from_name: Michael Noda

body:
On 1/28/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not offhand aware of a
> particularly shining example of a database-dump site, partly because
> we tend to outstrip them quite fast (and because enwiki dumps were
> iffy for quite a while, meaning most of them are long-stagnant)

I'm unfamiliar with the technical aspects of creating a database dump,
but is it the sort of thing that would be made better and faster by
throwing more computing resources at it?

I expect the answer to this question is "yes, but the Foundation is
$500,000 short, and those hypothetical servers went on the budget
chopping block on January 16th."  :-(  <rhetorical> When's the next
fundraiser? </rhetorical>

> There are certainly some decent offline projects using dumps, though,
> in one form or another.

Like, say, Google Earth, which I expect would be ecstatic if it could
get more frequent dumps.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Cheney Shill

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable published
	sources will be deleted."

body:
Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:

> Cheney Shill schreef:
> > sources.  The problem is how does one determine what is
> > in-progress.
>
> An article is in-progress until it is finished.

So your POV is don't delete an article regardless of how
long it violates policy.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Finding fabulous fares is fun.
Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097


body:
Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
> But that is irrelevant here, because we were talking
> about articles
> without cited sources; these do not violate policy, as
> has been said before.

As has been "said" before, yes, without any support,
including no policy citation to support it.  The reality
is, as has been cited before in WP:NPOV and WP:V, that
articles without cited reliable sources do violate policy.
Articles "must" contain them.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
> For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
> worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
> with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
>
> Ec
Hoi,
Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and
water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger
in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts
to flow. However this will not work for long.

You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the
Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to
commemorate this fictional event .. :)

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Sigh, problems with non-Latin usernames again

body:
Delirium schreef:
> GerardM wrote:
>
>> According to the definition on the English Wikipedia, this is discrimination
>> pure and simple. It is an horrible idea. I am disgusted by it.
>>
>>
>
> Did you read the definition on the English Wikipedia?  A requirement
> that people on the Chinese encyclopedia use Chinese characters is not
> "discrimination", but a requirement perfectly germane to the topic, much
> like it is not "discrimination" to allow only people with MDs to
> practice medicine.
>
> -Mark
Hoi,
What the article on discrimination says is quite brief and does not
include the rationalisation that you refer to. The type of
discrimination that only has MDs practice medicine is one that I would
suggest is one that saves lives. Not all discrimination is bad. This
proposal however is.
Thanks,
    GerardM

    Language discrimination

People are sometimes subjected to different treatment because their
preferred language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language> is associated
with a particular group, class or category. Commonly, the preferred
language is just another attribute
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute> of separate ethnic groups
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group>.


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
In groupthink, assumptions by error are common.  Each member relying on the
next member to do his job properly.  A system of internal audits, or checks
and balances is designed to counter this.  The real disasterous consequences
occur when the internal regulators get caught up in the same pride the
contributing workers are vulnerable to.

nobs01


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
>
> Did you read the definition on the English Wikipedia?  A requirement
> that people on the Chinese encyclopedia use Chinese characters is not
> "discrimination", but a requirement perfectly germane to the topic, much
> like it is not "discrimination" to allow only people with MDs to
> practice medicine.
>
Sorry but where do I need to use my user name in Chinese characters on
zh.wikipedia?

If you look at the recent changes there are so many users that edit with
latin script user names. I am subscribed like anywhere and I never
received a note that I had to convert to Chinese script. I could not
even do that since I don't know a word of Chinese. Now you will ask why
I then have an account there: well sometimes it was necessary to search
for a Chinese speaker.

So really I don't see a reason why people should use this or that script
for the user name. The only thing that should be a requirement is not to
use "mixed" scripts to create a user name - that means a user name that
is half Chinese and half Latin script ... well I can understand if those
are not accepted. Or do you change your name in writing in your passport
when you go to a country that uses another script?

Hmmmm .... ah ... and no, I did not read the definition on en.wikipedia
... no time right now :-)

Ciao, Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Peter

subject: [Wikitech-l] question regarding page_restrictions table

body:
yes I meant the interface, it's probably not so much use for wikipedia to
have more levels than the ones you have now, but it could be usefull to
private sites and intranets where you might want different protection levels
per page for the groups available.

tx for the hint about the $wgRestrictionlevels Brion, I look into it.

Cheers,
Peter.

On 1/26/07, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Peter wrote:
> > Is there any reason why you work with pre-defined levels for page
> protection
> > (default, block unregistered users, users with the sysop right), why not
> > base the protection on the available groups available in the user_groups
> > table?
>
> Are you asking about the actual page_restrictions field/table contents,
> or the interface for ?action=protect ?
>
> The interface isn't as flexible as the backend in theory allows;
> currently it only allows you to select one from a presumably rising
> series of 'levels' (which list is fully customizable via
> $wgRestrictionLevels), while the backend in theory allows storing
> multiple allowed groups for each restriction type (edit, move).
>
> Also I think it's a little funky as to whether it's supposed to be
> checking for permission keys or group names. It's old code that's been
> hacked over several times for changes, so... it's kind of uggy. ;)
>
> - -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFFuk1IwRnhpk1wk44RAkGyAKCyGdm932Z5UbEqQdC0yXAQ8cy4ZACfQENZ
> qsebtuUMgR4CCnUKIuNq4nM=
> =bdyW
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable
	published	sources will be deleted."

body:
on 1/29/07 10:13 AM, Cheney Shill at halliburton_shill at yahoo.com wrote:

> Is this not sufficiently explanatory or reliable?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_effect

It could use some work. But my question is: What do you make of it?

Marc


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-27

body:
> brion at pobox.com schrieb:
> >       * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)
> Could you please fix this link? it seems it got lost with the mailman
> upgrade.
>
> Regards,
> Marco

Ordinarily I'd say "just use the wayback machine to get its old content" ( i.e.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html ), but with the new
google-blocking robots.txt we have in place, now that no longer works either :-(

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wysiwyg on PBWiki

body:
I've been interested in WYSIWYG editing for MediaWiki for a long time.

For others who are interested, you may want to look at the new PBWiki
WYSIWYG editor. It's very nicely done.

Obviously, there's not anything there we can use, but it's interesting
to see that PB has gone WYSIWYG nonetheless.

~Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/
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from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group

body:
On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> > Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >
> >
> >> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
> >> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know Sunir
> >> Shah.
> >>
> >>
> > He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
> >
> > Ec
> Hoi,
> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
> notable ...
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>

Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks>.
I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
advisory group.

Cormac


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
> I completely agree with David Gerard on the scaling issue. You can say
> "there are far too many policy wonks on the English Wikipedia" all you like;
> just how does that make them go away?

How about saying "there can only be X policies on the Wikipedia, where X = the number we currently have. If you want to add another
one, you must first remove an existing policy, by consensus." I.e. keep them constrained within a busy loop, fighting each other's
policies. For bonus points, as time progresses, you could try gradually reducing X (using a Last-In-First-Out approach), thus
forcing people to condense the rules into "meta-policies" (such as "assume good faith"), rather than obsessing about petty details.
And when the rules fit on the back of a Wikipedia membership card in 14-point font, then it's time to stop reducing X. :-)

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: Elly Waterman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its
conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My
mailbox is so full already...  Thanks, Elly


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/29/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Brianna Laugher wrote:
> > Perhaps all we need is more admins deleting namespace crud. I delete
> > on sight 99%  of anything that is only text. Even if it's in another
> > language. A lot of them look like misplaced articles or promo bios.
> >
> Guilty as charged (the not-deleting part, not the promo-bio part). I
> guess I just assumed nobody was creating nonsense pages, silly me. How
> many are we talking about?
>
> Proper galleries have at least one image, and not a whole lot of text in
> any single language.  Seems like you could have a bot detect excessive
> text and mark those for further review, and have a manually-added "yes
> this gallery has a good reason for large amounts of text". Seems like
> you'd want this no matter the namespaces, people are always going to be
> tempted to use commons to park text that has been rejected from other
> projects.

There are a tone of species pages without any images... there are also
a lot of locality (cities, etc) pages which appear to be pre-created
and still without images.

If it were possibly to just mindlessly delete these pages (some 900 or
so in total), I would set my bot on them and they'd be gone with the
hour. ... but with our current practices, it's not possible to do so.

So I must check them by hand. Yuck.

