subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

in_reply_to:
<43EE87DB.9000209@earthlink.net>;
	from wikipedia@earthlink.net on Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 04:56:59PM
	-0800

body:
On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 04:56:59PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote:
> Kim Bruning wrote:
>
> If there is no such complaint, what's the urgency that requires you to
> unilaterally delete things? Unless you wish to argue, as some people
> have about the regular deletion process, that it regularly reaches
> incorrect results, I'm not sure why it's so important to short-circuit
> the normal procedures for removing copyrighted material that isn't
> properly licensed.

That's an interesting question. I suppose if that's the case, we really
should take things a bit slower. However, it is the case that sometimes
for instance images for deletion does not delete images that are not
correctly fair use. It also happens that userpages use "fair use" images.

I'm not sure what should be done about those. I don't do deletions myself
anymore, so I'm a fairly neutral party just watching the shells fly both ways.

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


list: foundation-l

subject: Logs Re: [Foundation-l] Open meeting today?

body:
On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 03:56:56PM -0500, SJ wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings

The logs are here (links also placed on the page above):
	http://scireview.de/wiki/com2/channel.log
	http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_committee/February_11%2C_2006_open_meeting_log

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

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list: wikien-l

from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times

body:
I agree with the observation. As the popularity of
Wiki continues to go up, the vandals will keep
increasing in numbers, which in turn will force an
increase in admin numbers. This, to me, sounds bad,
because the admin cult will also grow in size. We can
expect more blocking and more power tripping. I mean,
when admins enjoy using their tools more than working
on articles, something must be wrong.

Anittas

--- Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday
> broadsheet) has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia
> pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism. After
> lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers
> just to keep the vandalism at bay, it quotes Jimmy
> as saying:
>
>   "I thought it would be overrun with idiots but
> there are far more people doing good than those who
> try to be harmful."
>
>   Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the
> idiots at bay rather than writing content (as most
> likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.
>
>   If you want to read the article, see
>
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2036558,00.html
> .
>
>   Jon
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> To help you stay safe and secure online, we've
> developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
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>

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from_name: Jesse W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

body:
On Feb 12, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
> Your 'common sense' contradicts my observed reality... both before and
> after the event.
>
> It is 'common sense' that we indefinitely block people for saying they
> are pedophiles? It is 'common sense' that any such statements are
> forcibly removed?

Er, no.  It's not.  We don't.  One admin did, it made a giant
shit-storm of controversy. The 1-week block of Joeyramoney (the user
who was originally blocked) by Jimbo (for trolling, not for saying e
was a pedophile) was removed, when people calmed down, and was not
supported by the ArbCom. See the decision at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/
Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war - it does not ask that Joeyramoney be
blocked, either permanently or temporarily.  No other username has been
blocked for saying they are pedophiles.  If you can show me some
"observed reality" that contradicts this, please do.

As for removing, "any such statements", that's bound up in the ongoing
userbox mess - AFAIK (I may be wrong about this), we haven't, and we
don't, remove textual statements by a user saying e is a pedophile.  At
various times, userboxes expressing this have been removed, or argued
about, or deleted, or recreated - I claim this falls under the ongoing
userbox mess, not anything specific to pedophiles, or pedophiles on
Wikipedia.

Jesse Weinstein


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
On 2/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> I've been asked to bring this up here as a result of the discussion on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Image:Storm.ogg
>
> where a video was nominated for featured status, but several people
> objected because they could not play Ogg Theora. We currently do not
> allow other video formats.
>
> I would suggest implementing the following policy on all Wikimedia wikis:
>
> "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3 or
> the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
> format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
> patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."
>
> Thoughts, comments, objections? Ideally, the conversion could be done
> automatically, but a soft policy might do the trick for now.

I think that is a *terrible* idea, and I also believe that you're not
telling the complete story about the complaints about this video: The
uploader was trying to be helpful and put a note about using
RealPlayer on the image description page (rather than the more
carefully thought out text from our media help page).  Most of the
objections were to real player, it seems that the Windows version is
perceived as carrying malware. Once it was pointed out that the video
did not require real player and that it was no different from other
videos the objections were mostly removed.

We already have had enough problems with Windows executibles being
renamed .ogg and uploaded, we really shouldn't make it worse by
actually permitting them.

So how long until the suggestion that our article text be distrubted
in encrypted dupliation locked ebook format?


subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] File format policy


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> I'm surprised that this has to be pointed out, really.  I shouldn't
> be.  We're becoming so process-bound and wrapped up in groupthink that
> applying commonsense to a situation is not only seen as unusual, on
> occasion it is seen as *destructive*.

Your 'common sense' contradicts my observed reality... both before and
after the event.

It is 'common sense' that we indefinitely block people for saying they
are pedophiles? It is 'common sense' that any such statements are
forcibly removed? So... why does this 'common sense' apply to one
incident and one incident only - while not applying to virtually
identical cases which have existed for years and, indeed, continue to exist?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this became 'common sense'... despite being
contradictory to all process and precedent. People were punished for
failing to perceive this 'common sense'... but now, just as swiftly as
it came, the 'common sense' has vanished and we've still got people who
opnely declare themselves pedophiles and nobody says 'boo' about it.
Forgive me for my foolishness, but I do not understand your 'common sense'.

Stop and consider how it looks from the outside. It looks like a rule
was made up on the spot to justify one side of a wheel war and punish
the other... and yes, that appearance IS destructive. As evidenced by
the people who left (Radiant) or became hostile (SPUI). The benefit of
being 'process-bound and wrapped up in groupthink' is that it does not
 >inherently< appear capricious. Even if we accept that 'the powers that
be' are imbued with some higher perception of 'common sense' than the
community in general... by definition it is NEVER going to appear that
way to the majority who do not share this special wisdom.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
On 2/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Yes, there were misunderstandings -- that doesn't change the facts: that
> Windows does not support Ogg Theora natively

Our media help page provides a half dozen players with Theora support.

Windows also does not support SVG natively, IE renders PNG with
transparency wrong (at least I think it still does). There was also a
time when Windows included no support for MP3. Windows 2000 didn't
ship with an MPEG4 codec, and I don't think that XP does either
(although it will happily download one).

A huge amount of streaming video on the Web requires codec downloads,
but Windows Media player will autodownload most of them, although it
will not autodownload theora this is why the en vogue video glurge
sites use flash based players.

If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
certantly possible).

> that Theora in particular
> is Alpha software,

And the mediawiki code that Wikipedia usually runs is labeled 'beta'.
Can you point out any discussion about bugs in Theora?

The code is quite sold and has been for a long time.

> that we've had many reports of problems with playback
> of both Theora and Vorbis,

To where?  They aren't arriving in mass in OTRS.

> and that I've been specifically asked by one
> of the concerned users to bring this up.

It might have been more useful to begin the discussion on the media
help talk page.

> I'm a huge supporter of free
> formats -- I bought an iRiver a while ago only because it supports
> Vorbis, and I exclusively encode audio files in this format -- but we do
> have to keep usability in mind.
>
> Many PC users who access Wikipedia will not be able to follow complex
> instructions to set up new video or audio codecs. When it comes down to
> it, the question is whether some people will be able to view our content
> or not. A dual format policy strikes me as a reasonable compromise.

If our instructions are too complex then they should be improved. I
think they are pretty easy as is: most of the software is a single
click to install and then both Theora and Vorbis just work when you
click on them.

We haven't even managed to get all of the mp3 files off of english
Wikipedia yet and they've been forbidden for a long time now, so I
can't see how your proposed change would accomplish anything except
forcing our users to use patent encumbered formats.

Also, as the single largest uploader of original music recordings
(although it's still a pretty limited number because the annoyance of
copyright issues on music is keeping me from uploading hundreds of
tracks), I'd like to also voice another objection: I strongly oppose
the use of the content I've created to promote patent encumbered
formats.

> > We already have had enough problems with Windows executibles being
> > renamed .ogg and uploaded, we really shouldn't make it worse by
> > actually permitting them.
>
> I don't understand - what does my suggestion have to do with Windows
> executables?

The RIFF wrapper used for most of the microsoft formats is a
multiformat wrapper (Just like OGG) and can happily be coerced into
containing executable code (unlike OGG).

> > So how long until the suggestion that our article text be distrubted
> > in encrypted dupliation locked ebook format?
>
> Neither MP3 nor MPEG-4 necessarily use DRM, and of course we wouldn't
> use or allow DRM for these formats, so I fail to see the slippery slope.
> We're talking about supporting the most widely used file formats for
> audio and video compression. That does not strike me as a radical blow
> against freedom.

Both are only available under obnoxious patent licenses which claim to
demand fees per download, and otherwise control the creators,
distributors, and users of the content.
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/emd.html, for example)

'Mode widely used' is a broken argument by itself. If we were going
for most widely used, for revision controlled text we'd be using
Microsoft Word rather than Wikitext.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
On 2/12/06, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikizine.org> wrote:
[snip]
> The problem seems to me not the format but the way the video in included
> in the article. Just look at it.;
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Storm&oldid=38618501
> How can the know what to do with that?

Oh wow, just more evidence that people aren't doing their homework
before crying that the sky if falling over our use of Theora.  We have
a proper video template (and one for audio as well) on enwiki which
provides instruction and an attractive image... but it looks like the
template was not used on that article for some reason.

I put the template in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Storm&oldid=39328671


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

in_reply_to:
<43EE7E4A.8000108@telus.net>;
	from saintonge@telus.net on Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 04:16:10PM -0800

body:
On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 04:16:10PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> How do you distinguish between a "correct" and an "incorrect" fair use
> claim.

If a copyrighted image shows up on a user page, that's a good clue. :-)

sincerely,
	Kim Bruning

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subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
On 2/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Removing foundation-l from CC because we're talking more about tech than
> foundation policy now. Gregory, thanks for adding your considerable
> expertise to this debate. It is much appreciated.

OK

> > Windows also does not support SVG natively, IE renders PNG with
> > transparency wrong (at least I think it still does). There was also a
> > time when Windows included no support for MP3. Windows 2000 didn't
> > ship with an MPEG4 codec, and I don't think that XP does either
> > (although it will happily download one).
>
> Yes, these are all good points. It would be interesting to know what
> formats _are_ supported natively by Windows XP. We might also want to
> talk to the video experts from the Internet Archive and Ourmedia about
> their experiences with accessibility. These are non-profits with a
> record of promoting the public good.

> Looking around on Internet Archive, I do not see Theora, but I do see
> files with the "MP4" extension, which the file command identifies as
> "ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, version 1". Is that an open wrapper format
> for MPEG streams?

Archive.org supports theora, for example
http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=DanRDennedyAmyDennedysFirstDanceRecital.

They currently leave the burden of transcoding on the uploader, thus
much of their content is not available in theora although I do
understand that it is a goal.

The .mp4 in that case is mpeg systems format. It's also what you'll
usually find mpeg2 and mpeg1 in.. it's less problematic and complex
than using RIFF encap, but it's less widely supported.

> > If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> > you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> > certantly possible).
>
> Also an interesting suggestion. Do you know a Java-based implementation
> which would support Theora, and which would run out of the box in
> Internet Explorer on XP? If it doesn't exist, perhaps it might make
> sense for the Foundation to fund development, if it seeks to take an
> active role in promoting Theora and Vorbis.

Yes it exists, and it's free software. I'm not sure what support in IE
on XP is... I know the jorbis Vorbis decoder works with gcj/kaffe
however which is a good sign. See
http://www.fluendo.com/products.php?product=applet for the Theora
decoder.

> > And the mediawiki code that Wikipedia usually runs is labeled 'beta'.
> > Can you point out any discussion about bugs in Theora?
>
> I'm not aware of their bugtracking database, but their own FAQ seems to
> be fairly clear on what they mean by "Alpha":
> http://www.theora.org/theorafaq.html#31
>
> "'Alpha' code is strictly for internal development only, which is to
> say, 'No one sees this code, it's not even close to being done yet.' At
> the Xiph.org Foundation, we release everything we do so that people can
> help us move the codebase forward by reporting bugs and submitting
> patches. So, even 'Alpha' code needs to get out to the world."

ugh. That page hasn't been updated in a long time since 2004. It's not
true anymore.  Hm. It looks like I lost my access to update it when it
moved over to subversion. I'll get that page fixed.

> I've personally had troubles getting Theora to work with mplayer, but it
> does seem to work fine with xine.

Hmm. If you compile mplayer with the theora option it should just work
(tm). It does here. Elaborate some and I'll help you get it fixed. ...
Many of the binary distributions of mplayer do not ship with Theora
turned on, which is slowly changing.

> Grepping my IRC logs, I see many complaints about crashes, lack of docs
>   and lack of wide support, from various notable people, but it would
> violate Freenode policy to post these. If you have logs as well, I
> suggest grepping -i for "theora".

I mostly see complains about encoding, none for playback in a quick
glance... In general transcoding is a pain, theora isn't special in
that regard. Actually, it's somewhat better than other formats if
you're on linux and have ffmpeg2theora working.

> The two incidents I remember most vividly are the problems during
> Wikimania to play back the little documentary that was made about the
> public domain (if we can't even make it work at our own conferences, we
> can hardly expect the average Windows user to do so), and our
> discussions on Wikinews when David Vasquez was working on a Wikinews TV
> version.

Some of the files put up for Wikimania were not actually Theora but
were 'ogm', a combination of mpeg4 and vorbis in an Ogg wrapper. It
was (is?) very popular for the exchange of illicitly copied Japanese
animation because the support for subtitles was far better than what
was otherwise available for mpeg4 (xvid) and it predated Theora.  Ogm
has always been regarded as completely evil by Xiph because embedding
patented codes defeats the purpose of having a patent free format (as
well as a number of technical issues about how Ogm abuses ogg
encapsulation).

As a result some of the Wikimania files would not play on our
recommended software. Unless you also happened to have a xvid codec
installed and the stars aligned correctly.   I run a bot which checks
uploads for being OGM, we haven't gotten any new ones for a while.

Perhaps this was the cause of your problems?

> I do see a risk that the dual policy might be violated too easily.
> Perhaps a simple hack that "filename.<proprietary format>" is not
> allowed if "filename.ogg" does not also exist would be sufficient. Yes,
> it could still be violated, but that would then be much more obvious and
> malicious.

I think that the other issues make the proposal a non-starter, but we
certainly couldn't do any less than that.

 > I understand. Believe me, I'd love to see more mainstream support for
> Theora and Vorbis. Perhaps we can brainstorm a bit about how to make
> this happen. I like the Java player idea.

Sounds like a plan. In any case, as a top popularity site on the
internet we are in a position to drive adoption. We just need to make
sure that we're making it as easy as possible.

Java player is perhaps a good idea, although I don't like the idea of
Wikipedia distributing more executable code than we must. (The next
request will be for java or flash widgets in articles  to act as
interactive illustrations...).  That said, I find the idea of shipping
out a GCJ/Kaffe compatible Java module a heck of a lot less
distasteful than shipping out content in a patented codec.

Plus, there is a lot of other potential use for a Wikipedia player...
For example, wikieditable time synced overlays and subtitles... with
working Wikilinks and the like.

> > The RIFF wrapper used for most of the microsoft formats is a
> > multiformat wrapper (Just like OGG) and can happily be coerced into
> > containing executable code (unlike OGG).
>
> Do you have some useful background links on the topic of executable code
> within wrapper formats?

There have been a couple of cert advisories on it.. There are
basically two problems: one, windows apps sometimes have a tendency to
ignore extensions and just follow file magic and end up running code,
this is far less common in the apps typical setup to handle OGG... the
second is exploits in the various substreams, for example embedding
WMF in AVI.  It's a corner case concern, I had intended to say it was
probably as much of a real problem as theora being alpha but I hit
submit too early.

 > > 'Mode widely used' is a broken argument by itself. If we were going
> > for most widely used, for revision controlled text we'd be using
> > Microsoft Word rather than Wikitext.
>
> Well, that's not a very fair comparison, since at least there are
> feature-complete open source encoder and decoder implementations of the
> codecs in question. According to Wikipedia, there's also debate about
> whether the patents are actually enforcable, at least in the EU.

StarOffice :) ... The patents may not be enforceable in the EU but
they are in the US. ... but even if they may not be enforceable in
some or all places we would be asking all involved to accept
liability.  Most of the big media names have pulled out their
checkbooks, the licensing fees are high but they are less than the
cost of the liability, and thats no accident. :)


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Boston Globe: "Bias,
	sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world"

body:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/
bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/

First of a two-parter. Seems pretty good to me, the reporter has done
some work, it's not just a hatchet job. But it's pretty negative
about Wikipedia.

There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
and what outsiders think it is.

They think it's an encyclopedia.

That discrepancy is going to cause us more and more trouble unless we
find a better way to deal with it.


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3
> or the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
> format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
> patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."

I don't see any reason not to allow that.  The point of the "no
patent-encumbered formats" restriction, as far as I understand it, is to
keep all our content available in fully free formats for both viewing
and editing.  *Also* providing a video in MPEG-4 doesn't make the Theora
version any less free or available.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


from_name: Jon

body:
The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers just to keep the vandalism at bay, it quotes Jimmy as saying:

  "I thought it would be overrun with idiots but there are far more people doing good than those who try to be harmful."

  Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.

  If you want to read the article, see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2036558,00.html .

  Jon

---------------------------------
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subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

body:
On 2/12/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I don't see any reason not to allow that.  The point of the "no
> patent-encumbered formats" restriction, as far as I understand it, is to
> keep all our content available in fully free formats for both viewing
> and editing.  *Also* providing a video in MPEG-4 doesn't make the Theora
> version any less free or available.

But unless we were to generate the proprietary formats with server
side transcoding there would be no way to ensure that the open codec
formats were always available and the preferred form for editing...
and I'm pretty confident that the use of non-free software for the
Wikipedia backend is still out of the question.

That said, I don't know that I agree with your argument that providing
an mpeg-4 version doesn't make the the free version less available: So
long as the mpeg-4 format is more widely supported (and I don't know
that it really is by that wide a margin, one thing I've learned is
that peoples guesses are often wrong... but if it's not the discussion
is moot) then people will preferentially transfer and share in that
format.  Just because Wikipedia is carrying both formats doesn't mean
the downstream will do so...  Sure, downstream can always transcode
themselves, but that still leaves us in a position to decide
downstream must do less work to distribute in the freedom deprived
formats, or more work if they wish to offer those formats.

I don't feel confident that it would be legal to distribute typical
copyleft licensed content in an unfree format... As I expressed
previously, I'm pretty unhappy about the idea the content I created
being distributed in these formats.

Even if we ignore all the other issues, we're still left with the fact
that the Wikimedia foundation's intended uses almost certainly fall
under the criteria that the the patent holders of these formats
believe they are entitled to extract per-download fees on (especially
in the case of mpeg4).  Now, the question of do they really have a leg
to stand on is a separate matter, but can count on a dispute being
costly either way... We can already see how this is panning out in the
industry: Everyone of substantial size pays the protection fee.

Generally the enforcement (and licensing costs) of this stuff is tuned
to keep the economics in favor of supporting the proprietary formats
and avoiding the push to free formats. If the licensors were to make
too much of a nuisance of themselves, the public would take the one
time change out cost to switch entirely to free formats and the
licensors would lose out massively while the public would benefit
greatly so the situation remains carefully controlled.

The existence of Vorbis itself demonstrates this dynamic: the not
insubstantial cost to create Vorbis was primarily covered by an
internet content distribution house who never actually switched to it.
The mere existence of a viable free alternative changed the balance
away from Thompson enough to easily justify the cost.

The preservation of these costly (to society) proprietary formats is
possible because the primary decision makers in this grand game are
obligated to maximize profits above all other motives, this provides a
knob hook for the patent holders to tweak to keep the situation under
their control.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, is chartered to provide Free content.
Our duty, ultimately, it to maximize long term public good even at the
expense of short term popularity or convenience (and it isn't at all
clear that we are even giving up anything there with the decision to
only use free formats). There is, quite frankly, no good reason for us
to feel compelled by the limited advantages of the proprietary
formats... but the existence or lack of advantages shouldn't be our
motivator in this decision, the utter incompatibility of proprietary
and encumbered  with our fundamental goals should.


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>   Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather than
> writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.

Uh, what? A lot of us contribute in many different ways, and reverting
vandalism is something that practically every active Wikipedia editor does
from time to time, in addition to improving the articles. Vandalism really
is FAR from our biggest problem.

Ryan


from_name: charles matthews

body:
 "Conrad Dunkerson" wrote

> charles matthews wrote:
>
>> Sorry, I just switch off when people start up with the 'given a pass'
>> talk. I don't think there was ever a question raised against David
>> Gerard's judgement.  If you can't see why, it's the end of the
>> conversation.
>
> Oh, I think I can see why, but yes... that'd be the end of the
> conversation.

Just for everyone else, then.  There is no 'moral equivalence' about it.
This has been about content and form, and those puzzled presumably thought
that sticking to 'form', and disregarding what was really happening, was
somehow OK.

The ArbCom is as sane as ever, and has a perfectly good mandate to act here.

Charles


body:
"Jon" wrote

> The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has done a
> hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism.

Hey, it's the Murdoch press.  Not the place to go to be informed about
anything.

Charles


from_name: David Newton

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Juriwiki-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
Angela wrote:

>Can you please point out where Wikisource agreed to allow CC-BY-NC-ND
>text? I don't recall any mention of it on any of the mailing lists I'm
>on. It really shouldn't be news to anyone using Wikisource that all
>Foundation projects require freely licensed text.

As I said in my previous message I saw that there was an ambiguity in
the Wikisource copyright page back in November. See here:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-November/005050.html

I tried to get a definitive statement, of the type that you just made,
out of people on this very mailing list. I also posted things on the
Scriptorium at Wikisource to get input there. The result was more
confusion. I then got interested parties to chat in IRC (those
interested parties that were actually interested enough at the time to
respond) to see what should be done about this. The copyright page of
the main Wikisource domain was altered with a note making it clear
that this was a trial. Nothing was said about it for a month and so
the page that was referred to earlier in this thread was altered.

It wasn't exactly like this alteration was made in secret and it
wasn't exactly like this alteration was made without trying to get the
opinion of the Foundation on the matter. After all that's precisely
why I posted about it on this very mailing list!

I suggest that you be the one to make the policy clear on Wikisource.
I also suggest that you be the one to tag the hundreds of UN
resolution copyvios on there for deletion. If this is to be the
confirmed policy I will remove work that I have done on starting to
put some British legislation online, which is under Crown copyright
and hence incompatible with the GFDL. Prepare for a storm of protest,
particularly about the UN resolutions (although I happen to agree that
they are copyvios in that case).

If Wikisource is not to be a repository of works that are freely
reproducable, but not compatible with the terms of the GFDL then I
think starting something on Wikicities would be in order. I originally
intended to use the Wiki format to create copies of the original
legislation online and then create amended copies of them as they
appeared at various points. Since the promised British Government
statute law database is currently mired in developmental purgatory
that seemed a very useful thing to do and perfect for Wikisource.

Good luck in implementing (properly this time) the copyright policy of
the Foundation. You'll need it given the number of those willing to
wilfully violate copyright on Wikisource.

David Newton


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Angela raised the point during the IRC meeting last night that the Board
> is unable to make decisions due to the requirement for 5 affirmative
> votes before something is implemented. She also mentioned that Michael
> Davis and Tim Shell are typically "silent" and due to this it's
> difficult to reach decisions.

Actually, Talrias said it, not Angela.  Angela did repeat it more or
less a few minutes later, but I think that was a typo.  Michael Davis,
at least, is a very active board member, and he has been for the past
several months extremely busy for the foundation on a daily basis.

> Rather than discussing forming an "executive committee", which I think
> is sweeping the problem underneath the rug, would it not be better to
> instead change the voting system used by the Board, so they only need a
> simple majority (i.e. 3 votes out of 5) in order to enact a change?

Having an executive committee is part of a longer term restructuring to
scale the organization better.  The board is working on a change to the
bylaws, though, to enable us to work more effectively.  (And this isn't
really about 'silent' members, but rather a technical change so that we
do not have to have every member vote on every single thing.)

> Thoughts?

I think it is totally not accurate to think of Michael Davis as
inactive.  But the technical issue, yes, should be resolved soon.  Even
so, that's not really what the whole Executive Committee thing is about.

--Jimbo

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
David Newton wrote:

>We also have a serious problem with "fair use" at Wikisource
>where people are posting copyvios and then claiming "fair use".
>Personally I'm in favour of banning "fair use" contributions to
>Wikisource given that Wikisource reproduces the whole of a work.
>
>
I have seen a slight increase in the use of "fair use" to justify
copyright violations on Wikibooks as well.  I think this is mainly
people who want to simply copy text from elsewhere on the internet and
then use "fair use" as justification for why they have it.

As far as Wikisource banning fair use documents, I think that is a
pretty good idea.  I'm sorry I missed that discussion on the Scriptorium.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 2/12/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> Just for everyone else, then.  There is no 'moral equivalence' about it.
> This has been about content and form, and those puzzled presumably thought
> that sticking to 'form', and disregarding what was really happening, was
> somehow OK.

I'm surprised that this has to be pointed out, really.  I shouldn't
be.  We're becoming so process-bound and wrapped up in groupthink that
applying commonsense to a situation is not only seen as unusual, on
occasion it is seen as *destructive*.


from_name: Angela

body:
> You've come in months after I was trying to sort this out and
> completely contradicted what was thrashed out then. It really would
> have been helpful if you had actually participated in things months
> back. There are going to be more than a few rather annoyed Wikisource
> users at this news.

Can you please point out where Wikisource agreed to allow CC-BY-NC-ND
text? I don't recall any mention of it on any of the mailing lists I'm
on. It really shouldn't be news to anyone using Wikisource that all
Foundation projects require freely licensed text.

Angela.


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I am often
> hesitant about calling a sysop on his behaviour when I know his
> reputation for arguing; it may not always be right, but such disputes
> can be exhausting.  I would prefer spending my time on more creative
> contributions.
>
You're not the only one who thinks this way, Ray.

To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
content conflict:

1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
articles in need of attention.
2. Wait x number of weeks.
3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
intact.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.

Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.

Geoff


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3
>> or the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
>> format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
>> patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."
>
>
> I don't see any reason not to allow that.  The point of the "no
> patent-encumbered formats" restriction, as far as I understand it, is
> to keep all our content available in fully free formats for both
> viewing and editing.  *Also* providing a video in MPEG-4 doesn't make
> the Theora version any less free or available.
>
> -Mark
>
It is more than that.  Most of the patent encumbering file formats,
notably GIF and JPEG, but MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are suffering from this as
well (as well as the MPEG audio codec layer 3 spec even in MPEG-1, aka
MP3) all require royalty payments by the file hosting service.  That
means the Wikimedia Foundation is directly liable for this royalty
payment, and it is simply being responsible by not permitting file
uploads in these formats.  The GIF patents have expired in the USA, but
it still has some sticky issues in other countries.  Less now than it
was even a year ago, but it can still cause grief if we are not careful.
 This is royalties for simply distributing files in these formats, not
necessarily the creation or playback of data in these formats, which is
a whole other issue.

As far as I know, there are really only two different "video" file
formats that are without patent encumberance that wouldn't require
royalty payments for data distribution:  Ogg Theora and MNG (derived
from the PNG spec).  MNG is mostly a glorified replacement for animated
GIFs, so that may not really count either unless you use timing chunks
and non-standard audio inclusion.  That is the reason for the
restrictions on the file formats of what you can upload to a place like
Commons, and a reason to encourage people to purchase software or video
devices that can use the Theora file format.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>> Having an executive committee is part of a longer term restructuring to
>> scale the organization better.  The board is working on a change to the
>> bylaws, though, to enable us to work more effectively.  (And this isn't
>> really about 'silent' members, but rather a technical change so that we
>> do not have to have every member vote on every single thing.)
>
>
> What kind of changes are you thinking of making?

Essetially what you said.  So that when we vote on resolutions on the
board wiki, if 3 vote 'yes' then we don't need to wait on the other two,
since even if they did vote 'no' (which is not very likely or common
really since almost all of our resolutions are unanimous) it would make
no difference.

Right now things can be delayed a day or two if a board member hasn't
logged in to edit.  This can happen for any number of reasons (for
example, Anthere having a baby, or me on a plane or in some remote
location with poor/no net access).

> What is the Executive Committee about, then? I was under the impression
> it was to streamline decision making.

Yes, that's a part of it.  But it is also about thinking about scaling
-- we are getting bigger, and the board is working hard to delegate.
There is talk of board expansion, and a larger board should not be
tasked with day-to-day management.

We're working longterm, not just applying a band-aid to current issues. :)

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system


body:
SPUI wrote:
>>> Hello Jimmy. Thanks for fueling the recent moral panic that convinced me
>>> to stop contributing.
>>
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SPUI&oldid=38917332
>>
>> Good riddance.
>
>
> Thanks for making your stance clear. If you had done so over a year ago,
> I would never have wasted my time here.

*nod*  I apologize to you then for wasting your time.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Kim Bruning wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 12:12:53PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote:
>>
>>> For copyright infringements where we have an actual complaint by an
>>> affected party, (...)
>>>
>>
>> The problem is where there is no such complaint as yet, or where
>> people incorrectly claim "fair use" in an attempt to escape
>> deletion.
>
> It presumes bad faith to say that they claim fair use to escape deletion.
>
> Presuming good faith would put a motivation to improve the article first.
>
> How do you distinguish between a "correct" and an "incorrect" fair use
> claim.
>
> Ec
>
You have to use both context and quantity of usage for justification.
 Clearly it is better to obtain permission than to simply claim
fair-use, and the bigger issue is really just fair use images.  Fair-use
text can be distinguished mainly as a short quote or merely used in
reference, and the bulk of a page can't be fair-use from a single
source.  For both text and images courts do use how the content is
competing against the original product (book, magazine, newspaper), with
distribution formats that differ widely to be given a larger degree of
lattitude.  Reproducing a newspaper article in a book has been found to
be legal by some courts, for instance.  I wouldn't rely on that as
ironclad protection, however, and it is a very grey area I would
recommend that we stay away from on Wikimedia projects.

As general project policy regarding fair use, I think it is best to not
just stay strictly within the law, but steer clear of legal grey areas
where possible that could still get our projects in trouble.  With the
extra trouble of trying to even find what might be fair-use, I
completely understand projects like Commons that simply don't even want
to allow it at all.  Wikibooks doesn't even have a fair use policy yet,
but this is perhaps something we need to consider on that project.
 Obviously Wikipedia opened a can of worms to even allow fair use at all.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Protected deleted pages and google

body:
Evan Martin wrote:
> You can't control off-wikipedia links to deleted pages, either.
> Definitely prefer the meta tags.
> See also:  http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html

We've discussed adding a parser tag such as __NOINDEX__, which would cause the necessary meta tag to
appear in the header, but we were worried about abuse, such as using it to mark POV disputes, sneaky
vandalism, misguided attempts to systematically de-index the entire wikipedia namespace, that sort
of thing.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] One click answers

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> What happened to the one-click answers deal?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I saw Bob Rosenschein last weekend in Los Angeles, and the software will
be ready in a week or two.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] One click answers


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

body:
I've been asked to bring this up here as a result of the discussion on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Image:Storm.ogg

where a video was nominated for featured status, but several people
objected because they could not play Ogg Theora. We currently do not
allow other video formats.

I would suggest implementing the following policy on all Wikimedia wikis:

"It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3 or
the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."

Thoughts, comments, objections? Ideally, the conversion could be done
automatically, but a soft policy might do the trick for now.

Thanks,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy

in_reply_to:
<43EF0174.2@gmx.de>;
	from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 10:35:48AM +0100

body:
On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 10:35:48AM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats ...

No. Do not encourage.

--
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subject: [Foundation-l] File format policy


from_name: Adrian Buehlmann

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-10

body:
"Tim Starling"
<t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote in
message news:dsm7st$5b2$1 at sea.gmane.org
> Adrian Buehlmann wrote:
>> "Jitse Niesen" <jitse.niesen at gmail.com>
>> wrote in message
>> news:8a93c6a0602110726u576ae63eqd40d1181570e53a2 at mail.gmail.com
>>
>>> On 2/11/06, Brion Vibber
>>> <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The optional use of tidy is a temporary hack that got put in rather
>>>> than fix up the parser's own HTML balancing code, which is a
>>>> horrible piece of crap that I wrote in 2002 when I didn't know what
>>>> the hell I was doing. :)
>>>>
>>>> If you'd like try rewriting it so it balances end tags properly,
>>>> detects illegal nesting cases, and understands MathML, that would
>>>> be super awesome.
>>>
>>> Hmm, I think it would be easier for me to change tidy so that it
>>> understands MathML. Why do you want to get rid of tidy?
>>
>>
>> Don't beat me (with the big stick): but could tidy be kept?
>>
>> It is currently co-abused for the CSS trick described at
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:hiddenStructure
>>
>
> The hiddenStructure hack works for reasons entirely unrelated to
> tidy. Don't believe everything you read on a wiki.
>
> -- Tim Starling

I wrote the initial versions of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:hiddenStructure
myself in order to document my understanding of it and Netoholic
edited it.

So it documents our combined current understanding of it. Which you now say
is wrong. I would be happy to know why this whole element:

       param1: FOO

does not appear in the html of a page when I enter this in the wiki source
on the en: wiki.

The only thing I know is that classFOO is an illegal attribute for the
element span.

I suspect now that crediting the removal if this kind of element to tidy
seems to be false guess. So, how get's that removed?

(Maybe you could just edit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:hiddenStructure
and write how it really happens?)


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hidden text spam and low traffic wikis...

body:
I have started a few wikis (using Mediawiki, and kept up to date) and
I have found that we are being spammed, about once every ten days.
Usually links to drug (pharmaceuticals) sales sites in hidden text.
These wikis are very low traffic but are linked from Metawiki at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki

I have also noticed a wiki that has been set up and the WikiSysop has
no idea how to actually build content in the site. So, what does he
get? Spam! No content, nothing. Just spam.

It would seem WikiSysops should be made aware of their
responsibilities, when Mediawiki software is installed. Should theyt
have to pass a test? It is great that installation is so easy, but
that lowers the threshold of a potential WikiSysop admin to be
verging on the almost clueless.

Another effect. Users are registering email in the domains that I
own, in which the Mediaiki wikis live. Hence, I see all the email
confirmation emails (to addresses such as anythinggoes1234 @
mylittlehouse.org.uk). This is a relatively new feature, suggesting
again increasingly clueless spammers are getting in on the act,
perhaps?

Is there a message here?

--
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/


body:
>> The hiddenStructure hack works for reasons entirely unrelated to
>> tidy. Don't believe everything you read on a wiki.
>>
>> -- Tim Starling
>
> Adrian Buehlmann wrote:
[snip]
>       param1: FOO
>
> does not appear in the html of a page when I enter this in the wiki
> source on the en: wiki.

Error: it is only the attribute 'classFOO="hiddenStructure"' that gets
removed. In the html appears

        param1: FOO

in this case. Still: I don't know why. You say it is not removed by
tidy.


from_name: Rob Smith

body:
Without precedents editors and the ArbCom are free to make the same
mistakes over and over again.  How does a reliable source defines
that?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results."

Of course Wikipedia can't seem to agree with itself on that either.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Attributed
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Attributed

nobs

On 2/11/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I made it abundantly clear during the ArbCom elections
> that I didn't think precedent is a good basis for Arbitrators having their
> hands tied.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
Erik Moeller schreef:
[cut]
> Thoughts, comments, objections? Ideally, the conversion could be done
> automatically, but a soft policy might do the trick for now.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Erik

Not a good idea. Yes, Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora are not out of the box
supported by Windows. So what? The only need to install the codec

http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ and the can play Theora and Vorbis whit
there Windows Media Player.

The problem seems to me not the format but the way the video in included
in the article. Just look at it.;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Storm&oldid=38618501

How can the know what to do with that?

1) it is a link to the description page, not the file, confusing to the
visitor
2) the sentence says it is video, the hyperlink says it is a image
3) there is now explanation that the video is in Ogg Theora and how you
can make it work

The problem is not Ogg Theora but how it is used.

On the Dutch Wikipedia this template is used for Ogg Theora files;

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sjablonen_voor_gebruikersboodschappen#Media-sjablonen

(the last one)

1) icon to indicate it is video
2) direct link to the file
3) question mark hyperlink to help page
4) + to the discription page

The use of Ogg vorbis/Theora makes it more difficult for visitors to
access the stuff. But it is not more difficult the users who need to
install RealPlayer or Quicktime on there new computer.

Also because Wikipedia is becoming so big and because we are using Ogg
Vorbis and Theora Wikipedia is making them more main stream.

Greetings,
Walter

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


body:
Gregory Maxwell:
> I think that is a *terrible* idea, and I also believe that you're not
> telling the complete story about the complaints about this video: The
> uploader was trying to be helpful and put a note about using
> RealPlayer on the image description page (rather than the more
> carefully thought out text from our media help page).  Most of the
> objections were to real player, it seems that the Windows version is
> perceived as carrying malware. Once it was pointed out that the video
> did not require real player and that it was no different from other
> videos the objections were mostly removed.

Yes, there were misunderstandings -- that doesn't change the facts: that
Windows does not support Ogg Theora natively, that Theora in particular
is Alpha software, that we've had many reports of problems with playback
of both Theora and Vorbis, and that I've been specifically asked by one
of the concerned users to bring this up. I'm a huge supporter of free
formats -- I bought an iRiver a while ago only because it supports
Vorbis, and I exclusively encode audio files in this format -- but we do
have to keep usability in mind.

Many PC users who access Wikipedia will not be able to follow complex
instructions to set up new video or audio codecs. When it comes down to
it, the question is whether some people will be able to view our content
or not. A dual format policy strikes me as a reasonable compromise.

> We already have had enough problems with Windows executibles being
> renamed .ogg and uploaded, we really shouldn't make it worse by
> actually permitting them.

I don't understand - what does my suggestion have to do with Windows
executables?

> So how long until the suggestion that our article text be distrubted
> in encrypted dupliation locked ebook format?

Neither MP3 nor MPEG-4 necessarily use DRM, and of course we wouldn't
use or allow DRM for these formats, so I fail to see the slippery slope.
We're talking about supporting the most widely used file formats for
audio and video compression. That does not strike me as a radical blow
against freedom.

Erik


subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy


body:
"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote

> It is 'common sense' that we indefinitely block people for saying they are
> pedophiles?

You know this is about a wheel-war, not that.  Form and content.  Some idiot
creates a userbox, and because of the 'sacred' quality of the userbox form,
some other idiots rush to undelete it.  As has been frequently been pointed
out, the _content_ hasn't been policed in the way you suggest.

It is a complete violation of common sense to wheel-war about this, rather
than discuss matters.  Dragging red herrings across the issue helps not at
all.

Charles


body:
STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote

>We can
> expect more blocking and more power tripping. I mean,
> when admins enjoy using their tools more than working
> on articles, something must be wrong.

We can expect more of everything: more articles, and more random bitching I
suppose.

Charles


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

body:
David Newton napisa?u:

> If Wikisource is not to be a repository of works that are freely
> reproducable, but not compatible with the terms of the GFDL then I
> think starting something on Wikicities would be in order.
> David Newton

Aren't all Wikicities also GFDL?

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
> > http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/12/
> > bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/
> >
> > First of a two-parter. Seems pretty good to me, the reporter has done
> > some work, it's not just a hatchet job. But it's pretty negative
> > about Wikipedia.
> >
> > There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
> > and what outsiders think it is.
> >
> > They think it's an encyclopedia.
> >
> > That discrepancy is going to cause us more and more trouble unless we
> > find a better way to deal with it.
>
> That was seriously one of the best articles I've ever seen written about
> us. I've shot an email to the author thanking him for doing his research
> instead of shabbily ommitting and making up stuff to support a
> particular viewpoint as most other journalists do. I don't think it's
> negative at all; I find it highlights some of the best and worst parts
> of Wikipedia and would probably comply with [[WP:NPOV]], if not [[WP:NOR]].

I think it places too much emphasis on the idea of fighting vandalism,
but then so do a lot of editors these days. I wrote the author about
the obvious factual error, "On his own, Seigenthaler tracked down the
saboteur to a business in Nashville." As if.


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- "Daniel P. B. Smith" <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be
> and what outsiders think it is.
>
> They think it's an encyclopedia.

That might be because we call ourselves "Wikipedia -- the free encyclopedia"
;-)

I agree with your main point, though. We could consider making
[[Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia]] more prominent. Wikipedia is quite
unique as a resource, and it's not immediately intuitive how to make the best
use of it. We push lots of editing tutorials at newbies (which is good and
proper, as we want to encourage people to edit as much as possible), but it
wouldn't hurt to help out the silent, read-only majority as much as we can.

-- Matt

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

___________________________________________________________
Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry


subject: [Wikitech-l] File format policy

body:
Removing foundation-l from CC because we're talking more about tech than
foundation policy now. Gregory, thanks for adding your considerable
expertise to this debate. It is much appreciated.

Gregory Maxwell:

> Windows also does not support SVG natively, IE renders PNG with
> transparency wrong (at least I think it still does). There was also a
> time when Windows included no support for MP3. Windows 2000 didn't
> ship with an MPEG4 codec, and I don't think that XP does either
> (although it will happily download one).

Yes, these are all good points. It would be interesting to know what
formats _are_ supported natively by Windows XP. We might also want to
talk to the video experts from the Internet Archive and Ourmedia about
their experiences with accessibility. These are non-profits with a
record of promoting the public good.

Looking around on Internet Archive, I do not see Theora, but I do see
files with the "MP4" extension, which the file command identifies as
"ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, version 1". Is that an open wrapper format
for MPEG streams?

> If you want mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
> you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
> certantly possible).

Also an interesting suggestion. Do you know a Java-based implementation
which would support Theora, and which would run out of the box in
Internet Explorer on XP? If it doesn't exist, perhaps it might make
sense for the Foundation to fund development, if it seeks to take an
active role in promoting Theora and Vorbis.

> And the mediawiki code that Wikipedia usually runs is labeled 'beta'.
> Can you point out any discussion about bugs in Theora?

I'm not aware of their bugtracking database, but their own FAQ seems to
be fairly clear on what they mean by "Alpha":
http://www.theora.org/theorafaq.html#31

"'Alpha' code is strictly for internal development only, which is to
say, 'No one sees this code, it's not even close to being done yet.' At
the Xiph.org Foundation, we release everything we do so that people can
help us move the codebase forward by reporting bugs and submitting
patches. So, even 'Alpha' code needs to get out to the world."

I've personally had troubles getting Theora to work with mplayer, but it
does seem to work fine with xine.

>> that we've had many reports of problems with playback
>> of both Theora and Vorbis,
>
> To where?  They aren't arriving in mass in OTRS.

Grepping my IRC logs, I see many complaints about crashes, lack of docs
  and lack of wide support, from various notable people, but it would
violate Freenode policy to post these. If you have logs as well, I
suggest grepping -i for "theora".

The two incidents I remember most vividly are the problems during
Wikimania to play back the little documentary that was made about the
public domain (if we can't even make it work at our own conferences, we
can hardly expect the average Windows user to do so), and our
discussions on Wikinews when David Vasquez was working on a Wikinews TV
version.

> We haven't even managed to get all of the mp3 files off of english
> Wikipedia yet and they've been forbidden for a long time now, so I
> can't see how your proposed change would accomplish anything except
> forcing our users to use patent encumbered formats.

I do see a risk that the dual policy might be violated too easily.
Perhaps a simple hack that "filename.<proprietary format>" is not
allowed if "filename.ogg" does not also exist would be sufficient. Yes,
it could still be violated, but that would then be much more obvious and
malicious.

> Also, as the single largest uploader of original music recordings
> (although it's still a pretty limited number because the annoyance of
> copyright issues on music is keeping me from uploading hundreds of
> tracks), I'd like to also voice another objection: I strongly oppose
> the use of the content I've created to promote patent encumbered
> formats.

I understand. Believe me, I'd love to see more mainstream support for
Theora and Vorbis. Perhaps we can brainstorm a bit about how to make
this happen. I like the Java player idea.

> The RIFF wrapper used for most of the microsoft formats is a
> multiformat wrapper (Just like OGG) and can happily be coerced into
> containing executable code (unlike OGG).

Do you have some useful background links on the topic of executable code
within wrapper formats?

> 'Mode widely used' is a broken argument by itself. If we were going
> for most widely used, for revision controlled text we'd be using
> Microsoft Word rather than Wikitext.

Well, that's not a very fair comparison, since at least there are
feature-complete open source encoder and decoder implementations of the
codecs in question. According to Wikipedia, there's also debate about
whether the patents are actually enforcable, at least in the EU.

Erik


body:
On 2/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> SPUI wrote:
> >>> Hello Jimmy. Thanks for fueling the recent moral panic that convinced me
> >>> to stop contributing.
> >>
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:SPUI&oldid=38917332
> >>
> >> Good riddance.
> >
> >
> > Thanks for making your stance clear. If you had done so over a year ago,
> > I would never have wasted my time here.
>
> *nod*  I apologize to you then for wasting your time.

You know, someone else's antagonism doesn't give you the right to act
like a jerk. Especially when you hold all the cards. But it does make
you want to tear your hair out trying to be a nice guy all the time,
doesn't it?


from_name: Dorożyński Janusz

subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Using MWdumper

body:
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ... Nick Jenkins
| Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2006 7:35 AM
/
| Hope you don't mind, but I grabbed the README and copied it
| to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MWDumper , and then
| I added some bits that I thought were missing.

Nick, it is great. I also had a idea to placed resume of README to meta for
example, but you done it better :-)) . Thanks.

  All the best,
   Janusz 'Ency' Dorozynski


subject: [Wikitech-l] Protected deleted pages and google

body:
On 2/11/06, homey2005 at sympatico.ca <homey2005 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Can something be done to prevent "protected deleted" pages from being indexed by google? See, for instance, http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=shane+ruttle&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
>
Oh my god! Someone might learn about Shane Ruttle!

I fail to see what the problem is here.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Most referenced article ever?

body:
On 2/11/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thread convergence!
>
> On 2/10/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [[Neuro-linguistic_programming]] has 259
> >
> > On 2/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > At time of writing, [[Medical analysis of circumcision]] has 150 inline
> > > refs.
> > >
> > > On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 08:39 +0100, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > > > [[Katie Holmes]]
> > > >
> > > > 85 footnotes and a similar number of "bibliography" entries.
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone top that? :)
> > > >
The September 11 entries had probably thousands of references; most of
them are now hidden here:

http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_stories

It was a lot of work compiling these references. Drove me crazy when
they were essentially deleted. It was a good object lesson to not take
it personally when people don't give a rat's ass about how much work
you put into something.


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system

body:
Hi all,

Angela raised the point during the IRC meeting last night that the Board
is unable to make decisions due to the requirement for 5 affirmative
votes before something is implemented. She also mentioned that Michael
Davis and Tim Shell are typically "silent" and due to this it's
difficult to reach decisions.

Rather than discussing forming an "executive committee", which I think
is sweeping the problem underneath the rug, would it not be better to
instead change the voting system used by the Board, so they only need a
simple majority (i.e. 3 votes out of 5) in order to enact a change?

Angela, Florence (when she's not busy having a baby!) and Jimbo are all
active contributors and are definitely trustworthy. Changing the
procedure so they can get things done seems like the best solution to me.

Thoughts?

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system


body:
Adrian Buehlmann wrote:
> "Jitse Niesen" <jitse.niesen at gmail.com>
> wrote in message
> news:8a93c6a0602110726u576ae63eqd40d1181570e53a2 at mail.gmail.com
>
>>On 2/11/06, Brion Vibber
>><brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>>>The optional use of tidy is a temporary hack that got put in rather
>>>than fix up the parser's own HTML balancing code, which is a
>>>horrible piece of crap that I wrote in 2002 when I didn't know what
>>>the hell I was doing. :)
>>>
>>>If you'd like try rewriting it so it balances end tags properly,
>>>detects illegal nesting cases, and understands MathML, that would be
>>>super awesome.
>>
>>Hmm, I think it would be easier for me to change tidy so that it
>>understands MathML. Why do you want to get rid of tidy?
>
>
> Don't beat me (with the big stick): but could tidy be kept?
>
> It is currently co-abused for the CSS trick described at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:hiddenStructure
>

The hiddenStructure hack works for reasons entirely unrelated to tidy. Don't believe everything you
read on a wiki.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
This paragraph is particularly inaccurate:
>Wikipedia was set up five years ago as a non-profit enterprise,
designed to provide almost
>real-time biographies and a people's version of history. It has only
three full-time
>employees to vet people's entries, relying on the near-1,000
enthusiasts to correct
>vandalism quickly.

Steve

On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers just to keep the vandalism at bay, it quotes Jimmy as saying:
>
>   "I thought it would be overrun with idiots but there are far more people doing good than those who try to be harmful."
>
>   Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.
>
>   If you want to read the article, see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2036558,00.html .
>
>   Jon
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jitse Niesen

body:
On 2/12/06, Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com> wrote:
>
> I would be happy to know why this whole element:
>
>        param1: FOO
>
> does not appear in the html of a page when I enter this in the wiki source
> on the en: wiki.
>
> The only thing I know is that classFOO is an illegal attribute for the
> element span.
>
> I suspect now that crediting the removal if this kind of element to tidy
> seems to be false guess. So, how get's that removed?

As I understand it, the MediaWiki software itself, specifically
Sanitizer::fixTagAttributes(), removes illegal attributes. See
http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/doc/MediaWiki/Parser/Sanitizer.html#methodfixTagAttributes
. Hopefully, somebody will correct me when I am wrong.

Jitse


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>> Angela raised the point during the IRC meeting last night that the Board
>> is unable to make decisions due to the requirement for 5 affirmative
>> votes before something is implemented. She also mentioned that Michael
>> Davis and Tim Shell are typically "silent" and due to this it's
>> difficult to reach decisions.
>
> Actually, Talrias said it, not Angela.  Angela did repeat it more or
> less a few minutes later, but I think that was a typo.  Michael Davis,
> at least, is a very active board member, and he has been for the past
> several months extremely busy for the foundation on a daily basis.

That would be me. :) I wrote it how I did above due to Angela's use of
the phrase more or less how I said it.

>> Rather than discussing forming an "executive committee", which I think
>> is sweeping the problem underneath the rug, would it not be better to
>> instead change the voting system used by the Board, so they only need a
>> simple majority (i.e. 3 votes out of 5) in order to enact a change?
>
> Having an executive committee is part of a longer term restructuring to
> scale the organization better.  The board is working on a change to the
> bylaws, though, to enable us to work more effectively.  (And this isn't
> really about 'silent' members, but rather a technical change so that we
> do not have to have every member vote on every single thing.)

What kind of changes are you thinking of making?

> I think it is totally not accurate to think of Michael Davis as
> inactive.  But the technical issue, yes, should be resolved soon.  Even
> so, that's not really what the whole Executive Committee thing is about.

What is the Executive Committee about, then? I was under the impression
it was to streamline decision making.

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:PROD]] - a lightweight deletion process

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:

> <snip>
>
>
>2) Please ask the devs if it strains the server to have articles blanked and
>unblanked. This is already
>the case with vandalism, yet the servers seem to chug along fine. I want to
>know if there actually
>is any evidence that this would be any serious problem for the servers that
>isn't already the case with
>vandals.
>
>Ryan
>
>
When you delete a page, you also delete the whole page history. When you
blank a page, you only add a blank revision of the page to the history.

John Lee


from_name: charles matthews

body:
 "Daniel P. B. Smith" wrote

> There is a discrepancy between what WIkipedians know Wikipedia to be  and
> what outsiders think it is.
>
> They think it's an encyclopedia.

A modest suggestion.  We protect all the articles, prior to deleting them
here (let the mirrors take all the traffic.)  Then we can concentrate on the
really important issues for the future of the project.

Charles


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers just to keep the vandalism at bay

We don't. 500 tops.

--
geni


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers just to keep the vandalism at bay
>
> We don't. 500 tops.

Not all volunteers are administrators.

--
Sam


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not all volunteers are administrators.

I know but if we limit to admins we have maybe 200 vandle fighters.

--
geni


body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I know but if we limit to admins we have maybe 200 vandle fighters.

Do you actually have *any* evidence for this?  It does seem like you
are simply pulling figures from the air without *any* justification.

--
Sam


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Yes, that's a part of it.  But it is also about thinking about scaling
> -- we are getting bigger, and the board is working hard to delegate.
> There is talk of board expansion, and a larger board should not be
> tasked with day-to-day management.
>
> We're working longterm, not just applying a band-aid to current issues. :)

That's good to hear. However, Wikipedia is one of the most
anti-bureaucracy communities I've ever been a part of and the idea of
making more committees is going to raise some eyebrows - especially if
it's just formalising a group of people who have been getting on just
fine as they are.

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [Foundation-l] Board voting system


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I know but if we limit to admins we have maybe 200 vandle fighters.
>
> Do you actually have *any* evidence for this?  It does seem like you
> are simply pulling figures from the air without *any* justification.
>
> --
> Sam

Sure. Pre the introduction of no anons creating articles you could
roughly work out how much vandle fighting an admin was doing by their
deletion rate. Someone posted a list of the number of admin actions
had been done by each admin in the last month. About 200 admins racked
up over 100 actions. Once you factor in all the admins who got their
100 by doing things other than vandalism (mine tend to come from
WP:CP) you end up with less than 200. Factor in growth from then and
you probably have around 200 admins vandle fighting.

--
geni


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

body:
Kim Bruning wrote:

>On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 04:56:59PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote:
>
>
>>If there is no such complaint, what's the urgency that requires you to
>>unilaterally delete things? Unless you wish to argue, as some people
>>have about the regular deletion process, that it regularly reaches
>>incorrect results, I'm not sure why it's so important to short-circuit
>>the normal procedures for removing copyrighted material that isn't
>>properly licensed.
>>
>>
>That's an interesting question. I suppose if that's the case, we really
>should take things a bit slower. However, it is the case that sometimes
>for instance images for deletion does not delete images that are not
>correctly fair use. It also happens that userpages use "fair use" images.
>
>I'm not sure what should be done about those. I don't do deletions myself
>anymore, so I'm a fairly neutral party just watching the shells fly both ways.
>
>
Dealing with fair use images is slightly different from normal copyright
problems, I would think. Since the fairness depends on the type of use,
it ought to be sorted out where the image is being used. If there's an
inappropriate claim of fair use somewhere, remove the image from the
article (or user page, as the case may be). Acting unilaterally in that
regard is just being bold, doesn't require adminship, and is not
something to punish unless you have an edit war about it.

If the removal of the image holds, then the rest is really quite simple.
Once the image is an orphan, there is no longer any basis for a fair use
claim, and it can be deleted using the normal processes. No need to
punish anyone for unilateral action.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints


body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure. Pre the introduction of no anons creating articles you could
> roughly work out how much vandle fighting an admin was doing by their
> deletion rate. Someone posted a list of the number of admin actions
> had been done by each admin in the last month. About 200 admins racked
> up over 100 actions. Once you factor in all the admins who got their
> 100 by doing things other than vandalism (mine tend to come from
> WP:CP) you end up with less than 200. Factor in growth from then and
> you probably have around 200 admins vandle fighting.

Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.

You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.

--
Sam


body:
--- Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's ironic in that vandal tool program that can't
> distinguish between vandalism and reverting vandalism - both appear
> as
> massive additions/deletions of text.
>

And it calls both "gibberish"!

-Hermione1980

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


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Jon wrote:
>
>
>>The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has
>>done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by
>>vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers
>>just to keep the vandalism at bay, it quotes Jimmy as saying:
>>
>>"I thought it would be overrun with idiots but there are far more
>>people doing good than those who try to be harmful."
>>
>>Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather
>>than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has
>>gone wrong.
>>
>>If you want to read the article, see
>>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2036558,00.html .
>>
>>
>>
>
>Damn it, where's the edit button? Or at least a "comment" button?
>
>They slander us for being wrong some of the time, but they won't even
>let people comment on how accurate THEY are???
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
I know, I couldn't resist the urge to edit the "2.5 million entries"
part to "900,000 articles". :(

John


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sure. Pre the introduction of no anons creating articles you could
> > roughly work out how much vandle fighting an admin was doing by their
> > deletion rate. Someone posted a list of the number of admin actions
> > had been done by each admin in the last month. About 200 admins racked
> > up over 100 actions. Once you factor in all the admins who got their
> > 100 by doing things other than vandalism (mine tend to come from
> > WP:CP) you end up with less than 200. Factor in growth from then and
> > you probably have around 200 admins vandle fighting.
>
> Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
> deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
> vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
> but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.
>

You came close to makeing that many deletions november 2005

> You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.
>
> --
> Sam

Show me where I have done that

--
geni


from_name: Nathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR

body:
I've been blocked from editing articles due to violation of 3RR.

On that end, I'm actually working with a member of "LJ Drama" (the
article I kept altering - I was actually deleting heresay but nobody
seemed to care about that) to post a more truthful version of events.

It seems pretty ridiculous that I can't even edit my own user page.

I petition for the block to be lifted. As I'm working with one of the
people in 'LJ Drama', I have no reason to modify the post. I'll leave
that up to him.

Thank you,
Nathan Richards (nathanr)


body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
> > deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
> > vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
> > but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.
> You came close to makeing that many deletions november 2005

Crikey.

> > You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.
> Show me where I have done that

Your logic appears to be "n people did a lot of counter vandalism
work, therefore n people do counter vandalism work".  (n obviously
being constant)

I say that there are a lot of people doing a little bit of counter
vandalism work, and that these people form the basis of our
anti-vandalism functions.  You have simply ignored them.

--
Sam


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times

body:
In message <cbffa3750602120902ld447a0fm10afd3e0c4c8f0b4 at mail.gmail.com>,
Sam Korn <smoddy-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>On 2/12/06, geni <geniice-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> Sure. Pre the introduction of no anons creating articles you could
>> roughly work out how much vandle fighting an admin was doing by their
>> deletion rate. Someone posted a list of the number of admin actions
>> had been done by each admin in the last month. About 200 admins racked
>> up over 100 actions. Once you factor in all the admins who got their
>> 100 by doing things other than vandalism (mine tend to come from
>> WP:CP) you end up with less than 200. Factor in growth from then and
>> you probably have around 200 admins vandle fighting.
>
>Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
>deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
>vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
>but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.
>
>You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.
>
>--
>Sam

Indeed, I rarely delete anything, but I do dozens of reverts most days.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Jon wrote:
> The Sunday Times (the most popular British Sunday broadsheet) has
> done a hatchet job on Wikipedia pointing out that it is riddled by
> vandalism. After lampooning the fact that we have 1000 volunteers
> just to keep the vandalism at bay, it quotes Jimmy as saying:
>
> "I thought it would be overrun with idiots but there are far more
> people doing good than those who try to be harmful."
>
> Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather
> than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has
> gone wrong.
>
> If you want to read the article, see
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2036558,00.html .
>

Damn it, where's the edit button? Or at least a "comment" button?

They slander us for being wrong some of the time, but they won't even
let people comment on how accurate THEY are???

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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from_name: homey2005 at sympatico.ca

body:
The problem is it's a bug and adds wikipedia-generated garbage to search engines which I would think dilutes the value of wikipedia entries on google.

Also, it partly defeats the purpose of protected a deleted page in that it encourages vandals to force deletion protection because, at least, they'll have some way of embarassing a non-notable person they target, particularly if there are uncharitable comments on the linked to AFD page.

>
> From: The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com>
> Date: 2006/02/12 Sun PM 01:04:46 EST
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Protected deleted pages and google
>
> On 2/11/06, homey2005 at sympatico.ca <homey2005 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > Can something be done to prevent "protected deleted" pages from being indexed by google? See, for instance, http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=shane+ruttle&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
> >
> Oh my god! Someone might learn about Shane Ruttle!
>
> I fail to see what the problem is here.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Your statement fails to acknowledge that the admins who don't make 100
> > > deletions in a month are still active and still are fighting
> > > vandalism.  I don't delete 100 articles a month.  I doubt I ever have,
> > > but I certainly used to be very active in combatting vandalism.
> > You came close to makeing that many deletions november 2005
>
> Crikey.
>
> > > You underestimate the good that many people doing a little can do.
> > Show me where I have done that
>
> Your logic appears to be "n people did a lot of counter vandalism
> work, therefore n people do counter vandalism work".  (n obviously
> being constant)
>
> I say that there are a lot of people doing a little bit of counter
> vandalism work, and that these people form the basis of our
> anti-vandalism functions.  You have simply ignored them.
>
> --
> Sam

Not really. It is the people prepared to sit there hour after hour
dealing with stuff as it come through that forms the basis of our
anti-vandalism functions. Just as it is a relivity small number of
hightly active users who write most of our articles.

--
geni


from_name: Kernigh

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> "It is allowed to upload files in patent-encumbered formats like MP3 or
> the MPEG-4 codecs only provided that a version in a non-encumbered
> format is also uploaded. Files which are only provided in
> patent-encumbered formats should be deleted."

The problem is, someone would need to check that each MPEG file had a
matching Ogg version. To do this, you need to play the MPEG file...

Some users complain that they can play MPEG but not Theora. I am in the
opposite situation. I installed MPlayer a few minutes ago to play
Storm.ogg, so I can play Ogg Theora, but I cannot play MPEG-4 because I
live in the United States but have not paid license royalties. I run
OpenBSD, so I also cannot obtain a licensed MPEG-4 player such as
RealPlayer, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player.

Suppose some user wants to check if the Storm.mp4 that someone uploaded is
the same as Storm.ogg. If this user has QuickTime, or lives in the European
Union, that might be easy. If I did the check, I would go to a different
computer with Mac OS X and QuickTime, which is an inconvenience for me, but
not impossible.

-- [[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]], and there is almost no audio or video at
   en.Wikibooks, but I sometimes find it at Commons and en.Wikipedia


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: File format policy


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: File format policy


from_name: Keith Old

subject:
"more people keeping the idiots at bay" (was Re: [WikiEN-l]
	Wikipedia slated in the Sunday Times)

body:
On 2/12/06, Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net> wrote:
>
> On Feb 12, 2006, at 12:00 AM, Jon wrote:
> >   Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather
> > than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has
> > gone wrong.
> My first thought was, No, wait - it means something has gone *right* ,
> we have so much already covered that the balance shifts to defending
> what we have, rather than adding more.  But then I thought, yeah, in
> that case, why are we keeping it in a wiki format?  If it's actually
> stable, then put it in straight HTML, mirror it everywhere (oh wait, we
> already do that), and shake hands on a job well done... ;-)
>
> In any case, what evidence do you have that suggests this?  What comes
> to mind could be: percentage of RC edits that are reversions, rather
> than additions - this is invalid because people may add content in
> large pieces, not in lots of edits.  Any other measurements people can
> think of?
>
> Just wanted to bring this up,
>         Jesse Weinstein
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I suspect most people spend time doing both especially as an admin. I
normally spend a lot of time of the help desk responding to reports of
vandalism and other problems. I also spend part of my time editing articles
of my own and creating articles. If we have 1,000 people combatting
vandalism, it doesn't mean that they spend all their time doing it.

Regards

Keith Old

Keith Old
Wikipedia Help Desk


body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not really. It is the people prepared to sit there hour after hour
> dealing with stuff as it come through that forms the basis of our
> anti-vandalism functions. Just as it is a relivity small number of
> hightly active users who write most of our articles.

Also inaccurate.  It is a relatively small number of highly active
users who write most of our *best* articles.  Most articles, while not
as polished, are not touched by these users.

--
Sam


from_name: STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
Can we use material from Wiki Classical Dictionary? Is
that site a part of Wikipedia, or is it like the
Orthodox Wikipedia, with some material being
copyrighted? The article in question is actually
posted on a different site, but WCD was given
permission to publish it on their site.

Link: http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Drangiana

Anittas.

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Fastfission

body:
On 2/12/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>   Mind you, when WP has more people keeping the idiots at bay rather than writing content (as most likely is the case now), something has gone wrong.

Ah, but those aren't mutually exclusive in the slightest. I try to
both keep idiots at bay AND write new content, as do many others on
here! Adding, editing, and maintaining -- all in a day's wikiwork.

FF


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wiki Classical Dictionary

body:
Okay, I'm confused now. Is that site a part of
Wikipedia, or are they just using the Wiki engine?

--- "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
wrote:

> STEFAN CLAUDIU TIULEA wrote:
> > Can we use material from Wiki Classical
> Dictionary? Is
> > that site a part of Wikipedia, or is it like the
> > Orthodox Wikipedia, with some material being
> > copyrighted? The article in question is actually
> > posted on a different site, but WCD was given
> > permission to publish it on their site.
> >
> > Link: http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Drangiana
> >
>
> See http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/WCD:Copyrights
> - it's very heavily
> copyrighted, and NOT copyleft.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
> > _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________________________
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http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
Most articles, while not
> as polished, are not touched by these users.
>
> --
> Sam

Umm evidence?
--
geni


from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2006, geni wrote:

> On 2/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/12/06, Geoff Burling <geoff at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > > To mention a related strategy, I wonder just how many veteran
> > > contributors have adopted the following tactic for prevailing in a
> > > content conflict:
> > >
> > > 1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many other
> > > articles in need of attention.
> > > 2. Wait x number of weeks.
> > > 3. Revert opponent's edits while carefully leaving any later contributions
> > > intact.
> > > 4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 as often as needed.
> > >
> > > Not to argue that this is the best way to deal with unreasonable
> > > partisans, but I can't be the only one who has done this.
> >
> > I have definitely thought of that strategy, but usually do this instead:
> >  1. Silently acquiese to opponent's edits; after all, there's many
> > other articles in need of attention.
> >  2. Wait x number of weeks.
> >  3. Forget all about it.

I admit to having executed that strategy also. Or its variant (following
on your steps 1-3 above):

4. Remember that I was concerned about a given article many months ago, &
out of curiosity have a look at it.
5. Discover one of the following:
a. My opponent has left Wikipedia for reasons unknown;
b. Another editor has gotten involved & either made my opponent see reason
or get hauled before the ArbCom for Not laying Nice;
c. Another editor has gotten involved & the article is changed in new ways.
> >
> > I have however had that strategy applied against me. It's very
> > frustrating, and boils down to some kind of siege warfare. Best to
> > find a different article.
> >
While that is probably the mature thing to do, I've found that there is
a psychological cost to constantly running away from fights. And that
leads to the impulsive decision to stay & get involved in some truly
stupid fights over content. I tell myself that I'm following my strategy --
even if I end up following Steve's -- in the hope my ego won't see it
as a retreat.
>
> oh it's nicer than:
>
> 1.Figure out your opponent's sleeping patturns
> 2.keep triggering edit wars with them just before they would otherwise
> log off for the night.
>
Ugh. Not something I've experienced, nor would I want to. I assume you
found a solution that did not involve violence by long-distance proxy.

Geoff


body:
On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Most articles, while not
> > as polished, are not touched by these users.
> >
> > --
> > Sam
>
> Umm evidence?

Touch?!  I guess I cannot substantiate this other than with basic
logic, that there are just too many articles for a small core of users
to have edited.  Even if one in ten were of any quality at all
(perhaps even just one in a hundred), it is still too many for a small
group to have reasonably edited.

--
Sam


body:
On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Most articles, while not
> > > as polished, are not touched by these users.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Sam
> >
> > Umm evidence?
>
> Touch?!  I guess I cannot substantiate this other than with basic
> logic, that there are just too many articles for a small core of users
> to have edited.  Even if one in ten were of any quality at all
> (perhaps even just one in a hundred), it is still too many for a small
> group to have reasonably edited.
>
> --
> Sam

Problem with that claim is that stub storting and adding catigories
results in people editing a heck of a lot of artices.
--
geni