subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Boalch
>
> On Tue, 16 May 2006, Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> >> It's been a long-standing tenet of Wikipedia (and, in my view, a
> >> crucial and necessary one) that contributors should leave their
> >> political opinions at the door. Accordingly, any actions
> designed to
> >> divide the editing community into political factions can
> be seen as
> >> unhelpful.
> >
> > Where is this "long-standing tenet" defined? NPOV, for example,
> > depends on different points of view, including political opinions,
> > being given space consistent with their level of support.
>
> Consistent with their level of support in the world, yes.
> Consistent with
> their level of support among the Wikipedia editing community,
> no. There is a crucial difference.

Beg pardon, but I think you've got that the wrong way around...

> > People are free to express their political opinions so long as it is
> > done in a civil and non-inflammatory manner.
>
> They may be free to express them, but my point is that they
> aren't free to
> inflict them on articles.

That's precisely what I *do* mean. Articles are written by people with
political views, and where I know an editor's political opinions (if they
are revealed on user or talk pages), I find it extremely rare that they
write something in an article that is contrary to those opinions.

A good editor will do it in a civil, factual, sourced and non-inflammatory
manner, consistent with NPOV.

> Jimbo's word on the matter:
>
>    The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
> Republican,
>    a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
> Wikipedians, which
>    means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
>
> (<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3AWik
> ipedians_by_politics&diff=33156588&oldid=32840056>)

With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way it happens.
Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks, but editors don't
suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we want them to. We want
Republicans to have input into articles on the Republican Party. We just
don't want it to be Republican propaganda.

Likewise I am told we have self-confirmed Nazis editing articles on Nazism,
homosexual folk editing material om homosexuality and so on. By and large,
contributions of partisan or opinionated editors are usually consistent with
their opinions and rarely in opposition.

NPOV doesn't mean we present a totally neutral point of view. It means we
present diverse views consistent with the level of support, where the views
are inconsistent. [[Abortion debate]] for instance (rather than [[Abortion]]
itself which deals mainly with methods and history, though the talk page
suggests otherwise).

Peter in Canberra


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > That said, I have occassionally glanced at someone's user page after
> > seeing them make some strange edits, only to see a userbox which put
> > the edits into perspective.  In the particular case I'm thinking about
> > (though I forget the specifics), the user was actually arguing the
> > opposite point from that expressed in the userbox, and I believe they
> > were doing so in good faith.
>
> Fair enough. It could probably be said that had they expressed
> themselves in their own words rather than with a cookie cutter
> userbox, this goal would be achieved even better.
>
> Steve

True, and I've never personally used templates to search for people,
whether for good purposes or bad ones, so I really don't have any
*proof* that such userboxes are used that way.  But I've always been
of the opinion that the good effects of giving people more information
outweighs the bad effects.  In fact, it's that opinion that brought me
to Wikipedia in the first place.

Anthony


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Divisive and Inflammatory Behavior, was CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> I'm proposing this as part of official Wikipedia policy at
> [[Wikipedia:Divisive and inflammatory behavior]] because I think we
> need to voice this principle as the basis for a number of other
> fundamental Wikipedia policies.
>
> Put simply, we are here to work, not to struggle; actions which lead
> us down the path of "fight or flight" are not productive (after
> Wilfred Bion). I think making these thoughts explicit will be helpful.
>
> Fred

How does this differ from the policy forbidding disruptive behavior? Doesn't
"divisive and infammatory" constitute a subset of "disruptive"?

Ryan


body:
On 5/16/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> How does this differ from the policy forbidding disruptive behavior?
> Doesn't
> "divisive and infammatory" constitute a subset of "disruptive"?
>
> Ryan

True enough, but it happens so much and in so many related ways that it
wouldn't hurt to expand on it.  After all, vandalism could reasonably be
argued to be a subset of disruption as well, yet we have many pages dealing
with vandalism -- vandalism definitions, pages dedicated to vandal-fighting,
we have vandalism outlined in the blocking rationales, etc.

k

>
>


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
G'day Matt,

> On 5/15/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>Is it illegal to claim you have copyright control over something you
>>do not?  I'm sure there are plently of laws against claiming you
>>*wrote* something you didn't, but if you properly attribute the
>>authors but tack on a false claim of copyright, I don't see how that
>>can be illegal.
>
> I'm not sure what you're meaning here - are you talking about falsely
> claiming that you own the copyright on the material, but attributing
> the authorship correctly?

If it's illegal to claim copyright over something to which you have no
right, then I know a lot of museums, galleries and libraries that will
soon find themselves in very hot water indeed.

Perhaps Anthony meant *knowingly false* claims (i.e. claims made in bad
faith)?

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/340 - Release Date: 15/05/2006


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
	not censored for minors?

body:
On 5/15/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Prasad J stated for the record:
>
> > On 15/05/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Their own problem.
> >>
> >>
> >>Rob Church
> >
> >
> > Be that as it may, don't we still have an ethical responsibility to do
> > what we can to deter kids from coming across adult-meterial?
>
> No.
>
> - --
> Sean Barrett
> sean at epoptic.com

If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software. Wikipedia
says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.

Mgm


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/16/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
> internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software. Wikipedia
> says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
> sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.

Point me to another encyclopaedia with photographic images of
erections or clitorises, and I might agree.

Steve


from_name: Death Phoenix

body:
I had a medical encyclopedia/reference library that used to contain all
sorts of naughty pictures that I used to giggle at, and there was no need
for those texts to have disclaimers in big bold letters.

On 5/16/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 5/16/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
> >> internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software.
> Wikipedia
> >> says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
> >> sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.
> >
> > Point me to another encyclopaedia with photographic images of
> > erections or clitorises, and I might agree.
> >
>
> If cameras had been around back then, Encyclop?die
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die) probably would have.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Robert Rapplean

subject: [Wikitech-l] Threads: any plans

body:
On 5/16/06, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
>
> On 5/12/06, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> >
> > May be this is off topic, but would it be possible to add Talk
> > Pages, a nntp interface, so that they could be displayed with a
> > newsreader?
>
> Robert> Is this in relation to the consensus engine, or in regard
> Robert> to Media Wiki?
>
> Well both in principle

In principle, all things are possible *grin*.  I'll add this to the list of
things that should be kept in mind when developing it.  I'd also like to see
Atom RSS feeds attached to the conjectures.  This might get sticky, though,
because these tools aren't designed to convey any of the systems that the
engine will be using to sort the input by significance, so there would be a
lot more wading through chafe.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Baidupedia (the downside to free content?)

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 5/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international
>>>copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
>>>
>>>
>>Answers.com is an American company.  If Baidu is listed on nasdaq that
>>may be enough for US jurisdiction and US copyright law to apply.  If the
>>individual authors are left to their own devices than individual authors
>>should start peppering these unrepentant violators with large quantities
>>of DMCA takedown orders.  If you are a significant author in 1,000
>>articles you could send them 1,000 takedown orders.
>>
>>
>So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
>
At that point they open themselves to whatever penalties are associated
with violating the order rather than an infringement of copyright.
There is a separate legal process available to them if they want to
question the copyright.

>>This could be more
>>easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US
>>courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that.  Proving
>>damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty
>>of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
>>
>>
>Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory
>damages?  If so, then you're out $30 a pop.  (I looked it up, not only
>do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register
>within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes
>place.)  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-.html
>
I think that the Foundation has been negligent in failing to register
copyrights.  Although it is not itself the owner of most of the
copyrights, it should be protecting the rights of its authors in a way
similar to what a magazine publisher would.  This should involve
registering the entire database every month or two.  Failing this,
what's to prevent any contributor from registring the entire database,
citing himself "and others" as authors?  This would involve a single
payment of $30 for the whole thing.

While damages might not be recoverable for the time before registration,
they should be recoverable if they continue after registration.
Copyrights do not depend on registration by virtue of treaty
obligations.  If the word "commencement" in that section is taken too
strictly that would be inconsistent with that treaty obligation, and it
would open a gaping hole in US copyright law because it would amount to
effectively condoning almost any copyright infringement that took place
before registration and continued after registration.

>Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop.  Now how exactly do you
>plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
>
Without looking more deeply into the offenders' particular situation, I
could not at this stage even begin to answer that question.  Until we
have an actual judgement the question is moot.

