from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Foundation-l] wikistats (was Information flow)

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:
> So considering I could only start on this >> two weeks ago << I'm making
> fair progress.
>
> By the way, many people would like to see for more frequent dumps.

This progress is excellent news!  I'm looking forward to it.  Now
that wikistats has a long history, it should be continued as soon
as possible, so we can watch trends over time.

However, it is also possible that the MediaWiki software could
produce some statistics more directly.  Statistics is essentially
the reduction of data volumes into useful numbers (e.g. reducing
the list of article names to the article count), and the closer to
the source such reductions can take place, the more efficient.
The dilemma is that this reduction is irreversible, you cannot
reconstruct the the full information from the reduced data. This
is where the board or its officers can provide insights into what
statistics are really useful for managing the project.

Page visit counters were an example of such direct statistics,
that was also the first to be (blindly, in my opinion) disabled
during the performance problems in 2002-2003.  Perhaps they were
never so useful anyway.  Right now (on wikipedia-l) people are
browsing through the "what links here" list to find the number of
links.  This work could be saved by presenting a "select count(*)"
at the top of the [[Special:Whatlinkshere]] page, at virtually no
extra cost.  Such counts could be presented also for the lists of
user contributions, pages belonging to a category, etc.

Collecting statistics from full database dumps is a slow and heavy
process.  We could do better.  But only if we know which stats to
collect.

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


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikien-l

from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
> On 8/25/05, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > I agree this would better be done openly (particularly as the block itself
> > wasn't done with a great deal of transparency); perhaps it would be better on a
> > Wikipedia page (WP:AN?) than flooding the mailing list.

Matt, I've started a discussion here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Placing_users_in_danger

Sarah


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for
	a	deletion vote in return for bullying

body:
MAURICE FRANK stated for the record:
> I must be legally entitled
> to have this proposal filed right now, not with a 48
> hour wait.

You're not /entitled/ to anything.

--
  Sean Barrett     | Some days it just isn't worth preparing
  sean at epoptic.com | the environmental impact statement.


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
This discussion keeps reminding me of a photo I saw once that moved me
alot (I can't seem to find it now). In it a black woman had thrown
herself on top of a severely beaten KKK member in order to save him
from an angry crowd. She had the moral highground. The newly appointed
arbiter appears not to.

Jack (Sam Spade)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Alot of people here seem to be saying "these are nazi's, so rules
don't apply". The problem is, thats how they think, and such back and
forth abuses perpetuate the cycle. Moral behaviour however can BREAK
the cycle, and allow people to grow morally and move on. I spent a few
years trying to explain that to an ARA skinhead friend I knew. Sadly
he never learned, and I stopped talking to him when he began abusing
his pregnant girlfriend.

Jack (Sam Spade)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Over the line (not-sees)

body:
I wasn't speculating, I was making an observation. I apologise if
anyone felt it was flamebait, or overly personal. I felt it touched on
a very important fact, the views on policy presented publically by a
newly appointed arbiter.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 8/25/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I dont think the last few comments have been very
> helpful. Jay has yet to give Michael a straight answer
> on the specific block issue.  Jays claim that the use
> of an ancient ethnic name as provokational is really
> very one-sided and has little substance, as is his
> representation of that history. And Jack's personal
> speculations about Jay's objectivity are flamebait at
> best.
>
> SV
> " And let's also not forget..let's not forget...
> Dude..that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for
> uh, domestic, you know, within the city... That isn't
> legal either."
>
> --- Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This discussion keeps reminding me of a photo I saw
> > once that moved me
> > alot (I can't seem to find it now). In it a black
> > woman had thrown
> > herself on top of a severely beaten KKK member in
> > order to save him
> > from an angry crowd. She had the moral highground.
> > The newly appointed
> > arbiter appears not to.
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________
> Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
--- Rob <gamaliel8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Apparently you are so intent on seeing me as a gutter
> dweller for daring to disagree with you that you can't
> see an obvious joke for what it was.

I certainly found your statements offensive, and it's not clear that they were
a joke at all. They look very much like hate speech to me: "nasty form of human
virus"?

> No need for your implied threats, though I find it ironic that you'd
> make them in the same post while you claim you find it
>  "utterly wrong to bar people from Wikipedia because
> of what views they hold."

There's a difference between holding a view, and expressing that view in an
offensive or hateful way. If a neo-Nazi wrote similar statements to yours in
this forum, I would oppose that too. But until he did, I would be happy to
tolerate him. Do you see the difference?

-- Matt

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

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


from_name: Phroziac

subject:
[WikiEN-l] admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for a
	deletion vote in return for bullying

body:
That is NOT a valid reason to delete a page. Try filing an RFC for it
when your block expires..

On 8/25/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am correct in thinking you are [[User:Tern]]?
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


list: foundation-l

from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Some ( ... ehm ... long ...) notes on Ultimate Wiktionary that are my
answers to several questions that are around.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_%E2%80%93_what%2C_why%2C_where%2C_when%2C_who

Ciao, Sabine

*****
Sabine Cretella
Translations IT-DE, EN-DE
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
skype: sabinecretella
Meetingplace for translators:
http://www.wesolveitnet.com

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


subject: [Foundation-l] Ultimate Wiktionary


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Ultimate Wiktionary


from_name: Ben E.

body:
And please remember [[Wikipedia:No legal threats]]. I believe that would
apply here. This matter, IMO, requires a close look.
 [[User:Bratsche|Ben]]

--
Bratsche-It means "viola!"


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Linder and others have called for killing Jews.  The post discusses
the way to reconquer Wikipedia from the Jews.  He then goes on to list
the "chief jews" in Wikipedia.  I'd say that's pretty close to a death
threat.  If someone was issuing death threats based on my
contributions to Wikipedia I would certainly hope that the person
would be blocked.  I think Wikipedia should consider legal action
against the ISP hosting the site for soliciting acts of violence
against Wikipedia editors.

On 8/25/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/25/05, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > > I agree this would better be done openly (particularly as the block itself
> > > wasn't done with a great deal of transparency); perhaps it would be better on a
> > > Wikipedia page (WP:AN?) than flooding the mailing list.
>
> Matt, I've started a discussion here
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Placing_users_in_danger
>
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
heh, i just noticed the "legally" part. Wikipedia is [[WP:NOT]] a democracy.

On 8/25/05, Ben E. <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> And please remember [[Wikipedia:No legal threats]]. I believe that would
> apply here. This matter, IMO, requires a close look.
>  [[User:Bratsche|Ben]]
>
> --
> Bratsche-It means "viola!"
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Thomas Gries

subject: [Wikitech-l] {{CURRENTTIME}} ? How to make +2 ?

body:
Please check my patch with $wgTimezoneoffsetOverwrite on
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505
This allows sysops to _fix_ the offset for all users to a certain value.
See also http://www.enotifwiki.org

Spamschutz schrieb:

>Hi,
>
>ist {{CURRENTTIME}} the only variable to work with? My local settings are
>up to date but if we make a Date in a site we becam ?TC and noch UTC+2.
>Only in last changes are the time correct.
>
>If we sa "Welcome, its {{CURRENTTIME}} at
>{{CURRENTDAYNAME}},{{CURRENTDAY}}...." we lost 2 hours :(
>
>Regards
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>
>


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 8/25/05, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> Right now (on wikipedia-l) people are
> browsing through the "what links here" list to find the number of
> links.  This work could be saved by presenting a "select count(*)"
> at the top of the [[Special:Whatlinkshere]] page, at virtually no
> extra cost.  Such counts could be presented also for the lists of
> user contributions, pages belonging to a category, etc.
>
> Collecting statistics from full database dumps is a slow and heavy
> process.  We could do better.  But only if we know which stats to
> collect.
>

Having these counts in MediaWiki would be great, and not just for
researchers. Of general use, apart from "What links here" would be
User contributions and Recent Changes - if recent changes can be
selected by in the last 1,3,7...days, couldn't they be counted
automatically?

I'm not sure how generally useful (or possible) it would be to count
other more specific things like, say, number of times this user has
edited this article, but above are my top three.

Cormac


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
I'd like to start by apologizing to Sarah for twice referring to her as
'Rachel' up-thread. I only just realized that. I have no excuse for this
carelessness. I'm sorry, Sarah.

- - -

Sarah wrote:

> This discussion is getting a little circular, stale, and off-topic.
> Anyone who wants me to unblock Amalekite should e-mail me. So far I've
> had e-mails supportive of the block, but not one from anyone thinking
> it should be overturned. If people e-mail me directly with their
> views, I'll have a better idea of community consensus, and then I can
> take it into account.

I have already petitioned you directly, in words as clear as I can manage,
to lift your block on User:Amalekite. I'm doing so again now.

I do not see any advantage in taking the discussion to private mail. On
the contrary I think it is most natural to keep this kind of decision
making and the associated arguments in the open. For one thing it gives us
recorded precedents to base future decisions on.

If the mailing list has grown tired of the topic we can relocate to a talk
page of your choice - though I would personally prefer to finish the
discussion here since it started here.

