from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Hi.

I am sorry to say that this logo violates the Wikimedia Visual
identity guidelines [1].

On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.

In any case, before a  new logo is used on any of the Wikimedia
projects/websites, it should be approved by the board of the Wikimedia
Foundation.

Cheers,

Delphine
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines

On 7/31/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Bregman wrote:
> > After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
> > Incubator
> > (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
> >
> > I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
> > created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
> > Wikimedia Foundation.
> >
> > What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
> > it be put?
> >
>
> Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
> effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
> and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."
>
> Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>

--
~notafish


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Technical solution to bad fair use

body:
Rob wrote:

>On 7/31/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I'm still a little mystified by this claim. To date I've uploaded
>>about 2,000 of my own photos, and I can't recall a single article
>>where one of my photos has been replaced by a nonfree image. On
>>the contrary, I see my pics showing up unexpectedly in additional
>>articles. That's not to say replacement doesn't happen, no
>>mechanism to notify if it did, but when I spot-check, I don't see
>>anything going on. So where exactly is all this replacement with
>>nonfree happening?
>>
>
>Unfortunately this is common on some articles, especially the pop
>culture stuff.  In some articles the lead pic is different every week
>with fans switching it out for their new favorite, in others I've seen
>clear public domain pics replaced with fuzzy screenshots.
>
I suppose if I were a more dutiful Wikipedian, I'd go take pictures
of all the celebrities passing through Vegas, but truthfully,
vegetables still seem more interesting! :-)

In a way, what we want is some mechanism for the very existence
of a free picture to somehow prevent uploads of nonfree equivalents.
Although we can't necessarily stop the editing, we could perhaps
have a bot that knows which free pictures go with which articles
(for instance, a template in the image page), then auto-reverts
replaces of free with nonfree, and marks nonfree for deletion. The
process needs to run faster than human editing in any case.

Stan


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Who's next?

body:
The Wikipedia Signpost has a report this week from the Polish Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-31/Interwiki_report),
following last week's report from the German Wikipedia. Thanks to Kpjas
for putting it together. It's nice to get more cross-project news.

To keep this feature going, we would welcome anyone from another
language who wants to step up. Italian next, or French? Maybe Chinese or
Arabic? You get to decide, all you have to do is write it.

--Michael Snow


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [Wikitech-l] diff efficiency

references:
<eaibln$9k7$1@sea.gmane.org> <2006Jul30.1131.scs.0004@eskimo.com>
	<eajpt5$l1f$1@sea.gmane.org> <2006Jul31.1214.scs.0002@eskimo.com>
	<7c2a12e20607311223o79cacba6n127cf2121c16ebfa@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Simetrical wrote:
>On 7/31/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>>Tim Starling wrote:
>>> In fact, we've been considering suppressing the "current version"
>>> display from diff pages...
>>
>> But until you do, I guess the point (i.e. which button a
>> conscientious bot or user should press first) is moot, since the
>> slow preview button takes 800 ms, and the fast diff button takes
>> 40+800ms.
>
> Nope, because "show changes" doesn't render the page.  It just shows
> you the diff.

(smacks forehead)

I fell for Tim's sly misdirection utterly. :-)  He was talking about,
and just there I was thinking of, the diffs run off of the history page,
not the edit page.


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Attitude to freely-licensed content (was:Technical
	solution to bad fair use)

body:
Quoting Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>:

> anything going on. So where exactly is all this replacement with
> nonfree happening?

  I replied to this offlist, so as to avoid creating a thread about who did what
when, but I thought that this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66974368&oldid=66953211

...which I summarise as "Jimbo Wales doesn't know what the point of Wikipedia
is", is indicative of the kind of thinking that is going on around unfree
content.

               Jkelly


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on the Colbert Report

body:
In case you didn't catch Comedy Central tonight, we should probably
keep an eye on the articles for The Colbert Report, elephants, and
Lutherans.  (Together again!)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
> Incubator
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
>
> I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
> created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
> it be put?
>

Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
> Incubator
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
>
> I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
> created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
> it be put?
>

Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
> Incubator
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
>
> I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
> created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
> it be put?
>

Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
> Incubator
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
>
> I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
> created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
> it be put?
>

Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."

Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 7/31/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> I'm still a little mystified by this claim. To date I've uploaded
> about 2,000 of my own photos, and I can't recall a single article
> where one of my photos has been replaced by a nonfree image. On
> the contrary, I see my pics showing up unexpectedly in additional
> articles. That's not to say replacement doesn't happen, no
> mechanism to notify if it did, but when I spot-check, I don't see
> anything going on. So where exactly is all this replacement with
> nonfree happening?

Unfortunately this is common on some articles, especially the pop
culture stuff.  In some articles the lead pic is different every week
with fans switching it out for their new favorite, in others I've seen
clear public domain pics replaced with fuzzy screenshots.


from_name: John Lyden

subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
Be aware...in his The Word segment 10 minutes ago EDT Stephen Colbert
asked people to go to [[Elephant]] and insert bad information, and
people are already hitting the article.

FYI.

--
John Lyden - rasputinaxp at gmail.com
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time..." -Kerouac


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Daniel Bregman wrote:
>
>>After nearly a month of voting, the logo has been chosen for Wikimedia
>>Incubator
>>(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Incubator/logo).
>>
>>I'm writing on behalf of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NielsF, who
>>created the logo. He wishes to know how to tranfer copyright over to the
>>Wikimedia Foundation.
>>
>>What would need to be included in a transferal statement, and where should
>>it be put?
>>
>
>
> Probably to permissions at wikimedia.org and probably something to the
> effect of "I, <name>, permanantly and irrevocably transfer all claims
> and copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation."
>
> Or, I could be completely wrong. Ask Brad :)

I concur, "ask Brad".
I will also ask a question to Brad. Is that a problem that the logo is
so similar to the logo of the Foundation (which seems to breech
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines ?)

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Common sense exceptions to our copyright policy.

body:
On 7/31/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> While I like that we're debating ways to encourage more
> copyright-compliant uploads, I'm not sure about this particular idea.
> Right now, when I happen across an article with a red link for an image,
> I know to remove it and/or look for a substitute. Do we want to make
> people wonder whether they should wait around in case there's an upload
> forthcoming?

That bring around another question... Why do we consider redlinks for
non yet created articles benificial while we conisder redlinks for not
yet created illustrations to be a problem that must be fixed? :)


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-01

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

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

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 8/1/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/31/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > While I like that we're debating ways to encourage more
> > copyright-compliant uploads, I'm not sure about this particular idea.
> > Right now, when I happen across an article with a red link for an image,
> > I know to remove it and/or look for a substitute. Do we want to make
> > people wonder whether they should wait around in case there's an upload
> > forthcoming?
>
> That bring around another question... Why do we consider redlinks for
> non yet created articles benificial while we conisder redlinks for not
> yet created illustrations to be a problem that must be fixed? :)

Because image names are the next best thing to arbitary, redirects
don't work AFAIK, and arbitary image names don't canonicalize to a
discrete and clear subject, unlike article names which generally do
(and we have disambiguation pages for the ones which don't).

~maru


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>>They are a non-profit corp, which gives them all the rights of any
>>citizen (since a corporation is a citizen).
>>
>>
>Right.   Which means in case of judicial error the corporation is likely
>to be ordered to liquidate all assets if necessary to partially fullfull
>any penalties assessed by the court.
>
>Ever hear of anyone bankrupted by an auto accident?
>
A corporation is a person, not a citizen.  Judicial error refers to an
error in a judges ruling; I don't see what that has to do with anythin.
An order to liquidate assets cannot be applied extraterritorially
against owners who live in another country.

>>They are not going away (unless they want to), getting smashed, or being
>>litigated into oblivion. If things really get
>>that bad, they can co-locate their hosting on Indian Land somewhere
>>under "Native American Language Preservation"
>>and then they truly will have immunity from most causes of action if the
>>program is run by one of the tribes with an English version
>>of the site as an adjunct "add on" non-primary site.
>>
>>
>So are there Sovereign Indian Lands somewhere which directly border
>Canada or Mexico such that a data fiber link could be established
>between the international internet and the servers without crossing U.S.
>jurisdiction?
>
The St. Regis Mohawk reserve straddles the Ontario-New York border.  The
government gets upset about their cigarette smuggling.


