body:
Hoi,
I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect people who are to play a part
in the organisation of the Wikimedia Foundation to have an obvious interest
in our projects. Expecting people to have edited on Wikipedia is a bad
example of yet again thinking the WMF is the same as Wikipedia. When you
want to have "important" or "notable" people governing our organisation and
you yourself get it wrong; indicating that there are "more ways to help us
with our mission than editing Wikipedia", I fear that they will also get it
wrong.

The Wikimedia Foundation is NOT Wikipedia. Boardmembers should have an
obvious interest in what we do. Being notable does not qualify people. If
you want someone notable, ask Kofi Anan to become a board member when his
tenure as the secretary general of the United Nations has ended. This is
what I call notable; notability as an IT person is not what I would think
qualifies a person as a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Delirium wrote:
> > I disagree with that.  We have a huge body of people, and we're open to
> > anybody who wants to join---there's no membership criterion except
> > showing up (I'm not arguing for a "minimum 20,000 edits" or something).
> > Excluding people who have deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our
> > mission from being on the board seems perfectly reasonable to me.
>
> The point is, asking someone like Larry Lessig (and he is only one
> example, choose someone else you admire greatly if you have something
> against him) to become an active wikipedia editor as a condition of
> joining the board strikes me as silly.
>
> He has hardly "deliberately chosen *not* to help us with our mission".
> There are more ways to help us with our mission than editing Wikipedia.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: GerardM

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
	priorities for my work)


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Akash Mehta

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

body:
Just out of interest, are there any guidelines for preparing 2008 bids?

Also, is there anyone from Sydney, Australia who would be interested in
helping organise Wikimania 2008?

-- Draicone

On 9/25/06, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that Wikimania
> 2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan.  Taipei had the winning
> combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great venue
> with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong
> sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity to
> focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the
> international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as learning
> about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
>
> This was a very difficult decision.  Every one of the shortlisted bids
> this year were outstanding.  The Turin bid came in a close second; their
> team made a great effort to procure two strong locations and extensive
> government support, and gathered the Italian community together to
> develop an outstanding bid.  Alexandria deserves recognition for
> bringing the Egyptian and Arabic-language community into the spotlight,
> and for finding a remarkable venue partner in the Library of Alexandria.
> London also produced a very strong bid, with a great venue, focus on
> educational outreach, the diversity of London, and the strong Wikimedia
> UK team.
>
> Thank you to all of the bidders, including those who did not make
> the shortlist, for your time and energy in developing these bids.
> We hope this year's city teams will find ways to build on the contacts
> and sponsors developed in the bid process for a 2008 bid or for hosting
> a regional event.
>
> We strongly encourage all who bid this year, and those of you wondering
> whether your city could have done the same, to consider preparing city
> bids for Wikimania in 2008 or 2009. Unofficial bids for 2008 should be
> started now, as the decision on that city will be made this winter
> (more details on 2008's bid process coming soon; watch
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids
> for updates).
>
> Now the work for the winners will begin, as they develop plans for the
> conference next summer.  We encourage the entire community to support
> Taipei over the coming year in producing an outstanding conference.
>
> With thanks,
> The 2007 Wikimania bid jury
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Gianluigi Gamba

subject: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

body:
I congratulate with Taipei team and I'm sure they'll organize a memorable
event.

As a member of the Turin bidding team, let me voice a choral "too bad".
We had a sort of incredible "astral conjunction" of sponsors *really eager*
to have the Wikimania event, the enthusiasm of the whole community, the
honeymoon with the media and the commitment of many people from national
(and not only) institutions.
I wonder if such combination will return in a future. I hope so.

A prayer to the future jury: that's not been this year's case, but should
geographic and linguistic criteria be essential in choosing the future
locations, please say it in advance, before people start making contacts,
put their faces off and spend words.

Good luck Taipei, and good job.

G. (aka Paginazero)


list: wikien-l

from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Schools, notability, inclusionism, deletionism, etc.

body:
On 9/24/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/24/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I find that people who delete entire guideline pages (or any other
> > pages) without warning get RFCs, and then later people bring those
> > RFCs up on the listserv in bizarre attempts to sling mud.
>
> Well I killed an entire policy page. I'm not sure anyone noticed.
> Certian didn't result in an RFC.

Out of curiosity, what page was it? Whatever it was, I'm assuming that
it wasn't as important as WP:RS

--Oskar


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 24/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> People react badly to "this sucks therefor I'm going to kill it". Far
> better is to say here is a better option. And make sure that better
> option is fairly solid. Write it out. Redraft it. Find a couple of
> rule lawyers that you trust to find all the flaws in it and fix the
> most problematical ones. then figure out all your arguments as to why
> it is better. Then you make a move.

Yep, per the process essay. Yay politics!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] cc-by-nw (Encyclopedia of Earth)

body:
On 24/09/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/24/06, Scott Zager <archmagusrm at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Creative Commons at least does a very good job of providing non-legalese
> > outlines of what can and can't be done with the various licenses.  I'm not
> > sure if there is anything similar for GFDL or the like, but it certainly
> > would be helpful.  Perhaps a nice collection of all the common free licenses
> > and synapses of each one would be a good thing to have in one place.

> in theory this is being worked on here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia

Basically it needs to be filled out, yeah.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Extension to [[MediaWiki:Bad image
	list]]

body:
On 9/25/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> /me imagines that this will be quite useful for enforcing "fair use"
> restrictions (cc-ed to wikien-l)

This is a good point! However, how well does the bad image list scale?
I mean, right now there are what, 6-7 images so it isn't a problem,
but if we include fair use restrictions on this and the list grows to
the thousands, how much drain will this be on the servers? After all,
the feature wasn't designed for that.

If server drain isn't much of a problem however, I think it would be a
very good idea to discuss how/if we should use this for fair use
questions.

--Oskar


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] Royal Society archives online until December

body:
On 25/09/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

> >Is there anywhere on Commons to upload this yet? If not, something along
> >the lines of:
> >http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Journals

> You of course realize that mass downloads of journals may be construed
> as a copy of a significant part of a database, which is protected by a
> special copyright (much shorter than the regular one) under EU directives?

And the UK law implementing this is ...

David Monniaux says the Foundation should:
[ ] not download and save this stuff on commons without absolute legal clarity
[ ] say "such a restriction on hundreds of years old material is
odious" and do it anyway
[ ] something else

- d.


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia a News Portal (among other things)?

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>> On 9/23/06, David Alexander Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Here's an idea. I presume the main problem with scanning them is their
>>> size (ie they won't fit on an ordinary scanner). Why not just scan them
>>> in sections and then use 'photo stitching' software (the kind that's
>>> designed to turn a collection of photos into a panorama) to turn the
>>> scanned sections into a single image?
>>>
>>>
>> Posible in theory but requires a lot of scans per map which increases
>> the required time a lot.
>>
> Unless someone has access to a mega-size scanner that takes a whole
> sheet at once.  Such beasts are already used by companies who reproduce
> building construction plans.
>
> Ec
>

The approach used by Google and the Internet Archive is to chuck them
into a right-angle frame with glass sheets and cameras.

