from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

references:
<4ln1139lv0ous9kou0fqe2cnm6h6i5d1c7@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140704020403w761b6a7av3cf6cd0d26dc2453@mail.gmail.com>
	<ulp1131qd7fpnrpir0md9phvuo6n6ro0gf@4ax.com>

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> The fact that it is apparently assembled from watching numerous shows
> and writing stuff down is a separate issue, and plagues many popular
> culture articles.  If we are the *first* source outside of the
> original media to publish some fact, that does rather indicate to me
> that we are doing something wrong.  Encyclopaedia = tertiary source.

I see nothing wrong with Wikipedia being the first source to bring
together a group of facts from disparate sources (in this case from each
individual show) and publishing them together in one article.
Fundamentally, that's what _all_ of our articles are supposed to be.
Would there be something wrong with Wikipedia having a list of American
Presidential veterinarians (for the pets of presidents) that had been
compiled in a similar manner from an assortment of presidential
biographies rather than being copied from a single source?

And I agree with David, this really looks like you're just searching for
any excuse you can get to get rid of that list. Copyvio and OR are
almost diametrically opposed to each other as reasons to delete
something; copyvio means it's a direct copy of something creative that
someone else came up with and OR means it's something creative that was
come up with ''de novo''. They can't both be true. Accusing this stuff
of being both in the same message seems like you're just throwing
everything against the wall to see what sticks.


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled

body:
--- Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > I, for one, think it entirely unfair that you guys
> can just usurp a
> > so-far very successful process.
> >
> > I think most people will agree that there were
> flaws with requests for
> > NEW languages, but I think you will find it more
> difficult to find
> > people who think we had any problem with
> Wikisource and Wikinews
> > requests.
> >
> > I think (and this is just my opinion, but I would
> imagine at least
> > someone out there agrees with me) that you should
> leave Wikinews and
> > Wikisource be as they were before to process their
> own requests.
> >
> > Mark
>
> I, for once, ;o)
> agree with Mark here.
> The process of new Wikisource creation is working
> quite well so far,
> I don't see the need to change that.
>
> Regards,
>
> Yann
>

I also agree with this, and see no need to merge the
process into Incubator.

Birgitte SB

____________________________________________________________________________________
Now that's room service!  Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: GerardM

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikisource-l] A successful request not yet
	fulfilled (was Language Prevention Committee created)

body:
Hoi,
As I stated before, I am quite happy when new projects for existing
languages are started. I said so in an earlier message. The only thing that
makes sense is that it is made sure that the localised messages are part of
MediaWiki because it prevents that the messages have to be done again.

When there is to be one policy, it will as far as I am concerned do exactly
what I outline above; leave in essence the policy and make sure that the new
project beneftits from the work that has been done before.

So you are (again) barking up the wrong tree.

Thanks,
   GerardM

On 4/2/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I, for one, think it entirely unfair that you guys can just usurp a
> so-far very successful process.
>
> I think most people will agree that there were flaws with requests for
> NEW languages, but I think you will find it more difficult to find
> people who think we had any problem with Wikisource and Wikinews
> requests.
>
> I think (and this is just my opinion, but I would imagine at least
> someone out there agrees with me) that you should leave Wikinews and
> Wikisource be as they were before to process their own requests.
>
> Mark
>
> On 01/04/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > The developers usually want approval by the subcommittee or the board
> > before creating a new language subdomain. The language subcommittee
> > has developed the language proposal policy
> > <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:LPP> to provide a clear
> > step-by-step policy on getting approval, but the Wikisource creation
> > policy is not equivalent.
> >
> > Unfortunately, this means that most or all requests on the
> > multilingual Wikisource do not fit the requirements and will need to
> > be re-opened under the language proposal policy, in particular
> > regarding the use of arguments rather than simple votes.
> >
> > Fortunately, the existence of an active test project (whether on the
> > incubator or the multilingual Wikisource) will mean that the request
> > can be fast-tracked if there are insufficient arguments against in the
> > new request. Requests for more projects in a language already
> > established in another project can be fast-tracked even further.
> >
> > I apologize for the delay and inconvenience; once the new process is
> > fully settled in there should be much less hassle.
> >
> > Yours cordially,
> > Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> 	Under US law, the keywords you would want to understand
> are called "compilation copyright".
>
> http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
>
> "A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling
> of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or
> arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes
> an original work of authorship."

But if this list was compiled by Wikipedia editors (as JzG claimed when
arguing that it's OR) then the _editors_ own the compilation copyright
and are perfectly within their rights to release it under the GFDL.

> 	And actually, "facts about the show" CAN be owned!
>
> http://www.rcfp.org/news/1998/0824i.html
>
> "SECOND CIRCUIT--A trivia quiz book testing readers' knowledge and
> recollection of lines from the 'Seinfeld' television show does not
> qualify as a "fair use" and as such constitutes copyright infringement ..."
>
> 	In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get
> useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out
> to a mailing list and debating them from intuition.

But we the editors have to make these sorts of decisions dozens or
hundreds of times per day. We _have_ to try to figure out what copyright
law means, we can't go running to a professional lawyer with every
question. And personally, I believe that any law that is so byzantine
and obscure that a layperson it applies to cannot figure out what's
legal most of the time is a really bad law. If copyright law was like
that we might as well just give up because if someone wants to sue
there's really nothing at all we could do to avoid it.

In this case, I've had a look at the list and I don't see how it could
reasonably be considered a sufficiently detailed summary of facts about
the show to violate fair use. It's much less so than our oft-mentioned
compilation of Pokemon trivia or hundreds of other such examples. Unless
a professional IP lawyer decides to pipe up at this point with
contradictory information to convince me otherwise I feel comfortable
with my interpretation.


subject: [Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

body:
Hoi,
It only takes you an hour.. And yes you are programming some stuff for me.
You are however free to do whatever in your free time.

PS You will need database access.. You have SVN access for what is required.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 4/2/07, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 12:53:48PM +0200, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > If you can find a friendly developer to create these message files in
> > Incubator, when the basic messages have been translated, we LOVE to have
> > more projects.
>
> I could actually start doing this, but Gerard won't let me until I finish
> some other
> stuff. :-P
>
> <dodges the whip>
>
> Maybe in a week or two?
>
> read you soon,
>         Kim Bruning
>
> --
> [Non-pgp mail clients may show pgp-signature as attachment]
> gpg (www.gnupg.org) Fingerprint for key  FEF9DD72
> 5ED6 E215 73EE AD84 E03A  01C5 94AC 7B0E FEF9 DD72
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

references:
<4ln1139lv0ous9kou0fqe2cnm6h6i5d1c7@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140704020403w761b6a7av3cf6cd0d26dc2453@mail.gmail.com>
	<ulp1131qd7fpnrpir0md9phvuo6n6ro0gf@4ax.com> <46111F07.6050106@shaw.ca>
	<cbffa3750704020822o18f8bdai305bfa5ef4e2ae62@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> On 4/2/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> And I agree with David, this really looks like you're just searching for
>> any excuse you can get to get rid of that list. Copyvio and OR are
>> almost diametrically opposed to each other as reasons to delete
>> something; copyvio means it's a direct copy of something creative that
>> someone else came up with and OR means it's something creative that was
>> come up with ''de novo''. They can't both be true. Accusing this stuff
>> of being both in the same message seems like you're just throwing
>> everything against the wall to see what sticks.
>
> I read Guy's argument to be "if collating the information is creative,
> it's original research; if it's not, it's a copyright infringement;
> either way, delete".

The copyright for every legitimate nontrivial edit to Wikipedia is held
by the editor who made it, so every edit is in some sense a creative
act. OR doesn't ban any conceivable creative act or we'd be in serious
trouble. Its scope has crept larger over the years, but I still think
it's stretching it rather far out of the bounds of common sense to claim
that watching a set of shows and noting down a list of all the cars that
are covered in them is OR.

