subject:
[WikiEN-l] The wiki Paradoxes from my perspective (was Re:
	Uploading images should be a privilige, not a right)

body:
On 21/07/06, Michael Hopcroft <michael at mphpress.com> wrote:
> My point remains -- what precisely is the point of research and writing
> an article that can be completely dismantled or deleted at whim by
> anyone with a dial-up connection and an ax to grind? And what is the
> point of reading a "factual"  article whose contents change constantly
> even when the subject of the article does not? Novels and plays may be
> constantly re-interpreted, but only in an Orwellian world can they be
> un-written. Destroying every copy of a film that could conceivably exist
> does not mean the film was never made. An event that took place at a
> specific time in the past does not suddenly revert to not having taken
> place because people no longer want to think about it. You cannot unkill
> John Lennon., any more than you can entirely erase him from the past
> even if you somehow manage to destroy all traces of every note and word
> he ever sang, played or wrote. Yet someone could go to Wikipedia and, if
> he is especially unlucky and a vandal has been especially resourceful,
> he might find that the biographical article on John Lennon is an
> argument that there never was such a person and that the Beatles and
> their recordings never existed in the first place. Although hopefully
> the community would jump all over such blatant and irrational
> revisionism, the fact that such a thing is even conceivable is
> compelling argument against the concept of Wikipedia.

Perhaps the problem is that you need order. Wikipedia isn't fixed and
predictable - it exists in an equilibrium. Luckily, it is such that
enough good faith edits exist to keep the equilibrium in line with our
aims.

If you aren't happy to contribute to something that is so
unpredictable and changeable, then nothing can be done. This is
Wikipedia.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Uploading images should be a privilige, not a right

body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
> material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
> (via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
> them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
> provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.
[snip]

Making this our practice for handling copyright would put us in a weak
position in several respects.

1) It is ethically questionable. When we distribute someone's
commercial work tagged as free content, we risk seriously letting the
genie out of the bottle. It would do us no good to gain a napster-like
reputation.
2) It creates panic-intensive situations.... When a violation is found
it's likely that there will be a lot of them creating a lot more work
to quickly clean up.
3) If we do enough of it, it wouldn't be hard to convince a judge that
our behavior is negligent (we already have a lot of egregious
infractions and we're trying.. I can only imagine what we'd have if we
didn't try) and get a lovely injunction issued that required us to
remove all images that we can't prove are free. :(

But most importantly:
4) Wikipedia is intended to be and advertised to be Free Content. By
only removing copyright violations that people have complained about
we would be choosing to fail at this goal... and in doing so we would
make the fruits of our labor less useful to the world.

In short, while being a nice legal fall-back, the safe harbor terms
are not anything we want to rely on in terms of our copyright policy.


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 21/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless you happen to read the entirety of Wikipedia (or at least the
> what links here on the movie page) you're not going to see these
> things... so I doubt that you're talking about the same thing.

As an interesting aside, Wikipedia is growing at such a rate that even
if someone spent 24 hours reading newly added content, and had a very
fast reading rate, they couldn't keep up!

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Category link vs revision timestamp (cl_timestamp
 vs	rev_timestamp)

body:
Cyril DANGERVILLE wrote:
> I encountered a few issues listed below, regarding the timestamps in a
> mediawiki database (I am running MediaWiki 1.6.7), when writing an
> extension that looks for the user that added a specific category link.

This can't really be done reliably. Even if you trawl through all previous
revisions, the link may have been introduced by a change in an included
template, and thus not related to any revision at all. It may also have been
removed and returned multiple names.

> Indeed, the only efficient way I've found is to compare cl_timestamp
> and rev_timestamp in the database (any better idea?).
>
> 1) Is there a specific reason why the *cl_timestamp* column of the
> *categorylinks* table has a different type from the *rev_timestamp*
> column of the *revision* table (or page_touched of the page table)?

cl_timestamp was experimental, and is probably more or less useless for any
non-trivial purpose. Likely it will be removed in the future.

It doesn't necessarily have any relation to any particular revision, since link
status is based on the combined state of all included resources (primary page,
included templates, extension parsing).

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 21/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > By making image uploading a privilege to be earned rather than a right
> > conferred by registering an account, we can relax the policy and deal
> > with uploaders individually, rather than automated notification of
> > problems and nearly-automated deletion of problematic images.

We have already stripped new users and anons of far too many rights.
We have already gone through the creation of semi-protection, the
prevention of page creation, and now we have a suggestion that we
prevent them uploading! It is an utter disgrace that we still refer to
ourselves as an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit".

It is clear that we have completely lost sight of the original aims of
Wikipedia.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> We could always go the German way and prevent all non-copyleft images.
>
> PS. I just wanted to check I was accurate in making this statement. I
> decided Coca Cola would be a good article to use to check
> (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Cola) as they are presumably unable
> to display the logo. They do show the logo in the form of photographs
> of the side of lorries showing the logo and practically nothing else.
> Surely such a photo can't be claimed to be copyleft?

This is a complex issue involving a lot of handwaving and bullshit.

In germany they have a legal concept called "right of panorama" which
appears to be intended to address cases of incidental inclusion (as
we'd know them in the US).  The idea is that the fact that the
populated world is saturated with copyrighted works shouldn't inhibit
you from taking pictures in public...

However, when you turn around and use such an image as a direct
replacement for the copyrighted work which you, presumably, couldn't
use there is no way that you'd be able to claim incidental inclusion
in the US.  I'm not qualified to say what the decision would be in
Germany, but I'd really be surprised if it were any different.

Legally Wikimedia is likely okay because these works would easily be
considered fair use... But they aren't free content when used in the
capacity... but use adds a whole extra dimension the people would
rather ignore.

At least dewiki has stopped trying to call the tightly cropped logo
images which were nearly indistinguishable from a normal image of the
logo free images. :)


body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aren't the images are still stored in Florida so are covered by US
> law? Why is German law at all considered?

:)
Indeed.
Because the uploader is in Germany.. It's messy.
It's not a problem because these images are likely legal in the US.

> > Legally Wikimedia is likely okay because these works would easily be
> > considered fair use... But they aren't free content when used in the
> > capacity... but use adds a whole extra dimension the people would
> > rather ignore.
>
> To be OK don't we have to attach a fair use rational to these photographs?

The law doesn't require us to attach a fair use rationale. Policy on
enwiki does.  It would be required, were we ever to use fair use as a
defense (it's not a permission it's a defense), that we provide a
rationale... Doesn't mean the image must have one now.

So long as we don't run into an image which would likely be illegal in
the US but is legal in De, I don't think it's worth dealing with this
mess. :)


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] hook call back not being called every time

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

Pat Felsted wrote:
> I have written a hook but the only time it is getting called is if I do
> a purge.  Any ideas?

This is because MediaWiki has aggressive HTML caching and will avoid
re-parsing wikitext (unless told to do so, of course).  You can fix this
by disabling caching, but expect a noticeable performance hit.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEwWm4qTO+fYacSNoRAu9wAJ9bTaOAT54pNIyiEf+sFKR+XAgNCQCfbC9b
gffzP2fiutNP2mohJtCH+r8=
=Xf/P
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories for deletion/discussion issues

body:
G'day Guy,

> On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:40:29 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Not so - the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Cross_Route is a freeway
>>but not a motorway, as it was stripped of its motorway status in 2000.
>>Motorway is a classification rather than a standard of building; many
>>longer sections of road are freeways but cannot be classified as
>>motorways, as slow vehicles are banned from all motorways.
>
> Really they are dual carriageways.  That is, roads, which have two
> distinct and separate carriageways.

Roads that don't qualify as freeways can still be dual carriageways ...

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > > If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> > > nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> > > legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.
> > >
> > Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
> > material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
> > (via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
> > them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
> > provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.  If the
> > uploader provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material
> > does not infringe copyrights, then promptly notify the claiming party
> > of the individual's objection.  However, only restore the image if
> > there is also a consensus that the image is "free enough" within the
> > project's guidelines.
>
> Or in other words, stick our heads in the ground and pray that
> everyone opens fire with a takedown notice rather than a lawsuit.
> Even if the law protects Wikipedia from liability when a user
> infringes copyright, that still needs to be proven in front of a
> judge, and even an immediate dismissal requires thousands of dollars
> in lawyers' fees.

The question was how to "keep WP out of legal peril".  Obviously
creating a good encyclopedia involves more than just this.

Anthony


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Help requested on Commons copyright woes

body:
On 7/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course Bridgeman v. Corel did include a view that UK law would
> produce the same result. I suspect that there are number of people
> trying to make sure that there is no repeate case in the UK.

Yes indeed, this is why I was quite shocked and disappointed when
JamesF told me otherwise. :-/

> > I'd be much happier if we had people sneaking into galleries and
> > taking pictures (no flash please)...
>
> It is posible you could get permission from smaller galleries.

Yes, Absolutely.

