from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject: [Wikitech-l] Hooking

body:
"... hook,  lock  and flanker belong to an elaborate rubgy analogy."

... with subtle play on the fishing idiom "Hook, line and sinker". Nice.

On 12/11/05, Peter Danenberg <pcd at wikitex.org> wrote:
> > Or, as I'm beginning to suspect the more I think about it, a mixture
> > of the three [...].
>
>      Excellent  semantic reconstruction, Rowan: in good sad-
> ness is an  Elizabethan  phrase  meaning  "but  seriously;"*
> while  hook,  lock  and flanker belong to an elaborate rubgy
> analogy.
>
>      In order to avoid the proliferation  of  hooks,  Apache
> introduced  a notion of filter in 2.0: each filter is passed
> a "bucket brigade" or stream of data which  it  may  process
> before passing it to the next filter.
>
>      Autonomous,  chained  filters are said to be more effi-
> cient than centrally managed mods.
>
> -----------
>   * See Taming of the Shrew, V.ii: "Now,  in  good
> sadness, son Petruchio, I think thou hast the ver-
> iest shrew of all."
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Article Improvement Weeks!

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>We're not coming down heavy-handedly on people.  The fact that the
>article is deleted should in no way be taken personally.
>
>
Who are you and what have you done with Anthony? You sound like a
full-blown deletionist.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

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

body:
On 12/11/05, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > 8. Speedy delete unsourced articles.
> >
> > 8 was another proposal I made.  Any article which was created in the
> > last 48 hours and contains no external references whatsoever is a
> > candidate for speedy deletion.
> >
>
> I think this would be a *bad* idea. I usually create stubs with an
> external reference at least - simply to justify them not being
> deleted, but not always.

Is it so hard to request that you start doing it always?

> As always, we should be encouraging good
> practice, not coming down heavy-handedly on people who haven't yet had
> the time/experience to do something perfectly.
>
> Cormac

We're not coming down heavy-handedly on people.  The fact that the
article is deleted should in no way be taken personally.

New article creation *is* somewhat of a bigger deal than merely
editing.  We've already turned it off for users that aren't logged in,
and some are suggesting that we should turn it off for users that are
new, or that we should turn it off altogether for periods of time.

If someone wants to create a new article, that's fine, but asking that
they simply locate a single source first is just not a big deal.  I've
added that the user should be informed of this type of deletion on his
or her user talk page.  If it was just a simple mistake, the page can
be recreated.

Obviously an admin shouldn't be deleting an article when it's just as
easy to just find the source themselves.  I don't think this needs to
be written into the rules, I trust admins to not be that lazy.  But at
the same time, the onus of finding the source should generally be on
the person adding the information.

Anthony


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I agree, DRV is making it quite hard to get valid stuff undeleted, but
> if one allows just two people to agree on stuff like this I expect a
> lot of deletion wars. Addressing people ignoring the need to undelete
> when new evidence is presented in DRV seems more useful to me. Have
> you got any particular case in mind?

Not just one case. I take issue with the general tenor of discussion
on DRV, which contrary to the undeletion policy actively discounts
and, with considerable success, attempts to disenfranchise views on
the acceptability of the article content.  Sometimes I've seen a
statement along the lines of "I don't think this should have been
deleted, but the AfD was within process so we cannot undelete it."

I have attempted several times to quote the undeletion policy "Article
wrongly deleted (ie that Wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia with
the article restored)", but the clique on that page does not recognise
the undeletion policy and reverts any such edits, claiming that there
is no consensus for them.  There are false claims in templates on the
page to the effect that this isn't the place to go if you disagree
with an AfD result--which is utter nonsense.  In short, the undeletion
policy is being actively traduced by DRV.


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tels

subject: [Wikitech-l] extension credits in SpecialPages::Version?

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

Moin,

what is nec. to get the version information on that page for extensions:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version

On my (internal, 1.5.0) wiki, the extensions have their versions listed,
on a specific public one with 1.5.x they are missing - e.g. only the
"extension functions" are mentioned, but not the credits.

Is there a setting somewhere in LocalSettings.php that must be toggled to
enable them?

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sun Dec 11 10:52:39 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Any sufficiently rigged demo is indistinguishable from an advanced
 technology."  -- Don Quixote, slashdot guy

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> What I would like to see is a sort of category-based deletion.  User
> bungs a {{dp|18 December 2005}} (say) template on it, which prints the
> following text in a disgusting pastel box at the top:
>
>    This article has been proposed for deletion on: 18 December 2005.
>    Please see the relevant discussion on the _talk page_.
>
> The article is added to a category, [[Category:Proposed deletions/18
> December 2005]], where people can go and see what's been proposed for
> deletion lately, and turn up on talkpages and do their little thang.
> Meanwhile, the person who put up the template writes out his reasoning
> on the talk page.
>

I don't think having a category here is more useful than (or as useful
as) having a list.  A list has a history and you can pop it on your
watchlist to see when its content changes (as new articles would be
proposed for deletion or older ones are removed after discussion).

There are three problems with a category:

Firstly, our current display software doesn't handle categories with a
large number of entries.

Secondly there's no easy way (as there is with a list) to see which
articles were recently added; you need to use your memory for this
(mine has a chronic malfunction)

Thirdly you cannot watchlist a category and thus track changes in its contents.

Our current AfD system where we have a list of transcluded lists is
probably the best that can be done with our software.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Firstly, our current display software doesn't handle categories with a
> large number of entries.

I meant to say "doesn't handle categories with a
> large number of entries *well*."


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Using WP:MUSIC as a criterion for speedies would be a disaster.  The
kind of judgement required by WP:MUSIC and similar guidelines is
rather subjective and requires some research to be done--which
newpages patrollers are, perhaps understandably, reluctant to do.

I don't  have any personal issue with band vanity.  Most of it should
be deleted under the verifiability criterion, which doesn't really
require the kind of debate we have on AfD.  Just have a "verifiability
problems" page (like copyright problems) and people can edit the
articles to add verification.  After a month or so if the existence of
the band isn't verifiable it should be deleted.  This would apply to
other classes of article whose subject matter isn't verifiable.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: extension credits in SpecialPages::Version?

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

Moin,

On Sunday 11 December 2005 10:56, Tels wrote:
> Moin,
>
> what is nec. to get the version information on that page for
> extensions:
>
> 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version

The problem has gone away, please disregard my message :)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Sun Dec 11 11:11:09 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "Und jetzt kommen Sie!" - Stenkelfeld

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from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day Anthony,
>
> > On 12/9/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >>>Yes, you've confused what I've said.  I think we should add more
> >>>*objective* criteria to the speedy deletion candidates, not
> >>>*subjective* ones.
> >>
> >>If totaly objective criteria don't turn up much outside maths
> >
> > I find it hard to believe that we can't come up with objective
> > criteria for articles that everyone agrees should be deleted.
> > Verifiability, for instance, is an objective criterion.
>
> Verifiability is necessary, but not sufficient, for an encyclopaedic
> article.  But not everyone agrees on that (IIRC, you yourself have gone
> to great --- perhaps even "extreme" --- lengths to show your disagreement).

Verifiability is in some ways quite a harsh requirement. It was what
got [[yoism]] deleted.

--
geni


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Carbonite wrote:

>I'm starting to like where this proposal is going. I have some suggestions
>that I'd like to throw out for feedback:
>
>- AfD would be turned off for the first two weeks of the month (1st -14th).
>During this time no nominations or "votes" are allowed. Any article not
>nominated by the last day of the previous month would have to wait until the
>15th. Existing AfDs would continued to be closed. Speedy deletion criteria
>would still be in effect.
>
>- The second week of the month (8th-14th), all mainspace article creation
>would be turned off. This could be enforced through software by only
>allowing article creation by admins (and this would be strongly
>discouraged). Talk pages and pages in other namespaces could be created by
>all registered users.
>
I'm not so keen on this, because a) I don't always have complete
control over which days and times I can do editing, and b) a routine
type of cleanup is to cut portmanteau and oversized articles into
several logical pieces. But then again I could use the time to
upload more of my pic backlog (assuming commons lets me create the
gallery pages for them...), or simply take a wikivacation because my
eyes are bleeding from retagging thousands of fair-use pictures. :-)

If you want to incentivize, then just announce prizes ("most-improved
in one week", "most stubs expanded past 500 words", etc).

