subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Oh, ok. Well why not just add categories to the existing subpages?
> > Say, [[Category:Science articles for deletion]] onto all
> > science-related AfDs.
>
> It's not possible to transclude all members of a category. (Sadly).

I meant just have the current system but add the categories on top as
needed. This might be simpler to get started than other options.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jean-Denis Vauguet

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
 the	board?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.

Sorry if the issue I'll talk about has already been raised (if so, I
missed it), but the real matter for me is not "who", but "for what". I
mean, before itemizing people and draft the Ideal Wiki Board, one should
think about the role of the appointed members.

IMO, it would be *great* to enjoy new ideas from people standing outside
the Wikimedia bubble, since it certainly brings fresh air in our daily
reflexion. But, I'm not going a bundle on a board which would have a
majority of appointed members, especially if the appointed members were
to be able to vote (ie. define the Foundation policy). I'm not
underlying any "lack of confidence" in external point of views, by the
way; but if we do look for people with different, fresh ideas, it is
first and foremost to extract from those ideas some elements we, the
meta community, would consider appropriate to our projects. The "meta
community" here is its representants on the board, at least in the
current structure.

For example, I'm not convinced that a business man, who could advocate
for adding advertising in Wikipedia to streamline projects organization,
would 1) get a positive feedback from the projects users 2) would be
harmless to the projects, if he were able to vote for this proposal.

Several commitees have been launched this year. It's a great, great
improvement, because it's a way for Wikimedia to have its member *and
some external folks* working on concrete parts of the projects. Thus, I
think it would be rather logical to have the Big Names (from Lessing to
Moglen, to list some of your email) acting as first-class *adviser*, not
as Wikimedia *leaders*.

If you (the current board, I guess) were to go the other way, ie.
appointed members as leaders, a re-think of the community role should be
done IMO. Some talked about a WikiCouncil somme weeks ago, a place were
the community could discuss and make formal proposals/claims.

I do know the community is seperated from the foundation, but it would
be a disaster if the community were to feel the foundation has betrayed
projects users, wouldn't it?

>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] "the experiment" - did it work?

body:
On 6/21/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > Problem is that kills one of wikipedia's main attractions.
>
> Not if done carefully, I think.  It may kill the main attraction to
> vandals and POV pushers, but that'd be a good thing. :)

Try thinking away from high profile articles. Lets consider say
[[Biaxial nematic]] which other than the problem that it doesn't
appear to be writen in english is a fairly middle of the road low
profile article.

It is also the top result on google for Biaxial nematic. At the moment
we have rather a nice motivator for people to add stuff to it. Add
stuff and it will be the top hit on google. People will see it. If you
instead say add stuff and people may see it if and when a reviewer
gets round to looking at it (which will be a while since the number of
people we have who understand the subject is probably somewhat
limited) you have lost that motivation.

--
geni


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> I hope you'll get Boing Boing to correct their title.

Their title is correct.  The New York Times report was false.
Semi-protection is not an "added" restriction, it is a softening of a
very old restriction.  It is my intention that we work to creatively
soften even more restrictions.

The key to this is to realize that our current control mechanism are
both too broad and too narrow.  Yes, there is no perfect answer, but
yes, there are better answers than what we have now, answers which will
both better control for sheer vandalism while at the same time leaving
articles more open for genuine input.

Semi-protection is a step in the right direction... it is a removal of a
restriction that we used to have.

> Sorry. This is mainly a reference to the whole "Today, as an experiment, we
> will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English
> Wikipedia." I still think you were being a bit disingenuous (if
> unintentially) about the experimentality of that decision.

No, it was an experiment, and I have been saying lately that I do not
think it was successful.  I expect that we will turn it off soon.

> Perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh -- I think you're essentially the best man
> for the job, and as I admitted elsewhere in the thread, I'm prone to
> hyperbole.

That's ok, so am I. :)

> I'm not sure we have identical definitions of openness. Sometimes not
> letting anyone edit an article is more open than letting particular subsets
> of people edit.

Sometimes.  For example, if the restriction is "you have to be an admin
who has been elected by a group of people of remarkable similar opinions
about the world" then it is less open to let that subset edit than to
let no one edit.  If the restriction is "Well, you have to prove you are
a human by solving a captcha" then it is probably more open to allow
editing than not, to that group.

> I think your motives are exactly right. I think sometimes your methods for
> coming to decisions aren't always the best, and your understanding of the
> nature of Wikipedia is imperfect. That's true of anybody, but you're a
> special case, so you get criticism from the likes of me.
>
> There's more, but rest assured that I do think about history.

Fair enough. :)

--Jimbo


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fwd: [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:
	[14835]trunk/phase3/languages/Messages.php

body:
Hi!

> And if such perfomance is *so* important (they're all cached,
> aren't they?)

we cache parser cache. we do not know which interface messages depend
on context and which do not, so we can't apply proper caching there.
I added sitenotice cache exactly because of that, as I knew it's
static across all pages.

> {{ns: substitution on the skin could be directly at php level,
> without {{
> parsing, with str_replace() calls, which should be much
> faster.Yeah, it'd
> break the 'in order parse' and force {{ns:}} substitution to be
> handled the
> first, but i don't think it can be so bad. We already have(had) worse
> things. I think it's worse to be hardcoding the {{ns: }} You can
> always
> script from {{ns:Foo}} to LangFoo: but you can't do it the other
> way round.

There's much more to {{ expansions. People add all sorts of stuff
there. What I care is that messages which are shown at least in 5%
page views, shouldn't be parsed. It is especially wrong with
messages, that are parsed at 100% of page views.

Domas


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
>> But, yes, it is absolutely not possible for me to claim credit for
>> semi-protection.  It is a brilliant innovation that allows us to be more
>> open than before, when we only had the tool of protection.  But it is
>> not my innovation, and I do not know who first thought of it.
>
> A quick note that might clear up some confusion on my part: what do you mean
> by "more open" here? What's the metric?

Under full protection, no one was able to edit, except for admins, and
by social custom, admins were not to edit except for in certain very
minor ways.  In effect, even for articles where there was major breaking
news, the articles had to be kept closed.

Under semi-protection, we have been able to relax this.  Anonymous ip
numbers and accounts less than 4 days old can not edit, but anyone else
can.  This has proven to be remarkably effective in preserving both the
ability of people of good will of diverse viewpoints to join the
dialogue, and the exclusion of random driveby vandalism.

I think that semi-protection could be improved.  We recently had a good
conversation here about how to change the user interface around it to
make it less off-putting and more inviting for people to participate.

If random people writing "George Bush is a poopy head" are excluded from
an article, but people of various legitimate (though often wrong, say,
or different from mine, or whatever) opinions can participate, where
before, BOTH groups were excluded, then I think that is a net win for
openness.

I would be happy to see full protection go away completely.  It still
exists at the moment, and it does serve some purpose, namely as a
"cooling off period" type of thing, which is often softer and more open
than dragging people before an ArbCom proceeding to ban them.

I think there should be no articles which are full-protected for more
than a day or two (with of course reasonable exceptions for unusual
circumstances), and I think that there are probably many articles which
should be semi-protected for a fairly longish period of time.  (Where we
have repeated driveby trolling for example.)

I also think that a "stable version" approach is much better than
protection, in the sense that if done well, then we can leave a lot of
things unprotected, knowing that the random vandalism will never hit the
"public page" anyway.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:
> On 6/20/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 6/20/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>
>>> But, yes, it is absolutely not possible for me to claim credit for
>>> semi-protection.  It is a brilliant innovation that allows us to be more
>>> open than before, when we only had the tool of protection.  But it is
>>> not my innovation, and I do not know who first thought of it.
>>
>> A quick note that might clear up some confusion on my part: what do you mean
>> by "more open" here? What's the metric?
>
> He means that disputed articles that would have had to have been fully
> protected, can now be semiprotected. That way more people (not just
> admins) can edit the article, while potentially culling the problem.
> Correct me if I'm wrong. --LV

That's right.  But I also fully agree with Cunctator's point (if I
understand him) that not every case of allowing more people to edit
would count as "more open".  For example, if we had a rule that "Only
Jimbo is allowed to edit this article" then this would be a lot LESS
open than "no one is allowed to edit this article".

Openness refers not only to the number of people who can edit, but a
holistic assessment of the entire process.

