from_name: Adam Bishop

body:
>From: "Felix Wan" <felixwiki at earthsphere.org>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese
>Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:50:12 -0800 (PST)
>
>On Wed, March 2, 2005 7:22 pm, shi zhao said:
> >
> > Problem is use when of does the classical Chinese write? Ming and
Qing?
> > Is Tang Sung period? Or does QIN2 HAN4 is period? Or to is more
early?
> > Each period classical Chinese differ very greatly.The Manchu
Dynasty and
> > Han dynasty rise of test twice according to the custom of the
ancient
> > works, be for can let the then person comprehend the people of the
past's
> > work of classical Chinese.The ancients is still not
apprehensibility more
> > early the classical Chinese of the ancients, so which period
classical
> > Chinese we use to write worthwhile discussion.If use the MIng and
Qing
> > period classical  Chinese writing, that is much more simple, plus
some
> > ????????????, delete ?????????.( this and Chinese  version
difference not
> > big)If use first Qin's classical Chinese write, having no several
> > individuals perhaps can write.
> >
> > [[zh:user:shizhao]]
> >
>That is a real concern.  True, even "Classical Chinese" is a
blanket
>term covering milleniums of evolving written Chinese style.
>
>Since the original proposer is a Japanese, I guess the style that is
>most compatible with kanbun or other traditions known to East Asians
>should be that of the Tang-Song period.  That is also the period with
>the richest literature for reference, and most educated Chinese should
>be familiar with the style.  So if we are really going to open such an
>encyclopedia, let's fix the reference time frame to the Tang-Song
period.
>
>However, my perception is that the grammar of Classical Chinese is more
>or less stablized since the Tang dynasty.  New ways of saying things
>were introduced, but the real substantial change happens with the
>introduction of Baihuawen.
>
>Does the Latin Wikipedia face similar problems in selecting the style?
>
>Felix Wan
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as possible - the
style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort of era (1st century BC -
1st century AD).  It's not always possible; for example if we want to write
about modern people or places, we may have to use a neo-Latin construction,
or ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic.  (Personally, I
admit that I let a few medieval Latin constructions slip through once in
awhile, as horrible as that may be to the purest classicists :))

Adam Bishop


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I think the main problem is lack of fluent speakers.

Many people don't believe such a thing exists for Latin, but there are
definitely people who are fluent in Latin and can make use of more
complex sentence structures.

Mark

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:18:46 -0500, Adam Bishop <grenfell_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
> >Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese
> >Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:57:52 -0500
> >
> >Adam Bishop wrote:
> >
> >>On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as
> >>possible - the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort
> >>of era (1st century BC - 1st century AD).  It's not always
> >>possible; for example if we want to write about modern people or
> >>places, we may have to use a neo-Latin construction, or
> >>ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic.
> >>(Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval Latin constructions
> >>slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may be to the
> >>purest classicists :))
> >
> >As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to
> >use *much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions
> >and so on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences
> >between different eras of Latin.  Is that on purpose?  If so, is
> >that something that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese
> >Wikipedia?
> >
> >-Mark
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Wikipedia-l mailing list
> >Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
> It's not on purpose in the sense that we are consciously making a "simple
> Latin" wikipedia, but everyone writes according to their own level of
> comprehension - there are many excellent Latinists there (I am not one of
> them!), but of course there are no native Latin speakers, either to write in
> more complicated Latin or to correct what we write.
>
> Adam
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] no: or nb: (again)

body:
I really don't think voting is a fair option.

Since, in the entire Norwegian Wikipedia community (including both no:
and nn:), Bokm?l speakers are the majority, it will be just about as
fair as it was when the vote was held whether or not there should be a
separate nn: and nb:.

You may object that no: users should get to choose the official name
of their own Wikipedia, but this doesn't seem fair to me. If no:
chooses the name "Norsk", even though it's becoming more and more
Bokm?l-only, perhaps Nynorsk could also change interwiki links to
"Norsk"? They are both accurate.

Neither variety has more of a claim than the other to the title
"Norsk". They are both "Norsk".

Mark

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:57:38 +0100, Lars Alvik <larsal at stud.ntnu.no> wrote:
> I've transfared this debate to the forum at no: for futher discution,
> but my impression is that most people don't really care about this.
>
> I've also proposed a voting over the matter, begining in a few days.
>
> Hopefully this will be the debate to end all debates (heard that one
> before? :))
>
> mvh.
>
> Lars Alvik
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Apache rewrite rule missing

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

Moin,

On Thursday 03 March 2005 01:30, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Rowan Collins wrote:
> But we cannot and will not have canonical or standard URLs like this,
> ever:
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/robots.txt <- is this a dictionary entry or
> the robots exclusion file??

if the file exists => file, otherwise entry. However, I can see what
happens if the file does not exist, but the entry: the crawler would get
the article, instead of a 404. So that settles it then. :o)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Thu Mar  3 18:15:53 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Den wahren Wert dieser Software werden vermutlich nur Fach L?ute und
 Firmen erkennen." -- "So isst es. Ein gewi?er Standart muss schon gewart
 beiben!" --  Kabe (http://tinyurl.com/3kucx)

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from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese

body:
Adam Bishop wrote:

> On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as possible -
> the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort of era (1st
> century BC - 1st century AD).  It's not always possible; for example
> if we want to write about modern people or places, we may have to use
> a neo-Latin construction, or ecclesiastical Latin to write about a
> religious topic.  (Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval Latin
> constructions slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may be
> to the purest classicists :))

As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to use
*much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions and so
on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences between
different eras of Latin.  Is that on purpose?  If so, is that something
that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese Wikipedia?

-Mark


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:17:28 +0100, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 03 March 2005 01:30, Brion Vibber wrote:

> > But we cannot and will not have canonical or standard URLs like this,
> > ever:
> >
> > http://en.wiktionary.org/robots.txt <- is this a dictionary entry or
> > the robots exclusion file??
>
> if the file exists => file, otherwise entry.

Just to clarify why this doesn't solve the problem - if you have an
exception to the short way, you have to teach people the long way.
Hence, the short URL form is not standard and canonical, because it
won't always work. Hence, you have to mainly use the long, canonical,
form. And hence, you have a visible redirect like Brion has now
implemented.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] How long can a title be? Database issue.

body:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:28:50 +0000, Rowan Collins
<rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:05:15 -0600, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, that is the trade off. However, when a category page moves, it
> > only has to update its own categorylink entries -- one for each each
> > [[category:xxx]] on that page.
>
> It's not moving the *category* that's the main problem, but moving the
> *content*, since that could cross namespaces. I think you did get my
> point, it's just this sentence is either a typo or a non sequitur (or
> both) ;-)
>
Yes, it was a typo. I meant that when a page moves, it only has to
update its own categorylink entries.

> > Note that currently, the cl_sortkey
> > field is updated on any page move for those links that don't have a
> > specified sort key.
>
> Ah, I didn't realise that; but I guess it makes sense - especially
> once you get into the listing needing to be split into pages.
>
> > Currently, to find subcategories for a category page, the links have
> > to be retrieved and separated by namespace in PHP.
>
> I'm not that hot on SQL (serves me right for not studying straight CS
> at uni), but isn't it possible to do something like "SELECT <stuff>
> FROM categorylinks, page WHERE cl_to=<whatever> AND
> page_namespace=NS_CATEGORY LIMIT 200", thus avoiding the problem
> you're describing?
>
> I've seen things that look similar to this in the code, but it could be that
> 1) I have misunderstood, and this particular one's impossible
> 2) this would in fact be possible, but prohibitively
> expensive/inefficient, and therefore it's been discarded as an option
> 3) it would amount to exactly the same activity as doing it as a
> sequence of queries with PHP in between
>
Yes, I realized the same thing about 20 minutes after I posted my
message. Funny how you can fail to see something until you actually
put things to print. The namespace can be grabbed from the page table
via a join. I _don't_ know what sort of inefficiencies are introduced
by doing so.

I was thinking of having an index on (cl_to, cl_from_namespace,
cl_sortkey) to have really speedy category page builds.

If I remember my CS courses correctly (now many years old), proper
database design would have us not duplicate the namespace field.
However, efficiency does sometimes trump theory.