My arguments against keeping User:Amalekite blocked can be found in a
number of my previous posts to this list. Instead of going through them
all again I'd like to emphasize the following meta-argument.

It has become clear that there is no consensus for the ban of
User:Amalekite. At least five people (Michael, Jack, Matt, Lisa and
myself) have expressed their opposition to it in no uncertain terms.
Several other people have expressed some reservations or ambivalence
towards the action. In my opinion summary banning of an account is only
appropriate in the case of undisputed vandals and trolls. If it turns out
that a summarily banned user is not, in fact, an undisputed vandal/troll
the ban on him or her should be lifted.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stop

body:
On 25/08/05, steve v <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:

> New topic: Something,anything else.

We've had it noticed we just passed 700,000 articles on en.wiki.
Somewhat less noted, in the past few days we also passed 400,000
accounts registered... which is a rather nice thing to note.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stop

body:
[[WP:CP]] needs some serious attention. I've been spending as much
time as I can on it but it is growing faster than I can remove stuff.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
> I said this privately and I will say it publicly. I support the
> permanent block on Amalekite. He can edit Nazipedia all he wants now. In
> case we all forgot, Wikipedia is about making an encyclopedia, not
> providing a platform for every nutbag with an agenda to spill his
> nonsense all over us.

We all agree that the goal of the project is to create an encyclopedia. A
free, comprehensive, accurate encyclopedia. The best encyclopedia in the
world. The reason some of us are spending all this time in debating the
ban of an individual user is that we believe that to create the best
encyclopedia in the world we need a community that is open, friendly,
accountable, fair and helpful.

In particular we need to be open to people of all creeds and opinions. We
need to be especially friendly to newbies. We need to be accountable for
the actions of our administrators. And we need to be fair and helpful to
everyone who wants to contribute.

The quality of our encyclopedia is directly related to the quality of the
community that is building it. Let's take good care of it.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [Wikitech-l] enotifwiki3.52 + mediawiki1.5rc3 released

body:
see http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4473
new:
* updated to REL1_5 CVS200508252145
* RSS extension support built in


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
> Just to make clear once again: he was blocked for posting the
> list of editors on the other website.

Thank you! It was by no means clear to me before now that this was the
fundamental reason.

> The relevant part of the blocking policy is this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Personal_attacks_which_place_users_in_danger

The full text follows:

"Blocks may be imposed in instances where threats have been made or
actions performed (including actions outside the Wikipedia site) which
expose other Wikipedia editors to political, religious or other
persecution by government, their employer or any others. In such a case a
ban for a period of time may be applied immediately by any sysop upon
discovery. Sysops applying such sanctions should confidentially notify the
members of the Arbitration Committee and Jimbo Wales of what they have
done and why. See No personal attacks.

This provision is rarely used."

Even if we accept that this provision applies in this case (I do not, but
I would agree that it is a borderline case) the provision calls for a "ban
for a period of time", not an indefinite block.

Regards,
Haukur


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
--- Lisa Thurston <lisathurston at gmail.com> wrote:

>  - Amalekite was banned for making a threat to disrupt Wikipedia (even
> though this was off of Wikipedia)

That's the reason given, but think it's arguable. Amalekite certainly was
encouraging people to edit Wikipedia to remove what he perceived to be bias. At
least initially, he was specifically asking people to follow NPOV, avoid
personal attacks and insults, and generally follow the rules.

He did post a list of users he believed were part of a "Zionist cabal" along
with a few insults ("vicious", "ruthless" and "idiots"). And after he was
banned, he did start speculating about edit warring over a long period.

That's only from one thread
(http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=225536). He might have said
more elsewhere, but from that thread, I don't think there's evidence he was
inciting disruption of Wikipedia before he was banned.

I would argue that the blocking admin(s) would have done well to document
exactly why this user was banned, complete with URLs, because it's darn hard to
find the evidence.

-- Matt

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

___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudodoxia (neo-Nazi Wikipedia)

body:
>From: Arkady Rose <arkady at arkady.org.uk>
>
>JAY JG wrote:
>
> >> From: Measure <measure at gmail.com>
> >>
> >> my computer freezes up when I try to load the main page on Psudo. other
> >> pages work ok.
> >
> >
> > It has been heavily vandalized.
>
>And how! I don't read Hebrew or Latin; does anyone have a (rough) idea
>what it says?
>
>There's an awful lot of it....

It appears to be the Adolf Hitler article from Hebrew Wikipedia.

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
--- Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:

> > Just to make clear once again: he was blocked for posting the
> > list of editors on the other website.
>
> Thank you! It was by no means clear to me before now that this was the
> fundamental reason.

Agreed. The focus has been on trolling and disruption, and that he's a Nazi.
The argument that he was blocked for making personal attacks which put editors
in danger was not, until now, made explicit. The block logs:

* 23:21, 19 August 2005 Homeontherange blocked "User:Amalekite" with an expiry
time of indefinite (neo-nazi Troll soliciting other trolls off of Stormfront)

* 08:16, 23 August 2005 SlimVirgin blocked "User:Amalekite" with an expiry time
of indefinite (disruption; posted a list of Wikipedians he believes are Jews on
the Stormfront website; posted details of how to edit using proxies and
sockpuppets)

-- Matt

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

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


from_name: MAURICE FRANK

body:
Attention other admins please. Foul play needing an
emergency response. (Asperger's Syndrome article.)

mailed to Redwolf: "I demand that you put up a vote
for deletion of the Aspies For Freedom article, on my
behalf, now, without waiting 48 hours, in the category
that it is a Vanity Article promoting its own writers'
business and is a totally personally biased view of
themselves. Unless you do this without claiming to
even have even in theory a shred of discretion not to,
I challenge your admin position as abused on biased
behalf of Wikipedia's name. Also that you post the
reply to Amy I just sent you, and relabel the
Asperger's article as neutrality disputed. I'm going
to copy this message onto wikien-l."

I have not broken 3RR, yet admin Redwolf has blocked
me for "user spam" for reinserting a link that has
been discussed in the talk page and that vandals keep
deleting. I reinstate it only because it is needed for
balance against another link, Aspies For Freedom, that
others keep reinstating and I had been seen as
censoring for trying the option of removing it. This
proves that this block on me, the second in 3 days, is
blatantly biased and bullying.

 The opposing side of this argument have not been
blocked, yet they are elements associated with a
commmunity outside Wikipedia that has socially hurt
many people and that I had shown evidence of following
peopleto other forums to harrass them. The picture is
now strongly circumstantial that the entire crisis at
the Asperger's Syndrome article since Aug 18 has been
another case of this, in which case I am being
stalked. Now that's very serious. Stalked. With this
block forming part of it.

Blocking me in the stalkers' favour prevents me
answering on talk page some serious accusations that a
character called Amy from this group made against me
there 2 hours ago, and Redwolf has not put it there
for me. Aspies For Freedom also has its own Wiki
article. Its leader Gareth has threatened me with
"filing a DMCA notice to the Wikimedia foundation",
just before a block on me begins whose timing prevents
me acting to oppose this - except by posting here.

On the evidence of this campaign and the disruption of
Wikipedia by it, I propose the Aspies For Freedom
article for deletion as a Vanity Article, + in these
circumstances of foul play I must be legally entitled
to have this proposal filed right now, not with a 48
hour wait.

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


body:
I am correct in thinking you are [[User:Tern]]?

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
On 8/26/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find the subject important because I came to the wikipedia to edit
> (donating my time and work) under the asumption that it was an open
> project, w NPOV as its guiding policy. I don't want to be a part of a
> project that excludes racists, anymore than I want to be part of a
> project that excludes Jews, or arabs, communists or what-have-you.
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)

This would not be the first time someone has been blocked from
wikipedia for being a nazi and while on the previous occasion I pulled
the block on this occastion there are other factors byond the
individuals political views.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
--- Lisa Thurston <lisathurston at gmail.com> wrote:

> For the reasons Haukur pointed out this is something that concerns us
> all. Taking it to the level of one-to-one conversations won't be
> helpful in reaching a consensus. There has to be OPEN discussion on
> this.
>
> I think we are getting bored of talking about it on this mailing list
> but it has to be discussed because no resolution has been reached.

I agree this would better be done openly (particularly as the block itself
wasn't done with a great deal of transparency); perhaps it would be better on a
Wikipedia page (WP:AN?) than flooding the mailing list.

-- Matt

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

___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
I find the subject important because I came to the wikipedia to edit
(donating my time and work) under the asumption that it was an open
project, w NPOV as its guiding policy. I don't want to be a part of a
project that excludes racists, anymore than I want to be part of a
project that excludes Jews, or arabs, communists or what-have-you.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 8/26/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > I said this privately and I will say it publicly. I support the
> > permanent block on Amalekite. He can edit Nazipedia all he wants now. In
> > case we all forgot, Wikipedia is about making an encyclopedia, not
> > providing a platform for every nutbag with an agenda to spill his
> > nonsense all over us.
>
> We all agree that the goal of the project is to create an encyclopedia. A
> free, comprehensive, accurate encyclopedia. The best encyclopedia in the
> world. The reason some of us are spending all this time in debating the
> ban of an individual user is that we believe that to create the best
> encyclopedia in the world we need a community that is open, friendly,
> accountable, fair and helpful.
>
> In particular we need to be open to people of all creeds and opinions. We
> need to be especially friendly to newbies. We need to be accountable for
> the actions of our administrators. And we need to be fair and helpful to
> everyone who wants to contribute.
>
> The quality of our encyclopedia is directly related to the quality of the
> community that is building it. Let's take good care of it.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Yeah, I agree, things are more  complicated than everyone (including
me) is articulating. I guess what it really boils down to is
[[Wikipedia:Controvesial blocks]] vrs. [[WP:IAR]], and not for the
first time...

