from_name: Liviu Andronic

body:
Hello

[..] but here we have a real problem and need a real solution, okay?
>
Now that's good. This is definitively a more constructive approach than
organizing carnivals.

> > If it is "language" that you mean
> FYI, the upcoming ISO 639 standard has totally abandoned your terminology.
> There are NOT anymore languages and dialects, all that we have is
> "Linguistic entities".

This "linguistic entity" term is still a mystery to me. There is no word
about it on Wikipedia and Google doesn't say much (maybe someone has a
pertinent link?). So that for the purpose of this email, I'll hold to my
old-fashioned terminology.

> You mean that RO.wiki
> would accept having on ALL of its pages a link saying "this page in
> cyrillic", or something like that?

Before answering this, I hope that the Language Committee agrees on the
following two points.

First of all, the WMF does *not* want to have any content in the Moldovan
dialect (Romanian as *spoken* in the historic region of Moldavia, which
would currently comprise Eastern part of Romania and Moldova with
Transnistria included). This would be completely stupid and trolls would be
the only serious contributors.

Secondly, the "Moldovan language" in its standard form is standard Romanian.
You might look here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language#Controversy>,
here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#What_reliable_sources_say_about_Moldovan_Language>and
here<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#What_decision_makers_need_to_know>for
more information. "Even the loudest defender of the Moldovan language
concept, Vasile Stati, has
agreed<http://www.vremea.net/news/2005-01-13/18:45:35.html>that
Moldovan and Romanian are identical in their literary forms".

With these two points cleared out, the situation becomes less confusing. As
said in my previous email, the current content on the Moldovan Wikipedia is
standard Romanian written in Cyrillic, Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (of course
with stylistic and grammar faults, and bad transliterations). It is not
reasonable to dedicate an entire Wikipedia section to this content, when the
Romanian Wikipedia exists.

The best solution would probably be installing a conversion script over the
Romanian Wikipedia with, as Berto mentioned, a link on all pages "in
Moldovan alphabet" or something similar (special attention should be paid to
the name of this link, as there has to be a contrast between the Moldovan
alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_alphabet> and the Romanian
Cyrillic alphabet <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Cyrillic_alphabet>;
on a side note: personally, I would like a lot if a conversion script of
Latin Romanian to Cyrillic Romanian were also created, but technically this
would be more than a challenge).

The good news is that there already is a partially functional conversion
script <http://mcworld.org/McChirilic/?pagina=Limba_moldoveneasc%25C4%2583>(you
may change "Limba_moldoveneasc?" to any relevant article on
ro.wiki). To my knowledge, it was created by Bogdan
Giusca<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bogdangiusca>,
and as he says himself, "It's not yet perfect, but it can be improved". And
it definitely needs improvements. It might get implemented in the way it is
on the Serbian Wikipedia<http://sr.wikipedia.org/sr-ec/%D0%91%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%88%D1%82>,
with Latin being the storage content and Cyrillic conversion performed on
demand by clicking the link. Two reasons: nowadays Latin is, somewhat, the
"standard" for the Romanian language and you've already seen how many people
are willing to contribute in Cyrillic. Taking into consideration that the
main objective here is for people still using this script to be able to
access content in Cyrillic, this is acceptable.

Now, I do not say that the Romanian Wikipedia would accept this. It is,
however, a reasonable solution to this controversial issue. Romanian was
historically written in three different scripts, so it would be logical to
have *one* Wikipedia section dealing with all the three writing systems. I
do not know the position of the Romanian Wikipedia admins, but I would
suppose that they'd need to be persuaded in a similar way that I am trying
to persuade the Language Committee. In any case, it would be better if
someone more familiar with the Romanian Wikipedia shed more light on this
point.

> Now do me a favour, will you tell me how we can verify that the ro.wiki
> admin structure will respect users and content coming from the cyr
> interface? It's no provocation, it's a serious question, and I want a VERY
>
> serious answer.

I seriously doubt that such problems arise. Romanian speaking persons from
Moldova are contributing to the Romanian Wikipedia for some time, already.
And, to this day, I've never heard of flag-based conflicts. As long as
content added is in line with NPOV and the rest of Wikipedia's principles,
there should be no persecution. There is no hatred between Moldovans and
Romanians. Frictions, yes. Maybe a bit of disrespect, randomly. But no
hatred. From personal experience, I would say that Romanians are generally
more friendly-intentioned towards Moldovans than the vice-verse. And they
don't really care if you come from Transnistria or not. In the sense that in
their eyes, Moldovans coming from the East of the Pruth river are their
Romanian brothers.

However, if you want to set some system of control (and there should be one,
for the beginning at least), there'd be two ways. Either name one-two
Moldovan nationals as Romanian Wikipedia admins (according to the rules, of
course, that I personally am not familiar with) that would be empowered to
intervene into relevant conflicts. Or simply - and probably better - empower
some existing respectable Romanian Wikipedia admins, that - in case
conflicts arise - will not act based on flag, but with respect to neutrality
and a given situation. Furthermore, upon account creation, users could get
informed on the admins dealing with different abuse problems.

Regards,
Liviu


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
Hello,

I just entered the cause of death and Category: Lung cancer deaths to the
Article on Illinois Representative Charles Arthur Hayes. His name now
appears in that Category, but not in the Category: Cancer deaths. Shouldn't
he appear in this Category also since cancer is what he died from? It seems
the only way to accomplish this is to include both Categories in his
Article. However, when I have done this in the past, in other similar
situations, I have gotten a whole lot of grief. What gives?

Frustrated.

Marc Riddell


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely

body:
Truth Beholder wrote:
> Fascist to the core.
>
> Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.
>
That's right, we're bad evil people, you're better off not dealing with
us ever again.

One of our admins is so bad and evil that she collects home addresses
and phone numbers and financial records of people who irritate her,
starting from only their email addresses. She says it's just a hobby,
but everybody is scared of her anyway. Worse, her login name is an
actual bug exploit and crashes every browser and mail reader except Lynx
(which is the one she uses), so I can't even type it in here. You should
cancel your gmail account quickly before she tracks you down.

Stan


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Navigating flame wars of the Daniel Brandt controversy


from_name: zetawoof

subject: [WikiEN-l] Short-lived retreat

body:
On 2/15/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The point of this status is so that excellent EDITORS (not vandalfighters,  arbitrators, etc) would be able to have special tools that would allow them to easily edit.
...
> The problem is that there are two different fields of Wikipedia work: Editing and maintenance. Editing is the general writing and improvement of articles, citing, cleanup, categorisation, etc...

None of which require an admin bit.

On 2/14/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I propose that for the "editor" status (my proposal for a user right between user and sysop), one would have the capabilities to edit protected articles, view deleted revisions, and generally view admin-olny things (but not actually perform sysop actions per se). And they might have a toolbar that would allow them to nominate these things...

No. Protected articles and deleted articles are protected and deleted
for a reason: for example, articles are most often protected to end
edit wars; even admins are discouraged from editing protected articles
in any nontrivial ways, so I see no reason that certain privileged
editors should be allowed to ignore protection. For simple protection
against vandalism, we already have semiprotection and blocking.
Deleted revisions are similar: they're deleted because they shouldn't
be visible. (Articles which are entirely deleted are a special case.
But most admins will send you a copy of a deleted article, or undelete
one to your userspace, if you ask nicely.)

So there's no good reason I see for *editors* to be given any tools
beyond what they've already got. If they need some help with
maintenance work (as you put it), that's another story - but simple
editing is already available to everyone.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Your comments on wikien-l regarding adminship

body:
On 2/15/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Surely this is the same old argument that also says that wikis can't
> work because anyone could rack up 20-30 socks and keep reverting their
> favourite articles to their favourite biased version.
>

Want to fight against 30+ socks without admin backup?

> If you let more people be admins, there *will be* enough admins around
> to block 20-30 misbehaving accounts. Notice that if one of them gets
> blocked (desysopped) for good reason, one of the socks resysopping him
> would also qualify as misbehaving; eventually all of the socks will be
> blocked (desysopped).

Wouldn't bother with resysopping. Just keep up the attack with the
next sock. or wait a few days and use that one. either way by the time
all the sock are blocked it is too too late.

>Vandals will soon realise that it is not worth it,
> and after a short initial rage, people will stop even attempting to
> create 30 sockpuppet accounts.
>

Because that has been what has happened with 100% of our vandals so far.
--
geni


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
On Feb 15, 2007, at 13:10, Rich Holton wrote:
> Sorry, but I have to disagree. The only real criteria I can figure is
> that we want to avoid admins who go completely zonkers and start
> systematically working against the aims of Wikipedia. If we can be
> reasonably sure someone won't do that, then there's no reason to keep
> them from becoming an admin.
>
> Of course, we need to be willing (and able) to de-admin someone when
> they consistently demonstrate the sort of behaviors you mention (or
> worse). But the whole wiki concept is one of self healing and
> resilience, not pre-approval. What we don't want to have is a class of
> users (admins) who are placed into the spotlight every time they
> make a
> mistake, or every time one of them turns out to be less than
> desirable.
>
> I respect the concerns of those who want to avoid granting large
> blocks
> of admin rights to what end up as sock-puppets intent on destruction.
> Perhaps we do need a sizable class of users whose sole role is
> granting
> and revoking admin rights--but these users should not be themselves
> admins. These people should be very carefully selected, and should for
> the most part stay out of controversy.
>
> -Rich

Just for clarification: my post was to discuss the role of adminship,
not the merits of making people admins easier or whatever the other
thread was dedicated to. :] I'm not thinking of the one or two people
who might be inclined to make huge swaths of sockpuppets, but rather
those whose own personal biases prevent them from acting in the best
interests of others. These are the people who I think should not be
given a general managerial role such as admin, but who are perfectly
adept at making Wikipedia a wonderful place.