>In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively.
> If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue.  But short of
>that...
>
>
That makes copyleft licences useless.  Wikipedia as a whole has shown
great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios.  It
also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an
article.  This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote.  It means
that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.
It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can
take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright
without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.  I accept the
GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial
interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge
its viral nature.  Who defends that?  Who defends it 20 years from now?

Ec


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

references:
<e44bmb$nct$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<q9ff62h80p1ao9pvgb8f2p5iqfcppbia3g@4ax.com>
	<f80608430605141818v5e8cd73ck62798d88cd2b7389@mail.gmail.com>
	<vmig62thirki1qgp0pdefvrrmbvbhd8puk@4ax.com>
	<f80608430605150236h1c868f1du63f46bc589b17e3a@mail.gmail.com>
	<h0kg621g31gcmmoffj9u09hdno8ch9d1v9@4ax.com>
	<f80608430605150344i3a45e5a8x792e5edad60e27df@mail.gmail.com>
	<aipg62ph1tpq5afkhc1k8g30irl3pbq3h6@4ax.com>
	<4468BA9B.2010406@student.canberra.edu.au>
	<446991C5.7070301@gmail.com>

body:
On 5/16/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Welcome to Wikipedia! Before you can do anything else, please fill in
> your userpage to let us know how much of a
> {left|right|up|down|in|out|Klein bottle}-wing looney you are."

Out of curiosity, just what the hell is an "down-wing"-looney? I do
however support the notion that the wide spectrum of different human
philosophies, developed for more than 2 millennia by the greatest
thinkers in history, can be readily summed up in a regex :D (imagine
what Machiavelli could have done with Perl!)

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 5/15/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It seems to me that the most plausible place in which someone could
>>use the GFDL in suing is if you re-used improperly re-used material.
>>
>>For example: Company X downloads GFDL material from Wikipedia but does
>>not correctly comply with the terms of the GFDL. Company Y knows
>>Company X's material is GFDL and re-uses it themselves. Company X sues
>>Company Y; Company Y pulls out the GFDL, proves the material was
>>originally licensed under it, counter-sues Company X for having
>>claimed they had copyright control over something they they did not.
>>
>>
>Is it illegal to claim you have copyright control over something you
>do not?  I'm sure there are plently of laws against claiming you
>*wrote* something you didn't, but if you properly attribute the
>authors but tack on a false claim of copyright, I don't see how that
>can be illegal.
>
IIRC US law provides a $2,500 fine for improper copyright claims, but I
don't know if that clause has ever been used.  Simply putting a
copyright notice on a page doesn't mean very much.  The material is only
copyright to the extent that it is copyrightable, with or without the
notice.  It may very well be that the only thing copyrightable about the
page is the layout, but it's up to the person wanting to use the
material to figure it all out.  Putting a notice when there is at least
minimal copyrightable material would not be a false claim.  I think that
the people who add such notices know damn well that potential users will
draw the false conclusion that everything on the page is copyright.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>It seems to me that the most plausible place in which someone could
>use the GFDL in suing is if you re-used improperly re-used material.
>
>For example: Company X downloads GFDL material from Wikipedia but does
>not correctly comply with the terms of the GFDL. Company Y knows
>Company X's material is GFDL and re-uses it themselves. Company X sues
>Company Y; Company Y pulls out the GFDL, proves the material was
>originally licensed under it, counter-sues Company X for having
>claimed they had copyright control over something they they did not.
>
he-he-he.  That seems convoluted, but not improbable.  Can we expect the
average contributor to follow this when his rights are violated?  What
happens if this flares up in 50 years?

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Factions vs. Division (was Re: Divisive and
	InflammatoryBehavior, was CSD T1)

body:
We need to define some operational tests, for example, if behavior
results in wheel wars or is associated with sustained edit warring,
it can be said to be divisive.

Fred

On May 16, 2006, at 11:04 AM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 5/16/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>> But I wouldn't prefer this.  'Divisive' is clearer than
>> 'ideological': I
>> have just been reading an academic text where it is stated that
>> "ideology"
>> has at least 100 meanings.  Divisive writing can be recognised by its
>> intention, to split and polarise.
>>
>
> It is very difficult to know intentions. A policy which operates on
> guessing intentions, rather than determining clear facts, is a
> dangerous thing.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>On 5/15/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Is it illegal to claim you have copyright control over something you
>>do not?  I'm sure there are plently of laws against claiming you
>>*wrote* something you didn't, but if you properly attribute the
>>authors but tack on a false claim of copyright, I don't see how that
>>can be illegal.
>>
>>
>As I understand it (again, I am not in any way a lawyer), the relevant
>parts of U.S. copyright law are:
>
>   (c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with
>    fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or
>    words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or
>    who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for
>    public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that
>    such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
>     (d) Fraudulent Removal of Copyright Notice. - Any person who,
>    with fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright
>    appearing on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more
>    than $2,500.
>      (e) False Representation. - Any person who knowingly makes a
>    false representation of a material fact in the application for
>    copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any
>    written statement filed in connection with the application, shall
>    be fined not more than $2,500.
>
"Fraudulent intent" is a key element to these provisions.  That brings
it all into criminal law where the standards of proof are much higher.
A lot of people who put up these notices have the good faith belief that
they are correct in doing so, and as I stated before they may still have
copyright on the layout of the page, but nothing else.

Ec


from_name: Nick Boalch

subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:
>>> NPOV, for example, depends on different points of view, including political
>>> opinions, being given space consistent with their level of support.
>>
>> Consistent with their level of support in the world, yes. Consistent with
>> their level of support among the Wikipedia editing community, no. There is
>> a crucial difference.
>
> Beg pardon, but I think you've got that the wrong way around...

I don't think so. Take [[Criticism of Wikipedia]], for instance. I
imagine that most regular Wikipedia editors disagree with many of those
criticisms. For example, I doubt that many of us agree with Robert
McHenry and Andrew Orlowski that it is improper and unsuitable for
Wikipedia to call itself an encyclopaedia. However, this is an opinion

Accordingly on other articles, different points of view need to be
included based on their prominence and level of support in the real
world, not just on which happens to be most popular among the Wikipedia
editing community.

>>> People are free to express their political opinions so long as it is
>>> done in a civil and non-inflammatory manner.
>>
>> They may be free to express them, but my point is that they
>> aren't free to inflict them on articles.
>
> That's precisely what I *do* mean. Articles are written by people with
> political views, and where I know an editor's political opinions (if they
> are revealed on user or talk pages), I find it extremely rare that they
> write something in an article that is contrary to those opinions.
>
> A good editor will do it in a civil, factual, sourced and non-inflammatory
> manner, consistent with NPOV.

Yes. Which is exactly what I said above. Writing consistently with NPOV
is not 'inflicting your opinion on an article'. Biasing an article
towards your own opinions *is* inflicting your opinion on an article, is
obviously not consistent with NPOV. I don't particularly want to end up
rehashing the whole userbox debacle, but we *have* seen groups of users
banding together with the specific, identified purpose of systematically
applying bias to Wikipedia articles.

>>Jimbo's word on the matter:
>>
>>   The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
>>   Republican, a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
>>   Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
>
> With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way it happens.
> Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks, but editors don't
> suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we want them to. We want
> Republicans to have input into articles on the Republican Party. We just
> don't want it to be Republican propaganda.

With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly misinterpreting
what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't think either of us are
suggesting that editors should be 'opinionless automatons', just that
they shouldn't let their opinions influence the way they write articles.

> NPOV doesn't mean we present a totally neutral point of view. It means we
> present diverse views consistent with the level of support, where the views
> are inconsistent.

Once again, this means consistent with the level of support in the world
at large, not just consistent with the level of support among the subset
of us who happen to be editing Wikipedia.

Cheers,

N.

--
Nicholas Boalch
School of Modern Languages & Cultures       Tel: +44 (0) 191 334 3456
University of Durham                        Fax: +44 (0) 191 334 3421
New Elvet, Durham DH1 3JT, UK               WWW: http://nick.frejol.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tearing down the Chinese Firewall

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Prasad J wrote:
>>
>>
>>
><snip>
>
>
>>It's conceivable that the UN could make pronouncements on this, but it
>>would not be likely to consider the issue important enough for
>>intervention even in a country much smaller than India.  I rather
>>suspect that the vast majority of Chinese citizens are unaware of what
>>firewalls are.
>>
>>
>"What's another country? What do you mean, there are places apart from
>China?"
>
>(Oceania is at war with Eurasia and East Asia. Oceania has always been
>at war with Eurasia and East Asia. We love Big Brother.)
>
It would not have surprised me if the US government of the day had used
homosexuality as a justification for its war against Grenada. :-)

Ec


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/14/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
>>Have I missed that one?  I've seen several people suggest that nofollow
>>should be enabled elsewhere on enwiki, but the idea of using it in the
>>main namespace seems to be controversial at best.
>>
>>FWIW, I tend to agree.  Enable it, yes, but only outside NS_MAIN.
>
> I concur - haven't seen concensus for enabling it in the main
> namespace. Haven't seen any argument against enabling it in the user,
> user:talk etc namespaces, though.

Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?

We can then, having solved the uncontroversial part of the problem,
continue debating the merits of nofollow in the main namespace at leisure.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [Wikitech-l] Request: linkable images

body:
On 5/15/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> We need to know all the expected use cases so that we can produce a
> solution which preserves our obligations, avoids causing attribution
> problems elsewhere, and meets our needs.   So please detail where you
> can see 'linkable images' being used outside of the main page.

I found another example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art

It would be intuitive to the reader that clicking the images at the
bottom would take you to pages for the respective artists.

Steve


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to be GFDL compliant

body:
On May 16, 2006, at 4:06 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>>>> Right. Section 6: Collection of Documents:
>>>>
>>> In order to be in compliance with the GFDL you need to be in
>>> compliance with the whole thing, not just one section.
>>>
>>
>> What other sections are we not compliant with? I thought that this
>> was
>> the big one...
>>
> It's hard to even apply the GFDL to Wikipedia.  You say it's a
> collection of Documents, so what would be an example of a Document, as
> it applies to Wikipedia?

An article.

> Where is the Title Page? Where is the
> section entitled History?

These answers, at least, don't seem obvious to me.

> Who is the Publisher?

The Foundation.

> Is each new version
> published as a derivative of the previous under the permission of the
> GFDL

Yes.

> or is it a joint work of authorship?  Where are the copyright
> notices?

The bottom of each page.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Evan Martin

subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
On 5/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2) Google thinks we should enable it.
>
> Do you have a link? That would be interesting...

I asked around on your behalf.

Here's a [new] post on the subject from Matt Cutts
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cutts):
  http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/quick-comment-on-nofollow/
Quote: "For example, I've talked to a couple SEOs recently who said
that they have a full-time person on their staff dedicated to scamming
links from Wikipedia and wikis."
Here's a recent thread on the foundation list regarding that subject:
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/7047/focus=7079

Certainly, it's not wikipedia's responsibility to make the problem of
web search easier.  But part of the goal was also to let webmasters
help remove the incentive for spamming.  On random blogs, spam is
mostly just annoying to the owner of the blog and its readers; on
wikipedia, spam lowers the quality of the content.


from_name: Harish Ganesan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ip address block-hganesan

body:
Please do not block this IP address in the future:
169.229.65.53. This is shared by hundreds of people.

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


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
But isn't 'historic debates' more what is meant?  'Historical debates' might
mean debates relative to history topics; rather than debates which are now
mercifully history.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> That isn't to say that I think a template which says "This user think
> George W. Bush is a moron" is an example of such a template.  Actually
> I'd say a person using such a template is showing a lack of the skills
> needed to work with others.  But "This user is an atheist", or "This
> user is a Linux user", on the other hand, I think is not only
> non-harmful, I think it is helpful.

You're going out on a limb here, any chance you can show us some
evidence that this actually happens in reality? That is, people
deliberately contacting people of the opposite persuasion to find some
middle ground?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
On 5/16/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> That said, I have occassionally glanced at someone's user page after
> seeing them make some strange edits, only to see a userbox which put
> the edits into perspective.  In the particular case I'm thinking about
> (though I forget the specifics), the user was actually arguing the
> opposite point from that expressed in the userbox, and I believe they
> were doing so in good faith.

Fair enough. It could probably be said that had they expressed
themselves in their own words rather than with a cookie cutter
userbox, this goal would be achieved even better.

Steve


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to be GFDL compliant

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>> On 5/12/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 5/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>>> If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
>>>>> GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>>>> The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't hold the copyrights over Wikimedia
>>>> content, it is merely a user that must follow the terms of the GFDL
>>>> like any mirror or fork. Wikimedia could, however, provide financial
>>>> or legal assistance to the authors whose copyright is infringed in a
>>>> lawsuit.
>>>>
>>> That would be fairly hypocritical, though, since Wikimedia itself
>>> doesn't even follow the GFDL.
>>>
>> *hauls out text of the GFDL*
>>
>> Right. Section 6: Collection of Documents:
>>
> In order to be in compliance with the GFDL you need to be in
> compliance with the whole thing, not just one section.
>

What other sections are we not compliant with? I thought that this was
the big one...

>> The articles themselves are licensed under the GFDL, and Wikipedia is a
>> collection of articles - so the individual copies are replaced by a
>> single copy *included in the collection*. IANAL but it's good enough for
>> me, /and most other contributors/. What's *not* good enough is mirroring
>> us without even *attempting* GFDL compliance, at least to the same
>> extent that Wikipedia itself complies with the GFDL.
>>
> And how would you suggest they do that?
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GFDL_Compliance

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 5/16/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>The one area where I could see this law really coming into play would
>>be something like a class action suit against some big photo company
>>(i.e. Corbis) who was claiming to sell licenses for the copyrights of
>>images that they did not own.
>>
>>
>I just wish it could be used against Google, who is putting those
>annoying "Copyright Google" watermarks all over other people's maps.
>
>But I suppose they could claim they they own a copyright on the very
>watermarks which say copyright!
>
I would have great difficulty in accepting the notion that Google is
running an altruistic organization.

When I went looking for an example from Google Print I came up with
http://books.google.com/books?vid=LCCN11028847&id=Fkp93u9WfCgC&q=mexican+war&dq=mexican+war&pgis=1

This book was published in 1911.  Nevertheless, it gives only snippets,
and the link that explains why talks about respecting copyright.  The
book can be bought through Froogle for $50.00 or more.

Does anyone wonder why I get cynica?

Ec


body:
It isn't who or what started it that matters so much as who or what
keeps it going.

Fred

On May 16, 2006, at 12:16 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:

> "who started it"


body:
On 5/16/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> How does this differ from the policy forbidding disruptive behavior? Doesn't
> "divisive and infammatory" constitute a subset of "disruptive"?

Is "disruptive" behaviour banned? It shouldn't be. Upgrading MediaWiki
could be disruptive. An AfD of a popular article is disruptive.
Banning userboxes would be disruptive :)

Rather, unnecessarily or unbeneficially disruptive behaviour should be
discouraged, and not all heated debates fall into those categories. A
passionate debate about a near-featured-article could be quite
beneficial, for example.

However, divisive and inflammatory behaviour is generally disruptive
without having any benefits to the Wikipedia project.

Steve


body:
On 5/16/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> I had a medical encyclopedia/reference library that used to contain all
> sorts of naughty pictures that I used to giggle at, and there was no need
> for those texts to have disclaimers in big bold letters.

Photos of erections?

Steve


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
The one area where I could see this law really coming into play would
be something like a class action suit against some big photo company
(i.e. Corbis) who was claiming to sell licenses for the copyrights of
images that they did not own.

Corbis has a number of photos in their library which I know for a fact
were made by the U.S. government as part of the Manhattan Project. I
contacted them about this, and they said that even though it says you
are buying a license to the copyright (and says copyright Corbis all
over the page), that they really mean that it is only the copyright
"on the scan itself" that they are claiming. I suggested that this
seemed disingenuous, especially given the rather obvious reading of
the application of Bridgeman v. Corel in this instance, and they cut
off communication. Go figure. I think it is pretty criminal that they
claim to be selling licenses to these photos when they own none of the
intellectual property, and I find it very likely that in their vast
collection they have sold people rights that they did not actually
have, and threatened, by means of their pages and license information,
to sue them for infringement if they used them outside the licenses,
etc. In my mind this constitutes a form of fraud, but again, I'm not a
lawyer.