Stan


body:
On 12/11/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > I proposed requring editors that aren't logged in to enter text into
> > the comment field, when editing the article namespace.  This would be
> > done with the intention of extending it to all non-minor edits to the
> > article namespace if the experiment succeeded.
> >
> > In fact, of the 3 non-implemented experiments above, I think this one
> > would be the least controversial.
>
> 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?
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

Logged-in users can always set "mark edits minor by default".

It's more controversial for logged-in users though, even if minor
edits don't count, which is why my proposal is to test it out on those
without accounts first.  Personally I think it's worth it.  I agree
with the others who say that Wikipedia should focus on quality rather
than quantity (though I see this somewhat differently than some of
them).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Hmm, I'd say an article in the Boston Globe means there are certainly
> > verifiable sources which can be used to create an article on Yoism.
> > Verifiability may have been one of the reasons you gave for the
> > nomination, but it doesn't seem to be a valid one.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Problem is the boston article provides minimal info.
>
> --
> geni

That's only a problem if you're one of those people that insists that
all articles be long.  Let's see:

-----

[[Yoism]] is a movement started by [[Dan Kriegman]] which deals with
topics such as environmentalism, experientially proven beliefs, and
social activism.  The group formed a non-profit corporation, '''Yo,
Inc.''', in December of 2002
[http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&UpdateAllowed=&FEIN=000832116]
which was recognized as a public charity by the United States
[[Internal Revenue Service]].

==External links==
*http://www.yoism.org/

==References==
*Taking Yo off the streets and into church, Boston Globe, Junuary 11, 2004

-----

This is just a quick article I came up with without knowing anything
at all about Yoism.  I'm sure others who know more about it could come
up with a lot more, all completely verifiable by pretty much any
standard (government documents, newspapers, etc).  But I'm not one of
those people who thinks an article has to be long in order to be
useful.

Anyway, I see now the article has been redirected to [[Open source
religion]].  There was no need for an AFD to do that.

Anthony


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Turn off AfD

body:
See a recent DRV - where a user is merely asking for a deleted article
to be made visible to see if the content can be re-used elsewhere.
Someone posted:

>I don't like this kind of request very much, and yes, I know what the
blurb just up there
>says. The fact is that this material has been rejected by AfD, and
this feels like working it
>back in through th back door.

Ugh.

-Matt


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] The crux of the biscuit (was: Turn off C & D)

body:
Hello Mark.

The piece below my sig was a pull from this
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/talks/9410-education.html
which I didnt attribute to Chomsky because its mostly
him quoting Jefferson. I put that in there because
David Gerard's circular logic reminded me of it: even
those "who identify with the people" will also hold
the reservation that they may be "not always the most
wise."

We can argue the oughts and ought-nots of governance
till the cows come home blue in the face. That's not
what the point of that little exchange was. The point
(my point anyway) was that within David's overall
conceptual deference to WINAD and referencing "polls
are evil", was an irritating muddling of "polls,"
which I agree are evil) and "voting," which I actually
distinguish from polling. (Hey - different words,
different meaning... wow).
[[m:PAE]] is at best a pun with a point, like
[[m:ASD]] or most other Wikipediology (burp!) on meta.
Or here for that matter.

Calling polls evil is one thing. But calling voting
evil is like calling Democracy "evil," and I dont
think anyone really wants to do that (except Tories
and other non-democrats maybe), if only because it
raises that irritating contradiction in logic that I
had to call David on. When he clears up (in his
thinking and on any wikiable references) the
difference between polls and voting (im sure he can
pull up an answers.com article on it), then we can
make talk intelligently about 1) the uselessness of
polls and 2) the usefulness of voting. At least
conceptually.

-Stevertigo

--- Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

>
> G'day Steve,
>
> > Jefferson distinguished in his later years between
> > what he called "aristocrats" and "democrats." The
> > aristocrats are
>
> Wikipedia is not the real world.  Wikipedia is a
> website; a particularly
> extensive and community-driven website, but still a
> website.  Your
> rights have not been violated simply because Jimbo
> (or the WMF, or the
> ArbCom, or the Cabal) fails to consult you every
> time they make a change.
>
>
> <snip - good for Jefferson />
>
> --
> 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.
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> Release Date: 9/12/2005
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Hawthorne effect

body:
Maybe its not so much that workers (and even
volunteers like us) feel better that someone is
"paying attention to them", but maybe its because when
management is responsive to the concerns of its
workforce, the workforce (who are no less intelligent
as the management) can put aside any doubts about the
purpose of their work and hence the direction of their
lives. If they have any option that is.

Japan's legendary auto industry successes in the
eighties for example were entirely due to the culture
of worker involvement in steering the direction of the
company to improve the product, increase productivity
and safety, etc.

Stevertigo

--- "Daniel P. B. Smith" <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com>
wrote:

> > From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> >
>
> > I vaguely recall workplace studies where changing
> *anything* increased
> > productivity - it wasn't the new setting, it was
> the fact of change.
>
> That would be the "Hawthorne effect:"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
>
> "The Hawthorne effect refers to improvements in
> productivity or
> quality which result not so much because of intended
> changes to
> working conditions, but mainly because the workers
> are aware of extra
> attention being paid to them."
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unsuitable external links

body:
On 12/11/05, J.F. de Wolff <jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk> wrote:
> For the last several weeks there has been a low-grade edit war,
> spanning numerous articles, over the suitability of one particular
> site in the "external links" section. The site in question is
> http://www.whale.to - a privately maintained collection of
> information not limited to vaccination and basically
> critical/suspicious of basically everything. A brief look on the site
> will reveal it is not the voice of any organisation, professional
> body, or even some collective, but one person collecting extremist
> material. Whether the site has any significant following is unclear.
> The front page boasts a 1 million hits/year Alexa ranking.
> The pattern is predictable: a small group of anonymous users inserts
> the link (into [[chickenpox]], [[shaken baby syndrome]], [[MMR
> vaccine]] etc). Several registered editors remove these links. One
> user, [[User:Ombudsman]] systematically puts the links back. The
> cycle then repeats itself.
>
> This has gone through RFC twice, first in an RFC directed at
> Ombudsman ([[WP:RFC/Ombudsman]]) and now as an article RFC at [[MMR
> vaccine]]. Leaving out comments by anonymous users, most are in
> agreement that it is a very poor resource and has no merits over
> links to organisations usually present in these articles. Ombudsman
> is not participating in this discussion. There have been personal
> attacks from anons, and of course the whine of "censorship" and
> "suppression of views" (manifestly not the cases as other critical
> links are not removed).
>
> I am taking this to WikiEN-L because I am not sure how to proceed.
> RFC has been unsuccesful. I'm a bit hesitant to take this to RFAr.
> Does anyone have an idea how we could best arrive at solid consensus
> here? What constitutes a "suitable" external link? Do we give in to a
> small band of anons pushing a link? And if the link is deemed
> unsuitable, is there any way for automatically blocking the link
> through the spamlist?

It is very plainly spam.  I suggest it be put on the spam blacklist.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] As reported on Slashdot, Wikipedia prankster confesses

body:
YAWN!

Stevertigo
BPIGP

--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

>
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002677060_wiki11.html
>
> You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that
> if I was the one
> who did this I would confess to 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
>

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from_name: Heinz

subject: [Wikitech-l] table image - errors when updating from 1.44 to 1.53

body:
when updating from mediawiki 1.44 to 1.53 i got errors whithin table "image"

the fields: img_width, img_height, img_bits, mg_media_type,
img_major_mime and img_minor_mime dit not get computed.

as a result on special-page "Gallery of new files" and on the imagepage
itself the images dont get displayed. whithin an article everthing is ok.

Heinz


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] The crux of the biscuit

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

stevertigo stated for the record:

> Calling polls evil is one thing. But calling voting
> evil is like calling Democracy "evil," and I dont
> think anyone really wants to do that (except Tories
> and other non-democrats maybe), if only because it
> raises that irritating contradiction in logic that I
> had to call David on.

I'm not sure why you don't think that.  It doesn't take Tory or a
non-Democrat to understand that the tyranny of the masses is the
cruelest tyranny there is.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | I lost my Internet.
 sean at epoptic.org | Can you send me another one?
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Using WP:MUSIC as a criterion for speedies would be a disaster.  The
> kind of judgement required by WP:MUSIC and similar guidelines is
> rather subjective and requires some research to be done--which
> newpages patrollers are, perhaps understandably, reluctant to do.

Furthermore, WP:MUSIC is hopelessly US pop-biased. It was something
someone made up as "no no these aren't requirements for an article to
exist" and somehow it's morphed into being it.

