subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
No. I'm arguing that the list you are citing makes NO CLAIMS to be a
"list of valid reasons for deletion." The list you cite is a single
entry in a lengthy table in deletion policy about which page to send
things to. It is less a list of critieria for deletion on VfD and more
a list of things that are not speedy deletion criteria, and it's
absurdly revisionist to present it as some sort of declaration of the
only reasons one can delete an article.

-Snowspinner

On Oct 23, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Mark Richards wrote:

> This is lunacy. You are arguing that, although there
> is a list of valid reasons for deletion, and
> 'non-notablity' has consistently NOT been added to it
> because there is no concensus, this does not in any
> way indicate that non-notablity is not a reason for
> deletion?
> If that's really what you are arguing, then I don't
> think there is anything that will convince you,
> because you are clearly not interested in community
> concensus building.
> Mark
>
> --- Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> It also says nothing in the deletion policy about
>> criteria for deletion
>> on VfD. It lists some deletion criteria that must be
>> VfDed, but it
>> makes no claims anywhere to provide an exhaustive
>> list of valid reasons
>> for deletion.
>>
>> -Snowspinner
>>
>> On Oct 23, 2004, at 12:11 AM, Mark Richards wrote:
>>
>>> The point is that there is no policy that says
>> that
>>> notability or not is a reason for deletion. I
>> might
>>> just as well get a group of morons to vote to
>> delete
>>> any article with the work 'green' in them. If
>> there
>>> was a vote to do it, why not? Well, because it's
>>> stupid and damaging. The fact that you can get
>> five or
>>> six people to consistently do it doesn't make it
>>> right. That's why there is nothing on the deletion
>>> criteria which says anything about notablity.
>>> Mark
>>>
>>> --- Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Where is the policy consensus which says school
>>>> articles are not to be deleted?  You can't point
>> to
>>>> it, because it does not exist.  Therefore, each
>> of
>>>> these non-notable school stubs needs to be listed
>>>> individually on VfD.  If you can get a consensus
>>>> which says that school articles are to stay, then
>>>> all of these schools will no longer be listed on
>>>> VfD.  But until there is such an article, so long
>> as
>>>> people continue to make articles about
>> non-notable
>>>> schools and don't indicate anything in the
>> article
>>>> which indicates that they ARE notable, they will
>>>> continue to be listed.
>>>>
>>>> RickK
>>>>
>>>> Mark Richards <marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> 1. Noone is questioning your right to revert (or
>>>> maybe
>>>> even delete) 'Peter is gay'.
>>>> 2. There are specific people consistently
>> deleting
>>>> articles that have real content. For example,
>>>> schools.
>>>> They have consitently failed to gain concensus to
>>>> delete all school articles, and so are listing
>> every
>>>> school individually, counting on the fact that
>> noone
>>>> can be bothered to vote on every one. The fact
>> that
>>>> each one is often a stub at this stage makes it
>>>> easier
>>>> still to delete them, and allows them to make the
>>>> case
>>>> that there is precident for deleting more
>> schools.
>>>>
>>>> The point is that this is contentious, because
>> not
>>>> only is real information about real things (not
>>>> 'Peter
>>>> is gay') is being lost, and furthermore, only
>> admins
>>>> can even see what is was that was lost.
>>>> Mark R.
>>>>
>>>> --- Delirium wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I've only been skimming this thread, but I think
>>>>> people proposing
>>>>> policies upon policies are missing what actually
>>>>> makes wikipedia work:
>>>>> people just do things that need to be done. When
>> I
>>>>> see a crap article
>>>>> that says "peter is gay", I hit 'delete', I
>> don't
>>>>> list it on a page and
>>>>> request permission to delete it. I don't think
>>>> most
>>>>> other people do
>>>>> either (or even read this list or the millions
>> of
>>>>> policy pages).
>>>>>
>>>>> It's true people should exercise discretion, but
>>>> if
>>>>> an article that has
>>>>> about 8 words in it was "unfairly" deleted, it's
>>>> not
>>>>> like Wikipedia has
>>>>> lost an irreplaceable masterwork. There is no
>>>>> prohibition against
>>>>> creating a new article in its place (and while
>>>>> you're at it, if you made
>>>>> it better it wouldn't even be a question). If
>>>> there
>>>>> are specific people
>>>>> consistently deleting questionable things, you
>>>> could
>>>>> leave a message on
>>>>> their talk page asking them about it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some of the arguments over "unfairly deleted"
>> VfD
>>>>> articles seem to have
>>>>> a similar misconception that we're deleting all
>>>>> possible articles at
>>>>> that location, while we're only deleting the one
>>>>> that's actually there.
>>>>> If there's an incoherent article with no useful
>>>>> information at a
>>>>> location of a famous person or entity, it's
>> still
>>>>> appropriate to delete
>>>>> it. Someone can later create an actual article
>> at
>>>>> that location, which
>>>>> then wouldn't be deleted.
>>>>>
>>>>> But the main point is that Wikipedia works by
>>>> people
>>>>> doing what they
>>>>> think is reasonable, and talking to people who
>> are
>>>>> doing things they
>>>>> disagree with, not by a bunch of policy
>>>> mumbo-jumob.
>>>>> I've taken to not
>>>>> even reading policy pages anymore, because there
>>>> are
>>>>> literally thousands
>>>>> of them, and most of them are incredibly long
>> and
>>>>> intricate. I don't
>>>>> know what the hell deletion policy is anymore:
>>>> there
>>>>> must be at least 10
>>>>> pages on the subject, and 100 proposals to
>> replace
>>>>> it with a new set of
>>>>> policies.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Mark
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________
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>>>> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
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>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>>
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>>
>>>>
>> __________________________________________________
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>>>> protection around
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>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________
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>>> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
>>> http://vote.yahoo.com
>>
> === message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________
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> Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
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>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
NSK wrote:

>On Saturday 23 October 2004 21:31, Rick wrote:
>
>
>>VfD has the consensus support of the community.  Articles about schools
>>listed on VfD have, for the most part, consensus support to be deleted.
>>
>>
>
>Probably because the masses enjoy destroying things. 18th century
>encyclopedists didn't allow the uneducated masses to destroy the knowledge.
>
>
If we're going by this standard, 18th-century encyclopedists also didn't
have lots of articles about high schools in their encyclopedias.  I
think you'll find Diderot's encyclopedia to have significantly fewer
articles on schools than even this deletion-happy Wikipedia does.

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: MediaWiki licensing (and other NSK replies)

body:
NSK wrote:
> Although most GNU developers don't like BSDL, they should not be afraid of
> LGPL: LGPL protects your contributions while allowing them to be linked with
> non-GPL code. That's of great importance in the modern world and can help you
> to attain a much broader user base.

I don't want a broader user base. Non-Wikimedia users just waste my time
and give nothing back.

> All pages in the main namespace are protected and only a sysop can change
> them. Users can only update the Test: namespace where the articles are
> developed and this has replaced the Talk: namespace which is substituted by
> phpBB threads. Anons are of course not allowed in the wiki but they are more
> than welcome to post in the forum.

Then you're not running a wiki. I wish you the best of luck in your
experiment, whatever you want to call it.

> I should note that I discourage excessive editing in my wikis and I encourage
> extensive discussion and collaboration in the mailing list and the forum
> before applying changes in an article. The motto is: "first we discuss, then
> we edit".

Wikipedia gets as many edits every 3 minutes as your site has had in its
entire existence. Don't judge the wiki process before you understand it.

>>
>> One thing which I believe has been discussed is diff-based storage,
>> which would dramatically decrease the space needed for storing an
>> article's history.
>
>
> That's great! I wonder why this is not implemented already. Do you have enough
> programmers in MW? Does WMF pay for development costs?

I wrote an experimental system for history compression based on
concatenating and gzipping, last weekend. I might do a diff-based one
this weekend.

Wikimedia doesn't pay us for development costs, they don't have that
sort of money. Actually if they have money burning a hole in their
pockets, I'd prefer it if they'd rethink their aversion to buying
proprietary software. Currently they buy large amounts of proprietary
hardware instead.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: NSK

references:
<EPEJIODJLBDLEHGHIEADOEFABEAB.gbildson@limepeer.com>
	<200410230310.30530.nsk2@wikinerds.org>
	<clco29$qbj$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 07:53, Tim Starling wrote:
> Don't judge the wiki process before you understand it.

I understand it and I know the wiki model allows disruptive people to do
whatever they want very easily, so I want to try an alternative and see how
it goes.

> I wrote an experimental system for history compression based on
> concatenating and gzipping, last weekend. I might do a diff-based one
> this weekend.

Great

> Currently they buy large amounts of proprietary
> hardware instead.

Someday you might be able to buy Free hardware, too: http://www.opencores.org

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion and notability

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 09:49, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> don't expect us to agree with you all the time

I have no reason to expect something like this

> I was thinking your knowledgebase idea is a good one

Thanks

> just not appropriate to Wikipedia

My impression was that some people prefer to participate in endless
discussions about whether a particular article is encyclopedic or not or
whether it should be deleted or moved instead of editing or improving the
actual content. But it may be just an impression.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 10:14, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> How are we going to counter that expert's biases?

That's a good observation. Many experts have extreme biases and could hurt WP.

> How do we make sure we do not become elitist? How do we have many people
> contribute to the piece?

The idea of Elitism is not to have many people, but few hard-working excellent
contributors who produce state-of-the-art work.

