from_name: Geoff Burling

body:
On Sun, 10 Jul 2005, Rebecca wrote:

> On 7/10/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > If you imagine that your attempt to further your campaign against the use of
> > BCE/CE using this backdoor method went unnoticed, rest assured that it did
> > not.
> >
> > Jay.
>
> Thank you for pointing out what should've been obvious - it was easy
> to overlook. I agree entirely with what Jguk said about making things
> intelligible in a broader context. I did not, however, read between
> the lines, and *very strongly* condemn this attempt at continuing the
> BC-BCE war by the back door.
>
Well, I for one don't see how Jon's suggestion is continuing this
dispute, even if it is his intent.

Asking editors to avoid an academic style & try to write in layman's terms
does not logically lead to eschewing BCE/CE -- unless by the single act
of taking a paper & replacing every instance of AD/BC with CE/BCE
instantly makes it worthy of publication in an academic journal.

In fact, about the only person who keeps reintroducing this BCE/CE
matter is Jay himself -- & I've invited him in the past to take it off
list. I do so again; he seems to be causing trouble to make a point.

Geoff


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New fair use tag proposal

body:
Postscript:

I also think it would be a good idea to create a template along the
lines of {{fairuse-reviewed}} which would contain the normal fair use
notice, as well as something like "The fair use criteria of this item
has been reviewed and found satisfactory by at least one other user."
or something like that. The process of reviewing fair use images would
then be one of converting {{fairuse}} tags to {{fairuse-reviewed}}
(after they had been reviewed). Perhaps a Wikiproject of some form
would be good for this? Anyway, it would allow us to keep track of
things. Just a thought.

FF

On 7/10/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FF
>


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts on having an automatic double-redirect fixer

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

Alphax wrote:
> I can think of some cases where this would *not* work, eg. when pages
> are rearranged to create primary disambiguation pages, not only are
> redirects needed but disambiguation as well. We have Wikiprojects to
> deal with both of these; finding and fixing double redirects (and links
> to disambiguation pages) is something that is best left in the hands of
> human editors, because software can get it wrong.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean - do you have any examples I
could look at?

Chris

- --
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org
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iD8DBQFC0PfkEq6+ijeBrJ8RAoLyAKCSI8L79izid4fkd7iQ2n3JYEfEcwCgucEe
kSAdhHO5E+TWGEFGdbLMxbc=
=r7E8
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from_name: Pat Carr

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: more active censorship

body:
> --- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> > Imagine you're such an editor who got caught up in
> > an edit war. You then
> > make a decision to stop, close your browser and
> cool
> > off at pretty much
> > the same time that an admin decides to block you
> for
> > some policy
> > (personal attacks, say).
> >
> > The next day -- 20 hours later -- you have cooled
> > off and you vow to
> > approach the issue with a clearer mind now. You
> > discover you're banned
> > for the next 24 hours. Your cooling off is
> > instantaneously undone.
> >
> > Timwi
> >
>
> I agree completely - this is an example close to my
> heart right now - reasonable people, when treated
> unreasonably and denied any right of appeal, start
> to
> act in ways which seem unreasonable to others, but
> are
> reasonable to them.
>
> Norrath

Admins should post a message on the blocked user's
talk page informing them why the block was placed. The
user will then receive a "New Message" notification.
I'm not saying I'm in complete agreement with the
current system, but I also don't believe it's as
problematic as some are making it out to be.

Carbonite

____________________________________________________
Sell on Yahoo! Auctions ? no fees. Bid on great items.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 08:44:32PM -0500, Ruy Lopez wrote:
>
> As far as Chad Perrin's questions about this, I am just noting that
> Wales is a millionaire and reads Ayn Rand, i.e. I am pointing to what
> his political bias's are.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.  I, personally, have read four of Ayn
Rand's books, by the way, but have also read such works as Upton
Sinclair's "The Jungle".  I don't think pointing out a very limited
selection of someone's reading list are much of a reasonable indicator
of what sort of bias that person may or may not bring to the table in
any collaborative enterprise.  Whatever Jimbo's personal political
leanings may be, they aren't relevant to determining his management
style.  Rather, it would be more productive and reasonable to examine
his actual management actions, in whole and in context, and only examine
political leanings to attempt to understand the reasons for that
behavior if that too interests you (though it's still not really
relevant to a discussion of whether there's applied bias in management
style).

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Thank you RickK

body:
On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 05:55:58AM -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
> The jewel is in the lotus, beauty that arises from muck.

Indeed.  I'm prompted to wonder how something whose value, even to its
creators, lies in other measures than profits, and whose status as
"unfinished" is simply an indicator that the human race is not finished
either, can be insulted by pointing out those positive characteristics.
>From where I'm sitting, it seems the knowledge is the reward, and
continued growth is a good thing.  As for credibility, it seems to me
that Wikipedia (and now Wikinews as well, to mention another project
with which I'm somewhat familiar) has at least drawn even with, if not
surpassed, the dubious credibility of other encyclopedic and
journalistic sources.  Maybe I'm wrong to view this from points of view
other than those of Britannica and New York Times editors, but that's
what I see, particularly when Wikipedia and Wikinews are being sourced
by news agencies and educational efforts with whom Wikimedia projects
are sometimes characterized as competing.

Yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so (obviously).

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org]

> On Jul 10, 2005, at 12:47 AM, JAY JG wrote:
>
> >>What a colossal clusterfuck Wikipedia is. All this effort put into
> >>an encyclopedia that will never be finished, will never make any
> >>money, will never have any credibility.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal Attacks Narrowly Defined

body:
WP:NPA clearly states: "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in
Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal
attacks damage the community and deter users. Nobody likes abuse."

Nowhere does it mention anything about knowing the editor in question.
And the comment you describe is therefore completely irrelevant.
Whoever said it needs to read NPA in detail.

--Mgm

On 7/10/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd like to get the opinions of the list on the following statement:
> "I have never engaged in personal attacks on any editor. Since I don't
> know any other editor personally, and know nothing about them other
> than what they write here, I don't see how I could make a personal
> attack on them even if I was minded to."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FSkyring%2FProposed_decision&diff=18451149&oldid=17892671
>
> This seems to say that unless an editor knows another personally, a
> personal attack is not possible. Can someone please comment on how
> this squares with WP:NPA?
>
> The editor who made the above comment then goes on to describe other
> named editors as trolls (a term widely accepted as being a personal
> attack), and makes derogatory comments about these editors, stating
> that he has "engaged in recent edit wars with these editors".
>
> This particular editor has recently been admonished by the Arbcom to
> avoid personal attacks: "User:xxxx is admonished to avoid discourtesy
> and personal attacks."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Proposed_decision#Adam_Carr_admonished
>
> --
> Peter in Canberra
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 11:34:14AM -0400, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 08:44:32PM -0500, Ruy Lopez wrote:
> >
> > As far as Chad Perrin's questions about this, I am just noting that
> > Wales is a millionaire and reads Ayn Rand, i.e. I am pointing to what
> > his political bias's are.
>
> Well, thanks for clearing that up.  I, personally, have read four of Ayn
> Rand's books, by the way, but have also read such works as Upton
> Sinclair's "The Jungle".  I don't think pointing out a very limited
> selection of someone's reading list are much of a reasonable indicator
> of what sort of bias that person may or may not bring to the table in
> any collaborative enterprise.  Whatever Jimbo's personal political
> leanings may be, they aren't relevant to determining his management
> style.  Rather, it would be more productive and reasonable to examine
> his actual management actions, in whole and in context, and only examine
> political leanings to attempt to understand the reasons for that
> behavior if that too interests you (though it's still not really
> relevant to a discussion of whether there's applied bias in management
> style).

I really dislike making typos.

s/are much of a/is much of a/

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thank you RickK

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
> I object strongly to the characterisation of RickK as an unstable
> administrator.  He was one of the best we've had, he worked long and hard,
> and he finally decided he'd had enough.  I wish he would come back, but if
> he's had enough then we should be thanking him for his long and faithful
> service.  Which I do gladly.  Thank you RickK.

RickK is sometimes controversial, but people should understand why -- he
has the stomach to deal with some of the worst trolls and vandals
around.  At least once a month, I have gotten a long and tortured email
about some alleged abuse by RickK, and each time I would dutifully
investigate what he had done.  And each time, I was amazed at how
patient and thorough he was in dealing with some very difficult people.

Has he at times been sharp with people? Of course, but keep in mind the
types he deals with on a regular basis.  It is very easy to sit back and
second guess various judgment calls -- and much harder to be out there
on the front lines making those judgment calls.

Thank you, RickK.