In any case, I'm not so sure that it's "park text which is reject" but
more that people end up on commons accidently by following links and
then start writing here. We don't see anywhere near so much of this in
other namespace. Perhaps we could limit anon page creation to talk
pages?    That too would help,  thoughts?


from_name: Jim Hu

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to stop that gaping mouth of an edit box?

body:
Dan,

I'm sure I'm being clueless, but how does having 40K or more blank
rows in the db really hurt anything?  Do they take up more space than
I'm thinking they do.  I have >20,000 categories in this wiki

http://gowiki.tamu.edu/GO/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

but they almost all have content, so it's a different situation.  It
seems like there will be some categories where you, or users may want
to say something on the category page.   So modifying the whole
Category system seems like overkill.  Also, wouldn't you want to put
a stub on every page like "{{Donate}}"?
; )

Jim
=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054

On Jan 28, 2007, at 4:00 PM, Dan Jacobson wrote:

> And Jim, as you will notice on
> http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/index.php?title=??:Categories
> each category represents a frequency, and assuming the radio spectrum
> from 0 to 1000 MHz has a station every 25 kHz, I would need
> 1000*1000/25=40000 empty categories, when all along there is nothing
> really to say about a frequency(category,ns=14), what matters is what
> organization(article,ns=0) uses it, for this otherwise fitting use of
> MediaWiki, that you shall here more from me on my puny poster at
> Wikimania here in Taiwan 8/2007.
>
> As Einstein would have said, "there are many applications that would
> be perfect for MediaWiki, if only one could not bother users about
> what should be the contents of otherwise meaningless categories.
>
> Do we put comments on various points of a ruler or tape measure? No.
> We want to keep it clean."
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Ray Saintonge schreef:
>
>
>>For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
>>worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
>>with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
>>
>>
>Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and
>water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger
>in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts
>to flow. However this will not work for long.
>
If there's no water on the other side his actions are immaterial.

>You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the
>Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to
>commemorate this fictional event .. :)
>
I promise that I won't destroy Dutch tourism marketting strategies by
telling any Americans that the story makes no sense. ;-)

Ec


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/29/07, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh at gmail.com> wrote:
> What are you meaning with "reserving the main namespace for main
> pages"? Do you mean pages that currently reside in the Commons
> namespace?

No, the actual commons main pages. (There are many because of the
versions in other languages). Such as
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ...

> Perhaps somebody can run a script through the main namespace that
> filters out all pages that do not contain images?

Sure. I list these all the time...

You can find a copy of a recent run here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/scratch

There are also a lot of junk pages which do somehow manage to have an
image in them. I often find them by looking for external links in the
main namespace.


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

body:
On 1/28/07, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Enwiki users are now trying to change policy so users with non-Latin
> usernames that don't provide transliterations in their signatures when
> they're told to can be blocked. Currently, the policy requests that users
> consider providing a transliteration, but does not require it. This came as
> a result of massive amounts of discussion that ended up in this change from
> blocking all non-Latin usernames. Now enwiki contributors are trying to move
> back towards blocking good faith contributors with non-Latin usernames,
> which will very likely create problems once Single User Login comes into
> effect. Will we block people who are honestly trying to improve the
> encyclopedia just because they haven't changed their signature to a Latin
> script?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username#Latin_character_transliterations
>
>
> --rory096
>

Note that pschemp, the user who created the proposal, has now proposed a
compromise, where the section is changed to "strongly urge" users to provide
a transliteration in their signature, but it is not required, so nobody will
be blocked.


subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
> > How about saying "there can only be X policies on the Wikipedia, where X = the number we currently have. If you want to
> add another
> > one, you must first remove an existing policy, by consensus." I.e. keep them constrained within a busy loop, fighting
> each other's
> > policies. For bonus points, as time progresses, you could try gradually reducing X (using a Last-In-First-Out approach), thus
> > forcing people to condense the rules into "meta-policies" (such as "assume good faith"), rather than obsessing about
> petty details.
> > And when the rules fit on the back of a Wikipedia membership card in 14-point font, then it's time to stop reducing X. :-)
>
> That's a good policy!  Now, let me go make a 200-square-foot membership card.

For the purposes of this exercise, I was assuming something the exact same size and shape as a credit card, with a Wikipedia logo,
your real name, your username, and possibly date you started using the Wikipedia, and maybe a photo, on one side; and the rules on
the other. If you wanted the card to have a functional purpose (beside just as a symbol of membership), I guess you could have a
smart-chip embedded in the card, which could optionally be used somehow as part of the login process, when inserted into a card
reader.

However, I was not thinking something like the International Driver's Permits, that's a bit of paper that folds out a number of
times to become the height and width of a newspaper, with tiny legalese writing all over it! :-)

All the best,
Nick.


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 1/29/07, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In groupthink, assumptions by error are common.  Each member relying on
> the
> next member to do his job properly.  A system of internal audits, or
> checks
> and balances is designed to counter this.  The real disasterous
> consequences
> occur when the internal regulators get caught up in the same pride the
> contributing workers are vulnerable to.

Exactly.

Groupthink is when everyone involved assumes that someone else has done XYZ
crucial piece of error-checking.

Consensus is when a group of people who have been doing independent analyses
come together and find common ground with what they've been presenting.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] ProtectSection.php modification - where to
	post/discuss?

body:
There was some discussion on one of the mailing lists about
protecting specific sections in a wiki page, where Rob Church noted
an extension called ProtectSection.php.  I have modified the code to
run one of the functions at a different hook, which allows me to also
kill any subsection Edit links on headings inside a protected
section.  I have it working on 1.8.3 and 1.7.1 locally.

I noticed that ProtectSection in svn has been modified by tstarling
and hashar (tstarling says  "It's still completely broken with
section editing, though." ... but it seems to work for me, unless I'm
misunderstanding the issue.  Also, if the section edit links are
gone, the issue may be moot.).  How should I submit the code
modification for others to look at?  I wasn't sure if this should go
to bugzilla bug 4375 or here.  I hope that my code modification may
be worth looking at, but I worry that it's too hacky to warrant
consideration yet for the topic of the bug.

Please advise.

=====================================
Jim Hu

p.s.  What I did was move the call to one of the functions,
wfStripProtectTags, to ParserAfterTidy, and changed it to:

> function wfStripProtectTags ( &$parser , &$text) {
>
> 	$tmp = explode("<protect>",$text);
> 	$sections = array();
> 	$sections[] = array_shift($tmp);
> 	foreach($tmp as $block){
> 		$tmp = explode("</protect>",$block);
> 		$sections[] = "".preg_replace("/
 class=\"editsection(.*?)<\/div>/i", "", $tmp[0])."";
> 		array_shift($tmp);
> 		$sections[] = implode('',$tmp);
> 	}
> 	$text = implode("",$sections);
> 	return true;
> }

someday I'll learn how to use diff :(


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
What are you meaning with "reserving the main namespace for main
pages"? Do you mean pages that currently reside in the Commons
namespace?

Perhaps somebody can run a script through the main namespace that
filters out all pages that do not contain images?

Bryan

On 1/29/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 29/01/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see a lot of misplaced pages, spam, and utter insanity appear in the
> > main namespace on commons.  There is also a lot of confusion about how
> > the main namespace should be used.
> >
> > What do you think of the idea of moving all the galleries to a
> > gallery: namespace, then reserving the main namespace for main pages
> > and pretty much nothing else. After that point we could prevent main
> > namespace page creation and make the edit page give a nice "You are
> > confused, here is how you find help" message.
> >
> > The work it would take to accomplish this could be completely
> > automated, although some inter project cooperation would be required
> > to fix gallery linking templates and the like.
> >
> > I see a lot of potential to reduce confusion, and not a lot of real
> > downsides. So I must be missing something. Thoughts?
>
> It seems unnecessary to me. My feeling is that our mainspace spam is
> only overly visible due to the facts that (a) we allow anon editors to
> start articles (and I hope we continue to), and (b) we have very few
> Special:Newpages patrollers (I have a look from time to time, I know
> Herbythyme has been doing quite a lot lately).
>
> I think changing the main namespace tab name to 'gallery' has been a
> great change. What makes you say that "There is also a lot of
> confusion about how
> > the main namespace should be used"?
>
> Perhaps all we need is more admins deleting namespace crud. I delete
> on sight 99%  of anything that is only text. Even if it's in another
> language. A lot of them look like misplaced articles or promo bios.
>
> regards,
> Brianna
> user:pfctdayelise
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
>>>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
>>>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
>>>would be to remove it.
>>>
>>>
>>The biggest fly in that ointment is with establishing that they are the
>>undisputed owner.  There are as many misconceptions about that as there
>>are about fair use.  When that has been established it's good corporate
>>citizenship to remove the material when they ask nicely even if we could
>>win a court fight over fair use.
>>
>>
>If they cannot establish they own the rights to the materials to the
>Foundation, then it is doubtful they will be able to
>convince a judge of this. An attorney sending a letter or posting a
>notice asserting such claims are true is about the
>only bonafide proof there is, short of a court ruling. Attorneys are
>bound by rules of professional conduct. Falsely asserting copyright
>ownership on behalf of a client could get them brought up on allegations
>with their state bar. If they are disbarred, they
>cannot practice law. Lawyers are not allowed to bill their time to
>answer bar complaints, and it could take 6-12 hours or more in
>what would have been valuable time they could bill for. If they work for
>a law firm, bar complaints can get them in a lot of
>trouble. As such, any attorney claiming copyright on behalf of a client
>is most probably telling the truth and has done their
>homework on the claims.
>
>That's how you tell. When an attorney sends a DMCA notice to the
>foundation. At which point, the content should come down.
>
One of the most important requirements of a DMCA notice is the assertion
of ownership.  This can be done by the author, his heirs or a legal
representative; I think that we agree about that.  I'm not presuming
that the lawyer in question is trying to make a claim that he knows to
be false.

