body:
> Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
> "I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
> almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.

Try listening to secondary (high) school Chemistry teachers... they
have degrees and still teach complete rubbish most of the time. I can
understand teaching things slightly simplified, but teaching something
which is actually outright wrong in the name of simplicity is just
crazy.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ligulem

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a
	programminglanguage, but...

body:
On 19.01.2007 10:27, Andrew Garrett wrote:
> If you want something implemented in a pure programming language
> (PHP is debatable in that regard), speak to developers, we will
> implement it in PHP as part of MediaWiki. MediaWiki is a piece
> of software, not an IDE.

Would you move http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book into
MediaWiki then?


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

references:
<JBUXN3$B3B72F307F65E5DD7040F8EEBBD27AC1@libero.it>	<45AA918A.3060600@fourkitchens.com>
	<45AA969A.4050501@gmail.com>

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>The German chapter has been taken to court in the past on matters of law
>in Germany. It is not as simple as you suggest. The Italian chapter is
>another entity that plays its part in the whole mess that is the law.
>The British say it nicely: "the law is an arse". Do you know what your
>personal legal status is when you edit an existing article with a
>legally problematic picture or whatever in it.. Are you responsible,
>maybe. Can you be taken to court, certainly.
>
I accept that I am responsible for what I edit, but I am also careful.
Regrettably we have more people who rejcct responsibility and are far
from careful.

>The biggest error that I see is that people with not enough knowledge
>about the law make the policy.
>
Yes.

>What I believe in is that we know as an
>organisation what our message is about all this. That we take our
>position judiciously as the many organisations that are the WMF and its
>chapters. This way we protect the most vulnerable, our editors. This way
>we may be able to resist the continuing land grab of the proprietary
>stake holders.
>
I wonder if your proposal to protect the most vulnerable is not acting
too much like a parent. :-)

I don't see it as the Foundation's responsibility to protect every
editor from himself.  The best countermeasure to the proprietary land
grab may lie in making sure that there is very little land for them to grab.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't aprogramminglanguage,
	but...

body:
On 19.01.2007 11:55, Andrew Garrett wrote:
> Taking this seriously, instead of as bait, if you are serious about
> this, please post a bugzilla request, instead of hounding individual
> developers.
>

Hounding?

Thanks a lot for assuming bad faith.


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/19/07, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not true. *if* we would allow NC, I bet it will be possible to persue a lot
> of institutions to give their images, paintings, texts etc away under the
> NC. So it does have a huge potential, also for pictures with on the short
> term no free equivalent. But that is not what this discussion should be
> about imho. I dont think we should be talking about what images we would
> like to use, i think we should talk about what we are *allowed* (legally) to
> use.

Anything until the foundation gets the takedown notice however that
approach is unhelpful.

> *If* it would be allowed by all those, it is time for us as community or
> maybe as every community by itself, to choose what licenses we *want* to
> use, taking into account what the possible consequenses are and what the
> costs to our ideals are.

The foundation has rejected that position in the past. no reason to
think they will do otherwise in future.

You know I've seen complaints that the foundation pays to much
attention to en at the expense of other projects. Now I hope you see
the other side of that.
--
geni


list: wikien-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

body:
On 1/19/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
> > "I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
> > almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.
>
> Try listening to secondary (high) school Chemistry teachers... they
> have degrees and still teach complete rubbish most of the time. I can
> understand teaching things slightly simplified, but teaching something
> which is actually outright wrong in the name of simplicity is just
> crazy.

Which set of chemistry teachings did you have in mind?

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Marc Riddell wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This question is
> > for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
> >
> > What is your definition of an "expert"?
> >
>
> Tough one.  You have people who know a lot about a subject, and then you
> have people who have certificates which say they know a lot about a
> subject.  Sometimes the two sets intersect. Especially with the set
> "people who like to talk hold forth on their areas of perceived
> expertise". :)
>
> Seriously, this is what people are still quibbling over at
> Wikipedia:Attribution and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.  No-one can agree
> a formula whereby people which would allow people whom we would consider
> experts in the field of the arts but disbar people we wouldn't consider
> experts in the sciences.  The problem is that opinion is fair game in
> the arts but not in the sciences.
>
> Steve block

Opinion is important in the sciences, but there are testable
hypothesies and theories, and working standard models for engineering
and the like.

Lack of competency in the standard models would be a disqualifier as
an expert in sciences or engineering.  Some experts in the research
community would also be pushing the envelope (professionally doing
original research) but would still be expected to be fluent in the
common standard models for the field.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 1/19/07, Andrew Garrett <andrew at epstone.net> wrote:
>
> Ligulem wrote:
> > On 19.01.2007 10:27, Andrew Garrett wrote:
> > > If you want something implemented in a pure programming language
> > > (PHP is debatable in that regard), speak to developers, we will
> > > implement it in PHP as part of MediaWiki. MediaWiki is a piece
> > > of software, not an IDE.
> >
> > Would you move http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book into
> > MediaWiki then?
> >
> Taking this seriously, instead of as bait, if you are serious about
> this, please post a bugzilla request, instead of hounding individual
> developers.
>
You said "speak to developers", not fill out a bugzilla request.  Now,
if one of us *does* put in a bugzilla request, will it get done?

Unfortunately, the MediaWiki PHP code isn't as easy to update as
templates are.  Of course, resolving this without causing major
security headaches is/would be an insanely difficult thing to do.

> That said, I think that a basic parameterised thing like that
> needn't be reimplemented; although it would be perhaps helpful in
> performance terms.
>
If it were implemented in PHP, could then a lookup be done so one
would only need to give the ISBN and page number, and the rest would
be added automagically?


from_name: "Thomas Müller"

subject: [Foundation-l] wikifoundation in defence of Google

body:
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:13:18 -0500
Von: Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org>

> I'd love to see Google torn down and replaced with an open source
> collaborative search engine run democratically by the world.  I'd love
> to have access to a search engine as good as Google, with a truly open
> API (i.e. sans http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/api_terms.html),
> and with all the results being released under an open content license.
>  Is Wikimedia the one to do that?  It's arguable whether it'd be
> within the scope of the Foundation's mission.  And in any case, I
> haven't seen a reasonable proposal of how to do it.  So I guess when
> it comes to that point, we're both in agreement.  And yeah.  Google
> did good.  Google does good.  But Google did bad, too.  Google does
> bad, too.  And Microsoft also did/does good/bad.
>
> Anthony
>

Who is in defence of Google? Wikifoundation?

The problem is, Jimmy is one of the founders of wikipedia, has nothing to do with wikiseek; and wikiasari is a concept supported by a lot of people.
But: If wikifoundation makes a peerpedia-search, this means that there are several conflicts. Is wikiasari more in solidarity to wikiseek, because they both are for-profit ads-projects? or more in solidarity to peerpedia, to support the core competencies of the foundation?
Wikifoundation need the courage, to steal Jimmies Idea to make it (a search project) really open with p2p and without ads.
Ok, this is not about one person and I do not want to annoy anyone, so let?s talk about the peerpedia project of the foundation here on this list. Wikiasari is a different project on a different list.

This simple sentence, said by Jim originally, means foe the rest of the foundation members, to have the courage, to first develop a similar project and split the development. This must be the rest of the foundation board members aware of. Acting like wikiseek and play a card against the wikisariproject. And this card here was suggested as a peerpedia-search, which means (as the url was announced with a concept) to set up several yacy.net servers to index the web p2p.

(Or: Jim has to be asked, if he is agreeing to make wikiasari a kind of a peerpedia project and if we are pulling the same goals. He still has not announced, if nutch or yacy is on the three servers and/or if there is a cooperation with the foundation, last I guess not, but if this is clear, this means we need couraged people to do the same from the foundation side but only p2p with the community).

I wonder, why the members here on the list doubt the core cometencies or Mission of the foundation, if the peerpedia-search project is in accordance.

Here is the mission again:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement

you see, several stars fit the project and social software is nutch not at all, it is yacy, this is why I recomment to ask Jim to join the peerpedia idea with his large knowledge and history experience.

We could wook out a proposal (which jim announced the day before his disney journey on anotehr list,  but still has not published) together, here is the peerpedia "blanket" for this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_P2-search_peerpedia

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement

The general purpose and objectives of the Foundation shall be the following:

Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to the development and maintenance of online *free*, *open content* encyclopedias, collections of quotations, textbooks *and other collections of documents*, *information*, and other informational *databases* in *all* the languages of the world that will be distributed free of charge to the public under a free documentation license such as the Free Documentation License written by the Free Software Foundation Inc. at http://www.fsf.org or similar licensing scheme, see http://www.wikimedia.org.