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 8/26/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/26/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I find the subject important because I came to the wikipedia to edit
> > (donating my time and work) under the asumption that it was an open
> > project, w NPOV as its guiding policy. I don't want to be a part of a
> > project that excludes racists, anymore than I want to be part of a
> > project that excludes Jews, or arabs, communists or what-have-you.
> >
> > Jack (Sam Spade)
>
>
> This would not be the first time someone has been blocked from
> wikipedia for being a nazi and while on the previous occasion I pulled
> the block on this occastion there are other factors byond the
> individuals political views.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
On 8/26/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Vis a vis Godwin's law, this discussion should have been over before
> it started.

What, mentioning Nazis in a discussion of Nazis?

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: DF

subject: [Foundation-l] Willy gets on www.wikipedia.org

body:
Our friend Willy on Wheels (or one of his admirers)
changed the logo used on http://www.wikipedia.org/
(i.e. the non-specific language entry page) to a
picture of a car with his name under it.  I have
reverted this, but would someone with greater powers
than I please protect that image on meta:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px.jpg

The Willy logo is presently here, for all those who
want to know what face we were showing to the world
for over an hour:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/archive/2/2a/20050826130518%21Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px.jpg

-DF


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: wikistats (was Information flow)

body:
Jakob Voss wrote:

> Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
>>> Collecting statistics from full database dumps is a slow and heavy
>>> process.  We could do better.  But only if we know which stats to
>>> collect.
>>
>
> Most statistics can be created out of the database dumps but first you
> have to know how to get it, where to put it and how to treat it.
> I have updated http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Export but you
> still need some hardware and programming skills.

There are many statistics, particularly user counts and attempts to
determine authorship of a particular artile or revision histories of
articles, that simply can't be obtained from the Special:Export feature,
as it is currently implemented.  And for other statistics that would be
useful, I fail to see how the Special:export feature is any different
from simply scraping the HTML page itself.  In short, you need a full db
dump to do most statistical analysis.  I wish that you could get user
(contributor) information through the special:export pages, but I havn't
been able to get it.  That is, who did what and what has been added by a
given contributor.  What is there in the special:export function is
terriffic, but it is only a good start.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] New project licensing

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 8/25/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>It's a genealogy site. The main page says:
>>"One of the main aims of the WikiTree Project is to provide a central
>>place on the Internet for kin information about all people we know
>>ever lived, automatically construct bloodline trees, and watch the
>>gradual emergence of global family forest of humanity."
>>
>>
>
>Neat - we have a project proposal for that called 'Wikipeople'.
>
>see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople
>
>A merger of the above proposal with Wikitree may eventually be in order. But an
>NC license is a no-starter for me.
>
>-- mav
>
>
>
You might also want to look at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects/inactive#Wikitree

The person who started the project originally wanted to do it as a
Wikimedia project, but figured it would get much more success doing it
on their own.  As far as licensing issues are concerned, there is a
major thread on the topic at:

http://wikitree.org/index.php?title=WikiTree:Treehouse#Licensing

Including some comments by people who are critics of the Free Software
Foundation and the GFDL in particular that should get some note.  I
think the NC license was a mistake for that site, and it is a show
stopper for me as well to do major contributions.  I do like, however,
some of the MediaWiki software changes they have done to make it work
better with geneological data.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] New project licensing


from_name: Lisa Thurston

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
So...
 - Amalekite wasn't banned for non NPOV (apparently there's no
evidence of his/her non-NPOV edits)
 - Amalekite wasn't banned for being a neo-Nazi (the consensus is that
we can't block people of any particular political/religious
persuasion)
 - Amalekite wasn't banned for disagreeing with me about group X of
society (the consensus seems to be that people are entitled to their
viewpoints no matter how warped)

(I'm glad we got that out of the way -- hard as it was to put aside)

But
 - Amalekite was banned for making a threat to disrupt Wikipedia (even
though this was off of Wikipedia)

Jay, if this user was to write on the Stormfront noticeboard "Sorry
guys I've changed my mind. Let's edit our own encyclopaedia and leave
Wikipedia alone." would you unblock him?

Lisa
[[User:Lisathurston]]

> Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 12:59:40 -0400
> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia
>
> >From: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>
> >
> >Many articles contain '''cited''' POV, but when they are unbalanced,
> >or express POV in the narrative, they violate NPOV. Were getting off
> >topic here. The point is admins are not allowed to ban others based on
> >differences of POV, because that violates both the letter AND the
> >spirit of the blocking policy, as well as NPOV.
>
> Um, no, that's not the point, because that's not why Amalekite was banned.
>
> Jay.


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [Foundation-l] Disclaimer on fundraising page

body:
The fundraising page http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
currently carries the following disclaimer:

"Please note that neither this page nor any link on any Wikimedia site
pointing to this page should be considered a solicitation to make a
donation. Our license guarantees that you are, and will continue to be,
free to use our content regardless of whether you can afford to
donate."

To me, this is the worst kind of lawyer speak. Ubiquitous sentences
like
"Wikipedia needs your help", "Make a donation" etc. clearly constitute
a solicitation to make a donation (OED for "solicit": "2.a To entreat
or petition (a person) for, or to do, something; to urge, importune; to
ask earnestly or persistently.").

I don't know why the disclaimer is there, but if for some legal reason
we are not allowed to solicit for donations, then we are in deep
trouble indeed, and this feeble disclaimer won't help a bit.

The second sentence of the disclaimer is also offensive. It says that
people who can't *afford* to donate may nevertheless use our materials
for free. But what about the people who don't *choose* to donate? I am
sure that this is the large majority of those who don't donate.

Axel

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
For the reasons Haukur pointed out this is something that concerns us
all. Taking it to the level of one-to-one conversations won't be
helpful in reaching a consensus. There has to be OPEN discussion on
this.

I think we are getting bored of talking about it on this mailing list
but it has to be discussed because no resolution has been reached.

Sarah, I have already indicated my concerns with the blocking of
Amalekite, so please take this as an email personally directed to you
as the blocking admin. Thanks!

Lisa

> I probably won't respond again to this topic, though I'd be happy to
> hear from anyone offlist. I just wanted to link to the relevant part
> of the blocking policy for those of you who still have concerns.
>
> Sarah


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 8/26/05, MAURICE FRANK <megaknee at btopenworld.com> wrote:
> On the evidence of this campaign and the disruption of
> Wikipedia by it, I propose the Aspies For Freedom
> article for deletion as a Vanity Article, + in these
> circumstances of foul play I must be legally entitled
> to have this proposal filed right now, not with a 48
> hour wait.

I am not making a judgement on the other matters concerned here, but
to claim you have some legal basis grounded in "foul play" to have the
artice deleted is laughable. Unless you are referring to a remedy
based in defamation, I am unsure of what you are saying. As Phroziac
said, Wikipedia is not a democracy. It is a service provided by a
private organisation, and as such there is no constitutional right to
free speech applying to Wikipedia.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Jakob Voss

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:

>> Collecting statistics from full database dumps is a slow and heavy
>> process.  We could do better.  But only if we know which stats to
>> collect.

Most statistics can be created out of the database dumps but first you
have to know how to get it, where to put it and how to treat it.
I have updated http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Export but you still
need some hardware and programming skills.

> Having these counts in MediaWiki would be great, and not just for
> researchers. Of general use, apart from "What links here" would be
> User contributions and Recent Changes - if recent changes can be
> selected by in the last 1,3,7...days, couldn't they be counted
> automatically?
>
> I'm not sure how generally useful (or possible) it would be to count
> other more specific things like, say, number of times this user has
> edited this article, but above are my top three.

You can already get a counter of user contributions with Kate's tool.
http://kohl.wikimedia.org/~kate/cgi-bin/count_edits.cgi

A simple counter for "What links here"  (= number of inlinks) would be
nice and easy to implement.

A dump of the Recent Changes (RSS) in the last 1 and 7 days is heavily
needed for research.

Full user contributions can be exported with scripts parsing HTML
(Python Robot framework) but of course a XML export format would be nice
too.

Greetings,
Jakob


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mediawiki software localisation -- Pootle

body:
On 25/08/05, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Where can I find the "user interface" as is to be translated?

MediaWiki's user interface is stored:
* in the MediaWiki: namespace of a running wiki; browsable, and
exportable, via Special:Allmessages
* in PHP files in the 'languages' directory of the source, which
define array[s] containing the content to be translated; these are
used to create the MediaWiki: namespace at time of install, and to
support alternative interfaces on one wiki.

There are no .po files, or any other standard format, involved or
available in the current system.

HTH
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
On 23/08/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> While the current preferred method of localisation appears to be to
> use the MediaWiki namespace, this doesn't work well with the
> recently-introduced ability to choose ones' own interface language in
> preferences: if I choose on en.wiki to view the interface in, say,
> Navajo, or Amharic, or Bengali, nothing shows up because most or all
> of the translations for these languages were made in the MediaWiki
> namespace.

I have wondered before whether a specific, site-neutral, system for
collabourating on translations would be useful - not only for new
languages, but to keep existing translations up to date when the
English "master" messages are changed, or new features are added.

However, languages which *do* have available translations live in a
MediaWiki namespace can fairly trivially have them exported to an
appropriate PHP file, after which they will also be available at
install time, and as a user preference. I was pondering a while ago
how to merge exported messages into existing language files which
aren't in alphabetical order, and preserve comments, etc - a case of
manipulating the diffs produced by 'maintenance/diffLanguage.php'...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Willy gets on www.wikipedia.org

body:
DF wrote:
> Our friend Willy on Wheels (or one of his admirers)
> changed the logo used on http://www.wikipedia.org/
> (i.e. the non-specific language entry page) to a
> picture of a car with his name under it.  I have
> reverted this, but would someone with greater powers
> than I please protect that image on meta:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px.jpg

I prefer the car picture personally. I have protected original logo
though :o)

cheers,

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


from_name: Delirium

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

>I don't know why the disclaimer is there, but if for some legal reason
>we are not allowed to solicit for donations, then we are in deep
>trouble indeed, and this feeble disclaimer won't help a bit.
>
>
In the United States, many states have requirements that you officially
register with the state before you solicit donations as a non-profit
organization.  Since Wikimedia is only registered in Florida, it's not
permitted to solicit donations elsewhere (except in a few states without
that requirement).  There might be requirements in other countries as well.

Historically this has meant things like being outside a mall, or mailing
solicitations to people's houses; the court cases on whether having a
website in state [X] that permits donations from state [Y] counts as
soliciting in state [Y] seem inconclusive, at least the last time I
searched for some.

But I agree, we are basically soliciting donations ("Please donate"),
but saying that we're not, which is a little odd.  If we really don't
want to be soliciting donations, we need to change our language so that
we don't say things like "please donate" or "help us reach our
fundraising goals".  Saying the equivalent of "Please give us money
(this is not a request to give us money)" is a little bit silly.

-Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Ultimate Wiktionary

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
> Software
>
> As much as I could understand Erik is doing a real good job on this
> and thank God the piece of software is being developed with an
> outside contract ? otherwise I suppose we would have even more
> difficulties when talking about this. So the software will be there
> in any case, free for anyone to use and improve.

We've been hearing for many months that there's software coming just
around the corner. Where is it?

Our development software is in a publically viewable CVS repository,
where it can be reviewed, others can help out or try it, and it won't be
lost forever if the original author stops working on it or suffers a
disk crash without backups.

I'll grant that not everything we'd all love to see has been coded yet;
some planned projects have barely been started or remain pure vaporware.
But code that exists for MediaWiki and its supporting programs is
visible to the development team and the public.

When I spoke to Erik in Frankfurt he told us he would be committing some
experimental code in the coming weeks for a namespace manager. This
apparently is to be used by Wikidata when it exists.

Is there anything else currently coded or ready to code?

I want to be clear that I don't mean to put Erik down or claim he's not
doing anything; he's made some really useful contributions to our
software over the years and I'm sure he is churning out some great stuff
now.

But there is a lot of confusion over the state of this project, which
feeds into the confusion about how imminent UW is and whether it's
something people should be thinking about and how. I think it would help
if the community (and the developers, and the foundation) had a better
idea of where we stand.

Sabine and Gerard: do you guys have a clear idea of what the status is?
Erik: can you help clarify?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
>I have wondered before whether a specific, site-neutral, system for
>collabourating on translations would be useful - not only for new
>languages, but to keep existing translations up to date when the
>English "master" messages are changed, or new features are added.
>
>
Hi Rowan, I really thought about trying something like this with a wiki
and of course with UW (at a certain stage).

I have some ideas on how it could work, but within a normal wiki it
means loads of templates ...

The easiest thing is to use a CAT-Tool to translate the UI and then put
the translation memory (tmx) at disposal - so anyone who does an update
will have 100% matches from the old UI and the rest needs to be
translated. This way the translator goes also over the correction of
eventual misspellings or changes in terminology are possible in order to
have an even better product.

Of course this can also be done with .po files, but I would very much
prefer to work directly on the source files (maybe since I am used to it
and I don't feel familiar with .po). As for CAT-Tools all is about
having the right parser for the CAT-Tool. I suppose your php-files are
similar to the ones I already translated and so, for example, the
ordinary html parser of OmegaT (http://www.omegat.org) should work.

This means I just need the php file and we will know if it works.

This is the easiest way for us translators to work with that.

Can you pass me the php file of the actual version? + for example EN+DE
or EN+IT from an older localised version? This way I can also try to
create an alignment file to have a basis to work on.

I would very much like to see OmegaT used for these things as we are
planning a reference implementation that connects it to UW and there we
have the possibility to store the TM (translation memory) with the
appropriate category. This would then mean; OmegaT users can retrieve
the needed information for the UI localisation from Ultimate Wiktionary.

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


body:
On 26/08/05, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> The easiest thing is to use a CAT-Tool to translate the UI and then put
> the translation memory (tmx) at disposal - so anyone who does an update
> will have 100% matches from the old UI and the rest needs to be
> translated. This way the translator goes also over the correction of
> eventual misspellings or changes in terminology are possible in order to
> have an even better product.

One of the big problems with the current setup is that the MediaWiki:
namespace (the "live" messages in the database of a particular
project) are used both for localisation and customisation - so
whenever you export the messages from, say, Wikipedia, you have to
work out which changes are due to changes in the software, which are
cosmetic but appropriate for application to other projects, and which
are specific to the particular project. This is probably the biggest
challenge which any new l10n system (or even a new approach to i18n)
needs to address.

> Can you pass me the php file of the actual version? + for example EN+DE
> or EN+IT from an older localised version? This way I can also try to
> create an alignment file to have a basis to work on.

The PHP files are, naturally, in the source of the software - see
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download The easiest way is to get them
out of the web-based CVS interface:
* http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phase3/languages/
* the language codes are the same ones Wikimedia domains use; the
English interface, which is also the default for missing messages in
other languages, is in "Language.php"
* so, for German:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/wikipedia/phase3/languages/LanguageDe.php

Also, if you haven't already, have a look at the documentation on meta:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Localisation
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_localisation
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:MediaWiki_namespace
etc

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] mwdumper backup filtering tool

body:
If anyone's curious, I've whipped up a quick XML dump filter tool, which
can take a MediaWiki XML backup dump and filter it by title, based on a
regular expression match or a file with a list of pages to take.

I used it to split up the Wikisource dump to move pages with their edit
histories from the old Wikisource wiki to the new language-specific
subdomain wikis (import of these dumps going on right now).

It's in C# (gasp horror) and runs on Mono. I haven't tested it on
Microsoft .NET, but it probably runs there.

Source is available in the mwdumper module in CVS. No binaries or
documentation at this time, but I expect to continue working on it for
use in creating republisher-friendly dumps in the future.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spell checking in MediaWiki

body:
I meant that it's unsuitable for a dictionary.

Any good dictionary will tell you how a Chinese character is
pronounced in any given variety.

Chinese characters wouldn't be so difficult to learn for somebody who
only knew a signed language (in much of the developing world, deaf
people don't learn to read and write spoken languages), because they
can be associated with signs on a morphemic basis.

However, a spoken language written alphabetically used for glosses
will require that any given deaf person learn said spoken language
before being able to read a text.

This also means that a deaf man in Boston who wants to know the ASL
equivalent of the English word "boarish" will not get an answer by
looking in a dictionary and finding the gloss "boarish" in the field
for an ASL translation.

Mark

On 27/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >1) With word-for-word glosses in a spoken language. For ASL or BSL
> >this is usually English; for InSL it may be Hindi or another Indian
> >language or English; for Chinese SL it will probably be Chinese. While
> >this is suitable in most cases for writing whole sentences and
> >recording syntax and grammar, it gives no specific information about
> >what a sign looks like and thus is completely unsuitable.
> >
> >
> Why does this make it completely unsuitable?  A large proportion of
> Chinese characters give no specific information about how they are
> pronounced---and indeed are pronounced radically different by Mandarin,
> Cantonese, and Japanese speakers---but that doesn't seem to have led to
> them being deemed unsuitable for use in a written language.  At the very
> least, using Chinese characters to write Chinese SL is no worse than
> using Kanji to write Japanese.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>1) With word-for-word glosses in a spoken language. For ASL or BSL
>this is usually English; for InSL it may be Hindi or another Indian
>language or English; for Chinese SL it will probably be Chinese. While
>this is suitable in most cases for writing whole sentences and
>recording syntax and grammar, it gives no specific information about
>what a sign looks like and thus is completely unsuitable.
>
>
Why does this make it completely unsuitable?  A large proportion of
Chinese characters give no specific information about how they are
pronounced---and indeed are pronounced radically different by Mandarin,
Cantonese, and Japanese speakers---but that doesn't seem to have led to
them being deemed unsuitable for use in a written language.  At the very
least, using Chinese characters to write Chinese SL is no worse than
using Kanji to write Japanese.

-Mark


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia meeting today

body:
An open Wikimedia meeting will be held on IRC today.

An agenda is at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda#August_week_4 - please
suggest additions on the talk page.

So far, the agenda includes:
# Status of Wikicouncil
# Wikinews: license and Chinese version
# Seed wiki for potential new projects
# Possible wiki closures: Simple, Klingon, Sep11, Others...?

If you are interested in any of these topics, please come and give
your opinion during the meeting.

The meeting will be in #wikimedia-meeting. For anyone without an IRC
client, I've created a temporary CGI gateway at
http://irc.wikicities.com/meeting/

The meeting starts at 20:00 UTC
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Timezone_conversion>) and should last
no more than two hours.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia meeting today


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia meeting today


subject: [Foundation-l] What? Why? Who?

body:
On 8/25/05, Mike Morrell <idaho2000 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Do we also have some
> statistics showing things like hits per page and also "non-hits"? In other
> words, content that non-contributing users would like to have found but
> didn't?

Non contributors can request articles at pages like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles

Access statistics are available at
http://www2.knams.wikimedia.org/logwood/logwood.php

We don't have any logs of what people searched for. This might be
regarded a privacy violation if we did.

> Have we carried out surveys amongst non-Wikipedians to find out what
> they (potentially) would be interested in finding out at Wikipedia?

Not that I know of, though there is a lot of ongoing research. See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research

> 2. Is there any kind of policy or marketing group that adresses the issues
> in point 1.

Not really. The Research Network might be the closest thing to that:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network

Angela


subject: [Foundation-l] What? Why? Who?


body:
On 8/23/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> There have been a couple of mails on this list I believe about
> encouraging localisation somewhat independently of projects, so that
> for example a Ladino interface translation could be completed without
> the existance of a Ladino Wikipedia or other Wikimedia project.

If there was a way to implement the Interface translations wiki,
translations would not be dependant on being an admin of any
particular wiki.

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interface_translations_wiki

Angela.


from_name: Measure

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New Tool Suggestion,
	WAS: A cry to save the Asperger's Syndrome page

body:
To get around a small problem raised above, Why not add a feature to this
potential new tool to say "Only registered users with more than x amount of
edits can edit this page"?

On 8/27/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: RIPEMD160
>
> Phroziac wrote:
> > On 8/25/05, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> >>Hmmm... Suggestion:
> >>
> >>When a page is in this type of "trouble", is it possible that one more
> >>tool in the toolbox would help?
> >>
> >>That would be a tag which means a page is only editable from a
> >>logged-in Wiki-account.
> >>
> >>All logged-in edits to the page would be processed as usual.
> >>
> >>When an non-logged in user opened the edit tab on that page they would
> >>get a message indicating that page's special status and a chance to
> >>login or register.
> >>
> >>
> >>The logic is straightforward. How much work this would be to add is
> >>an unknown, as is how much of a load increase it would add to the
> >>wiki-servers. I'm happy to contribute code if needed.
> >>
> <snip>
> >
> > Sounds good, but it's super easy to register, and I will oppose all
> > attempts to make registration difficult. ;)
> >
>
> I think a variety of meta-protection - pages which can only be edited by
> logged in users - would be very useful. Coupled with a solution for bug
> 550 (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550), it would be
> very useful to stop blatant POV warring by new users. Encouraging people
> to register is undoubtably a Good Thing, because new users are very
> quickly welcomed and dealt with as needed.
>
> - --
> Alphax | /"\
> Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards
> http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFDEGaa/RxM5Ph0xhMRAzfLAJ9RN77YuDnpK5io5iJJ/jYCPEKneQCfXvu/
> Lw0F58LmIMVihFVTVn+8Gl4=
> =3x+W
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The fundraising page http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
> currently carries the following disclaimer:
>
> "Please note that neither this page nor any link on any Wikimedia site
> pointing to this page should be considered a solicitation to make a
> donation. Our license guarantees that you are, and will continue to be,
> free to use our content regardless of whether you can afford to
> donate."
>
> To me, this is the worst kind of lawyer speak. Ubiquitous sentences
> like
> "Wikipedia needs your help", "Make a donation" etc. clearly constitute
> a solicitation to make a donation (OED for "solicit": "2.a To entreat
> or petition (a person) for, or to do, something; to urge, importune; to
> ask earnestly or persistently.").

We can only solicit donations within the state of Florida. Solicitation being
actively *asking* people to donation. It is unclear whether doing so on servers
based in Florida where other *choose* to visit via the web is in fact a
solicitation. So we word things in a way that is informational. Yes, it is true
that we need help. Saying so is not really a solicitation (not a direct one
anyway). If instead we said, "Please donate", then that certainly would be a
solicitation.

We have drifted a bit more into the gray area with this fund drive than in
previous ones with sentences like "We are turning to you again to help make
this happen." I've nixed this sentence from the fund drive letter.

-- mav

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> In the United States, many states have requirements that you officially
> register with the state before you solicit donations as a non-profit
> organization.  Since Wikimedia is only registered in Florida, it's not
> permitted to solicit donations elsewhere (except in a few states without
> that requirement).  There might be requirements in other countries as well.
>
> Historically this has meant things like being outside a mall, or mailing
> solicitations to people's houses; the court cases on whether having a
> website in state [X] that permits donations from state [Y] counts as
> soliciting in state [Y] seem inconclusive, at least the last time I
> searched for some.

Yep - that is my understanding as well.

 > But I agree, we are basically soliciting donations ("Please donate"),
> but saying that we're not, which is a little odd.  If we really don't
> want to be soliciting donations, we need to change our language so that
> we don't say things like "please donate" or "help us reach our
> fundraising goals".  Saying the equivalent of "Please give us money
> (this is not a request to give us money)" is a little bit silly.

Where is that wording? I can't find the wording "please donate" or "help us
reach our fundraising goal." Please tell me so I can rewrite it to be
informational instead of pleading.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
--- Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/27/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Where is that wording? I can't find the wording "please donate" or "help us
> > reach our fundraising goal." Please tell me so I can rewrite it to be
> > informational instead of pleading.
>
> Hehe, you could change the header "Make a donation" to "How to donate"

Already caught and fixed. Hm. 'Support us' in the sidebar also needs to be
fixed. I'll try to see if I can fix that.

-- mav

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


from_name: Phroziac

body:
Sounds good, but it's super easy to register, and I will oppose all
attempts to make registration difficult. ;)

On 8/25/05, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 01:21:34AM +0000, Zachary Harden wrote:
> >
> >
> > >From: Ryan Norton <wxprojects at comcast.net> 22 Aug 2005 18:19:20 -0700
> > >
> > >>Ok, so I voted to have the FA status removed from the article.Also, if you
> > >>payed attention,
> > >
> > >And I did realize this Z and I thank you for your contributions, but I have
> > >to ask - why is this user not banned for 24 hours?  Is it because he claims
> > >"injustice" etc. so admins fear getting involved?
> >
> > I just got involved. I was being asked to block the user before in IRC, but
> > as you can tell, he always edits by using IP's, so the likely hood of the
> > block working is zero to none, closer to none.  > Regards,
> > Zachary Harden
>
>
> Hmmm...   Suggestion:
>
> When a page is in this type of "trouble", is it possible that one more
> tool in the toolbox would help?
>
> That would be a tag which means a page is only editable from a
> logged-in Wiki-account.
>
> All logged-in edits to the page would be processed as usual.
>
> When an non-logged in user opened the edit tab on that page they would
> get a message indicating that page's special status and a chance to
> login or register.
>
>
> The logic is straightforward. How much work this would be to add is
> an unknown, as is how much of a load increase it would add to the
> wiki-servers. I'm happy to contribute code if needed.
>
>
> (Blindingly simplistic ascii flow chart starts here)
>
> User clicks edit tab
>       |
>       |
>       V
> Is user logged in ? ---->  YES ---> allow edit
>       |
>      NO
>       |
>       V
> Redirect to a special message page
>       |
>       |-----> user logs in ------>  allow edit
>       |
>       |-----> user registers ---->  allow edit
>       |
>       V
> All others choices are the user using the normal wiki or browser
> navigation features to go somewhere else. (BACK, Search etc..)
>
>
>
>
> I'm new to this list, if this has been discussed before please
> disregard.
>
>
> --
> speech recognition software was used in the composition of this e-mail
> Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


from_name: Dori

body:
On 8/27/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Where is that wording? I can't find the wording "please donate" or "help us
> reach our fundraising goal." Please tell me so I can rewrite it to be
> informational instead of pleading.

Hehe, you could change the header "Make a donation" to "How to donate"


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia meeting today

body:
I am flying to Florida today and won't be around for this meeting, so
someone please save the entire irc log for me?

Angela wrote:
> An open Wikimedia meeting will be held on IRC today.
>
> An agenda is at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda#August_week_4 - please
> suggest additions on the talk page.
>
> So far, the agenda includes:
> # Status of Wikicouncil
> # Wikinews: license and Chinese version
> # Seed wiki for potential new projects
> # Possible wiki closures: Simple, Klingon, Sep11, Others...?
>
> If you are interested in any of these topics, please come and give
> your opinion during the meeting.
>
> The meeting will be in #wikimedia-meeting. For anyone without an IRC
> client, I've created a temporary CGI gateway at
> http://irc.wikicities.com/meeting/
>
> The meeting starts at 20:00 UTC
> (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Timezone_conversion>) and should last
> no more than two hours.
>
> Angela.
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikimedia meeting today


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 8/25/05, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> That would be a tag which means a page is only editable from a
> logged-in Wiki-account.
>
> All logged-in edits to the page would be processed as usual.
>
> When an non-logged in user opened the edit tab on that page they would
> get a message indicating that page's special status and a chance to
> login or register.

This is "semiprotection" and has been discussed before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Semiprotect

Don't confuse this with the other form of semiprotection (which only
prohibits non-admins from moving the page).

Kelly


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [Foundation-l] What? Why? Who?

body:
On 27/08/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> We don't have any logs of what people searched for. This might be
> regarded a privacy violation if we did.

I don't think the enquirer meant anything more than "most searched-for
terms" information. Both the BBC and Google publish that. If it's good
enough for them...

Dan


subject: [Foundation-l] What? Why? Who?


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia meeting today

body:
On 27/08/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> So far, the agenda includes:
> # Wikinews: license

I'm slightly suprised at this item. No mention of this issue has been
made on the English Wikinews water cooler, nor on the mailing list.
It's a little late to begin advertising it now, too.

A discussion about a project without actually consulting the people
who work on it seems a little... odd. I for one am quite sure that the
people who create content on the site would be quite interested in
having some say in how their work is licensed.

Dan


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia meeting today


body:
that's starting to get a little evil. ;)

On 8/27/05, Measure <measure at gmail.com> wrote:
> To get around a small problem raised above, Why not add a feature to this
> potential new tool to say "Only registered users with more than x amount of
> edits can edit this page"?
>
> On 8/27/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: RIPEMD160
> >
> > Phroziac wrote:
> > > On 8/25/05, Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> wrote:
> > >>Hmmm... Suggestion:
> > >>
> > >>When a page is in this type of "trouble", is it possible that one more
> > >>tool in the toolbox would help?
> > >>
> > >>That would be a tag which means a page is only editable from a
> > >>logged-in Wiki-account.
> > >>
> > >>All logged-in edits to the page would be processed as usual.
> > >>
> > >>When an non-logged in user opened the edit tab on that page they would
> > >>get a message indicating that page's special status and a chance to
> > >>login or register.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>The logic is straightforward. How much work this would be to add is
> > >>an unknown, as is how much of a load increase it would add to the
> > >>wiki-servers. I'm happy to contribute code if needed.
> > >>
> > <snip>
> > >
> > > Sounds good, but it's super easy to register, and I will oppose all
> > > attempts to make registration difficult. ;)
> > >
> >
> > I think a variety of meta-protection - pages which can only be edited by
> > logged in users - would be very useful. Coupled with a solution for bug
> > 550 (http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550), it would be
> > very useful to stop blatant POV warring by new users. Encouraging people
> > to register is undoubtably a Good Thing, because new users are very
> > quickly welcomed and dealt with as needed.
> >
> > - --
> > Alphax | /"\
> > Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> > OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards
> > http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFDEGaa/RxM5Ph0xhMRAzfLAJ9RN77YuDnpK5io5iJJ/jYCPEKneQCfXvu/
> > Lw0F58LmIMVihFVTVn+8Gl4=
> > =3x+W
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>

--
signature


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikimedia meeting today

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I am flying to Florida today and won't be around for this meeting, so
> someone please save the entire irc log for me?

That's OK. I'll even add comments by jwales. :)

> Angela wrote:
> > An open Wikimedia meeting will be held on IRC today.
> >
> > An agenda is at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda#August_week_4 - please
> > suggest additions on the talk page.
> >
> > So far, the agenda includes:
> > # Status of Wikicouncil
> > # Wikinews: license and Chinese version
> > # Seed wiki for potential new projects
> > # Possible wiki closures: Simple, Klingon, Sep11, Others...?
> >
> > If you are interested in any of these topics, please come and give
> > your opinion during the meeting.
> >
> > The meeting will be in #wikimedia-meeting. For anyone without an IRC
> > client, I've created a temporary CGI gateway at
> > http://irc.wikicities.com/meeting/
> >
> > The meeting starts at 20:00 UTC
> > (<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Timezone_conversion>) and should last
> > no more than two hours.
> >
> > Angela.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>I meant that it's unsuitable for a dictionary.
>
>Any good dictionary will tell you how a Chinese character is
>pronounced in any given variety.
>
>Chinese characters wouldn't be so difficult to learn for somebody who
>only knew a signed language (in much of the developing world, deaf
>people don't learn to read and write spoken languages), because they
>can be associated with signs on a morphemic basis.
>
>However, a spoken language written alphabetically used for glosses
>will require that any given deaf person learn said spoken language
>before being able to read a text.
>
>This also means that a deaf man in Boston who wants to know the ASL
>equivalent of the English word "boarish" will not get an answer by
>looking in a dictionary and finding the gloss "boarish" in the field
>for an ASL translation.
>
>Mark
>
>
Hoi
First of all, there are three different types of languages. There are
the written languages, the spoken languages and the signed languages.
They are quite different. A deaf person does not learn a spoken
language, he learns a written language. The difference is quite crucial.
How a written language relates to a spoken language is something that a
deaf person does not apreciate. This relation is often tenuous at best.
It makes our written language as abstract as Chines characters for deaf
people.

Your assumption that deaf people have to learn written languages is
correct. In many ways it is an essential skill. It is awkward that a
dictionary needs to have another language to make it accesible. To a
large extend this is just that, awkward. It is not a reason not to
include sign languages in Ultimate Wiktionary as UW intends to have all
words in all languages. When you have a look at a recent version of the
datadesign, you will find that I included Wolfgang Georgdorf's
methodology of providing metadata about signs in there as well.

So when someone want to find ASL for boarish, and he is literate, he
will be able to find it. Being illiterate makes using a computer
practically impossible. The idea of having a user interface for ASL will
be a dream, it will not be feasible in UW mark I. The best way it might
work is that you have the words in the UI and when you click it, you get
a signed instruction.

This discussion is not really relevant to the WIKITECH mailinglist so I
crosspost it to the WIKTIONARY mailing list where it is of interest.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>On 27/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>1) With word-for-word glosses in a spoken language. For ASL or BSL
>>>this is usually English; for InSL it may be Hindi or another Indian
>>>language or English; for Chinese SL it will probably be Chinese. While
>>>this is suitable in most cases for writing whole sentences and
>>>recording syntax and grammar, it gives no specific information about
>>>what a sign looks like and thus is completely unsuitable.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Why does this make it completely unsuitable?  A large proportion of
>>Chinese characters give no specific information about how they are
>>pronounced---and indeed are pronounced radically different by Mandarin,
>>Cantonese, and Japanese speakers---but that doesn't seem to have led to
>>them being deemed unsuitable for use in a written language.  At the very
>>least, using Chinese characters to write Chinese SL is no worse than
>>using Kanji to write Japanese.
>>
>>-Mark
>>


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Spell checking in MediaWiki


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> About a megabyte of it is randomly generated lorem ipsum text.
>
> ~Mark Ryan

Could someone maybe unvandalize it for a while? My browser crashes when I
attempt to access the site and I was hoping to get at my user page there.

Regards,
Haukur

P.S. In case anyone missed it the discussion on User:Amalekite's ban is
still going on at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy The page has
gotten somewhat large.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Dan Grey wrote:
> On 27/08/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>So far, the agenda includes:
>># Wikinews: license
>
>
> I'm slightly suprised at this item. No mention of this issue has been
> made on the English Wikinews water cooler, nor on the mailing list.
> It's a little late to begin advertising it now, too.

> A discussion about a project without actually consulting the people
> who work on it seems a little... odd. I for one am quite sure that the
> people who create content on the site would be quite interested in
> having some say in how their work is licensed.
>
>
> Dan

Well, it has been staying on the agenda for a lonnnnng time. And
discussed many times on the mailing list (wikinews), with some editors
contacting us so that the issue be fixed. Hence it being listed.

If you feel it would be a very very very bad idea to discuss it today as
you would prefer that wikinewsies be warned sooner, please say it so. I
guess we can find enough topics of discussion to fill up 2 hours. Open
also means people should feel free to report a major issue to be discussed.

