body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>> On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>
>>> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very
>>> careful
>>> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
>>> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
>>> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
>>> community*.
>>
>> Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
>> commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
>> When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
>> process?
>
> Mav assured us that Tim Shell and Michael Davis were temporary
> positions, remember that?
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000254.html

Given that what Mav wrote is liberally laced with qualifiers like "I
imagine", "I can only surmise", and "My understanding is", and he
evinces some confusion about the meaning of the passages he interprets,
I find it surprising that his post would be taken as an assurance of
anything at all. Certainly the bylaws themselves do not say that Tim or
Michael were temporary appointments.

The reference to annual elections deals specifically with the community
representatives. (There's also a section about annual elections for
Chair, Treasurer, etc., but those are the Board electing "from among its
members" for its own internal positions, not elections to seats on the
Board itself.) The section dealing with replacement of board members
calls for an interim appointment if the resigning member was elected,
for the other positions it simply says "the remaining Trustees may elect
a replacement." There's no indication I can find that either the initial
position or the replacement would be limited to a particular term of
service.

--Michael Snow


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Michael Snow

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal
	Counsel


list: wikien-l

from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > idea to only allow minors to edit with parental permission. Again,
> > though, we'd lose some editors, and we'd have to present this same
> > screen to every anon editor. Sigh...
>
> Is it such an issue with anons?
>
> Steve

Why wouldn't it be? They would have to release their writings under
the GFDL too, just like regular people (remember, that's a condition
of the GFDL, that all derivate works, ie every edit on wikipedia that
was based on an earlier edit, are under the GFDL too).

--Oskar


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> suggest deletion. The community does have - not in this case,
> particularly, but generally speaking - an overly "censorship! no!"
> reaction to "could you please get rid of this trivial article?", even
> in cases where the request is honest, well-meant, and polite. We
> should really work on that.

Well, let's not forget that the community spent time and effort
writing the article, and seeing your work deleted sucks. Especially if
it didn't violate any policies at the time of writing.

I agree with the basic sentiment, but let's just remember to be
respectful of people's contributions. Even a simple "Deleted, with
regret, love Jimbo." on such articles might do it.

Steve


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal
 Counsel

body:
Erik Zachte wrote:
>> It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to
>> preserve our fundamentally community-driven model,
>> while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order
>> to empower and defend the community model. :)
>
> preserve or reaffirm ?

Both!

>> Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
>> search process,
>> in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds.
>
> leaders or members ?

Both!

> Urgent matters obviously need to be resolved now. In Rome emergencies were
> also addressed by subsiding democracy and *appointing* a dictator for half a
> year (the meaning of the term dictator has drifted quite far since then).

There is no dictator here.

> After we catered for emergencies, I still hope that the same community that
> wisely elected Angela and Anthere (hurray for them) will some day be given
> more direct responsibility in deciding how to resolve deficiencies at the
> organisational level. To me a community and a foundation are not separate
> entities ( I heard this as a closing argument all too often recently ), no
> more than a people and its government are separate entities. A government
> serves the people and is guided and controlled by the people. I'm not an
> expert in political matters, but I feel it makes more sense to draw our
> metaphores from an area of human activity where many are to gain from the
> actions of some (state/governement) than from areas where some are to gain
> much more than others from the activities of many (large corporations).

I agree completely.  I resist very strongly any separation of foundation
and community.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright status of drawings based on photos

body:
On 6/12/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Exactly - it's being used in a generic cricket article, for which a
> wikipedia user photographer could go to a cricket match and photograph
> the event in question (assuming a bowl-out happened at that match).

Apparently they're pretty rare - we have a comprehensive list of all
the times it's happened in international matches: 2.

Editorial:
(bowl-outs are a stupid addition to cricket, even more so than
twenty20, anyway. even a slogathon with 5 fielders and 2 overs per
side would be more meaningful...)

Steve


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/12/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
>
>>How, exactly, do you plan on enforcing this on a site that allows
>>anonymous and pseudonymous editing?
>>
>>
>
>Currently, we apparently *allow* underage editing. We could begin by
>stating that it's not allowed, and asking people to certify that they
>are of age. If kids choose to lie, that then becomes their problem.
>
>Just because rules can be circumvented doesn't make them useless.
>
>Steve
>
>
Of course, the problem that arises is underaged people like me can't
stick this on our university applications as an extra-curricular
activity. Not a major disincentive, but I'd certainly be slightly less
inclined to contribute if I knew putting "Wikipedia editor,
administrator, mailing list moderator, IRC sysop, OTRS-user and
Arbitration Committee Clerk" on my [[curriculum vitae]] would raise more
negative questions about me than it answered. Maybe it would be a better
idea to only allow minors to edit with parental permission. Again,
though, we'd lose some editors, and we'd have to present this same
screen to every anon editor. Sigh...

John


body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> No doubt judging by the flood of positive comments, this decision was
> discussed at length before it was announced. May I ask where, and by
> whom?

I believe Jimmy already addressed this in his original announcement,
where he elaborated about some of the people he consulted before making
this decision, with some obviously unnamed and I'm not sure he'd be able
to reconstruct a complete list. More specifically, I can tell you that
the information was also shared with the Communications committee so it
could prepare a press release. But so far as I know, for some of the
people responding all they would have known beforehand is what was in
the Board's resolution published earlier this month.

--Michael Snow


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jitse Niesen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Math dir is empty

body:
You say that the ..../images/math directory is empty. It doesn't even
have subdirectories with one-character names? These should be created
automatically.

You say that you think it has to do something with the new hierarchy
of ../images/math/ dir. Did you try going back to the old behaviour,
where all pictures are stored in .../images/math/ ? This can be
achieved by changing
   return $path;
in the function _getHashPath in includes/Math.php to
   return $wgMathDirectory;
(at least I think so, I didn't test it).

To be honest, I have no idea what the problem is, but perhaps it helps.

Jitse


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a note:  Just browsed through the shit-swamp that is Wikipedia Review
> and Daniel Brandt has just found another thing to complain about:  Us
> equating his threats with terrorist demands. Oh yeah, and he's not even
> happy that you guys are considering deleting his article.  He's not happy at
> all.  He's moaning that you didn't debate the "ethics" of having an article
> on him and are just doing it to get rid of him.  Sad.

As if we needed any more evidence that he just wants to whine and try
and make a name for himself.

-Matt


body:
On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> There's no reason it has to be an international match, or even a real
> match at all.  Get a few people together, have them throw a ball at
> some sticks, and take a picture of it.

Oh god no, I've seen photos like that, I abhor them. They're so
amateurish I cringe...

> Or if you're really into the drawing thing, just draw a picture of
> someone throwing a ball at some sticks (or whatever it is that guy was
> doing).  There's no need to copy someone else's picture of it.

Agreed.

Steve


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-13

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test External image... FAILED!
Running test External image from https... FAILED!
Running test External links: Clickable images... FAILED!
Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 388 of 404 tests (96.04%) FAILED!


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
> > They're still not easy because half the time the tag is wrong, or the
> > uploader was never notified or something stupid... but they're easIER.
> >
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php
>

Note CatScan aborts after 1000 entries, so it won't be very useful for
this evil huge category. (I think we will change it.)

Hot damn, Magnus...I thought I had found my idol and his name was
Duesentrieb...now I  question my faith ;)

Seriously, this is really nice. Really. Nice. We've got to package
these better to the existing admins.

We are getting closer and closer to the easy life! (Tag, Warn, Delete)
Those 12,000 don't feel so insurmountable now.

Did I mention "thank-you"? :)

(also, any time you feel like a challenge... most things on
[[Commons:Bugs]] would like a workaround :))

Brianna


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Death Phoenix wrote:
<snip>
> And there's also Canadian English. I've written in both Canadian English and
> Australian English, and to tell you the truth, I don't remember all the
> exact differences apart from the obvious ones. I just know than Canadian
> English and Australian English have a lot more in common with British
> English than American English, and therefore I say that I prefer "British
> English". I'm not going to say "I prefer to use Australian English, British
> English, and Canadian English", when quite clearly, the style I prefer to
> use has a lot to do with British English than American English (although it
> would be cool to say that I use "ABC-English").
>

I tend to call it Commonwealth English, except when something gets me
really annoyed, and then I'm liable to call it Proper Bloody English.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> On 6/12/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Then your likely best bet is to request a token which inhibits the
>> NUMBERING
>> of TOC entries, and add them manually, so that the numbers appear
>> correctly
>> regardless of the preferences chosen by the user.
>> Something like __NOTOCNUMBERING__ maybe?
>> HTH HAND
> What, like:
>
> intro text
> intro text
> __NOTOCNUMBERING__
> ==A. Section A==
> aoeueou
> ==B. Section B==
> ===B. I. blah===
>
> ?
> Yes, something like that...