What would happen if there'd been individual articles on each episode
each with its own little list of cars, and after discussion it had been
decided to merge all of them into one big main article? We could put the
individual little lists in separate sections of the main article but not
concatenate them together in one section? That's just silly.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Top 10 Firefox bugs which affect MediaWiki

body:
2007/4/2, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com>:

> Probably the one that most seemed like a potential for the list was
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366797 ( Revise the Location
> Bar )
> which seems to cover not showing unreadable URLs in the address bar, like:
>
> http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F
> ... and instead showing stuff like: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/?????????
> (and if that URL gets mangled by some email software, it was a 9 letter
> Ukrainian
> word, written in a non-ASCII alphabet). But the point is, if you spoke
> Ukrainian,
> you could probably read the second version, versus having no hope of
> reading the
> urlencoded version. Of course, there are security concerns about non-ASCII
> alphabets that contain characters that look similar to ASCII ones,
> especially
> in the domain name portion, but presumably these can be resolved somehow
> (e.g. there's something similar in operation now I think for detecting
> very
> similar looking Wikipedia usernames, including using non-ASCII chars).
>

To be honest, from my point of view, as a bot operator/programmer, I am
quite happy with this bug. If I want to tell the bot that I have to link to
[[uk:?????????]], I can give it
[[uk:%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F]], which is a
bug to type, but at least possible. With the command tool in Windows not
allowing cut-and-paste, I cannot give it any characters that are not on my
normal keyboard in another way.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: William Pietri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
>> It doesn't deal with the fact that we are republishing a
>> categorisation of vehicles originally presented by someone else, in
>> its entirety.  I don't know of any other media where anybody on this
>> list would seriously argue that presenting the entirety of the
>> contents of some recently published primary source not in the public
>> domain, was acceptable.
>>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Cup_2006-07
>
> Not substantively different - a compilation of results from a variety
> of events in list form.

Really? It seems to me that the difference is substantial: it's one of
creative effort. The list Guy is pointing to is one that adds
information, information about personal judgments. Like a novel or a
tune, there's only one theoretically possible source: the authors. Game
scores are game scores; they're facts, and even if only one entity
bothered to collect them, many could have. The Sports Illustrated list
of the 100 Best Games of All Time may include facts, but it's mainly
judgment.

One way to distinguish it is that we should only ever have one listing
of the FA Cup results, but it's perfectly reasonable that we could have
articles about several different lists of best games or of cool cars,
distinguished by who said so.

Don't we also remove the lists from the various college ranking scales
on grounds similar to what Guy is suggesting?

William


subject: [Foundation-l] [Mediawiki-i18n] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"

body:
Hoi,
What Rob describes is correct but sadly he misses the point of the dispute.
Indeed there are people working on internationalisation and I will be the
first to acknowledge that Nikerabbit does a lot of great work. I singled him
out when I mentioned that because of him there is currently support for
Marathi and Lingala in MediaWiki.

The issue is that people should be able to start the localisation in the
Incubator. For that to be possible someone has to create the relevant
message files in the Incubator. When a new project is created such a file
needs to be created anyway. When a sufficient number of messages are
translated, the patch for MediaWiki has to be dealt with no doubt along the
lines Rob mentioned.

For the Kabyle language work on the localisation has started. When one of
the developers decides that sufficient messages have been translated in the
BetaWiki to perform what Rob describes, then they can create the Kabyle
wikipedia. with the blessing of the language committee.

Thanks,
   GerardM

Betawiki's Kabyle messages:
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Toiminnot:Translate?x=1&msgclass=core&sort=normal&uselang=kab

On 4/2/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.
>
> I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.
>
> Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
> all about.
>
> I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
> discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
> starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
> to that.
>
> We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
> front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr?m for his
> patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
> Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
> long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
> German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
> order.
>
> The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
> vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
> problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
> international goals in mind.
>
> While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
> MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
> launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
> available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
> software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
> contribution.
>
> I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
> Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
> on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
> hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
> will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
> MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
> tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
> to use.
>
> Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
> and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
> update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
> language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
> submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
> forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
> can't, who can help us out in a major area.
>
> Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
> GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
> the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
> credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
> gratitude, as well as that of all our users.
>
> There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
> http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
> interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
> shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
> who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).
>
> Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,
>
>
> Rob Church
> MediaWiki developer
> _______________________________________________
> Mediawiki-i18n mailing list
> Mediawiki-i18n at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-i18n
>


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
>
> Probably the one that most seemed like a potential for the list was
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=366797 ( Revise the Location Bar )
> which seems to cover not showing unreadable URLs in the address bar, like:
> http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D1%96%D0%BA%D1%96%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%96%D1%8F
> ... and instead showing stuff like: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/?????????
> (and if that URL gets mangled by some email software, it was a 9 letter Ukrainian
> word, written in a non-ASCII alphabet). But the point is, if you spoke Ukrainian,
> you could probably read the second version, versus having no hope of reading the
> urlencoded version. Of course, there are security concerns about non-ASCII
> alphabets that contain characters that look similar to ASCII ones, especially
> in the domain name portion, but presumably these can be resolved somehow
> (e.g. there's something similar in operation now I think for detecting very
> similar looking Wikipedia usernames, including using non-ASCII chars).
>
> All the best,
> Nick.
>
>

Work on the menu-bar display issue is part of a more general reworking
of some of the IRI / IDN -handling internals of Firefox/Gecko: I'm
involved in some of this...

-- Neil


from_name: Seraphim Blade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
In reply to Phil, as to how that guts NOR: The entire point of NOR is
that you do -not- use your own "editorial judgment" when writing an
article, you use information in reliable secondary sources. It also
helps to ensure that information is relevant-sometimes, something can
be technically true, but also irrelevant. I'd ask the same
question-why should we adopt the role of "first reporter"? If someone
wants to do that, isn't that what Wikinews is for?


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

body:
On 02/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I agree.  Assuming that someone would insert things into her own
> biography for the purpose of facilitating this sort of mischief is to
> assume bad faith.  I don't doubt that there are people who would do this
> kind of thing, but the burden of proof is on the accuser.

Assuming good faith comes easily to some people. I'm just naturally
suspicious. I don't assume bad faith, I just don't assume good faith
readily. There needs to be a balance between gullibly believing
everything any random tells us, and disbelieving everything anyone
tells us until they show proof.

Fanning is an esteemed journalist in Australia, but there are other
television journalists in this country who would do such a thing as
vandalising an article then lambasting us about it.

~Mark


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"

body:
Thanks for this great post, Rob.  It would be cool to have an i18n
coordinator, though then he might have to start writing recommendations
for how to improve i18n, l10n, and translation across the projects...

SJ

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Rob Church wrote:

> Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.

I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.

Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
all about.

I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
to that.

We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr??m for his
patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
order.

The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
international goals in mind.

While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
contribution.

I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
to use.

Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
can't, who can help us out in a major area.

Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
gratitude, as well as that of all our users.

There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).

Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,

Rob Church
MediaWiki developer
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: christoph.huesler at css.ch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Antwort: Re: Top 10 Firefox bugs which affect MediaWiki

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> With the command tool in Windows not
> allowing cut-and-paste, I cannot give it any characters that are not on
my
> normal keyboard in another way.

"command tool" == cmd.exe?

try the context menu on the window's icon...

-- chris


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Seraphim Blade wrote:
> Agreed. Allowing "straightforward interpretation" guts NOR.

Not allowing it guts everything.  The classic example is saying that someone
is a female lawyer when the sources separately say that they are female and
a lawyer.  To claim the person is a female lawyer is to draw an inference
(in this case, using a logical conjunction) that is not in the source
material.  We *have* to allow such things.  It makes no sense not to.

> What is
> straightforward, and what is over the line? What if I think my
> interpretation is straightforward and you don't?

The same thing you do if Wikipedians disagree about anything else.  We
routinely make decisions which include some degree of personal judgment;
why should "is this straightforward?" not be one of them?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, John Lee wrote:
> What I'm saying is, there's no reason we can't use primary sources if there
> are already secondary sources. It's silly not to use what's available. But
> if there are no secondary sources, how can we justify bringing up our own
> novel interpretation of the primary sources, and becoming a secondary
> source?