The goals of the foundation are to *encourage* the further growth and development of *open content*, *****social software**** WikiWiki-based projects (see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge. In addition to managing the already developed multilingual general encyclopedia and almanac named Wikipedia, (http://www.wikipedia.org) there is a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of quotations named Wikiquote, a collection of e-book resources aimed specifically toward students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks and a collection of source works called Wikisource; other projects are envisioned like **peerpedia** - the open source search-engine yacy.net community in a p2p style. The Foundation also manages the operations of the largely dormant Nupedia project (which is not a wiki but is open content).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BTW: we discuss here only in a free brainstorming, and indeed the leader of foundation and the leader of wikia should meet at a round tabel and discuss, if a collaboration is possible, and if the foundation is behind the p2p idea, which several times was stated as the only way to have 1 Mio google servers in defence. If both leaders or the board does not agree, the question is open, if the foundation is willing to start and found a yacy-wikipedia-indexing serverfarm project with several servers.

Ok, let?s say each year we add 2 servers. Is this too much?
Yacysearch.com has done this in one weel with 7 servers.

Kind regards.
--
Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen!
Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising drive closed

body:
On 19/01/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> The Virgin Unite donation is not accounted for yet (should happen in
> the next few days). Overall, the fundraiser has been a success, and
> some exciting new possibilities are being discussed on the
> Board-level.

So how hurt are we by making $1M rather than the hoped-for $1.5M?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising drive closed


from_name: Matthew Brown

body:
On 1/18/07, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> So it's alright so stick your fingers in your ears and shout "It's
> alright, I have a positive attitude!" as you go around ignoring the
> advice of "experts", and go around doing as much damage as possible?

I think you're reading things that were never written, Alphax.  Be
careful with that.

-Matthew


subject: [WikiEN-l] Searching an article history

body:
On 1/19/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yep. It's a bit painful, but is generally feasible. Nightmare on a
> really heavily edited page, of course.

It Would Be Nice If Wikipedia had a good way to search for when a
given text string was added to an article, or deleted from it.  Like
many IWBNIs, however, I can't see a great way to code it that would be
efficient.

-Matt


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony schreef:
> > On 1/18/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> When
> >> Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
> >> instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
> >> the dissemination of our Free content.
> >>
> >
> > When STDs and pregnancy can be prevented by an inexpensive, safe and
> > effective once a day pill, those people distributing free condoms will
> > be out of business.
> >
> > If Citizendium becomes the next great thing as a fork, then
> > Citizendium will be disseminating "your" Free content.  If not, then
> > there's little reason to believe Google would drop Wikipedia, just
> > move it down to number two.
> >
> When Citizendium becomes "the next great thing", we will have ourselves
> to blame for it. I believe in the way /we /do our thing. I do not
> believe that Citizendium will be successful. At the same time, I give
> them the benefit of the doubt.

Well, good.  At this point I have serious doubts about CZ myself.  But
I think I understand what you're talking about.  At some point
something else will come along which is better than Wikipedia.  But at
that point Google isn't going to save the day just by putting
Wikipedia at the top of search results.

> I do not understand your reference to
> STDs. I want to learn more about this as I have an interest in those..

My point is, when Wikipedia becomes irrelevant because something
better comes along, it should be regarded as a victory, not a loss.
The end-game here is not to run a popular website, it's to freely
spread knowledge.

> When Wikipedia and Citizendium have more or less the same data, there is
> no point in having both with the same relevance, just moving it down to
> number two does therefore not make sense.

If CZ becomes successful without being a fork of Wikipedia (and
they're apparently going to try), then it *won't* have the same data
as Wikipedia.  It's unlikely it'll even have "more or less the same
data".

But thinking about this, I guess it's unclear to me what this has to
do with Google being important to the dissemination of Free Content.
Is the "our" part of that important?  Is this about whether or not CZ
will be Free Content?  I just learned today that they're considering
CC-by-NC.  I guess if they choose that license it'll matter.  But
Google doesn't seem to rank Free Content sites any higher than others.

> There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business
> practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this
> realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us
> a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations
> with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill.
> Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a
> consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's
> search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also
> something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil".

I'll have to think more about that.  Personally I think Microsoft's
search engine is crap, but I'm using their OS to write this message,
so if one is going to have to acknowledge every company which has
contributed to making Wikipedia possible, I don't think you can ignore
Microsoft.

> If you want to improve on what Google does, please do.

If I get the time and/or the money, I will.  But in the meantime, I'm
not going to make them out to be this great company that does no
wrong.

I mean, if you want to improve on what Microsoft does, please do.  Do
you see how that statement isn't really helpful?

> It does not make
> sense to decry your wish for an alternative where there is none. Google
> has been a boon to us. In my value system it is good to acknowledge
> this. I do not begrudge them being one of the most successful companies
> at this moment in time. Do better than Google and you may make a
> difference, but I am sure that Google is a moving target.
>
And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I
am a co-owner of both Google and Microsoft.  But I wouldn't make
either of those two companies out to be worthy of praise.

If Google didn't exist at all, I don't think Wikipedia would be any worse off.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Jon Anunson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Install Question - GD Library

body:
Hello Rob,
Oh ya - i should have included the important info -
    Windows Server 2003
    PHP 5.1.6-Win32
    MySQL-5.0.27-win32
    MediaWiki 1.9.0

I used the windows binaries; no compiling 4 me if i can help it!
I probably need to enable it through PHP... i'll go try and figure that out.
 Thanks.  I'm an amature programmer with a .NET/ASP/MSQL background, so the
PHP/MySQL has a bit of a learning curve for me.. getting used to it, though.

Assuming i find the way to enable it in PHP and it's ready to go, i already
have the wiki configured, can i just change a setting to enable thumbnails?
 I'm hoping i can find a place to do that instead of having to re-run the
install page...

Thanks!

> On 18/01/07, Jon Anunson
> <janunson at design-plus.com> wrote:
>
>> I have PHP 5.0 installed, acording to http://se.php.net/gd, GD is
>> bundled into the PHP install.  When i'm running the Mediawiki
>> install, though, under Checking invironments it says "Couldn't find
>> GD library or ImageMagick; image thumbnailing disabled."  Is there a
>> certain version of GD required, or maybe i havn't gotten PHP
>> installed properly (?)
>>
> What platform?
>
> GD is bundled with the Windows binaries, although it needs to be
> enabled in the PHP configuration, and Unix or Linux distributions may
> require it to be compiled in or added as an extension. For instance,
> under FreeBSD, you either compile it in or install
> /usr/ports/graphics/php5-gd.
>
> Rob Church
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 19/01/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> What is your definition of an "expert"?
> Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers, simply
> state your own.

My first approximation, off the top of my head: Someone who knows
their given field and can show they are regarded as someone who knows
said field.

The second part is of some importance. Cranks are often
highly-credentialed but their crankery is not respected even if other
things they know are. e.g. William Shockley, the usually-credited
inventor of the transistor, knew all about electronics, but his work
on racial differences in intelligence is considerably less regarded.

- d.


from_name: Mark Clements

subject: [Wikitech-l] special page listing pages with broken links?

body:
"Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:e92136380701182233n7ca0b150l6b47d6bd803aa952 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 18/01/07, Travis Derouin
<travis at wikihow.com> wrote:
> > That page seems to pick up pages in the user and talk namespaces as
> > well. Is there much value in adding a special page to the list of
> > extensions that lists main namespace pages that have links to articles
> > that don't exist in the main namespace? I know we'll use it, but we
> > have a different flow of creating pages and dealing with broken links
> > than Wikipedia.
>
> The four questions I usually ask myself before committing an extension
are:
>
> 1. Is it well written, secure (to my knowledge), etc?
> 2. Do I want to release the code for this?
> 3. Is someone else going to find it useful?
> 4. Has it been done better in the repo?
>
> I like to think that #1 is always a "yes", and #2 is usually a "yes"
> as well, so generally what I go for is satisfying #3 and #4.
>
> In your case, I think you'd be satisfying both of those; I don't see
> why someone else wouldn't find it useful, and I don't believe there's
> anything like it in the repository to date.
>

If it easy to add a namespace selector to the top of the page (like on
Special:Allpages) and a tick-box to specify whether to only show broken
links that start and end in this namespace, or all broken links within the
namespace, then it will be of a lot more general use.