An honestly erroneous claim should not expose him to the penalties that
you outline.  It's easy to imagine a situation where he has been
approached by a client whose legal claims are not sound, but where the
potential outcome is uncertain.  He needs to look after his client's
concern.  The lawyer's claim is not proof of anything substantive; it's
an opening argument.  In most (but not necessarily all) cases the
content should indeed come down, but the ISP should at least revue the
notice to make sure that it is valid on its surface.  I also believe
that the notices should be made public in case any editorwants to take
the matter further in his own name, and at his own cost.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Cary Bass

subject: [Commons-l] Junk pages (was "Killing the main namespace?")

body:
Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> said at 2007/01/29 Mon AM 01:58:38 EST:

> From: "Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
> Date: 2007/01/29 Mon AM 01:58:38 EST
> To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" <commons-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?
>
> I see a lot of misplaced pages, spam, and utter insanity appear in the
> main namespace on commons.  There is also a lot of confusion about how
> the main namespace should be used.

 There are a substantial number of other namespace junk pages as well, talk pages, unused help pages, etc.  These also need to be addressed.  Not as many, mind you, but they are still neglected.

If you want a quick url to get to the new pages, <http://tinyurl.com/nrf7v> is what we have listed on the Commons IRC channel.

Also, non-admins *can* participate.  Simply put {{speedydelete|not in Project scope}} on a page and it will be taken up in the next run of speedies.

Cary Bass
User:Bastique


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/29/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> I am obviously against deleting the main namespace on Commons.
> It has many useful uses. Please see for example for a chronological
> classification of data, which is not possible with a category:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_K._Gandhi

You have seriously misunderstood my request. I am sorry that I was not
more clear.

I think galleries are useful.  I do not think they should be deleted.
Instead, I think we should make a new namespace called "gallery" and
move all the galleries there.

I think that doing this will prevent confusion.

After we have done that there should be nothing left in the main ns
except tests and garbage which we can delete.

> Also other namespaces have also a bad referencement.

Can you explain this for me? I do not understand.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"


from_name: Keitei

body:
On Jan 29, 2007, at 12:20, Cheney Shill wrote:

> Eugene van der Pijll <eugene at vanderpijll.nl> wrote:
>>
>> An article is in-progress until it is finished.
>
> So your POV is don't delete an article regardless of how
> long it violates policy.

Wikipedia doesn't have a policy that articles must be finished. You
might be thinking of [[Encyclop?dia Britannica|another encyclopedia]].


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] slowness today

body:
On 29/01/07, Nick Jenkins <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote:

> For the purposes of this exercise, I was assuming something the exact same size and shape as a credit card, with a Wikipedia logo,
> your real name, your username, and possibly date you started using the Wikipedia, and maybe a photo, on one side; and the rules on
> the other.

* Neutral point of view
* Verifiability
* No original research
* Assume good faith
* No personal attacks
* Don't bite the newbies

That's it for en:wp - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:PRO . All
else is commentary.

(this is *way* off topic, but if the stupidity of some obsessive
policy creators on en:wp is getting up your nose, that page attempts
to be practical suggestions on what to do about policycruft.)

So ... how about that technical stuff! Gosh!

- d. (not quite helping)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Elly Waterman wrote:

>I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its
>conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My
>mailbox is so full already...  Thanks, Elly
>
I like to try keeping my e-mails down under 200 per day, but am not
always successful.  Much of the chatter is admittedly unnecessary, but I
enjoy the humorous diversions; they keep the mood light.  Most of those
postings are quite short anyway.  The long ones are often the most
serious ones.

Ec


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 1/29/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/29/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I wanted to simply state that I have been reading this thread with
> > interest.  When it comes to content, it is the editors and users and not
> > the
> > Foundation who decide what is on.  I don't presently serve as, and don't
> > intend to become, the central authority for what is and isn't acceptable
> > for
> > fair use questions. It is not a subject that is prone to sweeping policy
> > decisions, as counterexamples etc. abound.  Again, since the license is
> > the
> > key to the forward looking nature of the project (here en:wp) why someone
> > feels compelled to take the easy way out and {{fairuse}} image the heck
> > out
> > of articles out of a sense of obligation to "improve" it is beside the
> > point.
> >
> > The images are fair - not free - and that isn't the same thing.  You can
> > argue til the cows come home about any particular example.  People
> > do.  ;-)
> > But I would once again encourage anyone interested in the issue to ask
> > themselves first why the fair image *must* be there instead of a free one
> > (rare examples) and why it is not instead an easy way out in lieu of the
> > harder task of obtaining free images as equivalents.
> >
> > What happens in legal terms depends, of course, on the situation.  WMF has
> > no interest in fighting really hard for "fair use" in principle, since we
> > are all about free images where there is a choice.  Be honest - wouldn't
> > the
> > best Wikipedia be one with no strings attached, with content of equivalent
> > quality?
>
>
> My attitude is that Wikipedia should be pushing the copyright envelope
> (within reason, of course) on all fronts.
>
> All non-governmental content from the past century is covered by copyright
> (essentially).
>
> We should be expanding (and we are) the amount of content covered by free
> licenses (GFDL,CC-SA).
>
> We should also be demonstrating the importance of challenging the absurd
> life and strength of copyright laws by taking advantage of fair use when we
> can.
>
> Google is a great example of a company that by dint of its popularity gets
> to run roughshod over copyright restrictions that companies would squash if
> they weren't so reliant on Google.
>
> Similarly Wikipedia is now in the position of being one of the 800-pound
> gorillas.
>
> Wikipedia has the power to shape law because of its size and influence.

We're not an 800 pound gorilla; but we're much more than a dancing macacque.

I would like to second Cunctator's comments in general.  Specifically,
while I encourage the development of free content wherever possible, I
want to be realistic that there's a tradeoff between covering
something well and covering something badly but with entirely free
content.  I will always come down on the side of  a better
encyclopedia if an appropriate, legal fair use content add will better
Wikipedia noticably.

I had someone just last week suggest that we could find free
replacement images for a spacecraft which had been assembled and flown
in space already, both for the spacecraft under construction and for
the landing.  The only people who took and released photos of the
assembly who are known are the official space agency photographers
(not NASA, India's ISRO), and the landing took place several hundred
kilometers out to sea, with one Indian Coast Guard ship and some
helicopters in attendance.  How exactly are we supposed to go back in
time and convince a free-license photographer to go take pictures of
those events that already happened?  How do we convince ISRO and the
Indian Coast Guard to let them do it?

If we don't fight for the meaning and use of Fair Use, we both lose
content for ourselves, and lose content for the whole community at
large by not helping to uphold fair use vigorously.

If Wikipedia won't stand up for Fair Use, then it's a pretty sad
world.  We can be strident in supporting fair use, legal and proper in
supporting fair use, and still prefer and work to create free content.
 They are not mutually exclusive.  But those who say "oh, if we remove
it, free content of equal value will just sprint forth to replace it"
frustrate me to no end.  It won't, in a lot of cases, because it
can't.