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

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from_name: Angela

body:
> > Make sure committees aren't going astray.
>
> Only where the big picture goals of the foundation
> are concerned; the Foundation is NOT AT ALL in
> the business of community governance. Nor
> should it ever for legal reasons (we would lose any
> pretense of ISP protections if we did, of course, IANAL).

I meant the Foundation committees, like chapters, trademarks, etc.
Obviously not things like the arbitration committee or any other
project-related ones.

> Having every board member try to monitor everything is not an answer either.

I'm not saying the Board should monitor everything. I'm saying they
should never be denied access to information when they need it. There
is no justification for the current situation when Board members are
explicity denied the right to read private wikis.

Angela


body:
On 9/25/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] <unforgettableid at gmail.com> wrote:
> A while back I heard how Amazon.com scans entire books.
>
> 1. Some books are scanned in North America using, IIRC (foggy memory),
> a homemade page-turning apparatus that somehow works together with a
> scanner. It is fully automatic.

For non-rare books, they actually feed the entire book to a machine
that cuts of the spine of the book and loads the book page by page.
That way they can very rapidly scan large amounts of text.

> 2. Some books are scanned in India. It is cheap to hire manual workers
> there, so they hire people to run the scanners.
>
> It seems that most of the Wikimedia Foundation's budget goes towards
> buying hardware, but I wonder if it'd be practical for us to hire
> people to do either of these things.

WMF is strapped for cash, that money is needed elsewhere. The servers
are very expensive.

Besides, WP has always been about volunteers, for virtually every
aspect of it's operation and for all of it's content creation. It
shouldn't be any different for this, even though this is a lot harder.

--Oskar


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal re: sep11.wikipedia.org

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> sep11.wikipedia.org is currently in read-only mode. I suggest the
> following course of action:
>
> 1) That the wiki be opened again for a period of 4 weeks.
>
> 2) That an open message is to be sent out to ask for clean-up of the
> wiki -- remove irrelevant content, possible lingering spam, etc.
>
> 3) That, after the cleanup is complete, the wiki is exported as a
> static HTML dump and hosted by a volunteer external to the Wikimedia
> Foundation under its own domain name. No reference should be made to
> it from then on as an official Wikimedia project. It might be possible
> to arrange advance renumeration for the domain name cost and hosting.

All sounds good to me.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

body:
Good news,
considering that all is paid by sponsorship (Halls and rooms,
accomodations, catering) I think that these strong opportunities
could offer to the wikipedians the incentive to make a long journey
in a pleasant town.

In any case I don't understand if only 450 beds are paid for
sponsorship or if the sponsors will pay all 889 beds (http://meta.
wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2007/Taipei#Accommodation) because a
room in a Grand Hotel is expensive.

Regards

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: walter at vankalken.net
Data: 25.09.06 2.21
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

Yes finally a wikimania in my neighbourhood. It was a shame
Singapore
fell out earlier though

Waerth

>The Wikimania jury has met and are pleased to announce that
Wikimania
>2007 will be held in Taipei, Taiwan.  Taipei had the winning
>combination of a dedicated and experienced bidding team, a great
venue
>with centralized accomodation and community areas, and strong
>sponsorship opportunities. Taipei also provides the opportunity
to
>focus attention on the growing Asian language projects and the
>international aspect of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as
learning
>about other free knowledge efforts and projects in the region.
>


body:
Absolutely not.

The criteria could not consider the alternation of continents.

Also FIFA has changed this rule because it's difficult to follow.

IMHO it's important to verify the availability of Wikipedians to
have a long journey to reach the host town.

A preliminary vote of wikipedians combined with a vote of dedicated
team could be the good solution.

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: klempert at gmail.com
Data: 25.09.06 3.36
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

[CUT]

We really have to find a way to avoid such inevitable (and
probably
huge) frustration among teams and sponsors. Perhaps a list of
preferred continents could help, or a much earlier involvement of
the
jury, whatever. Please don't encourage Wikipedians all over the
world
to waste their time (and the good will of sponsors) again.

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
	priorities ...

body:
On 25/09/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> And if someone of the stature of
> Kofi  Anan asked if he could help Wikipedia by serving on its board, we should
> be  grateful.

So ... anyone got his number?

- d.


from_name: David Monniaux

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>And the UK law implementing this is ...
>
>
UK law is a confusing mess, I'll let our British friends search for it.

In France it is title IV of the Code of intellectual property, inserted
by law 98-536 taken in application of directive 96/9/CE of March 11, 1996:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996L0009:EN:HTML

>David Monniaux says the Foundation should:
>
>
The Foundation, by itself, should do nothing. Individual users uploading
material take their responsibilities. The Foundation only provides hosting.

-- DM


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 9/23/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> So, should we be just as complete for schools, albums, songs, TV
> shows, and so on?  Would that just be duplicating IMDB, etc., or
> would it be helping to make Wikipedia a one-stop resource for more in-
> depth info (including links where appropriate to other sites like
> IMDB) on everything in each of these fields?

Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
an article on it?

Define "album".  Is a collection of a dozen songs by a teenage garage
band, burned to CD and given to a bunch of their friends an album?
Should we have an article on it?  What if the band and album were
mentioned in the "human interest" section of the local paper, making
it verifiable?

Define "TV show".  Is the weekly broadcast by the local high-school TV
club on the school's five-watt transmitter a TV show?

Populated areas are generally easy to define, since governments have
an interest in enumerating and tracking them.  Most other things
aren't.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Extension to [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]]

body:
I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] feature.
You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image is
allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:

* [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]

The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are relevant.

I've documented the format at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list

-- Tim Starling


list: wikitech-l

subject: [Wikitech-l] Extension to [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]]


body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] feature.
> You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image is
> allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:
>
> * [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]
>
> The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are relevant.
>
> I've documented the format at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list
>

/me imagines that this will be quite useful for enforcing "fair use"
restrictions (cc-ed to wikien-l)

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

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body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] feature.
> You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image is
> allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:
>
> * [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]
>
> The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are relevant.
>
> I've documented the format at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list
>

/me imagines that this will be quite useful for enforcing "fair use"
restrictions (cc-ed to wikien-l)

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

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from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Encyclopedia of Earth appears to be now online...