- d.


body:
On 12/11/05, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Yes, but the harder we make it for people to start their first
> article, the less inviting we are, and the less wiki we become.

I take your second point first.  Being less wiki is not necessarily a
bad thing.  Yes, being a wiki has taken us far, and making radical
changes to our processes without thinking about it first is not a good
idea.  But we're not wiki just for the sake of being wiki.  (In fact,
we've already moved quite far from the original wiki principles, to
the point where Sunir Shah, one of the early proponents of wikis,
claims that Wikipedia is not a wiki.)

Your first point is that by making things harder we are less inviting.
 I think this is a more reasonable concern, but it still needs to be
kept in balance.  The fact is that typing in what source you happened
to use usually takes about 5 seconds.  On the other hand, someone who
is reviewing the article you created would probably have to take at
least a minute to find a source, and that assumes a good source can be
found with a simple google search.

Like you, I too have created articles without including any
references.  But if I knew that chances were high my article was going
to be deleted if I did so, I would have gladly spent the few seconds
to list my source.  Do you really think the extra few seconds is going
to discourage a user from continuing to contribute?

> Regardless of the recent proposals that temper growth of Wikipedia, we
> *are* still a wiki, with the (I hope) wiki philosophy that most things
> will generally tend to improve in the long run.

That things will improve in the long run is a given.  The question is
what do we want in the mean time.

> Just to repeat the
> point that we should *encourage* people to do good work, not force
> them.

We're not forcing people to do good work.  We're just deleting stuff
which someone added without taking a few extra moments to follow the
rules.  It's the same as what happens when someone adds an image
without a source.

> Add {{unreferenced}}, don't speedy delete. There's a learning
> curve to wiki editing and encyclopedia writing.
>
> Cormac

I'd be fine with just adding {{unreferenced}} if {{unreferenced}}
included a statement that the article will be deleted if no source is
added within 24 hours.  Is that an adequete compromise?

Yes, there's a learning curve.  Creating a new article is probably
something you should save until you're further along the learning
curve.  But even if it isn't, I don't see the big deal.  Your article
gets deleted, you get a note on your talk page teaching you how to
create a new article, and if you write back to someone (such as the
admin who wrote on your talk page) telling them your source, your
article gets restored.  You've learned something and Wikipedia has
improved in the process.  All without relying on someone hunting down
a source which the original submitter is in a much better position of
providing.

But hey, the 24 hour thing seems like a good compromise.  Then
*anyone* has 24 hours to hunt down a source.  And this would only be
used for new articles, say ones created within 48 hours of the tag
being added, or ones created after a certain date.  Again, this is
similar to what we did with images.  Tagging is the first stage, but
just tagging isn't a solution.

Anthony


from_name: Delirium

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>I'd be fine with just adding {{unreferenced}} if {{unreferenced}}
>included a statement that the article will be deleted if no source is
>added within 24 hours.  Is that an adequete compromise?
>
>
What purpose does deleting the article within 24 hours serve?  Wikipedia
is a project to eventually produce an encyclopedia; not to produce a
perfect one by some deadline.  The information should only be deleted if
it is *unverifiable* (by reasonable means, anyway), not only because
nobody has bothered to try to verify it yet.  In the latter case it
should be marked as unverified, and await either an expansion and
verification or eventual decision that it cannot be verified and
deletion.  Removing information that could be verified by hasn't yet
would be a net harm to the project's goal of producing a quality
encyclopedia in the long run.

-Mark


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>So this all started as a fantasy/joke of mine in IRC, but I want to say
>that so many people have responded favorably that I'm supportive of the
>concept.
>
>One great reason to do all of this is to shake up the cobwebs in our
>thinking.  A lot of our processes are fantastic, organically evolved
>over time, and shouldn't be changed.  But they aren't all perfect and we
>need to always remain experimental -- it's a wiki after all.
>
>
That's no excuse for doing things that there is a *very* strong
consensus against.

-Mark


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] rationale behind the use of hard newlines

body:
Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Can somebody please tell me the rational behind the decision, that
> (soft) newlines are not used for breaking paragraphs into lines.

We inherited our syntax from UseModWiki, which inherited its syntax with
modification from Ward's Wiki. UseMod and Ward's Wiki, like HTML, don't seem to
consider newlines by themselves to be terribly interesting.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
G'day Anthony,

> On 12/9/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>>Yes, you've confused what I've said.  I think we should add more
>>>*objective* criteria to the speedy deletion candidates, not
>>>*subjective* ones.
>>
>>If totaly objective criteria don't turn up much outside maths
>
> I find it hard to believe that we can't come up with objective
> criteria for articles that everyone agrees should be deleted.
> Verifiability, for instance, is an objective criterion.

Verifiability is necessary, but not sufficient, for an encyclopaedic
article.  But not everyone agrees on that (IIRC, you yourself have gone
to great --- perhaps even "extreme" --- lengths to show your disagreement).

What I would like to see is a sort of category-based deletion.  User
bungs a {{dp|18 December 2005}} (say) template on it, which prints the
following text in a disgusting pastel box at the top:

   This article has been proposed for deletion on: 18 December 2005.
   Please see the relevant discussion on the _talk page_.

The article is added to a category, [[Category:Proposed deletions/18
December 2005]], where people can go and see what's been proposed for
deletion lately, and turn up on talkpages and do their little thang.
Meanwhile, the person who put up the template writes out his reasoning
on the talk page.

Apparently something similar was proposed in the past, but never got off
the ground.  I certainly don't expect writing this on the list to help
(but, y'never know) --- I dare say the end result of one or two articles
being deleted (omigosh!) rules this idea out of consideration.

--
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.
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from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sarfatti, again

body:
Now Mr. Sarfatti is once again threatening to sic the FBI on his
critics, in violation of [[WP:NLT]] (and in violation of common sense
as well, but that's not a Wikipedia policy):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jack_Sarfatti#Violations_of_Federal_Law

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > Anyway, I see now the article has been redirected to [[Open source
> > religion]].  There was no need for an AFD to do that.
>
>
> Yes. Could the staunch defenders of AFD please give an appropriately
> loving clip round the ear to people who make this sort of unneccessary
> nomination? AFD is the size of a planet as it is.
>
>
> - d.

*[[Andr? Dumontagne]] - no references, should be a speedy
*[[Andvakaar]] - no references, should be a speedy
*[[Main series]] - useless, technically contains no references, could
be redirected to [[Dancemania]] I suppose, but it's not even properly
capitalised.  I'm sure we could come up with some sort of speedy
criterion for this crap.  Even if not, I wouldn't hesitate to delete
it anyway if I was an admin (guess this is one of the reasons I'm
not).  I guess I'll admit I don't have a perfect solution for this,
though AFD is not a particularly good one either.  I just noticed it
was made 5 October 2005, by an anon.
*[[John Fullerton]] - move to User:Johnfullerton or keep (I didn't
even bother looking at it), neither require AFD.
*[[Narniaism]] - no references
*[[Datacomsys]] - no references, not in English, probably a copyvio
(speedy, transwiki and speedy, list on copyright problems or speedy,
accordingly, none of which require AFD)
*[[?bersexual]] - redirect somewhere.  not [[human sexuality]],
there's probably something more specific; if not, create an article to
talk about metrosexuality/ubersexuality/etc and merge [[metrosexual]]
there too as it is currently a dictionary definition.  None of this
requires AFD.
*[[Cilek]] no references
*[[Overnightscape]] [[The Overnightscape]] - keep
*[[Rockman Resurrection]] - no references
*[[List of people who resisted the Holocaust]] - list; resurrect
[[wp:lists for deletion]]
*[[Ben Humphrey]] - keep
*[[Paige Craig]] - keep

Should I go on?  AFD is nothing more than a collossal waste of time,
in my opinion.