Promotional photos of all types are generally accepted to be put out
there by people and companies to be reused.  The current paranoia
surrounding even those in Fair Use here is appalling.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Cormac Lawler schreef:
> On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ray Saintonge schreef:
>>
>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
>>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know Sunir
>>>> Shah.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>> Hoi,
>> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
>> notable ...
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM
>>
>>
>
>
> Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
> Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks>.
> I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
> advisory group.
>
> Cormac
Hoi,
I have again looked at the website, it gives me a chaotic impression. I
have looked at the presentation it is OK, however I am sure that we have
people of an equal calibre in our own ranks. My idea of an advisory
board is that they have to bring something extra, something fresh. I
fail to see what the extra is. To be blunt, to me is seems like a "blast
from the past" while we need to see into a future and reach out.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 1/29/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/29/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My attitude is that Wikipedia should be pushing the copyright envelope
> > (within reason, of course) on all fronts.
> >
>
> And how much money do you plan to provide to make this possible?
>
> > All non-governmental content from the past century is covered by copyright
> > (essentially).
> >
>
> That simply isn't the case.
>
>
>
> > We should also be demonstrating the importance of challenging the absurd
> > life and strength of copyright laws by taking advantage of fair use when we
> > can.
>
>
> Your reasons do not support your actions here.
>
> > Google is a great example of a company that by dint of its popularity gets
> > to run roughshod over copyright restrictions that companies would squash if
> > they weren't so reliant on Google.
>
> Evidences?
>
> In any case the "no one will sue us" is not a valid argument for
> wikipedia if only because sooner or latter someone will and it doesn't
> help reusers.
>
> > Similarly Wikipedia is now in the position of being one of the 800-pound
> > gorillas.
>
> Annual turnover less than that of my nearest collage. I think not.
>
> > Wikipedia has the power to shape law because of its size and influence.
>
> How? Political campaigning is pretty much out. We have neither the
> money nor the impact. People go to wikipedia looking for information.
> They are not looking for an ideology

Information being free... an encyclopedia, specifically, but the
constituent flood of information ... is a core Wikimedia Foundation
goal.

I don't think we should wage huge PR or legal or paid lobbying
campaigns to free up information.  I think we should reasonably take a
stand that the Fair Use laws mean what they say, and that Wikipedia
and others are entitled to make use of them, and do so.

Shying away from it destroys credibility in the single largest free
access to content legal model in existence.  Free content, including
all of Wikipedia, pales in comparison to the significance to world
society at large that Fair Use brings.

That may not be true in 10 or 20 years, but for now, we should embrace
Fair Use and use it.  Fairly, legally, and stomping on those who would
attempt to abuse Fair Use in our project, but we should embrace it
nonetheless.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: effe iets anders

body:
maybe it would be more constructive if we wouldnt stuck to this very person,
and the discussion whether he is notable or not have private? Then we could
maybe focus more on the issue that is imho more important, the *type* of
person that is missing. So not really names, but more the qualities that
lack this advisory group. Actually I am somehow missing a bit more input
from the communities. Most of the users seem to me (except angela) relative
outsiders, please correct me if i'm wrong. Might it be worth evaluating the
idea that in some way we should have a user of several parts of the
wikimedia communities? And then especially users who are more then just
users. So they should be active users, but also bring "a little extra", for
example, they combine that with skills on social, legal, economical or
ideological area.

Lodewijk

2007/1/29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen op gmail.com>:
>
> Cormac Lawler schreef:
> > On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen op gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> >>
> >>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
> >>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know
> Sunir
> >>>> Shah.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
> >>>
> >>> Ec
> >>>
> >> Hoi,
> >> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
> >> notable ...
> >> Thanks,
> >>     GerardM
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
> > <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
> > <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
> > Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
> > <
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks
> >.
> > I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
> > advisory group.
> >
> > Cormac
> Hoi,
> I have again looked at the website, it gives me a chaotic impression. I
> have looked at the presentation it is OK, however I am sure that we have
> people of an equal calibre in our own ranks. My idea of an advisory
> board is that they have to bring something extra, something fresh. I
> fail to see what the extra is. To be blunt, to me is seems like a "blast
> from the past" while we need to see into a future and reach out.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
maybe it would be more constructive if we wouldnt stuck to this very person,
and the discussion whether he is notable or not have private? Then we could
maybe focus more on the issue that is imho more important, the *type* of
person that is missing. So not really names, but more the qualities that
lack this advisory group. Actually I am somehow missing a bit more input
from the communities. Most of the users seem to me (except angela) relative
outsiders, please correct me if i'm wrong. Might it be worth evaluating the
idea that in some way we should have a user of several parts of the
wikimedia communities? And then especially users who are more then just
users. So they should be active users, but also bring "a little extra", for
example, they combine that with skills on social, legal, economical or
ideological area.

Lodewijk

2007/1/29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
> Cormac Lawler schreef:
> > On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> >>
> >>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
> >>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know
> Sunir
> >>>> Shah.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
> >>>
> >>> Ec
> >>>
> >> Hoi,
> >> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
> >> notable ...
> >> Thanks,
> >>     GerardM
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
> > <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
> > <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
> > Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
> > <
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks
> >.
> > I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
> > advisory group.
> >
> > Cormac
> Hoi,
> I have again looked at the website, it gives me a chaotic impression. I
> have looked at the presentation it is OK, however I am sure that we have
> people of an equal calibre in our own ranks. My idea of an advisory
> board is that they have to bring something extra, something fresh. I
> fail to see what the extra is. To be blunt, to me is seems like a "blast
> from the past" while we need to see into a future and reach out.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Matt R

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

body:
--- Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the years I've been contributing to the project, I have always
> understood that our goal is to create a neutral, reliable encyclopedia
> "of the highest possible quality" that can be distributed as widely
> and freely as possible.  "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia".

Yes, and we're "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia".

> Copyleft, free content is a tremendously important means to that end, but it
> isn't the end itself.

On [[Wikipedia talk:Fair use]], you said that you'd like to change:

    "The primary goal on Wikipedia is to create a free content ("free" as in
"free speech") encyclopedia which can be used by downstream users."

To:

    "The primary goal on Wikipedia is to create a high-quality encyclopedia
which can be used by downstream users."

Sorry to be blunt, but I think you're simply mistaken about this. To answer
your question from the subject, I think the the Foundation Mission Statement
covers it as close as anything will:

   "Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to the development and maintenance of
online free, open content encyclopedias, collections of quotations, textbooks
and other collections of documents, information, and other informational
databases in all the languages of the world that will be distributed free of
charge to the public under a free documentation license such as the Free
Documentation License written by the Free Software Foundation Inc. at
http://www.fsf.org or similar licensing scheme, see http://www.wikimedia.org."

We need to discuss fair use policy from the basis that freedom is an aspect of
our goal, and not just a useful means to an end. It seems fruitless to argue
about the details of any particular policy if we disagree on the purpose of the
project.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

___________________________________________________________
New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes.
http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Berto 'd Sera wrote:

>>There's more to writing about companies than such
>>POV expos?s..
>>
>>
>LOL, this sounds funny, as I am myself a Radical Constructivist :) I do not
>believe there is anything in man's mind apart from POVs... so there is also
>nothing that can be written, apart from POVs. The very idea of the existence
>of NPOV things is absolutely POV. :)
>
Your premise is true enough.  NPOV represents a consensus of the
differing POVs that have been offered to the article.  Ideally each edit
brings us closer to NPOV, but only rarely can it be completely achieved.

>Anyway, we have is a procedure called "consensus". If I wanted to candidate
>my POV for consensus I would not write it here. I'd click on a big number of
>Edit tabs and make it happen, which is not what I'm doing. Not that I'm not
>interested in being a winner, simply I do not give a damn about what gets
>published about company X, since I sold all my stocks many years ago and
>never got robbed again :))) I'd rather write about what can be of use for my
>beloved self, as anybody else.
>
Isn't that what we all do?

>>Our coverage of corporations is seriously deficient.
>>
>>
>So click on those "edit" tabs and make it better People write about what is
>interesting to them. What you say basically means that wikimedians aren't
>interested in corporate economy enough for them to write about it...
>
The point that I was making there was that applying restrictions to what
makes a corporation notable is meaningless when there is no movement to
add this stuff in the first place.

Ec


subject:
[Commons-l] Commons search engine ranking,
	Was: Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/29/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> > I think galleries are useful.  I do not think they should be deleted.
> > Instead, I think we should make a new namespace called "gallery" and
> > move all the galleries there.
>
> Well I understand, but I am not sure what is the benefit expected here
> with the deletion of many pages from main namespace, and I don't see how
> it will be achieved.

We would automatically mass move all the pages with galleries to the
gallery namespace. Deletion could also be done automatically.

> Commons is generally very badly referenced.
> I think this is mainly because of the category system (maybe developers
> could give more hints here). For "Mohandas Gandhi" in Google Images, you
>  won't find any images directly from Commons. That's very surprising
> seeing that Commons is now the biggest source of free (as in beer)
> images of Gandhi.