> > Like above I don't think this is (yet) the biggest of our problems.
> >
>
> As long as we make sure to lable where we are useing it it should not
> be a massive problem to fix.

Yes, and no...  I don't think that the corel case would ever entirely
stop being a factor... but what exactly counts as a slavish
reproduction is an area which will see much debate in the future.

We may be in a position where we are stuck reviewing all the bridgeman
v. corel tagged images... and not being able to tell based on some
future precedent.

> Are you sure that exposeing wikipedians to the outside is a good idea?

Don't worry, you can get internet access outside now.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 7/19/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> I actually cringed when Jimbo used the word fancruft because of this very
> reason. Him using the word, will give Pokemon/Simpsons/SpongeBob hating
> editors yet other ammo to claim anything related to them is fancruft. Don't
> have the word fancruft around.

Maybe this will help: anyone who starts an argument with "Jimbo said..."
is guilty of Jimbocruft, which is worse than fancruft. :)

> What I would like to see is mention that Tutu being named in friends is not
> sufficiently useful to be included in the article. Now if he actually
> appeared in the episode...

Perhaps. :)

--Jimbo


from_name: geni

body:
On 7/21/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree.  We've completely lost sight of the original aims of Wikipedia.
>
> Originally, Wikipedia was supposed to be free content and be an
> encyclopedia.  We're still reasonably close to being an encyclopedia,
> but the idea of "free content" has been lost in the flood of hundreds
> of thousands of non-free images.  Most users wouldn't know a free
> license if it bit them in the ass, and the only reason we've got a
> million GFDL-licensed articles is because of a snippet of text nobody
> ever bothers to read.  I doubt so much as one editor in a hundred
> actively wants their contributions to be freely licensed -- the other
> 99 just want their work to be on Wikipedia.
>

If I wanted my images to be freely licensed I would not be uploading
them under the GFDL.

--
geni


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:43:38 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

>"Limited access highway" means the same thing as "limited access road" -
>in other words nowhere near the standards of a freeway in general.

In your opinion.

Here, the Highways Agency looks after strategic routes and the local
authorities look after local roads.  Highways vs. byways, as it were.
It sounds to me as if you are arguing to keep a problem so you can
solve it in your preferred (and incidentally highly US-centric) way.
Do be aware that, like "auto makers of foo" which grates on the ears
of nationals where the word auto is practically never used to describe
cars, using "freeway" to describe an autobahn, autoroute, autostrada,
motorway etc. is likely to sound like another dollop of cultural
imperialism.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I originally posted this to the commons-l list (
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-June/000277.html )
>to little response. So let's see if I can do any better with a wider
>audience.
>
>
>* Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
>is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
>consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
>possible? (
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives11#Image:CSU-Logo_1998.jpg
>)
>
>
The image has already been deleted so I have no idea what it refers to.
Nevertheless if it refers to a German entity, and German law allows it
that should be the end of the story.  More on this below.

>* "Agencia Brasil" license  (
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
>has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
>website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
>as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
>Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
>intend to allow these specific rights?"
>
"Todo esse conte?do pode ser adquirido em v?rias defini??es, inclusive
em alta resolu??o, e ser utilizado livremente, mediante cita??o do
cr?dito."  This seems clear enough.  If commercial or derivative use is
not clearly forbidden than one should be able to presume that it is
allowed.  Isn't this a general principle of law?  Since he became
Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil has done much to move Brazil ahead.
Consider this extract from "Wired" Magazine:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/linux.html

> For Gil, "the fundamentalists of absolute property control" -
> corporations and governments alike - stand in the way of the digital
> world's promises of cultural democracy and even economic growth. They
> promise instead a society where every piece of information can be
> locked up tight, every use of information (fair or not) must be
> authorized, and every consumer of information is a pay-per-use tenant
> farmer, begging the master's leave to so much as access his own hard
> drive. But Gil has no doubt that the fundamentalists will fail. "A
> world opened up by communications cannot remain closed up in a feudal
> vision of property," he says. "No country, not the US, not Europe, can
> stand in the way of it. It's a global trend. It's part of the very
> process of civilization. It's the semantic abundance of the modern
> world, of the postmodern world - and there's no use resisting it."
>
> Gil laughs, as he often does when even he finds himself a little over
> the top. But these days it's not exactly unusual to hear this sort of
> thing from high-level members of the Brazilian government. The
> preservation and expansion of the information commons has long been a
> cause of hackers, academics, and the odd technoliterate librarian, but
> in the world's fifth-largest country it is fast becoming national
> doctrine. And the implications hardly end with free samba: Brazil, in
> its approach to drug patents, in its support for the free software
> movement, and in its resistance to Big Content's attempts to shape
> global information policy, is transforming itself into an open source
> nation - a proving ground for the proposition that the future of ideas
> doesn't have to be the program of tightly controlled digital rights
> now headed our way via Redmond, Hollywood, and Washington, DC.
>
Is this characteristic of a situation where someone's anal fears require
every bit to be questioned?

>* Photographs of commercial products such as: Pokemon/Star
>Wars/Simpsons toys, box of Pringles, also people in dress-up outfits
>of characters such as Lara Croft/Chewbacca. Eloquence has raised this
>before ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives10#Various_Star_Wars_pictures
>) but I doubt even he would think this has been satisfactorily
>resolved.
>
Most of these are probably fair use.  How else are you going to
illustrate these things.  It's interesting to read to read the
attorney's fee decision in Mattel v. Forsythe
http://illegal-art.org/print/forsythe.pdf  Forsythe had used a
representation of Barbie in a parody, and was awarded over $1.8 million
to compensate him for the costs of standing up to the toy giiant.
Mattel's action was judged unreasonable.  We aren't even doing parodies
but simple neutral representations of the logos and other images.

Fair use did not come into U.S. law out of a vacuum.  It was not a part
of the Copyright Act before 1909.  Instead the concept developed through
a series of court decisions which were effectively codified in 1909.
Canada's Copyright Act does not go into a lot of great detail about
defining fair dealing, but the Supreme Court of Canada has used the
United States experience with approval.  When dealing with similar
matters in the law of other countries it would be more helpful if people
referred to real precedents rather than simply guessing about what the
law means.

>* US presidential portraits (
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing#Portraits_with_unclear_copyright_status_from_the_U.S._Federal_Government
> kind of got split up and was carried over from a debate on en.wp
>anyway).
>
Many of these guys died before 1923.  Is there a suggestion that some of
these are posthumous pictures? :-)

>* Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
>is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
>photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
>is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)
>
How old is the frame?  If the frame has its own copyright, can it be
cropped out?  This would not be a problem in the US, but the UK
situation remains unresolved.

>* Personality rights. What permission is required of people
>photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
>your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
>this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
>to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
>you decide that anyway?)? (
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Kind_in_Nord.C3.A4thiopien.jpg
>is a current one, also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)
>
The only thing that I would feel confident in saying is that copyrights
and privacy rights are distinct legal concepts, and this has nothing to
do with copyrights.

If the child in the picture is Ethiopian, and the picture was taken in
Ethiopia what is the Ethiopian law on this?  Is this a news picture?

Is someone alleging that the people are recognizable?  Is it because of
the tatoos?  Has the subject complained?  The G-string pictures seem
posed to me with at least one instance describing the person as a
model.  That seems to imply consent.  Looks like the do-gooders are
running rampant on this.

>* Flag copyright - originality - again which laws to apply? (eg.
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-June/000385.html ,
>is it true?)
>
There is nothing original about an exact copy of a flag.

Ec


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Living people patrol

body:
The following is a proposal that I would like to set forth.

Based on phone calls to the office and OTRS, it seems to me that one of our
biggest problems remains Living People. This has several sides to it:

1. People who have nonsense added to their articles.
2. People who have  articles but shouldn't.
3. People who want their articles deleted.
4.  People insisting that we create articles about them.
5. PR agencies adding  crud to articles about their clients.
6. Other.

RC Patrol is doing a phenomenal job, but the fact is that the task is
overwhelming. We are getting close to 2 edits a second, i.e., over 100 edits a
minute, and we are still growing. While it is possible to remove the obvious
crap, more subtle problems may be sneaking in.

I would therefore like to suggest a separate division of the RC Patrol
called The Living People Control. They would be charged with tagging new  articles
in Recent Changes with Living People when appropriate (and removing  people
when dead), and for reviewing the Living People category specifically
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Category%3
ALiving_people  here].

Obviously, this is only a suggestion. I would like to know what people  think.

I have also created a page about this at [[Wikipedia:Living people  patrol]]

Danny


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Unless you happen to read the entirety of Wikipedia (or at least the
> > what links here on the movie page) you're not going to see these
> > things... so I doubt that you're talking about the same thing.
>
> As an interesting aside, Wikipedia is growing at such a rate that even
> if someone spent 24 hours reading newly added content, and had a very
> fast reading rate, they couldn't keep up!
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)

Well, at least one can can still keep up with New Pages, even if
Recent Changes is now beyond mortal ken. It's actually rather
interesting to see what obscure stuff pops up.