In this case, it's the word "interpretation" which you're stretching out of
all reasonableness.

Procedures like making simple logical deductions, arranging in alphabetical
order, or collecting lists of items are not interpretations.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
Yes, it's a work in progress, but to actually be "in progress" you need to
make progress and articles being stuck in a category for more than a year or
even 2 isn't progress.

On 4/2/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I find the emphasis on PR troubling.  Wikipedia is a work in progress
> and is emphatically not finished.  We won't be able to fake this
> convincingly anyway, so why are we thinking of trying?
>
> -Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 06:18:49 -0700, "Seraphim Blade"
> <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Generally, "being right" is not a defense to NOR. NOR helps to
>> preserve relevance and importance of information as well as
>> correctness of it. If no one else has seen fit to investigate this
>> matter or publish that conclusion, why should we be the first? If the
>> guy's that concerned, tell him to suggest the story to a
>> newspaper. If
>> the paper decides it's correct and important enough to publish,
>> there's the source!
>
> I completely agree.

I completely disagree.

Straightforward interpretation of primary sources is not original
research. It never has been, and it needs to remain that way because
of the number of notable articles about which there are not good or
usable comprehensive secondary sources.

-Phil


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
I passed on part of this thread to Jonathan Zittrain, an eminent lawyer
and net scholar who enjoyed a misspent youth administering online fora,
and has thought about related issues a great deal.  His comments below.

I see this as an issue of being clear about what is expected, what may
be required of people as a result of their actions in a role (in the
descriptions of checkuser responsibilities), and what may happen with
user data (in the privacy policy).   There is nothing in any of this
that should limit the participation of younger community members.

SJ

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Zittrain  <...zed at law.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] check user... (fwd)

In any case, it doesn't seem to me a youngster problem.  It's a broader agency
problem -- volunteers are harder to rein in than "real" employees.  I see the
same issue with CDA 230 immunity, since the way Wikipedia works necessarily
blurs the line between who is Wikipedia and who is "another speaker," when
Wikipedia only speaks through its volunteers.  (Substantively speaking, that
is.)

I think the real solution would be a privacy policy that just lays all this
out, and says there will be circumstances in which disclosures can take place,
and people should take that into account from the start.  Then you don't have
to exclude the kids.

> Bias against clever youngsters....  annoying.   S
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:59:24 +0000
> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] check user...
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp [mailto:wiki_tomos at inter7.jp]
>> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:33 PM
>> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Subject: [Foundation-l] check user...
>>
>> I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation especially
>> when he is a minor.
>>
>> Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
>> expressively promising that certain information will not be released
>> to the third party unless specific conditions are met.
>>
>> And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
>> way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
>> from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
>> at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
>> insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.
>>
>> This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
>> to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.
>>
>> So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
>> privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
>> for the violation.
>>
>> If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away with
>> breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy policy.
>> I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
>> are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for minors'
>> violation of privacy policy than adults.
>>
>> So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
>> more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
>> safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.
>>
>> How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.
>>
>> I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
>> legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.
>>
>> I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>> Tomos
>
> Your legal reasoning is fine, although a parent could sign off on the legal
> liability. I think our problem is not with allowing a 15 year old to do
> responsible work, but with the understandable skepticism we will face if we
> ever have to explain it to a court or in the public press.
>
> Fred
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/2/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> When there are no secondary sources available, however, then it's a whole
> different ball game: any interpretation of the primary sources is essentially novel,
> and thus verboten under NOR.

This is stretching 'No original research' much further than it should
be or was intended to be, in my opinion.

In this case, the list of cars in the show was assembled from a
primary source using simple criteria: any car shown was listed.
Reaching novel conclusions from the primary source is what is
prohibited, IMO; e.g. speculating as to why these cars were chosen, or
as to the show's preferences or biases, etc etc.

Simple summarizing of a primary source has always been allowed.

-Matt


body:
On 4/2/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're a tertiary source. If we go about the business of citing primary
> sources when there are no extant secondary sources, we've deviated from our
> purpose as an encyclopaedia.

The assertion that we must always be a tertiary source has been made
before, and has failed to achieve consensus.

-Matt


body:
On 4/2/07, Seraphim Blade <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> In reply to Phil, as to how that guts NOR: The entire point of NOR is
> that you do -not- use your own "editorial judgment" when writing an
> article, you use information in reliable secondary sources.

We use our editorial judgment all the time.  Without that, our
articles would simply become fact and citation dumps, free of any
organization or coherence.

We are not a database.

-Matt


body:
On 4/2/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> This appears to be the sort of obsession with replacing editorial
> judgement with rules that makes Wikipedia into a red tape obstacle
> course.
>
> Unfortunately, good sense and quality cannot in fact be Taylorised.

100% agreed with David here.

I'd add that any sufficiently complex system of rules can be
rules-lawyered by the intelligent and nitpicky to allow results not
anticipated by the rules' crafters.

-Matt


body:
2007/4/2, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com>:
> > To be honest, from my point of view, as a bot operator/programmer, I am
> > quite happy with this bug.
>
> But for folks using Wikipedia in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus,
> Bulgarian, Serbian, it is ugly.

I agree. The fact that people like me are using the bug doesn't mean
it's not a bug.

> Example,
>
> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0
>
> is Main Page URL. Do you want to type it?

It's just about the edge - smaller ones I do type, for larger ones I
create the page [[????????:Robbot/Temp]] with a redirect to the page I
want to have.

> > With the command tool in Windows not allowing cut-and-paste
>
> It is possible. Try to use menu in top left angle of window

Thanks, I did not know that one.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


body:
One can use editorial judgment regarding how to present sourced
information coherently and logically without original research.

On 4/2/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This appears to be the sort of obsession with replacing editorial
> > judgement with rules that makes Wikipedia into a red tape obstacle
> > course.
> >
> > Unfortunately, good sense and quality cannot in fact be Taylorised.
>
> 100% agreed with David here.
>
> I'd add that any sufficiently complex system of rules can be
> rules-lawyered by the intelligent and nitpicky to allow results not
> anticipated by the rules' crafters.
>
> -Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Extensive Link Errors related to Proper Names -
	Needs Fixing

body:
> I have been compiling a machine compiled lexicon created from link and
> disambiguation pages from the XML dumps.  Oddly, the associations
> contained in [[ARTICLE_NAME | NAME]] form a comprehesive "real time"
> thesauraus of common associations used by current English Speakers in
> Wikipedia, and perhaps comprise the worlds largest and most comprehesive
> Thesaurus on the planet emedded within the mesh of these links within
> the dumps.
>
> [... snip ...]
>
> The first part of the message discusses a machine created thesaurus
> based upon these links which I will post as an XML
> dump when th program is completed. That part may be of interest moving
> forward as it would enable a built in
> thesaurus for MediaWiki. The wikitrans uses this thesaurus created from
> within the dumps. Could have a lot
> of applications for translators. I have found it very useful.

Hi Jeff,

I ran a small project a couple of years ago to try and create "missing" redirects
and disambiguation pages using this information
( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Nickj/Redirects ) - I'll quickly
describe what it did in case it helps anyone who wants to do something similar now.

A list of possible new redirects was created based on piped-link / [[ARTICLE_NAME | LINK_NAME]]
usage in articles in the main namespace (using database dumps of enwiki), where:
* all or most of the source LINK_NAME "votes" agreed on what the target ARTICLE_NAME was;
* and a certain minimum threshold for votes was crossed (I think it might have been >= 3 votes);
* and where there was no article currently at [[LINK_NAME]];
* and where there was an article currently at ARTICLE_NAME (since redirects that point to
  non-existent articles should be deleted with extreme prejudice, IMHO).