But anyway, I'm getting a little off track here... :-)

FF

On 5/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Fastfission wrote:
>
> >On 5/15/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Is it illegal to claim you have copyright control over something you
> >>do not?  I'm sure there are plently of laws against claiming you
> >>*wrote* something you didn't, but if you properly attribute the
> >>authors but tack on a false claim of copyright, I don't see how that
> >>can be illegal.
> >>
> >>
> >As I understand it (again, I am not in any way a lawyer), the relevant
> >parts of U.S. copyright law are:
> >
> >   (c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with
> >    fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or
> >    words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or
> >    who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for
> >    public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that
> >    such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
> >     (d) Fraudulent Removal of Copyright Notice. - Any person who,
> >    with fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright
> >    appearing on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more
> >    than $2,500.
> >      (e) False Representation. - Any person who knowingly makes a
> >    false representation of a material fact in the application for
> >    copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any
> >    written statement filed in connection with the application, shall
> >    be fined not more than $2,500.
> >
> "Fraudulent intent" is a key element to these provisions.  That brings
> it all into criminal law where the standards of proof are much higher.
> A lot of people who put up these notices have the good faith belief that
> they are correct in doing so, and as I stated before they may still have
> copyright on the layout of the page, but nothing else.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Michael P. Tomaszewski

subject: [WikiEN-l] Research on Wikipedia - Your opinion is needed!

body:
Hi,

My Name is Michael Tomaszewski. I am currently doing research into
Wikipedia, here at the University of Cambridge. To make a long story short:
I need your help.

I am a Wikipedia enthusiast myself and I endeavour to give Wikipedia more
prominence in the research done in my field. I hope you can help me in this
undertaking!
I have prepared a short questionnaire to collect empirical data -
essentially about your views on Wikipedia. To be frank, I am a bit pressed
for time, so you would help me very much by filling it out for me.

To fill it out, go here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=675852144469

The survey is short, completely anonymous and essentially about YOUR
opinion.

Many thanks in advance for your help! Your input is important!

Michael
PS: Thanks to the wikien-l admins for permission to post this survey! :)

Michael P. Tomaszewski
MPhil Innovation, Strategy and Organization
Judge Business School
University of Cambridge

mpt28 at cam.ac.uk----------------------------
m.tomaszewski at jbs.cam.ac.uk----------------
Skype: buddhaah----------------------------

                  Phone:  +44 (0)20 8816 8850
                  Mobile: +44 (0)7870 34 30 64


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
I can NOT emphasize this enough.

There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
living persons.

I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
statement of attitude and frustration.)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Prasad J wrote:
> But then again, Mr.Wales, isn't the term "inflammatory" a subjective
> one?

Somewhat, but not particularly, no.

> A userbox which seems inflammatory/divise to one user may not
> appear that way to another.

Right.

> An example of such a scenario would be
> when a user named Anwar Saadat declared, using such a template,  his
> opinion that Kashmir should be granted independence.

A perfect example of a userbox that should have been nuked on sight.

The key here is that people have traditionally been free to express
themselves on their userpages.  The problem is that userboxes which are
promoted in the official namespaces tend to do two things:

1. They encourage the formation of cliques and factions and teams to go
around doing war in Wikipedia

2. They tell newcomers and the outside world that "this is how to be a
good wikipedian: pick all the things you believe in and trumpet them on
your userpage".

Traditionally, we have always thought that a really great wikipedian is
one whose editing record is so exemplary that one could not possibly
guess his or her biases.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Nick Boalch wrote:
>>> It's been a long-standing tenet of Wikipedia (and, in my view, a
>>> crucial and necessary one) that contributors should leave their
>>> political opinions at the door. Accordingly, any actions designed to
>>> divide the editing community into political factions can be seen as
>>> unhelpful.
>> Where is this "long-standing tenet" defined? NPOV, for example, depends on
>> different points of view, including political opinions, being given space
>> consistent with their level of support.
>
> Consistent with their level of support in the world, yes. Consistent with
> their level of support among the Wikipedia editing community, no. There is
> a crucial difference.

Gold stars for you.  :)  That is exactly right.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
It is probably significant to note that Anthony DiPierro and Peter McKay
are on the same side of this question.

Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/16/06, Nick Boalch <n.g.boalch at durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Peter Mackay wrote:
>>>> Jimbo's word on the matter:
>>>>
>>>>   The point is, we don't act *in Wikipedia* as a Democrat, a
>>>>   Republican, a pro-Lifer, a pro-Choicer, or whatever. Here we are
>>>>   Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral.
>>> With all due respect to you and Jimbo, that's not the way it happens.
>>> Thoughtful, loving, neutral, touchy-feely gets good marks, but editors don't
>>> suddenly turn into opinionless automatons. Nor do we want them to. We want
>>> Republicans to have input into articles on the Republican Party. We just
>>> don't want it to be Republican propaganda.
>> With all due respect to you, I think you're slightly misinterpreting
>> what Jimbo (and I) actually mean. I don't think either of us are
>> suggesting that editors should be 'opinionless automatons', just that
>> they shouldn't let their opinions influence the way they write articles.
>>
> I'd say that's pretty much impossible.  If nothing else, what you
> believe is going to affect what you know, and that's going to have a
> significant influence on the way you write an article.  IMO the way
> Wikipedians should produce an NPOV article is through the consensus of
> people with multiple points of view.  Templates regarding points of
> view can very much support this.
>
> That isn't to say that I think a template which says "This user think
> George W. Bush is a moron" is an example of such a template.  Actually
> I'd say a person using such a template is showing a lack of the skills
> needed to work with others.  But "This user is an atheist", or "This
> user is a Linux user", on the other hand, I think is not only
> non-harmful, I think it is helpful.
>
> Again just my opinion, but I don't think there's a consensus on this
> matter, and his majesty Jimbo has explicitly stated that he has not
> made an edict on the matter, so speedy deletion should be out of the
> question.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ip address block-hganesan

body:
  Hi,

  That IP has never been blocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:169.229.65.53

                      Jkelly

Quoting Harish Ganesan <kamehameha87 at yahoo.com>:

> Please do not block this IP address in the future:
> 169.229.65.53. This is shared by hundreds of people.


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Molu wrote:
>  I
> think George W. Bush is a criminal, if you feel offended by that then
> by all means stay off my userpage,

And if you feel that the best way to participate on the Internet is by
posting inflammatory statements on your userpage, then by all means stay
off of Wikipedia.  Go find a project which welcomes political rants and
leave us alone.

--Jimbo


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Should Wikipedia make it clear to users that it is
 not censored for minors?

body:
Prasad J wrote:
> Be that as it may, don't we still have an ethical responsibility to do
> what we can to deter kids from coming across adult-meterial?

We have an ethical responsibility to treat sensitive topics with
seriousness and deep respect.

We have discussed in the past having some sort of categorization for
"adult material" but realized that there is no neutral way to do it.
What we do instead is have neutral, factual categories that leave it up
to filtering companies or whoever to do as they like.

We can reach no consensus on whether or not a particular article is
suitable for children.  We can reach consensus on whether or not a
particular article is about human sexuality or crime or drugs.

Now, my own view is that even among extremely conservative parents, even
wikipedia articles on fairly hair-raising topics are sufficiently
factual and dull that *if* their children are searching on the internet
for the topic, the parents should be quite happy that the kids come
across wikipedia instead of something else.

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


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Threads: any plans

body:
>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Rapplean
>>>>> <mythobeast at gmail.com> writes:

   Robert> I've replied to Uwe in private.  If anyone else is
   Robert> interested in the consensus engine, please let me know and
   Robert> I'll send instructions on how to check out the wiki.

   Robert> On 5/12/06, Uwe Brauer
   Robert> <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
   >>
   >> May be this is off topic, but would it be possible to add Talk
   >> Pages, a nntp interface, so that they could be displayed with a
   >> newsreader?

   Robert> Is this in relation to the consensus engine, or in regard
   Robert> to Media Wiki?

Well both in principle

Uwe


body:
 "Erik Moeller" wrote

> I would prefer a term like "ideological factions" to "division".
> Division is natural and happens all the time when people disagree.

But I wouldn't prefer this.  'Divisive' is clearer than 'ideological': I
have just been reading an academic text where it is stated that "ideology"
has at least 100 meanings.  Divisive writing can be recognised by its
intention, to split and polarise.

<snip>

> The last thing I want to see is people on [[Talk:Church of Jesus
> Christ of Latter-day Saints]] arguing that a new guy who tries to fix
> up the currently awful "Criticism" section is trying to "divide the
> community" by focusing on "contentious and inflammatory content" with
> "clear intent to disrupt and provoke." In reality, it might well be
> that an ideological faction of Mormons is dominating the article -- in
> which case they would be the ones acting against the spirit of
> Wikipedia by trying to drown out criticism. (No offense intended to
> Mormons with this arbitrary example.)