~maru


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, at least one can can still keep up with New Pages, even if
> Recent Changes is now beyond mortal ken. It's actually rather
> interesting to see what obscure stuff pops up.

One can, perhaps.. but people don't do so consistently..

I've found examples of obvious garbage newpages which were unedited
months after their initial creation.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Frank Bartus

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as a gazetteer

body:
I haven't a clue as to whether this will replicate to the list properly. Tried reply all, and get two addresses in the bar.

I'd suggest using the same geocoordinate template as en.wp to specify such. I think the article on Nagasaki, Nagasaki was the first place I saw it used.

As useful cross checks, typing in place names (Sucks for geographic features though) into maps.google.map (http://maps.google.com/), and MapQuest.com, iirc. GoogleEarth is dynamite for checking into 3D features, and the cursor gives Lat and Long...

FrankB
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Oldak Quill
  To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
  Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 6:06 PM
  Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia as a gazetteer

  On 21/07/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
  > Working with co-ordinates has made me wonder about their use. It seems
  > a bit bizarre to represent a huge country (or ocean, river, etc) with
  > one random dot. Is there any neat, standardised way to refer to
  > geographic areas? I can't think of one...any ideas?

  One problem is that many users give the co-ordinates of a place to
  fractions of arcseconds. Cities do not, and should not, have
  co-ordinates given to the second. Tens of minutes (one minute is 1.86
  km at sea level) should suffice.
  --
  Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
  _______________________________________________
  Wikipedia-l mailing list
  Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
  http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Bkonrad

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> This is somewhat confusing to me, because it seems so obvious to me
> that watching a TV show and then writing about it is original
> research.  Anyway, here's what I found about what is a primary source:
>
> "The distinction between types of sources can get tricky, because a
> secondary source may also be a primary source. Garry Wills' book about
> Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, for example, can looked at as both a
> secondary and a primary source. The distinction may depend on how you
> are using the source and the nature of your research. If you are
> researching Abraham Lincoln, the book would be a secondary source
> because WIlls is offering his opinions about Lincoln and the
> Gettysburg Address. If your assignment is to write a book review of
> Lincoln at  Gettysburg, the book becomes a primary source, because you
> are commenting, evaluating, and discussing Garry Wills' ideas."
>
> It seems to me, based on this paragraph, that using "Episode 5 of
> Season 3 of Friends" in an article about that episode, would be the
> *creation* of a primary source.

No. Here's the analogy broken out from quote you provide:

Use of Wills' book: researching Abraham Lincoln
Primary source: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Secondary source: Wills' book "Lincoln at Gettysburg"

Use of Wills' book: book review of Lincoln at  Gettysburg
Primary source: Wills' book "Lincoln at Gettysburg"
Secondary source: N/A

If you are writing about Shakespeare, the primary source is the text of
Shakespeare's work. If you are writing about an episode of Friends, the
primary source is the episode itself.

Now all of this is really somewhat distinct from whether something is
original research (at least in the context of what that means on Wikipedia).
If you are writing a simply plot summary, there is not much OR involved--as
others have pointed out, every article on Wikipedia involves selecting which
details to include and which to omit. There may be disagreement about which
details are significant, but to be a simple plot summary, the details must
be explicitly present (verifiable) in the primary source.

Where things cross the line into OR is when the summary starts to put
forward some sort of analytical synthesis--such as attempting to explain WHY
a character may have taken a certain action or comparing the plot to that of
some other work. OR occurs when one starts to advance ideas that are not
explicitly present in the source material, but are based on inference or
synthesis or other techniques.

Bkonrad


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] References for the technically challenged

body:
Oldak Quill wrote:
> Are you planning on expanding it to cover other cite templates such as
> books and websites? Will you be introducing more fields (I notice that
> the access date is lacking).
>

The tool page links to
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MakeRef/En
where anyone can add new templates and change existing ones.

Likewise,
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MakeRef/De
would be for a German version etc.

Magnus


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> As much of a problem as the above may be for us, it's not the worst of
> it:  Simmlar cases to Bridgeman v. Corel have come up in the UK and
> the decision has been exactly the opposite.

They have? If so, could you point one out? So far, I know that people
have pointed to a statutory definition of photographs as artistic works
in their own right under UK law. But beyond that argument, which doesn't
seem to clearly settle the matter, I'm not aware of anything that
addresses the precise issue in Bridgeman v. Corel under UK law. Indeed,
the famous Bridgeman opinion was only issued after the court originally
decided the case based on its understanding of UK law (with the same
result), and was persuaded to reconsider and concluded that US law
applied, thus more clearly stating how this principle operates for US
law. Now a US court is certainly not the final word on UK law, but I'd
like to know more if there really is a conflicting decision out there.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Cyril DANGERVILLE

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Category link vs revision timestamp (cl_timestamp vs
	rev_timestamp)

body:
Hi,

I encountered a few issues listed below, regarding the timestamps in a
mediawiki database (I am running MediaWiki 1.6.7), when writing an
extension that looks for the user that added a specific category link.
Indeed, the only efficient way I've found is to compare cl_timestamp
and rev_timestamp in the database (any better idea?).

1) Is there a specific reason why the *cl_timestamp* column of the
*categorylinks* table has a different type from the *rev_timestamp*
column of the *revision* table (or page_touched of the page table)?
Cl_timestamp is a timestamp whereas rev_timestamp and page_touched are
strings. This adds complexity - useless I believe - when comparing
these timestamps with each other (formatting with such MySQL functions
as DATE_FORMAT or STR_TO_DATE is necessary). Wouldn't this make easier
to use the same type?

2) Looking at the code, I noticed that cl_timestamp and rev_timestamp
are computed separately (function insertOn in Revision.php for
rev_timestamp, function getCategoryInsertions in LinksUpdate.php for
cl_timestamp).  On my system, there is sometimes a difference of 1 for
the seconds between the cl_timestamp value and the corresponding
rev_timestamp. Wouldn't this make more sense to use the same
rev_timestamp for the cl_timestamp value, OR replace the cl_timestamp
column with something like a 'cl_rev' column that links to the rev_id
from the revision table? If not, why.
Thus, it would be easier to get the revision info (e.g. the category
adder) corresponding to any addition of a category link in a page.

3) Should I report a bug for this?

Thanks for your time.
-- Cyril Dangerville


subject: [Foundation-l] Board election update

body:
On behalf of the Communications committee, I wanted to keep everyone
updated on the work being done to plan the upcoming Board of Trustees
election. The Board has informed us that Essjay and Datrio have been
appointed as inspectors of the election; Aphaia will assist them as an
alternate election official. The election is planned to start September
1, 2006 and run for two weeks.

The election officials will fill in the details as they become
available. I appreciate their willingness to help with this process.
They should have more information for us in the near future, and will
let candidates know how to go about declaring themselves.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Board election update


from_name: Nathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Tech help: Video format conversion

body:
When last I checked, the XviD codec (AVI) was free and open source.

- Nathan

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> > Ok, give me the list again please.
> > What codec of AVI do you need it converted to?
>
> Not AVI, AVI is propritary and most of the codecs for it (including
> all of the good ones) are patented to hell and back.
>
> The final target needs to be Ogg/Theora.   ffmpeg2theora is a nice
> tool for taking other video formats and spitting out Theora. Your avi
> should be encoded as losslessly as possible, ideally YUV 4:2:2 (which
> most windows apps will read but most don't offer to let you write),
> RAW frames (which most windows apps will not read or write), or
> failing those options 20+mbit/sec MPEG2 (which, yes, you can encap in
> AVI).
>
> If your toolchain doesn't support Ogg/Theora, feel free to send me an
> AVI (encoded as per above).
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Job queue stuck?

body:
Christopher Beland wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
>
> The job queue length on the English Wikipedia is high and has been
> rising continuously.  I suspect that something is stuck.

The job queue is a _queue_.

You may indeed see it high for a couple hours before the job runners get back
around to that wiki.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 21/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>If you're not a lawyer why are you pushing these legal interpretations?
>>
>>
>Because that's what we're all doing. I don't think my conservative
>interpretation of the law is dangerous in any way.
>
>
Nobody is saying that it's dangerous.

The frequency of these "IANAL" statements make me wonder about whether
people are too busy idolizing lawyers to believe in what they say.

Ec


from_name: Oldak Quill

body:
On 21/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> If you're not a lawyer why are you pushing these legal interpretations?

Because that's what we're all doing. I don't think my conservative
interpretation of the law is dangerous in any way.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 21/07/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> But notice it says "edit", not "upload to".

Editing Wikipedia is uploading. Sometimes a user uploads text,
sometimes they upload other forms of data such as images and music.

> If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.

Wikipedia already carries out tasks which require large numbers of
volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of legal peril. I'm saying
it is worth working a little harder to keep our values alive.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 21/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> (As an aside, it is bad form to reply to *me* to oppose someone elses
> position which I don't share)

This wasn't done with malice, it was purely accidental.