I like processes that cut out mindless troll vandalism while allowing
people of diverse opinions to still edit.  Those are much better than
full locking.

--Jimbo


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:37:21 -0400, "The Cunctator"
> <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Sorry. This is mainly a reference to the whole "Today, as an experiment, we
>> will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English
>> Wikipedia." I still think you were being a bit disingenuous (if
>> unintentially) about the experimentality of that decision.
>
> It worked, though.

It is not clear to me that it did.  I would love for us to have some
serious analysis of that.

My sense is that the number of articles created by unknown people is
about the same, but that they now sign up for an account first.  This is
not helpful, because whereas before we had the rough indicator of "ip
number equals newbie" (imperfect), we now have less of an indicator.

There is also the question of whether the net production of new articles
by ip numbers was sufficiently worthwhile to mean that preventing those
cost more than it was worth.

I do not think we have very firm answers to these questions.

What I would prefer to see, in the long run, is a replacement of locking
and controls by flagging and visibility.  This is core to what I think
works: not gatekeeping, but accountability.

The issue we have, but so far only in English Wikipedia, and to a lesser
degree elsewhere, I think, is that the sheer volume of crap that the new
pages patrollers have to deal with means that every day we are making
major mistakes that could be dealt with better through openness than
through controls.  (Openness in this case meaning: visibility and
accountability.)

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Creative Commons logos up for deletion, again

body:
Hello chaps,

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#.5B.5B:Image:Cc-by.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-nc.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-nd.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-sa.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-by_white.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-nc_white.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-nd_white.svg.5D.5D.2C_.5B.5B:Image:Cc-sa_white.svg.5D.5D_and_the_PNG_versions_of_these

The CC "BY" "SA" etc little icons are up for deletion... again.

The first time (to my knowledge) was here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Archives04#Image:Somerights20.png

Also relevant is: http://creativecommons.org/policies#license

It seems to me that they were kept the first time for expediency, and
that our flaw was in not linking the image to the corresponding
license text on the CC website (instead, it always links to our image
page), and offering them as freely licensed by virtue of them being
available on our site.

There are coloured homemade alternatives available. Although
consistency and recognisability are certainly important. But then,
we're policy purists, after all. So what are the chances of
(a) getting a technical fix so that these images link to the required
CC license, in every use on every WM wiki? (then we are compliant)
(b) gaining an exemption for them under the Wikimedia logos precedent?
(then... wait, we're still not compliant)
(c) asking CC if having the image description page link to the
corresponding license is close enough + (b) ('cause we've gotta put
/some/ explanation on the page itself)

Regards,
Brianna/user:pfctdayelise


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 6/21/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> My sense is that the number of articles created by unknown people is
> about the same, but that they now sign up for an account first.  This is
> not helpful, because whereas before we had the rough indicator of "ip
> number equals newbie" (imperfect), we now have less of an indicator.

In addition, a pseudonym is more anonymous than an IP address. Before,
it was possible to tell that user X came from school network Y. Now
you have to do a CheckUser to get the user's IP. The Seigenthaler
vandal was identified because he was an unregistered user.

GerardM also has some great ideas how we can build better
authentication into our software, so that, for instance, we know that
certain IP addresses are untrusted, and instead of blocking them
entirely, we allow users who are authenticated _within_ a school or
university to use that authentication in Wikipedia.

> What I would prefer to see, in the long run, is a replacement of locking
> and controls by flagging and visibility.  This is core to what I think
> works: not gatekeeping, but accountability.

Absolutely. My long-term vision of a replacement for both protection
and semi-protection is "quality protection", where the version you see
is the last reviewed one, but the article remains fully editable.
Following this strategy, we can make Wikipedia ever more openly
editable, continuing the path we have already taken.

Erik


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Thumbnail params,
	Was: Image uploads now undeletable

body:
> It doesn't always play out so rosey...  Sometimes someone spends hours
> getting a photograph just right (because unlike wikitext, even in the
> best case 98% of the work must be done by a single photographer) and
> they are proud of their work. Then along comes a self appointed
> wiki-photo expert... who goofs up the image to fit his tastes on his
> uncalibrated display and insists that it's better. Perhaps the new
> version is more contrasty, with over pumped saturation and
> sharpness.... At first glance it's more eye catching, so other passers
> by support the changed version, but it's lost it's depth, lost detail
> in the shadow, or just lost it's ability to captivate for more than a
> moment. Perhaps it's cropped to place the subject dead center,
> destroying the careful balence achieved in the photo which guides the
> eye...
>
> We've had photographers leave in digust over this.
>
> Wikinews permits unfree images (CC-BY-ND) as a result of this.

wha....?!?!?!! I can't believe it! How disappointing. According to
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Image_use_policy they also allow
NC images! Is that not the very definition of nonfreeness for
Wikimedia... is it really that they allow these because of photography
quality concerns, or something else?

FWIW I agree on the point of image-editing. I think the best approach
is, when the original uploader is offended at "improvements" to an
image, revert to their version and upload the edited version as a
separate file. Then the community can argue about which they prefer
and the original uploader doesn't feel their work is being "mauled"
(even if everyone else has incredible bad taste).

Brianna


subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
 the board?

body:
Anthere wrote:
> If you are Eurocentric, you surely have met some interesting
> personnalities whose experience would be valuable for us. Can you cite
> some names ?

For community members, I can easily come up with several names...
basically, each of the top people in each of the chapters, for example.
 (For some of the new chapters, there are people I do not know.)

Kurt, Arne from Germany.
Ryo, Soufron from France
Alison from the UK
Frieda from Italy

There are also the newer chapters which have wonderful and talented
people.  (And I should add that it is 1:15 AM and my mention of specific
people above was not meant to leave out other people... these are a few
who I have worked with a lot, and recently, but there are many others.)

For non-community people, people with an outside perspective, I am not
sure that there are people of such global stature and fame as Lessig,
Stallman, Moglen, Kapor, etc.  I am very open to ideas to be sure (and
some ideas have been offered... good ones.)

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


body:
geni wrote:
> Problem is that kills one of wikipedia's main attractions.

Not if done carefully, I think.  It may kill the main attraction to
vandals and POV pushers, but that'd be a good thing. :)

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way

body:
Phoebe Ayers wrote:

>On 6/17/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I suggest that a workshop be set up at Wikimania to discuss these
>>things in person; in addition, if you want my personal thoughts on
>>
>>
>Heck yes. Would having it over lunch suit? Otherwise, it would
>conflict with sessions (or have to be before or after, on Thur./Mon.)
>
>As ever, such things can be discussed/proposed here:
>http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_online
>
>
I support the general idea.  I don't know if a lunch session would be
long enough to do justice to the question.  Perhaps an open-ended
evening session?

Judging by some of the views expressed already this could be a fairly
heavy duty session.  Airing these kinds of things at a meeting like this
should be done with a view of building consensus.  All persons active in
some aspect of wiki governance should be there.  I would not make this a
closed meeting (too unwiki!), but people who have not been following
this discussion before the meeting should be warned that the nature of
the discussions could be very boring for them.

I would also suggest that a written agenda be available before the
meeting starts, and that the meeting be chaired by a person with a track
record in consensus building.

Ec


subject: [Commons-l] Image donations?

body:
On 21/06/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> I don't have pretty icons yet, but a working form with "this is missing"
> feedback and a simplified license selection:
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/image_donations.php
>
> I've added my default tools header so those of you interested can view
> the source.
>
> As some of you know, I can use the Eloquence bot to automatically upload
> images to the commons. I didn't add that capability to the script yet,
> as it is merely a demonstration.
>
> When you "upload" an image, the script will generate a demo
> "Information" template, as well as a (yet to be created)
> "{{check-automatic-upload}}" template that will ease checking for admins.
>
> Comments, please :-)

* Please forbid any image below say 800px on one side, and ALL mobile
phone pictures. They are the worst! (Even if they still upload a small
image, it might be fine, the important thing is to discourage it)
* Please enforce the user to pick a better name than the default one.
We have more than enough D23435646 and IMG345456456 and QZ23545657
image names already.
* Please DON'T encourage sunsets. :( :( :( :( :( Maybe encourage
pictures of their local area? at least they can ID that and we can
figure out if we can use it or not.
* Please ONLY allow this option: "I am the creator of this image, and
hold its copyright." The other option will be such a pain and near
impossible to verify, and trust me, there will be enough problems with
their own work.
* "The public domain (only recommended for images which are in the
public domain already)." Why??? I would remove this disclaimer and
list this first, from most-free to least-free (GFDL only). [OK not
least free but biggest hassle.] Just say "You grant anyone the right
to use this work for any purpose including commercial use, without any
conditions, unless such conditions are required by law." That's scary
(and true) enough.
* CC-BY-SA: "...and to be released in turn under a free license" -
change to "any derivatives of this work to be in turn released under
this license" (to my knowledge you can't just choose something else!)
* Please emphasise that licensing decisions cannot be undone in the
future and if unsure, they should not contribute

Instead of just having a big blank space, let's be smarter than
MediaWiki ;) and have separate fields for the required info.
"Description (Who or what is shown? Where is it located? Why is it
interesting or important?)"
Source should be self-made as I stated above
"Date (when was the image taken?)"
Author and Permission, no probs - but please don't put the {{license}}
in the permission field, put it separately below and in the Permission
field put a text statement like "X chose to release this image under
the Y license as part of the Z image donation drive."