>
> > > There's an additional problem with merging the categorylinks table in
> > > with the others anyway, in that it has extra fields cl_sortkey and
> > > cl_timestamp that the others don't have or need. That's a shame,
> > > because it would be neat, if redesigning the tables, not to have to
> > > leave that one out.
> > >
> > By the way, cl_timestamp is currently unused (I believe). It can be
> > handy for debugging, but otherwise I don't know it's intended purpose.
>
> Hm. I thought maybe it was intended that additions and removals from a
> category could be presented in a history display of some sort, or on
> watchlists etc. But a timestamp would only allow listing of additions,
> so I'm not sure that can be right.
>
> Still, unless there's a sensible way of reusing the sortkey field in
> other link-types, it's probably not a good idea to merge category
> links in with everything else. [To store the namespace_from, you could
> just reuse the otherwise redundant namespace_to field, but nothing
> springs to mind that could double up with the sortkey in this way]
>
I'm not thrilled with the idea of fudging the namespace_from data into
the namespace_to field., though I certainly could live with it.
However, I also cannot figure out any use for the cl_sortkey field for
non-category links. We're probably better off not trying to force-fit
things.

>
> > > * l_is_broken (boolean)
> > > --- to allow everything that brokenlinks currently does; this should
> > > be kept seperate from the link type, because if you try to {{include}}
> > > a non-existent page, it's both "broken" and a "template" link, and
> > > both facts are potentially useful
> > >
> > I don't fully understand the use of a "broken" field. Does this
> > eliminate the need for verifying page existence during rendering?
> >
> > Maintaining "broken" requires a potentially large update for each page
> > creation, deletion, or move.
>
> Well, there must be some reason we currently store "brokenlinks"
> separate from "links", right? I'm not sure the distinction is used
> when rendering, that seems to be done by looking at the page table,
> but there's an awful lot of deferral and caching, so maybe it is. [Or,
> alternatively, maybe it should be! I don't know.] It's used by
> utilities like Special:Wantedpages, I know that much. It certainly
> seems to make sense to store the distinction.
>
> As for updates - yes, creation or deletion will have a big impact, but
> all the linking pages need their cache invalidating anyway, because
> they'll have the wrong colour links, so it's always going to be a big
> deal. And note that *moving* a page doesn't break any links - there's
> still a page at the old location, albeit a brand new redirect.
> Somebody might delete that redirect later, but that's a seperate
> action.
>
Yes, but if a page is moved to a previously unoccupied location, then
you need to check if some previously broken links are now not broken.

-Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


body:
>From: Delirium <delirium at hackish.org>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for classical Chinese
>Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:57:52 -0500
>
>Adam Bishop wrote:
>
>>On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as
>>possible - the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort
>>of era (1st century BC - 1st century AD).  It's not always
>>possible; for example if we want to write about modern people or
>>places, we may have to use a neo-Latin construction, or
>>ecclesiastical Latin to write about a religious topic.
>>(Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval Latin constructions
>>slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may be to the
>>purest classicists :))
>
>As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to
>use *much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions
>and so on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences
>between different eras of Latin.  Is that on purpose?  If so, is
>that something that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese
>Wikipedia?
>
>-Mark
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

It's not on purpose in the sense that we are consciously making a "simple
Latin" wikipedia, but everyone writes according to their own level of
comprehension - there are many excellent Latinists there (I am not one of
them!), but of course there are no native Latin speakers, either to write in
more complicated Latin or to correct what we write.

Adam


list: wikien-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or
against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the
scope of the arbitration.

Fred

> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:59:25 -0800 (PST)
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>
>
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>
>>> It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to
>> report real abuses
>>> because they did not want to be forced to defend
>> themselves from unfair
>>> or untrue accusations by the abuser.
>>>
>>>
>> I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a
>> dispute between two
>> users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you
>> have to examine all
>> sides in the dispute.  There's no need to look
>> through the accusing
>> editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense
>> to look through
>> both sides' posts and edits in the relevant
>> discussions and articles.
>
> The last time (and it will be the last time) I brought
> a case before the arbcom, Fred Bauder thought it
> appropriate to bring in situations in which I had
> dealings with other people who were not even involved
> in the situation at hand.  His refusal to recuse
> himself showed his lack of impartiality.
>
> RickK
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
> Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
> http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>>>I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on
>>>wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias.
>>>
>>>
>>It is an alias; as his page confirms, "the name I was using in my
>>Wikipedia email account was not my own".
>>
>>Stan
>>
>>
>I hope it truly wasn't.  Googling for "Abe Sokolov" yields interesting
>results, including http://us.z.webhosting.yahoo.com/gb/view?member=songunpoliticsstudygroup
>
>
Regardless of what other stuff he may have posted under that name, if
it's really not his name, it doesn't do any good to his argument for
professional expertise, since there *is* a reasonable match to that name
possessing approximately the sort of credentials 172 claimed to have.

--Michael Snow


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped)

body:
On Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:25 PM, Danny <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

[Re. pro-tem Arbitrators for cases wherein more than half the Committee's
members have recused themselves]

> In that case, I would like to nominate JamesF. A former
> arbitrator, he has proven himself highly capable of dealing
> with some of the really complex issues.
>
> Danny

Thank you very much Danny; I would be honoured to help with the Committee's
work in such a way, if required, though of course I would prefer that I was
not needed, espcially as such a large number of Arbitrators having been so
moved by actions and events as to need to recuse themselves would almost
certainly mean that said actions had been widely disruptive to the Project.

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com


body:
I think that is generally true, however I think we are right to look at the
general pattern of the user's behavior. For example if one person is
complaining about personal attacks we ought to take into consideration
whether the user is making a lot of personal attacks against a lot of users.
Another area that I think can be taken into consideration is actions that
are taken during arbitration either towards the arbitrators or that affect
the arbitration, deleting evidence or moving it all around.

Fred

> From: AndyL <andyl2004 at sympatico.ca>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:16:38 -0500
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>
> My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a
> countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a
> grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for
> Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA,
> if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the
> arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the
> arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think,
> for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include
> issues not brought up in the initial request.
>
> on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote:
>
>> The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or
>> against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the
>> scope of the arbitration.
>>
>> Fred


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe,
that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR.  He also said
that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on
your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR,
even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you,
you went and reported him.

Sarah

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in
> 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the
> trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been
> blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr
>
> Pete (Skyring)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: V. Ivanov

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: multilingualism (was Q1 drive)

body:
On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:00:14 -0500, Henry Tan-Tenn wrote:
>  Another is the
> assumption that should en: fail (or be judged to have failed), one can
> safely assume smaller and less active editions will also fail.

It's not exactly the fact.

While the larger language Wikipedias compete with commercial
encyclopedias (and the larger language speakers have the choice), the
smaller language Wikipedias are _unique_, the speakers of such
language don't have much choice -- and Wikipedia appears to be the
only _try_ to create an encyclopedia. It also can become the main
source for a future "official" encyclopedia, which might be too
expensive for a not so large people, if all the authors are paid.

So, Wikipedia might exist as a set of _relatively good_ sources for
the languages, which do not have large choice. E. g. I am not sure if
there had ever appeared any Ossetic text on the Laplandian War before
the "translation of the week" has been done (though there are
certainly lots of texts, including large novels, on the WWII in Soviet
territory).

Wikipedia for a nation of 500 thousand to, say, 5 million seems to be
the best way of writing an encyclopedia in their language. And even if
the English WP fails, that will not mean the idea is all wrong for
every language on the Earth.

Sl.
--
Esperu cxiam!


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
I'm not sure what you mean by saying you waited overnight, because you
made your four edits, in my view four reverts, within about four
hours, so far as I can see. The important point here is that you're
trying to introduce POV into the article by claiming, I believe, that
Australia is a republic and that the Queen is not the head of state,
which is factually incorrect. You may be right (I don't know) that
Australia is in some sense a thinly veiled republic, but the veil is
everything, no matter how thin.

This is an interesting example of content-quality over procedure. Adam
Carr was trying to preserve accuracy and now he's blocked. The person
who has been trying to insert an inaccuracy for days, and who also
(arguably) reverted four times, is not blocked.

Peter, you may be right about there being an argument in favor of
saying that Australia is, in effect, a republic. But if you want to
introduce an issue like that into an article, you have to be very
careful not to violate the no-original-research rule, which says that
editors shouldn't come up any new analysis or synthesis of facts. In
other words, if you want to say Australia is a republic, you have to
find reputable sources who have actually said that precise thing, and
not just sources who have said things which, put together in a certain
way in a certain light, could be interpreted as implying that. The
former is okay; the latter is original research. I don't know, but I
suspect, that Adam perceived you to be doing the latter.