> I'd really like to find out where you got this bizarre notion that
> Wikipedia's orignal aim was to provide "rights" to new users and
> "anons".

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
(from [[Wikipedia:About]]). The statement "anyone can edit" requires
that editing rights are given to new users and anons.

> Wikipedia exists to make a Free Content Encyclopedia. It turns out
> that being promiscuous about who we allow to edit helps that goal
> rather well.  That does not imply that all forms of promiscuity are
> beneficial. I expect you agree with this, or do you think we should
> post our root passwords on the website too?   Once you have admitted
> that there must be limitations,  it simply becomes a matter of
> discussing what those limits should be.

I would suggest we stop claiming that "anyone can edit" the project.
It is a misleading and false.

> I'd like to think that such discussions should be allowed to continue
> dispassionately and without attracting hysterical cries about
> "destroying the project" or "stripping rights".

I used these words because they match my perception of what is
happening. I strive to avoid sensationalism at all costs.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 22/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Saying that photos of 3D pd works do not carry copyright is not a
> conservative interpretation. :)

I said that them carrying copyright is rare. I was entirely mistaken
in this sentence. My point relating to 3D PD works was more that if
the author uses odd shadowing and angles or anything creative like
that I would certainly consider them copyrighted. Naturally, all
photography of 3D objects employs shadow to some extent and I don't
think the copyright/non-copyright line can be drawn between degrees of
shadow-use.

> The only reason that we hold the position that (in the US) photographs
> of PD 2D works don't gain the photographers copyright is because of
> Bridgeman v. Corel.

Yes, I had heard of a case. Thanks for the name.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-22

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 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 Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... 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 409 of 426 tests (96.01%) FAILED!


body:
On 22/07/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> [[Category:Promotional images]]
>
> By 22:00 UTC tomorrow, I expect you to have checked every image on the
> first page of that category.  For the images that did not actually
> come from a [[press kit]], I expect you to remove the license tag from
> the image, retag it as {{subst:nld}}, and explain to the uploader why
> their image is not really a promotional image.  If the image also
> doesn't have proper source information, add the {{subst:nsd}} tag as
> well, and explain why images need source information.  You don't need
> to remove the images from articles using them, since OrphanBot will
> get around to it in a few days, but you do need to watchlist all the
> images to make sure nobody puts an incorrect license tag on before the
> image is deleted.
>
> Congratulations, you will have reduced the total number of improper
> {{promophoto}} claims by 0.1%!

We could always go the German way and prevent all non-copyleft images.

PS. I just wanted to check I was accurate in making this statement. I
decided Coca Cola would be a good article to use to check
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Cola) as they are presumably unable
to display the logo. They do show the logo in the form of photographs
of the side of lorries showing the logo and practically nothing else.
Surely such a photo can't be claimed to be copyleft?
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 22/07/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a complex issue involving a lot of handwaving and bullshit.
>
> In germany they have a legal concept called "right of panorama" which
> appears to be intended to address cases of incidental inclusion (as
> we'd know them in the US).  The idea is that the fact that the
> populated world is saturated with copyrighted works shouldn't inhibit
> you from taking pictures in public...
>
> However, when you turn around and use such an image as a direct
> replacement for the copyrighted work which you, presumably, couldn't
> use there is no way that you'd be able to claim incidental inclusion
> in the US.  I'm not qualified to say what the decision would be in
> Germany, but I'd really be surprised if it were any different.

Aren't the images are still stored in Florida so are covered by US
law? Why is German law at all considered?

> Legally Wikimedia is likely okay because these works would easily be
> considered fair use... But they aren't free content when used in the
> capacity... but use adds a whole extra dimension the people would
> rather ignore.

To be OK don't we have to attach a fair use rational to these photographs?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 7/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>* To what extent are we bound by local laws and to what extent are we
>>bound by Florida's laws (as the home of our servers).
>>
>>
>[snip]
>
>1) Uploaders should obey their local laws.
>2) Content on the site should obey laws in Florida.
>3) As a project with international goals an impact our content should
>be as widely useful world wide as possible and thus be as free as
>possible in every place with sane laws.
>
>The content commons should host should be only content which passes
>under each of those three broad areas.
>
So how do we define "sane" law?  And how do we know whether uploaders
are obeying their local laws?

>>* Logos. This has still not been sufficiently resolved, in that there
>>is not a clear enough solution that everyone is aware of. Do we
>>consider copyright independently of trademark status? Is that even
>>possible? (
>>
>>
>Yuck.  Cant we just leave these images for the projects to host locally for now?
>We're not even near mastering copyright yet... Trademark is an even
>more fun ball of yuck.
>
Trademark infringement depends even more on what you are using the
material for, or whether you are using the design to promote your own
business.  As long we're just using it to illustrate the fact that it is
that company's trademark we are safe.

>>* "Agencia Brasil" license  (
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil ) also
>>has been debated several times. Related to the wider issue of, "if a
>>website says "these images can be used freely, can we interpret that
>>as allowing commercial use and derivative works, and thus
>>Commons-compliant? Or do we need to check each time whether they
>>intend to allow these specific rights?"
>>
>>
>In American english "You may use this image" does not imply that you
>can grant others unlimited redistribution rights, and the right to
>make derivative works.  Perhaps if someone said "you may use" with the
>full knoweldge of who we are and what we do...  but never as a general
>permission on a website.
>
The statement was in Brazilian Portuguese, not American English.  Where
are you granting these rights yourself?  All you are doing is conveying
the source's position on the rights the user has.  If no restrictions
are specified about the usage those restrictions do not exist.

>>* Photographs of art - if the artwork itself is old enough to be PD,
>>is it true that any photograph of the art itself is also PD, but any
>>photograph of the art in its frame or on a wall  is not? (Because it
>>is 3-D, not 2-D anymore)
>>
>>
>Since I forgot to mention it before, I am not a lawyer. This is my
>personal view. It has more to do with what I think our posisiton
>should be irrespective of the law and what I worry the law might
>become rather than what it is.
>
What the law might become can indeed be quite worrisome.  See Peter
Suber's SPARC Newsletter at
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-06.htm#collateral
He mentions WIPO's proposed Webcasting Treaty:

> A draft treaty now before WIPO would create a new level of protection,
> above and beyond copyright, for "webcasters" --anyone who sends images
> and sounds "at substantially the same time" over the internet.  The
> proposal would let webcasters block the copying and redistribution of
> the webcasts even if the copyright holder had consented to OA, even if
> the webcast content had a valid Creative Commons license or
> equivalent, even if the content was in the public domain, and even if
> the content was legally uncopyrightable.

I don't know if he's just being alarmist, but we don't even have an
article on this.  Don't think that just because the people we here tend
to associate with are supportive of free access to information means
that there are no people who are just as dedicated to accomplishing
exactly the opposite.

When one frames what our position should be irrespective of the law one
saves a lot of confusion by not expressing it in terms of the law as it
might already exist.  We begin with a position that is both ideal and
reasonably fair, and only after we have done that do we compare that
position with the existing laws to see if our ideal can in any way be
accomodated.

>It depends.   If it is a mechnical reproduction, suchs works would be
>free under US law due to Bridgeman v. Corel.
>
>It's not clear to me that Bridgeman v. Corel would actually stand if
>someone tried to apply it to, for example, works galleries publish of
>because most of the time such works are not mere mechnical
>reproduction  but require substantial artistic and technical decision
>making (try getting cobalt containing watercolors to come out right on
>normal film or a normal CCD sensor.. YUCK).
>
>As much of a problem as the above may be for us, it's not the worst of
>it:  Simmlar cases to Bridgeman v. Corel have come up in the UK and
>the decision has been exactly the opposite.
>
>I'd be much happier if we had people sneaking into galleries and
>taking pictures (no flash please)... I don't have confidence that a
>dependance on Bridgeman v. Corel will be good for us long term.
>
>Like above I don't think this is (yet) the biggest of our problems.
>
I agree.

>>* Personality rights. What permission is required of people
>>photographed, if any? (eg "Can I take your picture"/"Can I publish
>>your picture on a public database that allows commercial use?") Is
>>this a copyright concern or a "other law" concern that we don't need
>>to worry about? What if the people aren't recognisable (and how can
>>you decide that anyway?)? (
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Kind_in_Nord.C3.A4thiopien.jpg
>>is a current one, also some of the "visible thong" pictures on
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/G-string have been nominated before)
>>
>>
>This is something we need to do something about... We should at least
>propose a standard model release for Wikipedian photographers to
>use...
>
>Without a releas photographs with identifyable people are not free
>content in the US.
>
Again, common sense should prevail.