The biggest factor for this is that most search engines will not index
pages with names which look like image names, for example
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Foo.jpg. They would index
Image:Foo but our image pages are not named like that.

Since most of the time when other sites (including Wikimedia's own)
link to commons they link to image pages, we do not gain 'googlejuice'
from those links.

There are a lot of things we could do to enhance the popularity of
commons, but the page name issue really should be solved first.

It's in the long term plans for mediawiki to support filenames which
are unrelated to the file type.... but even using that will require
massive renames on commons.  Does anyone have any suggestions?   There
are a lot of possibilities.

Another question is.. are we ready to handle an increase in public visibility?


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 1/29/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/29/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We're not an 800 pound gorilla; but we're much more than a dancing macacque.
>
> We're neither. For most the net we are wallpaper.

The same could be said of Google.  It's become a utility and a stock
on the ticker for a lot of people.

> > I would like to second Cunctator's comments in general.  Specifically,
> > while I encourage the development of free content wherever possible, I
> > want to be realistic that there's a tradeoff between covering
> > something well and covering something badly but with entirely free
> > content.  I will always come down on the side of  a better
> > encyclopedia if an appropriate, legal fair use content add will better
> > Wikipedia noticably.
> >
>
> > I had someone just last week suggest that we could find free
> > replacement images for a spacecraft which had been assembled and flown
> > in space already, both for the spacecraft under construction and for
> > the landing.  The only people who took and released photos of the
> > assembly who are known are the official space agency photographers
> > (not NASA, India's ISRO), and the landing took place several hundred
> > kilometers out to sea, with one Indian Coast Guard ship and some
> > helicopters in attendance.  How exactly are we supposed to go back in
> > time and convince a free-license photographer to go take pictures of
> > those events that already happened?  How do we convince ISRO and the
> > Indian Coast Guard to let them do it?
> >
>
> Experience suggests it or scale models will turn up in a museum
>
> For example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok_1_after_landing.jpg

...and when it does, then someone can go take a picture of it and
replace the existing ones, and we'll all be happy.

UNTIL THEN, there exists no alternative.

> > If we don't fight for the meaning and use of Fair Use, we both lose
> > content for ourselves, and lose content for the whole community at
> > large by not helping to uphold fair use vigorously.
>
> I know of two legal systems that have fair use. People living under
> other systems get by.
>
> > If Wikipedia won't stand up for Fair Use, then it's a pretty sad
> > world.
>
> It is get used to it.
>
> >We can be strident in supporting fair use, legal and proper in
> > supporting fair use, and still prefer and work to create free content.
> >  They are not mutually exclusive.
>
> Then why was I deleting trivially replaceable non free images for
> rather a lot of last week? Are you seriously going to tell that since
> February 2006 no one has been in a position to make a pic of Pickled
> cucumber?

It is arguably both true that there are reasonably replaceable images
there now labeled Fair Use (which should be replaced sooner rather
than later), and people trying to delete things which are not
reasonably or possibly replaceable.  This is what happens when we
don't have a clear theory of what we're trying to do with fair use,
and muddled case "law" precedent and interpretations.

> > But those who say "oh, if we remove
> > it, free content of equal value will just sprint forth to replace it"
> > frustrate me to no end.  It won't, in a lot of cases, because it
> > can't.
>
> Experience suggests otherwise and at present time there is no
> significant movement toward deleting all fair use material.

I would not be here complaining if there weren't.  I am not
grandstanding here to make political points because Fair Use in
Society is a Big Thing for me.  There is serious anti-fair-use
activity going on, mostly under the radar, but consistently and
widespread.  The policy is vague and inconsistent enough to allow
that.  It's wrong, and it has to be limited.

> > Promotional photos of all types are generally accepted to be put out
> > there by people and companies to be reused.
>
> Please provide details of the licence they are under

Fair Use.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


body:
Hoi,
One reason to have an advisory board is to bring outsiders into an
organisation that have a distinctly /other /approach. Angela will be
very much a linking pin with our organisation; she is deeply connected
to the Wikimedia Foundation and has through her activities at Wikia a
deep understanding in how to build communities as well as an
understanding in using MediaWiki in a commercial environment. Because of
her new relative distance to the WMF I am convinced that we are lucky
that she has accepted this post.

Another reason why you would want people in an advisory board is because
of the network that they bring with them. Kofi Anan, would be one person
that would be really important if he would consider us. I do not know if
we are audacious enough to ask him :)

I disagree strongly that we should populate an advisory board with
people that are already in our community. It would create an other layer
of bureaucracy and I am not convinced that we need our own demi-gods.
People that ARE within have the option to make themselves useful in many
ways. There are plenty of things that do not get done. We talk enough as
it is and imho we do not need another talking shop.
Thanks,
    GerardM

effe iets anders schreef:
> maybe it would be more constructive if we wouldnt stuck to this very person,
> and the discussion whether he is notable or not have private? Then we could
> maybe focus more on the issue that is imho more important, the *type* of
> person that is missing. So not really names, but more the qualities that
> lack this advisory group. Actually I am somehow missing a bit more input
> from the communities. Most of the users seem to me (except angela) relative
> outsiders, please correct me if i'm wrong. Might it be worth evaluating the
> idea that in some way we should have a user of several parts of the
> wikimedia communities? And then especially users who are more then just
> users. So they should be active users, but also bring "a little extra", for
> example, they combine that with skills on social, legal, economical or
> ideological area.
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2007/1/29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>
>> Cormac Lawler schreef:
>>
>>> On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Ray Saintonge schreef:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
>>>>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know
>>>>>>
>> Sunir
>>
>>>>>> Shah.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ec
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
>>>> notable ...
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>     GerardM
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
>>> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
>>> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
>>> Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
>>> <
>>>
>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks
>>
>>> .
>>> I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
>>> advisory group.
>>>
>>> Cormac
>>>
>> Hoi,
>> I have again looked at the website, it gives me a chaotic impression. I
>> have looked at the presentation it is OK, however I am sure that we have
>> people of an equal calibre in our own ranks. My idea of an advisory
>> board is that they have to bring something extra, something fresh. I
>> fail to see what the extra is. To be blunt, to me is seems like a "blast
>> from the past" while we need to see into a future and reach out.
>> Thanks,
>>     GerardM


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 26/01/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 1/25/07, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>The problem is that complaints about school articles generate a steady
>>>flow to OTRS, which is picked up by Foundation volunteers. Then, the
>>>decisions of these volunteers are challenged.
>>>
>>>
>>There needs to be more visibility into these problems by the community
>>at large.
>>
>>
>What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though?
>David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at
>the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and
>you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly
>Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage
>are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less
>crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much
>about it.
>
The quarterly notices sound like a good idea, especially if they are
well publicized.

>>Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
>>
>>
>Surprisingly often, these are explicit allegations of illegal activity
>- "The headmaster is a convicted paedo" and the like - or lots and
>lots of junk personally-identifiable vandalism - "Mickey Smith is
>---".
>
Getting rid of this stuff is a no-brainer.

>A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale
>- many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or
>another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't
>*so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and
>isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the
>school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because,
>well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically
>accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the
>hardest to deal with, in many ways)
>
A complaint about this from school administrators should be viewed as an
opportunity, or what many educators would call a "teachable moment".  A
principal could refer the problem to a trusted student, or make the
article and all its deficiencies an opportunity for a class discussion
or other project.

Ec


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject:
[Wikitech-l] ProtectSection.php modification - where
	to	post/discuss?

body:
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:05:51 -0500, Jim Hu wrote:

> There was some discussion on one of the mailing lists about
> protecting specific sections in a wiki page, where Rob Church noted
> an extension called ProtectSection.php.  I have modified the code to
> run one of the functions at a different hook, which allows me to also
> kill any subsection Edit links on headings inside a protected
> section.  I have it working on 1.8.3 and 1.7.1 locally.
>
> I noticed that ProtectSection in svn has been modified by tstarling
> and hashar (tstarling says  "It's still completely broken with
> section editing, though." ... but it seems to work for me, unless I'm
> misunderstanding the issue.  Also, if the section edit links are
> gone, the issue may be moot.).  How should I submit the code
> modification for others to look at?  I wasn't sure if this should go
> to bugzilla bug 4375 or here.  I hope that my code modification may
> be worth looking at, but I worry that it's too hacky to warrant
> consideration yet for the topic of the bug.

It's better to post patches via bugzilla, but things can also be discussed
on the list or on IRC.