I think the idea is that of consensus: the community agrees to
delete, block, protect and the admin is only doing what the community
wants. Or preempting it as the case may be, but that's more tricky.
We want admins who will follow consensus; not all people do this
naturally, while all people correct errors naturally.

What I think we don't want is admins who put their own input into
what they do, and delete things they want deleted, and protect things
they want protected. We /do/ very much want people to edit things
they want edited, change things they want changed. Deleting and
editing are not quite the same thing and thus shouldn't work quite
the same way.

Also, I don't see how your comments were in response to mine, but
it's all good. :]
--keitei


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikitech-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 25

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

[blah blah blah]

Everybody, please don't bother discussing alternative bold and italic
markup. That's not on the table right now.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFF1NGswRnhpk1wk44RAmY7AJ0V8MJjGxH/nIBYgNHQTJYg4vy+MwCfVq7C
fzReMwgZz4Z1AQkGzIasEdQ=
=D53w
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 2/15/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Truth Beholder wrote:
> > Fascist to the core.
> >
> > Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.
> >
> That's right, we're bad evil people, you're better off not dealing with
> us ever again.
>
> One of our admins is so bad and evil that she collects home addresses
> and phone numbers and financial records of people who irritate her,
> starting from only their email addresses. She says it's just a hobby,
> but everybody is scared of her anyway. Worse, her login name is an
> actual bug exploit and crashes every browser and mail reader except Lynx
> (which is the one she uses), so I can't even type it in here. You should
> cancel your gmail account quickly before she tracks you down.
>
> Stan

One thing I try to keep in mind in posting to high-visibility mailing lists:

Everything you type could end up in the New York Times or Washington
Post or on CNN.

I know better, and you know better, but a random out-of-context viewer
would take the above badly.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
on 2/15/07 1:18 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:

> The entire category will be in Cancer deaths as a sub category.

But the Article in question cannot be seen as an entry in the Cancer deaths
category. Right?

> Including members of sub categories on the main category page would
> make the whole system unworkable. We keep the size of categories to a
> manageable size by taking members out and putting them in a sub
> category.

I don't understand "workable" - in what way? As WP grows - to take this to
its logical absurdity: What do you do when, say, the Category: People from
Philadelphia becomes "too large", create subcategories of the city by wards,
then individual streets, then?!

Huh?

Marc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
on 2/15/07 1:15 PM, Rich Holton at richholton at gmail.com wrote:

> I can tell you that there is no mechanism in the software to implicitly
> include articles in categories, such as you seem to want. If you want an
> article in a category, you must specifically place the category tag on
> that article.

I hope we can get beyond this someday.
>
> Note, however, that many templates do include the necessary tag to place
> an article that uses that template into one or more category.

Be gentle, I'm still a bit computer challenged. I need a bit more
explanation of this.
>
> On the other hand, if you mean "should" as a desired behavior, that's
> another discussion altogether.

I'd rather not go there just now ;-) - I get into enough trouble as it is
:-).

Thanks, Rich,

Marc


body:
George Herbert wrote:
> On 2/15/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Truth Beholder wrote:
>>
>>> Fascist to the core.
>>>
>>> Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.
>>>
>>>
>> That's right, we're bad evil people, you're better off not dealing with
>> us ever again.
>>
>> One of our admins is so bad and evil that she collects home addresses
>> and phone numbers and financial records of people who irritate her,
>> starting from only their email addresses. She says it's just a hobby,
>> but everybody is scared of her anyway. Worse, her login name is an
>> actual bug exploit and crashes every browser and mail reader except Lynx
>> (which is the one she uses), so I can't even type it in here. You should
>> cancel your gmail account quickly before she tracks you down.
>>
>> Stan
>>
>
> One thing I try to keep in mind in posting to high-visibility mailing lists:
>
> Everything you type could end up in the New York Times or Washington
> Post or on CNN.
>
> I know better, and you know better, but a random out-of-context viewer
> would take the above badly.
>
>
In fact I've actually read the early-80s Rand report on email that was
perhaps the first to make that observation. But if I can get some idiot
reporter to breathlessly report on a mysterious bug exploit that is at
once capable of crashing browsers on Intels, PPCs, Macs, Windows, and
Linux, it will be well worth any personal hassles!

Anyway, if moderators aren't going to moderate, plan B is to try scaring
the morons away. :-)

Stan


from_name: Truth Beholder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely

body:
So I followed a slashdot link to an essay on you fascists and to a user
discussion on your admins noticepage and I noticed one of your bad faith
people closed the discussion despite people raising questions.

I made a note and went on and was trying to edit wording on the atomic
energy page when one Theresa Knott comes along and decides to be a fascist
bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=108404754&oldid=108404198

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TruthBeholder&action=history

She even goes around lying what she does too, claiming the discussion wasn't
blocked when clearly the note left there by the bad faith admin facsists
said otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATruthBeholder&diff=108407885&oldid=108406787

Wikipedia's just a bunch of lying fascists I see.

TruthBeholder, beholding the truth of the fascistopedia.


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] corporate "problems with articles" seems to be
	working a bit

body:
The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_%28from_enterprise%29

It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
which are being dealt with properly.

No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)

OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] corporate "problems with articles" seems to be working a
	bit


list: wikimedia-l


body:
And now the fascist patrol has locked my page so I can't request unblock,
how fucking fascist typical of fascistopedia.

Slashdot was right, you're nothing but a bunch of arrogant fascist assholes.

Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Truth Beholder <truthbeholder at gmail.com>
Date: Feb 15, 2007 2:14 PM
Subject: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org

So I followed a slashdot link to an essay on you fascists and to a user
discussion on your admins noticepage and I noticed one of your bad faith
people closed the discussion despite people raising questions.

I made a note and went on and was trying to edit wording on the atomic
energy page when one Theresa Knott comes along and decides to be a fascist
bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=108404754&oldid=108404198

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TruthBeholder&action=history

She even goes around lying what she does too, claiming the discussion wasn't
blocked when clearly the note left there by the bad faith admin facsists
said otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATruthBeholder&diff=108407885&oldid=108406787

Wikipedia's just a bunch of lying fascists I see.

TruthBeholder, beholding the truth of the fascistopedia.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
on 2/15/07 2:01 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:

> Categories exist to make finding articles easier,
> finding an article in 5 pages of 200 articles each is far from easy.

 Now I am beginning to understand why I am so out of synch here. Where you
are looking for specific, individual Articles, I am looking for an
index-type list of all persons under a specific Category. E.g., if I were
doing cancer research, I would like an entire list of all persons in the
encyclopedia who died from cancer. Then, I can select from the list which
persons I would like to study.

Marc


body:
And now they lie about who I am.

Fascist to the core.

Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Truth Beholder <truthbeholder at gmail.com>
Date: Feb 15, 2007 2:19 PM
Subject: Fwd: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org

And now the fascist patrol has locked my page so I can't request unblock,
how fucking fascist typical of fascistopedia.

Slashdot was right, you're nothing but a bunch of arrogant fascist assholes.

Truth Beheld, Wikipedia is a bunch of Fascist Assholes.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Truth Beholder <truthbeholder at gmail.com>
Date: Feb 15, 2007 2:14 PM
Subject: Fascistopedia as Slashdot notes it, definitely
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org

So I followed a slashdot link to an essay on you fascists and to a user
discussion on your admins noticepage and I noticed one of your bad faith
people closed the discussion despite people raising questions.

I made a note and went on and was trying to edit wording on the atomic
energy page when one Theresa Knott comes along and decides to be a fascist
bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=108404754&oldid=108404198

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TruthBeholder&action=history

She even goes around lying what she does too, claiming the discussion wasn't
blocked when clearly the note left there by the bad faith admin facsists
said otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATruthBeholder&diff=108407885&oldid=108406787

Wikipedia's just a bunch of lying fascists I see.

TruthBeholder, beholding the truth of the fascistopedia.


from_name: Timwi

body:
geni wrote:
>
> Want to fight against 30+ socks without admin backup?

Not sure what you're talking about there, "without admin backup"?

> Wouldn't bother with resysopping. Just keep up the attack with the
> next sock. or wait a few days and use that one. either way by the time
> all the sock are blocked it is too too late.

Too late for what?

>>Vandals will soon realise that it is not worth it,
>>and after a short initial rage, people will stop even attempting to
>>create 30 sockpuppet accounts.
>
> Because that has been what has happened with 100% of our vandals so far.

Yes, precisely.