> Would there be any differences between that and "true" numbering in
> the rendering process?
>
Well, you wouldn't have the numbers doubling up if a user has
"auto-numbering" enabled in their preferences (I forget which way around IP
users see it).

You also wouldn't have the odd situation where the absolute level of headers
makes no difference to the numbering, it's all relative to the highest level
in use.

I see this as not very different to using __NOTOC__ to suppress the standard
TOC to allow a {{CustomTOC}} to be used instead.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Section-numbering-t1772364.html#a4841999
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
>
> On 6/12/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Something like __NOTOCNUMBERING__ maybe?
> Would there be any differences between that and "true" numbering in
> the rendering process?
>
I forgot: one major difference would be that the numbering would appear in
the anchor, so if you wanted to link to a section it would have to be
[[example#A. Section]]

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Section-numbering-t1772364.html#a4842000
Sent from the Wikipedia Developers forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
> community*.

Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
process?

Erik


from_name: Anthere

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>>On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>
>>>We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
>>>process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
>>>defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
>>>good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
>>>community*.
>>
>>Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
>>commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
>>When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
>>process?
>
>
> Mav assured us that Tim Shell and Michael Davis were temporary positions,
> remember that?
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000254.html
>
> What optimism we had back then.
>
> -- Tim Starling

I think that's an opportunity to give credit when credit is due.

I was not happy either with these two appointments.

Both had temporary positions and I expect that Tim will be replaced this
year.

However, whilst very few people are aware of that, I wish to say that
Michael plays a very important part in the running of the organisation.
He has done an outstanding job on the financial side and I believe that
without his help, the project would have collapsed some time ago. He may
have been appointed, he may have been interim, it does not make him less
valuable. As of today, I am relieved he is on the board.

I think we should not focus on the ways people have been set on board
and of whether they were temporary or not. We should see what they bring
to the organisation first.

I hope Brad and you succeed to work together in harmony as I think both
of you are valuable.

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/13/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 12 Jun 2006 at 23:48,  "Death Phoenix" <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 6/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I tend to call it Commonwealth English, except when something gets me
> > > really annoyed, and then I'm liable to call it Proper Bloody English.
> >
> > PBE's a good one.
>
> Pompous Bullshit English?
>
> It (British/Commonwealth English) tends, in my (probably biased)
> experience, to be used by people trying to put on airs and sound
> pretentiously superior, like real estate developers naming a
> development "Harbour Centre" when it's nowhere near a harbo(u)r nor
> particularly close to the center/re of anything important, or fashion
> magazines ("Glamour") that desperately want to show how elegant they
> believe themselves to be, or snooty academics who would rather be
> involved with an "encyclopaedia" than a commoner's "encyclopedia".

And, you know, english people too.


from_name: Erik Zachte

body:
Jimmy
> It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to
preserve our fundamentally community-driven model,
> while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order
to empower and defend the community model. :)

preserve or reaffirm ?

Jimmy
> Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
search process,
> in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds.

leaders or members ?

Jimmy
> it is my intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of
openness and community involvement,

This is the best statement I heard from you since eight days, when you said
"Under promise over deliver"
I quoted you on that one every day since. :)

------------------------------------

Urgent matters obviously need to be resolved now. In Rome emergencies were
also addressed by subsiding democracy and *appointing* a dictator for half a
year (the meaning of the term dictator has drifted quite far since then).
I'm not sure if 'business deals' count as an emergency. We are not going
bankrupt, have even postponed fund raising. Apart from that I easily accept
that an understaffed central board is in need of speedy reinforcement, as
long as the current model is continued.

After we catered for emergencies, I still hope that the same community that
wisely elected Angela and Anthere (hurray for them) will some day be given
more direct responsibility in deciding how to resolve deficiencies at the
organisational level. To me a community and a foundation are not separate
entities ( I heard this as a closing argument all too often recently ), no
more than a people and its government are separate entities. A government
serves the people and is guided and controlled by the people. I'm not an
expert in political matters, but I feel it makes more sense to draw our
metaphores from an area of human activity where many are to gain from the
actions of some (state/governement) than from areas where some are to gain
much more than others from the activities of many (large corporations).

Having said this I am sure Brad is going to give us his best, and undoubtly
already has, so I wish you all the best, Brad

Erik Zachte


list: textbook-l

from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Textbook-l] Response to Rob's last post

body:
Jon wrote:

>I'd like to comment on some things in Rob's last post.
>
>First, where are examples of people moving How-to material that you believe ought to
>remain in Wikibooks to Wikia with a link thereto? I was not aware this was happening.
>
>
Well it is certainly happening with some potential Wikiversity
content.   Check the biology courses and some of the voluminous proposal
revision for links if you are actually interested.

snip

> After that,
>RobinH, Dragontamer, Lord Voldemort, hagindaz and myself noted that such a textbook
>would be possible and would be ok on Wikibooks. Although there were notes that the
>current Doom Wikibook was not such a textbook and that it would take a lot of time
>to write a textbook on Doom so that you may not wish to see it through, and there was
>a suggestion that a wider scope, to consider other strategy games, might be better.
>
>
Such a textbook or course would certainly find the game guides useful as
reference materials.  Who would presume to be presenting design
tutorials for subjects related to video games without some basic
understanding the previous two decades successful games?

>
>The other commenters, Garrett and Gerard Foley, did not comment on the point explicitly,
>but their tone (and the knowledge that they are both keen gamers) suggests they
>are not against the idea. Jimbo did not comment again. I therefore think your statement
>that there was the "substantial resistance and even outright rejection" that you say there
>was.
>
>
I also saw a fair amount of rejection and outright hostility towards
game focused materials in my occasional wanderings through wikibooks.
It does not take a lot of deletion to establish a hostile environment to
budding writers.

Sincerely,
Michael R. Irwin


subject: [Foundation-l] Volunteering--where are we heading

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>This has been a very instructive discussion for me, at least.
>
>Unofficially, at least, I would like to make a proposal. I would like to
>invite people on this list to email me at _dwool at wikimedia.org_
>(mailto:dwool at wikimedia.org)  if they are
>
>a) interested in volunteering in various capacities,
>b) in what particular capacities they are interested
>c) what particular skills and experiences they bring to the table
>d) when they would be available to volunteer
>e) how much time they would be able to devote to this
>f) what particular equipment they have that can be used (color printer,
>scanner, an amazing long-dstance phone plan, etc.)
>f) how they can be contacted
>f) any other ideas you might have
>
>I will then begin to create a database with this information.
>
>This does not mean that you will automatically be given something to do.  Nor
>does it mean that you will be asked to do exactly what you want. It will,
>however, help to coordinate some of the many tasks that need doing, such as
>stuffing envelopes, coordinating databases, etc.
>
>I think that this can be a first step toward greater involvement.
>
>Remember, send it to my work address: _dwool at wikimedia.org_
>(mailto:dwool at wikimedia.org) . Do not send it to  this address.
>
>Note that I am not doing this in any official capacity whatsoever. I would
>be more than happy to have one or two volunteers help organize this.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Danny
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
Under the other ideas, category f:

Another way to approach this is to write an available task list or work
breakdown structure detailing what useful tasks exist which a volunteer
could tackle,  include minimum skills or experience or tools if those
are known.  Then publish the list or work breakdown structure for
comment and use.  Most project managers do something like this in
initial planning and then revise it as team members start to buy in and
provide useful feedback on how to get things moving productively  .... a
wiki should be an ideal communications tool to integrate tweaks and
suggestions from the interested members of the community.   Names and
suspenses could be included and tracked or not as the powers that be
advise or specific volunteers choose.

lazyquasar


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
I'm afraid he is a notable figure. We should not have some kind of
hatchet job on him, but someone who has engaged in all the public
activity he has is certain deserving of a Wikipedia article. Of
course, he is not a terrorist in the sense Timothy McVeigh was; he is
just a critic. He makes a point now and then, but from the
perspective of users whose privacy is at risk he is more of a
destructive vandal. His point about anonymous people wielding power
has some traction, but I notice that folks who edit under their own
name receive more or less the same treatment as people who use
pseudonyms.

