list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Michael Monaghan

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Term statistics on wiktionaryz

body:
Hi,

Suppose I have a category called say, 'Technology' , that has 100
terms/articles in it.

Can WiktionaryZ tell me how many of those terms in that category have
translations in say, Japanese?

If not possible via the UI, presumably it would be possible through sql?

Thanks,

~mm


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
GerardM wrote:

>Hoi Jeff,
>WiktionaryZ aims to eat very much it's own dogfood. When there is a good
>localisation done for MediaWiki and when this is maintained, you have all
>the core stuff. The rest is a matter of making sure that WiktionaryZ will
>have translations for the DefinedMeanings that will be used for the labels
>that will eventually be used.
>
>The words that will be used are things like language names, linguistic
>terminology like noun, verb etc.
>
>Yes, we aim to support all languages. The Neapolitan language and the
>Lombard language is already supported because of the interest we have for
>Italian minor languages. Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan are also welcome.. Adding
>languages is at this stage something that a developer has to do. When there
>is an interface so that we can easily add more languages, we will once some
>criteria have been met. One thing we need is work done on the localisation
>of MediaWiki.
>
>Thanks,
>    GerardM
>
>

OK. I think I understand, so Where is a language file for Wikiversity
and Wikibooks I can get for
MediaWiki 7.1 and start translating. I believe Erik said it was not
ready for general release -- this being said,
I would like to make some progress in getting Wikigadugi Wikibooks setup.

Let me know.

Thanks

Jeff

>On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On 7/25/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 7/26/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Good luck with the raising of the $60,000!
>>>>>
>>>>>Will WiktionaryZ eventually replace the current Wiktionary?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>It's too soon to answer that since the new software is very much still
>>>>in the beta phase. What I'm hoping is that the current Wiktionary
>>>>communities will try it out and get involved in making that decision.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Pre-alpha is more like it. ;-) We're not nearly feature-complete (only
>>>terminological functionality for now), we haven't done a systematic
>>>security and quality review of the code yet, and we're not up to date
>>>with the latest MediaWiki. Still, things have been progressing nicely:
>>>We now have a fairly flexible data and user interface model, are
>>>working on a generic versioning layer, and have some interesting top
>>>secret projects as well ;-). Most importantly, people have recently
>>>been given the ability to add new expressions/meanings, and started to
>>>systematically do so for a list of 1000 English words:
>>>
>>>http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:eng/List_of_1000_basic_English_words
>>>
>>>I'm very happy that Wikimedia is willing to host the project. Let's
>>>discuss the exact operational parameters at Wikimania.
>>>
>>>Erik
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Erik,
>>
>>Is there somewhere the wiktionary language/messages files are available
>>so I can translate them into
>>Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan for the Wiktionary and Wikibooks esspecially. I
>>can hand hack them to
>>map to the pages, but I noticed the Wikiversity stuff has a lot of
>>additions.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia Uto-Aztecan Project Status

body:
James Hare wrote:

>It's wonderful that you're working very hard to ensure that Wikipedia can be
>presented in every single language known to man... we're getting one step
>closer to building the Universal Translator.
>
>

Ni-go di-s-ge-s-di (that's just the way it is).

:-)

Jeff

>On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>I met with the tribal council of the Ute Nation last Tuesday and they
>>have agreed to provide the materials to move the project forward
>>with machine translations into Uto-Aztecan.  They have requested that
>>the translated materials remain confidential and accessible only
>>to the Ute Tribe for now.  I am drafting an agreement relative to the
>>project to address their concerns.  I am requiring that they honor
>>the GFDL terms and any other copyright requirements subject to materials
>>which are translated.  Any other comments would be appreciated
>>form the community for inclusion in the final agreements before I
>>forward them for signature.
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Help spreading the news

body:
Hi,

About some 9 months ago I started with an attempt to bring news with a
newsletter "Wikizine". I try to bring different types of news like
"Foundation", "Community", "Media" , "Technical news" and so.

So I, and the people who help me,  try to bring the news for the
Wikimedia family.

I am writing this fist of all to ask for your cooperation with this
newsletter. To be able to report news first the news must be known.

Currently Wikizine is frequently English-centric.  The reason is that
I have as a direct source for information only the English language
projects information and the Dutch. For information from the other
projects I depends on reports by users from those projects. And those
reports are few in numbers.

So I would like to request that if there is news about your Wikipedia,
especially for
the non-English editions, that you would report the news to Wikizine.

A way to make it more likely that someone will think about Wikizine is
to put a banner on your userpage or even better on a public page like
the local "Village pump", the community portal, announcement page or so.

Here you can find some banners;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/banners

This would increase the exposure to Wikizine by your local community.
And this can result in more users reading it and knowing what is going
on outside there project. And maybe even get the idea to report
something interesting about what is going on on there wiki.

A problem is that Wikzine is written only in English. To get the news
downhill to as most of the projects and especially languages as
possible Wikizine can only be in English. But it would be fantastic if
people would be willing to translate the news and share it with there
community. The Italian Wikipedia is doing this infrequently now
already for some time. And also providing partial translations
sometimes.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Wikizine

A total translation of Wikizine is great but also a lot of work. Maybe
only translating the most relevant news can be enough for starting.
You could work together across the different projects in the same
languages. By cross-project cooperation the work of translation can be
shared.

Just only subscribing to Wikizine only is also useful of course. Then
you at least are informed.

Reading Wikizine can by email. Just click here below and follow the
instructions;
mailto:request at wikizine.org?subject=subscribe

Or you can also read Wikizine from the website;
http://www.wikizine.org

Thank you for reading this and I hope to receive some more news from
the non-English Wikipedias!

Greetings,
Walter

walter AT wikizine DOT org
http://www.wikizine.org


list: wikien-l

from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
In a message dated 7/25/2006 10:00:18 AM Central Standard Time,
stevagewp at gmail.com writes:

No. You  absolutely musn't confuse "cruft" with "popular culture". It's
absolutely  right and fitting that we have good articles on video
games. But do we have  extended articles about ever minor character in
every game, every level in  every episode of every game etc? *That* is
cruft. Not a high level article  situating the game in the real world,
along with a decent summary of the  gameplay, plot, levels etc.
Let me clarify, becuase I believe my comment was misinterpreted: if an
article is full of in-universe, excess information, it still has a lot of
potential to become a featured article. It just takes a lengthy process, which  should
never be interrupted by controversial AfDs.

| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator |  Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller)   |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora)   |


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
... have been posted here :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2006

Resolution:election officials passed 20 July 2006
:drafted by the communication committee. Appointement of the election
committee for september elections.

Resolution ombudsperson checkuser passed 23 July 2006
:creation of the committee in charge of investigating privacy policy
abuse reports. Appointment of the original members.
The committee is free to organise its own rules and in particular to
define the tools it needs (such as checkuser status on meta to have
access to checkuser logs. Registration to checkuser list. Creation of
OTRS specific queue where such requests may be redirected etc...) Wegge,
please, can you contact the two other members and see what needs to be
done ?

Resolution:WiktionaryZ passed 23 July 2006
:from the special project committee. Agree to host the WiktionaryZ
project. Brion will see to this *after* Wikimania

Resolution:Hardware_Purchase_Jul-06 passed 24 July 2006
:upon proposition from the technical committee. Approximately $61,440
worth of hardware

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting "New Yorker" article about Wikipedia

body:
On 7/24/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I just found a very long and interesting article about Wikipedia on the
> "New Yorker" website ("KNOW IT ALL: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?").
> Seems pretty fair, overall, lots of quotes including from Jimbo, Essjay,
> William Connolley...
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Damn, posting about the same article twice makes me read it twice.
This time I made it all the way through though.

One thing I noticed is the downside of our "Lamest edit wars" page,
which was clearly the source of a number of disputes. Whereas in
reality these are actually really rare exceptions, the fact that the
journalist can easily pull out a list of the more bizarre ones (apple
pie, cheese, Ann Coulter's birthdate...) makes them sound more common
than they really are.

The points about most edits being simple additions/deletions rather
than reshaping articles are well made. It's a very difficult problem
to solve.

Steve


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>It's like Star Trek. And he's actually getting along with Utes, not
>easy.
>
>

Darrell Gardner, the Uncompaghre Ute leader of the Sun Dance adopted me
as one of his sons three years ago (a common Ute Custom).
He passed away August 20, 2005 from cancer. He was 80 years old. His
greatest wish was the preservation of their language and culture
for all Utes. He watched his friends one by one pass into the spirit
world who spoke the language and when he was the last one
left from his family band who knoew the culture and the language he
commented to me on how important it would be to
preserve it.

I spent many weekends on their reservation donating money, shoes, food,
and roofing homes for the elderly in my spare time to help
his people. They are a creative people with a deep and intense
spirituality -- but they are a race of warriors -- and they are
very serious people as well.

They are also one generation away from loosing their language forever.
This project will assure this does not happen.