Timwi


references:
<bd4c411e0702090937y3482dadcm2a9d0f99b70eefd3@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqlnhi$e7d$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<a4359dff0702101634vc91aa8bp558a0fe5075abdb3@mail.gmail.com>
	<45D205DF.6050803@telus.net>
	<a4359dff0702131144v498b59a8g929805b36bd31fb5@mail.gmail.com>
	<eqvlcg$ak7$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<1adf38660702141203o113c6db8yaba7d7e5b340e8f1@mail.gmail.com>
	<er1j5e$huh$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f80608430702150527n5c4e704cu3059aee90eb667dd@mail.gmail.com>
	<er1rar$f6t$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 2/15/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Not sure what you're talking about there, "without admin backup"?

What I say. do you want to go up against 30+ socks without an admin to
be able to throw around protection and blocking?

> > Wouldn't bother with resysopping. Just keep up the attack with the
> > next sock. or wait a few days and use that one. either way by the time
> > all the sock are blocked it is too too late.
>
> Too late for what?
>

To prevent the damage.

> > Because that has been what has happened with 100% of our vandals so far.
>
> Yes, precisely.

[[Irony]]

--
geni


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Conspicuous only in its absence (was Moldavian)

body:
Hi!
>First of all, the WMF does *not* want to have any content in the Moldovan
>dialect (Romanian as *spoken* in the historic region of Moldavia, which
>would currently comprise Eastern part of Romania and Moldova with
>Transnistria included).
Right the opposite. ANY encyclopedic content in an ISO recognized entity (thus including the Moldovan Linguistic Entity) is desirable. It's about the planet, not about you and your country, in case you ain't clear with it.

You either cope with linguistic/political/ethnical diversity yourselves or content will have to be hosted elsewhere. So, WHERE are you warranties about democracy and NPOV if and when Moldavian/Transdnistrian content comes in?

I won't read the second part of your email since it's conditional and your first condition is not acceptable. Also, FMI, is your position in anyway an official position from Ro.wiki?

B?rto ?d S?ra
Personagi dl?ann 2006 p?r l?arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti voj?otri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Limited Sysop

body:
> I propose that for the "editor" status (my proposal for a user right between user and sysop), one would have the capabilities to edit protected articles, view deleted revisions, and generally view admin-olny things (but not actually perform sysop actions per se). And they might have a toolbar that would allow them to nominate these things...

That's a better idea. The protection bit could be done as a form of
protection inbetween semi and full (and there could be a
super-protection that can only be edited by people with oversight,
checkuser and crats). Viewing deleted revisions would be good, but
might cause some problems - some things are deleted because it's
important that people don't see them (personal info, copyvios, etc),
making more people able to see deleted revisions could be risky.


body:
> Is this true? I thought the primary way Wikipedia dealt with vandalism
> is by treating it as just another edit, the bad ones of which are more
> likely to be nixed by subsequent edits.
>
> My personal experience is that a tiny percentage of vandalism requires
> more power to solve. Is that not the case?

That is exactly the case, however a tiny percentage of a very large
number is still quite a large number. Most vandalism doesn't require
admin intervention, there is still quite a lot (often the worst kinds)
that do need blocking or protection to stop them.


body:
> > Wikipedia is not an experiment - the scientific method does not apply.
>
> This is a bizzarre statement. Wikipedia may not "be" an experiment,
> but it can certainly conduct experiments to find out the best way of
> operating.

If Wikipedia were a type of science then experiments would be the only
way to find out the best way of operating. However, we are not a type
of science, our aim is to operate as well as possible, not just to
find out what the best way is. That means doing the experiment could
be extremely damaging - this isn't the kind of proposal that can be
tested on a test wiki, it must be tested on the real thing, and it
could be horribly wrong. In situations were it isn't practical to test
a proposition, we have to use logical arguments to work out which is
best without actually doing it. It's not ideal, but in some cases it's
the only way of finding out without the risk of it going wrong - I
feel this is one of those cases.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] structure

body:
Jon Harald S?by wrote:
> What I think should be done about Foundation-l is to split it into two
> parts: one, called, tada, foundation-l, about _Foundation_ matters,
> and one called wikimedia-l, about _community_ matters. The way it is
> today the two are mixed, even though they have quite little to do with
> eachother (well, the issues discussed don't; of course the Foundation
> itself has a lot to do with the community).
>

But... yes !
Meta.org is about wikimedia project issues. wikimediafoundation.org iks
about the foundation. Foundation-l is about the founation.

What about a meta-l at wikimedia.org for community issues ?

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] structure


subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
> > I have a worrying feeling that would be spammed by nonsense requests
> > too often to be useful...
>
> Dude. AGF. Or at least "Give it a chance".

AGF has nothing to do with it. AGF means giving people the benefit of
the doubt, not giving proposals the benefit of the doubt - a proposal
doesn't have faith, good or bad.

I never said we shouldn't give it a chance, I just expressed my
concerns - there is no harm in being aware of what could go wrong
before you try something.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout (deputy admins)

body:
> Nieve?  Obsolete Scottish dialect for clenched fist?  Spanish for snow?

In what way does a sarcastic comment about my spelling make a useful
contribution to this conversation? It was obvious what I meant.
Language exists to transfer meaning from one person to another, as
long as that aim is achieved does the spelling really make any
difference?


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Limited Sysop

body:
I don't agree with users who don't have sysop- or above (in the
'hierarchy') level access viewing deleted revisions.

How many users would have this permission, and how would they get it?
Autoconfirm-style number of good edits  + time on project = 'editor'
level?

On 2/15/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I propose that for the "editor" status (my proposal for a user right
> between user and sysop), one would have the capabilities to edit protected
> articles, view deleted revisions, and generally view admin-olny things (but
> not actually perform sysop actions per se). And they might have a toolbar
> that would allow them to nominate these things...
>
> That's a better idea. The protection bit could be done as a form of
> protection inbetween semi and full (and there could be a
> super-protection that can only be edited by people with oversight,
> checkuser and crats). Viewing deleted revisions would be good, but
> might cause some problems - some things are deleted because it's
> important that people don't see them (personal info, copyvios, etc),
> making more people able to see deleted revisions could be risky.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


subject: [Foundation-l] Legal disclaimer edit?

body:
Luna wrote:
> Last week, somebody requested an edit at the legal disclaimer page;
> discussion suggested this should be run past the foundation. Prior thread on
> wikien-l got no replies, so seeing if we can't get somebody's attention on
> here.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Legal_disclaimer#Edit_Request_.22articles_-.3E_articles_and_resources.22_.28applies_to_all_disclaimers.2C_not_just_legal_disclaimer.29
>
> Thanks in advance for any replies,
> -Luna

noted. I follow up on this. Thanks

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Legal disclaimer edit?


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
My goodness.  Diving right in with accusations of fascistry.
Usually, people *work their way up* to Godwin's Law -- this must
be some new tactic with which I wasn't previously acquainted.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

body:
geni wrote:

>On 2/15/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:24:24 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Plain bad luck" in our context means that there may be instances where
>>>>we will be sued no matter what we do.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Sure.  But if we have done our best and show it, we'll be OK.
>>>
>>>
>>IOW getting sued is not the thing to worry about.  Getting sued
>>successfully is.
>>
>>
>Under US law the winner may still have costs so to an extent both need
>to be worried about.
>
That's all possible.  But at some point one has to stop backpeddling out
of fear of the cost of being right.  I readily recognize that some
people are so paralyzed by the thought of any costs associated with
being right that they become a part of the problem.

Ec


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Exporting sections of pages

body:
On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 03:20:19PM +1100, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/14/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > Well, my snap reaction is 'microformats'.
>
> Say what?

There was a fairly extensive discussion on this list a couple weeks ago
-- which I thought you had participated in -- about microformats (I
think the buzzword was) which amounted to "custom-made attributed to
HTML tags which would be usable for semantic extraction, but ignored by
browsers".

Or at least that was what *I* got from the discussion.  ;-)

This topic, and the approach you and I forsee, is sort of an offshoot
thereof...

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 06:08:11PM +0100, Daniel Arnold wrote:
> Another point is that * syntax clashes with lists. Lists with * are a really
> intuitive thing. Do not mix them with something else (for example what about
> italic in a list, something I really use often). Something like ** [space] *
> is not going to work. Never.

I keep hearing this asserted, but with nothing other than personal,
anecdotal opinions as evidence.

My personal perception is that I don't expect

* This is an element
** This is a second level *element with a bold phrase*
** *This is another second level element, all bold*
* One more element

to be at all difficult for people to cope with.  The lists I see marked
up in my limited work on en.W seem to go about 60/40 having the space.

Anyone with the full corpus on a machine who can check that statistic
for real?

And, why is is to difficult, Daniel, for people to have to put a space
in after a list item marker?  That seems much less ambiguous than

'''''this is'' a weird phrase'''
'''''this one''' is too''

to *me*.  In list markup, it's reasonable to eat the whitespace
character, which it is *not* reasonable for a parser to do in the
bold/italics collision case.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274


body:
Steve Summit wrote:

>My goodness.  Diving right in with accusations of fascistry.
>Usually, people *work their way up* to Godwin's Law -- this must
>be some new tactic with which I wasn't previously acquainted.
>
Sometimes it is best to cut to the chase without wasting time trying to
explain the incomprehensible.

