from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Jimmy Wales said:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>My daughter recently asked Danny why the word 'receipt' has a 'p' in
>>>>it. Well, he gave a decent answer but I think he made it up out of
>>>>thin air. That's the best that most of us can do, even very well
>>>>educated and smart people.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>The irony with such situations arises when you answer "I don't know",
>>>and somebody still insists on an answer.  So you just oblige them with
>>>a made-up answer.  Those insisting on an answer are not just children.
>>>
>>>
>>I should note based on what I said, that Danny didn't make up a crazy
>>answer, and he properly couched it in terms of being a possible theory.
>>He offered that perhaps a long time ago people pronounced with with a
>>p.
>>So his answer was perfectly fine, and properly indicated his own doubt.
>>:-)
>>
>>My own answer was much worse: "Beats me, ask Danny."
>>
>>
>Receipt, like debt, is a post-hoc latinization of a Middle English word
>derived from Norman French.  dette by way of debitum was latinized to
>debt.  Receite by way of recepta (neut pl) was latinized to receipt.  The
>letters p and b in these cases were almost certainly always silent.
>
>
I'm sure there was no deceipt intended. :-)

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

body:
On Sat, 4 Jun 2005, sannse wrote:

> That's what we do at the moment, look at the conduct and leave the
> content to work itself out.  The question is whether we are missing the
> underlying problem by doing this.  Are we missing the frustrations that
> /lead/ to good people loosing their temper and acting badly?  And would
> it be better for there to be some other means, outside of the AC,  to
> solve these content disputes before that happens?

Much of this conversation has been in generalities over hypothetical
examples. One place where some kind of attention to the content would
have been useful was [[2004 U.S. Presidential election controversy and
irregularities]]. It was placed on VfD twice, currently has about 8
pages under Talk, & is an article that remains *very* controversial to
the point that no one except POV-pushers will have anything to do with
it. (I would expect after all of that work, something worth submitting
to Featured Articles would be at that location.)

The original conflict can be reduced with little difficulty as lying
between 2 different opinions about this article:

* There were no irregularities in the election, it's all partisan lies,
& it's not important enough for Wikipedia to bother with it
* There were irregularities, this is the undeniable evidence, & only a
partisan hack would deny it

Not much room for compromise, huh? While I leaned towards the second
school of opinion, what troubled me was that it concerned itself with
creating a base of Original Research, & not with an NPOV treatment, say:

* There are people who believed that there were irregularities
* This is the evidence (news reports, incidents) that convinced them that
there were irregularities
* This is how the story has been playing out (e.g., recounts in Ohio,
Barbara Boxer challenging the results in Ohio in January of this year, etc.)

I feel that this article should have been written this way because if my
understanding is someday proven wrong, the materials need to be there to
show later generations why people thought it was true. On the other hand,
if history does prove that the election was stolen, then what Wikipedia
then needs in this article is not proof that it happened, but an explanation
of how the truth was suppressed. And an NPOV approach would best meet both
of these needs.

And that is why I believe that the ArbCom should consider in cases like
this that they appoint an uninvolved experienced Wikipedian -- say someone
who has written Featured Articles (preferrably those not dealing with
politics) -- to insist on things like No original research, & Cite sources,
& other guidelines formulated to improve Wikipedia.
>
> I have mixed feelings on all this - I see that there are problems, but
> am not fully convinced that the majority of them won't be fixed with a
> little time and a little faith in the good will of editors.  I'm not
> saying we ignore things until they go away, just that a proactive
> solution may give disputes an emphasis that might be harmful - maybe
> without intervention the eventualist approach will work in a lot of cases.

Given enough time, any controversy will come to an end -- if for no other
reason than the participants will all be dead. And if we don't have a
date for Wikipedia 1.0, then we can afford to let these controversies
rage on with a minimum of intervention.
>
> But that said, I realise we are in a whole new situation with the
> growing Wikipedia, and maybe what worked a year ago won't do so
> nowadays.  And content does seem to be the key issue in many disputes
> that we have looked at recently.
>
I agree with sannse about this: the POV-pushers have gotten craftier
as Wikipedia matures. It used to be that our greatest worry was cult-like
groups who had the funds to advocate their POV everywhere, & would not
compromise; however, the more like a cult these groups were, the more
rigid was their embrace of specific strategems.[*]

However, the new batch of POV-pushers are more likely to manuever their
opponents into violating Wikipedia guidelines & thereby letting the
ArbCom do their work. While I have confidence that the current membership
of the ArbCom won't be fooled by these tactics, I keep wondering how
long we can go until one group finds the magic key that allows them to
get their POV included -- to the excusion of all of their rivals.

But I admit, I do have a persistent streak of pessimism in how I
view everything I care about.

Geoff

[*] The Church of Scientology is the example that I have in mind here.
Wikipedia has not been the target of a CoS campaign, most likely, because
their vaunted cash box has been depleted over the years by bad investments,
embezzlements, the usual gouging from investment houses, & fighting critics
on the Internet. Add to that the poor public image the CoS has & their
usual turn-over rate in that disfunctional organization, & it's no
surprise that they'd rather ignore something like Wikipedia than directly
confront it.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: URGENT: blocking open proxies

references:
<BAY22-F1E0E5C4004EF510B0BE6BB70C0@phx.gbl>	<d6tmad$aa5$1@sea.gmane.org>	<42928814.2020301@vankalken.net>	<d6vqsc$g02$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<42A1E1A1.3080603@wikia.com> <d7t8oa$g9k$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Then make them care. Hack something into MediaWiki that allows us to
> display a pre-set message to non-logged-in users with certain IPs or
> within certain IP ranges. Use that to encourage users who are forced
> behind an open proxy to switch provider, implicitly mumbling something
> about their management. Keep telling the providers that we're actively
> doing this to their users. When they start losing customers, they will
> start caring.

In some cases they might, but don't assume a free market exists
everywhere.  In many cases the *reason* the provider doesn't care is
that they have a *monopoly* and customers have no choice about it.  Talk
to Waerth in Thailand about this problem, he's quite eloquent in
explaining it.

--Jimbo


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] ass pus on IRC

body:
G'day all,

Most people would be aware of the boring vandal who insists on putting
"ass pus" and "pelican shit" on the front pages of many of our
projects (at least english ones, i dont know about other langs). Well
on the smaller projects (such as wikibooks, wikinews etc) it can often
be some time before an admin happens to look at the front page and
realise someone needs banning. Yesterday s/he vanadalised for almost
half an hour before i saw the front page of wikibooks and banned
him/er.

Anyway my suggestion is this, create an rc bot in irc which reports on
any non-admin edit to the front page (or any of the front page
templates) on all the projects (except perhaps wikinews whose front
page tends to change a lot more than other projects, and wikipedia who
is just so huge that it doesnt really need it), and either create a
new chanell for it (like all the other rc chanells) or just put it
straight into one of the frequently used chanells such as #wikimedia.
If this has already been done, i apoligise since i havent been able to
get onto IRC in the last few months due to the stupid uni network im
behind.

just an idea...

paz y amor,
-rjs.

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

This work is released into the public domain.
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] ass pus on IRC


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] dump format

body:
elwp at gmx.de wrote:
> On average the total size of compressed revision texts can be
> reduced to (not by) 18.5%. As the complete dumps include other
> information as well (user, timestamp ...) that don't benefit
> from my method, I guess the final sizes will be around 1/4.

Spiffy.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050606/bfa03a9d/attachment.pgp>


subject: [Wikitech-l] TOC numbering bug

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> If you set up an article with sections like this, the auto-numbering gives
> an incorrect result:

Then don't do that. :D

> ==   1
> ==== 1.1
> ==== 1.2
> ===  1.1
> ===  1.2
>
> Should the "====" sections be labelled "1.0.?"? I think "yes".

Ewwww?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050606/69409240/attachment.pgp>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> Fred Bauder stated for the record:
>
>> There is also the question of whether it is  reasonably convenient to
>> access it. For example, a NYT's article  might cost 2 bucks but
>> something that requires accessing Nexus or  consulting an obscure
>> journal is much more expensive.
>
> So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable?  I guess my
> digging into old Soviet naval records for information about their
> nuclear submarines is a waste of time.
>
> The harder the original editor worked, the more likely his work will
> be deleted.  That's ... I'm groping for the word ... smart? ... no ...
> oh, I have it: perverse.

Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No
original research" rule.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> People find it very difficult to accept that a problem may have no
> solution or that a question may have no answer.

It doesn't apply to all the disputes, but I might go further and say
that some of the content disputes are an extention spilling over into
our encyclopedia of real-world disputes, often between well-credentialed
experts.