--Jimbo


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wiktionary-l] language link structure question

body:
Muke Tever wrote:

> edward molasses <molasses-one at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Friday 08 July 2005 2:46 pm, Muke Tever wrote:
>>
>>> The purpose of interlanguage links is to link to an article on the
>>> *same*
>>> topic in another language.  For the purpose of a dictionary, this means
>>> the same word.  Thus an article that treats the English word 'house'
>>> must
>>> use interwiki links for other languages with articles also treating the
>>> English word 'house'.
>>>
>>> Some wiktionaries have been using an inline link in the translation
>>> table
>>> for the kind of link you appear to be looking for, i.e., a link from
>>> en:house to it:casa... this generally appears next to the
>>> translation as
>>> a small symbol such as ^, ??, ???, or ???, depending on the wiktionary.
>>>
>>> When the Wiktionaries are better written,
>>> http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/house will have an actual definition
>>> of the
>>> word as well.
>>>
>> Thank you for the help Muke! I'm not sure I understand completely, is
>> it that
>> traditionally editors of wiktionary word pages will add the interwiki
>> link
>> using the english translation of the word as the page name because
>> they don't
>> know what the translated word would be, and the wiki of the other
>> language's
>> site will have the intermediate page named with the english
>> translation to
>> make it easier for the english wiki to link to it without knowing the
>> translation of the word?
>
> No.
>
> The purpose of the interlanguage links is to link to the *same topic*
> treated
> in *another language*.  For wikipedia, this means [[en:house]] would
> have a
> link to [[it:casa]], because wikipedia writes articles about people,
> places,
> things, and ideas, but for wiktionary this means [[en:house]] links to
> [[it:house]] -- this is because the subject matter of wiktionary is
> *words*.
>
> It may help if you consider the page title to be in full "the word
> 'house'".
> The corresponding Italian page has to be "la parola 'house'", which is
> why
> [[en:house]] links to [[it:house]].
>
> Remember, each wiktionary aims to cover all words in all languages.  The
> page that links to [[it:casa]] is <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casa>.

I think that Muke's explanation is accurate.  The aim of all words in
all languages for all languages is a very ambitious one.  When the
project is successful it will be like no other.  We've had some
interesting but difficult challenges on the way, and none of us believes
that we have seen the end of challenges.

If you look at each Wiktionary from the perspective that it is written
primarily (but not exclusively) with native speakers of that language in
mind. In theory every Wiktionary should have an entry under "house" and
under "casa".  In every case it will include a reference to every
language in which the words occur, but all the explanations will be in
the host language.  It will also take into account that "casa" is not
just in Italian, but it can also be in Latin where it only applies to
some kinds of houses, and in Spanish where it can also be an inflection
of "casar" (meaning "to marry"), and whatever we might discover in other
languages.

Thus "house" on the English Wiktionary will have a translation list
which should link to the translated form on the English Wiktionary, and
that in turn will have interwiki links to all the relevant languages.

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and such

body:
Si-si, y na mi za va ?na Wiki i mia sivovai-leto, dei ar?yoni
comprena, y da essa la discusciono prei di-?sii oferora... Di essa
molto nialei comm?nicera i ?na leta dei vi-t?to ne comprena muahaha!

Nice eh writing in incomprehensible texts? :p

Servien!

2005/7/10, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> -> "Klingon is a constructed language from the television show Star Trek,
> which has enjoyed enough popularity amongst fans to get Klingon listed
> as an "official" language, in much the same way as Star Wars fans have
> attempted to have "Jedi" listed as an official religion.
>
> This post has no point whatsoever. If you have decoded this, good for
> you. Now stop arguing, the lot of you!"
>
> Trrm Nycunk, jung n jnfgr bs gvzr! V jbaqre ubj znal crbcyr jrag naq
> qrpbqrq gung, bayl gb svaq lbhe zrffntr jnfa'g irel... jryy... funyy V
> fnl, "eryrinag"?
>
> Vg'f crbcyr yvxr lbh jub znxr yvsr fb [vafreg nqwrpgvir urer].
>
> Va pnfr lbh pbhyqa'g gryy, V'z xvqqvat. Nyy va tbbq sha.
>
> Vs lbh'ir qrpbqrq guvf, pbatenghyngvbaf. Lbh jnfgrq rira zber gvzr!
>
> Znex
>
> On 09/07/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: RIPEMD160
> >
> > Tim Starling wrote:
> > > I don't think he's the one losing perspective. You can hardly compare
> > > two languages based on the number of articles in their Wikipedia
> > > editions. We currently have only 195 articles in Urdu, and I'll do
> > > whatever is necessary to support its growth into the hundreds of
> > > thousands. But a Wikipedia written in Klingon is a complete waste of
> > > time whether it has 100 articles or 100,000. You may as well write it in
> > > ROT13-encoded English. The measure of success should be information
> > > transfer, not information content.
> > >
> >
> > Xyvatba vf n pbafgehpgrq ynathntr sebz gur gryrivfvba fubj Fgne Gerx,
> > juvpu unf rawblrq rabhtu cbchynevgl nzbatfg snaf gb trg Xyvatba yvfgrq
> > nf na "bssvpvny" ynathntr, va zhpu gur fnzr jnl nf Fgne Jnef snaf unir
> > nggrzcgrq gb unir "Wrqv" yvfgrq nf na bssvpvny eryvtvba.
> >
> > Guvf cbfg unf ab cbvag jungfbrire. Vs lbh unir qrpbqrq guvf, tbbq sbe
> > lbh. Abj fgbc nethvat, gur ybg bs lbh!
> >
> > - --
> > Alphax
> > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
> > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
> > Lewis
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
> >
> > iD8DBQFCz/TG/RxM5Ph0xhMRAxX7AJ423MhOezezV3436jDr3Eom96vaagCgmz4g
> > PiAlpgUCNzIDSLfC+pwNxqc=
> > =QFJb
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Personal info

body:
Anthere wrote:

>I had today a first ultrasound exam and it definitly
>showed I hosted something alive (heartbeat being
>proof), which has made it through the embronic stage
>to be now called a foetus and seems to be fine. So,
>though still a bit worried as I lost the last one just
>at this stage, I am optimistic tonight.
>
We all hope for the best possible results in this.

>Another consequence is that tiredness and sickness
>have impact on my mood and I noticed I had a very
>low tolerance to comments I generally considered non
>appropriate (in non politically correct language, low
>tolerance to bullshit and jerks). I apology for this
>and frequent short temper, mixed with drowsiness and
>slow reactions :-)
>
When the comments are warrented, there is no need to apologize.

>And yes, of course, I'll come to Wikimania :-) I just
>won't be able to share a beer.
>
I'm sure that there will be no shortage of people willing to act as your
proxy for this heavy duty. :-)

In a different direction, after your Algerian trip you mentioned that
you were showing your son how to use Wikipedia to help him with his
school work.  Has he been sufficiently infected ;-)  to want to attend
Wikimania?

Ec


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Personal info


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Writing with our readers in mind

body:
Do you really have no understanding of the concept of assuming good
faith?  You have provided a good example of an argumentum ad hominem,
attacking the argument by attacking the man.

Whether or not he was intending to bring the whole BCE mess into this
or not, he had a valid point.

Is it really necessary to be quite so incivil?

Sam

On 7/10/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk>
> >
> >It would be useful (if we don't already have it somewhere that I've missed)
> >to have a firm
> >statement that says articles should be written to be as intelligible to as
> >many of our readers as
> >possible, with our readers being anyone potentially searching for
> >English-language information on
> >the internet.
>
> If you imagine that your attempt to further your campaign against the use of
> BCE/CE using this backdoor method went unnoticed, rest assured that it did
> not.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] New fair use tag proposal

body:
I second your proposal, FF, this would
be a step in the right direction. - Haukur


from_name: Boris Lohnzweiger

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and new Wikipedias;
	Chinook Jargon?

body:
> Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> Besides, I think the Wikipedia phaenomenon is a tool to make languages
> emancipate and being used aside.

I'd rather say "could be, in the best case". But I think that potential is often highly overrated. I guess here at wikipedia-l we're all language enthusiasts to some degree (ofterwise we'd probably not be subscribers). What has happened a lot in the past was this: one of those "language geeks"  in Europe, Northern America or wherever stumbled across some native language of Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Arctic, Native America or so on the Internet and noticed that there isn't a Wikipedia for that language. So he or she requested one. With the best of intentions, of course. Sometimes they'd even think that the mere existence of a Wikipedia might improve the status of a language not officially recognised / marginalized / threatened. IMHO, that's _quite_ naive, a WP could never be more than one small piece of a puzzle. We can really do a lot here but I think believing we can change the world's language landscape is on the verge of hubris.

If a Wikipedia, as a secondary or tertiary effect, proves to benefit a certain language or community - fine. But in my opinion new editions should never be created for those secondary or tertiary aims but only for the primary one: the spread of knowledge. However, like most of the time, I can understand Wouter's intentions, too.

Boris

_________________________________________________________________________
Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Natural languages and new Wikipedias;	Chinook
	Jargon?

body:
Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:

>>Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>>Besides, I think the Wikipedia phaenomenon is a tool to make languages
>>emancipate and being used aside.
>>
>>
>
>I'd rather say "could be, in the best case". But I think that potential is often highly overrated. I guess here at wikipedia-l we're all language enthusiasts to some degree (ofterwise we'd probably not be subscribers). What has happened a lot in the past was this: one of those "language geeks"  in Europe, Northern America or wherever stumbled across some native language of Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Arctic, Native America or so on the Internet and noticed that there isn't a Wikipedia for that language. So he or she requested one. With the best of intentions, of course. Sometimes they'd even think that the mere existence of a Wikipedia might improve the status of a language not officially recognised / marginalized / threatened. IMHO, that's _quite_ naive, a WP could never be more than one small piece of a puzzle. We can really do a lot here but I think believing we can change the world's language landscape is on the verge of hubris.
>
>If a Wikipedia, as a secondary or tertiary effect, proves to benefit a certain language or community - fine. But in my opinion new editions should never be created for those secondary or tertiary aims but only for the primary one: the spread of knowledge. However, like most of the time, I can understand Wouter's intentions, too.
>
>Boris
>
Hoi,
You write that the subscribers at this list are all language
entheuasiasts. Well, I think you are wrong there. The discussion of
languages is not what this mailing list is about. This mailing list is
about the issues re Wikipedia that are bigger than just the single
instance of a Wikipedia. With the amount of noise of oscure languages
and spellings you might think that it is about languages. It is however
not. Many people on the list are bored to death with the ongoing
disussions of German Platt or Dutch Platt or whatever name you care to
give it.

