks :)

-- mav

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


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Maps integration

body:
admin Yellowikis wrote:
>
> The API code would like it to be possible to have a chunk of Javascript
> that sits between these two lines
> <!-- Served by truth in 0.14 secs. -->
> </body>
> (The map itself would appear in a "map" <div> within the "editsection"
> <div>, it's just the associated Javascript code that must be moved.)
> My understanding is that it's not easy for a Wiki page to contain custom
> content there.

I don't know anything about Google Maps, but if all you need is a chunk
of HTML added just before the end of the <BODY>, an easy way to do it
would be to append it in an onload handler, something like this:

   addOnloadHook(function () {
      document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].innerHTML +=
          "YOUR HTML CODE GOES HERE";
   });

That said, if the code you're trying to add is itself Javascript, why
can't you just place it directly in one of the JS files included in the
<HEAD> section?

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Steven Ericsson Zenith

body:
Philip is correct.  The only way to escape the GDFL is to rewrite the
entire encyclopedia under a different license - or get every single
contributor to agree to reassign the content.  Good luck with that.

The first approach actually seems viable to me - see
http://www.panopedia.org  :-)

With respect,
Steven
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:StevenZenith
http://www.panopedia.org/index.php/User:Steven

>Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:14:57 -0800
>From: Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Escaping the GFDL -- can it be done?
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <2261314F-E239-4F32-BC27-801E8EDFF942 at philwelch.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Fastfission wrote:
>
>
>
>>> It is just a thought I had -- the only one I could come up with which
>>> seems really plausible, aside from the possibility of the FSF being
>>> convinced to make updates to the GFDL (which I suspect they would be
>>> very dubious about, especially if the edits were primarily to benefit
>>> Wikipedia).
>>
>>
>
>A revised version of the GFDL wouldn't help us because Wikipedia
>would still be licensed under the old version.
>
> -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>


from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
This reminds me of an excellent quotation from *Raiders of the Lost
Ark*which, slightly modified, seems apropos: "(Encyclopedia writing)
is the
search for *facts,* not *truth.*"  (And then Indiana Jimbo goes and finds
the Lost Encyclopedic Reference of the Pharaohs before the Nazis can, I
don't know, speedy delete [[Allies of World War II]].)

On 3/2/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com < slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/2/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't
> need
> > development (keep things simple!).
> > >
> > >   All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of
> > the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying
> > clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just
> > tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
> > >
> > But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If
> > people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability,
> > not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR.
> > Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the
> > point is made right at the top of the page.
>
>
> And sometimes, when they do get it, they try to remove it from the policy?
> Why?  Because they imagine that they (via Wikipedia) can actually
> disseminate the TRUTH, and if it so happens that the TRUTH is only found
> in
> their own head,  or "everyone knows it", or (at best) it is found on some
> personal or blatantly propagandistic website, well, so be it.
>
> There are plenty of websites out there that disseminate the TRUTH; e.g.
> The
> Truth about Hell (http://www.av1611.org/hell.html), The Truth about George
> W. Bush (http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/ ), The Truth about Iraq (
> http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/), The opposite Truth about Iraq (
> http://www.truthaboutwar.org/home.shtml ),  The Truth about Islam (
> http://www.lamblion.com/New08.php), The opposite Truth about Islam (
> http://www.twf.org/), oops, a different opposite Truth about Islam (
> http://islamstrueface.blogspot.com/), The Truth about Black Helicopters (
> http://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/), etc. - that last one is
> intentionally funny, by the way, unlike the others, which are only
> unintentionally so.
>
> One of the brilliant things about Wikipedia is that it is not so arrogant
> as
> to presume it can or should present "the TRUTH"; instead it presents
> verifiable information from reliable sources, which is far more useful,
> and
> almost always more truthful, than "the TRUTH".
>
> Jay.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] <ref> and {{reference}}

body:
On 3/2/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:f1c3529e0603010717g578b025cw7b6a88b7f8f0cbe4 at mail.gmail.com...
> > On 3/1/06, The Cunctator
> > <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> How do I cite sources? There is no clear, concise guide that I've been
> >> able to find.
> >> In short, can reference templates and the <ref> tag be used together?
> > IMHO, the ideal method of citation would allow you to do something like
> > this:
> [almost perfect example of how <ref> tags work snipped]
> > ...but I'm asking a lot. :)
>
> Erm...
>
> You need to run to this page:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php

I am very, very pleasantly surprised :) I think I must have looked at
an earlier version of how the ref tags worked and they weren't quite
as advanced. Or I'm just losing my marbles.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> And I have tired of reading your repeated false, baseless, malicious
> accusations.  I have no more to say on the matter.