These redirect suggestions were then reviewed by humans, and if they liked them, they
were added by them clicking on a link (which used a GET request, to give a Preview of
the result, and which supplied an edit description, and all the body contents). The meant
that a new redirect could be added with just 2 mouse clicks, using a standard browser.
(Using the exact same method today is not currently possible due to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3693 ,
although it is currently possible to use "Show Changes" instead of "Preview", to achieve
a very similar result using GET requests).

A series of disambiguation pages were also suggested, and these suggestions were created
using the same methods, based on [[ARTICLE_NAME | LINK_NAME]] usage, but where the
LINK_NAME "votes" did _not_ agree on what the target ARTICLE_NAME was. In these cases,
it suggested a disambig page that basically said "LINK_NAME is either [[A]], [[B]] or [[C]]".

Anyone who wanted to give something like this a go (and I'm sure in 2 years that there
must have been tonnes more links added, which means a lot more raw data to work with),
would probably want to have a quick glance over the "Previously Rejected Suggestions"
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nickj/Redirects#Previously_rejected_suggestions )
to see what people did not like previously.

Oh, and once something like this was done, you could maybe start a thesaurus directly
from the redirects themselves, thus helping both the thesaurus people and the Wikipedia -
win/win :-) And if you wanted to create a truly open thesaurus, you'd probably want to tag
the redirects that were worthy of inclusion with something like [[Category:Thesaurus Redirect]],
and you'd probably also want to tag the ones that weren't worthy of inclusion somehow too,
and that way anyone could build on this data and come up with new and cool ways of using it ;-)

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Mohamed Magdy

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2007/4/2, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com>:
>>> To be honest, from my point of view, as a bot operator/programmer, I am
>>> quite happy with this bug.
>> But for folks using Wikipedia in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus,
>> Bulgarian, Serbian, it is ugly.
>
> I agree. The fact that people like me are using the bug doesn't mean
> it's not a bug.
>
>> Example,
>>
>> http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0
>>
>> is Main Page URL. Do you want to type it?
>
> It's just about the edge - smaller ones I do type, for larger ones I
> create the page [[????????:Robbot/Temp]] with a redirect to the page I
> want to have.
>
>>> With the command tool in Windows not allowing cut-and-paste
>> It is possible. Try to use menu in top left angle of window
>
> Thanks, I did not know that one.
>
>
I surely hope that this bug gets fixed..it is very annoying!

On the other end, I need it for the bot as you Angels.. you can use this
[1] after it is fixed ;)...

[1] http://netzreport.googlepages.com/online_tool_for_url_en_decoding.html

Mohamed~alnokta


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

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

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Domas disabled it in "miser mode" for performance reasons.
>
> The search is particularly useful on Commons to find, for example, all
> the latest SVGs  or OGGs that have been uploaded. What exactly is it
> that makes it so slow? Could it be reactivated at least on Commons, or
> for certain predefined searches?

It does a non-anchored, un-indexable LIKE match -- basically this means
a complete table scan of the 'images' table. Commons is the worst case
because we have a huge number of images there, so it's the last place
we'd want to reeanble it. :)

One possibility I mentioned in IRC is integrating it with the search
engine backend to do properly indexed word searches?

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGER3mwRnhpk1wk44RArtsAJ9xW5sJbFpN58i+xdrAD1S8dTkzUACZAVKt
oOD1VvMaksbM7/aoP+sLZOE=
=DRYr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 11:10 AM, Seraphim Blade wrote:

> Agreed. Allowing "straightforward interpretation" guts NOR. What is
> straightforward, and what is over the line? What if I think my
> interpretation is straightforward and you don't? And why should we be
> fulfilling (or usurping) the role of secondary sources-distinguishing
> not only what is true and factual, but is important and relevant?

I am not sure how the requirement for editorial judgment guts this or
any other policy.

-Phil


body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 10:56 AM, John Lee wrote:

> On 4/2/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 2, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 06:18:49 -0700, "Seraphim Blade"
>>> <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Generally, "being right" is not a defense to NOR. NOR helps to
>>>> preserve relevance and importance of information as well as
>>>> correctness of it. If no one else has seen fit to investigate this
>>>> matter or publish that conclusion, why should we be the first?
>>>> If the
>>>> guy's that concerned, tell him to suggest the story to a
>>>> newspaper. If
>>>> the paper decides it's correct and important enough to publish,
>>>> there's the source!
>>>
>>> I completely agree.
>>
>> I completely disagree.
>>
>> Straightforward interpretation of primary sources is not original
>> research. It never has been, and it needs to remain that way because
>> of the number of notable articles about which there are not good or
>> usable comprehensive secondary sources.
>>
>> -Phil
>
>
> We're a tertiary source. If we go about the business of citing primary
> sources when there are no extant secondary sources, we've deviated
> from our
> purpose as an encyclopaedia.

Yes, but no prior encyclopedia has had the onerous requirement of
sourcing every statement either. They generally were content to pay
experts some money and get tertiary sources. This is possible because
the expert can fill in the holes and gaps between the secondary
sources with their own judgment and knowledge, which is itself,
functionally, a secondary source.

We've abandoned the experts-write-articles method. We can't fetishize
sources at the same time.

-Phil


body:
Hoi,
MediaWiki is probably the application that has the most languages. It does
not mean that as we support 250 languages versions of Wikipedia that
MediaWiki supports 250 languages. It also does not mean that the languages
that are supported are completely or comprehensively supported.

Unicode is not an issue for MediaWiki. The whole of MediaWiki supports
Unicode. There are issues with Unicode like for the Koelsch/Ripuarian
language where glyphs are missing in the Latin scipt.

When a language shows 0% but when it looks like there is a lot of
localisation done in that project, it means that someone has to import the
translated messages into MediaWiki.

Your suggestion to have scripts get messages and import them into MediaWiki
is a little more complicated than that. There are helpful scripts written by
Nikerabbit. The initial message was that Brion had to accept these. Now
another developer may, according to Brion, accept this software and make it
available for use in Incubator.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 4/2/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Regarding this, there is something I don't quite understand. zh-cn and
> zh-tw show similar translation completion stats of about 35%, but if I
> go to zh.wikipedia.org, I sincerely doubt I will find many English
> system messages.
>
> So is the problem that some projects don't propagate their changes
> from the MediaWiki namespace back to the MessagesXX.php files (which
> is what "qualifies" as being translated)?
>
> I think it must be. In the stats dv has 0% but dv.wikipedia.org looks
> pretty sweet. certainly more than 0%. :)
>
> So, is there some reason it would be a bad idea to run a script to
> gather up these messages and just make the MessagesXX.php from them?
> Could it really be so hard?? (I mean, Unicode aside... ok, maybe it
> could be...)
>
> cheers
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> PS> I have a suspicion MediaWiki is the most i18sed software out
> there, open source or otherwise. does anyone know of any more complete
> or comprehensively translated software?
>
>
>
> On 02/04/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Last I had seen, you could get most of the messages from the local
> Special:Allmessages page, with the output format set to PHP. Either way,
> having an extension is always cool. ;)
> >
> > By the way, if anyone is curious about this, but don't know if their
> language is fully translated, they can check the
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Localization_statistics page, which is
> almost self-explanatory...
> >
> > Another way to get internationalization of messages is through BugZilla.
> It isn't as efficient as sending the message file, but it is better than
> having no file...
> >
> > ???????,
> >
> > Titoxd.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
> foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church
> > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:24 AM
> > To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org; mediawiki-i18n at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Foundation-l] MediaWiki i18n "call to arms"
> >
> > Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.
> >
> > I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.
> >
> > Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
> > all about.
> >
> > I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
> > discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
> > starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
> > to that.
> >
> > We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
> > front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxstr?m for his
> > patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
> > Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
> > long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
> > German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
> > order.
> >
> > The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
> > vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
> > problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
> > international goals in mind.
> >
> > While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
> > MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
> > launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
> > available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
> > software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
> > contribution.
> >
> > I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
> > Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
> > on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
> > hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
> > will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
> > MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
> > tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
> > to use.
> >
> > Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
> > and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
> > update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
> > language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
> > submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
> > forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
> > can't, who can help us out in a major area.
> >
> > Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
> > GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
> > the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
> > credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
> > gratitude, as well as that of all our users.
> >
> > There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
> > http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
> > interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
> > shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
> > who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).
> >
> > Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
> > MediaWiki developer
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: John Vandenberg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Saving pages from WP with stylesheet

body:
On 3/26/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/03/07, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is it happening with any other browsers? I seem to vaguely recall some
> > previous discussion on this problem, possibly late last year.
>
> Opera seems to be capable of resolving the CSS link and downloads the
> CSS files when using the "save as [with images]" option; IE 7 behaves
> like Firefox, and doesn't seem to cope.

The underlying problem for Firefox is Mozilla bug 126309: "save page
does not save @import -ed CSS"

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126309

--
John


from_name: Sean Whitton (Xyrael)

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
> applied..someone got to remove checkuser from me as I haven't reached
> the needed age :).

This brings up another point - do we remove it from those who already
have it, even if they, as for example that young b'crat, are going to
reach the required age soon?

--Sean/Xyrael

On 4/1/07, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> Just wanted to note it..if the suggestion of age is to be
> applied..someone got to remove checkuser from me as I haven't reached
> the needed age :).
>
> Mohamed~alnokta
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
sean at silentflame.com
http://xyrael.net/


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Robert Leverington

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using Special Pages for maintenance scripts

body:
Currently many users of MediaWiki are unable to use the maintenance
scripts due to their hosts not providing shell or telnet access - I
myself have this problem. I am writing to ask your opinions on
creating a special page (or series of special pages) to combat this
problem.

I could implement it as a special page in which users fill out a form
and it performs the task. This would be the best solution because
having multiple special pages would clutter the list and probably only
one user would be using it.

Although it could easily be implemented as an extension I think that
if it could be accessed via a single wg setting users would not come
to the mailing lists and IRC channel asking about how they can do such
a thing and improve the user experience.

Yours,
Robert.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list
of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall".  I removed this
as being almost certainly a violation of copyright.  It is now being
argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright,
because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website
and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows.  It
is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not
constitute original research, although there is no known reliable
secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated
list

Original research?  You decide.

Copyright?  I think so, but what do I know?

Fancruft?  Ooooh, tricky :-)

Guidance appreciated.

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


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 4/2/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did a quick search on Mozilla's bugzilla - restricted to bugs logged against
> Firefox . . .

Probably the bugs logged against Core (layout, etc.) are at least as
important.  Like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218277,
now fixed.  Some bugs that are worth considering: 50630, 60307,
365970, 372462.  But those are really more general wishlist-type
things regarding layout that would benefit pretty much everyone.  I
don't think many of these bugs are really important to Wikipedia
specifically, except that one i18n issue and maybe the few "save page
as" ones.  Perhaps a list of five would be better than one of ten.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 02/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list
> of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall".  I removed this
> as being almost certainly a violation of copyright.

How *on earth* do you get this as being a violation of copyright? The
BBC don't own facts about the show.

>  It is now being
> argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright,
> because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website
> and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows.  It
> is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not
> constitute original research, although there is no known reliable
> secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated
> list
> Original research?  You decide.

You appear to be looking for any excuse. Whether this is the case or
not, that's how it comes across.

- d.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote of the day

body:
"If you use GFDL, nobody can use anything that restricts commercial
use. GFDL restricts knowledge."

(From Citizendium's licensing discussion.)

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

references:
<4ln1139lv0ous9kou0fqe2cnm6h6i5d1c7@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140704020403w761b6a7av3cf6cd0d26dc2453@mail.gmail.com>
	<ulp1131qd7fpnrpir0md9phvuo6n6ro0gf@4ax.com>
	<46111F07.6050106@shaw.ca>
	<fea213pr58fq7tbjvs8n2lrjfq99ff8nno@4ax.com>

body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:08 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:19:35 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> I see nothing wrong with Wikipedia being the first source to bring
>> together a group of facts from disparate sources
>
> [[WP:SYNTH]] does, I think.

Its current form does, but this is a drastic change from its classic
form, which noted that primary sources were OK if they were not used
to create "novel interpretations."

Personally, I advocate following the last good version here, which is
to say, continuing as we were instead of paying heed to people who
nitpicked this important qualification out of existence in favor of a
guideline on how to write a bad encyclopedia.

-Phil


from_name: Mark Clements

body:
"Tels" <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote in
message news:200704021316.53086 at bloodgate.com...

> The TOP bug for me are the button/login bars on the top. With old Firefox,
> the buttons "edit", "move" etc. where on the same line with the "login"
> button (if horizontal space permitted it). Now the "login link" is on it's
> own line, focing the other buttons down. This wastes just screenspace,
> which is important for small screens, like laptops; esp. if you have a
> widescreen laptop - because there is enough space for both bars
> horizontally aligned, but less space vertically.
>

Is that a Firefox bug, or just a change in the MW CSS?  Have you tried old
versions of MW in the newest version of Firefox, or vice versa?

- Mark Clements (HappyDog)


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

body:
> To be honest, from my point of view, as a bot operator/programmer, I am
> quite happy with this bug.

But for folks using Wikipedia in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus,
Bulgarian, Serbian, it is ugly.

Example,

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0

is Main Page URL. Do you want to type it?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_Resource_Identifier

> With the command tool in Windows not allowing cut-and-paste

It is possible. Try to use menu in top left angle of window

--
Amike kaj kunlabore,
Aleks


from_name: Earle Martin

body:
On [[Latymer Upper School]], one contributor has added, in relation to
the school's new logo/shield:

"No approval was obtained from the [[College of Arms]] for this new
shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the [[Law of Arms]]."

I originally removed it from the article as needing a source, but
replaced it after the contributor in question demonstrated to me on
the talk page that he appears to know what he is talking about -
certainly more than I know about heraldry.

However, is this original research? Or does it follow on naturally
once the Law of Arms is understood? It appears to be a legal opinion,
and I would imagine that any legal opinions should come from a citable
source.

My main concern is that, even if it is true, it would need to be
proved that approval was not in fact obtained, and that could be
difficult to do. My instinct is to remove the statement from the
article again pending this.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 4/2/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> I chose the word "interpretation" for a reason. Sorry if I didn't make this
> clear earlier, but I'm not debating the Top Gear case at all - truth be
> told, I forgot that that was the original topic in the first place. I'm
> speaking in general terms about policy, because it seems to me that Phil is
> advocating a view of policy that permits primary sources even where
> secondary sources don't exist.

We have never, AFAIK, said that primary sources are forbidden when
secondary sources do not exist. It's possible that policy has been
rewritten to say that at points (maybe even right now) but I'd submit
that that does not reflect consensus (and is a symptom of the fact
that we erroneously allow policy to be rewritten outside of
consensus).

We do say that we are prohibited from drawing original conclusions
from primary sources; thus, if primary sources are all an article has,
there are many restrictions on what that article can say.  It's
possible that in many cases that means the article can never be beyond
a stub.  Sometimes, that may mean an article can't exist, but in many
cases, having a solid stub is a good thing.

-Matt


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check for copyright renewals
	on books

body:
That's a useful tool; thanks for pointing it out!

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:03:04 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list
>> of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall".  I removed this
>> as being almost certainly a violation of copyright.

>How *on earth* do you get this as being a violation of copyright? The
>BBC don't own facts about the show.

The same way that the UK Top Ten is the property of the company that
publishes it, and a list of No. 1 hits in the UK is asserted by them
to violate that copyright.

Do you actually *know*, David?  That's what I was after, a
better-informed opinion.  Where the answer is a competition between
educated guesses, the precautionary principle argues for exclusion.
I'm actually trying to find out if anyone can do better than an
educated guess, perhaps from personal experience.

>>  It is now being
>> argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright,
>> because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website
>> and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows.  It
>> is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not
>> constitute original research, although there is no known reliable
>> secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated
>> list
>> Original research?  You decide.

>You appear to be looking for any excuse. Whether this is the case or
>not, that's how it comes across.

Thank you so much for that.  Of course you are right: I went out
clicking Special:Random looking for content to delete and found this,
then thought of a Really Good Reason for removing it.  You have
rumbled my evil plan to waste whole days of worthless Wikitime, and
rightly imply that I have nothing better to do.

Oh, wait, that was a bit sarcastic, wasn't it?  I know you included
"whether or not".  You are right: I dislike lists taken from external
sources and dumped into Wikipedia.  Especially when the sources are
primary.  It does not feel right.  WP:FREE.

Specifically, then, this is a list of cars which is assembled into
categories by the show.  It seems to me to be functionally identical
to, say, the "100 greatest humans" or "100 worst pop sings" lists
which are broadcast or published - the list is the compilation of the
show, and the intellectual property is likely to be vested in the
show's owners.  In terms of the 100 greatest humans, consensus was to
include a selection (and I'd be happy with that on the cool wall too).
Some other "top 100" lists have been deleted by consensus as violating
copyright.  So: BBC compiles a list of cars, broadcasts it on the
show, and we reproduce the list.  Can you not see why that would look
like a copyright violation?  But I want a more informed view.

Is it not the case that the onus is on the editors seeking to include
the content, to show that it does not violate policy?

The fact that it is apparently assembled from watching numerous shows
and writing stuff down is a separate issue, and plagues many popular
culture articles.  If we are the *first* source outside of the
original media to publish some fact, that does rather indicate to me
that we are doing something wrong.  Encyclopaedia = tertiary source.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote of the day

body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:05:54 +0200, "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
wrote:

>"If you use GFDL, nobody can use anything that restricts commercial
>use. GFDL restricts knowledge."

Priceless!

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

references:
<4ln1139lv0ous9kou0fqe2cnm6h6i5d1c7@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140704020403w761b6a7av3cf6cd0d26dc2453@mail.gmail.com>
	<ulp1131qd7fpnrpir0md9phvuo6n6ro0gf@4ax.com>
	<46111F07.6050106@shaw.ca>
	<fea213pr58fq7tbjvs8n2lrjfq99ff8nno@4ax.com>
	<56B5C430-6A31-4442-814E-5F2B2C92F8B4@gmail.com>
	<lpb2135859gl0ai7p0hp5an2596f6l9rt2@4ax.com>

body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:11:49 -0400, Phil Sandifer
> <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Personally, I advocate following the last good version here, which is
>> to say, continuing as we were instead of paying heed to people who
>> nitpicked this important qualification out of existence in favor of a
>> guideline on how to write a bad encyclopedia.
>
> In other words, you prefer to be able to draw entirely from primary
> sources where no reliable secondary sources exist.  Which we already
> know, of course.  That is a matter of Wikiphilosophy.

No. I want to be able to write good, usable articles on important
topics in a manner unencumbered by pointless and onerous requirements
designed to keep idiots from breaking Wikipedia.

> It doesn't deal with the fact that we are republishing a
> categorisation of vehicles originally presented by someone else, in
> its entirety.  I don't know of any other media where anybody on this
> list would seriously argue that presenting the entirety of the
> contents of some recently published primary source not in the public
> domain, was acceptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Cup_2006-07

Not substantively different - a compilation of results from a variety
of events in list form. And, hell, if you go down to the qualifying
rounds you get some really strange moments - the Atherton Laburnum
Rovers/Parkgate game was only witnessed by 17 people. For these more
obscure games, they weren't televised, and the only results are going
to be reprintings of the official results. So it's primary source
material at its finest.

-Phil


body:
On 4/2/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/2/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I find the emphasis on PR troubling.  Wikipedia is a work in progress
> > and is emphatically not finished.  We won't be able to fake this
> > convincingly anyway, so why are we thinking of trying?
>
> Because after 6 years, we have reached the End of History.

Heh.

I think some don't realise (because they don't work in the right
areas) just how incomplete Wikipedia is in many topic areas, and thus
how damaging shutting down article creation would be.  In their view,
Wikipedia already contains pretty much all the articles it needs and
thus article creation is something only harmful (because all new
articles are unencyclopedic cruft anyway).

-Matt


body:
On 4/2/07, Seraphim Blade <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> One can use editorial judgment regarding how to present sourced
> information coherently and logically without original research.

One certainly can; in fact, David, Phil & I are stating that.  Others,
to my mind, were sailing pretty close to denying that any editorial
judgment should be exercised.

-Matt


body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:35:03 +0100, "Earle Martin"
<wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

>On [[Latymer Upper School]], one contributor has added, in relation to
>the school's new logo/shield:

Trivia: My mum went to [[Godolphin and Latymer School]].

>"No approval was obtained from the [[College of Arms]] for this new
>shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the [[Law of Arms]]."

And?  It's a logo.  Why would it need to be?

In any case, isn't he trying to use Wikipedia to fix an external
problem?

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


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] InstantCommons demo

body:
On 4/2/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the problem is that our image table has no metadata information
> about the image, it only knows if we have it or not. We would need at
> least another bit: a good/bad flag.
[snip]
> InstantantCommons users should check (with a maintencance script) their
> images are still free, and decide upon the reason (eg. delete fair use,
> keep superseded) what to do. We should also provide an automatic system
> to automatically check the files once a month, with 'proper' defaults
> (they will always be able to keep violations, but don't make easy that
> configuration).

After giving it some more thought I think it should work something like this:

*To get instant commons access to commons sites must agree to

**Display an instant commons notice (like what the wikimedia wikis do
for commons content) and include the attribution and license data.
**Poll a deletion feed at least once a day

If an image is indicated as deleted, the software will then remove the
commons notices from the image, and the image will look like a local
upload with no mention of commons. This should be a mandatory
requirement for instantcommons access to Wikimedia commons.

The instant commons software should have also feature to automatically
'delete' these  images, so that they can be undeleted by the site
operator. This feature should default to on, but site operators can
turn it off at their own peril.

If we do end up implementing something like what Platonides suggested,
 a review status for all images (including deleted ones) then the
instant commons auto-deletion setting could depend on the review
status.

More simply, we could add a deletion reason dropdown to the deletion
dialog and just store the deletion cause code in the deletion log.

/* Non-free open content license (nd, nc...) */
/* Duplicated image */
/* Superseded */
/* Quality problems */
/* other */
/* Missing copyright status */
/* Known copyright violation */
/* Privacy or Libel issues */

I am pretty sure that requiring sites to remove the commons notice on
images is something we must do. We need to make it crystal clear that
we can not, do not, and will not take any responsibility for an image
we've deleted.

Nor should we be encouraging anyone to automatically keep images
commons has deleted. Sites should only keep images auto-pulled from
commons then deleted on commons after they have made an informed
decision to do so, not as a result of the software.

I would be inclined to say that we should not permit instantcommons
access to sites which won't use autodeletion for at least the last two
causes, if we do end up with detailed deletion cause codes.  But I'm
less sure about that.


from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] check user...

body:
Hoi,
When we have to explain that people aged 15 can do a responsible job, we can
do that in two ways

   - show how a particular person has done so in the past
   - show how they do a job compared to people who are more mature

When people want to be skepticle, they assume .. and assumptions are the
mothers of most fuck-ups. The notion that a person who is young cannot be
responsible is as believable as the notion that someone is responsible
because he is legally mature.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 4/1/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: wiki_tomos at inter7.jp [mailto:wiki_tomos at inter7.jp]
> >Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:33 PM
> >To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >Subject: [Foundation-l] check user...
> >
> >I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation
> especially
> >when he is a minor.
> >
> >Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
> >expressively promising that certain information will not be released
> >to the third party unless specific conditions are met.
> >
> >And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
> >way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
> >from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
> >at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
> >insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.
> >
> >This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
> >to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.
> >
> >So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
> >privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
> >for the violation.
> >
> >If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away
> with
> >breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy
> policy.
> >I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
> >are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for
> minors'
> >violation of privacy policy than adults.
> >
> >So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
> >more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
> >safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.
> >
> >How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.
> >
> >I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
> >legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.
> >
> >I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..
> >
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >
> >Tomos
>
> Your legal reasoning is fine, although a parent could sign off on the
> legal liability. I think our problem is not with allowing a 15 year old to
> do responsible work, but with the understandable skepticism we will face if
> we ever have to explain it to a court or in the public press.
>
> Fred
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] check user...


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 02/04/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:

> However, is this original research? Or does it follow on naturally
> once the Law of Arms is understood? It appears to be a legal opinion,
> and I would imagine that any legal opinions should come from a citable
> source.
>
> My main concern is that, even if it is true, it would need to be
> proved that approval was not in fact obtained, and that could be
> difficult to do. My instinct is to remove the statement from the
> article again pending this.

Glancing at the talkpage - if it was an authorised design it would be
published in X; it's not published in X; ergo unauthorised. The
problem is that a) understanding that the links in that chain are
meaningful requires a degree of external knowledge of how the system
works; and b) the usual issues with proving "was not in any version of
X" if someone decides to quibble.

(I do hate it when institutions do this. Damnit, they have a nice
serviceable crest already... why create a new one and confuse
everybody?)

It'd be much easier for someone to write a letter to the Old
Latymerians (or whatever) newsletter complaining about it, and cite
that ;-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] "So fix it." "The next day someone will fix it back."

body:
On 4/1/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's too much reactionary response to supposed crisis.

This needed to be pulled out specifically for praise.  I wholly agree.

I agree also with the vast majority of what else you say - Wikipedia
benefits from having articles on subjects of minor notability, and in
fact it's one of our strengths.  We should concentrate on how to do
better by them, not on getting rid of them.

-Matt


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 12:37 PM, John Lee wrote:

> If there are no extant secondary sources, any interpretation
> whatsoever of
> the primary source is novel. I suppose one could argue for the face-
> value,
> literal meaning interpretation as non-novel, but it's suprising how
> often
> people can disagree on a literal reading of a source.

Well, yes and no. First of all, this is where talk pages become
useful parts of our process. Second of all, there are cases,
including in academia, where you have to allow for some slippage
here. My usual example here is [[Jacques Derrida]]. There are
hundreds of secondary sources on him, but the good ones are A) no
easier to interpret than the primary sources, and B) POV to high hell
about what it is his philosophy means. The accessible general
overviews are of mediocre quality at best, and are far from respected
by any important Derrida scholars.

Attempting to write an article primarily from secondary sources about
Derrida is a doomed proposition.

The way to write a good Derrida article is to have a bunch of people
who use Derrida's ideas in their own scholarship write up summaries
of Derrida's thought, and have points of disagreement and tension
(i.e. the points where people disagree on exactly what On
Grammatology means right here) sourced to secondary sources and
explained in an NPOV fashion.

This is important. The best way to write this article on a major
philosopher who nobody would even think to nominate for deletion is
from primary sources, using secondary sources only when needed.

(This was, it should be noted, how [[Michel Foucault]], a similar
article, was written and became a featured article. No citations
anywhere in the "Works" section aside from the implied citation to
the primary sources. Damn good artlcle, and a great overview of
Foucault's work. This should be a model.)

-Phil


body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 12:48:52 +0100, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Glancing at the talkpage - if it was an authorised design it would be
>published in X; it's not published in X; ergo unauthorised.

Proof of a negative, of course.

I tagged it as needing a citation.  We should probably be fine as long
as we restrict ourselves to what is said in reliable secondary
sources.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote of the day

body:
On 02/04/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know what this is called specifically, but it's definitely a logical
> fallacy.

Some of the CitiZens on that thread also advocate blatantly violating
copyright on Wikipedia material and forcing the issue to court - it
appears more than a few of the people at CZ are primarily motivated by
the urge to fuck over Wikipedia at any cost, and never mind their own
quite healthy project. Hopefully they can be reined in by their more
sensible colleagues.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 1:07 PM, William Pietri wrote:

> Really? It seems to me that the difference is substantial: it's one of
> creative effort. The list Guy is pointing to is one that adds
> information, information about personal judgments. Like a novel or a
> tune, there's only one theoretically possible source: the authors.
> Game
> scores are game scores; they're facts, and even if only one entity
> bothered to collect them, many could have. The Sports Illustrated list
> of the 100 Best Games of All Time may include facts, but it's mainly
> judgment.
>

The issue becomes how it's being reported, then. Is the list of cars
being compiled in relation to cars, or in relation to the list-
makers? If it's the latter, it's much more like FA cup results.

-Phil


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Mark Ryan wrote:

>On 02/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I agree.  Assuming that someone would insert things into her own
>>biography for the purpose of facilitating this sort of mischief is to
>>assume bad faith.  I don't doubt that there are people who would do this
>>kind of thing, but the burden of proof is on the accuser.
>>
>>
>Assuming good faith comes easily to some people. I'm just naturally
>suspicious.
>
I don't think the two are incompatible.

>I don't assume bad faith, I just don't assume good faith
>readily. There needs to be a balance between gullibly believing
>everything any random tells us, and disbelieving everything anyone
>tells us until they show proof.
>
Absolutely.  Nevertheless the bad ones  develop patterns of behaviour
that are very hard to change.  They will quickly give themselves the
opportunity to screw up;.

>Fanning is an esteemed journalist in Australia, but there are other
>television journalists in this country who would do such a thing as
>vandalising an article then lambasting us about it.
>
That's not very flattering for the journalists of Australia. ;-)

Ec


from_name: Tels

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

Moin,

On Monday 02 April 2007 06:20:37 Erik Moeller wrote:
> The "save page" issue gave me the idea that we could submit an
> official input from the WMF to the Mozilla Foundation on 10 key issues
> that affect users of MediaWiki (an thereby, WMF). We have a fairly
> good relationship with Mozilla & I think they'd be willing to give
> these issues some priority if we ask nicely. A quick search on
> bugzilla.mozilla.org suggests there are plenty of issues; if someone
> wants to take the lead on this, I've started a stub here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_10_Firefox_bugs

The TOP bug for me are the button/login bars on the top. With old Firefox,
the buttons "edit", "move" etc. where on the same line with the "login"
button (if horizontal space permitted it). Now the "login link" is on it's
own line, focing the other buttons down. This wastes just screenspace,
which is important for small screens, like laptops; esp. if you have a
widescreen laptop - because there is enough space for both bars
horizontally aligned, but less space vertically.

All the best,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Mon Apr  2 13:13:17 2007 with key 0x93B84C15.
 View my photo gallery: http://bloodgate.com/photos
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Step 7: Alpha release ... * Scheduled: June 2001"

  -- Damian Conway's Perl 6 Update (February 2001)
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body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 1:15 PM, Seraphim Blade wrote:

> In reply to Phil, as to how that guts NOR: The entire point of NOR is
> that you do -not- use your own "editorial judgment" when writing an
> article, you use information in reliable secondary sources.

Bollocks.

-Phil


body:
On Apr 2, 2007, at 1:18 PM, David Gerard wrote:

> On 02/04/07, Seraphim Blade <seraphimbladewikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In reply to Phil, as to how that guts NOR: The entire point of NOR is
>> that you do -not- use your own "editorial judgment" when writing an
>> article, you use information in reliable secondary sources. It also
>> helps to ensure that information is relevant-sometimes, something can
>> be technically true, but also irrelevant. I'd ask the same
>> question-why should we adopt the role of "first reporter"? If someone
>> wants to do that, isn't that what Wikinews is for?
>
>
> This appears to be the sort of obsession with replacing editorial
> judgement with rules that makes Wikipedia into a red tape obstacle
> course.
>
> Unfortunately, good sense and quality cannot in fact be Taylorised.

