from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> "The founder of Wikipedia, the charitably funded online encyclopaedia,
> says that the website is considering carrying advertisements in a move
> that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues."
>
> http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html

I encourage everybody to see *exactly* what Jimmy said and read both articles in full. The
headline is needlessly sensational. Jimmy is just pointing out the obvious; that we are giving up
on millions of dollars of potential revenue that could help us reach our goals.

Nothing is going to happen without community consent.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Vincent "Bentong" S. Isles

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cebuano Wikipedia reaches 1,000th article mark!

body:
Hi everyone.

We at the Cebuano Wikipedia community beat our
self-imposed deadline of 31 December 2005 for the
1,000th article of the Cebuano Wikipedia. See
[[ceb:Special:Statistics]].

30 December 2005, 05:10 UTC, the 1,000th article was
created (appropriately for the man who is known in the
Cebuano community as THE hero -- the one who led our
revolutionaries against the Spanish back in 1898). See
[[ceb:Leon Kilat]]. It is more of a stub than of a
"real" article, but hey, MediaWiki counted it as one
;)

Now I can go on vacation. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vincent "Bentong" S. Isles   Chemistry & Physics Teacher
bentong_isles at yahoo.com      http://bentong.topcities.com
         56-C San Miguel St. Cebu City, Philippines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Unsa ang tinuod nga pagkamakinasodnon?  Kini mao ang
pagdapig sa budaya [culture] batok sa mga buot mopasipala
niini, langyaw man kun isigka-Pilipino.
           Mabuhi ang pinulongang Sinugboanon!
      SCRAP THE PHILIPPINE NATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY!
          STOP THE FORCED LEARNING OF TAGALOG!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abag sa Sinugboanong Wikipedya | http://ceb.wikipedia.org

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: James D. Forrester

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

Vincent "Bentong" S. Isles wrote:

> We at the Cebuano Wikipedia community beat our
> self-imposed deadline of 31 December 2005 for the
> 1,000th article of the Cebuano Wikipedia. See
> [[ceb:Special:Statistics]].

To you and all the others in the community, congratulations!

Yours,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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list: wikien-l

from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "Fair use" images now allowed in userspace?

body:
On 12/29/05, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:28:29 +0100, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> is fine by me, but some of them get extremely vexed if you try to tell
> them they can't use fair use images in them...

However the argument about the firefox image is because Mozilla allows
you to use their image in order to promote the use of the browser.
Mozilla would be happy that thier logo is being used in this way so
why can't people  use it?

Theresa


from_name: Kelly Martin

references:
<20051228200544.62957.qmail@web31912.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<71cd4dd90512291046q318f5e80sd88833ed93afe350@mail.gmail.com>
	<1135885803.43b43deb94697@webmail.fas.harvard.edu>
	<43B445F3.7000503@wikia.com>
	<1bfe3eb0512291228j12e1d954mec4af5bfcd9bdcad@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.s2kbzaq7r18sbe@mainframe.mshome.net>
	<1bfe3eb0512300009x174517dbncdebe35e89a63524@mail.gmail.com>
	<01F2CAC3-E84E-43E5-8AA2-BB61DE4501E5@specialbusservice.com>

body:
On 12/30/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> You want to check the context of every use of the template to see if
> it promotes the use or not? Wikipedia is not in the business of
> promoting
> anyones products anyway; having this image is by definition not NPOV.

User space follows CPOV, not NPOV.

Kelly


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Article Improvement Weeks! (was Turn
	offarticle creation AND deletion.)

body:
"Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:f3fedb0d0512110809j7a731d4by at mail.gmail.com...
[snip]
> I'd sign up to something that /made/ me leave an edit summary all the
> time... perhaps a configurable option for logged-in users as a
> corrollary?

If you're using the monobook skin, there's a little Javascript extension
which checks the edit summary and prompts you if you leave it blank...it can
even cope with the /* commented out section headers */.

I originally got it from [[User:ABCD/monobook.js]]: don't know if it's been
updated recently: you can see my version in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Boswell/monobook.js.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
"Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:f3fedb0d0512110649p57e2de49k at mail.gmail.com...
On 11/12/05, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > I saw one nomination that really annoyed me - [[List of Scientology
> > centers]] - which prompted me to comment that nominators should have to
> > bother notifying the relevant wikiproject.
> This is a nice idea - and it's excellent if there's an obvious
> wikiproject, like regional ones. But we have such a plethora of
> wikiprojects that it's not immediately obvious if we have one for a
> specific topic, unless you already know about it...

Maybe if more WikiProject participants put an appropriate notice on the talk
pages for their articles, it would be possible to tell easily.

But hey, we don't want to make more work for the AFD vultures: why should
they bother looking at the talk page if they can simply nominate the article
and leave it for others to attempt to defend it?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stable versions policy

body:
>> If logged in, they get "editor mode" view, the full thing. They'd see
>> current version by default. (Though user-preferences should allow them
>> to switch that back, of course.)
>>

> # '''Support''' ~~~~
# '''Oppose''' - it's through the red links that people often get
hooked on editing Wikipedia ~~~~

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Gift of knowledge:" having it both ways

body:
When people complain about inaccuracies in Wikipedia, the stock answers
are that such complaints are invalid, or involve a misunderstanding of
Wikipedia, because:

--It's a work in progress

--It's not an encyclopedia yet

--Every page has a wee little "disclaimers" link that potentially would
display a huge bold all-caps "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY"
if you clicked on it.

But when we ask for money, do we say:

--"Give the gift of an open wiki-community?"

--"Give the gift of process, not product?"

--"Give the gift of a whipped-up blend of tasty knowledge spiced with a
few foul nuggets of misinformation?"

We do not. We say "give the gift of knowledge."

Small wonder that we're starting to see some hostility from the outside.
We're trying to have it both ways. We set expectations ("give the gift
of knowledge") and then are surprised when people have the expections
we set.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: 田中 万太郎

subject: [Wikitech-l] Another Live Grabber of Wikipedia content

body:
Hello

I write about this site several times already, still it is
mirroring en Wikipedia live:

http://www.pakaf.com/read/Special:Recentchanges

Thankyou

TANAKA

--------------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail - supported by 10million people
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/mail_pr/


from_name: Bartosz Milewski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: REQUEST_URI undefined index

body:
I followed the instructions in the link you posted and it did fix the
REQUEST_URI warning, but other problems still remain.

The login page kept flashing every second or so. I was able to stabilize it
by minimizing and maximizing the Explorer (!) and logged in.

Once I logged id, I could see the main page.

When I try to edit the page, the edit page is partially displayed, but then
immediately refreshed, and so on, in an infinite loop.

You can see it for yourself: http://www.relisoft.com/wiki .

Bartosz

"Zigger" <zigger at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:419a942d0512282314o1ea142e5q at mail.gmail.com...
> See the unreviewed suggestion at
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3000
>
> -- Zigger
>
> On 29/12/05, Bartosz Milewski wrote:
>> We are running MediaWiki on a Windows Server at
>> http://www.relisoft.com/wiki
>> - MediaWiki 1.5.4
>> - PHP 5.0.5
>> - MySQL 4.0.18-nt
>> First problem: When I access it from one of my home machine, I see a
>> completely blank main page. Other people can see the full page. I can see
>> some of the other pages, if I specify the title.
>> Second problem: I get the error:
>> Undefined index: REQUEST_URI in includes\WebRequests.php, line 284.
>> This is the offending line of code:
>>
>> /**
>>   * Return the path portion of the request URI.
>>   * @return string
>>   */
>>  function getRequestURL() {
>>   return $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
>>  }
>>
>> Is this a problem with PHP/MediaWiki mismatch?
>>...
>

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

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


from_name: Mdangers

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Another Live Grabber of Wikipedia content

body:
?? ??? <wikiwatcher at ...> writes:

>
> Hello
>
> I write about this site several times already, still it is
> mirroring en Wikipedia live:
>
> http://www.pakaf.com/read/Special:Recentchanges
>
> Thankyou
>
> TANAKA
>
> --------------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail - supported by 10million people
> http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/mail_pr/
>
...and while taking care of abovementioned site, could someone please have a
quick look at [1] and also block the four leechers listed there?
Thanks alot and Dankeschoen!
de:Mdangers

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Mdangers/rot


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable version: Two steps?

body:
It seems that for the stable version feature, there is much support for
having a stable version, but not as much for displaying it by default.

Suggestion:
1. Have stable versions, but not as default, like on my test page [1]
2. Once that runs for some time without problem, we turn on stable
versions as default *for a week* and see what happens

If the number of (non-vandal) edits drops like the new market used to,
we keep it like #1. However, if there is no significant reduction in
edits, we turn on #2 for, say, a month, or three month. If there's no
ill effect either, we keep it on.

Additionally, of course, the decision to try this would be optional for
every wikipedia individually.

That solution should satisfy everyone concerned about the project,
though it might not satisfy those who want a wiki, just a wiki, nothing
else.