>>* Flickr allows users to change the licenses on their images with no
>>external notice. So CC-BY or CC-BY-SA images uploaded to Commons might
>>later appear to be CC-BY-NC-ND or even "all rights reserved". This is
>>an increasing problem. Obviously Flickr needs a "history" tab, but
>>until then...? (current discussion at
>>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Flickr_allows_license_changes
>>)
>>
>>
>What is worse, is that uploaders on commons simply get them wrong
>fairly often.. So it's hard to take a high ground on the subject.
>
Costant reference by jargony abbreviations doesn't help.

>When it comes down to it,  these people don't have a contract with
>us.. we've compensated them not a lick... they are completely unaware
>of our use.  As a result our position is weak.
>
Dutch courts have upheld CC licences.  These are licences, not contracts.

>It's simply not possible for a person to accidently free their work
>(i.e. by making a wrong selection from a drop down, and not catching
>it before a Wikimedia commons scavenger finds it).    If someone
>protests we can, we do, and we must remove the work.  It is the only
>ethical thing to do (or do we want a reputation as a bunch of jerks
>trying to rip creators off), and it is quite possibly the only legal
>thing to do.
>
Acting ethically does not depend on legal compulsion.

>This is just another reason that we should reduce our reliance on
>image scavengers and instead ask people to upload their works directly
>and with full knoweldge of the consiquences However, people seem far
>more interested in running bots to scavange rather than sending out
>email invitations to join our effort.  One pumps your contrib count
>and makes you look good, the other brings you no positive attention
>but helps the project more.
>
A person should be held just as responsible for the actions of his bots
as for what he does directly.  If you let your dog off the leash and he
digs up somebody's flower garden (or worse) it's you that pays the fine
not the dog.  Letting bots off the leash should be no different.

>>I really feel distaste at the idea that the Foundation would avoid
>>involving itself in such questions in order to avoid legal
>>culpability.
>>
>>
>Why?  None of these are cut and dry.  If we limit ourselves to only
>the images that are zero risk we would have a LOT less content... and
>we'd have to reject a lot which will be free for all meaningful
>purposes.     When it comes down to it, most of these things can only
>be decided in a court, and courts rule in strage ways.    An official
>statement by the foundation would be risky and without much gain...
>after all, what would a statement really accomplish that we couldn't?
>
Individual responsibility!  Otherwise there are problems at both ends of
the scale.

Ec


from_name: Christopher Beland

subject: [Wikitech-l] Job queue stuck?

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

The job queue length on the English Wikipedia is high and has been
rising continuously.  I suspect that something is stuck.

The resulting inconsistencies are confusing my bot a bit; I'll just work
around the problem in the meantime.

Thanks!

Beland


body:
On 22/07/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because the photograph is taken on German soil by a German
> photographer.  Consequently, whether or not it is legal to take the
> photo is covered by German law.

Ah, I had thought the laws of the country in which the image is stored
are the only ones which apply to the content. For example, if a
pornographic picture is taken of a minor in a country in which it is
legal to take such pictures, it would still be illegal to store the
image on US servers (where the content is illegal).

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


body:
On 7/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> As much of a problem as the above may be for us, it's not the worst of
> it:  Simmlar cases to Bridgeman v. Corel have come up in the UK and
> the decision has been exactly the opposite.
>

Of course Bridgeman v. Corel did include a view that UK law would
produce the same result. I suspect that there are number of people
trying to make sure that there is no repeate case in the UK.

> I'd be much happier if we had people sneaking into galleries and
> taking pictures (no flash please)...

It is posible you could get permission from smaller galleries.

> Like above I don't think this is (yet) the biggest of our problems.
>

As long as we make sure to lable where we are useing it it should not
be a massive problem to fix.

> This is just another reason that we should reduce our reliance on
> image scavengers and instead ask people to upload their works directly
> and with full knoweldge of the consiquences However, people seem far
> more interested in running bots to scavange rather than sending out
> email invitations to join our effort.  One pumps your contrib count
> and makes you look good, the other brings you no positive attention
> but helps the project more.
>

Are you sure that exposeing wikipedians to the outside is a good idea?

--
geni


body:
On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> > nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> > legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.
> >
> Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
> material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
> (via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
> them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
> provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.  If the
> uploader provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material
> does not infringe copyrights, then promptly notify the claiming party
> of the individual's objection.  However, only restore the image if
> there is also a consensus that the image is "free enough" within the
> project's guidelines.
>
> Anthony

I'm not sure the DMCA system exists under England and Wales law and
the evidece suggests the courts will think wikipedia is within their
juristiction. You are reduced to gambleing on their being no way for
the foundation to suffer any monitery hurt from the uk.

What about the Netherlands? Or france? Or Korea. Do they follow the DMCA system?

--
geni


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] en.wikipedia database broken a bit

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> There were about 3500 affected edits; in theory most should be recoverable
>> without significant conflicts. A few might possibly have conflicting id numbers
>> and get scrapped.
>>
>> en.wikipedia is back read-only. There may be some broken diffs and bad cached pages.
>
> Note that some affected pages currently show the wrong contents and are
> uneditable. This is a known problem and should be resolved within a couple hours.

All pages should now be editable. There might still be a few broken
prev/next links in diff display, due to out-of-order rev_ids, but this is
hard to fix and I'm inclined to think it's no big deal. Diff links from
history should work fine. I reorganised fixSlaveDesync.php so that it runs
in minutes rather than hours, and improved its concurrency handling, and
then ran it to recover lost revisions. I also ran some queries to fix
another category of broken page. All other changes, such as article and
account creations, user blocks and page moves, made during the 40 minutes in
question, will be lost.

There may still be some cached broken diffs and history pages, so remember
to clear the cache with action=purge or a null edit before reporting any bugs.

All this applies to en.wikipedia.org only.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Living people patrol

body:
On Jul 21, 2006, at 7:43 PM, daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> The following is a proposal that I would like to set forth.
>
> Based on phone calls to the office and OTRS, it seems to me that
> one of our
> biggest problems remains Living People. This has several sides to it:
>
> 1. People who have nonsense added to their articles.
> 2. People who have  articles but shouldn't.
> 3. People who want their articles deleted.
> 4.  People insisting that we create articles about them.
> 5. PR agencies adding  crud to articles about their clients.
> 6. Other.
>
> RC Patrol is doing a phenomenal job, but the fact is that the task is
> overwhelming. We are getting close to 2 edits a second, i.e., over
> 100 edits a
> minute, and we are still growing. While it is possible to remove
> the obvious
> crap, more subtle problems may be sneaking in.
>
> I would therefore like to suggest a separate division of the RC Patrol
> called The Living People Control. They would be charged with
> tagging new  articles
> in Recent Changes with Living People when appropriate (and
> removing  people
> when dead), and for reviewing the Living People category specifically
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Category%3
> ALiving_people  here].
>
> Obviously, this is only a suggestion. I would like to know what
> people  think.
>
> I have also created a page about this at [[Wikipedia:Living people
> patrol]]
>
> Danny

I agree and think the same attention and policies need to be extended
to organizations, especially small organizations. I'm trying to
address some of these questions now at Wikipedia:Requests for
arbitration/Hunger/Workshop.

Fred


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/21/06, Bkonrad <bkonrad123 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > This is somewhat confusing to me, because it seems so obvious to me
> > that watching a TV show and then writing about it is original
> > research.  Anyway, here's what I found about what is a primary source:
> >
> > "The distinction between types of sources can get tricky, because a
> > secondary source may also be a primary source. Garry Wills' book about
> > Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, for example, can looked at as both a
> > secondary and a primary source. The distinction may depend on how you
> > are using the source and the nature of your research. If you are
> > researching Abraham Lincoln, the book would be a secondary source
> > because WIlls is offering his opinions about Lincoln and the
> > Gettysburg Address. If your assignment is to write a book review of
> > Lincoln at  Gettysburg, the book becomes a primary source, because you
> > are commenting, evaluating, and discussing Garry Wills' ideas."
> >
> > It seems to me, based on this paragraph, that using "Episode 5 of
> > Season 3 of Friends" in an article about that episode, would be the
> > *creation* of a primary source.
>
> No. Here's the analogy broken out from quote you provide:
>
It's not an analogy, it's an example.

> Use of Wills' book: researching Abraham Lincoln
> Primary source: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
> Secondary source: Wills' book "Lincoln at Gettysburg"
>
> Use of Wills' book: book review of Lincoln at  Gettysburg
> Primary source: Wills' book "Lincoln at Gettysburg"
> Secondary source: N/A
>
> If you are writing about Shakespeare, the primary source is the text of
> Shakespeare's work. If you are writing about an episode of Friends, the
> primary source is the episode itself.
>
No, if you are writing about Shakespeare, the primary source is the
text of Shakespeare's work.  If you are writing about the author of
Friends, the primary source is an episode of Friends.  If you're
writing about the play Hamlet, the play itself would not be a primary
source.  If you're writing about an episode of Friends, the episode
itself would not be a primary source.

> Now all of this is really somewhat distinct from whether something is
> original research (at least in the context of what that means on Wikipedia).

In my opinion it confuses the point.  Original research is much more
simply stated as writing from direct observation, as opposed to
writing from someone else's observations.