Sarah

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:28:45 +1100, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But I didn't want to report Adam. If that had been my objective, then
> I could have reported him the moment he made his fourth revert.
> Instead I continued to discuss the issue with him in the face of
> mounting abuse and when he withdrew from the discussion, I waited
> overnight, all next morning and didn't report him until after lunch.
>
> Ironically whilst I was cutting and pasting timestamps and stuff he
> rejoined the discussion, albeit in a rather negative and dishonest
> fashion, but I didn't notice this until after.
>
> I much prefer debating to edit wars, but when one party won't respond
> in a reasonable fashion, it's difficult.
>
> What's the next step - seek arbitration over one letter?
> --
> Peter in Canberra

I would count your four edits as reverts. You changed convention to
contention at 00:44 (calling it a spelling correction, when you
probably knew it was a contentious change as you'd already been
edit-warring over that issue, even if not that exact word); then again
at 02:52; 03:55; and 04:49. By counting the reverts in the way you've
done, you're basically admitting to system gaming, which is frowned
on. If you report someone for 3RR, it's best to have clean hands in
the matter yourself, or it can backfire.

Sarah
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] An awfully big adventure (was ArbCom - too attached to
	'equal treatment'?)

body:
JAY JG said:
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>>
>>Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the
>>arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his
>>own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point.
>
> Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out
> looking  completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination
> that sometimes  happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with
> the fear that ArbCom  will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so
> that it appears "fair".   Again, I'm not saying this is actually
> happening, but that there is a  perception that this is happening,
> which discourages people from getting  involved.

Of course the would-be petitioner could always get someone relatively
spotless to bring the complaint.  But then I think that Arbcom would
suddenly realise that it has to expand its attentions to all involved in a
Wikipedia fuck-up, not just those who put their names to a complaint on
WP:RFAR.  Which I think would be reasonable.  Arbitration is supposed to
be a way of keeping Wikipedia functioning well, so of course it isn't
going to accept the preconceptions of one or another party to a behavior
dispute.
Look, we're just talking about editing privileges on a Wiki.  Should I be
told by English Wikipedia's arbitrators to wipe my nose and stop spitting
on the floor, it would not reflect adversely on my career.  Nor would it
subtract points from my driver's license, and it would not really bother
me in the least.
Suppose I bring a case and the worst happens: I'm banned for a year or more.

Banned from en.wikipedia?  Well my French is passable, my Spanish too, and
I need to brush up on my German and my Portuguese.  There's Simple
English, Anglo Saxon and Latin.  If English Arbcom has jurisdiction over
these Wikis, it's news to me.  To paraphrase Peter Pan, for any competent
English Wikipedian, being banned would be an awfully big adventure.  This
is not a monoglot project.
And then I could always get on with the things I *should* be doing instead
of Wikipedying. ;)


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:

> Quote of the day:
>
> "It is no defense to the 3RR that the information being reverted is
> false."
> -User:BM
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr
>
>
> Runner up:
>
> "I agree that Adam Carr was reverting a completely nonsensical edit
> (Australia is not yet a republic), but he still broke the 3RR."
>
> -User:Noel
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr
>
>
> Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of
> groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to
> Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time,
> their behavior is shaped according to a whole web of relations based
> on the fetishization and ritualization of the 3RR and other policies,
> making them lose sight of the goal of writing an encyclopedia.

Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR
even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation
would be considered "reasonable." That's because they're not being made
in isolation, they're being made as part of a revert war.

Making nonsensical edits is a bad thing. But engaging in revert-warring
is _also_ a bad thing. There are other ways to deal with editors that
are repeatedly adding nonsense to an article than revert-warring with
him, ways which I think are better for Wikipedia's functioning.

> If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it
> must develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make
> nonsensical edits, not those who are reverting them. If it continues
> to follow its present path, the only people who'll have the patience
> to deal with these games will be cultists, LaRouchies, Holocaust
> deniers, and other random cranks.

And also people who are able to use the other approaches to dealing with
those people than just robotically reverting them over and over again.
Let's not try to combat one bad behavior with another bad behavior, it
doesn't gain anything.


from_name: AndyL

body:
My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a
countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a
grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for
Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA,
if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the
arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the
arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think,
for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include
issues not brought up in the initial request.

on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote:

> The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or
> against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the
> scope of the arbitration.
>
> Fred
>
>> From: Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:59:25 -0800 (PST)
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?
>>
>>
>> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>>
>>>> It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to
>>> report real abuses
>>>> because they did not want to be forced to defend
>>> themselves from unfair
>>>> or untrue accusations by the abuser.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a
>>> dispute between two
>>> users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you
>>> have to examine all
>>> sides in the dispute.  There's no need to look
>>> through the accusing
>>> editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense
>>> to look through
>>> both sides' posts and edits in the relevant
>>> discussions and articles.
>>
>> The last time (and it will be the last time) I brought
>> a case before the arbcom, Fred Bauder thought it
>> appropriate to bring in situations in which I had
>> dealings with other people who were not even involved
>> in the situation at hand.  His refusal to recuse
>> himself showed his lack of impartiality.
>>
>> RickK
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________
>> Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
>> Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
>> http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable
game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense
out of articles. Within four hours:

Skyring inserted a falsehood
Adam reverted: Adam's #1 revert
Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #1 revert
Adam reverted: Adam's #2 revert
Skyring re-inserted it:" Skyring's #2 revert
Adam reverted: Adam's #3 revert
Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #3 revert
Adam reverted: Adam's #4 revert.
Skyring calls the cops.

Given this intepretation of 3RR, there's no way Adam could have kept
the material out, except by calling other editors to help him, which
he should have done, but it's a bit silly to have to do that over a
content dispute that is straighforwardly factual, as it is in this
case.

But if we're going to concentrate on process and ignore quality, then
shouldn't neither or both editors be blocked in this case?

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
Peter, this probably isn't the place to discuss the factual details,
but in brief you are doing original research. Here is the Governor
General's page http://www.gg.gov.au/html/fset_role.html There's
nothing republican about this description.

We had a similar situation a few weeks ago when an editor kept
deleting that Israel is a parliamentary democracy, because that editor
believes that Israel is not democratic enough, and was able to quote
other sources making the same point. But that's beside the point:
Israel is recognized by reputable sources as a parliamentary
democracy, so that's the term Wikipedia uses; similarly, the Queen is
recognized as the Australian head of state by most reputable sources,
so that's what Wikipedia goes with. That doesn't mean the debate
shouldn't be characterized in the Wikipedia article, so long as it is
a real debate in that country, which I'm sure it is in Australia. But
it has to be done in a careful, scholarly way with reference to good
sources, sticking closely to what they say, and not what you feel they
imply. And the dispute has to be described, not engaged in. Check
[[Wikipedia:No original research]].

Sarah

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:09:45 +1100, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:58:23 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com
> <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure what you mean by saying you waited overnight, because you
> > made your four edits, in my view four reverts, within about four
> > hours, so far as I can see.
>
> That's true. I then gave Adam another twelve hours and more before
> taking action.
>
> >The important point here is that you're
> > trying to introduce POV into the article by claiming, I believe, that
> > Australia is a republic and that the Queen is not the head of state,
> > which is factually incorrect. You may be right (I don't know) that
> > Australia is in some sense a thinly veiled republic, but the veil is
> > everything, no matter how thin.
>
> But that's only your opinion. There is NO definitive answer as to who
> is Australia's head of state. It's not defined in the constitution,
> and the High Court has not answered the question.
> >
> > This is an interesting example of content-quality over procedure. Adam
> > Carr was trying to preserve accuracy and now he's blocked. The person
> > who has been trying to insert an inaccuracy for days, and who also
> > (arguably) reverted four times, is not blocked.
>
> Please read the discussion. If you feel you have something to
> contribute and can provide checkable sources, then I urge you to do
> so.
>
> > Peter, you may be right about there being an argument in favor of
> > saying that Australia is, in effect, a republic. But if you want to
> > introduce an issue like that into an article, you have to be very
> > careful not to violate the no-original-research rule, which says that
> > editors shouldn't come up any new analysis or synthesis of facts. In
> > other words, if you want to say Australia is a republic, you have to
> > find reputable sources who have actually said that precise thing, and
> > not just sources who have said things which, put together in a certain
> > way in a certain light, could be interpreted as implying that. The
> > former is okay; the latter is original research. I don't know, but I
> > suspect, that Adam perceived you to be doing the latter.
>
> I've provided sources going back to Federation. I've quoted the
> Wikipedia definition of republic, I've quoted the Macquarie, I've
> pointed out that even the Oxford English Dictionary makes us a
> republic. People are starting to complain about the "reams of text'.
>
> Adam's position seems to be that a republic is a non-monarchy and
> because we have a powerless monarch in a symbolic role, we cannot be a
> republic, despite the overwhelmingly republican nature of our
> constitutional arrangements, whereby sovereignty resides in the people
> and power is exercised by elected or appointed officials, rather than
> hereditary positions.
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
Abe Sokolov stated for the record:

> The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a
> careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that.
> (Given the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I
> probably wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the U.S.,
> let alone a Communist!)
>
> I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove
> that. Of course, if one were to post similar comments under the names of
> Sean Barret and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that they
> were not the ones making them either... It's quite distressing that
> users are searching for dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to server
> their political or personal agendas on Wikipedia.
>
> -172

Four responses:

I Google lots of people's names, both those I despise and those I respect.