I'm thoroughly surprised -- I thought you had more integrity. Guess I
was wrong. Sorry for the confusion.

FF


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikipedia-l] lmo wikipedia in main page

body:
Dear Sirs,
I would like Lombard wikipedia to be added in the
'100+'
section (but '1000+' is our goal at present...)in
Wikipedia's main page: www.wikipedia.org .
Could you be so kind to tell me how I should proceed?
Many thanks.
Sincerely yours,

Claudio Meneghini

___________________________________________________________________________
Nouveau : t?l?phonez moins cher avec Yahoo! Messenger ! D?couvez les tarifs exceptionnels pour appeler la France et l'international.
T?l?chargez sur http://fr.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
The point of this is not to enshrine process. I merely said that he
acted completely contrary to policy, relied upon backchannel authority
for it (which turned out to be false), and said that the reprobation
of users who inquired about such authority was ill-founded.

And in response I have gotten nothing but abuse -- and not just
disagreement, which I always welcome, but name calling and crude
attacks on my intelligence -- from people who should know better. In
my opinion, if our processes or policies are wrong, we should try to
fix them first before deciding to dump it. It is a better long term
solution.

And I was, and remain, correct, so far as anything presented here as
shown. I will continue not to suspend my natural skepticism in the
absence of compelling reason.

And just as a parting shot or two: I didn't bring this issue up here
first. I'll admit, after the RFC provoked so many ridiculous defenses
of TBSDY's actions, I was tempted to post to the list. But I decided
not to. Why get involved in a big argument about it here? It's a
violation of policy, but it was not the end of the world, and I'm
happy to leave it at that.

But after it was lauded by Tony Sidaway as an example about the merits
of backchannel dealings and "suspicions" such as mine were declared to
be meritless and counter-productive, I thought some clarification was
needed, for those who had not followed the goings-on at WP. This, to
my surprise, provoked nothing but ire, demands that I stop,
accusations about accusations (I never accused TBSDY, Tony Sidaway, or
anyone else of "lying" in the slightest, and attempted at many points
to clarify exactly what I was alleging), name-calling, and, in the
end, absolutely not one shred of reasonable argumentation against my
assessment.

Now you can say that you happen to agree with the outcome, that ends
justify the means, what have you. To me, that is beside the point of
the whole dialogue. I have no love for fair use images. I have no love
for stifling processes.

But I do think that this sort of activity is more counter-productive
than it is productive. Some images were deleted, but at what cost? In
terms of time, resources, trust, morale, feelings, and future progress
-- I think much more than was necessary for the job at hand. It would
have been easier to change the policy, and in the end it would have
taken up less time than these discussions have. The deletion was
expedited, but the overall case was not expedient.

It is this sort of thing which provokes a good, reliable editor -- of
which I count myself, generally speaking, if it is not too vain to do
so -- to want to throw a fit of self-pity, say "I'll never edit here
again," or "I'll never work on policy again," or "I'll never
participate in this list again," or "I've got better thing to do than
hang out with these unappreciative louts, who are unable to take
responsibility errors of others or themselves." (OK -- the last one
might be a bit specific to this instance.)

I'm not going to do or say any of those things -- I only once
succumbed to the urge, saying I might not work on fair use again, and
afterwards I regretted being so melodramatic -- but it's the sort of
urge one feels. One gets the feeling, that one is trying to be
reasonable with a hoard of barbarians, one gets the feeling that one
is alone in one's reason in a sea of irrationality. It's not an
entirely justified feeling, I recognize -- a few people have written
to the list in agreement with me, one even wrote a much-appreciated
note of thanks -- but it is an unpleasant and very real feeling
nonetheless.