This is a known phenomenon (it's on the Raul's Laws page): a standing
consensus around an article is broken.  But I'm clear that is not what is
being targeted.  One can disagree with a consensus version of an article,
without taking a divisive social line.  Some editors don't understand this,
true.

Charles


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL lawsuits - who can sue?

body:
On 5/16/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The one area where I could see this law really coming into play would
> be something like a class action suit against some big photo company
> (i.e. Corbis) who was claiming to sell licenses for the copyrights of
> images that they did not own.
>
I just wish it could be used against Google, who is putting those
annoying "Copyright Google" watermarks all over other people's maps.

But I suppose they could claim they they own a copyright on the very
watermarks which say copyright!

Anthony


body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Prasad J wrote:
>
<snip>
> It's conceivable that the UN could make pronouncements on this, but it
> would not be likely to consider the issue important enough for
> intervention even in a country much smaller than India.  I rather
> suspect that the vast majority of Chinese citizens are unaware of what
> firewalls are.
>

"What's another country? What do you mean, there are places apart from
China?"

(Oceania is at war with Eurasia and East Asia. Oceania has always been
at war with Eurasia and East Asia. We love Big Brother.)

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

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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Factions vs. Division (was Re: Divisive and Inflammatory
	Behavior, was CSD T1)

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rather, unnecessarily or unbeneficially disruptive behaviour should be
> discouraged, and not all heated debates fall into those categories. A
> passionate debate about a near-featured-article could be quite
> beneficial, for example.
>
> However, divisive and inflammatory behaviour is generally disruptive
> without having any benefits to the Wikipedia project.

I would prefer a term like "ideological factions" to "division".
Division is natural and happens all the time when people disagree.
Even permanent groups devoted to particular topics are something we
want to promote and develop further. It's the formation of permanent
_ideological_ factions which tends to hurt Wikipedia, and these are
again distinct from user groups devoted to particular topics.

It's within factions that phenomena like vote stacking and POV pushing
occur. And it's the convenience of adding an ideological userbox with
categories to your page which may contribute to forming a faction.

The last thing I want to see is people on [[Talk:Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints]] arguing that a new guy who tries to fix
up the currently awful "Criticism" section is trying to "divide the
community" by focusing on "contentious and inflammatory content" with
"clear intent to disrupt and provoke." In reality, it might well be
that an ideological faction of Mormons is dominating the article -- in
which case they would be the ones acting against the spirit of
Wikipedia by trying to drown out criticism. (No offense intended to
Mormons with this arbitrary example.)

There's the additional risk that even a well-defined policy on
"division" will lead to heavy-handed enforcement, which itself would
lead to division and hurt. For instance, many users currently have
strong political and religious messages on their userpages. With a new
guideline against "divisive behavior", I can easily see some people
with good intentions who might start warning these people that their
user pages are "divisive because of their ideological content", etc.
They would cite Jimbo's words like gospel, link to the new guideline,
and eventually try to enforce it by editing out problematic content,
etc.

But those people (the ones with the userpages) aren't forming
factions, and their userpages only declare their biases. Certainly we
can use common sense when something is clearly designed to attack and
provoke.

I support a statement or guideline against forming ideological
factions. I think a statement against division would be interpreted
too broadly. As for those userboxes about ideological associations,
these could either be converted into boxes about topical associations
("This user is a Christian  => This user is interested in
Christianity"), "defactonized" by removing categories, or deleted.

By the way, I think the ideological distinction of "inclusionist" vs.
"deletionist" is probably more harmful to Wikipedia than most
userboxes have ever been, because it tends to overshadow reasoned
discourse without prejudice.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] How to be GFDL compliant

body:
On 5/16/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 16, 2006, at 4:06 AM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>>> Right. Section 6: Collection of Documents:
> >>>>
> >>> In order to be in compliance with the GFDL you need to be in
> >>> compliance with the whole thing, not just one section.
> >>>
> >>
> >> What other sections are we not compliant with? I thought that this
> >> was
> >> the big one...
> >>
> > It's hard to even apply the GFDL to Wikipedia.  You say it's a
> > collection of Documents, so what would be an example of a Document, as
> > it applies to Wikipedia?
>
> An article.
>
That's certainly a possibility, but as you're not the one who was
claiming that Wikipedia follows the GFDL, I'll wait for an answer from
someone who does.

> > Where is the Title Page? Where is the
> > section entitled History?
>
> These answers, at least, don't seem obvious to me.
>
None of them seem obvious to me.

> > Who is the Publisher?
>
> The Foundation.
>
The Foundation claims to not be a publisher, but merely an ISP, though.

> > Is each new version
> > published as a derivative of the previous under the permission of the
> > GFDL
>
> Yes.
>
I think that's a very difficult position to take.  One problem, for
instance, is that each version of the Document has to have a different
title.

> > or is it a joint work of authorship?  Where are the copyright
> > notices?
>
> The bottom of each page.
>
I don't see it.

FWIW, I'm not saying that Wikimedia is legally required to be in
compliance with the GFDL.  The original publisher doesn't have to
follow the license, they just have to have permission from the authors
to publish.  Or if they're just a web host, an ISP, then they only
need permission to host.  Of course this would negate the inclusion of
any content originally released under the GFDL by other parties not
affiliated with Wikipedia.

It also makes things difficult for third party mirrors.  Right now the
mirrors are forced to guess the answers to the questions I posed
above.  Or they could just violate copyright law, which is what the
majority are doing.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Guy,
>
>> On Mon, 15 May 2006 11:44:28 +0100, you wrote:
> [This has been bothering me for a while.  Do you think you could maybe
> change this to refer to the person you're talking to?  Sometimes it's
> obvious --- like when you're replying to geni (sorry geni), or Yours
> Truly, or a message that has stuck in the brain.  But often I'll have no
> idea who said what.]
>>> That doens't make them official.
>> It implies a degree of endorsement.  I don't see any problem with
>> emphasising the difference between those things which are encouraged
>> as helping the building of an encyclopaedia, from those which are
>> tolerated  but recognised as not doing so, and in some cases actively
>>  impeding the process.
>
> During the heyday of the userboxen, I saw people --- you may have, as
> well --- actually welcoming newbies with "and here are some Wikipedia
> templates you can use to decorate your userpage".  Couldn't have been
> less subtle if they'd tried to clobber us with one of the damn things.
>
>

Oh, sorta like:

"Welcome to Wikipedia! Before you can do anything else, please fill in
your userpage to let us know how much of a
{left|right|up|down|in|out|Klein bottle}-wing looney you are."

Am I on the right track?

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

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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Factions vs. Division (was Re: Divisive and
	Inflammatory Behavior, was CSD T1)

body:
On 5/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would prefer a term like "ideological factions" to "division".
> Division is natural and happens all the time when people disagree.
> Even permanent groups devoted to particular topics are something we
> want to promote and develop further. It's the formation of permanent
> _ideological_ factions which tends to hurt Wikipedia, and these are
> again distinct from user groups devoted to particular topics.

There is a difference between "division" and "divisive".  Some people
prefer one day cricket, and some prefer test cricket. This naturally
creates "divisions" as you say, but this is not a "divisive" topic. It
does not polarise people. It does not force bystanders to take sides.
It does not something which causes everything to be seen in terms of
one view or another.

Your example of inclusionist or deletionist is a good example of
something which is divisive.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but yes, we do need to define
exactly what is "divisive" and why we do or don't allow it.

Steve


body:
On May 16, 2006, at 6:20 PM, Prasad J wrote:

> As a side note, I really do suspect that George Orwell was referring
> to the U.S when he wrote 1984!

He wasn't.

He was referring to Stalin, his work at the BBC during World War II,
the British Empire, Nazi Germany, etc.

Although if you want to go ahead and waste everyone's time with anti-
American trolling, I'm sure many Wikipedians will welcome you.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On May 16, 2006, at 6:38 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:

> I don't think we have a policy which prohibits disruptive behavior in
> so many words.

True, but the blocking policy allows blocking for disruption, in so
many words. Something being prohibited is essentially the same as
something being a valid reason to block according to the blocking
policy.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 5/16/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Be that as it may, don't we still have an ethical responsibility to do
> > what we can to deter kids from coming across adult-meterial?
>
> No. That is thier parents job. Parents will do it lovingly and
> responsibly. We would make a complete arse of it.