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 24/09/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>> While this is all true, the GFDL *is* fairly far along the process of
>> being rewritten, and the FSF has seemed willing to consult with
>> Wikipedia about its needs during the process (I believe Jimbo has been
>> queried about it).  Whether the language will be less of a confusing
>> mish-mash I won't speculate, but the single biggest problem---that you
>> have to print the entire damn license with every copy you
>> distribute---seems likely to be solved.
>>
>
>
> This is the first I'd heard that there was actual progress. Excellent!
>
> Are they going to release it for public comment as they did the
> planned GPL rewrite?
>

I must confess I didn't have any actual information on progress; I just
sort of assumed that after two years of the process and occasional
reports from Jimbo that somebody had asked him something, that it was
fairly far along.  An alternative would be that it's been stalled for
two years. :)

I just emailed licensing at gnu.org about it, though, and got a reply that
"the first discussion draft should be out very, very soon".  Sounds
promising.

-Mark


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 25/09/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] feature.
> You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image is
> allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:
>
> * [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]
>
> The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are relevant.
>
> I've documented the format at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list

Tim, you are a genius and we love you dearly. This'll be a great help
in selectively handling vandalism-magnets...

(Hope you're feeling better, by the way)

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


from_name: Gordon Joly

body:
It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.

We look forward to Wikimania 2007 and hope that Wikimania will swing
back to Europe in 2008!

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly at pobox.com///


body:
IMHO at least two other bids has had "the venue and accommodation on
a single site".

If people are looking for another reason it could because there is
not a simple reason like this.

Regards

Ilario

----Messaggio originale----
Da: beesley at gmail.com
Data: 25.09.06 14.20
A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Copia: <translators-l at wikimedia.org>, <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

> It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be
successful.

No it wasn't and I wish people didn't have this misconception.

All of the bids were considered against a range of criteria, not
only
location. Amongst many other factors, Taipei offered the venue and
accommodation on a single site, and their organizing team had
prior
experience from running the Chinese Wikimania this year. It's
unfair
to them to suggest they only won because they're in Asia.


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 9/25/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sep 25, 2006, at 4:23 PM, David Russell wrote:
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Mark Wagner wrote:
> >> Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
> >> school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
> >> the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
> >> particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
> >> Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
> >> or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
> >> an article on it?
> >
> > Yes. The unusualness (is that a word?) of this arrangement means
> > that it
> > would be inherently notable.
>
> Home-schooling in Michigan is not unusual. That they put a "school
> name" on the books does not make a given home-school notable.
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

This does bring up the perfectly good point that even if we made a
completely inclusionary policy, we'd still have "school like things"
(Michigan home school pseudo-schools) which aren't really notable or
"schools" by normal standards.

There will have to be a line short of "all things that have any record
claiming they may be a school of some sort".

The first place that line seems logically to go, on first inspection, is
"Paid teachers".

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


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] process essay nearly cooked

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay
> I'd most welcome you all looking over it and letting me know of...

It needs a lot of wordsmithing.  It's obvious to you what it's
getting at, but it won't be to a first-time, uninitiated reader.

(I took a stab at cleaning up two sections.)


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
On 9/25/06, Arne Klempert <klempert at gmail.com> wrote:

> We really have to find a way to avoid such inevitable (and probably
> huge) frustration among teams and sponsors. Perhaps a list of
> preferred continents could help, or a much earlier involvement of the
> jury, whatever. Please don't encourage Wikipedians all over the world
> to waste their time (and the good will of sponsors) again.

Arne is perfectly right in the description of the problem. On the
other hand, we are not the first organisation to discover it. Other
events (please ignore differences in size by orders of magnitude) such
as the Olympic Games do have a candidate city evaluation as well. If
one city is chosen, the effort put into 20 other proposals is void.

There is of couse a good reason for the procedure we are currently
doing: How do we know which effort is worth before doing it? How do we
find the best location that fits our needs? In the long run, you end
up having more or less the same system, only by different names.

And there is another issue: How to we keep people working for
Wikimania even if "their city" is not chosen this time. It is not
wasting the goodwill of companies (especially multinational
corporations) to ask if their offer for sponsorship still applies to
the chosen location. In 2006, Chinese Wikipedians had a (from what I
can see) very successful regional (using the term "regional" for an
area with 1.4 billion people is strange, I know) conference. I think
it could be worth checking if the conference parameters would still
fit for a Italian/Alps/European event.

It is great that we have chosen Taipei, Taiwan ROC as the location for
Wikimania 2007 and it would love it to be able to make it there.

Mathias


from_name: Alison Wheeler

body:
On Mon, September 25, 2006 13:48, Arne Klempert wrote:
> Sorry, it is very hard to ignore the differences between Wikimania and
> events like the Olympic Games.

Actually, as it happens we'd had input from the successful London 2012
Olympics bid team and they were on board with our bid such that we were
able to offer Wikimania attendees at minimum a keynote from them and
probably a lot more, so it isn't that big a stretch!

Alison


body:
On 9/25/06, David Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Wagner wrote:
> > Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
> > school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
> > the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
> > particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
> > Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
> > or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
> > an article on it?
>
> Yes. The unusualness (is that a word?) of this arrangement means that it
> would be inherently notable.

So every one of the tens of thousands of single-student private
schools in Michigan needs an article?

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Yoni Weiden

body:
10KB Limit?
1) How do I know when I have reached the limit?
2) Why is the limit so small - the link-black-list is way over 10KB, or so I
believe.

he:yonidebest

On 9/25/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 25/09/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]]
> feature.
> > You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image
> is
> > allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:
> >
> > * [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]
> >
> > The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are
> relevant.
> >
> > I've documented the format at:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list
>
> Tim, you are a genius and we love you dearly. This'll be a great help
> in selectively handling vandalism-magnets...
>
> (Hope you're feeling better, by the way)
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1373
>
> Everything back to 1665. Really quite a lot of which is public domain.
> Get downloading.
>
>

Is there anywhere on Commons to upload this yet? If not, something along
the lines of:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Journals

and then order them by which issue, which article, etc.

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

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from_name: Gatto Nero

body:
2006/9/25, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com>:
>
>
> It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.
>
> We look forward to Wikimania 2007 and hope that Wikimania will swing
> back to Europe in 2008!
>
> Gordo

Then why did they open a WorldWide Contest?
They knew they were going to choose a city in Asia, then why
shortlisting 3 city out of Asia (and only one in it)?
That's ridicolous.
If "turnation" was that important, they would have told in a very
clear way by the begin: "We are gonna choose Asia, cities from Asia
can make a bid. Others not".

Gatto Nero
(that's what I talk about when I use the verb "be fooled")


from_name: GerardM

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
	priorities ...

body:
Hoi,
What we are talking about is not so much that people who are expert in a
field could not make a valuable contribution on the board of the Wikimedia
Foundation. When notable people are only notable but have little to do with
our projects, our organisation. When a person is "notable" he or she has to
be truly notable on an international scale in order not to find people of
equal stature that are already active within the projects.