To take just one example, the mess of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy
of mind, and associated fields isn't resolved in the real world, so it
would be unreasonable to suppose it will be nicely resolved in
Wikipedia.  Things like, does mental illness exist; if so, what is it;
should it be treated with therapy or drugs or both or neither; etc.; are
questions that have settled answers in some fields, unsettled ones in
others, and often conflicting settled answers between fields.  So you
end up with people arguing "this article should say [x], because
psychiatry experts agree", and others arguing "no, it should say [x] is
false, because philosophers agree [x] is a prima facie illogical
position", and all sides can produce volumes of peer-reviewed literature
to support their position.

The only real solution I see is to simply document these viewpoints.
Wikipedia isn't the place to settle whether psychiatrists are
pill-pushing pseudo-scientists, or psychologists are out-of-touch
scientists who don't understand medicine, or philosophers should just
butt out entirely, but we can document what they all say.

-Mark


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking
	Comment

body:
If Arb Com gains when it refuse to hear a dispute between parties who
can't show where they have tried to find common ground.

Some would consider the time taken for an extra step to be a loss.  But
there's nothing wrong with a little patience.

Ec

Fred Bauder wrote:

> Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation and consider how
> the user conducted themselves and sanction those who don't cooperate.
> What do we gain, what do we lose?
>
> Fred
>
> On Jun 6, 2005, at 12:10 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Stephen Bain wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I
>>>> think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either
>>>> party
>>>> but a genuine effort at resolving the problem.
>>>
>>> Absolutely. Many people see mediation as only an annoying  formality to
>>> skirt around before going to ArbCom. Mediation needs to be seen as an
>>> end in itself.
>>
>> And an uncooperative attitude in mediation could be a factor in an
>> arbitration decision.
>>
>> Ec
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

body:
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:

> Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No
> original research" rule.

Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
(NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?

--
  Sean Barrett     | If you insist upon discussing my fiasco, I
  sean at epoptic.com | shall forthwith go home. --Nadreck of Palain


subject: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals

body:
Robert wrote:

>Sean writes:
>
>
>>I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the
>>formation of a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular
>>content from Wikipedia and to ban those that feel that it
>>is important to record it.
>>
>>
>I strongly object to this strawman attack - which borders
>on an ad homenim attack - on the discussion of improving
>Wikipedia.
>
Why is it ad hominem to raise serious concerns?

>Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people
>here who unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in
>original research, write things that are just false and
>bizarre.
>
With more insistance of citing sources the other two might just fall
into place.

>For years many of our best contributors have been driven
>away due to these problems, and the Wikipedia leadership
>has done little to address the core problem: While we
>enforce rules about "playing nice", virtually no one
>attempts to seriously enforce our rules and policies on
>citing sources, verifiability, and just plain making sure
>that our articles do not contain flat-out bullshit.
>
Viewed in isolation saying that something is "flat-out bullshit" is just
another POV.

Ec


from_name: Jan Ulrich Hasecke

subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal

body:
Hi,

I've just added a proposal on meta.wikimedia.org: Wikitution - A
Free  European Constitution.

The citizens of France and The Netherlands did not accept the
proposed european constitution in two national polls. Europe is
facing a serious crisis. It needs a free and democratic constitution,
to which everybody can contribute and which will be accepted by the
great majority of all citizens in Europe.

The site is up and running: http://www.wikitution.org

I set up the wiki and registered the domain name without knowing that
Merlin of Eragon proposed "Wiki constitution/political theory" with
the same domain name. I am sorry for that. The problem in europe is
urgent and we need a solution soon. I hope that we can cooperate.

I think that this is a temporary project. We cannot debate about a
constitution for years, but need to come to an end in two or three
years. If the project will run successfully I foresee much traffic
and great organizational work, which I cannot do by myself. So I
would be glad, if the project would be a temporary wikimedia-project
and if some more experienced mediawiki-users will join the team.

Thanks!
Jan Ulrich Hasecke


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal


from_name: Elly Waterman

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: possible interwiki solution

references:
<d7s71u$3la$1@sea.gmane.org> <d7sci3$g1q$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1117917837.3038.17.camel@meteor.newtonlabs.com>

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Witty" <cwitty at newtonlabs.com>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: Re: possible interwiki solution

> Well, I think a proposal like this could still reduce duplication
> significantly, and would work fine even in the above scenario.  (Note: I
> haven't looked up the real article names; I'm making up article names
> for the following.)  For instance, you could have [[en:Vulcan]] (and
> [[ja:Vulcan]], and [[fr:Vulcan]], etc.) refer to [[interwiki:Vulcan]];
> [[interwiki:Vulcan]] would refer to [[en:Vulcan]], [[ja:Vulcan]],
> [[fr:Vulcan]], and [[de:Star Trek Races]].  The German article [[de:Star
> Trek Races]] would refer to [[interwiki:Star Trek Races]], which would
> refer to [[en:Star Trek]], [[ja:Star Trek]], [[fr:Star Trek]], and
> [[de:Star Trek Races]].  This cuts the number of
> lists-of-interwiki-links to maintain from 4 to 2.  (I don't know if it
> actually reduces the amount of work involved in maintaining interwiki
> links, because I don't know how sophisticated the bots are.)
>
> Carl Witty

In general the reduction of duplicition will be much larger. Say an certain
article exists on 21 languages. Then on each of these languanges there will
eventually be 20 interwiki links to the other articles. In total 21x20 = 420
links. If the title of one of these changes, it needs 20 edits on the 20
other languages.

In this proposal, if you have one central location with all interwiki links,
you only have to change 1 link. This means a reduction of editting effort
from 20 edits to only 1. You only have 21 links in the central database,
versus 420 links in the current system.

And in the future, possibly not so far away with our current growth of
languages and articles, the reduction (in case of 100 languages) will be 100
to 1. This is an enormous reduction of editing load, searching for articles
in the database, involvement of people and bots, who can do other useful
things.

Elly


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Fred Bauder said:
> I think we are thinking about creating a committee to consider
> whether there is published authority for information, popular or
> unpopular. Beyond that it might consider the reputation and
> credibility of the source, but first it must pass the threshold of
> whether it exists at all. There is also the question of whether it is
> reasonably convenient to access it. For example, a NYT's article
> might cost 2 bucks but something that requires accessing Nexus or
> consulting an obscure journal is much more expensive.

Well the latter problem can usually be solved by someone with a library
subscription.  I'm loath to sanction anyone to rate the credibility of
sources; rather we should continue to treat all sources with great
circumspection.


subject: [Wikitech-l] TOC numbering bug

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Phil Boswell wrote:
>
>> If you set up an article with sections like this, the auto-numbering
>> gives
>> an incorrect result:
>
>
> Then don't do that. :D
>
>> ==   1
>> ==== 1.1
>> ==== 1.2
>> ===  1.1
>> ===  1.2
>>
>> Should the "====" sections be labelled "1.0.?"? I think "yes".
>
>
> Ewwww?

Maybe 1.01?

Ec


body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

> Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
>
>> If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the
>> "No original research" rule.
>
> Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
> (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?

I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make
that point.

Ec


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

body:
I think theres one issue that your missing here with mediation - Most
parties that get to the point of arbitration have no desire to allow
mediators to get involved, and have no desire to even consider discussing
the situation.
----- Original Message -----
From: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
To: "Rebecca" <misfitgirl at gmail.com>; "English Wikipedia"
<wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

> Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem,
> by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a
> bit of help learning some skills.
>
> -- ambi

Yes, mediators definitely need to get in earlier. And it might be a
good idea to allow for multi-party mediation if there's 2 distinct
viewpoints being argued.

Also, it was mentioned earlier that Wikipedia as a written medium
isn't the optimal place for mediation. I tend to disagree. The most
important aspect - the mediator "forcing" the parties to get to the
bottom (and therefore the real issues) of their disagreement - should
still work just as well as collaborative editing does. Collaborative
editing may not be as effective as face-to-face teamwork, but it still
works. And I believe that mediation, if performed before things
escalate could work just as well.

--Mgm
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
> > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
> > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?
>
> I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make
> that point.

It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to
prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia,
is starting to mutate into something quite different.

"Cite your sources" is fine.  "Provide your sources," though, is not.
On many obscure topics, the sources WILL be difficult to locate.  Any
attempt to turn this requirement into having to provide sources that
can be requested from the average library or online will remove a
large number of very credible but obscure sources - specialist
publications, limited circulation journals, and many other documents.

-Matt (User:Morven)


from_name: monk at zoomcon.com

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Email authentication on Wikimedia wikis +
	Single user sign-on

body:
Hello Magnus,

Monday, June 6, 2005, 10:49:28 AM, you wrote:

> I think I suggested this some time ago, but here it goes again:
> * Create "global" users for all unique user names in wiki(pedia)-land
> * Merge all users which carry same name and password hash (and maybe
> email), where all instances across wiki-land match perfectly
> * Block creation of all conflicting user names, both locally and globally
> * Work the conflicting ones out one-by-one manually, while keeping them
> active locally

> This seems like the only fair way to me.

what should I do if someone has different usernames on different wikis? for
example username "Monk" on en: is taken by someone (was inactive for a
long time). I will be unable to create global user name "Monk" at all,
if your proposal is implemented.