Not only that, but the various jurisdictions which Wikipedia serves
pages to undoubtedly have different ideas about who is a child and who
is an adult, and different ideas about what is "adult material".
Attempting to institute a system of warnings or filters would
undoubtedly leave holes, and that would arguably put us in a worse
position than simply having the disclaimers and leaving everything up
to users.

We should try to keep potentially offensive stuff off the main page, a
fairly simple task. That gives every visitor the opportunity to read
the disclaimers, and anything after that is their problem.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 5/16/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
> >
> At that point they open themselves to whatever penalties are associated
> with violating the order rather than an infringement of copyright.
> There is a separate legal process available to them if they want to
> question the copyright.
>
Actually, that's not true.  Ignoring a DMCA takedown order is not in
itself a violation of the law.  It simply removes any safe-harbor that
the site would have otherwise had (which in the case of Baidu is
probably nil anyway), and establishes that any future copyright
infringement is willful.

> >>This could be more
> >>easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US
> >>courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that.  Proving
> >>damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty
> >>of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
> >>
> >>
> >Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory
> >damages?  If so, then you're out $30 a pop.  (I looked it up, not only
> >do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register
> >within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes
> >place.)  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-.html
> >
> I think that the Foundation has been negligent in failing to register
> copyrights.  Although it is not itself the owner of most of the
> copyrights, it should be protecting the rights of its authors in a way
> similar to what a magazine publisher would.  This should involve
> registering the entire database every month or two.  Failing this,
> what's to prevent any contributor from registring the entire database,
> citing himself "and others" as authors?  This would involve a single
> payment of $30 for the whole thing.
>
Nothing, but if the entire database is considered a single work then
you won't get $200 for every article.

> While damages might not be recoverable for the time before registration,
> they should be recoverable if they continue after registration.
> Copyrights do not depend on registration by virtue of treaty
> obligations.

Right.  Copyrights don't depend on registration.  But statutory
damages do.  And yes, statutory damages would still be assigned if the
violations continue after registration.  Whether or not they're
recoverable is another story.  Do you plan on invading China to
collect them?

> If the word "commencement" in that section is taken too
> strictly that would be inconsistent with that treaty obligation, and it
> would open a gaping hole in US copyright law because it would amount to
> effectively condoning almost any copyright infringement that took place
> before registration and continued after registration.
>
> >Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop.  Now how exactly do you
> >plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
> >
> Without looking more deeply into the offenders' particular situation, I
> could not at this stage even begin to answer that question.  Until we
> have an actual judgement the question is moot.
>
> >In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively.
> > If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue.  But short of
> >that...
> >
> >
> That makes copyleft licences useless.

No it makes copyleft licenses particularly useful.  If a copyleft
license was useless then no one could ever use the work without
permission.

In case you don't understand what I'm saying, the purpose of a
copyleft license is to allow the public to use a work freely, not to
provide the author with an avenue for lawsuits.

> Wikipedia as a whole has shown
> great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios.  It
> also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an
> article.  This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote.  It means
> that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.

Well, I never said copyleft licenses were useless when not used
defensively, I merely said that they were most useful when used
defensively.

But if you think a copyleft provides significant "protection"
(protection from what?), then I'm sure you'd have no trouble naming a
large number of significant lawsuits that were won by authors of
copyleft software.

Personally I can't think of any, but I'm sure there were a few.

> It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can
> take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright
> without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.

Take a look at [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]] sometime.  This is
exactly what hundreds of people/companies are doing.

> I accept the
> GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial
> interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge
> its viral nature.  Who defends that?  Who defends it 20 years from now?
>
The "viral nature" of the GFDL is that any derivative of a GFDL
remains free.  IOW, if Answers Corporation (for example) makes
modifications to Wikipedia, and then tries to sue people who
redistribute those modifications, they'd be subject to a countersuit
for violating the GFDL.  This is that defensive use that I was talking
about, and this is where I expect copyleft would be most useful.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] CSD T1

body:
Molu wrote:
[top-posting fixed]
> On Mon, 15 May 2006 11:02:46 -0400. Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> I have no idea why anyone is talking about decrees. CSD T1 is
>> normal policy, created and confirmed in the normal way. It is a
>> very simple natural extension of all our other policies which,
>> despite our ongoing tolerance of people trolling on the mailing
>> list, *ahem*, have always urged people in no uncertain terms not to
>> be divisive and inflammatory.
>
> Mr. Wales,
>
> The debate is not over whether editors should be inflammatory and
> divisive, but over whether expressing personal opinions and
> (recently) making jokes in the user's own userpage that no one is
> required to read using pages residing in the Template: namespace is a
> valid example of behaving in a divisive and inflammatory manner.

It is.

Why?

Because you've created a new page purely for the purpose of inserting
some junk onto the userpage associated with your username, and are
encouraging others to do likewise.

> I think George W. Bush is a criminal, if you feel offended by that
> then by all means stay off my userpage, why do you have to go delete
> templates?

Templates are *designed* for the insertion of commonly-used pieces of
wikitext. If you think that personal opinions are a valid use of
templates, you're on the wrong site.

> Templates are obviously no more official than userpages
> since any person can create either.
>

Userpages aren't used in articles; templates are.

> What's more, some admins even speedy userboxes in the userpage as
> recreations of deleted content and this has been supported by ArbCom
> 8-1 or 9-0 (can't remember which) in a famous userbox hearing. So the
> matter is not even whether one can express personal opinions in
> template space, but also whether one can express personal opinions in
> user space.

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

> No one is debating whether editors should be divisive and
> inflammatory, don't make it appear so.
>

At any rate, they shouldn't.

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
> internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software. Wikipedia
> says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
> sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.
>
> Mgm

It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on [[Fahrenheit
451]] is going to contain, you know, details on the plot of Fahrenheit
451.

So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?

Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.  I
hate that template.

Anthony


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/16/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> If people want to deter kids from coming across certain material on the
>> internet, it's their responsibility to install blocking software. Wikipedia
>> says is in BIG bold letters it's an encyclopedia. It's common sense for
>> sexual material to be included so I'm against yet another disclaimer.
>
> Point me to another encyclopaedia with photographic images of
> erections or clitorises, and I might agree.
>

If cameras had been around back then, Encyclop?die
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die) probably would have.

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

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from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony wrote:
> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>
> Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.
> I hate that template.

You're not alone, but you're in a distinct minority.  There was a
poll on this at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 4]],
and the ratio was running about 7:1 Keep before AzaToth speedied
it under WP:SNOW.


body:
On 5/16/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> But I wouldn't prefer this.  'Divisive' is clearer than 'ideological': I
> have just been reading an academic text where it is stated that "ideology"
> has at least 100 meanings.  Divisive writing can be recognised by its
> intention, to split and polarise.

It is very difficult to know intentions. A policy which operates on
guessing intentions, rather than determining clear facts, is a
dangerous thing.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
> >
> > Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.
> > I hate that template.
>
> You're not alone, but you're in a distinct minority.  There was a
> poll on this at [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 4]],
> and the ratio was running about 7:1 Keep before AzaToth speedied
> it under WP:SNOW.
>
I wonder if the ratio would have been significantly different if the
reason for nomination hadn't been so terrible (the template *isn't*
used for censorship, of course).  Looking through the "votes" there
doesn't seem to be very much intelligent discussion on either side of
the issue.

I still hate that damn template.  At the very least I think most would
agree that it is overused.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
> >
> > It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on
> > [[Fahrenheit 451]] is going to contain, you know, details on
> > the plot of Fahrenheit 451.
> >
> > So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while
> > we're at it?
> >
> > Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm
> > serious.  I hate that template.
>
> Does it really hurt?

It's annoying, about on the level of those ads some websites place in
the middle of their news articles.  I wish there was at least a way to
turn them off, but then again I usually don't log in so that wouldn't
help me all that much.

> Believe it or not, there are some folk around who don't
> know if Hamlet becomes King of Denmark or if Romeo gets the girl, and maybe
> they want to know a bit about the historical and publishing background
> before they read a novel or see a play. Maybe they get to the article
> through Google and they are really looking for information on Ray Bradbury
> or Julie Christie ***sigh*** ond don't care to have plot details revealed.
>
> Our readers don't always come to our articles by typing in the title.
>
Well, using [[Hamlet]] as an example, if they read through the article
and stop when it gets to the sections that have the titles "Main
characters" or "Plot Summary", then they'd accomplish that perfectly
well *without* a warning.  I mean, the section is called "Plot
Summary".  Isn't that warning enough?