I think we should limit uploads to something like 2 per person per
day. If they're uploading dozens of images they should probably get an
account (in fact, make that the alternative: do you have heaps of
great images to contribute? Sign up to WM commons and upload as many
as you want!) and also to discourage WM users from "anonymous"
uploading (WM users are probably a significant majority of donors
anyway, come fundraising time).

* How are we going to communicate to them where if anywhere their
image will be available? The email... eh. If we have to email them to
find something out it's already too much hassle, dump it. (IMO)
* Also categories... suggest five (somehow) based on their description
text & CommonSense and get them to pick the most relevant, or just
leave it up to the reviewers?

BTW this doesn't mean I support this idea yet, I just like critiquing
Magnus' UIs ;P

Brianna


from_name: Dan Cannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
The reason given by Brion VIBBER in the commit log was "Consensus seems to
be to drop the public log, now that we have a private log." I've posted a
message on his talk page to express that some of us do indeed not entirely
agree with this move (myself included). Awaiting his response.

--
AmiDaniel

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Ryan" <ultrablue at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 1:57 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

> We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
> there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
> accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
> been revoked from those who have them.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 scholarships available;
 early registration notes

body:
Samuel Klein wrote:

>Dear all,
>
>Some scholarships (and visa support) will be available for community
>members hoping to attend Wikimania.  Please apply or encourage
>suitable people you know to apply.  Details available here :
>
>http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
>
>Early registration for the conference will be open through July 9; so
>sign up before then if you are planning to attend.
>
>http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/
>
>Hacking Days registration is separate (please register for the normal
>conference first; if only coming to hacking days, you might want to
>write to wikimania-registration at wikimedia.org and explain).
>
>http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/hacker/register
>
>There will be a sitewide notice about Wikimania this week as well; you
>can help translate it here:
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Wikimania/June_notice
>
>And comment on the implementation of the notice here:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-June/007382.html
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-June/007876.html
>
>Looking forward to August,
>    SJ
>
>
>PS - As the program is finalized, you will be able to find out more
>about speakers and presenters from the conference site (which still
>needs work...) :
>http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program
>http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:Index
>
>
Unfortunately this comes about a month to late. If it would have been
earlier I would surely have wanted to come. Now time is to short.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: George Chriss

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Username blocks on companies

body:
<quote who="Erik Moeller">
> I don't know how common this is:
>
> # 01:30, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shout magazine (contribs)"
> with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing company)
> # 01:02, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shi star entertainment
> (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing
> company)
> # 21:04, June 18, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "ParsInternet (contribs)"
> with an expiry time of indefinite (Username (name of existing
> company))
> # 00:59, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Hammond Publishing
> (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing
> company)
>
> Given that we probably want people to identify who they work for,
> especially when editing articles where this is relevant, is it a good
> idea to block company accounts without any edits on sight? If so,
> perhaps we should at least modify the talk plage template to indicate
> to the user how they can put the company information on their user
> page? See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hammond_Publishing
> for an example of the current template.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

To start a bit of a different thread, are corporate accounts bad per se?  Individuals posing as
corporations are unacceptable, but what about corporations acting/editing under an official
capacity?  Corporations are not automatically "POV pushers", as they may come in good faith just
as other contributors do.  Bad apples would be obvious and would damage corporate reputation, thus
mitigating abuse of Foundation projects.

Implementation may be as simple as linking the userpage to an official online statement from the
corporation.  I envision such accounts to be attractive to spokespersons interested in editing
articles to remove or challenge unfair statements, without the need to create anonymous proxy
accounts or to contact the OTRS team.  Any additional editing would be a bonus.

I am interested in hearing a variety of thoughts on this issue.  It is no secret that corporations
are increasingly monitoring information about them on Foundation projects, and I hope a process
such as this might alleviate some of the anxiety about corporate image.  As a special-circumstance
example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dannyisme

Also see:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-June/049195.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:UsernameBlockedCompany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username#Policy_may_be_too_weak

Thanks, George Chriss
[[User:GChriss]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Username blocks on companies


subject:
[Commons-l] An interactive copyright tutorial as a requirement
	for uploading?

body:
On 20/06/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the first question we should ask is why users upload obvious
> copyvios on Commons. Here are some factors I can think of:

#1 reason: most people /everywhere/ know nothing about copyright. I
don't think it has much to do with WM. It is possible to contribute to
WP for a long time (if not ever) and only interact with copyright in a
very minimal way.

> When users come to Commons, do they set their UI language? Many may
> not be aware that this is possible. If they aren't native English
> speakers, this means that they are likely to ignore any message above
> a certain complexity. So they understand how to upload, but they don't
> understand anything else.

Well, we have [[special:userlogin]] translated in about 10 languages.
Likewise [[Commons:First steps/Account]] which details how to set your
language preferences. It's also linked pretty heavily, I think
Arnomane saw well to that.

> > I had an idea which would hopefully achieve a similar outcome, that we
> > could introduce "throttled" or "reviewed" uploads. Once a user uploads
> > say, 5 files, an admin has to review the files before they can upload
> > any more. If they made any mistakes, they stay on reviewed upload. If
> > they didn't make any mistakes with licensing, they can go onto
> > unreviewed upload (what we have at the moment).
>
> Hmm, negative points I can see here:
> - complex: you need a good and effective review interface for admins.

True. I didn't say it was technically feasible...

> - a lot of additional work for admins; if they do not catch up, users
> will have frustrating waiting periods.

The alternative is what we have now: a lot of users upload a lot of
copyvios and admins have frustrating workloads chasing after them.

> - takes away from the wiki notion of doing things "quickly".

Copyright concerns make wiki-nirvana impossible already.

Anyway here is my draft quiz, please improve it. These are the top 10
misconceptions I can think of based on newbie stalking.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Licensing_quiz

cheers
Brianna


body:
On 6/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is also the top result on google for Biaxial nematic. At the moment
> we have rather a nice motivator for people to add stuff to it. Add
> stuff and it will be the top hit on google. People will see it. If you
> instead say add stuff and people may see it if and when a reviewer
> gets round to looking at it (which will be a while since the number of
> people we have who understand the subject is probably somewhat
> limited) you have lost that motivation.

The idea of "quality protection", like regular protection or
semi-protection, is that only a small percentage of articles would
behave in that fashion. 99% of articles would continue to be
immediately editable, and simply inform the reader of the availability
of reviewed versions.

Erik


from_name: Nathan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked for 36 hours

body:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Mark Gallagher wrote:

> (This is not to say I support those who hysterically scream wild
> accusations of "ADMIN ABUSE!!11112" every time an admin does his job
> properly, but rather that simply questioning an admin is in itself
> something we should never in a million years try to discourage.  If an
> admin's wrong, he's wrong.)

That's sort of what I meant (thanks, I couldn't clarify it any better). I
question some admins almost all the time - even sometimes that way /I/ do it
is out of line.

- Nathan


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 6/20/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Absolutely not - Wikiversity will not seek to undermine or dilute the
> effort or material on Wikibooks. Instead, I would see the material as
> potentially overlapping with eachother, but formatted differently - in
> textbook form on Wikibooks, and broken down into learning activities
> on Wikibooks, which could be used by teachers as stand-alone lessons.
> Some material will be duplicated, but the mission of Wikiversity is
> not to duplicate this material unnecessarily - indeed, to promote the
> development of further material on other projects if that is a more
> appropriate place for it.