I say all this not to be melodramatic (but maybe I am, anyway), and
not to drag this on more than it needs to be (but perhaps I have
already done so), but only to hopefully derive some positive use from
the whole exchange: it illustrates perfectly the problems of relying
on backchannel discussions for justifying policy decisions, and if
anything positive were to come out of it, perhaps admins in the
future, if they felt that Jimbo had given them personal authority to
violate policy, would secure an open statement of such beforehand.
Just a suggestion.

Feel free to misinterpret this message however you please.

FF

On 3/2/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Stop wikilawyering.
>
>   It was clear that these images were going to go. That's the important thing.
>
>   Ok, TBSDY cut to the chase - but he got the job done. "Process" is not some god to be bowed down to. Now, ok, if TBSDY deleted images wholesale where there was a realistic possibility that after going through a fuller process they would have stayed, then there would be some point in asking him not to do the same thing in the future  - and even then you shouldn't rake him over the coals for actions clearly conducted in good faith. However, in this case, noting this email, there is no doubt - the images were doomed and the only action worth doing in response is thanking TBSDY for carry out the administrative chore.
>
>   Jon
>
>
>
>
> Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>   The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
> so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.
>
> From: Jimmy Wales Mailed-By: wikia.com
> To: Arbitration Committee mailing list
> Cc: ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com, Tony Sidaway
> Date: Feb 19, 2006 7:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [Arbcom-l] ta_bu_shi_da_yu believes over 200 Time
> magazine covers pose a serious liability and bad PR
> threat
>
> I'd like to see a bulk AfD on these things. And if the answer is wrong,
> then I'll personally delete them anyway and use this as a good example
> of what's broken about AfD.
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> # Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
> # http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
> #######################################################################
>
>
> I think my interpretation is correct that this did not give TBSDY
> authority to speedy the images. As we know, AFD is about the polar
> opposite of speedying, for better or worse.
>
> FF
>
>
> On 3/2/06, Justin Cormack wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 11:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> > > Here are my claims simplified:
> > > 1. TBSDY was speedying large amounts of images labeled as "fair use"
> > > as being copyvios.
> > > 2. There are no CSD provisions for speedying images as copyvios (or at
> > > least, were not any at the time he was doing this; I haven't checked
> > > them since then).
> > > 3. TBSDY claimed that Jimbo gave him the right to speedy images as
> > > copyvios in a private e-mail.
> > > 4. TBSDY produced the e-mail, and it said that TBSDY could nominate
> > > the images for deletion (the proper policy), and if that failed, Jimbo
> > > might decide to speedy them. It did not say TBSDY could speedy images,
> > > or any other admin, as copyvios.
> > >
> > > My conclusions: TBSDY did not, in fact, have the authority to speedy
> > > images as copyvios, and was acting against policy. I'm perfectly happy
> > > to assume good faith on this and assume he misunderstood Jimbo's
> > > e-mail or something like that -- nothing dishonest is posited.
> >
> > Seems like an amount of misunderstanding.
> >
> > Can we see the email?
> >
> > Justinc
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
The TechWhack article is by far the best of the lot I've seen. But yeah,
it's great to see the media are picking up on it. Who's the poor Wikipedian
who's going to get overworked by doing the article on media coverage for the
signpost?

Mgm

On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> News items are starting to be published about the Jordanhill Station
> article, some more heavily reliant on the official press release than
> others. http://tinyurl.com/jvw2s is the link to the Google News list.
>
> The article itself is rather over-egged for one about a suburban railway
> station, but it is heart-warming to see that the first photographs in the
> dawn light of a new day have been added after a lot of discussion about
> copyright usage of images found here and there on the web.
>
> Peter (Skyring)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> The article itself is rather over-egged for one about a suburban railway
> station, but it is heart-warming to see that the first photographs in the
> dawn light of a new day have been added after a lot of discussion about
> copyright usage of images found here and there on the web.

I'm not sure what you mean about over-egged. I think it's great -
there is actually a history of the railway station. This is not random
trivia or excessive detail imho. Where else would you go to find that
out?