Anthony


body:
On 12/11/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >We're not coming down heavy-handedly on people.  The fact that the
> >article is deleted should in no way be taken personally.
> >
> >
> Who are you and what have you done with Anthony? You sound like a
> full-blown deletionist.
>
> --Michael Snow

I've always been a deletionist.  I joined the association of
deletionist Wikipedians long ago.  ("Against articles on verbs,
adjectives, numbers, and anything not encyclopedic. Anthony DiPierro
19:17, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)")

Seriously though, I've never advocated taking deletion personally, and
I've never advocated keeping unverifiable information.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/11/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > >
> > > G'day Anthony,
> > >
> > > > On 12/9/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >>On 12/9/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > >>>Yes, you've confused what I've said.  I think we should add more
> > > >>>*objective* criteria to the speedy deletion candidates, not
> > > >>>*subjective* ones.
> > > >>
> > > >>If totaly objective criteria don't turn up much outside maths
> > > >
> > > > I find it hard to believe that we can't come up with objective
> > > > criteria for articles that everyone agrees should be deleted.
> > > > Verifiability, for instance, is an objective criterion.
> > >
> > > Verifiability is necessary, but not sufficient, for an encyclopaedic
> > > article.  But not everyone agrees on that (IIRC, you yourself have gone
> > > to great --- perhaps even "extreme" --- lengths to show your disagreement).
> >
> > Verifiability is in some ways quite a harsh requirement. It was what
> > got [[yoism]] deleted.
> >
> > --
> > geni
>
> I'm not familiar with that case.  It seems like you're saying that
> there is non-verifiable information that should nonetheless be
> included in the encyclopedia?  I highly doubt you could convince me to
> agree with that.
>
> Anthony

No. I'm just saying that verifiable thing can be a lot harsher than
many people think.

You can read all about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Yoism

And yes this did go through deletion review as well.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
G'day Mgm,

> Pottercast/PotterCast (and podcasts in general)
> Forums and Blogs
> Bands (C-Moon - German, is it vanity or not?)
> Schools (examples shouldn't be needed for this one), although I have
> to admit discussion is pretty much growing on this. I'm sure this will
> eventually lead to notability guidelines.
>
> All these could be covered by some number statistic and notability
> guidelines, but a quick test to easily determine its deletion
> worthiness is much harder. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find one,
> though.

Bands are a good example.  In theory, we could say "failing WP:MUSIC
makes them speediable".  But there's always a chance that we might want
to keep articles on some of the bands which fail WP:MUSIC ... and that's
what AfD is for.

AfD isn't for *deleting*, it's for *keeping*.  AfD is the compromise
between geni's "admins can delete anything they like" idea and Anthony
(and others') disguised "nothing verifiable should be deleted, ever" idea.

--
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.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off article creation AND deletion.

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> This could in theory be a part of the (is it a joke, perhaps not
> anymore?) concept of a "working vacation day" on January 15th.
> Fantasize that for a single day, we turn off anon editing, we turn off
> account creation, turn off article creation and deletion.
> Freeze the table of contents, freeze the staff, and have a day of
> "cleaning up" without all the noise. :-)

Make it a week - second or third week of January.

As proposed elsewhere in the thread, allow article creation in
userspace. 'Cos you *know* saying "you can't create articles" will just
make people want to create articles ;-) (Expect a flood of stubs the
week before!)

- d.


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

> One great reason to do all of this is to shake up the cobwebs in our
> thinking.  A lot of our processes are fantastic, organically evolved
> over time, and shouldn't be changed.  But they aren't all perfect and we
> need to always remain experimental -- it's a wiki after all.

Yes. One thing that pisses me off about Wikipedia is the committee
committees to have a vote on having a committee to vote to ascertain
consensus on having a committee before you can actually bloody *do*
anything.

(Which is one of the things I like about Uncyclopedia: blatant admin
fascism! MUWAHAHAHAHA. Excuse me.)

I vaguely recall workplace studies where changing *anything* increased
productivity - it wasn't the new setting, it was the fact of change.

So, experiment suggestions so far:

1. Switch off anon article creation - in progress.
2. Prefill text for new article creation.
3. Article Improvement Week.
4. Turn off AFD for (a week/a month/ever).

Any others I missed?

- d.


body:
On 12/11/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> 1. Switch off anon article creation - in progress.
> 2. Prefill text for new article creation.
> 3. Article Improvement Week.
> 4. Turn off AFD for (a week/a month/ever).
>
> Any others I missed?
>
>
> - d.

More fine tuneing af speedy aparently.

--
geni


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Preformatted blank articles? (was Experiment on new
	pages and GFDL)

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I found out what preload is.  See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noarticlehere&action=edit&preload=User:Anthony_DiPierro/preload
> So, in pseudocode (I don't know mediawiki), all that'd need to be done
> is change:
> return $text;
> to:
> if ($text!='') {
>   return $text;
> } else if (namespace is article namespace) {
>   return $newarticleboilerplate;
> } else {
>   return '';
> }

Fabulous! Preloading a blank article form should be not terribly
traumatic ... How hard would it be to make the preload an option that a
regular editor can switch off when it gets annoying? (Though I for one
would probably keep mine on.)

[cc to wikitech-l]

- d.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Preformatted blank articles? (was
 Experiment on new pages and GFDL)


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Hawthorne effect

body:
> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>

> I vaguely recall workplace studies where changing *anything* increased
> productivity - it wasn't the new setting, it was the fact of change.

That would be the "Hawthorne effect:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

"The Hawthorne effect refers to improvements in productivity or
quality which result not so much because of intended changes to
working conditions, but mainly because the workers are aware of extra
attention being paid to them."


body:
geni wrote:
> On 12/11/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

>>1. Switch off anon article creation - in progress.
>>2. Prefill text for new article creation.
>>3. Article Improvement Week.
>>4. Turn off AFD for (a week/a month/ever).
>>Any others I missed?

> More fine tuneing af speedy aparently.

Yeah. See if we can make it work without the letter codes. Deletion log
review is fine, the speedy process appears to actually not be too bad in
practice, it's having a deletion log you can't actually understand
without a secret decoder ring that's problematic ...

- l,d.


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> For one week Articles for Deletion is renamed Articles for Improvement
> (symbolically, if actually moving the page would be technically
> problematic), and there's no voting or page destruction, just
> discussion of how to improve the article :).

Have you *looked* through AFD recently? I just looked at the past six
days of nominations.

*shudder*

We really do have mountains of crap that must die as soon as possible.

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. 'Cos it's not a great
article, but it's not deletable IMO, it's highly improvable (e.g. I
could pepper it up with a pile of my own photos) and it's useful to the
project.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

> Getting rid of AfD and replacing it with speedy-if-not-WP:MUSIC would be
> a Very Bad Idea, for reasons elucidated by Tony and Matt.  Getting rid
> of AfD and *not* allowing the use of WP:MUSIC to consider speedying will
> just result in the flood of band vanity articles getting stronger.

And let me add that despite my concerns over WP:MUSIC, it is a *flood*
of really bad band vanity articles that thoroughly deserve a quick
death. I've just looked through five days of AFD. The stupid (the
articles nominated), it *burns*. To be fair, I can see why AFD regulars
become terse and hard-bitten.

- s.


body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

> Well, there was geni's intriguingly bad "allow admins to delete
> anything" idea, which I suggest be expanded to "all admins are allowed
> to speedy anything they want, without possibility of undeletion and no
> repercussions".  Perhaps we could run it for the same period that AfD is
> shutdown?

*With* possibility of undeletion, and no repercussions. Mind you, I can
imagine entire topics (every high school in the world) being subject to
ongoing delete/undelete wars, and would be interested in the effects on
the database ...

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
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...

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


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/11/05, 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. 'Cos it's not a great
>>article, but it's not deletable IMO, it's highly improvable (e.g. I
>>could pepper it up with a pile of my own photos) and it's useful to the
>>project.

> We used to have a separate page just for "lists for deletion".  Lists
> aren't really ever encyclopedia articles, and the standards for them
> should be different than the standards for articles.

What I mean is *only* one. This was unscientific - I didn't go through
every one, just the ones that caught my eye. A few should never have
been nominated because you don't need to ask AFD to do a merge and
redirect. Others should never have been nominated because they said it
was probably an encyclopedia topic but the article was crap - that's
blatantly trying to make others do cleanup work for you. That sort of
thing. I should go back to get actual numbers, but I've had enough AFD
today kthx and someone else can.

- d.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/11/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >I'd be fine with just adding {{unreferenced}} if {{unreferenced}}
> >included a statement that the article will be deleted if no source is
> >added within 24 hours.  Is that an adequete compromise?
> >
> >
> What purpose does deleting the article within 24 hours serve?

It serves multiple purposes.  It helps eliminate false information
from the encyclopedia.  It saves new page patrollers and others time
doing research from scratch.  And probably most importantly, it
provides an incentive to add references.

What purpose does deleting images with no source provide?  It's pretty
much all the same things.