Yes, the Wikimedia Foundation is about education, free culture but that is
not what the Wikimedia Foundation is limited to. It is also about free
content, internationalisation, delivery of content, technology. It is not
obvious at all what makes for enough "notability" to offset an obvious
interest in the Wikimedia Foundation. I also wonder what type of
organisation these people represent. An organisation like iEARN has an
important similarity with the WMF; it is about education and
internationalisation, it has a grassroots type of approach like the WMF. You
could also consider the OLPC project; it has both an educational,
international and technological aspect, they are going to reuse Wikipedia
content. My point here is that choosing "notables" over partners may have
not been considered but it adds true values by increasing the community.

When we are to include specific people, they have to have a name recognition
that is not limited to an "in crowd", the person has to have international
recognition and the added value of the person will have to be more about
what he or she will mean in the future for our organisation and less about
what he or she has done in the past.

You mention Larry Lessig, my understanding is that he is about a single
issue. An issue that does not make him the "obvious' candidate, and given
the extend to which this issue is personified I could suggest that it is
easily politicized. I would prefer to have a representation of an
organisation over an individual as organisations add more value in the end
than single people do.

NB When we would like people like Kofi Anan on our board, we ask them they
would not ask us to become part of our board. I think that would be obvious.

FYI nothing wrong with Larry Lessig, it is just that you picked him out as
an example.

Thanks,
     Gerard

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: daniwo59 at aol.com < daniwo59 at aol.com>
Date: Sep 25, 2006 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
priorities ...
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org

In a message dated 9/25/2006 4:08:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:

The  Wikimedia Foundation is NOT Wikipedia. Boardmembers should have an
obvious  interest in what we do. Being notable does not qualify people. If
you want  someone notable, ask Kofi Anan to become a board member when his
tenure as  the secretary general of the United Nations has ended. This is
what I call  notable; notability as an IT person is not what I would think
qualifies a  person as a board member of the Wikimedia  Foundation.

No one is suggesting that notability is the sole criteria. However, we
are  a
project devoted to education, so bring in educators, we are a project
devoted
to free culture, so bring in people who are at the forefront of the free
content  movement. And yes, we are a project devoted to reaching out to the
developing  world, so bring in people with experience in that world. Larry
Lessig
or other  people like seem like a good idea. And if someone of the stature
of
Kofi  Anan asked if he could help Wikipedia by serving on its board, we
should
be  grateful.

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


body:
Hoi,
What we are talking about is not so much that people who are expert in a
field could not make a valuable contribution on the board of the Wikimedia
Foundation. When notable people are only notable but have little to do with
our projects, our organisation. When a person is "notable" he or she has to
be truly notable on an international scale in order not to find people of
equal stature that are already active within the projects.

Yes, the Wikimedia Foundation is about education, free culture but that is
not what the Wikimedia Foundation is limited to. It is also about free
content, internationalisation, delivery of content, technology. It is not
obvious at all what makes for enough "notability" to offset an obvious
interest in the Wikimedia Foundation. I also wonder what type of
organisation these people represent. An organisation like iEARN has an
important similarity with the WMF; it is about education and
internationalisation, it has a grassroots type of aproach like the WMF. You
could also consider the OLPC project; it has both an educational,
international and technological aspect, they are going to reuse Wikipedia
content. My point here is that choosing "notables" over partners may have
not been considered but it adds true values by increasing the community.

When we are to include specific people, they have to have a name recognition
that is not limited to an "in crowd", the person has to have international
recognition and the added value of the person will have to be more about
what he or she will mean in the future for our organisation and less about
what he or she has done in the past.

You mention Larry Lessig, my understanding is that he is about a single
issue. An issue that does not make him the "obvious' candidate, and given
the extend to which this issue is personified I could suggest that it is
easily politicized. I would prefer to have a representation of an
organisation over an individual as organisations add more value in the end
than single people do.

When we would like people like Kofi Anan on our board, we ask them they
would not ask us to become part of our board. I think that would be obvious.

NB fyi nothing wrong with Larry Lessig, it is just that you picked him out
as an example.

Thanks,
     Gerard

On 9/25/06, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 9/25/2006 4:08:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com writes:
>
> The  Wikimedia Foundation is NOT Wikipedia. Boardmembers should have an
> obvious  interest in what we do. Being notable does not qualify people. If
> you want  someone notable, ask Kofi Anan to become a board member when his
> tenure as  the secretary general of the United Nations has ended. This is
> what I call  notable; notability as an IT person is not what I would think
> qualifies a  person as a board member of the Wikimedia  Foundation.
>
>
>
>
> No one is suggesting that notability is the sole criteria. However, we
> are  a
> project devoted to education, so bring in educators, we are a project
> devoted
> to free culture, so bring in people who are at the forefront of the free
> content  movement. And yes, we are a project devoted to reaching out to
> the
> developing  world, so bring in people with experience in that world. Larry
> Lessig
> or other  people like seem like a good idea. And if someone of the stature
> of
> Kofi  Anan asked if he could help Wikipedia by serving on its board, we
> should
> be  grateful.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Einat Amitay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Help collecting data for a study about Web authorship

body:
Hello,

My name is Einat and I'm a researcher with IBM. I'd like to ask for your
help with a study I'm conducting.

I want to study the way people choose to express themselves in their blogs,
personal homepage, work page, wiki, shared tagging, etc.

In order to do this I need people to send me back a list of the URLs that
they have authored on the Web.

Sending this message to a widely distributed mailinglist may help me reach
many people with similar interest.

If you are willing to help me collect this information please send me a
list that looks like this:

personal homepage: [url]
blog: [url]
professional homepage: [url]
family album: [url]
anything else: [url]

When the study is over I will send a report to those who will help me
collect this data (i.e. to those who sent me their list).

Thanks,
Einat

---
Einat Amitay, PhD.
Information Retrieval Group
IBM Research Lab in Haifa, Israel

Alter ego:
http://WebIR.org
http://einat.webir.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webir/


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 9/25/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Other events (please ignore differences in size by orders of magnitude)
> such as the Olympic Games do have a candidate city evaluation as
> well. If one city is chosen, the effort put into 20 other proposals is void.

Sorry, it is very hard to ignore the differences between Wikimania and
events like the Olympic Games.

> And there is another issue: How to we keep people working for
> Wikimania even if "their city" is not chosen this time. It is not
> wasting the goodwill of companies (especially multinational
> corporations) to ask if their offer for sponsorship still applies to
> the chosen location.

Right, but the bidding teams were encouraged to look for *local*
sponsors. Perhaps it would be better to explicitly forbid the teams to
do that before the city is chosen: The Wikimedia Foundation can look
for global sponsors long before the selection, and ask local sponsors
afterwards, together with the bidding team. Just an idea to lessen the
amount of work and minimize the possible disappointments.

Arne


from_name: James Hare

body:
James Hare approves of Erik's proposal. Then again, James Hare likes hearing
James Hare talk about James Hare. JAMES HARE!