Or, if you dislike my previous response, David's does just as well. ;)

-Phil


body:
Nick Wilkins wrote:

>On 3/30/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>She's married to her son? That doesn't sound right.
>>
>>
>The direct quote from the source is "She is married with a young son."  I
>would imagine that a more up-to-date version would add bigamy to the various
>things wrong with being married to your own young child...
>
There are less ambiguous ways of expressing that without breathing life
back to the Ptolomaic dynasty.

Ec


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 4/2/07, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I also agree with this, and see no need to merge
> the
> > process into Incubator.
> >
> > Birgitte SB
>
>
> Sorry, but I don't see anyone trying to move text
> units from the
> [[:oldwikisource:]] to the [[:incubator:]]. I think
> that [[:oldwikisource:]]
> is working as a great place for texts with no
> sufficient users to make a new
> community getting hosted *and* a Incubator-like for
> new Wikisource wikis and
> no one (neither I) is trying to change it.
>
> I have proposed at
>
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Wikisource:Language_domain_requests_versus_m:Meta:Language_proposal_policyto
> move the *requests* for new Wikisources to the
> Meta-Wiki, due to the
> current delay to open any new wikis using a simple
> vote. I'm dejected to see
> someone requesting to open a new wiki since the July
> 2006 and up today
> voting on it [1], awainting to start to work on a
> specific wiki.
>
> [1]

Due to past conversations I have had with people
involved with incubator, I read the comment about
"merging processes" differently than you did.  Perhaps
I am mistaken, and that is not what was meant in this
case.

However there are people who have been clear with me
that they think  [[:oldwikisource:]] should be
completely merged into [[:incubator:]] in the long
term.  Personally I don't like to see the process of
starting new Wikisources taken over, because outside
people simply fail to appreciate the reality of
wikiSOURCE, where the content already exists in
tangible form (with corresponding dialects and
orthographies already pre-determined for each edition
of a text).  Processing requests at meta has led to
people being encouraged to start a new wikisource for
a variation of a language without ever trying to work
in the existing wiki (or even talking to them). [1]
The people I have spoken to from incubator also seem
unable to see the intrinsic differences between a
wikisource and a wikipedia.  From what I can see they
are planning a one-size fits all process, with no
differences in handling based on projects.  Despite
the fact that there are strong arguments for having
one Wikisource where there are several Wikipedias with
related languages.  If plans have changed, or I am
simply mistaken, please correct me.

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_new_languages/Ancient&diff=prev&oldid=360204

The full page seems to have been lost on meta, so I
linked one of my contributioins there

Birgitte SB

____________________________________________________________________________________
Now that's room service!  Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quote of the day

body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 13:02:31 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Some of the CitiZens on that thread also advocate blatantly violating
>copyright on Wikipedia material and forcing the issue to court - it
>appears more than a few of the people at CZ are primarily motivated by
>the urge to fuck over Wikipedia at any cost, and never mind their own
>quite healthy project. Hopefully they can be reined in by their more
>sensible colleagues.

Unfortunately, any project setting up in "competition" to Wikipedia is
likely to attract a significant number of disgruntled or banned former
Wikipedia editors.

I had a look in but the registration process was unbearably
cumbersome.

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


body:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 08:05:57 -0400, Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com>
wrote:

>	In general, you really, really, don't want to try to get
>useful answers to questions of copyright law by throwing them out
>to a mailing list and debating them from intuition.

Amen to that.  Actually, though, I was looking for past experience, as
much as anything, and you have provided some, thank you.

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


body:
Hoi,
It takes something like an hour to create the requested and required
language files. I have asked at different levels within the WMF to spend
this time. I have spend a lot of time trying to get this resolved.

In the mean time, an effort is underway to localise the messages in the
BetaWiki for Kabyle (information from Nikerabbit). The standard Belarus
wikipedia has been created. I have requested funding to have outside people
solve this issue; it is likely that we will get this funding.

There are two languages, Marathi and kiRuanda that are now properly
supported in MediaWiki. There are many more languages that demonstrate how
bad the old procedure is for starting new projects.

There is nothing stopping people working on content. We are quite content to
have new languages start in the Incubator.

The arguments that are used to get new projects now ignore all the reasons
why localisation is so important and why there is a language committee in
the first place. It is made out as if the situation was so great before. We
have had "languages" forced on us that do not exist, languages that take the
codes because it was voted that way. We have ugly political situations like
the Belarus where people are not willing to work together. Situations where
a NPOV cannot be expected.

It is quite clear that the situation is not good. It is equally clear that
the solution is simple. It just takes a friendly developer to take the hour
it takes to create all the message files in the Incubator. When there are no
friendly developers willing to do this, then it is for the board to give it
the required priority. It is ultimately the board that gave us our mandate
we are quite happy to think outside of the box and find solutions. It is
plain stupid to pull the requirements when the existence of the localisation
has proven so essential in getting projects to attract new editors.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/31/07, Arbeo M <arbeo.wiki at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> 2007/3/30, The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com:
>
> > The reasonable assumption is that something in the process is broken.
>
> That's exactly the point. On one side we have a number of well-advanced
> requests for new languages with good potential. There's a number of
> editors
> who are serious about starting their wiki. And on the other side we have a
> committee in charge enabling this type of progress. Yet, nothing ever
> happens, instead today we're "celebrating" half a year without a single
> new
> Wikipedia.
>
> That's just the cold hard facts and they speak for themselves.
>
> I don't want this discussion to revolve in circles or drift off into
> polemics but we'd be a whole lot further if the committee would
> acknowledge
> this reality instead of insisting that everything is fine a long as the
> holy
> rules are left untouched. Please!
>
> --Arbeo
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

body:
> From: Guy Chapman aka JzG

> Look up a fact?  No problem.  Join the dots from a series of facts you
> looked up?  Original research, in my book.

I was recently working on an article (not in Wikipedia) on the phrase "Slippery slope," which these days usually means "a course leading inexorably to disaster." I wanted to support a statement that although there _are_ old uses of the phrase in its modern meaning, it became much more popular starting around 1980.

My public library (and _many_ others) provide online access to a searchable full page-image database of complete back issues of the New York Times. In a few minutes, I was able to compile this:

Hits on exact phrase "slippery slope", all article types, ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) (a database available to patrons of many public libraries)

1857-99: 5 (average about 1 per decade)
1900-49: 41 (average 8.2 per decade)
1950-59: 11
1960-69: 23
1970-79: 36
1980-89: 144
1990-99: 402

Well, can I use this in an article? Under Wikipedia's present rules, I don't think so.

And yet.

It is certainly original research. But it's verifiable, sensu Wikipedia, in that it the database is very widely available so it's easy to confirm my results. In fact it's easier than verifying an obscure print publication with no online copy. And, in this particular case, my assemblage of facts is intellectually honest: it is reasonable to want to know the history of the phrase's use, and this is a reasonable way to find out. This is not a selective assembly of facts made for the purpose of suggesting a biassed conclusion.

And I was _not_ able to find a published source that said in so many words that the phrase bloomed in popularity around 1980.

Granted this _is_ original research, what exactly is the harm in it?

Other than its being the first step on a slippery slope, of course.


from_name: AvB

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Probably more logic than law - it looks like a classical deadly embrace
to me: either OR or a copyvio. If there's something  special
about the list, it's the fact that it describes a selection created by
the BBC. In order to get around any copyright issues, one would need to
argue that the BBC did not compile the list, selecting cars one at a time:
compiling the list was an original creation. However, that's where NOR kicks
in and the list needs to be sourced elsewhere. Which then would by a copyvio
again.

Fancruft? You must be a deletionist looking for easy prey then! Shame on
you! (NOT)

AvB

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guy Chapman aka JzG" <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 12:48 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

> At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list
> of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall".  I removed this
> as being almost certainly a violation of copyright.  It is now being
> argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright,
> because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website
> and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows.  It
> is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not
> constitute original research, although there is no known reliable
> secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated
> list
>
> Original research?  You decide.
>
> Copyright?  I think so, but what do I know?
>
> Fancruft?  Ooooh, tricky :-)
>
> Guidance appreciated.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l