It seems not too fair way to me.

--
Best regards,
 monk                            mailto:monk at zoomcon.com


body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wouter Steenbeek" <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 5:53 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Homosexuals and other groups overrepresented
here(was: sco/fiu-vro in danger)

>
> >David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> > > Indeed, the amount of openly LGBT Wikipedians is interestingly high. I
> >don't
> > > know why Wikipedia is so appealing to homosexual contributors, but it
> > > appears to be that it is.
> >
> >We also have a disproportionate number of left handed people.
> >
> >--Jimbo
>
> And of Asperger's syndrome bearers... It's just an advantage here when
> you're somehow deviant... ;-). Such a project with an open,
non-hierarchical
> philosophy simply appeals to those who are not in in real life. (Please
take
> this with some irony, the undersigned is in one of these groups...)
>
> Wouter
>
>

Well, i'm left-handed, but I don't have Asperger's syndrome. Infact i've
never heard of it :/


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

body:
> Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem,
> by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a
> bit of help learning some skills.
>
> -- ambi

Yes, mediators definitely need to get in earlier. And it might be a
good idea to allow for multi-party mediation if there's 2 distinct
viewpoints being argued.

Also, it was mentioned earlier that Wikipedia as a written medium
isn't the optimal place for mediation. I tend to disagree. The most
important aspect - the mediator "forcing" the parties to get to the
bottom (and therefore the real issues) of their disagreement - should
still work just as well as collaborative editing does. Collaborative
editing may not be as effective as face-to-face teamwork, but it still
works. And I believe that mediation, if performed before things
escalate could work just as well.

--Mgm


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] ass pus on IRC

body:
Hello, all

On 6/6/05, Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:

If I recall correctly, ASV is only a pestilence on English project
(and meta, somehow).
I am not sure on German project, but Japanese projects haven't been
suffered ASV/WoW.

> Anyway my suggestion is this, create an rc bot in irc which reports on
> any non-admin edit to the front page (or any of the front page
> templates) on all the projects (except perhaps wikinews whose front
> page tends to change a lot more than other projects, and wikipedia who
> is just so huge that it doesnt really need it), and either create a
> new chanell for it (like all the other rc chanells) or just put it

I am not sure it is a good idea, at least on English Wikiquote Main
Page is not his or her main target, in average other pages like VP or
VfD are more frequently suffered from my observation.

As for English Wikipedia MP, for tentative solution I recommand you to
protect  those templates and to create a "recommendation page from the
community".

> straight into one of the frequently used chanells such as #wikimedia.
> If this has already been done, i apoligise since i havent been able to
> get onto IRC in the last few months due to the stupid uni network im
> behind.

It seems to me overreaction and not efficient; perhaps the majority of
edits on MP or its subsidiary templates will be legitimate, and those
[basically irrelevant] info intervene the conversation on the channel.
I suppose "combined active RC" (like combination of EN WP + EN WB
...for example) would be helpful [smiling innocently].- or special rc
channel reviewing a few pages on some major projects.

Just a thought.


subject: [Foundation-l] ass pus on IRC


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Re: Namespace in Friulian Wiki

body:
Yes I know, but editing the language file is an hard job, actually I'm
translating Wikipedia's GUI through MediaWiki:Allmessages; there you can't
change the namespace, so I wonder if there is a way to change it through the web
thanks


from_name: Heinz

subject: [Wikitech-l] skins/php: inserting a 2'nd  page by name

body:
I would like to insert a second defined article by name into the a skin.
I can't find any hints on the web.
Can anybody help me?


body:
> I think theres one issue that your missing here with mediation - Most
> parties that get to the point of arbitration have no desire to allow
> mediators to get involved, and have no desire to even consider discussing
> the situation.

I don't agree with this.

It is true that there exist incurably closed minded and uncooperative
people. I believe such people form only a tiny minority of the people
involved in Wikipedia. We should not worry about them when deciding
our arbitration and moderation procedures, because the ultimate
destination for such people is ejection from our community.

We need to use triage:

1. Those who want to cooperate and find a mutual solution but need an
outsider to facilitate communication and to help cut away moot issues.
2. Those who are not interested in cooperation but can be reasoned
with and can be convinced to accept a compromise.
3. People who can't be cured. (This group consists mostly of people
who get their jollies due to disrupting wikipedia).

We should only expend substantial effort working on mediation support
for a lower group once the higher group has been sufficiently handled.

Right now we have some users who want to help with disputes whom are
very heavy handed. I think these approaches are good for class 3 users
above, but if used on the first group it often turns them into the
second.  I think a lot of the recent grumbling about our toleration of
aggressive admins is because by large they only tend to abuse #3s,
which no one cares about.. quite rightly. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
I agree that it is a small majority that are un-cooperative. But it is this
small majority that reach the arbitration committee, because as we know
ArbCom don't deal with minor disputes.


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Ellywa's Law

body:
>Can Ellywa's Law be stated, or is it completely ineffable?
>
>--
It runs: "After growing to some 10,000s of artricles, there will be a steady
growth of duplicate information (two articles on the same topic or the same
information once in a specialised and once in a broader article)."

Wouter.
P.S. Please see http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wet_van_Ellywa and
try if you can find it out, despite of the Dutchness of the article.

_________________________________________________________________
Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
http://messenger.msn.nl/


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal

body:
Am 06.06.2005 um 17:46 schrieb Fred Bauder:

> Excellent. I was just watching the debate in the House of Commons
> on the issue and there seems to be genuine puzzlement as to what
> the people of Europe want. Surely, if this idea has any traction
> among the population at large, very valuable feedback would be
> obtained. I assume this will be multilingual?

Yes of course. We are taking the current text of the rejected
constitution as basis of a new one. Everyone can make contributions
in his/her own language.

I have not the slightest idea how to keep the different languages in
sync. This is more experience in progress than work in progress. ;-)

juh


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Homosexuals and other groups overrepresented here
	(was: sco/fiu-vro in danger)

body:
>David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> > Indeed, the amount of openly LGBT Wikipedians is interestingly high. I
>don't
> > know why Wikipedia is so appealing to homosexual contributors, but it
> > appears to be that it is.
>
>We also have a disproportionate number of left handed people.
>
>--Jimbo

And of Asperger's syndrome bearers... It's just an advantage here when
you're somehow deviant... ;-). Such a project with an open, non-hierarchical
philosophy simply appeals to those who are not in in real life. (Please take
this with some irony, the undersigned is in one of these groups...)

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Nieuw: Beeld en geluid met MSN Messenger 7.0 http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Email authentication on Wikimedia wikis + Single user
	sign-on

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> what should I do if someone has different usernames on different wikis? for
> example username "Monk" on en: is taken by someone (was inactive for a
> long time). I will be unable to create global user name "Monk" at all,
> if your proposal is implemented.
>
> It seems not too fair way to me.

This sort of dispute would be resolved via arbitration. The preferred
(or at least in my point of view) solution, implements the technical
solution before handling the messy username conflicts.

Hmm... given the increased scope of usernames this will entail, perhaps
we should set up a system for ruling on user name disputes? How do the
large companies do it?

- --
 Edward Z. Yang      Personal: edwardzyang at thewritingpot.com
 SN:Ambush Commander Website: http://www.thewritingpot.com/
 GPGKey:0x869C48DA   http://www.thewritingpot.com/gpgpubkey.asc
 3FA8 E9A9 7385 B691 A6FC B3CB A933 BE7D 869C 48DA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFCpNSYqTO+fYacSNoRAn4cAJ95nytzFbAN7ZZab2CsdvZc/vX5egCff4fr
Pgx3NRVInISekstai3+W9Yg=
=hMXz
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: aerik at thesylvans.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] Article validation / voting

body:
Cool, thanks David!  I had read some of the stuff about the validation project, but no specifics.  I checked it out at test.leuksman.com, and it looks great - I just want to see how flexibly it's implemented, whether the questions are easily configurable, etc. (for epinions style ratings).

I saw somewhere concerns about people promoting their articles and also people have retaliatory negative votes.  I see that the voting has the option to "Clear my older validation data" - setting this to "yes" and using "median" instead of "mean" average will help reduce the impact of self-promoters and others.

Well, I guess it's time to take a deep breath, set up a test installation of 1.5, and dig in!

David Gerard wrote:
> [[m:Article validation feature]]
> [[m:Category:Article validation]]
> [[m:En validation topics]]
> [[m:De Validierungsthemen]]
>
> It's live on Wikimedia wikis (or at least en: and de: Wikipedias) for 1.5.
> You can try it out on http://test.leuksman.com/ - click on 'Validate' in
> the Monobook skin.
>
> At the moment nothing is planned to be done with the data other than gather
> it, make it viewable (you can view every rating, just like you can view
> every edit) and show a numerical average. We'll see what people do with the
> test data, then we'll probably write some apps for it, tweak the questions
> and then throw away the data and start over.
>
> I think a *lot* of MediaWiki installations will want to play with this
> feature.