The hope that I expressed -- that those were not in fact your views --
was sincere.

When you Google for dirt on me, your efforts will be more effective if
you take the trouble to spell my name correctly.  (To aid your digging:
I am not a professor, an athlete, or a "dysfunctional programmer."  I am
an author, with at least one book in print, but most of the books sold
under my name are not written by me.)

For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing
list closely.

--
  Sean Barrett
  sean at epoptic.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>Given this intepretation of 3RR, there's no way Adam could have kept
>the material out, except by calling other editors to help him, which
>he should have done, but it's a bit silly to have to do that over a
>content dispute that is straighforwardly factual, as it is in this
>case.
>
Put another way, "there's no way Adam could have kept the material out, except for the way that doesn't break the rules and result in a 24-hour ban." I don't think it's silly to bring in more people when there's a dispute, how else can one determine which side of the dispute is correct (if any)?

>But if we're going to concentrate on process and ignore quality, then
>shouldn't neither or both editors be blocked in this case?
>
>
One broke the letter of the 3RR and the other broke the spririt of it,
but it's a lot trickier trying to sanction someone for breaking the
spirit of a rule since that's open to much wider interpretation. The
letter of the rule is fairly simple and straightforward,  don't see a
problem with strictly enforcing it.

Inserting factually incorrect material is bad for Wikipedia, but IMO so
is revert-warring.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
Abe Sokolov (or somebody using that name) wrote:

> The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a
> careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that.
> (Given the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I
> probably wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the
> U.S., let alone a Communist!)
>
> I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove
> that. Of course, if one were to post similar comments under the names
> of Sean Barret and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that
> they were not the ones making them either... It's quite distressing
> that users are searching for dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to
> server their political or personal agendas on Wikipedia.

Since this seems partially directed at me, I will point out that I have
not been searching for dirt on anybody. In case it wasn't clear from my
previous post, I was searching for *confirmation* of the professional
credentials 172 has periodically alluded to. This is something that
would serve to _support_ his claim to expertise in certain areas. It
should not diminish his reputation unless he has overstated his
qualifications, and I've seen no real indication of that. Statements
that 172 may or may not have posted in various forums, which may or may
not have been facetious, matter little to me.

On the other hand, if 172 wants to deny any significance to the name he
has chosen and give us no personal information, then we have no evidence
to back up his claims to expertise and might as well disregard them. As
was already noted, the divergence between trying to remain anonymous and
trying to appeal to one's credentials as an expert makes this an
impossible position to maintain.

In my observation, people do pay attention to the fact that some users
have particular professional credentials, and sensible users have shown
some deference toward that expertise. The deference is not complete, of
course, and unfortunately during disagreements some people are
aggressively disrespectful of their opponent's credentials, so an expert
will not necessarily be satisfied with the situation. But if you want
any kind of deference, whether or not you want to go all the way to the
model Larry Sanger advocates, being willing to allow evidence of your
credentials is a pretty basic requirement.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [Wikitech-l] "phpwikipediabot" - my own bot code

body:
This is the code behind User:Grammarbot. It is structured something like this:

cronjob (runs main.php every minute)
- main.php (checks if bot is active, then includes do.php)
-- do.php (parses article text, does text transformations, checks up
on articles it did earlier)
--- inc.php (sets up error handling and logging, sets edit summary,
replacement text etc)
---- inc_db.php (db login details)
---- inc_wiki.php (wiki functions and site details)

I also have curl.exe (although I may move to using the PHP Curl
library), cookieconf.txt (a config file for Curl), cookie.txt (the
actual cookie file by and for Curl, which of course is kept where it
won't be served to the public) and the public pages index.php,
stop.php, stuff.php. Also, some more text files which you can see at
stop.php, and logs.

The source of inc_wiki.php is available under GPL.

It includes the following functions:

gettext($title) takes the article text from Special:Export using an
XML parser, converts it to ISO-8859-1 if the charset for the wiki
isn't UTF-8 (as Special:Export is *always* in UTF-8), and returns it.

geteditpage($title) returns an array where $ar['text'] is the article
text and $ar['attr'] is the form variables (including wpEditToken) to
pass on to makeedit().

makeedit($title, $attr, $newtext) uses the $ar['attr'] you got from
geteditpage() to commit an edit.

That is all. It is a bit messy and you will have to uncomment and edit
a line in geteditpage() the first time you use it for it to login.

http://r3m0t.geniushost.net/cron/inc_wiki.txt

The other files in my bot are available if you email me.


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Sean Barrett wrote:

> Abe Sokolov stated for the record:
>
[snip]

> For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing
> list closely.
>
The same thought occured to me. And his posts only make Stan Sheb's
account of a unbelievable correspondence all the more believable.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Strange fetishes

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:

> Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen at shaw.ca wrote:
>
> Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR
> even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation
> would be considered "reasonable."
>
> That's actually my point. For Wikipedia to be managable, procedure
> must be followed and policies must be enforced. Thus, the statements
> that I'd quoted were **unfortunately** reasonable. The problem is the
> nature of the procedure making this approach reasonable.
>
> IMO needs radical change, along the lines of Larry Sanger's
> suggestions. The way things are now, certain trolls flourish while
> professional historians like Jtdril
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtdirl#3RR_block) and Adam
> Carr get blocked. Some bold structural changes would serve to correct
> this problem.

Some bold individual changes by certain people in their personal editing
practices would also serve to correct this problem.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikitech-l] Login/Cache Issue - user not logging out

body:
On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 13:07:10 -0800, Pieter Konink <pk at pieterkonink.com> wrote:
> http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63
>
> The bug is marked fixed, but the last post merely says it was fixed in
> the CVS ("... set cookie with logged in and log out timestamp, then
> check them when checking If-Modified-Since.").
>
> I was just wondering if someone who is using CVS could fill me in on the
> code modified, or give me some pointers for how to do it myself. Thank you!

I felt like playing with CVS, so I reckon this looks like the edits in
question. Don't come crying to me if they don't work, but if you
really don't like the idea of upgrading, but really really want this
fix, take a look at this diff:

Index: includes/OutputPage.php
===================================================================
@@ -110,11 +110,11 @@
 			# this breaks strtotime().
 			$modsince = preg_replace( '/;.*$/', '',
$_SERVER["HTTP_IF_MODIFIED_SINCE"] );
 			$ismodsince = wfTimestamp( TS_MW, strtotime( $modsince ) );
 			wfDebug( "-- client send If-Modified-Since: " . $modsince . "\n", false );
 			wfDebug( "--  we might send Last-Modified : $lastmod\n", false );
-			if( ($ismodsince >= $timestamp ) and $wgUser->validateCache(
$ismodsince ) ) {
+			if( ($ismodsince >= $timestamp ) && $wgUser->validateCache(
$ismodsince ) ) {
 				# Make sure you're in a place you can leave when you call us!
 				header( "HTTP/1.0 304 Not Modified" );
 				$this->mLastModified = $lastmod;
 				$this->sendCacheControl();
 				wfDebug( "CACHED client: $ismodsince ; user: $wgUser->mTouched ;
page: $timestamp\n", false );

Index: includes/User.php
===================================================================
@@ -151,11 +151,11 @@
 		static $n=0;
 		$n++;
 		$fname = 'User::loadDefaults' . $n;
 		wfProfileIn( $fname );

-		global $wgContLang, $wgIP;
+		global $wgContLang, $wgIP, $wgDBname;
 		global $wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault;

 		$this->mId = 0;
 		$this->mNewtalk = -1;
 		$this->mName = $wgIP;
@@ -173,13 +173,20 @@
 			$this->mOptions['searchNs'.$nsnum] = $val;
 		}
 		unset( $this->mSkin );
 		$this->mDataLoaded = false;
 		$this->mBlockedby = -1; # Unset
-		$this->mTouched = '0'; # Allow any pages to be cached
 		$this->setToken(); # Random
 		$this->mHash = false;
+
+		if ( isset( $_COOKIE[$wgDBname.'LoggedOut'] ) ) {
+			$this->mTouched = wfTimestamp( TS_MW, $_COOKIE[$wgDBname.'LoggedOut'] );
+		}
+		else {
+			$this->mTouched = '0'; # Allow any pages to be cached
+		}
+
 		wfProfileOut( $fname );
 	}

 	/**
 	 * Used to load user options from a language.
@@ -912,10 +919,13 @@

 		$_SESSION['wsUserID'] = 0;

 		setcookie( $wgDBname.'UserID', '', time() - 3600, $wgCookiePath,
$wgCookieDomain );
 		setcookie( $wgDBname.'Token', '', time() - 3600, $wgCookiePath,
$wgCookieDomain );
+
+		# Remember when user logged out, to prevent seeing cached pages
+		setcookie( $wgDBname.'LoggedOut', wfTimestampNow(), time() + 86400,
$wgCookiePath, $wgCookieDomain );
 	}

 	/**
 	 * Save object settings into database
 	 */

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] Changing md5 of wikisysop user

body:
Another method w/o touching the code:

Using MySQL or mysqlcc:

1. Insert a valid e-mail address into your entry in table user
2. mail you a temporary password
3. log-in with this
4. set a new password

Brion Vibber schrieb:

> Export TheGeek wrote:
>
>> well.. I forgot my password for sysop so I created a new md5 based off
>> a new password and entered the md5 value into user_password in the
>> user table on the wiki mysql database, but attempting to login still
>> yeilds invalid password.. anybody have any thoughts on how to enter a
>> new md5 and have it work? did i miss some sort of has / calculation
>> done to the initial plaintext password?
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:

> Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of
> groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to
> Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time,
> their behavior is shaped according to a whole web of relations based
> on the fetishization and ritualization of the 3RR and other policies,
> making them lose sight of the goal of writing an encyclopedia.

The 3RR is purposely designed as a trade-off. On the plus side,
edit-warriors inserting nonsense cannot do so more than three times per
day. On the minus side, users reverting nonsensical edits cannot revert
them more than three times in a day. If we assume that there are more
"good editors" than "bad editors", then it's a good tradeoff, because
there will always be other people around to revert the nonsense editors.
Policies like banning repeated edit-warriors through an Arbitration
Committee case are intended to keep the number of "bad editors" down so
this remains the case.

(A useful analogy might be to the moral theory of rule-based
utilitarianism.)

-Mark


from_name: Lars Alvik

subject: [Wikipedia-l] no: or nb: (again)

body:
I've transfared this debate to the forum at no: for futher discution,
but my impression is that most people don't really care about this.

I've also proposed a voting over the matter, begining in a few days.

Hopefully this will be the debate to end all debates (heard that one
before? :))

mvh.

Lars Alvik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] no: or nb: (again)

body:
A vote is essensial, if we are ever going to bury this debate, to know
what the people of no: is thinking about an namechange. If there is a
majority that still wants to use the domain no: and be called "norsk
(bokm?l)", then so be it. It may not be 100% fair to nynorsk, but then
the users have spoken and the debate and dispute is over.

I belive quite strongly that it's the norwegians themselfs that should
have the power to choose their own languagecode. (accualy there's no
such thing as nb: and with the current technical difficulities, this is
not technicaly possible). The way i see it, only registrated (and
somewhat active) users on no: and nn: should be allowed to vote.

On a sidenote, forexample the www.google.no is on bokm?l, you have to
click an extra link to get to the nynorsk version. This is more or less
what i think no: should be, on bokm?l but with a well placed link to
nynorsk.

But there is accualy another point of view here, the riksm?l view.
Riksm?l would "suffer" under a bokm?l wikipedia, as people would
translate it to bokm?l on the asumption that it's untranslated danish.
Hell, i even done that several times. Therefore there 'll probably be a
oposition from riksm?l to the formalization of no: to bokm?l
(eventhough these forms are like american english and english).

mvh.

Lars Alvik

P? 4. mar. 2005 kl. 02:03 skrev Mark Williamson:

> I really don't think voting is a fair option.
>
> Since, in the entire Norwegian Wikipedia community (including both no:
> and nn:), Bokm?l speakers are the majority, it will be just about as
> fair as it was when the vote was held whether or not there should be a
> separate nn: and nb:.
>
> You may object that no: users should get to choose the official name
> of their own Wikipedia, but this doesn't seem fair to me. If no:
> chooses the name "Norsk", even though it's becoming more and more
> Bokm?l-only, perhaps Nynorsk could also change interwiki links to
> "Norsk"? They are both accurate.
>
> Neither variety has more of a claim than the other to the title
> "Norsk". They are both "Norsk".
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:57:38 +0100, Lars Alvik <larsal at stud.ntnu.no>
> wrote:
>> I've transfared this debate to the forum at no: for futher discution,
>> but my impression is that most people don't really care about this.
>>
>> I've also proposed a voting over the matter, begining in a few days.
>>
>> Hopefully this will be the debate to end all debates (heard that one
>> before? :))
>>
>> mvh.
>>
>> Lars Alvik
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Jack Lutz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II

body:
Surely the Australian government has written a thing or two about whether it
is a constitutional monarchy or republic?


from_name: ffdfsd dsfdsfsdf

subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll)

body:
I am writing out of desparation at the abuse I have
suffered over the last few days. First, I was blocked
by Wile E. Hiershe (or something like that), then,
Netaholic appears to have shown Wile the blocking
policy, and persuaded him that I had not done anything
to deserve blocking, then Michael Snow also stepped in
to try to prevent my being lynched.
It seems that Snowspinner has now, as part of a
separate abuse, blocked me (claiming, in a bizzare
side comment that I am a new user - I have been
editing since October). He seems to think that
collaborative editing is  a blocking offense, and that
editing a page that another user has already edited is
against the rules.
I am baffled and disturbed that any attempt to check
edits by other users is considered 'harrassment'.
Please please help and kindly join me in requesting
that this harrassment stop. I am aware that many
wikipedians have predjudice about users who have
different beliefs about how wikis should work to them,
but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki, and
beleive passionately that we should be building the
best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible.
Thank you,
The Recycling Troll

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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:56:21 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe,
> that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR.  He also said
> that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on
> your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR,
> even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you,
> you went and reported him.
>
> Sarah

I've removed the block Skyring had not reverted more than 3 times in 24 hours.

--
geni


from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
Quote of the day:

"It is no defense to the 3RR that the information being reverted is false."
-User:BM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr

Runner up:

"I agree that Adam Carr was reverting a completely nonsensical edit
(Australia is not yet a republic), but he still broke the 3RR."

-User:Noel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr

Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of
groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to Wikipedia with
the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time, their behavior is shaped
according to a whole web of relations based on the fetishization and
ritualization of the 3RR and other policies, making them lose sight of the
goal of writing an encyclopedia.

I concede that Wikipedia is no longer the small community it once was, but
rather an increasingly complex and cumbersome organization comprising
thousands of user, meaning that attention to procedure is crucial if the
project is to be manageable. The problem is not the bureaucratization of
Wikipedia in and of itself but rather how Wikipedia is being bureaucratized.

If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it must
develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make nonsensical
edits, not those who are reverting them. If it continues to follow its
present path, the only people who'll have the patience to deal with these
games will be cultists, LaRouchies, Holocaust deniers, and other random
cranks.

Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25)
should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable.

-172

BTW, I have asked that my adminship be revoked in unrelated correspondences.
I have no intention of returning, regardless of this message.

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body:
Which of my edits are problematic? Most are small
corrections or wikifications. I do not believe any are
cause for concern, and in any event do not beleive
that the blocking policy has been followed.

Surely whether someone is blocked depends on more than
whether someone else feels 'sympathy' for them?!
The Recycling Troll

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

> > I am aware that many
> > wikipedians have predjudice about users who have
> > different beliefs about how wikis should work to
> them,
> > but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki,
> and
> > beleive passionately that we should be building
> the
> > best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible.
> > Thank you,
> > The Recycling Troll
>
> You have certain entitlements in this matter.  Your
> edits don't particularly
> engage my sympathy, your name not at all.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
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http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Recycling Troll

body:
Can someone please advise me what appeal process there
is?
Thank you,
The Recycling Troll

--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

> > I am aware that many
> > wikipedians have predjudice about users who have
> > different beliefs about how wikis should work to
> them,
> > but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki,
> and
> > beleive passionately that we should be building
> the
> > best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible.
> > Thank you,
> > The Recycling Troll
>
> You have certain entitlements in this matter.  Your
> edits don't particularly
> engage my sympathy, your name not at all.
>
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties?

body:
So in this case the correct thing for Adam to would be to contact you.
A problem I'm seeing a lot right now is that edit wars are taking too
long to come to the attention of the wider community. If the first the
widder comunity know is when the 3RR report comes in we have a
problem.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a
careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that. (Given
the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I probably
wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the U.S., let alone a
Communist!)