On 9/25/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > sep11.wikipedia.org is currently in read-only mode. I suggest the
> > following course of action:
> >
> > 1) That the wiki be opened again for a period of 4 weeks.
> >
> > 2) That an open message is to be sent out to ask for clean-up of the
> > wiki -- remove irrelevant content, possible lingering spam, etc.
> >
> > 3) That, after the cleanup is complete, the wiki is exported as a
> > static HTML dump and hosted by a volunteer external to the Wikimedia
> > Foundation under its own domain name. No reference should be made to
> > it from then on as an official Wikimedia project. It might be possible
> > to arrange advance renumeration for the domain name cost and hosting.
>
> All sounds good to me.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>sep11.wikipedia.org is currently in read-only mode. I suggest the
>following course of action:
>
>1) That the wiki be opened again for a period of 4 weeks.
>
>2) That an open message is to be sent out to ask for clean-up of the
>wiki -- remove irrelevant content, possible lingering spam, etc.
>
>3) That, after the cleanup is complete, the wiki is exported as a
>static HTML dump and hosted by a volunteer external to the Wikimedia
>Foundation under its own domain name. No reference should be made to
>it from then on as an official Wikimedia project. It might be possible
>to arrange advance renumeration for the domain name cost and hosting.
>
>Does this sound like a sensible course of action?
>
>If you are a volunteer, and willing to host the content, please send
>me a private e-mail response.
>
>

Just out of general interest, why exactly is this course of action being
followed, particularly for complete dumping of the 9/11 wiki?  Are there
bandwidth issues that are getting out of hand here?  Is this really
taking up so much hard drive space that it could be better used for a
much more worthy Wikimedia project?

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that this wiki be turned back on and left
alone for vandals to play with as they have done so in the relatively
recent past, nor am I asking the WMF to deal with all kinds of useless
garbage that does eventually clog up some Wikimedia projects over time.

 From my understanding of the sep11 wikipedia and why it was
established, that there were many very heartfelt additions to Wikipedia
in the days, weeks, and months after the 9/11 attacks on the USA.
 Rather than simply culling all of this content from Wikipedia,
particularly for the "not noteworthy" individuals who had substantial
information added about them only to be nominated for deletion on
Wikipedia, this Wiki was set up to deal with that traffic and serve as a
repository of that information and go into depth about the 9/11 attacks.

At this point  I would agree that this has become an historical archive
of generally 1st hand reports (again, another reason for culling on
en.wikipedia) and other information about the events of that attack.
 This also deals with the general issue of how the WMF deals with
information of historcal nature.

If this is a worry about hard drive space on the computers, I would
offer another alternative:  How about deleting all archival edits that
are more than two years old?  I mean, do we really need to read some of
Jimbo's early edits to Wikipedia from over five years ago that are now
completely rewritten?  At least this is something to think about if hard
drive space is becoming a substantial issue, as even the most obscure
and neglected project or even article is likely to get at least some
attention by somebody over the course of two years to revert any major
vandalism requiring edits going back any further.

BTW, offers have been made in the past to privately host this content
(the sep11.wikipedia) but those offers are all more than a year old and
circumstances have indeed changed.  I'm not exactly sure where to go
with it, but closing it down completely just doesn't seem right to me.
 I do support the "freeze" on the database, as I think the effort to add
substantial quantities of content has essentially run its course.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [Wikitech-l] images - combining two wikis

body:
I want to combine two mediawikis. In both are existing images.
How could this be done?

Just copy the images from one directory to the other ?
+ SQL-Export/import wikidb.images

I've no idea. who can help?

thx. heinzJ


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Simplified blocking policy, for your consideration

body:
Rewrite (started by Inksplotch, lots of tightening by me):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy/Simplified

Discussion at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Refactored_blocking_policy

I've written a new bit of the process essay covering the sort of
'policy' that's hardened process, and tested it by applying it to this
rewrite. Let's see if it worked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay#Process_hardened_to_policy

- d.


from_name: Michael Billington

body:
>
> Reading that page leads me to believe that this is a quick hack which
> filters all edits to the relevant pages,  and somewhat of a
> performance hog.  Doesn't seem like something that could be applied to
> thousands and thousands of images or pages.
>
> --Gwern
> _______________________________________________
>
I agree. It would be good if there *were* a technical measure to stop fair
use violation though. Perhaps if it were to check the page when it is saved
(like the spam black list) it would be viable.

.. That actually leads me to think: does the spam black list extenstion have
a "block this link except on this page"?

/me also thinks that wikipedia-l is not IRC, alphax


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools

body:
Frank Schulenburg wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> last friday Wikimedia Germany realised a pilot scheme for a new project
> called "Wikipedia at schools". It is based on the fact that Wikipedia
> evidently is the most popular source of information for german pupils
> today. During september 2006 we asked 98 pupils at the age of seventeen
> of the "Andreanum" [1] at Hildesheim (about 25 km southeast of Hanover)
> which source of information they would prefer to prepare their homework.
> A total of 63 per cent stated that they favor Wikipedia and Google
> (which will lead them to Wikipedia in nearly all cases) over printed
> works. The pupils answers to other questions clearly showed us that they
> fully trusted in all of the information they find online. Almost never
> they challenge those information nor do they analyze its quality. But
> beside the fact that Wikipedias quality increases each day we have to
> admit that there are certain areas where quality improvement is badly
> needed. We should feel responsible to the pupils for the clarification
> of this fact and for tips how to recognize the quality of a Wikipedia
> article (does the editor cite reliable sources? is the article written
> from a neutral point of view? etc.)
>
> So we organized a day of information about Wikipedia for all pupils of
> the eleventh grade of the Andreanum as well as for their teachers and
> parents. The day started at 10 o'clock in the morning with a general
> introduction about the goals, history and functionality of Wikipedia.
> Afterwards we had two workshops for pupils and one workshop for
> teachers, taking two hours each. In particular the workshop for teachers
> cleary showed us a great need for detailed information about the
> functionality of Wikipedia. None of the teachers knew much about how the
> articles emerge and which instruments of quality improvement already
> exist. After a short break we had another block of workshops for pupils
> and for parents. At five o'clock in the evening all 110 pupils and about
> 20 teachers and parents had attended at least one workshop. The day
> ended with a lecture held by a teacher of a school at Fulda (about 80 km
> northeast of Frankfurt) who wrote a short article for the english
> Wikipedia with the pupils of her English class in 2005[2] and who gave
> us a detailed report about her experiences.
>
> Our next goal will be to evaluate our work and to compile a short
> guidebook about Wikipedia for pupils and teachers[3]. Together with the
> Andreanum at Hildesheim, Wikimedia Germany will enter a contest called
> "Deutscher Innovationspreis f?r nachhaltige Bildung" (German Innovation
> Award for Lasting Education)[4].
>
> Photos we took at Hildesheim can be found on Commons:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Schulprojekt
>
> Wikimedia Germany is deeply indebted to the two administrators
> User:Finanzer and User:Markus_Mueller who worked with the pupils last
> friday and to the Andreanum Hildesheim for its cooperation.
>
> Greetings,
> Frank Schulenburg
>
> Board member of Wikimedia Germany
> Phone +49 (0)551 2726447
> Frank.Schulenburg [at] wikimedia.de
>
> [1] Founded before 1225, the "Andreanum" is one of the oldest schools in
> Germany http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_Andreanum_%28Hildesheim%29
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Norris
> [3]
> http://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/Projekt:Online-Nachschlagewerke_in_der_schulischen_Praxis
> [4] http://deutscher-innovationspreis.de/

Thanks for telling us about this initiative Frank. That's a pretty cool
idea.

ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject:
[Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
	priorities for my work)

body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I take the Debian model as a pretty good example of foundation
> governance in free-culture projects, and they don't seem to have found
> this necessary.  The board of Software in the Public Interest, the
> foundation that owns the Debian assets, is composed primarily of Debian
> developers, including mainly former project leads or major sub-project
> leads.  They do retain a legal advisor to sift through matters they
> aren't personally qualified to examine, but the counsel is not actually
> a board member.

Nor do I think we need to look outside the community for the board members we need.

-- mav

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 9/25/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> But I'll be glad to hear from Jimbo and Erik whether they consider
> english wikipedia arbcom elections being a board issue.

Absolutely not.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Congratulations to the bidding team of Taipei. I believe it was a very
good choice  - you are very much behind your bid, you feel wikimania in
your city ... that came over during your answers in the chat ... well,
there's not much to say right now - just go ahead doing a great and fun
job :-)

Enjoy each moment of the following month - it will be a memorable period
for those who work on the event and for people who will attend it.

Best wishes from Italy,

Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice: chiama da PC a telefono a tariffe esclusive
http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [Foundation-l] New Extension Written - WikiLogic

body:
On 9/25/06, Virgil Ierubino <virgil.ierubino at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have written an extension to make it easy to write Formal Logic into
> wikitext. It isn't tested yet, and could do with some looking over. And
> testing. The basic premise could be expanded to cover basic maths too. Put
> simply it's an informal parser (where something like LaTeX is a very rigidly
> formal parser that you have to learn - this one should be intuitive).
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiLogic

We will have to define a work package to consolidate integration work
on extensions, including WikiTeX, Graphviz, etc. soon. Besides
security and functionality review, we should survey the field of
available and potentially needed future extensions. Perhaps this would
be something for Tim to work on soon -- Brion is pretty occupied with
other key priorities.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
On Sep 25, 2006, at 3:23 PM, Mark Wagner wrote:

>
> Populated areas are generally easy to define, since governments have
> an interest in enumerating and tracking them.  Most other things
> aren't.

Define Wikilawyering. And common sense. And being flexible instead of
having hardline rules.

Then all of the hair-splitting becomes a lot easier to deal with.

-Phil


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools

body:
On 9/25/06, Frank Schulenburg <frank.schulenburg at gmail.com> wrote:
> last friday Wikimedia Germany realised a pilot scheme for a new project
> called "Wikipedia at schools".

Excellent. Chapters are the right place for this kind of activity to
happen, but perhaps we also need a meta-level coordination project for
wiki training activities.  Perhaps Wikiversity would be the right
location for it? Frank, would you be willing to take the lead in
networking chapters to exchange training materials, building a
database of available volunteers, proposing a policy for travel cost
compensation etc.? If not, could you suggest a person who could manage
this process?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools


body:
On Sep 25, 2006, at 4:23 PM, David Russell wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Wagner wrote:
>> Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
>> school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
>> the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
>> particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
>> Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
>> or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
>> an article on it?
>
> Yes. The unusualness (is that a word?) of this arrangement means
> that it
> would be inherently notable.

Home-schooling in Michigan is not unusual. That they put a "school
name" on the books does not make a given home-school notable.

-Phil


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> If this is a worry about hard drive space on the computers,

Nope. The space is trivial.

> BTW, offers have been made in the past to privately host this content
> (the sep11.wikipedia) but those offers are all more than a year old and
> circumstances have indeed changed.  I'm not exactly sure where to go
> with it, but closing it down completely just doesn't seem right to me.
>  I do support the "freeze" on the database, as I think the effort to add
> substantial quantities of content has essentially run its course.

Anyone anywhere is welcome to grab the dump files and host it at any time, as
they have been for years.

Personally I don't care whether Wikimedia continues to host the site or not; its
purpose was and remains simply to preserve pages that were being deleted from
Wikipedia.

If it's distracting to have it on an open but unattended wiki, of course, then
it becomes a nuisance; that's why it's been locked and there's talk of shutting
it down altogether.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject:
[Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC: Key
 priorities for my work)

body:
geni wrote:
> On a related note will special:boardvote be available?

The source code is available in our SVN repository along with other extensions.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Process wonkery

references:
<s7lah2pihqs0vqiecpaifbaphj43urt5a5@4ax.com>
	<fbad4e140609230946g1506a024g26e2447a3c584abb@mail.gmail.com>
	<47683e960609241202h58eebc8fua913fdc8802ae10c@mail.gmail.com>
	<ef754g$jmb$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 9/24/06, Constantine Evans <constantine at evanslabs.org> wrote:
>
> Note that notability is not the policy. Verifiability is. Even if a
> school is notable "by default", as some claim, if there is no verifiable
> information about it, there should be no article.
>
> Guettarda wrote:
> > On 9/23/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 23/09/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> This is a hardened attitude formed by people on VFD as it was who
> >> wanted to delete all schools from Wikipedia below the notability level
> >> of Eton. That is: the process was pathological on both sides.
> >
> >
> > Quite frankly I am anything but a deletionist, but I think that a school
> > with 75 students and no other claim to notability doesn't deserve a
> > Wikipedia article
> >
> > So let's assume every school will be in Wikipedia on the same basis
> >> that every pissweak or even no-longer-existent hamlet in the US will
> >> remain. What can be done then?
> >>
> >> * Is existence enough? Evidently.
> >> * So we need proof of existence and basic verifiable information.
> >
> >
> >  There is a long-established tradition of notability for Wikipedia
> > articles.  We delete things that are non-notable.  People who say "all
> > schools are notable" aren't discussing an issue, they are espousing an
> > ideology.  Some people who home-school their children register a
> school.  By
> > that token, anyone home-schooling their children is notable enough for
> > inclusion, so the only barrier then is verifiability
> >
> > There should be enough for a stub at the very least. If you want to
> >> turn it into a list entry instead, the redirect needs to be in the
> >> appropriate place.
> >>
> >> If you're bringing this to wikien-l to re-fight the school deletion
> >> wars, you're probably not spending your time well.
> >
> >
> > You really shouldn't be calling the kettle black David ;)
> >
> > - d.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
>

Verifyability is not a problem; there are nationwide school databases out on
the Internet with the basic particulars, and in many cases fairly extensive
information, on every legitimate school nationwide.  Some of these are
things like US Department of Education annual reports, which are both
available on the web and available in printed form.  There are equivalents
from state Boards of Education as well.