If it's not so easy and the code gets added to the MW codebase without it,
I'd suggest logging this as an enhancement.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 19/01/07, Jon Anunson <janunson at design-plus.com> wrote:
> Assuming i find the way to enable it in PHP and it's ready to go, i already
> have the wiki configured, can i just change a setting to enable thumbnails?
>  I'm hoping i can find a place to do that instead of having to re-run the
> install page...

Set $wgUseImageResize to true.

It might be better to locate and install ImageMagick, then set the
path to that in LocalSettings.php; it produces better conversions.

Rob Church


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a programming
	language, but...

body:
On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:27:42AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> Oh yes please. Separate data and code!

Ah, yes; let's return to the days of Fortran 77.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Delirium wrote:
> teun spaans wrote:
>
>> So the question is: what do we pursue: the dream of a free content, or a
>> compromise which add some chrome/culture but inhibits the free spreading of
>> knowledge?
>>
>>
> I'm not sure it really inhibits the free spread of knowledge in that
> case, since a reuser who prefers not to or can't rely on fair use can
> always distribute the same article with the fair-use pictures
> removed---this can even be done automatically since we tag them as fair
> use.  What *would* inhibit free knowledge in this case is if we used a
> fair-use picture where a free one was available, since in that case we'd
> be forcing this kind of user to remove a picture when we could've
> provided one that they could have kept in.
>
> But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing
> a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while
> the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free
> knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
>

If there's a "good enough" fair use image, there is no incentive to find
a Free replacement.

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

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body:
Delirium wrote:
> teun spaans wrote:
>
>> So the question is: what do we pursue: the dream of a free content, or a
>> compromise which add some chrome/culture but inhibits the free spreading of
>> knowledge?
>>
>>
> I'm not sure it really inhibits the free spread of knowledge in that
> case, since a reuser who prefers not to or can't rely on fair use can
> always distribute the same article with the fair-use pictures
> removed---this can even be done automatically since we tag them as fair
> use.  What *would* inhibit free knowledge in this case is if we used a
> fair-use picture where a free one was available, since in that case we'd
> be forcing this kind of user to remove a picture when we could've
> provided one that they could have kept in.
>
> But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing
> a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while
> the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free
> knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
>

If there's a "good enough" fair use image, there is no incentive to find
a Free replacement.

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

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body:
Delirium wrote:
> teun spaans wrote:
>
>> So the question is: what do we pursue: the dream of a free content, or a
>> compromise which add some chrome/culture but inhibits the free spreading of
>> knowledge?
>>
>>
> I'm not sure it really inhibits the free spread of knowledge in that
> case, since a reuser who prefers not to or can't rely on fair use can
> always distribute the same article with the fair-use pictures
> removed---this can even be done automatically since we tag them as fair
> use.  What *would* inhibit free knowledge in this case is if we used a
> fair-use picture where a free one was available, since in that case we'd
> be forcing this kind of user to remove a picture when we could've
> provided one that they could have kept in.
>
> But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing
> a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while
> the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free
> knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
>

If there's a "good enough" fair use image, there is no incentive to find
a Free replacement.

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

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from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] My own Livejournal

body:
Please stop this. Civility is a two-way street, and we should afford
even those who are critical of us some basic courtesy (that is the
case even if they do not show the same courtesy in response).

I have put Parker Peters' new email address onto moderation, and that,
I hope, is the end of the matter. If he/she wants to continue to
contribute to the mailing list in a civil fashion, he or she is more
than welcome to do so, via the moderation queue.

~Mark Ryan

On 19/01/07, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Parker Peters stated for the record:
> > Everything I sent was unedited and exactly as I was seeing it come in to my
> > account.
> >
> > Whether you choose to believe the truth or not is your own choice, though it
> > saddens me that you choose not to.
> >
> > Parker
>
> Will it make you so sad that in your despair you give up trying to lie
> to us and just go away?
>
> - --
>  Sean Barrett     | Fac futuaris et caballus
>  sean at epoptic.com | in quo huc equitasti.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a
	programming	language, but...

body:
On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 08:38:02PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth schreef:
> > On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:27:42AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> >
> >> Oh yes please. Separate data and code!
> >
> > Ah, yes; let's return to the days of Fortran 77.

> Do you really think that we can safely ignore the lessons of yesteryear ?

No, which is why I pointed out probably the most prominent example of
why enforcing strict separation between code and data is a bad idea.

*Controlling* interchange between code and data, certainly.

But forbidding it?  Hmmm; think about that one twice.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


from_name: David Strauss

body:
Wikipedia's unique structure combined with certain favorable provisions
in the DMCA seem to make Wikipedia much more legally sane than many* Web
projects.

*e.g. MySpace, Google's book scanning project, YouTube, LiveJournal

Delirium wrote:
> While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
> backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
> corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
> department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
> Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
> reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
> far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
> building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.
>
> That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
> necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
> caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
> the other hand.
>
> -Mark

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body:
Wikipedia's unique structure combined with certain favorable provisions
in the DMCA seem to make Wikipedia much more legally sane than many* Web
projects.

*e.g. MySpace, Google's book scanning project, YouTube, LiveJournal

Delirium wrote:
> While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
> backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
> corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
> department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
> Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
> reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
> far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
> building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.
>
> That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
> necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
> caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
> the other hand.
>
> -Mark

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body:
Wikipedia's unique structure combined with certain favorable provisions
in the DMCA seem to make Wikipedia much more legally sane than many* Web
projects.

*e.g. MySpace, Google's book scanning project, YouTube, LiveJournal

Delirium wrote:
> While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
> backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
> corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
> department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
> Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
> reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
> far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
> building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.
>
> That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
> necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
> caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
> the other hand.
>
> -Mark

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subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>[...]
> But I don't even remember what search engine I used before Google.  I
> think it was Yahoo.  Do Wikipedia pages rank high in Yahoo?  Ah,
> Yahoo, I remember when *that* used to be the corporation that everyone
> loved and praised.  Now they're helping the Chinese put people in
> jail.  I wonder how long before Google does that little bit of evil.
> AFAIK they haven't actively helped the government put people in
> jail...yet.

The whole question of how does an enlightened, open information
society engage with a closed, top-down one in which information is
controlled by a somewhat hostile dictatorial government is both
interesting and the subject of much hand-wringing and hyperbole.

1980s and 90s assumptions were that governments would ultimately be
unable to balance in the middle, and information would either flow
nearly completely freely, or not at all.  China has shown that there
is a middle ground that their government can balance in.

The mere existence of a viable middle ground is a challenge for both
the theory and practice of open information, as conceived in the 1990s
by the "Open *" movements.  A lot of "Open *" zealots are trying hard
to put their head in the sand and refuse to reopen the fundamental
ethical issues in light of an apparent paradigm failure.

A lot of companies staffed and led by "Open *" people who have gotten
somewhat more practical and pragmatic are engaging with China, in ways
which are to some greater or lesser extent annoying to "Open *"
zealots.  However, with the terms of engagement being "Play ball, or
don't play at all", it's not clear that the ultimate ethics and goals
of the "Open *" movement aren't better served by playing ball for the
moment and keeping the unwanted but functional middle ground's
ultimate demise as a goal in our hearts.

It's also not clear that playing ball IS ultimately the right answer -
the question has not been adequately addressed.  In most venues, it's
not even being brought up or phrased properly.  Not having met the
"core" WP people in person or attended the conferences yet, I don't
know the degree to which that discussion happens elsewhere, but on the
mailing lists so far it's not being addressed here much better than
anywhere else.

If you fault Google for their policy, and Yahoo for theirs, that's
fine... but for all of our sakes, don't just go around harshing on
them on the Wikipedia foundation list.  If you are going to bring up
the question, bring it up in the context of what's really wrong here
(nobody understands the "right" thing to do about it) and how WP can
participate in fixing that (figuring out the right thing).

This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
to do next.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This question is
> > for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
> >
> > What is your definition of an "expert"?
> >
> > Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers, simply
> > state your own.
>
>
> Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in which
> they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.

Counterpoint:

For the purposes of debate, I'm going to claim pseudo-Expert status in
the fields of IT operations and systems architecture (general),
spaceflight (general), reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles
(particular), space policy and alt.space (particular), ships and naval
architecture (general), and nuclear weapons.

Of these, we've had WP "annoying edit frustration" problems with one
survey article in spaceflight ( [[Space Exploration]], resolved), an
image copyright issue with shipbuilding articles, and nuclear weapons
being a moderately popular vandalism target.