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


body:
geni wrote:

>On 7/31/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>In both cases the legal danger is entirely
>
>
>>hypothetical and dubious at that -- they are based on stretched and
>>literal interpretations of complicated aspects of the copyright law
>>and nobody has ever been taken to court over them.
>>
>>
>Did you just volunteer to be a test case?
>
Anyone volunteering for a test case would want to view the merits of the
specific case before proceeding.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project
 boring to death

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Steve Bennett wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 7/27/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I think you are all missing Antheres point. Who cares whether it's
>>>>fair use or not? Do we really have to be so anal about the rules that
>>>>we will infact bring this to IfD, instead of just quietly ignoring the
>>>>copyright issue in this very special unique case. We are people, for
>>>>christs sake, not automatons! Sometimes, process is not that
>>>>important.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You are really asking, is it ok for Wikipedia to breach people's
>>>copyright when the chance of them suing is very slight? I would say
>>>yes. Most would say no.
>>>
>>>
>>Although I consider the chance of a suit to be an important factor, it
>>should never be the only factor.  It should be accompanied by a
>>rationale based on at least one of  fair use, public domain,
>>uncopyrightability, etc.
>>
>>
>A good argument for fair use could probably be made in the vast
>majority of the situations when the chance of a lawsuit is very slight
>(in article space, anyway, as the use is already non-profit
>educational, and if no one is likely to sue the impact on the
>potential market for the work is probably small).
>
>Anyway, I think another factor when utilizing this exception is that
>the person can't be easily contacted to ask them for permission.  I'm
>thinking something like a video shot and released by Osama bin Ladin.
>1) It's probably not released under a free license; 2) There's about 0
>chance of Osama suing anyone over copyright infringement; and 3) It'd
>be really hard to contact bin Ladin to ask him to license his video
>under CC-BY or whatever.
>
>Of course, any video shot and released by Osama bin Ladin probably
>also falls under fair use.
>
Assuming that he's still living in Afghanistan, I believe that that
country has never had copyright relations with the United States.  That
alone would make it public domain under US law. :-)

Ec


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
On 31/07/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I concur, "ask Brad".
> I will also ask a question to Brad. Is that a problem that the logo is
> so similar to the logo of the Foundation (which seems to breech
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines ?)
>
> Anthere

I disagree with them looking too similar, they are part of a theme.
But, in the future, perhaps a member of the board should monitor logo
votes to prevent this kind of thing happening?

It seems rather silly (and very bureaucratic) that dozens of users
have participated in a discussion about the Incubator logo, that
several have invested time designing logos, and that dozens have
voted, only to be shot down after the completion of the vote (so
community selection of the logo) by the Foundation.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


body:
geni wrote:

>On 7/30/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The date of the shot should not be viewed as important.  If I have an
>>otherwise valid picture that I took about 20 years ago I have no idea of
>>the date.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>It is nice to know. Likewise it is nice if people inform us when they die.
>
Failing to announce one's death could be grounds for permanent banning. :-)

Ec


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Technical solution to bad fair use (was:Uploading
	images should be a privilige...)

body:
On 7/31/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>   Hi,
>
>   Our current setup does mean that it is much, much easier for someone to upload
> an unfree image than it is for someone to delete it.

We need to turn A8 into G8.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
On 01/08/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
> with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
> are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
> disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
> again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.

I entirely disagree. I think all Wikimedia logos should conform to a
particular theme (stylistic, colour, &c.). It gives Wikimedia a
unifying identity ([[corporate identity]]?) and makes our projects
quickly recognisable.

Many logos were nominated, some completely different to existing
logos, others not. Users chose this one by majority and we should work
to preserve this decision (perhaps by minimally modifying the logo to
escape the problem and resubmitting it to a vote).
---
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
On 8/1/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> I entirely disagree. I think all Wikimedia logos should conform to a
> particular theme (stylistic, colour, &c.). It gives Wikimedia a
> unifying identity ([[corporate identity]]?) and makes our projects
> quickly recognisable.

As long as nobody gets the idea to color our lovely Wikipedia puzzle
ball in the Wikimedia colors .. ;-)

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
On 8/1/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Imagine Oldak... that for some reasons the projects (one or several)
> separate from the Foundation. Do you think it is "legally" wise that a
> project logo is actually a distorsion of the Foundation logo ?
>
What's wrong with waiting until the project separates from the
foundation to make it change its logo?

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 7/31/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> While I like that we're debating ways to encourage more
>> copyright-compliant uploads, I'm not sure about this particular idea.
>> Right now, when I happen across an article with a red link for an image,
>> I know to remove it and/or look for a substitute. Do we want to make
>> people wonder whether they should wait around in case there's an upload
>> forthcoming?
>
> That bring around another question... Why do we consider redlinks for
> non yet created articles benificial while we conisder redlinks for not
> yet created illustrations to be a problem that must be fixed? :)

A perceptive cultural observation. Although I would add that red links
prompting the creation of articles are not necessarily always beneficial
- it depends on how good the judgment is of the editor who made the link.

--Michael Snow


from_name: ABCD

body:
On 8/1/06, geni wrote:
> We need to turn A8 into G8.

...I assume you meant A8 into G10 (there already is a "G8" :) )

ABCD


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject:
[Foundation-l] Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
	Foundation

body:
Dear all,

Due to Angela Beeslay's resignation from the Board of Trustees of the
Wikimedia Foundation, the Board issued a new election to fill at least
one position for the following year.

>From today, we're accepting candidates to the Board of Trustees. If
you're interested, you must make a candidate statement and list
yourself on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En

We also need the help or translators for the elections, so if you're
fluent in any language apart from English, please list yourself here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_translations_2006

If you have any questions, please leave them in the FAQ:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Election_FAQ_2006

The official announcement is available on Meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%2C_2006/En

We hope the elections will go underway without any problems and wish
any potential candidates the best of luck.

Regards,
Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia
Election Officials, Wikimedia Election Committee 2006


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
	Foundation


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> On 31/07/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I concur, "ask Brad".
>>I will also ask a question to Brad. Is that a problem that the logo is
>>so similar to the logo of the Foundation (which seems to breech
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_visual_identity_guidelines ?)
>>
>>Anthere
>
>
> I disagree with them looking too similar, they are part of a theme.

That's debatable. There are good sides and bad sides. I am rather
neutral toward the idea of using a "theme".

On the "good" side, it may help promote a new project that readers
automatically "connect" it with a bigger project they already love and
understand (except that the project they love is actually Wikipedia, so
they do not connect anything at all).

On the "good" side, it may help that it be "connected" with meta.

On the "bad" side, we may wonder how the logo of our 15th project will
look... it might become a bit confusing to see all these so-similar
logos. I like the egg-concept. It may be that always using the same
colors might be interpretated as a lack of creativity.

BUT *here*, my question was essentially legalistic.

Imagine Oldak... that for some reasons the projects (one or several)
separate from the Foundation. Do you think it is "legally" wise that a
project logo is actually a distorsion of the Foundation logo ?

> But, in the future, perhaps a member of the board should monitor logo
> votes to prevent this kind of thing happening?

Yes.
Which would require board to be informed such a vote is taking place.
I mean *really* informed. We can see *something* is going on, but we can
not be everywhere and can not follow all discussions.

> It seems rather silly (and very bureaucratic) that dozens of users
> have participated in a discussion about the Incubator logo, that
> several have invested time designing logos, and that dozens have
> voted, only to be shot down after the completion of the vote (so
> community selection of the logo) by the Foundation.

A board member is not the Foundation

And a board member is not a rubber stamp

http://blog.anthere.org/index.php/2006/07/22/68-tiens-signe-la


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Dead wikipedians and how to really make a project
	boring to death

body:
On 8/1/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Assuming that he's still living in Afghanistan, I believe that that
> country has never had copyright relations with the United States.  That
> alone would make it public domain under US law. :-)

In other cases (e.g. Iran) we have not considered this legitimately
public domain for our purposes.  For one thing, if relations with the
state were normalised, the copyright status would instantly change;
secondly, I feel we should respect the intentions of copyright and not
use such a legal loophole.  We wouldn't be happy with Iranians and
Afghans not respecting our copyright or license, would we?