Magnus

[1] http://magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ideological cliques

body:
 Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> > Nobs was banned for personal attacks, not for his right wing
> >political views.  There are political blocks operating on Wikipedia,

>Nobs and his co-defendants were not such a block, nor could one say
> >that I, Cberlet and Ruy Lopez are a block in that sense despite
> >sharing certain perspectives. Sometimes there is more than meets the
> >eye. Real problems will not be solved by imagining phantasms.
>
> The way the case was handled lends itself to an appearance of unfairness,
> beginning with Cberlet's abuse of process, which nobs defined on day one,
> and the failure of the Committee to respond to evidence.

nobs


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>We should teach people to be critical.
>Far too often people take what they read for granted without any
>thought or double-checking. We should work to keep featured articles
>accurate (because they're supposed to be the best). To get rid of
>other inaccuracies we should look for sources. If we don't have any,
>people should be naturally untrusting and try to verify the info
>another way.
>
>NO ONE can guarantee absolutely correct info. Look at Britannica.
>
Teaching people to be critical is itself a process.  In all but the most
advanced educational systems that is contrary to centuries of
established habit.  Before a person can be effectively critical he needs
to believe that his opinions matter.  If we see a person doing things
which are "obviously wrong" we need to be open to the likelihood that
that contributor does not see his work as wrong at all.  Assuming good
faith is important, and taking the time to develop a dialogue is the
best evidence that good faith has been assumed.  Impatience in purging
Wikipedia of errors only angers people.  You may have gone over the same
problem again and again with many other users, but for the user with
whom you are interacting now it may be his first time with the problem;
your past baggage is of no concern to him.

I like to avoid punitive processes, though it is sometimes tempting to
apply it to those who fail to assume good faith.  Perhaps in the New
Year we all sometimes need to pause to question our assumptions before
being unfriendly.

Ec


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/30/05, Amaurea <sigurdkn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/30/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > "The founder of Wikipedia, the charitably funded online encyclopaedia,
> > says that the website is considering carrying advertisements in a move
> > that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues."
>
> If this is correctly represented, then I guess it really is true that
> anyone has their price. I thought better of Wales, though. *Sigh*.
> Adding advertisements to Wikipedia would definitly cause a fork.

I hope it happens just because of that.  Wikipedia is too valuable to
be left in the hands of Jimmy Wales.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 22/12/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>
>>Idea: en: should be envious of the fact that de: is good enough to be in
>>its third DVD edtion, and do what we can to make it easy to do one
>>ourselves!
>
>
> In case anyone's interested, [[German Wikipedia]] now has a
> description of the various DVD projects. Quite interesting.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

Good idea to provide this link.
I added the information here in the news :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

And made a quick article on the issue for reference :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/German_DVD/Book_release_-_december_2005

ant


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 30 Dec 2005, at 08:09, Theresa Knott wrote:

> On 12/29/05, Sherool <jamydlan at online.no> wrote:
>> On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:28:29 +0100, Theresa Knott
>> <theresaknott at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>
>> is fine by me, but some of them get extremely vexed if you try to
>> tell
>> them they can't use fair use images in them...
>
> However the argument about the firefox image is because Mozilla allows
> you to use their image in order to promote the use of the browser.
> Mozilla would be happy that thier logo is being used in this way so
> why can't people  use it?

You want to check the context of every use of the template to see if
it promotes the use or not? Wikipedia is not in the business of
promoting
anyones products anyway; having this image is by definition not NPOV.

Justinc


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/30/05, Amaurea <sigurdkn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/30/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"The founder of Wikipedia, the charitably funded online encyclopaedia,
>>>says that the website is considering carrying advertisements in a move
>>>that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues."
>>>
>>>
>>If this is correctly represented, then I guess it really is true that
>>anyone has their price. I thought better of Wales, though. *Sigh*.
>>Adding advertisements to Wikipedia would definitly cause a fork.
>>
>>
>I hope it happens just because of that.  Wikipedia is too valuable to
>be left in the hands of Jimmy Wales.
>
Admittedly there may be moments when I sympathize with that point of
view, but there are still many more moments when I consider how the
alternatives are filtered through the wrong end of a telescope, and
realize that we are certainly not ready for such a change.  Two of the
greatest dynasties in China's history were associated with a major
development.  The importance of those works is still recognized many
centuries after they wer accomplished, but the dynasties themselves did
not last long after the death of their visionary founders.

The entire issue of advertisements is vexatious.  It's easy to see that
the kind of money that advertising would bring would soon bring an end
to worries about having enough hardware.  But after all that hardware is
purchased there would be plenty left over, we would be left with a big
bank account full of problems.  Would we hire new staff?  To do what?
Who among the longtime committed would not feel a twinge of envy if some
newcomer were suddenly hired to be the new Larry Sanger?  We would soon
learn how many of our active members really live on a shoestring.  Maybe
we could fund everybody's attendance at the next Wikimania, or we could
fund third world projects consistent with a wider vision of bringing
knowledge to the most remote corners of the world.  Or will someone else
see us as the deep pocket that can easily be picked in the courts?

I don't know.  Sometimes having too much money can be a bigger problem
than having too little.

Ec


body:
Amaurea wrote:

>On 12/30/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>It seems that for the stable version feature, there is much support for
>>having a stable version, but not as much for displaying it by default.
>>
>>
>Yes, this seems to be the case, but I think we should have a poll on
>this on the Wikipedia itself, as visibly as possible, since at least
>#2 (and imho #1 too) would be a big change. Judging support just from
>the few participants in this discussion would give you an unreliable
>result.
>
Not another poll!  The problem with such a process is that it reveals a
divided community, which, by virtue of the poll finds it harder to seek
out a compromise solution.

I can live with either version  as the first version to appear as long
as the other option is made *clearly* available.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Merry Christmas from Daniel Brandt (David Gerard)

body:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>Some sites get taken down because people fail to pay their fees or
>simply because they break. In such cases it's good to have a
>independant place be a back up.
>
>
That's perhaps the single biggest reason behind the ephemeral nature of
internet sources as references.  Without the confidence that our passive
users can verify our sources we can't effectively use them for fact
checking.

Ec


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ideological cliques

body:
On 12/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Nobs was banned for personal attacks, not for his right wing
> political views.

See Kosebamse's law: [[User:Raul654/Raul's laws#Laws by others]]:
"People of strong opinion are not banned or blocked for promoting
strong opinions. Eventually, they are banned or blocked for violating
social standards in the attempt to defend their views."

--
Sam


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
<snip>
>
> I really think the best solution is just better education for passers-by
> of how Wikipedia works - more obvious disclaimers, "this is a work in
> progress" banners, etc. Ideally, stuff that would entice them to
> contribute themselves when they see problems.
>

I agree. Looking at the traffic on helpdesk-l (and ignoring the
spam/misguided "can I enrol in your university"/"where can I buy XYZ"
stuff), the types of enquiries have been shifting from "your site has
been hacked!" to "this article has been vandalised but I don't know what
to do" (and sadly, "If you don't take down my copyrighted material I
WILL SUE YOU IN A COURT OF LAW IN TRENTON, NEW JERSEY").

A number of solutions come to mind:

1. Change the bit of [[Mediawiki:]] text to say "the free encyclopedia
that anyone can edit" (as someone did a few weeks ago)

2. Have stable versions displaying by default

3. I'm out of ideas.

The "stable versions" point brings me to something else: people have
been complaining "The article has been vandalised but it looks OK on the
edit page". Is anon caching making us look worse than we really are?

--
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: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] More work needed on wiki's Roman Salute article etc

body:
Pointer Institute for Media Studies wrote:

> Wikipedia's Roman salute article has gained many improvements thanks
> to the work of the historian Rex Curry. But more work remains to be
> done and everyone can assist.  http://rexcurry.net/wikipedialies.html
> Also see http://rexcurry.net/wikipedia-lies.html

[3-page screen elided]

This entire line of argument makes some sense, but there seems to be a
blind reliance on "the historian Rex Curry" as whose work we ought to
treat as the Bible of The Roman Salute.  Is this warranted?  Is he the
only scholar who has written on the subject?  If not, what do other
historians who have written on the subject have to say?  Have Dr.
Curry's conclusions been commented on by others in the field, either
positively or negatively?  These are all things that must be known for
the article to be an accurate representation of modern consensus opinion
on the subject, rather than merely a summary of one historian's book.

-Mark


body:
Delirium wrote:

> Pointer Institute for Media Studies wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia's Roman salute article has gained many improvements thanks
>> to the work of the historian Rex Curry. But more work remains to be
>> done and everyone can assist.
>> http://rexcurry.net/wikipedialies.html  Also see
>> http://rexcurry.net/wikipedia-lies.html
>
>
> [3-page screen elided]
>
> This entire line of argument makes some sense, but there seems to be a
> blind reliance on "the historian Rex Curry" as whose work we ought to
> treat as the Bible of The Roman Salute.  Is this warranted?  Is he the
> only scholar who has written on the subject?  If not, what do other
> historians who have written on the subject have to say?  Have Dr.
> Curry's conclusions been commented on by others in the field, either
> positively or negatively?  These are all things that must be known for
> the article to be an accurate representation of modern consensus
> opinion on the subject, rather than merely a summary of one
> historian's book.

