subject: [Wikipedia-l] Colors for maps

body:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map

Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour countries having the same color.
It's shade is selected randomly.

The problem is to select such N (N about 8) colors generators,
and such colors for seas, rivers, city and country labels,
and other objects (borders, river/mountains/island/sea labels etc.),
that makes maps most readable.

Currently used scheme is:

Colors for:
    city dots		white
    city labels		white
    rivers		#000060
    seas		#000060
    country labels	#FF8080
Color generator 0  # cyan
    $r = rand 64;
    $g = 160 + rand 64;
    $b = 160 + rand 64;
Color generator 1 # green
    $r = 64  + rand 64;
    $g = 160 + rand 64;
    $b = 64  + rand 64;
Color generator 2 # yellow-green
    $r = 128 + rand 32;
    $g = 192 + rand 64;
    $b = rand 32;
Color generator 3 # greenish-blue
    $r = rand 32;
    $g =  64 + rand 64;
    $b = 128 + rand 64;
Color generator 4 # yellow
    $r = 128 + rand 64;
    $g =  96 + rand 64;
    $b = rand 32;
Color generator 5 # orange
    $r = 128 + rand 64;
    $g = 64  + rand 64;
    $b = rand 64;
Color generator 6 # magenta
    $r = 160 + rand 64;
    $g = 64  + rand 64;
    $b = 160 + rand 64;
Color generator 7 # gray
    $r = 96 + rand 64;
    $g = $r - 16 + rand 32;
    $b = $r - 16 + rand 32;

But it doesn't give very good results.

Anyone with better idea for coloring ?


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Colors for maps


list: wikien-l

from_name: Richard Grevers

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA

body:
On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 00:06:28 -0700, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> gave
utterance to the following:

> On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 20:22, David Friedland wrote:
>> I've done some testing now at home on my Mac, and neither Mac Phoenix
>> nor Mac Internet Explorer correctly display the Unicode IPA extensions.
>> Safari displays most of them, but is missing some critical symbols, like
>> the 'er' sound in 'her'.
>
> Is there a problem with rendering those characters, or is it just that
> standard system fonts don't include them? If the latter, are there free
> fonts we could recommend to people?
>
The following information comes from Alan Wood's extensive unicode
information site: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts_windows.html#ipa

IPA Fonts
---------
SILDoulosUnicodeIPA ? 532 glyphs in version 4.0a4
Ranges:   Basic Latin; Latin-1 Supplement; Latin Extended-A (few); IPA
Extensions; Spacing Modifier Letters; Combining Diacritical Marks; General
Punctuartion; Mathematical Operators
OpenType layout tables:   Latin
Family:   Serif
Styles:   Regular
Availability:   Free download from SIL Unicode IPA Font beta. Includes a
keyboard layout produced with Keyman.

ALPHABETUM Unicode, Arial Unicode MS, Bitstream CyberBit, Bitstream
CyberCJK, Cardo, Caslon, Code2000, Free Monospaced, Gentium, GentiumAlt,
Junicode, Lucida Sans, Lucida Sans Unicode, Monospace, MS Mincho, Naqsh,
SImPL, Thryomanes and TITUS Cyberbit Basic can also display IPA Extensions
----------
(Back to my comments)
Of the above, several are proprietary (cost unknown). MS Arial Unicode is
23MB and requires a MS Office or Publisher license - Microsoft removed the
free download page last year. Code2000 is shareware, and about 2MB.
Unlike regular users, I have a wide range of unicode fonts for use in
testing browsers. In Opera I can see all but the last two characters from
Alan's test page http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/ipa_extensions.html
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [JOKE -- or is it?] Re: Michael again *sigh*

body:
"Dante Alighieri"
<dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com> wrote in
message news:5.2.0.9.2.20030903133745.02d3b748 at digitalgrapefruit.com...
> At 05:13 AM 9/3/2003, you wrote:
> >Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> > >Sure, but the great irony is that if someone did attack us in some
> > >more sophisticated way, the net result would not be to shut us down,
> > >but to force us to abandon one of our ideals of anonymous edits and
> > >instant-signup-edits.
> >
> >Yes, but then the terrorists would have won.
> >
> >
> >-- Toby
>
>
> I can envision a protection against vandalbots that would not endanger our
> ability to accept instant anonymous edits. We could require that anyone
> trying to make an edit from an IP (not logged-in) have to pass a little
> test on every 5th edit or so. I'm sure you've all seen those images with
> distorted words where you are asked to read and type in the word so that
> bots can't sign up for various mailing lists, etc. We could use something
> like that. Every 5th edit wouldn't be TERRIBLY inconvenient for the user,
> but would sure stop a vandalbot. Plus, the minor inconvenience might even
> nudge people towards generating and using a login... which is A Good
Thing.
> I suppose this could be problematic for anonymous contributors who are
> vision impaired, but we could have an audio version as well.
>
> In any event, even if the above example isn't terribly feasible, I doubt
we
> would truly have to give up in defeat (by disallowing anonymous edits) if
> we were subject to a concerted attack. We're resourceful, we'll come up
> with something when the time comes.

A sophisticated vandalbot would not be at all deterred by this protection. A
well-written vandalbot would create a new, random username before every
edit. It would never use the same name twice. If the attacker was at all
aware of how our software works, it would probably concentrate on deleting
images by uploading a dummy and then deleting the old revision. It would
open multiple connections to the server, for greater speed.

If this ever actually happens, then I would be in favour of implementing
anti-bot protection when new users log in.

In the meantime, I think we should have better protection for our images. At
the moment they're deleted permanently and instantly. They should be moved
to an archive instead. More regular backups would also be useful -- some
method of backing up only those old and cur entries which have changed would
be useful for this. I don't think we should be spending too much time on
filters and other annoying security when we don't even have a decent backup
system in place. I think if we can get it to the stage where the most a bot
can do is lose us a few hours worth of edits plus say half an hour downtime,
it won't be worth spending any more time on the problem unless it actually
happens.

-- Tim Starling <tstarlingphysicsunimelbeduau>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] wikipedia sql databases with bittorrent

body:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Heikki Orsila wrote:
> You may want to investigate using bittorrent to distribute wikipedia
> database dumps. It would save your bandwidth, and increase download speeds
> for users:

I doubt it would help very much; it only helps at all if there are
multiple downloaders online and running bittorrent clients simultaneously.
Here are today's accesses:

[05/Sep/2003:07:44:08 +0000] "GET /archives/de/20030823_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 1582285
[05/Sep/2003:08:53:46 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 116876097
[05/Sep/2003:09:40:16 +0000] "GET /archives/ar/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 21698
[05/Sep/2003:09:41:30 +0000] "GET /archives/ar/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 39297
[05/Sep/2003:12:37:20 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 157256
[05/Sep/2003:12:39:13 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 10276739
[05/Sep/2003:15:00:20 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 116876097
[05/Sep/2003:17:48:51 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 356701
[05/Sep/2003:18:23:00 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 14145696
[05/Sep/2003:19:09:22 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 12402688
[05/Sep/2003:19:24:31 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 9932902
[05/Sep/2003:20:35:37 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.0" 206 10945144
[05/Sep/2003:22:17:29 +0000] "GET /archives/de/20030823_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 16824288

This bandwidth use is only a fraction of that served out on the wikis; the
English Wikipedia's daily bandwidth usage runs 8-11 gigabytes; nearly 2
gigs/day for the German wiki (the second most popular), and so on down
the line.

Of course, there may be more downloads right after a backup, I'll look at
tomorrow's stats for comparison.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> > OK, I'm a bit pissed. The first two voting "users" who I checked
> don't have
> > /any/ Wikipedia contributions. They linked to their user pages on
> de.wiki so
> > I checked their contribs...

Question:

Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only as well?

I personally welcome input from all people, since it is in fact
readers we are trying to reach with the logo, not just editors.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Heikki Orsila

body:
You may want to investigate using bittorrent to distribute wikipedia
database dumps. It would save your bandwidth, and increase download speeds
for users:

	http://www.bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

My personal experience says that the bittorrent system works well.

PS. I'm not sure if this the right mailing list.

Heikki Orsila			There has yet to be any innovation, new
heikki.orsila at ee.tut.fi		features or new capabilities out of the
http://ee.tut.fi/~heikki	Linux platform. - Steve Ballmer of Microsoft


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Could somebody who sprechen German take a look at this?

http://wikimedia.de/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Have they been around as a wiki before our Wikimedia came into existence?

--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Duh - it is a wiki so all one has to do is look for RC.

http://wikimedia.de/bin/search/Main/?search=%5C.*&scope=topic&order=modified&reverse=on&regex=on&nosearch=on&limit=800

08 Aug 2001 - 05:57 - r1.8

800 changes since August 2001.....

-- mav


from_name: Gutza

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Colors for maps

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map
>
>Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
>
>
In what context? AFAIK, generally people use 4 colours, typically pastel
colours for political maps.

>Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour countries having the same color.
>It's shade is selected randomly.
>
>
Again, in what context? Is your mail a proposal or does it describe the
current state? In any case, random colours doesn't sound right.