This information is extremely widely available because parents use it in
selecting where they want to move to, based on educational strength, and
because public oversight of schools is a generally accepted positive thing.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Conflict of interest policy

body:
Anthere wrote:
[snip]
> This policy applies to the Foundation?s board members, officers, and
> executives.
>
> I will consequently ask that
> * all 5 board members
> * all staff members

Does this include Danny, me, Tim, and Mark? We're staff, but not afaik officers
or executives in that sense.

The pledge talks about being a member of the board of trustees. Have we been
promoted? ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania
	2007

body:
I'm a bit surprised that Taipei was chosen, given the political
situation of Taiwan.

On 25/09/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.
>
> No it wasn't and I wish people didn't have this misconception.
>
> All of the bids were considered against a range of criteria, not only
> location. Amongst many other factors, Taipei offered the venue and
> accommodation on a single site, and their organizing team had prior
> experience from running the Chinese Wikimania this year. It's unfair
> to them to suggest they only won because they're in Asia.
>
> If Asia was a sure winner from the start, we wouldn't have needed a
> meeting lasting more than 4 hours on Saturday to determine which city
> would be successful. A few people seem to think that the others were
> rejected purely for being in Europe, but that was not the case, and we
> would have said from the start if we were only accepting bids from
> other continents so as not to waste people's time.
>
> Angela.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't think that these special prerequisites for being on the Board
>> are necessary.  The treasurer should not need to do the bookkeeping
>> himself; we are big enough that we can hire someone to keep the books,
>> and prepare preliminary financial statements.  The treasurer should be
>> able to understand the statements and discuss them with the rest of the
>> Board, and with an expanded Board it is certainly more likely that there
>> would be a person who can do this.
>>
>
> With all due respect, a board of a non-profit needs to know how a non-profit should be run in
> order to perform their oversight and guidance roles. At least some board members also need to know
> a fair deal about how to do professional fundraising; others need legal expertise since the
> foundation is a legal entity; yet others need to know about finances so they could not be easily
> misled by incorrect or fraudulent financial statements from staff (not that would ever happen, but
> it is possible).
>
> There are some fairly serious legal, financial and privacy issues that the board (on the whole)
> needs to have some training and experience to deal with. A group of people whose only
> qualification is that they are popular community members, is not necessarily going to have the
> needed skill-set. Of course, part of the board should consist of that, but not the whole board, or
> even a majority of it. And, where possible, all board members should be from the community (plenty
> of experts there).
>

I take the Debian model as a pretty good example of foundation
governance in free-culture projects, and they don't seem to have found
this necessary.  The board of Software in the Public Interest, the
foundation that owns the Debian assets, is composed primarily of Debian
developers, including mainly former project leads or major sub-project
leads.  They do retain a legal advisor to sift through matters they
aren't personally qualified to examine, but the counsel is not actually
a board member.

It doesn't seem to have become a major problem, and that organization
has made SPI very well-respected in the community---certainly nobody
thinks SPI is some corporate entity trying to hijack Debian or
anything.  So I wonder why we must go a different route.

-Mark


from_name: Jason Schulz

body:
As a developer at least on the client side, I'd be interested in looking
into this WikiLogic. I'd post on the talk page but it is still not yet
active.

This seems like an interesting alternative over just adding more items to
the cluttered wiki mark up box.

It would be nice to have some sort of unified forum to discuss extensions
before even asking developers, as they are often busy and unwilling to
impliment something that may not have wide support/use.

-Jason Schulz

_________________________________________________________________
Be seen and heard with Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft LifeCams
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0020000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalcommunication/default.mspx?locale=en-us&source=hmtagline


subject: [WikiEN-l] process essay nearly cooked

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay

I want to move it to [[Wikipedia:Practical process]] fairly soon,
relinquishing all ownership and leaving it to the community's tender
mercies.

I'd most welcome you all looking over it and letting me know of:
1. Anything that's clearly missing from what it says about how to do
process on Wikipedia.
2. Anything that makes you cough up a hairball.
3. - and this is the good bit - anything you think will make any other
particular editor cough up a hairball.

Talk page or hack on the essay or email to me. Thank you!

- d.


from_name: Samuli Lintula

subject: [Commons-l] CommonTasks

body:
On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:19:11 +0300, Fredrik Josefsson
<fred_chessplayer at yahoo.se> wrote:

> Fourth. Because of the increased traffic, there is a
> larger backlog, although not critical.

Fred, thank you for these statistics. I personally feel that thay are
useful as they are motivating for two reasons:
1. They list important things we can do something about.
2. They show how badly we are needed.

True, the second point isn't always so motivating. That's why I have
thought about ways to make the statistics more motivating or using them in
a better way.

What I've been thinking is weekly tasks. These tasks could be something
like
*delete backlog of images without source/license
*removing duplicates
*dealing with backlog in deletion requests
*deling with images that have {{delete}} tag but aren't in deletion
requests
*Orgullobots Welcome log
*{{CopyrightedFreeUse}}
*http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedcategories
*many other
*sorting images

The benefits of weekly tasks and working on a common goal include at least:

1. Doing things together is more fun
2. Working together shows our combined power
3. Achieving a goal feels good
4. Even big tasks are doable

Working on this model further, I propose we have two weekly (or biweekly
or whatever) tasks: one which requires admin privileges and one which
doesn't. This way we'd always have something to offer to those who are not
admins - and vice versa. Also when we see who participate in CommonTasks
(tm) we know who could be future admins.

PS. Now expect you to tell me that this already exists but I just don't
know about it ;)

--
Yst?v?llisin terveisin,
Samuli Lintula

--
Yst?v?llisin terveisin,
Samuli Lintula


body:
"I mean, do we really need to read some of
Jimbo's early edits to Wikipedia from over five years ago that are now
completely rewritten?  At least this is something to think about if hard
drive space is becoming a substantial issue, as even the most obscure
and neglected project or even article is likely to get at least some
attention by somebody over the course of two years to revert any major
vandalism requiring edits going back any further."

1) Hard drive space is not an issue. It's the fact that we no longer have a
need to keep the wiki open.
2) According to the GFDL, yes, we are required to keep the entire history of
articles.