Ec


from_name: Rob

body:
I know the list mods here have received some criticism recently, and I
hate to pile on, but aren't all new list subscribers automatically on
moderation? If so, why on earth was a message calling a user a
"fascist bitch" let through?


from_name: CJ King

subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

body:
Hi everybody, my name is CJ King. I would really like to know what OTRS is.
Thanks and have a great day!!
On 2/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_%28from_enterprise%29
>
> It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
> appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
> which are being dealt with properly.
>
> No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)
>
> OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
You've got an email from cjkingwiki at gmail.com.


subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Help! Redirection is driving me nuts

body:
On 15/02/07, Jim Hu <jimhu at tamu.edu> wrote:
> I'm trying to debug an extension on my laptop, and http://localhost/
> wiki keeps redirecting to http://<my-computers-hostname>.tamu.edu/
> wiki... which doesn't work.  How do I stay at localhost?  This
> doesn't seem to happen with other webpages on my laptop.

This is being detected from the web server configuration, but you can
use $wgServer and $wgServerName to override if needed.

Rob Church


from_name: Casey Brown

subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

body:
OTRS is the e-mail client used by the Wikimedia Foundation.  Whenever
someone sends an e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation using the Contact page
on Wikipedia or other places, it gets sent to OTRS and volunteers answer it
on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation or send it to people who can.  They
also tend to act out actions based on OTRS e-mails.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of CJ King
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 4:17 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

Hi everybody, my name is CJ King. I would really like to know what OTRS is.
Thanks and have a great day!!
On 2/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:
>
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_er
ror_%28from_enterprise%29
>
> It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
> appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
> which are being dealt with properly.
>
> No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)
>
> OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
You've got an email from cjkingwiki at gmail.com.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?


body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 15/02/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>One of our admins is so bad and evil that she collects home addresses
>>and phone numbers and financial records of people who irritate her,
>>starting from only their email addresses.
>>
>>
>As an idle comment, I saw the best Silly Internet Threat ever on the
>wiki the other day:
>
>"I have found out some of you people's real names. I'm going to report
>you to the IRS and get you audited. Justice will be done, one way or
>another" [paraphrased]
>
>I love the mindset that implies.
>
That's how they got Al Capone.  You'll have to find a better way of
hiding the millions that Wikipedia editing has brought to you.  You're
lucky he didn't know anything about Inland Revenue. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

body:
Thanks very much, that helps a lot!!

On 2/15/07, CJ King <cjkingwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everybody, my name is CJ King. I would really like to know what OTRS
> is. Thanks and have a great day!!
> On 2/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:
> >
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_%28from_enterprise%29
> >
> > It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
> > appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
> > which are being dealt with properly.
> >
> > No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)
> >
> > OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> You've got an email from cjkingwiki at gmail.com.

--
You've got an email from cjkingwiki at gmail.com.


subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Liviu Andronic schreef:
> Before answering this, I hope that the Language Committee agrees on the
> following two points.
>
> First of all, the WMF does *not* want to have any content in the Moldovan
> dialect (Romanian as *spoken* in the historic region of Moldavia, which
> would currently comprise Eastern part of Romania and Moldova with
> Transnistria included). This would be completely stupid and trolls would be
> the only serious contributors.
Hoi,
The language committee does not agree on the first. As to the second
point, in ISO-639-6 there will be the notion of linguistic entities. It
makes perfect sense to change the terminology because of its scope. The
beauty is that it negates even the notion of something being a language
or a dialect.

Given that we are not inclined to listen to political arguments and
given that this mess was very much created in a period when Moldova was
at war with itself. Given that the numerically greater party uses its
position trying to determine the outcome I do not think that this is a
convincing ploy.

The notion that "It is not reasonable to dedicate an entire Wikipedia
section to this content, when the Romanian Wikipedia exists." is your
POV. There is a mo.wikipedia.org. When the people who contribute to the
Romanian language Wikipedia find it in themselves to leave the
mo,wikipedia be, when it is allowed to clean its content, there may be a
moment when a merge may happen. This means that articles in Cyrillic may
be translated in Latin and vice versa. Pre conceived ideas that the
Cyrillic content is not worth the hassle are tantamount to preventing a
merge which would be the optimal solution.

As there will be a period of time needed to do all this, it is a perfect
opportunity to improve the Cyrillic to Latin conversion and the Latin to
Cyrillic conversion.

When the contributors of the Romanian language Wikipedia do not accept
this, they have to accept the existence of a mo.wikipedia. They cannot
have their cake and eat it.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Gwern Branwen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Short-lived retreat

in_reply_to:
<8e0b4ab80702151326y710fee47gb89fda9350e305fa@mail.gmail.com>
	(zetawoof@gmail.com's message of "Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:26:22 -0800")

body:
zetawoof <zetawoof at gmail.com> writes:
> No. Protected articles and deleted articles are protected and deleted
> for a reason: for example, articles are most often protected to end
> edit wars; even admins are discouraged from editing protected articles
> in any nontrivial ways, so I see no reason that certain privileged
> editors should be allowed to ignore protection. For simple protection
> against vandalism, we already have semiprotection and blocking.
> Deleted revisions are similar: they're deleted because they shouldn't
> be visible. (Articles which are entirely deleted are a special case.
> But most admins will send you a copy of a deleted article, or undelete
> one to your userspace, if you ask nicely.)
>
> So there's no good reason I see for *editors* to be given any tools
> beyond what they've already got. If they need some help with
> maintenance work (as you put it), that's another story - but simple
> editing is already available to everyone.

But why not give semiprotection to some subset of editors? They're the ones closest to
the articles, it's not nearly so important and serious as full
protection, and it's not like there are any rules against editing a
semi-protected page. We've already given Undo, a weak form of rollbacks,
to editors, so there's precedent. Besides, it seems to me that
semi-protection is more of an editing tool than something that's clearly
an admin tool.

--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.


from_name: Parker Peters

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Deletions - do we cut a bit of slack for the Third
	World

body:
We should probably have some form of researchability for items whose
predominant form of reference will be a non-English language.

Perhaps link to a Google Translate version of the page?

Parker

On 2/15/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> Please take a look at:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kathmandu_University_High_School_%28second_nomination%29#.5B.5BKathmandu_University_High_School.7CKathmandu_University_High_School_.28second_nomination.29.5D.5D
>
> Should we, as I suggest there, cut a bit of slack for artciles about
> something in the Third World, or do we just accept the "no reliable
> third party sources for notability" mantra. It is just a stub and the
> information seems well supported by the external link to the School
> site. Not perfect, I agree, but I do not suppose Kadmandu newspapers are
> searched by Google and that is not perfect either. I would welcome views
> in general on this sort of thing, without asking any of you to intervene
> in that discussion for deletion.
>
> Brian
>
> --
>           Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au
>                [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
>            Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Sean Black

subject: [WikiEN-l] In hospital

body:
On 2/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 15/02/07, Sean Black <smblac at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 2/13/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > "The list moderators cannot undertake to insulate readers of the list
> > > from human stupidity."
>
> > That's a convient way of saying "we don't particularly care".
>
>
> Or rather, "it's way too much like work to take on policing such a
> subjective criterion; you're grown-ups, a stupid message won't kill
> you."

If it's too much to work to moderate a mailing list, maybe you shouldn't be
doing that. I'm not going to say that all the moderators are just lazy and
not really doing their jobs, because that's terribly unfair, and I'm sure
there's a lot of work to be done. But instead of giving a reasonable
explanation and saying that we're just supposed to accept completely idiotic
junk posted to this list isn't fair. Moderators are supposed to, you know,
*moderate*.

~~sean


from_name: Marc Riddell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
on 2/15/07 3:34 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton at gmail.com wrote:

> Picking from a list of 1000 articles on cancer victims is much harder
> than picking from a list of a few dozen lung cancer victims. If you
> specifically want victims of various cancers, the subcatagories are
> all listed at the beginning of the main category listing.
>
> (NB: The numbers are made up for the purpose of an example, I have no
> idea how many articles are in each category)

Thanks for your help with this, Tom. I still feel that the Category System
within WP isn't operating in the best way that it could. I would love to see
some serious cleanup and rethinking done on it.

Marc


from_name: Luis Zarrabeitia

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
> Can anyone think of something they currently can't achieve with the
> existing hooks?  Something that might be solvable with a Factory class?
>

I've got one, I think.
There are some changes I need that I don't think I can achieve through hooks
and currently require changes to the core code:

* Images: I need to set the url of the image, regardless of wether the image
exists or not (i.e, I need to get the 404 error instead of the [[Image:name]]
link). An external app will take care of that 404 (locate the image, show
it). (also, less confusing, I could locate the image on the subclass before
outputting the final url).
* Parser: minor edits to the parser (link syntax), not worthy of committing,
but needed for my intranet.
* Title: I could think on changing a bit the relationship between the page
title and the database key (currently they have to be the same). It's pretty
ugly to do it on the base code.

Just to think about. I like the idea of this change very very much.

Cheers,

K.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] We're famous!

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> It seems from today's edition that he has been getting complaints about
> his taking shots at Wikipedia users.  Maybe there are some people out
> there who take things too seriously. :-)

Hell yeah. I want one of those uniforms! We could organize troops of
Wikipedians to march around town, flashing our badges and editing any
traffic signs we came across. "It's alright, we're Wikipedians. If this
causes any car accidents just revert and everything will be fine." As an
admin I'd get to carry a ceremonial mop.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/14/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a worrying feeling that would be spammed by nonsense requests
> too often to be useful...