Fred

On Jun 12, 2006, at 11:45 PM, mboverload wrote:

> Just a note:  Just browsed through the shit-swamp that is Wikipedia
> Review
> and Daniel Brandt has just found another thing to complain about:  Us
> equating his threats with terrorist demands. Oh yeah, and he's not
> even
> happy that you guys are considering deleting his article.  He's not
> happy at
> all.  He's moaning that you didn't debate the "ethics" of having an
> article
> on him and are just doing it to get rid of him.  Sad.


subject: [Textbook-l] Block against

body:
Kernigh wrote:

>[[en:User:Zephram Stark]] was recently blocked:
>
>* 13:18, 8 May 2006 Jimbo Wales blocked "Zephram Stark (contribs)" with an
>expiry time of infinite (trolling, banned user on en.wikipedia)
>
>
>
>
snip

>It appears that the only reason for this block concerns trouble on
>en.wikipedia, and of such trouble I have no knowledge. (Maybe someone
>could describe to me what happened?)
>
>I think that this user should be unblocked immediately or the block be
>shortened to 1 week or less. What does everyone think?
>-- [[en:User:Kernigh]]
>   http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
>
>
>
I suppose this depends on whether one views the wikis as subprojects of
one big project and community hosted by Wikimedia or as separate projects.

Personally I think the individual projects have separate communities and
identies, so I agree with you.   If this user has caused no problems on
wikibooks then this is a case of unnecessary persecution probably
intensifying problems in the future.

However, there are a large number of people who have chimed in that
Wikiversity should be defined around the other existing projects so
there is absolutely no duplication.   In this view we essentially have a
single project.  So once a handle or puppet is banned in one place
perhaps the ban should be in force everywhere else.

Regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Netocrat

subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:11:20 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Phil Boswell
> <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Then your likely best bet is to request a token which inhibits the
>> NUMBERING of TOC entries, and add them manually, so that the numbers
>> appear correctly regardless of the preferences chosen by the user.
>>
>> Something like __NOTOCNUMBERING__ maybe? HTH HAND

How about __NOTOCNUM__?

<http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4127>

> What, like:
>
> intro text
> intro text
> __NOTOCNUMBERING__
> ==A. Section A==
> aoeueou
> ==B. Section B==
> ===B. I. blah===
>
> ?
>
> Would there be any differences between that and "true" numbering in the
> rendering process?

None visible; the invisible one is maintenance effort.

The patch above suppresses the auto-generated numbers from being prepended
to entries in the TOC as well as to section headings when a user has
selected the "Auto-number headings" option.

--
http://members.dodo.com.au/~netocrat


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:

>On 12/06/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Has any thought gone into producing printed materials (either on CD or
>>even dead tree format) for high quality materials derived from Wikimedia
>>project pages?
>>
>>
>
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiReader
>
>As usual, the Germans are ahead of us. ;)
>
>Brianna
>
>
After going over this link, I don't see what is different between that
or a similar link on Wikibooks:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3APDF_Versions

I havn't gone digging around in the German version of this page, but it
does seem interesting.  As I've pointed out, it is not for a lack of
content that printed versions aren't being made of Wikimedia content,
just the time, effort, and money necessary to get it to work.  And
somebody to make the leap and get it done.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] fundraising


subject:
[Foundation-l] Where we are headed with Wikiversity (was
 Wikimedia main office)

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Before this conversation veers off into speculation, I would like to ask
>people to be please be very specific about specific things that you
>think the Foundation is doing or might be doing, that you think are
>inconsistent with our traditions and community values.  I know of
>nothing, although of course we can discuss and quibble about details of
>how various things are organized, etc.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
Specifically:

Stalling a firm go or nogo decision on Wikiversity after the proposal
was supported by 200/300 voting community members.

Wikipedia.com built a community and converted to wikipedia.org on the
basis of a firm mission statement attractive to people who dropped in
and could find the URLs to the material again.

With a firm no from the board another nonprofit could quickly be
organized and the wikiversity.org domain transferred.

With a firm yes successful critical mass should be just a few years of
hard work away.

The  policies of en.wikipedia.org evolved from active participation of
an interested community of volunteers.   They were not detailed in
advance by a committee or rewritten for years (after a community vote to
proceed) as per vague feedback from the stacked Board that the proposal
just is not quite good enough to get started yet.

The Wikipedia community was also working within a dedicated stable set
of URLs and contending only with their own deletionists, not other projects.

This is a substantial drift from the original community of volunteers
and methods that created a successful wikipedia.org.

regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: sannse

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.

Great news.  All my interactions with Brad have been very positive, and
his willingness to help on legal issues has been invaluable to the OTRS
team.  He's also a very nice guy :)

Congratulations Brad.

-- sannse


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising ideas - bursting the bubble

body:
On 6/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> All of this fundraising talk is very nice and dandy, but it sounds like plans for the local glee club, not an international foundation. No one has yet mentioned any of the legal/accounting requirements of fundraising, the costs, or the actual manhours involved.

How was this handled in the past?  Did it go well?  What were the
problems?  Can someone give a report?

Do you have any idea where one could go about looking up the
legal/accounting requirements of fundraising, or is this a first step
that needs to be taken?

> 1 Are we allowed to solicit funds anywhere? Not quite as simple as you may think.
>
I would think under US law that this is allowed, but obviously a
lawyer needs to be contacted about that.  I'd suggest taking that to
juriwiki.  Maybe you or someone else could give a report, since many
of us don't have access to that list.

> 2 What is the cost of a direct mailing? Try multiplying postage costs by 1000s, add printing costs, then add hourly rates. We can either do the mailing in-house (at which point you must consider whether it is worth paying my salary to have me stuff envelopes) or a service (which adds to the costs).
>
It certainly wouldn't make sense to have you stuff the envelopes.  Is
direct mailing definitely something that's going to be done?

> 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes, Any donor who gives over $200 must receive written notification for IRS purposes. This includes multiple donations--for instance, if someone gives $20 a month over a period of a year, they will require such notification. That's a lot of donors to keep track of
>
Are you sure this isn't just a requirement in order for the donation
to be tax deductible?  Can you give a cite so we can look at this?  I
know there is a requirement that cash donations over $250, including
over the course of a year, must be substantiated in order to be
deductible, but I always thought that the burden was on the donor to
provide correct contact information.  It's certainly *possible*, for
instance, for me to put $10 a week in cash into the church basket
without the church knowing to give me a written receipt.  It just
wouldn't be fully deductible in that case.

> 4  Someone suggested that the committee "oversee" the sending of proper thanks, etc. Note that the average donation last year was $25 and we raised about half a million, i.e., 20,000 thank you notes. While it is good of you to volunteer overseeing me sending them out, it would be much more helpful if you would actually lick the envelopes.
>
It's good that you pointed this out.  The committee should certainly
consider making sure there are enough volunteers to handle such a
task.  And someone should buy you one of those sponge things so that
Wikimedia doesn't have to pay for your worker's comp when you get
poisoned by envelope glue :).

> These are just a few items off the top of my head. Note that donations come via Paypal, Moneybookers, direct deposit to either of two accounts (US and Europe), and checks mailed to the office. A percentage of our donors are repeats. Proper records must be kept for all donations for accounting purposes or else we risk losing our tax-free status, yet no one has considered GAAP for not-for-profits. Hey, guys, welcome to the real world.
>
> Danny

Geez, someone should certainly be considering this.  Isn't this the
job of mav and/or the treasurer?

If no one is considering this, I'd say call three or more CPAs right
now and get quotes.  And get the job listings ready - you need a
bookkeeper.