Best Regards,
Aerik


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

body:
Fred Bauder a ?crit:
> Sometimes we do, but sometimes we lose our nerve. Most of the
> arbitration committee are elected. Insisting on inclusion of  unpopular
> points of view is not conducive to maintaining popularity.  Announcing a
> high-minded principle is one thing, living by it - another.
>
> Fred

<small>so true...</small>


body:
Sean Barrett a ?crit:
> steven l. rubenstein was annoyed to be reminded that he had stated for
> the record:
>
>> NPOV does not require that our article on the moon state, "According
>> to some, the moon is made of green cheese, although virtually all
>> astronomers disagree."  Don't laugh -- silly statements like this are
>> easy to spot when we are talking about physical phenomena.  But they
>> are much harder to spot when talking about historical and cultural
>> phenomena, which is one reason why some content disputes are
>> protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone.
>
>
> Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be
> rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are
> not silly.  They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration
> candidates.
>
> I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a
> committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to
> ban those that feel that it is important to record it.

**seconded**

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: New project proposal

body:
Sigh...

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AAnthere&diff=136843&oldid=136727

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikim%C3%A9dia_France&diff=0&oldid=136851

Anthere

Jan Ulrich Hasecke a ?crit:
> Hi,
>
> I've just added a proposal on meta.wikimedia.org: Wikitution - A  Free
> European Constitution.
>
> The citizens of France and The Netherlands did not accept the  proposed
> european constitution in two national polls. Europe is  facing a serious
> crisis. It needs a free and democratic constitution,  to which everybody
> can contribute and which will be accepted by the  great majority of all
> citizens in Europe.
>
> The site is up and running: http://www.wikitution.org
>
> I set up the wiki and registered the domain name without knowing that
> Merlin of Eragon proposed "Wiki constitution/political theory" with  the
> same domain name. I am sorry for that. The problem in europe is  urgent
> and we need a solution soon. I hope that we can cooperate.
>
> I think that this is a temporary project. We cannot debate about a
> constitution for years, but need to come to an end in two or three
> years. If the project will run successfully I foresee much traffic  and
> great organizational work, which I cannot do by myself. So I  would be
> glad, if the project would be a temporary wikimedia-project  and if some
> more experienced mediawiki-users will join the team.
>
> Thanks!
> Jan Ulrich Hasecke


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: New project proposal


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] dump format

body:
elwp at gmx.de (elwp at gmx.de) [050606 17:44]:

> The window size of the deflate function is the main cause for
> this huge difference. Its maximum value is 32kB, but many pages -
> especially discussion pages - are larger. So you must bring
> matching regions closer together. Splitting files by section
> and sorting sections of several revisions by section heading
> does exactly this. (And additionally one can omit unchanged
> sections.)

You mean, something closer to keeping diffs rather than each revision in
its entirety? Have you tested using diff rather than this custom diff-like
thing?

- d.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Homosexuals and other groups overrepresented
 here(was: sco/fiu-vro in danger)

body:
David 'DJ' Hedley a ?crit:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wouter Steenbeek" <musiqolog at hotmail.com>
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 5:53 PM
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Homosexuals and other groups overrepresented
> here(was: sco/fiu-vro in danger)
>
>
>
>>>David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
>>>
>>>>Indeed, the amount of openly LGBT Wikipedians is interestingly high. I
>>>
>>>don't
>>>
>>>>know why Wikipedia is so appealing to homosexual contributors, but it
>>>>appears to be that it is.
>>>
>>>We also have a disproportionate number of left handed people.
>>>
>>>--Jimbo
>>
>>And of Asperger's syndrome bearers... It's just an advantage here when
>>you're somehow deviant... ;-). Such a project with an open,
>
> non-hierarchical
>
>>philosophy simply appeals to those who are not in in real life. (Please
>
> take
>
>>this with some irony, the undersigned is in one of these groups...)
>>
>>Wouter
>>
>>
>
>
> Well, i'm left-handed, but I don't have Asperger's syndrome. Infact i've
> never heard of it :/

Hmmmm

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

By the way, has Aplank left us ? I have not seen him in quite a while.
He is even listed TWICE on the Aspergian list :-)

I wonder if I should not add myself on it as some told I was a light
autist as a child.

.... I just read something scary

''Autism presents in a wide degree, from those who are nearly
dysfunctional and apparently mentally retarded to those whose symptoms
are mild or remedied enough to appear unexceptional ('normal') to the
general public. These autistic persons are often classified as "nerds"
or "geeks" by their peers.''

Nerds ?

Geeks ??

Wikipediholics ???

Ant


from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] An idea

body:
On Jun 6, 2005, at 4:11 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
>>
>> In a world that is moving to greater transparency, wikipedia is, in
>> fact, a model. Consider being able to earn one's degree by writing on
>> wikipedia. Edit articles, have a thesis advisor review contributions,
>> and score credit appropriately. Adding bibliography, annotation and
>> other activities which "polish" wikipedia would be part of
>> assignments.
>
> Not only that.  The work has meaning because it is available to
> everybody.  Once finished, and the degree granted, it is no longer
> relegated to gathering dust in  inaccesible library stacks where
> nobody ever visits.
>
> Ec
>

Precisely.


body:
Fred Bauder said:
> Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties
> often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books.
>

Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their
opinions.  I don't see a problem here.  A flat earth society website is an
excellent reference for a description of the views of that society.


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Homosexuals and other groups overrepresented
	here(was: sco/fiu-vro in danger)

body:
On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 07:43:41PM +0200, Anthere wrote:
> By the way, has Aplank left us ? I have not seen him in quite a while.
> He is even listed TWICE on the Aspergian list :-)

for left and right hand?

> I wonder if I should not add myself on it as some told I was a light
> autist as a child.

> .... I just read something scary
>
> ''Autism presents in a wide degree, from those who are nearly
> dysfunctional and apparently mentally retarded to those whose symptoms
> are mild or remedied enough to appear unexceptional ('normal') to the
> general public. These autistic persons are often classified as "nerds"
> or "geeks" by their peers.''

:de also includes lingual, communication and social problems, nothing
I'd expect from a Wikipedian.

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://verlag.tomk32.de/ - WikiReader Digest als Print-Ausgabe
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Email authentication on Wikimedia wikis + Single
	user sign-on

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> So I'm user "Magnus Manske" on en, de, meta, and I-don't-know-what.
> Suppose someone created a user "Magnus Manske" (unlikely for that name,
> but anyway;-) on, say, the French wikipedia, a week ago. He has edited
> three articles since then. He sees the new user system a minute before
> me and signs on. So he gets to keep the "Magnus Manske" user and I'll
> have to change my user name?

Those cases can be resolved manually, that goes without saying.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people
> here who unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in
> original research, write things that are just false and
> bizarre.

And the ArbCom is already charged with enforcing all Wikipedia policies,
including those that are about content (such as NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability).
We have in fact ruled in this area several times before but have been usually
limited to cases that are fairly obvious.

Spotting subtle POV, original research, or fringe ideas masquerading as more
mainstream than they are takes a fair amount of pre-existing knowledge in the
relevant subject area. This is something that the current ArbCom could never
have.

Thus my idea of having vetted panels of respected users who have demonstrated
knowledge in certain areas that the ArbCom could call upon to help it
distinguish what is what.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee

-- mav

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> My immediate impression is that having a committee rule on content would
> be ruinous.  Successful NPOV depends on people finding common ground
> even when that may be very difficult.

It is not the place for the ArbCom to say things like 'human-caused global
warming is real' but it *is* the place of the ArbCom to say that a certain user
has violated our content-related policies (like NPOV or NOR) while editing such
an article.

We have done this before and will do it again. The only question is:
*Do we continue to only apply this to the most obvious cases or do we try to
enforce our content-related policies with the same rigor as we do our purely
behavioral ones?

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html


from_name: Rebecca

body:
On 6/6/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Rebecca wrote:
>
> >On 6/6/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >> As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely
> >>to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning
> >>and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require
> >>watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a
> >>more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting
> >>for cases to come to them.

Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem,
by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a
bit of help learning some skills.

-- ambi


body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any
> content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the
> community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to
> dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community
> procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear
> conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all
> arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed
> upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff.

The ArbCom already tries to enforce our content-related policies. What I'd like
to do is have subject-area subcommittees to consult when alleged violations of
our content-related polices like NPOV or NOR come before us (the ArbCom). As it
is, only the most blatant POV and original research-pushing people are
sanctioned due to the simple fact that the ArbCom does not know everything
about everything and thus can't spot more subtle violations of our
content-related polices. We have tried, but this results in cases that take
months and inadequate remedies.