Dude. AGF. Or at least "Give it a chance".

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/15/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> For this to work, the direct nomination method would have to be
> scrapped or else a troll/vandal could get a bullshit nom past the
> team. However, using such a system and keeping direct nominations

Huh? As soon as we implement the new system, the old system is
suddenly worthless, insecure and must be dismantled? Because of the
risk of "bullshit noms", which we've coped with until now?

I was with you until now. But I don't get your reasoning here.

Steve


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
>Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower
> the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this
> everyone's an admin!!! deal.

If we want to lower the bar, we have to work out how to do it first.
RfA doesn't use set standards, everyone decides based on their own
criteria. Hundreds of possible replacements for RfA have been proposed
and rejected, so it seems consensus is for a promotion system at least
closely based on RfA, which makes lowering the bar very difficult.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Favour

body:
Done. Heh, I misread and put it on User:JzG. Looks like someone else
got to User talk:JzG first.

Steve

On 2/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Sorry to send this to the list, but please read on.
>
> My broadband is playing silly buggers, up and down every few seconds.
> Outbound email is going eventually (the server at home keeps retrying
> and gets the messages out after a few dozen retries).
>
> If someone would be so kind as to stick a message on [[User talk:JzG]]
> to say I'm suffering connectivity problems, so people don't think I'm
> ignoring them / their requests I'd be very grateful.
>


from_name: Delirium

body:
Berto 'd Sera wrote:

>Hi!
>
>
>>First of all, the WMF does *not* want to have any content in the Moldovan
>>dialect (Romanian as *spoken* in the historic region of Moldavia, which
>>would currently comprise Eastern part of Romania and Moldova with
>>Transnistria included).
>>
>>
>Right the opposite. ANY encyclopedic content in an ISO recognized entity (thus including the Moldovan Linguistic Entity) is desirable. It's about the planet, not about you and your country, in case you ain't clear with it.
>
>
Wikimedia already has a longstanding preference not to split Wikipedias
into separate ones for each dialect, as much as possible.  Therefore
nobody would support splitting the English Wikipedia into
American-English and British-English and Australian-English Wikipedias,
and similarly a *lot* of effort was put into keeping the Chinese
Wikipedia from splitting into Simplified and Traditional Chinese
Wikipedias, and efforts to split off a Cantonese Wikipedia have also
been consistently opposed.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Kris Straub PWNZed Wikipedia

body:
http://www.halfpixel.com/2007/02/15/delete-wikipedia/

But still, you've got to laugh, when the wool is pulled over Wikipedia's
eyes this easily, no?

Let's see if this gets through, or if the Cabal wants to still try thinking
that they can stop the truth from being heard... for I know there is a Cabal
now.

Parker


from_name: Daniel Arnold

body:
On Wednesday 14 February 2007 10:42:47 Chuck Smith wrote:
> Another benefit of changing the double single quotes and triple single
> quotes to // and ** respectively is that it would be a small step to
> making MediaWiki markup more Creole-compatible (www.wikicreole.org).
> Also, it seems like a conversion script for just these two elements
> would not be that difficult to write.  What could be potential
> complications?

I don't want to disrupt you but I definitely like the ' syntax and I am not
willing to stop using it.

Why?

'' get used especially for highlighting of single words words or short
sentences of other people. So it is used very much for quick and
dirty "inline"-quoting. You probably can argue that " '' are hard to
distinguish and that a proper quote needs " (well proper quotes use a bunch
of other characters not on our standard keyboards ;-) beside italic.

Another point is that * syntax clashes with lists. Lists with * are a really
intuitive thing. Do not mix them with something else (for example what about
italic in a list, something I really use often). Something like ** [space] *
is not going to work. Never.

So although the current mediawiki syntax has its disadvantages, the core
syntax (I don't talk about templates) is very much balanced and is causing
very few problems withing our limited common standard character set.

And of course Usenet doesn't count. It is about exchanging arguments and not
about creating articles.

Arnomane
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
> I just entered the cause of death and Category: Lung cancer deaths to the
> Article on Illinois Representative Charles Arthur Hayes. His name now
> appears in that Category, but not in the Category: Cancer deaths. Shouldn't
> he appear in this Category also since cancer is what he died from? It seems
> the only way to accomplish this is to include both Categories in his
> Article. However, when I have done this in the past, in other similar
> situations, I have gotten a whole lot of grief. What gives?

The entire category will be in Cancer deaths as a sub category.
Including members of sub categories on the main category page would
make the whole system unworkable. We keep the size of categories to a
manageable size by taking members out and putting them in a sub
category.


from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Massive Hook Proposal

body:
> > Gotcha - so when's the submission deadline for patches to 1.10.0?
>
> 1.10 will branch from trunk in the first week of April per our quarterly
> release cycle.

Maybe best to not cut it too fine for anything "massive" though ... my
mental model of what's going on is something like this:

 V     - Quarterly release
 |       ....
         ....  >>>> Zone of normal grumpiness.
 T       ....
 I       ....
 M     - Three weeks to release
 E        >>> Zone of steadily increasing grumpiness
       - One week to release
 |        >>> Zone of extreme grumpiness! Bugfixes above new features.
 v     - Quarterly release
         ....
         .... Rinse, repeat.

> Step 1: For each class in MW, create a static factory method for class
> instantiation.
> ...
> Step 2: Replace all calls to the traditional "new Whatever($args)" with
> "Whatever::instantiate($args)".

Would it be nicer to have a single function / static method that did this
(by passing in the classname as a parameter), rather than adding the same
boilerplate code to every class in MediaWiki? Rough, probably-buggy,
example code below.

Also adds creating singletons; Also adds allowing the class names to
be overridden to instantiate a different class via a global. Whether any
of these are desirable behaviour is for others to say (how abstract do
you want to get?) - it was just a quick & dirty test mockup :

======================================================================
<?php

require_once '/var/www/hosts/mediawiki/wiki/maintenance/commandLine.inc';

/*
** An array of class names to override, where the key is the standard
** class name, and the value is the overridden class name (which should
** extended the standard class and/or implement the same interfaces that
** it does).
*/
global $wgClassOverrides;
$wgClassOverrides = array();

class Factory {

        /*
        ** Instantiate a new object, running before and after hooks.
        */
        public static function wfNew( $class, &$args = NULL ) {
            $objResult = NULL;
            wfRunHooks('BeforeInstantiate_' . $class, array( &$objResult, &$args) );

            if ($objResult === NULL) {
                $real_class = self::getRealClass( $class );
                $objResult = new $real_class ($args);
            }

            wfRunHooks('AfterInstantiate_' . $class, array( &$objResult, &$args) );
            return $objResult;
        }

        /*
        ** Returns the classname to use, allowing classnames to be overridden.
        ** Recursively calls itself, so as to allow stacking overrides.
        */
        private static function getRealClass( $class ) {
                global $wgClassOverrides;
                if( isset ( $wgClassOverrides[$class] ) ) {
                        return self::getRealClass ( $wgClassOverrides[$class] );
                } else {
                        return $class;
                }
        }

        /*
        ** An array of singletons, where the key is the class name, and the
        ** value is the singleton object.
        */
        private $singletons = array();

        /*
        ** Returns a singleton for the specified class.
        */
        public function & singleton( $class ) {
                $realClass = self::getRealClass( $class );
                if( !isset( $this->singletons[$realClass] ) ) {
                        $this->singletons[$realClass] = self::wfNew( $realClass );
                }
                return $this->singletons[$realClass];
        }
}

// ------------- test code for the above -----------------

$wgHooks['BeforeInstantiate_Title'][] = 'BeforeInstantiate_Title';
$wgHooks['AfterInstantiate_Title' ][] = 'AfterInstantiate_Title';

/*
** Test dummy hooks for Title
*/
function BeforeInstantiate_Title () {
        print "In " . __FUNCTION__ . "\n";
}

function AfterInstantiate_Title () {
        print "In " . __FUNCTION__ . "\n";
}

/*
** Empty test class.
*/
class myTitle extends Title {

}

// we want to override the Title class, with the myTitle class.
$wgClassOverrides['Title'] = 'myTitle';

// Should print out the two "In XXX" lines for the Before then After hooks.
$title = Factory::wfNew( 'Title' );

// should give the class as myTitle.
print "\$title is a: " . get_class( $title ) . "\n";

// The factory that can build itself before it exists... :-)
global $wgFactory;
$wgFactory = Factory::wfNew( 'Factory' );

// test class that will print out a line when being constructed.
class testTitle extends Title {
        function __construct () {
                print "Constructing one " . get_class( $this ) . "\n";
        }
}

// create a singleton
$s1 = $wgFactory->singleton( 'testTitle' );
$s2 = $wgFactory->singleton( 'testTitle' );
$wgClassOverrides['fakeTitle'] = 'testTitle';
$s3 = $wgFactory->singleton( 'fakeTitle' );

// should only get one printout from the block of lines above.

?>
======================================================================

> Are there reasons why this patch wouldn't be accepted that I should consider
> before undertaking the work to implement it?