-Matt


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm still a little mystified by this claim. To date I've uploaded
>>about 2,000 of my own photos, and I can't recall a single article
>>
>
>Holy crap. 2000??? I've nearly uploaded 100 and was proud of *that*
>achievement!!!
>
>You're not the guy who has hundreds of photos of train stations across
>the UK are you? :)
>
Heh, my productivity machine is botanical gardens. Photo of label,
whole plant, closeups of leaves/flowers, three steps to the left,
repeat. :-) UC Berkeley botanical garden sez they have 12,000 taxa
for instance, I've only racked up about 300 of them so far...

Stan


subject: [Wikipedia-l] The Onion on Wikipedia

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> On 31/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> Brad Patrick wrote:
>>
>>> We are all cracking up here at the office.  Well done!
>>>
>>> On 7/26/06, Dirk Riehle <dirk at riehle.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Just saw this:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902
>>>>
>>>> Enjoy!
>>>>
>>>> Dirk
>>>>
>>>> PS: In case you wonder what kind of magazine The Onion is, try our
>>>> favorite reference:
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
>>>>
>> I was especially amused by the line "But after a string of military
>> antics and a convoluted scheme involving chicken feathers and an
>> inflatable woman, the British were eventually defeated..."
>>
>> It reminded me of something that I randomly found in the stacks at the
>> University of Toronto library many years ago in a very long series of
>> pamphlets sponsored by various US government agencies in the 1960s.
>> There were so many of these that it seems that the library staff had
>> great difficulty keeping them catalogued.
>>
>> One in particular was memorable.  "The Toxic Effects of Burning Chicken
>> Feathers."  It was produced by the U.S. Army!  The only disappointment
>> was that the motivation for the study was not what would seem to be the
>> obvious one.  It had to do with the manufacture of mattresses for
>> soldiers, and the possible hazards in the event of a barracks fire.
>>
>
> What would be the obvious one?
>
> People setting chickens afire?
>

Using burning chickens as a weapon...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Daniel Bregman

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Thanks all. I'm especially glad that it won't breach the guidelines.

Now I have to ask (feeling rather silly): who's Brad? Tell me please.

Thank you, again.

Daniel http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbmag9


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Daniel Bregman wrote:
> Thanks all. I'm especially glad that it won't breach the guidelines.
>
> Now I have to ask (feeling rather silly): who's Brad? Tell me please.
>
> Thank you, again.
>
> Daniel http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbmag9

Brad Patrick is our Executive Director. He is also our legal counsel (he
is a lawyer). You may reach him at bpatrick AT wikimedia.org.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Announces_Interim_Executive_Director

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_CEO

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I think anyone who thinks Wikipedia should be more famous and more
>popular should be excited, rather than fearful, about the prospect of an
>out-of-the-blue confiscation of our servers or shutdown.  Such an event
>would make us more powerful than ever.
>
>
>
>>>>See "FBI seizes Indymedia servers"
>>>><http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/08/1097089554894.html>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Nothing we do can prevent this kind of activity from the American KGB.
>>>
>>>Ec
>>>
>>>
>>Who said it had to be the FBI for that matter.  The State of Florida is
>>just as capable of messing around like this as well (or other local law
>>enforcement agencies), and likely to screw things up when they try to
>>physcially seize the equipment... or more so since they don't tend to
>>have the technical background of the FBI.
>>
>>
I would have to agree completely with you here.  I would point out,
though, that law enforcement is also made up of mere mortals who
sometimes do make mistakes and sometimes don't know who they are going
after until it is too late.  That and I've seen stranger things before.
 Wikipedia is still new enough that non-tech savvy people still don't
have a clue as to what Wikipedia really is.

I'll also say that if you think the donations are fairly good right now
to keep the server farm going, you ain't seen nothing compared to what a
legal defense fund would be like if the WMF were directly challenged
with a lawsuit based on Wikipedia content.  Confiscation of servers
would cause an already huge defense fund to simply hire the best lawyers
on the planet, like former solicitor generals and law school deans that
money simply can't buy.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
On 7/31/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Potentially libelous statement?  Check.  Unsourced?  Check.

Lol. Here's the original quote (actually from [[Underarm bowling]], I
was confused):

*The match had earlier controversy: in the Australian innings, Martin
Snedden took a spectacular low outfield catch off the batting of Greg
Chappell. It was disallowed by the umpires, although TV replays
clearly showed it was a clean catch. Some commentators believed
Chappell should have taken Snedden's word that the catch was good.

Arguing that a player should have accepted another's word is
definitely not libellous. In cricket, it's a question of honour or
moral or whatever you want to call it: refusing to take a player's
word for a catch and letting the umpire decide is perfectly legal and
the most common situation.

> No, "better" is not better than "best", when you're talking about an
> unsourced statement like that.  The proper solution is deletion unless
> and until a source can be attributed with the statement.

That's going too far. For a genuinely "libellous" statement, sure. But
not that one.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
On 8/1/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> The funny thing, of course, is that an actual verbatim quote from one
> particular critic is usually stronger, more flavorful, and more
> precise than any attempt to summarize what "the critics charge."
> Which is better:

<snip>

That's not the choice we usually have. The choice is usually between
leaving the vague assertion, and deleting it altogether. I,
exceptional circumstances aside, prefer to keep. Many of our articles
are so short that any information which does not substantially violate
OR or NPOV, and which is probably true (if not verifiable) is not
doing us any harm.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
On 8/1/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Be aware...in his The Word segment 10 minutes ago EDT Stephen Colbert
> asked people to go to [[Elephant]] and insert bad information, and
> people are already hitting the article.

Whew. Thank god he didn't tell people to use the "random article"
button, we'd have been screwed.

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Imagine Oldak... that for some reasons the projects (one or several)
>separate from the Foundation. Do you think it is "legally" wise that a
>project logo is actually a distorsion of the Foundation logo ?
>
>
>
Since project logos and names are trademarked by the WMF, what would be
the difference?  I really don't see what the problem would be here for
the Incubator logo, as it really is intended to be a service to the
Wikimedia projects and is in a way a child of the WMF.  Approval for
such a project (like this incubator project) should in theory have been
before the board before it gets started, which already implies a huge
legal connection to the WMF anyway.

If a project did decide to go off on its own, do its own fundraising
etc., it is likely to be schismatic anyway due to a major policy
dispute.  In that case, it would simply be a fork of the content and not
necessarily a project leaving quietly being "spun-off" as a completely
seperate legal entity.  Even then, logos would likely need to be changed
substantially and perhaps even new project names created.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo


body:
On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> I'm still a little mystified by this claim. To date I've uploaded
> about 2,000 of my own photos, and I can't recall a single article

Holy crap. 2000??? I've nearly uploaded 100 and was proud of *that*
achievement!!!

You're not the guy who has hundreds of photos of train stations across
the UK are you? :)

> where one of my photos has been replaced by a nonfree image. On
> the contrary, I see my pics showing up unexpectedly in additional
> articles. That's not to say replacement doesn't happen, no

I love it when that happens. A photo I took turned up unexpectedly as
the lead photo at:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Singapore

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> That bring around another question... Why do we consider redlinks for
> non yet created articles benificial while we conisder redlinks for not
> yet created illustrations to be a problem that must be fixed? :)

One reason is that images can't be renamed, and follow no naming
convention whatsoever. Which makes the chance of an image (and an
appropriate one at that) magically fitting the proposed name
vanishingly small.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lists of words

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>It would appear that lists of words violate the provision that Wikipedia
>should not have articles which define individual words, nor should it
>include Lists of such definitions. However, we have
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_words ,
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_slang and
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_phrases , among others.
>Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. Is this policy still being applied
>(in which case, *all* of these articles must be deleted), or not (in which
>case the wording of the policy needs to be changed). I have raised the issue
>at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Lists_of_Words
>
>I don't know if all of these articles need to be deleted, or whether policy
>needs to be modified to reflect reality.  But I think this needs to be
>determined in general, not determined piecemeal
>
When Wiktionary was formed it was intended to be complementary to
Wikipedia in this direction.  Nevertheless, it was inevitable that there
would be some degree of overlap.  When I randomly view some of these
lists I find that there is no one solution to determmining which belong
on which project.  There are some that clearly belong on Wiktionary like
the [[List of idioms in the Portuguese language
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_idioms_in_the_Portuguese_language>]],
but there are many others that are specialized glossaries that could do
well in either project as long as there is proper linkage.