If you want a Wikipedia for a language, get the necessary forum. Work on
it. And if you consider 1.000 articles enough to move away and start a
new project .. There are languages that I think are awfull. When I heard
that Nauruans walked away disgusted with what we brought to the table I
was apalled. The idea of people who do not speak a language want to have
a Wikipedia so that they can dabble in it is not what I like to see, I
do not think it enhances Wikipedia's reputation.

Basically, we spend too much time on subjects that make this list
irrelevant for many. This endless generation of noise makes the ratio
such that people turn off. As a consequence the list serves its purpose
less well.

Please, work on content and not on this endless stream of
semi-interesting infighting. This list would be more relevant if things
like single user login, the need for localisation of templates, the use
of sound to illustrate the names of people and places, the problems of
editing right to left language Wikipedias etc were discussed. There are
loads of things more relevant than how Overijssels is written. Then
again, do you seriously think a Limburgian from Kerkrade can read the
articles from a Limburgian from Maastricht or Venlo? Does that qualify
for yaw (yet another wiki) ??

I have said it before and I say it again. If you want to preserve a
language than you need a dictionary first. You need to know what it
sounds like. And you have to preserve the material that exists in this
language.When you have done a respectable amount of work on these things
than an encyclopedia may make sense. From a cultural point of view, the
subjects described best in that language are the ones you should
concentrate on. That is what this language is good at. When you want to
make a language a living language, you help the Open Office people to
localise the OOo software. That means that people will have the tools to
use their language in this day and age. From my point of view, you have
this toy, you like it very much but what you do is ineffective. It is
ineffective when it is about the language, it is effective in that it
keeps you occupied.

Sorry Boris nothing personal this has been building up for some time. To
quote the Dutch saying "Barbertje moest hangen".

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: edward molasses

subject: [Wiktionary-l] setting up a multilanguage dictionary using MediaWiki

body:
Hello,

I'm planning to setup a dictionary of terms related to the field of plant
genetic resources, using MediaWiki. I want it to have all definitions in 5
different languages and there is a possibility of adding more.

I was wondering if the usual/recommended case of setting up a site like this
would be to follow the model of Wiktionary and have separate installations
for each language of the dictionary, using interwiki links between them (I
would have all installations on the same server and use interwiki links,
which I think amounts to the same structure of links as what we see in
Wikitionary).

I'm not sure if this is the best idea for my case since perhaps for Wiktionary
this installation fits the situation in regards to maintenance/curation and
server load and in my case there would less server load and centralized
maintenance/curation would be preferred.

So I suppose my main question is, are there more advantages to having
everything on one MediaWiki installation or on separate installations? Also,
what would the advantages/disadvantages be for each situation?

Any of your suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew.


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>
>
>Do you really have no understanding of the concept of assuming good
>faith?

Considering he campaigned vociferously against BCE/CE, modified the Manual
of Style to forbid its use, edited over 700 articles to remove it,
"resigned" from Wikipedia and proceeded to remove it from 300 more articles
as a IP editor, and has now returned to Wikipedia and continues to remove
it, think the "Good faith" well in this particular case has run dry.  "Good
faith" has reasonable limits.

>Whether or not he was intending to bring the whole BCE mess into this
>or not, he had a valid point.

He's used this exact argument to remove BCE/CE from articles before; it's
hardly a stretch.

Jay.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Just a few final remarks from me on the Dutch Low Saxon issue.

> Even though the consensus is to go along with the German-based orthography
> (which alienates speakers in the Netherlands), I strongly suggest that the
> usual orthographic neglect not be perpetuated.

Ok, now I can understand the meaning. Once again, a very good idea. Once again, very academic, too. Reinhard "Ron" Hahn seems to be a very intelligent man. If articles are written in his phonetically more correct way, it surely won't do any harm. But does he really think, you can talk a majority of volunteer, amateur editors into using a method of spelling they are not used to? That "?" is not even on their keyboard.

> According to him, such distinctions are made in "better" Platt publications.

Does '"better" Platt publications' mean publications written _in_ Platt or academic publications written _on_ the subject of the Low Saxon language? Linguists often have different ways of writting things down, due to the specific needs of their science. By the way, did you know "th" stands for two different sounds in English? So what about a spelling reform at en: ?

I think if Wikipedia in Low Saxon is supposed to flourish you'll have meet people were they are.

Boris

Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 10.07.05 07:44:03:

Boris,

Ron's justification is given below. According to him, such
distinctions are made in "better" Platt publications.

>From Ron:

"Even though the consensus is to go along with the German-based orthography
(which alienates speakers in the Netherlands), I strongly suggest that the
usual orthographic neglect not be perpetuated.  In ordinary spelling,
people do not distinguish the diphthong /ei/ (written <e(e)>) from the
monophthong /ee/ (written <e(e)>), and they do not distinguish the
dipthong /?i/ (written <??>) from the monophthong /??/ (written <?(?)>).
As a result of this overly casual spelling method, most learners -- which
includes most younger people -- mispronounce numerous words on the basis
of spelling.  Thus, continuing this spelling in a reference resource would
be tantamount to serious neglect and perpetuation of mispronunciation.  So
far, these distinctions are made only in better publications, in which the
monophthongs are written <?(?)> and <?> (or <oe>) respectively.  (In some
academic conventions they use <e(e)> and <?(?>) with an _ogonek_ (hook),
which, however, is typographically awkward.)"

And then later, this:

"They do reflect important distinction both phonemically and phonetically.

For example:

/leev-n/ ["le:v=m] ~ ["lE:v=m] <L?ven> 'life'
/leiv-n/ ["leIv=m] ~ ["laIv=m] <Leven> 'loving'
Spelling without distinction: Leven

/beed-n/ [be:d=n] ~ ["bE:d=n] <b?den> 'to beg', 'to pray'
/beid-n/ ["beId=n] ~ ["baId=n] <beden> 'to offer'
Spelling without distinction: beden

/veet-n/ ["ve:t=n] ~ ["vE:t=n] <W?ten> 'knowledge'
/veitn/ ["veIt=n] ~ ["vaIt=n] <Weten> 'wheat'
Spelling without distinction: Weten

/??v at r/ ["2:v3`] ~ ["9:v3`] <?ver> ~ <oever> 'over', 'across'
/?iv at r/ ["9Iv3`] ~ ["OIv3`] <?ver> '(river/lake) bank)
Spelling without distinction: ?ver, ?ver

/l??v-t/ [l2:ft] ~ [l9:ft] <l?vt> ~ <loevt>  'praises'
/l?iv-t/ [l9Ift] ~ [lOIft] <l??vt> 'believes'
Spelling without distinction: l??vt ~ l??ft"

>From what I can tell, though, it's definitely not an exaggeration to
say it was "fake" before and is real now -- things that were awkward,
German-syntax-based ways of saying things were modified to more
natural, genuinely Platt/Nedersaksisch ways of saying things.

Mark

On 09/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
>
> > Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
> convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.
>
> Hi Mark!
>
> Nice job. As far as I'm able to able to judge, the overall language quality of the article was clearly improved. But I think it's an exaggeration to say the article was written in a fake Platt before and is "real" now. Authenticity is often a matter of perspective. Most of the alterations made are not so much about real vs. phony but rather a matter of spelling, dialect differences or even a matter of taste. Some changes aren't really necessary e. g. replacing the very common "mooken" by a seldomly used "m?ken". One thing I really can't grasp is why Ron/Reinhard introduces the letter "?" (which is never used in Germany), e. g. when replacing the authentic Platt word "?kelnaam" by a weird-looking "?kelnaam" for no visible reason.
>
> Best,
> Boris
>
>
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 01:18:55:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
> convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.
>
> Diff: http://nds.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katt&diff=21797&oldid=18531
>
> Mark
>
> On 06/07/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Boris,
> >
> > I personally think that if in that sample the only extreme differences
> > are "mer" and the future tense, this should not be insurmountable.
> >
> > Brazilian and Iberian Portuguese similarly have some vast differences
> > in verb conjugations (although they use the same orthography...), yet
> > they have a single Wikipedia.
> >
> > I'm sure many Portuguese people are a little bit annoyed when they see
> > people using the second-person singular conjugations for both
> > second-person singular and second-person plural... but then, they're a
> > little bit used to it since Portuguese often visit Brazilian websites,
> > read Brazilian books, watch Brazilian movies... and vice-versa but to
> > a lesser degree.
> >
> > Nevertheless, the fact alone that you were able to identify it as the
> > future tense (as opposed to just completely not knowing) counts for
> > something.
> >
> > Surely, although it might be a bit annoying at first, such a
> > linguistic difference as use or non-use of the future tense is
> > surmountable.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 05/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Servien!
> > >
> > > Thanks for informing me about that. I must admit, I've never heard or read about ANS. So, like the name suggests that's supposed to work in but countries? A good idea for sure. However (and that's a big however), as far as I can tell noboby in Germany ever writes that way. Just have a look a websites from Germany written in nds. You won't ever find all those y's and v's there. Neither in Plattd??tsch literature you can find in book stores in Northern Germany. While that ANS spelling system might be a good thing in theory, I think you just couldn't re-educate thousands of people in order to have one single nds Wikipedia. But I guess I don't have to convince _you_ anyway.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the sample phrase. Here's my try:
> > >
> > > "Wenn <or "As"> en Minsch nich faken noog ruut <"na buten" would also work> k?mmt ward he ook nich <equivalent for "h?yl" would be "heel" but is usually not used here> bruun <future tense "w?yrden" also omitted here> s?nnern blievt witt. <Note: I can`t really think of a word for "pale" now - you could possibly take "bleek" (without "witt" in that case) but I'm not 100% sure here>
> > >
> > > Even though I have tried to stick to your wording as closely as possible, I think the differences are quite tremendous here. They go far beyond spelling. What was most striking to me was the use of the future tense in your sample phrase. The Plattd??tsch I know just doesn't have that - just like in spoken High German where that tense is not used either. But also the word "mer" (that's like "maar" in Dutch, isn't it?) wouldn`t be understood by readers in Germany. Other differences are less severe, of course. E. g. "genog" instead of "noog" would surely be understood, especially since we have "genug" in German. But take "kump" (do you speak an "?" or an "u" there?) for "k?mmt" for example or even "ie/y" instead of "he". If the decision about a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia were in my hands and I had to make that decision solely based on this one example - I would most definately create it! Not because I want to separate Dutch and German wikipedians - it's the 21st century and thank God we're good neighbours - but only of the language facts.
> > >
> > > Boris
> > >
> > > Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 15:33:43:
> > >
> > > Hi Boris,
> > >
> > > The orthography used in that text seems to me is de Algemeyne
> > > Neddersassische Schryvwys'... I also used to use it, but people don't
> > > seem to understand it quite as well in the Netherlands and Germany, I
> > > must honestly say I understand the ANS writing system way better then
> > > the one you used at the bottom (of course there are words which are
> > > completely unknown to me...)
> > >
> > > Here is a sample of DLS in ANS writing system:
> > > As 'n mins ny vaak genog buyten kump sal y ok ny h?yl bruyn w?yrden
> > > mer sal y spyrwit blyven.
> > >
> > > And here in the traditional one:
> > > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buut'n kump zal ie ok nie heul bruun wurd'n
> > > mer zal ie spierwit bliev'n/blyv'n.
> > >
> > > This is the one I use:
> > > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buten kump sal ie ok nie heul bruun wurden
> > > mer sal ie spierwit blyven. (it's a mixture of the traditional one and
> > > a little from ANS, I don't use the apostrophes because like in the
> > > word blyv'n is pronounced as "bliem" and this is confusing because
> > > bak'n [bake] is also pronounced differently like "bakng".)
> > >
> > > (Translation of the text:
> > > If a person doesn't go outside much then he won't have a tanned look,
> > > but will be pale white.)
> > >
> > > Servien
> > >
> > > 2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
> > > >
> > > > > Ahh wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which is "based on Missingsch.
> > > >
> > > > Ok "Patentplatt" or "Fernsehplatt" (TV Platt) as it is called sometimes - that really seems to happen. I think that word is less misleading. Of course, different people will have different views on what is unique and what is not. Languages like German or French have had established unified standards for centuries, so there is hardly ever any doubt what's linguistically correct or not at de: or fr:. Obviously, at nds: you don`t have that degree of unambiguousness. I would really appreciate any efforts to improve the linguistic quality of the Low Saxon Wikipedia. After all, it is still at an early stage. Unfortunetaly, I can't really help here for, being a native in High German, I'd probably only worsen the problem of "Patentplatt".
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > > >
> > > > Where does that come from? The vocabulary is mostly alright. But the spelling looks awfully articifial to me. Never before have I seen anyone using "y" in written Platt. And why should you write "v" when you say "f". Just too make look "less German"? Also, the diphtong "ou" might somehow reflect the pronounciation but is certainly not usually used in Northern Germany. And why should one want to use "kk" instead of "ck"? Just because it's written that way in the Netherlands?? And why is there an apostrophe in " Elv' "? Just because the word is "Elbe" in High German. Complete nonsense, in my humble opinion. I don't want to comment comment on the "real Platt" word "kuntray" but the "I" at the beginning of the last sentence is either Bavarian or English but surely not Platt.
> > > >
> > > > Coming from the "?nner-Elv'" myself, let me try it:
> > > >
> > > > Liek so kannst dat in'n poor Dialekten vun de ?nnerelv (in Hamborg un ?mto) ook seggen. "Wat" kann dor in d?sse/s?kse F?llen liek as "dat" un "de" bruken. Ick/Ik do dat ook faken, man tomeest wenn ick/ik snack.
> > > >
> > > > Hmm...
> > > >
> > > > Boris
> > > >
> > > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 08:34:13:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Boris,
> > > >
> > > > I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
> > > > people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
> > > > Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
> > > > wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
> > > > is "based on Missingsch".
> > > >
> > > > Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
> > > > actually ken the leid.
> > > > (It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"
> > > >
> > > > "It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> > > > WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
> > > > they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
> > > > "Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
> > > > German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
> > > > but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
> > > > the grammar and the authentic idiom."
> > > >
> > > > Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
> > > > would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
> > > > and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
> > > > only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
> > > > German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."
> > > >
> > > > This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
> > > > difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
> > > > just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
> > > > welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.
> > > >
> > > > Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
> > > > the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.
> > > >
> > > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > >
> > > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
> > > > kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
> > > > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > > >
> > > > Hmm...
> > > >
> > > > Best
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi Mark!
> > > > >
> > > > > I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
> > > > >
> > > > > I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.

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body:
>From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>
>This is a much broader issue than that. Our articles can be quite
>incomprehensible to likely readers.

On the broader issue I quite agree, but this particular e-mail wasn't about
that.

Jay.


body:
I agree :-) you can start using the same spelling but people will just
use the German-based spelling instead...

My point about this discussion was that it's not even called Low Saxon
it's called Platt and that's only German it only has the code for Low
Saxon, weird or what?! I bett that if I changed the mainpage of NDS
that it would be changed back as fast as you could say: "eh look".

Servien

P.S. Gerard, je hoeft de berichten niet te lezen, het is tenslotte ook
niet bedoeld voor de gezelligheid en als je op de Meta-Wiki kijkt bij
aanvraag voor talen wordt er duidelijk aangegeven dat je dat hier moet
doen, dus ga daar maar klagen!

2005/7/10, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
>
> Just a few final remarks from me on the Dutch Low Saxon issue.
>
> > Even though the consensus is to go along with the German-based orthography
> > (which alienates speakers in the Netherlands), I strongly suggest that the
> > usual orthographic neglect not be perpetuated.
>
> Ok, now I can understand the meaning. Once again, a very good idea. Once again, very academic, too. Reinhard "Ron" Hahn seems to be a very intelligent man. If articles are written in his phonetically more correct way, it surely won't do any harm. But does he really think, you can talk a majority of volunteer, amateur editors into using a method of spelling they are not used to? That "?" is not even on their keyboard.
>
> > According to him, such distinctions are made in "better" Platt publications.
>
> Does '"better" Platt publications' mean publications written _in_ Platt or academic publications written _on_ the subject of the Low Saxon language? Linguists often have different ways of writting things down, due to the specific needs of their science. By the way, did you know "th" stands for two different sounds in English? So what about a spelling reform at en: ?
>
> I think if Wikipedia in Low Saxon is supposed to flourish you'll have meet people were they are.
>
> Boris
>
>
>
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 10.07.05 07:44:03:
>
> Boris,
>
> Ron's justification is given below. According to him, such
> distinctions are made in "better" Platt publications.
>
> >From Ron:
>
> "Even though the consensus is to go along with the German-based orthography
> (which alienates speakers in the Netherlands), I strongly suggest that the
> usual orthographic neglect not be perpetuated.  In ordinary spelling,
> people do not distinguish the diphthong /ei/ (written <e(e)>) from the
> monophthong /ee/ (written <e(e)>), and they do not distinguish the
> dipthong /?i/ (written <??>) from the monophthong /??/ (written <?(?)>).
> As a result of this overly casual spelling method, most learners -- which
> includes most younger people -- mispronounce numerous words on the basis
> of spelling.  Thus, continuing this spelling in a reference resource would
> be tantamount to serious neglect and perpetuation of mispronunciation.  So
> far, these distinctions are made only in better publications, in which the
> monophthongs are written <?(?)> and <?> (or <oe>) respectively.  (In some
> academic conventions they use <e(e)> and <?(?>) with an _ogonek_ (hook),
> which, however, is typographically awkward.)"
>
> And then later, this:
>
> "They do reflect important distinction both phonemically and phonetically.
>
> For example:
>
> /leev-n/ ["le:v=m] ~ ["lE:v=m] <L?ven> 'life'
> /leiv-n/ ["leIv=m] ~ ["laIv=m] <Leven> 'loving'
> Spelling without distinction: Leven
>
> /beed-n/ [be:d=n] ~ ["bE:d=n] <b?den> 'to beg', 'to pray'
> /beid-n/ ["beId=n] ~ ["baId=n] <beden> 'to offer'
> Spelling without distinction: beden
>
> /veet-n/ ["ve:t=n] ~ ["vE:t=n] <W?ten> 'knowledge'
> /veitn/ ["veIt=n] ~ ["vaIt=n] <Weten> 'wheat'
> Spelling without distinction: Weten
>
> /??v at r/ ["2:v3`] ~ ["9:v3`] <?ver> ~ <oever> 'over', 'across'
> /?iv at r/ ["9Iv3`] ~ ["OIv3`] <?ver> '(river/lake) bank)
> Spelling without distinction: ?ver, ?ver
>
> /l??v-t/ [l2:ft] ~ [l9:ft] <l?vt> ~ <loevt>  'praises'
> /l?iv-t/ [l9Ift] ~ [lOIft] <l??vt> 'believes'
> Spelling without distinction: l??vt ~ l??ft"
>
> >From what I can tell, though, it's definitely not an exaggeration to
> say it was "fake" before and is real now -- things that were awkward,
> German-syntax-based ways of saying things were modified to more
> natural, genuinely Platt/Nedersaksisch ways of saying things.
>
> Mark
>
> On 09/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> >
> > > Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
> > convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.
> >
> > Hi Mark!
> >
> > Nice job. As far as I'm able to able to judge, the overall language quality of the article was clearly improved. But I think it's an exaggeration to say the article was written in a fake Platt before and is "real" now. Authenticity is often a matter of perspective. Most of the alterations made are not so much about real vs. phony but rather a matter of spelling, dialect differences or even a matter of taste. Some changes aren't really necessary e. g. replacing the very common "mooken" by a seldomly used "m?ken". One thing I really can't grasp is why Ron/Reinhard introduces the letter "?" (which is never used in Germany), e. g. when replacing the authentic Platt word "?kelnaam" by a weird-looking "?kelnaam" for no visible reason.
> >
> > Best,
> > Boris
> >
> >
> >
> > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 01:18:55:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Ron has done quite a job on the article [[Katt]], in a huge effort to
> > convert it from Patentplatt to real Platt.
> >
> > Diff: http://nds.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katt&diff=21797&oldid=18531
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 06/07/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Boris,
> > >
> > > I personally think that if in that sample the only extreme differences
> > > are "mer" and the future tense, this should not be insurmountable.
> > >
> > > Brazilian and Iberian Portuguese similarly have some vast differences
> > > in verb conjugations (although they use the same orthography...), yet
> > > they have a single Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > I'm sure many Portuguese people are a little bit annoyed when they see
> > > people using the second-person singular conjugations for both
> > > second-person singular and second-person plural... but then, they're a
> > > little bit used to it since Portuguese often visit Brazilian websites,
> > > read Brazilian books, watch Brazilian movies... and vice-versa but to
> > > a lesser degree.
> > >
> > > Nevertheless, the fact alone that you were able to identify it as the
> > > future tense (as opposed to just completely not knowing) counts for
> > > something.
> > >
> > > Surely, although it might be a bit annoying at first, such a
> > > linguistic difference as use or non-use of the future tense is
> > > surmountable.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 05/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Servien!
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for informing me about that. I must admit, I've never heard or read about ANS. So, like the name suggests that's supposed to work in but countries? A good idea for sure. However (and that's a big however), as far as I can tell noboby in Germany ever writes that way. Just have a look a websites from Germany written in nds. You won't ever find all those y's and v's there. Neither in Plattd??tsch literature you can find in book stores in Northern Germany. While that ANS spelling system might be a good thing in theory, I think you just couldn't re-educate thousands of people in order to have one single nds Wikipedia. But I guess I don't have to convince _you_ anyway.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for the sample phrase. Here's my try:
> > > >
> > > > "Wenn <or "As"> en Minsch nich faken noog ruut <"na buten" would also work> k?mmt ward he ook nich <equivalent for "h?yl" would be "heel" but is usually not used here> bruun <future tense "w?yrden" also omitted here> s?nnern blievt witt. <Note: I can`t really think of a word for "pale" now - you could possibly take "bleek" (without "witt" in that case) but I'm not 100% sure here>
> > > >
> > > > Even though I have tried to stick to your wording as closely as possible, I think the differences are quite tremendous here. They go far beyond spelling. What was most striking to me was the use of the future tense in your sample phrase. The Plattd??tsch I know just doesn't have that - just like in spoken High German where that tense is not used either. But also the word "mer" (that's like "maar" in Dutch, isn't it?) wouldn`t be understood by readers in Germany. Other differences are less severe, of course. E. g. "genog" instead of "noog" would surely be understood, especially since we have "genug" in German. But take "kump" (do you speak an "?" or an "u" there?) for "k?mmt" for example or even "ie/y" instead of "he". If the decision about a Dutch Low Saxon Wikipedia were in my hands and I had to make that decision solely based on this one example - I would most definately create it! Not because I want to separate Dutch and German wikipedians - it's the 21st century and thank God we're good neighbours - but only of the language facts.
> > > >
> > > > Boris
> > > >
> > > > Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 15:33:43:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Boris,
> > > >
> > > > The orthography used in that text seems to me is de Algemeyne
> > > > Neddersassische Schryvwys'... I also used to use it, but people don't
> > > > seem to understand it quite as well in the Netherlands and Germany, I
> > > > must honestly say I understand the ANS writing system way better then
> > > > the one you used at the bottom (of course there are words which are
> > > > completely unknown to me...)
> > > >
> > > > Here is a sample of DLS in ANS writing system:
> > > > As 'n mins ny vaak genog buyten kump sal y ok ny h?yl bruyn w?yrden
> > > > mer sal y spyrwit blyven.
> > > >
> > > > And here in the traditional one:
> > > > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buut'n kump zal ie ok nie heul bruun wurd'n
> > > > mer zal ie spierwit bliev'n/blyv'n.
> > > >
> > > > This is the one I use:
> > > > As 'n mins nie vaok genog buten kump sal ie ok nie heul bruun wurden
> > > > mer sal ie spierwit blyven. (it's a mixture of the traditional one and
> > > > a little from ANS, I don't use the apostrophes because like in the
> > > > word blyv'n is pronounced as "bliem" and this is confusing because
> > > > bak'n [bake] is also pronounced differently like "bakng".)
> > > >
> > > > (Translation of the text:
> > > > If a person doesn't go outside much then he won't have a tanned look,
> > > > but will be pale white.)
> > > >
> > > > Servien
> > > >
> > > > 2005/7/5, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de>:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Ahh wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which is "based on Missingsch.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ok "Patentplatt" or "Fernsehplatt" (TV Platt) as it is called sometimes - that really seems to happen. I think that word is less misleading. Of course, different people will have different views on what is unique and what is not. Languages like German or French have had established unified standards for centuries, so there is hardly ever any doubt what's linguistically correct or not at de: or fr:. Obviously, at nds: you don`t have that degree of unambiguousness. I would really appreciate any efforts to improve the linguistic quality of the Low Saxon Wikipedia. After all, it is still at an early stage. Unfortunetaly, I can't really help here for, being a native in High German, I'd probably only worsen the problem of "Patentplatt".
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > > > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > > > >
> > > > > Where does that come from? The vocabulary is mostly alright. But the spelling looks awfully articifial to me. Never before have I seen anyone using "y" in written Platt. And why should you write "v" when you say "f". Just too make look "less German"? Also, the diphtong "ou" might somehow reflect the pronounciation but is certainly not usually used in Northern Germany. And why should one want to use "kk" instead of "ck"? Just because it's written that way in the Netherlands?? And why is there an apostrophe in " Elv' "? Just because the word is "Elbe" in High German. Complete nonsense, in my humble opinion. I don't want to comment comment on the "real Platt" word "kuntray" but the "I" at the beginning of the last sentence is either Bavarian or English but surely not Platt.
> > > > >
> > > > > Coming from the "?nner-Elv'" myself, let me try it:
> > > > >
> > > > > Liek so kannst dat in'n poor Dialekten vun de ?nnerelv (in Hamborg un ?mto) ook seggen. "Wat" kann dor in d?sse/s?kse F?llen liek as "dat" un "de" bruken. Ick/Ik do dat ook faken, man tomeest wenn ick/ik snack.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hmm...
> > > > >
> > > > > Boris
> > > > >
> > > > > Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>, wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org schrieb am 05.07.05 08:34:13:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi Boris,
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm a bit perplexed as this accusation has been made by a number of
> > > > > people on Lowlands-l, most of the accusers being native speakers of
> > > > > Low German, and at least one (RF Hahn) also speaking Missingsch. Ahh
> > > > > wait, I see here the accusation is that it's in "Patentplatt", which
> > > > > is "based on Missingsch".
> > > > >
> > > > > Accusations: "Unalike the Laich Saxon edeetion whase warkers dinna
> > > > > actually ken the leid.
> > > > > (It's oor Jonny's pet plaint, his windmill faes, an that richtly.)"
> > > > >
> > > > > "It doesn't help that language competency is wanting in the current
> > > > > WikiPlatt team.  Those folks are enthusiastic, and I laud that.  But
> > > > > they don't know the language well enough.  Much or most of it is
> > > > > "Patentplatt" (based on Missingsch), i.e. invented on the basis of
> > > > > German.  I am not at all opposed to introducing technical neologisms,
> > > > > but there needs to be first of all a firm grasp of the basic language,
> > > > > the grammar and the authentic idiom."
> > > > >
> > > > > Information on Patentplatt: "The number of Lowlands Saxon speakers ...
> > > > > would be large if it included people who are somewhat conversant ...
> > > > > and it would be even larger if it included those who ... can really
> > > > > only manage lexically, idiomatically and grammatically deficient,
> > > > > German-based, "made-up Platt" (Patentplatt)."
> > > > >
> > > > > This is very concerning, and is clearly a major factor in the
> > > > > difficulty people from the Netherlands are having reading NDS.wiki. I
> > > > > just dashed off an e-mail to Ron to remind him that he is always
> > > > > welcome to "fix" the Patentplatt, because of course it's Wikipedia.
> > > > >
> > > > > Obviously, this isn't the only factor, and I'm not sure if it's even
> > > > > the greatest factor. But, I feel that we should explore that.
> > > > >
> > > > > A sample of 'real' Low Saxon written in "AGS" orthography:
> > > > >
> > > > > Lyk so kanst dat in 'n paar dialekten vun de ?nner-Elv' (in Hamborg un
> > > > > kuntray) ook seggen.  "Wat" kan daar in s?kse vellen lyk as "dat" un
> > > > > "dey" bruken.  I dou dat ook vaken, man tou meyrst wen ik snakken dou.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hmm...
> > > > >
> > > > > Best
> > > > > Mark
> > > > >
> > > > > On 04/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger <BorisLohnzweiger at web.de> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi Mark!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I was quite perplexed to read that they write Missingsch in the Low Saxon Wikipedia. So I just went there and checked out ten random pages. Having grown up in a rural area near Hamburg, it`s easy for me tell apart Low Saxon from Missingsch. The whole issue seems to be very exaggerated. All ten articles I've read were without a doubt in Plattd??tsch. Of course single articles might not be - I haven`t checked the whole Wikipedia. However, one can note that depending on the subject of the article the share of words that very closely resemble standard German words or are even identical (in writing !) is sometimes quite high. But this is a usual phenomenon in Low Saxon. Generally speaking, the more scientific a text gets the closer it comes to Hochdeutsch. Surely, sometimes this can lead to the fact that certain passages of articles don`t look too much like Platt. This can been seen very clearly in this article: http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia . It has two sections, both written by the same author, as far as I can tell. The first ("Nordd??tsche Slangen") is very "pure" Low Saxon. The second ("Systematik") looks very much like standard German, due to its topic. I think even without knowing both languages in detail you can easily tell the difference. But this is not to be confused with Missingsch. You just couldn`t say that differently or more "real", if you want.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I don`t who actually brought up this Missingsch issue (native speaker? hobby linguist?). But as a matter of fact, nds-WP is written in Low Saxon. If individual pages are in other languages (which to some degree happens in many Wikipedias) the guys at nds can certainly cope with that. However,  I disbelieve that this part of the reason native speakers of Low Saxon in the Netherlands ask for a separate WP.
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
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>
>
>
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: James Gibbon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Game-playing on Wikipedia

body:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 13:27:01 +0100
"David 'DJ' Hedley" <spyders at btinternet.com> wrote:

> Even though I participated in (and sorely lost in) the Chess
> Championship, I agree that games may be going too far. We had
> Mornington Crescent Championship or something recently too.
>

I'd be delighted to take part in a few rounds of Mornington
Crescent, provided we aren't playing the Livingstone Integrated
Transport rules of 2002 - but not on Wikipedia. I tend to agree
with Danny.

James

--
Dig It: a forum for Euro Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> You write that the subscribers at this list are all language entheuasiasts.

I phrased it wrongly. Of course, it's not a language list in the first place.

> The idea of people who do not speak a language want to have
> a Wikipedia so that they can dabble in it is not what I like to see, I
> do not think it enhances Wikipedia's reputation.

Fully agreed. That's exactly what I was trying to point out. Fortunately, the rule that you need five native speakers to start a new Wikipedia seems to gain more and more supporters lately. That could prevent a lot of futile discussion in the future.

> When I heard that Nauruans walked away disgusted with what we brought to the table I was apalled.

na: is in fact more like a parody than like a real encyclopedia. I wish someone stop that hanky-panky there for the sake of the project's reputation.

> Sorry Boris nothing personal this has been building up for some time.

That's alright. Thanks for reminding us/me.

Boris

_________________________________________________________________________
Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail k?nnen Sie eine SMS an alle
Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179


body:
I just want to say -- what we are talking about here is not "academic
style" but more accurately "technical style" -- something accessible
only to experts of certain types of information (which can be
philosophy or electronics or what have you). Plenty of academic
writing is nothing of the sort and should not be lumped in as such!
(the academic squeals)

The goal is to write well and comprehensibly for people with
non-technical backgrounds. Of course, there are times when our Wiki
technology allows us not to re-invent the wheel each time something
comes up, but of course this must be an issue of judgment rather than
strict policy.

FF

On 7/9/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/07/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > It would be useful (if we don't already have it somewhere that I've missed) to have a firm statement that says articles should be written to be as intelligible to as many of our readers as possible, with our readers being anyone potentially searching for English-language information on the internet.
> >
> > Jon (jguk)
>
> I guess you can't force people to write in a certain style.
>
> But it's daft to write an encyclopaedia in an academic style. No
> academic in his right mind would refer to Wikipedia - I don't mean any
> offense, but that's just not it's place. They go to journals and
> texts.
>
> What it is useful - what it should be aiming for - is to make subjects
> understandable to the 99.99% of the world that *isn't* expert in that
> field.
>
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
>From: Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com>

>
>On Sun, 10 Jul 2005, Rebecca wrote:
>
> > On 7/10/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > If you imagine that your attempt to further your campaign against the
>use of
> > > BCE/CE using this backdoor method went unnoticed, rest assured that it
>did
> > > not.
> > >
> > > Jay.
> >
> > Thank you for pointing out what should've been obvious - it was easy
> > to overlook. I agree entirely with what Jguk said about making things
> > intelligible in a broader context. I did not, however, read between
> > the lines, and *very strongly* condemn this attempt at continuing the
> > BC-BCE war by the back door.
> >
>Well, I for one don't see how Jon's suggestion is continuing this
>dispute, even if it is his intent.
>
>Asking editors to avoid an academic style & try to write in layman's terms
>does not logically lead to eschewing BCE/CE -- unless by the single act
>of taking a paper & replacing every instance of AD/BC with CE/BCE
>instantly makes it worthy of publication in an academic journal.

He has used that argument many times to justify removal of BCE/CE; now that
it has been exposed, it will be more difficult to do so.

>In fact, about the only person who keeps reintroducing this BCE/CE
>matter is Jay himself -- & I've invited him in the past to take it off
>list. I do so again; he seems to be causing trouble to make a point.

Interesting opinion. Thanks for sharing.

Jay.


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

body:
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David Gerard wrote:
> Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050710 01:42]:
>
>>Zoney wrote:
>
>>>a) Fair use? We're using a news broadcaster's photos for our *news
>>>coverage* without permission? Hah! Yeah right that's fair use!
>
>>You are right that this was wrong.  I would say that it was still
>>legally fair use *for us*, i.e. not a legal problem, but my position is
>>that just because it is legal, this is not enough for us to use something.
>>It is a particularly good example of excessive use of fair use because
>>there were and are a great many free images available on the web yesterday.
>
> However, useing another broadcaster's news images is in fact fair use and
> entirely appropriate in a lot of cases. This is why newscasters cover their
> stuff in their logo.
>

So... all the Wikinews images should have a Wikinews/Wikimedia
Foundation watermark?

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Program development using two CVS repositories: one
	master, one own

body:
I felt the need to work with two repositories, one CVS 1 (here: module
phase3) and my own, CVS 2.

It seems to be impossible to update/merge from CVS 1, to make my changes
and then to commit to CVS 2,  because the CVS 2 was started (imported)
freshly from my own local version and cannot (afaik) be sync-ed with the
master CVS 1.

To overcome this problem, I developed a method, which is not too
complicated; an work flowchart can be found on [1,2].

However, If someone has found or knows of better methods, then I would
have re-invented the (cvs-with-two-repositories) wheel.

Please can you let me know ? --> simply write onto [3], which page you
can e-watch [4]
T.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_from_CVS#See_also
[2] http://www.wikipage.de/en/index.php/CVS
[3] http://www.wikipage.de/en/index.php/Talk:CVS
[4] www.wikipage.de has enotif enabled


from_name: Dan Grey

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
Can I ask people (El C in particular) to keep the 'Re:' in the subject
line please? I don't want five threads on the same topic, thanks.