Never mind.  In light of the fact that the email I'm responding to was
dishonestly written by Rex Curry himself, I retract my suggestion that
his work should be evaluated and included in the article; he's almost
certainly a crank.

-Mark


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Technically they are, of course, doing just that (and even worse at times --
one can often use the Wayback Machine to get free access to articles which
were posted by magazines and newspapers free for a limited amount of time
and then turned into paying-archival links). They even have a little bit
about it on their FAQ page saying they'll happily remove things which people
consider IP violations. Personally I think they are just fortunate that most
people don't know about them and it takes some rooting around to get content
out of them.

Don't get me wrong -- I think it's a wonderful service and an amazing tool.
But let's not claim that there isn't a major copyright issue with keeping
full-site archives of other people's content with the happy intent of making
it available even if the site itself has been taken down or turned into a
pay-for-content site. If its capabilities became well-known (and perhaps if
its servers weren't perpetually down!) they'd be served up DMCA takedown
requests every day, I reckon.

FF

On 12/29/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>:
> > The takedown provisions of the DMCA are a matter of
> > great concern, but
> > a
> > DMCA notice when someone is pretty damned clearly
> > *ripping off your
> > stuff* is IMO quite morally sound.
> >
> Better send a DMCA notice to Internet Archive too, as they're "clearly
> *ripping off your stuff*" at
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand/index2.html
>
> 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
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Please remove user data and talk pages from database
	dumps!

body:
I personally don't think "Sucks, don't it?" is the right answer here.

Two possible solutions, neither very easy, come to mind:

1. Make database dumps include user data material OPTIONALLY. Most people
replicating our content have no need and probably no interest in such pages,
but they don't have an option when doing a dump. But filtering by namespace
would probably require a far more sophisticated dumping script than we
currently use.

2. Add a clause to our license somelike the the ones that certain CC
licenses have, that allow someone to be REMOVED from an author list of a
re-user if they request it. For example, if I wrote an essay about the
Holocaust and released under CC-BY-SA, I would not be helpless if someone
took it, changed its wording in a few places to turn it into a Holocaust
denial piece, and re-published it. Now, I couldn't tell them not to print
the piece -- I did, after all, release it to public use and I that means I
accept the fact that it could be used in ways I don't approve -- but I could
force them to take my name off of it as an author.

If the two of these were implemented, it would solve a lot of things. Of
course at least point number two could not be done lightly and would take a
lot of thinking out by people who know about such things, and it would
probably also require the ability in Mediawiki to remove individual author
names from edit histories.

I don't think my name should have to be attached to things which are used in
ways radically different than how I intended them or would want to be
associated with. I happy with people using the content itself however they
want -- that's part of the free-content deal -- but that doesn't necessitate
claiming me as an active collaborator with their derivative work if I'd
rather not be associated with it.

FF

On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:
>
> > Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
> >> here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
> >> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
> >
> > It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
> > Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
> >
> > On the Nazipedia, it would say:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>
> Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>
> -Phil Sandifer
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Amaurea

body:
On 12/30/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> It seems that for the stable version feature, there is much support for
> having a stable version, but not as much for displaying it by default.

Yes, this seems to be the case, but I think we should have a poll on
this on the Wikipedia itself, as visibly as possible, since at least
#2 (and imho #1 too) would be a big change. Judging support just from
the few participants in this discussion would give you an unreliable
result.

> Suggestion:
> 1. Have stable versions, but not as default, like on my test page [1]
> 2. Once that runs for some time without problem, we turn on stable
> versions as default *for a week* and see what happens
>
> If the number of (non-vandal) edits drops like the new market used to,
> we keep it like #1. However, if there is no significant reduction in
> edits, we turn on #2 for, say, a month, or three month. If there's no
> ill effect either, we keep it on.

Since this is a controversial issue, I think the idea of an experiment
sounds nice. The details, however, need a few changes. After turning
on #1, we could monitor the growth of edits, new users and the use of
the stable versions for a few months. If there are negative changes to
the growth pattern, we would step back to the current situation.
Otherwise we could go on to try #2, and monitor the same things for a
few months, and again step back if there are negative changes.

> Additionally, of course, the decision to try this would be optional for
> every wikipedia individually.

A more long-term experiment would be to create a fork with the new
policy, and see how that develops (en-stable.wikipedia.org, for
example), but that would put the new proposal at an great
disadvantage, since it would start out with almost no editors, so it
would be very hard to get any useful results.

> That solution should satisfy everyone concerned about the project,
> though it might not satisfy those who want a wiki, just a wiki, nothing
> else.

Personally, I want an encyclopedia (though in the inclusionist sense),
but I think that the fastest and best way to build that is through the
current wiki process.


body:
On 12/30/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> "The founder of Wikipedia, the charitably funded online encyclopaedia,
> says that the website is considering carrying advertisements in a move
> that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues."

If this is correctly represented, then I guess it really is true that
anyone has their price. I thought better of Wales, though. *Sigh*.
Adding advertisements to Wikipedia would definitly cause a fork.


from_name: Ben Yates

body:
Yeah, definitely not a poll.  We need to keep ironing out concensus,
and if at some point in that process there are two irreconcilable
alternative (I doubt that'll happen), only then should a poll be used.
 If you want more people involved, keep pointing them to
[[Wikipedia:Stable versions]] and [[Wikipedia talk:Stable versions]].

On 12/30/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Amaurea wrote:
>
> >On 12/30/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>It seems that for the stable version feature, there is much support for
> >>having a stable version, but not as much for displaying it by default.
> >>
> >>
> >Yes, this seems to be the case, but I think we should have a poll on
> >this on the Wikipedia itself, as visibly as possible, since at least
> >#2 (and imho #1 too) would be a big change. Judging support just from
> >the few participants in this discussion would give you an unreliable
> >result.
> >
> Not another poll!  The problem with such a process is that it reveals a
> divided community, which, by virtue of the poll finds it harder to seek
> out a compromise solution.
>
> I can live with either version  as the first version to appear as long
> as the other option is made *clearly* available.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:
>>
>>>Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>>
>>>>While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
>>>>here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
>>>>information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
>>>
>>>It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
>>>Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
>>>
>>>I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
>>>
>>>On the Nazipedia, it would say:
>>>
>>>I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>>
>>Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
>>unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
>>twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>>
>>-Phil Sandifer
>
>
> Surely there's something wrong with taking someone's words and
> materially changing them while still attributing the words to that
> person.  I have to believe it's illegal too, and not because of
> copyright law (such a simple sentence as "I have been an administrator
> on Wikipedia since 2003" can't be copyrighted anyway).  You mention
> libel laws, and they'd probably be relevant.
>
> Anyway, the problem here seems to be that Nazipedia is making these
> changes to the user pages, not that the database of user pages are out
> there in the first place.
>

I thought that issue had been solved already; after the Nazipedia
regexed Wikipedia, a group of technical-minded people went around and
inserted HTML comments in the wikitext to make it harder to do that.

Have they done it again?

--
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: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] võro wiki

body:
I don't understand on what authority this person can tell the
developers to lock the wiki.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sulev Iva <juvasul at ut.ee>
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Sent: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:54:50 +0200
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] v?ro wiki

  Hi!

Someone has quite agressively threatened to ask to lock V?ro Wiki
beacause of
its low activity in last months, see
http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:V%C3%B5rok#Lock_the_wiki.3F

I hope people concerned with Wikipedia projects understand that small
languages'
wikis can not be very active all the time. We just
have better and not so good times. I think 134 articles in first half
hear is
not too bad for a small regional language wiki.

With best wishes,
V?rok,
bureucrat
of V?ro wiki

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
Jake Nelson wrote:
> I'm starting to think, more and more, that a "reader mode" and an
> "editor mode" separation would be a good thing for Wikipedia.
>
> Basically:
> If not logged in as a user, people see the "reader mode" view- less
> edit-specific stuff on the page. (The interface really is a bit daunting
> for people just trying to read articles.) Probably wouldn't display red
> links, no section-edit links, etc. Still keep the "edit this page" link,
> which prompts for login, then sends on to edit of that page... the
> "reader mode" would display stable by default with a prominent link to
> the current "draft" version (I really like that suggestion of calling it
> a "draft"- it's exactly the right description.). I could see a change in
> the format of Image: pages for this, too- they look a bit... internal
> right now, and throw some people off.
>
> If logged in, they get "editor mode" view, the full thing. They'd see
> current version by default. (Though user-preferences should allow them
> to switch that back, of course.)
>

# '''Support''' ~~~~

> Of course, the second organization taking care of Wikipedia publication
> idea is a very good one as well. In that case, they'd handle "reader
> mode" for the most part, and core-Wikipedia would be pretty much
> strictly an editing project.
>

Yeah, helpdesk-l has had quite a few "where can I get a book/CD/DVD/Palm
version of your content?" emails...