I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove that. Of
course, if one were to post similar comments under the names of Sean Barret
and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that they were not the ones
making them either... It's quite distressing that users are searching for
dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to server their political or personal
agendas on Wikipedia.

-172

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen at shaw.ca wrote:

Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR
even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation
would be considered "reasonable."

That's actually my point. For Wikipedia to be managable, procedure must be
followed and policies must be enforced. Thus, the statements that I'd quoted
were **unfortunately** reasonable. The problem is the nature of the
procedure making this approach reasonable.

IMO needs radical change, along the lines of Larry Sanger's suggestions. The
way things are now, certain trolls flourish while professional historians
like Jtdril (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtdirl#3RR_block) and
Adam Carr get blocked. Some bold structural changes would serve to correct
this problem.

-172

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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system

body:
There is a serious problem. As the number of Wikipedia rules spiral, we are
seeing people figure out how to play the rules for their own personal
edification. Meanwhile, three old-time users--172, AdamCarr, and Mirv, who have
thousands of valuable edits to their name (regardless of what anyone might think
of any of them personally)--have either been blocked or left the project in
the  past 24 hours.

Frankly, I never supported the 3RR, either the first time it was
implemented, or this, the second time. I certainly oppose the idea that it takes
precedence, or is even on an equal footing, with the goal of creating an  _accurate_,
NPOV, open-source encyclopedia. Comments equating it with that are
misguided. 3RR was put in place, not as an objective in itself, but as a means  to an
end, that end being the creation of an accurate corpus of human  knowledge. And
yet, while people are willing to block for violating the 3RR, how  many
people are willing to block for pushing POV or adding inaccurate  information
consistently? That is a problem.

So I reiterate: 3RR is not a goal of Wikipedia. In an ideal world, it would
not even be necessary. It is merely a means to an end.

The problem begins when focus solely on 3RR, disregarding our real goals.

People are gaming these rules. While I would like to believe that most
people have the good of Wikipedia at heart, the fact is that it is downright
impossible, given the size of Wikipedia, to follow all the arguments, follow all
the reverts, and step in when necessary. It once was, but that is no longer the
 case. Nor is it legitimate to expect people who do not have IRC to get it
and go  there when they face a problem. This is not an IRC project.

I do not know the solution to this problem, but I think that it should be
stated. Personally, I hope that Jimbo appoints a group of trusted users to
examine the problem and come up with some solutions.

Danny


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] a message i am forwarding from project gutenberg

body:
I am forwarding this message I received from Project Gutenberg

Hello Danny,

could you please forward this and introduce me to the  right people? Thanks.

What I want to do is to set up a hierarchy of cache  servers for Project
Gutenberg. I know you are doing this on Wikipedia. I want  to do
something very similar: set up some squid servers around the world  and
take some load off the main Gutenberg site at _ibiblio.org_
(http://ibiblio.org/) .

Before  reinventing the wheel I'd like to take a look at your squid
configuration  files and maybe have a little chat with one of your system
admins.

I  look forward to hearing from you

--
Marcello Perathoner
_webmaster at gutenberg.org_ (mailto:webmaster at gutenberg.org)


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] A proposal for better communication on Foundation
	issues

body:
Hello,

I think we have a problem. Jimbo, Ang and I receive a lot of mails, some of it privately, others through the address of the board.
All the board mail and some of the private ones end up in a special list on otrs, the board file.

For those who do not know otrs, this is a system where we can collectively answer to mails. The tra?eability of mails is garanteed, so we can see who answered to which mail, when and how... as well as see the answer of the original author. We hence know which mails have been answered and which ones are still pending. We can also avoid filling up of our mail boxes. It is also possible to draft some templates of answers for the most frequent questions.

In the end, OTRS is first a system meant to make us earn time, and meant to increase writers satisfaction thanks to a better follow up of their requests.

Currently, though the admins of otrs and developers have access technically speaking to that file, they are not supposed to read the mails on the board list, and not supposed to answer to them. Only three people are left to answer mails here, Jimbo, Ang and I. To be honest, I do not think we do the job very well, because we are, I think, already overworked. The result is essentially accumulation of mails. We may answer some very quickly, but other times, it take us a lot of time (to avoid saying there are some mails we never answer). When the list becomes too full, we change mails from one list to another, essentially we give our mails to info-en, where people like Sannse may answer them for us.

Still, this is NOT very satisfying. Why ?
* because once the mail is sent to info-en, we lose track of answers
* because some of the issues given to info-en are frankly board matters, not info-en matters. Even though Sannse can answer them (and perhaps others), it will appear strange that info-en answers a request sent to the board itself.
* because there are some people much more adapted to answer some of these requests than Sannse.

Typical examples of letters received by the board

* I would like to send you money, may I have an tax receipt. I live in Canada.
* I sent 20 bucks 6 months ago, and no one ever thank me
* Why are you not using gold money ?
* I would like to make a donation and would like to know how much is required to be a "benefactor"
* What are you doing with all this money ?

* We are a website selling porn toys, you have great articles on sexual topics, we would like to propose link exchanges with our site
* We would like to become partners with Wikipedia

* Microsoft speaking, we would like to host your whole site for free on our servers
* We are a small hosting company and would like to offer you free hosting for a couple of servers
* We are a firm building servers and we would like to offer you 3 pentium shmull and 4 artium trucmuch

* I have a diploma of translator in xx language and I am seeking a job on your project
* I am an organiser of meetings/a finance specialist/a grant seeker etc... you may find my cv inclosed

* We would like to use this picture

* I see in this article there was a photo, and this photo is under copyright, please remove it
* I have been defamed somewhere in your project, here is my lawyer address, I will sue you unless you do something NOW

* I would like an account
* What is your mission statement ?

AND SO ON AND SO ON.

Some are directly sent to info-en, but a whole lot of these are really Foundation issues. So, I think they should be managed as Foundation issues. Not as english issues.
But we just can't manage it all.

Why does it matter ?
It matters because people need answers, they need reassurance, they need to trust us, they need feedback when threatening to sue us, they need to be thanked, they need their gifts to be acknowledged. When we do not answer a mail, or answer after a month, THIS IS BAD.

So, I think we need your help.

I had thought first of opening the board list to more people, but Ang made a very good comment. She said that people might write to us privately, and say private things they do not wish to be seen by others. This is true. Besides, she added that at least each mail should be seen by at least ONE of us. She is correct.

Another person (Elian) suggested that we could summarize some issues on the grant wiki (such as the hosting ones) so a collective answer could be prepared. I see good to this, but it does not entirely solve the issue we just need some people to help us answer letters, and we just do not have time necessarily to make summaries from mails on these topics.

Here is what I suggest. This is just a suggestion and I am open to all comments

I would like that another board list is opened. Say "Open board".
Only Jimbo, Ang and I have access to "Board" so may do the first review of these mails. Either we consider WE should answer these mails (for example, I suspect Jimbo would prefer to answer Microsoft offer :-)), OR we change them for the "Open board" file. We all three can follow the future of these mails on the Open board file and even answer there if necessary.

More people have access to Open Board. I would love this access to be per topic. And for each topic, to have between 1-4 people, who are trusted to answer on these topics which they are usually interested and knowledgeable in.

Example
* Financial and fundraising matters : Mav
* Grant matters : Danny
* Wikimedia Foundation website matters : Aphaia
* Technical matters : Brion
* Legal matters, Michael, Aurevilly
* Newsletter : Aphaia
* Local associations : Elian, notafish
* Other general issues : Sannse

I just put a couple of names, others could be involved as well. For example, Brion could also be helped by Jamesday for servers offers, or Submarine for help in Europe... Legal matters could possibly also involve other legal people we trust, Tomos...

For example, Jimbo might wish to forward a proposal of 3 pentium servers to "Open board", where Jamesday will investigate the type of servers exactly offered and the interest of the offer. If it happens that the offer turns out amazing, Jamesday might consider best to put again in the board list the mail for Jimbo to consider better.

The idea is
1) For the board to check that no private mail turns out public
2) For the board to focus on what needs to stay private, might be controversial, might be strategic
3) To delegate a whole bunch of trusted people involved on all those matters the role of answering what is related when necessary.
4) Anytime someone feel the topic needs input from one of us, he can either make us in copy, or he feels it is getting too much of a board responsability, move the whole mail to the "board" file again.