> Wikipedia is a project to eventually produce an encyclopedia; not to produce a
> perfect one by some deadline.  The information should only be deleted if
> it is *unverifiable* (by reasonable means, anyway), not only because
> nobody has bothered to try to verify it yet.  In the latter case it
> should be marked as unverified, and await either an expansion and
> verification or eventual decision that it cannot be verified and
> deletion.  Removing information that could be verified by hasn't yet
> would be a net harm to the project's goal of producing a quality
> encyclopedia in the long run.
>
> -Mark

I don't see why.  The article is still there, it isn't actually
deleted, it's just hidden from the view of non-admins.  I'd prefer it
if non-admins could see the text too, but a different argument.

In my opinion it is never acceptable to keep false information in the
article namespace.  There are places where eventualism is acceptable,
but presenting false information as true information is not one of
them.

Oh well, whatever.  Two separate people seem honestly and irreparably
opposed to the idea.  I'll just drop it.

Anthony


body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> 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...

Just because people on wikien-l agree something is a nice idea doesn't
mean it'll ever happen. AFD regulars consistently resist any moves to
make nomination more work than it is, apparently viewing all such ideas
as instruction creep with malice aforethought.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Christmas presents, or: MediaWiki, reloaded

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> The first one you know, the validation feature, in its current
> incarnation. It has already been pre-field-tested by some people from
> the German wikipedia.

This is still going to need rewriting before we can safely use it.

> The other one we talked about, the "stable version". This is a currently
> a very basic implementation, and will be overhauled by me to add some
> usability and reduce confusion (e.g., clicking "edit" on the stable
> version page).

Please confirm that you have talked with Tim, who is already working on version
tagging keeping our caching requirements in mind.

> The third one I talked about, but noone saw it yet, so here it is: Task
> management! (you gonna love this!)

Will look this over later...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Why Turn of AFD?

body:
On 12/10/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Ah, I see what you mean now, you're talking about speedy deletion
> > > nominations.  Can't these be put on [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletions]] for
> > > a central location?  I don't really see what this has to do with AfD,
> > > anyway.
> > >
> > > I'm saying that listing articles on a central page rather than tagging
> > > and categorizing them avoid people from removing tags which shouldn't
> > > be removed.
> >
> > And I don't see what that has to do with AFD.  When we turn off AFD,
> > we turn off tagging articles under AFD too.
> >
> > Anthony
>
> You seem to want to turn off AFD because you think the central page
> sparks too much poisonous feelings.

What are you basing that on?  The main reason I want to turn off AFD
is because it's a huge waste of time.  I went through the first 15 or
so articles listed there, and I think every one of them could be
handled without AFD.

> I'm saying that turning off AFD,
> or using an alternative tagging method like the one speedy uses now
> allows for articles that should be deleted to slip through the net.
> Especially when they have 2 weeks or a month to be manipulated.
>
> Mgm

I don't really see it happening.  The vast majority of the articles
which would be deleted wouldn't need any discussion in the first
place.  For those that do, if all the people who want it to be deleted
forget that it even exists in the first place, well, I don't really
see the harm.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] The crux of the biscuit

body:
--- Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:

> I'm not sure why you don't think that.  It doesn't
> take Tory or a
> non-Democrat to understand that the tyranny of the
> masses is the
> cruelest tyranny there is.

True. But we cant let the masses know that we intend
to crush them after we've used them for their labours.

Stevertigo

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


body:
On 12/11/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > In my opinion it is never acceptable to keep false information in the
> > article namespace.  There are places where eventualism is acceptable,
> > but presenting false information as true information is not one of
> > them.
> >
> > Oh well, whatever.  Two separate people seem honestly and irreparably
> > opposed to the idea.  I'll just drop it.
>
> I agree with you, but with one caveat.  It shouldn't be removed, just
> marked as being unverified.  If it is marked as such, Wikipedia
> specifically abdicates all responsibility for the contents.  This way,
> the information is still available so *anyone* can verify it, admin or
> not.
>
> --
> Sam

For some reason I see a huge difference between leaving false
information in and putting a disclaimer at the top and moving the
information to the talk page.  Doing the latter still leaves the
information available so anyone can verify it.

Unfortunately, talk pages of deleted articles are candidates for
speedy deletion.  But then again, it really doesn't matter, because
history only undeletion can be performed by any admin without a vote.
So if any user wants to verify it, admin or not, just look up the
title in google, write a couple sentences, and request history only
undeletion.  Or, alternatively, ask an admin to give you the text of
the article.  Either way it's not *that* big of a deal, though I do
feel things would be better if you didn't have to go through that
step.

I'm gonna say one more thing (for this message), and that's that the
current policy already kind of supports this.  Anything that isn't
verified can be moved to the talk page, a page which contains no
content is a CSD, and a talk page of a deleted page is itself a CSD.

Anthony


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> 8. Speedy delete unsourced articles.
>
> 8 was another proposal I made.  Any article which was created in the
> last 48 hours and contains no external references whatsoever is a
> candidate for speedy deletion.
>

I think this would be a *bad* idea. I usually create stubs with an
external reference at least - simply to justify them not being
deleted, but not always. As always, we should be encouraging good
practice, not coming down heavy-handedly on people who haven't yet had
the time/experience to do something perfectly.

Cormac


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Turn off AfD

body:
Heh, it's time to start afd-l, a mailing list which automatically
mails out any article nominated under AFD.  (I used to have a bot
which did this, minus the mailing out part, but due to a whole bunch
of different factors that bot is no longer in service).

On 12/11/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> See a recent DRV - where a user is merely asking for a deleted article
> to be made visible to see if the content can be re-used elsewhere.
> Someone posted:
>
> >I don't like this kind of request very much, and yes, I know what the
> blurb just up there
> >says. The fact is that this material has been rejected by AfD, and
> this feels like working it
> >back in through th back door.
>
> Ugh.
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002677060_wiki11.html

You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that if I was the one
who did this I would confess to it.


from_name: Snowspinner

body:
I'm glad to see that Siegenthaler and one of our established trolls
have now managed to create a culture of hysteria such that a harmless
prankster has been fired.

-Phil

On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:39 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
> 2002677060_wiki11.html
>
> You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that if I was the one
> who did this I would confess to 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:
He quit, and Siegenthaler "urged Chase's boss to rehire him".
Siegenthaler also "said he 'was not after a pound of flesh' and would
not take Chase to court."  "I still believe in free expression," he
said. "What I want is accountability."

Heh, I still don't understand exactly what Siegenthaler's whole point is.

Anthony

On 12/11/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm glad to see that Siegenthaler and one of our established trolls
> have now managed to create a culture of hysteria such that a harmless
> prankster has been fired.
>
> -Phil
>
> On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:39 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
> > 2002677060_wiki11.html
> >
> > You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that if I was the one
> > who did this I would confess to 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
It seems somewhat disingenuous for Siegenthaler to urge his boss to
rehire him after creating the hysteria in the first place.

-Phil

On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:47 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> He quit, and Siegenthaler "urged Chase's boss to rehire him".
> Siegenthaler also "said he 'was not after a pound of flesh' and would
> not take Chase to court."  "I still believe in free expression," he
> said. "What I want is accountability."
>
> Heh, I still don't understand exactly what Siegenthaler's whole
> point is.
>
> Anthony
>
> On 12/11/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm glad to see that Siegenthaler and one of our established trolls
>> have now managed to create a culture of hysteria such that a harmless
>> prankster has been fired.
>>
>> -Phil
>>
>> On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:39 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
>>> 2002677060_wiki11.html
>>>
>>> You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that if I was the one
>>> who did this I would confess to 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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


body:
Maybe Chase should sue Siegenthaler for destroying his reputation with
his libellous USA Today editorial.  After all, he did accuse Chase of
having a "sick mind".  And unlike Siegenthaler, Chase actually
suffered damages as a result.

Anthony

Oh yeah, </sarcasm>

On 12/11/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems somewhat disingenuous for Siegenthaler to urge his boss to
> rehire him after creating the hysteria in the first place.
>
> -Phil
>
> On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:47 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > He quit, and Siegenthaler "urged Chase's boss to rehire him".
> > Siegenthaler also "said he 'was not after a pound of flesh' and would
> > not take Chase to court."  "I still believe in free expression," he
> > said. "What I want is accountability."
> >
> > Heh, I still don't understand exactly what Siegenthaler's whole
> > point is.
> >
> > Anthony
> >
> > On 12/11/05, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I'm glad to see that Siegenthaler and one of our established trolls
> >> have now managed to create a culture of hysteria such that a harmless
> >> prankster has been fired.
> >>
> >> -Phil
> >>
> >> On Dec 11, 2005, at 3:39 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>
> >>> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
> >>> 2002677060_wiki11.html
> >>>
> >>> You know, I was just thinking a few hours ago that if I was the one
> >>> who did this I would confess to 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
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
>


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>In my opinion it is never acceptable to keep false information in the
>article namespace.  There are places where eventualism is acceptable,
>but presenting false information as true information is not one of
>them.
>
>
Known to be false information, yes.  Unverified information is another
beast---a large proportion of our mathematical articles are currently
unreferenced, but almost certainly correct (and can be easily verified
by anyone knowledgeable in the field, or with access to an intro-level
textbook).