Anthony


body:
On 6/13/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> > 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes, Any donor who gives over $200 must receive written notification for IRS purposes. This includes multiple donations--for instance, if someone gives $20 a month over a period of a year, they will require such notification. That's a lot of donors to keep track of
> >
> Are you sure this isn't just a requirement in order for the donation
> to be tax deductible?  Can you give a cite so we can look at this?  I
> know there is a requirement that cash donations over $250, including
> over the course of a year, must be substantiated in order to be
> deductible, but I always thought that the burden was on the donor to
> provide correct contact information.  It's certainly *possible*, for
> instance, for me to put $10 a week in cash into the church basket
> without the church knowing to give me a written receipt.  It just
> wouldn't be fully deductible in that case.
>
See publication 1771 for more on this.  Now I don't know if this was
what you were talking about, but according to the publication:

"An organization which does not acknowledge a contribution incurs no
penalty; but, without a written acknowledgement, the donor cannot
claim the tax deduction."

The publication also says that "An organization can provide the
acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to the
donor."

It also says "Separate contributions will not be aggregated.  An
example of this would be weekly offerings to a donor's church of less
than $250, even though the donor's annual total contributions are $250
or more."  I guess I was mistaken that such donations wouldn't be
fully deductible.

Note that none of this applies to quid-pro-quo donations, which have a
different set of rules.  So if you're giving cafe-press T-shirts to
donors, and these shirts don't meet the "token exception", then you
have to play by different rules.

Obviously that whole publication should be read.  It outlines the
exact requirements of the acknowledgement letter, which I won't copy
here.


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>There is virtually no active pressure or demand from the actual
>community for openness, participatory processes and transparency
>within the Wikimedia Foundation. As a result, there are very little.
>The committees which have been formed are useful, but they pick and
>choose their members on a case by case basis (or perhaps I should say
>"face by face") -- cf. GerardM's rejected membership application to
>the Special Projects committee. At least during the transitional
>phase, the amount of bureauracy is even worse than it was at the time
>we were ruled by the Board and the Board alone.
>
>
Eric, I believe you are incorrect in the statement above that there is
no community pressure for openess, participatory processes, and
transparency within the Wikimedia Foundation.

The pressure is the non participation.

Regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
> position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
> posted and discussed publicly as well.)
>
> Who is Brad?  Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past
> several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the
> projects.  He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig,
> and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff.  Rather than doing
> "merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has
> gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping
> Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc.

Does he have any experience in running an organisation?

My only dealings with him have been conflicts: first exposing the errors in
his argument on [[m:Talk:Chapters committee]] and second defending Waerth
from his bullying on this list. I can only hope that the future will be
brighter.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
>On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, Gavin Chait wrote:
>
>
>
>I like the ideas and examples you've shared, though some may be less
>relevant to WMF than to other s-s n-p sbo's ... Wikipedia is an unusually
>self-defining, scaled, and vibrant project, and traditional rules of thumb
>each deserve a second look to see how they might apply.
>
>IIRC, there are a number of people with relevant experience on this list.
>I hope many more of them will chime in.
>
>
It might be worth keeping in mind that the current operation is not
really yet quite the equivalent of a huge international non profit like
the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity.  We may not actually need a "CEO".

We have a Board of five .... actually I guess they figure they have us.  `8)

Some subcommittees .... call it another twenty five?

five to ten currently compensated staff

I saw a number of approximately 50 developers but AFAIK only one local
pro ... Brion,  at least five to ten others heavily involved with their
own sites, rest are  regular contributors on the developer's mailing list.

Between fifty to a hundred  regular readers on this list interested in
the "organizational" issues.

And thousands to tens of thousands of regular/occasional editors who
need little to no supervision beyond propagating core policies to the
projects approved for the Foundation's wiki/hard drive/bandwidth.

So we have about the equivalent of between 100 - 200 people  who need to
be productively "managed".   Standards roles defined, basic standard
procedures implemented, and some knowledgeable strategic planning and
documentation and publication of the same after it is approved by the Board.

So we are looking for a low level executive or plant/office manager.
Someone who knows how to setup and manage a small factory or a medium
sized multi disciplinary professional office with special emphasis on IT
and computer operations center.

Have we tried the Florida State Employment office, Kelly Temporary
Services, or Monster.com yet?

Last time I checked there was no shortage of MBAs or business managers
in the U.S. with some entrepreneurial startup experience.   Florida has
a lot of retirees.  Maybe we could interest one in an "Interim Director"
position/contract of three to six months.   I would offer my uncle
(retired Weyerhauser executive) but he has already accepted a shorterm
contract starting up a sawmill in Alaska this summer/fall.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


body:
On 6/13/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Brad hasn't even had his first day on the job yet, so I think it's a
> little early to be asking where the timetables and reports are. This
> isn't even as far along as the process for replacing Tim Shell on the
> Board, and I think Jimmy's response on that issue applies just as well
> here. Let's have less haste and more speed. If you want to speed things
> along, I'm sure an outline of the strategy for conducting the search
> would be welcomed.

I wasn't asking for reports, only for guesstimates on when we might
reasonably expect them. An update on the process by August 2006 should
be possible, for instance. "Interim" can mean many things (in Steve
Jobs' case, it meant "the CEO who never left"), and I hope there is
consensus among everyone concerned that this is, indeed, a stopgap
solution until we have identified an ideal candidate for the role of
ED.

As for the strategy in identifying a future "permanent" ED, we need to
first be clear on what the future organizational model of the
Wikimedia Foundation is going to be. For instance, there is a
resolution to create an Executive Committee:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Executive_committee

In spite of its creation being authorized by the Board, AFAIK nothing
has happened since it was last discussed in the Open Wikimedia
meeting. Do we still want this committee, and if so, what roles will
it serve? What will its interaction be with the Executive Director?
Will (all/some) of its members also be Board members (as is typical
for non-profits)?

I personally prefer the term "Administrative Director" to "Executive
Director" given that "ED" or "CEO" suggests a very broad scope of
abilities and responsibilities which, I fear, for an organization like
Wikimedia cannot really be united in a single person. For instance, I
believe that R&D is a key function that needs to be driven and
coordinated by the executive body.

Projects like Wiktionary(Z), Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikibooks,
Wikinews, and Wikicommons can only flourish if their specific needs
are identified, and strategies are developed to meet these needs. The
executive body (whatever it is called in the end) needs to set
priorities, assign responsibilities, and communicate with a large
group of individuals who bring ideas and capabilities to the
Foundation. While I value Brad's legal insights and his professional
background, I doubt he would be the right person to make such
decisions -- and the same is probably true for any ED who meets the
criteria of:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_CEO

The term "Executive Director" suggests that the person will be
responsible for "executing" the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation,
when in reality, the tasks described on the above URL deal primarily
with "keeping things running", rather than "moving things forward". I
favor a larger Executive Committee with different roles, whose purpose
is to coordinate and oversee the work of the individual committees.
The "Administrative Director" in this model complements other roles
such as R&D, community communications, etc. (who the ExecCom members
are is the tricky question).

If, however, the "Executive Director" is to unite multiple very
different capabilities in one person, then of course that will make it
very difficult to find the ideal candidate for that role -- if not
impossible.

I'd be happy to help develop an organizational model, but I'd also be
interested in what plans there currently are, and what Brad's thoughts
on the above matters are.

Erik


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> How about trying to decentralize the "licking envelopes" part? Allow a
> large number of reasonably trusted volunteers to send "thank you"
> notes (add some legal disclaimer about the sender not being a
> Wikimedia employee etc. if necessary). Compensate them for postage,
> but not for time. I'm not sure this is a viable model, but it may be
> worth trying out.

Getting that to work should be easy enough. All we really need are a number of trusted people
willing to do the work. However, getting this wrong could have enough of a penalty to warrant an
in-office solution that periodically uses a limited number of supervised volunteers who can travel
to the St Pete office. We have a meet-up each year in St Petersburg in mid-January and the
deadline to get notifications out for the previous calendar year is at the end of January. I?m
sure we could get some trusted people who would already be in St Pete for the meet-up to help with
a mailing.

> > 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes
>
> That's a good point. How good are we presently at complying with these
> regulations, e.g. notifying people who make >$200 donations outside
> regular fund drives?

This has already been taken care of for the 2005 tax season.

> Does the applicable law already allow for the use
> of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?