Here is my proposal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee

-- mav

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


body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> There is still a distinction to be made between "judgement on
> content-based disputes" and "judgement on content."

Very good point. I for one only want 'judgment on content-based disputes.' This
is in fact something that is already going on, but most often, only for the
most obvious cases. A group of vetted and respected people more familiar with
the subject matter is needed to help the ArbCom detect less-obvious cases.

-- mav

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

body:
On 6/6/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > A open invitation to original research would be a bad thing... but at
> > the same time the prohibition against it denies the ability to print
> > common sense to those in a field... Despite the handwaving claims to
> > the contrary, it can be quite difficult (measured against the value of
> > including the text) to find a citation for something that is common
> > sense in a given field but not necessarily outside it.  Fortunately,
> > at least on en, we look the other way on original research unless
> > there is a dispute.
>
> The main "handwaving claims" have been that this is in fact a real problem.
> Whenever the topic's come up, I've asked for an example where this has been
> a problem, including in response to your emails to the list claiming it.
> Neither you nor anyone else have provided one.

Are you asking where it's a problem finding citeable material?
It's not currently a problem because no one complains unless there is
controversy.

I'm not handwaving, but I also not eager to go pointing out example
for fear that people will go 'fix' perfectly good text.  Go load
almost any article on a piece of music or a composer, you might find
that is says the work contains "lush harmonies" or "thick chords".. No
see the groves citation at the bottom and look it up and you likely
wont find that description... but there is nothing wrong there, the
description is accurate, undisputed, and would be obvious to anyone
skilled in the subject.

So of course the counter claim is that isn't original research because
it's common sense, but that's not the case, it's only obvious to
someone versed in the field. ... and everything known is obvious to
someone, so if we are expansive in our interpretation of common sense
we will eventually include everything.


from_name: Dan Grey

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation,
	Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

> Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation
> and consider how
> the user conducted themselves and sanction those who
> don't cooperate.
> What do we gain, what do we lose?
>
> Fred

I think we'd find mediation was suddenly much more
effective.

I've been reading people's comments and sounding out
the MC. People *want* to make it work, and there's
some clear ideas that people want to try - such as
assigning cases. Yes I can see there's potential
problems with that but the current method is very
broken - why don't we just try it and see what
happens? We may find that this debate over a 'content
committee' (concom?! :-) ) is rendered moot.

So let's make it happen and see what the result is.

Dan

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Copyright violations at download.wikimedia.org

body:
On 6/6/05, Roger Luethi <collector at hellgate.ch> wrote:
> * Make the copyvio warning on the edit page more visible. I notice that
>   the German WP comes with a warning in a fat box with a red border. It
>   is so cheap I am positive it will pay for its cost.
>   Scroll to the bottom of this page to see how it looks like:
>   http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint-Cloud&action=edit

This is great, we also need to make it a practice of asking uploaders
if *they* are the copyright holder.

> * Clarify policy: WP:CP works quite well for pages that started as
>   copyvio, at least if they are caught early. The page also gives
>   instructions for dealing with pages "where the most recent edit is a
>   copyright violation, but the previous article was not".
>   However, what if a copyvio added material several months ago, and
>   many editors kept working on the article afterwards? I say the article
>   remains a derived work and must be reverted to the last clean state,
>   but others disagree.
>   Either way, there are too many conflicting opinions scattered all
>   over WP and meta.

I'm in your camp.

> * Be strict: I contend that a key reason for the epidemic is that many,
>   even experienced editors are both too lenient and too careless. Large
>   contributions of perfect prose from unknown editors do not trigger
>   suspicion and checks nearly as often as they should. And unlike
>   vandalism or personal attacks, copyvios are often met with a cavalier
>   attitude which sends the wrong message.

This is related to the above, if the cost of a violation is just
clipping out some text later then people aren't likely to be strict
about it. People do not account for the huge potential liabilities
copyright violation places on the project, users of our content,  and
the cost in terms of negative publicity if we are branded a bunch of
theves. Once the quality of the vast majority of our content becomes
unquestionably good, the next obvious way to knock us is to say we got
there via theft...

I think we need to get much more strict on material submitted by
someone other than it's copyright holder. The issues are too complex
for us to expect anyone to get it right, at least the "I made this"
case is simple enough that we should only go afoul with bad
intentioned people and complete idiots. Our community is now big
enough that we can reasonably expect  it to generate the vast majority
of the media we need of any type.. Exceptions should obviously be
granted for logos, historic images, etc but they should be handled as
exceptions and not the norm.   On the plus side this will get us more
works which are very well targeted to our needs, rather than
misapproiated stock photography which is only partially what we want.


from_name: Roger Luethi

body:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2005 17:15:37 +0200, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > I find plenty of copyvios that are several days old, and I've had to
> > undo the work of weeks or months because some people just copy and
> > paste stuff from other web sites (no, not WP mirrors) without being
> > caught. That is a very unpleasant experience for everyone involved,
> > especially if other editors kept working on the text in good faith.
>
> I wonder what we can do to improve the situation.

I agree with David Gerard's suggestion, but here I will focus on how
to prevent copyvios or catch them early:

* Make the copyvio warning on the edit page more visible. I notice that
  the German WP comes with a warning in a fat box with a red border. It
  is so cheap I am positive it will pay for its cost.
  Scroll to the bottom of this page to see how it looks like:
  http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint-Cloud&action=edit

* Clarify policy: WP:CP works quite well for pages that started as
  copyvio, at least if they are caught early. The page also gives
  instructions for dealing with pages "where the most recent edit is a
  copyright violation, but the previous article was not".
  However, what if a copyvio added material several months ago, and
  many editors kept working on the article afterwards? I say the article
  remains a derived work and must be reverted to the last clean state,
  but others disagree.
  Either way, there are too many conflicting opinions scattered all
  over WP and meta.

* Be strict: I contend that a key reason for the epidemic is that many,
  even experienced editors are both too lenient and too careless. Large
  contributions of perfect prose from unknown editors do not trigger
  suspicion and checks nearly as often as they should. And unlike
  vandalism or personal attacks, copyvios are often met with a cavalier
  attitude which sends the wrong message.

Having a clear policy and being strict about it would make at least
the regulars more vigilant which in turn should help prevent unpleasant
surprises further down the road. It would also make the task of hunting
down copyvios cheaper, because arguing with unabashed copyvio apologists
is a significant cost today.

I can imagine software tools more advanced then the current method of
manually feeding some snippets from suspicious contributions to Google,
but why bother if we don't pick the low hanging fruit as outlined
above first?

Roger


body:
On 6/6/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> > People find it very difficult to accept that a problem may have no
> > solution or that a question may have no answer.
>
> It doesn't apply to all the disputes, but I might go further and say
> that some of the content disputes are an extention spilling over into
> our encyclopedia of real-world disputes, often between well-credentialed
> experts.
>
> To take just one example, the mess of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy
> of mind, and associated fields isn't resolved in the real world, so it
> would be unreasonable to suppose it will be nicely resolved in
> Wikipedia.  Things like, does mental illness exist; if so, what is it;
> should it be treated with therapy or drugs or both or neither; etc.; are
> questions that have settled answers in some fields, unsettled ones in
> others, and often conflicting settled answers between fields.  So you
> end up with people arguing "this article should say [x], because
> psychiatry experts agree", and others arguing "no, it should say [x] is
> false, because philosophers agree [x] is a prima facie illogical
> position", and all sides can produce volumes of peer-reviewed literature
> to support their position.
>
> The only real solution I see is to simply document these viewpoints.
> Wikipedia isn't the place to settle whether psychiatrists are
> pill-pushing pseudo-scientists, or psychologists are out-of-touch
> scientists who don't understand medicine, or philosophers should just
> butt out entirely, but we can document what they all say.
>
> -Mark

Now, I think you make an interesting point here. "Don't assume
disputes in the real world can be resolved in Wikipedia." There's a
lot of issues here in Wikipedia that are not (or a lot les
controversial) in the real world. Those are the ones we should try to
solve first.

--Mgm


from_name: Timwi

body:
monk at zoomcon.com wrote:
>
> what should I do if someone has different usernames on different
> wikis? for example username "Monk" on en: is taken by someone (was
> inactive for a long time). I will be unable to create global user
> name "Monk" at all, if your proposal is implemented. It seems not too
> fair way to me.

Why is that any less fair than the current situation where you can't
create the user "monk" because someone has already taken it?


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interwiki articles without en:

body:
Just to note that. ja:, sv: and sr: have two articles which don't exist on en:

1. Japanese god Hoderi:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9B%E3%83%87%E3%83%AA
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoderi
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8

2. Japanes god Hoori:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9B%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoori
http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8

We have one guy who likes mythology. It seems that there is one more
person on sv:


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

body:
>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>

> > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties
> > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books.
>
>But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach
>the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves,
>rather then leave it 'some people'.
>
>Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our
>lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the
>source.

There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't
imagine.  Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is
encyclopedic.  Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find some
other venue for promoting their bizarre notions.  The goal is that Wikipedia
become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who ever
managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book.

Jay.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: possible interwiki solution

references:
<d7s71u$3la$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7sci3$g1q$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7sgqi$q7h$1@sea.gmane.org>	<d7v185$4j4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<42A428C7.3050506@gmail.com>

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>> Elly Waterman wrote:
>>
>>> If there is no lookalike article in another language, you just
>>> should not link to it. I think these problems will also be
>>> diminished by a central database, at least they get more clearly
>>> visible.
>>
>> That's your POV. Other people disagree. If you are going to
>> implement some technical solution to a problem, you can't just say
>> "if everyone follows _my_ opinion, the problem is solved".
>
> When a solution is proposed, it has its own inherent
> rules/restrictions, calling this POV is a bit off.

That is not what I called POV. Elly said (above): "If there is no
lookalike article in another language, you just should not link to it."
That is her opinion, and it doesn't happen to agree with mine. My
opinion is that "If there is lookalike content, even if it is part of an
article on a more general topic that encompasses it, you _should_ link
to it."

Therefore, if you make it impossible for me to make that link, I will
not be likely to call that a "way forward", nor will I think of it as a
"solution" to the problem.

> When it improves on the current practices, it is a way forward.

But if it improves on the current practices only in the opinion of some
people but not others, then it is a way forward only in the opinion of
some people but not others.

Timwi


body:
On 6/6/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties
> > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books.
> >
> >But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach
> >the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves,
> >rather then leave it 'some people'.
> >
> >Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our
> >lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the
> >source.
>
> There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't
> imagine.  Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is
> encyclopedic.  Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find some
> other venue for promoting their bizarre notions.  The goal is that Wikipedia
> become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who ever
> managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book.

I think we're talking past each other here.
Nowhere did I suggest that we need to include every idea, just that
there is nothing about the fact that you can cite crazy people that
lessens the advantages of citing sources.


body:
>From: "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
>
>Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just waving
>a red herring to distract us from a serious problem.  In one of my own
>messages -- here or at the project page -- I pointed out that one use of
>such a committee is to ensure that the content is being presented in an
>NPOV way, or to ensure that the sources are properly represented.

This turns out to be a non-trivial matter; I have run into several editors
who, whether willfully or otherwise, do not accurately present the material
that they are using as a source.  Specifically, they will present a POV, and
when challenged for a source, will cite a source.  When you actually read
the source you find that the information they have entered in the article
simply does not match the source they are citing.  One would think that this
is an easy problem to solve; yet some editors often seem rather insistent on
ensuring their POV is heard, regardless of whether or not they have a source
that accurately represents it, and are willing to war till the end of time
to get their way.

Jay.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Scheduled global downtime

body:
ultrablue at gmail.com wrote:
> If you're setting up a downtime page on the Paris squids, I recommend
> not including a link to Openfacts.berlios.de. Every time Wikipedia has
> even a mild downtime (i.e. about 3 minutes or less) that site gets
> overwhelmed and goes down itself. I don't think it's fair on whoever
> owns that site.

Hehehe... :)

> I also recommend making any downtime error page generated
> multilingual, by consulting the people in the other language IRC
> channels. If I wasn't studying for exams I'd do that myself.

Here's a preview of the downtime page Kate's been throwing together:
http://fuchsia.knams.wikimedia.org/

If you've got additional translations, please e-mail them to me directly
or pop in at #wikimedia-tech on irc.freenode.net; the mailing lists will
probably be down during the downtime.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20050606/04550cdb/attachment.pgp


body:
>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>
>Fred Bauder said:
> > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties
> > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books.
> >
>
>Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their
>opinions.  I don't see a problem here.  A flat earth society website is an
>excellent reference for a description of the views of that society.

The lunatic fringe are typically easy enough to deal with; it's the more
subtle cases that are harder to judge.  Why not bring up real-life,
happening-today cases?  For example, this sourced statement
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Banu_Qurayza&diff=14817484&oldid=14816712],
which was reverted from an article on the grounds that the author didn't
have a Wikipedia article on him, one article editor had never heard of him
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ABanu_Qurayza&diff=14816692&oldid=14816611],
and another simply didn't feel he was "notable"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Banu_Qurayza&diff=next&oldid=14816692]
  Now, Tony, how do you deal with this?  Is this published author notable
enough to be quoted in the article?

Jay.


body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>
>Sean Barrett wrote:
>
>>Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
>>
>>>If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No
>>>original research" rule.
>>
>>Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records (NVR,
>>DANFS, &c.) are okay?
>
>I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make
>that point.

Sounds like another strawman.  Original research is not finding obscure
sources and citing them, but rather drawing original conclusions.  The
former is nothing like the latter, unless one is deliberately intent on
denigrating the Original Research policy by misrepresenting it.

Jay.


body:
>From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
?
>On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Sean Barrett wrote:
> > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
> > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?
> >
> > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make
> > that point.
>
>It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to
>prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia,
>is starting to mutate into something quite different.

It hasn't started to mutate into anything different, though some people
pretend it has.  What typically happens is this: An editor sees a cited POV
they strongly disagree with in some article, so they construct a novel
argument to counter that POV, often even citing sources for the various
facts used to construct the argument.  When challenged on the grounds that
they are doing Original Research, they either counter by saying each of the
facts used to create the argument is properly cited, or (if they've been
around Wikipedia for a while) they grumble on Wikien-l that the arguments is
obvious, and that the NOR policy is being stretched to cover areas for which
it was never intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be
cited *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g.
"like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually be
hard to find someone specifically stating them!  Then e-mails fly back and
forth on the list, eventually everything dies down for two months, rinse and
repeat.

Jay.


body:
>From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>

>On 6/6/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political
>parties
> > > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books.
> > >
> > >But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach
> > >the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves,
> > >rather then leave it 'some people'.
> > >
> > >Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our
> > >lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the
> > >source.
> >
> > There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't
> > imagine.  Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is
> > encyclopedic.  Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find
>some
> > other venue for promoting their bizarre notions.  The goal is that
>Wikipedia
> > become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who
>ever
> > managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book.
>
>I think we're talking past each other here.
>Nowhere did I suggest that we need to include every idea, just that
>there is nothing about the fact that you can cite crazy people that
>lessens the advantages of citing sources.

You said "Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but
our lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the source."
  In fact, it's our responsibility to judge sources all the time, and
(despite continued claims to the contrary) it's often a very tricky to do,
which is why content dispute resolution of some sort or another would be
quite helpful.

Jay.


body:
On 6/6/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> it was never intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be
> cited *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g.
> "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually be
> hard to find someone specifically stating them!

Hm. I'm the only person in recent memory who has made such a claim, so
should I be offended that you appear to be binning me in with crackpot
theorists?

For the record, I've never been a party to a content dispute on wikipedia.

I've discussed NOR because I believe it's a fundamentally weak idea at
its core but it functions as a bandaid to solve many problems *now*...
but long term we need process in place to accept and reject new
research in a way which keeps out most of the crackpots (or at least
mitigates their harm) and doesn't break NPOV.

Already wikipedia has become a better (more complete, more neutral,
more verified and reviewed) corpus than some of the sources we cite,
simply because our process are our contributors pretty good for some
things... or alternatively, because other places are so bad. :)  In
any case we're weaving an odd world where wikipedia will become a
default source of reliable general material... but to insert something
new you must first publish it someplace less reliable.

... The point is that in the process of reinventing the encyclopedia
we are also reinventing peer review. The logical conclusion is that
while the encyclopedia should not be a repository for original
research (because it's an encyclopedia), we will ultimately end up
building such a repository because our process is superior and because
we will eventually need it as a reference once we've put everyone else
out of business. ;)    Which is why I proposed wikiviews as a first
cautious step in that direction.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Statistics

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> Although of course counting the number of articles/words can lead to an
>> excessive valuation of stubs, I think it is also quite fun and
>> interesting, if done cautiously.
>>
>> It is always wonderful to celebrate milestones, and I love hearing about
>> them.  Please anyone who notices a language drawing close to a
>> milestone, let's celebrate it here.
>>
> The "Ido" Wiktionary has nearly 11,000 articles with 11 contributors and
> no administrators.  Ido is a constructed language that was an early
> break off from Esperanto.  Most of the articles are indeed stubs showing
> only a word from some language and its translation into Ido. :-)

The Latin Wiktionary has just reached 2,000 articles.  @whee.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: TOC numbering bug

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> If you set up an article with sections like this, the auto-numbering gives
> an incorrect result:
> ==   1
> ==== 1.1
> ==== 1.2
> ===  1.1
> ===  1.2

The auto-numbering assumes (quite reasonably) that the headings are
nested correctly. Garbage in, garbage out.