>The problem is to select such N (N about 8) colors generators,
>and such colors for seas, rivers, city and country labels,
>and other objects (borders, river/mountains/island/sea labels etc.),
>that makes maps most readable.
>[snip]
>Anyone with better idea for coloring?
>
>
How about a predefined colour scheme where the software could select
random colours among the predefined set? I'm not sure if "randomly"
means "random RGB values" or "a random colour among a predefined set",
so we may be talking about the same thing. In any case, even if we are,
the predefined colour set should be reconsidered IMO based on what the
maps in that link look like.

Gutza


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Message: 12
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 23:46:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

>Question:

>Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only as
>well?

>I personally welcome input from all people, since it
is >in fact
>readers we are trying to reach with the logo, not
just >editors.

Good point !
Plus, we may have a bias

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


from_name: Daniel Herding

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: CologneBlue stylesheet

body:
Am Fri, 05 Sep 2003 08:13:30 -0700 hat Brion Vibber
<brion at pobox.com> geschrieben:

> On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 05:09, Daniel Herding wrote:

>> But with 98% it simply doesn't
>> work right, so we should change it to 100%.

> It what way does it not work right?

 From time to time it leaves whitespace next to articles which have an
image
indented with div style="float:right". That's a waste of space and makes
the text hard to read, it destroys pages' layouts, and sometimes it's even
impossible to read the text because the screen is mainly filled with
whitespace.

I have uploaded a screenshot here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/upload/0/0c/Opera7.11_CologneBlue_1152x864.jpg
Article can be found here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radkarte

This is reproducable with Opera 7.11 and Opera 7.20b. No problem with IE5,
IE6.

There is a bug report on the bugtracking system which might describe the
same problem:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=584418&group_id=34373&atid=411192

Daniel


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: CologneBlue stylesheet

references:
<opru0z2ufmebl37h@news.gmane.org>
	<1062774809.4344.5.camel@rdaneel.leuksman.com>
	<opru11cqq5ebl37h@news.gmane.org>

body:
FYI, here is the old German mailinglist thread about that problem:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikide-l/2003-July/002782.html

In fact the main problem is that absolute:top. Opera doesn't have
problems with width:98%, it was only a design proposition because
article text might reach the right browser window border and thereby
be further right than the blue top bar. But that's not really a problem.

I would propose to remove "absolute:top", make sure that this is no
problem
for all browsers, and then update the wikis.

Daniel


from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: A simple proposal that will eliminate the problem
 with strategic voting and cheating

body:
Anytime you have a vote with more than two alternatives you run into
problems. Any form of approval or average voting is just awful, awful,
Awful! Condorcet voting is just to complicated. So here is my suggestion:

Split the voting up in multiple yes/no votings.I have been in a
national's party's congress voting for a new logo and that is how we
made it; Make a cup out of it. Logo A vs. B, C vs. D, E vs. F, G vs. H.
(Vinner of A vs. B) vs (vinner of C vs. D), (Vinner of E vs F) vs.
(Vinner of G vs. H)... you get the point. In sports that system is
ineffective because placement beyond the first depens on which pairing
the team gets. But for this voting it is pefect because we only care
about ONE alternative - the vinner.

One disadvantage is that it takes some more time than other voting
methods and that is why it is not used for large scale votings. It
requires 13 separate votings for 16 alternatives. Another is that it
requires some attention from the voters. A third that someone might
object to how the alternatives is paired against each other. Should X
face Y and Z face O, or should O face X and Z face Y? That problem is
solved by letting a computer randomize the pairings.

But we can run the voting rounds simultaneously. If we have 16
candidates we can first run the 1/8's voting rounds simultaneously. Then
the quarter final round, semi final round and the final round. That is
four rounds and if we let each round take one month we are done in
January. Yes, that is a long time but a decision that involves so many
people and seems to be so important should be allowed to take the time
it needs! But we could instead have each round being two weeks long and
be done in eight weeks which definitely is not to much time.

We could even have used that method for the first voting stage.

Regardless of which method we use the last voting absolutely,
positively, definitely needs to be "Should this logo replace the
existing logo?". Maybe that question should have been the first to vote
about but it's to late to change that now.

BL


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Colors for maps

body:
On Sat, Sep 06, 2003 at 02:29:23AM +0300, Gutza wrote:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
> >http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map
> >
> >Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
> >
> >
> In what context? AFAIK, generally people use 4 colours, typically pastel
> colours for political maps.

>From what I can see it my atlas they use many many more.

> >Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour countries having the same
> >color.
> >It's shade is selected randomly.
> >
> >
> Again, in what context? Is your mail a proposal or does it describe the
> current state? In any case, random colours doesn't sound right.

It's the current state - 2-level coloring is used.
Look at the globe on http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map

It's just that better colors are needed.
What's needed is N sets of colors such that:
* if color c1 belong to set s1, and color c2 belong to set s2,
  then they contrast very well and we can color neighbour countries
  with them
* if colors c1 and c2 belong to the same set, there's still pretty big
  probablity that they look distinguishable.

Because of requirement 1 we can't make too many color sets.
Because of 2 they should have more than just 1 color.

Anyway 2-level coloring looks much better than either:
* totally random coloring
* non-conflicting coloring with 5 colors


body:
On Fri, Sep 05, 2003 at 11:25:51PM +0000, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Heikki Orsila wrote:
> > You may want to investigate using bittorrent to distribute wikipedia
> > database dumps. It would save your bandwidth, and increase download speeds
> > for users:
>
> I doubt it would help very much; it only helps at all if there are
> multiple downloaders online and running bittorrent clients simultaneously.
> Here are today's accesses:
>
> [05/Sep/2003:07:44:08 +0000] "GET /archives/de/20030823_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 1582285
> [05/Sep/2003:08:53:46 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 116876097
> [05/Sep/2003:09:40:16 +0000] "GET /archives/ar/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 21698
> [05/Sep/2003:09:41:30 +0000] "GET /archives/ar/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 39297
> [05/Sep/2003:12:37:20 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 157256
> [05/Sep/2003:12:39:13 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 10276739
> [05/Sep/2003:15:00:20 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 116876097
> [05/Sep/2003:17:48:51 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 200 356701
> [05/Sep/2003:18:23:00 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 14145696
> [05/Sep/2003:19:09:22 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 12402688
> [05/Sep/2003:19:24:31 +0000] "GET /archives/fr/20030830_cur_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 9932902
> [05/Sep/2003:20:35:37 +0000] "GET /archives/en/20030830_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.0" 206 10945144
> [05/Sep/2003:22:17:29 +0000] "GET /archives/de/20030823_old_table.sql.bz2 HTTP/1.1" 206 16824288
>
> This bandwidth use is only a fraction of that served out on the wikis; the
> English Wikipedia's daily bandwidth usage runs 8-11 gigabytes; nearly 2
> gigs/day for the German wiki (the second most popular), and so on down
> the line.
>
> Of course, there may be more downloads right after a backup, I'll look at
> tomorrow's stats for comparison.

Not only non-productive but actually counter-productive.
It's not bandwidth at Bomis that's a bottleneck, but bandwidth
at downloaders' side.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Colors for maps

body:
On Sat, Sep 06, 2003 at 11:56:31AM +1200, Richard Grevers wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 21:12:34 +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski
> <taw at users.sourceforge.net> gave utterance to the following:
>
> >http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map
> >
> >Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
> >Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour countries having the same
> >color.
> >It's shade is selected randomly.
> >
> >The problem is to select such N (N about 8) colors generators,
>
> There is a mathematical proof that  you need no more than four colours to
> colour in a map so that no two adjacent areas have the same colour.
> I'm still used to maps where the former British Empire is shaded pink and
> the former French Empire is lilac :-)

* it only works for planar graphs, which real maps are not
* it requires really lot of power to make 4-coloring of a planar map
* it's trival to 5-color a globe, but my experiments show it sucks

random coloring:
    http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/8/8d/Globeea4.png
5-coloring:
    http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/5/5d/Globe2.png
2-level coloring:
    http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/9/99/Globe6.png


subject: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed (tomos)

body:
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 20:01:51 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia" <wiki_tomos at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice
needed
To: wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID: <LAW14-F15eD0WeOnFl000017101 at hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

>Regarding Brion's point that there should be a good
>policy or  monitoring system of deletion/undeletion -
>I think that's right. But I am not sure if all
>wikipedias became tolerant of unilateral deletion by
>admins. Have en., fr. and eo. all gone through that
>kind of change?

We practice unilateral deletion less than on the en.
This is cultural I think. We are just less bold. This
is also true for editing. Many editors explain they
will make change in the talk page first, or contact
the main editor when there is one. And many are quite
disturbed when one remove some text from an article
without previous warning. This is often seen as bad
manners. I understood this is similar on ja.
When one notice a bad new article, he either lists it
on votes for deletion, or just blank it (so it can be
noticed later on by an admin in the special:short
pages). Questionable articles are very rarely deleted
on sight...except by me I guess :-)

Still, unilateral deletions were practiced a couple of
time, related to edit wars mostly.

>For one, admins on Japanese wikipedia don't delete
>pages uniliterally.
>Stubs, testing (like "Hi there!"), pure junks (like
>falkjdslkjas) are turned to blank, but people don't
>list them on Votes for Deletion unless the
>page titles are really meaningless. There was once a
>discussion that we might start deleting these stuff,
>but the idea was to create an expedite process
>for those limited types of pages to be deleted, not
>uniliteral deletion.