It must be written and include some other stuff not on normal PayPal or MoneyBookers payment
confirmation emails (which reminds, me - I need contact our PayPal rep to find out how to change
what those emails say).
See
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html#d0e3485

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
>> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
>> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
>> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
>> community*.
>
> Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
> commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
> When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
> process?

Mav assured us that Tim Shell and Michael Davis were temporary positions,
remember that?

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000254.html

What optimism we had back then.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [Textbook-l] Block against

body:
On 6/13/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
> Kernigh wrote:
>
> >[[en:User:Zephram Stark]] was recently blocked:
> >
> >* 13:18, 8 May 2006 Jimbo Wales blocked "Zephram Stark (contribs)" with an
> >expiry time of infinite (trolling, banned user on en.wikipedia)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> snip
>
> >It appears that the only reason for this block concerns trouble on
> >en.wikipedia, and of such trouble I have no knowledge. (Maybe someone
> >could describe to me what happened?)
> >
> >I think that this user should be unblocked immediately or the block be
> >shortened to 1 week or less. What does everyone think?
> >-- [[en:User:Kernigh]]
> >   http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
> >
> >
> >
> I suppose this depends on whether one views the wikis as subprojects of
> one big project and community hosted by Wikimedia or as separate projects.
>
> Personally I think the individual projects have separate communities and
> identies, so I agree with you.   If this user has caused no problems on
> wikibooks then this is a case of unnecessary persecution probably
> intensifying problems in the future.
>
> However, there are a large number of people who have chimed in that
> Wikiversity should be defined around the other existing projects so
> there is absolutely no duplication.   In this view we essentially have a
> single project.  So once a handle or puppet is banned in one place
> perhaps the ban should be in force everywhere else.
>
> Regards,
> lazyquasar

Where did Kernigh write this?  Zephram Stark will not be unblocked in
the near future.  --LV


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>
>>On 6/3/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Looking at the recent changes to the foundation wiki, I see
>>>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_President, affirming
>>>>you as President and authorizing you to make certain decisions,
>>>>"failed to gain Board support".  I wonder: Who proposed that
>>>>resolution?  Who voted for it?  Who voted against it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>This hasn't yet been voted on. It doesn't even have a Motion to Vote
>>>yet. I've no idea why it would be regarded as rejected.
>>>
>>>Angela.
>>>
>>>
>>It's cute calling an organization "transparent" when even the board
>>members don't even know whether a resolution has been rejected.
>>
>>
>
>I rest my case.  Anthony is not being serious here, he is trolling.
>
>There is a legitimate question as to what to call a resolution which was
>never voted upon, because no one ever made a motion that it be voted on,
>because it was in preliminary drafting stages.  Was it rejected?  Was it
>never really proposed?  That is what Angela is talking about.
>
>Spinning this into some kind of lack of transparency is just... well, it
>is Anthony.  Nonsense.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
Jimbo, only percieved trolls with little standing to lose with the
powers that be within our "communities" are going to tell the Emperor he
has no clothes.

I have wasted more time than I care to remember wandering around meta
and various mailing lists looking for agendas, results of votes,
minutes, budgets, audit reports, expenditures, etc.   All the typical
data that an organization should routinely produce and publish in a
timely manner to operate efficiently.

Little to none of it is published in an organized meaningful manner for
the simple fundamental reason that we have a stacked Board and what
matters is what Jimbo decides.  In organizations where meaningul
delegation is the rule the data gets produced because everybody needs
it!  Nobody needs it at the Wikimedia Foundation because only Jimbo's
opinion or stated position has any final standing on anything.  So it
does not get routinely produced and posted publicly.

Your committees and people participating in the process are to a large
extent hand picked from the select group are known to get along with you
on the mailing lists.

People like me who have had conflicts in the past are not likely to send
private emails requesting information from insiders who are unlikely to
provide it as a result of past personal conflicts.

I understand that many initiatives have been attempted in the past and
are currently underway but it does not change the fact that few
volunteers want to hang around breathlessly all the time waiting for you
to make decisions.

When those volunteers get interested in a topic and go looking for the
information and cannot find it without querying a wide range of poorly
organized sources the organization does indeed look "opaque".

The best way for you to fix the growing problems of the Wikimedia
Foundation is to unstack the Board.   Hold an immediate election for the
two appointed trustee positions.   Hang onto your personal position by
fiat if you cannot trust the community to vote you onto the Board.  Four
to one looks a lot more honest than three to two but (paraphrasing to
make my point)  ..... "I will almost always not oppose the two electees
... honest."

When your "Interim Director" tells you the same thing or something
similar, remember you heard it first, or at least before, from a "troll".

regards,
mirwin, lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category intersections would be great :(

body:
On 6/13/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just noticed that we have [[Category:Digital cameras]] and
> [[Category:SLR cameras]], but no [[Category:Digital SLR cameras]]. How
> incredibly frustrating that the options are:

I did a lot of the setting up of these categories.  IMO, that the
category system does not support searches on intersection or
subcategory yet is not a good reason to create broken categories.

Cameras have multiple attributes, among which are brand, type and
format.  So there are, e.g.

[[Category:Canon cameras]]
[[Category:SLR cameras]]
[[Category:Digital cameras]]

There are other attributes, such as lens mount and series and the like.

The problem is: do we really want to create a category that is the
intersection of all these attributes and assume that's the only way we
want to look at them?  Or do we really want to create a category for
EACH intersection?

E.g. someone might want to look at [[Category:Canon Digital SLRs]].
But they might also want to scan [[Category:Canon EOS cameras]] or
[[Category:Canon SLRs]] or [[Category:Digital SLRs]].  Or any other
combination of attributes that we hadn't thought of.

Better, I think, to fix MediaWiki to support category intersection and
sub-inclusion in software. (perhaps this is a problem I should try and
address in code?)

-Matt


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

body:
I presume this is public, despite me knowing it only from the CommComm
mailing list...

bradp.wmf at gmail.com

Nick/Zanimum

> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:47:46 -0500
> From: "Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and
>         Legal   Counsel
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>
> Really dumb question, but one which needs answering:  What's Brad's
> new email address?  The only one I have for him is the fowlerwhite
> address, and I assume that that's not good, since he doesn't work for
> them anymore.
>
> Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and


from_name: John Ky

subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
Yes, actually, that would be very helpful.

-John

On 6/13/06, Netocrat <netocrat at dodo.com.au> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:11:20 +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 6/12/06, Phil Boswell
> > <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Then your likely best bet is to request a token which inhibits the
> >> NUMBERING of TOC entries, and add them manually, so that the numbers
> >> appear correctly regardless of the preferences chosen by the user.
> >>
> >> Something like __NOTOCNUMBERING__ maybe? HTH HAND
>
> How about __NOTOCNUM__?
>
> <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4127>
>
> > What, like:
> >
> > intro text
> > intro text
> > __NOTOCNUMBERING__
> > ==A. Section A==
> > aoeueou
> > ==B. Section B==
> > ===B. I. blah===
> >
> > ?
> >
> > Would there be any differences between that and "true" numbering in the
> > rendering process?
>
> None visible; the invisible one is maintenance effort.
>
> The patch above suppresses the auto-generated numbers from being prepended
> to entries in the TOC as well as to section headings when a user has
> selected the "Auto-number headings" option.
>
> --
> http://members.dodo.com.au/~netocrat
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Transclusion of formatting templates (again?)

body:
Hi all,
  There's a bot substituting {{clear}} with the equivalent HTML:

. There are several reasons I can think of
why this is a bad idea:
* Editors won't realise there is a simple template they can add to
achieve this effect
* It gives the impression that embedding raw HTML is encouraged
* It possibly makes reusing Wikipedia content in non-HTML contexts
more difficult
* It mixes implementation details with semantic markup
* It's ugly and takes more characters (particularly wrt {{-}} )

There is one reason why it's a good idea:
* Transclusion is "CPU-intensive"

Can someone tell me how important this last reason is? How bad is it
to transclude frequently used templates? Could it be improved? Is this
going to go away? Permanently substing a large number of templates to
solve a short-term performance problem is, well, bad.