I think it makes sense to imagine, for a moment, that Wikibooks didn't
exist, and that we started out with Wikiversity. It would be a place
where people collaborate on all kinds of educational resources and the
structure around them. As very different work methodologies emerge, it
makes sense to split away groups into their own projects, as was done
with Wikipedia=>Wiktionary, etc.

In the case of Wikiversity, we just have the process backwards.
Wikibooks is a subset of the larger goal "educational resources". But
it's only one of them. There may be other projects that split away
from Wikiversity (while remaining associated with it). I could imagine
the Research part being situated in its own wiki, the eLearning part,
etc.

While having a community in a single wiki can lead to interesting
synergies, in the end, if we have single login and some other
cross-wiki tools (which we need anyway), whether something is an
independent wiki or a single big place shouldn't make that much of a
difference. Indeed, it shouldn't even make much of a difference if it
is a Wikimedia wiki or not, as long as it is free content.
Incidentally, there is an existing effort to create eLearning
materials using a wiki at:
http://wikieducator.org/

Depending on how it turns out, it make make sense to integrate it one
way or another. The same is true for the Austrian Wikiversity. The
important thing is that we form a network of free content platforms
for collaboration among educators.

The tricky question for me is what to do with how-tos. I think they do
have a place in Wikimedia, and a separate project for them might be a
good idea.  This could include gaming walkthroughs -- instructional
materials of any kind. But my biggest hope is for documents from the
open source community to be migrated into the wiki context. There are
thousands of FAQs, HOWTOs and man pages which are still maintained by
single individuals. I made a small effort to change this with
OpenFacts, but this was in 2002, when many of the relevant people were
still convinced that the future was in using a strict workflow
approach within a CMS.

Erik


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> As I said before, the experiment did cut down on a lot of crap, because some
> newbies simply don't want to register and instead post to AFC where we can
> nip an article's creation at the core.

But what are the numbers? There's all this raw data sitting there in the
database from which it should be relatively straightforward to determine
actual statistical measures of what effect the change in policy had, but
since the analysis hasn't been done we're reduced to relying on
subjective impressions and assertions pulled seemingly out of nowhere.
How can I _verify_ that the experiment did or didn't cut down on a lot
of crap? I don't personally do any of the various sorts of "patrolling"
this change was likely to have an impact on (recent changes, new
articles, etc) so I don't even have subjective impressions of my own to
go on.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060621/fe2ce947/attachment.pgp


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
>
> On 6/21/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
>> there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
>> accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
>> been revoked from those who have them.
> Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
> was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
> good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
> shows the edit that was deleted. This is much better for
> accountability because we can check up on each other. Unfortunately
> this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people
> with oversight can view it. No one else can.
>
Then the logical step would be to reproduce the original limited version of
the log for those without oversight access, surely?

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Oversight-log-t1822394.html#a4973157
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
No, they are still active, but we can't find the log either.

Fred

On Jun 21, 2006, at 1:57 AM, Mark Ryan wrote:

> We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
> there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
> accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
> been revoked from those who have them.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
We are friends, but that is more the result of working together than
acquiring responsibility because we are friends. Those with
responsibility on Wikipedia assume responsibility through diverse
paths. What we have in common is consistently putting the interests
of the project before whatever personal biases or other projects we
have.

Fred

On Jun 21, 2006, at 5:49 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/21/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> None of these were appointed in any way by the community, they
>> just seem to
>> have been privileges handed out to friends as individuals see fit...
>>
>
> You could look at "friends" as being a nepotistic conspiracy by which
> cronies evilly band together to take control of what was supposed to
> be a public, open project. Or, you could look at it as people
> selecting only the Wikipedians they trust the most - as demonstrated
> by experience and time with the project - to give access to
> confidential information which could be used to hurt the project.
>
> Pick whichever you prefer.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
I'm not sure we want to create a list of targets. Also as people who
have inserted private information or libelous material are likely to
do it again at the same place we are creating a security hole.

Fred

On Jun 21, 2006, at 6:20 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:

>
>
> Theresa Knott wrote:
>
>>
>> On 6/21/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
>>> there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
>>> accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
>>> been revoked from those who have them.
>>>
>> Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
>> was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
>> good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
>> shows the edit that was deleted. This is much better for
>> accountability because we can check up on each other. Unfortunately
>> this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people
>> with oversight can view it. No one else can.
>>
>>
> Then the logical step would be to reproduce the original limited
> version of
> the log for those without oversight access, surely?
>
> HTH HAND
> --
> Phil
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Oversight-log-
> t1822394.html#a4973157
> Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vancouver university

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

Steve Bennett stated for the record:

> On 6/21/06, Vancouver University - Worldwide University <vanu at vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>>Why don't you folk (including that ODA weirdo Contreras)
>>take the time to read the http://www.VancouverUniversity.ca
>>                                    http://www.WorldwideUniversity.edu
>>website.
>
>
> Err, what's this in relation to?
>
> Steve

They don't like us pointing out that "in 2003, USA Today included the
institution in an article on diploma mills."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | If you're happy and you know it see a shrink.
 sean at epoptic.com |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEmUznMAt1wyd9d+URAg3XAJ0S9z1kNU3whf7iW8DwdxUYuwn5EQCfTd1Y
gOQ6YZpZ8rxlmRObJJzMGOQ=
=IQ2/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/20/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > Well, BoingBoing just published Jimmy's propagandistic stylings on
> > semi-protection (it's not a restriction, it's a freedom!) with the lovely
> > heading  "NYT falsely reports that Wikipedia has  added restrictions".
>
> Gee, that is hardly what I have said.  We used to fully protect in cases
> that we now semi-protect.  That's a net gain for openness.
>
If there are actually cases where articles that were previously
protected are now semi-protected.  Except that article weren't really
ever permanently protected in the first place.

One of the previous rules about protected articles was that *no one*
was supposed to edit them, including the admins who were technically
able to edit them.  I'm sure you could slant that as another gain for
openness, though.  Is allowing only admins to edit more or less open
than allowing no one to edit?

> > It's
> > difficult to tell and Wales isn't particularly interested in doing honest
> > critical analyses of the effects of his policies.
>
> Wow, that's a hell of a thing to say after we have known each other for
> years, and after I have spent a week gathering statistics and doing
> studies of how semi-protection is used.
>
Then you probably gathered these statistics:  What was the average
time of page protection before semi-protection was implemented?  Now
what is the average time of page protection and the average time of
semi-protection?


body:
On 6/20/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/21/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Absolutely. My long-term vision of a replacement for both protection
> > and semi-protection is "quality protection", where the version you see
> > is the last reviewed one, but the article remains fully editable.
> > Following this strategy, we can make Wikipedia ever more openly
> > editable, continuing the path we have already taken.
> >
> > Erik
>
> Problem is that kills one of wikipedia's main attractions.
>

The implementation is the tricky part.  If you just want to cut out
vandalism things probably wouldn't change much at all.  Users that
weren't logged in would see the latest version not marked as reviewed.
 Changes would likely be marked as reviewed very quickly (depending
how many people had the power to mark as reviewed, which could very
well be something like "just about every logged in user").  If someone
with review power tries to edit a page with unreviewed edits you could
even make first reviewing the change a required step.  One variable
though would be how much review is considered sufficient to mark a
change as reviewed.  Do sources have to be checked, or is just a quick
"this isn't obvious vandalism" check enough?  I suppose the ability to
take away a user's review power without otherwise affecting that user
would be useful for people who make too many review mistakes.

Of course there are more complicated review procedures which would
cause a bigger, longer term split in the article.  These probably
would soften one of the main attractions of Wikipedia, but only one of
them - it might even be worth it.

Anthony


subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
	the board?

body:
On 6/20/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Pawe? Dembowski wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> >>> Well, I wouldn't want to live a world with only "free" content.
> >>>
> >> And I wouldn't want you on the board of Wikimedia.
> >
> > I never said I wanted to be on the board. Anyway, free content has its
> > advantages, but I don't see it as either realistic or even good for it
> > to replace all other sorts of content in all situations.
>
> I absolutely agree with Pawe? here, and so would (for example) Richard
> Stallman.  There are certain types of works which are better off freely
> licensed, and certain types of works which are not.
>
> Anthony DiPierro holds a different position.  Enough said.
>
I'm not even sure what position you're claiming that I hold (or what
position you're claiming Richard Stallman holds, for that matter).