I can't comment on whether others will accept it, only on whether I think it's
worth doing, and for that I guess my 3 personal evaluation criteria would be:
How much performance overhead would it add in real-world tests? How much harder
would it make it for external people to understand what's going on in the code?
How many people would use these style of hooks / overrides? (I.e. Not much point in
doing it if nobody uses it; not much point in software that does wonderful things
if it's so slow to use that nobody wants to use it; and I'm sure we've lost
something worth having if newcomers look at the code and are baffled as to what's
going on).

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
> On 2/16/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> appears in that Category, but not in the Category: Cancer deaths. Shouldn't
>> he appear in this Category also since cancer is what he died from? It seems
>> the only way to accomplish this is to include both Categories in his
>> Article. However, when I have done this in the past, in other similar
>> situations, I have gotten a whole lot of grief. What gives?

on 2/15/07 6:14 PM, Steve Bennett at stevagewp at gmail.com wrote:
>
> This discussion pretty well summarises a perennial problem with
> categories. There are two choices: Put the article in the broad
> category and its subcategory, or just in the subcategory.
>
> Problems with putting it in both categories: The broad category can
> get unmanageably large and impossible to navigate.
> Problems with putting in just the subcategory: There is no software
> support to retrieve the set of all articles in all subcats and the
> broad category. There is also no sufficiently tight definitino of
> "subcategory" to distinguish between true (taxonomic) subcategories
> and rough (thematic) subcategories. A lung cancer death is truly a
> cancer death. But someone born in Strasbourg is not truly someone born
> in France[1] (and there are much better examples than this).
>
> Steve
> [1] IIRC, Strasbourg has previously been part of Germany, so you can't
> assume that a Strasbourgeois was actually born in France.
>
Excellent assessment, Steve. The question, for me, remains is software
support to retrieve the set of all articles in all subcats and the
broad category being developed? I sincerely hope so.

Marc


body:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
> (http://www.xkcd.org/c137.html)

Beautiful. This one's a printer.

> This is perhaps a good time to point out that "The Problem with
> Wikipedia" (http://www.xkcd.org/c214.html) hasn't been mentioned on this
> list yet.

Don't worry, AfD is working on solving this problem. :)


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

body:
Hoi!

> When the contributors of the Romanian language Wikipedia do not accept
>this, they have to accept the existence of a mo.wikipedia.

IMHO, it's also time to consider whether clearly politically predetermined
prejudices towards other linguistic entities/cultures should be formally
reported to the Board. That's in case they should prove to be an official
position from ro.wiki, and not just a single person's POV.

If this is not the case, than it should not be a problem for RO.wiki to
express an immediate formal condemn of all forms of
racial/sexual/political/social/religious AND linguistic intolerance and to
express its absolute readiness to ensure democracy and respect for
minorities.

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
> But the Article in question cannot be seen as an entry in the Cancer deaths
> category. Right?

Right.

> I don't understand "workable" - in what way?

If you have 5 pages of articles in a category, the category is pretty
much useless. Categories exist to make finding articles easier,
finding an article in 5 pages of 200 articles each is far from easy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
> > Note, however, that many templates do include the necessary tag to place
> > an article that uses that template into one or more category.
>
> Be gentle, I'm still a bit computer challenged. I need a bit more
> explanation of this.

When you transclude a template into an article, any categories
included in the template will get treated as if they were in the
article itself. For example {{wikify}} includes "[[Category:Articles
in need of wikification]]" (or something like that), so any article
which includes "{{wikify}}" is treated as if it includes
"[[Category:Articles in need of wikification]]", so is listed as being
in that category.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [19930]
	tags/REL1_9_2/phase3/includes

body:
On 15/02/07, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> I have added some documentation on mediawiki.org:

I also added some just after Brion's revert, in the section with, e.g.
"don't backport non-critical fixes" etc, but that's probably better
overall.

Rob Church


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

body:
Rob Church wrote:
<snip>
> *No one* except the release manager is supposed to alter *tags*, ever.
> If code *has* to be backported, then it gets backported to a branch.

I have added some documentation on mediawiki.org:

http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Subversion&diff=69044&oldid=62789

Go ahead and fix my English >)

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: Eric Astor

body:
Would it add anything to this debate if I said that, in discussion with
publishers, OLPC has found vehement objection to the ''' and ''
bold/italic syntax, and strong support for using * and / instead?

- Eric Astor

Daniel Arnold wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 February 2007 10:42:47 Chuck Smith wrote:
>> Another benefit of changing the double single quotes and triple single
>> quotes to // and ** respectively is that it would be a small step to
>> making MediaWiki markup more Creole-compatible (www.wikicreole.org).
>> Also, it seems like a conversion script for just these two elements
>> would not be that difficult to write.  What could be potential
>> complications?
>
> I don't want to disrupt you but I definitely like the ' syntax and I am not
> willing to stop using it.
>
> Why?
>
> '' get used especially for highlighting of single words words or short
> sentences of other people. So it is used very much for quick and
> dirty "inline"-quoting. You probably can argue that " '' are hard to
> distinguish and that a proper quote needs " (well proper quotes use a bunch
> of other characters not on our standard keyboards ;-) beside italic.
>
> Another point is that * syntax clashes with lists. Lists with * are a really
> intuitive thing. Do not mix them with something else (for example what about
> italic in a list, something I really use often). Something like ** [space] *
> is not going to work. Never.
>
> So although the current mediawiki syntax has its disadvantages, the core
> syntax (I don't talk about templates) is very much balanced and is causing
> very few problems withing our limited common standard character set.
>
> And of course Usenet doesn't count. It is about exchanging arguments and not
> about creating articles.
>
> Arnomane
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Ivan Krstić

body:
Eric Astor wrote:
> Would it add anything to this debate if I said that, in discussion with
> publishers, OLPC has found vehement objection to the ''' and ''
> bold/italic syntax, and strong support for using * and / instead?

Not really. Changing MediaWiki syntax isn't considered an option at the
moment, so this thread is pointless.

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D


body:
Ivan Krsti? wrote:
> Eric Astor wrote:
>> Would it add anything to this debate if I said that, in discussion with
>> publishers, OLPC has found vehement objection to the ''' and ''
>> bold/italic syntax, and strong support for using * and / instead?
>
> Not really. Changing MediaWiki syntax isn't considered an option at the
> moment, so this thread is pointless.
>

Sorry - I thought as much, but wrote my e-mail before seeing Brion's
official response.


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Short-lived retreat

body:
zetawoof wrote:
> On 2/15/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> The point of this status is so that excellent EDITORS (not vandalfighters,  arbitrators, etc) would be able to have special tools that would allow them to easily edit.
> ...
>> The problem is that there are two different fields of Wikipedia work: Editing and maintenance. Editing is the general writing and improvement of articles, citing, cleanup, categorisation, etc...
>
> None of which require an admin bit.
>
> On 2/14/07, Flame Viper <flameviper12 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I propose that for the "editor" status (my proposal for a user right between user and sysop), one would have the capabilities to edit protected articles, view deleted revisions, and generally view admin-olny things (but not actually perform sysop actions per se). And they might have a toolbar that would allow them to nominate these things...
>
> No. Protected articles and deleted articles are protected and deleted
> for a reason: for example, articles are most often protected to end
> edit wars; even admins are discouraged from editing protected articles
> in any nontrivial ways, so I see no reason that certain privileged
> editors should be allowed to ignore protection. For simple protection
> against vandalism, we already have semiprotection and blocking.
> Deleted revisions are similar: they're deleted because they shouldn't
> be visible. (Articles which are entirely deleted are a special case.
> But most admins will send you a copy of a deleted article, or undelete
> one to your userspace, if you ask nicely.)
>
> So there's no good reason I see for *editors* to be given any tools
> beyond what they've already got. If they need some help with
> maintenance work (as you put it), that's another story - but simple
> editing is already available to everyone.
>

I don't think that "this user doesn't need the tools" is ever a valid
reason to deny adminship. Trust is a valid criteria. Need is not.

-Rich


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin burnout

references:
<45CE5E91.6020306@scissor.com>
	<a4359dff0702110621v730f2f49wcbdaf87f66fedf6a@mail.gmail.com>
	<45CF45B7.6030301@scissor.com>
	<a4359dff0702110841s21ecb216tb7a9369f226125a2@mail.gmail.com>
	<tmius25ds9hrnhou2k8r854o9e6irv10je@4ax.com>
	<a4359dff0702110909w2a8f07cayc3bec4920fe0d44c@mail.gmail.com>
	<3vjus29l1nufheplo8r9t3ofl4us5mo29a@4ax.com>
	<45D264C8.6090208@telus.net>
	<gfj5t2tjndnjo1e3smd9um65j5rtkrfgdd@4ax.com>
	<45D4A511.1020101@telus.net>

body:
On 2/15/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:24:24 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >
> >>"Plain bad luck" in our context means that there may be instances where
> >>we will be sued no matter what we do.
> >>
> >>
> >Sure.  But if we have done our best and show it, we'll be OK.
> >
> IOW getting sued is not the thing to worry about.  Getting sued
> successfully is.
>
> Ec
>

Under US law the winner may still have costs so to an extent both need
to be worried about.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
>  Now I am beginning to understand why I am so out of synch here. Where you
> are looking for specific, individual Articles, I am looking for an
> index-type list of all persons under a specific Category. E.g., if I were
> doing cancer research, I would like an entire list of all persons in the
> encyclopedia who died from cancer. Then, I can select from the list which
> persons I would like to study.

