subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007

body:
Now that the dust has settled a little bit...

----------

Sabine said
Taipei was chosen - that is a fact. They did great work like all other
bidding teams did. Instead of creating problems could we please look
forewards and help them to make it a great event?

Which is exactly what I feel like saying.
Some people will try to think of better way for the next bid.
But we mostly have a new Wikimania to prepare.

I'd like to say thank you to Hsiang-Tai Chien for his civility and that
I hope we'll do a fabulous Wikimania 2007 in Taipei.
One of the specific request I will have (which is basically the same
that the one of the past two years) is that we try to find funds to help
wikipedians to come from all over the world. We need to start looking
for such funds as soon as possible. And make this event a bridge between
continents.

-------------

Birgitte said
 >"Original jury comprises of the members of the Board :
Angela, Anthere, Jimmy Wales, Michael Davis, Tim
Shell, to which will be added the new Board member
elected in September to replace Angela, and also the
core organisation team of Wikimania 2006: Phoebe
Ayers, Austin Hair, Samuel Klein and Delphine M?nard.
Other members are: Andrew Lih.

and

 >We should start talking about how future Wikimania's should be selected.
Perhaps the first task is to really define the
relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia.  Is it
dealt with through a commitee?  Are there any Board
Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania?  What exactly
is the connection?

and

 >Will any member of the jury be employed by Wikimania
2007?  Will any member of jury be in a position to
decide how sponsorship monies are spent (i.e. drafting
budgets or who receives scholarships)?

and

 >Any possible perception of corruption should be
avoided at all costs.

My answers to Birgitte

Jury was Angela, Tim, Anthere, Phoebe, Austin, Sj, Delphine and Andrew.

You raised issues of possible corruption and issues of possible conflict
of interest. I'd say pretty clearly that I do not think *any* of us was
corrupted. I absolutely understand the anger of some people, complaints
of poor process may be receivable, but accusation of corruption are
serious accusation and should only be done with proof imho.
Conflict of interest is more likely of course.

In this case, I do not think any of us are meeting a conflict of
interest. Very likely, none of the three board members will be on the
board by next summer (Angela is already gone; Tim is planned to resign
by the end of the year or so; and my term ends in july). So, we were not
planning our next exotic holidays.
Afaik, none of the jury members is planned to be paid to take care of
the organisation. I do not think it will happen, but afaik, none of them
have expressed the slightest desire to be hired to do the job. And this
was not discussed on the board.
Presumably (and hopefully), some of the jury members will merge with the
chinese team so as to offer their own abilities and experience.
Will they be involved in drafting budget ? I do not think so. I presume
this will require one of the chinese team member to work closely with WMF.
Will they be involved in deciding who will receive sponsorship ? Well,
if they are part of Wikimania 2007 team, this may happen of course. I do
not think it represents a conflict of interest though. They could have
done the same for Torino.

"to really define the relationship between Wikimania and Wikimedia"
Well, the WMF is the legal organiser of Wikimania. Generally, it is the
organiser of Wikimania, but most of the organisation is delegated.
A better question would rather be (imho) "what are the goals of Wikimania"

"Is it dealt with through a commitee?"
Well, informally, yes. The Wikimania committee. Which is not officially
a committee...
We may wish to formalize this a little bit....

"Are there any Board Resolutions that pertain to Wikimania?"
Afaik, none for this year. I think the only decision was made last year
with regards to Delphine contract. Actually... this was not visible at
all, but I spent a lot of time, with Delphine and Sj, trying to fix an
agreement to define areas of responsabilities. This document and the
pertaining agreement were approved by the board. It was done before the
resolution system, so there is no resolution, but it was amongst the
most documented decision we took.
In the end, the carefull agreement was useless as areas of
responsabilities were largely not respected, which lead to a lot of
tension in the team.

But you have a point Birgitte.
In view of what happened last year, it is best that
1) decent resolutions be passed on Wikimania issue
2) a committee be created, with clear description of each person
involved, area of expertise and area of responsability. This is doubly
important as (at least for I, and certainly for Michael Davis), we know
quite little the chinese team. And important in case the last year team
or others want to get involved.
3) each person involved makes a clear statement of potential conflicts
of interest

I'd like to ask HT if all the chinese wikimania core team could join the
wikimania mailing list, even though it may be that some of you discuss
issues in chinese only. It is important (imho) that at least some non
chinese be involved in the organisation, as it will greatly enrich the
process.

Also, I would like that all core organisers provide a little bit more
information about them, and that the role of each be defined as much as
possible. This will help identify areas where help is missing. And this
will help us identify who the Foundation should be in touch with for
various issues (for example, the Foundation (Michael) MUST be in contact
with the budget person).

ant


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia mirror

body:
Krishna Pagadala wrote:

>Nick,
>
>   I am using MediaWiki version 1.7 for the Wikipedia mirror. However, when I copied the "essential" extensions Cite.php and
>ParserExtensions.php and enabled them both in LocalSettings.php, I am seeing a lot of errors. However, when I disable Cite.php, then the errors disappear, but <ref.../ref> no longer work.
>
>On googling this problem, I find that I am not the only one. How can this issue be resolved?
>
>Thanks.
>Krishna
>
>
>
>
Download this version and you will find it works and is included and
integrated.

ftp://ftp.wikigadugi.org/wiki/MediaWiki/

Jeff


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] A little problem

body:
<small> incidently, that means I can not moderate the spc lists.... and
since Villy left, i think no one else is registered but I. Did not you
volunteer once ? If so, can you ask Brion to help you on that ?</small>

oscar wrote:
> dear anthere,
>
> thank you for letting us know. may your computer get well soon after the
> "operations" that are necessary now...
>
> all the best,
> oscar
>
> On 10/2/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Fyi
>>
>>Whilst I was away, my computer chose to again get sick. Apparently, fix
>>up in july did not fix the right thing...
>>
>>Things are worse this time, since the computer does not restart at all
>>any more.
>>
>>And of course, my last back up was 3 weeks ago :-)
>>Which means that I have no back up of all the emails I got between
>>roughly 3 weeks ago, and 5 days ago (these are still on the server).
>>Actually, right now, I have no access to any mails but the last recent
>>ones, since I first need to install my back-up on my husband laptop.
>>
>>Which basically means
>>
>>* Limited internet access planned for the next week to 10 days at least.
>>If I do not answer to your emails, well, ask yourself if someone else
>>could help you
>>
>>* No access to a whole bunch of documents or emails, eg, approval of the
>>new languages subcom. Or documents to prepare the board retreat. Or
>>datafeed contractual agreement.
>>
>>So, thank you in advance for your patience :-)
>>
>>ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] A little problem


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership

body:
Look Rosc

This list is NOT an advertisment roll.
PLEASE, do not spam us.

You stop that NOW.

Thanks

Ant

ROSC Club Director wrote:
> The Resources of Sheboygan Club (ROSC) is having their 2006 Fall Membership Drive.
>
>   Membership is free and open to everyone. And those who donate 5 or more Box Tops to the Club, we will donate $2 to www.wikinews.org.
>
>   You can sign up by visiting: http://www.roscfriends.tripod.com/rosc/application.html
>
>
>
>   Yours Truly,
>       Club Director & Founder
>       The Resources of Sheboygan Club
>       (920) 547-4934
>       www.roscfriends.tripod.com
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com.  Check it out.


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> But what if that hypothetical hotel chain wrote an article about
> their hotel in the area, complete with amenities, prices for
> rooms, and a phone number for booking. Would that be worthy of
> inclusion?

Not in all that detail, no.  But that would be judged by the
encyclopedic qualities of the text, not by the commercial motives
behind it.  There certainly are notable hotels that deserve
articles of their own, even if it's almost always a good idea to
avoid writing about yourself.  What I wrote is that commercial
companies are free to pay someone to write *good* articles for
Wikipedia.  And prices and phone numbers are not part of any good
article that I can think of.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Mywikipediaspace


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki as Google Ads keyword

body:
Interestingly, I just got that sponsored link on my Gmail ticker.