Perhaps the most significant factor would be whether there is something
about the items on the list that would not be found in an ordinary
advanced dictionary.  Defining words is perfectly acceptable in
Wikipedia, and stubs which have a future beyond the definition should
also be acceptable.

It's in the nature of policy to be prescriptive as long as people treat
it as something to be enforced.  A purely descriptive policy is a
guideline that reflects what is actually happening, and suggests what
people might do.  The best approach would be to consider each of these
articles one-by-one.

Ec


body:
On 8/1/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> While I like that we're debating ways to encourage more
> copyright-compliant uploads, I'm not sure about this particular idea.
> Right now, when I happen across an article with a red link for an image,
> I know to remove it and/or look for a substitute. Do we want to make
> people wonder whether they should wait around in case there's an upload
> forthcoming?

FWIW, what I tend to do is use the "preview" button to show the
redlink, and click that. Not so much for images, though. Also, if by
chance I make a redlink by accident, I tend to fix it with a redirect
rather than changing the source.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lists of words

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Wikipedia should not define individual words, it's not a dictionary, but if
>encyclopedic articles can be written about phrases (like the recent FA Bush
>quote) and words (or rather the concept behind the word), there's nothing
>wrong with creating lists to make them easily searchable. For example, I
>have nothing against a list of phrases.
>
I agree.  There is a distinction between phrases that have become a part
of the language, and the kind of quotation that belongs in Wikiquote.
One possible distinction is that a person with a normal ability in
English will understand a quotation on a literal level when he first
reads it.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lists of words

body:
ScottL wrote:

>I tend to agree with your assessment here, I think.  Though I would
>add that some of these lists are more appropriate in that their grouping
>together has some encyclopedic value when related to some other topic.
>This is not something a (traditional) dictionary could do.  Terms
>specific to a subject that we have an article on especially when they
>are used in non-standard ways should be documented (if possible in the
>article in question.  If the list gets too long like any other
>subsection it should be broken off.
>
>   I think the guideline should be more related to "would moving this to
>wikitionary result in some sort of loss of value".  If it would not then
>move.
>
This would be a good succinct guideline.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I think anyone who thinks Wikipedia should be more famous and more
>popular should be excited, rather than fearful, about the prospect of an
>out-of-the-blue confiscation of our servers or shutdown.  Such an event
>would make us more powerful than ever.
>
The thing that makes me most fearful about rapid growth is that we could
too easily lose sight of the factors that produced that growth.  Fame,
popularity and power can too easily become poison pills.

>I have said this before, but it is worth repeating... we have very
>powerful friends in the U.S. government, in business, in charitable
>foundations, in major law schools, etc.
>
These social assets are especially comforting and handy to have lurking
in the background when bureaucracy starts to get silly.  When we keep
our own house in order that makes them even more powerful for us.  They
are probably even more important when it relates to how we can influence
policy in areas close to our fundamental principles.

>We need to expect that sooner or later, despite our best efforts to
>always do the right thing and be kind to everyone, there will be some
>kind of frivolous lawsuit against us.  Such is the nature of life in a
>litigious nation, and we need to take this seriously in every part of
>our planning, of course.
>
Absolutely.  But this should not require heroic measures to avoid the
more far-fetched scenarios.  We should generally base decisions on what
the law really says, and not on someone's fearful speculations.  We
individually vary considerably in how much risk we tolerate.  If someone
is willing to take on an issue, and it can be framed in such a way that
it benefits the collective without putting it at unnecessary peril, he
should have the green light.

>But the idea that the US government is suddenly going to shut us down
>(a) is so far fetched that it is hard to even imagine it seriously and
>(b) would be something which would make our traffic and popularity
>triple or quadruple within just a few weeks, worldwide.
>
Of course, though realistic multi-purpose back-up plans are always worth
cinsidering.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


subject: [Wikitech-l] Odd mathtex problem?

body:
On this page:

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

I'm getting "Failed to parse (Can't write to or create math output
directory): r_{n} = \sqrt{n f \lambda}" in place of the mathtex
equations.

However:
When I click "edit", the equations display correctly in the preview.

I'm guessing purging the cache or something might fix it, but in case
no one has seen this before I thought I'd report it.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
On 01/08/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Be aware...in his The Word segment 10 minutes ago EDT Stephen Colbert
> asked people to go to [[Elephant]] and insert bad information, and
> people are already hitting the article.

It is slightly sad that some people lack a sense of good faith.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to sync wikipedia on different PC

body:
Hello

That might be a obvious question (however I did not find a solution
when looking up the documentation).

So I have my own private wikipedia running on one Laptop using
mediawiki 1.7.

Now I have installed the same setting on a different laptop. In both
cases the mysql database in question is called wikidb.

I thought I just could pack (tar.gz) the one wikidb and transfer it to
the other laptop, unpack it (rename the old one) and off you go.

Not so! When I go to All pages in that Laptop, I still see the "old"
pages.

Shall I execute a special command?

Thanks

Uwe Brauer


body:
On 8/1/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Assuming that he's still living in Afghanistan, I believe that that
> country has never had copyright relations with the United States.  That
> alone would make it public domain under US law. :-)
>
> Ec

Almost certainly in Pakistan though. While there were some journalists
who visted him in the 90s I doubt htey would resease any of their
photos under a free lisence.

--
geni


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
What?  He asked people to vandalise the page.

On 8/1/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 01/08/06, John Lyden <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Be aware...in his The Word segment 10 minutes ago EDT Stephen Colbert
> > asked people to go to [[Elephant]] and insert bad information, and
> > people are already hitting the article.
>
> It is slightly sad that some people lack a sense of good faith.
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 7/31/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> At en we have proven largely willing to say to photographers that their
> work
> is not valued.  We pay a kind of lip service to how great it is to have
> freely-licensed material, but it is regularly replaced by more
> professional-looking images found elsewhere on the web under a "fair use"
> claim.  That would certainly suggest that doing photography for en is not
> worth
> one's time.
>
>               Jkelly

I concur with this statement. I found a free image one time, put it on the
article, it was reverted a few times until finally the fair use image was
deleted (7 days orphan). Of course then the fair use image was again
uploaded, some story again. :)  Currently it seems to be stable.

And this was not an image I made, just one I found so I don't mind that
much. But if an editor was the photographer of that image (put way more time
into it, making the photograph etc) I really can imagine he would be
extremely discouraged by the whole ordeal.

Garion96


from_name: Dorożyński Janusz

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ... Uwe Brauer
| Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 1:45 PM
/
| Not so! When I go to All pages in that Laptop, I still see the "old"
| pages.

Are you using any cache like eAccelerator?

Reg., Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>
>How much value does a photo being "free" really add to any given
>encyclopaedic article? Is this policy about promoting "free" images
>not at odds with other policies which are all about producing a high
>quality encyclopaedia? What happens when the goal to produce a "high
>quality" encyclopaedia is at odds with the goal to produce a "free"
>encyclopaedia?
>
"High quality" but not "free" could mean lifting current EB articles,
fixing the mistakes, and putting them on the site. After all, if
you're just extracting an article here and there, and our site is
educational, that's fair use, right? :-)

Every nonfree image cuts into our status as a free resource; it also
affects downstream and commercial reusers of content, who likely can't
afford to track down the copyright holder of every single nonfree image
and license them, so they just filter them out en masse. So "nonfree"
ends up becoming "no picture at all".

Stan


body:
>>>>> "Doro" == Doro?y?ski Janusz <dorozynskij at wampnm.webd.pl> writes:

   Doro> | -----Original Message-----
   Doro> | From: ... Uwe Brauer
   Doro> | Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 1:45 PM
   Doro> /
   Doro> | Not so! When I go to All pages in that Laptop, I still see the "old"
   Doro> | pages.

   Doro> Are you using any cache like eAccelerator?

No no caching, as far as I can tell


body:
Platonides <Platonides at ...> writes:

>
> What  do you mean with 'unpack' the DB?
> You need to import the sql dump into the mysql server of the second laptop.
>
> I hope you weren't simply moving over the MediaWiki php files... It's the
> mysql db what changes.
>

Aeh well by unpack I mean tar xfvz wikidb.tgz in the
/var/lib/mysql dir.

As I understand from you message this was the wrong thing to do.
Do you know by heart the relevant mysql command.

Thanks

Uwe Brauer


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> To fulfil our mission, we're always
>going to need fair use images.
>
>
On de:, they don't allow fair use at all; are they then not
fulfilling their mission?

I'm not ideologically opposed to fair use, I just think we really
need to pinch down on it. If every fair-use image had to run the
gauntlet of annual IfD-type polls, with only surly oldtime admins
voting :-), the net numbers would probably come out about right.

Stan


from_name: Daniel Kinzler

subject: [Wikitech-l] Extension Installer

body:
Hi all

I have written an experimental installer for extensions. It's in SVN,
maintenance/installExtension.php; It would be great if you would try it,
and give some feedback. I hope this will make life much easier for users.

Basically, it fetches the files, places them in the extension dir, and
optionally patches LocalSettings.php (if the user chooses that option
and the extension provides an install.settings patch file). The
CategoryTree extension has such a file, if you want to try the patching
feature.

Extensions can be fetched from local tgz files or directories, from
remote tgz files, or from a SVN path. The installer looks up extensions
in "repositories", which are directories containing tgz files or
subdirectories.

Per default, http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/extensions
is used as the repository (in svn mode), unless MediaWiki was checked
out via SVN - in that case, the SVN path given in .svn/entries is used.

For testing, I have set up a tgz based repository at
<http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/repository/extensions/>. It has a tgz
for each subdirectory in the extensions module. Note that extensions
that do not have their own subdirectory are not supported.

Caveats: Custom install scripts (for example to patch the database) are
not yet supported. This needs some more thought I guess. The ability to
uninstall or deactivate extensions could be added - not sure how helpful
that would be. The present script will also not work on Windows, because
it relies on things like tar.

The installer is currently intended for use from the command line. A web
interface would raise security concerns - perhaps it could be made part
of the original installation procedure, though.

I wrote the installer in a manner that does not require changes to
extensions or the way they are loaded. On the long run, it would
probably be nicer to be able to hook up extensions without messing with
LocalSetttings.php - although I'm not sure how to do that in a clean and
at the same time flexible way. We should talk about how to do that, too,
in time, but please keep that separate from talk about the present
installer.

Any input would be appreciated
-- Daniel

--
Homepage: http://brightbyte.de


from_name: maru dubshinki

body:
On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I'm still a little mystified by this claim. To date I've uploaded
> >>about 2,000 of my own photos, and I can't recall a single article
> >>
> >
> >Holy crap. 2000??? I've nearly uploaded 100 and was proud of *that*
> >achievement!!!
> >
> >You're not the guy who has hundreds of photos of train stations across
> >the UK are you? :)
> >
> Heh, my productivity machine is botanical gardens. Photo of label,
> whole plant, closeups of leaves/flowers, three steps to the left,
> repeat. :-) UC Berkeley botanical garden sez they have 12,000 taxa
> for instance, I've only racked up about 300 of them so far...
>
> Stan

zOMG, plant-cruft and photo-countitis!

~maru


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 8/1/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I'll also say that if you think the donations are fairly good right now
> to keep the server farm going, you ain't seen nothing compared to what a
> legal defense fund would be like if the WMF were directly challenged
> with a lawsuit based on Wikipedia content.  Confiscation of servers
> would cause an already huge defense fund to simply hire the best lawyers
> on the planet, like former solicitor generals and law school deans that
> money simply can't buy.
>
And just to point out what should be obvious, that would be a terrible
thing.  Millions of dollars pouring out of the pockets of Wikipedia
supporters and into the pockets of "the best lawyers on the planet",
would be a bad thing.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Every nonfree image cuts into our status as a free resource; it also
>>
>
>Can you explain that a bit more? I don't know what it means to be a
>"free resource" or why exactly we want to be that.
>
Well, the free part means that everybody can use it without paying.
A while back I had a USDA guy calling me up about one of my date palm
photos, because apparently there aren't that many photos on the net
showing the fruits while on the tree, and I was happy that he wanted
to use mine rather than paying for commercial stock with my tax dollars.

>What makes one more
>or less "free"? Is an image resource with 10,000 free images and 1000
>fair use less free than one with 9,000 free and 0 fair use?
>
I would say so, because the 1000 mean that I can't freely use the
whole body of work, I have to pay attention to which is which.

>
>>affects downstream and commercial reusers of content, who likely can't
>>afford to track down the copyright holder of every single nonfree image
>>and license them, so they just filter them out en masse. So "nonfree"
>>ends up becoming "no picture at all".
>>
>
>That sounds like a technical problem. Sounds like we need a way to
>gracefully degrade from non-free to free. Maybe a template that can
>specify which image a content reuser should fall back on if they don't
>want to use non-free images.
>
But why go to that much trouble though? We're not trying to enable
coffeetable art books after all. Sure it would be nice if we had the
professional's pretty blue sky over the Bulgarian town, but the
purpose of showing the town is still served by the amateur pic with
the glary white haze.

Stan


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am sorry to say that this logo violates the Wikimedia Visual
> identity guidelines [1].
>
> On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
> with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
> are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
> disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
> again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.
>

Reminds me of the Wikisource problem - people kept trying to make
variations of the Wikipedia logo...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am sorry to say that this logo violates the Wikimedia Visual
> identity guidelines [1].
>
> On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
> with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
> are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
> disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
> again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.
>

Reminds me of the Wikisource problem - people kept trying to make
variations of the Wikipedia logo...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am sorry to say that this logo violates the Wikimedia Visual
> identity guidelines [1].
>
> On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
> with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
> are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
> disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
> again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.
>

Reminds me of the Wikisource problem - people kept trying to make
variations of the Wikipedia logo...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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subject: [Foundation-l] Incubator Logo

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am sorry to say that this logo violates the Wikimedia Visual
> identity guidelines [1].
>
> On a personal note, I am saddened to see that we don't seem to come up
> with any grand ideas, a little fresh and different, for new logos that
> are needed. As much as I like the idea behind the logo, I find it
> disheartening that people keep adapting the same logos again and
> again. For an incubator, this is even sadder.
>

Reminds me of the Wikisource problem - people kept trying to make
variations of the Wikipedia logo...

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Extension Installer

body:
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
> I have written an experimental installer for extensions. It's in SVN,
> maintenance/installExtension.php; It would be great if you would try it,
> and give some feedback. I hope this will make life much easier for users.
>
> Basically, it fetches the files, places them in the extension dir, and
> optionally patches LocalSettings.php (if the user chooses that option
> and the extension provides an install.settings patch file). The
> CategoryTree extension has such a file, if you want to try the patching
> feature.

I really, really don't like that. An improved extension system should simply
have autodiscovery of dropped-in directories and a simpler way to enable things.

An installer should not be necessary, IMHO, as it would be useless for the
primary target audience of simplified extension installation -- people with
limited hosting accounts.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
On 8/1/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's usually a good way of doing it. Even better would be to provide
> some sort of (useful, not derogatory) label to identify the category
> of people being referred to. For example, "Marxist critics, such as
> John Doe <ref>, say this". If the category has already been
> established with a few examples, then the category can be used again
> later in the text, and further footnotes would not be necessary
> (although direct quotes and contentious or particularly complex points
> should always be footnoted).

I'm not sure what a "Marxist critic" is. The term "critic" really is
ambiguous isn't it. Some alternatives:

"Commentator" - implies someone who regularly commentates on current
affairs and would be expected to be relatively neutral
"Opponent" (as in, "opponents of the plan") - someone who has chosen
to actively take a stance against the thing
"Skeptic" - someone, especially with power, who has pointed out
perceived flaws with the thing, but does not claim to have been
thorough in their analysis

I think I like all of those alternatives better than "critic", and
also prefer them to "anti-X people" etc, which implies that, being
biased, their opinion is worth little.

It'd be good to even reserve "critic" for professional critics (film,
theatre, restaurants...)

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I concur with this statement. I found a free image one time, put it on the
> article, it was reverted a few times until finally the fair use image was
> deleted (7 days orphan). Of course then the fair use image was again
> uploaded, some story again. :)  Currently it seems to be stable.

So what exactly is our policy that says that free images are vastly
preferable, even when their quality is lower or they are less
appropriate for the specific article?

Steve


from_name: 田中 万太郎

subject: [Wikitech-l] MORE LIVE MIRRORS: down with webspam parasites

body:
Hello

from the same people as last time:

http://ja.54of100e.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
http://ja.42of100c.info/Special:Recentchanges.html

I keep looking for others.

Thankyou

TANAKA

--------------------------------------
Let's start Yahoo! Auction  -  Free Campaign Now!
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/auction/


from_name: Platonides

body:
What  do you mean with 'unpack' the DB?
You need to import the sql dump into the mysql server of the second laptop.

I hope you weren't simply moving over the MediaWiki php files... It's the
mysql db what changes.


from_name: Timwi

references:
<87slkgr880.fsf@riemann.quim.ucm.es> <eanotb$5do$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<loom.20060801T165544-187@post.gmane.org>

body:
Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Platonides <Platonides at ...> writes:
>
>
>>What  do you mean with 'unpack' the DB?
>>You need to import the sql dump into the mysql server of the second laptop.
>>
>>I hope you weren't simply moving over the MediaWiki php files... It's the
>>mysql db what changes.
>
> Aeh well by unpack I mean tar xfvz wikidb.tgz in the
> /var/lib/mysql dir.
>
> As I understand from you message this was the wrong thing to do.
> Do you know by heart the relevant mysql command.

Well, what Platonides meant is that you should use mysqldump to create a
dump of the database (type mysqldump --help), and then on the target
machine use "mysql -D wikidb < dump.sql" to import it.

However, I don't really know why the method you chose shouldn't work.

Timwi


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/1/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I concur with this statement. I found a free image one time, put it on
> the
> > article, it was reverted a few times until finally the fair use image
> was
> > deleted (7 days orphan). Of course then the fair use image was again
> > uploaded, some story again. :)  Currently it seems to be stable.
>
> So what exactly is our policy that says that free images are vastly
> preferable, even when their quality is lower or they are less
> appropriate for the specific article?
>
> Steve

Copied from the policy [[Wikipedia:Fair use criteria]] Criteria 1.

Always use a more free alternative if one is available. Such images can
often be used more readily outside the U.S. If you see a fair use image and
know of an alternative more free equivalent, please replace it, so the
Wikipedia can become as free as possible. Eventually we may have a way to
identify images as more restricted than GFDL on the article pages, to make
the desire for a more free image more obvious.

Garion96


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>I'm not sure what a "Marxist critic" is. The term "critic" really is
>ambiguous isn't it. Some alternatives:
>
>"Commentator" - implies someone who regularly commentates on current
>affairs and would be expected to be relatively neutral
>"Opponent" (as in, "opponents of the plan") - someone who has chosen
>to actively take a stance against the thing
>"Skeptic" - someone, especially with power, who has pointed out
>perceived flaws with the thing, but does not claim to have been
>thorough in their analysis
>
>I think I like all of those alternatives better than "critic", and
>also prefer them to "anti-X people" etc, which implies that, being
>biased, their opinion is worth little.
>
>It'd be good to even reserve "critic" for professional critics (film,
>theatre, restaurants...)
>
>
I guess I rather prefer "critic" to those, at least in the cases I have
in mind.  For example, in many scientific fields, someone will propose
an approach, and others will sometimes criticize it.  Sometimes camps
develop, and you have for example, "Bayesians" and "critics of the
Bayesian approach".  Or in philosophy, you have "critics of
cognitivism".  In many cases critics are a bit stronger than skeptics,
but not in such an all-out ideological disagreement that they ought to
be called "opponents".  Essentially they're skeptics who have put forth
some arguments.

Perhaps this varies by field, but it's the terminology I usually see
(and use myself) in academic papers, especially in the stock phrase
"critics of this approach".

-Mark


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] A new winner for most irrelevant trivia?

body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >From [[Machu Picchu]]:
>
> In one of the episodes of Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer enjoys samples of
> tortilla chips in an South American clothing store while mumbling
> "Mmm! Machu Picchu!".

And it doesn't even identify or link to the particular episode.  How
disappointing. ;)


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki expert in Nigeria needed

body:
Herr Moeller,

Gerard Meijssen knows of a man who runs Suuch, an organization that is
attempting to put Africa on the Internet. Maybe they can... uh... train a
Nigerian man?

James

On 7/31/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A friend of mine, Wayne Mackintosh of the Commonwealth of Learning
> (col.org), is looking for a local wiki expert in Nigeria to help with
> wiki skills development "to a group of folk with low technical
> experience." The project "is aimed at developing free content for
> health professionals." The wiki expert would be paid, of course.
>
> Anyone know someone who might qualify, or someone who might know someone?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Pedro Sanchez

body:
On 7/31/06, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Quoting Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com>:
>
> > anything going on. So where exactly is all this replacement with
> > nonfree happening?
>
>   I replied to this offlist, so as to avoid creating a thread about who did what
> when, but I thought that this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66974368&oldid=66953211
>
> ...which I summarise as "Jimbo Wales doesn't know what the point of Wikipedia
> is", is indicative of the kind of thinking that is going on around unfree
> content.
>
>                Jkelly
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Amen

Wasn't that username connected to userbox fiasco? or was it with some
of the friend ishcommunities?


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] diff efficiency

body:
On 8/1/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> How 'bout we get Cray to donate a supercomputer and we just have that do the
> diffs.  =D

We'll get a few and give them typewriters, then they can go ahead and
write the encyclopaedia. Easier to clean up after than all those
monkeys.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
On 8/1/06, ScottL <scott at mu.org> wrote:
>
>    I have seen a number of cases where a general category of people
> holding a position are referenced to and a single notable example given
> without the implication that they are the only ones "such as green peace
> (link to ref)", "such as Roger Ebert (ref)".

That's usually a good way of doing it. Even better would be to provide
some sort of (useful, not derogatory) label to identify the category
of people being referred to. For example, "Marxist critics, such as
John Doe <ref>, say this". If the category has already been
established with a few examples, then the category can be used again
later in the text, and further footnotes would not be necessary
(although direct quotes and contentious or particularly complex points
should always be footnoted).

Another option, when the body is getting too cluttered with "A said
this, and then B said that" is to leave it to the footnotes. "Some
commentators, such as A, take this position," with a footnote citing
similar commentators B, C and D in addition to A.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: geni

body:
On 8/1/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> zOMG, plant-cruft and photo-countitis!
>
> ~maru

As long as photo-countitis is limted to free images I fail to see an
problem in encourageing competition.

--
geni


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
geni wrote:

>On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>images of Superman
>>
>>
>Wouldn't some of the oldest films have trailers in the public domain?
>
If the copyrights on the older films were not renewed they would be in
the public domain.

Ec


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, what is an "equivalent"? How much worse can the free image be
> before we don't have to consider it "equivalent"? Considering that
> "worse" can mean lower resolution, lower technical quality, less
> focused on the concept of hand (eg, a picture of a building when we're
> discussing its front door), less aesthetically pleasing, diagram vs
> photo, hand drawn image vs photo, etc etc.

Out of 10 a fair use image can never rate above two. How you rate
them? Well ultimely general gidelines can't really help with that.

--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] OT photocruft (was Re: Technical solution to bad
	fair use)

body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bastard! I do European castles. I don't have a car. You have any idea how
> long it takes to take those "three steps to the left"?
>
> Actually the real problem is getting to the article after visiting the
> place, and discovering that someone has already taken a (better) photo of
> it.
>

Certianly know what images exist and what images are needed. While to
a degree this can be delt with through very high levels of
specialisation (I know which british canals don't have photos) this
narrows the number of people we might have looking for any given
photo.