I support deletion of junk pages for the following
reason : as long as an article does not exist, the
reader may see it in the link (red for example). He
may click on it to create it, but if he only is a
reader, he will not spent connexion time accessing to
it (once he understood the system).
If you keep the junk article, the link indicate there
is an article. When the reader click on the link, he
spends time just to access an empty article. He will
be then disappointed. Not good for image :-)

ant

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] category tags

body:
On Sat, 2003-09-06 at 10:01, tarquin wrote:
> I'm getting no reply from this IPs talk page.
> Is this a bot?

Yes.

> If so, why is it not running on minor edits & a little more slowly?

It can't make minor edits since it's not logging in.

> Should I block it to get whoever it is to talk?

I've already done.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Colors for maps

body:
Richard Grevers wrote:

>There is a mathematical proof that  you need no more than four colours to
>colour in a map so that no two adjacent areas have the same colour.

As with all mathematical proofs of facts in the real world,
you first have to check that the mathematical model applies.
In the case of the countries of the world, it does not.
If each country were contiguous, /then/ it would work.

>I'm still used to maps where the former British Empire is shaded pink and
>the former French Empire is lilac :-)

Go back in time a bit and imagine a world with 5 colonial empires,
with neighbouring empires to be given different colours.
Suppose that each empire owns most of a certain corner of the globe.
But each empire also has a colony inside each of the other 4 empires.
Then they will all border each other and must all have different colours.

-- Toby


subject: [Wikitech-l] Bug tracker updates: wikibugs-l

body:
I've set up a "wikibugs-l" to which updates from our bug tracker on
SourceForge are now being sent.

If you'd like to see the latest, greatest bug reports in your inbox
live! please sign up at:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikibugs-l

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Maveric149 wrote:

>Could somebody who sprechen German take a look at this?
>http://wikimedia.de/bin/view/Main/WebHome
>Have they been around as a wiki before our Wikimedia came into existence?

Their version of Recentchanges,
<http://wikimedia.de/bin/search/Main/SearchResult?search=%5C.*&scope=topic&order=modified&reverse=on&regex=on&nosearch=on>,
suggests that it's been around since 2001.
But it obviously was just in testing stages then.
They don't even seem to have contained the word "Wikimedia" until 2003 July 10:
<http://wikimedia.de/bin/rdiff/Main/WebHome>.

This is the person that we should contact:
<http://wikimedia.de/bin/view/Main/RaDaR>.
This unwiki wiki won't allow anonymous posts,
but somebody could get an account there and ask,
or there are some email addresses to try.
This RaDaR guy seems to know English just fine,
but an approach in German might be even better.

-- Toby


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: CologneBlue stylesheet

references:
<opru0z2ufmebl37h@news.gmane.org>	<1062774809.4344.5.camel@rdaneel.leuksman.com>	<opru11cqq5ebl37h@news.gmane.org>
	<opru12a8uxebl37h@news.gmane.org>

body:
Daniel Herding wrote:

> FYI, here is the old German mailinglist thread about that problem:
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikide-l/2003-July/002782.html
>
> In fact the main problem is that absolute:top. Opera doesn't have
> problems with width:98%, it was only a design proposition because
> article text might reach the right browser window border and thereby
> be further right than the blue top bar. But that's not really a problem.
>
> I would propose to remove "absolute:top", make sure that this is no
> problem
> for all browsers, and then update the wikis.

DIV#content is the top level element, there is no need (as far as I can
tell) for the first 2 properties:

#content { position: absolute; top: 0;
 margin: 0; padding: 0; }


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Magnus wrote:
>
>
>>This early version has no error checking (matching
>><table>s etc.), but it already handles HTML tags
>>(if necessary), CSS definitions, and nested tables.
>>
>>
>
>Nice! You should work with Erik though on syntax since he is working on a
>template system.
>
tenplates as in skins or something else?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA@nohat.net

body:
David Friedland wrote:

>
> Also, I agree that every instance, if not just the on each page, of IPA
> text should have a link to a "IPA for English" page so people who are
> unfamiliar with IPA can quickly figure out how to decipher it. I will
> write that page write away.

[[International Phonetic Alphabet for English]], right?

see the talk page :)


from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
Magnus wrote:
> You can have
>   | A single cell
>   spanning a long text
>   across multiple lines
>   that way
>   * Nice for numbering
>   * which you couldn't do
>   * in a single line
>   | Next cell

Ah -- so the | at the beginning is needed to enforce a
line break at the end then-- otherwise something at
the end would have to do this.  This markup scheme
seems like itll do the trick.

Now what about Winor/winol.exe ? ;-)  Ive just started
toying with my copy -- pint sized dumps only though.

-S-

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:

>So Magnus,
>The essence is to allow for - to separate a row and
>for } to delineate a column. Very nice idea-- but why
>all the |?
>
>Since the {| and |} seem to work as starter and closer
>tags anyway, might it work to discard the |?
>{| align=right border=1
>Cell 1, row 1
>Cell 2, row 1
>-
>Cell 1, row 2
>Cell 2, row 2
>|}
>
>As always with apologies for my shameful
>benightedness,
>-S-
>
>
or just borrow existing markup:
----
for a row, since it makes a rule-off outside of tables.

We're having == == inside tables make a TH, right?


from_name: Oualmakran Youssef

subject: [Wikitech-l] it.wikipedia.org down ?

body:
Hello,

http://it.wikipedia.com and http://ca.wikipedia.com
seem to be down.

Other Wikipedia using old software may also be down.

Regards,

Youssef


subject: [Wikitech-l] Colors for maps

body:
On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 21:12:34 +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski
<taw at users.sourceforge.net> gave utterance to the following:

> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map
>
> Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
> Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour countries having the same
> color.
> It's shade is selected randomly.
>
> The problem is to select such N (N about 8) colors generators,

There is a mathematical proof that  you need no more than four colours to
colour in a map so that no two adjacent areas have the same colour.
I'm still used to maps where the former British Empire is shaded pink and
the former French Empire is lilac :-)
--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried


from_name: Ulrich Fuchs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Am Samstag, 6. September 2003 11:04 schrieb Daniel Mayer:
> Could somebody who sprechen German take a look at this?
>
> http://wikimedia.de/bin/view/Main/WebHome
>
> Have they been around as a wiki before our Wikimedia came into existence?
>
It actually looks like it's a test of someone who wantet to try to set up a
wiki. Only the main page is in german, all other pages are obviously default
pages in english. The page links to some other wikis using the same software

The header line reads in english:
"Wikimedia is a non-commercial, non political organization for supporting the
"Internet-how-it-once-was-thought-to-be"-idea using Wikis.

Probably we can ask if they leave us the domain...

Uli


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
tarquin wrote:

> or just borrow existing markup:
> ----
> for a row, since it makes a rule-off outside of tables.

I thought of that, but I'd like to keep the wiki markup consistent, not
"conditional".

> We're having == == inside tables make a TH, right?

Nope. Two reasons:
* Same as above
* Too lazy to implement

But, I thought about two extensions:
* "|_" make a caption
* "|Cell 1||Cell2||Cell3" for a row with three cells

Whaddayathink? :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
Steve Vertigum wrote:

> So Magnus,
> The essence is to allow for - to separate a row and
> for } to delineate a column. Very nice idea-- but why
> all the |?
>
> Since the {| and |} seem to work as starter and closer
> tags anyway, might it work to discard the |?
> {| align=right border=1
> Cell 1, row 1
> Cell 2, row 1
> -
> Cell 1, row 2
> Cell 2, row 2
> |}

You can have
  | A single cell
  spanning a long text
  across multiple lines
  that way
  * Nice for numbering
  * which you couldn't do
  * in a single line
  | Next cell

> As always with apologies for my shameful
> benightedness,

Could as well have be me missing something obvoius :-)

Magnus


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo - I will be bold

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>What ever happened to the idea of unified log-in and user name that
>>applies to all sites in the kingdom?  That should include Meta.
>
>
> That idea is still universally favored by all.  It's merely a
> technical matter that it doesn't exist yet.  And 'merely' actually
> understates the difficulty involved in actually doing it.

Just say the word... oh, you just did :-)
I'll try to get around to that in the next few days.

Magnus

P.S.: I've been implementing some things in the last few weeks (sifter
demo, wiki table demo, categories) but I feel these will get lost in
time (like so many others did before). I guess I'll commit these to the
CVS ("unstable tree", I think;-) as soon as *I* think they're ready, and
don't wait around for consensus...


from_name: Till Westermayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Vote on voting method for final round

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi,

just trying to edit Eriks rant to a bit NPOVed version ;-) ...

====
Because there were strong objections against using average (range)
voting, for the final voting round on the logos, there is now a FPTP
(some prefer to do this voting via Condorcet, please vote on both so we
see if they differ) vote in progress on which voting method to use:

>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/
>Vote_on_voting_method

Please do take the opportunity and express your opinion, which voting
method should be used. Pros and cons for the different methods are
listed on the page. As the voting is one of the larger ones in
Wikipedia, the used voting method maybe will set precedence.

Erik has said that he will organize Average or FPTP voting, Taw has
signaled s/he's willing to organize Condorcet or Instant-Runoff.
====
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi,

>This is the person that we should contact:
><http://wikimedia.de/bin/view/Main/RaDaR>.
>This unwiki wiki won't allow anonymous posts,
>but somebody could get an account there and ask,
>or there are some email addresses to try.
>This RaDaR guy seems to know English just fine,
>but an approach in German might be even better.