The edit links point to URLs to edit the individual sections.  without
those links, you'd have to type in the URL yourself in the browser, which
would make it slightly more difficult to edit the sections.

The thing to be careful of is that Mediawiki isn't really intended to have
that level of protection, but people who aren't as familiar with it could
mistake a casual deterent for real security.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Live mirroring from Portuguese Wikipedia

body:
On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:24:13 -0500, Simetrical wrote:

> On 1/27/07, Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Tiny question: isn't possible to block any non-Wikimedia site from live
>> mirroring instead of blocking one-by-one?
>
> I suppose we could try to record massive request rates from the same
> IP, but then you'd probably catch some large-scale proxies too.  So
> not really.  They just request a page like anyone else, and the
> request is superficially impossible to distinguish reliably from a
> request made by an ordinary user.

There is one difference, in that proxy traffic would be generated by
humans who use the proxies, while mirror traffic would presumably come
from the web crawlers that are indexing the mirrors, and should thus be
much more predictable.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
>>>>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
>>>>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
>>>>would be to remove it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>The biggest fly in that ointment is with establishing that they are the
>>>undisputed owner.  There are as many misconceptions about that as there
>>>are about fair use.  When that has been established it's good corporate
>>>citizenship to remove the material when they ask nicely even if we could
>>>win a court fight over fair use.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>If they cannot establish they own the rights to the materials to the
>>Foundation, then it is doubtful they will be able to
>>convince a judge of this. An attorney sending a letter or posting a
>>notice asserting such claims are true is about the
>>only bonafide proof there is, short of a court ruling. Attorneys are
>>bound by rules of professional conduct. Falsely asserting copyright
>>ownership on behalf of a client could get them brought up on allegations
>>with their state bar. If they are disbarred, they
>>cannot practice law. Lawyers are not allowed to bill their time to
>>answer bar complaints, and it could take 6-12 hours or more in
>>what would have been valuable time they could bill for. If they work for
>>a law firm, bar complaints can get them in a lot of
>>trouble. As such, any attorney claiming copyright on behalf of a client
>>is most probably telling the truth and has done their
>>homework on the claims.
>>
>>That's how you tell. When an attorney sends a DMCA notice to the
>>foundation. At which point, the content should come down.
>>
>>
>>
>One of the most important requirements of a DMCA notice is the assertion
>of ownership.  This can be done by the author, his heirs or a legal
>representative; I think that we agree about that.  I'm not presuming
>that the lawyer in question is trying to make a claim that he knows to
>be false.
>
>An honestly erroneous claim should not expose him to the penalties that
>you outline.  It's easy to imagine a situation where he has been
>approached by a client whose legal claims are not sound, but where the
>potential outcome is uncertain.  He needs to look after his client's
>concern.  The lawyer's claim is not proof of anything substantive; it's
>an opening argument.  In most (but not necessarily all) cases the
>content should indeed come down, but the ISP should at least revue the
>notice to make sure that it is valid on its surface.  I also believe
>that the notices should be made public in case any editorwants to take
>the matter further in his own name, and at his own cost.
>
>Ec
>
>
>

Attorneys do not send letters to a potential third party unless they
have done their
homework. I would take an attorneys demands as credible in most cases with
copyright. Employment law is different as is any situation where the
court would
have to "balance the equities" you should look hard at the situation
since the court will
have to weigh through the rights of both parties and come up with an
equitable solution
(like trade secret law and non-competes as a good example).

There is no balancing test for copyright infringement, its statutatory,
and so are the
damages. In such a cut and dry case, I would tend to err on the side of
caution. At any rate,
Brad eloquently addressed the issue and said "if this is a free
encyclopedia, why do we have fair
use images being used -- use free ones if at all possible and make the
issue moot."

:-)

Jeff

>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject:
[Commons-l] "Did you know?" ... The family tree
 of	[[Category:Copyright statuses]] and our broken category system.

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Unless I find huge opposition here, I'm going to begin changing the
> commons instruction pages to reflect this use of categories rather
> than our historic use.
>
>
Hee hee, I'm thinking I should take a couple weeks of wikicommonsbreak
right about now! But seriously, what you're talking about will stir up a
large percentage of the commons people who obsess over categories. I'm
not even sure having category intersections in the software will satisfy
some of these folks - they go on about server loads and the like as
well. I'd suggest just bringing up the issue and watching the fur fly,
before deciding to invest time in rewriting anything...

Stan


body:
On 1/29/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> > We would automatically mass move all the pages with galleries to the
> > gallery namespace. Deletion could also be done automatically.
>
> I understand what you want to do, but what benefit you expect from such
> a change.

I would expect to see a substantial decrease in junk page creation. I
would expect this for two reasons:
#The easiest and most attractive location (namespace zero) for junk
page creation could be closed to new page creation.
#Confusion about the gallery namespace would be removed if it had an
explicit name.

Of course, these gains might be possible in other ways... For example,
if we shut off non-talk page creation by anons I would expect similar
gains, although many of the junk pages are created by named accounts.


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> As far as load goes, it's only a question of implementation.
> A few months back I posted some example performance data for
> intersections using inverted indexing using the actual enwiki category
> data: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikitech-l/2006-September/026715.html
>
> Even the most evil cases (intersecting two huge categories) ran very
> quickly. (For example the intersection of GFDL images and
> living_persons each which has over 100,000 members took 25ms).
>
I'm with you, just reporting past flamage on the subject. I wouldn't
even count on empirical data having much effect... 1/2 :-)

Stan


subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite
 reliable	published	sources will be deleted."

body:
Marc Riddell wrote:

>on 1/29/07 10:13 AM, Cheney Shill at halliburton_shill at yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>>Is this not sufficiently explanatory or reliable?
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_effect
>>
>>
>It could use some work. But my question is: What do you make of it?
>
The real irony here is that a person who has put himself forth as a
strong advocate for reliable sourcing is relying on an article that is
completely lacking in such sources to make his point. :'(

Ec


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
On 1/29/07, Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
> So i have been coding an implemented feature??
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Platonides/without_images

Great minds think alike.

> Some inhabitants of the main namespace:
> *Lists of galleries: Train, List of the German Autobahn...

What should we do with these? A fair number are orphaned too..

> *Species lists, lots of them, probably to make the pages

I will withhold comment on anything related to species... Not good to
have the TOL folks bring out their pitchforks. :)

> *Galleries with their images removed (favoring categories?)
> *Article which became categories.

I think these should mostly go..

> *Pages not to be recreated.

Not an issue if we stop creation of any page in that namespace. :)

> *Info pages transcluded on categories: Info:Adolf Hitler, Info:Argonaute

Can someone explain these to me? Why not write on the category page?
I fixed Adolf Hitler last night.. It had spent over a week effectively
blanked, and minorly vandalized for months before that.


body:
On 1/29/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Some remote loaders use a rotating open proxy list, for example
> tramadol.tfres.net (warning, site contains some nasty javascript). This
> makes them slow, but apparently fast enough for the search engines to
> index them. What can we do about that, besides DoS the website?

At some point a layer-8 approach becomes the most reasonable, although
technical folks tend to shy away from interactions outside of their
domain of expertise. ;)


from_name: Szépszivy Ásér

subject: [WikiEN-l] about my tragic "ban"

body:
Hello. Thank you for answering.

But, I clicked this link ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:E-Mail/Kusma ),
message below was appeared;
-----
 No send address From Wikipedia
Jump to: navigation<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:E-Mail/Kusma#column-one>,
search <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:E-Mail/Kusma#searchInput>

You must be logged in <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Userlogin> and
have a valid e-mail address in your
preferences<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Preferences>to send
e-mail to other users.

Return to Hauptseite <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite>.

----

I can't find his mail-adresses on any languages of Wikis.

  -- Sheynhertz.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:09:27 -0500, "Ron Ritzman" <ritzman at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
>"groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
>two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
>on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
>then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
>course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.

It's one of those irregular verbs: we are consensus, you are a baying
mob, they are groupthink.

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


from_name: sonofyoungwood at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
It's funny; I was learning about groups and the five phases of groupwork and the concept of "groupthink" today in Management...