--
geni


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > As long as photo-countitis is limted to free images I fail to see an
> > problem in encourageing competition.
>
> Yeah I was thinking we could award people tokens for their user page
> for every 50 photos they've taken and uploaded. I wonder how many
> people are over the 1000 mark?
>
> Steve

With mass bot uploads from US gov websites and the like quite a few.

--
geni


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Out of 10 a fair use image can never rate above two. How you rate
> > them? Well ultimely general gidelines can't really help with that.
>
>
>
> Don't fall into the trap of thinking that *every* fair image has some free
> twin that could replace it. In the cases of CD covers

What do we need CD covers for? in most cases we are commenting on the
music rather than the art on the cover

> or images of Superman

Wait 56 years

> or whatever, it's just no the case. To fulfil our mission, we're always
> going to need fair use images.
>

I know this.

--
geni


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>images of Superman

Wouldn't some of the oldest films have trailers in the public domain?

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 8/1/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> A perceptive cultural observation. Although I would add that red links
> prompting the creation of articles are not necessarily always beneficial
> - it depends on how good the judgment is of the editor who made the link.

I seem to be noticing that people are getting more reluctant to make
redlinks. Is it the mentality that says "if we don't have an article
on X by now, we don't need one"? I notice it particularly among
somewhat obscure figures from history (for whom I'm sure a verifiable
article could be written though), but also for a decent number of
"concepts", some places, and even the odd mountain!

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Copied from the policy [[Wikipedia:Fair use criteria]] Criteria 1.

Thanks - apologies for not finding it myself.

>
> Always use a more free alternative if one is available. Such images can
> often be used more readily outside the U.S. If you see a fair use image and
> know of an alternative more free equivalent, please replace it, so the
> Wikipedia can become as free as possible. Eventually we may have a way to
> identify images as more restricted than GFDL on the article pages, to make
> the desire for a more free image more obvious.

So, what is an "equivalent"? How much worse can the free image be
before we don't have to consider it "equivalent"? Considering that
"worse" can mean lower resolution, lower technical quality, less
focused on the concept of hand (eg, a picture of a building when we're
discussing its front door), less aesthetically pleasing, diagram vs
photo, hand drawn image vs photo, etc etc.

How much value does a photo being "free" really add to any given
encyclopaedic article? Is this policy about promoting "free" images
not at odds with other policies which are all about producing a high
quality encyclopaedia? What happens when the goal to produce a "high
quality" encyclopaedia is at odds with the goal to produce a "free"
encyclopaedia?

Steve


subject:
[WikiEN-l] OT photocruft (was Re: Technical solution to bad fair
	use)

body:
On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Heh, my productivity machine is botanical gardens. Photo of label,
> whole plant, closeups of leaves/flowers, three steps to the left,
> repeat. :-) UC Berkeley botanical garden sez they have 12,000 taxa
> for instance, I've only racked up about 300 of them so far...

Bastard! I do European castles. I don't have a car. You have any idea how
long it takes to take those "three steps to the left"?

Actually the real problem is getting to the article after visiting the
place, and discovering that someone has already taken a (better) photo of
it.

Amusing case in point:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Rock_of_Cashel_inside_cathedral.jpg
(my image)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rock_of_Cashel-castle_interior.jpg
(existing image)

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> As long as photo-countitis is limted to free images I fail to see an
> problem in encourageing competition.

Yeah I was thinking we could award people tokens for their user page
for every 50 photos they've taken and uploaded. I wonder how many
people are over the 1000 mark?

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Out of 10 a fair use image can never rate above two. How you rate
> them? Well ultimely general gidelines can't really help with that.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that *every* fair image has some free
twin that could replace it. In the cases of CD covers or images of Superman
or whatever, it's just no the case. To fulfil our mission, we're always
going to need fair use images.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] An alternative to "critics"

body:
On 8/1/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I guess I rather prefer "critic" to those, at least in the cases I have
> in mind.  For example, in many scientific fields, someone will propose
> an approach, and others will sometimes criticize it.  Sometimes camps
> develop, and you have for example, "Bayesians" and "critics of the
> Bayesian approach".  Or in philosophy, you have "critics of
> cognitivism".  In many cases critics are a bit stronger than skeptics,
> but not in such an all-out ideological disagreement that they ought to
> be called "opponents".  Essentially they're skeptics who have put forth
> some arguments.
>
> Perhaps this varies by field, but it's the terminology I usually see
> (and use myself) in academic papers, especially in the stock phrase
> "critics of this approach".

I suppose that seems reasonable in academia. However the phrase seems
to get employed outside of academic pursuits leading to:
- Critics of "The Family Guy" argue that...
- Critics of top-posting point out that...
Some genuine examples follow:
- Critics of private health insurance claim that... [[Health insurance]]
- Critics of the term have argued that its proponents are
"neo-snobs"... [[Chav]]
- Advocates of nonviolence have argued that many critics of
nonviolence focus their critique on the moral justifications for
nonviolence while neglecting to...[[nonviolence]]
- Critics of the invasion claimed that it would kill thousands of
American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and civilians...[[Opposition to
the Iraq War]]
- Critics of the record industry today have compared it to the buggy
whip industry, fighting the disruptive technology of file sharing by
all possible means. [[record industry]]
- Critics of their income-tax policies point out that the Irish
economy was already growing at 9% before they came to power in
1997...[[Progressive Democrats]]
- Supporters and critics of nuclear power agreed that the promotional
and regulatory duties of the AEC should be assigned to different
agencies

Ok, so how does this stack up against your use of the term? Perhaps it
comes down to good faith - we can assume that generally academics
start out fairly open minded and if they come to disagree with a
theory, it's probably because they've studied the field for a long
time and have good reasons for their beliefs.

On the other hand, a "critic of the Progressive Democrats' tax policy"
is probably a Republican.

The last example "supporters and critics" is even clearer - the
"critic" isn't someone who is academically arguing against it, it's
just someone who opposes it. With, or without a valid reason.

Hmm.

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What do we need CD covers for? in most cases we are commenting on the
> > music rather than the art on the cover
>
> Any article about an album without an image of the cover is seriously
> amiss. It's just as bad as an article about an apple without a photo
> of one. The cover art is *the* image people associate with the music,
> rightly or wrongly.
>

In some cases. but is it is interesting that if that is the case the
lack of a mention of the cover art in some many of our album articles

> Can you imagine [[Nevermind]] without the naked baby?
>

Yes but that article actualy mentions the cover art.

On the other hand:

[[.38 Special (album)]]
[[Special Delivery (album)]]
[[Rockin' into the Night]]
[[Toto (album)]]
[[Hydra (album)]]
[[Garbage (album)]]
[[Version 2.0]]
[[At the End of the Day]]
[[Artifakts (bc)]]
[[Monkey Island (album)]]
[[The Morning After (J. Geils album)]]

Etc^very big number do not.

--
geni


body:
On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Certianly know what images exist and what images are needed. While to
> a degree this can be delt with through very high levels of
> specialisation (I know which british canals don't have photos) this
> narrows the number of people we might have looking for any given
> photo.

Yeah, it can be hard to judge what "images are needed" before visiting
a place though. And sometimes you only turn up the complete collection
of photos once you start going through Commons.

Anyway, it's not like I'm not going to take a photo at all just
because it exists in Commons - but maybe I'll put my girlfriend in it
or something instead ;)

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:

> Every nonfree image cuts into our status as a free resource; it also

Can you explain that a bit more? I don't know what it means to be a
"free resource" or why exactly we want to be that. What makes one more
or less "free"? Is an image resource with 10,000 free images and 1000
fair use less free than one with 9,000 free and 0 fair use?

> affects downstream and commercial reusers of content, who likely can't
> afford to track down the copyright holder of every single nonfree image
> and license them, so they just filter them out en masse. So "nonfree"
> ends up becoming "no picture at all".

That sounds like a technical problem. Sounds like we need a way to
gracefully degrade from non-free to free. Maybe a template that can
specify which image a content reuser should fall back on if they don't
want to use non-free images.

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do we need CD covers for? in most cases we are commenting on the
> music rather than the art on the cover

Any article about an album without an image of the cover is seriously
amiss. It's just as bad as an article about an apple without a photo
of one. The cover art is *the* image people associate with the music,
rightly or wrongly.