Wikimedia.de seems to be a project bound to some progressive computer/
internet culture and politics projects, i.e. there are connections to
the German Chaos Computer Club, to c-base, to the
Informationsfreiheiten.de wiki (a connection of Berlin-based German
Internet politics groups) and so on. I'm pretty sure they will
disambiguate on their Wikimedia wiki, but I'm so sure they will give the
domain to us. I'll send Radar a short notice explaining the situation
(in German) and will inform this list about the outcome.

HTHs, tillwe
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
>Question:
>
>Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only
>as well?
>
>I personally welcome input from all people, since
>it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the
>logo, not just editors.

How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then? If it weren't for
the contributors there would be no Wikipedia at all; they are our community
and IMO they should be the ones to choose what the logo is going to be.

-- mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] WikiTable implementation

body:
Update : |_ and || things now at

http://test.wikipedia.org/w/magnus/wiki.phtml?title=Wiki_table_test

...yes, I am replying to myself :-(


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

body:
Alex R. wrote:
>"All contributions submitted here are released under
>the [[GNU Free Documentation License]], see
>[[{Project name}:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers]] .
>By clicking save you affirm the copyright owner(s) of all
>submitted material agrees to these terms; you further
>affirm that such text is not defamatory or in violation
>of any law; you also agree to [[{project name}:indemnify|indemnify]]
>{project name}, all other volunteers and the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]
>for any and all claims connected with your submission and are
>bound by the [[{project name): terms and conditions]]."

That looks good to me. Any objections from anybody about me changing the edit
page text in Language.php, moving/modifying [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]],
creating [[Wikipedia:Terms and conditions]], and for Alex to start
[[Wikipedia:Indemnify]]?

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
[[User:Kwantus]] is creating pages at a fast rate, most of them consisting of little more than data with no complete sentences.  When I asked him if he could please write complete sentences, his reply (my first question on his talk page, his reply to it):

Re: John Jay McCloy. Any chance you can write complete sentences and correctly wikify what you include in the article? This article is currently really worthless. RickK 07:48, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Simple answer, no. I research, not write. Don't like it, then fix it, erase it, or ban me.

My second request was deleted off his talk page, but it was initially:

It's me again. Please write complete sentences, and include a first sentence which tells why a person deserves an article. Look at your Samuel P. Bush article, for example. Please give us a complete first sentence telling us who he was, and then make the rest of the article complete sentences. RickK 00:24, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

His response was to make this edit to [[Samuel P. Bush]]:

Samuel Prescott Bush, father of Sen. Prescott Bush, grandfather of George H. W. Bush, greatgrandfather George W. Bush, apparent root of the Bush family wealth. (RiK, you make it a sentence, i research, noit write. and you wouldn't like the way i write.)

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
[[User:Kwantus]] is creating pages at a fast rate, most of them consisting of little more than data with no complete sentences.  When I asked him if he could please write complete sentences, his reply (my first question on his talk page, his reply to it):

Re: John Jay McCloy. Any chance you can write complete sentences and correctly wikify what you include in the article? This article is currently really worthless. RickK 07:48, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Simple answer, no. I research, not write. Don't like it, then fix it, erase it, or ban me.

My second request was deleted off his talk page, but it was initially:

It's me again. Please write complete sentences, and include a first sentence which tells why a person deserves an article. Look at your Samuel P. Bush article, for example. Please give us a complete first sentence telling us who he was, and then make the rest of the article complete sentences. RickK 00:24, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

His response was to make this edit to [[Samuel P. Bush]]:

Samuel Prescott Bush, father of Sen. Prescott Bush, grandfather of George H. W. Bush, greatgrandfather George W. Bush, apparent root of the Bush family wealth. (RiK, you make it a sentence, i research, noit write. and you wouldn't like the way i write.)

RickK

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
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subject: [WikiEN-l] category tags

body:
Who is 217.158.106.90
<http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=217.158.106.90>
?
Why are they adding category tags? are we ready for these to go live?

I don't think we are -- I see a "?" link on a line of its own at the top
of each tagged page.

could this IP please stop to discuss this?


subject: [WikiEN-l] category tags

body:
tarquin wrote:

> Who is 217.158.106.90
> <http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=217.158.106.90>
> ?
> Why are they adding category tags? are we ready for these to go live?
>
> I don't think we are -- I see a "?" link on a line of its own at the
> top of each tagged page.
>
> could this IP please stop to discuss this?

I'm getting no reply from this IPs talk page.
Is this a bot?
If so, why is it not running on minor edits & a little more slowly?
Should I block it to get whoever it is to talk?


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
Till-
> Because there were strong objections against using average (range)
> voting, for the final voting round on the logos, there is now a FPTP
> (some prefer to do this voting via Condorcet, please vote on both so we
> see if they differ)

The Condorcet vote is of no relevance whatsoever.

Regards,

Erik


body:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .

Hi Erik,

>> Because there were strong objections against using average
>> (range) voting, for the final voting round on the logos, there
>> is now a FPTP (some prefer to do this voting via Condorcet,
>> please vote on both so we see if they differ)

>The Condorcet vote is of no relevance whatsoever.

I'd prefer to disagree.

Regards,
 __ .
 / / / /                            ... Till Westermayer - till we *)
. .
  . mailto:till at tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
  . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179
  . . . . .


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
> Daniel-
> > Christopher Mahan wrote:
...
> >> I personally welcome input from all people, since
> >> it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the
> >> logo, not just editors.
>
> > How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then?
...
>...I encourage you and others to filter out non-
> existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ
> significantly.

Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the
 logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of
registration before voting. That is done in practically all
democracies including member and shareholder corporations.
Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots.
There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date:
has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent
anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will
allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers
a voice.

Perhaps 2nd  round votes can be posted on the voting pages
in two categories.  Registered or anonymous. The anonymous
vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if
they differ signficantly.  Having voting counted in two
categories should not be very complicated and the results
could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded
into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not
have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there
is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians
and the public at large and can discuss it then.  There will
also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations.
What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was
the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who
comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the
public votes can be discussed then.

Alex756


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Alex R. wrote:

>Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the
> logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of
>registration before voting. That is done in practically all
>democracies including member and shareholder corporations.
>
I didn't know we had become a democracy.  I've seen no evidence that
Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.

>Otherwise someone with a lot of friends can stuff the ballots.
>There is the question of fixing the registration deadline date:
>has it past, is it now or is it a future date? Past dates prevent
>anyone from signing up under many names, a future date will
>allow more people to register effectively giving newcomers
>a voice.
>
The best way to deal with possible ballot box stuffing is still to
create a situation where it doesn't matter anyway.  Anything else
devotes an awful lot of energy on a purely speculative problem.  I don't
dispute that we have had a few people who voted two minutes after they
found out about Wikipedia, but what difference do a few people like that
make?

>Perhaps 2nd  round votes can be posted on the voting pages
>in two categories.  Registered or anonymous. The anonymous
>vote can be compared with the registered vote to see if
>they differ signficantly.  Having voting counted in two
>categories should not be very complicated and the results
>could then be posted so that Erick's proposal is embedded
>into the second stage voting procedure; someone will not
>have to spend lots of time analyzing data. We will see if there
>is a wildly differing outcome between registered Wikipedians
>and the public at large and can discuss it then.  There will
>also be some hard data to discuss beyond allegations.
>What ever decision is taken then, we will know who was
>the significant voting block, registered users or anyone who
>comes onto the site and votes; objections to including the
>public votes can be discussed then.
>
The entire process for choosing a logo has me ROTFWL.  The only thing
that it's proving to me is what's wrong with voting.

Ec

>


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
RickK wrote:
>[[User:Kwantus]] is creating pages at a fast rate,
>most of them consisting of little more than data with
>no complete sentences.  When I asked him if he
>could please write complete sentences, his reply
>(my first question on his talk page, his reply to it):
>
>Re: John Jay McCloy. Any chance you can write
>complete sentences and correctly wikify what you
>include in the article? This article is currently really
>worthless. RickK 07:48, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
>Simple answer, no. I research, not write. Don't like it,
>then fix it, erase it, or ban me.

Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for data. This is a well-established
concept. His behavior is also a violation of our etiquette policy.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette

Follow him around for a while and when you get tired then list his junk pages
on VfD.

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>For the first stage, we simply assume that there's no significant level of
>cheating. This assumption may be wrong, but I doubt it. Keep in mind that
>the logo contest was advertised on the Main Pages of several Wikipedias.
>That means that it was one of the first things that many people saw of
>Wikipedia, and some of them probably thought: logo contest? That sounds
>interesting! And a minority of these people probably managed to get some
>votes in by figuring out how to edit the page.
>
>I don't think that's a big deal, and the outcome so far pretty much
>reflects my personal feelings (most people did not like the hydra,
>unfortunately!), but because we have actual prizes in this contest, we'll
>take better care to prevent cheating in the second stage. I hope that's a
>satisfactory solution. I encourage you and others to filter out non-
>existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ
>significantly.
>
I still think that before we go on to a second round we need a report on
each short list item that addresses
    1.    Whether there are any technical problems in such matters as
scaling ,
    2.    Whether there are conflicts with anyone else's logo, including
trademark violations, and
    3.    Where a short listed item has multiple variants, how we choose
between variants

Ec


body:
Erik wrote:
>The Condorcet vote is of no relevance whatsoever.