If it's an unverified half-sentence stub, perhaps we don't lose much by
simply deleting it.  If it's a good article that just needs some
references added, though, we move backwards by deleting it and forcing
someone later to start from scratch.

-Mark


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Hmm, I'd say an article in the Boston Globe means there are certainly
> verifiable sources which can be used to create an article on Yoism.
> Verifiability may have been one of the reasons you gave for the
> nomination, but it doesn't seem to be a valid one.
>
> Anthony

Problem is the boston article provides minimal info.

--
geni


body:
On 11/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> I proposed requring editors that aren't logged in to enter text into
> the comment field, when editing the article namespace.  This would be
> done with the intention of extending it to all non-minor edits to the
> article namespace if the experiment succeeded.
>
> In fact, of the 3 non-implemented experiments above, I think this one
> would be the least controversial.

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?

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


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Jack Sarfatti makes trouble again

body:
Jack is his own worst enemy, but in my opinion he had a just complaint
against Wikipedia because of several inaccuracies in the article, and
a rather gross libel based on a misreading of a Usenet discussion.  I
don't know what became of that case--last I heard, Ed Poor was trying
to fix it and facing stiff opposition.  As with the Wollmann case, we
have to keep  nonsense from the less salubrious parts of Usenet from
bubbling over into Wikipedia and landing us with a legacy of ill will.


body:
On 12/11/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >In my opinion it is never acceptable to keep false information in the
> >article namespace.  There are places where eventualism is acceptable,
> >but presenting false information as true information is not one of
> >them.
> >
> >
> Known to be false information, yes.  Unverified information is another
> beast---a large proportion of our mathematical articles are currently
> unreferenced, but almost certainly correct (and can be easily verified
> by anyone knowledgeable in the field, or with access to an intro-level
> textbook).
>
> If it's an unverified half-sentence stub, perhaps we don't lose much by
> simply deleting it.  If it's a good article that just needs some
> references added, though, we move backwards by deleting it and forcing
> someone later to start from scratch.
>
> -Mark

Well, I think I've made it abundantly clear I disagree.  Those
mathematical articles should all be referenced.  The person who is in
the best position to do that is the original author.  Sure, we can
grandfather these old ones in, but going forward I don't see why we
can't just put in this information from the beginning.  (And no, if
you make it optional, people aren't going to do it.)

Articles can always be undeleted.  "Forcing someone" to drop a note on
an admin page that you'd like a particular article undeleted so you
can add references to it is just not that significant (especially
compared to sitting on AFD for 5 days).  And like I said before, I'd
prefer that anyone can see this deleted text without bugging an admin
anyway.

Anthony


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Well, I think I've made it abundantly clear I disagree.  Those
>mathematical articles should all be referenced.  The person who is in
>the best position to do that is the original author.
>
For most of them, the original author is no better placed to reference
them than anyone else, because they're results that appear in standard
textbooks.  I could singlehandedly "reference" most of the linear
algebra articles, for example, just by copy/pasting the reference list
from [[linear algebra]] to the end of every one.  But in cases where
something is a standard result in elementary textbooks, I don't see what
advantage actually listing some arbitrarily chosen textbook gives the
reader.

-Mark


from_name: Nathaniel Sheetz

body:
On 12/11/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
> > I could singlehandedly "reference" most of the linear
> > algebra articles, for example, just by copy/pasting the reference list
> > from [[linear algebra]] to the end of every one.  But in cases where
> > something is a standard result in elementary textbooks, I don't see what
> > advantage actually listing some arbitrarily chosen textbook gives the
> > reader.
>
> It gives the reader a starting point for further research, and at least
demonstrates that the information wasn't pulled out of a hat.

Spangineer/Nathaniel


body:
On 12/11/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >Well, I think I've made it abundantly clear I disagree.  Those
> >mathematical articles should all be referenced.  The person who is in
> >the best position to do that is the original author.
> >
> For most of them, the original author is no better placed to reference
> them than anyone else, because they're results that appear in standard
> textbooks.  I could singlehandedly "reference" most of the linear
> algebra articles, for example, just by copy/pasting the reference list
> from [[linear algebra]] to the end of every one.  But in cases where
> something is a standard result in elementary textbooks, I don't see what
> advantage actually listing some arbitrarily chosen textbook gives the
> reader.
>
> -Mark

Hmm, I've tried to think of an article that this would apply to,
especially one which we haven't already written, and I really can't
come up with one.  Couldn't the author just reference the textbook
that she actually used?  For a strawman, let's take [[Myhill?Nerode
theorem]].  I assume you didn't start that article from memory.  You
did use a source, right?  Now given a few minutes of searching on
Google print I could probably come up with a source to verify that
information, but at the same time you could much more easily simply
list the book you actually used.

Anthony


from_name: John Lee

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 12/10/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>
>>Any thoughts on my preloaded new article template idea? It's just
>>wikitext, so regulars could do what they liked, but newbies will see a
>>clear indication of what we expect in an article.
>>
>>
>
>Not the user you asked, but I figured I'd put my oar in here and say
>it's a very good idea indeed.  It might gain more support if there was
>an option in preferences to turn it off for experienced editors who
>didn't like the prefill.
>
>-Matt
>
>
Dittoed.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
	Howdidthis happen (comixpedia??))

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

Sam Korn wrote:

>On 11/20/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>A merge vote means "merge the content elsewhere and then create a
>>redirect". Someone who votes merge doesn't want the page deleted,
>>they want the content merged elsewhere. It's important to understand
>>this, because if we copy content and then delete the original article,
>>we are violating the GFDL by failing to preserve the edit history.
>>Instead, we merge content and create a redirect.
>>
>>Consequently, there is no need for the closing administrator to count
>>"merge" as anything but a keep vote. Someone who votes merge wants the
>>article kept, because the article must be kept in order to merge the
>>content and comply with the GFDL.
>>
>>Ryan
>
>
>How do you know that they want the article kept?

Because of the requirements of the GFDL, like I explained.

Ryan
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from_name: Aron Rubin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Hooking

body:
Without advocating too much hook promiscuity, a larger base set of hooks
would need to be provided because the extensions would need to execute
before certain state changes or, in the case that prompted this thread,
before the close of a certain div tag. In mediawiki the content is
rendered as it goes (via a call like addHTML) so if a hook was to
execute after target content was generated it would have to reprocess
the OutputPage buffer. I doubt there would need to be too many
(subjective, I know) hooks added because most extensions probably fall
under the wikitext extension category.

Aron

Peter Danenberg wrote:
>> Why are there so few hooks in MediaWiki?
>>
>
>
>      Imbalanced forward pack, I'm afraid; locks and flankers
> are in order, but the front row needs some work.
>
>      In good sadness, though, did you  have  something  like
> Apache's bucket brigades in mind?
>
> --
> Peter Danenberg                                           .
> wikisophia.org                                           ..:
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] The heart of the deletion problem

body:
Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
We would be better off without them -
we'd be better off with admins capriciously and arbitrarily deleting
what they want and undeleting what they disagree with. Because that,
at least, would be a decision making process instead of a game.
Oh, so you're suggesting I, as an admin, should have the unchecked ability to delete [[George W. Bush]] if I wanted to? My word, I could just see the delete wars sparked by that. I've seen these arguments for how AfD is broken, etc., and I have yet to see an article deleted that I thought should be kept or vice versa. I don't think AfD is broken.