Jeff

>Fred
>
>On Jul 25, 2006, at 11:55 AM, James Hare wrote:
>
>
>
>>It's wonderful that you're working very hard to ensure that
>>Wikipedia can be
>>presented in every single language known to man... we're getting
>>one step
>>closer to building the Universal Translator.
>>
>>On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>I met with the tribal council of the Ute Nation last Tuesday and they
>>>have agreed to provide the materials to move the project forward
>>>with machine translations into Uto-Aztecan.  They have requested that
>>>the translated materials remain confidential and accessible only
>>>to the Ute Tribe for now.  I am drafting an agreement relative to the
>>>project to address their concerns.  I am requiring that they honor
>>>the GFDL terms and any other copyright requirements subject to
>>>materials
>>>which are translated.  Any other comments would be appreciated
>>>form the community for inclusion in the final agreements before I
>>>forward them for signature.
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: James Hare

body:
It's wonderful that you're working very hard to ensure that Wikipedia can be
presented in every single language known to man... we're getting one step
closer to building the Universal Translator.

On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> I met with the tribal council of the Ute Nation last Tuesday and they
> have agreed to provide the materials to move the project forward
> with machine translations into Uto-Aztecan.  They have requested that
> the translated materials remain confidential and accessible only
> to the Ute Tribe for now.  I am drafting an agreement relative to the
> project to address their concerns.  I am requiring that they honor
> the GFDL terms and any other copyright requirements subject to materials
> which are translated.  Any other comments would be appreciated
> form the community for inclusion in the final agreements before I
> forward them for signature.
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] page_counter not updating

body:
For some reason the page_counter field isn't updating on our wiki
anymore. I'm logging queries to the database, and the queries are
getting through to increment the field, but field isn't changing at
all.

                   1861 Init DB     wikidb_16
                   1861 Query       BEGIN
                   1848 Quit
                   1861 Query       SHOW STATUS LIKE 'Thread%'
                   1861 Query       SELECT /* Title::newFromID */
page_namespace,page_title  FROM `page`  WHERE page_id = '18102'
LIMIT 1
                   1861 Query       SELECT /* LinkCache::addLinkObj */
page_id  FROM `page`  WHERE page_namespace = '0' AND page_title =
'Fix-a-Stuck-Pixel-on-an-LCD-Monitor'   LIMIT 1
                   1861 Query       UPDATE page SET page_counter =
page_counter + 1 WHERE page_id = 18102
                   1861 Quit

Incrementing it  from the command line though does work.

Doing a select sum(page_counter) from page; always shows the same
result and the page_counter fields for the individual pages show the
same value despite being reloaded.

Any ideas?


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] OpenID extension for MediaWiki

body:
Hi, all. I wanted to let everyone know that I've checked in an OpenID
extension into MediaWiki Subversion (in extensions/OpenID).

The extension lets users log in with an OpenID (http://www.openid.net/)
instead of a username and password. An OpenID is a special URL that
people can use to log in to a Web site. The extension also lets users
who have an account on the wiki log in to other OpenID-aware Web sites
with their wiki user page as their OpenID.

Typical uses:

      * Single-signon between multiple affiliated wikis and other sites.
        We have 12 wikis that work together for Wikitravel, and users
        can login to different Wikitravel wikis with their home wiki
        account.
      * Single-signon across the Internet. OpenID isn't that well known
        ''yet'', but theoretically someone could login to their OpenID
        identity server in the morning and not have to login to another
        site for the rest of the day.

I know that Wikimedia developers have some plans for single-signon
between WM sites; this extension would allow single-signon for
contributors to log into external sites like Wikia, WikiHow, Wikitravel,
and other MediaWiki installations, as well as OpenID-aware services like
LiveJournal and Moveable Type. And, of course, vice versa.

Please let me know if you a) install this software and b) get any
problems. I'd especially appreciate work on the UI layout, which is a
little klunky. I'd also love to get some acceptance criteria for
installation on Wikimedia sites. I plan on hacking on this quite a bit
between now and Hacking Days at Wikimania.

~Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/


subject: [Wikitech-l] page_counter not updating

body:
I think it was because something was exiting before committing, so
this seems to be fixed.

On 7/25/06, Travis Derouin <travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> For some reason the page_counter field isn't updating on our wiki
> anymore. I'm logging queries to the database, and the queries are
> getting through to increment the field, but field isn't changing at
> all.
>
>                    1861 Init DB     wikidb_16
>                    1861 Query       BEGIN
>                    1848 Quit
>                    1861 Query       SHOW STATUS LIKE 'Thread%'
>                    1861 Query       SELECT /* Title::newFromID */
> page_namespace,page_title  FROM `page`  WHERE page_id = '18102'
> LIMIT 1
>                    1861 Query       SELECT /* LinkCache::addLinkObj */
> page_id  FROM `page`  WHERE page_namespace = '0' AND page_title =
> 'Fix-a-Stuck-Pixel-on-an-LCD-Monitor'   LIMIT 1
>                    1861 Query       UPDATE page SET page_counter =
> page_counter + 1 WHERE page_id = 18102
>                    1861 Quit
>
> Incrementing it  from the command line though does work.
>
> Doing a select sum(page_counter) from page; always shows the same
> result and the page_counter fields for the individual pages show the
> same value despite being reloaded.
>
> Any ideas?
>


from_name: mboverload

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pageview counters

body:
I'm also interested....but I'm concerned that a vandal could find articles
that are never looked at and target those.  RC patrol can't get everything.

On 7/25/06, Erik Garrison <erik.garrison at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 07:58:45AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 7/6/06, Abigail Brady <morwen at evilmagic.org> wrote:
> > > And then the way to stop this is to abstract the logs for the traffic
> > > we want, and throw the raw logs away as quickly as possible.
> > > Something of the the level of data that google trends can provide to
> > > the public is basically the type of thing we'd want to have (broad
> > > numbers on the only most popular search terms/pages).
> >
> > Yep. If the biggest concerns are disk space and privacy, then the
> > answer is obviously to collect logs for short periods of time that
> > look vaguely like:
> >
> > [[George W Bush]] 130.158.1.4 1/4/2006 12:00
> > [[Bill Clinton] 130.158.1.4  1/4/2006:12:01
> > [[George W Bush]] 200.0.0.4 1/4/2006:12:01
> >
> > then every few hours or even minutes reprocess them into this sort of
> format:
> > [[George W Bush]] 2 1/4/2006
> > [[Bill Clinton]] 1 1/4/2006
> >
> > and discard the original log files. Less disk space (entries that
> > receive less than N hits could even be discarded altogether from the
> > aggregate log) and no privacy concerns.
> >
> > I understand if there's no one to actually implement this at the moment
> though.
> >
>
> I'd like to revive this discussion.
>
> I have time (several full workweeks, if needed) to implement this at the
> moment.  Is there anyone else who would be interested, would be capable of
> helping, or would be capable of authorizing the work?
>
> -Erik Garrison
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
I'm not sure why you're mentioning it, but I recently changed every mention
of Pokemon to Pok?mon.

mboverload

On 7/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> A single sentence in your Pok?mon article could be, "The names of the
> Pokemon characters are 'Pikachu, Bulbasaurus, ...'."   :-) In deference
> to an other class of luddites I would then omit the accent from "Pok?mon".
>


from_name: Mak

references:
<VjpNInACyNxEFwzy@cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<b8ceeef70607250433l2810ffb5i87e505f9290099a9@mail.gmail.com>
	<f30e42de0607250610x57d303b1w8c4455bf4df8df61@mail.gmail.com>
	<b8ceeef70607250642u542b9316m87eb2853ef25b9df@mail.gmail.com>

body:
> Indeed, and in a similar vein, there was the cogent observation that
> the first person to an article has the greatest opportunity to shape
> its tone, form and structure.

I completely agree with this observation, and I think it's a major problem
with many of the articles taken from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica. See,
for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Purcell&direction=next&oldid=32534
which has not changed significantly in form (barring big headings) since
that first hunk of encyclopedia text. I've attempted to remove the most
glaring factual errors and POV, however there can be POV simply in the
structure of an article. For instance, there is a lot of emphasis placed on
Purcell's religious music, despite him being most influential in theatre
music and opera.  I think a lot of work needs to be done de-POV-ing the old
Brittanica articles, and I think more attention needs to be paid to POV
inherent in certain structures, as well as in phrases.

User:Makemi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Makemi


from_name: Adam Lorenz

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

body:
You said- Or autostrada or autoroute or autobahn or motorway...

Limited access highway seems unlikely to be misunderstood.

Autostrada, autoroute, autobahn, and motorway will not be understood
anywhere in the US.

Adam

On 7/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:46:35 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> >Limited access highway would probably be understood generically in most
> >of the US, but the term  would not normally be used in the context,
> >"Take the limited access highway to get there."  Instead people would
> >say, "Take the freeway (or expressway, or Interstate, or turnpike
> >according to local custom)."
>
> Or autostrada or autoroute or autobahn or motorway...
>
> Limited access highway seems unlikely to be misunderstood.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Adam J. Lorenz


from_name: Peter

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Determine categories of current article in a parser
	extension.

body:
Hi,

I would want to create a simple parser extension which creates a new page
(similar to the inputbox of Eric Moeller), but the idea of my parser
extension would be to take the current category(s) of the article where the
inputbox is placed on and automatically use the same categories on the new
page you provide to the inputbox. This way if you create a new article from
a page that's listed in the categories "Visual Basic" and "Coding Tips"
would also automatically propose these categories on the newly created page,
which would greatly simplify the process a user has to go through to create
a page.