-----Original Message-----
From: nobs03 at gmail.com
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

http://nobsopus.blogspot.com/2007/01/groupthink-and-holocaust-denial-in.html
_______________________________________________
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from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 1/29/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 1/29/07, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I wanted to simply state that I have been reading this thread with
>>>interest.
>>>
>>>The images are fair - not free - and that isn't the same thing.  You can
>>>argue til the cows come home about any particular example.  People
>>>do.  ;-)
>>>But I would once again encourage anyone interested in the issue to ask
>>>themselves first why the fair image *must* be there instead of a free one
>>>(rare examples) and why it is not instead an easy way out in lieu of the
>>>harder task of obtaining free images as equivalents.
>>>
>>>What happens in legal terms depends, of course, on the situation.  WMF has
>>>no interest in fighting really hard for "fair use" in principle, since we
>>>are all about free images where there is a choice.  Be honest - wouldn't
>>>the
>>>best Wikipedia be one with no strings attached, with content of equivalent
>>>quality?
>>>
>>>
>>My attitude is that Wikipedia should be pushing the copyright envelope
>>(within reason, of course) on all fronts.
>>
>>
>>
>>Similarly Wikipedia is now in the position of being one of the 800-pound
>>gorillas.
>>
>>Wikipedia has the power to shape law because of its size and influence.
>>
>>
>
>We're not an 800 pound gorilla; but we're much more than a dancing macacque.
>
>I would like to second Cunctator's comments in general.  Specifically,
>while I encourage the development of free content wherever possible, I
>want to be realistic that there's a tradeoff between covering
>something well and covering something badly but with entirely free
>content.  I will always come down on the side of  a better
>encyclopedia if an appropriate, legal fair use content add will better
>Wikipedia noticably.
>
>I had someone just last week suggest that we could find free
>replacement images for a spacecraft which had been assembled and flown
>in space already, both for the spacecraft under construction and for
>the landing.  The only people who took and released photos of the
>assembly who are known are the official space agency photographers
>(not NASA, India's ISRO), and the landing took place several hundred
>kilometers out to sea, with one Indian Coast Guard ship and some
>helicopters in attendance.  How exactly are we supposed to go back in
>time and convince a free-license photographer to go take pictures of
>those events that already happened?  How do we convince ISRO and the
>Indian Coast Guard to let them do it?
>
>If we don't fight for the meaning and use of Fair Use, we both lose
>content for ourselves, and lose content for the whole community at
>large by not helping to uphold fair use vigorously.
>
>If Wikipedia won't stand up for Fair Use, then it's a pretty sad
>world.  We can be strident in supporting fair use, legal and proper in
>supporting fair use, and still prefer and work to create free content.
> They are not mutually exclusive.  But those who say "oh, if we remove
>it, free content of equal value will just sprint forth to replace it"
>frustrate me to no end.  It won't, in a lot of cases, because it
>can't.
>
>
One of the questions I have asked over and over again without even a
single reply or good example is to try and demonstrate some other major
publication, such as a commercial encyclopedia or a book published by a
major commercial publishing house, that uses fair use images in the
extent that Wikipedia seems to be using them.  I can't think of a
significant example to hold up.  The only situation I can think of is
some web site like MySpace or similar kind of mass website that doesn't
really take copyright seriously in the first place.  That is hardly a
good comparison to stand in the same company.

If you can't handle the fact that the images and artwork are copyrighted
and you can't get a copy of that particular photo, live with it!
 Copyright law is about a government monopoly grant over the control of
those image, and you simply must get permission to use those images from
the copyright holder.  The most common way to do that is through the use
of a license that controls how you are permitted to reproduce that content.

The GFDL is one particularly effective way to accomplish this task, if
you want the content to remain available under a FLOSS type philosophy,
but not everybody in the world cares to have their images reproduced
under that sort of arrangement.  In some cases (many cases, in fact)
there are some photographers who are hoping that by being in the right
place at the right time, that they would be able to get some sort of
economic complensation for taking that photograph in the first place.
 Indeed, this is the very definition of a freelance photographer as this
is largely what they hope will happen.

Some photos are so defining that they end up becoming literally iconic
in stature for what they are portraying.  Some of these are in the
public domain, but often these are photos taken by photographers who
just happened to be in the right place to get it done.... plus have the
skills to make sure that at the right moment they were ready with the
camera in focus, and a decent enough camera that the image would also
come in very clear.  These skills often take a lifetime to develop and
is the very basis for their economic existance, relying on these unique
opportunities.

As far as how to convince a group like the ISRO to allow either a
volunteer Wikipedian (or Wikinewsian) to take a photo for things likely
to be significantly newsworthy or noteworthy in the future under a
FLOSS-type license, that is something that perhaps does deserve
discussion.  Publicity opportunities of this nature do happen from time
to time, and surprisingly there are people who actually do take these
photos and submit them to the Wikimedia Commons.  I've even had the
opportunity on a few rare occasions, but the photography equipment I've
had is usually lacking.

You also have the opportunity to address the issue with the group or
organization involved and try to get them to release the images under a
free license.  I have known several groups and even for-profit companies
who have gladly donated images to Commons under the GFDL or other free
licenses.  It isn't nearly as hard or as difficult as it is being
portrayed here, and many of these groups actually enjoy that articles
about them on Wikipedia are "classed up" by having a few photos about
them that are of high quality.  When you point out that they still
retain copyright over the photos, they are in some ways very interested
in the whole concept, which may even be a new idea to some P.R. folks.

I am not against fair use completely, but I do believe that any such
usage of fair use content must be significantly limited.  Not every
photograph or rendered image can or ought to be available under a
fair-use justification.  And it is also just as important to try to get
a "free" alternative, and to try and encourage Wikipedians to "try
harder", as in most cases they appear to simply be lazy contributors.  I
also know that I've made several mistakes myself in terms of uploading
content that I considered at the time to be fair use but in fact it
really wasn't.

To be very fair particularly to our new contributors, the fair use
policies need to be very clear and very limited.  They should not have
to pass a bar examination on intellectual property rights in order to
effectively be able to decide what is reasonable content to upload on
Wikimedia projects, or for administrators to have to decide when
somebody has gone too far.

I also strongly disagree that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects
ought to be the ones "pushing the envelope" in terms of getting right to
the edge on fair use legal usage.

Having Wikimedia users organize (outside of the juristiction of the WMF)
to campaign to legislators and chief political executives for the
advancement of free images and the ability to have images that have
orphaned copyright or to set up legislation that would permit legal
usage of some of these photos may be a good and worthy goal.  I just
don't see that pushing the envelope and saying "see this!  try and sue
me now!" is going to either win friends for Wikimedia projects or really
be helpful in the long run.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion rates a mention on reddit

body:
Found this blog entry about vertical text, apparently inspired by a
comment from Brion, on Reddit.com:
http://blogamundo.net/dev/2007/01/17/a-peek-at-vertical-text/

Well done :)

(Apologies if this was already mentioned)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] The downside of creating perfect articles

body:
On 1/29/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's exactly what we have wikiprojects for! Perfect textbook example
> of a good role for them - organising coverage on a specific subject,
> getting the infrastructure (names, redirects) in place that they can
> then come back and work on content

Ah, yes, this is true to an extent. WikiProjects are definitely better
than nothing. Their two weaknesses are their self-inflicted lack of
teeth (that obsequiously inoffensive nonsense "We're just a bunch of
people who came up with some ideas that we would love you to just
ignore, thanks!") and the lack of a meta-WikiProject.

That is, WikiProjects are self-declared managers of a particular
domain. But who manages the WikiProjects? Who decides "Our coverage of
Iranian dung beetles is inadequate, let's fix that?" Also, where is it
written that all WikiProjects should obey a couple of defined
conventions? And what happens to articles that aren't covered by any
WikiProject at all?

I have a feeling that the Wikipedia 1.0 project is supposed to answer
some of these questions but I haven't heard from them much lately.
Probably because they're actually getting on and doing good work
rather than being noisy and annoying like AfD. :)

Is this true? Is W1.0 doing what I described?

Steve


body:
On 1/29/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> It doesn't need a project; one sufficiently motivated individual can
> populate a matrix of needed stubs rapidly by hand, for n up to 100 or
> so.

Better if some sort of record exists to define the naming conventions,
general format of articles etc exist. Even if the grunt work is
carried out by one nutter.

Steve


from_name: Delirium

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>If "common sense" means that discrimination is permitted than I do
>agree. When discrimination is permitted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a
>black veil darkens what used to be a more bright promise of a world.
>There are always ways to rationalise away what is not convenient to
>consider.
>
>I do not need to tell you how I abhor your POV.
>
>

I don't think ridiculous and intellectually dishonest hyperbole are
necessary.  In particular, to use your terminology, you are darkening
the world with discrimination as well.  The choice is whether to
discriminate against users who would prefer to work in an environment
where they recognize the scripts, or against users who would prefer to
use a script different than the local Wikipedia.  Obviously one of them
must be done, and this is a matter of pragmatics and which policy we
think is best, not of "discrimination" to use your ridiculous and
frankly idiotic terminology.