Seriously, look at that article.  It reads (in pseudo-wikitext):

==Plot summary==
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Go figure, plot details follow a headline which says "Plot summary".

Anthony


from_name: Cheney Shill

body:
http://www.derfcity.com/n/newtoon.html

Thought of this thread reading this.~~~~Pro-Lick

---------------------------------
New Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Believe it or not, there are some folk around who don't
> know if Hamlet becomes King of Denmark or if Romeo gets the girl, and maybe
> they want to know a bit about the historical and publishing background
> before they read a novel or see a play.

I just looked at [[Romeo and Juliet]], and it's even worse.  The
spoiler warning comes after only two lines of text, and the first
section (where the warning is) is called "Plot", and so it obvious
contains details of the plot.

Then again, the section entitled "Farce" also contains a spoiler, and
doesn't have a warning (I guess once you have one everything below
that is fair game?).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Anthony wrote:
> I still hate that damn template.  At the very least I think most
> would agree that it is overused.

I wouldn't, because I honestly don't know.  I read plenty of
articles on movies, and my eye sorta skips over the spoiler
template such that I barely even notice it.  And yet, other
people, it leaps up off the page and seriously annoys them.
Fascinating.  (I'm not arguing with your reaction, because it
is what it is, but it's interesting how different they can be.)


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> I just looked at [[Romeo and Juliet]], and it's even worse.  The
> spoiler warning comes after only two lines of text, and the first
> section (where the warning is) is called "Plot", and so it obvious
> contains details of the plot.

That's just poor use of the template.  Whenever I see something like
that, I try to move as much non-spoiler text out of the spoiler
section as I can.


from_name: Matt R

body:
> That makes copyleft licences useless.  Wikipedia as a whole has shown
> great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios.  It
> also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an
> article.  This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote.  It means
> that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.
> It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can
> take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright
> without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.  I accept the
> GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial
> interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge
> its viral nature.  Who defends that?  Who defends it 20 years from now?

Baidupedia is a public website: that is, if they improve our GFDL-licensed work, then anyone can use those derived works under the GFDL; whether or not they acknowledge it or advertise it doesn't change that fact. Therefore, I don't see copyleft being useless in this instance.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]


body:
On 5/16/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> We need to define some operational tests, for example, if behavior
> results in wheel wars or is associated with sustained edit warring,
> it can be said to be divisive.

Just like knowing intentions, trying to determine "who started it" is
very difficult and tends to lead to unfair results: any parent knows
that. Not only does it require a lot of subjective judgment (which
will always be somewhat prejudiced against new editors), it also
assigns the blame for consequences that may not have been predictable
at the time an action was taken (and that may not even follow when a
similar action is taken in a different context).

The more broadly interpretable policies you have, the more accusations
of cabalism and unfair treatment you will get. Just like the little
brother complains that the older brother always gets away with
starting trouble, some users will complain that certain users get away
with "being divisive". And sometimes they will be right.

We have policies that are relatively straightforward to interpret on
matters like wheel warring, edit warring, and personal attacks. I
strongly caution against trying to determine who is being divisive and
why in addition to punishing those who violate these policies.

Instead, I can see a need for a well-defined guideline against
permanent factions (as supported by categories, userboxes, membership
listings etc.) of people who share strong convictions on a particular
issue. Such factions of belief tend to polarize people and undermine
overarching ideals such as neutrality and community.

Associations by topic are helpful. Associations by the _stance_ on a
particular topic are unnecessary. Stating the stance is one thing,
creating identifiable factions through categories, member pages and
userboxes is another. We can discourage or forbid this in favor of
associations by _interest_:

Republican => interested in politics
anti-Scientologist => interested in Scientology
deletionist=> interested in AfD
nymphomaniac => interested in contraception

This would not stop prejudices, but it would at least encourage
mingling among people who may not think exactly the same way as you do
-- and eliminate one of the tools used for vote stacking. It ties
naturally into our existing WikiProject model, and could even be
extended by topical IRC channels as is done on de.wikipedia.org.

This would be a simple policy that leaves little room for
interpretation. That makes it, in my opinion, preferable to trying to
nail down what is and isn't "divisive", both in general terms and on a
case by case basis.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
On 5/16/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> But on looking at the template itself, it's not that bad. Can't you just
> grit your teeth?
>
I think part of the annoyance is that the template is so often put in
a ridiculous place (such as the two examples I gave where it was in a
section which was already obviously about plot).  Can I just grit my
teeth?  Sure.  It's what I do when I see something stupid on all those
other sites that I *can't* edit.

> There's lots about WP that annoys me, but I find my life is less stressful
> if I just ignore the small stuff and enjoy the good bits.
>
One of the things I like about WP is that if something annoys me I can
usually fix it.  And I've removed that template from articles lots of
times.

But yeah, I should get less stressed about things.  And when people
spell the word "its" with an apostrophe, I shouldn't cringe.  And I
should stop worrying about whether the term "anal-retentive" should be
spelled with or without a hyphen.  I doubt I'm going to succeed
though.

> Like having one of my photographs selected to illustrate a day of the year.
> [[Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 23]] - I stood out in the cold
> for about ten minutes before I got the curl of the flag just right, and I'm
> proud of that small detail, even if my ungloved hands still give me twinges
> of pain each year on that day...
>
I was quite pleased when I ran across one of my photos on a website
outside of Wikipedia.  Granted, it was a Wikicities site, but still
:).

And hey, that photo is awesome (though I couldn't help but wonder
whether the statue is a derivative of the original photo and therefore
your photo is copyright-tainted - see, this is what I've gotta stop).

Anthony


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Factions vs. Division (was Re: Divisive
	andInflammatoryBehavior, was CSD T1)

body:
"Erik Moeller" wrote
> On 5/16/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> But I wouldn't prefer this.  'Divisive' is clearer than 'ideological': I
>> have just been reading an academic text where it is stated that
>> "ideology"
>> has at least 100 meanings.  Divisive writing can be recognised by its
>> intention, to split and polarise.
>
> It is very difficult to know intentions. A policy which operates on
> guessing intentions, rather than determining clear facts, is a
> dangerous thing.

Well, OK.  It is not _always_ very difficult to guess intentions (hate
speech and so on).  It is better to have a policy that is sometimes useful,
and relates very clearly to what everyone agrees.  We all agree that driving
wedges into the community, along factional lines, is very bad.  So we state
this as policy.  I would see that as the 80 for 20 of the situation: we can
apply this to some rather stupid or trolling or overtly partisan situations.
Then manifestos have at least to pay due respect to the principle that the
community is not to be polarised.

Charles


from_name: Michael Hopcroft

subject: [WikiEN-l] Template:spoiler

body:
Ruud Koot wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>> It's also common sense that an encyclopedia article on [[Fahrenheit
>> 451]] is going to contain, you know, details on the plot of Fahrenheit
>> 451.
>>
>> So can we please please get rid of [[template:spoiler]] while we're at it?
>>
>> Hell, I'm going to start a new thread on this, cause I'm serious.  I
>> hate that template.
>>
>
> I would support delting that template. But failing that, you can add
>
> .spoiler { display: none; }
>
> to your monobook.css to hide them.
>
But that would pose severe problems for people writing about more recent
works that may not have received global distribution at the time the
article is being written. It is most commonly used in popular culture
articles (many anime/manga series, newer episodes of Doctor Who and
Battlestar Galactica, recent fantasy and SF films) but would also be
useful for more "serious" works such as films like Brokeback Mountain,
Capote and Memoirs of a Geisha.

The spoiler tag is also helpful when ORGANIZING articles on such topics.


body:
On 5/16/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> Republican => interested in politics
> anti-Scientologist => interested in Scientology
> deletionist=> interested in AfD
> nymphomaniac => interested in contraception

Smells like euphemisms. And it pretty much amounts to the same thing.
When you see "Interested in Judaism" or heavy contributions to
articles on interpretations of the Qoran or something, you can form
your own conclusions. But I would certainly say that there is a
difference between religion and political ideology. I can't put my
finger on it just at the moment, but being Muslim seems somehow more
permanent and less inflammatory than stating loudly "I VOTE
REPUBLICAN".