Picking from a list of 1000 articles on cancer victims is much harder
than picking from a list of a few dozen lung cancer victims. If you
specifically want victims of various cancers, the subcatagories are
all listed at the beginning of the main category listing.

(NB: The numbers are made up for the purpose of an example, I have no
idea how many articles are in each category)


from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kris Straub PWNZed Wikipedia

body:
I think it proves that certain factions or editors are becoming too
deletionist.

| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator |  Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller)   |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora)   |


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kris Straub PWNZed Wikipedia

body:
SonOfYoungwood at aol.com wrote:
> I think it proves that certain factions or editors are becoming too
> deletionist.

The sooner we start making RS subject-specific the better.  This
nonsense has got to stop.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
	Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
	- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.


from_name: Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Kris Straub PWNZed Wikipedia

body:
I've declared the entire deletion nomination and debate void and reinstated
the article.  See logs, article history, and talkpage for further
explanation.

Newyorkbrad

On 2/15/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/15/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://www.halfpixel.com/2007/02/15/delete-wikipedia/
> >
> > But still, you've got to laugh, when the wool is pulled over Wikipedia's
> > eyes this easily, no?
> >
> > Let's see if this gets through, or if the Cabal wants to still try
> thinking
> > that they can stop the truth from being heard
>
> You're slow. yesterdays news:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AN/I#more_webcomics_stuff
>
>
> >... for I know there is a Cabal
> > now.
> >
> There are several what of it.
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] Live mirror

body:
http://www.realitymakers.com/free/facts/english/Special:Recentchanges
http://www.realitymakers.com/free/facts/deutsch/Spezial:Recentchanges
...


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 15/02/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink.net> wrote:

> One of our admins is so bad and evil that she collects home addresses
> and phone numbers and financial records of people who irritate her,
> starting from only their email addresses.

As an idle comment, I saw the best Silly Internet Threat ever on the
wiki the other day:

"I have found out some of you people's real names. I'm going to report
you to the IRS and get you audited. Justice will be done, one way or
another" [paraphrased]

I love the mindset that implies.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
Rich Holton wrote:

>Sorry, but I have to disagree. The only real criteria I can figure is
>that we want to avoid admins who go completely zonkers and start
>systematically working against the aims of Wikipedia. If we can be
>reasonably sure someone won't do that, then there's no reason to keep
>them from becoming an admin.
>
I agree with that.  They should, of course, be willing to serve as
sysops.  I would de-sysop people who have disappeared completely for an
extended period of time, but these could have the privilege restored on
request.

>Of course, we need to be willing (and able) to de-admin someone when
>they consistently demonstrate the sort of behaviors you mention (or
>worse). But the whole wiki concept is one of self healing and
>resilience, not pre-approval. What we don't want to have is a class of
>users (admins) who are placed into the spotlight every time they make a
>mistake, or every time one of them turns out to be less than desirable.
>
Again, I agree.  Some people are just too quick to judge.  We all make
mistakes, or have moments of anger where are behaviour is less than
respectable.  That, however, should not be thrown back in people's faces
every time they do something wrong thereafter.  If the penalty for a
given action is to be blocked for a week that should be the end of it
That is key in any form of remedial justice.

>I respect the concerns of those who want to avoid granting large blocks
>of admin rights to what end up as sock-puppets intent on destruction.
>Perhaps we do need a sizable class of users whose sole role is granting
>and revoking admin rights--but these users should not be themselves
>admins. These people should be very carefully selected, and should for
>the most part stay out of controversy.
>
I don't think so.  Such a monomanic job is just another way of
developing more people with a narrow outlook. I would rather see admins
who can perform a variety of tasks, and know that developing articles is
the most important one.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

body:
Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower
>>the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this
>>everyone's an admin!!! deal.
>>
>>
>
>If we want to lower the bar, we have to work out how to do it first.
>RfA doesn't use set standards, everyone decides based on their own
>criteria. Hundreds of possible replacements for RfA have been proposed
>and rejected, so it seems consensus is for a promotion system at least
>closely based on RfA, which makes lowering the bar very difficult.
>
There is no such consensus.  The RfA system works for you because you
use it, as do all the others who participate.  There are far more people
who just wash their hands of it., and just limit their activities to
some narrow topic.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main & Sub Categories

body:
> Thanks for your help with this, Tom. I still feel that the Category System
> within WP isn't operating in the best way that it could. I would love to see
> some serious cleanup and rethinking done on it.

I think that's quite a widely held view. I haven't really followed the
discussions on the matter, though. I'm sure someone here can point you
in the direction of existing proposals where you can put forward your
ideas.


from_name: Marco Schuster

subject: [Wikitech-l] Live mirror

body:
Platonides schrieb:
> http://www.realitymakers.com/free/facts/english/Special:Recentchanges
> http://www.realitymakers.com/free/facts/deutsch/Spezial:Recentchanges
> ...
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
They are much worse: http://www.realitymakers.com/free/facts/

m.


from_name: Thomas Dalton

body:
> Absolutely.  In relation to scientific method, it is not something that
> you turn on and off as you go through the laboratory door.  We do well
> to alternate bouts of empirical observation and logical reasoning in
> everything that we do.

Observation is not the same as experimentation. Experimenting requires
doing something and then observing the results. Observing what happens
in the real world and using that as a basis for out decisions is
always a good idea, I agree, but experimenting can do more harm than
good.

In science, experimenting is always the best way to reach a decision,
since the purpose is simply to gain knowledge. We are not here to
learn how to run Wikipedia, we're here to actually run it, which means
we have to accept that we can't always learn everything we want to.


from_name: Pill

subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

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

 CJ King wrote:
> Hi everybody, my name is CJ King. I would really like to know what OTRS is.
> Thanks and have a great day!!
See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS.

Greetings,

Pill (wiki.pill @ gmail.com)
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subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/15/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/15/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> > Common sense would counsel cutting some slack. We do for [[Citizendium]] (And >[[Wikinfo]].
> >
>
> Given the various hoaxes we've relating to that area of the world
> basic credibility requires otherwise.

No soup for you!

It pretty much comes down to whether you believe there are more good
people than bad people in the world, in my opinion.


subject: [Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

body:
luke brandt wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>luke brandt wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>The first clause in the quotation is remarkable for its ambiguity.  My
>>>>first inclination was to read this as indicating that property is
>>>>essential to the definition of culture, or that a society that does not
>>>>believe in capital does not have a culture.  A more acceptable
>>>>interpretation is that a culture does not exclude the existence of
>>>>property.  In other words
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>A free culture is not a culture - without property
>>>>>
>>>>>A free culture is not - a culture without property
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Having artists be paid is acceptable in both circumstances.  In
>>>>accounting terms, property is an asset on the balance sheet; getting
>>>>paid belongs in the revenue portion of the financial statements.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Hi, and thanks for your thoughts. In clarifying the quote how do you
>>>think you should take into account the second sentence - seemingly the
>>>counterpoint and twin of the first in the quotation, which is in
>>>essence: "A culture without property ... is anarchy, not freedom."  - luke
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>One really needs to look at that second sentence in its entirety: "A
>>culture
>>without property, or in which creators can't get paid is anarchy, not
>>freedom. ..."
>>
>>Does payment imply property?  Is that second premise an explanation or
>>an alternative.  If I really wanted to emphasize grammatically fine
>>points I would suggest that in order to be an explanation a comma would
>>be required after "paid".  I hesitate to cast this into the areana of
>>capitalist (property) versus Marxist (payment) dialectic.  There is a
>>certain idealist thread in Marxism that forsees an anarchic workers'
>>paradise; some doctrinnaire views of libertarianism might get us there
>>too.  That aside, I can see neither the capitalists nor the Marxists
>>promoting anarchy.  Wikinomics is in its infancy, and in that context it
>>is perfectly understandable that Lessig would use the jargon of the
>>society around him.
>>
>>There are a lot of grammatically negative words in the Lessig quote, and
>>I wonder if he would have done better to express things in more positive
>>terms.  Even "free" has a basis in an absence.
>>
>>One of the consequences of living in a paradigm shift is the destruction
>>of presumptions.  That curse of interesting times escapes its box, and
>>makes itself felt where it was not expected.
>>
>>The fact is that there are a lot of people providing a lot of
>>intellectual effort for nothing other than the personal satisfaction of
>>doing a good job.  They need to put food on the table as much as anybody
>>else. There is a profound disconnect between work and compensation for
>>that work.  The marketting and manufacturing structures that supported
>>the enterprises that have heretofore been highly profitable are no
>>longer needed, casting aside an army of Willy Lomans.
>>
>>Most of us who have an interest in Wikipedia and this mailing list also
>>have an interest in free access to knowledge.  We are highly critical of
>>the notion of intellectual property, particularly copyright.  Property,
>>as we traditionally define, it generates revenue solely on the basis of
>>its own existence.  Is that the kind of property that Lessig considers
>>to be the antidote to anarchy.  In summary I agree with him in relation
>>to creators being paid, but have serious reservations in relation to
>>property.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>Once again, thanks. For myself, I don't see the absence of that comma
>being significant except stylistically. Lessig seems to have quite
>deliberately positioned himself four-square in the 'Adam Smith camp' if
>it may so be described. Doing so entails consequences for the particular
>'freedom' paradigm that the movement espouses, doesn't it? - eg perhaps
>our attitude on NC ... that's just one small reason why Lessig's axioms
>need examining carefully, in my thinking on this, just as you did :)
>Maybe there are other views. Take care - luke
>
I would hate for the entire philosophy of open access to be reduced to
an argument about old economic philosophies.  Whether you believe that
Adam Smith or Karl Marx  was right about some detail, you have to make
the point without mentioning the name, especially Marx's.  In the midst
of a true paradigm shift, as for Ivan Karamazov, everything is
permitted.  Adam Smith  economics are deeply engrained in American
establishment thought; it's a lot more safe than the rebellious
uncertainties that Jefferson supported.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[WikiEN-l] corporate "problems with articles" seems to
 be	working a bit