--
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: Stephen Bain

body:
On 12/30/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> What are we supposed to do about Nazipedia, they're basically twisting
> our words and still attributing those words to us. While separate
> dumps would solve future problems it does nothing to address the issue
> at hand.
>
> I have no problem being on there, as long as they clearly state (VERY
> clearly) it's a copy of Wikipedia and don't change anything about the
> page.

Users should be encouraged to subst [[Template:Userpage]]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Userpage) onto their user page,
and should even modify the HTML that it generates. That should make it
very difficult for people to search and replace "Wikipedia" with
something else.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
I can see us raising a few hundred thousand dollars by contributions.
I can't see a few million.

I can see contributions supporting 100 servers. I can't see them
supporting 2,000.

I can see a top 20 website supported by contributions. I can't see
one of the top 5.

Fred

On Dec 30, 2005, at 3:02 PM, Ben Emmel wrote:

> Some food for thought:
>
> http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html
>
> In an interview, Jimbo discusses the possibilities of ads
> eventually on the
> Wikipedia, due to the huge number of page views that we get.
>
> Also mentioned is the large-scale rejection of ads by the
> "wikitopeans"
> [sic] in the community.
>
>
> --
> Ben Emmel
> Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
> bratsche1 at gmail.com
> "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
> -- William Blake
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Tino Reichardt

subject: [Wikitech-l] Captcha in progress

body:
* Brion Vibber <brionatpobox.com> wrote:
> I've been tinkering with an extension to provide for a captcha to
> reduce
> automated linkspamming while still staying out of the way for common
> use.
Yes.

> My preliminary code is running now on test.leuksman.com; the actual
> "captcha" part is a really primitive plain text hack which would take
> all of a few minutes for a dedicated attacker to crack, but don't
> worry
> about that -- I'm not testing the protection yet, just the framework
> it
> plugs into.
Is test.leuksman.com down ?

> As for a 'real' captcha generator to put into this system; I'm not too
> sure what code is already out there that's not awful. There's a Drupal
> plugin which would be easy to rip GPL'd PHP code from, but it doesn't
> seem very robust.

Maybe you take a look to this (temporary) site:
http://www.mcmilk.de/projects/wiki-captcha/

I just wrote it for my own wiki today ...
For testing: http://www.mcmilk.de/wiki/extensions/captcha/

> There's a set of samples of various captcha output and their
> weaknesses
> here: http://sam.zoy.org/pwntcha/

Hm... I think my version belongs to the better ones ... and it should be
easy, to add some more features.

> Obviously it would be good to either find something on the 'hard
> captchas' list rather than 'defeated captchas', or roll our own that
> doesn't suck too bad.
Does my suck too bad ;) ?

> There's also the question of whether we can feasibly provide an audio
> alternative or whathaveyou.
I have no one :)

--
regards, TR


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I seem to have been blocked by accident or bug--no
	notice on my Talk, and my edits are still on top

body:
G'day Fix,
> Also, the block was made Dec. 25 even tho' I had no edits since the
> 18th.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist?action=search&limit=500&ip=Fixbeforeigo
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fixbeforeigo
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fixbeforeigo
>
> I emailed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard but his User
> page indicates he's on extended break, and won't be back for more
> than  a week.

Given that the block message refers to AfD, and I can't see any evidence
you've been involved in AfD, I think this might well be a case of
mistaken identity.

I've unblocked you.  Please accept my apologies for the mistake, and,
err, don't do whateveritwas again ;-)

--
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: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.9/216 - Release Date: 29/12/2005


from_name: Ben Emmel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
Some food for thought:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html

In an interview, Jimbo discusses the possibilities of ads eventually on the
Wikipedia, due to the huge number of page views that we get.

Also mentioned is the large-scale rejection of ads by the "wikitopeans"
[sic] in the community.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
?? ??? wrote:
> I write about this site several times already, still it is
> mirroring en Wikipedia live:
>
> http://www.pakaf.com/read/Special:Recentchanges

Killed it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
--- Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html
>
> In an interview, Jimbo discusses the possibilities of ads eventually on the
> Wikipedia, due to the huge number of page views that we get.
>
> Also mentioned is the large-scale rejection of ads by the "wikitopeans"
> [sic] in the community.

The use of that non-word should be a good indication of the quality of the reporting.

All Jimmy did was state the blindingly obvious; that we are literally giving up millions of
dollars of potential revenue that could be used to further the foundation's goal of providing free
knowledge to everybody.

But *nothing* will happen w/o community consent. The community just needs to be fully informed of
all sides of the issue.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote on WikiEn-l:
> I can see us raising a few hundred thousand dollars by contributions.
> I can't see a few million.
>
> I can see contributions supporting 100 servers. I can't see them
> supporting 2,000.
>
> I can see a top 20 website supported by contributions. I can't see
> one of the top 5.

It sure would be a fun ride to see how far we could go before having to submit to the dark side of
the force. :)

LUKE: ... Is the dark side stronger?

YODA: No...no...no. Quicker, easier, more seductive it is.

</tongue half in cheek>

Having ads would have many benefits and drawbacks that need to be explored *WELL before* events
force us into exploring that option. Having ads would enable us to much more easily support the
websites and further our charitable goals but, we may, if we are not careful, lose our soul in the
process; Not to mention much of the community and good will we have generated.

A financial crisis would present us with both danger and opportunity concerning ads. The subject
of ads on Wikipedia has been taboo for so long that I fear we won't be able to correctly deal with
such a crisis since we never have considered the issue closely enough.

So we should open a dialog to discuss the pros and cons along with exploring the best way to
mitigate bad vs ill effects of having ads. One idea I like is for us to set-up nupedia.org as a
mirror with ads that would host stable versions of Wikipedia content. All excess revenue from that
venture would benefit all the ad-free wiki sites and the foundation.

</taboo talk>

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Captcha in progress

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Moin,

On Friday 30 December 2005 15:23, Tino Reichardt wrote:
> * Brion Vibber <brionatpobox.com> wrote:
[snipabit]
> Hm... I think my version belongs to the better ones ... and it should
> be easy, to add some more features.

You probably should vary the font - it seems all images/letters use the
same font :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Fri Dec 30 16:42:03 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Now, admittedly, it's critical software. This is the 'let's go kill
 people' software." -- Mark A. Welsh III

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from_name: Kirill Lokshin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
On 12/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I can see us raising a few hundred thousand dollars by contributions.
> I can't see a few million.
>
> I can see contributions supporting 100 servers. I can't see them
> supporting 2,000.
>
> I can see a top 20 website supported by contributions. I can't see
> one of the top 5.

Small, individual contributions - perhaps not.  But there's no reason
why large corporate donations, grants, or endowments couldn't keep us
running indefinitely.

The question becomes whether we'd prefer ads on Wikipedia or
"Wikipedia (sponsored by the Gates Foundation).

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 12/30/05, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> When people complain about inaccuracies in Wikipedia, the stock answers
> are that such complaints are invalid, or involve a misunderstanding of
> Wikipedia, because:
>
> --It's a work in progress
>
> --It's not an encyclopedia yet
>
> --Every page has a wee little "disclaimers" link that potentially would
> display a huge bold all-caps "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY"
> if you clicked on it.
>
> But when we ask for money, do we say:
>
> --"Give the gift of an open wiki-community?"
>
> --"Give the gift of process, not product?"
>
> --"Give the gift of a whipped-up blend of tasty knowledge spiced with a
> few foul nuggets of misinformation?"
>
> We do not. We say "give the gift of knowledge."
>
> Small wonder that we're starting to see some hostility from the outside.
> We're trying to have it both ways. We set expectations ("give the gift
> of knowledge") and then are surprised when people have the expections
> we set.
>
>
We should teach people to be critical.
Far too often people take what they read for granted without any
thought or double-checking. We should work to keep featured articles
accurate (because they're supposed to be the best). To get rid of
other inaccuracies we should look for sources. If we don't have any,
people should be naturally untrusting and try to verify the info
another way.

NO ONE can guarantee absolutely correct info. Look at Britannica.

Mgm


from_name: Redvers @ the Wikipedia

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images no allowed in userspace?

body:
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>

> Regarding at least the political templates, I would
> like to raise,
> gently, a different issue.  I have concern about
> people massing together
> in groups based on political affiliations at
> Wikipedia.
>
> For me, when I enter Wikipedia, I try to leave my
> personal politics at
> the door.  I try to leave my personal opinions about
> religion, etc. at
> the door.  Here, I am a Wikipedian.  And this
> inspires in me a feeling
> of serious quiet thoughtful reflection.  A mood of
> kindness and love.  A
> mood of helpfulness and productivity.  Neutrality
> and _getting it right_
> in the company of others who are doing the same,
> this is what I'm here for.
>
> Outside, I may be an advocate.  But here, I am a
> Wikipedian.