Thanks,
Steve


body:
On 6/13/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Something that I think people don't consider is the value of practice;
> maybe the first user-produced image is amateurish, but it's also a
> learning opportunity. We see that with our maps for instance - many of
> the user-produced maps from three years ago are embarassingly poor,
> but more recently we've been getting some really fine uploads, as good
> as or better than professional work. I know my own "encyclopedic
> photograph" technique has been much improved since my first uploads.

Mine too! :)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/13/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> It (British/Commonwealth English) tends, in my (probably biased)
> experience, to be used by people trying to put on airs and sound
> pretentiously superior, like real estate developers naming a
> development "Harbour Centre" when it's nowhere near a harbo(u)r nor
> particularly close to the center/re of anything important, or fashion
> magazines ("Glamour") that desperately want to show how elegant they
> believe themselves to be, or snooty academics who would rather be
> involved with an "encyclopaedia" than a commoner's "encyclopedia".
>
> I find it especially bothersome to encounter the word "paedophile",
> since I hardly think pedophiles deserve to be dignified with a
> pretentiously dressed-up spelling.

Lol. That has to be a joke, yeah?

Steve


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> Note CatScan aborts after 1000 entries, so it won't be very useful for
> this evil huge category. (I think we will change it.)
>
So you'll have to fix the first 1000 befor you get the next batch :-)
> Hot damn, Magnus...I thought I had found my idol and his name was
> Duesentrieb...now I  question my faith ;)
>
Not sure about Duesentrieb, but I for one don't insist on monotheism ;-)
> (also, any time you feel like a challenge... most things on
> [[Commons:Bugs]] would like a workaround :))
>
I've actually looked at a few of these, trying to find a fix for them in
MediaWiki (better than workarounds;-) but the ones I tried are actually
a lot more complicated than they seem...

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/13/06, mboverload <mboverload at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a note:  Just browsed through the shit-swamp that is Wikipedia Review
> and Daniel Brandt has just found another thing to complain about:  Us
> equating his threats with terrorist demands. Oh yeah, and he's not even
> happy that you guys are considering deleting his article.  He's not happy at
> all.  He's moaning that you didn't debate the "ethics" of having an article
> on him and are just doing it to get rid of him.  Sad.

I think it's about time someone did this:

HI DANIEL!!!!

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>
>>valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>The community could accept only representative members voted with normal
>>>procedure.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Of course.
>>
>>But community vote is not the only way to get board members.  We have
>>some very good board candidates who are not famous in the community and
>>who could bring to the table professional expertise that we greatly
>>need, but who would not put themselves through the troll wars of an
>>election.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>This sounds reasonable, although I think they're not entirely different
>things, if we're speaking in an informal sense (which is really what
>will dominate community-board relations more than the formal setup
>will).  It's possible, for example, that there are people who would
>actually prevail in an election, but are deterred from running because
>of the election process.  If they were appointed, those people could be
>said in some tea-leaf-reading sense to actually represent the
>community.  Then there are gradations---people who wouldn't actually win
>an election, but who are generally respected and don't engender much
>objection; then unknown people; and finally people who are actively
>disliked by a large segment of the community.
>
>We could try some variation on some of the consensus-style methods we
>tend to use on the encyclopedia.  For example, solicit nominations,
>possibly in private, and then privately contact the people nominated to
>ask if they'd accept a position if chosen.  Then make a (public) list of
>potential candidates, and solicit feedback on them, possibly
>privately-expressed feedback so people don't have to publicly attack
>anyone.  Then appoint the people who have reasonably good consensus
>support.  Assuming the feedback is indeed expressed in private, and the
>list is more than a handful of people, those not selected shouldn't
>really be negatively impacted (not being selected for 2 slots out of a
>list of, say, 15 isn't particularly bad).
>
>This is a little trickier than the way we do it on articles, because to
>avoid public flamewars and driving people off, much of it would have to
>be done in private communications, and therefore the decision of what
>constitutes consensus would have to be made by whoever reads those
>emails.  It could be the current board, or someone they designate.
>Technically/formally, that would essentially be the board appointing new
>members itself, but if you five agree to follow some rough community
>consensus in making those appointments, I'm pretty sure you're not going
>to actually lie to us and claim someone had consensus support when they
>didn't, even if we have no way of verifying that.
>
>Anyway that's a pretty off-the-top-of-my-head outline of how to design a
>system that merges community consensus and sensitivity towards potential
>members who aren't politicians, so I'm sure there are better ways of
>doing it.  I do think some sort of balancing of those goals is
>necessary, though.
>
>-Mark
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
Bah.

In other words we must allow the current stacked Board to stack the
future Boards to get the desired responsible, effective, expert Boards.

This begs the question ..... if a stacked Board is the best way to
attract the skills and participation needed to effectively manage our
communities then why is there a lackluster interest for volunteers with
the expertise to participate in current community management activities?

A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us in the
future right where we are now.

regards,
lazyquasar


body:
No doubt judging by the flood of positive comments, this decision was
discussed at length before it was announced. May I ask where, and by whom?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Transclusion of formatting templates (again?)

body:
On 6/13/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> (originally posted to tech list, but replying here because I think it's
> more on-topic here)
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >   There's a bot substituting {{clear}} with the equivalent HTML: <div
> > style="clear: both"></div>. There are several reasons I can think of
> > why this is a bad idea:
>
> Myself, I never understood the point in it at all. Why do you ever want
> to clear floating elements? It creates ugly stretches of empty space. If
> you feel that you need it in some particular situation, then surely that
> is an indication that the floating elements are positioned badly, and
> using "clear:both" only adds to it by also positioning the section
> headers badly.
>
> If there are too many images on the page, surely the page would look
> better if they were turned into a gallery or removed entirely, instead
> of stacking floating elements left and right.

It's quite useful on templates, since you can use a combination of
"clear" and <noinclude> to add usage notes directly to the template
page.  If "clear" isn't used and the notes contain an example use of
the template (this tends to come up with infoboxes), the example
(which is presumably "float: right") will overlap with the actual
rendered template.

(This is, admittedly, a rather obscure example.)

--
Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] To Australia with love (was "refactoring" signatures)

body:
On 13/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > Mark Gallagher wrote:
> >
> > > There's a big, wonderful, English-speaking world out there that aren't
> > > American, and we aren't British, either.
> >
> > Apparently in that wonderful world of English for non-British
> > non-Americans, people has some interesting rules for subject-verb agreement.
>
> Yep, there's definitely some interesting grammar rules in Australian english.

And as such, these rules should be accommodated for on the "English" wikipedia.

Peter Ansell


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us in the
> future right where we are now.

I'm curious.

What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?

What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
that the present management is not?

I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than constantly
claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is, intentionally and
openly so. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that; this isn't a
democracy, it's a business (even if a non-profit one) and the board's job is not
to represent the users, it's to ensure that the company implements its goals (as
stated in the bylaws).

If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.

What first, then how.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us in the
> future right where we are now.

I'm curious.

What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?

What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
that the present management is not?

I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than constantly
claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is, intentionally and
openly so. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that; this isn't a
democracy, it's a business (even if a non-profit one) and the board's job is not
to represent the users, it's to ensure that the company implements its goals (as
stated in the bylaws).

If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.

What first, then how.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us in the
> future right where we are now.

I'm curious.

What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?

What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
that the present management is not?

I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than constantly
claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is, intentionally and
openly so. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that; this isn't a
democracy, it's a business (even if a non-profit one) and the board's job is not
to represent the users, it's to ensure that the company implements its goals (as
stated in the bylaws).

If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.

What first, then how.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us in the
> future right where we are now.

I'm curious.

What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do* that will be better?

What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do *right*
that the present management is not?

I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than constantly
claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is, intentionally and
openly so. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that; this isn't a
democracy, it's a business (even if a non-profit one) and the board's job is not
to represent the users, it's to ensure that the company implements its goals (as
stated in the bylaws).

If there's something that management needs to *do* which will actually be better
served by a new management structure or new board members, then by all means
let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.

What first, then how.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
I just noticed that we have [[Category:Digital cameras]] and
[[Category:SLR cameras]], but no [[Category:Digital SLR cameras]]. How
incredibly frustrating that the options are:

- Tag all DSLRs with a new category, leaving the two old ones (redundant)
- Tag all DSLRs with a new category, replacing the two old ones, and
putting the new category as a sub category of both SLR cameras and
Digital cameras (doesn't seem clean)
- Use CatScan (broken)
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=digital+cameras&basedeep=1&mode=cs&tagcat=SLR+cameras&tagdeep=1&go=Scan&userlang=en

- ???