Timwi


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: I'm volunteer for a "Static HTML tree dumps"
	program

body:
Leuch wrote:
>
> I'm student and for the next months i'll have some free time to spend for free
> developement. If the announcment of this article is still relevant, please can u
> describe what u want exactly ?

If you're looking for something to do to help MediaWiki become better,
then welcome! This mailing list is where we discuss stuff, but we
actually track the bugs (and feature requests) at our bug database,
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/. Feature requests, for example, are
listed here: http://tinyurl.com/7qune - For a list of important bugs,
see http://tinyurl.com/84sq2

Timwi


body:
On 6/6/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Seriously, I don't know why anyone serving on arbcom would be interested
> in serving more than a single term.  It must be exhausting.

Trust me, re-election is the last thing on my mind. It's just always
been understood both among the arbitration committee and the community
that the arbitration committee does not dictate content, because a)
understanding the area involved to the necessary level is out of our
league, b) concerns over ending up with OTPOV, as discussed elsewhere
here, and c) a general unwillingness to spread past what we were set
up to deal with - the worst users who were causing serious problems in
the community. Fred has consistently tried to change this, but he's
generally been opposed by the remainder of the committee, except for
in one or two referencing-related cases.

-- ambi


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Mark Pellegrini:
> The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions
> pertaining to an ongoing problem:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC

I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any
content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the
community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to
dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community
procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear
conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all
arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed
upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff.

As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last
resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead.
This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't
destroy the village in order to save it.

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>
>> Sean Barrett wrote:
>>
>>> Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
>>>
>>>> If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the
>>>> "No original research" rule.
>>>
>>> Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
>>> (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?
>>
>> I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to
>> make that point.
>
> Sounds like another strawman.  Original research is not finding
> obscure sources and citing them, but rather drawing original
> conclusions.  The former is nothing like the latter, unless one is
> deliberately intent on denigrating the Original Research policy by
> misrepresenting it.

And how do you propose to know that the conclusion is "original"?

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal

body:
Jan Ulrich Hasecke:

> I think that this is a temporary project. We cannot debate about a
> constitution for years, but need to come to an end in two or three
> years. If the project will run successfully I foresee much traffic  and
> great organizational work, which I cannot do by myself. So I  would be
> glad, if the project would be a temporary wikimedia-project  and if some
> more experienced mediawiki-users will join the team.

This is a very interesting idea. I'd like to ask you to write a more
detailed proposal about the project. You have started it independently,
which is fine, but if it is meant to become a Wikimedia project (I don't
think such a decision can be temporary, BTW), we need to know better
what we're dealing with. Here are some questions I'd like to see answered:

- Are there risks of perception if Wikimedia gets involved in political
issues and publishes a proposal for a constitution, when all our
projects so far follow the Neutral Point of View policy?

- Is there a potential slippery slope here if we establish a precedent
for a political project?

- NPOV alone doesn't cut it if you're trying to be prescriptive rather
than descriptive. How are you ever going to achieve consensus on
questions where fundamental differences of opinion exist (e.g. reference
to God in the preamble, right to work, sexual rights) -- what kind of
policies and decision making processes do you want to use?

- Why can't this be part of Wikibooks?

- Why can't this be generalized into a larger project for similar documents?

My personal view, right now, is that this project might be interesting
from the perspective of funding for Wikimedia, similar to Wikispecies.
That might be a reason to pursue it, but I believe the aforementioned
issues need to be answered in a satisfactory way for the Board and the
community.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] New project proposal


body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
>
> ?
>
>> On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> > Sean Barrett wrote:
>> > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
>> > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?
>> >
>> > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to
>> make
>> > that point.
>>
>> It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to
>> prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia,
>> is starting to mutate into something quite different.
>
> It hasn't started to mutate into anything different, though some
> people pretend it has.  What typically happens is this: An editor sees
> a cited POV they strongly disagree with in some article, so they
> construct a novel argument to counter that POV, often even citing
> sources for the various facts used to construct the argument.  When
> challenged on the grounds that they are doing Original Research, they
> either counter by saying each of the facts used to create the argument
> is properly cited, or (if they've been around Wikipedia for a while)
> they grumble on Wikien-l that the arguments is obvious, and that the
> NOR policy is being stretched to cover areas for which it was never
> intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be cited
> *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g.
> "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually
> be hard to find someone specifically stating them!  Then e-mails fly
> back and forth on the list, eventually everything dies down for two
> months, rinse and repeat.

This argument sounds like its original research. :-)

Ec


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
By that, do they mean can't get a boyfriend/girlfriend, and aren't
good at nonverbal communication, or do they mean something more
extreme?

Mark

On 06/06/05, Thomas R. Koll <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 07:43:41PM +0200, Anthere wrote:
> > By the way, has Aplank left us ? I have not seen him in quite a while.
> > He is even listed TWICE on the Aspergian list :-)
>
> for left and right hand?
>
>
> > I wonder if I should not add myself on it as some told I was a light
> > autist as a child.
>
> > .... I just read something scary
> >
> > ''Autism presents in a wide degree, from those who are nearly
> > dysfunctional and apparently mentally retarded to those whose symptoms
> > are mild or remedied enough to appear unexceptional ('normal') to the
> > general public. These autistic persons are often classified as "nerds"
> > or "geeks" by their peers.''
>
> :de also includes lingual, communication and social problems, nothing
> I'd expect from a Wikipedian.
>
> ciao, tom
> --
> == Weblinks ==
> * http://verlag.tomk32.de/ - WikiReader Digest als Print-Ausgabe
> * http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
> * http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Pavol Cupka

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Namespace in Friulian Wiki

body:
For namespace there is only the hard way -> php file, but you can just
translate the namespace part and the rest trans. through MediaWiki.
And frankly it isn't that hard ;)

On 6/6/05, A. Decorte <klenje at adriacom.it> wrote:
> Yes I know, but editing the language file is an hard job, actually I'm
> translating Wikipedia's GUI through MediaWiki:Allmessages; there you can't
> change the namespace, so I wonder if there is a way to change it through the
> web
> thanks
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org/User:Palica
Nezabudni si vzia? svoje Wikam?ny. / Don't forget to take your
Wikamins today. - Palica
http://sk.wikipedia.org - slobodn? encyklop?dia, ktor? m??e ka?d?
upravova? - AJ TY


subject: [Foundation-l] IEEE LOM

body:
Gerard,

first of all, pursuing cooperations like this will always be very slow
as long as it's a completely volunteer-driven effort. I think Wikimedia
absolutely needs several people who can work on such matters full-time.
Of course, you could ask the organization you have spoken to if they
would be willing to fund the preparation itself (technical evaluation,
research, planning, negotiation).

However, I also think we will have a much better negotiation position
once Wikidata is past the prototype stage. Getting international
metadata for Wikipedia for free is indeed a fascinating prospect, but I
don't see it as an issue we need to address *right now*.

Best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] IEEE LOM


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: TOC numbering bug

body:
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 12:13:02AM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> >If you set up an article with sections like this, the auto-numbering gives
> >an incorrect result:
> >==   1
> >==== 1.1
> >==== 1.2
> >===  1.1
> >===  1.2
>
> The auto-numbering assumes (quite reasonably) that the headings are
> nested correctly. Garbage in, garbage out.

Couldn't we just add a hack to detect such problems ?
It would need to process headings twice before numbering,
but that shouldn't be much of a problem.


body:
On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 06:56:24PM -0400, Edward Z. Yang wrote:
> > what should I do if someone has different usernames on different wikis? for
> > example username "Monk" on en: is taken by someone (was inactive for a
> > long time). I will be unable to create global user name "Monk" at all,
> > if your proposal is implemented.
> >
> > It seems not too fair way to me.
>
> This sort of dispute would be resolved via arbitration. The preferred
> (or at least in my point of view) solution, implements the technical
> solution before handling the messy username conflicts.
>
> Hmm... given the increased scope of usernames this will entail, perhaps
> we should set up a system for ruling on user name disputes? How do the
> large companies do it?

We can always keep one namespace per project.

So we have 3 users, de:SMu, en:SMu and csb:SMu.
When de:SMu edits German pedia his nick is shown as SMu,
likewise when en:SMu edits English pedia or csb:SMu edits Kashubian,
they're shown as just SMu.
Just when csb:SMu edits German pedia, his nick is shown as "csb:SMu".

This way no conflicts are introduced, and that would still
be a hell of an improvemen.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Copyright and local liability (was: Emily
	Dickinson poems)

body:
Jimmy:
> Soufron wrote:
>
>>>Don't you folks feel like we're getting more and more stuff like this
>>>these days ?
>
>
> Yes, I think we are.
>
> The kind of case that I personally find most annoying are claims from
> museums where the art underlying the photo has clearly been in the
> public domain for a very long time.  If I get one more like that, I'm
> going to go on a rampage and make a lot of noise about it.

If German copyright law or precedent made such reproductions
copyrightable, would the German Wikipedia have to remove them? Would the
Commons?

Are we increasing the risk of such a situation arising with every new
chapter and every new server cluster around the planet, particularly
with servers which are not mere proxies? I would prefer to see all
copyright liability directed at Wikimedia USA and to be able to defer
solely to US precedent in cases like this. But perhaps it's already too
late for that and we're headed for a global legal nightmare.

Erik


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] two comments

body:
On 06/06/05, nicolas ramke <nicolasramke at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 1 - make a 'printer friendly' version of articles, so one does not have to cut and past into a word file and then erase the dozens of 'hyper links' !

There is a printer friendly version. If you are using the default
"monobook" skin, then this is automatically applied when you press
"print" or "print preview" in your browser. If you're using another
skin, you should see a "Printable version" link.

> 2 - have your email address in plain site!  It took me a long time to find this address!

The address for this list is now at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us>, which, thanks to
mav, is now linked via "Help/Contact us" in the sidebar which displays
on all pages (unless you're using the "nostalgia" skin).

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Research team meeting report

body:
The first meeting of the Research Team on Sunday, June 6 focused on
defining its mission and planning some of the tasks to come. 25 people
attended and participated. Essentially, we agreed that the Team would be
a network of special interest groups focused on particular issues such as:
* Wikimedia sociology
* MediaWiki development tasks
* Content analysis

Members of the Team are also encouraged to keep abreast of activities
outside their own work, and to participate in high priority projects.

Some general work that has been started:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_projects has been created to
collect ideas for worthwhile projects. Two specific ideas, a user survey
and a distributed quality comparison of Wikipedia with other
encyclopedias, have been proposed.
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Team/Interests lists
members of the team by interests; if you are a member and you haven't
checked your interests here yet, please do so.

The following have been suggested as high priority tasks:
* Reorganize and update http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Development_tasks
(I will personally begin to work on this soon). It has not yet been
finalized to what extent we will use Bugzilla, but we will try not to
add information to it that would increase the workload of the developers.
* Organize community meetings (Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikisource etc.) to
better determine what every community's specific needs are.
* Improve communications within the Team (possibly make use of
wikiresearch-l, or a new mailing list specifically for logistics).
* Specifically, work on the GUI and workflows for single login migration
to assist Brion with the implementation.

Please contact me or comment on the [[m:Wikimedia Research Team]] talk
page if you want to help with any of these tasks but don't know how yet.

Besides these issues, many specific features and ideas were discussed
during and after the meeting.

The next meeting will likely happen on June 18 or June 19; the specific
date is being decided on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Team#Next_meeting

I will try to organize the next meeting specifically so that smaller
groups can work on separate issues. I also want to bring peer review and
article validation into the debate at that point.

Read the full log at:
http://scireview.de/wiki/research/channel.log

Join the team at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Team

On a related note, I've proposed to change the name from "Team" to
"Network". Please comment on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Research_Team about this
suggestion.

Best regards,

Erik M?ller
Chief Research Officer


subject: [Wikitech-l] Research team meeting report


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Article validation / voting

body:
aerik at thesylvans.com (aerik at thesylvans.com) [050607 04:56]:

> I saw somewhere concerns about people promoting their articles and also people have retaliatory negative votes.  I see that the voting has the option to "Clear my older validation data" - setting this to "yes" and using "median" instead of "mean" average will help reduce the impact of self-promoters and others.

Yes, see [[m:Article validation possible problems]] ;-) Every time I
mention this to someone they immediately come up with a possible problem.
But many of them are *different* possible problems. So I'm asking people to
list them there. Part of the test is to see just how many of them are
actual problems, and to what degree.

I do think most of our editors will rate honestly and in good faith,
though. That all ratings are visible and that there should be a note that
they're visible "just like edits" should help in this.

- d.


body:
Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050607 04:28]:

> A open invitation to original research would be a bad thing... but at
> the same time the prohibition against it denies the ability to print
> common sense to those in a field... Despite the handwaving claims to
> the contrary, it can be quite difficult (measured against the value of
> including the text) to find a citation for something that is common
> sense in a given field but not necessarily outside it.  Fortunately,
> at least on en, we look the other way on original research unless
> there is a dispute.

The main "handwaving claims" have been that this is in fact a real problem.
Whenever the topic's come up, I've asked for an example where this has been
a problem, including in response to your emails to the list claiming it.
Neither you nor anyone else have provided one.

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] IEEE LOM

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Gerard,
>
> first of all, pursuing cooperations like this will always be very slow
> as long as it's a completely volunteer-driven effort. I think
> Wikimedia absolutely needs several people who can work on such matters
> full-time. Of course, you could ask the organization you have spoken
> to if they would be willing to fund the preparation itself (technical
> evaluation, research, planning, negotiation).
>
> However, I also think we will have a much better negotiation position
> once Wikidata is past the prototype stage. Getting international
> metadata for Wikipedia for free is indeed a fascinating prospect, but
> I don't see it as an issue we need to address *right now*.
>
> Best,
>
> Erik

Erik,
This is the moment when a Dutch organisation asked to have our content
in order to add metadata. Therefore this is the time we have to
formulate an answer. When we do not, the opportunity to maximise the
return of this effort will go past us. You are 100% correct that this
will need Wikidata and we do agree that having more people working on
Wikidata and Ultimate Wiktionary is a good thing.

This organisation needs to set up its infrastructure to host the
Wikipedia content and add the IEEE LOM data, it will not benefit from
similar efforts when it goes it alone. It is therefore in its own
intrest to cooperate with us to have us host this data. The timeline for
this project is not only for us to decide as we are not driving this
effort so I disagree, we need to address this now and work out what the
optimum timeline is.

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] IEEE LOM


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [Mediawiki-l] Server downtime today

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> The main Wikimedia servers in Florida will be moving to larger rackspace
> today. Among other things, this will take the mailing lists and Bugzilla
> offline for some or all of the day; sorry for any inconvenience!

Mailing lists are back online; the websites and bugzilla are still down
until the rest of the servers are back up.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 253 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20050607/773f9dd7/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Respected users who tell us what is what (was: Strawman
	attacks on recent proposals)

body:
Well, as Gomer Pyle would say:

* "Surprise, surprise, surprise"

Isn't this *precisely* what Larry Sanger was calling for? And wasn't
this the *chief* criticism he made about Wikipedia in his famous screed?

That we need *some* sort of reliable group of experts ("vetted panels of
respected users who have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas" as Mav
put it) to give us a reliable clue as to what is really so.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so shrill and I-told-you-so-ish about this;
sorry, I'll get off my high horse now.

Taking the course Mav suggests could either help us a lot or hurt us
terribly. If we choose wise (and unbiased!) panels, we'll be able to add
the adjective "reliable" (or "authoritative") to our main page's slogan.
If we simly hold an election, chances are that voters will (deliberately
or not) choose a panel which MERELY REFLECTS THEIR PREJUDICES AND
BIASES.

It ultimately will come down to a question of:

* Who is worthy of our trust?
* How do we identify and attract such people?
* How can we prove to others that they merit our trust?

This task might be too hard for us, with our current organization. Now
don't get me wrong: I really like the people on the arbcom, and I'm not
wangling for a seat on it. I'm just saying that it's very difficult for
non-experts to judge the qualifications of experts.

To distinguish between:

A. the scrupulously honest and self-sacrificial devotees of truth (of
"what is") who are as M. Scott Peck wrote, "dedicated to reality at all
costs"; and,

B. people who will assert that something is true (1) out of ignorant
error or (2) for an ulterior motive

...to make that distinction is more than we bargained for.

Jimbo and Larry set up the NPOV idea out of what I regard as a kind of
philosophical and practical desperation: I realization that the only way
a really huge wiki could operate successfully was to DUCK all issues of
determining right and wrong, true and false, good and bad - and simply
"describe fairly each point of view". Thus the term Neutral Point Of
View means "not endorsing or rejecting ANY point of view".

It may be that Wikipedia has served its purpose: that it has reached the
end of its tether. If so, we must look to others to build upon its
foundation and continue onward.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Mayer [mailto:maveric149 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 11:42 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals
>
>
> --- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people
> here who
> > unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in original research,
> > write things that are just false and bizarre.
>
> And the ArbCom is already charged with enforcing all
> Wikipedia policies, including those that are about content
> (such as NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability). We have in fact ruled
> in this area several times before but have been usually
> limited to cases that are fairly obvious.
>
> Spotting subtle POV, original research, or fringe ideas
> masquerading as more mainstream than they are takes a fair
> amount of pre-existing knowledge in the relevant subject
> area. This is something that the current ArbCom could never have.
>
> Thus my idea of having vetted panels of respected users who
> have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas that the ArbCom
> could call upon to help it distinguish what is what.
>
> See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitratio
n/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee

-- mav

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