The point is a good one Jimbo, but it doesn't seem to
operate in the real world IMO. People come to the
'pedia with their POVs intact. It would be lovely if
they correctly left them at the door but they don't -
they're only human.

My userboxes are on my userpage not for my personal
gratification, but to make a statement: "My views
are...". That way, if ever I get into a NPOV dispute
with someone, they can see what I believe and work
from that point. In effect, I'm declaring an interest
and forcing myself to edit against that type so that
no-one can ever say "your edit there betrayed the fact
that you are a XXX".

I've found that a lot of POV is subtle. It isn't
"George W is a hero"/"George W is a murderer", it's "X
church is fundamentalist"/"X church is extreme"/"X
church has different views from the majority of Y
churches"/"X church is an evangelical church".  The
choice of words is always going to be POV in those
cases.

I declare on my userpage that I am an aethist.
Therefore, any edit I make to [[X Church of Y]] should
be seen through that prism; and I must ensure that my
publically stated views don't show through in that
edit.

Of course, I'm also expecting impossibly high
standards of others in this - members of X church are
just as likely to write NPOV as anyone else. But if
they declare on their userpage that they are X church,
then it's easier to judge the quality of a disputed
edit.

So I'd make the userboxes a requirement if I ruled the
world. But I don't (something for which we should all
be eternally grateful).

:"REDVERS"

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Exclusive Xmas Game, help Santa with his celebrity party - http://santas-christmas-party.yahoo.net/


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 12/29/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Philip Sandifer wrote:
> >> I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
> >
> > Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> > unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> > twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>
> Even so, we could do more to discourage it by not including the user
> pages in the standard dumps.

We already offer a dump that's almost specifically made for mirrors,
the _articles dump which is the smallest of the lot and doesn't
include user pages. I don't see why anyone interested in hosting a
mirror wouldn't grab that as it's the smallest of them all and the
only one you'd really care about if you wanted to host a mirror of the
article namespace.


body:
On 12/30/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> I personally don't think "Sucks, don't it?" is the right answer here.
>
> Two possible solutions, neither very easy, come to mind:
>
> 1. Make database dumps include user data material OPTIONALLY. Most people
> replicating our content have no need and probably no interest in such pages,
> but they don't have an option when doing a dump. But filtering by namespace
> would probably require a far more sophisticated dumping script than we
> currently use.

We already do that, see my previous reply, and we already filter by
namespace for that dump.

> 2. Add a clause to our license somelike the the ones that certain CC
> licenses have, that allow someone to be REMOVED from an author list of a

Read the license we use, this is not a practical option as we can't change it.


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia micronation - Tirben

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Hi, a group of us have decided to found a micronation, formed of the
> Wikipedia community. Currently we've only chosen our country's name, Tirben,
> so if you want to get involved in the forming of our constitution (hopefully
> it'll be easier than the founding fathers found it) then you're welcome to
> drop by and help out. Our IRC channel is #tirben on Freenode, and our
> website is at http://tirben.starglade.org/
>
> Everyone's invited to drop by, and please spread this message. I hope this
> will be a great community builder!

nn d


body:
Some sites get taken down because people fail to pay their fees or
simply because they break. In such cases it's good to have a
independant place be a back up.

Mgm

On 12/30/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Technically they are, of course, doing just that (and even worse at times --
> one can often use the Wayback Machine to get free access to articles which
> were posted by magazines and newspapers free for a limited amount of time
> and then turned into paying-archival links). They even have a little bit
> about it on their FAQ page saying they'll happily remove things which people
> consider IP violations. Personally I think they are just fortunate that most
> people don't know about them and it takes some rooting around to get content
> out of them.
>
> Don't get me wrong -- I think it's a wonderful service and an amazing tool.
> But let's not claim that there isn't a major copyright issue with keeping
> full-site archives of other people's content with the happy intent of making
> it available even if the site itself has been taken down or turned into a
> pay-for-content site. If its capabilities became well-known (and perhaps if
> its servers weren't perpetually down!) they'd be served up DMCA takedown
> requests every day, I reckon.
>
> FF
>
> On 12/29/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > > David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>:
> > > The takedown provisions of the DMCA are a matter of
> > > great concern, but
> > > a
> > > DMCA notice when someone is pretty damned clearly
> > > *ripping off your
> > > stuff* is IMO quite morally sound.
> > >
> > Better send a DMCA notice to Internet Archive too, as they're "clearly
> > *ripping off your stuff*" at
> >
> > http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand/index2.html
> >
> > 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Axel Boldt

subject: [Wikitech-l] We should have a DNS alias for en2.wikipedia.org

body:
I'm currently collecting peer-reviewed academic articles that cite
Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_an_academic_source
and for whatever reason, several refer to Wikipedia using the address
en2.wikipedia.org. Currently that address does not work, which should
be fixed. These are printed articles that will sit in the world's
libraries forever.

Axel

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: Sulev Iva

subject: [Wikipedia-l] võro wiki

body:
Hi!

Someone has quite agressively threatened to ask to lock V?ro Wiki beacause of its low activity in last months, see
http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:V%C3%B5rok#Lock_the_wiki.3F

I hope people concerned with Wikipedia projects understand that small languages' wikis can not be very active all the time. We just
have better and not so good times. I think 134 articles in first half hear is not too bad for a small regional language wiki.

With best wishes,
V?rok,
bureucrat
of V?ro wiki


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] phase3/includes
	SpecialNewimages.php, 1.18, 1.19

body:
On 12/30/05, Magnus Manske <magnus_manske at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/includes
> In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv2885/includes
>
> Modified Files:
>         SpecialNewimages.php
> Log Message:
> SpecialNewimages can now be called with user=X to limit display to a single user
>
> Index: SpecialNewimages.php
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvsroot/wikipedia/phase3/includes/SpecialNewimages.php,v
> retrieving revision 1.18
> retrieving revision 1.19
> diff -u -d -r1.18 -r1.19
> --- SpecialNewimages.php        12 Dec 2005 03:23:01 -0000      1.18
> +++ SpecialNewimages.php        30 Dec 2005 20:31:57 -0000      1.19
> @@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
>         $sk = $wgUser->getSkin();
>         $shownav = !$specialPage->including();
>         $hidebots = $wgRequest->getBool('hidebots',1);
> +       $singleUser = $wgRequest->getInt('user',0); # Limit images to a single user?
>
>         if($hidebots) {
>
> @@ -47,9 +48,12 @@
>         $image = $dbr->tableName('image');
>
>         $sql="SELECT img_timestamp from $image";
> +
> +       # Hide bots?
>         if($hidebots) {
>                 $sql.=$joinsql.' WHERE ug_group IS NULL';
>         }
> +
>         $sql.=' ORDER BY img_timestamp DESC LIMIT 1';
>         $res = $dbr->query($sql, 'wfSpecialNewImages');
>         $row = $dbr->fetchRow($res);
> @@ -84,6 +88,12 @@
>                 }
>         }
>
> +       # Single user only?
> +       if ( $singleUser > 0 ) {
> +               $where[] .= "img_user='{$singleUser}'" ;
> +       }
> +
> +
>         $invertSort = false;
>         if( $until = $wgRequest->getVal( 'until' ) ) {
>                 $where[] = 'img_timestamp < ' . $dbr->timestamp( $until );
> @@ -153,6 +163,15 @@
>                 $wgOut->addHTML( "<p>{$text}\n</p>" );
>         }
>
> +       if ( $singleUser > 0 ) {
> +               $u = new User ;
> +               $u->setID ( $singleUser ) ;
> +               $u->loadFromDatabase () ;
> +               $t = $u->getUserPage() ;
> +               $uPage = $sk->makeLinkObj( $t ) ;
> +               $wgOut->addHTML ( wfMsgForContent ( 'imagelistforuser' , $uPage ) ) ;
> +       }
> +
>         $sub = wfMsg( 'ilsubmit' );
>         $titleObj = Title::makeTitle( NS_SPECIAL, 'Newimages' );
>         $action = $titleObj->escapeLocalURL();

What's the point of allowing user agents to specify a user ID to limit
to? This should use ->getText() and User::newFromName() instead. and
wfMsg() instead of wfMsgForContent().


from_name: Pat Gallacher

subject: [WikiEN-l] alleged vandalism

body:
I have been blocked for alleged vandalism.  I think
this is a mistake.  The blockage applies to my IP
address not my user name.  I am unable to email the
admin who decided to block me.  This has happened
before, I think things are getting confused.

My username is PatGallacher.