Note that generally, it should be satisfying for those involved. For example, would it not be a good idea that Mav sees all these emails about "what do you do with the money, how could I get a tax receipt, how to be a benefactor...", while would it not be a good idea that Brion sees what servers offers are made to us ?

I do not say that right now, this information does not get to them in the end, but not always and not quickly. And meanwhile, we are not treating people in the right way.

I also wish that it results in the end in a sort of organisation, where we have people clearly involved in some matters.
I explain : the idea is not only to limit this to the "open board " list, but also to have this list public. So, when anyone contact us, he will know that these people are specifically involved in such topics.

Two more points :

First, it is important that people do feel free in front of this. I would love Tim to be involved in tech matters answering if he wishes it. But if he needs to be away for 2 months for his PhD, he can feel free doing it, as Brion will be there to answer. So Tim may just remove him from the list or declare himself inactive for a while. The only important point is to ensure that an offer or a request gets an answer.

Second, I think some issues are up more often than others. So some people just will not need to regularly check if something is to answer. It is possible from OTRS to forward a mail to warn someone an issue is waiting for him. We might also consider that a couple of people are regularly checking that mails are answered (ie, if a legal threat is underway, Sannse or another could forward the mail to Michael for his consideration, so as to warn him).

The board is really 3 people, with a professional life aside, with family aside. We can only do it with your help.
There are some issues which will always have to be discussed privately, and some decisions always to be taken by the board. But if Wiki works, this is also because the model is one of decentralisation and delegation of "power". As well as trust than most people want good and do good.

---------------------------------
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 Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web


from_name: actionforum at comcast.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II

body:
------------- Original message --------------
> Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though the matter is
> complicated by the G-G representing her.

But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic?  I thought most constitutional monarchies were republics.  The salient point is whether the monarch or the constitution is supreme.  If the monarch cannot suspend or amend the constitution, then what you have is the rule of law, a "republic".

                   -- Silverback


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped

body:
Anthere wrote:
> I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before
> stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or
> remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All
> this is rather a mistake from us.
>
> Anthere

For the record, I don't hold any ummm... "grunge" :) against Uncle Ed.
It's possible that 172 did the wrong thing. I just wanted to know what
process was being followed!

TBSDY


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Pictures on the Dutch Wikipedia do not work anymore

body:
The normal [[image:Whatever.jpeg]] still work but not
http://www.someserver.tld/foto.jpeg

You get a url and not the picture.

It seems to be so since yesterday.

For normal use of Wikipedia that is no problem. But there is one special use of
this form that now does not work anymore.

Since 27th of october 2002 we have on the Dutch Wikipedia a Nedstat counter.

http://www.nedstatbasic.net/s?tab=1&link=1&id=1940085

So now we have stats form the early days of the Dutch Wikipedia, befor
wikimedia has its one internal stats and the are also live. Also the other
Dutch projects use this system.

Because you can not use real html on the wiki pages the counter is a external
image that is loaded.

http://m1.nedstatbasic.net/n?id=AB2adQNZADwCBJkmGvXB60CHw0rg.gif

... and this does not work now anymore.

I whould like a solution. Is there some option so you can put the external
images again on or to include a html image tag?

Walter


subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II

body:
-------------- Original message --------------
> Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten.
>
> The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate,
> involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours,
> can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2.
>
> Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not.

Hmm, yes the above statement was like those in the archive, mere
assertion, without an attempt to reason.  I see no reason to
change "constitutional monarchy" to "republic", in fact constitutional
monarchy is more specific because of the figurehead monarch,
certainly the change to republic is not something to fight a revert
war over.  Unless one likes that sort of thing.

> The wikipedia's articles are NOT meant to be an outlet for political
> hopes and fallacies such as yours and Peter's. Nor is the wikien-l.

What is the hope or fallacy?  The change to a republic was made
when Austrailia assumed its current form of constitutional monarchy.

Or are you claiming "republic" means something different in
Australian english, perhaps that could be explained in the article?

                                  -- Silverback


from_name: MilchFlasche瑋平

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Using <abbr>

body:
Hello,

I support for the use of the <abbr> tag, and also support for some
limit of its usage, since it's quite useful.
Or, is some syntax like this
""text|abbreviation""
possible? By " I mean the quotation mark, not two apostrophes. So my
proposal is using two quotation mark on each side, total four of them,
to enwrap the text and the abbreviation.

It would be quite useful, not only for abbreviations, but also for
versions like zh-min-nan, when the alphabets need to be better
understood in hanzi.

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 07:36:31 +0000, Tomer Chachamu <the.r3m0t at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:34:56 +0100, Gerrit Holl <gerrit at nl.linux.org > wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > a few HTML tags work in Wikipedia article, but <abbr> doesn't. Is there
> > a Wikisyntax for abbr? If not, could <abbr> be enabled until there is?
> >
> > regards,
> > Gerrit Holl.
>
> There's no wikisyntax I can think of, but using abbr could make the
> wikisource of some technical articles near-unreadable. (That is the
> tag which provides a description on mouseover, right?) Perhaps we
> could place in the Manual of Style only to use <abbr> for the first
> instance of an abbreviation.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
2005, make signs happen!


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote

> I concede that Wikipedia is no longer the small community it once was, but
> rather an increasingly complex and cumbersome organization comprising
> thousands of user, meaning that attention to procedure is crucial if the
> project is to be manageable. The problem is not the bureaucratization of
> Wikipedia in and of itself but rather how Wikipedia is being
bureaucratized.

Don't see it myself.  I think I could edit WP for a couple of weeks before
meeting any signs of central control or 'bureaucracy'.

> If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it
must
> develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make nonsensical
> edits, not those who are reverting them.

I think WP is serious.  Nonsense postings are pushed to the margins, as far
as I can see (forgive me if I'm not much interested in Larouche issues,
which I think are barely relevant outside the USA).

> Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25)
> should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable.

I actually thought Larry had it wrong, basically.  Not that deferring to
those who know what they are talking about is wrong for WP - it is obviously
the right approach for example for me, a generalist, to take in many cases -
but that there was some way deference could be plumbed in to the wiki.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172

body:
> For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing
> list closely.

>   Sean Barrett

Whatever the current frictions, I hope we can remember that Wikipedia is
built on assumptions of collegiality amongst Wikipedians.  I think this
should extend as least as far as keeping away from the intrusive and the
highly personalised, in discussion.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
------------- Original message --------------

> > Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25)
> > should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable.
>
> I actually thought Larry had it wrong, basically. Not that deferring to
> those who know what they are talking about is wrong for WP - it is obviously
> the right approach for example for me, a generalist, to take in many cases -
> but that there was some way deference could be plumbed in to the wiki.

I too think Larry had it wrong.  While the wiki culture is anti-elitist, the encyclopedia
rules balance (perhaps overbalance) that with elitist rules such a "no original research",
as if experts and authorities know more than we do, or if someone else has said it,
then it is more important.  And while wikipedia may suffer some from lack of respect
from teachers, I suspect it is actually more useful than encyclopedias to  the students.
The best talk pages and articles present critical thinking on different sides of issues,
and perhaps represent non-establishment or lead edge thinking better than traditional
encyclopedias.  The fear that wikipedia may not be correct, may train students to
question "authority" and to verify sources.
                                          -- Silverback


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
I was forwarded this by a colleague at work. While the Google bit isn't accurate, it is nice to see how our information is being used.

APPLES, WIKIPEDIA, AND THE WEB

In January, IRC Afterschool at the International High School at Prospect Heights coordinator John Kowalski began teaching an elective computer class for 25 students from over 15 different countries.

"It didn't take long for the students to start applying their newfound search skills - in no time, they were finding music from each of their home countries.  And it didn't take long after that for them to learn to play it at a very soft volume, so as not to drive their teacher crazy," laughed Mr. Kowalski. Between now and June, these students will use laptops to do everything from search the web to create spreadsheets to use html language.

"So far, the classroom activities have involved learning specialized ways of retrieving information from the web - like Google's Wikipedia feature," Mr. Kowalski said.  "We will soon study tools for presenting that information, using visual display tools like Powerpoint, Excel, and the web."

The International School @ Prospect Heights opened in September 2004 to serve recent immigrants who are both new to the U.S. and to learning English.  IRC New York's afterschool program is currently the only afterschool program offered at the high school.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] (no subject)


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't be an imbecile: name-calling is NOT okay

body:
I'd like to point out, in an ironically self-contradictory
(hypocritical?) way, that name-calling is not okay. There's a policy
page which says:

* Don't label or give names to people or their edits. Terms like
"racist" or "fascist" (or even "moron") enrage people and make them
defensive. When this happens, it becomes hard to have a productive
discussion.