All the stuff that's frustrated me has been in other fields, where I
wouldn't think I'm an expert by any reasonable definition.

An Expert who actually understands Wikipedia and how to write for
general audiences and reference things, and is working in areas which
aren't WP or general community hot-button items, shouldn't have too
many problems.  Problems do come up - an expert who understands both
the field and Wikipedia will not have to resort to "Because I said
so"; they will have the resources and knowledge to locate and cite
sources and engage in an informational Talk page discussion and show
mistaken non-experts the error of their ways.

An Expert who doesn't know how to interact with the general public in
general, or WP in particular, will possibly have a worse time.  But I
think no more so than if they were having to explain things in social
or professional circles to people outside the field.  Until you figure
out how to explain things to laymen, life can be frustrating, but
that's not WP specific at all.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
James Forrester wrote:

> Really? I fail to see why any of our deletion systems require anyone
> to devote anything approaching the majority of their wiki-time to
> them; certainly, not the exclusivity thereof.

I can think of two users off-hand without much effort.  If I didn't enjoy
writing articles so much, I'd probably be another one like them - we
delete too much good stuff and it's nearly a full-wiki-time job attempting
to save it.

-Jeff
--
If you can read this, I'm not at home.


from_name: K P

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Citizendium trying out not being a fork of Wikipedia
	for a while

body:
  Luna <lunasantin at gmail.com>    to English
 show details
 Jan 18 (1 day ago)      On 1/18/07, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> "One thing that I think I didn't realize sufficiently, when writing about
> this
> question a few months ago (at embarrassing length, before the pilot
> project was
> well under way), is that the very presence of fair-to-middling articles
> from WP
> is actually a strong disincentive for people to get to work. It's like
> this:
> when you get down to brass tacks, it's no fun to clean up the mediocre
> work of
> Wikipedians.  It might be a hell of a lot more fun to start over from
> scratch."

All ego and cat calls aside, the man's got a point -- people go where
they're interested, and writing brand new articles "in your own image" is
often more interesting than cleanup work. Whatever works for them; it's
their project, after all.
Also, if you just write your own article, you don't have to worry about
other editors who jealously guard their crap.  As far as I've seen most of
the very best of Wikipedia is written by people who don't mind other editors
contributing to the article, and the very worst is written by people who
don't very much mind other editors contributing or fixing.

Two of the worst articles I've seen this month are one article that is so
poorly written even its editors didn't bother to read it, but they ganged up
efficiently to prevent it being fixed to readability level, and a small
biography of a man whose editor and his 8 or 6 sock puppets (he swears one
was never his sock, only the other 7 or 5 were) ganged up to fight every
spelling, grammar, style, and format fix that improved the article,
ferociously determined to guilt trip to death anyone who tried to enhance
it.  It eventually got fixed by the fourth editor to attempt to do so, in
spite of being hassled and overwritten the entire time.

Still, Wikipedia needs to clean up some of their own articles.  The start-up
at Citizenpedia is so difficult to understand, the registering, the e-mail,
no examples of their articles that you can look at without registering, that
it has marked itself for failure.  Why bother discuss them, when they've
decided to design themselves in a way destined to make for failure?

Anyone can not only edit, anyone often does a good job, particularly when
they're working well with a bunch of other anyones.

KP


body:
On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
>
> I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of it.
> Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting Wikipedia
> articles. Tim . . .

Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone who
has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should be
deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."

KP


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 1/19/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> > If it were implemented in PHP, could then a lookup be done so one
> > would only need to give the ISBN and page number, and the rest would
> > be added automagically?
>
> . . .
>
> There's no reason we couldn't enhance the citation extension with an
> auto-formatter for book/journal/similar references, *but* consider
> that to do this, we'd be pulling the format from a message as it is;
> so there isn't much benefit over using a template as is done at
> present.

Current templates require you to specify all the information to be
used in the templates.  The question related to supplying only the
ISBN and having it come up with the rest of the information from its
database, as well as formatting it properly.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This
> question is
> > > for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
> > >
> > > What is your definition of an "expert"?
> > >
> > > Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers,
> simply
> > > state your own.
> >
> >
> > Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in
> which
> > they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.
>
> Counterpoint:
>
> For the purposes of debate, I'm going to claim pseudo-Expert status in
> the fields of IT operations and systems architecture (general),
> spaceflight (general), reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles
> (particular), space policy and alt.space (particular), ships and naval
> architecture (general), and nuclear weapons.
>
> Of these, we've had WP "annoying edit frustration" problems with one
> survey article in spaceflight ( [[Space Exploration]], resolved), an
> image copyright issue with shipbuilding articles, and nuclear weapons
> being a moderately popular vandalism target.
>
> All the stuff that's frustrated me has been in other fields, where I
> wouldn't think I'm an expert by any reasonable definition.
>
> An Expert who actually understands Wikipedia and how to write for
> general audiences and reference things, and is working in areas which
> aren't WP or general community hot-button items, shouldn't have too
> many problems.  Problems do come up - an expert who understands both
> the field and Wikipedia will not have to resort to "Because I said
> so"; they will have the resources and knowledge to locate and cite
> sources and engage in an informational Talk page discussion and show
> mistaken non-experts the error of their ways.
>
> An Expert who doesn't know how to interact with the general public in
> general, or WP in particular, will possibly have a worse time.  But I
> think no more so than if they were having to explain things in social
> or professional circles to people outside the field.  Until you figure
> out how to explain things to laymen, life can be frustrating, but
> that's not WP specific at all.
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com

An expert is someone who can explain everything they think they know about
their field to others, including laymen and experts in their own and related
fields, well enough to impart a WORKING knowledge of the field to those
others--obviously if you teach cartography to a layman versus if you teach
your theory of using GPS for mapping fossils to a geologist, the working
knowledge the layman takes away (being able to read your maps) is different
from the working knowledge your fellow scientist takes away (being able to
create maps similar to yours, although possibly not theoretically develop
related ideas of mapping).

And if you can also write a college level textbook on your subject that
passes critical review and is bought by your colleagues to teach their
classes, you're probably an expert.

And if you can then explain the concepts in your textbook to a lay audience
in a 2 minute blurb on the evening news, you might also be a scientist.

Knowledge not shared is called a secret, not science.

I think much of this would apply to experts in other fields, but there are
rigorous differences for the sciences that may not apply to the humanities
or such.  In the humanities there are bodies of knowledge (literary
criticism) that seem designed for the experts alone, whereas in the sciences
this is not so much the case, no matter your personal inexpertise with
quantum mechanics.

KP


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Searching an article history

body:
Delirium wrote:
> That's basically what the IBM History Flow
> <http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/> does, but
> unfortunately the code isn't released. Of course, It Would Be Nice If
> either they were persuaded to release the code, or someone reimplemented
> a free version.
>
> On a slight tangent, the nightmare of dealing with histories on
> heavily-edited pages could be slightly eased if there were some way to
> mark edits as vandalism, perhaps when reverting.  Then, like we can
> currently do "hide minor edits", we would be able to do "hide vandalism"
> and not get all that cruft in the edit history.
>
> -Mark
>
I like this idea.  Maybe a similar feature would be easier to implement:
hiding blocks of edits that were reverted. A frequent occurrence is a
vandalism edit followed by a reversion. If those pairs could be hidden,
it would clean up many edit history views. Only a bit more complicated
would be multiple edits that get reverted as a block. It gets more
involved when reverts of reverts take place...

-Rich


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> The biggest error that I see is that people with not enough knowledge
>> about the law make the policy.
>>
>>
> Yes.
>

While true, it's worth recalling the reason for the general anti-lawyer
backlash among communities of this sort: That in normal
corporate/foundation/business practice, when left to the legal
department things almost never get approved because of the legal risk.
Wikipedia as a project would never have been approved at all by any
reasonable corporation's legal department, because the legal issues are
far too risky to countenance.  We recklessly went ahead and started
building it anyway, and figured we'd tackle the legal issues as they arose.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't defer to lawyers where useful and
necessary, but the general "ecology" is one of tension between legal
caution on the one hand and a desire to produce a useful encyclopedia on
the other hand.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Searching an article history

body:
Matthew Brown wrote:
> On 1/19/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yep. It's a bit painful, but is generally feasible. Nightmare on a
>> really heavily edited page, of course.
>>
>
> It Would Be Nice If Wikipedia had a good way to search for when a
> given text string was added to an article, or deleted from it.  Like
> many IWBNIs, however, I can't see a great way to code it that would be
> efficient.
>

That's basically what the IBM History Flow
<http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/> does, but
unfortunately the code isn't released. Of course, It Would Be Nice If
either they were persuaded to release the code, or someone reimplemented
a free version.