> your suggestions here running entirely counter to
> Wikipedia's stated goals

Perhaps I overstated some of my suggestions.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 10:54, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> there was a "You sad bastard" thread that was started on Kuro5hin.org

I don't know this thread but if it was something unusual that attracted the
interest of some people I might be interested to see it. I want to write some
short articles on unusual online culture. What's the URL?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Trigger-happy New Pages patrol

body:
Rebecca wrote

> I haven't seen the cases at hand, but knowing recent events, I'd guess
> that they were probably substubs. And that's where they don't help
> Wikipedia, because they contribute precisely nothing (and diminish our
> credibility, by showing us to prefer quantity over quality).

They were: [[taut submanifold]], [[isometric immersion]], [[Riemannian
submanifold]] and [[critical point]].

The whole deletionist/inclusionist thing is a red herring here (though
obviously a debate waiting to happen).  All I wanted to point out, was that
existing, accepted policies were not being applied with care.

As for all that: I would consider myself deletionist when it comes to the
sciences, inclusionist for the humanities, and not otherwise very engaged in
the debate (no ads, vanity pages, etc.) .

I'm a stubophile, though.  I don't think there is enough agreement about the
'quality' we are supposed to prefer over quantity.  I signed up, not
entirely convinced about the premise, with the SystemicBias WikiProject; the
way Danny's competition is going now seems designed to make their case for
them.  What you would do, to correct the slant towards (for example)
well-fed people who appear on TV in the USA, would be to post articles about
significant other kinds of people, even if information was harder to find.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 13:36, Rebecca wrote:
> What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
> to write an article on my deceased cat?

I see no reason why the online WP couldn't have such an article. Obviously the
1.0 paper edition couldn't, but if you have disk space and you flag the
"non-encyclopedic" articles as such, there is absolutely no problem.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


body:
Nicholas Knight wrote

>Not waiting to happen, happening again. We've been over arguments like
> this repeatedly, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

Same thing.  I agree with you, and disagree with Ed Poor - if it's the
debate people want to have, then it will happen in this forum.  No matter if
it settles nothing.

Charles


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] consensus?

body:
> VfD has the consensus support of the community.

No it doesn't.

> Articles about schools listed on VfD have, for the most part, consensus
support to be deleted.  QED.

They probably don't even have a majority support to be deleted.  They
certainly don't have a consensus support.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK lies

body:
> To begin with, where is the "grammatical error" in "every person
> and every company ever in existence should be kept"?

Did you really mean to imply that I believe people and companies should be
kept?  I certainly think we should keep all people.  Articles about those
people, on the other hand...

> Secondly, where did I lie when you below support what I said?

You said I "vote to keep any and every article ever written", even after
I've repeatedly pointed out that this isn't true.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Viewing deleted pages

body:
> > "allow non-sysops to view deleted pages".

> You need to thin[k] about legal consequences if you allow everyone to
access
> "deleted" copyright violations or illegal information.

I presume only logged in users would be allowed to view these articles, not
everyone.  I don't see how the legal consequences of this are any different
from the legal consequences of allowing admins to access the articles, or
allowing everyone to access the copyright violations in the history.

Yes, there should be some type of real deletion, for articles or history
entries which are illegal for us to distribute, but this is a separate
issue.  It should be done regardless of whether access to deleted articles
is limited to admins, to all logged in users, or to admins and me.

> > allow certain IP addresses to access deleted articles.

> That's unfair to IP switchers, including but not limited to people who
access
> WP from many computer networks (home/work/etc), people who change ISP and
> dynamic connections.

It's already "unfair" for these IP switchers, though.  At least allowing
some people to access these article would make it less unfair.  I suppose
this could be implemented with a username and password in addition, but I'd
prefer to not have to log in, as this is just more overhead for my scripts.

> > [if] there's an objection to me personally having access to deleted
articles.

> Not allowing access to information to a specific person just because that
> person's presence is perhaps undesired is undemocratic.

If I were singled out, perhaps, but I was using myself as an example.  If
Wikipedia allowed me, personally, to access deleted articles (in addition to
admins), they certainly wouldn't be in any more legal trouble than if they
only allowed admins.

> I thought there was some due process that disallowed sysops from deleting
> legitimate content via "speedy deletions".

There is considerable disagreement over whether or not small stubs may be
speedily deleted under this process.  This is in addition to the fact that
there are a number of admins who regularly break the speedy deletion policy.

>  I would say that downloading the dumps just to get some vfd articles
consumes
> too much bandwidth that other people would use for reading and learning.

Well that's not the only reason I get the dumps, but yes, it's not the most
efficient method.

> I think MediaWiki keeps all deleted articles in the archive database table
but
> it is readable only by sysops. Perhaps you could ask for sysop privileges
and
> use them only for reading the deleted articles

I've actually already tried this.  My request was overwhelmingly
disapproved.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Rebecca wrote:

>>Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.
>>
>>
>According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
>to write an article on my deceased cat?
>
That's a straw cat argument.

>>They're not trying to trip up anybody.  Your supposition is based on
>>nothing.  The onus is on the deletionist to learn respect.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>Learn respect? If I come in and graffiti all over your front door, do
>you then need to learn respect for yelling at me for doing so? Bah.
>
>
What does graffiti have to do with notability.  What you're saying is
the you can take the sound arguments that underlie one deletion
criterion (vandalism), and transfer them to justify an entirely
different criterion (notability).  That's a logical fallacy.

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia France

body:
Hello,

The french association Wikim?dia France was officially
created today in Paris.

After a full day rererereading bylaws, changing
articles (again...) and correcting typos, and just
stopping for lunch, all fondators physically present
signed the final documents.

We were actually slower than expected, and we ended up
in an internet cafe to print final bylaws before
signing them, since we had to leave the meeting room
before being done :-)

The foundators are 20. Those not physically present
will sent proxy voting in the next few days to Ryo.

We had to refuse a few candidate foundators, as they
had not offered the necessary information in time
(name, adress etc...).

2 foundators (present on irc) also decided not to sign
the bylaws.

On monday the 25th, a meeting on irc of all foundators
will allow to elect a board of 5 to 9 people. 12
people are candidate.

On thursday, on irc again, all board members will
elect their president, secretary and treasurer.

------

All in all, though a tiring day, it was a very
interesting moment for all of us and a real pleasure
to meet new people and to see others again :-)

Anthere

_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today!
http://vote.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia France


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
John Lee wrote:

> Nicholas Knight wrote:
>
>>> Whatever. That's not the point in this case. You all know what I
>>> mean; I
>>
>> "Whatever" might be an acceptable response in a high-school
>> cafeteria, but this is not a high-school cafeteria.
>
> Pedanticism.

It may interest you to know that the correct form of the word is
"pedantry".  Someone who chooses to use the expression should know that.

>  I am not using "notability" in the same way it is normally used on VFD.

That explains a lot! :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Shared source

body:
Hi.

How can I migrate to a shared source MW1.3.7 installation?

I noticed WP runs this way but I am not sure how to implement it.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion and notability

body:
NSK wrote:
> On Saturday 23 October 2004 03:13, Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
>>I think the fact that Wikipedia describes itself as "The Free
>>Encyclopedia" provides a somewhat convincing reason to be an
>>encyclopedia.
>
>
> Well, I do recognise that this claim ("the free encyclopedia") may have helped
> you in WP marketing. I wonder whether WP's popularity would have achieved if
> you hadn't made that claim. Have you ever thought about that?
>

As Wikipedia has claimed all along to be a free encyclopedia, and in
fact keeps this as its main goal, I have no doubt that this is the
reason we are popular. In fact, I have no doubt that is ONE of the
reasons we remain popular!

Wikipedia claims to be a free encylopedia, and has always claimed this.
We have never claimed to be a knowledge-base. Sure, there are articles
that are not encylopedic, but these are articles that need to be either
a) moved to wikibooks, or b) altered to make them encyclopedic. A good
example here would be the [[Internet Explorer]] article, where there was
the potential for including a howto on removing it from the O/S. This
would be inappropriate for the article, and I would move this to Wikibooks.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
John Lee wrote:

> What puzzles me the most is: If the cat had an article written about
> it in the local newspaper, would it be verifiable? If an orbituary was
> published, would it then count as verifiable? That's what troubles me
> most about using "verifiability" as a replacement for "notability".

They are two entirely different criteria.  Neither should replace the
other.  "Verifiability" is relatively objective while "notability" is
almost entirely subjective.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

body:
> Wikipedia is not a knowledge base. Wikipedia _is_ an encyclopedia.

> Jimbo has said that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia and that it must
> be free and that it must be an encyclopedia. I think he means it, too.

> Most of us--a consensus, in fact--are committed to that idea.

I'd like to emphatically second this.  Wikipedia is and will always be an
encyclopedia.  It may extend the concepts of traditional encyclopedias, for
instance I doubt Britannica will ever include an article on every
incorporated place in the United States, but Wikipedia is still an
encyclopedia.  It is not a general base of knowledge.  If you want something
other than an encyclopedia you need to do one (or both) of two things.

1) Get some support for your idea.  Talk about it on meta.  Get more support
for your idea there.  Talk about it on foundation-l.  Get more support for
your idea there.  Then, ask for the creation of a separate project.

2) Just do it on your own.  Start wikinerds or mcfly or wikinfo or
wikitravel or wikiteer or whatever other project you want to start.