Recall that the [[moron]] article says:

* Originally a scientific term, coined by psychologist Herbert Goddard,
and used to describe a person with a genetically determined mental age
between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale. The word moron, along with
"imbecile", "retard" and "feebleminded" (among others) was once a valid
descriptor in the psychological community, though these words have all
now passed into common slang use, exclusively in a detrimental context.

And that:

* The three traditional terms denoting varying degrees of mental
deficiency long predate psychiatry. They were originally used in English
as simple forms of abuse, and this is still the main usage. Their now
obsolete use as psychiatric technical definitions is of purely
historical interest. (see [[Mental_deficiency#Traditional_terms]])

The key points here are:

1. Terms like "moron" enrage people and make them defensive.
2. ... are all now used exclusively in a detrimental context.
3. Their use in English as simple forms of abuse is still the main
usage.

So you'd really have to be an idiot to call someone a moron. (oops! ;-)

Uncle Ed


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes

body:
--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> I think WP is serious.  Nonsense postings are pushed
> to the margins, as far
> as I can see (forgive me if I'm not much interested
> in Larouche issues,
> which I think are barely relevant outside the USA).

Trust me, they're no more relevant inside the USA.

RickK

__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [daniwo59@aol.com: [Foundation-l] a message i am
	forwarding from project gutenberg]

body:
----- Forwarded message from daniwo59 at aol.com -----

From: daniwo59 at aol.com
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:13:33 EST
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] a message i am forwarding from project gutenberg

I am forwarding this message I received from Project Gutenberg

Hello Danny,

could you please forward this and introduce me to the  right people? Thanks.

What I want to do is to set up a hierarchy of cache  servers for Project
Gutenberg. I know you are doing this on Wikipedia. I want  to do
something very similar: set up some squid servers around the world  and
take some load off the main Gutenberg site at _ibiblio.org_
(http://ibiblio.org/) .

Before  reinventing the wheel I'd like to take a look at your squid
configuration  files and maybe have a little chat with one of your system
admins.

I  look forward to hearing from you

--
Marcello Perathoner
_webmaster at gutenberg.org_ (mailto:webmaster at gutenberg.org)

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

----- End forwarded message -----

--
"Pianosa is een Italie" - first words of 50,000th article on nl.wikipedia.org


body:
I sent this one onward to wikitech-l.

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> I am forwarding this message I received from Project Gutenberg
>
> Hello Danny,
>
> could you please forward this and introduce me to the  right people? Thanks.
>
> What I want to do is to set up a hierarchy of cache  servers for Project
> Gutenberg. I know you are doing this on Wikipedia. I want  to do
> something very similar: set up some squid servers around the world  and
> take some load off the main Gutenberg site at _ibiblio.org_
> (http://ibiblio.org/) .
>
> Before  reinventing the wheel I'd like to take a look at your squid
> configuration  files and maybe have a little chat with one of your system
> admins.
>
> I  look forward to hearing from you
>
> --
> Marcello Perathoner
> _webmaster at gutenberg.org_ (mailto:webmaster at gutenberg.org)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
"Pianosa is een Italie" - first words of 50,000th article on nl.wikipedia.org


body:
In fact the sentence structure of classical Chinese is usually simpler than
modern languages e.g. written Mandarin or Japanese. The former should not
be made too complex.

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> ?????????
> Adam Bishop wrote:
>
> > On the Latin Wikipedia I think we try to be as classical as
> possible -
> > the style of Cicero, or Caesar, or Vergil, or that sort of era (1st
>
> > century BC - 1st century AD).  It's not always possible; for
> example
> > if we want to write about modern people or places, we may have to
> use
> > a neo-Latin construction, or ecclesiastical Latin to write about a
> > religious topic.  (Personally, I admit that I let a few medieval
> Latin
> > constructions slip through once in awhile, as horrible as that may
> be
> > to the purest classicists :))
>
> As compared to historical Latin works, the Latin Wikipedia seems to
> use
> *much* simpler sentence structures and grammatical constructions and
> so
> on, which to some extent also minimizes the differences between
> different eras of Latin.  Is that on purpose?  If so, is that
> something
> that'd be applicable to a classical-Chinese Wikipedia?
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

__________________________________
Let's Celebrate Together!
Yahoo! JAPAN
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/so2005/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Pictures on the Dutch Wikipedia do not work anymore

body:
Walter Vermeir <walter <at> wikipedia.be> writes:

>
> The normal [[image:Whatever.jpeg]] still work but not
> http://www.someserver.tld/foto.jpeg

It works now again. Thanks.

Walter


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses

body:
On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:27:15 +0600, Arno M <redgum46 at lycos.com> wrote:
> What you wrote sounds fine, but it has not worked out all the time.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Lee" <johnleemk at gawab.com>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses
> Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:00:29 +0800
>
> >
> > Arno M wrote:
> >
> > > On the minus, well, in addition to what I've already written
> > > if there are several persons in the wrong about an article and
> > > one person in the right, then the one in the minority is severely
> > > disadvantaged
> > > by the 3RR ruling.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > Wikipedia operates on the theory that the good people always
> > outnumber the bad. If the data is factually incorrect, call in
> > outside help. The belief that just because you're right/extremely
> > knowledgeable you can revert wantonly has created a lot of problems
> > in the past.
> >
> > John Lee
> > ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

What I worry about is that so many Wikipedia conventions assume that
the majority of Wikipedia editors will be right (although in reality
we are talking about what the majority of *more active* editors
think).

There is no guarantee to suggest that a random group of Wikipedia
editors are going to write about an article in an unbiased way - more
importantly, the majority Wikipedia editor consensus could be behind
them, even while the majority worldview is not.

All the 3RR does in *some* circumstances is re-enforce Wikipedia's
majority bias. Even if it is a useful enforcement tool in many other
cases.

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Word of the Day

body:
Hi!

Talking with Gerard on how to promote wiktionary we thought about a "the
word of the day" list where people can subscribe and where we just take
a word from the wiktionary each day and send it to the group together
with the link on wiktionary.

I started a page on this on meta as well:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_word_of_the_day

I thought about using yahoogroups for this as if the group listed in the
directory it is immediately also included in many search engines - and
people don't necessarily need to know about it through the wiktionary
website, but just subscribe to the group on yahoo and are then lead to
wiktionary. This means there are going to be links from other websites
to the group and from there to wiktionary. Sooner or later this will
lead to further contributors.

I am going to insert a link to the subscription of the group when I
write to my discussion lists on other themes. So there will be an
automatic return after a while.

As an internal exchange we can subscribe to this list and use these
words as "words to be completed" - this means that I e.g. receive the
word from the English wiktionary and if my language is missing I simply
go there and add it.

So if you'd like to start subscribing to see what I send out every day,
just send a clean message to:
laparoladelgiorno-subscribe at yahoogroups.com

I also need a second person that can substitute me when I cannot send
out the word (it is going to be seldom, but it could happen).

And of course, if you would like to create your "word of the day" -list
in your language: I'll insert this in my word of the day newsletter - so
more people will see the other languages that of course use other words ....

Yann: I just had an idea - but we need people who help us - I'll write
this in a separate mail.

OK, let me know what you think about this.

Ciao, Sabine
*****
Vuoi la parola del giorno nella tua cassella di posta?
Invia un'e-mail vuota a:
laparoladelgiorno-subscribe at yahoogroups.com


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>There is a serious problem. As the number of Wikipedia rules spiral, we are
>seeing people figure out how to play the rules for their own personal
>edification. Meanwhile, three old-time users--172, AdamCarr, and Mirv, who have
>thousands of valuable edits to their name (regardless of what anyone might think
>of any of them personally)--have either been blocked or left the project in
>the  past 24 hours.
>
I don't know about Mirv, but I'm not surprised about the other two;
their attitude has always been that they should be able to do
whatever they think is right, and to hell with anyone who dares to
disagree.

The 3RR is a really simple and obvious rule. I think it's eminently
reasonable to expect a PhD to figure out that if a second revert
hasn't solved a problem, a third one won't either, nor would a fourth,
fifth, or 37th. The fact that they revert anyway shows that it's more
important to them to get their way than anything else. They can only
be "gamed" because they don't even respect other editors enough to
stop the reflexive reverting and ask for help.

This whole blocking for rule violation process should be like
speeding; if I get caught going over 65 or whatever, then my
rational reaction is to take the punishment or plead extenuating
circumstances, and then to get on with my life - not to argue
that the concept of laws is mistaken, that speed limits shouldn't
exist because they interfere with the overall goals of society,
that they should exist for everybody except me because I'm the
only competent driver on the road, or to sell my car.

Stan