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Exclusive Xmas Game, help Santa with his celebrity party - http://santas-christmas-party.yahoo.net/


from_name: Kwan Ting Chan

body:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> >We should teach people to be critical.
> >Far too often people take what they read for granted without any
> >thought or double-checking. We should work to keep featured articles
> >accurate (because they're supposed to be the best). To get rid of
> >other inaccuracies we should look for sources. If we don't have any,
> >people should be naturally untrusting and try to verify the info
> >another way.
> >
> >NO ONE can guarantee absolutely correct info. Look at Britannica.
> >
> Teaching people to be critical is itself a process.  In all but the most
> advanced educational systems that is contrary to centuries of
> established habit.  Before a person can be effectively critical he needs
> to believe that his opinions matter.

The process isn't helped when most of the education system we have in
this world frown upon any student below postgraduate level from making
any opinion whatsoever. How can we teach a person to be effectively
critical when everyone else is saying you can't have your own opinion
unless you have a PhD (or are working on one), all you can do is
summarize what others have said already.

KTC

--
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog.
    - Mark Twain


from_name: Sam Spade

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Very odd goings-on concerning Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent
	material

body:
LMAO! That is '''''definitely''''' not what she is being criticised for...

Sam Spade

On 12/29/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 04:48:33AM +0100, Sam Spade wrote:
> > Is there anybody who doesn't have harassing vandals?
>
> Is that really relevant?  An editor is being accused of violating
> a Wikipedia policy because she complains about racial harassment,
> vandalism, and persistent bias (aka "POV-pushing").
>
> --
> Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Hi, a group of us have decided to found a micronation, formed of the
Wikipedia community. Currently we've only chosen our country's name, Tirben,
so if you want to get involved in the forming of our constitution (hopefully
it'll be easier than the founding fathers found it) then you're welcome to
drop by and help out. Our IRC channel is #tirben on Freenode, and our
website is at http://tirben.starglade.org/

Everyone's invited to drop by, and please spread this message. I hope this
will be a great community builder!

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
http://talrias.net/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
On 12/30/05, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > I can see us raising a few hundred thousand dollars by contributions.
> > I can't see a few million.
> >
> > I can see contributions supporting 100 servers. I can't see them
> > supporting 2,000.
> >
> > I can see a top 20 website supported by contributions. I can't see
> > one of the top 5.
>
As Wikipedia gets larger we get more users. The more users, the more
donations, so individual donations are more scalable than you think.

Mgm


from_name: Canadian Kid

subject: [WikiEN-l] Why is my IP Blocked?

body:
I would like to know who, if anyone, can help my IP (64.230.123.119) get
unblocked?

I have apparently been blocked for spreading rumours without them being
documented. I would like, however, to offer the following points.

1. on the issue of the Conservative Party  moving the airborn to CFB Trenton
and out of my MPs riding (who has been fighting to bring it here) I noted
that my MPs own party has stolen an issue right out from underneath her.
The following was noted in the edit history: "PLEASE Document rumours before
you put them in. The CPC website doesn't mention moving the airborne to
Trenton anywhere. It's JUST A RUMOUR unless its documented)"  I would kindly
ask you, however, check out
http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&template_id=677&lang=e
where you will find in the December 13, 2005 video of Talk Politics , at the
32 minute 15 second mark of the video, the Conservative Party's Defence
Critic, Gordon O'Connor, stating that his party wishes to reincarnate the
airborn in CFB Trenton.

2. Another issue facing this MP is an investogation by the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada related to how her office received and then used
personal information - likely from passport applications. I cited the
Pembroke Observer Newspaper
link(http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentID=138630&catname=Local+News)
that clearly shows that a Deep River couple has contacted the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada. I will admit that the online article does not have
100% of the article showing, however that is not the point. I was asked to
provide proof and I have. If the administrators are so concerned about
whether my edit was truthful then they can buy a copy of the Pembroke
Observer and see that the edit reflects the truth and that residents have
asked, in the middle of an election, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to
investogate their MP - I would suggest that this worth posting.

Could someone please help. I believe I have tried, very hard, to meet the
standards asked of me - ie providing proof, and yet still they block me.

Please help :)

Sara


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "Fair use" images now allowed in userspace?

body:
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
>   It seems to me that this represents a philosophical shift away from a
> radically open-licensed project.  Nor is it clear to me that the desire to
> decorate ones userpage with official logos should be driving precedent.  I may
> be confused about the mission of our project, and am hoping that by posting
> this to the list those users who have more history with Wikipedia's
> relationship to unfree copyrights might do some thinking about the situation.

I have a photo of myself on my user page declared "fair use" for the
sole reason that I don't want it to be freely redistributed. The photo
was taken by a good friend of mine, and I'm sure I could talk him into
releasing it under whatever license I asked for, but for privacy reasons
I would prefer it if that photo (and other such images) were restricted
for use within the Wikipedia community, and were kept out of the article
namespace or any other publications.

I was surprised to find a deletion template on the image, but frankly,
I'd prefer to see it deleted than have it freely plastered all over the
web. Hopefully, however, Wikipedia can find some compromise between the
copyleft fundamentalists and those like me who believe that a
psychological separation between public and private space is important.
Given the objections to the posting of meetup photos which have arisen
at the past, I don't believe I'm alone. I think this concept of a
balance between freedom and privacy is one which could use some more
discussion.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Merry Christmas from Daniel Brandt

body:
From: Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com
<http://us.f319.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=bratsche1 at gmail.com&YY=65890&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>>:
> Has anyone tried simply communicating with him civilly? One would think that
> we could work out some compromise with his HiveMind website and also our
> content. I find it hard to believe that a man who works hard to prevent
> "privacy violations" would commit such a large one as posting the
> private details of all 650+ admins online.

Do you want to try?  I don't mean that in a snarky way, but a number
of people would be thankful if someone could get through to him.
I believe a number of previous attempts have been made.  Linuxbreak
talked to him on the phone at length, and Jimbo even offered to fly
out to him and talk to him in person.

The problem is that his demands change depending on when you talk to
him and involve a lot of things that we really can't compromise on.
They've included deleting the article altogehter, prior notification
if an article is posted about him, removing criticism and links to
criticism of him, and locking the article to prevent further edits.
Perhaps we can get a compromise if someone can just nail him down to
something that would be acceptable to our principles and policies.

While LB reports that he seemed a reasonable fellow on the phone, I
don't think a reasonable guy compiles a hit list of his enemies and
uses it to attempt blackmail them into doing what he wants, a bold new
experiment in Wiki vandalism which we don't seem to be terribly
concerned about.  I'd just say delete the thing altogether and save
the fuss, but he seems to made himself all the more notable by getting
a tremendous amount of press for various things since the article was created.


body:
On 12/31/05, Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm currently collecting peer-reviewed academic articles that cite
> Wikipedia at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_an_academic_source
> and for whatever reason, several refer to Wikipedia using the address
> en2.wikipedia.org. Currently that address does not work, which should
> be fixed. These are printed articles that will sit in the world's
> libraries forever.

en2.wikipedia.org is a relic from the time that Wikipedia's load
balancing consisted of users manually selecting to use en. or en2. The
alias shouldn't have been removed.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cebuano Wikipedia reaches 1,000th article mark!

body:
James D. Forrester wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Vincent "Bentong" S. Isles wrote:
>
>
>
>>We at the Cebuano Wikipedia community beat our
>>self-imposed deadline of 31 December 2005 for the
>>1,000th article of the Cebuano Wikipedia. See
>>[[ceb:Special:Statistics]].
>>
>>
>
>To you and all the others in the community, congratulations!
>
>

Also from me congrats!

Walter/Waerth


subject: [Wikipedia-l] võro wiki

body:
I think someone is playing a prank on you guys .... ignore it. Block the
guy in question.

Waerth/Walter

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> I don't understand on what authority this person can tell the
> developers to lock the wiki.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sulev Iva <juvasul at ut.ee>
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Sent: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:54:50 +0200
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] v?ro wiki
>
>  Hi!
>
> Someone has quite agressively threatened to ask to lock V?ro Wiki
> beacause of
> its low activity in last months, see
> http://fiu-vro.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:V%C3%B5rok#Lock_the_wiki.3F
>
> I hope people concerned with Wikipedia projects understand that small
> languages'
> wikis can not be very active all the time. We just
> have better and not so good times. I think 134 articles in first half
> hear is
> not too bad for a small regional language wiki.
>
> With best wishes,
> V?rok,
> bureucrat
> of V?ro wiki
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>   _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Happy new year

body:
I am trying to be the first one, as I have to work all night tomorrow.
Happy new year to all

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Happy new year


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Happy new year


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> On 12/31/05, Axel Boldt <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I'm currently collecting peer-reviewed academic articles that cite
>> Wikipedia at
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_an_academic_source
>> and for whatever reason, several refer to Wikipedia using the address
>> en2.wikipedia.org. Currently that address does not work, which should
>> be fixed. These are printed articles that will sit in the world's
>> libraries forever.
>
> en2.wikipedia.org is a relic from the time that Wikipedia's load
> balancing consisted of users manually selecting to use en. or en2. The
> alias shouldn't have been removed.