In the case of a general base of all human knowledge, you're probably better
off with method #2.  I don't think there is a whole lot of support among
Mediawikians to do this, because I think most Mediawikians see it as
overambitious.  I might even agree with them.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion and notability

body:
NSK wrote:
> On Saturday 23 October 2004 03:53, Jens Ropers wrote:
>
>>if you don't even agree upon us building an '''encyclopedia'''
>>here, well, that's not a  lot of common ground, now is it?
>
>
> I do not agree that WP should be an "encyclopedia" because I believe that
> encyclopedias are obsolete products of the 18th century. The future is the
> creation of interconnected "knowledge bases". It's a philosophical
> distinction. WP, however, is also an almanac ([[2004]]) and I do agree that
> WP should be an almanac, so there is certainly some common ground.
>
> Isn't this mailing list a good place to have discussions and propose things,
> or should I refrain from posting here?
>
> I think I have some nice things to propose to WP that can help your community
> as well as perhaps having some form of future cooperation. Some proposed
> ideas might be bad but others might be good. After some discussion the bad
> ones will be identified and the good ones can be implemented. I think this
> kind of discussion can be beneficial.
>
> It was my understanding that your mailing lists are the proper place to have
> this kind of discussion. But if I misunderstood, I have no problem to go
> elsewhere. You only have to tell me.
>

NSK, you are more than welcome to discuss issues about Wikipedia on this
  mailing list. We value your contribution, however don't expect us to
agree with you all the time or implement all your suggestions. Some of
them may not mesh in with our objectives.

I was thinking your knowledgebase idea is a good one, just not
appropriate to Wikipedia. Perhaps it would be better to include this in
Wikibooks? Perhaps, even, its more appropriate for Wikinerds! :)

So just to let you know: you are most definitely welcome here.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Stopping to speedy speedy deletions

body:
Mark Richards wrote:
> By 'we' I presume you mean admins, so not scrutiny can
> be given by regular users since they can't see the
> content of the deleted article.
> Mark
>
> --- "csherlock at ljh.com.au" <csherlock at ljh.com.au>
> wrote:
>
>
>>OK, I'm topposting and loving it!
>>
>>Firstly, deleted articles are not permanently
>>deleted. We can retrieve them. See
 >>[[Wikipedia:Undeletion policy]]. Secondly,
>>if an admin is making consistent deletions and
 >>not listening to others, they can be de'sysoped
 >>after a request from other wikipedia editors.
 >>Just go talk to the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]].
 >>See also [[Wikipedia:Administrators#Administrator_abuse]].
>>Basically this suggestion is truly horrible and I am
>>strongly opposed to it.
 >>TBSDY

True, when I was referring to "we" I was referring to admins. However, I
have been monitoring the deletion log lately, and I see very few
articles that have been removed incorrectly. Even the borderline ones
that I restored and THEN placed on VfD have had legitimate reasons for
deletion. See, for example, [[Clairvoyance (album)]]. I restored this
and placed on VfD, and the admin explained that as the had no
information on who created it it appeared to be a perfect candidate for
speedy deletion. Now I disagreed, restored and listed on VfD, but I can
also see why he did this.

Incidently, just to let you know: everyone can see the [[Deletion log]].
As I've said before, if someone sees an article on their they beleive
should not have been deleted then they should place a message on my talk
page. My username is Ta bu shi da yu.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>The thing is, this has been tried directly on VFD before, and failed,
>>because people (usually inclusionists) bitch about the early removal of
>>debates/pages. Perhaps what is called for is an amendment to deletion
>>policy. Heck, I don't know.
>
>
> The best work I've seen was made by Erik M?ller.  Essentially, deletion
> first passes through a consensus stage where reasons are given and if any
> reason is left unanswered the page is deleted.  If there are objections
> answering all the reasons for deletion then it is deleted.  Then, only if it
> doesn't pass there does it move to VfD where 80% vote is needed to delete.
>
> I opposed the proposal, mainly because the reasons for deletion didn't need
> to be agreed upon in advance, so someone could list a bogus reason "Delete
> because it is a US President" and no one could effectively counter the
> reason.  But I think it could be worked on, and had a large majority
> support.
>
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_requests
>
> Anthony

I hate to say this, but that argument could be countered with a "Keep
because it is a US President"!

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
NSK wrote:
> On Friday 22 October 2004 16:36, John Lee wrote:
>
>>That was tried with Nupedia, Wikipedia's forefather. There's a reason
>>why Wikipedia exists today and Nupedia doesn't, you know...
>
>
> IMO the open "anything goes" model of WP is more suited for non-serious sites
> that just accept anything. This kind of sites attract mostly the popular
> masses that just want to push POVs or do something creative in their weekends
> (i.e. they work just for their own satisfaction and not for the common good).
>
> Sites that claim to be serious and wish to compete with Britannica need
> motivated committed editors, proof readers, maintainers, sysops and policy
> makers, i.e. organisation and structure. Serious sites should not be very
> friendly to the uneducated masses (i.e. disallow anon editing) and rely
> mostly on a small but very effective group of well-educated volunteers who do
> their work for a greater good and not just for themselves. For example,
> editing of scientific articles could be limited to university students or
> holders of a B.Sc. degree. However, I do recognise that it is extremely
> difficult to find this kind of volunteers and maintain a huge site only by
> their own work.

As was already pointed out, if we implemented this then Wikipedia would
not exist. And who's to say that it MUST be a degree holder who is the
foremost expert in a field? What about, for instance, history? Should
only a University educated person be allowed to contribute? If so, say
goodbye to most of the articles on the Kings of England - they were
editted by Lord Emsworth who's still in school.

The other thing I ask is: who's going to make sure that one "expert"
remains accountable? How are we going to counter that expert's biases?
How do we make sure we do not become elitist? How do we have many people
contribute to the piece?

I hate to say this: your suggestions here running entirely counter to
Wikipedia's stated goals and the reason for its success.

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Knowledge bases (Was: Re: Deletion and notability)

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 16:15, Nicholas Knight wrote:
> Wikipedia operates as a combination of a traditional encyclopedia and a
> knowledge base.

Traditional encyclopedias were the products of 18th century thought. Now we
live in the modern digital era so we need knowledge bases.

In a perfect knowledge base every word should be hyperlinked.

> I'm wondering if it might not be appropriate to create a
> knowledge base that continues to operate on NPOV and factuality but

You may be interested to visit this: http://jnana.wikinerds.org

> This is a rough idea that just came out of my head in a semi-incoherent
> rush, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

I like this kind of ideas.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion and notability

body:
Wonderful. Another thing that'll need to be reverted.

I take it you're keen to repeat the saga of Netoholic's VFD vandalism.

-- ambi

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:31:37 +0100 (BST), Simon Pulsifer
<se_pulsifer at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> In a test of my suggestion I have moved six recent
> debates that didn't conform to current policies to
> [[Wikipedia:VfD decisions not backed by current
> policies]].
>
> - SimonP
>
> ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!  http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
More pedanticism. You have completely missed my original point; that
contributors are supposed to indicate how the article they wrote
deserves inclusion, and that they shouldn't be tripping up others who
have to research the article just to bring it up to our standards.
There's no point in bitching about language at this point, because it's
irrelevant. Regardless of what words I used, my point remains:
contributors are supposed to clarify through their articles how the
latter articles are encyclopedic. The onus is on them to prove the topic
is encyclopedic.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Mark Richards wrote:

>No, not at all. There are plenty of articles that are
>easy to validate and verify (schools, for example),
>that are deleted for 'non-notability'. The two are not
>the same in any way.
>
>On another note, 'worth' is a value that we ascribe to
>things, not something they have inherently. It depends
>greatly on ones point of view whether a perticular
>article is 'worthless'.
>
>Mark
>
>--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Yeah, whatever. If the entry doesn't provide any way
>>to easily validate
>>its veracity, it's the same thing. Once again, the
>>onus is on the
>>contributor, not the hapless other editors who run
>>into the article, to
>>prove the article's worthiness.
>>
>>John Lee
>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>
>>Mark Richards wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>To be clear, non-notability is NOT a reason for
>>>deletion that is in any established policy. It is a
>>>term bandied around a lot by a group of people who
>>>would like to be able to delete more material that
>>>they are not interested in.
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>--- John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I disagree. The anon should have explained how it
>>>>was relevant already,
>>>>through the entry. If the entry shows no sign of
>>>>notability, it should
>>>>be VfDed.
>>>>
>>>><snip>
>>>>
>>>>John Lee
>>>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
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>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
John Lee wrote:

> I didn't say non-notability is a valid excuse for deletion (lots of
> people seem to read things into what I write that I didn't write). The
> contributor isn't put through a Kafkaesque process. All they have to
> do is show how the topic is *notable*. For example, let's say my
> friend Mike is an actor and is listed on IMDB. Which of the following
> articles is encyclopedic/demonstrates the topic's
> encyclopedia-worthiness?
>
>     my fren Mike is an actor. he has acted in movies such as "some
>     backyard indy movie nobody's heard of".
>
> OR
>
>     Michael Gondrand is an independent actor. He has starred in "Some
>     Backyard Indy Movie Nobody's Heard Of". [inline reference link to
>     movie's website]
>     *[link to IMDB entry]
>
> That's what I mean. They don't need to make a hubbub on VFD or
> whatever. All they have to do is to write the article up sufficiently
> so it is easy to see that the topic of the article is encyclopedic and
> verifiable.

So here's the problem:  Your first paragraph above uses "notable" to
which I've added the asterisks for emphasis, but your illustration and
the consequences that you draw illustrate the concept of "verifiable".

Verification has it's own set of problems.  The easy cases can be
established by a link to a website such as IMDB,   There are many more
that can only be verified with great difficulty.  The proof may me in an
obscure publication that is hard to find.

I have one item that I could contribute.  It relates to stamp
collecting, a general subject that could trigger its own controversy
from people who would question the notability of its minutiae.  I could
make the statement that former French Prime-Minister Pierre
Mend?s-France was interested in stamps when he was a teenager.  My basis
for saying that is an article that he wrote in an obscure stamp dealer's
house publication in Vienna in 1922 when he was 15.  As far as anyone
knows it is the earliest serviving thing to be written by him.  As is
typical of such publications, his article is the only one in this
16-page "magazine", the rest being all advertisements.  It is likely
that few, if any, other copies of this publication have survived.
Verifying this could be a problem when I am the unique possessor of the
proof, but there is no doubt that Mend?s-France was notable, and that
his earliest published work has some biographical valuie.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Stopping to speedy speedy deletions

body:
Hey, then where do us Asians fit in? ;-)

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Jens Ropers wrote:

> <snip>
> The following might be perceived as bad stereotype stuff, as totally
> rude and preposterous (and everything I accused others of above) -- so
> please take it with ''truckloads'' of salt -- it's just a flip thought
> that popped into my mind:
> Seeing that US folks in general are said to be the "can to people",
> maybe the aforementioned "cop ego trip" issues might account for what
> was mentioned on one of the mailing lists a while ago, namely the
> phenomenon that European contributors appear to be doing more
> Wiki-politics and US contributors appear to be editing more. This
> might be an alienation issue. (Frontier justice attitude? Shoot first,
> ask questions later? Culture clash of that with the European way?)
> Then again, this thought might be mental junk.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
I don't think that's the point Rick was making. I think he was just
rightfully bitching about inclusionists, because they seem to have a
damn lot of extremist followers, and Rick was showing an example.
Inclusionists often use abrasive language, and to me (I don't know about
anyone else; this is my own opinion) they sound like bitches more than
half of the time. They seem to believe that "EVERYTHING HAS VALUE" and
that "NOTHING SHOULD EVER EVER BE DELETED", and resort to stunts to
prove their point, like screwing with the VFD structure. Come to think
of it, they remind me a lot of Greenpeace and PETA. (None of this is
addressed to you, NSK, so please don't feel hurt; I was making a larger
point in general.)

Sorry for the off-topic rant, just had to vent my feelings about this
whole mess.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

NSK wrote:

>On Saturday 23 October 2004 02:24, Rick wrote:
>
>
>>will, out of reflex, vote to keep any and every article ever written.  He
>>
>>
>
>Commenting on someone's voting patterns is not very democratic.
>
>If someone's votes are not being counted because of their patterns, that's
>definitely undemocratic and against [[due process]].
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
It's not just about interest. Its about significance. Do you expect us
to post an article for EVERY thread on EVERY messageboard? For instance,
there was a "You sad bastard" thread that was started on Kuro5hin.org
that was (until it grew to big for the K5 database) very popular to post
to. I would not make an article about it! Its just not signficant or
important enough.

I have no problem with you importing it into your wiki, however. More
power to you. Just don't expect us to have it on Wikipedia.

TBSDY

NSK wrote:
> On Saturday 23 October 2004 00:19, Mark Richards wrote:
>
>>there is still the issue that 'notablity' is
>>inherently POV.
>
>
> Yes it is. Even the most stupid and useless post may be considered as
> important or funny by some people.
>
> For example, I have accepted this:
>
> http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Trr_post
>
> This was posted at Wikipedia (not by me) and was deleted.
>
> However, I considered it interesting and funny; So I imported it in my wiki
> and I contacted the elYsiun community about it.
>
> See:
>
> http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31298
>
> If this thing was not posted on WP I would never learn about it. I still don't
> understand why it was deleted. If you search the elYsiun forum you will find
> much discussion about the Trr post. Surely some people consider it funny or
> interesting.
>
> In the same way, Quantum Gravity is considered as interesting by a small
> number of people, however you do have an article about it. In some way, WP
> could become a great forum for the publication of content not available
> elsewhere, but you limit yourselves in the "canon of knowledge".
>
> If you accept "nonnotable" articles and categorise them in a proper way (and
> hiding them from the main search), your reputation will not suffer. Good
> reputation does not necessarily means that "stupid" content shouldn't be
> allowed. The Guinness Records Book is full of content that I consider stupid
> or noninteresting to me ("the person with the longest nails! oh yeah... who
> cares?") but it's true, factual, useful for research and excitement and I
> know that many other people are considering this information as important. I
> do not think that GRB is a bad publication just because I am uninterested in
> part of its content: I just don't read this part. In the same way WP can
> become a great pool of trivia and "strange" information that could attract
> even more contributors who have specialised knowledge in areas totally
> unknown to most people. As long as you label this material as "trivia" or
> "just a joke page" or whatever, it's fine (of course the labelling should not
> be offending and should be NPOV).
>


from_name: Daniel Wunsch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: WP

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 00:26, Ashar Voultoiz wrote:

> Yup, people at works behind a firewall that block wikipedia. But they
> should do something else instead of editing wikipedia :o)

what people behinde restrictive firewall 'should' do is not ours to
decide, imho.

> For NSK:
> In the case of wikis, we will have to get people to send the diff
> against the current version. It restricts even more the number of people
> that could need this feature (how many people in this mailing list know
> how to use diff ?).

i don't think so - the browser does not send a diff, but a
full version - so why should that be different for email?

daniel


subject: [Wikitech-l] KIingon links

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 11:18, Andre Engels wrote:
> Klingon interwiki-links have been decided not to work.

[...]

> Furthermore, as I have said before, I find this so-called compromise
> worse than both of the things it is supposed to be a compromise
> before.

technically klingon is a language like any other language.
imho it does not make any sense to treat it differently.

daniel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: List of persons with autism spectrum disorders

body:
I have added the references from the talk page, and copied this message
onto the talk page of the author requesting comment.

TBSDY

Charles Matthews wrote:
> I have been concerned for some time that [[List of persons with autism
> spectrum disorders]], unlike the responsible [[autism]] article on WP, is
> being used to push an 'activist' POV, such as can be found for example on
> the campaigning web site neurodiversity.org.
>
> Each of the listngs there deserves separate research.  I can't comment on
> them all.  I happen to known Richard Borcherds, who is there; anyone who
> actually reads the Simon Baron-Cohen article on which the listing is
> presumably based will get the main point (which is that 'disorder' is a
> fairly notional concept in this case).
>
> There is no simple 'diagnostic' for Asperger's, as is made clear by
> responsible professionals in the field.  Some of the names there are
> self-diagnoses (for example Richard Stallman, as far as I can see).  The
> whole aspie/geek connection seems to have been made fashionable by an
> article in 'Wired' magazine three years ago; anything that simply reflects
> that is unlikely to have encyclopedic value.
>
> My principal concerns:
>
> (i) listings could quite possibly be defamatory (certainly hurtful), and are
> made without any support;
>
> (ii) Some of the listings based on media interviews with the Irish
> psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald, who has a book "Is There a Link Between
> Autism in Men and Exceptional
> Ability?" to promote, seem to be complete dross (de Valera, W. B. Yeats
> because he obsessed over Maud Gonne ... puhlease).
>
> Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> More pedanticism. You have completely missed my original point; that
>
>
> And you have completely missed his. Again.

And you have missed mine.

>
>
>> contributors are supposed to indicate how the article they wrote
>> deserves inclusion, and that they shouldn't be tripping up others who
>> have to research the article just to bring it up to our standards.
>
>
> This is certainly the first I've ever heard of this. Perhaps you could
> point me to a page documenting this policy? Even a discussion where a
> consensus was reached or an edict handed down by Jimbo?

 From what you've written below, you apparently have not read my earlier
post dealing with this.

>
>> There's no point in bitching about language at this point, because
>> it's irrelevant. Regardless of what words I used, my point remains:
>
>
> If you don't use words that reflect your meaning, you can't get your
> point across. You could walk into a restaurant and sing _Yellow
> Submarine_ intending it to mean "I'd like a teriyaki steak and baked
> potato, please.", but it's unlikely to have the desired effect.
> Language is never irrelevant.

Whatever. That's not the point in this case. You all know what I mean; I
know what "notability", etc. mean on VFD. So what's the problem?

>
>> contributors are supposed to clarify through their articles how the
>> latter articles are encyclopedic. The onus is on them to prove the
>> topic is encyclopedic.
>
>
> From whence came the policy that a topic must be proven to be
> encyclopedic? If it is, in fact, policy, then I'm afraid I must insist
> that articles on just about every topic except music (which has
> already been through this nightmare before) be proven to be
> encyclopedic or promptly deleted. This includes all articles on
> nations, languages, animals, plants, people (including all scientists,
> politicians, monarchs, and religious figures), stars, planets, etc..
> Please either go to all of these article's talk pages and provide
> proof that they are encyclopedic, or delete them.

Hahaha...you have obviously not read my post earlier. Articles are
supposed to be *self-proven*. In other words, 99.9% of our current
articles have already proven themselves many times over. There is no
need for authors to state how the topic is encyclopedic, unless they
didn't make it clear when they first created the article in question.

>
> Now, would you like to proceed with the traditional Wikipedia method
> of establishing consensus on articles' talk pages when questions of
> encyclopedic value arise, or would you like to continue this
> preposterous exercise?

I don't know what you're bumbling about, but considering how you've not
read my earlier post explaining this...

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] KIingon links

body:
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:35:49 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I would support this if it were accompanied by the deletion of the
> Klingon Wikipedia.

I agree. Until there is some interest in the Klingon Wikipedia, I see
no reason for it to continue to exist. There hasn't been a single
article edit in the last month.

Angela.


from_name: Nicholas Knight

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Rick wrote:

> VfD has the consensus support of the community.

This is demonstrably false. Just look at this list.

As it is operating currently, I oppose it. It's been turned into an
insane perversion of its original purpose by a handful of people playing
some twisted political game among themselves.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Rebecca wrote:
>
>>> Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.
>>
>> According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
>> to write an article on my deceased cat?
>
> That's a straw cat argument.

Speaking as someone who has recently lost a cat, may I say that's
extremely disrespectful to Ambi's unfortunate pet. Whatever the
verifiable facts about this cat (since I haven't read the article on it
yet), I am sure that the cat was not made of straw. At most, it may be
providing fertilizer for the growth of some straw in the future.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Wikitech-l] Go

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 13:48, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
> Is "I'm feeling lucky" trademarked?

Yes this is a trademark of Google.

"(2003-10-24) -- Google, the Internet search company which plans to conduct
its initial public offering (IPO) of stock as an online auction, says it will
use its trademark 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button to lure investors who love
Internet stocks." - http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001291.html

However, it was an unregistered trademark as of August 16, 2004 according to
this site
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2004/08/will-google-lose-right-to-gmail-name.html
which states that "Our unregistered trademarks include: AdSense, AdWords,
Blogger, Froogle, Gmail, I'm Feeling Lucky and PageRank."

Most catchy phrases are trademarked by someone. Even "What's in a name?" is
trademarked by a games company.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] KIingon links

body:
Andre-
> Klingon interwiki-links have been decided not to work. I have always
> hated this so-called compromise. But now I even find that what happens
> is that they DO work, but are shown as normal internal links rather
> than interwiki links. Isn't this contrary to the intentions of this?

Yes. Such links should be removed instantly.

> All in all, could we please get to treat Klingon interwiki links the
> normal way again?

No. I'd rather not have links to a race of fictional space aliens on
articles like [[World War II]] or [[Rwandan Genocide]]. The absence of
such links is the only reason I agreed to having a Klingon Wikipedia in
the first place.

If any change to the status quo is made, that should be preceded by a
democratic poll like the one currently running on [[m:Wikinews]]. Anything
else is unacceptable.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>>  From what you've written below, you apparently have not read my
>> earlier post dealing with this.
>
>
> As it happens, since resubscribing on the 16th, I've read every singe
> message sent to the list.

Then I suppose you didn't correctly interpret my reply to Mark Richards,
stating "The anon should have explained how it was relevant already,
through the entry." Through the entry. Through the encyclopedia entry.

>
>> Whatever. That's not the point in this case. You all know what I mean; I
>
>
> "Whatever" might be an acceptable response in a high-school cafeteria,
> but this is not a high-school cafeteria.

Pedanticism.

>
>> know what "notability", etc. mean on VFD. So what's the problem?
>
>
> The problem is that with you saying stuff like "regardless of what
> words I used", we can't be sure we DO understand you. And VFD is not
> some separate project, it's part of Wikipedia. You can't make up your
> own definitions of words like "notability" for use on VFD and expect
> it to work.

I don't really see your point here.

>
>
>> Hahaha...you have obviously not read my post earlier. Articles are
>> supposed to be *self-proven*. In other words, 99.9% of our current
>> articles have already proven themselves many times over. There is no
>> need for authors to state how the topic is encyclopedic, unless they
>> didn't make it clear when they first created the article in question.
>
>
> How does an article prove itself? What is the criteria? The only thing
> I've heard so far from you is "notability", which is not and has never
> been a valid excuse.

That was not my point. In my reply to Mark Richards, the point I was
making is that the onus is on the contributor to prove that the entry is
valid for inclusion, regardless of whether the medium is indirectly
through the article, or a message on VFD. Regardless of what the
criteria is (I just saw I did use the word notability, but that's my own
personal criteria, and not necessarily Wikipedia policy; what criteria
we use is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make; I prefer
referring to [[What Wikipedia is not]], since that works for roughly 80%
of all entries on VFD).

The reason I used the word "notability" in the first place is because it
implies to me that if something is notable enough for inclusion, it
should be verifiable. Jimbo himself has clarified it on this list
before; to him, the reason notability is used as a criteria is because
anything notable enough to go into an encyclopedia should be verifiable.
I thought we'd already ironed that out. I am not using "notability" in
the same way it is normally used on VFD.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Rebecca wrote:

>>Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.
>>
>>
>
>According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
>to write an article on my deceased cat?
>
>
Technically, most encyclopedias wouldn't, but Wikipedia is not paper.
However, as Jimbo has clarified, notability is not what it means on VFD;
something notable enough for inclusion must be verifiable. So likely
your deceased cat isn't verifiable.

What puzzles me the most is: If the cat had an article written about it
in the local newspaper, would it be verifiable? If an orbituary was
published, would it then count as verifiable? That's what troubles me
most about using "verifiability" as a replacement for "notability".

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: slow hardware

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 19:05, Tim Starling wrote:
> they failed to consider the crippling problems of
> synchronisation and development time.

Syncing is indeed difficult.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
I didn't say non-notability is a valid excuse for deletion (lots of
people seem to read things into what I write that I didn't write). The
contributor isn't put through a Kafkaesque process. All they have to do
is show how the topic is notable. For example, let's say my friend Mike
is an actor and is listed on IMDB. Which of the following articles is
encyclopedic/demonstrates the topic's encyclopedia-worthiness?

----

my fren Mike is an actor. he has acted in movies such as "some backyard
indy movie nobody's heard of".

----

OR

-----

Michael Gondrand is an independent actor. He has starred in "Some
Backyard Indy Movie Nobody's Heard Of". [inline reference link to
movie's website]

*[link to IMDB entry]

----

That's what I mean. They don't need to make a hubbub on VFD or whatever.
All they have to do is to write the article up sufficiently so it is
easy to see that the topic of the article is encyclopedic and verifiable.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> More pedanticism. You have completely missed my original point; that
>> contributors are supposed to indicate how the article they wrote
>> deserves inclusion, and that they shouldn't be tripping up others who
>> have to research the article just to bring it up to our standards.
>> There's no point in bitching about language at this point, because
>> it's irrelevant. Regardless of what words I used, my point remains:
>> contributors are supposed to clarify through their articles how the
>> latter articles are encyclopedic. The onus is on them to prove the
>> topic is encyclopedic.
>
>
> Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.  It is
> not up to the contributor to be put through a Kafkaesque process in an
> attempt to satisfy the illusory standards of a stuck-up elitist.
> They're not trying to trip up anybody.  Your supposition is based on
> nothing.  The onus is on the deletionist to learn respect.
>
> Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> I don't think that's the point Rick was making. I think he was just
>> rightfully bitching about inclusionists, because they seem to have a
>> damn lot of extremist followers, and Rick was showing an example.
>> Inclusionists often use abrasive language, and to me (I don't know
>> about anyone else; this is my own opinion) they sound like bitches
>> more than half of the time. They seem to believe that "EVERYTHING HAS
>> VALUE" and that "NOTHING SHOULD EVER EVER BE DELETED", and resort to
>> stunts to prove their point, like screwing with the VFD structure.
>> Come to think of it, they remind me a lot of Greenpeace and PETA.
>
>
> Yes, you know about extremism alright.  Dr. Strangelove was not an
> extremist he was just preserving our bodily humours.  We know how few
> extremists there are in the destructionist camp. ;-)

I didn't deny that there are extremists in the deletionist camp such as
Rick, but what's positively annoying are brats like Netoholic or Eric B.
and Rakim, especially considering their vocality. For example, Eric B.
and Rakim has made statements such as "There is no reason to delete any
of the pages there [on VFD] at all", "Everyone using that page [VFD] to
delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia and should be blocked" and "The
only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast the identical vote
on range of articles listed there.  Then you would be able to vote "keep
doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each and every article".

>
> You would never think of using abrasive language like the "bitches",
> would you?  If someone like Anthony denies that he took a particular
> position your shouting is not going to be a credible proof of the
> contrary.  Buddhists may believe that "everything has value" but they
> are able to communicate that without shouting.  Where in in the Wiki
> world did an inclusionist make this claim about articles?  Of course
> you did say "seem to believe"; I guess that's some kind of
> justification when they didn't 'really' say it.  But then there must
> be some evidence to bring you to that conclusion; otherwise it would
> suggest that someone on your side is engaging in extremism, and we
> can't have that, can we?  I look forward to the evidence.

Eric B. and Rakim has stated this on his posts to the mailing list a few
weeks back. See the quotes from him I listed above.

>
> Stunts?  I'm sorry I missed that.  Were they wearing clown suits, and
> riding undersize bicycles?  Please elaborate.  A video would help, but
> "screwing with the VFD" might be too pornographic.  Do you really
> think that Greenpeace cum to that?  I'm not familiar with PETA, but it
> sounds as though it has something to do with either cheese or the
> Patriot Act.

Simon Pulsifer just admitted to the whole list that he has removed
entries from VFD without following current policy.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] delete all articles with the word green

body:
I will support your listing it in the first place.

After a couple of articles get no "delete" votes at all, however, I
would be inclined to consider listing more of them trolling, yes.

-Snowspinner

On Oct 23, 2004, at 7:15 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>> If you can get a 2/3 vote on VfD for deleting an article because it
>>> has
>>> the word green in it, I will not only support it, I will delete the
>>> article myself.
>
>>> -Snowspinner
>
>> And I'll support its deletion as well.
>
>> RickK
>
> But will you support my listing of the articles in the first place, or
> will
> I be banned for trolling?  Somehow I suspect it's the latter.
>
> Let's ban people who list articles on VfD which aren't deleted.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] A mailing list whose content is all the material
	deleted from Wikipedia?

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 19:28, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> I would be extremely interested in this.

Many articles deleted by Wikipedia are bits of knowledge that may be useful to
somebody. I invite anyone who wants to preserve VfDed articles to publish
them on http://jnana.wikinerds.org

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: A mailing list whose content is all the material
	deleted from Wikipedia?

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 19:17, you wrote:
> we could send you only articles that are deleted as an
> outcome of the VfD process. That's only 20 articles per day; if we
> assume an average of 5000 bytes, that's only 100K per day. I think the
> real amount of traffic would be less than 30K per day.
>
> Is Wikinerds interested in such arrangement?

If they are legal and are not copyright violations, you are welcome to put
VfD-deleted articles in http://jnana.wikinerds.org

JnanaBase is GFDL.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: Guanaco

subject: [WikiEN-l] no consensus

body:
Rick wrote:

>If VfD doesn't have the consensus support of the community, then you should have no problem getting support to have the process stopped.   Why don't you try?
>
>
Having the process stopped would require consensus opposition to VfD.
Since there is no consensus in either direction, the process will continue.

>Anything that gets deleted off VfD has the consensus support of those who vote.  If you don't vote, you have no right to complain.  Same in VfD as it is in real-life elections.
>
The VfD process is a sham. Same in VfD as it is in real-life elections.
If the deletionists want a page to be deleted, it will be deleted. If
the politicians and propagandists want one of their colleagues to be
elected, their candidate will be elected.

It is impossible to vote on all of these listings without wasting hours
of time or using a "keepbot". This seems very similar to using force or
removing voter registrations to prevent people from voting in elections.
VfD is a gigantic mess, and it is easy to miss articles listed for
deletion. Everyone naturally has the right to complain, regardless of
whether they voted. To state that someone does not have any right to
complain is nothing more than a typical way of silencing the opposition.

>RickK
>
>Anthony DiPierro <anthonydipierro at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>VfD has the consensus support of the community.
>>
>>
>No it doesn't.
>
>
It doesn't. I oppose it; a number of others do as well.

>>Articles about schools listed on VfD have, for the most part, consensus
>>support to be deleted. QED.
>>
>They probably don't even have a majority support to be deleted. They
>certainly don't have a consensus support.
>
>
They don't have support except from a small clique of deletionists that
feels it is doing a public service by removing valid information.

>Anthony
>
Guanaco


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: namespaces changes (da: it:)

body:
Ashar Voultoiz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> As requested on meta:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-development_tasks_for_developers
>
> I made the following changes to the sitename (which is also the project
> namespace):
>
> da.wikibooks -> Wikibooks
> it.wiktionary -> Wikizionario
> it.wikiquote -> Wikiquote
> it.wikibooks.org -> Wikibooks
>
>
> If any community need such a change, please post the request on meta:
>  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-development_tasks_for_developers

Hello,

PHP code wasn't up to date. it: and da: namespaces should be correct now.

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus

body:
> If VfD doesn't have the consensus support of the community,
> then you should have no problem getting support to have the
> process stopped.   Why don't you try?

I do have support to have it stopped.  But it would likely take the support
of a majority of admins to actually stop the process.

> Anything that gets deleted off VfD has the consensus support
> of those who vote.

None, most things that get deleted off VfD have at least 60% support among
those who vote.  Some have even less than this, though.

> If you don't vote, you have no right to complain.  Same in VfD
> as it is in real-life elections.

My right to complain is not limited because I don't vote.  I have a right to
complain about anything I want.

But to point out the ridiculousness of your argument, if the US government
ran 30 polls a day on whether or not to enact 30 random laws, anyone who
didn't vote would have no right to complain about the law.

It's stupid, we shouldn't be having 30 polls a month, let alone 30 a day.
Unlike the US government, "Wikipedia is not a democracy."
([[Wikipedia:Survey Guidelines]])  It's certainly not a direct democracy,
and the lunacy of the VfD system shows quite well just how impractical and
inefficient a direct democracy can be.

Anthony


body:
> > If you can get a 2/3 vote on VfD for deleting an article because it has
> > the word green in it, I will not only support it, I will delete the
> > article myself.

> > -Snowspinner

> And I'll support its deletion as well.

> RickK

But will you support my listing of the articles in the first place, or will
I be banned for trolling?  Somehow I suspect it's the latter.

Let's ban people who list articles on VfD which aren't deleted.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Mailing list of deleted materials

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 20:00, Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
> yes, they are seriously interested in access to the stream of material
> deleted from Wikipedia. NSK says "If they are legal and are not
> copyright violations."

Just to clarify: Only material deleted via the VfD process.

> What's the next step? Technical help will certainly be needed.

Until we code a solution in software, you can inform the authors of the
deleted material that they can publish them at http://jnana.wikinerds.org

The JnanaBase wiki does allow anons and is now GFDL.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
> Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.

According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
to write an article on my deceased cat?

>It is not
> up to the contributor to be put through a Kafkaesque process in an
> attempt to satisfy the illusory standards of a stuck-up elitist.

Ouch.

> They're not trying to trip up anybody.  Your supposition is based on
> nothing.  The onus is on the deletionist to learn respect.
>
> Ec

Learn respect? If I come in and graffiti all over your front door, do
you then need to learn respect for yelling at me for doing so? Bah.

-- ambi


subject: [WikiEN-l] "notability" and "verifiability"

body:
> What puzzles me the most is: If the cat had an article written about
> it in the local newspaper, would it be verifiable? If an orbituary was
> published, would it then count as verifiable? That's what troubles me
> most about using "verifiability" as a replacement for "notability".

First of all, show me a non-notable cat which had an obituary about it
written.  This is a straw man, because no one is arguing that we keep
articles about cats.  Present us with a real case, an actual article about a
dead cat which is NPOV, verifiable, and not original research.  I already
suggested two, [[Tom Quartz]] and [[Slippers the cat]], and I think those
cats should at least be covered by a redirect or two.

Secondly, there are degrees of verifiability.  If this actually became a
problem, we could always start requiring two or even more independent
respectable sources.  Another thing to note is that the source of an
obituary isn't the newspaper.  The obituary section is generally not
factchecked by the newspaper, so counting it as a respectable source is
questionable.  In the case of people we can at least in theory crosscheck
the information against public records, so this is much less of a problem.
If the newspaper had an actual article about the dead cat, on the other
hand, I don't see the problem with including the cat in the encyclopedia.

Finally, what's the harm if we have an article about a few dead cats?  I'm
not saying we should allow automated creation of them.  Automated creation
of articles requires consensus support, and the question is much different.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
That's taking inclusionism too far, probably even for anthony's tastes.
At least anthony thinks unverifiable articles should be deleted. Unless
the facts about the dead cat are verifiable from a secondary source, it
really has no place in an encyclopedia. I think that's something
practically everyone on both sides of the debate can agree on.

John Lee
([[User:Johnlemk]])

NSK wrote:

>On Saturday 23 October 2004 13:36, Rebecca wrote:
>
>
>>What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
>>to write an article on my deceased cat?
>>
>>
>
>I see no reason why the online WP couldn't have such an article. Obviously the
>1.0 paper edition couldn't, but if you have disk space and you flag the
>"non-encyclopedic" articles as such, there is absolutely no problem.
>
>
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] KIingon links

body:
What about the Lojban Wikipedia?

--node

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:33:09 +0100, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:35:49 -0500, Phil Sandifer
> <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > I would support this if it were accompanied by the deletion of the
> > Klingon Wikipedia.
>
> I agree. Until there is some interest in the Klingon Wikipedia, I see
> no reason for it to continue to exist. There hasn't been a single
> article edit in the last month.
>
> Angela.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: NSK

subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion and notability

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 20:39, David Gerard wrote:
> This proposal appears to show very little comprehension of how it works.

I am sure that I know how it works.

> Everyone is here to write an encyclopedia.

I think there are many people here who do not actually care about building an
encyclopedia.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Institute new policy? I'm not sure what you mean, really. All I was
trying to say was that if contributors don't make it clear through an
article they wrote how its topic is encyclopedic, then the onus isn't on
others to hunt high and low for a way to verify it. Mark Richards was
saying the onus isn't on contributors to prove their articles are
encyclopedic. I was saying that, in my opinion, it is.

Speaking of verifiability, I just noticed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:VfD-Ballerium from a recent post
on the list (one of Eric B. and Rakim's deleted articles' deletion
debates). Apparently Ballerium was verifiable; at least Eric B. and
Rakim provided several third-party sources. Should the article have been
kept? Rossami stated that the reason he was voting "delete" was: "Let
the product come out for release. Then let it be for another 6 months.
If the product still has publicity and traction after 6 months live,
then it /might/ make the cut as encyclopedic." Isn't that a definition
of "notability"?

Sorry for the off-topic rambling, it just struck me how Ballerium
appeared to be a perfect case of a verifiable topic having its article
deleted.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])

Nicholas Knight wrote:

> <snip>
>
> However, while your concerns are valid, they have been addressed before.
>
> [[WP:DP#What_to_do_with_a_problem_page.2Fimage.2Fcategory]]
>
> [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]]
>
> If you'd like to *change* these processes, that's certainly something
> that can and should be discussed, but you don't seem interested in
> changing policy, rather you seem to be trying to institute new policy.
> I don't know if this is another communication breakdown or if you were
> not aware of existing policies.


body:
> After a couple of articles get no "delete" votes at all, however, I
> would be inclined to consider listing more of them trolling, yes.

> -Snowspinner

I'm sure I could muster up some delete votes.  But change the topic
slightly, to something like number articles, or rambot articles, for which I
could definitely get some delete votes (and which I think should be deleted
anyway).  I could do it with Federal Standard 1037C articles, or articles
about non-bestselling albums, or articles about most actors, or article
about most movies, maybe even many of the species articles, though I
wouldn't want to.  It's basically what happened with the September 11th
victims.  At first there was a lot of support for keeping at least some of
them, but as they got listed over and over and over again the people willing
to waste their time voting keep waned, to where we've now deleted *even the
pilots of the aircraft*.  It's what's happening right now with high school
articles.  It happened with the pokemon articles, but I don't know what the
outcome of that one was.

Anthony


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Full nice handbag

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> The relentless discussion about deletion that I am just catching up
> with on this mailing list prompted to review a deletion decision that
> got on my nerves back in June. "Full nice handbag co" was a pathetic
> little article about a textile company in Hong Kong. It was never much
> of an article, but it was real, neutral, factual, verifiable. It was
> very narrowly VfDed (with a small majority of about 55-60% voting
> delete) on grounds of non-notability. Following deletion, I objected
> at VfU - my grounds for undeletion were that the reasons for deletion
> were so tenuous (see below) and the majority so small that we should
> have erred on the side of caution and kept the article

I'm not sure if things have changed since I stopped being as heavily
involved in it, but I was under the impression that a 55-60% margin
wasn't considered enough to delete.  I know I personally don't delete
things unless it's more like a 75% margin or more.  Perhaps someone erred?

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Viewing deleted pages

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 21:12, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> "allow non-sysops to view deleted pages".

You need to thing about legal consequences if you allow everyone to access
"deleted" copyright violations or illegal information.

> allow certain IP addresses to access deleted articles.

That's unfair to IP switchers, including but not limited to people who access
WP from many computer networks (home/work/etc), people who change ISP and
dynamic connections.

> there's an objection to me personally having access to deleted articles.

Not allowing access to information to a specific person just because that
person's presence is perhaps undesired is undemocratic.

> Personally I'm more interested in the speedy deletions

I thought there was some due process that disallowed sysops from deleting
legitimate content via "speedy deletions".

> material shows up in one of the approximately weekly database dumps.  I've

I would say that downloading the dumps just to get some vfd articles consumes
too much bandwidth that other people would use for reading and learning.

> dumps, but they almost never contain speedy deletions.

I think MediaWiki keeps all deleted articles in the archive database table but
it is readable only by sysops. Perhaps you could ask for sysop privileges and
use them only for reading the deleted articles.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 21:31, Rick wrote:
> VfD has the consensus support of the community.  Articles about schools
> listed on VfD have, for the most part, consensus support to be deleted.

Probably because the masses enjoy destroying things. 18th century
encyclopedists didn't allow the uneducated masses to destroy the knowledge.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] KIingon links

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 19:05, Daniel Wunsch wrote:
> technically klingon is a language like any other language.

Unless you do that for technical reasons, deleting a language wiki just
because you dislike that language is not good.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] CC partner question

body:
Hi

<li><?php
			aField( $conf, "License", "a Creative Commons license...", "radio", "cc" );
			$partner = "MediaWiki";

How did you got that "partner" thing with CC and how someone can apply for a
similar connection?

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
NSK wrote:

>On Saturday 23 October 2004 10:14, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
>
>
>>How are we going to counter that expert's biases?
>>
>>
>That's a good observation. Many experts have extreme biases and could hurt WP.
>
Yes, they do.  Thus, we avoid becoming a community of experts.

>>How do we make sure we do not become elitist? How do we have many people
>>contribute to the piece?
>>
>>
>The idea of Elitism is not to have many people, but few hard-working excellent
>contributors who produce state-of-the-art work.
>
>
It's that core group of dedicated hard workers that is most at risk of
becoming elites.  The first thing that they need to do is become aware
of that risk both as a group and as individuals.  If a newbie asks a
dumb question, or in good faith adds a stupid article you need to
approach the situation from his perspective of it being the first time
he has done so, and not the perspective of it being the hundredth time
that you have dealt with it.   Elitism is overcome by appropriate acts
of humility.

Experrts are a form of elite.  If you depend too much on experts (and
hence their biases you become elitist.  The solution is in more, not
fewer, editors.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 21:48, Delirium wrote:
> If we're going by this standard, 18th-century encyclopedists also didn't
> have lots of articles about high schools in their encyclopedias.  I

Diderot et al had limited resources and couldn't write about anything.

You would be able to create something much more powerful and wonderful if you
were not limiting yourselves by 18th century standards.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Rebecca wrote:

>>Rick wrote:
>>
>>
>>>VfD has the consensus support of the community.
>>
>>This is demonstrably false. Just look at this list.
>
>
> If VFD does not have the consensus support of the community, then why
> not stop bitching here, and go write up a proposal to get rid of it?
>
> And lets see how far it gets.
>
> Of course, you won't do that, because you know what the odds of
> success are - which reflects the feelings of the community on this
> issue.

Stop ascribing positions to me which I do not hold. I don't want VFD to
go away, I want it to operate according to ALREADY ESTABLISHED policy.
If anything, I want the extremists on both sides abusing it to further
their own agendas to go away so actual work can get done.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Updating logos for all projects

body:
Hello,

Node ue is building a lot of logos and fill requests made at:
    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_logos

We now need sysops from each wikis to rename the logos as "Wiki.png" and
upload them on their wikis. The image:Wiki.png should be protected as well.

When its done add your wiki under "Ready to switch" section so a
developper can make the logo available :o)

I switched:
  als, cs, ang, wikibooks:he, wiktionary:la, wiktionary:cs

mr: logo (and several others) need to be uploaded and protected.

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar


from_name: Kevin Li

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with MediaWiki Setup

body:
Hi,

This is my first time posting so please bear with me (if this isn't the
right email list to post to, please direct me to the correct one). I
just want to say that I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and I think the
developers of MediaWiki did an amazing job.

I have recently been trying to set up MediaWiki on my website but so far
have been unsuccessful. I got to the configuration screen and filled out
the required information about users and my database. Afterwards, it
told me that "LocalSettings.php" and that I should move it to the parent
directory. However, when I checked "LocalSettings.php" there was no text
in it (0KB size). However, I still moved it to the parent directory and
then tried to run the wiki.

Instead of the main screen, I received an error that it could not log
into my database with root at localhost (which isn't what I specified). So
my hunch is that the installation didn't create "LocalSettings.php"
properly.

Thank you very much for reading this.

Cheers,

Kevin Li
2A Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo


body:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 22:07, Rick wrote:
> Do you want the copyright violations, too?

No, thanks.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


from_name: David Carson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
John Lee wrote:

> I didn't deny that there are extremists in the deletionist camp such
> as Rick, but what's positively annoying are brats like Netoholic or
> Eric B. and Rakim, especially considering their vocality. For example,
> Eric B. and Rakim has made statements such as "There is no reason to
> delete any of the pages there [on VFD] at all", "Everyone using that
> page [VFD] to delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia and should be
> blocked" and "The only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast
> the identical vote on range of articles listed there.  Then you would
> be able to vote "keep doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each
> and every article".

Eric B. and Rakim's stance is easier to understand when you look at his
history: his first contributions to Wikipedia were a series of articles
on subroutines and datatypes from the OpenGL API. Nothing wrong with
them, as I recall, but really not encyclopedic, and a bunch of them were
listed for deletion (by Rick, as it happens), with the overwhelming
consensus that this content should be on Wikibooks, not Wikipedia. To
which E.B&R responded with a torrent of abuse, calling people vandals,
telling them to stop interfering with his work, and accusing Rick of
"trying to destroy Wikipedia".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:VfD-OpenGL and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:VfD-Ballerium

I have no idea if E.B&R ever moved his OpenGL content to Wikibooks, but
since then, he's spent more time trolling this mailing list whenever
deletion-related threads came up than doing anything else on Wikipedia.

Cheers!
David...


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:

> Encyclopedias should not contain "non-encyclopedic articles."

"Encyclopedic" is a subjective judgement related to "notable".

> You do not improve an encyclopedia by putting in non-encyclopedic
> articles, any more than you would improve the Superbowl by putting in
> a performance of _Hamlet_.

I understand that Janet Jackson added improvements to the last Superbowl
without ever playing football. :-)
A performance of Hamlet might get some of us to watch who would
otherwise find the production boring.  That would be an improvement.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Rick wrote:

>Bullcrap.  Your characterizations are only in your own mind.  If somebody can't be bothered to let us know why they care about an article, why should we?  I constantly argue that all of the individual town and cities created by bot should be kept, despite repeated attempts at mass deletions.  And I constantly vote keep for all articles about towns, even one line stubs.  But where do we go on this path?  I vote delete on schools, because from high schools we go to junior high schools, to elementary schools, to pre-schools.  We have an article on every single company that has ever existed?  We have an article on every single building that has ever existed?  Do you seriously think that these are articles we should have in an encyclopedia?
>
In theory, yes.  In practical terms it is not remorely likely to happen,
even if we allow it without argument.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
...and compare this to disruptive new inclusionists, such as
Netoholic, who either don't understand Wikipedia or its long-standing
policies and principles, or don't care.

Somehow, I think you'll find it's the deletionists who've generally
been here longer, and done the hard yards of actually working on good
articles, rather than spending their wiki time trying to turn
Wikipedia into Wikijunkyard.

-- ambi

> I note with a combination of amusement and horror but no surprise at all
> that almost if not all parties involved in that discussion aside from
> Rick are relatively new contributors (moreso at the time of the
> discussion). What we're seeing seems to be a result of the massive
> influx of new users who either don't understand Wikipedia or its
> long-standing policies and principles, or don't care.


from_name: Shelley Powers

subject:
[Wikitech-l] 1.37 and performance issues when using re_write in
	.htaccess

body:
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place. I looked in many places
trying to find what amounts to a user forum. Apologies if this is the
wrong place, and would be grateful to link to where I need to go.

I installed a test wiki with the new 1.3.7 security update. You can see
it at http://testwiki.itkitchen.info. I used redirects to remove
index.php from the URL, just as I do with my wiki running 1.3.6, here
http://wiki.itkitchen.info.

As you can see the performance, well, sucks. Big time.

We've tried other installations and other mods with the .htaccess, but
nothing works. If we use .htaccess to eliminate the index.php from the
URL, the performance is bad. If we don't, performance is good.

Anyone have any modifications to .htaccess that should accompany the update?

Many thanks

Shelley


from_name: Rebecca

body:
> >As far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia still needs stubs to grow, precisely in
> >areas where it is currently weak.
>
> I agree. The idea that stubs are bad is silly. WP isn't, and
> probably will never be, a finished work.

Absolutely no one here appears to be suggesting that stubs are bad. If
we had any deletionists at all who were as hardline as Anthony, Mark
Richards or Mr. Knight, then that's probably what they would argue.

I haven't seen the cases at hand, but knowing recent events, I'd guess
that they were probably substubs. And that's where they don't help
Wikipedia, because they contribute precisely nothing (and diminish our
credibility, by showing us to prefer quantity over quality).

-- ambi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Drive-by deletion

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Rebecca wrote:
>>
>>>> Bullshit!  Non-notability is not a valid excuse for deletion.
>>>
>>> According to who? What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the right
>>> to write an article on my deceased cat?
>>
>> That's a straw cat argument.
>
> Speaking as someone who has recently lost a cat, may I say that's
> extremely disrespectful to Ambi's unfortunate pet. Whatever the
> verifiable facts about this cat (since I haven't read the article on
> it yet), I am sure that the cat was not made of straw. At most, it may
> be providing fertilizer for the growth of some straw in the future.

No disrespect for the cat was intended, to whom I readily apologize.
One must nevertheless recognize the possibility that the wonders of
taxidermy could produce a cat of straw.  At the same time I would not
want to insult straw-hued tabbys, and even less would I wish to
antagonize lions whose coats provide excellent camouflage in the
surrounding straw.

One always needs to keep in mind the sadness expressed in Eric Bogle's
"He's Nobody's Moggy Now."

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] CC partner question

body:
On Sunday 24 October 2004 00:08, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Please see: http://creativecommons.org/technology/web-integration

Thank you.

--
NSK
Admin of http://portal.wikinerds.org
Project Manager of http://www.nerdypc.org
Project Manager of http://www.adapedia.org
Project Manager of http://maatworks.wikinerds.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] Full nice handbag

body:
The relentless discussion about deletion that I am just catching up with
on this mailing list prompted to review a deletion decision that got on
my nerves back in June. "Full nice handbag co" was a pathetic little
article about a textile company in Hong Kong. It was never much of an
article, but it was real, neutral, factual, verifiable. It was very
narrowly VfDed (with a small majority of about 55-60% voting delete) on
grounds of non-notability. Following deletion, I objected at VfU - my
grounds for undeletion were that the reasons for deletion were so
tenuous (see below) and the majority so small that we should have erred
on the side of caution and kept the article

Notability is extremely subjective. To my mind, a manufacturing company
of twelve years standing is more notable than a minor character in a
Lord of the Rings book. But others disagree. The VfU eventually failed -
both to get the article undeleted and to raise the issues about
systematic biases of domain of knowledge of editors affecting deletion.

Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I came to the conclusion that I would be
helping Wikipedia if I was bold and reinstated the article anyhow.
Unfortunately good old RickK got in a right tizz about this. Rick and I
have exchanged words that just about stay civil on our talk pages, and
Theresa Knott helpfully suggested I come here to the mailing list (a
kind of higher court than VfU if you will, and one arena more open to
more philosophical/esoteric debates) to see if I want did was reasonable.

So here I am, throwing myself open to community opinion,

Pcb21


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Shared source

body:
NSK wrote:
> Hi.
>
> How can I migrate to a shared source MW1.3.7 installation?
>
> I noticed WP runs this way but I am not sure how to implement it.
>

Wikipedia actually runs on the CVS branch REL1_3A not 1.3.7.

If by shared-source you mean multi-wiki, check out my article on the
subject at:

http://wp.wikidev.net/Wiki_farm

I put up symlinks to our apache configuration files at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apache_config#Reference_implementation

The main thing is to read the manuals, learn how to use linux and
apache, and to some extent, PHP.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: KIingon links

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> Klingon interwiki-links have been decided not to work. I have always
> hated this so-called compromise. But now I even find that what happens
> is that they DO work, but are shown as normal internal links rather
> than interwiki links. Isn't this contrary to the intentions of this?
> Now they are even MORE visible than normal interwiki links.
>
> Furthermore, as I have said before, I find this so-called compromise
> worse than both of the things it is supposed to be a compromise
> before.
>
> All in all, could we please get to treat Klingon interwiki links the
> normal way again?

Is this about pywikipediabot again? The solution to that problem is to
just remove tlh from the site list.

I can remove tlh from the interwiki table if that would help.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: slow hardware

body:
NSK wrote:
> I notice that the WP site is very slow. I think WP is a victim of its growth.

According to Alexa we're in the 49th percentile for speed, so that's not
that bad. And performance has been steadily improving over the last
three years. This is because the average cost of providing each hit has
been decreasing with increasing traffic due to better software,
especially better caching. Our resources have been growing roughly in
proportion to traffic.

> Have you thought of cooperating with some service like Coral? Or, you could
> just build your own version of it.

Various mailing-list inhabitants have espoused the P2P pipe-dream,
generally because they failed to consider the crippling problems of
synchronisation and development time. There are technical reasons why a
central database cluster is convenient, if you want to know about them I
suggest you read the previous thread on this subject. There are various
viable schemes for improving geographical distribution, which we have
discussed in the past. However geographical distribution of hardware
remains a touchy political subject. There's currently some Celerons in
France which will be turned into squids as soon as someone takes them to
a colocation centre and plugs them in.

> Dr. Stallman in his proposal for a universal learning resource explained why
> this scheme is preferred.

According to a credible source, Dr. Stallman is our love slave.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia France

body:
>>Which country is next on the list and where most of your EU contributors live?
> Possibly netherlands, or belgium, or italy ?

Possibly also US, India, Britain, or Romania:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/United_States_Wikimedia_Chapter
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India_chapter
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/British_Wikimedia_chapter
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Rom%C3%A2nia

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikimedia France


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Drive-by deletion

body:
Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [041023 07:51]:

> I've only been skimming this thread, but I think people proposing
> policies upon policies are missing what actually makes wikipedia work:
> people just do things that need to be done.  When I see a crap article

Yes, it's [[m:instruction creep]].

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

>From that page:

Instruction creep is an insidious disease, originating from ignorance of
the KISS principle and resulting in bloated pages that are harder to
maintain. High traffic, interactive pages (e.g. Village pump, Featured
article candidates) tend to be most susceptible. Over the long term,
instructions balloon in size until they are unmanageable.

Instruction creep occurs when a well-meaning user thinks "Hrm ... this page
would be better if everyone was supposed to do this" and adds more
requirements to the instructions.

The fundamental fallacy of instruction creep is thinking that people read
instructions. If people read instructions, we wouldn't have the problem the
new instruction is meant to solve.

Instructions must be pruned regularly. Gratuitous requirements must be
removed as soon as they are added.

Logging and archiving requirements are probably the most common form of
instruction creep. Procedural steps are popular to add, but unpopular to
follow. In the future, the Mediawiki software may automate some common
labour-intensive tasks.

- d.