Anyway, there are a huge number of articles about stations out there
(the Singapore metro network is particularly well covered). Just a
pity most don't have this attention to detail, number of sources etc.

Steve


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
We thought we had a developer for this functionality (we do have
funding), but I haven't heard back from him yet. We're therefore looking
for devs who are willing to do contract work in other places. I'll post
an update soonish. (PHP/MySQL devs, preferably with MediaWiki
experience, should always feel free to contact me or Gerard, there's a
good chance that we can get you a MediaWiki project to work on.)

Judging by the time it's taking for the namespace code to be merged, I
would add 2-3 months to the period of development until you see this in
a MediaWiki release. ;-) It's a Big project with a capital B in any
case, since it affects MediaWiki's database structure quite seriously,
and we need to implement it in a way that doesn't have a negative impact
on the existing monolingual projects.

Erik


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

subject: [WikiEN-l] We've Hit One Million

body:
In response to JzG/Guy Chapman, that was indeed the 1,000,000th article, according to official stats.

I must admit that initially I was urging many of the powers at be *to* fudge the millionth, but then the article became pretty darn good.

Cool stuff, gang!

Nick Moreau

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> -- it also does not help this that many of those which are "most
> important" for encyclopedia are also the ones with the most edits.
> Though I wonder -- if an edit is reverted, does the editor still have
> the ability to claim authorship? I can see different answers to that,
> none of which I'm completely satisfied.

If an editor has not written any part of the current article, they don't
really have a claim to authorship of that article. (The licensing issue
is actually one of the better reasons for mass-reverting trolls' edits.
With the improved revision deletion coming, it becomes somewhat easier
to handle these things, too...) "Not written any part" shouldn't be
taken too literally, however- just replacing someone's words inline
doesn't automatically make their claim go away.

If you look in depth at the history of a lot of our very-heavily-edited
articles, after a while they start actually going downhill in quality,
losing consistency and readability. Other times, we find a copyvio in
the history somewhere. This leads to someone starting a clean rewrite at
a /Temp page, which then replaces the old version. This method could
productively be used with articles with improperly licensed
contributions as well, and if done on the cruftiest articles, can
improve overall quality.

Of course, before replacing content, we should go to everyone we can
still find who has live contributions in the database and get them to do
the CC-template-thing (and also the {{WikimediaTextLicensing}} template,
if possible) (see [[en:User:Jake Nelson]] for mine, for example).

Changing the submit text for present and future contribs seems easy and
solid to me- changing it for past ones, I'd hold off on until it's made
clear with people...

-- Jake Nelson
[[en:User:Jake Nelson]]


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On 3/1/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure that info should go anywhere. Surely it's a fringe theory?
>

You'd think so, and that was certainly my impression before I looked.
However the article itself refers to works by Michael Rosenthal and
Tim Jeal, the latter being the writer of a mainstream biography that
pops up first when you type in baden-powell.  And at a glance this
seems to have swung the AfD, which has, to my eyes, a very strong keep
result.


from_name: Robert Bamler

body:
Hello,

I really don't want to poke in any further, but just to make this clear for
the other readers of this thread:

> [...] the first set was offlist,
> but when that set was not answered adequately I restated the questions on
> the list.

Just want to make clear that I had answered the offlist question immediately,
several hours before Daniel asked the same question again on this list. My
answer even included an apology. So I hope you understand why -- after Daniel
pretended not to have received my reply and asked me the same question again
on this list -- I got the impression he wanted to annoy me.

I'm sorry if I got this wrong and I hope we have cleared this now.

Regards,
Robert


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, Nicholas Moreau wrote:

> Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?
>
>  Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.
>
>  What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.
>
Welcome to my challenge: writing articles about Ethiopia (& neighboring
countries) where I can provide adequate sources. The short report on this
challenge is that sometimes I'm successful, & sometimes I'm not; compared to
a number of other topics one could write about for Wikipedia, verification
is currently harder, & for the forseeable future will likely remain so.