Dan


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] 8th Duke of Wellington image crisis

body:
Please have a look @

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Image_use

we have a rather difficult situation, spanning several pages and a
number of policies, which I would like to see handled promptly and
effectually.

Jack (Sam Spade)


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Chilling effect

body:
>"When asked why he blocked me, David Gerard responded
>by saying that he saw no community support for not
>blocking me. I suggest that this could be because of a
>chilling effect of blocking people who criticise
>admins.
>
>I do not know how to make this point in a way which is
>more acceptable to the list. I hypothesis that if
>people are blocked for trying to hold admins
>accountable, the number of people trying to hold
>admins accountable will fall.
>
>Norrath"
>
>

I disagree, I see users question of admin's actions all the time, if you
want proof just go to any one of the active admins' user talk pages and
look, you'll see that even though they may not be the majority of
discussions there will still be topics about their decisions whether it
be blocking a user or reverts or protections on a page.  I would show
you diffs but I do not feel that it would be polite to post links to
other users' pages in this situation.

-Jtkiefer


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Shouldn't we kick paedophiles off Wikipedia?

body:
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Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> (your reply appeared very messed up - what email client are you using?)
>

Yahoo mangles all.

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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body:
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Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Perhaps, when doing moves, there could be a checkbox which would
> automatically fix any double-redirects which would arise as a result of
> the move?
>
> This would save time, as the person doing the move wouldn't have to go
> through all the redirects created and update them, as the software could
> automatically do that, attributing it to the person who did the move.
>
> What are people's thoughts on this?
>
> Chris
>

I can think of some cases where this would *not* work, eg. when pages
are rearranged to create primary disambiguation pages, not only are
redirects needed but disambiguation as well. We have Wikiprojects to
deal with both of these; finding and fixing double redirects (and links
to disambiguation pages) is something that is best left in the hands of
human editors, because software can get it wrong.

- --
Alphax
OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S.
Lewis
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body:
On 10/07/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> This is a much broader issue than that. Our articles can be quite
> incomprehensible to likely readers.
>
> Fred

Some of the drug articles are quite inpenetrable. I would not be
suprised, however, if most of the people who read the drugs articles
are people who've just been prescribed them. Pharmacologists are never
going to come looking to WP to read up on drugs. So why write at their
level, rather than a laymans?

Take, for example, paracetamol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol#Mechanism_of_Toxicity

What the hell does that mean?! It is, frankly, total garbage.
Completely correct, no doubt, but meaningless to the vast amjority of
people - and a lot of people want to know why paracetamol can kill
them so easily.

What to do? I have no idea.

Info like that can't be binned, of course. Maybe we could have
sub-sections for it - "In depth" or something.

But we need human-readable explanations too. Unfortunetly, I can't
even begin to convert that into something that's actually
understandable to, say, my mum, because I barely understand it myself
:-).

Dan


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re:Writing with our readers in mind

body:
On 7/10/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> A good example of the difficulties is outlined in today's featured article
> on the Island Fox. The bit on the main page includes the sentence "Its small
> size is a result of [[island dwarfing]], a kind of [[allopatric
> speciation]]". Come again! To find out what that means you have to wade
> through the technical article [[island dwarfing]] and [[allopatric
> speciation]] - and to begin to understand the latter, you also have to try
> to understand [[speciation]]. I think it means - "It is small because it is
> on a small island", but why not just say that?

On this example I disagree. When I read this article, yesterday, my
impression was that it was the most perfect main page article I've ever
read. Very well written, not too long or technical, and small number of
links that sparked my interest.

A better example of what you're talking about is [[Basalt]]. It's unreadable
for non-geologists.


body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>In saying that this is not a language list, both Boris and Gerard are
>quite wrong.
>
>There was some logic or other behind the merger of intlwiki-l with
>wikipedia-l. I think it's because intlwiki-l was never extremely
>active.
>
>But when the two were merged, it's a flaw that people now consider
>anything that would've formerly gone on intlwiki-l to be "noise" -- it
>belongs here very much.
>
>
It is the excessive amount of traffic that has little to do with
Wikipedias and everything with languages and the way they are written
and or pronounced that make it noise. When there is a point to all this
it is welcome.

>Gerard said a language cannot survive without a dictionary.
>Dictionaries are a relatively recent invention. Navajo didn't have a
>dictionary until the 1900s, and it's been around for quite some time.
>O'odham still doesn't have a good dictionary (though it has a
>dictionary, it's small and of poor quality), yet it's still going
>strong.
>
>
Mark, I did not say that. What I said was in a context. When you want
people to learn a language, a dictionary is invaluable. Certainly when a
language is rare, it makes more sense to have a dictionary than an
encyclopedia. If you want people learn a new language, it is an
essential tool. It is also essential that the existing content in a
language is preserved because that is where you find the original
culture. It is important that people can hear what a language sounds
like because that is what makes people speak the language and be understood.

These are the arguments that you do not want to hear. They are against
what you want. You mistake this different aproach as me being against
new Wikipedias in new languages.

>Wikipedias ensure the presence of a language on the Internet.
>According to some, languages will only survive if they have a presence
>on the Internet.
>
>
When languages need to be preserved, let us put our effort particularly
in the languages with a large active usage. This is where a Wikipedia
makes sense. There is less need for a Wikipeida in Platt or Zeeuws than
there is for Sranang or Papiamento. If we have to invest our time let's
make Urdu and Kannada or Thai a success because people actually speak
those language. The continuing noise makes people less interested in
other languages and not more. In my mind you have some valid points but
the incessant volume of it makes that people decide on the subject to
directly bin your contributions. Look at the subject of this mail; it is
about Chinook and Platt is being discussed.

>Anyhow, back to intlwiki-l vs wikipedia-l...
>
>A few months ago, I suggested that the two be re-split. There was a
>lot of support for the idea, obviously much of it from people tired of
>being flooded with messages they didn't care for.
>
>Gerard felt I was trying to evade him in some way; that wasn't
>discussed much though.
>
>
You suggested that what was "decided" in this mailing list was to be
policy. This is what I opposed. You can have a talking list for all I
care as long as it is just that.

>However, the reason I didn't pursue it was Anthere. She didn't
>"forbid" me from doing anything, she just expressed that there was a
>reason for the merger and she is against them splitting again, and I
>felt that since it's not a big deal to me, I would just let it go.
>
>...but, if people really do feel that there needs to be a separate
>intlwiki-l once again, it may need to be created.
>
>
>
What people feel is that there is too much useless talk. If a seperate
list makes you happy .. by all means. But to make this list relevant it
should /*not*/ be a list dedicated to having more language wikipedias.
It should be about how to make the Wiki/*m*/edia content more relevant;
it should be about localisation, dictionaries, pronunciations and yes,
wikipedias. It should make a difference. If it had such a scope I might
join and believe you me, this talk that leads to nothing I would object
to as much as I do now.

>But, I don't see why people are so annoyed reading about languages,
>even discussions and sometimes arguments regarding them. I am not
>particularly interested in German history, yet I would find mildly
>interesting any argument about the specifics of it...
>
>People like Tim Starling have shown a similar attitude towards
>language in the past -- they don't seem to be especially interested in
>it, yet they do seem to find some of the issues discussed here at
>least somewhat interesting, and aren't afraid of doing a little
>research.
>
>
Tim has a completely different outlook from the one I have; if anything
I should be your friend because I care about languages. Tim cares about
wikipedia that is, the en.wikipedia.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>Mark
>


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] On parents banning their children from Wikipedia

body:
On 7/10/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>
> What material effect would result from parents banning their children?
>

Presumably they'd be hoping for the same effect intended by United
States legislators who try to ban Darwin from the classrooms.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The ongoing trolling

body:
On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 16:02:37 +0100
Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Can I ask people (El C in particular) to keep the 'Re:' in the
> subject line please? I don't want five threads on the same topic,
> thanks.
>

Mailers don't use the presence of "Re:" in the subject line to
organise threads. Provided the user replies in the usual manner,
it shouldn't matter if the subject line is modified, in this
respect anyway.

However, El C's last post didn't contain an In-Reply-To header,
which is the actual cause of the new thread.

James

--
Dig It: a forum for Euro Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The ongoing trolling

body:
I have a feeling Dan was referring to Gmail threads, which do get mucked up.

Sam

On 7/10/05, James Gibbon <wikipedia at jamesgibbon.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 16:02:37 +0100
> Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can I ask people (El C in particular) to keep the 'Re:' in the
> > subject line please? I don't want five threads on the same topic,
> > thanks.
> >
>
> Mailers don't use the presence of "Re:" in the subject line to
> organise threads. Provided the user replies in the usual manner,
> it shouldn't matter if the subject line is modified, in this
> respect anyway.
>
> However, El C's last post didn't contain an In-Reply-To header,
> which is the actual cause of the new thread.
>
> James
>
> --
> Dig It: a forum for Euro Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Skyring

body:
I'd like to get the opinions of the list on the following statement:
"I have never engaged in personal attacks on any editor. Since I don't
know any other editor personally, and know nothing about them other
than what they write here, I don't see how I could make a personal
attack on them even if I was minded to."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FSkyring%2FProposed_decision&diff=18451149&oldid=17892671

This seems to say that unless an editor knows another personally, a
personal attack is not possible. Can someone please comment on how
this squares with WP:NPA?