I agree. I've already voted once on this issue and will not vote again via
another method. Everyone who is voting via the Condorcet method is wasting
their time.

--mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Daniel-
> Christopher Mahan wrote:
>> Question:
>>
>> Is voting open only to editors or to readers-only
>> as well?
>>
>> I personally welcome input from all people, since
>> it is in fact readers we are trying to reach with the
>> logo, not just editors.

> How exactly are we going to ensure each vote is legit then?

For the first stage, we simply assume that there's no significant level of
cheating. This assumption may be wrong, but I doubt it. Keep in mind that
the logo contest was advertised on the Main Pages of several Wikipedias.
That means that it was one of the first things that many people saw of
Wikipedia, and some of them probably thought: logo contest? That sounds
interesting! And a minority of these people probably managed to get some
votes in by figuring out how to edit the page.

I don't think that's a big deal, and the outcome so far pretty much
reflects my personal feelings (most people did not like the hydra,
unfortunately!), but because we have actual prizes in this contest, we'll
take better care to prevent cheating in the second stage. I hope that's a
satisfactory solution. I encourage you and others to filter out non-
existent users from the voting results to see if the results differ
significantly.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: John Robinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocking logged-in users

body:
So, when is this vaporware going live?

-Hephaestos


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Alex R. wrote:
>
>>"All contributions submitted here are released under
>>the [[GNU Free Documentation License]], see
>>[[{Project name}:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers]] .
>>By clicking save you affirm the copyright owner(s) of all
>>submitted material agrees to these terms; you further
>>affirm that such text is not defamatory or in violation
>>of any law; you also agree to [[{project name}:indemnify|indemnify]]
>>{project name}, all other volunteers and the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]
>>for any and all claims connected with your submission and are
>>bound by the [[{project name): terms and conditions]]."
>>
>
>That looks good to me. Any objections from anybody about me changing the edit
>page text in Language.php, moving/modifying [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]],
>creating [[Wikipedia:Terms and conditions]], and for Alex to start
>[[Wikipedia:Indemnify]]?
>
Whatever!!

I'm sure that it will receive the same dilligent attention and
understanding that we all apply when a software package asks us to
"Click here if you understand and agree to our licensing terms" :-P

Ec


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Matthew Woodcraft wrote:
>Did you look at the pages? They're not dictionary
>entries, they're made up of exactly the sort of
>information we want in encyclopedia articles.
>They're just not written up as continuous prose.

Admittedly, no. I was only going off what RickK wrote. I won't make that
mistake again; the articles weren't so bad nor the behavior by Kwantus so
awful to warrent informing the list.

-- mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Till Westermayer wtote:
>Wikimedia.de seems to be a project bound to
>some progressive computer/ internet culture
>and politics projects, i.e. there are connections
>to the German Chaos Computer Club, to c-base,
>to the Informationsfreiheiten.de wiki (a connection
>of Berlin-based German Internet politics groups)
>and so on.

The scope of Wikimedia is pretty wide (and will get wider in the future). I'm
not sure how similar they would have to be to Wikimedia to create confusion
between us and them. I was more concerned with them suing us over trademark
violations under the same stupid German law that KDE Illustrator
(Killustrator) project was sued under (the Killustrator people were sued on
behalf of Adobe Illustrator even though Adobe Illustrator never asked the
litigators to do so!).

>I'm pretty sure they will disambiguate on their
>Wikimedia wiki, but I'm so sure they will give the
>domain to us.

I just don't want our German Wikimedians to get sued and I'm sure other
Wikimedians will want to visit Germany in the future too without fear of an
injunction. I don't think there will that much confusion over this and don't
think we should ask them to hand anything over.

Now Wikipedia.ru is another matter; they are illegally using the Wikipedia
trademark for a purpose that is nearly indistinguishable from ru.Wikipedia.

If Wikipedia.ru were selling spark plugs then we wouldn't have much if any
room to complain since that would not be a violation of our trademark (there
would be little, if any, confusion between the two products - theirs and
ours).

Of course, IANAL.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
From: "Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net>
> >
> Whatever!!
>
> I'm sure that it will receive the same dilligent attention and
> understanding that we all apply when a software package asks us to
> "Click here if you understand and agree to our licensing terms" :-P
>
> Ec

If you want to see an annotated version of the proposed click text
I've tried to explain it a bit here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alex756/Annotated_edit_page_announcement
There are a few minor changes from the one posted on the lists.
In terms of making it a little shorter the indemnification stuff could
be put on the terms and conditions page; I'd rather some mention
of indemnification be on the edit page so someone can't say, "I didn't
read the terms and conditions. I don't know what they say." From
reading the archives there is a general (and understandable aversion)
to legal boilerplate, but some changes do appear necessary to get
people to think more about copyright, defamation and potential legal
responsibility.

Can we wait a few days (or a week) to see if there are any objections
or further suggestions? I've located a few other lawyers on Wikipedia
and am going to ask them to take a look at it and see if they have
any suggestions.

Alex756


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
on 9/6/03 6:41 PM, Rick at giantsrick13 at yahoo.com wrote:

[[User:Kwantus]] is creating pages at a fast rate, most of them consisting
of little more than data with no complete sentences.  When I asked him if he
could please write complete sentences, his reply (my first question on his
talk page, his reply to it):

Re: John Jay McCloy. Any chance you can write complete sentences and
correctly wikify what you include in the article? This article is currently
really worthless. RickK <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RickK>  07:48, 6
Sep 2003 (UTC)

Simple answer, no. I research, not write. Don't like it, then fix it, erase
it, or ban me.

My second request was deleted off his talk page, but it was initially:

It's me again. Please write complete sentences, and include a first sentence
which tells why a person deserves an article. Look at your Samuel P. Bush
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Bush>  article, for example. Please
give us a complete first sentence telling us who he was, and then make the
rest of the article complete sentences. RickK
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RickK>  00:24, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

His response was to make this edit to [[Samuel P. Bush]]:

Samuel Prescott Bush, father of Sen. Prescott Bush
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush> , grandfather of George H. W.
Bush <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush> , greatgrandfather
George W. Bush <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush> , apparent
root of the Bush family wealth. (RiK, you make it a sentence, i research,
noit write. and you wouldn't like the way i write.)

RickK

I suggest you quit hassling User Kwantus. His article seems to contain
useful information which almost anyone could easily copyedit.

Fred
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from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] it.wikipedia.org down ?

body:
On Sat, 2003-09-06 at 02:04, Oualmakran Youssef wrote:
> Hello,
>
> http://it.wikipedia.com and http://ca.wikipedia.com
> seem to be down.
>
> Other Wikipedia using old software may also be down.

Yes, the server hosting all those is down. :(

Jason's looking into it, hopefully it should be back up relatively soon.

-- brion vibber (brino @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
And what about the 20 other articles he wrote in the same vein?  As much as I enjoy editing a page now and again, trying to tackle all of the stuff he wrote was a tad daunting.

Geez, it's turned into "Attack Rick" night.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

I suggest you quit hassling User Kwantus. His article seems to contain useful information which almost anyone could easily copyedit.

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
on 9/7/03 9:09 AM, Rick at giantsrick13 at yahoo.com wrote:

And what about the 20 other articles he wrote in the same vein?  As much as
I enjoy editing a page now and again, trying to tackle all of the stuff he
wrote was a tad daunting.

Geez, it's turned into "Attack Rick" night.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

I suggest you quit hassling User Kwantus. His article seems to contain
useful information which almost anyone could easily copyedit.

Well, I was a bit short. I looked at Kwantus's efforts on that one article.
If it is to be criticised it is on the basis that he's digging up dirt in
the Bush family background rather than for incomplete sentences. Always a
good rule to leave something undone anyway when you write an article. How
about taking him on his word that he is a good researcher but not a good
writer.

Fred

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from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Wikitech-l] Re: Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

body:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> Alex R. wrote:
> >"All contributions submitted here are released under
> >the [[GNU Free Documentation License]], see
> >[[{Project name}:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers]] .
> >By clicking save you affirm the copyright owner(s) of all
> >submitted material agrees to these terms; you further
> >affirm that such text is not defamatory or in violation
> >of any law; you also agree to [[{project name}:indemnify|indemnify]]
> >{project name}, all other volunteers and the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]
> >for any and all claims connected with your submission and are
> >bound by the [[{project name): terms and conditions]]."
>
> That looks good to me. Any objections from anybody about me changing the edit
> page text in Language.php, moving/modifying [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]],
> creating [[Wikipedia:Terms and conditions]], and for Alex to start
> [[Wikipedia:Indemnify]]?
>
And what do we do if a minor makes a submission? After all, while minors can
sign contracts, but cannot be held to them. And we do have several minors
who are making contributions to Wikipedia. (For example LittleDan, who
I wouldn't have thought was that young had he not stated the fact.)

This has been something that has nagged me ever since I learned that the
FSF does check for this of every contributor to their code base. If someone
under 18 wants to contribute, they have to get their parents or guardians
to agree to the FSF's terms. (This is done to provide the necessary
documentation to prevent a SCO v. IBM lawsuit.)