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
On 6/13/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I forgot: one major difference would be that the numbering would appear in
> the anchor, so if you wanted to link to a section it would have to be
> [[example#A. Section]]

IMHO, this kind of linking isn't that great anyawy. We should use
proper anchors, as section names change so quickly (much more so than
article names, at any rate), and there isn't (afaik) any way of
finding out what links exist to a given section.

Steve


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/12/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> On 12 Jun 2006 at 23:48,  "Death Phoenix" <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 6/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I tend to call it Commonwealth English, except when something gets me
> > > really annoyed, and then I'm liable to call it Proper Bloody English.
> >
> > PBE's a good one.
>
> Pompous Bullshit English?
>
> It (British/Commonwealth English) tends, in my (probably biased)
> experience, to be used by people trying to put on airs and sound
> pretentiously superior, like real estate developers naming a
> development "Harbour Centre" when it's nowhere near a harbo(u)r nor
> particularly close to the center/re of anything important, or fashion
> magazines ("Glamour") that desperately want to show how elegant they
> believe themselves to be, or snooty academics who would rather be
> involved with an "encyclopaedia" than a commoner's "encyclopedia".
>
> I find it especially bothersome to encounter the word "paedophile",
> since I hardly think pedophiles deserve to be dignified with a
> pretentiously dressed-up spelling.
>

And I find that PBE is used by people who actually know English as it is
properly used.

Unfortunately, having written in both Canadian and Australian English as
well as the others, I guess that means I'm a convict who lives in an igloo,
drinks tea with the pinky extended, and carries a gun with him at all times.


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Textbook-l] Power to dictate policy (Was: Game Guides)

body:
Kernigh wrote:

>Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
>
>>As far as I see it: the community has control over the content, and
>>the board bears the legal liability for the content. Jimbo's unique
>>part in this is that he retains the power to dictate policy where he
>>deems necessary, and when he thinks a project has veered off course
>>significantly from its goals or the goals of the foundation. I'm not
>>sure of what other times he has exercised this power, apart from the
>>recent debate about the content of Wikibooks - maybe someone else,
>>perhaps Jimbo himself, can clarify this.
>>
>>
>
>Excuse me, can you clarify?
>
>How does [[User:Jimbo Wales]] "retain the power to dictate policy"?
>Retention requires that you already have the power. When did [[User:Jimbo
>Wales]] obtain the power to dictate policy "where he deems necessary"?
>
>I understand that someone in the Wikimedia Foundation can dictate policy in
>exceptional cases where that is required, but I do not understand how the
>Wikimedia Foundation is organised.
>
>-- [[User:Kernigh]]
>   http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>
>
>
>
This is all history.   A done deal.

When Nupedia.com was in the process of flopping due to over regulation
and over credentialization Wikipedia.com was set up.    Eventually a
committment was made to the FDL which started attracting free culture
types to assist the large number of P'hds who came over from Nupedia.com.

Some of us started trying to get involved in the business planning at
meta to assure we could buy more servers and bandwidth when the load got
too high on Jimbo's hobby budget.   It was at this time that I was
designated a troll by Langer Sanger on his way out of the project.

Jimbo responded by always assuring the mailing that he had plenty of
cash and surplus bandwidth for the Wikipedia experiment.    He shifted
the active domain to wikipedia.org and in secret with perhaps some help
from a select few employees or advisers unilaterally setup the nonprofit
in Florida.

He announced on the maililng his intent to stack the Board and then he
proceeded to do so.   It was a fait accompli or done deal and there was
only limited whining and complaining on the wikipedia-l mailing list.

If you review the mailing lists since that time you will find occasional
nuggets where policy has been handed down ever since by the god-king.
There are also occasional pronouncements scattered through the various
policy pages.

Since he controls the servers and bandwidth via the Wikimedia Foundation
which he controls there is no appeal from a "Jimmy says" flash..

It was and is the contention of the remaining community locally that
adequate protection for the community from the god-king is inherent in
the ability to fork.   Most people dissatisfied with this state of
affairs tend to move on, particularly after being labeled and lynched
as  a "troll", "POV warrier", or other useful tag.

The way I see it, a fork is overdue.

Obviously a fork would have to address the issue of how the newly
emerging community intended to govern/manage itself.   As God-Kings go
Jimbo is not all that bad so there is little to be gained by exchanging
him for another.

regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, replacing the two old ones, and
>> putting the new category as a sub category of both SLR cameras and
>> Digital cameras (doesn't seem clean)
>>
>
> According to the current guidelines, this is the proper solution.  I
> don't see what's so unclean about it, anyway -- a DSLR is _defined_ as
> an SLR that is _also_ a digital camera.  It's no stranger than "Bridges
> in France" being a subset of both "Bridges" and "Things in France".
>

It does make it somewhat inflexible, since we have to guess what sorts
of intersections people care about.  To take your example, we have
[[Category:Bridges in France]].  We also have categories like
[[Category:Bridges completed in 1967]].  Now what if I want a list of
bridges in France completed in 1967?  We could make a new category,
[[Category:Bridges in France completed in 1967]], but this quickly
becomes intractable---in principle anyone could want any intersection of
any combination of attributes, so we'd need an exponential number of
such categories.  Much cleaner is to tag things with "atomic" categories
like "bridge" and "in France" and "completed in 1967", and then have a
way to determine intersections.

-Mark


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 6/13/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> No doubt judging by the flood of positive comments, this decision was
> discussed at length before it was announced. May I ask where, and by whom?

IMHO it was high time to hire an inhouse legal counsel and an
(interim) executive director. And Brad seems to be a very good choice
for both. Congratulations to Brad, and to the board for making this
decision.

Disclaimer: Even if this might be seen as a positive comment, I am not
aware of any longish discussions. Is there any causal relationship
between discussing at length and making positive comments about wise
board decisions?

-- Arne (akl)


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:

> Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>> A bigger stacked Board micromanaging the community will leave us
>> in the
>> future right where we are now.
>>
>
> I'm curious.
>
> What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do*
> that will be better?
>
> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
> do *right*
> that the present management is not?

Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
such litigation.

Fred

>
>
> I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than
> constantly
> claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is,
> intentionally and
> openly so. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that; this
> isn't a
> democracy, it's a business (even if a non-profit one) and the
> board's job is not
> to represent the users, it's to ensure that the company implements
> its goals (as
> stated in the bylaws).
>
>
> If there's something that management needs to *do* which will
> actually be better
> served by a new management structure or new board members, then by
> all means
> let's talk about it, but let's not put the cart before the horse.
>
> What first, then how.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>> do *right* that the present management is not?
>
> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
> such litigation.

Is there anything specific in what you'd like to see done about it? What can the
management do to make this work more visible or more complete?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>> do *right* that the present management is not?
>
> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
> such litigation.

Is there anything specific in what you'd like to see done about it? What can the
management do to make this work more visible or more complete?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>> do *right* that the present management is not?
>
> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
> such litigation.

Is there anything specific in what you'd like to see done about it? What can the
management do to make this work more visible or more complete?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>> do *right* that the present management is not?
>
> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
> such litigation.

Is there anything specific in what you'd like to see done about it? What can the
management do to make this work more visible or more complete?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 6/12/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> 1 Are we allowed to solicit funds anywhere? Not quite as simple as you may
> think.

I remember that we've had those discussions before about the
fundraising page and the way it should be worded. In recent fund
drives, however, we've become more aggressive, with a personal appeal
from Jimmy, slogans like "Help empower the world", and so on. We still
have a disclaimer that this does not constitute a solicitation, but is
that sufficient? Are we currently registered in any U.S. state other
than Florida for solicitation of funds? If not, would such a
registration make sense?

> 2 What is the cost of a direct mailing? Try multiplying postage costs by 1000s,
> add printing costs, then add hourly rates. We can either do the mailing in-house
> (at which point you must consider whether it is worth paying my salary to have
> me stuff envelopes) or a service (which adds to the costs).