On a slight tangent, the nightmare of dealing with histories on
heavily-edited pages could be slightly eased if there were some way to
mark edits as vandalism, perhaps when reverting.  Then, like we can
currently do "hide minor edits", we would be able to do "hide vandalism"
and not get all that cruft in the edit history.

-Mark


body:
On 1/19/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> The kickstart for the post was actually reimplementing
> Template:Cite_book or whatever; the ISBN lookup stuff was added later.

But that isn't the post you were responding to, and anyway the poster
brings up a good point.


from_name: Guettarda

body:
On 1/19/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Problem is that applies to almost any given subject. People do no say
> > "I am not a chemist" even though I can probably find an exception to
> > almost any stamtent about chemisty made by someone without a degree.
>
> Try listening to secondary (high) school Chemistry teachers... they
> have degrees and still teach complete rubbish most of the time. I can
> understand teaching things slightly simplified, but teaching something
> which is actually outright wrong in the name of simplicity is just
> crazy.

Actually, teachers often teach what they believe to be correct.  Most people
forget as much as they remember of their undergraduate classes - when they
set out to teach they go with what the textbook says.  And even then, they
may have misconceptions.

Chemistry teachers (at least in the US) are likely to be science education
majors rather than chemistry majors.  And even chemistry majors don't know
whole swathes of the subject matter...they took the classes that they were
required to take for the major.  They probably had very few forays into the
primary literature, and don't really understand how their science works.


body:
Hello Rob,

Thanks for your help.  I figured out that GD Library is included in the zip
install, but not the executable install of PHP.  i downloaded the zip, copied
php_gd2.dll into my PHP/Ext directory, edited my PHP.ini to include that
dll, and it is now working.  I'll have to check out ImageMagick - i'm unfamiliar
w/ it, but if it's better, i'll give it a try.

Found the localsettings.php file and made that change.  I'm now trying to
test to see if my upload works, but i'm running into a different problem.
Please forgive, maybe this should be a new thread... but to test i try to
edit a page.  (not even add image, just edit the text) and i get the following
error -
"Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please
try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in."

It's an intermittent problem, during the writing of this post, i succeeded
in editing a page, and uploading an image, but got session-related errors
many times.

I'm wondering if there's a session.timeout setting in the wiki I need to
fix, or if maybe my PHP is having problems with sessions (?).

I'd appreciate any advice!
thanks.
~jon

> On 19/01/07, Jon Anunson
> <janunson at design-plus.com> wrote:
>
>> Assuming i find the way to enable it in PHP and it's ready to go, i
>> already have the wiki configured, can i just change a setting to
>> enable thumbnails? I'm hoping i can find a place to do that instead
>> of having to re-run the install page...
>>
> Set $wgUseImageResize to true.
>
> It might be better to locate and install ImageMagick, then set the
> path to that in LocalSettings.php; it produces better conversions.
>
> Rob Church
>


body:
On 1/19/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> > > contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of
> it.
> > > Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting
> > Wikipedia
> > > articles. Tim . . .
> >
> >
> > Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone
> > who
> > has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
> > doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should
> be
> > deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."
> >
> > KP
>
>
>
> Are said articles sourced?  My experience (obviously, hardly a scientific
> study here!) is that few articles with decent sources get nominated on the
> grounds of the concept never having been heard of.  Recently I came across
> a
> talk page request for external sources on an Olympics results page because
> the requester had never heard of Olympic racewalking.  Perfectly
> reasonable,
> and I wouldn't blame anyone for having their first reaction being thinking
> that the page was a hoax--the idea of walking being an Olympic competition
> made me boggle the first time I heard of it.
>
> If articles on scientific concepts aren't sourced, it can be nigh
> impossible
> for people to tell the difference between a hoax and an actual concept
> that
> they just haven't heard of before.  Obviously, talk pages or
> {{unreferenced}} tags would be my preferred first reaction in such a case,
> but seeing the number of articles in the unreferenced category from
> December
> 2005 is daunting.
>
> Of course, on the other hand, if referenced articles are getting nominated
> because people haven't heard of them, such people should be gently
> reminded
> to, you know, go read the source first.
>
> -- Jonel

If the concept is in the sciences and the person is nominating it simply
because they've never heard of it, how can they tell if the source is
worthwhile?  I didn't even know what to say to someone who nominated one
article recently, on a subject the nominator had obviously never heard
of, on the basis that the nominator questioned how sea levels could possibly
rise if there was less water held in the ice caps, or maybe he/she was
questioning the amount of the rise.  I don't think having the nominator read
the source would have helped much.  On the other hand, it appears the
article writer hadn't gotten anywhere near a source, either....

I'm finding a few problems with sources on articles.  People don't realize
you can't copy entire sentences from the article ("well, I only copied a few
sentence, and never two in a row...."), and that you can't say the article
said something it didn't.  If the article said he started studying singing
seriously at the age of 10, you can't say he started singing at 10.  Maybe
it's the Masson/New Yorker method of quoting in the latter case.

How can anyone possibly nominate an article dealing with particle physics
for deletion, thinking it is a hoax, if they know nothing about quantum
mechanics?  I personally thought quantum mechanics was a hoax until I
studied it.  I think if you know nothing about an area, you aren't qualified
to decide to use time resources of other editors by nominating an AfD
because YOU don't know anything about it.  Why not just ask someone in the
area?  Need a geology editor, go to the geology page, look a bunch of edits
and ask someone.  But don't say, "I don't know anything about the subject,
so I never heard of most of it, but really never heard of this, so I think
it should be deleted."  It's absurd and wastes time and resources.

Race walking.  Yeah, right.

KP


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Nick Wilkins wrote:
> Of course, on the other hand, if referenced articles are getting nominated
> because people haven't heard of them, such people should be gently reminded
> to, you know, go read the source first.
>
I've created several hundred articles, some on very obscure topics, but
almost all citing a book source including page numbers, and so far no
one has been cheeky enough to propose any for deletion. Presumably
"never heard of it" becomes an admission of ignorance in such cases...

Stan


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>> Nina Stratton wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I'm a 40 (almost) year old black woman who dropped out of high school and
>>> never finished college. I'm also fundamentally opposed to "experts" running
>>> anything I have to do with. I can read, I can write, and I can learn. That's
>>> all I need and all I will ever need.
>>>
>>>
>> You're either incredibly na?ve, or the best troll I've seen in a long time.
>>
> This is offensive.  Assume good faith.

My apologies, but I find playing the age, race, gender and other
"sympathy" cards equally so.

> When a person is open about her personal life that should not be
> taken as an invitation to find fault. Her positive attitude about
> herself is more important than her critical view of experts.
>

So it's alright so stick your fingers in your ears and shout "It's
alright, I have a positive attitude!" as you go around ignoring the
advice of "experts", and go around doing as much damage as possible?

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

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from_name: Anthony

body:
On 1/19/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> > If it were implemented in PHP, could then a lookup be done so one
> > would only need to give the ISBN and page number, and the rest would
> > be added automagically?
>
> Where would we get the data from? Who's going to allow us to query
> this stuff at the rate we need it? Sure, we can cache it, but it still
> takes time to build up a good cache of titles.
>
How fast of a rate would you need it?  I don't know the answer to
where the data could be obtained, that's why I asked the initial
question about whether or not this would be possible.

Are these databases copyrightable?  Can the Library of Congress
database be obtained with a Freedom of Information Request?

Anthony


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >[...]
> > > But I don't even remember what search engine I used before Google.  I
> > > think it was Yahoo.  Do Wikipedia pages rank high in Yahoo?  Ah,
> > > Yahoo, I remember when *that* used to be the corporation that everyone
> > > loved and praised.  Now they're helping the Chinese put people in
> > > jail.  I wonder how long before Google does that little bit of evil.
> > > AFAIK they haven't actively helped the government put people in
> > > jail...yet.
> >
> > If you fault Google for their policy, and Yahoo for theirs, that's
> > fine... but for all of our sakes, don't just go around harshing on
> > them on the Wikipedia foundation list.  If you are going to bring up
> > the question, bring it up in the context of what's really wrong here
> > (nobody understands the "right" thing to do about it) and how WP can
> > participate in fixing that (figuring out the right thing).
> >
> Actually I wasn't faulting Google for their policy at all.  I was
> faulting Yahoo for theirs, namely for divulging confidential
> information knowing full well that information was going to put an
> innocent person in jail.  As I said, I'm not aware of Google actually
> doing that yet.