  -Hermione1980

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Shopping
 Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping


body:
On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> > > 8. Speedy delete unsourced articles.
> > >
> > > 8 was another proposal I made.  Any article which was created in the
> > > last 48 hours and contains no external references whatsoever is a
> > > candidate for speedy deletion.
> > >
> >
> > I think this would be a *bad* idea. I usually create stubs with an
> > external reference at least - simply to justify them not being
> > deleted, but not always.
>
> Is it so hard to request that you start doing it always?
>
> > As always, we should be encouraging good
> > practice, not coming down heavy-handedly on people who haven't yet had
> > the time/experience to do something perfectly.
> >
> > Cormac
>
> We're not coming down heavy-handedly on people.  The fact that the
> article is deleted should in no way be taken personally.
>
> New article creation *is* somewhat of a bigger deal than merely
> editing.  We've already turned it off for users that aren't logged in,
> and some are suggesting that we should turn it off for users that are
> new, or that we should turn it off altogether for periods of time.
>
> If someone wants to create a new article, that's fine, but asking that
> they simply locate a single source first is just not a big deal.  I've
> added that the user should be informed of this type of deletion on his
> or her user talk page.  If it was just a simple mistake, the page can
> be recreated.
>
> Obviously an admin shouldn't be deleting an article when it's just as
> easy to just find the source themselves.  I don't think this needs to
> be written into the rules, I trust admins to not be that lazy.  But at
> the same time, the onus of finding the source should generally be on
> the person adding the information.
>
> Anthony

Yes, but the harder we make it for people to start their first
article, the less inviting we are, and the less wiki we become.
Regardless of the recent proposals that temper growth of Wikipedia, we
*are* still a wiki, with the (I hope) wiki philosophy that most things
will generally tend to improve in the long run. Just to repeat the
point that we should *encourage* people to do good work, not force
them. Add {{unreferenced}}, don't speedy delete. There's a learning
curve to wiki editing and encyclopedia writing.

Cormac


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> Anyway, I see now the article has been redirected to [[Open source
> religion]].  There was no need for an AFD to do that.

Yes. Could the staunch defenders of AFD please give an appropriately
loving clip round the ear to people who make this sort of unneccessary
nomination? AFD is the size of a planet as it is.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 12/11/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/11/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > Hmm, I'd say an article in the Boston Globe means there are certainly
> > > verifiable sources which can be used to create an article on Yoism.
> > > Verifiability may have been one of the reasons you gave for the
> > > nomination, but it doesn't seem to be a valid one.
> > >
> > > Anthony
> >
> > Problem is the boston article provides minimal info.
> >
> > --
> > geni
>
> That's only a problem if you're one of those people that insists that
> all articles be long.  Let's see:
>
> -----
>
> [[Yoism]] is a movement started by [[Dan Kriegman]] which deals with
> topics such as environmentalism, experientially proven beliefs, and
> social activism.  The group formed a non-profit corporation, '''Yo,
> Inc.''', in December of 2002
> [http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&UpdateAllowed=&FEIN=000832116]
> which was recognized as a public charity by the United States
> [[Internal Revenue Service]].
>
> ==External links==
> *http://www.yoism.org/
>
> ==References==
> *Taking Yo off the streets and into church, Boston Globe, Junuary 11, 2004
>
> -----

how do you know that that is NPOV?

--
geni


from_name: JoanneB

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

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I proposed requring editors that aren't logged in to enter text into
> the comment field, when editing the article namespace.  This would be
> done with the intention of extending it to all non-minor edits to the
> article namespace if the experiment succeeded.
>
> In fact, of the 3 non-implemented experiments above, I think this one
> would be the least controversial.
>

I disagree on this one. As a frequent Recent Changes patroller, using a
combination of CoolCat's IRC bot, CDVF and Special:Recentchanges, I have
come to appreciate the predictability of a lot of the vandals: no edit
summary, using an IP. Of course, I glance over every edit summary too, but
in my experience, usually the people using edit summaries are editing 'in
good faith'.

Forcing people to leave an edit summary for all non-minor edits, will in my
view result in one or more of the following results:

1. Non-sense comments: "sldkjlsdfj" or "."
2. Abusive comments in edit summaries
3. People marking all their edits as minor, to avoid having to leave an edit
summary.

That way, vandalism will be harder to spot and there will be more 'noise' in
the edit histories.

I think an option that forces you to leave an edit summary, which can be
switched on in the preferences, would be better: if you stimulate people
using that, you'll have more quality edit summaries and not an increase in
nonsense and abusive summaries.

Regards,
JoanneB


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
On 11 Dec 2005 at 15:57, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

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

Could *somebody* program the mailing list software used by this list
to reject messages that quote back the list footers, as done *four*
times in a row above?  That might put a stop to the silly, lazy habit
of top-posting with fullquote which some participants are doing.

http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/top-posting.html
http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/bottom-posting.html

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The heart of the deletion problem

body:
Snowspinner wrote:

> The heart of the problem with AfD, DRV, and the rest of the deletion
> suite of pages is this: It is increasingly a pile of rules. Rules
> encourage playing to win.

This is one effect of the problem with deletion, yes. At its root,
however, the problem with deletion is merely a manifestation of more
fundamental issues. In fact, it has a lot in common with the other major
problem that has been so prominently in the news for the past couple weeks.

The real heart of the problem is that people are laboring under the
misapprehension that they're looking at or working on something like a
final version of the encyclopedia. So they get themselves in a
lather/snit/tizzy (pick your idiom) over a transient state of affairs,
or they try to force permanence where consensus for it is lacking.
Disputed deletions are in the latter category.

And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a
final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that Wikipedia
has been going for five years, I think we're ready to start. Stable
versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature we need. In
fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable versions is
completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we should be
asking people to rate.

Stable versions that feed into development versions, with the latter
clearly identified as such (in David Gerard's words, 1995-style yellow
and black "Under Construction" GIFs), would do quite a bit to defuse
these problems, I think. In particular, I don't think the urge to delete
would be nearly as strong, and the concern about harm to Wikipedia's
image from be minimized. The time to provide stable versions has come.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
On Dec 11, 2005, at 5:42 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

> On 11 Dec 2005 at 15:57, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>>>>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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

Can we program it to reject messages from people who have taken it
upon themselves to demand that people take time to format their
messages according to their personal preferences when said formatting
takes considerably more time than just ignoring it too?

-Phil


body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> Stable versions that feed into development versions, with the latter
> clearly identified as such (in David Gerard's words, 1995-style yellow
> and black "Under Construction" GIFs), would do quite a bit to defuse
> these problems, I think. In particular, I don't think the urge to
> delete would be nearly as strong, and the concern about harm to
> Wikipedia's image from be minimized. The time to provide stable
> versions has come.

Copyediting myself: "The concern about harm to Wikipedia's image from
bad articles would be minimized."

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
On 12/11/05, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 11 Dec 2005 at 15:57, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> > > >>> 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
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> Could *somebody* program the mailing list software used by this list
> to reject messages that quote back the list footers, as done *four*
> times in a row above?  That might put a stop to the silly, lazy habit
> of top-posting with fullquote which some participants are doing.
>
> http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/top-posting.html
> http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/bottom-posting.html
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
> Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

I never have understood what to do when someone else top-posts.  Does
one of those urls explain how to handle that situation?


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
>> Magnus Manske wrote:
>>
>>> The first one you know, the validation feature, in its current
>>> incarnation. It has already been pre-field-tested by some people from
>>> the German wikipedia.
>>
>> This is still going to need rewriting before we can safely use it.
>>
> What's wrong with it, and how much work do you think needs to be done?

Lots of missing input validation and missing output escaping. There were still
several cross-site scripting injection points when I last lost count.

(A cross-site scripting vulnerability could be used to take over an admin's
account if you can trick them into visiting a link while logged in on the wiki.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
On 12/11/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Can we program it to reject messages from people who have taken it  upon
> > themselves to demand that people take time to format their  messages
> > according to their personal preferences when said formatting  takes
> > considerably more time than just ignoring it too?
> >
> > -Phil
>
> This place has become unpleasantly reminiscent of UseNet, with excess
> traffic, profanity, bad editing, bad threading, and a few bad apples.
> Killfile 'em - I do.
>
> Charles

Yeah, mailing lists are a pretty shitty way to communicate.  You'd
think in 10-20 years we'd have come up with something better.

Anthony


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>>The first one you know, the validation feature, in its current
>>incarnation. It has already been pre-field-tested by some people from
>>the German wikipedia.
>>
>>
>
>This is still going to need rewriting before we can safely use it.
>
>
What's wrong with it, and how much work do you think needs to be done?

Article version rating/validation/moderation/whatever is my number one
anticipated feature, and I've been responding to various peoples'
criticisms of Wikipedia's "trustworthiness" with the suggestion that
we'll be implementing something along these lines Real Soon Now for what
feels like years. I'm hoping it might even help get us out of the
endless AfD argument by providing a means of quality control that will
appease both sides. Please tell me we're almost there for real this time.