-Mark


from_name: P. Birken

body:
Yes, this is a great list and every single person on it has skills
that we need and that will hopefully help us in the future. It is nice
to see that the very good idea of the advisory board has taken shape.
I am also glad that this list is not closed: as much as I can
understand every single choice, the result in itself does IMHO not
reflect the international scope of the foundation as much as it
should. We have repeatedly seen in the past, how important not only
language, but in particular culture is. Thus, I urge the board to
consider more people from nonenglishspeaking countries for the
advisory board.

Take care,

Philipp

2007/1/29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> One reason to have an advisory board is to bring outsiders into an
> organisation that have a distinctly /other /approach. Angela will be
> very much a linking pin with our organisation; she is deeply connected
> to the Wikimedia Foundation and has through her activities at Wikia a
> deep understanding in how to build communities as well as an
> understanding in using MediaWiki in a commercial environment. Because of
> her new relative distance to the WMF I am convinced that we are lucky
> that she has accepted this post.
>
> Another reason why you would want people in an advisory board is because
> of the network that they bring with them. Kofi Anan, would be one person
> that would be really important if he would consider us. I do not know if
> we are audacious enough to ask him :)
>
> I disagree strongly that we should populate an advisory board with
> people that are already in our community. It would create an other layer
> of bureaucracy and I am not convinced that we need our own demi-gods.
> People that ARE within have the option to make themselves useful in many
> ways. There are plenty of things that do not get done. We talk enough as
> it is and imho we do not need another talking shop.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> effe iets anders schreef:
> > maybe it would be more constructive if we wouldnt stuck to this very
> person,
> > and the discussion whether he is notable or not have private? Then we
> could
> > maybe focus more on the issue that is imho more important, the *type* of
> > person that is missing. So not really names, but more the qualities that
> > lack this advisory group. Actually I am somehow missing a bit more input
> > from the communities. Most of the users seem to me (except angela)
> relative
> > outsiders, please correct me if i'm wrong. Might it be worth evaluating
> the
> > idea that in some way we should have a user of several parts of the
> > wikimedia communities? And then especially users who are more then just
> > users. So they should be active users, but also bring "a little extra",
> for
> > example, they combine that with skills on social, legal, economical or
> > ideological area.
> >
> > Lodewijk
> >
> > 2007/1/29, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> >
> >> Cormac Lawler schreef:
> >>
> >>> On 1/29/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
> >>>>>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know
> >>>>>>
> >> Sunir
> >>
> >>>>>> Shah.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Ec
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> Hoi,
> >>>> So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
> >>>> notable ...
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>>     GerardM
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Sunir Shah is the (co)founder of Meatball Wiki:
> >>> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?MeatballWiki> ;
> >>> <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SunirShah>. You can find his
> >>> Wikimania 2005 presentation details at:
> >>> <
> >>>
> >>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_Presentations#Other_Talks
> >>
> >>> .
> >>> I agree with Jussi-Ville that he could be of great service to the
> >>> advisory group.
> >>>
> >>> Cormac
> >>>
> >> Hoi,
> >> I have again looked at the website, it gives me a chaotic impression. I
> >> have looked at the presentation it is OK, however I am sure that we have
> >> people of an equal calibre in our own ranks. My idea of an advisory
> >> board is that they have to bring something extra, something fresh. I
> >> fail to see what the extra is. To be blunt, to me is seems like a "blast
> >> from the past" while we need to see into a future and reach out.
> >> Thanks,
> >>     GerardM
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>When people are treated differently based on their language, it is most
>definitely wrongful discrimination. And it does not occur to me that the
>English language Wikipedia has a right to discriminate people because of
>their name not being English, what does occur to me is that this is a
>fine example of discrimination.
>
>

Do you even read your own posts?  It's wrongful discrimination for the
English Wikipedia to be in English?

-Mark


from_name: Brad Patrick

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>
	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<dfd0b40701281141l78582dd6ge2f7773707274607@mail.gmail.com>
	<45BD16AE.1060300@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<fbad4e140701281411u3f9e9b89tc661c3ba7ca0321@mail.gmail.com>
	<45BD1C6E.40800@wolfmountaingroup.com> <45BD97B2.5000203@telus.net>
	<45BDB31D.2090800@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
I wanted to simply state that I have been reading this thread with
interest.  When it comes to content, it is the editors and users and not the
Foundation who decide what is on.  I don't presently serve as, and don't
intend to become, the central authority for what is and isn't acceptable for
fair use questions. It is not a subject that is prone to sweeping policy
decisions, as counterexamples etc. abound.  Again, since the license is the
key to the forward looking nature of the project (here en:wp) why someone
feels compelled to take the easy way out and {{fairuse}} image the heck out
of articles out of a sense of obligation to "improve" it is beside the
point.

The images are fair - not free - and that isn't the same thing.  You can
argue til the cows come home about any particular example.  People do.  ;-)
But I would once again encourage anyone interested in the issue to ask
themselves first why the fair image *must* be there instead of a free one
(rare examples) and why it is not instead an easy way out in lieu of the
harder task of obtaining free images as equivalents.

What happens in legal terms depends, of course, on the situation.  WMF has
no interest in fighting really hard for "fair use" in principle, since we
are all about free images where there is a choice.  Be honest - wouldn't the
best Wikipedia be one with no strings attached, with content of equivalent
quality?

-Brad

On 1/29/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
> >>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
> >>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
> >>would be to remove it.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >The biggest fly in that ointment is with establishing that they are the
> >undisputed owner.  There are as many misconceptions about that as there
> >are about fair use.  When that has been established it's good corporate
> >citizenship to remove the material when they ask nicely even if we could
> >win a court fight over fair use.
> >
> >Ec
> >
> >
> If they cannot establish they own the rights to the materials to the
> Foundation, then it is doubtful they will be able to
> convince a judge of this. An attorney sending a letter or posting a
> notice asserting such claims are true is about the
> only bonafide proof there is, short of a court ruling. Attorneys are
> bound by rules of professional conduct. Falsely asserting copyright
> ownership on behalf of a client could get them brought up on allegations
> with their state bar. If they are disbarred, they
> cannot practice law. Lawyers are not allowed to bill their time to
> answer bar complaints, and it could take 6-12 hours or more in
> what would have been valuable time they could bill for. If they work for
> a law firm, bar complaints can get them in a lot of
> trouble. As such, any attorney claiming copyright on behalf of a client
> is most probably telling the truth and has done their
> homework on the claims.
>
> That's how you tell. When an attorney sends a DMCA notice to the
> foundation. At which point, the content should come down.
>
> Jeff
>
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


subject:
[Commons-l] Publishing group hires 'Pit Bull of PR' to fight open
	access

body:
(courtesy Mathias Schindler)

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,462845,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501705.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html

Now, is there anything WMF can do to advocate free content? Is that
political or entirely in accordance with our goals? Or what can
individuals do?

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Publishing group hires 'Pit Bull of PR' to fight
	open access


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Publishing group hires 'Pit Bull of PR' to fight open
	access


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
On 1/29/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
> "groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the

"Groupthink" may well be synonymous with "team spirit" or somesuch,
but with the opposite connotation.

Steve


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Courts using Wikipedia

body:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/29wikipedia.html?
_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Wikipedia, the unreliable source for students, journalists, and US
courts.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable published
	sources will be deleted."

body:
On 1/27/07, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Why not just start applying the policy?  Set a time limit.
> No RS, delete.  Maybe be nice and provide 1 last extended
> deletion notice:  "This article will be deleted in x days
> if no RS are cited."  That is, if it hasn't already been
> uncited for several months.

Sure, if you really want to nuke 9/10ths of Wikipedia.

> It seems like there has been an extended and unstated
> policy to create essentially article shells simply to get
> the article count up and increase Wikipedia's popularity.

Don't be cynical. I create stubs to increase Wikipedia's *usefulness*.

> WP has a high enough count and popularity.  Why not start
> actually focusing on content detail and enforcing the long
> standing yet rarely applied policies?

How do you focus a group of some tens of thousands of self-interested
volunteers?

> The alternative seems to be to continue to be the rear end
> of jokes about knowledge by consensus and hearsay like that
> on the 1/24 Colbert Report until WP loses what trust it
> has.

Wikipedia started as a joke and is rapidly gaining in prestige. What
makes you think its trend is the other direction?

Steve