Can you imagine [[Nevermind]] without the naked baby?

Steve


body:
>From [[Machu Picchu]]:

In one of the episodes of Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer enjoys samples of
tortilla chips in an South American clothing store while mumbling
"Mmm! Machu Picchu!".

Steve


body:
On 8/2/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> On de:, they don't allow fair use at all; are they then not
> fulfilling their mission?

In that particular aspect I would say they're fulfilling it less well.

> I'm not ideologically opposed to fair use, I just think we really
> need to pinch down on it. If every fair-use image had to run the
> gauntlet of annual IfD-type polls, with only surly oldtime admins
> voting :-), the net numbers would probably come out about right.

Ideologically, I'm basically for using every image we can possibly get
away with and then some. Fortunately, my ideology is not running the
project.

Steve


body:
On 8/1/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/1/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Copied from the policy [[Wikipedia:Fair use criteria]] Criteria 1.
>
> Thanks - apologies for not finding it myself.

 NP, considering the amount of guidelines and policies, it's easy to miss
something. :)

> >
> > Always use a more free alternative if one is available.
>
> So, what is an "equivalent"? How much worse can the free image be
> before we don't have to consider it "equivalent"? Considering that
> "worse" can mean lower resolution, lower technical quality, less
> focused on the concept of hand (eg, a picture of a building when we're
> discussing its front door), less aesthetically pleasing, diagram vs
> photo, hand drawn image vs photo, etc etc.

I don't think there are any criteria on that. I know for instance that
sometimes a fair use image of a living person is replaced by a 'free'
mugshot (although I believe there are doubts if those are really 'free') but
I don't really like that. I prefer no image in those cases. See the Mel
Gibson article in that regard.

> How much value does a photo being "free" really add to any given
> encyclopaedic article? Is this policy about promoting "free" images
> not at odds with other policies which are all about producing a high
> quality encyclopaedia? What happens when the goal to produce a "high
> quality" encyclopaedia is at odds with the goal to produce a "free"
> encyclopaedia?

I just see pictures as extra, they are nice and really help the
encyclopedia. But the text for me is what makes a high quality encyclopedia,
not the images.

I do like it that we can make use of fair use though. But I think it should
be used more like Jimbo recently mentioned here
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881

Garion96


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-02

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

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

Passed 412 of 429 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


body:
On 8/2/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just see pictures as extra, they are nice and really help the
> encyclopedia. But the text for me is what makes a high quality encyclopedia,
> not the images.

Well, each to his own, I'm a big fan of good images, and kind of see
the text as the necessary amount of padding to avoid people removing
the images on the basis of there being too many :) Seriously, though,
it depends on the subject. I would much rather see images of
mountains, castles, rivers or musical instruments than read about
them. On the other hand, images of people, trains, computers, wars etc
aren't that interesting.

> I do like it that we can make use of fair use though. But I think it should
> be used more like Jimbo recently mentioned here
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos&diff=66922063&oldid=58823881

The man speaks much sense there. I hadn't thought of using our
bargaining power to obtain new free images.

Though I would disagree that album art is the "only sensible
illustration" of an album - other possible images include the artist
during recording or writing, places or events that inspired it, photos
of the recording studio (think Abbey Road), the producer, or even
concerts that made use of the album material...

Steve


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
On 01/08/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> What?  He asked people to vandalise the page.

No, I'm saying that Colbert has no sense of good faith. Why would he
just ask people to vandalise a page? Seems senseless.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Atlantic & Colbert - two great tastes that taste
	great together

body:
So not one but two must-read/sees in the same news cycle...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia

by Marshall Poe

and "Wikiality" on "The Word" on the Colbert Report.

http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2006/08/stephen_colbert_v_wikipedia.html

Did you know the number of elephants in Africa has tripled in the past 10
years? 8-D

Enjoy!

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The Atlantic & Colbert - two great tastes that taste
	great together


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
On 8/1/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/08/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What?  He asked people to vandalise the page.
>
>
> No, I'm saying that Colbert has no sense of good faith. Why would he
> just ask people to vandalise a page? Seems senseless.

Colbert's entire show is based on tongue-in-cheek parody.  In fact,
you could say the whole thing is intelligent "trolling".  It's usually
fairly funny, as the Wikipedia segment probably was.

Anyway, I'm kind of surprised he didn't mention something to Wikimedia
warning it before broadcasting that segment.

Anthony


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
--- Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Actually I'd say that is more the reality, and the common
> misunderstanding is that all of Wikipedia is a work of a small
> organized group (like say a traditional newspaper).  Thus you get
> headlines that Wikipedia is confused about Ken Lay's death, as though
> the differing accounts are being written by the same person.

Good point.
> Now Colbert isn't a journalist, certainly not a traditional
> one as his show is basically a farce, but I would hope he knows who
> Jimmy Wales is and would be intelligent enough to contact him or
> someone else at Wikimedia before doing a segment on it.

Why? Wikimedia just pays the bills - it doesnt run the show.
Wikipedians run the show, and any Wikipedian who saw that report
probably got up off the couch and strolled over to their computer
just to make sure it didnt get out of hand. Wikifaith - apparently
Colbert has some sense of it. Wikifunniness too maybe.

-SV

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


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Atlantic & Colbert - two great tastes that
	taste great together

body:
We really should invite Stephen to stop in at Wikimania.  But I've
made the suggestion several times now that we should be talking to the
people at TDS & TCR, but so far nobody has paid any attention.  Rob
Corddry is a Bostonian; we could have ended up with a feature segment
on TDS.

Kelly

On 8/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/2/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > and "Wikiality" on "The Word" on the Colbert Report.
> >
> > http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2006/08/stephen_colbert_v_wikipedia.html
> >
> > Did you know the number of elephants in Africa has tripled in the past 10
> > years? 8-D
> >
>
> No but I do know we know have a number of vandle hunters who react
> somewhat balisticaly to that phrase and that User:Stephencolbert has
> been indef blocked.
>
>
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 8/2/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> And it doesn't even identify or link to the particular episode.  How
> disappointing. ;)

Yeah! If there's one thing worse than trivia, it's unverifiable trivia! :)

Incidentally, the whole "References in pop culture" section of that
article is, um, worthwhile having a look at.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Technical solution to bad fair use

body:
On 8/2/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> But why go to that much trouble though? We're not trying to enable
> coffeetable art books after all. Sure it would be nice if we had the
> professional's pretty blue sky over the Bulgarian town, but the
> purpose of showing the town is still served by the amateur pic with
> the glary white haze.

That's very much a question of opinion. One of the things I like about
[[WP:FPC]] is seeing all the really high quality images that do show
up when we put some effort into identifying and recognising talent.
For me, just as we go for high quality text, so should we be going for
high quality images to accompany it.

Check out this current nominee!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Empis_livida_%28aka%29.jpg

Steve


body:
On 8/2/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes but that article actualy mentions the cover art.
>
> On the other hand:
>
> [[.38 Special (album)]]
> [[Special Delivery (album)]]
> [[Rockin' into the Night]]

<snip>

The image is still crucial to being able to identify the album in
other contexts.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Colbert Report heads-up

body:
On 8/2/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/2/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Anyway, I'm kind of surprised he didn't mention something to Wikimedia
> > warning it before broadcasting that segment.
>
> Don't forget the prevailing attitude is "Wikimedia is a website where
> random people write random things" - there is no understanding of a
> Wikipedia community, much less a Wikimedia that oversees things.
>
Actually I'd say that is more the reality, and the common
misunderstanding is that all of Wikipedia is a work of a small
organized group (like say a traditional newspaper).  Thus you get
headlines that Wikipedia is confused about Ken Lay's death, as though
the differing accounts are being written by the same person.

> It would be like expecting someone to warn a noticeboard before
> telling your friends to stick notices all over it.
>
No, I think this is a little different.  In journalism there is a well
recognized principle that when you write a story about someone you
should contact them to hear their viewpoint.  This is why you often
see a line in stories about "[whoever] could not be reached for
comment".  Now Colbert isn't a journalist, certainly not a traditional
one as his show is basically a farce, but I would hope he knows who
Jimmy Wales is and would be intelligent enough to contact him or
someone else at Wikimedia before doing a segment on it.

Anthony