Geoff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>Now Wikipedia.ru is another matter; they are illegally using the Wikipedia
>trademark for a purpose that is nearly indistinguishable from ru.Wikipedia.
>
Improper but probably not illegal.  It's a question of what law applies
to the use of Russian domain names.

Ec


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
At 08:42 AM 9/7/2003, you wrote:
>On fr:,  plenty of people don't have a french keyboard and so their work
>has to be corrected for accented characters.

It's very easy to write accented characters (and not just French ones) with
a "standard" English keyboard. Just load up the US-International keyboard
layout and you too can easily type such exciting characters as: ?, ?, ?, ?,
?, ?, ?, etc.

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Matthew Woodcraft

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

> RickK wrote:
> >[[User:Kwantus]] is creating pages at a fast rate,
> >most of them consisting of little more than data with
> >no complete sentences. When I asked him if he
> >could please write complete sentences, his reply
> >(my first question on his talk page, his reply to it):

> >Re: John Jay McCloy. Any chance you can write
> >complete sentences and correctly wikify what you
> >include in the article? This article is currently really
> >worthless. RickK 07:48, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
> >Simple answer, no. I research, not write. Don't like it,
> >then fix it, erase it, or ban me.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable division of labour to me. We
have plenty of people who enjoy copyediting. I've now edited a few of
his entries. In fact, there were only a few; 'at a fast rate' was a bit
of an exaggeration.

> Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for data. This is a well-established
> concept.
>
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary

Did you look at the pages? They're not dictionary entries, they're made
up of exactly the sort of information we want in encyclopedia articles.
They're just not written up as continuous prose.

> His behavior is also a violation of our etiquette policy.
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette

Again, it isn't. He has not been rude to anyone, and he has not made
any personal attacks. He's been very blunt, but we have an awful lot of
contributors like that.

> Follow him around for a while and when you get tired then list his junk pages
> on VfD.

We should not be deleting useful articles. If you're not interested in
copyediting them, leave them for someone else to do. It doesn't matter
if it takes a while for someone to get round to it. As they are, the
articles are much more useful to our readers than a blank page would
be.

-M-


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikipedia-l] sep11.wikipedia.org sysop

body:
Could a sep11.wikipedia.org sysop contact me?  I've gotten a complaint
that's of a personal nature about one of the pages there, and I'd like
someone to look into it and protect a page.  I'd rather not say which
one on the mailing list, because I don't want to repeat the apparent
slander or to publicize it more than necessary.

I would have just done this myself, but I'm not a sysop there, and
I had trouble figuring out how to make myself one!


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

body:
--- Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> And what do we do if a minor makes a submission?
> After all, while minors can
> sign contracts, but cannot be held to them. And we
> do have several minors
> who are making contributions to Wikipedia. (For
> example LittleDan, who
> I wouldn't have thought was that young had he not
> stated the fact.)
>
> This has been something that has nagged me ever
> since I learned that the
> FSF does check for this of every contributor to
> their code base. If someone
> under 18 wants to contribute, they have to get their
> parents or guardians
> to agree to the FSF's terms. (This is done to
> provide the necessary
> documentation to prevent a SCO v. IBM lawsuit.)
>
> Geoff

Even if that's technically true, do you think someone
would go to court to get permission to use a minor's
contributions to wikipedia (and remember, only the
changes, not the full article) without the GNU FDL
license? Or do you mean that the child will change his
mind and say that he doesn't give permission to use it
under the FDL? I really am not worried about it. Not
to mention that if a child is anonymous, as many
wikipedians are as far as age, how can they prove that
he can't be held to the contract?

And are you implying that, if I press "I agree" on a
click-through license on software, then I don't have
to follow it?

Keep in mind that, up to this SCO v. IBM lawsuit (a
rare exception), no GNU license has ever been brought
to court. And when it comes to the FDL, I think it is
even less likely to be challenged since the
competition for literature is not as fierce as in
software.
LDan

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from_name: Steve Vertigum

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
> Geez, it's turned into "Attack Rick" night.

I dont want to make you feel singled out Rick - youre
a fine editor and not too unreasonable. -- Your just
maybe a little thin-skinned when it comes to dealing
with some of the perennial problems here  -- primarily
newbieism and how to deal with it.

I took issue last night for your "revert war" with
Zero0000 on Hezbollah for a couple reasons -- first --
you were reverting the work of a bona fide user
without so much as a comment beyond "rv" -- this
doesnt work here.  This is fine for dealing with an
anon who vandalizes pages with "bush is a whacker"  or
whatever.  Second you were doing so for apparently
subjecive reasons -- based on your judgement of the
quality of their work . In such cases, leave a
comment, take a neutral position, and generate a
dialogue. (there was only one comment by Zero and it
was entirely with merit and thoughtfulness.  Your
conduct, simply by trying to quietly sweep someone
(too polite in fact to argue with you) under the rug
is reprehensible, if not a cause for some sanction.
(Why are sanctions not in degrees, anyway)

Im not sure, but I think you *may, (like a great many
productive wikipedian) have contracted  the academic
standards kick disease
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_standards_kick
or perhaps a variant. Either way, a central diagnosis
of that disease is to treat newbies and people who are
not vandals as vandals.  Read article for cures.

-S-

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
--- Matthew Woodcraft
<mattheww at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
> > I don't think it's acceptable to pass the editing
> on to others
> > because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.
>
> I think it's not only acceptable, but desirable,
> that people who aren't
> good at stringing sentences together should
> contribute by producing
> 'bullet point lists' like these ones.
>
> We might have a discussion about whether these lists
> are better on the
> article page or the Talk page until they're
> polished. Personally, I
> think they're better on the article page.
>
> -M-

I think it's desirable to have every person leave
nothing undone and write perfect, Briliant Prose
articles, but it's impractical to hold them to this
standard.

I agree with you that lists should be on the article
page.
LDan

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subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
--- JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
> This sort of project is bound to attract
> semi-autists with no social skills.
> Nevertheless, I don't think it's acceptable to pass
> the editing on to others
> because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.
>
> Jim

My younger brother is a semi-autist (and I know some
others), and I find that you can usually tell them
directly what they're doing wrong and they'll change
their behavior. Sometimes, they even like that you're
telling them how to behave socially. It's weird.
However, as the wikipedia policy says, you're not
obligated to abide by these conventions.

As for not being bothered to do edits, I don't think
it's acceptable to demand that someone do that
copyediting. It's their own choice. They aren't
obligated to do every copyedit they see.
LDan

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from_name: JFrost8401 at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
This sort of project is bound to attract semi-autists with no social skills.
Nevertheless, I don't think it's acceptable to pass the editing on to others
because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.

Jim
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subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
> > This sort of project is bound to attract
> > semi-autists with no social skills.
> > Nevertheless, I don't think it's acceptable to
> pass
> > the editing on to others
> > because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.
> >
> > Jim
>
> My younger brother is a semi-autist (and I know some
> others), and I find that you can usually tell them
> directly what they're doing wrong and they'll change
> their behavior. Sometimes, they even like that
> you're
> telling them how to behave socially. It's weird.
So I guess he isn't really semiautistic
> However, as the wikipedia policy says, you're not
> obligated to abide by these conventions.
>
> As for not being bothered to do edits, I don't think
> it's acceptable to demand that someone do that
> copyediting. It's their own choice. They aren't
> obligated to do every copyedit they see.
> LDan
>
> __________________________________
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> design software
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from_name: Toby Bartels

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>The Condorcet vote is of no relevance whatsoever.

Simply because you have so decreed, AFAICT.  (And not without some reason.)
Although it doesn't look to me like it's going to make a difference.

-- Toby


from_name: Jiang

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Why don't we create a [[Wikipedia:Pages to be wikified]]?

It's the wrong attitude to dump the work of wikifying to other people. Let's put all the unwikified pages on one page and if it stays too long...delete.

Jiang

Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:

And what about the 20 other articles he wrote in the same vein?  As much as I enjoy editing a page now and again, trying to tackle all of the stuff he wrote was a tad daunting.

Geez, it's turned into "Attack Rick" night.

RickK

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

I suggest you quit hassling User Kwantus. His article seems to contain useful information which almost anyone could easily copyedit.

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

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list: textbook-l

from_name: MR Job Kwanta

subject: [Textbook-l] Next Of Kin.

body:
I am MR Job Kwanta, a solicitor at law.
I am the personal attorney to A Late MR Hood,
native of your country, who used to Deal on Diamonds Here in Congo.
He was also a good friend, But On the 21st of
March 2003, He was murdered by Rebels in the on going war here in Congo,
When the Rebels attacked his business premises for lutting.
Since then I have made several enquiries to your
embassy to locate any member of his family or
relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last
name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence My
sending this email to you.
I have contacted you to assist in Claiming the money  left
behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared
unserviceable by the Board of Directors of the Security Company
where this huge deposit were lodged in a safe Deposit
valued at about US$18.3 Million, The security company has issued me a
notice to provide the next-of-kin or have the fund confiscated within the 6 weeks.

since I have been unsuccessful in locating his relatives,
I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of
the deceased since both of you have the same last name so that the proceeds
of this Fund valued at US$18.3 Million can be released to you and then you and
i can share the money. 50% to me and 40% to
you and 10% would cover all expences incured by both of us. I have all
necessary legal documents that can be used to backup our claim.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this
transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate
arrangement that will protect you . Please get in touch with me
immediately as I do not have much time in my disposal.
Please keep absolutely confidential.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated co-operation.

MR Job Kwanta.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Matthew Woodcraft wrote:

>I think it's not only acceptable, but desirable, that people who aren't
>good at stringing sentences together should contribute by producing
>'bullet point lists' like these ones.

>We might have a discussion about whether these lists are better on the
>article page or the Talk page until they're polished. Personally, I
>think they're better on the article page.

Absolutely the article page, so that people can see it.
I usually don't even look at the discussion page
unless I suspect that my edit might be controversial --
which means that I don't look at it if I'm only reading
and haven't yet been inspired to improve upon something.
(Saves me 3 seconds of downloading time. ^_^)

-- Toby


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

references:
<8tPGZw$CpVB@erik_moeller>
	<000e01c374e0$99f459d0$7cfea8c0@COMPAQAlex02>
	<3F5AB9A5.6070909@telus.net>

body:
Eclecticology wrote:

>Alex R. wrote:

>>Besides the valid point that the public should have a say in the
>>logo outcome it is not unreasonable to require some kind of
>>registration before voting. That is done in practically all
>>democracies including member and shareholder corporations.

>I didn't know we had become a democracy.  I've seen no evidence that
>Wikimedia is anything but a proprietary organization.

Well, it is now (or will be soon, I forget where we are technically
in the legal process of changing things over) a nonprofit organisation;
eventually it will have members and be a "corporation" in a generic sense.

IMO, the logo decision is the sort of very special, once-only decision
that needs to be made at the organisational level according to bylaws
written by the Wikimedia Board (which does not yet exist I believe).
The voting process that we're going through now is rather farcical;
but the real lesson to draw is not (IMO) that voting is good or bad,
but that we should avoid making special, once-only decisions of this sort.
It's OK for the logo, but most decisions should be kept small and local,
chosen by consensus among the involved parties without wide-ranging effects.
Like how we let anybody come in and edit a specific article just like that!

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] Update to gfdl copyright notice needed

body:
There is the dual issue of the notice to /users/ of our material:
[[en:Wikipedia talk:Sites that use Wikipedia for content#Suggested notice]].
The basic idea is that maybe so many sites are violating the GNU FDL
(and usually, it seems, unknowingly and without any evil intent)
because the brief text at the bottom of each page is unclear.

The text currently reads:

 <small>All text is available under the terms of
 the [[GNU FDL|GNU Free Documentation License]].<small>

Note that [[en:GNU FDL]] redirects to [[en:Wikipedia:Copyrights]] (!).
Between clarity, conciseness, and links that make sense,
the current version has been edited and ended up as:

 <small>All text is available under the terms of the
 [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|
 GNU Free Documentation License]].
 See [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]] for suggested practices.</small>

I await confirmation from MB that my reversion of his last change is OK;
otherwise, the above seems to be agreed upon by the participants.

So first, we link directly to the text of the GNU FDL.
Next, links go where they naively appear to go.
Also, this frees [[en:GNU FDL]] to redirect where it should,
which is [[en:GNU Free Documentation License]].
Finally, we point out that there are "suggested practices",
so that people see a reason to look at [[en:Wikpedia:Copyrights]]
even if they're already familiar with the GNU FDL.
(For example, the GNU FDL doesn't require a link back to us,
since the requirement to provide authorship credits
can be done without that.  But we'd really prefer it!)

-- Toby


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia.de?

body:
Daniel-
> Now Wikipedia.ru is another matter; they are illegally using the Wikipedia
> trademark for a purpose that is nearly indistinguishable from ru.Wikipedia.

Um, I'm not sure there even *is* a registered Wikipedia trademark, let
alone in Russia. Until we have such a trademark, we can only ask them
nicely to stop, but they're acting in full compliance with the law.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l]  Wikipedia.ru & Wikimedia.de

body:
Erik wrote:
>Um, I'm not sure there even *is* a registered
>Wikipedia trademark, let alone in Russia.
>Until we have such a trademark, we can only
>ask them nicely to stop, but they're acting in full
> compliance with the law.

IIRC from my business law classes, registration is only needed before seeking
actual legal action in court (just as with copyright infringement). But
"Wikipedia" is still a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation. That's why
registered trademarks and plain old trademarks have different symbols to
represent them. IANAL but the ru.Wikipedia/Wikipedia.ru use does seem to
cause a very real confusion as to what Russian "Wikipedia" is the actual one
that is part of the Wikimedia family.

Some relevant paras from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

	A trademark (or, as referred to in Commonwealth
	countries, a "trade mark") is a distinctive name,
	phrase, symbol, design, picture, or style used by a
	business to identify itself to consumers.

Like "Wikipedia"

	Trademarking is a central legal component for
	corporate branding.

	The basic policy of trademark law is to prevent the
	public from being deceived and allow the producer
	of a product to have a specific product associated
	with a specific manufacturer,

Like a wiki encyclopedia named "Wikipedia"

	By identifying the source of goods or services, marks
	help consumers to identify their expected quality and
	assist in identifying goods and services that meet the
	individual consumer's expectations.

Like our NPOV policy and standards of quality.

	Another underlying purpose of trademark law is
	protecting the owner's investment in the quality of the
	goods or services sold under the mark known as dilution.

Allowing Wikipedia.ru to exist as a wiki encyclopedia will dilute our
trademark and encourage the creation of encyclopedias and similar things at
Wikipedia.us, Wikipedia.uk, Wikipedia.au, Wikipedia.fr, Wikipedia.de,
Wikipedia.info, Wikipedia.biz etc. The word "Wikipedia" would no longer be
associated with just our encyclopedia project - we will have lost control of
our trademark and IIRC once that happens we will not be able to regain
control either legally or practically.

	Therefore, trademark law protects businesses from unfair
	competition and deceptive advertising by their competitors
	which can dilute the distinctiveness of a mark.

Like having a Wikipedia.ru with advertisements. We can't control what they
post and whether or not they sully the Wikipedia name.

But,

	Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Corporation that sold a soft drink
	called "Coke" in red and white cans would clearly be guilty
	of trademark infringement, confusing consumers as to the
	source of the product (though such confusion need not be
	intentional to be infringing). On the other hand, a company
	selling the carbonized coal byproduct called "coke" to steel
	mills would not likely be guilty of infringement, because there
	is little chance any consumer will mistake the two.

This is why I think Wikimedia.de is less of a problem.

However,

	The advent of the Domain Name System has lead to attempts
	by trademark holders to take over domain names based on
	trade mark rights. Unlike a trademark, which is restricted by
	country and class of goods, domain names can be global and
	not limited by goods or service.

So IMO we are on pretty solid legal grounds here even without the last
paragraph (IMO, the last paragraph is a bit morally wrong and we shouldn't
approach this matter via that route unless forced to do so).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Guillaume-

> I agree and I think we need more time to well organize this second round.

Not really. We have more than a week until we start.

> Is there a coordination page some where on the meta ?

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote

> Rules for the second round are already decided (in details, not only vote
> system) ?

For the most part, yes. I don't think there will be any major changes. I
have just set the deadline for the method to Sep 12 so there will be three
days of time to translate the voting instructions.

> Do we vote for a concept or for a final logo ?

You vote for a final logo. There may be a need to make a transparent
version or a larger one, but no significant changes to the winning logo
will be made without clear consensus.

> In other term do we have for
> each variant of a logo or just for a concept ?

You vote on each variant.

> What is the solutions to reduce vote cheating ?

You need a user page on Meta that points to an account with at least 10
legitimate edits.

Regards,

Erik


body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>And what do we do if a minor makes a submission? After all, while minors can
>sign contracts, but cannot be held to them. And we do have several minors
>who are making contributions to Wikipedia. (For example LittleDan, who
>I wouldn't have thought was that young had he not stated the fact.)
>
>This has been something that has nagged me ever since I learned that the
>FSF does check for this of every contributor to their code base. If someone
>under 18 wants to contribute, they have to get their parents or guardians
>to agree to the FSF's terms. (This is done to provide the necessary
>documentation to prevent a SCO v. IBM lawsuit.)
>
Somehow putting all these bureaucratic hoops in front of people seems
very unwiki.  This sounds very much like seeking solutions for low
probability hypothetical problems.

If we are to judge Wikipedians at all it should be based on what they to
on these sites.  Age alone should never be a factor.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
> I don't think it's acceptable to pass the editing on to others
> because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.

I think it's not only acceptable, but desirable, that people who aren't
good at stringing sentences together should contribute by producing
'bullet point lists' like these ones.

We might have a discussion about whether these lists are better on the
article page or the Talk page until they're polished. Personally, I
think they're better on the article page.

-M-


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> Always a good rule to leave something undone anyway when you write an
> article. How about taking him on his word that he is a good researcher
> but not a good writer.
>
Agreed.
I don't think there is a problem here.
On fr:,  plenty of people don't have a french keyboard and so their work
has to be corrected for accented characters.
People have skills in different areas.


body:
*cough* Wikilegal-l ;-)

Geoff wrote
>And what do we do if a minor makes a submission?
>After all, while minors can sign contracts, but cannot
>be held to them. ....

That's an interesting point. Can a reasonable person expect a minor to know
what is legal or not (right and wrong is a different matter)? I think so,
otherwise society could not allow minors to drive automobiles and obey
traffic laws.

But this does still seem to be an increasingly sticky issue with younger and
younger contributors; at what point can a reasonable person expect a minor to
be oblivious to what is legal and illegal (I know there is already
well-established legal precedent and common law that governs "right and
wrong" issues with minors)?

Contract law is a separate matter but IIRC even minors can enter into many
non-major contracts with adults and other minors in good faith without the
explicit consent of a guardian (this may be stretching the term "contract"
though). But in those cases the minor's guardian is still ultimately the
responsible party.

At what point does a reasonable person need to seek the the explicit consent
of a guardian? Does the new edit page text pass this line? For that matter
does the old edit page text pass this line? It would be a shame to have a
"Are you 18" click through for editing.

>This has been something that has nagged me ever
>since I learned that the FSF does check for this of
>every contributor to their code base. If someone
>under 18 wants to contribute, they have to get their
>parents or guardians to agree to the FSF's terms.
>(This is done to provide the necessary documentation
>to prevent a SCO v. IBM lawsuit.)

I think that has more to do with the FSF's copyright assignment policy; a
minor simply cannot legally give up substantive ownership rights to their
copyrighted materials without the consent of their guardian. This is designed
to protect minors from exploitation from adults (and rightly so).

But here is a thorny question; does releasing copyrighted works under a
license that /effectively/ frees those works from control by the copyright
holder (sic a copyleft license), similarly relinquish substantive rights and
thus requires explicit permission from a legal guardian?

Can minors reasonably be expected to know the consequences that submitting
their copyrighted work under a copyleft license entail? The GNU FDL is
confusing enough for adults, let alone children.

Of course IANAL and eagerly await a response from a lawyer (of course not an
official legal opinion ;-).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Members?

body:
Merritt L. Perkins wrote:

>Please forgive my ignorance.
>1. Are there members?
>2. What are they members of?
>3. How do they become members?
>4. How do they know that they have been accepted?
>It seems that when a person becomes a member he should receive a
>membership certificate. This could be something that he can download and
>print out to put in a frame and hang on the wall. It could have a fancy
>border.
>I haven't seen any information about this.
>
Membership is defined in the by-laws of an organization, for which no
draft has yet been made public.

I'm sure that your idea for membership certificates is a good one, but
wouldn't you want to wait until we have decided on a logo which could
then be worked into the design of the certificate?

Ec


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
Fine.  I'll stick to my own articles and ignore all the rest of Wikipedia.

Please take my sysop powers away.  I won't be needing them.

RickK

JFrost8401 at aol.com wrote:
This sort of project is bound to attract semi-autists with no social skills. Nevertheless, I don't think it's acceptable to pass the editing on to others because you can't be bothered to do it yourself.

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

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body:
Alex R. wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
>
>>And are you implying that, if I press "I agree" on a
>>click-through license on software, then I don't have
>>to follow it?
>>
>The license is binding on children. If it wasn't then
>children could not buy video games, videotapes,
>books, etc. no one would sell it to them. Children
>enter into contracts all the time.
>
That depends on where they are.  In BC law a child can only be held
liable in a contract for necessities.  (Wkipediholics might have a hard
time convincing the courts that Wikipedia is a necessity. :-) )  Those
who sell video games, etc.to children do so at their own risk  The most
likely kind of dispute is for not having paid for the game, and these
end up too bad for the vendor.  If vendors had to rely on some kind of
assurance that the child could properly agree to the licensing agreement
the entire video game market would collapse.  Concerned parents would be
loath to agree to these as a way of keeping the kids away from games.
 If these children do not develop a video game "addiction" during
childhood, they are much less likely to be customers when they grow up.

>We can certainly add text about minors to the Terms and
>Conditions (maybe it should be called Submission
>Standards, terms and conditions sounds too much like
>contract boilerplate that no one may ever read).
>But getting permission from their parents?
>
Oh, no!  More wrds! :-)

>What about marital property? Should a wife get her
>husband's approval because he might later say that
>she is wasting valuable marital property by releasing
>it under the GFDL?
>
The nimber of possible variations is endless.

Ec


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cheating on logo voting

body:
Just for your information, there is some ways we can reduce the cheating.

I wrote one such way to prevent people from creating multiple account on
meta, and from voting in a disguise to be many different users (who is not
voting). It is not very simple, and perhaps it does not work well with
average voting. Details are here:

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tomos

Best,

Tomos

_________________________________________________________________
Fast, faster, fastest: Upgrade to Cable or DSL today!
https://broadband.msn.com


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] User Kwantus

body:
At 01:18 PM 9/7/03 -0700, Jiang suggested:
>Why don't we create a [[Wikipedia:Pages to be wikified]]?
>
>It's the wrong attitude to dump the work of wikifying to other people.
>Let's put all the unwikified pages on one page and if it stays too
>long...delete.

I do wikification and copyediting as a single process, either when I'm in
that kind of
mood, or when I'm checking out new pages. But I can easily see someone choosing
to do only one or the other.

The tricky part, of course, is that it's a lot easier to agree on things
like the
value of actual sentences than on how much wikification is needed.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Alex R.

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>

> And are you implying that, if I press "I agree" on a
> click-through license on software, then I don't have
> to follow it?

The license is binding on children. If it wasn't then
children could not buy video games, videotapes,
books, etc. no one would sell it to them. Children
enter into contracts all the time.

> Keep in mind that, up to this SCO v. IBM lawsuit (a
> rare exception), no GNU license has ever been brought
> to court. And when it comes to the FDL, I think it is
> even less likely to be challenged since the
> competition for literature is not as fierce as in
> software.
Children also go to court to testify; of course a child
might be so young that he or she does not understand
what the truth means, but then there are many adults who
don't understand what copyright licenses mean or what
taking an oath in court means.
>
We can certainly add text about minors to the Terms and
Conditions (maybe it should be called Submission
Standards, terms and conditions sounds too much like
contract boilerplate that no one may ever read).
But getting permission from their parents?

What about marital property? Should a wife get her
husband's approval because he might later say that
she is wasting valuable marital property by releasing
it under the GFDL?

Alex756


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Members?

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

>Merritt wrote:

>>Please forgive my ignorance.
>>1. Are there members?

>No. There are editors, contributors, and readers (all overlapping sets).
>At the moment, there is nothing to be a member of.

The Wikimedia Foundation exists on paper; that is something to be a member of.
But membership has not yet begun, unless I've missed the latest news.

However, it's important to distinguish Wikimedia members (when such exist)
from Wikipedia contributors.  The latter need not be among the former.
(We might end up requiring the former to be among the latter,
I suppose, but definitely never the other way around.)
So ... forget membership for now and write articles!

-- Toby


from_name: Merritt L. Perkins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Members?

body:
Please forgive my ignorance.
1. Are there members?
2. What are they members of?
3. How do they become members?
4. How do they know that they have been accepted?
It seems that when a person becomes a member he should receive a
membership certificate. This could be something that he can download and
print out to put in a frame and hang on the wall. It could have a fancy
border.
I haven't seen any information about this.
Merritt L. Perkins


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
*cough* Wikilegal-l

Erik wrote:
>(Note that the name Wikipedia has neither a
>TM nor an (R) next to it.)

Just as copyright exists even in the absence of a (C) symbol, a TM is not
needed to create a trademark. For a trademark to exist it has to be used for
a specific purpose. We certainly use the "Wikipedia" name and, if needed, can
even register it with whatever nation's trademark office we see fit.

>Are we on solid enough legal ground with an
>"unregistered trademark" to send nastygrams
>to some guys in Russia?

Nobody proposed sending nasty grams. We should, of course, exhaust all
non-legal options before using the law to protect the Wikipedia brand name.

>I highly doubt it...

Sorry, but you are clearly wrong on this point.

>Trademarks are evil enough as it is.

No they aren't; the improper use of trademark law to beat others into
submission after they (without malice and unknowingly) violated a trademark
is the only thing that is evil here. I'm not suggesting we do that. I'm
suggesting that we negotiate with the Wikipedia.ru people, simply state, as
fact, what the law is and if and only if they refuse to budge then we can
fall back on exercising our legal rights.

The Wikipedia brand is a very important assest for Wikimedia; we should not
stand idly by while others create confusion about what Wikipedia is and also
drag our good name down into the gutter.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


body:
Alex756 wrote:
>Perhaps they should be asked to relinquish the
>name. Do Wikipedia want to be associated
>with porno sites (at least one of the links from
>their main page link to a Russian porno site,
>and in Russia you do not need to limit such site
>access to adults, another liability issue for Wikipedia!

Yep - this is exactly what I have been talking about; Wikipedia.ru is a wiki
encyclopedia using the MediaWiki software and is thus nearly
indistinguishable from ru.Wikipedia.org. This creates real confusion in
readers about which is the real Russian Wikipedia. All we need is for the
Russian press to start mentioning Wikipedia.ru as the Russian Wikipedia when
writing about that website (which, as you mention, contains adverts we would
never allow on any Wikipedia version).

They are not Wikipedia! Thus they should not be using our name.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)