The other stuff in this Christmas present all looks great too, way to go
Magnus! Automated task management like that should make it a lot easier
to ensure that quality is consistent across Wikipedia and that problem
articles aren't "lost" in the vastness.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
On 12/11/05, Steve Bennett <wiki at stevage.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Could *somebody* program the mailing list software used by this list
> > to reject messages that quote back the list footers, as done *four*
> > times in a row above?  That might put a stop to the
>
> <snip inflammatory top-posting vs bottom posting comments>
>
> Wouldn't a better suggestion be, if someone is actually going to
> reprogram the list server, to simply trim off all quoted footers?
> Computers were designed to do our monotonous work for us, after all.
>
> Steve

We could always just not add the footers in the first place.  But then
we might get a post about how to unsubscribe every few months.

Anthony


body:
The heart of the problem with AfD, DRV, and the rest of the deletion
suite of pages is this: It is increasingly a pile of rules. Rules
encourage playing to win. Deletion, like most of Wikipedia, used to
be based on principles. Principles do not encourage playing to win.
Principles encourage playing to get it right. But now we have rules.
Now if an article is improperly speedied, it has to be brought to DRV
where the masses can vote to send it to AfD and we can have a whole
AfD with virtually no votes to delete because nobody ever actually
wanted the article deleted, they just mistakenly thought it was a
recreation of old content. And let's not forget that the AfD, being
the second AfD for an article of that title, requires our second AfD
template, because HEAVEN FORBID we just use one AfD template for all
our nominations. No, no, we need a second template for second
nominations.  We also, I believe, have a third for third nominations.

In a setting like this, it is no wonder that people begin to think
the goal is to win - we've totally abandoned all notion of figuring
out the Right Solution and implementing it. Instead we value this
absurd game of Nomic, because we've apparently come to believe that
the winner of Nomic must be right.

Screw shutting down AfD. Let's shut down AfD, TfD, CfD, RfD, IfD,
MfD, DRV, RFC, RFA, RFM, RFAr, AN, AN/I, AN/3RR, and CVU, and get
back to a system based on understanding what we're doing and doing it
instead of this goddamned alphabet soup.

-Phil


from_name: admin Yellowikis

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Preformatted blank articles? (was
	Experiment on new pages and GFDL)

body:
At Yellowikis we have a button on the edit bar that adds a
pre-formatted text. It helps people who need help - but doesn't get in
the way if it isn't required.

I'd like to offer the pre-formatted text in different languages. Any
suggestions on how to achieve that without overloading the edit bar
with new buttons?

Paul

On 12/11/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> > I found out what preload is.  See
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noarticlehere&action=edit&preload=User:Anthony_DiPierro/preload
> > So, in pseudocode (I don't know mediawiki), all that'd need to be done
> > is change:
> > return $text;
> > to:
> > if ($text!='') {
> >   return $text;
> > } else if (namespace is article namespace) {
> >   return $newarticleboilerplate;
> > } else {
> >   return '';
> > }
>
>
> Fabulous! Preloading a blank article form should be not terribly
> traumatic ... How hard would it be to make the preload an option that a
> regular editor can switch off when it gets annoying? (Though I for one
> would probably keep mine on.)
>
>
> [cc to wikitech-l]
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
> Of course, that would only work for user with
> JavaScript-enabled browsers, but I guess the majority of regular
> internet users use one (Yes, I'm going to get a lot of "Hey, I'm using
> Lynx you insensitive clod!" replies to this).

I suspect most Lynx users are sufficiently clued not to need this
anyway - or sufficiently stubborn not to be helped ...

-Matt


from_name: Roman Maurer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?

body:
V. Ivanov pravi:

> In smaller Wikipedias, where every edit is viewed by somebody else,
> there is no need of such system. It might even be harmful. In larger
> Wikipedias, like the English, it's a good idea, I believe.

I agree that preventing anonymous users to contribute new articles on
smaller wikipedias is harmful.  Recently, we get a lot of very good
articles on Slovene wikipedia from anonymous IPs.

I can't see why would it be a good idea in English, but I don't really
care, as long as this policy stays out of my favourite wikipedia.
--
	Pozdrav,
	  Roman


from_name: Mike

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked by a biased administrator

body:
username csssclll
*IP address is 172.216.248.174

*

I am sorry to inform you that you have been blocked under
WP:3RR<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:3RR>for 24 hours. From
[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arabic_numerals&action=history>,
it is clear that you have crossed 3 reverts between edits from 16:21 and
17:36 (UTC). While I understand that you are new to Wikipedia, I would urge
you to spend time in getting accustomed to the way Wikipedia works. Also,
misuse of edit summaries and personal attacks on other editors are
definitely not welcome. Please think over your actions so that you can
contribute better once the block expires. Thanks and regards,
--Gurubrahma<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gurubrahma>18:04, 11
December 2005 (UTC)
Given your username
Gurubrahma<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gurubrahma>and the
content of your user page I do not consider you an unbiased person
on this issue and I wish that you had left it to another, neutral
administrator to act on this matter, especially so that other editors of
that page whom I assume requested your intervention share your allegiance
and were in persistent violation of wikipedia policies that "content must be
based on verifiable sources"; Wikipedia:Neutral point of
view<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>,
Wikipedia:No original
research<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research>,
Wikipedia: Cite sources<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_sources>,
Wikipedia:Verifiability<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability>,
and Wikipedia:Reliable
sources<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources>,
and have failed to abide by those wikipedia policies despite my repeated
requests in the talk pages, hence justifying my description of their
demonstrable, deliberate false content as lies, and my characterisation of
their conduct as lying. My so-called "personal attacks" on them simply
characterised their conduct and does not meet wikipedia's Blocking
policy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy>'s
definition of "Personal attacks which place users in danger" provision that
should be "rarely used" as a justification for blocking, as for "excessive
reverts" the blocking policy clearly states that "In the cases where
multiple parties violate the rule, sysops should treat all sides equally";
have you done so? I see that you haven't as one of them has just now branded
content that was painstakingly cited on a point-by-point basis to verifiable
and reliable sources a "hoax"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals. I will
be reporting this to multiple, neutral wikipedia administrators and WikiEN-l
mailing list and asking for a review of the situation. (csssclll 18:40, 11
December 2005 (UTC))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:History_of_Indian_and_Arabic_numerals#Vertaloni.2C_examples_of_errors_in_your_version


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

body:
On 12/11/05, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> Carbonite wrote:
>
> >I'm starting to like where this proposal is going. I have some suggestions
> >that I'd like to throw out for feedback:
> >
> >- AfD would be turned off for the first two weeks of the month (1st -14th).
> >During this time no nominations or "votes" are allowed. Any article not
> >nominated by the last day of the previous month would have to wait until the
> >15th. Existing AfDs would continued to be closed. Speedy deletion criteria
> >would still be in effect.
> >
> >- The second week of the month (8th-14th), all mainspace article creation
> >would be turned off. This could be enforced through software by only
> >allowing article creation by admins (and this would be strongly
> >discouraged). Talk pages and pages in other namespaces could be created by
> >all registered users.
> >
> I'm not so keen on this, because a) I don't always have complete
> control over which days and times I can do editing, and b) a routine
> type of cleanup is to cut portmanteau and oversized articles into
> several logical pieces. But then again I could use the time to
> upload more of my pic backlog (assuming commons lets me create the
> gallery pages for them...), or simply take a wikivacation because my
> eyes are bleeding from retagging thousands of fair-use pictures. :-)
>
> If you want to incentivize, then just announce prizes ("most-improved
> in one week", "most stubs expanded past 500 words", etc).
>
> Stan

Those will only interest a limited number of people. Switching off
article creation will be slightly noticable.

--
geni


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Inactive wikis

body:
Which wikis would this be?

Mark

On 11/12/05, Zigger <zigger at gmail.com> wrote:
> Having spent many hours recently starting to clean out spam from
> wikimedia's inactive wikis, I would be very surprised if they are all
> regularly monitored.
>
> The list below is of currently targeted pages on inactive wikis, which
> should be deleted (now that there is protection from anon page
> creation), or at least protected until the wikis have at least one
> active contributor.
>
> Help:Contents
> Current_events
> Project:About
> Project:General_disclaimer
> Project:Community_Portal
>
> -- Zigger
>
> On 10/12/05, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > These wikis are regularly monitored for vandalism.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 09/12/05, Amgine wrote:
> > > There is a list of inactive wikis which should be locked at
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis which are currently spam
> > > traps, with many more to be added. I was wondering if this was still a
> > > Steward privilege, or if we need to ask developers to lock these?
> >...
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin