subject: [WikiEN-l] Questionable fair use claims: a case study

body:
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Justin Cormack wrote:
>
> On 20 Oct 2005, at 21:23, Matt Brown wrote:
<snip howto on taking photos of lawnmowers>
>>
>> The problem is worst on such generic articles, as you say. If one's
>>  writing a specific article on a specific lawnmower, say the
>> [[GrassMaster Lawn Master 2000]], then one needs a specific picture
>> of that specific model. It might have been out of production for 20
>> years and examples are  hard to find. In that case, I believe it's
>> quite acceptable to go to the GrassMaster corporate website to see
>> if they have a picture we could use under fair use, or scan an
>> image out of a period GrassMaster catalog. We're using a company's
>> own promotional image to illustrate (and thus, in a sense, promote)
>> their own product - a fairly slam-dunk fair use case, and likely
>> counting as use with permission as well (so zero chance we'll get
>> sued). Of course, should some fellow Wikipedian be a lawnmower
>> collector who has one, it's preferable if we get their
>> free-licensed photos to replace it.
>
>
> No, thats not reasonable. Just because you cant find a picture doesnt
> make it copyright free. Hardly anything has a justification that we
> cannot  ever find a free one. I have recently been tagging all cars
> as fairusereplace  as there are so few that there is no specimen
> surviving.
>

What about prototypes that were never put into production, but there are
photos on the corporate website?

>> Using such a photo on a more generic page, such as [[lawn mower]],
>> is not a good fair use. Such is a large proportion of the bogus
>> fair use claims we get.
>>
>
> I have found 2 pictures (in  the wole of wikipedia) that I think are
>  fair use, there are easy replacements for everything else.
>

Including comics, TV shows, motion pictures, and computer and video games?

>> The other category is people who, wanting to illustrate the
>> [[GrassMaster Lawn Master 2000]] article, will rummage through
>> their well-thumbed stack of "Lawnmower Monthly" until they find one
>> on the cover, scan that cover, and use the magazine cover to
>> illustrate the article. After all, "aren't magazine covers always
>> fair use"?
>
>
> No they arent. The bogus fair use for specific categories should go.
>  There is no fair use without justification.
>

You are quite right.

Such images where people could try and claim "fair use" in more than one
article should probably be avoided. In that particular case, a more
generic "Lawnmower Monthly" cover should be scanned and put into
[[Lawnmower monthly]].

- --
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list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Alphax

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

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Mark Williamson wrote:
> I feel I should also make it clear that just because I support the
> right of these people to claim that they speak these "languages", I
> most certainly do not support the creation of wikis in these
> languages.
>
> So while I support the right of people to claim they speak
> Montenegrin, I think a Montenegrin WP would only exacerbate the
> current Balkan linguistic dilemma.
>

Oh good, I was just about to request Wikipedias in Commonwealth English
and Dubya :)

- --
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list: wikien-l

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Being Prepared in the face of Hurricane Wilma
	as	far as communications.]

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geni wrote:
> On 10/21/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The answer is clearly "no"; can't you get a server named after yourself
>>though?
>
>
> Donate enough and you can get your own project (see wikijunior).
>

Hrm, I wonder when Golden Palace Casino will ask for WikiCasino to be
set up...

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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: So what do we do about this?

body:
On 10/21/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Or not.  Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries
> or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or
> career.
>
> Charles

If that was the case most science corospondants would have been sacked long ago.

--
geni


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Proxies and blocking (was: The whole point of
	wikipedia)

body:
On 10/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/21/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> > Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> > > Don't forget to change the "Subject" header of your email:
> > >
> > > * Proxies and blocking
> > >
> > > Is more specific then
> > >
> > > * The whole point of Wikipedia
> > >
> > > Ed Poor
> > > (One of several mailing list admins)
> >
> > Actually, please don't, as it screws up the threading system in a number
> > of email clients including Thunderbird.
> >
>
> They're broken. The in-reply-to header determines threading in email,
> going back as far as RFC 822.
>
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html

What does this thread have to do with "proxies and blocking"?


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
On 10/21/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> What I support is not a "hoax", but rather the right to determine
> one's own sociolinguistic and sociocultural identity.

Mark, at least two linguists (User:Angr is another) said twice that
story about Zlatiborian is a hoax.

I strongly support sociocultural identities of various people, but
this one would be silly if there would not be some
not-so-good-informed people who support them.

Unlike Montenegrins/Montengrin, there are no people who identify
themself as Zlatiborians/Zlatiborian speekers except in regional
sense.

The person who is propagate Zlatiborian language (Djordje Bozovic) is
a bureaucrat on Serbian Wikipedia and declares himself "as Serbian
nationalist and Zlatiborian local-patriot" (I can quote his edits on
Serbian Wikipedia if anyone wants). BTW, I am not sure what to think
about the person who started the story again (User:SellackAlex). She
wrote that she is working on Philological Faculty in Belgrade,
Departmant of pedagogy and andragogy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ASellackAlex&diff=26007922&oldid=25936443)
while I can say that there are no such Departmant on _my_ faculty. She
corrected it (the correct faculty is Faculty of Philosophy) after I
noted this on sr: vilage pump. (Djordje's sock puppet?)

I would like to see a people who works on their sociocultural
identities. I would like to see live Chakavian, Kaykavian and
Torlakian dialects/languages. But, there are no such trends in
Balkans.

But, trends such as "I am living in down town of Belgrade and I am
proud of it; people who are not living in down town are less
civilized, less important etc." as well as "I am living in Cacak and I
am more Serb then others" are very often. In some cases it goes up to
quasi-ethnical declaring as "Dorcolian" (the part of Belgrade),
"Belgradian", "Zlatiborian" etc. But, again, there are very few of
them who would say "I am talking Dorcolian, not Serbian/SC/B/C".

Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin have very
small differences. The only reason why they are "separate languages"
is political. Between 200.000 and 10.000.000 of people say for
themself that they are speaking the language with different name.

But, in the case of Zlatiborian (Belgradian, Dorcolian) it is
idiosyncretic. Uzice (the main city of the Zlatibor region) has maybe
50.000 of inhabitans. The whole region has around 100.000 of
inhabitans. If 250 of people say for themself that they are speaking
Zlatiborian, we would have it in statistics (from 2002). But, there
are no any kind of mentioning of Zlatiborian language in statistics
(you have the blank line to write what is your language if it is not
some of the main languages).

So, less of 250 people say that their language is Zlatiborian language
and this speech is the basis of the Serbian Iyekavian standard.

While I don't have anything against anyone who says that "(s)he is
speaking Glapolgaptoringian language" even if it is literal English, I
think that:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If Glapolgaptoringian is the same as
English and 100 humans call it Glapolgaptoringian, then it may be
noted in the article about English that some people call it in such
way. Idiosyncretic naming should stay inside of user space (yes, I
agree to move it into Aleksandra's user space but not redirect, and I
would say it on the TfD page). Otherwise it makes mass.

2. Wikipedia is not the place for ethnical/national constitution. In
the case of Zlatiborian, English Wikipedia is used for that case
("Zlatiborian exists, you can see the article about Zlatiborian on
Wikipedia!") I would support Zlatiborians if they are asking for
schools in Zlatiborian etc., even I think it is silly. But, I
_didn't_heard_ about them and their needs yet!

So, if it is OK to say in Wikipedia article "10 people call Serbian
language Zlatiborian" or "Mark Williamson calls English language
Glapolgaptoringian", it is OK to keep the language tag.

Also, note that he/she/they took two-letters code "zb"... As well as I
took three-letters code for Belgradian. Do you think that there are
more relevant languages which would need those codes?

> In the past, it would have been possible for many people to change
> their cultural identity than it is now, and in many cases they would
> be accepted by the community they sought to join.
>
> If somebody decided that they were part of an ethnic group that
> previously didn't exist (like if I suddenly decided today I were a
> Glapolgaptoringian), in some parts of the world what they said would
> be taken at face value.
>
> If somebody wants to say that their mother tongue is called
> Zlatiborian, we should let them.

I agree with that. But, as I understud explicite rules on English
Wikipedia -- Wikipedia is not the place where all human knowledge
should be kept. If someone calls his/her language Zlatiborian even it
is the same as Serbian and other Zlatiborians (in the sense of rebion)
call their language Serbian, then it is idiosyncretic, not relevant in
the sense of encyclopedia.

And, of course, when Wikipedia becomes "the place where all human
knowledge should be kept" I would completely agree to keep Zlatiborian
articles and user boxes.

> Again somebody makes the daft mistake of bringing the US into this.
> When I speak of self-determination for indigenous people or
> independence for regions in other corners of the earth, people often
> say something like "Well, why don't you support Texas independence
> then?" and the most simple answer to that is that I do to the extent
> that Texans themselves support it. I am not a hypocrit(e).

Yes, Mark, I understand that you would support Texans if they say that
they are talking Texanian even it is the same as English as well as I
support Montenegrins to call their language as Montenegrin even it is
(almost) the same as Serbian.

But, there are a lot of differences between Montenegrins and
Zlatiborians. I hope that I explained what are the differences.


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] The listing of redirects on [[WP:SFD]]

body:
Recently I have noticed some redirects like {{NYCS stub}} to
{{NYCS-stub}} listed on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion . The
stub sorters, typically the only people to frequent SFD, are voting for
their deletion on the grounds that they are "incorrectly named". What?
That is in fact NOT a reason to delete a redirect. I don't think
template redirects even have the performance problem of nested
templates; there is no reason to delete these redirects. If someone
wants them deleted, they can be listed on [[WP:RFD]] like all other
redirects.

Grutness now says I'm vandalizing SFD by removing the redirects and his
change in the scop[e of the page to include redirects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASPUI&diff=26146174&oldid=26144881
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion&diff=prev&oldid=26145728
(and the rest of the recent history of SFD)


from_name: Gerrit Holl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Hi,

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't. Should it provide
a list off all Wikipedia's with an article [[Chernobyl]]?

Gerrit.

--
Temperature in Lule?, Norrbotten, Sweden:
| Current temperature   05-10-21 20:49:54    1.4 degrees Celsius ( 34.5F) |
--
Det finns inte d?ligt v?der, bara d?liga kl?der.


from_name: Snowspinner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
On Oct 21, 2005, at 8:52 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>  What can we do except to revert and block his socks?

In practical terms, it's worth noting that in at least one past case,
we lifted the ban on a user that we could not effectively block,
figuring that letting them edit under heavy constraint was a better
option than the continual war on their vandalism.

-Snowspinner


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 30

body:
On 21/10/05, Any File <anysomefile at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Although, it would be pretty neat for a bureocrat or admin to be able
> > to grant rollback to trusted users.
>
> Actually I do not understood why if an user is so trusted that
> rollback right could be given why admin staus should not be  given to
> them.

Because rollback (unless I'm misunderstanding that term) is just a
shortcut for an action that any user, even those not logged in, can
take anyway - that is, go into the history and undo changes that have
been made by other users. Granting full admin status, on the other
hand, allows actions that are simply *impossible* for other users,
such as deleting articles such that their entire history is hidden
from general view. Maybe I am misunderstanding, though, because it
seems to me that you hardly need to be "so trusted" to have rollback
at all.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
Justin Cormack wrote:
> I have found 2 pictures (in  the wole of wikipedia) that I think are
> fair use,
> there are easy replacements for everything else.

You obviously missed the logos.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: dumps failing for en.wp

body:
Jochen Magnus wrote:
> Brion,
>
> the latest XML dumps seems to be fine. I tested the de dump from
> 2005-10-20: No problems while importing it into MySQL and indexing it
> with ioda.

Yay, something worked! ;)

I forgot to include the detail in my prior message, that some of the
older dumps may contain duplicate page titles due to the existence of
old non-normalized Unicode titles in the databases; that can lead to
'existing key' errors on the unique title indexes when importing with
mwdumper.

Those have been purged, and so it shouldn't happen anymore.

I am interested in details of failure reports with importDump.php; the
prior memory leaks with 1.5 prereleases should be fixed as of 1.5.0 but
there might be intermittent or specific problems. Unfortunately
importDump is relatively slow because it works page-by-page (mwdumper
does faster bulk imports, assuming a blank slate empty database to start
with) so it takes a while to test or confirm failures. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: wikiquote logo missing

body:
Anthere wrote:
> EIRIK reported that
> http://nn.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hovudside has no logo.
>
> Can someone fix that ?

Seems fixed, nn.wikiquote actually use :
  http://nn.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fil:Wiki.png

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
On 21/10/05, Gerrit Holl <gerrit at nl.linux.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't. Should it provide
> a list off all Wikipedia's with an article [[Chernobyl]]?

One of the reasons for this is because historically it has always
meant that - well, that's kind of obvious, but what I mean is that
there are existing links on other websites (and who knows where else)
of the form "http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/<article>", intending to
reference the English Wikipedia specifically.

That said, I actually rather like the idea of auto-listing all
languages whose Wikipedia has an article with that exact name - it
doesn't exactly *break* those links, but it serves as an interesting
introduction to/reminder of the multilingual nature of Wikipedia, and
indeed of the Internet in general. It's all to easy for
English-speakers such as myself to take for granted that all content
will default to English, when, really, why should it?

Of course, there are theoretically mechanisms for detecting the
browser's language, so if they were reliable (which I'm not 100%
convinced about) we could use those to redirect. But then that still
requires a default if, say, my browser declares I "accept" German or
French, but the article exists only in English or Spanish. And since
these links are technically "incorrect" anyway (at the very least, out
of date) it doesn't seem worth trying too hard to give the "perfect"
result for someone using them.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> Don't forget to change the "Subject" header of your email:
>
> * Proxies and blocking
>
> Is more specific then
>
> * The whole point of Wikipedia
>
> Ed Poor
> (One of several mailing list admins)

Actually, please don't, as it screws up the threading system in a number
of email clients including Thunderbird.

Chris


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Gerrit Holl wrote:

> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't.

Yes it should.  It's a contract.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: hi

body:
On 21/10/05, erik_moeller at gmx.de <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> why should I?

Erm... Null context exception: Reply has no parent.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Jiaming Xu

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia blocked in China?

body:
Hi folks. I noticed several days ago that wikipedia is no longer accessible
from mainland China (en,de,zh.....). What is really happening? There's rumor
on the net that it's been blocked by the government here, but I don't know
exactly what is happening.
 Plus, is it a malfunction of the colocation servers in Seoul, Korea where
the Asian access might be directed to?
 And I can view wikipedia articles from A9's syndication, but sure no
editing.
 I see from the Berlios site that it seems fine in the US and Europe, so
friends from Taiwan and Hongkong could be esp helpful.
 Thank ou.


from_name: Ting Chen

body:
No, we have no official representative in China. We have people in China,
who works voluntarily as sysops as well as elsewhere in the world and as
well as the other language versions.

Regards.
Ting Chen

> --- Urspr?ngliche Nachricht ---
> Von: Jiaming Xu <john.xu.1982 at gmail.com>
> An: Wing.Philopp at gmx.de
> Betreff: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia blocked in China?
> Datum: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:16:27 +0800
>
> Thanks pal. Is this sysops in Beijing an official representative of
> wikimedia in China?
>
> On 10/21/05, Ting Chen <Wing.Philopp at gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> > The block is officially confirmed. One of the sysops in Beijing would
> > submit
> > a pittition in the next days.
> >
> > >What is really happening? There's
> > > rumor
> > > on the net that it's been blocked by the government here, but I don't
> > know
> > > exactly what is happening.
> > > Plus, is it a malfunction of the colocation servers in Seoul, Korea
> > where
> > > the Asian access might be directed to?
> > > And I can view wikipedia articles from A9's syndication, but sure no
> > > editing.
> > > I see from the Berlios site that it seems fine in the US and Europe,
> so
> > > friends from Taiwan and Hongkong could be esp helpful.
> > > Thank ou.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Highspeed-Freiheit. Bei GMX superg?nstig, z.B. GMX DSL_Cityflat,
> > DSL-Flatrate f?r nur 4,99 Euro/Monat* http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>

--
10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Opposition to this move in 2002 held that existing links should
> not be broken.  It was agreed that www.wikipedia.org (and .com)
> could become an international starting page, but that old article
> URLs, such as www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Chernobyl should not be
> broken, but should redirect to the new address on the English
> Wikipedia.  This contract has been held since.

I think talking of this as a "contract" is somewhat overdoing it -
it's an important point that this was the compromise reached during a
previous discussion, but unless there's a *very* strong statement
promising to uphold it "forever", we generally treat all consensus
policies as re-negotiable.

> An important document should be this archived e-mail,
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-March/000361.html

Well, interestingly, he only says there "It might be nice if" and "All
sublinks ... would" - not "should" or "But all sublinks ... must". He
says that the site "must always respond appropriately", but it could
be argued that this is only one version of "appropriate" behaviour.

After all, a link won't point to anything *like* the same actual
*content* as it did in 2002, anyway. So the only requirement is that
it point to an "appropriately equivalent" resource; and, arguably, the
same article in different languages can be considered equivalent. So,
if you give the choice of all languages with that title, you are
saying "since the link you used was 'current', this resource has
become more thoroughly multilingual", just as redirecting to the
current page in en.wikipedia says "since the link you used was
'current', this resource has been collaboratively editted beyond all
recognition".

On the other hand, such URLs should be used so rarely that it probably
doesn't make much odds *what* we do with them...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


list: foundation-l

from_name: ZH Wikipedia

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikizh-l] Re: Wikipedia banned in China,
	news from Taiwan (translated)

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 21, 2005 10:20 PM
Subject: [Wikizh-l] Re: Wikipedia banned in China, news from Taiwan
(translated)
To: Zheng Xiaoyun <zhengxiaoyun at gmail.com>
Cc: wikizh-l at wikipedia.org

wikipedia??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????????????????1????????????????????????

????????wikipedia??????????????????????wikimedia????????????????????????
145.97.39.132:80 <http://145.97.39.132:80>

?? 05-10-21??Zheng Xiaoyun<zhengxiaoyun at gmail.com> ??????
> ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
>
> Zheng
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Cathy Ma <cathyma at gmail.com>
> Date: Oct 21, 2005 6:24 PM
> Subject: Wikipedia banned in China, news from Taiwan (translated)
> To: Andrew Lih <alih at hku.hk>, Ying Chan <yychan at hku.hk>, Lokman Tsui
> <lokman.tsui at gmail.com>, Andrea Leung <andrea.leung at gmail.com>,
> "isaac.mao" <isaac.mao at gmail.com>, zhengxiaoyun at gmail.com, Kenneth
> Farrall <kfarrall at asc.upenn.edu>, Titan Deng <theodoranian at gmail.com>
>
>
> Thanks Titan for the source:
>
> ?????S?? ???????????i
>
> ?????????Z???M??????????
>
> ?????????Y?????????????????S????????wiki pedia???????????W??19???????????????????o?A?????i
> ???W???????e????
>
> Wikipedia was banned without forewarnning on the 19th and shocked
> internet users.
>
> ?????????@???????????????????????????????????????????????W???????????????????????i?????????????????R???e???????????C??
>
> No conclusive rationals were drawn for this move, but it was believed
> to be an order issued by the National Security Unit of the government.
> Users from both Mainland and China worried that if this website is
> banned for good, it would be the biggest crisis for 'Chinese knowledge
> accumulation'.
>
>
?W?????????@???????????????????????^?????????W?????????????????????????????????????????????????c???V?|???????????K???????m?o???????????S?????????????????????????????i??
>
> Internet users originally thought that this was only a partial
> suspension, however after investigations by various users, it was
> found that most provinces in China could no longer access to Wikipedia
> since the 19th.
>
>
???c?????S???_???????l?????W?????????????????????????W???????????????????????W??????????ISP?????C?????????????????????????????????????W???????|?S?\???l??????????????
>
> Mainland users thought that it was again the 'masterpiece/great work'
> by the Central information Networt (CERNET?), however further
> verification with the ISP revealed that it was the National security
> unit who made the order. Some mainland users described the unit as
> 'Secret agency from the "eastern unit" (note: used to be the unit in
> imperial China Great Palace of which only castrated men worked there'
>
>
?@?????????????????????????????i?????S???????????????????????T???????????????o???????????????????????o?A?????i???????L?_?????????????S?????????????????????????_?????????????????c???????L???????????f?????S?????????????????????????????????@???????_????
>
> This was the third time Wikipedia got banned in China. Last year it
> was right before the 15th aniversary of the June fourth incident when
> the CERNET banned the site without any forewarning. It lasted for 3
> weeks, not until the appeal 'If you do not open this website,
> information on this encyclopedia would gravitate more toward
> pro-Taiwan stance' by the Wikipedian crew that site got reopen again.
>
>
????????????????????BBS???????????????T???????W?????????z?????\?c????????????????????????????BBS?????P???????????????????????T?????????W?????Z???????S???W???c????BBS???????S?????_?W?????????????S???????????i??????
>
> Last September the bigger BBS in China SMTH was banned when students
> discussed about social movements and reform. After that these
> students migrated to Wikipedia and BBS to continue their discussion
> and caused Chinese Wikipedia suspended for 3 days.
>
> ??2005/10/21 ???????? '
>
> --
> MPhil Candidate,
> Department of Sociology,
> The University of Hong Kong
> http://cathyma.net
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------
> // Zheng XiaoYun
> + http://www.cnblog.org
> + http://www.klogs.org
> // 0598-8654540
>

_______________________________________________
Wikizh-l mailing list
Wikizh-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikizh-l


list: wikimedia-l


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Fwd: [Wikizh-l] Re: Wikipedia banned in China,
	news from Taiwan (translated)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Gerrit Holl wrote:
>
> > http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't.
>
> Yes it should.  It's a contract.

How's that?

Gerrit.

--
Temperature in Lule?, Norrbotten, Sweden:
| Current temperature   05-10-21 22:19:59    1.8 degrees Celsius ( 35.3F) |
--
Det finns inte d?ligt v?der, bara d?liga kl?der.


from_name: Tom Cadden

subject: [WikiEN-l] under siege again *sigh*

body:
Sorry to revisit the issue, but banned user Skyring,
having been prevented from targeting some pages, is
now targeting [[Wikipedia:Administrators'
noticeboard/Incidents]], as well as creating articles,
using sockpuppets in the range 203.xxx and 141.xxx.
Help is required to deal with him tonight (how many
sockpuppets can one banned user create? He is creating
more in an hour than some create in a year!)

Thom

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


from_name: erik_moeller at gmx.de

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: hi

body: why should I?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Gerrit Holl wrote:
> Lars Aronsson wrote:
> > Gerrit Holl wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't.
> >
> > Yes it should.  It's a contract.
>
> How's that?

In the beginning (Jan 15, 2001) was the English www.wikipedia.com,
and then (March 16, 2001) came deutsche.wikipedia.com.  When more
languages were added (summer 2001), two character language codes
were applied.  As far as I can see from my e-mail archive, the
idea to move the English Wikipedia to a language code domain was
first suggested on intlwiki-l on March 25, 2002.  The oldest
archive.org version of en.wikipedia.org is from November 2002.

Opposition to this move in 2002 held that existing links should
not be broken.  It was agreed that www.wikipedia.org (and .com)
could become an international starting page, but that old article
URLs, such as www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Chernobyl should not be
broken, but should redirect to the new address on the English
Wikipedia.  This contract has been held since.

An important document should be this archived e-mail,
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-March/000361.html

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: hi

body:
Rowan Collins:
> On 21/10/05, erik_moeller at gmx.de <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>>why should I?
>
>
> Erm... Null context exception: Reply has no parent.
>

This message was not sent by me, but by
host213-186.pool8173.interbusiness.it, as the headers show. It uses a
forged From: line. It is, in fact, the W32/Netsky.AN worm or a variation
thereof, which uses subject lines like "Re: hi" and body text like "why
should I?".

http://www.pspl.com/virus_info/worms/netskyan.htm

Like many email worms, it uses addresses picked up from the infected
system, that is, the forged sender is *not* the infected user.
wikitech-l allows posts from subscriber addresses immediately to the
list, but it strips attachments, so you don't get the actual worm payload.

Authentic email from me always includes my real name in the From: line
(though this is of course by no means sufficient to verify its origin).

HTH,

Erik


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: hi

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Friday 21 October 2005 23:20, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Rowan Collins:
> > On 21/10/05, erik_moeller at gmx.de <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> >>why should I?
> >
> > Erm... Null context exception: Reply has no parent.
>
> This message was not sent by me, but by
> host213-186.pool8173.interbusiness.it, as the headers show. It uses a
> forged From: line. It is, in fact, the W32/Netsky.AN worm or a
> variation thereof, which uses subject lines like "Re: hi" and body text
> like "why should I?".
>
> http://www.pspl.com/virus_info/worms/netskyan.htm
>
> Like many email worms, it uses addresses picked up from the infected
> system, that is, the forged sender is *not* the infected user.
> wikitech-l allows posts from subscriber addresses immediately to the
> list, but it strips attachments, so you don't get the actual worm
> payload.
>
> Authentic email from me always includes my real name in the From: line
> (though this is of course by no means sufficient to verify its origin).

Maybe you should start signing your email with PGP :-)

Mail from me always has a @bloodgate.com message-id, is signed by me with
gnupg, and usually comes via relay.pair.com - just for the record :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Oct 21 23:23:29 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad
 across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at
 them from behind rocks then say things like, 'Oh. Sorry. I thought you
 were someone else.'" -- Terry Pratchett

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Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

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jfge0bim50hPuqM0anIX3s2VmYMOwPPlB79zaCzjR0x7BVYP50S+Z3/MjdR7TiFb
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from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 10/21/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> > Don't forget to change the "Subject" header of your email:
> >
> > * Proxies and blocking
> >
> > Is more specific then
> >
> > * The whole point of Wikipedia
> >
> > Ed Poor
> > (One of several mailing list admins)
>
> Actually, please don't, as it screws up the threading system in a number
> of email clients including Thunderbird.
>

They're broken.  The in-reply-to header determines threading in email,
going back as far as RFC 822.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html


from_name: Dori

subject:
[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New
	Partnership

body:
On 10/20/05, Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/20/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > In a press release today
> > (<http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051020/ukth030.html?.v=1>), The
> > Wikimedia Foundation announced a new partnership with Answers.com.
> >
> > A proposal was made by Answers Corporation to add a link in the
> > sidebar of the English Wikipedia to the Wikipedia:Tools page
> > (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools>).
> >
> > That page will highlight the "1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition"
> > software. Revenues from this toolbar will be split with the Wikimedia
> > Foundation. The Board have signed up to a 60-day trial of this
> > proposal.
> >
> > I would like to welcome comments on this, both before the launch early
> > next year, and during the trial period. The talk page at
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Tools/1-Click_Answers>
> > should be used so that comments can be kept in one place.
>
> This smells like advertising and spyware to me. I can't believe that
> the foundation would go along with this. If we're to be NPOV, we'd
> need to do this for Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc until that sidebar
> was all but useless. And if that's not done, than this is pure
> advertising.

I'd like to apologize as I thought it'd be placed in the side bar.
While still smelling fishy, at least it's not getting as much
exposure. I'd still like to know what is meant by "charter placement"
as any placement constraint would be at the very least very anti-wiki.


list: textbook-l

from_name: Walter Campbell

subject:
[Textbook-l] Interested in talking to instructors using a Wikibook
	in training or college courses

body:
Hello - I'm doing research for a newsletter article on the use of
wikis by instructional designers (trainers, instructors, etc.).

I'd be very interested in talking to anyone who has used a Wikibook
(or any other wiki, actually) in a training program or college course.
I'm eager to hear why you used a wiki, how you used it, and what the
results were.

If interested in assisting, please e-mail me directly.

Thanks much!

--
Walt Campbell
atypicaluser (at) gmail (dot) com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: hi

body:
On 21/10/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Rowan Collins:
> > On 21/10/05, erik_moeller at gmx.de <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> This message was not sent by me, but by
> host213-186.pool8173.interbusiness.it, as the headers show. It uses a
> forged From: line. It is, in fact, the W32/Netsky.AN worm or a variation
> thereof, which uses subject lines like "Re: hi" and body text like "why
> should I?".

D'oh! Should have thought of that. Damn spoofable protocols. And damn
non-human e-mails. And, obviously, damn worms [and their writers].

Out of interest, I thought there was an SPF filter running on the
mailing list server; the only "Received-SPF" header I can see seems to
be comparing against the line "Sender:wikitech-l-bounces at ..." and
succeeding. Is it just obscuring the previous one?

Anyway, sorry.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
Guys,

We need to decide on how to deal with persistent
vandalism of Wikipedia by users already subjected to
the maximum ban.

One user in the less than two months since his own
year ban was imposed has launched 30 suspected
sockpuppets and at this stage between 40 and 50 proven
sockpuppets against Wikipedia pages. On occasions his
attacks have occurred as frequently as every two
minutes, with (at a guess) twenty talk pages targeted
one night for attack with cut and paste abuse placed
on them.

On another night a single talk page was targeted by 18
sockpuppets in 2 hours. (It has had to be protected.)

Tonight the page on admin incidents was attacked by 15
separate sockpuppets of his (many multiple attacks) in
just over three hours. The user also created articles
(since speedily deleted) and though banned carried out
wholescale rewriting of articles using a secret
identity to get around his ban. (He slipped up and
used that identity to join in the sockpuppet attacks.
Once the edit history was spotted, as per the arbcom
ruling, everything done under that identity was undone
and articles deleted, with in one case a Californian
admin starting a new valid article to replace a
speedily deleted one, to prevent the banned user
creating a replacement.)

More than 10 admins have had to devote hours every
night this week (bar one night the vandal took off) to
undoing his attacks. They were so frequent that by the
time an IP had been blocked and template added to its
page, the user had created a new one and reimposed his
attacks.

It is ridiculous that users have to waste their time
dealing with this nutter. It is also ridiculous that
he is in effect able to get around his ban. (He also
spams users constantly with messages and emails though
they tell him to stop, abuses people and highjacks
user talk pages of people who have no idea who he is,
but just find he has turned their page into one of his
battle fronts.)

The guy has already driven some people off Wikipedia,
and used off-Wikipedia sites to libel Wikipedians. Now
he has turned some pages into battle grounds. Who
knows what he will do next. We have a serious problem.
He is probably the most persistent vandal Wikipedia
has ever had to face. We need to develop a policy to
deal with him before he ups the ante and causes
further chaos.
Simply restarting his one year ban every time and
reverting his edits, the recommendations of the
arbcom, are not working.

Thom

___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:

> Lars Aronsson wrote:
> > An important document should be this archived e-mail,
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-March/000361.html
>
> Well, interestingly, he only says there "It might be nice if"

Failing to find this in the archived mailing lists, I quote from a
private message (<20011129161605.D24208 at aristotle.bomis.com>) from
Jimbo on November 29, 2001:

> I'm not sure what you mean.  There already IS a URL policy.  Wikipedia
> urls are of the form:
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Article_Title
> This will always be true.

This was part of a private thread, starting off at
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-November/018588.html

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked in China?

body:
Jiaming Xu wrote:
> Hi folks. I noticed several days ago that wikipedia is no longer accessible
> from mainland China (en,de,zh.....). What is really happening? There's rumor
> on the net that it's been blocked by the government here, but I don't know
> exactly what is happening.
>  Plus, is it a malfunction of the colocation servers in Seoul, Korea where
> the Asian access might be directed to?
>  And I can view wikipedia articles from A9's syndication, but sure no
> editing.
>  I see from the Berlios site that it seems fine in the US and Europe, so
> friends from Taiwan and Hongkong could be esp helpful.
>  Thank ou.

Yes, it's been blocked. See these posts for earlier reports:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikizh-l/2005-October/000217.html
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-October/004464.html

I found a looking glass server inside China and used it to confirm the
details. They've blocked both our Florida network and our Korea network.
If you want to access Wikipedia, I suggest you proxy via 145.97.39.155,
by adding the relevant entries to your host file.

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

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Mailing list breakages

body:
Alphax wrote:

>Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>
>
>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>They're broken.  The in-reply-to header determines threading in email,
>>>going back as far as RFC 822.
>>>
>>>http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html
>>>
>>>
>>I know, but for some reason whatever email client some people are using,
>>they aren't changing the in-reply-to header correctly. Thunderbird takes
>>an intelligent guess at how to thread it, by using the email subject.
>>
>>What is even more annoying is when people hit reply to an existing
>>email, and start a completely new discussion (and it is then threaded in
>>reply to an existing topic). I can't win, can I? :)
>>
>>
>>
>
>In addition, it seems that email clients ignore the in-reply-to header,
>the references: headers, and so on and so forth.
>
>Oh, and I keep getting tab characters in the subject line.
>
>
So it isn't an issue of the mailing lists stripping them? since we seem
to be having the same issue at helpdesk-l of the reply-to headers being
stripped.

-Jtkiefer


from_name: Dorożyński Janusz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Importing XML database dumps - what actually works?

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ... Nick Jenkins
| Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005 8:37 AM
/
| Are other people having grief importing the new XML format
| database-dumps?

Well, I'm testing a little :-) for polish wiki dumps in W'XP Pro. Now
with MW 1.5.0 things goes much better. With importDump.php I load 228000
pages within 19 hours! Of course it is horrible slow, in the past i
loaded cur table .sql dump for 20 minutes, but importDump script now
doing all the work without interruptions. Then i try mwdumper with JRE
1.5.0_5 for meta dump, and however this programm is under construction i
have no problems. The converting to 1.5 sql ended for 1 minute! It's
very very promising, really. For now it is all, i have no time now to
continuing the tests. But my feelings are so much better then the one of
september :-)

 All the best,
    Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


from_name: Jochen Magnus

body:
Brion,

the latest XML dumps seems to be fine. I tested the de dump from
2005-10-20: No problems while importing it into MySQL and indexing it
with ioda.

Thank you!

jo


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
We can't block his IP-range, if understand it he's editing from
203.xxx and 141.xxx. That's 1/128th of the entire internet
(approximately)! Anyway, we really shouldn't permablock any IPs. As
for dealing with this user, what else can we do? I mean, he is in
essence banned for ever (I doubt he'd give up for an entire year, just
to come back and be a nice, productive member of the wikipedia
community). What can we do except to revert and block his socks?

--gkhan

On 10/22/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Tom Cadden wrote:
>
> >
> >The guy has already driven some people off Wikipedia,
> >and used off-Wikipedia sites to libel Wikipedians. Now
> >he has turned some pages into battle grounds. Who
> >knows what he will do next. We have a serious problem.
> >He is probably the most persistent vandal Wikipedia
> >has ever had to face. We need to develop a policy to
> >deal with him before he ups the ante and causes
> >further chaos.
> >Simply restarting his one year ban every time and
> >reverting his edits, the recommendations of the
> >arbcom, are not working.
> >
> I'm sure someone thought of this already, but how about blocking his
> IP range?
>
> Ryan
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> E3JcuWuM3mgSEyIw140Uf5M=
> =rLjU
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
Ofcourse, you are absolutly right, forgot that one :P I don't think it
applies to this user though, I doubt he could be so reformed.

--gkhan

On 10/22/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 21, 2005, at 8:52 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
>
> >  What can we do except to revert and block his socks?
>
> In practical terms, it's worth noting that in at least one past case,
> we lifted the ban on a user that we could not effectively block,
> figuring that letting them edit under heavy constraint was a better
> option than the continual war on their vandalism.
>
> -Snowspinner
> _______________________________________________
> 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: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Virtual Tour proposed project, "Wikitour"

body:
Could be excellent.  A layer on top of google earth's 3-D cities, like
SF or Boston, with encyclopedic/photo info, would also be excellent.

SJ

On 10/21/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've started a proposal page for a project called "Wikitour" that would lend
> itself directly to Wikipedia. Whereas Commons hosts individual images of
> places that have articles on Wikipedia, Wikitour would host "virtual tours"
> of these places, such as castles, museums, galleries, caverns, mountains,
> college campuses, typical mosques or churches, archaeological sites, etc.
> The main point is to provide visual detail to accompany the other projects'
> textual detail.
>
> The basic idea is as follows: a user submits numerous photos of a notable
> place, which are organized into pages/subpages to create a navigable
> environment similar to that in Myst, Riven, or other graphical adventures;
> the navigation system would be on Wikitour, while the files themselves would
> be on Commons, with a link in the respective article on WP. Basically, any
> topic that has an article on Wikipedia has the possibility of its own entry
> in Wikitour. Users could also submit photos of an object from various
> sides/angles/distances, rather than a place.
>
> Please leave your impressions/suggestions at [[meta:Talk:Wikitour]].
>
> Thanks.
>
> en:User:Brian0918
> brian0918 at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
> Mark, at least two linguists (User:Angr is another) said twice that
> story about Zlatiborian is a hoax.

And I am not saying Zlatiborian is a real language. What I am saying
is that people should be able to decide what it says on their userpage
about the languages they speak, even if it's rediculous.

> I strongly support sociocultural identities of various people, but
> this one would be silly if there would not be some
> not-so-good-informed people who support them.

Are you saying I'm not well informed? I know perfectly well that it's
ludicrous to suggest a separate Zlatiborian language. But I believe
that these people have the right to say it's the language they speak.

> blah blah blah
>
> Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin have very
> small differences. The only reason why they are "separate languages"
> is political. Between 200.000 and 10.000.000 of people say for
> themself that they are speaking the language with different name.

Yes, I know. I may not be fluent in Serbocroatian, but I certainly
know what the situation on the ground is.

> blah blah blah

Again you bring up statistics, trying to prove to me that Zlatiborian
isn't a language. I don't care -- that is irrelevant to my viewpoint.
My view is that, REGARDLESS of whether it is a language or not, it
should be allowed a Babel template so long as any Wikipedians claim to
speak that "language".

> While I don't have anything against anyone who says that "(s)he is
> speaking Glapolgaptoringian language" even if it is literal English, I
> think that:
>
> 1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If Glapolgaptoringian is the same as
> English and 100 humans call it Glapolgaptoringian, then it may be
> noted in the article about English that some people call it in such
> way. Idiosyncretic naming should stay inside of user space (yes, I
> agree to move it into Aleksandra's user space but not redirect, and I
> would say it on the TfD page). Otherwise it makes mass.

But this *is* the user space!!! The intended use of Babel templates is
the user space!!! I don't advocate writing misinformation in articles.
But I don't see the harm in keeping Babel templates for languages the
existance of which is dubious.

> 2. Wikipedia is not the place for ethnical/national constitution. In
> the case of Zlatiborian, English Wikipedia is used for that case
> ("Zlatiborian exists, you can see the article about Zlatiborian on
> Wikipedia!") I would support Zlatiborians if they are asking for
> schools in Zlatiborian etc., even I think it is silly. But, I
> _didn't_heard_ about them and their needs yet!

We are talking about the user namespace, NOT the article namespace. I
don't think any mention of "zlatiborian language" should be made in
the article namespace as it really doesn't deserve that mention, but I
think it should be allowed in template and user namespaces.

> So, if it is OK to say in Wikipedia article "10 people call Serbian
> language Zlatiborian" or "Mark Williamson calls English language
> Glapolgaptoringian", it is OK to keep the language tag.

That makes absolutely no sense. The language tag is only for user pages.

> Also, note that he/she/they took two-letters code "zb"... As well as I
> took three-letters code for Belgradian. Do you think that there are
> more relevant languages which would need those codes?

So far, there is no language with the ISO(/DIS) 639 two-letter code
"zb". This may not always be the case; if it is determined that a real
ISO code is nessecary, one could just use "zlatibor" or "zlat" or
"qzlt", all of which will never become ISO language codes.

> I agree with that. But, as I understud explicite rules on English
> Wikipedia -- Wikipedia is not the place where all human knowledge
> should be kept. If someone calls his/her language Zlatiborian even it
> is the same as Serbian and other Zlatiborians (in the sense of rebion)
> call their language Serbian, then it is idiosyncretic, not relevant in
> the sense of encyclopedia.

Yes, but the user pages aren't part of the encyclopaedia; rather they
are a supplement to it.

> And, of course, when Wikipedia becomes "the place where all human
> knowledge should be kept" I would completely agree to keep Zlatiborian
> articles and user boxes.

Articles should be deleted. Templates for userpages should be kept.

> Yes, Mark, I understand that you would support Texans if they say that
> they are talking Texanian even it is the same as English as well as I
> support Montenegrins to call their language as Montenegrin even it is
> (almost) the same as Serbian.
>
> But, there are a lot of differences between Montenegrins and
> Zlatiborians. I hope that I explained what are the differences.

Well, perhaps it's better to say I would support somebody from LA
saying their language is Californian. The speech of LA is more or less
the basis for "standard" American English (well, not the basis, but
one of the major influences). Grammar and vocabulary are basically the
same as the standard, differences are (mostly) only in pronunciation.

Now, this in my mind is equivalent to Zlatiborians and Serbians.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
> > I'm not sure what you mean.  There already IS a URL policy.  Wikipedia
> > urls are of the form:
> > http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Article_Title
> > This will always be true.

It doesn't say "English Wikipedia".

Thus, the _new_ policy proposed by Geritt should be in line with this
quote which we have to follow because it came from above.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] I can't believe!

body:
Also, a quote which is partially funny:

"You would recognize the difference if you could just see some
examples of it. Zlatiborian and Serbian are very similar, but a
Serbian would say: Nigde na svetu nema lepsega grada od Beograda, but
a Zlatiborian says: Nidje na svijetu nema ljepseg grada od Biograda.
Or, while a Serbian says: Letos behosmo u Gruziji, posecivasmo hramove
i manastire, a Zlatiborian would say: Ljetos bijasmo u Djurdjiji,
posjecivasmo crkve i manastire, etc."

Now quite obviously a great deal of that is just Ekavian/Ijekavian
(svetu -> svijetu; lepsega -> ljepsega; letos -> ljetos; posecivasmo
-> posjecivasmo), I wonder about the rest? Gruziji vs Djurdjiji seems
to me to be a moot point because as far as I know, both are accepted
in Serbian.

Mark


from_name: Keith Old

body:
Blogs have editorial standards depending on the expertise and capacity of
the blogger. In this example, Michael Barone, the editor of the Almanac of
American Politics for 30 years has a blog [
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/home.htm].

Editors should be careful in using blogs as in any source as to reliability
of the blogger and to make sure we are quoting both sides of the story. In
this case, having blogs as one of our sole sources is a mistake especially
when there is a clear partisan bias to the blogs selected.

The same can be said about the "mainstream media". The New York Times has
gotten things wrong such as Jayson Blair. So does the BBC - its coverage of
the Iraq War was appalling and it was the worst offender in highly
exaggerated coverage of Hurricane Katrina. In short, we should be careful in
our use of sources in whatever form they take.

The problem with these articles in my view is that they are not NPOV and
that they do not use the most reliable sources available.

Regards

Keith

Keith
User:Capitalistroadster

On 10/22/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >Hash: SHA256
> >
> >JAY JG wrote:
> > >> From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> > >>
> > >> Delirium wrote:
> > >> > Alphax wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> >> What about if the author has blogged about (some current event)
> that
> > >> >> they witnessed or attended?
> > >> >>
> > >> >>
> > >> > That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying,
> "some
> > >> > guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged"
> about
> > >> > witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that
> as
> >a
> > >> > source?
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the
> >internet?
> > >
> > >
> > > Blogs have no editorial standards, no way of verifying that anything
> on
> > > them is correct, true, relevant, notable, reliable, sane. Blogs are
> > > only good as sources for articles about those specific blogs.
> > >
> >
> >You still haven't answered my question: what's the difference between a
> >blog and ANY OTHER WEBSITE?
>
> There's little difference between a blog and any other *personal* website.
> There is a huge difference between a blog and the website of a respected
> news source (e.g. New York Times, BBC), or the site of a publically traded
> corporation, or that of a major non-profit organization, or of an
> encyclopedia, or a government website, or a UN website, or etc.
>
> All websites are not created equal.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] The Power of Free Images (Was: Questionable fair use
	claims: a case study)

body:
Geoff,

On a related issue, there may well be publicists who will be prepared to
give us images of the actors, musicians etc given that Wikipedia has become
so popular.

It might simply be a case of writing or e-mailing them and asking nicely.

Regards

Keith

Keith
User:Capitalistroadster

On 10/22/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
> > Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> > >We have this strange social culture built up around images which I
> > >believe is caused mostly by the fact that image deletion is instantly
> > >permanent, rather than being something that can be reverted. If we
> > >could revert image deletions as easily (or nearly as easily) as we
> > >revert deletions of random bits of unacceptable text, we would be much
> > >better able to pick and choose images wisely.
> > >
> > Fewer people seem to have cameras than I would have imagined. It took
> > me all of two minutes to roll my [[lawn mower]] out and make original
> > images for the article, but we still have all these people uploading
> > the first poor thumbnail of a commonplace object that Google finds
> > for them.
> >
> This indicates to me a suprrising lack of imagination on Wikipedia. We
> currently have countless content disputes, where people are attempting
> to find a way to frame the topic so to present their own POV as the
> "normal" one & all others as variants (& thus less credible), yet none
> of them has considered that were they to submit their own free images
> of their favorite subjects that they would succeed promoting their POVs
> that way.
>
> In other words, because it is a free image, available for anyone to use
> for whatever reason, Stan's lawn mower has now become the de facto
> standard
> image of what a normal lawn mower looks like. And if your lawn mower
> doesn't
> look identical to his, then it could be assumed that yours is somehow
> wrong.
>
> I assume that there are many people with sufficient self confidence in
> themselves (if not in their lawn mowers) to find this line of thought
> silly -- which it is in one way. But in another way, this becomes a
> powerful
> selling tool in getting more free images, one that I have been attempting
> to impliment, but haen't quite gotten to.
>
> One's public image is important to many groups, for example incorporated
> communities like towns or cities; & if trends on Wikipedia continue,
> eventually every town or community will have a free image of it available
> for reuse. Now these towns can either allow someone else to create this
> image& hope that it presents them in a positive manner, or they can
> take from their own publicity campaigns one or more images & make them
> available to all free. I would assume that if these images were offered
> under either a freeCC or a GFD license, Wikimedia would be more than
> happy to host them at no cost. Everybody wins: there are more free images
> available for reuse, & these communities are able to advocate a more
> positive appearance than they might otherwise have. (As a counterexample ,
> does anyone really think that Slough wants to be associated with "The
> Office" for the rest of recorded history?)
>
> As for worries that this might encourage a slanted view of some cities,
> in the longer picture I doubt this would be a serious problem since
> volunteers will always be contributing material, perhaps encouraged by
> the lack of an alternative to the "official appearance". (As another
> example, if someone was able to produce pictures of East St. Louis that
> made the city look nice enough to make you want to live there, how long
> do you expect it would take for someone to provide alternative images?)
>
> Just an idea or two for someone to run with.
>
> Geoff
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Chris Jenkinson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Proxies and blocking (was: The whole point
	of	wikipedia)

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> They're broken.  The in-reply-to header determines threading in email,
> going back as far as RFC 822.
>
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html

I know, but for some reason whatever email client some people are using,
they aren't changing the in-reply-to header correctly. Thunderbird takes
an intelligent guess at how to thread it, by using the email subject.

What is even more annoying is when people hit reply to an existing
email, and start a completely new discussion (and it is then threaded in
reply to an existing topic). I can't win, can I? :)

Chris


body:
The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the
mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still more
popular and will remain so.

My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible
bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all the
sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and
provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.

Regards

Keith

On 10/22/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> Keith Old wrote
>
>
> >Blogs have editorial standards depending on the expertise and capacity of
> the blogger.
>
> Or not. Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries
> or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or
> career.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Jimmy Wales

body:
Dori wrote:
> I'd like to apologize as I thought it'd be placed in the side bar.
> While still smelling fishy, at least it's not getting as much
> exposure. I'd still like to know what is meant by "charter placement"
> as any placement constraint would be at the very least very anti-wiki.

It means it should be featured prominently.  It's a Wikipedia namespace
page, the tools page, so we don't have to be NPOV, but of course
Answers.com understands the community well enough to know that the page
is community-built and that other tools will be on the page as well.
It's pretty much non-fishy.

I think that not only should the revenue relationship be disclosed on
the page, it should be prominently highlighted as a _feature_.  You can
use the Answers.com 1-Click tool, if you like, and if you do, it brings
in revenue to support Wikipedia.  (Though at the present time, we do not
have any real clue how much revenue this might be... it depends on how
many people download and use the tool.)

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
I think we should block the range, making it clear who (real name,
etc) is responsible and let Australia sort it out.

Fred

On Oct 22, 2005, at 7:56 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> On 10/21/05, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> We can't block his IP-range, if understand it he's editing from
>> 203.xxx and 141.xxx. That's 1/128th of the entire internet
>> (approximately)!
>>
>
>  How is he able to do this? Is there a particular ISP which uses
> these IPs,
> or is he going from multiple IPs, or what? Can the ISP be
> contacted? That'd
> be the first step. Failing that, I'd actually suggest trying to get
> some
> sort of injunction through the legal system (Australia, I suppose,
> and one
> of the other editors claims to actually have known the person).
> "Don't touch
> Wikipedia again, or you'll go to jail." That'd probably work.
>  I honestly don't think blocking is a very useful long-term solution,
> especially in an environment where the blocks are implemented by
> semi-trusted volunteers. If Wikimedia had an employee with full
> developer
> access who knew the ins and outs of the Internet and whose job it
> was to
> block vandals (using both technical tools and well-placed phone
> calls to
> established contacts at ISPs), that might work. Of course, there
> are 168
> hours in a week, so even working 42 hour weeks it'd take 4
> employees to
> handle the job 24/7. Those employees would certainly have time to
> do other
> things as well, but even so it's probably too expensive for now (rough
> guesstimate $150,000/year). Hopefully the new deal with
> answers.com<http://answers.com>will start bringing in some serious
> revenue and something like this can be
> considered.
>  Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
I like these deals Jimmy Wales is making, they seem to often not only
aid us but greatly increase use of our site and our visibility. One
would think we are well known, but actually only a small fraction of
the public is aware of us and use us. If Wikipedia opinion was
strongly against them it would be strongly expressed.

Fred

On Oct 22, 2005, at 8:06 AM, Delirium wrote:

> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>> I think that not only should the revenue relationship be disclosed on
>> the page, it should be prominently highlighted as a _feature_.
>> You can
>> use the Answers.com 1-Click tool, if you like, and if you do, it
>> brings
>> in revenue to support Wikipedia.
>>
>>
> This somehow seems similar to the abandoned idea to highlight
> Amazon referrer links for ISBNs, who also would bring revenue to
> the Wikimedia Foundation if people wanted to use them, but which
> ran into considerable opposition...
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Textbook-l] Fwd: press report

body:
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=332875

Anthere

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
Peter has to have accounts with isps to get on, doesn't he? I don't
think he's hanging around the public library.

Fred

On Oct 22, 2005, at 8:07 AM, Alphax wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> I think we should block the range, making it clear who (real
>> name,  etc)
>> is responsible and let Australia sort it out.
>>
>>
>
> Gee, thanks Fred. How about we block every ISP in the US and let the
> rest of the US "sort it out" with regards to Willy on Wheels/MARMOT/
> etc?
> I understand that there are a few vandals who we actually do have the
> real name and address of, who have been spreading libel and making
> legal
> threats against our editors.
>
> - --
> Alphax                      |   /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
> http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iQEVAwUBQ1pHvLMAAH8MeUlWAQhBqAf7BHva3seBLtp/vP9Iml9bLbuYVeruXgiA
> 9SsCtaGO2rzi57gn59YFpFR4+D1/MFh52tpsnqAUQT+P84iWJTzTvvRNT3GD0N53
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> =wD7M
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
On 10/21/05, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We can't block his IP-range, if understand it he's editing from
> 203.xxx and 141.xxx. That's 1/128th of the entire internet
> (approximately)!

 How is he able to do this? Is there a particular ISP which uses these IPs,
or is he going from multiple IPs, or what? Can the ISP be contacted? That'd
be the first step. Failing that, I'd actually suggest trying to get some
sort of injunction through the legal system (Australia, I suppose, and one
of the other editors claims to actually have known the person). "Don't touch
Wikipedia again, or you'll go to jail." That'd probably work.
 I honestly don't think blocking is a very useful long-term solution,
especially in an environment where the blocks are implemented by
semi-trusted volunteers. If Wikimedia had an employee with full developer
access who knew the ins and outs of the Internet and whose job it was to
block vandals (using both technical tools and well-placed phone calls to
established contacts at ISPs), that might work. Of course, there are 168
hours in a week, so even working 42 hour weeks it'd take 4 employees to
handle the job 24/7. Those employees would certainly have time to do other
things as well, but even so it's probably too expensive for now (rough
guesstimate $150,000/year). Hopefully the new deal with
answers.com<http://answers.com>will start bringing in some serious
revenue and something like this can be
considered.
 Anthony


from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I think that not only should the revenue relationship be disclosed on
>the page, it should be prominently highlighted as a _feature_.  You can
>use the Answers.com 1-Click tool, if you like, and if you do, it brings
>in revenue to support Wikipedia.
>
This somehow seems similar to the abandoned idea to highlight Amazon
referrer links for ISBNs, who also would bring revenue to the Wikimedia
Foundation if people wanted to use them, but which ran into considerable
opposition...

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] harrassment of users spreading?

body:
One problem is that we don't give someone something which they then
loose if they start acting out. We have no experience points invested
in our character as one might have in a MUD, usually no special
powers or privileges to loose. This is complicated by no requirement
to create an account, no confirmation of accounts or of identity. So
access to any ip is sufficient to come aboard and edit without limit,
and to return to the subject, be as nasty as you might want to be.

Fred

On Oct 22, 2005, at 9:52 AM, Tom Cadden wrote:

> Maybe I didn't notice it before but since my Skyring
> 'experience' a number of other users have approached
> me to say they have having the same experience.
>
> Among the things happening are a NUMBER of users are
> eperiencing:
>
> * PERSONALLY targeted attacks on individual members by
> another individual (a different individual in each
> case), who follows the user around adding abuse to
> talk pages. (Another user has just emailed me and said
> that has been happening to them too. Someone else said
> they had experienced it a few weeks ago.)
>
> * users who standby and the moment an individual is
> criticised, jump in to add in venomous attacks of
> their own that are unconnected to the current dispute.
>
>
> * users spamming other users with smears about someone
> on Wikipedia.
>
> * off-Wikipedia public attacks, some of them
> libellous, many of them offensive and distressing, on
> Wikipedians.
>
> * One abuser, Skyring, even accused another Wikipedian
> of physically stalking his house!!! (She obviously
> didn't, but was shocked at the claim, which was in a
> longer personal attack he launched on her.)
>
> Two people in the last 24 hours, having witnessed
> Skyring's antics against me, have emailed me to say
> that they too are being targeted others. Both said
> that they are on the brink of quitting WP altogether
> because of the unending cycle of abuse they are
> getting from an individual (a different individual in
> each case).
>
> I can't help wondering if Skyring's antics (which are
> proving difficult to stop - he has now started again
> creating phoney sockpuppet 'users' to sneak back in
> attacks under the guise of innocent edit summaries)
> has inspired others to act in a similar way.
>
> Simply deleting attacks doesn't solve the problem if
> merely the fact of editing an article opens one up to
> the attack to start off with. The offence will have
> been caused by the time the attack is deleted. And
> with some users spreading attacks like confetti, not
> every attack is spotted if it is in the talk page of a
> little read page. Offensive attacks also remain in the
> archives for anyone to read.
>
> This problem could destroy Wikipedia, by driving away
> genuine users and having WP swamped by abusive trolls
> stalking individuals throughout the database. The
> danger is that genuine users who may themselves not be
> a victim of this problem may see such stalked attacks
> appearing all over the place and decide 'I don't want
> that to happen to me' and so leave. One already left
> two months ago, having emailed me to ask "what is
> happening here? It is disgusting."
>
> What strategy do we have for dealing with what seems
> like a growing problem?
>
> Thom
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
> snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
2005/10/22, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>:

> Here's my idea - it would require a bit of work though:
>
> 1) If article exists on en:, auto-generate a multilingual disambiguation
> page using the interwiki links in the article.
>
> 2) If the article doesn't exist on en:,
> 2a) auto-generate a list of links to possible articles in Wikipedias
> with > x,000 articles (where x depends on how well the software works).
> Make no guarantee about the existance of the target article.
> 2b) scan the Wikipedias with > x,000 articles, pull out all interwiki
> links if one is found (stripping duplicates if it exists under the same
> name in multiple lanuages) and generate a disambiguation page.
>
> This way, we both guarantee that all existing links work (to the same
> extent as when we move pages and create redirects, or turn things into
> disambiguation pages), while at the same time creating a multilingual
> portal.

Why use the Interwiki-links? Just check all languages for an article
with that exact name. On http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun, I want a
link to [[de:Sun Microsystems]] (which is the page [[de:Sun]]
redirects to), and not one to [[de:Sonne]] (which is the page
[[en:Sun]] has an interwiki to).

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Dan Grey

body:
On 22/10/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> It means it should be featured prominently.  It's a Wikipedia namespace
> page, the tools page, so we don't have to be NPOV

We don't? Oh. Someone tell the editors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellaneous_deletion/Wikipedia:Current_charitable_causes

> but of course
> Answers.com understands the community well enough to know that the page
> is community-built and that other tools will be on the page as well.

As far as I can see (and correct me if I'm wrong), there are no
adverts for commercial products on that page at the moment (let's call
the spade a spade). I was generally under the impression WP would
never carry adverts.

> It's pretty much non-fishy.
>
> I think that not only should the revenue relationship be disclosed on
> the page, it should be prominently highlighted as a _feature_.  You can
> use the Answers.com 1-Click tool, if you like, and if you do, it brings
> in revenue to support Wikipedia.  (Though at the present time, we do not
> have any real clue how much revenue this might be... it depends on how
> many people download and use the tool.)

There must be some ball-park figures - eg if 1,000 people download it
and use it as much as existing 1-Click users, Wikimedia will get $x...

Dan


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
G'day Ryan,

> Tom Cadden wrote:
>
>>The guy has already driven some people off Wikipedia,
>>and used off-Wikipedia sites to libel Wikipedians. Now
>>he has turned some pages into battle grounds. Who
>>knows what he will do next. We have a serious problem.
>>He is probably the most persistent vandal Wikipedia
>>has ever had to face. We need to develop a policy to
>>deal with him before he ups the ante and causes
>>further chaos.
>>Simply restarting his one year ban every time and
>>reverting his edits, the recommendations of the
>>arbcom, are not working.
>
> I'm sure someone thought of this already, but how about blocking his
> IP range?

203.* and 141.* cover a sizeable proportion of Australia, IIRC.  Now, I
know someone *jokingly* suggested that, but, well ...

--
Mark Gallagher
0439 704 975
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
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from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Questionable fair use claims: a case study

body:
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steve v wrote:
<snip>
> I would caution against empowering over 400 sysops
> with any ability to enforce unenforceable
> prejudiciality.

It's now over 600. Curiously, the sysop-user ratio is roughly constant
(about 0.12%) across en:, fr:, de: and it: - I haven't checked many others.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on breaches of bans

body:
G'day Oskar,

> Ofcourse, you are absolutly right, forgot that one :P I don't think it
> applies to this user though, I doubt he could be so reformed.

I know Skyring from a previous life (as an aside, I remember back when
he wasn't quite so concerned about the posting of a third party's
personal info!), and he's quite knowledgeable and has the ability to be
a *great* contributor.  'Twould be a pity to lose much of what he has to
say about politics or Australia.

He's also quite, quite mad, however, and the first time someone
disagreed with him we'd undoubtedly see a return of the behaviour that
led to the ArbCom ruling in the first place.  This would only be
exacerbated by his ban, and by the knowledge that we can't stop him if
he really wants to disrupt Wikipedia.

Somehow (I know it's easy to say this as one who wasn't around at the
time) we botched the Skyring case.  I don't know what we could've done
better (if anything), so this isn't meant as a criticism of ArbCom or
admins, but what we did wasn't as useful as it should've been.

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

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body:
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Hash: SHA256

SPUI wrote:
> Recently I have noticed some redirects like {{NYCS stub}} to
> {{NYCS-stub}} listed on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion . The
> stub sorters, typically the only people to frequent SFD, are voting for
> their deletion on the grounds that they are "incorrectly named". What?
> That is in fact NOT a reason to delete a redirect. I don't think
> template redirects even have the performance problem of nested
> templates; there is no reason to delete these redirects. If someone
> wants them deleted, they can be listed on [[WP:RFD]] like all other
> redirects.
>
> Grutness now says I'm vandalizing SFD by removing the redirects and his
> change in the scop[e of the page to include redirects.

This is completely and utterly WRONG. Unless they are misleading or
overly broad, we should NEVER delete redirects. Especially on templates,
where it's often hard to remember the exact spelling, capitalisation and
hyphenation involved.

- --
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body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> If Wikipedia opinion was  strongly against them it would be strongly
> expressed.

Only if people actually know that something is happening; nobody can
object if they aren't aware of it.

Which isn't to say that I find this objectionable, but I do think these
sorts of things should be as well-known as possible with some feedback
solicited, so Wikipedians don't slowly discover something like this,
say, a year after the fact.  People probably have differing opinions on
what the proper level of involvement between Wikipedia and other groups
(especially companies) is, so some sort of consensus should be reached...

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: So what do we do about this?

body:
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geni wrote:
> On 10/21/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>>Or not.  Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries
>>or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or
>>career.
>>
>>Charles
>
>
>
> If that was the case most science corospondants would have been sacked long ago.
>

I laughed at that because it's so painfully true :)

- --
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body:
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Keith Old wrote:
> The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the
> mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still more
> popular and will remain so.
>
> My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible
> bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all the
> sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and
> provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.
>

According to NPOV, all we need to do is make up some kind of reference
template for blogs, which says "this is a blog and in no way are we
responsible for it's content" - which lets the readers decide for
themselves.

- --
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] multilingual redirect

body:
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Rowan Collins wrote:
> On 21/10/05, Gerrit Holl <gerrit at nl.linux.org> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl redirects to
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl. It shouldn't. Should it provide
>>a list off all Wikipedia's with an article [[Chernobyl]]?
>
>
> One of the reasons for this is because historically it has always
> meant that - well, that's kind of obvious, but what I mean is that
> there are existing links on other websites (and who knows where else)
> of the form "http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/<article>", intending to
> reference the English Wikipedia specifically.
>
> That said, I actually rather like the idea of auto-listing all
> languages whose Wikipedia has an article with that exact name - it
> doesn't exactly *break* those links, but it serves as an interesting
> introduction to/reminder of the multilingual nature of Wikipedia, and
> indeed of the Internet in general. It's all to easy for
> English-speakers such as myself to take for granted that all content
> will default to English, when, really, why should it?

Here's my idea - it would require a bit of work though:

1) If article exists on en:, auto-generate a multilingual disambiguation
page using the interwiki links in the article.

2) If the article doesn't exist on en:,
2a) auto-generate a list of links to possible articles in Wikipedias
with > x,000 articles (where x depends on how well the software works).
Make no guarantee about the existance of the target article.
2b) scan the Wikipedias with > x,000 articles, pull out all interwiki
links if one is found (stripping duplicates if it exists under the same
name in multiple lanuages) and generate a disambiguation page.

This way, we both guarantee that all existing links work (to the same
extent as when we move pages and create redirects, or turn things into
disambiguation pages), while at the same time creating a multilingual
portal.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia in the media [Sept. 25 -- October 15 2005]

body:
On 10/22/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Wikipedia's critics appear to be shocked when someone familiar with
> Wikipedia openly admits it's far from perfect ... I do hope the point I
> made here - that Britannica is brilliant and doomed, and if we have a good
> encyclopedia in ten years it's going to be Wikipedia in some form -
> propagates.

That is an important idea, and you stated it quite wonderfully.
Another area where we need to remind people is what exactly an
encyclopedia is and what it is used for... A common set of
misconceptions seem to circulate around the idea that Wikipedia isn't
the best reference work, and that it isn't good for citing. What these
people seem to forget is that pretty much no one beyond high-school
will cite an encyclopedia in their work, and even in highschool it is
often strongly discouraged to over use them... this is precisely
because an encyclopedia, any encyclopedia, is not a primary source.

Wikipedia may be less useful as a primary source compared to other
encyclopedias, but from what we can tell today it looks like our model
is likely as good, if not better, at much of what an encyclopedia is
actually most useful for... Such as acting as a comprehensive general
reference, and taking someone from little knowledge of a subject to a
level where they can understand the primary sources.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> We had a rather large discussion today on privacy and its application on
> Wikipedia (specifically anonymous editing and the checkuser tool which
> is the subject of much debate at the moment).

That's two distinct issues:

* If you contribute to the wiki without creating an account, your edits
are publicly identified with your network location instead of a name.

* Private internal logs associate for a limited time all edits with the
network location they were made from, and a small number of trusted
people have access to this information for the purpose of investigating
misuse of the service.

> I am curious to whether the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy is
> compatible with EU legislation on privacy (which is tightly regulated),
> and whether it is obliged to be, as the Foundation hosts servers in the
> European Union (which are presumably subject to EU law).

I've been asking this for years... Check South Korea's laws as well, as
we have servers there too.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> We had a rather large discussion today on privacy and its application on
> Wikipedia (specifically anonymous editing and the checkuser tool which
> is the subject of much debate at the moment).

That's two distinct issues:

* If you contribute to the wiki without creating an account, your edits
are publicly identified with your network location instead of a name.

* Private internal logs associate for a limited time all edits with the
network location they were made from, and a small number of trusted
people have access to this information for the purpose of investigating
misuse of the service.

> I am curious to whether the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy is
> compatible with EU legislation on privacy (which is tightly regulated),
> and whether it is obliged to be, as the Foundation hosts servers in the
> European Union (which are presumably subject to EU law).

I've been asking this for years... Check South Korea's laws as well, as
we have servers there too.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> We had a rather large discussion today on privacy and its application on
> Wikipedia (specifically anonymous editing and the checkuser tool which
> is the subject of much debate at the moment).

That's two distinct issues:

* If you contribute to the wiki without creating an account, your edits
are publicly identified with your network location instead of a name.

* Private internal logs associate for a limited time all edits with the
network location they were made from, and a small number of trusted
people have access to this information for the purpose of investigating
misuse of the service.

> I am curious to whether the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy is
> compatible with EU legislation on privacy (which is tightly regulated),
> and whether it is obliged to be, as the Foundation hosts servers in the
> European Union (which are presumably subject to EU law).

I've been asking this for years... Check South Korea's laws as well, as
we have servers there too.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] Privacy concerns

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> We had a rather large discussion today on privacy and its application on
> Wikipedia (specifically anonymous editing and the checkuser tool which
> is the subject of much debate at the moment).

That's two distinct issues:

* If you contribute to the wiki without creating an account, your edits
are publicly identified with your network location instead of a name.

* Private internal logs associate for a limited time all edits with the
network location they were made from, and a small number of trusted
people have access to this information for the purpose of investigating
misuse of the service.

> I am curious to whether the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy is
> compatible with EU legislation on privacy (which is tightly regulated),
> and whether it is obliged to be, as the Foundation hosts servers in the
> European Union (which are presumably subject to EU law).

I've been asking this for years... Check South Korea's laws as well, as
we have servers there too.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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