Steve


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On Tue, 16 May 2006 13:46:41 +0100, Charles Matthews wrote:

>But isn't 'historic debates' more what is meant?  'Historical debates' might
>mean debates relative to history topics; rather than debates which are now
>mercifully history.

"May, 2006: a debate between Charles Matthews and Fred Bauder on
whether historic or historical was the correct term for this list..."

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


body:
On 5/15/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Legaly? China steps outside interlectial proptely laws. Under those
> conditions further predictions are imposible.

But, uh, guys... the People's Republic of China doesn't even respect
the copyrights of major companies with big legal firms. Surely they
won't give a more than a cursory damn at most about a bunch of
copylefters. They may be Communists but they aren't Stallmanites. ;-)

If the U.S. government, by means of WTO, TRIPS, and other hard-core
international economic agreements can't get the PRC to care too much
IP piracy, I'm sure that we can't. I'm also fairly sure... it doesn't
matter much.

FF


body:
Everything on our site is supposed to be encyclopedic. Even articles
about pornographic websites are written in a dispassionate, neutral,
and almost completely bored tone. If kids are on the internet looking
for "adult material", they'll probably find Wikipedia about as
exciting as looking up dirty words in a dictionary.

FF

On 5/15/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/05/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Their own problem.
> >
> >
> > Rob Church
>
> Be that as it may, don't we still have an ethical responsibility to do
> what we can to deter kids from coming across adult-meterial?
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 16, 2006, at 9:36 PM, Prasad J wrote:

>> Although if you want to go ahead and waste everyone's time with anti-
>> American trolling, I'm sure many Wikipedians will welcome you.
>
> I'm not sure how my views about America have anything to do with how
> the Wikipedia Community treats me as long as those views are not
> stated on the latter website.

I was just remarking that anti-American sentiment isn't uncommon
among some Wikipedians :)

> Also the excalamation mark (!) at the
> end of my statement was meant to indicate that my observation had been
> made in a sarcastic manner.

Good to know. I had not interpreted it that way.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help needed

body:
We recently deleted a couple of hoaxes by [[User:Cro..Scream]].  He
has sent me an insulting email which states that there are thirteen
other hoaxes of his on the project, under one or more other usernames,
including one fake Indian writer.  I think actually one or more might
have been spotted due to interleaved edits with different accounts /
IP edits, but if someone with time and checkuser rights could see
which other accounts have been using the same IPs (if it's not a huge
ISP) and wouldn't mind quietly letting me know I don't mind doing the
detective work.

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


from_name: Elliott F. Cable

subject:
[Wikitech-l] "Image Credits" proposal to allow images to link
	to pages

body:
This guy sees sense!

On May 16, 2006, at 10:48 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 5/17/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>>            1. The image is 100x100 px or smaller, and
>>         ( 2a. the image is PD, or
>>           2b. the same image also appears on the linked-to page
>>               and, there, has the old behavior of linking to the
>>               full-size image plus its metainformation. )
> 2c. the image is GFDL or CC-SA with no attribution requirements.
>
> (I don't see the necessity in providing readily accessible attribution
> info for an image where the author didn't request it)
>
> Steve


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
 information

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I can NOT emphasize this enough.
>
> There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
> random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
> tagged with a "needs a cite" tag.  Wrong.  It should be removed,
> aggressively, unless it can be sourced.  This is true of all
> information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
> living persons.

There are vast swaths of articles on Wikipedia that are completely
unsourced right now. While I in no way dispute that this is a bad thing
and it needs to be corrected, IMO it'd be a worse thing to simply go
around _deleting_ all that stuff. Deleting "unfinished" stuff can often
greatly hinder the eventual creation of "finished" stuff. Wikipedia's
not done yet.

There are nights where I do nothing but cruise around on random article
patrol, doing little bits of tidying on subjects I know nothing about
and which I don't care to research in-depth. One of the things I do is
add {{citation needed}} when I hit statements that look particularly
significant and unsupported, in the hopes that someone who _does_ know
about the subject will be prompted to check them and fill in the blanks
at some point later on. How is this "wrong"? Seems like perfectly
straightforward collaborative editing to me, dividing labor between
proofreading and doing the actual problem-fixing work.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
On 5/16/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> "May, 2006: a debate between Charles Matthews and Fred Bauder on
> whether historic or historical was the correct term for this list..."

Heh. Though I agree - "historical debates" to me would either be an
exhaustive list of all past debates, or a list of debates about
historical subjects. Historic means significant...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Help needed

body:
On Wed, 17 May 2006 07:37:58 +1000, you wrote:

>Possibly the claim of thirteen other hoaxes is a hoax in itself?

Could be, but they were quite convincing.  Micha van den Berg was one.

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] The lang tag in <HTML> ain't identical
	to	$wgContLanguageCode

body:
Steve Summit wrote:
> Shinjiman and Happy Rabbit, I don't know about everybody else
> here, but I'd find this issue easier to think about if I
> understood a bit more about what you're trying to accomplish.
> Apologies for not knowing as much as I should about these issues.
>
> My main question is this.  Why do we need the extra mapping of
> the HTML lang tag?  Why is it not adequate to set the value of
> $wgContLanguageCode appropriately for each wiki, so that it
> matches the language that the wiki's pages are written in?

The base problem is that various characters may appear differently when rendered
in a Simplified Chinese font vs a Traditional Chinese font.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification for some background on this issue.

Characters that differ semantically between the variants generally are assigned
separate Unicode code points, but for characters that simply have different
customary appearances the difference is left to the fonts.

Browsers will (or at least, may) pick appropriate default fonts based on the
language specified in the web page.

Thus for example, a page which is marked as "zh" (defaulting usually to
Simplified Chinese) but which contains text written for Traditional form may
display oddly.

We have both Traditional and Simplified forms mixed on the Chinese-language
Wikipedia. The wiki software is extended with two key abilities relevant to this:

1) When logged in, a user can select which language the user-interface text
appears in. As well as completely different languages, they can choose a
specific variant of Chinese (eg, Traditional instead of Chinese).

2) A visitor can select to have the text of a page automatically converted to
their preferred variant (Simplified or Traditional) for more comfortable reading.

For a quick sample, here's the main page in default:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5

and here with all text converted to Simplified script forms:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5&variant=zh-cn

and here with all text converted to Traditional script forms:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5&variant=zh-tw

I don't know Chinese well enough to tell what's displaying right and what's
displaying wrong, but depending on your browser and fonts situation, you might
be able to see that some of the characters appear in different fonts.

At the moment no matter which variant you pick, the HTML still declares its
language to be "zh", just plain Chinese. Shinjiman indicates that this defaults
to Simplified Chinese in browsers that pick fonts depending on the declared
language code; thus this might be displaying incorrectly when text is actually
Traditional Chinese.

Now, it would appear to make reasonable sense to pick a more detailed language
code when variant conversion is in use, so that browsers' font selections pick
the matching variant. On this I concur completely.

Where we appear to have got bogged down is in how this relates to two things
a) The user interface language selected in the user's wiki preferences.
b) The Accept-Language header sent from the browser.

As for a), it may make sense for a lot of user-interface text to appear with its
own overriding lang attributes. This isn't necessarily easy in all cases, but if
it's appropriate it's something we can talk about.

As for b), by itself it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me; first,
picking a language code from the client would simply cause it to fail to match
with the content language. Second, the more general issue of picking
user-interface language based on the header is something we've provisionally
rejected for a long time; non-default UI languages are often not fully
customized and would often produce a sub-par or confusing user experience.
Additionally supporting it would require changes to the caching infrastructure
and would increase server load by an unknown and potentially large amount.

b) appears to be entirely separate from the question at hand, so I'd prefer to
leave it for another discussion.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

body:
On 5/16/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > On 5/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project
> >>just for being lousy writers.  (This is not a policy statement, just a
> >>statement of attitude and frustration.)
> >
>  ... The problem isn't "lousy writers", /per se/, but lousy writers
> who think they're God's gift to the written word.
>
Poor writing is what's most noticeable about our articles and it's not
invariably because of people who aren't able to write, but often
because of laziness. Someone'll make an edit that changes the flow of
a paragraph but then won't bother to tidy up after themselves, so one
paragraph ends up saying the same thing three times in different ways;
or a sentence will contradict the sentence that comes after it. It
would be good if we could somehow raise people's consciousness about
the importance of narrative flow.

Sarah


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-17

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 304 of 314 tests (96.82%) FAILED!