We used to have everything on a wildcard DNS entry, which got changed to
explicit entries when we set up our new DNS system (with all the geographic
splitting stuff). Apparently someone forgot about en2 when doing that; I'll add it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/30/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The entire issue of advertisements is vexatious.  It's easy to see that
> the kind of money that advertising would bring would soon bring an end
> to worries about having enough hardware.  But after all that hardware is
> purchased there would be plenty left over, we would be left with a big
> bank account full of problems.  Would we hire new staff?  To do what?
> Who among the longtime committed would not feel a twinge of envy if some
> newcomer were suddenly hired to be the new Larry Sanger?  We would soon
> learn how many of our active members really live on a shoestring.  Maybe
> we could fund everybody's attendance at the next Wikimania, or we could
> fund third world projects consistent with a wider vision of bringing
> knowledge to the most remote corners of the world.  Or will someone else
> see us as the deep pocket that can easily be picked in the courts?
>
> I don't know.  Sometimes having too much money can be a bigger problem
> than having too little.
>
> Ec

I dunno, I don't think it'd be so hard to spend the money.  There are
billions of people in the world.  The mission of Wikipedia is to
distribute an encyclopedia to every single of them.  I'm going to be
bold and make the claim that distribution alone is going to cost
billions of dollars.

Granted, that doesn't mean Wikipedia has to spend all that money
itself.  Partnering up with other companies and non-profit
organizations to do the distribution might be smarter.  Even using
peer-to-peer distribution channels can work in many areas.  But there
are plenty of positive ways to spend money.

There are plenty of negative ways too.

And actually, I'm not 100% convinced that the WMF *can* make hundreds
of millions of dollars off of advertising without jeopardising its
charity status.  I've read in IRS documents that advertising revenue
is generally considered unrelated business income.  Rely too much on
unrelated business income, and you're no longer a charity.  I went to
Guidestar and read the 990s for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and WHYY, INC (a PBS
affiliate), because WHYY most definitely does have advertising on
their service, but I haven't been able to figure out how they're
classifying their advertising income, and why.  Of course even that is
different from the Wikipedia situation if Wikipedia chooses to use
advertising revenue from web to fund non-web projects.

I just found something else.  "PBS ENTERPRISES, INC., a wholly-owned
for-profit subsidiary of PBS, was incorporated in December 1984.  PBS
ENTERPRISES, INC., was organized to pursue revenue-producing projects
and services as part of an ongoing effort to increase public
television's financial base."  Looking further, apparently the Mozilla
Corporation was created for similar reasons.

If the WMF wants to create a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary which
would run a mirror-site with ads, I don't really see how anyone could
have a problem with that.

Anthony


from_name: Amaurea

body:
On 12/30/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Not another poll!  The problem with such a process is that it reveals a
> divided community, which, by virtue of the poll finds it harder to seek
> out a compromise solution.
>
> I can live with either version  as the first version to appear as long
> as the other option is made *clearly* available.

Sure, finding a compromise, or convincing the other side, is fine, but
at some point you're going to have to either implement something or
not, and before you do that, how are you going to know what the
consensus is without a poll? As I said, judging from the messages to
this mailing list will not do, since only a miniscule fraction of
Wikipedia's users read it.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Brion's Berlin roundup

body:
A few notes on my discussions with folks here in Berlin:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/Berlin_roundup

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Josh Gordon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
Perhaps the best solution would be like the one Salon, Weather Underground,
and many other sites use: pay a subscription fee (say, $29.95 a year) or see
(and probably ignore) the ads. That way we'd have our choice of how to
personally support Wikipedia.

jpgordon


from_name: homey2005 at sympatico.ca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ads on Wikipedia

body:
You know, it's funny, just the other day I was leafing through the Encyclopedia Britannica and was marvelling at the number of ads on each page.

Ads would kill wikipedia and would put us under pressure to suppress information that was embarassing to our advertisers and allow puff pieces. This should be a non-starter if we are serious about the principles of this project.


from_name: Fastfission

body:
The license does say that new versions of the GFDL can come out in the same
spirit. Now whether we have the ability to do that or whether that is
something we'd have to lobby for with the FSF, I don't know. But I don't
think that the option I've suggested is in any way out of the spirit of the
original license. It does not at all reduce the "freedom" of the content. I
imagine it is the sort of feature that wouldn't have been obvious for people
making software as compared to people making an encyclopedia.

I'm also aware that many people seem to think that one can multi-license in
certain cases. Again, I'm not a legal expert in licenses or copyrights or
anything else but it seems to me that some sort of arrangement could
probably be discovered if some capable people meditated on it for awhile.

FF

On 12/30/05, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/30/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I personally don't think "Sucks, don't it?" is the right answer here.
> >
> > Two possible solutions, neither very easy, come to mind:
> >
> > 1. Make database dumps include user data material OPTIONALLY. Most
> people
> > replicating our content have no need and probably no interest in such
> pages,
> > but they don't have an option when doing a dump. But filtering by
> namespace
> > would probably require a far more sophisticated dumping script than we
> > currently use.
>
> We already do that, see my previous reply, and we already filter by
> namespace for that dump.
>
> > 2. Add a clause to our license somelike the the ones that certain CC
> > licenses have, that allow someone to be REMOVED from an author list of a
>
> Read the license we use, this is not a practical option as we can't change
> it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


body:
Hey -- I agree completely on its utility! I love the site myself! But let's
not pretend that there aren't some major copyright questions with mirroring
the content of the entire internet and making it available to everyone who
wants it.

FF

On 12/30/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Some sites get taken down because people fail to pay their fees or
> simply because they break. In such cases it's good to have a
> independant place be a back up.
>
> Mgm
>
> On 12/30/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Technically they are, of course, doing just that (and even worse at
> times --
> > one can often use the Wayback Machine to get free access to articles
> which
> > were posted by magazines and newspapers free for a limited amount of
> time
> > and then turned into paying-archival links). They even have a little bit
> > about it on their FAQ page saying they'll happily remove things which
> people
> > consider IP violations. Personally I think they are just fortunate that
> most
> > people don't know about them and it takes some rooting around to get
> content
> > out of them.
> >
> > Don't get me wrong -- I think it's a wonderful service and an amazing
> tool.
> > But let's not claim that there isn't a major copyright issue with
> keeping
> > full-site archives of other people's content with the happy intent of
> making
> > it available even if the site itself has been taken down or turned into
> a
> > pay-for-content site. If its capabilities became well-known (and perhaps
> if
> > its servers weren't perpetually down!) they'd be served up DMCA takedown
> > requests every day, I reckon.
> >
> > FF
> >
> > On 12/29/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>:
> > > > The takedown provisions of the DMCA are a matter of
> > > > great concern, but
> > > > a
> > > > DMCA notice when someone is pretty damned clearly
> > > > *ripping off your
> > > > stuff* is IMO quite morally sound.
> > > >
> > > Better send a DMCA notice to Internet Archive too, as they're "clearly
> > > *ripping off your stuff*" at
> > >
> > >
> http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand/index2.html
> > >
> > > 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
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Sebastien Loisel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] My preferences/math

body:
No matter what I change "My preferences/math" to, I always get the same
thing, which is mostly PNGs. I've checked on the blahtex web pages that I
can use MathML in my Firefox but the preferences on wikipedia.org don't seem
to do anything. I haven't found anywhere an explanation of why the
preferences/math tab does nothing, not in the preferences tab, not in the
help for the preferences tab, not in the discussion pages.

Can anyone explain to me what's going on, and possibly update
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Preferences#Rendering_math and even
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?

Best,

S?bastien Loisel


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Hi, a group of us have decided to found a micronation, formed of the
> Wikipedia community.

Don't you know?  Wikipedia _is_ a micronation.  We've got a
constitutional monarch, laws, nobles, democracy, rioting in the streets,
lynch mobs, local fiefdoms, everything.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Article Improvement Weeks! (was Turn
	offarticle creation AND deletion.)

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:f3fedb0d0512110809j7a731d4by at mail.gmail.com...
> [snip]
>
>>I'd sign up to something that /made/ me leave an edit summary all the
>>time... perhaps a configurable option for logged-in users as a
>>corrollary?
>
>
> If you're using the monobook skin, there's a little Javascript extension
> which checks the edit summary and prompts you if you leave it blank...it can
> even cope with the /* commented out section headers */.
>
> I originally got it from [[User:ABCD/monobook.js]]: don't know if it's been
> updated recently: you can see my version in
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Boswell/monobook.js.
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts/Force_edit_summary

--
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] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> On 12/30/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>I can see us raising a few hundred thousand dollars by contributions.
>>I can't see a few million.
>>
>>I can see contributions supporting 100 servers. I can't see them
>>supporting 2,000.
>>
>>I can see a top 20 website supported by contributions. I can't see
>>one of the top 5.
>
>
> Small, individual contributions - perhaps not.  But there's no reason
> why large corporate donations, grants, or endowments couldn't keep us
> running indefinitely.
>
> The question becomes whether we'd prefer ads on Wikipedia or
> "Wikipedia (sponsored by the Gates Foundation).
>

"Wikipedia (sponsored by UNESCO)" would be a much better alternative...

--
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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body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Hi, a group of us have decided to found a micronation, formed of the
> Wikipedia community. Currently we've only chosen our country's name, Tirben,
> so if you want to get involved in the forming of our constitution (hopefully
> it'll be easier than the founding fathers found it) then you're welcome to
> drop by and help out. Our IRC channel is #tirben on Freenode, and our
> website is at http://tirben.starglade.org/
>
> Everyone's invited to drop by, and please spread this message. I hope this
> will be a great community builder!
>

Is it an offshore tax haven? :)

--
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: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
 "Ben Emmel"  wrote

>In an interview, Jimbo discusses the possibilities of ads eventually on the
Wikipedia, due to the huge number of page views that we get.

That is in the WP FAQ (or would be if we had one), like 'stable versions'.
An old chestnut.  It would all depend anyway on (a) the plateau level of
traffic (relative to all WWW traffic, say), (b) the plateau level of
donation and grant funding, (c) what the money was supposed to fund, (d) the
probable impact of ads on (b).

Charles


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>
>All Jimmy did was state the blindingly obvious; that we are literally giving up millions of
>dollars of potential revenue that could be used to further the foundation's goal of providing free
>knowledge to everybody.
>
>
It's not entirely that simple, though.  Say Jimbo had decided in 2001 to
put ads on Wikipedia.  Since then, we've gotten enough pageviews to have
made many millions of dollars from those ads.  The site doesn't exist in
a vacuum, though---had Jimbo decided in 2001 to put ads on Wikipedia,
Wikipedia may well not have grown in the manner it actually has.  It may
have even found itself with a major fork, a la what happened with the
Spanish-language Wikipedia.  In which case there wouldn't have been the
same pageviews and therefore ad revenue after all.

-Mark


body:
On 12/31/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey -- I agree completely on its utility! I love the site myself! But let's
> not pretend that there aren't some major copyright questions with mirroring
> the content of the entire internet and making it available to everyone who
> wants it.
>
> FF
>
Sure, there are copyright questions with mirroring content.  There are
also some answers, including the doctrine of fair use.  In any case,
that there are copyright questions over mirroring content doesn't mean
that mirroring content is the same as ripping someone off.  I mean,
c'mon, does Rob think he was going to make any money off that page?

It seems to me this is a privacy issue (if anything), not a copyright one.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>Personally I find wikipedia 'strange' in not having ads. I'm not sure I
>can think of any other site on the web with a similar popularity without
>ads. Even microsoft.com has ads for Microsoft products. All newspaper
>sites do, slashdot does etc etc. So the precedent is certainly there.
>
>
Wikipedia is *supposed* to be strange compared to the rest, though.  In
addition to being strange in having no ads, we're also strange in
licensing our content under the GFDL, rather than the more standard "All
Rights Reserved" that Microsoft, Slashdot, CNN, et al use.

In any case, Jimbo already explicitly promised that there will never be
ads on Wikipedia as long as he has a say in it, so I don't see why this
is an issue.

-Mark


body:
Hey, the design wasn't *that* hideous. ;)

On 12/31/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> I mean, c'mon, does Rob think he was going to make any money off that
> page?
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Article: Childlove movement

body:
"Childlove movement" is a POV euphemism for pedophilia advocacy. There is currently and AFD on the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Childlove_movement however, we have a small number of pedophilia advocates (self-identified on their user pages) who have been editing pedophilia related articles in an attempt to promote their POV.

What this means is there may not be "consensus" at the AFD to take action such as deleting, merging or renaming the article. However, I think it's quite clear that the name of the article at least is POV.

Just as we would not allow a small group of dedicated anti-Semities to maintain an article title such as "Holohoax" we shouldn't allow a small group of pedophiles to use wikipedia to promote their preferred terminology of "childlover".

Any ideas as to how we should handle this? If a small group of dedicated advocates can block consensus that is a serious threat to our NPOV policy.

Homey


from_name: Bartosz Milewski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: REQUEST_URI undefined index

body:
It seems like MediaWiki hasn't been tested on IIS with PHP 5. Apparently
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] is never set in that environment. Is anybody working
on it?

"Zigger" <zigger at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:419a942d0512282314o1ea142e5q at mail.gmail.com...
> See the unreviewed suggestion at
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3000
>
> -- Zigger
>
> On 29/12/05, Bartosz Milewski wrote:
>> We are running MediaWiki on a Windows Server at
>> http://www.relisoft.com/wiki
>> - MediaWiki 1.5.4
>> - PHP 5.0.5
>> - MySQL 4.0.18-nt
>> First problem: When I access it from one of my home machine, I see a
>> completely blank main page. Other people can see the full page. I can see
>> some of the other pages, if I specify the title.
>> Second problem: I get the error:
>> Undefined index: REQUEST_URI in includes\WebRequests.php, line 284.
>> This is the offending line of code:
>>
>> /**
>>   * Return the path portion of the request URI.
>>   * @return string
>>   */
>>  function getRequestURL() {
>>   return $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
>>  }
>>
>> Is this a problem with PHP/MediaWiki mismatch?
>>...
>

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

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
> > Perhaps the best solution would be like the one Salon,
> > Weather Underground, and many other sites use: pay a
> > subscription fee (say, $29.95 a year) or see (and probably
> > ignore) the ads. That way we'd have our choice of how to
> > personally support Wikipedia.
> >
> > jpgordon

> I agree with the idea of the subscription fee if you can't stand even
> discreet Google Adsense type ads.  But instead of $30 a year, why not
> $5?

All the reasonable advertising proposals I've seen have suggested
$0/year.  IOW, if you want to turn off the ads, you click a button
which says "turn off the ads".  If you're logged in, this turns off
whenever you're logged in.  Either way, a cookie is set to turn off
the ads as long as you still have the cookie set.

> And any relatively active user is probably going to generate $5
> worth of Adsense ads anyway, isn't he?

The standard adsense program only generates revenue when an ad is
clicked, so there would be lots of active users that would generate
$0.

> I don't know what percentage of
> users donate currently, but it's probably very low.  Even assuming that
> all these people drastically reduce their contributions in reaction to
> the introduction of ads, you'd probably be a long way ahead.
>
> Steve

Almost all users donate/contribute, they just don't do so monetarily.

I think the only proposal right now which has any chance of reaching
something nearing a consensus is to put ads on a separate site, such
as nupedia.org.  The WMF could create a wholly owned for-profit
subsidiary corporation, give it the nupedia domain name, and give it a
live feed to the database.  This plan wouldn't make nearly as much
money as putting the ads on wikipedia.org though, at least not at
first.

Anthony


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Ads on Wikipedia?

body:
charles matthews wrote:

> If $750000 was spent in 2005, it's hardly a shoestring.  A 'low'
> yearly fee - would be relative to the income of a developed-world
> person in work, or a villager in Asia or Africa in
> subsistence.agriculture?

The other problem with $5 per annum fees is the cost of administration
It takes just as long to enter $5.00 in the books as it does $5,000.00.
Then one has to track who has paid and who has not, and when memberships
expire notify them that the time has come to pay again.  With enough
members we may even need a full-time paid bookkeeper(s).

Ec


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 12/31/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
> > What's the point of allowing user agents to specify a user ID to limit
> > to?
> The point is to have a "my pictures" link to click on in the sidebar,
> similar to "my contributions"; also, possible, "list images uploaded by
> userXYZ". I didn't get around to the interface part yet.
> > This should use ->getText() and User::newFromName() instead.
> Why?

Because it doesn't make sense to make users specify a user ID for a
user to show uploads for, we specify things by username everywhere
else (e.g. Special:Contributions/?var not
Special:Contributions/123234). If you made the user specify a username
instead of an idea you'd use that.

> > and wfMsg() instead of wfMsgForContent().
> >
>
> OK. It seems to work both ways. As this is open source, and you were
> looking at it anyway, you just fixed it, right?

No, I wanted to check with you why you did it because it seemed quite strange.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia Ombudsman

body:
Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have proposed the structure of a Wikipedia Ombudsman at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ombudsman
>
> This proposed policy/structure would seek to deal with complaints arising
> from administrator and ArbCom conduct, which have been unfortunately quite
> plentiful in recent times (IMO, there have been quite a lot of users who
> feel they have been wronged by "the system").
>
> Please write any comments or suggestions on the talk page.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ronline

hi

I think you made a mistake between the lists, as this proposal should
probably best be sent to wikien-l (and I see it was not). I can't do it
myself directly from gmane.

Cheers

Ant