The longer report on this challenge is as follows. The problem of
"oral history" isn't as insurmountable as it might first appear: a large
number of field researchers spent the 20th century combing Africa &
recording oral historical traditions, so a lot of material that one might
expect to find in an encyclopedia is in print, & can be verified. Getting
ahold of the printed accounts might pose a challenge of one kind or
another: for example, I own a copy of Richard Pankhurst's quite informative
_Economic History of Ethiopia_ (which covers the years 1800-1935), but it
had a first printing of 4,000 copies, so I don't know if someone else could
easily verify any material I might draw from it. But that is a problem with
every specialized discipline. (Anyone else on the list own a copy of
_Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament_? It's another
valuable work, but not one found in the average public library.)

And much of the information that does reach Wikipedia about Ethiopian history
from that land appears to be reliable, when evaluated with common sense.
For example, there's an editor Sendeq with whom I don't always agree & only
rarely provides references for his material, but I have come to trust his
contributions. On the other hand, a number of clan & ethnic rivalries are
fought on Wikipedia from anonymous accounts with IP numbers, & are best
dealt with as if vandalism.

The problem I'm facing at the moment with Ethiopian articles is that last
November Meles Zenawi closed down the media in his country, following riots
over the election results. (There's some disagreement over who started these
riots: whether it the opposition parties who called for demonstrations
or the police who were told to "keep order".) As a result, I'm finding that
if I want to write adequately detailed articles, I'm faced with using
unacceptible sources -- namely Weblogs & web forums. For every event that
a reputable source like the BBC publishes, there are about 5 more that
I end up learning about in other ways.

And conditions in Ethiopia are relatively peaceful compared to the rest of
the continent. For some countries we have no reliable information because the
people who might provide reports either can't get to the scene -- or are
killed in the violence. Civil wars don't usually recognize neutral observers.

I don't know the answer to this problem, whether to ask for an exception in
this case (& risk garbage being submitted because of this), or to simply
not write about what I learn. It is a problem worth discussing, although I
think few of the Wikipedians who struggle with this problem post or read
the mailling list.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Steve,
> It's prolly important to include something to the effect of if you *do*
> remove an unsourced edit because it's unsourced, then you're not going
> to get in trouble.  That's something that policy's actually useful for,
> actually --- as is [[WP:IAR]] ...

Well, you almost never "get in trouble" on Wikipedia. But to suggest
that you no one would raise an eyebrow if you removed an uncontested,
but unsourced sentence from the first paragraph of a major article is
probably going a little far...

Steve


from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 3/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Derivative works. One editor per article would be enough to really
> mess things up.

That's true, and would be a serious snag for, no doubt, many articles
-- it also does not help this that many of those which are "most
important" for encyclopedia are also the ones with the most edits.
Though I wonder -- if an edit is reverted, does the editor still have
the ability to claim authorship? I can see different answers to that,
none of which I'm completely satisfied.

At the very least, a change to the terms of use would at least prevent
the issue for any articles created from that point forward, and would
focus the problem on issues relating to editors who no longer
contribute.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] One Millionth - News items

body:
On 3/2/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> That's what I mean about over-egged for an article about a suburban railway
> station. It would be great if '''all''' articles about such places had the
> same level of detail. Great if you're a nut about railway stations, I
> suppose. Knowing the number of parking spaces at a station is probably more
> than I'll ever want to know.

I agree - car spaces change all the time anyway. It just happens to be
the sort of information which is frequently readily available on train
operators' webpages...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an  important question, should/can we be lax references for African content  in en?

  Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it  based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be  recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles  upon miles away.

  What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.

  Nick/Zanimum

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 15:12:48 +0000, you wrote:

>You'd think so, and that was certainly my impression before I looked.
>However the article itself refers to works by Michael Rosenthal and
>Tim Jeal, the latter being the writer of a mainstream biography that
>pops up first when you type in baden-powell.  And at a glance this
>seems to have swung the AfD, which has, to my eyes, a very strong keep
>result.

Sure, it's a well-researched theory.  But is it more significant than
his military career and his foundation of the global Scouting
movement, which is how it looks from the current balance of content?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:08:27 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>>This article would be, I dare say, of intense interest to
>>members of the American and Canadian scout movement who are involved
>>in this controversy.
>>
>>
>Ah, so it's useful in furthering a political agenda.  That explains
>the massive pile-on in AfD, anyway.  I guess it's like Christianity:
>Jesus is dead so we can all make a living pretending we alone know
>what he thought :-)
>
If Jesus was writing under GFDL, no one should object to Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John (and even Paul) doing a little commercialization. :-)

Ec


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Verifiability and sources are great, and are a good goal to be aiming
> for. But if we don't have them, let's at least have make sure
> Wikipedia contains "true" "facts" in the meantime.

Well, I'm not advocating deleting everything in Wikipedia that doesn't have
a citation from a reliable source beside it.  However, the instant someone
says "I don't think this statement is true or factual", then you do have to
produce a verifiable citation from a reliable source to back it up.

Which is basically what the current policy says.

Jay.


from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
To be blunt, which bit of saying that every bit of info must be supported by a verifiable and reputable source is unclear?

  In this instance, the information is clearly unverifiable, so it shouldn't be added.

  Jon

Nicholas Moreau <beaubeaver at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
  Africa was brought up in discussion of verifiability. This raises an important question, should/can we be lax references for African content in en?

Suppose a tribes' elder writes an article on his village, he'll do it based on oral history, or one-off documents. This information may be recorded in books, but these books are stashed away in libraries miles upon miles away.

What happens then? It's true information, but there's little or no available sources for the writer to cite.

Nick/Zanimum

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't need development (keep things simple!).

  All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!

  Jon

The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
    I think, as a guideline (rather than Official Policy), we should
indicate what recommended options are for editors:

1. When making contributions, provide a reference.
2. If you see information that you believe needs a reference, your
options include:
a) Finding one (best)
b) Failing that, either:
1) Tagging with {{citation needed}}
2) Moving unreferenced material to talk page with note asking for reference
3) Asking editor who contributed material to provide a reference
4) Removing the information

Depending on the circumstances, any of the options of b) may be best.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
  Yahoo! Cars NEW - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online search now
---------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> This entirely misses the point of the policy. We don't publish
> material that is "factually correct." We publish material that other
> reputable publications have published. If we leave it to individual
> editors to decide what is "factually correct," then we're into
> original-research territory, subjective views, people's prejudices,
> people's ignorance. Where our judgment comes in is in deciding which
> sources are the most trustworthy in the given area i.e. the most
> likely to be "factually correct." But we're always one step removed
> from that idea ourselves. The criterion for entry into Wikipedia is
> verifiability, not truth.

I understand that this is the goal, but I think you're straying into
idealistic territory here if we make that the *policy*.

On a practical level, how would you approach a long, stable article
without a single cited source? Would you say, "this is probably
totally subjective"? Would you be so easily fooled by the presence of
sources, if you didn't check that they were reliable, were not cited
out of context, were not selectively chosen, etc?

> Regarding the relationship between NOR and V, they are inextricably
> linked, in that the only way to show you're not doing OR is to cite a
> source.

Hmm, the only way to *show* I'm not doing OR. But why would I need to
show that? Because someone asked me to. Why would they ask me? Because
they were contesting the validity of my contribution...

I think I'm going around in circles here...I need to have a proper
look at the policy and clarify my thoughts.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

body:
On 3/2/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Sure, it's a well-researched theory.  But is it more significant than
> his military career and his foundation of the global Scouting
> movement, which is how it looks from the current balance of content?

To someone who chooses to read the article, the answer is yes.  The
question is one of considerable public interest, in view of the
controversial decision of some scouting associations, such as the Boy
Scouts of America, to deny membership to openly gay men and boys,
while others have a quite different attitude.  Scouts Canada for
instance has a gay and lesbian troop, Rover Crew 129, which has
participated as a troop, in full uniform, in Toronto's Gay Pride
march.  This article would be, I dare say, of intense interest to
members of the American and Canadian scout movement who are involved
in this controversy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
On 3/2/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think, as a guideline (rather than Official Policy), we should
> indicate what recommended options are for editors:
>
> 1. When making contributions, provide a reference.
> 2. If you see information that you believe needs a reference, your
> options include:
> a) Finding one (best)
> b) Failing that, either:
>   1) Tagging with {{citation needed}}
>   2) Moving unreferenced material to talk page with note asking for reference
>   3) Asking editor who contributed material to provide a reference
>   4) Removing the information

I would be tempted to express it as an ascending scale of doubt over
accuracy, neutrality etc:
1 (least doubt): leave it
2 Ask for reference on talk page
3 Tag with {{citation needed}}
4 Remove to talk page
5 (certain that it's rubbish) Remove totally

Step 5 would be reserved effectively for vandalism

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

body:
No. The most important thing to explain is what it IS not what it ISN'T. Otherwise you don't know what to do, just what not to do.

  This is true of explaining anything (and something WP's policies do very poorly).

  Jon

slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
  On 3/2/06, Jon wrote:
> This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't need development (keep things simple!).
>
> All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
>
But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If
people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability,
not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR.
Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the
point is made right at the top of the page.

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

---------------------------------
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
Indeed, but something that is inherently unverifiable, as an otherwise unpublished report is, is never a reasonable source.

  Jon

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
  Too grim. What is a reasonable source varies with the subject.

Fred

On Mar 2, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Jon wrote:

> To be blunt, which bit of saying that every bit of info must be
> supported by a verifiable and reputable source is unclear?
>
> In this instance, the information is clearly unverifiable, so it
> shouldn't be added.
>
> Jon

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

---------------------------------
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

body:
We're working on it :-)

Actually, I am now finishing the drafts of these policies. I hope it
will be ready in a few days/weeks.

Best,

Jean-Baptiste Soufron
wikimedia foundation
chief legal officer

Joseph Reagle wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 February 2006 18:11, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>> A link?? You need the full text of the GFDL on the iPod. Also -
>> I sent you an offlist question
>> about the use of the Wikipedia trademark and logo. Again -
>> did you get permission to do that?
>>
>
> I have been following this discussion to some extent, and have often
> wondered about the Wikipedia policies but never really looked into it
> substantively. However, this thread inspired me -- or rather disappointed
> me -- and so I looked around a bit and thought I would make a couple,
> hopefully productive, comments.
>
> At the W3C, I worked with our counsel to develop the various copyright and
> trademark policies for the W3C. There, like here, we wanted our content --
> specifications -- to be as widely as accessible as possible but also
> preserve the integrity of the specification. The challenges then, from the
> point of trademark were to:
> 1. Follow practices that would permit us to apply for and keep our marks.
> One of the great difficulties here was getting W3C staff to use the the
> marks descriptively (an adjective). Sun is great at this with their Java,
> if you look at the page, Java what is never used as a noun:
>   http://java.sun.com/
> Wikipedia is commonly used as a noun, and I'm surprised that did not cause
> any problems in the registration, and wonder if the will calls problems in
> the future.
>
> 2. Permit others to use those terms in a way that did not seem heavy-handed,
> but did not weaken the mark. One of the innovations there, I think, was the
> trademark license:
>   http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/trademark-license-20021231
> In it, others can use the trademark but only if they identify the owner,
> described the W3C "product", and accurately disclose its status. Otherwise,
> "4. Marks may not be used to indicate any kind of endorsement by the W3C,
> official status with respect to the W3C, or any kind of relationship with
> the W3C aside from a representation that the above requirements (1-3) have
> been met."
>
> Wikipedia is noted as a registered trademark at the bottom of every page,
> but it is not easy to discern where the trademark is registered, whether
> common law trademark claims or otherwise made, and what policies govern its
> usage -- even to say "send an e-mail here."
>
> I will also point out the logo policies :
>   http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/logo-usage-20000308
>
> So, for Wikipedia's sake, it would probably be useful to have a link any
> legal footer to a basic policy and how to request exceptions to it.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Jim

body:
On 3/2/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 3/2/06, Jim <trodel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The only way the high quality can be assured, and wikipedia can stay
> > reputable (with the press penchant for negative stories) is to clearly
> > identify what is the original source "wikimedia foundation"
> > data/information/articles and what is not.
>
> But the information in question *is* original source wikimedia
> foundation data/information/articles.  However, the Wikimedia
> trademarks, at least in theory (IANAL), disallow someone from making
> that clear.

It may be original source now, but how does wikimedia foundation make sure
that it continues to be?

One way is through control of their trademark.


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 11:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> Here are my claims simplified:
> 1. TBSDY was speedying large amounts of images labeled as "fair use"
> as being copyvios.
> 2. There are no CSD provisions for speedying images as copyvios (or at
> least, were not any at the time he was doing this; I haven't checked
> them since then).
> 3. TBSDY claimed that Jimbo gave him the right to speedy images as
> copyvios in a private e-mail.
> 4. TBSDY produced the e-mail, and it said that TBSDY could nominate
> the images for deletion (the proper policy), and if that failed, Jimbo
> might decide to speedy them. It did not say TBSDY could speedy images,
> or any other admin, as copyvios.
>
> My conclusions: TBSDY did not, in fact, have the authority to speedy
> images as copyvios, and was acting against policy. I'm perfectly happy
> to assume good faith on this and assume he misunderstood Jimbo's
> e-mail or something like that -- nothing dishonest is posited.

Seems like an amount of misunderstanding.

Can we see the email?

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>  You're asking me to take on faith that you know better than
> me,

Yes.   I cannot discuss the contents of email communications with you,
but I can say that Ta bu shi da yu's actions had the full support of
Jimbo Wales.

> despite all evidence to the contrary.

There is no evidence to the contrary.  You're being unbelievably
obtuse and grossly offensive, but you have absolutely no grounds to
attack Ta bu shi da yu in this way and no grounds for your repeated
false claim that I have misrepresented the facts.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 3/2/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/3/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > So how to escape?
>
> Easy! Three steps:
>
> 1. Get everyone who has ever contributed to WP to revoke their GFDL
> licensing, and re-license the stuff as whatever;
> 2. Buy out the copyright in all derivative works (ie, all the forks);
> 3. Buy out all the mirrors.
>
Or the good old one step version: rewrite everything from scratch.

I used to be a fan of the dual-licensing, but the more I think about
it the more I figure that the only way to escape the GFDL is going to
be to rewrite everything.

This is actually a bit easier than it sounds, since Wikipedia is
mostly based in facts.  It wouldn't be too hard to extract just the
uncopyrightable facts, and then rewrite an encyclopedia based on that.
 Now for a few articles which were written by very few people this
might not be enough, as the selection of facts might itself be
copyrightable, but those are probably few and far between.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The TBSDY e-mail has been posted at the RFC with Jimbo's permission,
> so I don't think it's wrong to repost it here.

The email conversation contained numerous emails.  You have not seen
them all.  Stop making gratuitously false accusations.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

body:
On 3/2/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Too grim. What is a reasonable source varies with the subject.
>
> Fred
>
> On Mar 2, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Jon wrote:
>
> > To be blunt, which bit of saying that every bit of info must be
> > supported by a verifiable and reputable source is unclear?

The word "supported" is extremely ambiguous. This part of
verifiability is unarguable:
All information in Wikipedia must be directly verifiable, or have been
published in a verifiable and credible source.

What we've been arguing about is what to do if those sources are not
actually cited.

So, in your sentence does "supported" mean the sources must exist, or
they must be cited?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/2/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/2/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes.   I cannot discuss the contents of email communications with you,
> > but I can say that Ta bu shi da yu's actions had the full support of
> > Jimbo Wales.
>
> Well, then I guess this is just a great case in point about
> transparency and the sort of attitudes it breeds on both sides of the
> line of secrecy.
>
> It breeds mistrust outside it, and elitism inside it.
>
> > > despite all evidence to the contrary.
> >
> > There is no evidence to the contrary.  You're being unbelievably
> > obtuse and grossly offensive, but you have absolutely no grounds to
> > attack Ta bu shi da yu in this way and no grounds for your repeated
> > false claim that I have misrepresented the facts.
>
> Well, I've tired in presenting my claims.

And I have tired of reading your repeated false, baseless, malicious
accusations.  I have no more to say on the matter.