The editor who made the above comment then goes on to describe other
named editors as trolls (a term widely accepted as being a personal
attack), and makes derogatory comments about these editors, stating
that he has "engaged in recent edit wars with these editors".

This particular editor has recently been admonished by the Arbcom to
avoid personal attacks: "User:xxxx is admonished to avoid discourtesy
and personal attacks."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Proposed_decision#Adam_Carr_admonished

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
On 7/10/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Do we have anywhere a statement that editors should think of their readers when writing? For me, that's commonsense: whether at work, speaking or writing to different clients, or chatting with friends, I always bear in mind who I am communicating with and trying to use words, language and style that suits them.
>

Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Think_of_the_reader

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Renaming users

body:
Ros? Haruo wrote:

> As a user with different names on different language Wikipedias, I only
>hope if somebody changes my name they let me know...
>
Any bureaucrat who starts doing things like that probably should not be
a bureaucrat.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The ongoing trolling

body:
On 10/07/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a feeling Dan was referring to Gmail threads, which do get mucked up.
>
> Sam

Yes. And a lot of people use Gmail on this list - so please, keep the
subject unchanged.

Dan


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Yes, obviously that is the reason. Since all requested Wikipedias are
created right away.

Mark

On 10/07/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >Besides you got your 5 signatures that you wanted to have. So why don't you
> >just start nds-nl.wikipedia.org.
> >
> >Kind regards,
> >
> >Heiko Evermann
> >
> >
> >
> Because there is somebody called Mark Williamson on a lone crusade!
> Obstructing this with every fibre of his being.
>
> Walter van Kalken / Waerth
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Has someone good contacts to Sourceforge staff
 (keepers, webmasters)
 ? I need a sniplet from the SF account ***script*** (timezone OFFSETS)

body:
Timezone CODES are present on [2]
I just found that _Sourceforge_ has a wonderful list of timezode codes
(on your account management  page [2], if you have an SF account ),
which could be use immediately for MediaWiki

Why am I calling here, what is missing ?

I would need all the  corresponding Timezone OFFSETS as used by
sourceforge, which I only can get via a personal contact.
(I have list of timezone offsets at hand, but want to save time)

                                 <select NAME="timezone">
                                                     <option
VALUE="US/Alaska">US/Alaska</option>
                                                     <option
VALUE="US/Aleutian">US/Aleutian</option>
                                                     [ hundreds of lines
deleted for conciseness ]

			<option VALUE="UCT">UCT</option>
			<option VALUE="Universal">Universal</option>
			<option VALUE="UTC">UTC</option>
			<option VALUE="W-SU">W-SU</option>
			<option VALUE="Zulu">Zulu</option>
		</select></td>

Please can you help me ? Is someone of the Sourceforge staff listening
here ?
I like to receive the list of the corresponding offsets

Tom

[1] http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=505
Specify timezones by location, to allow automatic adjustments of
timeoffset and daylight saving time (DST)
[2 ] http://sourceforge.net/account/


body:
Zoney wrote:

>On 7/8/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I've got one more question on our
>>>Lindisfarne Gospels image. Since it
>>>would almost certainly be "protected"
>>>under British law I wonder if the
>>>[[Berne Convention]] would require the
>>>United States to uphold this protection.
>>>
>>>
>>Not at all.  Even assuming that the museum's dubious claims were upheld
>>by British courts, the operating principle in the US would be not to
>>give greater protection than would be available in a comparable
>>situation in the US, i.e. of source material owned by a US museum.  The
>>US courts have already gone further in determining the
>>non-copyrightability of such materials.
>>
>>
>Again, I thought the main concern with image licensing, after avoiding
>legal issues with wikipedia.org, was to ensure the encyclopaedia was
>"free" for others to use (presumably by extension, outside the US, in
>the UK, etc.) At the moment, simply a mirror in some other countries
>will have copyright violations, regardless of the same images not
>being problematic in the US.
>
>The issue of only US law applying to wikipedia.org is surely
>irrelevant even if it is true - as far as creating a "free"
>encyclopaedia for all goes.
>
>
But that was not the question that was asked.  The question was about
whether the Berne Convention would require the US to uphold the British law.

Ec


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: URLs

references:
<6019986.1hDDKoznoz@rose.local>
	<damlqj$ujg$1@sea.gmane.org>	<1120854811.17465.31.camel@localhost.localdomain>	<damrst$d2u$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1120863576.17465.62.camel@localhost.localdomain>

body:
Rob Lanphier wrote:
>
> Let's say there's an article called "Particles", with a sub-article
> "Atom".
>
> The "Particle" article would be:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/Particles
>
> ....and the Atom subarticle would be:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/Particles/Atom

I see you misunderstood. My proposal isn't to double the slash only in
cases where it disambiguates an action. That would be stupid precisely
for the reasons you mentioned. No, the canonical URL for [[a/b/c/d]]
would be at http://en.wikipedia.org/A//b//c//d under my proposal.

But anyway. I understand everybody's concerns about the double-slashes,
and they aren't a required portion of my proposal anyway, so we can
change this. You could always encode them as %2F instead, or you could
use ";edit" instead of "/edit" and then encode semicolons as %3B instead
(the software already does this now).

>>>In the spirit of putting the action at the end, perhaps this syntax
>>>would work:
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/Pagename?action=edit
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/Pagename?action=history
>>
>>Of course it would "work", but it's not what I want because "?action="
>>is a pain to type.
>
> ....but it's far less ambiguous, and it's clear that it's an action
> performed on article "Pagename", rather than a page of its own.

But think about why that is the case. It's only because you know that
the question mark ("?") cannot occur in the page title because it would
be encoded as "%3F". Therefore, my proposal is essentially equivalent to
yours except that the delimiting character is a single "/" and not a "?"
and the proposed encoding is "//" and not "%2F". We can change any of
these two parameters any way we like, just as long as we have a clear
delimiter.

Slashes are more common in page titles only if the wiki makes extensive
use of subpages. In actual articles (zero-namespace pages), the question
mark is way more common (e.g. [[Is Everybody Listening?]]). I think the
semicolon (";") is rarer than both of these, so even if you think it's
unusual, it may be a better choice than both "/" and "?".

Greetings,
Timwi


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling

body:
> >I do regret that Jimbo was not more sensitive to your feelings. I
> don't know why Adam Carr can do no wrong in his eyes.
>
> Fred, everything else aside, I am positively impressed with your post.
> Wow, I did not expect that.
>
> El_C

Everything else aside, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with Fred
there. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of having an
arbitrator who doesn't actually write articles - they get out of touch
with what we're actually here for - to write an encyclopedia.

-- ambi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: URLs

references:
<6019986.1hDDKoznoz@rose.local> <damlqj$ujg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<42CF0C30.6060308@pobox.com>

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>> I want the "edit" to be at the *end* of the URL, not somewhere in the
>> middle. That makes it easiest to add to (or remove from) an existing
>> URL. (I also want the "wiki" to go away. :) )
>
> One reason this is unlikely is that to keep web crawlers out of our
> interactive & dynamic areas we need to have distinct URL prefixes for
> robots.txt.

I understand. I didn't think of this. I guess that means we have to have
something between the domain name and the article title, and it can't
just be a double-slash, so it has to be at least /w/ or something.

So how about this:

	- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Article_title
	  Use /w/ for pages that can be crawled.

	- http://en.wikipedia.org/z/Article_title;history
	  Use /z/ for pages that must not be crawled.

	- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Article_title;history
	  would redirect to
	  http://en.wikipedia.org/z/Article_title;history

	- http://en.wikipedia.org/z/Article_title
	  would redirect to
	  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/Article_title

What do you think? :-)

Timwi


body:
On 7/10/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> If you imagine that your attempt to further your campaign against the use of
> BCE/CE using this backdoor method went unnoticed, rest assured that it did
> not.
>
> Jay.

Thank you for pointing out what should've been obvious - it was easy
to overlook. I agree entirely with what Jguk said about making things
intelligible in a broader context. I did not, however, read between
the lines, and *very strongly* condemn this attempt at continuing the
BC-BCE war by the back door.

-- ambi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: CheckUser working again

body:
On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 01:53:18 +1000
fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) wrote:

> [[Special:CheckUser]], the IP-to-name checker, is up and working
> again. This is so that the Arbitration Committee can do quick
> sockpuppet checks without having to bug the devs.

If I may present a hypothetical situation: let's say two adults
living in the same house both have Wikipedia accounts, and both
are regular users in their own right. If they share the same
Internet connection, as they probably would, they will have the
same IP address.

It's quite likely that, if they have a personal relationship of
some kind, which again they probably would - one will tend to
support the other occasionally, if only because one reason they
share a home is that they have a similar world view.

Should either be considered a sockpuppet of the other?

This is a situation that doesn't apply to me at all, but I think
it's worth remembering that an IP-to-name checker should be
used with caution.

James

--
Dig It: a forum for Euro Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/