Enough said?  No, either too much said, or too little said.

Anthony


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>The tricky question for me is what to do with how-tos. I think they do
>have a place in Wikimedia, and a separate project for them might be a
>good idea.  This could include gaming walkthroughs -- instructional
>materials of any kind. But my biggest hope is for documents from the
>open source community to be migrated into the wiki context. There are
>thousands of FAQs, HOWTOs and man pages which are still maintained by
>single individuals. I made a small effort to change this with
>OpenFacts, but this was in 2002, when many of the relevant people were
>still convinced that the future was in using a strict workflow
>approach within a CMS.
>
>Erik
>
>
If the WMF board was more inclined to approve new projects (not any old
thing, but at least allow some new projects), I might be more encouraged
to move the How-to guides to a new project.  The problem as I see it is
that as a practical matter, starting a new sister project is an
impossible task unless it is a pet project of a board member, or for the
development team.  Just look at how the incubator project and
de.wikiversity were started, and that shows a seeming contempt toward
the user community, especially when compared to this attempt to start
en.wikiversity.  One was done by "those in power" and the other by
ordinary Wikimedia users through supposed "proper channels".  Guess
which one was started without question?

I have noted on several occasions that I feel it would be more honest if
the WMF board would simply state, for the record, that no new Wikimedia
sister project proposals will be accepted in the near or distant future.
 Projects like Wikistandards (which has passed the user vote as well,
and supposedly was submitted to the board for approval) don't even have
a prayer of ever getting accepted.  From my viewpoint, the only reason
why Wikiversity is even being considered is because the noise from
ordinary Wikimedia users is enough that the board can't ignore the
request, even if the proposal has been languishing for some time.  And
that there has been a demonstration project running on Wikibooks for
over two years.  Since Wikibooks current policy is to stop such projects
from ever being developed in the future and the current incubator
project is Wikipedia-only, I don't see that any such future project
could ever be started even on a demonstration basis with current
Wikimedia projects.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject:
[Foundation-l] (volunteer) job position :
 Ombudsperson	checkuser (or checkuser Ombudsperson or whatever)

body:
Daniel Arnold wrote:

>So data security is very important and it should be made clear to all
>ckeckusers but creating yet another ombudsman creates IMHO more avoidable
>meta-work (= work that does not improve a wikipedia article).
>IMHO "CheckUser-abuse" is mainly an en.wikipedia problem and should be
>adressed there locally in the main line.
>
>Arnomane
>
>
I've heard a lot of fear mongering and what I percieve to be unwarrented
fears about abuses to checkuser actions.  Can you give some clear
examples of what have been percieved as abuses of those with checkuser
privileges, at least types of problems that have happened as a matter or
practice?

I know I am speaking from an apparent minority opinion on this mailing
list, but I fail to see what real damage is happening from simply
looking up the IP address of a user.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Username blocks on companies

body:
On 21/06/06, George Chriss <GChriss at psu.edu> wrote:
>
> <quote who="Erik Moeller">
> > I don't know how common this is:
> >
> > # 01:30, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shout magazine (contribs)"
> > with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing company)
> > # 01:02, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shi star entertainment
> > (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing
> > company)
> > # 21:04, June 18, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "ParsInternet (contribs)"
> > with an expiry time of indefinite (Username (name of existing
> > company))
> > # 00:59, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Hammond Publishing
> > (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing
> > company)
> >
> > Given that we probably want people to identify who they work for,
> > especially when editing articles where this is relevant, is it a good
> > idea to block company accounts without any edits on sight? If so,
> > perhaps we should at least modify the talk plage template to indicate
> > to the user how they can put the company information on their user
> > page? See
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hammond_Publishing
> > for an example of the current template.
> >
> > Erik
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> To start a bit of a different thread, are corporate accounts bad per se?  Individuals posing as
> corporations are unacceptable, but what about corporations acting/editing under an official
> capacity?  Corporations are not automatically "POV pushers", as they may come in good faith just
> as other contributors do.  Bad apples would be obvious and would damage corporate reputation, thus
> mitigating abuse of Foundation projects.
>
> Implementation may be as simple as linking the userpage to an official online statement from the
> corporation.  I envision such accounts to be attractive to spokespersons interested in editing
> articles to remove or challenge unfair statements, without the need to create anonymous proxy
> accounts or to contact the OTRS team.  Any additional editing would be a bonus.

A post on the Village Pump has just noticed this:

http://www.prsa.org/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=197

"The wide world of Wikipedia, and why PR practitioners should take note"

Pretty sensible stuff.

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:29:32 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>Didn't speedy deletion get implemented around the same time or even after
>the change?

Speedy had certainly been around for a while beforehand.

>I guess my point is that Wikipedia is too complicated and big to draw firm
>conclusions from any one's anecdotal experience, and attempts at rigorous
>analysis should be encouraged.

For sure.  On the other hand, when something is widely believed to be
doing more good than harm why not leave it place while we do the
analysis?  An analysis based on the first month would have been
misleading anyway since people have started creating accounts to
document things made up in school one day (but it seems to me to be
much easier to deal with this kind of silliness now).

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:44:48 +0200, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>It is my intention that we work to creatively
>soften even more restrictions.

How about semi-blocking, letting semi-blocked editors comment on Talk
but not in article space?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked for 36 hours

body:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:01:25 +1000, Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

>I'm not sure what you mean by "questioning an admin's capability", but
>as a general rule, questioning admins is a Good Thing.  We all need to
>have reasons for what we do, and we should be happy to give those
>reasons to anyone who asks.

Absolutely.  However, as you also note, the loudest complaints are
usually from those where the action is most justified...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 20/06/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:10:54 -0400, "The Cunctator"
> > <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [re no anonymous creation]
> > >What specifically were the effects?
> >
> > A massive reduction in "things made up in school one day", and
> > consequently the speedy deletion queue.  Or so it seems to me - I no
> > longer do newpage patrol though (appeared to be much less to do after
> > that change).  But you know how it is, if there were a strong
> > community consensus in favour of going back I bet it would happen.
>
>
> Didn't speedy deletion get implemented around the same time or even after
> the change?

Speedy deletion's been around quite a while - the policy page dates to
January 2004, and was descriptive then, so it's probably late 2003.

You can see an early form of speedy in mid-2003:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_policy&oldid=1674643

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
As I said before, the experiment did cut down on a lot of crap, because some
newbies simply don't want to register and instead post to AFC where we can
nip an article's creation at the core. But unfortunately, not enough people
join in there. Also, knowing that an IP address is likely newbie-ish is no
longer helping new page patrollers as now they sign up for an account.

If we can somehow have signed up accounts tagged as newbie, it might still
work, but however much I was convinced of its workings before, I'm starting
to have doubts now.

Mgm


from_name: Fadix

subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked for 36 hours

body:
Why? I really believe that this user should not have any administrative privilages, it is not like I accuse every admins which I accounter.

 This admin fail to understand why such tools are given to him, he has hard time understanding that those tools should be used with something in mind ''what I am doing is above all for the best of the articles which constitute Wikipedia'' and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and articles are what matters. This, this admin does not understand. He is using his tools because he is criticised, I wonder if in the real world any judge being criticised could sue someone and be the plaintif and the judge in the same time.

 What is disruptive in Wikipedia are revert warring, POV pushing, all the sort of things that disrupt the quality of the articles, not some abarsive words which any admin could edit from a user who has enought of POV warriors who build hateful websites and after being bored there recycle themselves in Wikipedia and once in a while in his answers of hundreds of words use a word which could be interpreted by some as personal attack. I have never been blocked for 3RR and I shall never be, because I know that such behaviors are really disruptive since the victim is the article. I know to restrain myself and I don't need someone to tell me I am in the wrong, worst, I don't need someone who thinks I am in the wrong and has tools to impose his misconceptions of the rules.

 Also, this admin is seriously disrupting in his behaviors, who the hell do he think he is? Members are reporting others in his talk page and then he go on to distribute warnings as if they were cake. I have been reported by a user who was the other side of the conflict, and I have never used such cheap tactics to get someone silenced, when it happens that both sides have used such words.

 Right now, I am blocked and there is not one admin that has warned this user, who's autority I contest, for his misbehavior, please just read the example which I have requested any admin to answer on whatever or not it is a warning material. It was not, and even he realise it was not, while he placed it as personal attack, he then presented it as not assuming good faith, which neither was the cases.