body:
Gregory Kohs wrote:
>  I think you can see the inherent problem of Wikipedia handling corporate
> concerns of libel this way -- 10 days is a little long for a concerned party
> to wait for any reply, and even then, only after a second query had to be
> sent.  Now it is February 15th (two and a half weeks from the first
> missive), and I have still not received any meaningful response, other than
> the information that the OTRS mail queue is "clogged".
> [...]
> But, to me, it looks like my concern is not being "dealt with properly", as
> Gerard would suggest.
>

I read David's email as saying only that the requests posted at the Help
Desk page <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk> have been
dealt with properly, not that requests sent via email also have.  Those
of us without access to the email queue (and I don't believe David has
such access) don't have any information on how *those* requests have
been handled or not handled.

-Mark


from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

body:
George Herbert schreef:
> One thing I try to keep in mind in posting to high-visibility mailing lists:
>
> Everything you type could end up in the New York Times or Washington
> Post or on CNN.

I believe the canonical reply to that is

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

(http://www.xkcd.org/c137.html)

This is perhaps a good time to point out that "The Problem with
Wikipedia" (http://www.xkcd.org/c214.html) hasn't been mentioned on this
list yet.

Eugene


from_name: Mohamed Ibrahim

subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?

body:
read this,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS

On 2/15/07, CJ King <cjkingwiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everybody, my name is CJ King. I would really like to know what OTRS
> is.
> Thanks and have a great day!!
> On 2/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The "problem with your article?" page for en:wp is:
> >
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Factual_error_%28from_enterprise%29
> >
> > It directs people to either the Help Desk or to OTRS. The Help Desk
> > appears to be getting a few reasonable queries from organisations,
> > which are being dealt with properly.
> >
> > No flood of crap yet, which is good :-)
> >
> > OTRS volunteers - how's it looking from your side?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> You've got an email from cjkingwiki at gmail.com.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
- Arabic Wikipedia: http://ar.wikipedia.org/  "Share your knowledge"
El koon kolo beydoor we e7na WAYAH bendoor....


subject: [Foundation-l] What's OTRS?


from_name: Matthew Britton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and elitism

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Rich Holton wrote:
>
>> Given the recent discussions on this list, and the
continuing increase
>> in de-facto requirements for new admins, I have to
wonder if we are not
>> now well on the way to the creation of an elite class on
Wikipedia.
>>
> Nah!  It's more like the time of the French Revolution
when all citizens
> were equal but some were more equal than others.
>
>> It appears to me that the vocal representatives of the
current crop of
>> admins (meaning those who have become admins within the
last year or so)
>>  have left far behind the idea that being an admin is
"no big deal".
>> They see being an admin as a big deal, and want things
to remain that way.
>>
> It's called self-interest.
>
>> Of course, the admins point to the very real challenges
that vandals
>> pose as the reason for the rigor of the application
process. They reject
>> any proposal that might place Wikipedia is peril.
>>
> Right!  The right to bear arms is justified because it
keeps America
> safe from being overrun by elephants.
>
>> Perhaps they're right. I'm certain that they truly want
what it best for
>> Wikipedia.
>>
> As the saying goes: "The road to hell is paved with good
intentions."
>
> Ec

You appear to be treating administrators as a close-knit
group all of whom have exactly the same motives, intentions
and point of view.

This is not the case.

-Gurch


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] corporate "problems with articles" seems to
	be	working a bit

body:
"Gregory Kohs" wrote

>  I think you can see the inherent problem of Wikipedia handling corporate
> concerns of libel this way -- 10 days is a little long for a concerned party
> to wait for any reply, and even then, only after a second query had to be
> sent.

Where it says "In case of a substantial legal concern over article content (rather than a more general concern): please email info-en-q at wikimedia.org with "Legal concern" in the subject line, for prompt attention", I imagine it actually means you to do that.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Short-lived retreat

body:
Flame Viper wrote:
> The problem is that there are two different fields of
Wikipedia work: Editing and maintenance. Editing is the
general writing and improvement of articles, citing,
cleanup, categorisation, etc. Maintenance is the
vandalfighting, blocking, arbitrating, mediating, and
policy that provides the framework for the wiki.

It's not quite as simple as that. There are many tasks that
I would be hard pressed to class as either "editing" or
"maintenance". If anything, I'd draw the line so that
cleanup counts as maintenance.

In a similar vein, labelling someone as an "editor" or
"maintainer" is not possible.

-Gurch


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Brian Salter-Duke [mailto:b_duke at bigpond.net.au]
>Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 03:54 PM
>To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletions - do we cut a bit of slack for the Third World
>
>Please take a look at:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kathmandu_University_High_School_%28second_nomination%29#.5B.5BKathmandu_University_High_School.7CKathmandu_University_High_School_.28second_nomination.29.5D.5D
>
>Should we, as I suggest there, cut a bit of slack for artciles about
>something in the Third World, or do we just accept the "no reliable
>third party sources for notability" mantra. It is just a stub and the
>information seems well supported by the external link to the School
>site. Not perfect, I agree, but I do not suppose Kadmandu newspapers are
>searched by Google and that is not perfect either. I would welcome views
>in general on this sort of thing, without asking any of you to intervene
>in that discussion for deletion.
>
>Brian

Common sense would counsel cutting some slack. We do for [[Citizendium]] (And [[Wikinfo]].

Fred


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] An idea for deletions

body:
On 2/15/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I did offer two possible options here. Why didn't you comment on the
> second part of the paragraph?

Short attention span, sorry :) For the record, I agree with the second
part of your paragraph:

>However, using such a system and keeping direct nominations
>would still have a benefit in allowing anons and those unfamiliar with
>deletion procedure to make a nom and even have it "proofread" for them

Steve


body:
On 2/14/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia is not an experiment - the scientific method does not apply.

This is a bizzarre statement. Wikipedia may not "be" an experiment,
but it can certainly conduct experiments to find out the best way of
operating.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)

body:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
> I believe the canonical reply to that is
>
> FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Truth Beholder wrote:
> And now the fascist patrol has locked my page so I can't
request unblock,
> how fucking fascist typical of fascistopedia.

Michael Smith wrote:
> Bite me, you abusive asshole.
>
> Sean Barrett wrote:
>>
>> Get lost, you pathetic little wanker.

Sorry, but that's more than I'm willing to put up with. I'm
unsubscribing.

-Gurch


subject:
[WikiEN-l] expunging copyright violations (Was: Re: Admin
	burnout)

body:
On 2/10/07, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
> However, the issue of access to copyvios increases with the number of
> admins.  In my opinion this isnt solved with less admins, but by
> expunging copyvios completely or further restricting access to them.

I really don't think this type of "copyvio" is a serious enough
problem to worry about. The major reason we don't want copyvios in the
actual Wikipedia text is because it contaminates downstream content
reusers. A small copyright mistake in Wikipedia can get reproduced
hundreds of times, ending up in print. Once we've identified the
problem and restricted it to access on the site by a smallish number
of people, the scale of the problem is much smaller.

Once that happens, if some organisation is still unhappy about the
state of affairs, then we could consider expunging those records. But
you're talking about one or two deleted edits that might be viewed at
most once or twice a day. The potential for legal action is vanishngly
small.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

body:
On 2/15/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> Interesting. Is that a conscious choice? Or more a historical habit?

Probably a natural result of the developmental process. Usability
testing normally happens when a corporation decides that there is a
financial benefit in having usable software. They spend money on it.
MediaWiki development happens when people find an interesting problem
to solve, and code a solution to it. There aren't many people who
would be sufficiently motivated to study the problem, come up with a
solution and actually code it. I would certainly be interested in
helping with usability, but I don't have the technical (php mainly,
but also knowledge of the mediawiki framework) skills to implement it.

Oh, also, there is generally great resistance on the part of users to
change, particularly highly visual change. For almost *every* change
that would improve usability, there are a couple of people that argue
vigorously against it. That can be depressing.

Steve


from_name: geni

body:
On 2/15/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:

> Common sense would counsel cutting some slack. We do for [[Citizendium]] (And >[[Wikinfo]].
>

Given the various hoaxes we've relating to that area of the world
basic credibility requires otherwise.
--
geni