How about trying to decentralize the "licking envelopes" part? Allow a
large number of reasonably trusted volunteers to send "thank you"
notes (add some legal disclaimer about the sender not being a
Wikimedia employee etc. if necessary). Compensate them for postage,
but not for time. I'm not sure this is a viable model, but it may be
worth trying out.

> 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes

That's a good point. How good are we presently at complying with these
regulations, e.g. notifying people who make >$200 donations outside
regular fund drives? Does the applicable law already allow for the use
of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?

Erik


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 13 Jun 2006, at 11:36, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

> Hmmm, you could create a new category if there'd be enough entries,
> but
> since we already have the two existing ones: why not just simply
> put the
> ones which apply in both categories? (I'm assuming they're both
> subcategories of [[Category:Cameras]] and not of each other here).
>
> Mgm
>
>
> On 6/13/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I just noticed that we have [[Category:Digital cameras]] and
>> [[Category:SLR cameras]], but no [[Category:Digital SLR cameras]].
>> How
>> incredibly frustrating that the options are:
>>
>> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, leaving the two old ones
>> (redundant)
>> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, replacing the two old ones, and
>> putting the new category as a sub category of both SLR cameras and
>> Digital cameras (doesn't seem clean)

This is clearly the correct option, whats not clean with it?

>> - Use CatScan (broken)
>>
>> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?
>> wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=digital
>> +cameras&basedeep=1&mode=cs&tagcat=SLR
>> +cameras&tagdeep=1&go=Scan&userlang=en
>>


subject: [Foundation-l] Project Proposal: Wikiscope

body:
On 6/12/06, Daniel Bregman <dbmag9 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Please take a look at my proposal at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiscope and leave your comments and
> suggestions.

I think that the need you are trying to address is best met by first
improving the existing interlanguage and interwiki link functionality.
For instance, if we know that an article in de: and en: refer to the
same concept, and the de: version links to a category on Commons, then
in most cases, the en: version should have the same link. Currently,
this has to be manually added, just like the interlanguage links have
to be manually copied from wiki to wiki.

In the long run, we should try to use a large, collaboratively
maintained ontology as a basic vocabulary for connecting related
concepts in the different Wikimedia projects. The WiktionaryZ project
(wiktionaryz.org) seeks to build such an ontology, but there are also
attempts to bootstrap it by using existing Wikipedia semantic
information as a source (I believe User:Duesentrieb is doing this for
his diploma thesis).

Essentially, in the ideal vision, you would connect an article from
Wikipedia, an image from Commons, a Wikinews story etc. to similar or
identical concepts in the ontology. You could then use the ontology
itself to navigate to the various outside resources that refer to
individual entities therein.

I find it unlikely that a "Wikiscope" project could provide anything
that the combination of project-internal portals and ontology-based
connections between related pages could not provide.

Erik


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Hmmm, you could create a new category if there'd be enough entries, but
since we already have the two existing ones: why not just simply put the
ones which apply in both categories? (I'm assuming they're both
subcategories of [[Category:Cameras]] and not of each other here).

Mgm

On 6/13/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I just noticed that we have [[Category:Digital cameras]] and
> [[Category:SLR cameras]], but no [[Category:Digital SLR cameras]]. How
> incredibly frustrating that the options are:
>
> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, leaving the two old ones (redundant)
> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, replacing the two old ones, and
> putting the new category as a sub category of both SLR cameras and
> Digital cameras (doesn't seem clean)
> - Use CatScan (broken)
>
> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~daniel/WikiSense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=digital+cameras&basedeep=1&mode=cs&tagcat=SLR+cameras&tagdeep=1&go=Scan&userlang=en
>
> - ???
>
> 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
>


from_name: Kernigh

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
> As far as I see it: the community has control over the content, and
> the board bears the legal liability for the content. Jimbo's unique
> part in this is that he retains the power to dictate policy where he
> deems necessary, and when he thinks a project has veered off course
> significantly from its goals or the goals of the foundation. I'm not
> sure of what other times he has exercised this power, apart from the
> recent debate about the content of Wikibooks - maybe someone else,
> perhaps Jimbo himself, can clarify this.

Excuse me, can you clarify?

How does [[User:Jimbo Wales]] "retain the power to dictate policy"?
Retention requires that you already have the power. When did [[User:Jimbo
Wales]] obtain the power to dictate policy "where he deems necessary"?

I understand that someone in the Wikimedia Foundation can dictate policy in
exceptional cases where that is required, but I do not understand how the
Wikimedia Foundation is organised.

-- [[User:Kernigh]]
   http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

body:
Arne Klempert schrieb:
> On 6/13/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>No doubt judging by the flood of positive comments, this decision was
>>discussed at length before it was announced. May I ask where, and by whom?
>
> IMHO it was high time to hire an inhouse legal counsel and an
> (interim) executive director. And Brad seems to be a very good choice
> for both. Congratulations to Brad, and to the board for making this
> decision.
>
> Disclaimer: Even if this might be seen as a positive comment, I am not
> aware of any longish discussions. Is there any causal relationship
> between discussing at length and making positive comments about wise
> board decisions?

You should know by now that in Wikimedia discussing at length usually
only takes place for topics like cantonese or moldovian wikipedias, not
for such things as hiring a legal counsel ;-)

Add my congratulations here - so far my experiences with Brad have been
entirely positive and I'm really glad that we have a fulltime lawyer
aboard now :-)

greetings,
elian


from_name: poore5 at adelphia.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
<Snip>
> I made my name and my information publically viewable because I don't
> believe that these people can actually hurt me in any concrete way. Maybe
> that was naive but I still can't think of how. They can be annoying and
> harassing, but if I don't let it get to me, it won't. Part of administrative
> responsibility is having the force of will to brush aside the people who
> don't deserve the recognition that giving a damn about them or what they do
> gives them.
>
> Ryan

Ryan,

Harassment and stalking are crimes for a reason. Though you probably don't mean to be dismissive of victims of these crimes, you come across that way when you say that  you "don't let it get to you". The psychological trauma from harassment and stalking is real. Wikipedia needs to do a better job identifying the people that have harmed by this abuse and supporting them through the experience. This is a wise course of action for many reasons.

Sydney


body:
On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:27 PM, Lord Voldemort wrote:

> On 6/13/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jun 13, 2006, at 12:01 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>>> What can the board and management (whatever its structure) *do*
>>> that will be better?
>>>
>>> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would
>>> do *right*
>>> that the present management is not?
>>>
>>
>> Deal with marshaling assets and legal resources to deal with
>> defamation litigation. Tackle the problem of how to effectively avoid
>> such litigation.
>>
>
> I think this is being handled. And a step forward in this realm is the
> taking on of Brad as in-house council as communicated late yesterday
> or early today. Wouldn't you agree? --LV

Of course, but it remains a perpetually unsolved task. No criticism
was implied. Just a task that needs work. Brion's question is a setup
for this sort of response to any suggestion. I chose to ignore that
in order to focus on the part that I see.

Fred

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


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 6/13/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> There's a tendency to prefer "standard" British and American English,
> and variations on those such that they're relatively similar or a blend
> (like Canadian English).  I'm not sure this is codified anywhere, but
> it's mostly a practical matter to maximize its usefulness---American and
> British English are the most widely familiar and understood varieties of
> English.

The Manual of Style suggests that articles about a region/dialect, or
with a strong connection to that region/dialect, should use that
dialect.

So Canadian articles should use Canadian English, eh? Australian
articles should bloody well use Australian English, mate. New Zealand
articles... well, you get the point bro.

[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English

> That said the occasional oddity from smaller versions of English doesn't
> bother me as long as everything's easily understandable (i.e. no
> regional slang, and that including either UK or US slang).

Yes, there are common sense limits of course. (I wonder if it's
possible to write in BBC English?)

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> - Tag all DSLRs with a new category, replacing the two old ones, and
> putting the new category as a sub category of both SLR cameras and
> Digital cameras (doesn't seem clean)

According to the current guidelines, this is the proper solution.  I
don't see what's so unclean about it, anyway -- a DSLR is _defined_ as
an SLR that is _also_ a digital camera.  It's no stranger than "Bridges
in France" being a subset of both "Bridges" and "Things in France".

--
Ilmari Karonen