 Such admins are even more disruptive, because by blocking users like this they prevent those users to contribute, this is really harmful for Wikipedia. And I am really tired of this silence.

Nathan - Mailing Lists <lists at home.nathanr.com> wrote: Fadix: Questioning an admin's capability is generally Not A Good Idea[tm].
I wouldn't resort to this myself and I've said some things that have been
pretty disruptive.

- Nathan (User:nathanrdotcom)
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
All new Yahoo! Mail
---------------------------------
Get news delivered. Enjoy RSS feeds right on your Mail page.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] After importing wikipedia dump,
 some templates use parserfunctions behave strangely by escaping HTML

body:
Platonides wrote:
> Are you using the last version?
> Wikimedia doesn't use CVS any more, but SVN at http://svn.wikimedia.org/
> extensions should be at
> http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/
>
> This may also be due to the mixing of wiki-tables and html-tables syntax in
> the template.
> Brion recently changed the table behaviour, but as it shows well on
> wikipedia (running from SVN), it may be not related....

Rather, I have *not* changed the behavior.

Enable tidy.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/attachments/20060621/2d167ae9/attachment.pgp>


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 6/21/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
> there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
> accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
> been revoked from those who have them.

Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
shows the edit that was deleted. This is much better for
accountability because we can check up on each other. Unfortunately
this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people
with oversight can view it. No one else can.

Theresa


subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>If the WMF board was more inclined to approve new projects (not any old
>>thing, but at least allow some new projects), I might be more encouraged
>>to move the How-to guides to a new project.
>>
>>
>
>I think if we work together, we can pull it off. The open question for
>me is: is it necessary?  Do you think how-tos have a future on
>Wikibooks itself?
>
>Erik
>
>
I am not really sure what the motivation is to remove how-to books from
Wikibooks in the first place.  The only real suggestion I've seen is to
transwiki the content to Wikia, which is one of the reasons why I made
comments about that earlier.  I think perhaps in this case it might have
been participants on the how-to wikia that wants to move the how-to
activity from Wikibooks to their project, not any effort by Wikibooks
contributors to remove this sort of content.  The same sort of issue
came up with the Blender 3D Wikibook, where it was apparently forked to
another wiki with the admins of that other website asking that the
content be removed from Wikibooks, and the ensuing discussions about
wheither the content should simply be forked or if it was reasonable for
non-Wikimedia websites to demand that content be removed from Wikibooks
due to duplication of effort issues alone.

I, for one, don't want to see how-to books removed from Wikibooks.  I
think they definitely are instructional text that requires more than one
page (much more than the 32K limit on Wikipedia) and can cover a topic
with a NPOV and other general restrictions typical of all Wikimedia
projects.  This fits with Wikibooks more than any other current
Wikimedia project, and any attempt to break off just the how-to books
would put in a bunch of grey areas as to what really belongs on
Wikibooks.  Trying to come up with a definition that distinguishes
between how-to books and general textbooks is going to be something that
may require some divine intervention.  I am also not completely
convinced that Wikibooks should be exclusively textbooks, as other
educational and instructional material can be developed by creative
individuals using MediaWiki software.  I have not seen a valid argument
why Wikibooks should be exclusively textbooks-only, nor have any really
good definitions as to what a textbook is or should be been agreed upon
by most Wikibooks participants.

That textbooks should be a key component of Wikibooks, I would agree.
 And featured textbooks of high quality should be on the front page of
Wikibooks.  So where is the argument?

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I've heard a lot of fear mongering and what I percieve to be unwarrente
>>fears about abuses to checkuser actions.  Can you give some clear
>>examples of what have been percieved as abuses of those with checkuser
>>privileges, at least types of problems that have happened as a matter or
>>practice?
>>
>>I know I am speaking from an apparent minority opinion on this mailing
>>list, but I fail to see what real damage is happening from simply
>>looking up the IP address of a user.
>>
>>
>
>I have yet to see a bona fide case of CheckUser abuse.  However, this
>does not mean that we should fail to be vigilant for abuses.  Trust,
>yet verify.
>
>Having a group of people who are positioned to advise the Board in
>making policy in this area is a good idea in any case.
>
>Kelly
>
>
If the abuse hasn't happened, where is the move to create such a
position in the first place?  A quest for political power?

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Selina .

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 21/06/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/21/06, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We appear to have lose access to the Oversight logs altogether. Is
> > there any explanation for this at all? I presume without this slight
> > accountability measure in place the oversight privileges have also
> > been revoked from those who have them.
>
> Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
> was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
> good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
> shows the edit that was deleted. This is much better for
> accountability because we can check up on each other. Unfortunately
> this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people
> with oversight can view it. No one else can.
>
> Theresa
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers/oversight?limit=500 for the
list of users with "Oversight" access, which are, at of this moment:

   1. Brion VIBBER <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   2. Charles Matthews<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   3.  Dmcdevit <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dmcdevit> (oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   4. Essjay <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay>
(Bureaucrat<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats>,
   checkuser, oversight,
Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>
   )
   5. Filiocht <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Filiocht> (oversight, Sysop
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   6. Fred Bauder
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fred_Bauder>(checkuser, oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   7. Jayjg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayjg> (checkuser,
   oversight, Sysop
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   8. Jdforrester <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdforrester>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   9. Jimbo Wales
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales>(developer, oversight,
Steward,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   10. Mindspillage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   11. Morven <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Morven> (checkuser,
   oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>
   )
   12. Neutrality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Neutrality>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   13. Raul654 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654> (
Bureaucrat<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bureaucrats>,
   checkuser, oversight,
Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>
   )
   14. Sam Korn <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Korn> (checkuser,
   oversight, Sysop<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>
   )
   15. SimonP <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SimonP> (oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   16. The Epopt
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Epopt>(checkuser, oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)
   17. Theresa knott
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Theresa_knott>(oversight,
   Sysop <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators>)

None of these were appointed in any way by the community, they just seem to
have been privileges handed out to friends as individuals see fit...

Now... If no one knows what exactly was deleted, not even the oversight
people themselves, how is abuse of this ever going to be detected?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-06-05/Oversight
- "For legal reasons, revisions deleted through oversight are not visible to
anyone, including oversight members. The only way to retrieve such revisions
is by manual restoration by a developer."

Ok, so developers can see it, but developers will not check unless there's
already a claim that there may have been abuse of it - the thing is, when no
one knows what's deleted, no one ever knows, not even the supposedly trusted
users in Oversight. I think that probably needs to be changed. If there are
certain people who cannot be trusted with information from Oversight they
shouldn't have it in the first place. Either that or create a separate
usergroup for "viewOversight" maybe....?

--
Selina -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=55639088 /
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=41845454
http://wikipediareview.com/?showuser=1
"I *do* think criticism is good for Wikipedia [...] Good quality criticism
is valuable, and Wikipedians should listen to it, and actually make changes
based on it. Are there corrupt administrators, then we should get rid of
them." --Jimmy Wales ( http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1693 )


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject:
[Foundation-l] (volunteer) job position : Ombudsperson
	checkuser (or checkuser Ombudsperson or whatever)

body:
On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I've heard a lot of fear mongering and what I percieve to be unwarrente
> fears about abuses to checkuser actions.  Can you give some clear
> examples of what have been percieved as abuses of those with checkuser
> privileges, at least types of problems that have happened as a matter or
> practice?
>
> I know I am speaking from an apparent minority opinion on this mailing
> list, but I fail to see what real damage is happening from simply
> looking up the IP address of a user.

I have yet to see a bona fide case of CheckUser abuse.  However, this
does not mean that we should fail to be vigilant for abuses.  Trust,
yet verify.

Having a group of people who are positioned to advise the Board in
making policy in this area is a good idea in any case.