I spent two hours this morning trying to clarify many pages on meta.

Please see the starting page
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation. I would love that
this page is completed little  by little to give a good overview of the
Foundation in less than 32 ko.

Could anyone help making the paragraphs about "where do we spent money"
and "how do we get money" give a good overview to any visitors, plus
links for deeper investigation ?

Several pages have also been clarified. Such as the official positions
and organigram ones.

I would also invite editors to comment on a draft of a role, the press
officer one, which is currently in french (I'll try to translate it
soon). I wrote it thinking of the french association press contact, but
I think it could enhance the description of Elian's role quite a bit.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_Officer

Anthere


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Where is that wording? I can't find the wording "please donate" or "help us
>reach our fundraising goal." Please tell me so I can rewrite it to be
>informational instead of pleading.
>
>
I might be misremembering entirely, but I thought the en.wikipedia text
at the top said something about helping us reach our goal of $200,000.
There's compeltely different text there now though, so it's not an issue
either way.

-Mark


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>However, a spoken language written alphabetically used for glosses
>will require that any given deaf person learn said spoken language
>before being able to read a text.
>
>
I don't see why that's true at all.

-Mark


body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I just realized that they are violating our license, they aren't quoting
> wikipedia as the source of content, and except for users who had the
> foresight to use the this is a wikipedia userpage tag on their user and
> user talk page, their pages are ripped unattributed on the site, that's
> a violation of the GFDL I believe, I also wish there was a way to
> prevent these bastards (I'm censoring myself due to the fact that
> younger people might read this list, the correct word starts with an F
> and ends with an S) since I don't want someone googling my username and
> finding it mirrored in full on a Nazi wiki, and I think most users agree
> with me on this.

It occurs to me that there is no very good reason for us to include the
User and User_talk namespaces in the standard database dumps.  Is there?

For those who think that we are required to provide database dumps of
these pages due to the requirements of the GFDL, you are mistaken.  The
html that we provide directly on the website is itself the "transparent
copy" demanded by the license.  We are not required to provide the
actual wikitext of anything.  We do so merely as a courtesy to people
wanting to do interesting stuff with our content.

But userpages are different.

--Jimbo


body:
Alphax wrote:
>>>Note to anyone considering doing the same. Do not use your wikipedia
>>>password when you set up an account.
>>>
>
>
> Aren't passwords hashed in Mediawiki anyway??

Yes, but it would be a trivial change to the code to also record a
plaintext version of the password.

--Jimbo


body:
Mark Wagner wrote:
> I've turned a spellcheck bot loose on Pseudodoxia.  I figure it's
> politer to do that than to replace user pages with goatse, or move
> articles around at random.
>
> Sample results:
>
> Page title: Chordate
> Corrected taxon to tax-on
> Corrected Subphylum to Sublet
> Corrected Tunicates to Tunics
> Corrected Lancelets to Lancets
> Corrected Hagfishes to Garfishes
> Corrected Coelacanths to Volcanoes
> Corrected Urochordate to Crochet
> Corrected notochord to blotched
> Corrected Cephalochordates to Schoolchild's
> Spellcheck successful

Please do not do things like this.  We're the good people.  Let's never
forget that.

--Jimbo


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for
	a admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for a

body:
MAURICE FRANK stated for the record:

> either * it's wrong to say to any user ever "you're
> not entitled to anything",
> or * it's wrong to say to the public that Wikipedia
> has a neutrality policy that works.
>
> They can't both be right because anyone can see they
> contradict each other head-on. At least one must be
> wrong. Which is it?

The one that is wrong is the one reading "anyone can see they contradict
each other head-on."  That statement is patently untrue.

--
  Sean Barrett     | The determined programmer can write
  sean at epoptic.com | a FORTRAN program in any language.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
JAY JG wrote:
> Furthermore, he has said some pretty vile things about Wikipedians,
> admittedly on other boards; but if he had posted a list of Wikipedians
> who he thought were "niggers", I wonder if the consensus for banning him
> would be stronger.  Perhaps the word "kike" doesn't have quite the same
> taboo quality.

For me it does.

> Personally I don't think that Nazis should be banned from Wikipedia
> simply for being Nazis/White supremacists.  In fact, there are at least
> a couple that I know of who do edit, albeit generally unsuccessfully. As
> for the rest, in my experience, the complete inability of most of them
> to abide by policy, or even think rationally and present logical
> arguments, combined with their typical belligerence, gets them quickly
> banned anyway.

I think that's right, and I re-iterate my promise to the community that
I'm more than happy to engage in the single largest mass banning without
any sort of due process at all of an entire group of Neo-Nazi users if
we determine that they actually are disrupting our work in any serious
way and that this action seems to be the only or best way of dealing
with the problem.

Wikipedia is not a democracy.

Let me explain this a bit more.  I do not believe in the "benevolent
dictator" model for Wikipedia.  Our project is of major historical
significance, and it is not appropriate for any one person to be the
benevolent dictator of all human knowledge.  Obviously.

But we have retained a 'constitutional monarchy' in our system and the
main reason for it is too _support_ and _make possible_ a very open
system in which policy is set organically by the community and
democratic processes and institutions emerge over a long period of
experimentation and consensus-building.  No one needs to be afraid that
VfD will be hijacked, and our rules turned against us.

It is not possible for 10,000 NeoNazis (if such numbers exist) to storm
into Wikipedia and take it over by subverting our organic democratic
processes because I will not allow it.  Period.  So we don't have to
overdesign those processes out of a paranoia of a hostile takeover.

But this also means that we don't need to over-react right now.  We can
wait and see.  They'll talk a big game but just review those message
boards and then look around here.  A battle of wits between Wikipedians
and Nazis?  I know who I'm betting on.

> That said, I think that banning *this particular* user was justified,
> based on the issues listed above.

I very much agree with that.  I think posting hate speech about
Wikipedia users on another site is sufficient grounds for banning,
whether our current rules say so or not.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] A minor point

body:
steve v wrote:
> Reason 1: "Provocative list" - This seems like the one
> valid reason for a block, but this interprets the
> issue as one of a direct personal attack against
> individuals, which is unclear, as others have
> mentioned. Even if it were, such attacks are outside
> of Wikipedia, and therefore cant be dealt with through
> our formal process. Does Slim feel she is in a
> position to impose informal process?

I don't see any reason why personal attacks of this sort can't be dealt
with through our formal process in Wikipedia, no matter where they take
place.

> Reason 4: "Block was inline with IAR (ignore all
> rules)" - IAR trumps real policy?

It can.  Making racist attacks on Wikipedians on a hate site may not be
against any existing rule on Wikipedia.  But this is why we have a fair
amount of policy ambiguity, to allow people with community respect to
take sensible actions (and be prepared to defend those actions, of course).

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> This discussion is getting a little circular, stale, and off-topic.
> Anyone who wants me to unblock Amalekite should e-mail me. So far I've
> had e-mails supportive of the block, but not one from anyone thinking
> it should be overturned. If people e-mail me directly with their
> views, I'll have a better idea of community consensus, and then I can
> take it into account.

I am of mixed feelings on the block itself.  I was close to doing it
myself, but I also think that some of the pragmatic concerns are
realistic.  Blocking might only lead to worse problems (sock puppets,
claims of injustice which he can use to rally his own community to waste
even more of our time, etc.).  It's a tough call.

I am not of mixed feelings about you and your choice to do the block.  I
am 100% completely supportive of both the block, and of your very
reasonable offer to undo it if the community doesn't agree.

One thing I will always support is good admins making thoughtful but
bold decisions with good faith and for the good of the project.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
> He did not edit disruptively. Anything else he may have done happened off
> Wikipedia. Some participants in this discussion are of the opinion that no
> off site actions should be taken into account in the banning of Wikipedia
> users.

While I think almost everyone will agree that off site actions are
*different* from on-site actions, and should certainly not be treated in
the same way, I have so far found no persuasive argument that *no* off
site actions should be taken into account in the banning of Wikipedia users.

As an example, once upon a time a particularly demented and evil person
posted photos of my family (wife and little girl) with disgusting
insults on a website attacking Wikipedia.  He posted links to a
quicktime movie of my house, and made ominous suggestions about my home
address and his "followers".  I was out of town and frightened enough to
have Terry go and spend the night on the couch guarding the family.

That person is permanently banned from Wikipedia, period.  I don't think
anyone disputes the ethics of this.  (Fortunately, he was arrested on
felony charges in an unrelated matter, and as far as I know, he's in
prison now.)

I consider the Amelekite case to be in the same genre, although slightly
(but only slightly) less obvious.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> Linder and others have called for killing Jews.  The post discusses
> the way to reconquer Wikipedia from the Jews.  He then goes on to list
> the "chief jews" in Wikipedia.  I'd say that's pretty close to a death
> threat.  If someone was issuing death threats based on my
> contributions to Wikipedia I would certainly hope that the person
> would be blocked.  I think Wikipedia should consider legal action
> against the ISP hosting the site for soliciting acts of violence
> against Wikipedia editors.

Exactly.  I feel this discussion of danger to users has direct personal
relevance for me.