You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
on several corporations.

> > This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> > one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> > to do next.
> >
> Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.

It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
being used by typical users.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Tracy Poff

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> What is your definition of an "expert"?

It's a difficult question, I think in part because there are two
definitions of 'expert' which are related but distinct.

I offer myself as an example: I am an undergraduate student of
mathematics. I've completed all of the undergraduate courses required
for a B.S., and a few graduate courses as well.

Am I an expert? Probably not. There are many people with much more
knowledge than I have about math; in particular, most everyone with a
higher-level degree, and most people who work with particular subsets
of math in other fields.

But, do I have a large amount of /expert knowledge/? Indeed I do. I've
studied things that you probably wouldn't learn without specifically
trying to learn them. I probably know more about combinatorial designs
and rook theory than any hundred random people off the street.
Probably some of those hundred would know more than I do about
history, or languages, or welding, or any number of other topics.

So, the question that remains is: at what point does a person stop
simply having expert knowledge, and become an expert? I don't know the
answer to that; perhaps there is some invisible line that reads
'experts only past this point.' Certainly one standard would be that a
person is an expert if other people consider them an expert: it's a
good approximation of the system we use, I'd say. Whether it's a good
system, I'll leave for others to decide.

Tracy Poff


from_name: Mike O

subject: [Wikitech-l] eAccelerator and memcached use

body:
Is there any advantage or deteriment to using both eAccelerator AND memcached on the same single server Wikipedia mirror on a relatively low traffic site? The reason I ask is that eAccelerator is installed as a PHP plugin and memcached is also installed. MediaWiki is set to use memcached for caching, however eAccelerator picks up on the PHP script and caches them too. So I'm wondering if that's a good idea (possibly redudant) or should I disabled eAccel in favor of memcached? Far as I know memcached is set to use 128MB of RAM at the moment. eAccelerator appears to be set to use 32MB, if that matters for answering the question.

Mike O

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Citizendium can only be considered "Free knowledge" when it is indeed
> Free knowledge.

And right now, Citizendium *is* "Free knowledge".

> You mention that they may use the CC-by-ND license. Not
> only is that license incompatible with the GFDL, being more restrictive,
> it will prevent them from using the Wikipedia content as its source.
> This is likely to brake the back of their project as I am sure that a
> sufficient large group of people will create a class action that
> Citizendium cannot win.

I'm not sure what you mean by a class action, but yes, I agree that CZ
will almost surely not survive if they go with CC-by-NC (which was
what is being considered, not CC-by-ND).

> > If CZ becomes successful without being a fork of Wikipedia (and
> > they're apparently going to try), then it *won't* have the same data
> > as Wikipedia.  It's unlikely it'll even have "more or less the same
> > data".
> >
> > But thinking about this, I guess it's unclear to me what this has to
> > do with Google being important to the dissemination of Free Content.
> > Is the "our" part of that important?  Is this about whether or not CZ
> > will be Free Content?  I just learned today that they're considering
> > CC-by-NC.  I guess if they choose that license it'll matter.  But
> > Google doesn't seem to rank Free Content sites any higher than others.
> >
> Here the law makes all the difference and prevent CZ from using the
> Wikipedia content.

As of this Saturday, CZ is going to stop using Wikipedia content by
default, at least on a trial basis.

> >> There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business
> >> practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this
> >> realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us
> >> a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations
> >> with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill.
> >> Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a
> >> consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's
> >> search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also
> >> something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil".
> >>
> >
> > I'll have to think more about that.  Personally I think Microsoft's
> > search engine is crap, but I'm using their OS to write this message,
> > so if one is going to have to acknowledge every company which has
> > contributed to making Wikipedia possible, I don't think you can ignore
> > Microsoft.
> >
> The fact that anyone uses a Microsoft OS makes no difference to the
> quality of their search engine.

I didn't mean to imply it did.

> >
> >> If you want to improve on what Google does, please do.
> >>
> >
> > If I get the time and/or the money, I will.  But in the meantime, I'm
> > not going to make them out to be this great company that does no
> > wrong.
> >
> > I mean, if you want to improve on what Microsoft does, please do.  Do
> > you see how that statement isn't really helpful?
> >
> You can improve on Microsoft by not choosing their product as the basis
> of your entry to the computerised world. You can have a BSD, Apple,
> Linux desktop instead.

So am I improving on Google by using a different search engine?  What
if I use Scroogle (which, actually, I do)?

> > If Google didn't exist at all, I don't think Wikipedia would be any worse off.
> >
> There is anecdotal evidence that you are SO wrong.
>
Interesting.  I'm not aware of any such evidence.  Yes, a lot of
contributors to Wikipedia happened to first hear about it due to a
Google search.  But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have heard about
it if they used some other search engine.

Personally I think it was Slashdot that brought me to Google.  So I
guess they're to blame for my arrival.  But then again, it might have
been Google.  I'm pretty sure it was one or the other.

But I don't even remember what search engine I used before Google.  I
think it was Yahoo.  Do Wikipedia pages rank high in Yahoo?  Ah,
Yahoo, I remember when *that* used to be the corporation that everyone
loved and praised.  Now they're helping the Chinese put people in
jail.  I wonder how long before Google does that little bit of evil.
AFAIK they haven't actively helped the government put people in
jail...yet.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Rob Church wrote:
> It'd need to be available at rendering time; if a cache miss occurred,
> it would need to be queried there and then. I don't know how fast
> people would adopt it or how many such tags would be inserted in a
> short period of time, so estimating the worst case is a bit hard.

Don't forget that you could also stuff it into the job queue. There
would be a loss immediate feedback, but eventually the correct data
would be cached and then re-running the parser would make things work out.
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body:
On 1/19/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19/01/07, Anthony <wikitech at inbox.org> wrote:
> > How fast of a rate would you need it?  I don't know the answer to
> > where the data could be obtained, that's why I asked the initial
> > question about whether or not this would be possible.
>
> It'd need to be available at rendering time; if a cache miss occurred,
> it would need to be queried there and then.

Umm, not if you designed it so the "cache" was big enough.  Then you'd
only need to perform the lookup once - presumably when the reference
is first added.

> I don't know how fast
> people would adopt it or how many such tags would be inserted in a
> short period of time, so estimating the worst case is a bit hard.
>
I can't possibly answer your question of "Who's going to allow us to
query this stuff at the rate we need it?" then.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This question is
> for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
>
> What is your definition of an "expert"?
>
> Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers, simply
> state your own.

Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in which
they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, Tracy Poff <tracy.poff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > What is your definition of an "expert"?
>
> It's a difficult question, I think in part because there are two
> definitions of 'expert' which are related but distinct.
>
> I offer myself as an example: I am an undergraduate student of
> mathematics. I've completed all of the undergraduate courses required
> for a B.S., and a few graduate courses as well.
>
> Am I an expert? Probably not. There are many people with much more
> knowledge than I have about math; in particular, most everyone with a
> higher-level degree, and most people who work with particular subsets
> of math in other fields.
>
> But, do I have a large amount of /expert knowledge/? Indeed I do. I've
> studied things that you probably wouldn't learn without specifically
> trying to learn them. I probably know more about combinatorial designs
> and rook theory than any hundred random people off the street.
> Probably some of those hundred would know more than I do about
> history, or languages, or welding, or any number of other topics.

[[Rook theory]]? Hmm..it's not even linked to! Please add some stubs for us
benighted ones.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in
> > which
> > they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.
> >
> That doesn't take into account exasperated crackpot theorists.

True, it's not an IFF definition.


from_name: Claus Färber

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikitext isn't a programming language, but...

body:
David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> schrieb/wrote:
> I'm certainly no expert for the MediaWiki parser, but you could take a
> microtime() from the start of parsing and periodically check time
> elapsed. With anything beyond the allotted parsing time, the template
> would return either nothing or a warning.

This way, complex templates would sometimes work (if the server load is
low) and sometimes not work (if the server load is high, causing longer
execution times).

Better use a counter instead of real time. If a script requires less
than, say, 100 "ticks", it will always work no matter how long a tick
currently is.

Claus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 1/14/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think you understand my position. I'm not arguing for an
>>elimination of policy catering to non-U.S. countries. I'm arguing for a
>>separation between languages and legalistic policy. We would have guides
>>for editors from Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. Such a guide would
>>not be specific to the German Wikipedia.
>>
>>
>The guide, I think, is a good starting point. However, we should not
>be imposing any kind of "licence" or "legal trick" or whatever you
>want to call it to wikipedias in one specific language which have
>chosen not to use these licences or tricks. This has to be a two-way
>street. That the Foundation issues a clear policy about what is
>acceptable and what is not is one thing, and yes, I believe it is
>needed.
>
I think that it's even more important to have policies that establish
protocols for dealing with these issues.  The actual policies should be
consistent with the Foundation's role as a specialized ISP that edits
content itself only within very narrow parameters, and these could
likely be defined.  The Board should avoid putting itself in the
position where it must be the one making a factual determination.  It
cannot begin to review 6,000,000 articles in 200 languages, and
confidently declare on the spot that this one is legal and that one
not.  Still some editors will want to push it into taking positions that
should be studied at a lower level.

>That some language based Wikipedias agree to make these rules narrower
>to comply with the laws of the country in which the Wikipedia is most
>likely to be read/used etc. is, imho, the problem of the community of
>those wikipedias and their call.
>
Absolutely.  Stricter policy on the copyrights of Commons contents seems
sensible.  The refusal of Commons to allow PD-Italy material is within
its rights. If the IT:WP community then chooses to not have local images
it has the right to do so.  If it wants to include PD-Italy material
resolving that problem means acknowledging that it can accept images
that are not acceptable to Commons.  It is their problem, and has
nothing to do with whether EN:WP allows or disallows fair-use images.

>>Plenty of people in Germany edit the English Wikipedia. The current
>>language-country ties don't account for those scenarios.
>>
>>
>I have said it many times on this list, and I say it again. Any user
>who thinks he is above the laws of his own country is doing so at his
>own risk.
>
It is not just about being above the law.  A reasonable claim to a
different interpretation of the law is not putting oneself above the
law.  I think it would be better faith to presume that a person has an
honest difference of opinion.  Still, it's also important to distinguish
between a difference of opinion and blind ignorance; how they respond to
inquiries will usually sort that one out quickly.

>Let me try to give an example.
>
>Imagine that German law declares that stroopwafels are illegal.
>Talking about them, praising them, showing them, is illegal. Of
>course, US law thinks stroopwafels are just great.
>
>As a result, we could assume anything related to stroopwafels would be
>banned from the German wikipedia and allowed on the English one.
>
>If a contributor lives in Germany, he is subject to German law. Of
>course, technically, the contributor *could* (in the sense they have
>the possibility of) upload pro-stroopwafel material in the English
>Wikipedia and say "but it's allowed in that wikipedia".
>
>However, making such a document public is illegal in Germany.  The
>contributor is responsible for making it public, against the laws of
>the country he/she lives in. Hence also "suable" under the law of the
>country he lives in.
>
Yes, and his liability will be there even when he uploads to the English
Wikipedia.  Navigating through these situations is like wandering
through a minefield.  If the underlying reason for banning stroopwefels
related to predatory commercial behaviour along the Austrian border the
Austrians may have a completely contrary law on the matter. The law that
applies depends on such a complex set of parameters that it needs to be
decided on a case-by-case basis.  We need to avoid sweeping generalizations

>To summarize, people should always:
>- forget the idea that internet is a lawless zone
>- observe the laws of the country they live in
>- observe the laws of the US, where the servers are.
>
>That's for the user.
>
Good.

>Now, for the projects.
>
>We could argue that since the German Wikipedia is hosted on American
>soil, it could display tons of stuff about stroopwafels. However,
>whatever you will say, the German Wikipedia does have a public that is
>primarily located on German soil. So there's a big chance that the
>people who are going to reuse the content are Germany-based. Promoting
>stroopwafels heavily in the German Wikipedia could be a liability,
>even for an American based web-site, for users reusing, but also for
>the website itself, at least on German soil.
>
>In the past, legality of content has been measured against the primary
>audience of a website. See the Yahoo! lawsuit in France about nazi
>material on Yahoo! Auctions.
>
>I therefore believe that allowing communities to voice their concerns
>and apply restrictions in their own Wikipedia according to a
>country-language relationship is only fair.
>
>However, I also believe that we have a responsibility to make people
>aware of the risks they are taking by uploading material that is
>"illegal" in their countries, even on a website where those are
>"legal". Without going all the way to nazi stuff, this could apply for
>things not so dramatic, such as Fair use material.
>
This may work better in languages where that language is normally spoken
in only one country, or in a group of geographically close countries.
German is like that.  French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic
are official in a wide range of countries on more than one continent.
In some countries there can be a deep resentment to imposing the
imperialist values of the old colonizing power.

>It's a difficult balance to find, but one we should be able to find by
>educating our users as to how they can reuse our content, as you
>suggest, and responsibilizing our contributors ("you are responsible
>for the stuff you upload/write on Wikipedia, man!").
>
That's fine

Ec


list: commons-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Commons-l] good animated GIF artist needed

body:
I am UTTERLY unable to trace the source of this animation to even
ascertain its copyright status or ask the author to release it:

http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/52702236/8731015

Seeing this was the *first* time I understood how sewing machines do
what they do.

So. Anyone think they're good enough with drawing and animation to
create a definiltely free content version? Preferably larger.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] What is an "expert"?

body:
On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/19/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > I believe there is something we should ask at this point. This
> question is
> > > for everyone participating in this Mailing List:
> > >
> > > What is your definition of an "expert"?
> > >
> > > Please, for now, try to resist responding to the others' answers,
> simply
> > > state your own.
> >
> >
> > Someone who, if they get involved in editing subjects on Wikipedia in
> which
> > they have expertise, will get quickly exasperated by the process.
>
> Counterpoint:
>
> For the purposes of debate, I'm going to claim pseudo-Expert status in
> the fields of IT operations and systems architecture (general),
> spaceflight (general), reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles
> (particular), space policy and alt.space (particular), ships and naval
> architecture (general), and nuclear weapons.
>
> Of these, we've had WP "annoying edit frustration" problems with one
> survey article in spaceflight ( [[Space Exploration]], resolved), an
> image copyright issue with shipbuilding articles, and nuclear weapons
> being a moderately popular vandalism target.
>
> All the stuff that's frustrated me has been in other fields, where I
> wouldn't think I'm an expert by any reasonable definition.

I was being a bit facetious, as I hope people would recognize.


body:
> Mike O wrote:
> > Is there any advantage or deteriment to using both eAccelerator AND
> > memcached on the same single server Wikipedia mirror on a relatively
> > low traffic site? The reason I ask is that eAccelerator is installed
> > as a PHP plugin and memcached is also installed. MediaWiki is set to
> > use memcached for caching, however eAccelerator picks up on the PHP
> > script and caches them too. So I'm wondering if that's a good idea
> > (possibly redudant) or should I disabled eAccel in favor of
> > memcached? Far as I know memcached is set to use 128MB of RAM at the
> > moment. eAccelerator appears to be set to use 32MB, if that matters
> > for answering the question.
>
> Well, try it both ways and see which way gives you better performance... :)
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I've been doing that, and just using a browser to view pages it's hard to tell. Thus my question. I figure since a few people here work on development they might have an answer...

Mike O

--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 9 at http://www.opera.com

Powered by Outblaze


from_name: Who Cares

subject: [WikiEN-l] editorial oversignt. re: afd, fac, etc.

body:
On 1/19/07, James Forrester <jdforrester at gmail.com> wrote:
  >On 17/01/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Look at the editing history of User:Amarkov. An editor who edits
>> > NOTHING but deletion debates, apparently in all hard-working
>> > sincerity.
>>
>> A filthy job, but someone has to do it.

>Really? I fail to see why any of our deletion systems require anyone
>to devote anything approaching the majority of their wiki-time to
>them; certainly, not the exclusivity thereof.

>Please note that there is one system that does require near-absolute
>devotion, namely Arbitration. Ah well. :-)

Well, yes, it is true that nobody has to contribute all their wikitime to deletion debates. I do some other projectspace discussion, too, but it is mostly deletion debates. However, if you've seen my prose, you do not want me writing articles. And besides, I don't want to write articles. Editing Wikipedia for me is something enjoyable to do, so I refuse to do something I have no interest in doing. If it makes me a worse contributor to live in projectspace, so be it.

  And how did I get picked as an example, anyway?

  -Amarkov

---------------------------------
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.


from_name: Domas Mituzas

body:
Mike,

disabled eAccel in favor of memcached? Far as I know memcached is set to use
> 128MB of RAM at the moment. eAccelerator appears to be set to use 32MB, if
> that matters for answering the question.

eAccelerator caches bytecode, memcached does not.
Even then, if eAccelerator is used as bytecode cache, it is 10x faster than
memcached, because there's no more communication/serialization overhead.

Domas


body:
On 19/01/07, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2007/1/19, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:

> > I am UTTERLY unable to trace the source of this animation to even
> > ascertain its copyright status or ask the author to release it:
> > http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/52702236/8731015
> > Seeing this was the *first* time I understood how sewing machines do
> > what they do.
> > So. Anyone think they're good enough with drawing and animation to
> > create a definiltely free content version? Preferably larger.

> I'll try to bite it with Orem, maybe we will be able to make some nice
> SVG/animation work :)

Oh, are SVG animations live in MediaWiki on Wikimedia? I thought it
used a restricted subset of tags to avoid active content dangers. Do
we have any animated SVGs on Commons as yet?

- d.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Mail archives

body:
Birgitte SB wrote:
> I wanted to look up the detailed report that was
> posted to the list after the Frankfurt retreat.  I
> have entually found it but in the process had some
> troubles because not realizing that Anthere has been
> using two different email addresses caused me to miss
> seeing it when searching by "Author".  If any of you
> are familiar with using our archives, you realize how
> frustrating it can be to find (or not find) a message
> you half remember.
>

Birgitte

I try now (but sometimes fail), to write announcements (board decisions,
reports etc...)from my last name reference (florencedevouard), whilst
email from my own person are from Anthere. Weak attempt to differenciate
the chair from the ant.

I take note of your comments, and will try to post such messages on the
wiki as well.

Ant

> The thing that I realized while looking for this
> information is that everyone is relying much to
> heavily on these archives.  I knew that that all the
> links from the past list summaries had been scrambled.
>  I went to the WMF website hoping to find the
> information there after my failure in the archives.  I
> found that the WMF website also uses links to the
> archives. [1]  All of these links have been scrambled
> in the past week and the archive is gernerally not
> something that can be expected to be stable.
>
> I ask you to consider making an effort to mirror any
> offcial messages or detailed reports either on the WMF
> or Meta instead of simply repairing the existing
> links.  These messages become rather hard to find once
> the links go bad.  If this is decided to be a bad idea
> for some reason; then please consider using a
> standardized subject for such messages.  Everyone
> should think twice about linking to the archive in
> general.  If you expect people to be reading what
> write in six months, I would encourage you to quote
> the message instead of linking.
>
>
> Birgitte SB
>
>
> [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
> (See: "Wikimedia Board reorganization" read more link)
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Need Mail bonding?
> Go to the Yahoo! Mail Q&A for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users.
> http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396546091


subject: [Foundation-l] Mail archives


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
Anthony schreef:
> On 1/18/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> Recently there has been a lot of traffic about search engines. The tone
>> of these discussions have been hostile towards Google. I want to remind
>> you all that it is because of the value Google attaches to our content
>> that we became the number 10 or whatever in the Alexa rankings.
>>
>
> So Google is to blame for that?  You say it as though it is
> necessarily a good thing.
>
I do not "blame" Google for that, I cherish Google for what it did for us.
>
>> When
>> Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
>> instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
>> the dissemination of our Free content.
>>
>
> When STDs and pregnancy can be prevented by an inexpensive, safe and
> effective once a day pill, those people distributing free condoms will
> be out of business.
>
> If Citizendium becomes the next great thing as a fork, then
> Citizendium will be disseminating "your" Free content.  If not, then
> there's little reason to believe Google would drop Wikipedia, just
> move it down to number two.
>
When Citizendium becomes "the next great thing", we will have ourselves
to blame for it. I believe in the way /we /do our thing. I do not
believe that Citizendium will be successful. At the same time, I give
them the benefit of the doubt. I do not understand your reference to
STDs. I want to learn more about this as I have an interest in those..
When Wikipedia and Citizendium have more or less the same data, there is
no point in having both with the same relevance, just moving it down to
number two does therefore not make sense.
>
>> When Citizendium finally gets its
>> act together, and does a better job that we do, it will make sense to
>> Google to change its preference. We should not sit on our laurels but
>> innovate. Frankly we can use some competition.
>>
>> The point that I am making is NOT that we might not consider dabbling in
>> search technology. When we are to do this, we will find a well written
>> proposal in Meta to consider. My point is that Google did a world of
>> good to the Open Content movement. It is relevant that we acknowledge
>> this. They are not like Microsoft who gives us a low ratings because of
>> us competing with their product. Google did good, Google does good.
>>
>>
> A large portion of Wikipedia contributors found the site through
> Google.  Of course, a large portion of them also use the Windows
> operating system.  I have as hard of a time imagining a Wikipedia
> without Microsoft as I do one without Google.  In either case some
> other company would have to take up the slack.
>
> Google and Microsoft are for-profit corporations.  Their purpose for
> existence is to make a profit.  The wonderful thing about capitalism
> is that a corporation can do a lot of good for the world while
> pursuing the goal of making money.  But there's really no reason to
> acknowledge this.
>
There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business
practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this
realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us
a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations
with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill.
Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a
consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's
search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also
something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil".
> I'd love to see Google torn down and replaced with an open source
> collaborative search engine run democratically by the world.  I'd love
> to have access to a search engine as good as Google, with a truly open
> API (i.e. sans http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/api_terms.html),
> and with all the results being released under an open content license.
>  Is Wikimedia the one to do that?  It's arguable whether it'd be
> within the scope of the Foundation's mission.  And in any case, I
> haven't seen a reasonable proposal of how to do it.  So I guess when
> it comes to that point, we're both in agreement.  And yeah.  Google
> did good.  Google does good.  But Google did bad, too.  Google does
> bad, too.  And Microsoft also did/does good/bad.
>
> Anthony
If you want to improve on what Google does, please do. It does not make
sense to decry your wish for an alternative where there is none. Google
has been a boon to us. In my value system it is good to acknowledge
this. I do not begrudge them being one of the most successful companies
at this moment in time. Do better than Google and you may make a
difference, but I am sure that Google is a moving target.

Thanks,
   GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 19/01/07, Evan Martin <evanm at google.com> wrote:
> See the "What about shared memory?" section of
> http://www.danga.com/memcached/ to get the other side of this.  Since
> you (the OP) have a single server this advantage isn't useful, I think
> you'd be better off growing the eAccelerator cache to 128+32mb for the
> reasons Domas mentioned.

It's worth mentioning that some of them, e.g. APC, offer both
op/bytecode caches *and* arbitrary user caches, which means you can
get the benefits of both, with a little tuning.

Rob Church


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google

body:
On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >[...]
> > But I don't even remember what search engine I used before Google.  I
> > think it was Yahoo.  Do Wikipedia pages rank high in Yahoo?  Ah,
> > Yahoo, I remember when *that* used to be the corporation that everyone
> > loved and praised.  Now they're helping the Chinese put people in
> > jail.  I wonder how long before Google does that little bit of evil.
> > AFAIK they haven't actively helped the government put people in
> > jail...yet.
>
> If you fault Google for their policy, and Yahoo for theirs, that's
> fine... but for all of our sakes, don't just go around harshing on
> them on the Wikipedia foundation list.  If you are going to bring up
> the question, bring it up in the context of what's really wrong here
> (nobody understands the "right" thing to do about it) and how WP can
> participate in fixing that (figuring out the right thing).
>
Actually I wasn't faulting Google for their policy at all.  I was
faulting Yahoo for theirs, namely for divulging confidential
information knowing full well that information was going to put an
innocent person in jail.  As I said, I'm not aware of Google actually
doing that yet.

> This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> to do next.
>
Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] In defence of Google


from_name: Chris McKenna

body:
I too would welcome this, as I hadn't the foggiest idea how sewing
machines actually sewed anything until seeing that.

I haven't anything approaching the skill to recreate it, but if somebody
does, could they consider making it run a bit slower than that version (if
such a thing is possible) to make it even clearer what is happening.

Chris

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, David Gerard wrote:

> I am UTTERLY unable to trace the source of this animation to even
> ascertain its copyright status or ask the author to release it:
>
> http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/52702236/8731015
>
> Seeing this was the *first* time I understood how sewing machines do
> what they do.
>
> So. Anyone think they're good enough with drawing and animation to
> create a definiltely free content version? Preferably larger.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

--
Chris 'Awkward' McKenna

cmckenna at sucs.org
www.sucs.org/~cmckenna

The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
but with the heart

Antoine de Saint Exupery