If writing about an episode of Friends and using that episode isn't
original research, I'd have to ask, what is?  What is original
research in the context of writing about a published work, or is there
no such thing as original research in that case?

> If you are writing a simply plot summary, there is not much OR involved--as
> others have pointed out, every article on Wikipedia involves selecting which
> details to include and which to omit. There may be disagreement about which
> details are significant, but to be a simple plot summary, the details must
> be explicitly present (verifiable) in the primary source.
>
I never said that the act of selecting which details to include and
which to omit is original research.  It was others who brought that
up.

> Where things cross the line into OR is when the summary starts to put
> forward some sort of analytical synthesis--such as attempting to explain WHY
> a character may have taken a certain action or comparing the plot to that of
> some other work. OR occurs when one starts to advance ideas that are not
> explicitly present in the source material, but are based on inference or
> synthesis or other techniques.
>
I agree with this to a large extent.  But I think when you write about
a work using only the work itself as a source you necessarily *do* put
forward this sort of synthesis.  Otherwise, what is the point of
mentioning the fact?

I guess the exception would be when you just list out facts in random
order and don't make any attempt to make them relevant.  And I suppose
you could argue that's what the Trivia section of an article does.
But otherwise, analytical synthesis is a necessary part of every
article.

Frankly, I think such a limited exception is not enough to restrict
what is OR, since listing out random facts is not a good thing either.

Anthony


body:
On 7/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 7/21/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > > If you have a suggestion that doesn't involve large numbers of
> > > nonexistent volunteers working all hours to keep WP out of
> > > legal peril, feel free to enlighten us.
> > >
> > Here's one: when people send in a DMCA takedown notice, remove the
> > material, notify the uploader that her materials have been removed
> > (via their talk page and email if the address is known), and provide
> > them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service
> > provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed.  If the
> > uploader provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material
> > does not infringe copyrights, then promptly notify the claiming party
> > of the individual's objection.  However, only restore the image if
> > there is also a consensus that the image is "free enough" within the
> > project's guidelines.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> I'm not sure the DMCA system exists under England and Wales law and
> the evidece suggests the courts will think wikipedia is within their
> juristiction. You are reduced to gambleing on their being no way for
> the foundation to suffer any monitery hurt from the uk.
>
> What about the Netherlands? Or france? Or Korea. Do they follow the DMCA system?
>
Fair enough.  Of course, short of shutting down the Internet (or at
least refusing to serve content to countries with ridiculous copyright
laws), I'm not sure what can be done.

Anthony


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> When last I checked, the XviD codec (AVI) was free and open source.

The XviD codec is very much patent encumbered. No free mpeg4 codec can
exist in the near future. The situation for XviD is actually much
worse than MP3. mpeg4 codec licensing is a huge expensive mess.
Fortunately Theora has competitive quality/bitrate with mpeg4.


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
> On 7/21/06, Bkonrad <bkonrad123 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> > On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>> If you are writing about Shakespeare, the primary source is the text of
>> Shakespeare's work. If you are writing about an episode of Friends, the
>> primary source is the episode itself.
>>
> No, if you are writing about Shakespeare, the primary source is the
> text of Shakespeare's work.  If you are writing about the author of
> Friends, the primary source is an episode of Friends.  If you're
> writing about the play Hamlet, the play itself would not be a primary
> source.  If you're writing about an episode of Friends, the episode
> itself would not be a primary source.

No, sorry. I used "writing about Shakespeare" as a shorthand for writing
about Shakespeare's works. I'm not sure how it is these days, but it used to
be a pretty common school exercise to write essays about one or another of
the bards works. It was considerably less common to write essays about the
bard himself.  And it IMO is completely ass-backwards to say "If you're
writing about the play Hamlet, the play itself would not be a primary
source." The inverse of that is very nearly the definition of primary
source, at least in the world beyond Wikipedia's somewhat idiosyncratic
usage in discussions of OR.

>> Now all of this is really somewhat distinct from whether something is
>> original research (at least in the context of what that means on
>> Wikipedia).
>
> In my opinion it confuses the point.  Original research is much more
> simply stated as writing from direct observation, as opposed to
> writing from someone else's observations.

That is one type of OR, but it is not usage intended by the OR policy on
Wikipedia (or at least as it was originally formulated).

> If writing about an episode of Friends and using that episode isn't
> original research, I'd have to ask, what is?  What is original
> research in the context of writing about a published work, or is there
> no such thing as original research in that case?

As I wrote earlier (now a bit further down), OR in that context would be
putting forward ideas that were not explicitly in the episode itself, such
as trying to explain a character's motivation or making comparisons with
other works.

>> If you are writing a simply plot summary, there is not much OR
>> involved--as
>> others have pointed out, every article on Wikipedia involves selecting
>> which
>> details to include and which to omit. There may be disagreement about
>> which
>> details are significant, but to be a simple plot summary, the details
>> must
>> be explicitly present (verifiable) in the primary source.
>>
> I never said that the act of selecting which details to include and
> which to omit is original research.  It was others who brought that
> up.

Yes, but presenting a simple plot summary is little more than selecting
details from the primary source.

>> Where things cross the line into OR is when the summary starts to put
>> forward some sort of analytical synthesis--such as attempting to explain
>> WHY
>> a character may have taken a certain action or comparing the plot to that
>> of
>> some other work. OR occurs when one starts to advance ideas that are not
>> explicitly present in the source material, but are based on inference or
>> synthesis or other techniques.
>>
> I agree with this to a large extent.  But I think when you write about
> a work using only the work itself as a source you necessarily *do* put
> forward this sort of synthesis.  Otherwise, what is the point of
> mentioning the fact?

Now, whether there is a point to mentioning any specific detail (or even an
assembly of details) is a valid consideration, but that is separate from
either OR or verifiability. As to whether you "necessarily" put forward an
original synthesis when writing about a work using only the work itself -- I
disagree. It is a fine line and one easily crossed, but so long as any such
use of a primary source sticks to reporting only what is explicitly in the
source and avoids making derivative observations, it is both verifiable and
not OR. Whether it is worth including in an encyclopedia is another matter.

> I guess the exception would be when you just list out facts in random
> order and don't make any attempt to make them relevant.  And I suppose
> you could argue that's what the Trivia section of an article does.
> But otherwise, analytical synthesis is a necessary part of every
> article.
>
> Frankly, I think such a limited exception is not enough to restrict
> what is OR, since listing out random facts is not a good thing either.

Why would they have to be in random order? We order things all the time in
extracting details from other sources in writing articles. The details in a
simple plot summary should reflect the order of presentation in the show.
The trivia sections in articles have nothing to do with plot summaries. I'm
not sure why you bring that up here.

Bkonrad


from_name: Michael Hopcroft

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 7/21/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> On 7/21/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Anthony wrote:
>>>
>>>> As I explained in my other post, my comments were much more
>>>> restrictive than that.  If you have to resort to original research in
>>>> order to create a plot synopsis, *that* is what I have a problem with.
>>>>
>>> The only way I can see needing original research to come up with a plot
>>> synopsis would be to go on set and observe the filming of the show, or
>>> maybe personally interview the scriptwriter or something. Once the
>>> show's been broadcast or put on DVD it's a published primary source.
>>>
>>>
>> It's a primary source on what?  Not on itself.
>>
>>
>>> I think we're at the point where we're just repeating ourselves at each
>>> other, but I'm about to leave on vacation so someone else will have to
>>> take over repeating for me here. :)
>>>
> This is somewhat confusing to me, because it seems so obvious to me
> that watching a TV show and then writing about it is original
> research.  Anyway, here's what I found about what is a primary source:
>
>
Yet defining it as such creates innumerable practical problems when
doing articles on television and film.

There is also a logical contraction: you seem to be asking people to
write articles on movies and TV shows they HAVE NOT SEEN, which of
course is as much a total absurdity as asking a literary scholar to
write a thesis on novels and plays he has never himself read, based
solely on previously-existing external scholarship. The idea is
unrealistic nearly to the point of psychotic detachment.


from_name: xaosflux

body:
We also have short low quality samples under fair-use for critical commetary
and idetification.

xaosflux

----- Original Message -----
From: "geni" <geniice at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia number 2 on Sydney Morning Herald list
ofmusic sites

> On 7/22/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Because of copyright laws, the site doesn't have much by contemporary
>> > artists but its classical collection is growing daily. Mozart and
>> > Beethoven
>> > are best represented, with more than 20 pieces each. Other composers
>> > have
>> > fewer files, and they are in the "Ogg Vorbis" format, which won't play
>> > on an
>> > iPod although they are compatible with most computer players.
>>
>> Where are we getting these copyright-free recordings from?
>
> I belive we have a number of musicians for some of them.
>
> I supose there is a limited amount of stuff that you could rip from
> very old records.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia number 2 on Sydney Morning Herald list
	ofmusic sites

body:
On 7/22/06, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com> wrote:
> We also have short low quality samples under fair-use for critical commetary
> and idetification.

Very few.. however.

A lot of our music is free.. er well.. I hope.. a lot has been
uploaded by Mr. ironic, so I'm a bit hesitant to look for fear of what
I'd find. ;)


from_name: Sean Barrett

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

Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:
>
> The XviD codec is very much patent encumbered. No free mpeg4 codec can
> exist in the near future. The situation for XviD is actually much
> worse than MP3. mpeg4 codec licensing is a huge expensive mess.
> Fortunately Theora has competitive quality/bitrate with mpeg4.

All of this is very interesting (and believe it or not, I'm not being
sarcastic).  However, can anyone actually help convert these SWFs?  I've
installed ffmpeg2theora, but that seems to only change the question to
"how do I convert a SWF to MPEG2?"

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There is absolutely no substitute
 sean at epoptic.com | for a genuine lack of preparation.
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from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Living people patrol

body:
On 7/22/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> The following is a proposal that I would like to set forth.
>
> Based on phone calls to the office and OTRS, it seems to me that one of
> our
> biggest problems remains Living People. This has several sides to it:
>
> 1. People who have nonsense added to their articles.
> 2. People who have  articles but shouldn't.
> 3. People who want their articles deleted.
> 4.  People insisting that we create articles about them.
> 5. PR agencies adding  crud to articles about their clients.
> 6. Other.
>
> RC Patrol is doing a phenomenal job, but the fact is that the task is
> overwhelming. We are getting close to 2 edits a second, i.e., over 100
> edits a
> minute, and we are still growing. While it is possible to remove the
> obvious
> crap, more subtle problems may be sneaking in.
>
> I would therefore like to suggest a separate division of the RC Patrol
> called The Living People Control. They would be charged with tagging
> new  articles
> in Recent Changes with Living People when appropriate (and
> removing  people
> when dead), and for reviewing the Living People category specifically
> [
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=Category%3
> ALiving_people  here].
>
> Obviously, this is only a suggestion. I would like to know what
> people  think.
>
> I have also created a page about this at [[Wikipedia:Living
> people  patrol]]
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Danny,

That sounds like a good idea.

I currently keep a close eye on deaths so I can certainly help out there. I
have nominated myself on the page

Regards

Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia number 2 on Sydney Morning Herald list of
	music sites

body:
Folks,

The Sydney Morning Herald rated Wikipedia #2 on its list of amazing music
sites behind ITunes and ahead of my space. The article is found in full
here.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/15-most-amazing-music-sites-on-the-web/2006/07/21/1153166566137.html

Our entry reads:

*2. WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG <http://www.wikipedia.org/>*

*Best for:* band biographies and free classical music.

Almost everyone knows about Wikipedia - the free-content, web-based
encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. Evidently those
volunteers include a fair share of music fans: you can find a vast store of
musical knowledge here, covering pretty much every base. One noteworthy
aspect of Jimmy Wales' creation is that Wikipedia also contains a vast
reservoir of free sound files.

Because of copyright laws, the site doesn't have much by contemporary
artists but its classical collection is growing daily. Mozart and Beethoven
are best represented, with more than 20 pieces each. Other composers have
fewer files, and they are in the "Ogg Vorbis" format, which won't play on an
iPod although they are compatible with most computer players.
*KILLIAN FOX*
Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
geni wrote:
>> There is also a logical contraction: you seem to be asking people to
>> write articles on movies and TV shows they HAVE NOT SEEN, which of
>> course is as much a total absurdity as asking a literary scholar to
>> write a thesis on novels and plays he has never himself read, based
>> solely on previously-existing external scholarship. The idea is
>> unrealistic nearly to the point of psychotic detachment.
>>
>
> Really? It would be quite posible for me to write articles on canals
> I've never seen nor ever will see (since they are now under a city or
> the like).
>
>
It may be possible, but in the case of literary criticism what would be
the point if the works themselves are accessible?

It would, of course, be necessary in the case of LOST works of which
there are no extant copies. But if the book, or the play, or the film is
still extant, not to mention easily obtainable,  there is no reason for
a scholar not to refer to it. And what would he gain from REFUSING to do so?
 How can one gain a useful interpretation of a film he has not seen?


from_name: SPUI

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:11:13 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>     (1) "Fully controlled limited access highway" is a highway where
>>the right of owner or occupants of abutting land or other persons to
>>access, light, air, or view in connection with the highway is controlled
>>to give preference to through traffic by providing access connections
>>with selected public roads only, and by prohibiting crossings or direct
>>private driveway connections at grade, with the exception of Type C and
>>F approaches, where no other reasonable means of access exists as solely
>>determined by the department.
>
> Again, entirely US-centric.  Where else in the world is this
> terminology used?  You appear to be arguing for the US view to not
> just dominate but replace usage from the rest of the world.

I'm arguing that we should not use a term that has different meanings in
different places.


from_name: geni

body:
On 7/22/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Fair enough.  Of course, short of shutting down the Internet (or at
> least refusing to serve content to countries with ridiculous copyright
> laws), I'm not sure what can be done.
>
> Anthony

Use free content as much as posible and take actions that will reduce
the number of copyvios uploaded.

--
geni


body:
On 7/22/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Because of copyright laws, the site doesn't have much by contemporary
> > artists but its classical collection is growing daily. Mozart and Beethoven
> > are best represented, with more than 20 pieces each. Other composers have
> > fewer files, and they are in the "Ogg Vorbis" format, which won't play on an
> > iPod although they are compatible with most computer players.
>
> Where are we getting these copyright-free recordings from?

I belive we have a number of musicians for some of them.

I supose there is a limited amount of stuff that you could rip from
very old records.

--
geni


from_name: Tels

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

Moin,

On Saturday 22 July 2006 02:00, Pat Felsted wrote:
> Thanks brion on irc told me that as well.
>
> $parser->disableCache();

Please note that, as someone already wrote, brings a very noticable
performance hit. Unless you have no other means, you should not do this.

My idea for presentations to use the dynamic list extension (or whatever it
was called) didn't work out to the same problem - it disables the cache and
every page you view is rendered painfully slow for each _viewer_ even when
the page hasn't/couldn't have changed.

In the end it was better to write a new extension and structure it so that
by using templates the page is only re-rendered when necessary.

In case your custom tags is something really should be different (like
"current system status" or something), then there really is no way around
disabling the parser cache, but maybe it would be better to embed an iframe
with an href to another server for that, so that the wiki HTML can stay the
same and dynamically include the information.

if you have question to that, don't hesitate to email me off list :D

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sat Jul 22 13:15:25 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Retsina?" - "Ja, Papa?" - "Angriff im Morgengrauen." - "Is gut, Papa."

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Job queue stuck?

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Moin,

On Saturday 22 July 2006 07:33, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Christopher Beland wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
> >
> > The job queue length on the English Wikipedia is high and has been
> > rising continuously.  I suspect that something is stuck.
>
> The job queue is a _queue_.
>
> You may indeed see it high for a couple hours before the job runners get
> back around to that wiki.

:) What is the "expected" or "normal" lenght? Currently I see:

 The job queue length is currently 256,266.

That sounds a lot of jobs to do.

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sat Jul 22 13:21:00 2006 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 This email violates U.S. patent #5,546,528 and EU patent EP0689133:

   ________________________________________
   | Header | Body | Attachements |	  |
   |--------+	   +----------------------|
   |					  |
   ~					  ~

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Nathan stated for the record:

> I'm getting rather sick of the argument, myself.
>
> A program called "SUPER" (for Windows) can convert it to any format (even
> *cringe* OGG/Theora - though I personally don't understand why not to use DivX
> or XviD as they're widely available, closed source or not - I guess it's
> a "your mileage may vary" type of issue - I go with codecs that are
> widely available). It has its own codecs so it's not dependant on the ones on
> your system. You can get it at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
>
> It can absolutely convert to OGG/Theora if you want to go with that recommendation.
>
> In case you ask why I didn't suggest it before, I just found it last night.
>
> Just install, wait a little while for it to install, then run. It's simple
> stuff and straightforward.
>
> - Nathan

Everything you say is true, but SUPER can't read the SWFs.  It errors
out no matter what I try.  It did work on an unrelated WMV I had lying
around, so it appears to be installed correctly.

Have you been able to convert any of the SWFs I listed earlier?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | There is absolutely no substitute
 sean at epoptic.com | for a genuine lack of preparation.
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from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

references:
<44BFF5C8.1050903@gmail.com>	<54f6f2050607201445u2a4976cci9108b52da661d0ff@mail.gmail.com>	<54f6f2050607201453q7dadfa66q5e192a5906e69a35@mail.gmail.com>	<44BFFC89.4050602@gmail.com>	<v371c25v1ogtqc3lg9io7ouoslunibu3rm@4ax.com>	<44C0DA22.7010101@gmail.com>	<5r22c2lloamb9tnmirb5bbiecoijgqau5p@4ax.com>	<44C1205A.60401@gmail.com>
	<rcc2c2tucivskf153iojiohrjoame3bkq2@4ax.com>
	<44C142F1.5050502@gmail.com>

body:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:11:13 -0400, SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:

>      (1) "Fully controlled limited access highway" is a highway where
>the right of owner or occupants of abutting land or other persons to
>access, light, air, or view in connection with the highway is controlled
>to give preference to through traffic by providing access connections
>with selected public roads only, and by prohibiting crossings or direct
>private driveway connections at grade, with the exception of Type C and
>F approaches, where no other reasonable means of access exists as solely
>determined by the department.

Again, entirely US-centric.  Where else in the world is this
terminology used?  You appear to be arguing for the US view to not
just dominate but replace usage from the rest of the world.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 7/22/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> Almost everyone knows about Wikipedia - the free-content, web-based
> encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers. Evidently those
> volunteers include a fair share of music fans: you can find a vast store of
> musical knowledge here, covering pretty much every base. One noteworthy
> aspect of Jimmy Wales' creation is that Wikipedia also contains a vast
> reservoir of free sound files.

We have a vast reservoir of free sound files? Who knew?

> Because of copyright laws, the site doesn't have much by contemporary
> artists but its classical collection is growing daily. Mozart and Beethoven
> are best represented, with more than 20 pieces each. Other composers have
> fewer files, and they are in the "Ogg Vorbis" format, which won't play on an
> iPod although they are compatible with most computer players.

Where are we getting these copyright-free recordings from?

Steve


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 7/20/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
>
>
>>One hypothesis:
>>Allowing too much "fancruft" in Wikipedia creates an imbalance in the community
>>structure. There is a really large pool of 15 year old, computer savy kids (some
>>may be older) who get easily attracted to writing wikipedia articles about f.e.
>>star trek compared to a very small pool of for example experts on let's say
>>homer.
>>
>>
>What? We have lots of Simpsons articles! ;-)
>
Homer Simpson as a modern Ulysses would make an interesting essay topic.

>An alternative hypothesis: The kind of editors who would avoid
>Wikipedia because it accepts the work of 15-year-old Star Trek fans
>might also be likely to run into social problems when arguing about
>the influence of the Iliad on modern storytelling -- because, in their
>character and their social interaction, they are simply not used to
>notions like the search for consensus, or collaboration in WikiLove.
>
Many of these skills are learned through participation.  Traditionally,
school systems have told children what to think and how to believe.
They learned that God was in His heaven watching what they did ready to
throw thunderbolts at bad children.  Good and bad were determined by the
priests who had a direct phone line to Thor.  As society became more
secular citizenship and patriotism became the new values.  When you told
a child to think it was assumed that he would do so on a sound
foundation of those values that the society had previously inculcated in
him.  All this prepared him to be a contributing adult member of the
society.

What some of us would now do cost Socrates his life.  We want our
hypothetical 15-year-old to explore and ask questions.  We want him to
challenge the theologies that underlay our social structure.  If The
Simpsons, or Pok?mon, or Star Trek are better suited to his explorations
than the prevailing Christian, Islamic or Hindu fairy tales that's just
fine with me.  Indeed posing the questions in such fictional contexts is
safer than a direct approach to the prevailing superstitions.  Great
messages have often been shrouded in fictional drapery.

If our 15-year-olds can freely develop their ideas around topics that
are important to them at this stage of life, they will certainly apply
those skills at a later stage in life to topics which some of us would
call "more important".

>Wikipedia is an encyclopedia _built_ by a community, and the
>encyclopedia can only be successful if the social interactions of the
>community are healthy. Therefore, expertise cannot be an excuse for
>aggressive or dismissive behavior. If there is a group of
>knowledgeable people who cannot exist in the social environment of
>Wikipedia, then we should provide other means for them to contribute
>than being a full member of the community -- rather than trying to
>restructure our content and, by extension, our community to allow them
>to fit in.
>
>I personally find it amazing and wonderful that so many teenagers wish
>to contribute to a work of knowledge. That many of them do so in areas
>of popular culture is hardly surprising, and the environment of
>Wikipedia is well suited to gradually expose them to new ideas and
>knowledge.
>
Exactly, and to accomplish this we must begin by impressing on them that
what they believe matters.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>To say that any interests are "less useful to us" is nonsense. We have
>>practically unlimited space and for this reason I deny we can ever
>>really have too many factually accurate, verifiable articles on a
>>particular subject. We can, of course, have too few articles on a
>>given subject. For this reason, a common interest is not less useful
>>to us, but a rare interest is more useful to us.
>>
>>
>Ok, I think we're talking about different things. A tenured professor
>who is world expert in his field and is taking the time to write high
>quality articles about some important field is immensely valuable to
>us. A 15 year old polishing up an article about the Battle Zoblaorgeth
>on Mondoorba is less valuable. Not worthless, but less valuable.
>That's all.
>
I don't consider him less valuable at all.

>Summary: "Only start articles about minor characters and fictional
>things if the main articles are too long". That's the extent of our
>thinking on fictional subjects.
>
At least this has an element of objectivity to it.  We have no basis for
saying that "Star Wars" should be placed on a higher pedestal than other
works of science fiction.  Its popularity, however, will spawn a greater
volume of writing than some other equally valuable story that has thus
far nothing more than a mention in a list of its author's works.  Not
every Kuyper Belt object will grow up to be a comet.

Ec


from_name: Nathan

body:
I'm not understanding why specifically OGG/Thora (because it's free?
Still, why?). As long as anything can play it, that should be the aim,
hmm?

- Nathan

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 7/21/06, Nathan <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote:
> > When last I checked, the XviD codec (AVI) was free and open source.
>
> The XviD codec is very much patent encumbered. No free mpeg4 codec can
> exist in the near future. The situation for XviD is actually much
> worse than MP3. mpeg4 codec licensing is a huge expensive mess.
> Fortunately Theora has competitive quality/bitrate with mpeg4.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

>I don't see how the "fancruft" we include is any more a "random
>collection of information" than the vast amounts of sportscruft,
>militarycruft, politiciancruft, and other sorts of subjectcruft that for
>some reason have an air of respectability about it that recent popular
>culture alone seems to lack. Who ever complains about how Wikipedia has
>articles for almost every ship that happened to participate in WWII, no
>matter how trivial its role? Or how there are articles about people
>whose sole claim to fame is an unspectacular one-year Senate position in
>Smallcounty, Iowa back in the 1820s?
>
Right!  Considering that Iowa did not become a state until 1846 ....  :-)

>I think the massive inclusiveness of Wikipedia is one of its best
>traits. Wikipedia is like a specialist encyclopedia that specializes in
>_everything_. When I see an article about an obscure topic I don't ask
>myself "should there be an article about this in a general
>encyclopedia?", I ask myself "should there be an article about this in
>an Encyclopedia of Stamp Collecting, or Encyclopedia of Star Trek, or
>Encyclopedia of 18th Century Railroading, or Encyclopedia of
>Agriculture, etc.?"
>
Absolutely.  It's just a matter of time before we have people dedicated
enough to develop all these areas.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
Peter Ansell wrote:

>On 20/07/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi all,
>>  I've written a short essay to tackle notability from a different
>>direction: why do we want to exclude certain articles? It's at
>>[[Wikipedia:Exclusion]]. I'd appreciate your thoughts and additions!
>>
>>Steve
>>
>>
>I think it is a much better tack to come at the issue from.
>
Definitely a constructive approach.  Can we read something into the fact
that all the heavy discussion in this thread has focussed on only one of
the four areas outlined in the essay?

Ec


body:
I'm getting rather sick of the argument, myself.

A program called "SUPER" (for Windows) can convert it to any format (even
*cringe* OGG/Theora - though I personally don't understand why not to use DivX
or XviD as they're widely available, closed source or not - I guess it's
a "your mileage may vary" type of issue - I go with codecs that are
widely available). It has its own codecs so it's not dependant on the ones on
your system. You can get it at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

It can absolutely convert to OGG/Theora if you want to go with that recommendation.

In case you ask why I didn't suggest it before, I just found it last night.

Just install, wait a little while for it to install, then run. It's simple
stuff and straightforward.

- Nathan

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006, Sean Barrett wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:
> >
> > The XviD codec is very much patent encumbered. No free mpeg4 codec can
> > exist in the near future. The situation for XviD is actually much
> > worse than MP3. mpeg4 codec licensing is a huge expensive mess.
> > Fortunately Theora has competitive quality/bitrate with mpeg4.
>
> All of this is very interesting (and believe it or not, I'm not being
> sarcastic).  However, can anyone actually help convert these SWFs?  I've
> installed ffmpeg2theora, but that seems to only change the question to
> "how do I convert a SWF to MPEG2?"
>
> - --
>  Sean Barrett     | There is absolutely no substitute
>  sean at epoptic.com | for a genuine lack of preparation.
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>