I used to post exact flight and train arrival times on my travel page
because this enabled random Wikipedians to meet me at the airport, which
is of course quite helpful.  I don't do that anymore because of lunatics
like Sollog.

Hateful people like this sometime do evil things.  This means we have to
be extremely thoughtful in thinking practically about the best way to
deal with them.  But it also means that we should not waste 1 second
worrying about whether we are somehow being inappropriately intolerant.

I am not tolerant of people who post my name in a menacing way in a
thread which contains a discussion of 'taking over wikipedia' and using
force against Jews and so on.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Encarta article list

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> Based on a list collected by [[user:Bluemoose]], I have generated
> link-lists at
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Encarta_Encyclopedia_topics
>
> There are 19 lists, with initially 2000 links each, *including existing
> links*. The lists will have to be manually cleaned from links to
> existing articles (due to naming problems, I would not recommend a bot).
>
> I have already done two of these lists (one and a half, to be honest, as
> #19 was only half full), but now it becomes a PITA ;-)
>
> So please, assist in the effort. Each of the remaining 17 pages has 40
> sections to ease editing. If just a few of you do some sections, the
> lists will be usable pretty soon.

Please delete this list immediately.  Opinions of our legal team are
divided about the issue, and I feel that in a case like this,
conservatism and caution are called for.

I would delete it myself, except that I'm on a plane.

--Jimb


body:
Hi Gerard,

Please re-read my original e-mail.

Mark.

On 27/08/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >I meant that it's unsuitable for a dictionary.
> >
> >Any good dictionary will tell you how a Chinese character is
> >pronounced in any given variety.
> >
> >Chinese characters wouldn't be so difficult to learn for somebody who
> >only knew a signed language (in much of the developing world, deaf
> >people don't learn to read and write spoken languages), because they
> >can be associated with signs on a morphemic basis.
> >
> >However, a spoken language written alphabetically used for glosses
> >will require that any given deaf person learn said spoken language
> >before being able to read a text.
> >
> >This also means that a deaf man in Boston who wants to know the ASL
> >equivalent of the English word "boarish" will not get an answer by
> >looking in a dictionary and finding the gloss "boarish" in the field
> >for an ASL translation.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> Hoi
> First of all, there are three different types of languages. There are
> the written languages, the spoken languages and the signed languages.
> They are quite different. A deaf person does not learn a spoken
> language, he learns a written language. The difference is quite crucial.
> How a written language relates to a spoken language is something that a
> deaf person does not apreciate. This relation is often tenuous at best.
> It makes our written language as abstract as Chines characters for deaf
> people.
>
> Your assumption that deaf people have to learn written languages is
> correct. In many ways it is an essential skill. It is awkward that a
> dictionary needs to have another language to make it accesible. To a
> large extend this is just that, awkward. It is not a reason not to
> include sign languages in Ultimate Wiktionary as UW intends to have all
> words in all languages. When you have a look at a recent version of the
> datadesign, you will find that I included Wolfgang Georgdorf's
> methodology of providing metadata about signs in there as well.
>
> So when someone want to find ASL for boarish, and he is literate, he
> will be able to find it. Being illiterate makes using a computer
> practically impossible. The idea of having a user interface for ASL will
> be a dream, it will not be feasible in UW mark I. The best way it might
> work is that you have the words in the UI and when you click it, you get
> a signed instruction.
>
> This discussion is not really relevant to the WIKITECH mailinglist so I
> crosspost it to the WIKTIONARY mailing list where it is of interest.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> >On 27/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Mark Williamson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>1) With word-for-word glosses in a spoken language. For ASL or BSL
> >>>this is usually English; for InSL it may be Hindi or another Indian
> >>>language or English; for Chinese SL it will probably be Chinese. While
> >>>this is suitable in most cases for writing whole sentences and
> >>>recording syntax and grammar, it gives no specific information about
> >>>what a sign looks like and thus is completely unsuitable.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Why does this make it completely unsuitable?  A large proportion of
> >>Chinese characters give no specific information about how they are
> >>pronounced---and indeed are pronounced radically different by Mandarin,
> >>Cantonese, and Japanese speakers---but that doesn't seem to have led to
> >>them being deemed unsuitable for use in a written language.  At the very
> >>least, using Chinese characters to write Chinese SL is no worse than
> >>using Kanji to write Japanese.
> >>
> >>-Mark
> >>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


body:
In the sense that written languages are mirrors of spoken languages,
which in most cases they are to a certain extent, this is true.

Nevertheless, it won't help the deaf man who wants to know what
"boarish" is in ASL, even though he's literate in English.

Mark

On 27/08/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >However, a spoken language written alphabetically used for glosses
> >will require that any given deaf person learn said spoken language
> >before being able to read a text.
> >
> >
> I don't see why that's true at all.
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject:
[WikiEN-l] admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for a
	admins:emergency copy of blocked user's demand for a

body:
by the way, please try not to break threads by changing the subject
line, if you can.

On 8/27/05, MAURICE FRANK <megaknee at btopenworld.com> wrote:
> In answer to the point of no legal threats -
>       The legal reference was to the fact that I was
> being threatened with various forms of complaint that
> would need defending against, by the AFF couple, at
> the same time as the block began, thus obstructing my
> actions. I don't see that as a legal threat to sue
> anyone. The point is one should not have personal
> feuds from outside Wikipedia brought into it, and if
> any harrassment that would be a wrong in the world
> outside Wikipedia had been effected during the block
> which it had blocked me responding to, then that
> clearly would have been a legal wrong, because
> Wikipedia can'topt out of the world. It is not
> isolated from the existence of those factors in
> society as a whole.
>
> e.g.in the argument about Nazism that's going on here,
> you are taking a position against having Nazis' target
> groups put in danger, and you are doing that because
> it's an outside world legal issue.
>
> "Wikipedia is not a democracy" needs quite a sharp
> answer given to it. For the reason of keeping itself
> in passably right relationship with the outside world,
> i.e.readers, Wikipedia holds a policy on neutrality of
> content. But the only way this policy genuinely exists
> and is not a lie to readers, is if unconditionally
> anyone who falls victim to crowd psychology can lay
> claim to by right, not have to beg for by favour, any
> measure that prevents a force of group numbers keeping
> a bullying bias in place without having to find NPOV
> ground. Now, "laying claim to" anything, inherently
> means being entitled to anything.
>
> This is actually a case-study in how society emerged
> from the Middle Ages. To have any credible claim to
> work by any principles, a society must show they
> operate reliably fairly, and to do that means that
> people are entitled to it. No way out of that. Hence,
> as soon as any group tries to follow any policy code
> like neutral POV, immediately people are entitled to
> things and all things are not dependent on favour. So,
> it stands absolutely logically proved:
>
> either * it's wrong to say to any user ever "you're
> not entitled to anything",
> or * it's wrong to say to the public that Wikipedia
> has a neutrality policy that works.
>
> They can't both be right because anyone can see they
> contradict each other head-on. At least one must be
> wrong. Which is it?
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation in 5 years - Giant
	brainstorming - a game with rules.

body:
OK, this might be a crazy idea, but mav, Danny and I thought, after
all that was said in the past few weeks on this list, that we should
try and drain everybody's brain to see where we are going.

This is a bit of a game, serious, but still a game. Your ideas will
help shape the future of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are not saying
that all should be implemented, or will see the light, but it is sort
of a giant brainstorming to see where everybody thinks the Wikimedia
Foundation should be in 5 years from now.

The rules are simple:

You will find below a grid of what we think needs to be included in a
five year plan for the Wikimedia Foundation. You may fill all parts,
or just some, as suits you. You may also give details on how to get
there, or not. You're free to say anything that goes through your
head. Your ideas should go on this list.

However, THIS IS NOT TO BE DEBATED. Each of those willing to
participate may give their personal opinion, but no-one is allowed to
criticize/comment on other people's 5-year plan on this list. In a few
days, we will put everything on meta so that can be worked on to shape
a collaborative five year plan. PLEASE DO REFRAIN from hitting the
reply button and commenting other people's ideas.

here is the grid:

==WMF in 5 years==
*Board and management
*Staff (the positions, the roles, whether they're paid or not)
*Budget
*Fundraising scheme
*Philantropic activity and outreach to get our content widely redistributed
*Projects
*Content objectives
*Software objectives
*Relationship between chapters and parent organisation
*Relationships with the outside world (PR, partnerships, etc.)
*Other (anything we did not think of)

Thank you.

Danny, Delphine, Mav


from_name: Jtkiefer

body:
As I noted on your talk page Tern, you  have been perm. banned meaning
that you have lost all say in how Wikipedia is run and your right to
edit has been officially revoked, as such you are no longer entitled to
anything, wikipedia is not a democracy, wikipedia is a private
organization and for all intensive purposes we don't have to put up with
your bullshit accusations of harrassment.  If you still feel the need to
bug someone about being harassed may I suggest sending an email to
null at dev.null.  Oh yes, and you have been pwned.

-Jtkiefer

the relevant discussion regarding his blocking can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tern#Blocked