Kelly


body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> Unfortunately, I'm not sure if that effect is undone by the amount of logged
> in newbies.
> Was there a spike in AFD entries at the time? - ~~~~

This is exactly my point. It should be entirely possible to dig up the
actual numbers and make a pretty graph to show objectively whether the
policy change had effects like this, but nobody has. So _nobody knows_.
Or if they do, they haven't published their results anywhere publicly -
in the email that sparked me off on this thread Jimbo himself says he
hasn't seen any analysis.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060621/15211388/attachment.pgp


from_name: Richard Wooding

subject:
[Wikitech-l] After importing wikipedia dump,
	some templates use parserfunctions behave strangely by escaping HTML

body:
Hi,

I have created a local MediaWiki installation (from SVN), and retrieved the
Wikipedia extensions (from CVS) as I could gleam from the Special:Version
page on Wikipedia, and imported an XML dump using following command:

bzip2 -d enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2
cat enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml | php5 maintenance/importDump.php

After importing, most of the pages render correctly, however some templates
which use ParserFunctions, are rendering parts of the templates as escaped
HTML.

The page George_H._W._Bush (in my copy of the data), is using a
Template:Infobox_President, with code as follows:

	Code at: http://pastebin.com/722852

The rendering has turned <tr> and <td> to <tr> and <td> in
certain cases:

	Code at http://pastebin.com/722855 (please note the &lt and &gt
which is highlighted in pink)

Does anybody know what could possibly be causing this problem?

Thanks
Richard Wooding


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 6/21/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> > If the WMF board was more inclined to approve new projects (not any old
> > thing, but at least allow some new projects), I might be more encouraged
> > to move the How-to guides to a new project.
>
> I think if we work together, we can pull it off. The open question for
> me is: is it necessary?  Do you think how-tos have a future on
> Wikibooks itself?

I'd say most how-tos would have a place, as most could be used in a
class to teach something.  But no, not game walkthoughs or simple
FAQs.  My opinion.  --LV


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] Image donations?

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> Please have a closer look at FlickrLickr, if you haven't already. We
> have reviewed over 90,000 photos and uploaded over 5,500. The process
> looks like this:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Flickrlickr.png
>
Using FlickrLickr to filter donated images sounds like a great idea. I
could upload them to the FlickrLickr database if there's an interface.

After the safe-upload experience, I wouldn't want to store the image on
the toolserver ;-)
> The
> script could also be expanded to notify the uploader whether their
> files have been accepted (only a couple of lines of Perl really).
>
I haven't used Perl for some time now, and only very basic stuff back then.
> One idea that is part of the concept I posted is to enable uploading
> media archives (ZIP files etc.). This would be useful for individuals
> and institutions which want to share a set of images. Your script
> would have to uncompress the archive, and ask the user to describe
> each file that is in it.
>
Two problems with this:
* Each image in a zip file would basically get the same description.
Otherwise, you'll have to include a text file with the descriptions,
which is probably more hassle than uploading them one by one.
* Zip files can be manipulated to grow into extreme amounts of nonsense
data. Even a small zip fil could potentially result in hundreds of GB of
uncompressed data. A potential attack vector.
> Regarding the specific implementation at the moment, I may be alone in
> this, but I think we should greatly simplify the licensing part. What
> I would prefer is something like:
>
> [ ]  You agree to donate your picture to the general public under the
> terms of the
>      GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 or higher and the Creative Commons
>      Attribution/Share-Alike license 2.5 or higher. This means that
> anyone can use
>      it for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as modified
> copies are
>      made available under similar terms (copyleft).
>
>
I have altered the text to show that option more prominently. I'd prefer
to give the uploader some choice, though. Choice makes people think,
whil a single checkbox just gets, well, checked ;-)
> I would also suggest hacking a separate contact form for people who do
> not want to use this process. This would have some questions like:
> - Describe the media you want to donate
> - Choose the licensing conditions (here a more advanced form would be available)
> - Tell us where we can reach you.
> - Other comments.
>
> It could send a nicely formatted e-mail into an OTRS queue created
> specifically for this purpose.
>
Here's a thought: Let people mail their images, descriptions, and
license to a central e-mail directly. Volunteers could then upload them
after checking.

And, we'd automatically get the senders e-mail address ;-)

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/attachments/20060621/7abf172d/attachment.pgp


subject:
[Foundation-l] Enhancement requests : spreading the word,
 flagging problems, accept but delay

body:
Samuel Klein schrieb:
> * "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
> what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.
>
"Tasks" extension.

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060621/62bccb95/attachment.pgp


body:
Samuel Klein schrieb:
> * "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
> what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.
>
"Tasks" extension.

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/attachments/20060621/62bccb95/attachment-0001.pgp


body:
Samuel Klein schrieb:
> * "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
> what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.
>
"Tasks" extension.

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060621/62bccb95/attachment.pgp>


body:
Samuel Klein schrieb:
> * "Flag problem with this article" -- useful interface feature, though
> what it does once you apply such a flag might be refined over time.
>
"Tasks" extension.

Magnus

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20060621/62bccb95/attachment-0001.pgp>


body:
On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> If the abuse hasn't happened, where is the move to create such a
> position in the first place?  A quest for political power?

There are occasional accusations (I was once accused, for example),
but as far as I know none of them has panned out.  Nonetheless, we
cannot blithely ignore the accusations.

Kelly


body:
On 6/21/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Methinks it's a quest to be ready in case it actually happens. To express it
> as an irritating buzzword, "proactive."
>
> Also politics. :D

Also Anthere trying to offload work (currently she investigates all
allegations of checkuser abuse herself).

Kelly


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Political User-categories Was: Conservative notice
	board

body:
On 6/20/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
> Something tangentially related to this thread.
> All the political USER categories are up for CFD since yesterday
> Originally it was only the conservative category that was up for CFD,
> and people complained about it being "unfair" to nominate only this
> one and were opposing in a "all or none way". Later, someoneelse
> decided to went ahead and nominate all political user categories. I
> think it' an important issue and that more people should join and drop
> comments, given ti's quite a big change (there are hundreds of
> user-categories dealing with political statements

Pity they have to be voted on individually. It would be nice to cast
one's vote once for all of them...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 21/06/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
> > was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
> > good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
> > shows the edit that was deleted. This is much better for
> > accountability because we can check up on each other. Unfortunately
> > this means that the log itself has to be kept private. Those people
> > with oversight can view it. No one else can.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers/oversight?limit=500 for the
> list of users with "Oversight" access, which are, at of this moment:

(...)

> Now... If no one knows what exactly was deleted, not even the oversight
> people themselves, how is abuse of this ever going to be detected?

Let's just look again at the message you're replying to:

>> Originally the log only showed who had removed an edit and where it
>> was removed from. It did not show what was removed so it was not that
>> good for accountability at all. It has now been changes so that it
>> shows the edit that was deleted.

The system has been changed to allow it to do exactly the thing you're
fretting about.

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


from_name: Travis Derouin

subject: [Wikitech-l] patrolling improvement

body:
Hey,

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but on our wiki I
added in a feature that after someone is marks an edit as patrolled it
takes them to the next unpatrolled diff page. It keeps our community
members happy since they don't have to press the back button twice and
click on the next diff to get to the next unpatrolled edit. For 1.6 we
plan on passing along along any of the filter settings (namespace,
minor edit, etc) to choose the next diff.

I thought I'd share this in case anyone else is interested.

Travis


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 6/21/06, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> It already sounds way too complicated to me. The more complicated you make it,
> the more unintended consequences there are likely to be, the more failure modes
> there are and the more unwieldy it gets to edit the Wikipedia.
>
> We *want* people to contribute to the Wikipedia, it got where it is today by
> being incredibly quick and easy to edit.
>
> Adding some review process to the wikipedia, which may never, ever finish?? Why?

I think that there would be user value in having available a
human-reviewed WP derivative of some sort.

I see the logical process as being a separate project.  It could be a
WP project, or another outside project.  Not a fork, but a grooming
process for articles.  All contributions made at WP, versions found to
be stable and useful then "promoted" to live on otherPedia.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: James Hare

body:
<light-hearted response>
Indeed. Perhaps Jimmy Wales can be declared the WikiGod, and when he catches
someone abusing status like CheckUser, he'll smite them.
</light-hearted response>

On 6/21/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> > I've heard a lot of fear mongering and what I percieve to be unwarrente
> > fears about abuses to checkuser actions.  Can you give some clear
> > examples of what have been percieved as abuses of those with checkuser
> > privileges, at least types of problems that have happened as a matter or
> > practice?
> >
> > I know I am speaking from an apparent minority opinion on this mailing
> > list, but I fail to see what real damage is happening from simply
> > looking up the IP address of a user.
>
> I have yet to see a bona fide case of CheckUser abuse.  However, this
> does not mean that we should fail to be vigilant for abuses.  Trust,
> yet verify.
>
> Having a group of people who are positioned to advise the Board in
> making policy in this area is a good idea in any case.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Methinks it's a quest to be ready in case it actually happens. To express it
as an irritating buzzword, "proactive."

Also politics. :D

On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Kelly Martin wrote:
>
> >On 6/21/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I've heard a lot of fear mongering and what I percieve to be unwarrente
> >>fears about abuses to checkuser actions.  Can you give some clear
> >>examples of what have been percieved as abuses of those with checkuser
> >>privileges, at least types of problems that have happened as a matter or
> >>practice?
> >>
> >>I know I am speaking from an apparent minority opinion on this mailing
> >>list, but I fail to see what real damage is happening from simply
> >>looking up the IP address of a user.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I have yet to see a bona fide case of CheckUser abuse.  However, this
> >does not mean that we should fail to be vigilant for abuses.  Trust,
> >yet verify.
> >
> >Having a group of people who are positioned to advise the Board in
> >making policy in this area is a good idea in any case.
> >
> >Kelly
> >
> >
> If the abuse hasn't happened, where is the move to create such a
> position in the first place?  A quest for political power?
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Platonides

body:
Are you using the last version?
Wikimedia doesn't use CVS any more, but SVN at http://svn.wikimedia.org/
extensions should be at
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/

This may also be due to the mixing of wiki-tables and html-tables syntax in
the template.
Brion recently changed the table behaviour, but as it shows well on
wikipedia (running from SVN), it may be not related....

"Richard Wooding" wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have created a local MediaWiki installation (from SVN), and retrieved
> the
> Wikipedia extensions (from CVS) as I could gleam from the Special:Version
> page on Wikipedia, and imported an XML dump using following command:
>
> bzip2 -d enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2
> cat enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml | php5 maintenance/importDump.php
>
>
> After importing, most of the pages render correctly, however some
> templates
> which use ParserFunctions, are rendering parts of the templates as escaped
> HTML.
>
>
>
> The page George_H._W._Bush (in my copy of the data), is using a
> Template:Infobox_President, with code as follows:
>
> Code at: http://pastebin.com/722852
>
> The rendering has turned <tr> and <td> to <tr> and <td> in
> certain cases:
>
> Code at http://pastebin.com/722855 (please note the &lt and &gt
> which is highlighted in pink)
>
> Does anybody know what could possibly be causing this problem?
>
> Thanks
> Richard Wooding


body:
Ok will get the relevant extension from SVN and get back to you, thanks for
the help.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 11:55 AM
To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] After importing wikipedia dump,some templates use
parserfunctions behave strangely by escaping HTML

Are you using the last version?
Wikimedia doesn't use CVS any more, but SVN at http://svn.wikimedia.org/
extensions should be at
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/

This may also be due to the mixing of wiki-tables and html-tables syntax in
the template.
Brion recently changed the table behaviour, but as it shows well on
wikipedia (running from SVN), it may be not related....

"Richard Wooding" wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have created a local MediaWiki installation (from SVN), and retrieved
> the
> Wikipedia extensions (from CVS) as I could gleam from the Special:Version
> page on Wikipedia, and imported an XML dump using following command:
>
> bzip2 -d enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2
> cat enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml | php5 maintenance/importDump.php
>
>
> After importing, most of the pages render correctly, however some
> templates
> which use ParserFunctions, are rendering parts of the templates as escaped
> HTML.
>
>
>
> The page George_H._W._Bush (in my copy of the data), is using a
> Template:Infobox_President, with code as follows:
>
> Code at: http://pastebin.com/722852
>
> The rendering has turned <tr> and <td> to <tr> and <td> in
> certain cases:
>
> Code at http://pastebin.com/722855 (please note the &lt and &gt
> which is highlighted in pink)
>
> Does anybody know what could possibly be causing this problem?
>
> Thanks
> Richard Wooding

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 6/21/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/21/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
> > None of these were appointed in any way by the community, they just seem
> to
> > have been privileges handed out to friends as individuals see fit...
>
> You could look at "friends" as being a nepotistic conspiracy by which
> cronies evilly band together to take control of what was supposed to
> be a public, open project. Or, you could look at it as people
> selecting only the Wikipedians they trust the most - as demonstrated
> by experience and time with the project - to give access to
> confidential information which could be used to hurt the project.

I'm pretty sure Selina didn't say anything about evil crony nepotistic
conspiracies, so maybe you should tone down your rhetoric.

History has shown us that when power is concentrated among the few without
any formal regulation the long-term result is pernicious.


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 6/21/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have seen a graph of number-of-articles-on-AFD over time, but damned
> if I can find it. Does anyone else remember it?

I've seen graphs demonstrating that proposed deletion greatly reduced
the load on AfD, but I haven't seen anything from when anon article
creation was disabled.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 6/21/06, Dan Cannon <unlogischerdenker at hotmail.com> wrote:
> The reason given by Brion VIBBER in the commit log was "Consensus seems to
> be to drop the public log, now that we have a private log." I've posted a
> message on his talk page to express that some of us do indeed not entirely
> agree with this move (myself included). Awaiting his response.

It's a tricky problem. If you publish the full log, anyone with a
database dump can retrieve the deleted revisions and publish them
(Wikitruth etc.). The point is to remove personal information and
legally problematic revisions without them re-appearing the next day
on some other website.

I understand that oversight people now have the ability to view the
deleted revisions, so there should at least be some mutual control.
Perhaps a version of the log oculd be made visible where the actual
page titles are not shown, but only the basic activity (e.g. "User X
removed a revision because of personal information").

As the oversight group is fairly small, the process for appointing new
members needs not be too bureaucratic. However, if the group grows, I
think it would be good if people appointed by the ArbCom (as Essjay in
the current group was) would have to be confirmed by the community, to
demonstrate that the community is involved, and to alleviate concerns
about "cabalism".

Erik


from_name: Emmanuel Engelhart

subject: [Wikitech-l] Complete image list of a local Wikipédia

body:
Hi

I tried to set up a local french Wikipedia on my personal computer.
I didn't find any way to get the complete dump of all pictures used in our
french articles.
There is a dump from commons and fr at download.wikimedia.org/images/, but I
don't want to download almost 300 Go to be sure to have all needed pictures.

Can't someone light me ?

Best regards

Emmanuel [Kelson]


subject: [WikiEN-l] "the experiment" - did it work?

body:
On 6/21/06, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/06/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that there would be user value in having available a
> > human-reviewed WP derivative of some sort.
> >
> > I see the logical process as being a separate project.  It could be a
> > WP project, or another outside project.  Not a fork, but a grooming
> > process for articles.  All contributions made at WP, versions found to
> > be stable and useful then "promoted" to live on otherPedia.
>
> With a million items in the wikipedia, there would be a strong
> tendency for the groomed version to get way behind, and if that
> happens most users won't use it, why would anyone assist in the
> grooming?

The default WP assumption of "Quality" seems to be, "an OK enough
article, on any encyclopedic subject, which anyone can improve (and
vandals can vandalize, but likely to be rapidly fixed again)".

An alternate project might assume a definition like "a good to great
article, on core encyclopedic subjects, which reviewed community
improvements are eventually included in."  One could easily pick a
superset of all the major print and paid online encyclopedia subject
articles as the target set for an initial version of such a project -
a more reasonably sized target to manage.  "Just" having a free
alternative which has an article for anything those guys do, is
probably good enough for most people.  Extra bandwidth can be used to
expand beyond that somewhat, but the keys would be "free" and
"comparable" and "good quality"

I believe in the first, hence my WP contributions.  I also believe in
the seond as a worthy goal, though not enough to kick off a major
project today to do it.

Again, I wouldn't suggest forking to do it.  Using WP as the "source"
for the selected encyclopedia (thus, second project contributors
wanting to improve would go to the WP page and improve) and not
forking as a general rule is almost certainly the right approach.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Judson Dunn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Flamenco is open source

body:
Flamenco (http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/index.html) is open source now
under BSD, it's a search interface framework (categories). Just
thought it might be interesting for people to know :)

Judson/cohesion


from_name: Phil

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Political User-categories Was: Conservative notice
 board

body:
Yep, individual votes on each category is just as unfair as nominating
a few. The "popular" political parties survive, the less popular ones
get deleted.

What's the problem with Factionalism? There is none - As long
as you aren't forced to pick one faction exclusively.