Now the problem, I've thrown some code together (see below) but I'm stuck at
the very start of my idea: the problem is that $wgOut->mCategoryLinks is an
empty array (I would normally pass the value of the categories via a hidden
input in the form).

Anyone knows if there is any way to determine the categories of the current
article at this point? Any other possible solution?
All ideas are very welcomed.

Cheers,
Peter.

my code:
<?php

$wgExtensionFunctions[] = "wfAParserExtension";

function wfAParserExtension() {
    global $wgParser;

    # register the parser extensions with the WikiText parser
    $wgParser->setHook( "newarticle", "render_newarticle" );
}

// render_newarticle
// parses the <newarticle></newarticle> tag
function render_newarticle ( $input, $argv ) {
    global $wgOut;

print_r ($wgOut->mCategoryLinks);  // mCategoryLinks empty array here :(

        $action = htmlspecialchars( $wgScript );
        $createform=<<<ENDFORM

<form name="newarticle" action="$action" method="get" class="newarticle">
    <input type='hidden' name="action" value="edit">
    <input type='hidden' name="preload" value="">
    <input class="newarticleInput" name="title" type="text"    value="" />
    <input type='submit' name="create" class="newarticleButton" value="Add
Article"/>
</form>

ENDFORM;
        return $createform;
}

?>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On 7/25/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure why you're mentioning it, but I recently changed every mention
> of Pokemon to Pok?mon.

Ray was intending, I believe, to leave one flamewar for another, for variety.

-Matt


body:
Well, I should ammend my statement- we know the autobahns to be in Germany,
motorways in the UK. These types of roads will not have the name motorway,
autobahn, etc in the USA

On 7/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:01:34 -0400, "Adam Lorenz"
> <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Autostrada, autoroute, autobahn, and motorway will not be understood
> >anywhere in the US.
>
> Wanna bet?  Every speed freak in the States references the lower
> fatality rate on the Autobahn (while quietly forgetting that the UK's
> speed-limited motorways are twice as safe again) ;-)
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Adam J. Lorenz


body:
Actually, I have never heard "limited access highway" ever in the US.  I
still don't know what the hell it means.

On 7/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:16:39 -0400, "Adam Lorenz"
> <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Well, I should ammend my statement- we know the autobahns to be in
> Germany,
> >motorways in the UK. These types of roads will not have the name
> motorway,
> >autobahn, etc in the USA
>
> Indeed.  SPUI's solution is to categorise them all as freeways.  I
> don't think much of that...
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: textbook-l

from_name: Piotr "Derbeth" Kubowicz

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks in the press

body:
There's an article about Wikipedia on the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Please note one thing: three other Wikimedia projects are mentioned: Wikisource, Wikinews and Wikiquote - Wikibooks is not. It should be an
alert for us: media don't see us and don't write about us.

I am very disappointed that there were no articles about our third anniversary, an important event for our project. We missed a big chance
to get more attention. Perhaps we should think about what have we done wrong?

--
Piotr 'Derbeth' Kubowicz
Jabber id: derbeth at jabber.wp.pl

Pom?? Wikibooks stworzy? najwi?kszy zbi?r otwartych podr?cznik?w! http://pl.wikibooks.org/

Opera - the fastest browser on Earth! http://www.opera.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] technical Issue with Firefox 2.0 beta

body:
On 7/25/06, Adam Lorenz <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey what's nothing wrong with American English? The differences are very
> few. In fact, I write with American English, and there is not one word that
> I typed just now that differ between the two dialects.

I would have written the corresponding paragraph:

Hey, [there's] nothing wrong with Australian English. There are very
few differences. I actually write in Australian English, and none of
the words in what I just typed are spelt differently between the two.

I don't know if any of those differences are particularly significant,
or just stylistic. Maybe "there is not one word" is the strangest - I
certainly recognise this construction, but would never use it. I
wouldn't say I write "with" a language or spelling system, but "in"
it.

I'm not sure I would describe AusE vs AmE as "dialects", but they probably are.

Steve


body:
On 7/25/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> Indeed, and in a similar vein, there was the cogent observation that
> the first person to an article has the greatest opportunity to shape
> its tone, form and structure.

I didn't agree with that. Maybe he meant the first "major contributor"
or something. I write a lot of stubs, and I doubt the two lines I
contribute have a big effect on much down the track.

Oh, I even have an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Long_%28climber%29

My original contribution was "John Long is a rock climber and author.
His best known books are the "How to climb" series."

Now, the first sentence has become "John Long (Born 1953) is a
well-known American rock climber and author." There are then two
paragraphs before "A prolific author, Long's best known books are the
"How to Climb" series."

I also note that a specific book by his I mentioned has been removed.

Have I shaped it much? I'm not sure - I'd intended for a complete list
of his books to make part of the article, and that idea has been
killed. In fact, I was really intending the article to be about him as
an author. Instead, the bulk of the article is now about his rock
climbing feats. And hey, it's even picked up some references.

YMMV.

Steve


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 7/25/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, I have never heard "limited access highway" ever in the US.  I
> still don't know what the hell it means.

It's the opposite of an uncontrolled highway.

In brief, roads that cross a limited-access highway are overpasses or
underpasses.  Roads that cross an uncontrolled highway are
intersections.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] So you think you can be a Wikipedia article

body:
stevertigo wrote:

>--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Step up.
>>
>>
>By this, I assume youre expressing your vote of confidence.
>Its much appreciated and certainly returned.
>
>SV
> For sale: One Spider-Man costume.
>           Good for climbing historically
>           inflammatory institutions.
>
I'll think of you next time I see someone crawling up the side of a
burning building. :-)

Ec


from_name: Peter Ansell

body:
On 25/07/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/07/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No management expert will ever tell you that a group of 1000 people
> > will ever get anywhere in strategy terms very fast. It is simply too
> > large to facilitate effective communication and quick agreement on
> > issues. As you say, there is a core community group missing. There is
> > the board and related personnel at the top (aka, OFFICE) , followed by
> > a small group of judges(aka, bcrats) who dont make policy so much as
> > rule on it, and then there are the so called "janitors" (aka, sysops).
> >
> > Following the highly successful national model with Cabinet, Courts,
> > and Parliament, it is the parliament that is missing. Right now, and
> > possibly from the wiki culture, the parliament is traditionally the
> > whole community with anyone who wants to have a say being able to do
> > so. I would contend that the size of such a parliament is limited in
> > its ability to make effective decisions.
> >
> > The current heirarchy does not place any special policy related
> > privileges on the sysop layer, and I am not about to say that it
> > should, but in ignoring the Parliament layer it is missing an
> > essential branch in the proven three prong, "separation of powers"
> > model.
>
> Importantly, Wikipedia is not a nation state and can't be compared to
> one. Our "judiciary" simply settles a few fights and determines a few
> basic punishments: partial exclusion and total exclusion). Since
> Wikipedia is a digital project with only hundreds of active editors,
> representative democracy is not necessary. Direct democracy has thus
> far served our needs well, and will continue to do so for the
> foreseeable future.
>
> Just out of interest, who are you suggesting plays the role of
> executive/cabinet?

I do not see why Wikipedia operates with a totally new type of
community model that can't be at least compared to a proven durable
model.

Wikipedia is a digital project with over a thousand active editors.
That makes it a decent size community in my books. Direct democracy
may have gotten it this far but the problems with it are not going to
go away by simply saying that it will work for the foreseeable future.
There are numerous people on this list who have complaints about the
current structure, of which sockpuppeting is just one of them.

On the executive/cabinet role, I thought it was obvious that the
[[WP:OFFICE]] setup sets the base rules and makes day to day effective
immediately judgements when it thinks they are necessary.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Erik Garrison

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pageview counters

body:
On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 07:58:45AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 7/6/06, Abigail Brady <morwen at evilmagic.org> wrote:
> > And then the way to stop this is to abstract the logs for the traffic
> > we want, and throw the raw logs away as quickly as possible.
> > Something of the the level of data that google trends can provide to
> > the public is basically the type of thing we'd want to have (broad
> > numbers on the only most popular search terms/pages).
>
> Yep. If the biggest concerns are disk space and privacy, then the
> answer is obviously to collect logs for short periods of time that
> look vaguely like:
>
> [[George W Bush]] 130.158.1.4 1/4/2006 12:00
> [[Bill Clinton] 130.158.1.4  1/4/2006:12:01
> [[George W Bush]] 200.0.0.4 1/4/2006:12:01
>
> then every few hours or even minutes reprocess them into this sort of format:
> [[George W Bush]] 2 1/4/2006
> [[Bill Clinton]] 1 1/4/2006
>
> and discard the original log files. Less disk space (entries that
> receive less than N hits could even be discarded altogether from the
> aggregate log) and no privacy concerns.
>
> I understand if there's no one to actually implement this at the moment though.
>

I'd like to revive this discussion.