On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
> securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."
>
> yay!
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is how to come up with a sources
> criterion that can't be hoaxed.
>
> There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> on en:wp by people
> who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> it therefore
> didn't exist.
>
> Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> with the WMF?
>
>
> - d.
>

Obviously not (Copyright?).  I think you are beind
sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.  "How to
come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
requiring sources.  I think this is large enough
problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
consideration for this particular problem.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD
> nominations
> > > on en:wp by people
> > > who couldn't find the subject on Google and
> presumed
> > > it therefore
> > > didn't exist.
> > > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is
> lodged
> > > with the WMF?
>
> > Obviously not (Copyright?).  I think you are beind
> > sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
>
>
> It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are
> those on en: who
> seriously advocate that a reference can only be good
> if it's easy for
> a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
>

This is crazy, but I witnessed articles being damaged
by having the easest source cited for every assertion.
 Even when this source does not exactly match.  I
believe part of this problem comes from FA.  People
seems to want to be able to bring an article up to FA
without visiting a library.  I would rather FA accept
articles without being so heavily cited, if they will
not make an effort judge the quality of the source.  I
think outside of controversial articles, no sources at
all, is better than misrepresented or low quality
sources.

>
> >  "How to
> > come up with a sources criterion that can't be
> hoaxed"
> > is only a the problem with the proposed solution
> of
> > requiring sources.  I think this is large enough
> > problem that requiring sources should be thrown
> out of
> > consideration for this particular problem.
>
>
> Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this
> hoax without causing
> ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not
> be easy.
> [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked
> "guideline" but phrased
> didactically, so when applied robotically - and
> people do apply it
> robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting
> articles and causing
> the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was
> written didactically
> so as to avert.
>
I think this is true of most rules and a good reason
to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
hoaxes.  They key is to find them quickly.  I think
en.WP generally does a good job of this.  I imagine
they patrol articles much more effectively than other
communities.  (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get
a more matter-of-fact recation)  I think the key is
finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles.  If we
could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles
sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
profile.  It may be enought to do a second round of
"patrols" off such a list.  Although that doesn't help
with any currently existing hoaxes.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] dev blog to announce new features

body:
On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps the B.R.I.O.N.s could be crossposted onto the blog?

Go ahead ;-)

- d.


body:
"Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."

yay!


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki as Google Ads keyword


subject: [Foundation-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement

body:
On 02/10/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/1/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> >They are volunteers
> > too, and I hope they have enough imagination to do what they want to do.

> And if what they want to do includes orginal research and writeing POV articles?

Then we deal with them in the usual way. Assume Good Faith was policy,
I thought.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.

There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people
who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore
didn't exist.

Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


list: wikien-l

from_name: Carl Peterson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
> The population statistics, making it Lebanon's third largest city, and
> the claim that the population almost tripled since 1982 makes me wonder
> how much of that population can be attributed to elephants. :-)

Wikiality in action, I tell you. Because Wikipedia (or at least one
Wikipedian) says it exists, it must exist. We can thank Colbert for giving
us the power to create whole islands (and a population of 300,000) just
because one of us wants it to exist. Now, by deleting the article, we have
doomed all these 300,000 people to death as the island resubmerges. :-)


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
--- Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I think this is true of most rules and a good
> reason
> > to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
> > hoaxes.  They key is to find them quickly.  I
> think
> > en.WP generally does a good job of this.  I
> imagine
> > they patrol articles much more effectively than
> other
> > communities.  (Or else a ten-month old hoax would
> get
> > a more matter-of-fact recation)
>
> Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards
> - three months is
> the usual top of the range before it gets caught by
> someone, IME.
>
> > I think the key is
> > finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles.
> If we
> > could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old
> articles
> > sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
> > profile.  It may be enought to do a second round
> of
> > "patrols" off such a list.  Although that doesn't
> help
> > with any currently existing hoaxes.
>
> Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp -
> visible to admins
> only? It's worth a try...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
>

Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
It might be unmanagable.  I don't even know if my idea
is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
with the toolserver.  Another idea is if a Lunar
Changes list can be generated.  Basically the same as
Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
change was exactly one-month ago.

Birgitte SB

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
--- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages
> is.
> > It might be unmanagable.  I don't even know if my
> idea
> > is technicly possible, but people do amazing
> things
> > with the toolserver.  Another idea is if a Lunar
> > Changes list can be generated.  Basically the same
> as
> > Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most
> recent
> > change was exactly one-month ago.
>
>
> "at least one month since last change" would be a
> good one!
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
>

Such a list would great to go through and review to
find any existing problems.  Once this list has
reviewed, however I think Lunar Changes (which would
be a revolving door like RC) would be a good way to
say on top of the issue.

I guess we are talking about to issues at once.

*How to find any hoaxes that are currently existing?

Complete review of existing high risk pages (david's
static list)  It is managable that people will push
through a montrous list once but not continually.

*How to catch the inevitable future problems that slip
through RC patrol?

Something like "Lunar changes"  (which again may not
be technically possible,)  where you have a managble
amount of article to continually check.

Birgitte SB

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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
Either one is easy for a determined hoaxer to circumvent. If the only
requirement is an external link, ISBN, ref, etc., the hoaxer can just insert
such a link.

Carl

On 10/3/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
>
> What's troubling is that, for ten months, Wikipedia not only asserted
> that an island exists, but had an article documenting 'facts' about it.
>
> That can't have a positive impact on our credibility. (Actually, it may
> be that nobody knows, but the fact that they *could* is a problem that,
> in my humble opinion, we need to take seriously.)
>
> In keeping with tradition, I'd like to propose a technical solution that
> everyone can ignore. ;-)
>
> Suggestion: Automatically insert a suitable template into new/unsourced
> text. I'd propose something similar to {{not verified}}.
>
> Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of a
> new article in the main namespace.
>
> Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the
> beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article
> contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.
>
> There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined hoaxer
> to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two
> passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the
> benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of
> *currently* unsourced articles.
>
> Food for thought, anyway.
>
> Jake
>
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 08:43 -0400, Carl Peterson wrote:
> > On 10/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > The population statistics, making it Lebanon's third largest city, and
> > > the claim that the population almost tripled since 1982 makes me
> wonder
> > > how much of that population can be attributed to elephants. :-)
> >
> >
> > Wikiality in action, I tell you. Because Wikipedia (or at least one
> > Wikipedian) says it exists, it must exist. We can thank Colbert for
> giving
> > us the power to create whole islands (and a population of 300,000) just
> > because one of us wants it to exist. Now, by deleting the article, we
> have
> > doomed all these 300,000 people to death as the island resubmerges. :-)
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/3/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:19 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > > Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of
> a
> > > new article in the main namespace.
> > > Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the
> > > beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article
> > > contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.
> > > There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined
> hoaxer
> > > to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two
> > > passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the
> > > benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of
> > > *currently* unsourced articles.
> >
> >
> > It'd save me going around putting {{unreferenced}} on lots of
> > articles. Mind you, method 2 could be implemented by a semi-automatic
> > bot. I must say, I'm tempted.
>
> Hmm. Hadn't thought of that approach.
>
> I have to say that I prefer {{not verified}}, because - to my mind - the
> emphasis is that it hasn't *yet* been verified by another, whereas the
> alternative strikes me as more critical. If I was a new user and had
> just contributed an article, the former would likely encourage me to
> continue, while the latter might make me disillusioned.

The concept of verification is also truer to the core principles on which
the move would be based (verifiability, not truth). It is also more common
in web-based circles in this context (e.g., e-mail verification to see if
you really exist). That is to say, a verification statement is less alarming
because we are generally more used to them.

Carl


from_name: Gordon Joly

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikimediauk-l] [Fwd: Royal Society Digital
 Journal Archive]

body:
Quote below first posted to  <wikimediauk-l.Wikimedia.org>

Below are two extracts from an article from the THES (Times Higher
Education Supplement) Friday 22nd September 2006.

If this is a research, then fine. But I am told that Wikipedia is not
in the business of original research.

Also, Wikipedia is non commercial, but derivatives, such as
Answers.com are not, thanks to the GFDL.

"This is not what Wikipedia is about."

Gordo

***

Ambiguous copyright law catches out scholars

Publishers and galleries are charging unnecessarily. Jessica Shepherd
reports

Academics are being incorrectly told to hand over thousands of pounds
to use works of art, literature and music in their research, a report
has revealed.  The study by the British Academy criticises those
copyright holders who wrongly charge scholars in the name of the law.
Many publishers and art galleries have failed to grasp that copyright
law does not apply when material is to be used for private study,
criticism, review or non-commercial research, the report points
out. It argues that the demands of copyright owners hinder scholarship
in the humanities and social sciences.  The British Academy hopes to
lobby the Government to make copyright law clearer for publishers and
academics with the publication of its study Copyright and Research in
the Humanities and Social Sciences.

[...]

Stephen Navin, chief executive of the Music Publishers' Association,
said: "Our members are not trying to mislead academics. Copyright law
is complicated...."

[...]

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


subject:
[Foundation-l] Ensuring veracity of articles based on print
	sources

body:
There is  only one way to *ensure* the veracity of
articles based on print sources, and that is fact
checking.  Any shortcuts to fact checking can be
gamed.  Of course, you can make the game harder than
it currently is, but if you are aiming for 100% no
hoaxes making them harder to recognize will not help
IMHO.

Birgitte SB

--- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> For those books not mentioned in Google, we would of
> course do our best to
> compile a list. Then once the list is made, knowing
> Google, it would only be
> a matter of time that the list of old books would be
> listed on Google,
> therefore making my testing mechanism work.
>
> If we were to compile a list of these books, we'd
> probably have to protect
> these pages from editing to prevent misuse/fraud.
>
> On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a
> hoax seem legitimate if
> > you
> > > cite a phony print source. What's not needed is
> new rules involving the
> > use
> > > of print sources, but to utilise something we
> had all along: Google.
> > > Something we could do is Google the title of the
> book being referenced,
> > and
> > > then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in
> wiki mirrors). If it
> > > doesn't exist, then we take further action. One
> thing we could do is for
> > > every print source approved in an article, we
> can note that said print
> > > sources have been verified to be true on the
> talk page (via some sort of
> > > yellow talk page box). Comments?
> >
> >
> > I use lotsa references that aren't in Google and
> probably never will
> > be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world
> between 1923 and 1995
> > in that category.
> >
> > A list could be nice, of course.
> >
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/3/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Hmm. Hadn't thought of that approach.
> > > I have to say that I prefer {{not verified}}, because - to my mind -
> the
> > > emphasis is that it hasn't *yet* been verified by another, whereas the
> > > alternative strikes me as more critical. If I was a new user and had
> > > just contributed an article, the former would likely encourage me to
> > > continue, while the latter might make me disillusioned.
> >
> >
> > {{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's
> over.
>
> Combined with your preloaded template, that could work very nicely.

Perhaps have a single template {{not verified|date}} where the date
determines the message to be displayed. For example, if it's under five
days, have "This is a new article which has not yet been verified for
factual accuracy. Please add references to verify the information in this
article." If it goes past that, go to the standard "this article does not
cite sources" template. Possibly a transclusion of a transclusion, but the
difference in the root template could help nip some of this in the bud.

Carl


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Regarding Ogg Theora and its file extension;
 should it be changed on the commons?

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 10/2/06, Ivo Emanuel Gon?alves <justivo at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>
>>Unofficially, the .ogm extension is used for Theora in many places
>>over the Internet, and this is a good idea, because many video players
>>can recognize this extension as theirs.
>
>
> No. OGM files are used for MPEG4 video (patented) + Vorbis wrapped in OGG.

I read on the Theora mailing list a suggestion that .ogv can be used for
video, and .oga for audio.

http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2005-May/000862.html

I'm yet to see a real-world example of .ogv being used, though.

> The better solution for this, esp for video, is Michael Dales inline
> player for Mediawiki.
>
> For the purposes of usability going half-way just doesn't provide the benefits.

In MediaWiki, we can detect the file type on upload and store it in the
DB. Then we can use that information in the DB to output the appropriate
HTML, if indeed a different player is required. But there is a clear
benefit to the ability to distinguish audio from video, after the user
downloads the file to their computer. In fact, I'm surprised .ogg is
used for video so widely given the obvious benefit of a discriminated
type, in this environment. Even if you use the same player for both
audio and video, it's nice to know what's what when you're looking at a
big list of files.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership

body:
This is an advertisment nonetheless.
And several editors have already asked that you be blocked from the
list. So, just do not do it.

Incidently, may I ask you how you intend to make sure that these 2
dollars actually get to wikinews ?

ant

ROSC Club Director wrote:
> Look,
>
>   For every new member ROSC gets, we donate $2 to www.wikinews.org.
>
>   Last I know, no other club did that for wiki.
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership


from_name: ROSC Club Director

subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership

body:
I plan to make a check out to the Wikimedia Foundation and and send it to the address.  This is an advertisment nonetheless.
And several editors have already asked that you be blocked from the
list. So, just do not do it.

Incidently, may I ask you how you intend to make sure that these 2
dollars actually get to wikinews ?

ant

ROSC Club Director wrote:
> Look,
>
> For every new member ROSC gets, we donate $2 to www.wikinews.org.
>
> Last I know, no other club did that for wiki.
>

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

---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the  new Yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > > The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> > > over the result.
>
> > What makes you say that?
>
>
> (a) people will be happier if there's a human pressing the button (b)
> in a crappily-formatted article, the source info may be easy for a
> human to spot but hard for a robot. I just changed [[Riptides]] to
> take the {{unreferenced}} off it since the ref was given as plain text
> as the last paragraph. (I put that in a more standard format as well.)

While I agree there should probably someone reviewing the changes, a
"patrol" would probably pop up whose sole reason for existence is to try to
put sources on everything _or_ (and this is what I fear might be more
likely) to speedy half the articles out of existence.

Carl


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] List of banned books

body:
On 10/2/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce?
> > Have them remove any uncited crap.
> > If ALA 2000 is a specific list with set entries, remove anything that
> > shouldn't be there.
> > Be bold!
>
> That would amount to deleting around 90% of the article as unsourced........
>

That's what I did to get [[List of unusual personal names]] under
control.  Since then, I've been reverting any addition that doesn't
cite sources showing that (1) there exists a person with this name,
and (2) the name is considered unusual.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
On 10/1/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> As I said, I sincerely doubt most (any) Myspace members have read the  Terms
> of Service, I can assure you that they are far more substantial  than our own
> Terms of Service. Personally, I hope that the Board rectifies  this.

Terms of Service are written by corporate lawyers who are afraid they
might not be able to find their underwear sometime in the future.
They're worthless for anything but the covering of asses.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mywikipediaspace


subject: [WikiEN-l] Mywikipediaspace

body:
On 10/2/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/2/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What it appears Danny would like is a rule that people would have to
> > agree to such that they would behave.
>
> I don't know if thats what danny was advocating, but it sounds good to me.
>
> > But you can't legislate against
> > misunderstanding or malice. What effective penalty can we apply? We
> > can't even stop people editing if they really want to.
>
> You are correct that there are some bad people that we can't stop.
> But everyone that causes us problems isn't a judgement proof 14 year
> old kid jumping coffee shops...
>
> The reality is that a nontrivial number of our problem causers are
> corporations which don't have the sort of immunity which makes the TOS
> irrelevant.
>
> It would be really nice that on the third time some foolish
> advertising company calls us up threatening to sue because we deleted
> their drivel that we can turn around and say "No, we're going to sue
> you..." :)

Do you know a lawyer who'd be willing to take this on contingency?
Because that's the only way the Foundation would be able to afford a
lawsuit.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Regarding Ogg Theora and its file extension;
	should it be changed on the commons?

body:
On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 12:57:55PM +1000, Tim Starling wrote:
> > Extensions are just too inflexible to match up with reality... Ogg
> > isn't at all the only container to give up on that.. for example, what
> > extension does a PDF of layed out ascii have? A PDF of scanned pages?
> > A PDF of postscript algorithms that computes fractals?
>
> Nonsense, there are three types of ogg: audio, video and weird rubbish that
> nobody cares about. To use a different extension to one of these brings
> instant usability benefits to a large volume of users.

Well, IMO, if you're going to say "this is a custom extension for an
OGG container with only one type of content", you should do *both* .oga
and .ogv, and then do that hard parsing at run time for .oggs that you
couldn't pre-classify.

The problem isn't "creating a new .ogv".  It's "redefining .ogg as
meaning something more specific than it does".  If you're going to
impose more specific semantics, do it to your *own* extension, not the
standard one.

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

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


body:
On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 02:20:03PM +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> > I see no problem in .oga = audio, .ogv = video, .ogg = everything else
>
> The only problem I see with it is that .ogg is what everyone currently
> uses for audio.

You're assuming facts not in evidence, David.  Vorbis is 3 or 4 orders
of magnitude more common than Theora -- *right now*.  Because of this,
there *appears* to be a correlation, which isn't really reasonable to
draw for the long term.

See my other reply; Mark and I essentially proposed the same idea,
independently.

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

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


from_name: geni

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikimediauk-l] [Fwd: Royal Society Digital
	Journal Archive]

body:
On 10/3/06, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
> Quote below first posted to  <wikimediauk-l.Wikimedia.org>
>
> Below are two extracts from an article from the THES (Times Higher
> Education Supplement) Friday 22nd September 2006.
>
> If this is a research, then fine. But I am told that Wikipedia is not
> in the business of original research.
>

This is largely irrelivant since this would not be the area of law the
wikipedians would be looking to use.

--
geni


body:
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
> securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."
>
> yay!

Since I suspect most wikispambots are meant to target mediawiki using
software that has a special "not mediawiki" function is not completely
insane.

--
geni


body:
On 03/10/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > "Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
> > securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."
> > yay!

> Since I suspect most wikispambots are meant to target mediawiki using
> software that has a special "not mediawiki" function is not completely
> insane.

There are spambots for EVERYTHING. There are spambots for Slash. There
are spambots for Coppermine. Gah.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Ensuring veracity of articles based on print sources

body:
As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a hoax seem legitimate if you
cite a phony print source. What's not needed is new rules involving the use
of print sources, but to utilise something we had all along: Google.
Something we could do is Google the title of the book being referenced, and
then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in wiki mirrors). If it
doesn't exist, then we take further action. One thing we could do is for
every print source approved in an article, we can note that said print
sources have been verified to be true on the talk page (via some sort of
yellow talk page box). Comments?

--James


body:
For those books not mentioned in Google, we would of course do our best to
compile a list. Then once the list is made, knowing Google, it would only be
a matter of time that the list of old books would be listed on Google,
therefore making my testing mechanism work.

If we were to compile a list of these books, we'd probably have to protect
these pages from editing to prevent misuse/fraud.

On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a hoax seem legitimate if
> you
> > cite a phony print source. What's not needed is new rules involving the
> use
> > of print sources, but to utilise something we had all along: Google.
> > Something we could do is Google the title of the book being referenced,
> and
> > then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in wiki mirrors). If it
> > doesn't exist, then we take further action. One thing we could do is for
> > every print source approved in an article, we can note that said print
> > sources have been verified to be true on the talk page (via some sort of
> > yellow talk page box). Comments?
>
>
> I use lotsa references that aren't in Google and probably never will
> be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world between 1923 and 1995
> in that category.
>
> A list could be nice, of course.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Angela

body:
On 10/3/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Just an idea
>
> http://blog.netvibes.com/
>
> A blog to announce new and pending features. As well as to update on big
> network changes. Or new hardware.

That would be great, but only if there is anyone willing to write it.
The closest thing we have currently is the weekly technology report on
the English Wikipedia's Signpost:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-09-18/Technology_report

Angela.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
> the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.

I've never seen any data that would support that...  You know something I don't?

I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus
data from enwiki...

The fact is that once something has survived initial review on
watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay
fairly low.  (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted
images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and
uniform deletion probability after that)


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] building a search API

body:
> Short question:
>
> I'm getting inconsistent 403 forbidden errors when trying to read
> wikipedia.org content via PHP's file_get_contents().

Getting the same result:
==================================
root at bling:~# php --run 'print(file_get_contents("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space"));'

Warning: file_get_contents(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 403
Forbidden
 in Command line code on line 1

Call Stack:
    0.0002      69840   1. {main}() Command line code:0
    0.0002      69912   2. file_get_contents() Command line code:1
root at bling:~#
==================================

Hmmmm.

My suspicion is that it's just wanting a User-Agent header. In which case a) check that you're operating within the guidelines, and
b) if you believe you are, just give it one that accurately describes what you're doing. For example this works for me:
==================================
root at bling:~# php --run 'print(file_get_contents("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space",FALSE,stream_context_create(array("http"
=> array ("header"=> "User-Agent: Casey Bisson search API")))));'

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

[...snip...]

root at bling:~#
==================================

All the best,
Nick.


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 10/2/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> [snip]
>> In MediaWiki, we can detect the file type on upload and store it in the
>> DB. Then we can use that information in the DB to output the appropriate
>> HTML, if indeed a different player is required. But there is a clear
>> benefit to the ability to distinguish audio from video, after the user
>> downloads the file to their computer. In fact, I'm surprised .ogg is
>> used for video so widely given the obvious benefit of a discriminated
>> type, in this environment. Even if you use the same player for both
>> audio and video, it's nice to know what's what when you're looking at a
>> big list of files.
>
> Well there are tens of thousands of permutations of things that can go
> inside an ogg container..

I know, I've read the spec. But presumably it is fairly rare for Ogg files
to consist of chained audio and video streams. Most Ogg files can be easily
categorised as either audio or video. It's not a problem that you can
construct a file which can't be, and it's not a problem that at present, it
may be difficult to automatically distinguish between the two.

We *can* automatically distinguish between the two in most cases, with a
simple heuristic test. You can just read all the stream headers and see if
any of them are video.

For audio you could validate the stream against the Vorbis I audio file
specification, although it's unclear to me whether the user would care about
such a designation.

I'm not suggesting that there should be an extension for every permutation.
I'm just suggesting that for files which are clearly video files, .ogv would
be an appropriate extension. There are two important applications for .ogg,
audio and video, is it really so horrible to suggest that one of them might
deserve its own extension?

> Proper desktop systems have been doing the right thing for ages now,
> for example the Gnome file manager doohicky (nautilus) correctly shows
> a thumbnail and movie strip views on video files, while it shows a
> music icon on audio files.
>
> Even Windows Vista can happily differentiate files with file magic...

Scanning files for stream headers is slow, and you can't expect every
application to support it. Gnome does, Windows Vista does, but what about
the directory list module in Lighttpd? What about the unix ls command? What
about FTP clients, archivers and older desktop systems?

What exactly is the disadvantage to using two different file extensions for
Ogg rather than one?

> Extensions are just too inflexible to match up with reality... Ogg
> isn't at all the only container to give up on that.. for example, what
> extension does a PDF of layed out ascii have? A PDF of scanned pages?
> A PDF of postscript algorithms that computes fractals?

Nonsense, there are three types of ogg: audio, video and weird rubbish that
nobody cares about. To use a different extension to one of these brings
instant usability benefits to a large volume of users.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] building a search API

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> root at bling:~# php --run 'print(file_get_contents("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space",FALSE,stream_context_create(array("http"
> => array ("header"=> "User-Agent: Casey Bisson search API")))));'

I believe you can also use

ini_set('user_agent', 'Casey Bisson search API');
file_get_contents('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space');

Easier on the eyes perhaps?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Otrs-en-l] flushing from Answers.com, Google etc.

body:
On 10/3/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> One lingering issue with deletions (for instance, of prank or malevolent
> entries about totally random people with personal information) is that
> our content is massively replicated:
> * on mirror sites such as Answers.com
> * in Google cache.
>
> Telling people to go contact Answers.com and Google is probably legally
> correct (we're not responsible for these sites) but, to me, somehow
> sounds like we're passing the bucket (we helped create the mess in the
> first place after all).
>
> It would be neat if we could tell Google or Answers.com to flush out a
> particular article. This is probably just about the Foundation arranging
> a programmatic API with them.

Google offers a number of options for removing content from their
cache [1], but none of them are really helpful to us.

I'm sure we could set up some kind of system to automatically send out
a SOAP message or something similar to certain sites when articles are
deleted. Knowing that the technology exists is about the limit of my
knowledge in this field, so I'll send this to wikitech-l too.

Devs, would it be feasible to have some kind of system to notify these
regular updaters when certain articles are deleted?

----
(1) http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=8459

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
What's troubling is that, for ten months, Wikipedia not only asserted
that an island exists, but had an article documenting 'facts' about it.

That can't have a positive impact on our credibility. (Actually, it may
be that nobody knows, but the fact that they *could* is a problem that,
in my humble opinion, we need to take seriously.)

In keeping with tradition, I'd like to propose a technical solution that
everyone can ignore. ;-)

Suggestion: Automatically insert a suitable template into new/unsourced
text. I'd propose something similar to {{not verified}}.

Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of a
new article in the main namespace.

Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the
beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article
contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.

There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined hoaxer
to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two
passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the
benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of
*currently* unsourced articles.

Food for thought, anyway.

Jake

On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 08:43 -0400, Carl Peterson wrote:
> On 10/2/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> > daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > The population statistics, making it Lebanon's third largest city, and
> > the claim that the population almost tripled since 1982 makes me wonder
> > how much of that population can be attributed to elephants. :-)
>
>
> Wikiality in action, I tell you. Because Wikipedia (or at least one
> Wikipedian) says it exists, it must exist. We can thank Colbert for giving
> us the power to create whole islands (and a population of 300,000) just
> because one of us wants it to exist. Now, by deleting the article, we have
> doomed all these 300,000 people to death as the island resubmerges. :-)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> > > on en:wp by people
> > > who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> > > it therefore
> > > didn't exist.
> > > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> > > with the WMF?
>
> > Obviously not (Copyright?).  I think you are beind
> > sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
>
>
> It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who
> seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for
> a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
>
>
> >  "How to
> > come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
> > is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
> > requiring sources.  I think this is large enough
> > problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
> > consideration for this particular problem.
>
>
> Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing
> ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy.
> [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased
> didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it
> robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing
> the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically
> so as to avert.

Requiring sources is only partly helpful, as well.

It takes near-zero effort to set up multiple apparently widely separated
websites with coverage of a subject.

The amount of effort required to write up a faked book and self-publish it
out via one of the print-on-demand publishers, and then get it into Amazon,
isn't really all that much either.

Afraid that people will call you on that?  How much effort does it take to
make a fake page scan of a book claiming to have been printed prior to the
advent of ISBN numbers?  Oh, your library doesn't have a copy?  Not
suprising, only 5,000 copies were printed, ...

Intend to do it as an April 1 related event?  You can probably get reliable
news sources and personalities who are verifyably known to the world to
assist, if you find the ones with senses of humor.

If we have, or ever have in the future, people who are seriously interested
in hoaxing Wikipedia there is practically very little we can possibly do to
prevent it.  We can set a barrier for entry which is high enough to keep the
amateurs and vandals deterred... and I like the ideas people are posting for
additional review projects and hasn't-been-edited-for-a-month lists and
such.  I was thinking about this a couple of days ago; for example, on
en.wikipedia we have around a thousand admins and active trustable editors.
With a million articles, we could scan everything in a year, at a rate of 3
articles a person a day.  A few minutes of fact checking (and, while you're
there, putting in some references if it doesn't already have them, etc) each
day would go a long ways towards helping catch low-effort hoaxes.

I had been thinking that we could create an automatic list, which people
could then be randomly assigned articles out of to go check, and then
confirm back that they'd checked it somehow (put a tag on the talk page?).
Or break it down by topic, so people don't get article subjects they can't
reasonably fact check other than via google.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Tim Starling" <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote in
message news:efsjf0$a34$1 at sea.gmane.org...
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > [snip]
> > Extensions are just too inflexible to match up with reality... Ogg
> > isn't at all the only container to give up on that.. for example, what
> > extension does a PDF of layed out ascii have? A PDF of scanned pages?
> > A PDF of postscript algorithms that computes fractals?
>
> Nonsense, there are three types of ogg: audio, video and weird rubbish
that
> nobody cares about. To use a different extension to one of these brings
> instant usability benefits to a large volume of users.
>

And there is no reason NOT to use different extensions.  For example, on my
machine I have associated .a95 with Access 95, .a97 with Access 97 and .a2k
with Access 2000.  I have no .mdb files (the native file extension).  Aside
from having to select 'all files' instead of 'MS Access Databases' when
opening a file there is no disadvantage, but it makes things a lot easier
and clearer, and it means the right application opens when I double-click
the file.

I _could_ name my .ogg video files .ogv and (after updating the file
associations) have a much easier-to-use system.

OR this standard could be adopted globally and make _everyone's_ life
easier.

I see no problem in .oga = audio, .ogv = video, .ogg = everything else

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


body:
How about adding a "&feed=atom" type of parameter to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete
... That way they can pull the deletion log, rather than us pushing it?

All the best,
Nick.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Stephen Bain
> Sent: Tuesday, 3 October 2006 1:47 PM
> To: English OTRS discussion list; Wikimedia developers
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Otrs-en-l] flushing from Answers.com, Google
> etc.
>
>
> On 10/3/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> > One lingering issue with deletions (for instance, of prank or malevolent
> > entries about totally random people with personal information) is that
> > our content is massively replicated:
> > * on mirror sites such as Answers.com
> > * in Google cache.
> >
> > Telling people to go contact Answers.com and Google is probably legally
> > correct (we're not responsible for these sites) but, to me, somehow
> > sounds like we're passing the bucket (we helped create the mess in the
> > first place after all).
> >
> > It would be neat if we could tell Google or Answers.com to flush out a
> > particular article. This is probably just about the Foundation arranging
> > a programmatic API with them.
>
> Google offers a number of options for removing content from their
> cache [1], but none of them are really helpful to us.
>
> I'm sure we could set up some kind of system to automatically send out
> a SOAP message or something similar to certain sites when articles are
> deleted. Knowing that the technology exists is about the limit of my
> knowledge in this field, so I'll send this to wikitech-l too.
>
> Devs, would it be feasible to have some kind of system to notify these
> regular updaters when certain articles are deleted?
>
> ----
> (1) http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=8459
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:19 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of a
> > new article in the main namespace.
> > Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the
> > beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article
> > contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.
> > There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined hoaxer
> > to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two
> > passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the
> > benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of
> > *currently* unsourced articles.
>
>
> It'd save me going around putting {{unreferenced}} on lots of
> articles. Mind you, method 2 could be implemented by a semi-automatic
> bot. I must say, I'm tempted.

Hmm. Hadn't thought of that approach.

I have to say that I prefer {{not verified}}, because - to my mind - the
emphasis is that it hasn't *yet* been verified by another, whereas the
alternative strikes me as more critical. If I was a new user and had
just contributed an article, the former would likely encourage me to
continue, while the latter might make me disillusioned.

>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: James Hare

subject:
[Foundation-l] Reports of AFP using Wikipedia content without
	attribution

body:
And now on another blog:

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-10-03-n18.html

Congratulations!

On 10/3/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> today I was informed that the German subsidiary of AFP (Agence France
> Presse), a news agency seems to have taken a significant amount of
> text about the Amish from de.wikipedia.org.
>
> In a phone call, the AFP office confirmed that the text was from
> Wikipedia and stated that this was against "AFP policy" because
> "wikipedia is not a citable source". They refuse to retract or ammend
> the story with proper attribution for Wikipedia and the license.
>
> On the other hand, AFP sued Google News in 2005 because in AFP's point
> of view, Google was violating their copyright.
>
> A short report about this event from today can be found (in German) at
>
> http://mathias-schindler.de/index.php/2006/10/03/einladung-zum-textvergleich/
> .
>
> I will update or correct anything there. Feel free to translate the
> text or refer to it.
>
> Mathias
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:

> In keeping with tradition, I'd like to propose a technical solution that
> everyone can ignore. ;-)
> Suggestion: Automatically insert a suitable template into new/unsourced
> text. I'd propose something similar to {{not verified}}.

I did suggest article preloading a while ago. I *think* this is
available in MediaWiki. Is it time this looks like a good idea on en:?

Something like:

'''ARTICLENAME''' is ... (a quick few sentences about it)

(a few more sentences about it)

==References==

(List what you used to write this article that others could fact-check it with.)

==External links==

* [http://somethingorother.example Page about $ARTICLENAME]

Is the time for such a thing right yet?

> Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of a
> new article in the main namespace.
> Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the
> beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article
> contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.
> There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined hoaxer
> to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two
> passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the
> benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of
> *currently* unsourced articles.

It'd save me going around putting {{unreferenced}} on lots of
articles. Mind you, method 2 could be implemented by a semi-automatic
bot. I must say, I'm tempted.

- d.


body:
On 03/10/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:

> I see no problem in .oga = audio, .ogv = video, .ogg = everything else

The only problem I see with it is that .ogg is what everyone currently
uses for audio.

- d.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/3/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The population statistics, making it Lebanon's third largest city, and
> the claim that the population almost tripled since 1982 makes me wonder
> how much of that population can be attributed to elephants. :-)
>
> Ec

Wait, wait... so you are saying that George Washington *didn't* infact
have slaves?

--Oskar


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Carl Peterson <carlopeterson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Either one is easy for a determined hoaxer to circumvent. If the only
> requirement is an external link, ISBN, ref, etc., the hoaxer can just insert
> such a link.

There's no technical measure that can circumvent a social problem on
Wikipedia without ridiculous collateral damage.

With a wiki, any idiot can edit your site. Think of battling hoaxers,
vandals, etc. as an arms race between the bad idiots and the good
idiots.

We can't stop the bad idiots being bad before they've done so without
stopping the good idiots from being good. So a technical approach that
will work is one that lets the good idiots find and deal with bad
content more efficiently with minimised collateral damage.

(This is the principle that means we use vandal-detection bots rather
than greatly limiting what people are allowed to type.)

- d.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership

body:
A Letter and Check will be mailed to Wiki and it will say to doante the money to Wikinews.

  If thats not going to work, I will be on the phone.

effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
  Then still, how do you plan to make sure the money goes to wiki*news*
? Listening to Anthere's intonation, for the record, she is
boardmember of that same foundtaion, I guess that is not very
obvious...

Effe

2006/10/3, ROSC Club Director :
> I plan to make a check out to the Wikimedia Foundation and and send it to the address. This is an advertisment nonetheless.
> And several editors have already asked that you be blocked from the
> list. So, just do not do it.
>
> Incidently, may I ask you how you intend to make sure that these 2
> dollars actually get to wikinews ?
>
> ant
>
> ROSC Club Director wrote:
> > Look,
> >
> > For every new member ROSC gets, we donate $2 to www.wikinews.org.
> >
> > Last I know, no other club did that for wiki.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:

> Hmm. Hadn't thought of that approach.
> I have to say that I prefer {{not verified}}, because - to my mind - the
> emphasis is that it hasn't *yet* been verified by another, whereas the
> alternative strikes me as more critical. If I was a new user and had
> just contributed an article, the former would likely encourage me to
> continue, while the latter might make me disillusioned.

{{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's over.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> {{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's over.

Problem is that people would rather ah read about dancing pigs. Well
that an the issue that the various cleanup lists are insanely
backloged.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> > on en:wp by people
> > who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> > it therefore
> > didn't exist.
> > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> > with the WMF?

> Obviously not (Copyright?).  I think you are beind
> sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.

It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who
seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for
a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.

>  "How to
> come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
> is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
> requiring sources.  I think this is large enough
> problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
> consideration for this particular problem.

Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing
ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy.
[[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased
didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it
robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing
the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically
so as to avert.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
>
> > Hmm. Hadn't thought of that approach.
> > I have to say that I prefer {{not verified}}, because - to my mind - the
> > emphasis is that it hasn't *yet* been verified by another, whereas the
> > alternative strikes me as more critical. If I was a new user and had
> > just contributed an article, the former would likely encourage me to
> > continue, while the latter might make me disillusioned.
>
>
> {{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's over.

Combined with your preloaded template, that could work very nicely.

Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > > On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
>
> > > {{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's over.
>
> > Combined with your preloaded template, that could work very nicely.
>
>
> Even without it, it'd help us quickly warn the reader there's nothing
> behind a given article!
>
> The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> over the result.

What makes you say that?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 14:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:

> > {{not verified}} if it's under a few days old, {{unreferenced}} if it's over.

> Combined with your preloaded template, that could work very nicely.

Even without it, it'd help us quickly warn the reader there's nothing
behind a given article!

The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
over the result.

Hmm.

- d.


body:
"David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:fbad4e140610030620i2e8356cayd9d02756bc9d789f at mail.gmail.com...
> On 03/10/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk>
wrote:
>
> > I see no problem in .oga = audio, .ogv = video, .ogg = everything else
>
>
> The only problem I see with it is that .ogg is what everyone currently
> uses for audio.
>
>
> - d.

Sure. Maybe I should have used .ogg = generic ogg file (which may be audio
or video or something else).

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
>
> > > The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> > > over the result.
>
> > What makes you say that?
>
>
> (a) people will be happier if there's a human pressing the button (b)
> in a crappily-formatted article, the source info may be easy for a
> human to spot but hard for a robot. I just changed [[Riptides]] to
> take the {{unreferenced}} off it since the ref was given as plain text
> as the last paragraph. (I put that in a more standard format as well.)

Hmm. How about using a custom template, as Carl essentially suggested,
and in addition, make sure that this template explicitly states what has
happened and that it will be reviewed in due course. Also append a
suitable category so that it's very easy for volunteers to find and
review these articles.

Is transparency a good-enough solution?

Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:

> > The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> > over the result.

> What makes you say that?

(a) people will be happier if there's a human pressing the button (b)
in a crappily-formatted article, the source info may be easy for a
human to spot but hard for a robot. I just changed [[Riptides]] to
take the {{unreferenced}} off it since the ref was given as plain text
as the last paragraph. (I put that in a more standard format as well.)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 10:48 -0400, Carl Peterson wrote:
> On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> >
> > > > The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> > > > over the result.
> >
> > > What makes you say that?
> >
> >
> > (a) people will be happier if there's a human pressing the button (b)
> > in a crappily-formatted article, the source info may be easy for a
> > human to spot but hard for a robot. I just changed [[Riptides]] to
> > take the {{unreferenced}} off it since the ref was given as plain text
> > as the last paragraph. (I put that in a more standard format as well.)
>
>
> While I agree there should probably someone reviewing the changes, a
> "patrol" would probably pop up whose sole reason for existence is to try to
> put sources on everything _or_ (and this is what I fear might be more
> likely) to speedy half the articles out of existence.

That's not necessarily a bad thing (depending on the article, and I hope
and trust that most admins speedy responsibly), nor is it significantly
different from what currently happens. The main difference is that the
volunteers who do this find that they have a tool to make their task
easier.

Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 16:00 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> Maybe. But if we're going to bother, semi-auto is just fine IMO. Also,
> if it's something completely automatic, it needs much more stringent review.
(incorporating your correction)

I take your point. My only concern is that there are likely to be a
*lot* of articles to review, and so one human reviewer would be a major
bottleneck.

> (I'm busy working out how I can do this, and arrange to do it.)

Great! If you want comments on the design, or any code reviewing, let me
know, as I'd be happy to help.

Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:39 +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> > On 03/10/06, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 15:23 +0100, David Gerard wrote:

> > > > The bot would have to be semi-auto, i.e. a human would have to look
> > > > over the result.

> > > What makes you say that?

> > (a) people will be happier if there's a human pressing the button (b)

> Hmm. How about using a custom template, as Carl essentially suggested,
> and in addition, make sure that this template explicitly states what has
> happened and that it will be reviewed in due course. Also append a
> suitable category so that it's very easy for volunteers to find and
> review these articles.
> Is transparency a good-enough solution?

Maybe. But if we're going to bother, semi-auto is just fine IMO. Also,
if it's something

(I'm busy working out how I can do this, and arrange to do it.)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe. But if we're going to bother, semi-auto is just fine IMO. Also,
> if it's something

... completely automatic, it needs much more stringent review.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
On 03/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Maybe. But if we're going to bother, semi-auto is just fine IMO. Also,
> > if it's something

> ... completely automatic, it needs much more stringent review.

I'm looking at [[Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser]], for instance. Note that
this is designed so a human looks at every change before it happens
and presses the button. You're also only supposed to use it no faster
than a certain rate. And so on. And so on.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think this is true of most rules and a good reason
> to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
> hoaxes.  They key is to find them quickly.  I think
> en.WP generally does a good job of this.  I imagine
> they patrol articles much more effectively than other
> communities.  (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get
> a more matter-of-fact recation)

Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.

> I think the key is
> finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles.  If we
> could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles
> sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
> profile.  It may be enought to do a second round of
> "patrols" off such a list.  Although that doesn't help
> with any currently existing hoaxes.

Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp - visible to admins
only? It's worth a try...

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership

body:
Some people fail to grasp the level of passion that many of our
participants feel about advertising.  They need to be reminded that a
few years ago a significant group broke away at the mere suggestion that
the site might carry advertising.  The ads never happened, but the group
still broke away.

Ec

ROSC Club Director wrote:

>I plan to make a check out to the Wikimedia Foundation and and send it to the address.  This is an advertisment nonetheless.
>And several editors have already asked that you be blocked from the
>list. So, just do not do it.
>
>Incidently, may I ask you how you intend to make sure that these 2
>dollars actually get to wikinews ?
>
>ant
>
>ROSC Club Director wrote:
>
>
>>Look,
>>
>>For every new member ROSC gets, we donate $2 to www.wikinews.org.
>>
>>Last I know, no other club did that for wiki.
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] Club Membership


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
> It might be unmanagable.  I don't even know if my idea
> is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
> with the toolserver.  Another idea is if a Lunar
> Changes list can be generated.  Basically the same as
> Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
> change was exactly one-month ago.

"at least one month since last change" would be a good one!

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.
>
>There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people
>who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore
>didn't exist.
>
>Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
>
Exactly, and it's pointless for some people to become so panicked over
this.  That will accomplish nothing.

Strangely, there is an advantage to having an article with no sources at
all.  Readers will be more inclined to doubt it, and question its
accuracy.  There is nothing easier than hoaxing the sources for a fact.
An honest editor will find such tactics unthinkable, and will be quite
rightly upset when he's questioned.  A dishonest one (who is more than
merely stupid) can feign any attribute of an honest editor.

Honest editors can still misunderstand their sources, or with a simple
error that adds or omits the word "not" can get the subject completely
wrong.  Fact checking means hard work.  It means more than berating
those who have failed to provide detailed sources, and whining when
honest editors bite back.  In my dreams I imagine a Wikipedia where
those who question the facts of others are also curious enough to seek
out corroborating information.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


body:
On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:

> As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a hoax seem legitimate if you
> cite a phony print source. What's not needed is new rules involving the use
> of print sources, but to utilise something we had all along: Google.
> Something we could do is Google the title of the book being referenced, and
> then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in wiki mirrors). If it
> doesn't exist, then we take further action. One thing we could do is for
> every print source approved in an article, we can note that said print
> sources have been verified to be true on the talk page (via some sort of
> yellow talk page box). Comments?

I use lotsa references that aren't in Google and probably never will
be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world between 1923 and 1995
in that category.

A list could be nice, of course.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
> > It might be unmanagable.  I don't even know if my idea
> > is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
> > with the toolserver.  Another idea is if a Lunar
> > Changes list can be generated.  Basically the same as
> > Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
> > change was exactly one-month ago.
>
> "at least one month since last change" would be a good one!

Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but...

Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is
one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by
only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much
response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be
productive.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but...
> Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is
> one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by
> only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much
> response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be
> productive.

:-D I like it! A simple matter of programming, of course ...

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement

body:
On 03/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
> > the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
>
> I've never seen any data that would support that...  You know something I don't?
>
> I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus
> data from enwiki...

Interesting. This is just my gut feeling based on the ones I've run
across and the ones I've seen reported; I haven't pulled together any
numbers.

> The fact is that once something has survived initial review on
> watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay
> fairly low.  (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted
> images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and
> uniform deletion probability after that)

Hum. Technical study suggestion: Is it possible to identify all
VFD/AFD debates which include the word "hoax", and figure out the
age-at-deletion of all articles correspondingly deleted?

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Porchesia atonement


subject: [WikiEN-l] Porchesia

body:
Carl Peterson wrote:

>Either one is easy for a determined hoaxer to circumvent. If the only
>requirement is an external link, ISBN, ref, etc., the hoaxer can just insert
>such a link.
>
Any randomly selected ISBN will do.

Ec


subject:
[Foundation-l] Ensuring veracity of articles based on
	print	sources

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a hoax seem legitimate if you
>>cite a phony print source. What's not needed is new rules involving the use
>>of print sources, but to utilise something we had all along: Google.
>>Something we could do is Google the title of the book being referenced, and
>>then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in wiki mirrors). If it
>>doesn't exist, then we take further action. One thing we could do is for
>>every print source approved in an article, we can note that said print
>>sources have been verified to be true on the talk page (via some sort of
>>yellow talk page box). Comments?
>>
>>
>I use lotsa references that aren't in Google and probably never will
>be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world between 1923 and 1995
>in that category.
>
Don't despair!  If we wait long enough for them to go into the public
domain they can be added to Wikisource.

Ec


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Corporate vanity policy enforcement

body:
On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:22:20 -0400, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>As far as not biting the newbies, well, of course I agree.  A kind and
>loving template which says "Thanks so much for your submission to
>Wikipedia, but it was deleted.  Before submitting again, please read
><this>, <that>, and <the other> policy, and if you have questions,
>please raise them at <an appropriate page>."

OK, I'll nibble at this particular bait.  How should I improve this
template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nn-userfy which I use
when userfying autobiographies tagged for speedy deletion?

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
James Hare wrote:

>For those books not mentioned in Google, we would of course do our best to
>compile a list. Then once the list is made, knowing Google, it would only be
>a matter of time that the list of old books would be listed on Google,
>therefore making my testing mechanism work.
>
>If we were to compile a list of these books, we'd probably have to protect
>these pages from editing to prevent misuse/fraud.
>
That may not be enough.  Take it one step further.  One can still cite a
phoney article in an otherwise well known and respected magazine from a
hundred years ago.

Ec


references:
<20061001095851.QEQL23938.aamtaout02-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<54a44a8b0610010301n2d893236l8e088fabb9dbfeb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<451FF94C.7020908@wikia.com>
	<nv55i21fd5l8kcs0la0q0svgtcbe4op28q@4ax.com>

body:
On 03/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> OK, I'll nibble at this particular bait.  How should I improve this
> template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nn-userfy which I use
> when userfying autobiographies tagged for speedy deletion?

A link to your talk page, preferably an "add a section" link?

- d.


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I come out against excessive process quite a lot. Process is actually
> important, though - else people haven't a *goddamn clue* which way is
> up, and our bureaucracy is confusing enough to newbies. So it is
> vitally important that process be shaped so that it is fit for mere
> humans.

Thank you, David. This is a critical point for us all to remember.

Process, like so many things, is not inherently bad. It's the abuse of
process that causes problems.

However, as we fight excessive process and the abuse of process, we need to
retain process that helpful, especially for those who otherwise would not
know where to start or where to go next.

-Rich
[[W:en:User:Rholton]]


body:
Or better, set the following in .htaccess in your wiki directory:

php_flag  display_startup_errors  on
php_flag  display_errors    on
php_value  error_reporting   2047

This means that the changes will only affect the wiki, not the whole system.
Remember to disable the lines (comment them out for quick retrieval) before
you go live.

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)

--------------------
"Jimmy Collins" <Jimmy.Collins at web.de> wrote in
message news:1262644147 at web.de...
Hi,

set in your php.ini

error_reporting  =  E_ALL
display_errors = On

Cheers, Jimmy

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: fadeev at princeton.edu, Wikimedia developers
<wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Gesendet: 03.10.06 00:41:27
> An: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> Betreff: [Wikitech-l] basic php debugging for writing mediawiki extension

> Hi,
>
> I am trying to create an extension for the mediawiki
> and found that when my extension does not compile wiki
> just hangs and i get bank  screen in the browser.
>
> Is it possible to somehow enable printing php
> compilation errors to the browser scren for debugging
> purposes?
>
> Thank you!
>
> Evgeny.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


references:
<20061001095851.QEQL23938.aamtaout02-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@smtp.ntlworld.com>
	<54a44a8b0610010301n2d893236l8e088fabb9dbfeb2@mail.gmail.com>
	<451FF94C.7020908@wikia.com>
	<nv55i21fd5l8kcs0la0q0svgtcbe4op28q@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140610031007s6ef49f02y420162554cfea192@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:07:56 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> OK, I'll nibble at this particular bait.  How should I improve this
>> template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nn-userfy which I use
>> when userfying autobiographies tagged for speedy deletion?

>A link to your talk page, preferably an "add a section" link?

Good thought.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 11:23:39 +0100, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>discretion in Arbish is read as saying that pro-active admins are the
>first, second and probably third lines of defence of the project. It
>is much better to have them out there doing their best, and taking
>away the mop-and-bucket from a very few, than doing up the constraints
>ever tighter, because it is felt that this pre-empts misuse of admin
>powers.

Judging by Tony Sidaway's Talk page, the wonks are winning.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Fwd: whom I have to ask for approval of Gileki
	wikipedia?how find a developer?

body:
Well, it was justified on the following grounds:

1) It was one of the "original" IntAuxLangs
2) It has enjoyed a recent revival of interest
3) Its test WP grew to a considerable size.

I imagine the debate over Klingon would've been a bit less one-sided
if the Klingon WP had had more articles.

Mark

On 30/09/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I think we can do without Novial in the same way we can do without
> Klingon.  The arguments in its favour seem to give it an importance that
> is not matched with reality.  The inclusion of Novial words in the
> English Wiktionary does not imply that a full project for this language
> is warranted.  The Wikibook about Novial quite properly explains the
> language; it does nothing to establish that there is anything other than
> translations or books about Novial written about the language.  Who is
> the audience for this language?
>
> I would even question the legitimacy of many of the votes in support of
> the language.
>
> Ec
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Yes, including:
> >
> >-Wu (code wuu, native name ??)
> >-Mazandarani (code mzn, native name ????????)
> >-Newari (code new, native name ????? ????)
> >-Lak (code lbe, native name ?????)
> >-Sammarinese/Emilian-Romagnol (code eml, native name Emili?)
> >-Buryat (code bxr, native name ??????)
> >-Upper Sorbian (code hsb, native name Hornjoserbsce)
> >-Novial (code nov, native name Novial)
> >-Pangasinan (code pag, native name Pangasinan)
> >-Austrobavarian (code bar, native name Boarisch)
> >-Bishnupriya Manipuri (code bpy, native name ???? ???/????????????? ???????)
> >-Dimli-Zazaki (code diq, native name Zazaki)
> >-Zeelandic (code zea, native name Ze?uws)
> >-Tarantino (code roa-tara, native name Tarand?ne)
> >-Zamboageno (code cbk-zam, native name Chavacano de Zamboanga)
> >-Classical Chinese/Literary Chinese (code zh-classical, native name ???)
> >-North Russian (code ru-sib, native name ????????? / ???????????????)
> >-Min Dong (code cdo, native name M?ng-d??ng-ng??)
> >
> >It may seem like a lot, but in fact each of them has many contributors
> >and native speakers (in the case of Novial and Literary Chinese,
> >fluent writers) waiting to begin building them, and they have been
> >approved by a majority of voters. Most of them have quickly-growing
> >test wikipedias already.
> >
> >For more information, you can see if you like
> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Approved_requests_for_new_languages
> >although that page is rather long and cumbersome now.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >On 29/09/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>SJ wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>48 supports, no opposition, 5 actively interested editors including a
> >>>native speaker.  It certainly has the requisite # of interested
> >>>parties.  Wikitech-l is perhaps more likely to grab the attention of a
> >>>developer who can set up the new wiki... where did you send previous
> >>>emails about this?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I think it's probably about time that we created a batch of new wikis. Are
> >>there any other suitable candidates that we can do at the same time?
> >>
> >>-- Tim Starling
> >>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
Hi,

today I was informed that the German subsidiary of AFP (Agence France
Presse), a news agency seems to have taken a significant amount of
text about the Amish from de.wikipedia.org.

In a phone call, the AFP office confirmed that the text was from
Wikipedia and stated that this was against "AFP policy" because
"wikipedia is not a citable source". They refuse to retract or ammend
the story with proper attribution for Wikipedia and the license.

On the other hand, AFP sued Google News in 2005 because in AFP's point
of view, Google was violating their copyright.

A short report about this event from today can be found (in German) at
http://mathias-schindler.de/index.php/2006/10/03/einladung-zum-textvergleich/.

I will update or correct anything there. Feel free to translate the
text or refer to it.

Mathias


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Reports of AFP using Wikipedia content without
	attribution


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Reports of AFP using Wikipedia content without
	attribution


from_name: SJ Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

body:
+++ Ray Saintonge [03/10/06 01:25 -0700]:
>valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:
>
>>I strong support three different Wikimania: one for Europe/Africa,
>>one for Asia/Australia, one form America.
>>
>>The Asia has got many problems and one Wikimania cannot solve them,
>>but also the core of Wikipedians are in the Europe, but also the
>>Digital Divide is a big problem in Africa, etc.
>>
>As for Africa and the digital divide it could be a humbling experience
>for those of us from developed countries to go to a conference there.
>We could have first hand experience of the difficulties in bringing
>knowledge to the people of that continent.

A very real digital divide exists; but your last statement could come
across as patronizing.  More interesting than 'bringing information to'
is receiving information from less technologically developed regions...
countering 'systemic bias' in a way that is only recently imaginable.

SJ


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki as Google Ads keyword

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> "Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
> securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."
>

And in CamelCase, too! Sorry, I like my [[free links]] too much.

--
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:
David Gerard wrote:
> "Don't Install Mediawiki - PBwiki.com - We can host your wiki
> securely, backed up and guarded 24/7."
>

And in CamelCase, too! Sorry, I like my [[free links]] too much.

--
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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