I have time (several full workweeks, if needed) to implement this at the moment.  Is there anyone else who would be interested, would be capable of helping, or would be capable of authorizing the work?

-Erik Garrison


body:
On 25/07/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/24/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 23/07/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Because Wikipedia has no leadership. It has 1000 sysops who are just "janitors"
> > > according to the dominant view, no editorial core, and a founder who has had
> > > argued enough with trolls and has gone wandering off into the land of politics.
> > >
> > > SV
> > >
> >
> > No management expert will ever tell you that a group of 1000 people
> > will ever get anywhere in strategy terms very fast. It is simply too
> > large to facilitate effective communication and quick agreement on
> > issues. As you say, there is a core community group missing. There is
> > the board and related personnel at the top (aka, OFFICE) , followed by
> > a small group of judges(aka, bcrats) who dont make policy so much as
> > rule on it, and then there are the so called "janitors" (aka, sysops).
> >
> > Following the highly successful national model with Cabinet, Courts,
> > and Parliament, it is the parliament that is missing. Right now, and
> > possibly from the wiki culture, the parliament is traditionally the
> > whole community with anyone who wants to have a say being able to do
> > so. I would contend that the size of such a parliament is limited in
> > its ability to make effective decisions.
> >
> > The current heirarchy does not place any special policy related
> > privileges on the sysop layer, and I am not about to say that it
> > should, but in ignoring the Parliament layer it is missing an
> > essential branch in the proven three prong, "separation of powers"
> > model.
> >
> > Peter Ansell
>
> Wouldn't any democracy-variant simply invite even more sock-puppeting?
> I think perhaps voting through one's edits is the only feasible
> method, as edits require effort and so put up a barrier to entry
> (which in the real world is supplied by the minor barrier that one
> cannot easily replicate oneself).  Which is essentially what we
> already do.

Why would a representative type democracy invite more sock puppeting
than the direct democracy that is currently ruling? Apart from the
choosing representatives, of which sockpuppeting may already be a
problem, it would reduce the load and enable people to get on with
improving the project without having to worry about vandals and other
nasties twenty four seven.

I agree that a good edit history is important, and for the purposes I
am stating it would not be immune. The current model where the
"janitors" are in a sense at a mutual respect for each other while not
having mandates to practically improve anything, since they are
elected on the basis of their civility and lack of vandalism
basically.

By giving a group of people a practical mandate to improve the basis
of the community and provide it with life from the basic policies
outward. This is mostly what I was stating in my first small email
that was responded to in tone and started this discussion.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Michael Monaghan

body:
Thanks for clearing this up Gerard.

~mm

On 7/25/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> WiktionaryZ does not have categories. The standard MediaWiki sense of
> the word have categories because it is a way of bootstrapping some
> relational functionality to articles created in a MediaWiki wiki. As
> Wikidata data already exists in a relational database, there is no need
> for categories in the traditional sense; the functionality can be
> integrated in the application itself.
>
> This functionality, is key to enabling WiktionaryZ to the use of
> terminology. At this moment in time, WiktionaryZ is still very much
> pre-alpha; it does not have the notion of domains build in. Really
> clever things can be done when there is a well thought out set structure
> of domains like relationtypes that are only available when a
> DefinedMeaning is in a particular domain.
>
> The second part of your question, yes we want to have a function that
> informs you what DefinedMeaning exists with a related Expression in a
> language and without the existence of an Expression in a second
> language. In one way this will be an SQL query, the issue is however
> that it needs to be efficient AND, you have to appreciate that there are
> only 7602 languages in the current ISO-639-3. Therefore, this
> functionality needs to be really efficient because it is likely to be
> very popular functionality.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> Michael Monaghan wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Suppose I have a category called say, 'Technology' , that has 100
> > terms/articles in it.
> >
> > Can WiktionaryZ tell me how many of those terms in that category have
> > translations in say, Japanese?
> >
> > If not possible via the UI, presumably it would be possible through sql?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > ~mm
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wiktionary-l mailing list
> > Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] POV fork anyone? (coca cola)

body:
On 7/24/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 23 Jul 2006 at 19:13, Bogdan Giusca wrote:
>
> > Anyway, since the [[Criticism of ***]] appear to be accepted, there
> > are now dozens of articles, springing up in all domains:
>
> Don't forget
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

Great example. It's such a poor topic - "Wikipedia in the media" or,
again, "Perception of Wikipedia" would work so much better. I have
trouble imagining who would really want to read a "Criticism of X"
article - presumably only an anti-X person. Any pro-X person would
just give it a miss, guessing correctly that it would be totally
one-sided.

Incidentally, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixindex&from=criticism+of&namespace=0

There are some bizarre ones:
Criticism of World of Warcraft
Criticism of the clothes free movement
Criticism of the FBI Method of Classification of Serial Murderers

I see somene has already added those to [[List of POV forks]].

(sending this message a bit delayed, could be out of date)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
On 7/25/06, SonOfYoungwood at aol.com <SonOfYoungwood at aol.com> wrote:
> Absolutely. Some of our video game featured articles are some of the  best
> game sources on the internet. They don't go into excess detail, but they  cover
> the key aspects of development, story, gameplay, and reception. If one is
> patient enough, encyclopedic articles will flourish out of the most crufty main
> articles.

No. You absolutely musn't confuse "cruft" with "popular culture". It's
absolutely right and fitting that we have good articles on video
games. But do we have extended articles about ever minor character in
every game, every level in every episode of every game etc? *That* is
cruft. Not a high level article situating the game in the real world,
along with a decent summary of the gameplay, plot, levels etc.

Steve


body:
On 7/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Limited access highway would probably be understood generically in most
> of the US, but the term  would not normally be used in the context,

For what it's worth (nothing), I (outside the US) have never heard the
term "limited access" with respect to a road, ever. Or at least I
intentionally forgot it for the purpose of making this statement.

Actually that's not true - I've seen some country roads marked
"limited access", meaning that only park rangers are allowed on them.
And maybe the term is occasionally used in cities to indicate roads
that large trucks, or unauthorised people aren't allowed to use.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
On 23/07/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> G'day Peter,
> > On 21/07/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>Any article on a fictional subject written largely as if the author
> >>were living in the fictional universe in question is fancruft.
> >
> > Encyclopedic articles should not be in the first person though, and
> > hence the position of the author should not be identifiable. Still
> > seems like a roundabout definition to me. Also, what policy requires
> > that the author be living in the "real universe" for their
> > contribution to be accepted.
>
> Fuck policy.  Policy is just a stick to beat those people silly enough
> to refuse to do the Right Thing until we can point out "what policy
> requires that" ... oh, I see.  Ho hum.
>
> There's three approaches I've seen taken towards fictional worlds:
>
> * The GUNDAM approach.  This is: "Here, have some stastistics about our
>   ships. which are really cool.  They do 120 points of damage each
>   throw!"
>
> * The STAR WARS approach.  This is: "Okay, we all know that /Star Wars/
>   isn't real, and our guidelines on context and dealing with fiction
>   oblige us to tell you that.  Nevertheless, we'll pretend that it is,
>   so you will not be able to understand this article unless you're
>   prepared for that.  Now, here's what the books tell you about /Star
>   Wars/ --- what, you didn't know the books were more important than the
>   films?  You silly sausage!  What follows is a biography of Wedge
>   Antilles, who you've probably never even heard of, you prat."
>
> * The DOCTOR WHO approach.  This is: "/Doctor Who/ is a television
>   programme.  One of its fictional creatures is a Dalek.  The Dalek
>   design was inspired by a pepper pot, or something, I dunno, and it's
>   significant in the real world for <X reasons/>.  In the /Doctor Who/
>   universe, the Dalek is <explain Dalek on-show/>."
>
> Now, the GUNDAM approach is impossible to understand if you aren't
> already a die-hard freak.  The STAR WARS approach meets our guidelines
> (therefore, your "what policy?" approach is well satisfied) but is
> bloody difficult for someone who hasn't read the novels, watched the
> cartoons, and studied the website as if prospecting for gold, to
> understand --- imagine a /Star Trek/ article that gave Captain Kirk's
> birth and time-of-thriving only as stardates and based his early life
> "biography" on obscure comments from Gene Roddenberry.  The DOCTOR WHO
> approach is *exactly* what we want to see: non-fans are able to find out
> what the hell is going on, and not required to live in the fictional
> universe the article describes, but those who want to read about the
> Fourth Doctor's exploits on the planet QXYTWLAZZXYX, where he first
> uncovered F9, his purrfect robot companion, may also do so.
>
> The approach names, of course, aren't meant as (much of) a slur on the
> authors of the respective universe articles.  There's presumably one or
> two decent /Gundam/ articles around the place (it's rather improbable we
> could have so many, and all be crap), I just haven't seen them.  And the
> /Star Wars/ folk are at least trying, but I'm sure they have the wrong
> approach (particularly when they spend ages arguing over how to list the
> credits for one movie, or adding screenshots to articles not to improve
> the articles but to Prove A Point).  Finally, of course, there *are*
> crap /Doctor Who/ articles out there --- but on the whole, when someone
> gets it right, it's /Doctor Who/.  (I note /Star Wars/ had an FA
> recently, and it was decent, too; good stuff --- now let's see
> "Lightsabre" raised to something approaching that.)

Thanks for the rather lengthy reply. I was more or less being a devils
advocate to get something constructive from the other side of the
argumentm which you did quite well with your approaches to different
fan orientated subjects.

However... I do not see why a user has to be able to read an article
without knowing any of the background. Isn't that the purpose of the
Simple English wikipedia? The background to an article about the real
world is their experience... so what! I always thought an encyclopedia
was for things you had not got around to experiencing in real life,
and as usual, learning them online requires some initiative to learn
the basics first, ie, the basic universe structures in fiction.

Peter Ansell


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

>stevertigo wrote:
>
>
>
>>--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Step up.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>By this, I assume youre expressing your vote of confidence.
>>Its much appreciated and certainly returned.
>>
>>
>To be a little more constructive :-), I see the leadership vacuum
>too.
>
When I look at the leadership vacuum, I don't see anything. ;-)

>I think there are many editors who would like to lead in one
>way or another, in fact many of them are on this mailing list at
>least partly in the hopes of exerting some influence.
>
This does happen, but sometimes if you hope too strongly to exert
influence it can escape you.  I have suggested some things in the past
that have had a major result, but also many others that got nowhere.
Part of leadership is recognizing one's own limitation, and
circumsribing one's own leadership aspirations.  We may have individuals
who will be great and influential at orgainzing a specific topical
project, but will totally lack the scope and vision that it takes to
lead at a higher level where one must deal with the unexpected.

>But I don't think there's a whole lot of incentive or reward for
>leadership, so attempts tend to be brief and unsuccessful. Even if
>one manages to organize several like-minded editors into a
>cooperative effort, the newest of newbies can still come in and
>disrupt, oftentimes with the support of onlookers shrieking about
>cabals, and the would-be leader sees his/her investment in WP come
>to naught. It's as if you were to get elected as prime minister,
>but any recent immigrant could unilaterally nullify any action you
>took and blacken your name in the papers - who would even bother to
>run for the position?
>
It's not about the newbies.  If your visions are too easily derailed by
newbies you may have reached your level of incompetence.  It's much more
difficult to deal with established users who have gone off the rails.  A
major faction there are those who have made tremendous contributions as
editors while at the same time they are unable to get along with
anybody.  We can all remember a few like that.

>WP's anarchy doesn't always work in the service of the goal of
>producing the free encyclopedia, but with so many anarchists
>ideologically committed to working against effective governance,
>it's hard even to discuss how the situation might be changed for
>the better.
>
These "anarchists" are often bright questioning people.  The average IQ
among regularly active Wikipedians is probably well above average.  To
say that they are "ideologically committed to working against effective
governance" is not accurate.  That requires too much premeditation.  I
think that it would be more accurate to say that their observation of
personal and world experience has spurred a cynicism that resists being
governed.

Ec


body:
On 7/25/06, Adam Lorenz <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose "limited access" would be the same as motorways. They have on and
> off ramps instead of at grade crossings.

In Australia, that's a freeway (or a tollway!). And highways have a
bit of both. Don't think we use the term "motorway" much, but we do
use "motorist". I'm also not sure which of "dual carriageway" and
"divided highway" we use more. See the confusion of Australia? We
recognise nearly all the terms, and have trouble arbitrarily deciding
which one to use.

Steve


body:
Oldak Quill wrote:

>On 24/07/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>To be a little more constructive :-), I see the leadership vacuum
>>too. I think there are many editors who would like to lead in one
>>way or another, in fact many of them are on this mailing list at
>>least partly in the hopes of exerting some influence.
>>
>>
>I think the lack of leadership is good. It promotes community
>involvement and it proves to new users that they can help in a big
>way.
>
Not really.  Without prejudicing the specific tasks that leaders take on
some measure of leadership is needed to prevent total chaos.  Some
newbies feel completely overwhelmed by the size of Wikipedia, and often
need guidance to get them going.

>>But I don't think there's a whole lot of incentive or reward for
>>leadership, so attempts tend to be brief and unsuccessful. Even if
>>one manages to organize several like-minded editors into a
>>cooperative effort, the newest of newbies can still come in and
>>disrupt, oftentimes with the support of onlookers shrieking about
>>cabals, and the would-be leader sees his/her investment in WP come
>>to naught. It's as if you were to get elected as prime minister,
>>but any recent immigrant could unilaterally nullify any action you
>>took and blacken your name in the papers - who would even bother to
>>run for the position?
>>
>>
>I see the equality between the old boys and the newbies as one of
>Wikipedia's greatest assets for the reasons I state above. It prevents
>anyone from becoming over-mighty and abusing their power and damaging
>Wikipedia. Leaders shouldn't come to the job because of the perks and
>benefits - they should fight for it because they truly want it and
>believe in the project.
>
Not all leaders adhere to the importance of equality.  I admit that the
dedicated vandal fighters can't keep that up too long without it
affecting their view of human nature.  I don't think that any of our
leaders are in it for the tangible perks, but the intangible ones can
still be a motivating power.  Sometimes the worst leaders are the one
who want it too much.  Having them fight for for a leadership role
because they truly want it is downright scary..  The good leaders are
very patient.

>>WP's anarchy doesn't always work in the service of the goal of
>>producing the free encyclopedia, but with so many anarchists
>>ideologically committed to working against effective governance,
>>it's hard even to discuss how the situation might be changed for
>>the better.
>>
>>
>A bigger priority, IMO, is making the Foundation more democratic and
>answerable to the community while also preventing momentary trends and
>fads from destroying the project (such as might occur if the
>Foundation were too democratic).
>
Yes, I support open accountability, but "democracy" has become the kind
of buzz-word that worries me.  It can't be imposed, and it can't be
brought to people until they are ready to accept it and grasp it.  A
psephocracy is a mere shadow of democracy.

Ec


body:
On 7/25/06, Adam Lorenz <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
> So? What do you call them? We can all agree that they are roads.

If it helps, I don't think the rules against neologisms apply as
strongly to categories. There is no danger of users being unable to
find the categories (unlikely anyone would attempt to type
[[Category:Freeways]] or whatever). Also, categories are essentially
fairly artificial groupings of semi-related articles anyway - an
artificial name is excusable, if not ideal.

Steve


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On 7/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Richard Holton wrote:
>
> >>
> >I'd say that definition is unusual, even in the US. In common usage, a
> >limited-access highway is a divided highway, with no cross roads--instead
> >using on & off ramps.
> >
> Limited access highway would probably be understood generically in most
> of the US, but the term  would not normally be used in the context,
> "Take the limited access highway to get there."  Instead people would
> say, "Take the freeway (or expressway, or Interstate, or turnpike
> according to local custom)."

<chuckle> I talk that way all the time, don't you? You're correct, or
course, (virtually) no one talks that way, but as you say, most would
understand the term.

>The USGS offers this common-sense definition:
> >Limited Access Highway: A route that is part of the United States
> Interstate
> >Highway System or other similar expressway.
> >(http://www-atlas.usgs.gov/metadata/roadtrl020.faq.html)
> >
> That definition would be US-centric

Guily as charged. I wasn't really trying to find a non-US-centric
definition, but rather attempting to demonstrate that the odd secondary
defintion given several e-mails ago isn't the common understanding in the
US.

> >In fact, "expressway" seems like a good synonym (to my very US-centric
> >ears).
> >
> I don't think that its usage is uniform throughout the USA.

Given the other responses, you seem to be correct.

Perhaps we need to stay away from any of the regional/national/continental
terms for the category name. We don't need to create a neologism--we could
use a short descriptive phrase that gives a hint as to the meaning, and rely
on text on the category page to clarify.

Something like "Ramped roads", though I'm sure others will have better
ideas.

Rich Holton
--

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 7/25/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/26/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good luck with the raising of the $60,000!
> >
> > Will WiktionaryZ eventually replace the current Wiktionary?
>
> It's too soon to answer that since the new software is very much still
> in the beta phase. What I'm hoping is that the current Wiktionary
> communities will try it out and get involved in making that decision.

Pre-alpha is more like it. ;-) We're not nearly feature-complete (only
terminological functionality for now), we haven't done a systematic
security and quality review of the code yet, and we're not up to date
with the latest MediaWiki. Still, things have been progressing nicely:
We now have a fairly flexible data and user interface model, are
working on a generic versioning layer, and have some interesting top
secret projects as well ;-). Most importantly, people have recently
been given the ability to add new expressions/meanings, and started to
systematically do so for a list of 1000 English words:

http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:eng/List_of_1000_basic_English_words

I'm very happy that Wikimedia is willing to host the project. Let's
discuss the exact operational parameters at Wikimania.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] ref generator update

body:
It would be neat if this was directly integrated into the
editing-page, so like when you press an "add reference" button it
would produce a popup with the page and when you press Generate (or
whatever it is called) it would automatically add it to the position
the cursor is at.

Maybe some of our very talented script-writers could give this a think?

--Oskar

On 7/25/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
> > Due to repeated requests, my reference generator tool
> >     http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php
> > can now parse BibTex input. Example is in place for the "paper in a
> > journal" type.
> >
>
> Hooray!
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: ScottL

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 7/24/2006 1:52:48 AM Central Standard Time, scott at mu.org
> writes:
>
> I think the point is that we are not suppose to be writing  "literary
> criticism", or at least not *originating* it.  That would  be OR!  FOr
> the parts of the articles that consist of literary  criticism we are
> suppose to be summarizing not  creating.
>
> However, an article on a fictional work is not a  literary critique,
> it has some of that in it.   However in this  case it is an encyclopedia
> article and depending on the work may include a  lot more, some of which
> are facts that can (only?) be verified from the  original work.
>
> Though I think your point still stands that  summarizing the critiques
> that are out there would be much more difficult  for someone totally
> unfamiliar with the original  work.
>
>
> Dalf
>
>
>
> I see no issue in citing scripts for summarizing a series of facts  for a
> plot synopsis in an RPG (such as, "After Galbadia invaded Dollet, the  parliament
> dispatched a request for aid [1]."). Heck, in a situation where  one has to
> show a character changing over time, citing the RPG game script at  multiple
> points may be considered 'common sense synthesis' and not OR. I really  think
> it's a case by case basis, and must ask: how far out of context does  the
> Wikipedia synopsis take the original source? Moreover, I feel that finding a
> reliable summary or two may help round out the sources and give the Wikipedia
> synopsis more "freedom". A synopsis should list the events.
>
>
> | Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |

   I think that is what I said.  Facts that are indisputable from the
script "so and so was present at such and such an event" are ok.
Literary criticism "the color red was used throughout the film to
symbolize death and life" is not.  Basically anything that someone else
could disagree with after reading the work or watching the work has to
be sourced from outside the work, even if their disagreement is not 100%
reasonable.

SKL


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

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 7/24/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 7/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>What makes it unethical?  Is it any more ethical to deprive people of
>>>due process if they can make a reasonable legal case.  This is not a
>>>matter of agreeing to every stupid argument that comes along.  This has
>>>nothing to do with genies or Napster.
>>>
>>>
>>There is nothing unethical about removing content from our site which
>>is in clear violation. Submitters of content are not entitled to due
>>process. Wikipedia is not a courtroom.
>>
>>It is, however, clearly unethical to distribute the copyrighted
>>content of others without their authorization.
>>
>>
>Even if you're not doing so intentionally?  Even if you're just
>providing a place for people to communicate, and you tell them not to
>upload copyrighted content, and you remove any copyrighted content
>that you find?  In order to be ethical you have to lock down the
>system so that copyright violations are impossible?  I don't think I
>can agree with that.  In fact, I know I can't agree with that.
>
If something is impossible it doesn't matter whether anybody agrees with
it. ;-)
A lock down that would prevent all copyvios is an impossibility unless
it locks down all editing; if that happens we don't have much of a
project.  Copyright rules in an international site are so complex that
you can't expect mechanization to take over from human decision making.
The thing that's wrong with Gregory's position is his absolute certainty
that a particular contribution is an infringement. This leves little
room for the possibility that his determination may be in error.

>>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>It's not merely a fall back, but a first step in arriving at a formal
>>>decision.  When a properly composed notice is issued we must remove the
>>>offending material.
>>>
>>>
>>It seems to me that you've forgotten that one of the two primary goals
>>of Wikipedia is to provide Free Content.  We have failed at that goal
>>when our site contains a huge number of copyright violations waiting
>>for their DMCA notice to come in...
>>
>>So while it is necessary that we remove content once properly noticed,
>>it is not sufficient for us to wait for that to happen.
>>
>>
>It's unclear to me what Ray Saintonge is suggesting, so I won't speak
>for him.  But I would like to clarify that I personally do not believe
>that Wikipedia should only take down content when a DMCA notice comes
>in.  In fact, I think the standards for inclusion should be much
>*more* restrictive than just what is allowed by law.
>
Nowhere have I said that every alleged infringement should be preserved
until there is a DMCA notice.  I am saying that all such notices should
be made public, and I am saying that those with a reasonable case for
inclusion should have the opportunity of receiving one.  In practical
terms most people who add copyvio material haven't got a clue about
copyright law, and would quickly fail the minimum standards for making a
case.  That material would soon be gone anyway.  Assuming good faith may
let the process take a little longer, but would change very few outcomes.

>My response was to someone who was suggesting that locking down the
>site so that people can't even upload free content without having
>gained the privilege is necessary to "keep WP out of legal peril".  If
>locking down the site helps Wikipedia create the best free
>encyclopedia, then I'm all for it.  I haven't been convinced that it
>would.  And arguments that not locking down the site would put WP into
>legal peril are certainly not going to convince me otherwise.
>
Sometimes it seems that those who would impose such drastic measures for
the sake of "keeping WP out of legal peril" know as little about
copyright law as their opposite numbers who are regularly uploading the
material.  They only differ in being on opposite sides of the issue.

Ec


body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>On 24 Jul 2006, at 10:02, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>>>Ultimately, only a judge can decide whether a contribution is in
>>>>fact a
>>>>coyright violation.  We may suspect copyright violations; we may
>>>>demand
>>>>that a contributor accept responsibility (and define what that
>>>>means),
>>>>but we can rarely make a definitive statement that a particular
>>>>writing or image is in fact a violation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>It's a dangerous game you propose here.
>>>
>>>
>>What's so dangerous about insisting that contributors accept
>>responsibility for their action, and that WMF clarify its role as
>>an ISP.
>>
>>
>One important reason is that the foundation does take an editorial interest,
>indeed employs people to deal with content issues, so cannot just claim to
>be an ISP. Another is that they (or other people) intent to publish print
>copies and copies in other forms, where liability is clear, and there is no
>common carrier type argument.
>
>And the whole point was to create a free encyclopaedia remember. Non
>free content has no place in a free encyclopaedia.
>
It does tend to muddy the woaters about editorial control, and this is
unfortunately poor strategy.  Good business sense would suggest that
assets be protected by building a separation between these functions.
This does take us into the issue of governance structure, which is
better in a separate string.

I know the arguments that distinguish fair use and free use, but the
issue is bigger than that distinction.  We still need to determine
whether the source material is copyrightable in the first place, or
whether we are taking it from a source which is itself only copying
public domain material and claiming copyright.

Ec


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Hoi,
WiktionaryZ does not have categories. The standard MediaWiki sense of
the word have categories because it is a way of bootstrapping some
relational functionality to articles created in a MediaWiki wiki. As
Wikidata data already exists in a relational database, there is no need
for categories in the traditional sense; the functionality can be
integrated in the application itself.

This functionality, is key to enabling WiktionaryZ to the use of
terminology. At this moment in time, WiktionaryZ is still very much
pre-alpha; it does not have the notion of domains build in. Really
clever things can be done when there is a well thought out set structure
of domains like relationtypes that are only available when a
DefinedMeaning is in a particular domain.

The second part of your question, yes we want to have a function that
informs you what DefinedMeaning exists with a related Expression in a
language and without the existence of an Expression in a second
language. In one way this will be an SQL query, the issue is however
that it needs to be efficient AND, you have to appreciate that there are
only 7602 languages in the current ISO-639-3. Therefore, this
functionality needs to be really efficient because it is likely to be
very popular functionality.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Michael Monaghan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Suppose I have a category called say, 'Technology' , that has 100
> terms/articles in it.
>
> Can WiktionaryZ tell me how many of those terms in that category have
> translations in say, Japanese?
>
> If not possible via the UI, presumably it would be possible through sql?
>
> Thanks,
>
> ~mm
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>
>


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 7/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>In the absence of some willingness to confront these issues, we keep
>>issuing our own judgements against ourselves.  This can only lead to
>>being bogged down in a legal web of our own making.  We don't need to
>>defend every last claim of copyvio that comes along, but showing a litle
>>courage would be nice.
>>
>>
>Courage?
>
>Courage is when we step up and delete material which is not free
>content, material which is questionably legal.  Courage is trusting
>our contributors to create content which is clearly and confidently
>free. Courage is knowing that a loss of content will not be permanent
>because we can create our own and that we are not so unskilled that we
>must better our project by taking from others.
>
>Should we ever do as proposed and try to hide behind legal loopholes
>and legislated mandated snipe hunts in order to continue to distribute
>content which our contributors did not create, content which violates
>our goal of Free content... than I would call that cowardice indeed.
>
I have no intention of hiding behind legal loopholes; I am quite willing
to be perfectly open about which legal rights I am invoking  as the
situation requires.  Taking from other sources does not autoomatically
imply copyright violation as you seem to suggest.  To be sure it needs
to be credited to avoid plagiarism, but that's a different matter.

Ec


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] downloading categories

body:
Hi, is there any way to download the wiki codes of, say a category within a given wikipedia? I would like to download the papers in 'th?orie des ensembles' at French wikipedia to translate them for Lombard one. I would like, afterwards, to go on in the same way for other categories. Downloading the entire wikipedia is too huge, whereas copying and pasting each paper is a little bit slow. Many thanks. Sincerely yours,

Claudi

---------------------------------
 D?couvrez un nouveau moyen de poser toutes vos questions quelque soit le sujet ! Yahoo! Questions/R?ponses pour partager vos connaissances, vos opinions et vos exp?riences. Cliquez ici.


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Is there somewhere the wiktionary language/messages files are available
> so I can translate them into
> Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan for the Wiktionary and Wikibooks esspecially. I
> can hand hack them to
> map to the pages, but I noticed the Wikiversity stuff has a lot of
> additions.

Much of WiktionaryZ UI content will be localized through WiktionaryZ
itself (language names, relation names, etc.). There will be some UI
strings which will need traditional MediaWiki localization, but right
now, the UI is not stable enough to define these.

I think you should talk to Gerard Meijssen about the use of Betawiki
for localization:
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Etusivu

It's currently a bit confusing, but I do think the approach of having
a single community/wiki focused on localizing the MediaWiki UI makes
sense.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Hoi,
The question if WiktionaryZ will replace Wiktionary, is very much a question
that you have to ask to the members of the Wiktionary communities AND to the
Wiktionary communities themselves. At this stage there is no way that
WiktionaryZ can replace any Wiktionary; we just do not have the desired
functionality yet. As far as WiktionaryZ is concerned, the Wiktionary
projects will exist as long as people are interested in maintaining them.

The functionality we do have in WiktionaryZ is already quite powerful. You
can consider an Expression as a focus of looking at the data of a
DefinedMeaning. When an error exists in the existing content, this error can
be fixed and it will be correct when seen from ANY of the other related
Expressions.

It is also really nice to see how much new content has already been created,
http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:eng/List_of_1000_basic_English_words gives you
some idea .. The number of languages that we support is not big but it is
growing.. We are currently looking for people interested in Russian,
Japanese and Bulgarian to name a few .. or Slovenian, Slovak and Finnish to
name a few more :)

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 7/25/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Good luck with the raising of the $60,000!
>
> Will WiktionaryZ eventually replace the current Wiktionary?
>
> On 7/25/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > ... have been posted here :
> > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2006
> >
> >
> >
> > Resolution:election officials passed 20 July 2006
> > :drafted by the communication committee. Appointement of the election
> > committee for september elections.
> >
> >
> > Resolution ombudsperson checkuser passed 23 July 2006
> > :creation of the committee in charge of investigating privacy policy
> > abuse reports. Appointment of the original members.
> > The committee is free to organise its own rules and in particular to
> > define the tools it needs (such as checkuser status on meta to have
> > access to checkuser logs. Registration to checkuser list. Creation of
> > OTRS specific queue where such requests may be redirected etc...) Wegge,
> > please, can you contact the two other members and see what needs to be
> > done ?
> >
> >
> > Resolution:WiktionaryZ passed 23 July 2006
> > :from the special project committee. Agree to host the WiktionaryZ
> > project. Brion will see to this *after* Wikimania
> >
> >
> > Resolution:Hardware_Purchase_Jul-06 passed 24 July 2006
> > :upon proposition from the technical committee. Approximately $61,440
> > worth of hardware
> >
> >
> > ant
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
Hoi Jeff,
WiktionaryZ aims to eat very much it's own dogfood. When there is a good
localisation done for MediaWiki and when this is maintained, you have all
the core stuff. The rest is a matter of making sure that WiktionaryZ will
have translations for the DefinedMeanings that will be used for the labels
that will eventually be used.

The words that will be used are things like language names, linguistic
terminology like noun, verb etc.

Yes, we aim to support all languages. The Neapolitan language and the
Lombard language is already supported because of the interest we have for
Italian minor languages. Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan are also welcome.. Adding
languages is at this stage something that a developer has to do. When there
is an interface so that we can easily add more languages, we will once some
criteria have been met. One thing we need is work done on the localisation
of MediaWiki.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 7/25/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >On 7/25/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>On 7/26/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Good luck with the raising of the $60,000!
> >>>
> >>>Will WiktionaryZ eventually replace the current Wiktionary?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>It's too soon to answer that since the new software is very much still
> >>in the beta phase. What I'm hoping is that the current Wiktionary
> >>communities will try it out and get involved in making that decision.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Pre-alpha is more like it. ;-) We're not nearly feature-complete (only
> >terminological functionality for now), we haven't done a systematic
> >security and quality review of the code yet, and we're not up to date
> >with the latest MediaWiki. Still, things have been progressing nicely:
> >We now have a fairly flexible data and user interface model, are
> >working on a generic versioning layer, and have some interesting top
> >secret projects as well ;-). Most importantly, people have recently
> >been given the ability to add new expressions/meanings, and started to
> >systematically do so for a list of 1000 English words:
> >
> >http://wiktionaryz.org/Portal:eng/List_of_1000_basic_English_words
> >
> >I'm very happy that Wikimedia is willing to host the project. Let's
> >discuss the exact operational parameters at Wikimania.
> >
> >Erik
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
> Erik,
>
> Is there somewhere the wiktionary language/messages files are available
> so I can translate them into
> Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan for the Wiktionary and Wikibooks esspecially. I
> can hand hack them to
> map to the pages, but I noticed the Wikiversity stuff has a lot of
> additions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] downloading categories

body:
"Claudi Meneghin" <clamengh at yahoo.fr> escribi? en el
mensaje news:20060725170338.43562.qmail at web26615.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
Hi, is there any way to download the wiki codes of, say a category within a
given wikipedia? I would like to download the papers in 'th?orie des
ensembles' at French wikipedia to translate them for Lombard one. I would
like, afterwards, to go on in the same way for other categories. Downloading
the entire wikipedia is too huge, whereas copying and pasting each paper is
a little bit slow. Many thanks. Sincerely yours,

Claudi

----

-Go to
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Th%C3%A9orie_des_ensembles
-Select pages
-Go to http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export
-Paste
-Remove the alphabetical order (A, B, ...) and the *
-Click on 'Exporter'

You get an XML on the same format as Wiki dumps :-)


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] fancruft

body:
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:58:20 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>>If there are no secondary sources I'd say it was unencyclopaedic
>>anyway.  Mind you, for my money we'd have a single one-paragraph
>>article on the entire subject of Pok?mon...

>What makes something encyclopedic is that there are people who want to
>read about the subject.

Not really.  Judging by teh intarwebs most people want to read about
reality TV and porn ;-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Exclusion" essay

body:
On Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:09:20 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>>I know at least one major problem: the lack of objective external
>>coverage.
>In Wikipedia or elsewhere?

Elsewhere - after all [[WP:NOR]].

>You can't trust the fan sites.  And there's so much being produced that
>it's difficult for even a site that limits itself to one genre to keep
>up.  We have chosen to comprehensively attempt a documentation of all
>genres to the point where many would see us as leading the pack in such
>things.

Hmmm.  Not what we're supposed to be for, though, is it?  Leading the
pack in documenting things?  I thought we were supposed to collect
information from reliable secondary sources?  Without novel syntheses?

>Other, more "serious" subjects are still doing respectably
>well, but our greatest success is in what many people see as trivial.
>We still demand NPOV on these articles, but can be more relaxed about
>original research.

But we shouldn't be.  Unless we want to change our mission to being
the *first* secondary source to document things neutrally from
*primary* sources?

>The good secondary material is just not there, and
>you don't maintain a lead by waiting for other sites or books to put
>something decent together.

Who needs to maintain a lead in doing what is, after all, primarily a
job of documenting a heavily commercialised fad largely aimed at
extracting money from gullible kids?

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


body:
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:46:35 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>Limited access highway would probably be understood generically in most
>of the US, but the term  would not normally be used in the context,
>"Take the limited access highway to get there."  Instead people would
>say, "Take the freeway (or expressway, or Interstate, or turnpike
>according to local custom)."

Or autostrada or autoroute or autobahn or motorway...

Limited access highway seems unlikely to be misunderstood.

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


body:
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:01:34 -0400, "Adam Lorenz"
<kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:

>Autostrada, autoroute, autobahn, and motorway will not be understood
>anywhere in the US.

Wanna bet?  Every speed freak in the States references the lower
fatality rate on the Autobahn (while quietly forgetting that the UK's
speed-limited motorways are twice as safe again) ;-)

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


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] more fancruft

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Autofellatio_2.jpg

Its back.

SV

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


from_name: SPUI

body:
Richard Holton wrote:
> I'd say that definition is unusual, even in the US. In common usage, a
> limited-access highway is a divided highway, with no cross roads--instead
> using on & off ramps.
>
> The USGS offers this common-sense definition:
> Limited Access Highway: A route that is part of the United States Interstate
> Highway System or other similar expressway.
> (http://www-atlas.usgs.gov/metadata/roadtrl020.faq.html)
>
> In fact, "expressway" seems like a good synonym (to my very US-centric
> ears).

Would you call this an expressway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:San_Tomas_Expressway.jpg
A number of states do, both in official and common usage.


references:
<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>	<dh74c21cg2v6bh13j5qtdaa439pnlqu38l@4ax.com>	<44C254B3.2080608@gmail.com>	<4k95c2hlb233blv58k743klg8r2k3mon0v@4ax.com>	<44C3E0D2.4030706@gmail.com>	<e4q7c2ds2hv4iiq60qvatjvpak3uvjs6g8@4ax.com>	<44C40BE5.5000505@gmail.com>
	<44C5A93E.4010407@telus.net>

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
>>I've already explained that limited-access highway is ambiguous.
> I don't see what's ambiguous about the term.

Then you haven't been listening, and are part of the problem.


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:16:39 -0400, "Adam Lorenz"
> <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Well, I should ammend my statement- we know the autobahns to be in Germany,
>>motorways in the UK. These types of roads will not have the name motorway,
>>autobahn, etc in the USA
>
> Indeed.  SPUI's solution is to categorise them all as freeways.  I
> don't think much of that...

Which is why I'm trying to get it moved to "freeways and motorways".
Riiiiight.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

body:
James Hare wrote:
> Good luck with the raising of the $60,000!

We have that sum in the bank. So do not worry :-)

The last purchase was done in february :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Hardware_Purchase_Feb-06

ant

> Will WiktionaryZ eventually replace the current Wiktionary?
>
> On 7/25/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>... have been posted here :
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2006
>>
>>
>>
>>Resolution:election officials passed 20 July 2006
>>:drafted by the communication committee. Appointement of the election
>>committee for september elections.
>>
>>
>>Resolution ombudsperson checkuser passed 23 July 2006
>>:creation of the committee in charge of investigating privacy policy
>>abuse reports. Appointment of the original members.
>>The committee is free to organise its own rules and in particular to
>>define the tools it needs (such as checkuser status on meta to have
>>access to checkuser logs. Registration to checkuser list. Creation of
>>OTRS specific queue where such requests may be redirected etc...) Wegge,
>>please, can you contact the two other members and see what needs to be
>>done ?
>>
>>
>>Resolution:WiktionaryZ passed 23 July 2006
>>:from the special project committee. Agree to host the WiktionaryZ
>>project. Brion will see to this *after* Wikimania
>>
>>
>>Resolution:Hardware_Purchase_Jul-06 passed 24 July 2006
>>:upon proposition from the technical committee. Approximately $61,440
>>worth of hardware
>>
>>
>>ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions


body:
On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:16:39 -0400, "Adam Lorenz"
<kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:

>Well, I should ammend my statement- we know the autobahns to be in Germany,
>motorways in the UK. These types of roads will not have the name motorway,
>autobahn, etc in the USA

Indeed.  SPUI's solution is to categorise them all as freeways.  I
don't think much of that...

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


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
On 25 Jul 2006 at 11:13, "Adam Lorenz" <kungfuadam at gmail.com> wrote:

> The word "carriageway" is non-existent in American English.

It kind of sounds like a route for horse-drawn buggies.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 7/25/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The points about most edits being simple additions/deletions rather
> than reshaping articles are well made. It's a very difficult problem
> to solve.

Indeed, and in a similar vein, there was the cogent observation that
the first person to an article has the greatest opportunity to shape
its tone, form and structure.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Timwi

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

body:
Steve Bennett 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?

Haven't downloaded many, but the ones I found were all cheap MIDI
synthesised versions.

Timwi


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Help spreading the news

body:
Speaking of communication between languages, contributors from the
German Wikipedia put together a nice report for The Wikipedia Signpost
in this week's issue
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-24/German_Wikipedia_report).
Although the Signpost focuses on the English Wikipedia because that's
where it's located, I agree with Walter that more news from other
languages is welcome.

We have some interest in making this report a regular feature - if
that's going to happen, people need to write it. Perhaps, so that we
don't hear only from the German-speakers, we could rotate reports coming
from several of the larger Wikipedias. So I invite anyone interested to
write a similar report about their project. First to submit gets to be
first in line for publication!

--Michael Snow


from_name: Mr. Meitar Moscovitz

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Getting MediaWiki's LDAP Authentication plugin working
	with Mac OS X Server OpenDirectory

body:
Hi all,

I've been struggling for the past couple of weeks to try and get
MediaWiki (1.6.7) working with Apple's OpenDirectory bundled with Mac
OS X Server version 10.4 "Tiger."

It seems it's been done before in 10.3 "Panther" (see http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LDAP_Authentication#Tested_On ), so I know
it's possible, but I can't seem to get it working. I've documented my
situation on the discussions page (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Talk:LDAP_Authentication#Troubleshooting_Login_error:_Incorrect_password
_error._Please_try_again_error_for_Apple.27s_Open_Directory ) but
have yet to receive a response.

I'm writing to the list in the hopes that someone has encountered
this problem before and knows of a solution or can help me out.

Thanks in advance,
-Meitar ("maymay")


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jul 24, 2006, at 2:06 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:
> But I don't think there's a whole lot of incentive or reward for
> leadership, so attempts tend to be brief and unsuccessful. Even if
> one manages to organize several like-minded editors into a
> cooperative effort, the newest of newbies can still come in and
> disrupt, oftentimes with the support of onlookers shrieking about
> cabals, and the would-be leader sees his/her investment in WP come
> to naught.
Then don't.  Make a fork.  Only allow "like-minded editors" to edit it,
and go for it.  Heck, maybe it will work better than what we've got
now.  I, at least, would be glad to have the competition.  And as for
money issues, until/unless you get massive traffic, the hardware costs
won't be too high.  I'll chip in some (~$25) seed money, if you really
need it.

This is not a joke.  If you think you can make more progress in
producing a free encyclopedia by working in an environment where "the
newest of newbies" can't "come in and disrupt", then do it, and show
us.  Rent some hardware, install Mediawiki on it, copy over a recent
database dump, apply whatever restrictions you think will help you, and
get down to work.  If it really works better than what we've got here,
I'll bet many good editors will flock to it; if not, then we'll have a
real-life example to point to when this discussion comes up again.  And
even if it just lets you, Stan Shebs, write a few more excellent
articles, that's a win in itself.  By all means - go to it!

<snip last paragraph>

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-07-26

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!


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] ref generator update

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Due to repeated requests, my reference generator tool
>     http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php
> can now parse BibTex input. Example is in place for the "paper in a
> journal" type.
>

Hooray!

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

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from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Onion article on Wikipedia

body:
On 7/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Saw this on the administrators' noticeboard.
>
> http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902
>
> :)
>
> Garion

Now the question is how long before Uncyclopedia picks this up...

~maru


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Wolf Mountain MediaWiki Appliances Released

body:
Well,

I finally got around to it.  I have completed and replicated Wikipedi,
got around all of Erik's issues with 1.6.8,
 and I am offering turn key systems with automated site mirroring
software, image sync tools, and machine
translators for Wikipedia.  The knowledge is free, the software is free,
however, hardware
costs money ....

Anyone needing 7 x 24 support and systems to host Wikipedia and provide
Star Trek universal translator support
is welcome as a customer to support Wikipedia collaboration.

Back to work on Cherokee thesaraus and Otali dialect issues.  I am
selling the hardware at near cost + my time
and expense to support folks who need to mirror Wikipedia in a format
that works.  Let me know if there are
issues with Wikimedia trademarks.  I am not using them other than to say
I am installing the Wikipedia
encyclopedia on the systems.

All my Wikilove,

Jeff


body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>
> Well,
>
> I finally got around to it.  I have completed and replicated Wikipedi,
> got around all of Erik's issues with 1.6.8,
> and I am offering turn key systems with automated site mirroring
> software, image sync tools, and machine
> translators for Wikipedia.  The knowledge is free, the software is
> free, however, hardware
> costs money ....
>
> Anyone needing 7 x 24 support and systems to host Wikipedia and
> provide Star Trek universal translator support
> is welcome as a customer to support Wikipedia collaboration.
> Back to work on Cherokee thesaraus and Otali dialect issues.  I am
> selling the hardware at near cost + my time
> and expense to support folks who need to mirror Wikipedia in a format
> that works.  Let me know if there are
> issues with Wikimedia trademarks.  I am not using them other than to
> say I am installing the Wikipedia
> encyclopedia on the systems.
>
> All my Wikilove,
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
URL is

http://www.wolfmountaingroup.com

Jeff


from_name: Rob

body:
Amazingly, The Onion is more accurate than most news accounts about
Wikipedia. ;)

On 7/25/06, Garion96 <garion96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Saw this on the administrators' noticeboard.
>
> http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902
>
> :)
>
> Garion
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>