On 9/25/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> >sep11.wikipedia.org is currently in read-only mode. I suggest the
> >following course of action:
> >
> >1) That the wiki be opened again for a period of 4 weeks.
> >
> >2) That an open message is to be sent out to ask for clean-up of the
> >wiki -- remove irrelevant content, possible lingering spam, etc.
> >
> >3) That, after the cleanup is complete, the wiki is exported as a
> >static HTML dump and hosted by a volunteer external to the Wikimedia
> >Foundation under its own domain name. No reference should be made to
> >it from then on as an official Wikimedia project. It might be possible
> >to arrange advance renumeration for the domain name cost and hosting.
> >
> >Does this sound like a sensible course of action?
> >
> >If you are a volunteer, and willing to host the content, please send
> >me a private e-mail response.
> >
> >
>
> Just out of general interest, why exactly is this course of action being
> followed, particularly for complete dumping of the 9/11 wiki?  Are there
> bandwidth issues that are getting out of hand here?  Is this really
> taking up so much hard drive space that it could be better used for a
> much more worthy Wikimedia project?
>
> Mind you, I'm not suggesting that this wiki be turned back on and left
> alone for vandals to play with as they have done so in the relatively
> recent past, nor am I asking the WMF to deal with all kinds of useless
> garbage that does eventually clog up some Wikimedia projects over time.
>
> From my understanding of the sep11 wikipedia and why it was
> established, that there were many very heartfelt additions to Wikipedia
> in the days, weeks, and months after the 9/11 attacks on the USA.
> Rather than simply culling all of this content from Wikipedia,
> particularly for the "not noteworthy" individuals who had substantial
> information added about them only to be nominated for deletion on
> Wikipedia, this Wiki was set up to deal with that traffic and serve as a
> repository of that information and go into depth about the 9/11 attacks.
>
> At this point  I would agree that this has become an historical archive
> of generally 1st hand reports (again, another reason for culling on
> en.wikipedia) and other information about the events of that attack.
> This also deals with the general issue of how the WMF deals with
> information of historcal nature.
>
> If this is a worry about hard drive space on the computers, I would
> offer another alternative:  How about deleting all archival edits that
> are more than two years old?  I mean, do we really need to read some of
> Jimbo's early edits to Wikipedia from over five years ago that are now
> completely rewritten?  At least this is something to think about if hard
> drive space is becoming a substantial issue, as even the most obscure
> and neglected project or even article is likely to get at least some
> attention by somebody over the course of two years to revert any major
> vandalism requiring edits going back any further.
>
> BTW, offers have been made in the past to privately host this content
> (the sep11.wikipedia) but those offers are all more than a year old and
> circumstances have indeed changed.  I'm not exactly sure where to go
> with it, but closing it down completely just doesn't seem right to me.
> I do support the "freeze" on the database, as I think the effort to add
> substantial quantities of content has essentially run its course.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

subject: [Foundation-l] Oscars photographer?

body:
 <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>Are you interested in red carpet photography,
or reporting on the Academy Awards? I'm trying to get one reporter for
Wikinews, and one photographer for Wikimedia Commons/Wikinews/Wikipedia into
the whole red carpet/backstage stuff. Press credentials for the Oscars are
being released '''now''', so we need to act fast.

I'm looking for someone that is clearly reliable, if not skilled with the
camera. Being an entertainment buff with a good memory for famous faces is a
big plus (so you don't miss stars, and shoot photos of random people), and
living in or around California, particularly in or around Los Angeles are
also big pluses. The photographer is my main concern, the reporter is less
critical

Post your reply info and a sample <gallery> of four photos, at least one has
to be of a human, and at least one has to have been taken in natural light,
and at least one photo has to have been taken in artificial light. Don't
want to upload to Wikipedia? Email me the samples. Submit your interest or
questions to http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/user_talk:zanimum
<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>Nick


subject: [Foundation-l] Oscars photographer?


subject: [Foundation-l] Bithday party!!! - Party di compleanno!!!

body:
Well, no, it's not a real one, but a very vitual one :-)

The Neapolitan wikipedia
(http://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paggena_prencepale ) today is one year
old. No, I am not going to tell you about statistics. Why? The sense of
this wikipedia is more than a "collecting numbers" - primarily it means
being part of a very particular community that deals with themes that
sometimes are not easy. Work on such a small wikipedia is very different
to working on the big ones.

So I would like to take the occasion to thank all contributors, readers
and friends for their help and support during the last year.

We are now at a stage that we have already an automatically changing
main page - one of my goals to be completed by the end of this year.

Thank you again and I hope you have as much fun as me in this project!

Sabine

*****
Be' non ? un vero party, bens? uno virtuale :-)

La Wikipedia napoletana
(http://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paggena_prencepale ) oggi compie il primo
anno di vita. No, non vi parler? di statistiche. Perch?? Il senso di
questa wikipedia va oltre di "raccogliere numeri" - in primo luogo
significa essere parte di una comunit? molto particolare che tratta
tematiche che talvolta non sono facili. Lavorare su di una Wikipedia
"piccola" ? molto diverso dal lavorare su quelle "grandi".

Quindi vorrei cogliere l'occasioni per ringraziare tutti quelli che
contribuiscono, i lettori e amici per il loro aiuto e supporto nell'anno
passato.

Siamo ora ad un punto che abbiamo gi? una pagina pricipale che
automaticamente cambia - una delle mie meta ? di aver completato questo
progetto per la fine dell'anno.

Grazie ancora e spero che vi divertiate tanto quanto me con questo progetto!

Sabine

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Bithday party!!! - Party di compleanno!!!


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Commons-l] Royal Society archives online until December

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> On 25/09/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
>>> Is there anywhere on Commons to upload this yet? If not, something along
>>> the lines of:
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Journals
>
>> You of course realize that mass downloads of journals may be construed
>> as a copy of a significant part of a database, which is protected by a
>> special copyright (much shorter than the regular one) under EU directives?
>
>
> And the UK law implementing this is ...
>
> David Monniaux says the Foundation should:
> [ ] not download and save this stuff on commons without absolute legal clarity
> [ ] say "such a restriction on hundreds of years old material is
> odious" and do it anyway
> [ ] something else
>

For my money

[x] say "such a restriction on hundreds of years old material is odious"
and do it anyway

but IANAL (and I'm not being paid to do this either). I might add that
downloading the stuff is a non-trivial process...

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

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from_name: Eugene Zelenko

subject: [Commons-l] CommonTasks

body:
Hi!

On 9/25/06, Samuli Lintula <samuli at samulilintula.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:19:11 +0300, Fredrik Josefsson
> <fred_chessplayer at yahoo.se> wrote:
>
> > Fourth. Because of the increased traffic, there is a
> > larger backlog, although not critical.
>
> Fred, thank you for these statistics. I personally feel that thay are
> useful as they are motivating for two reasons:
> 1. They list important things we can do something about.
> 2. They show how badly we are needed.
>
> True, the second point isn't always so motivating. That's why I have
> thought about ways to make the statistics more motivating or using them in
> a better way.
>
> What I've been thinking is weekly tasks. These tasks could be something
> like
> *delete backlog of images without source/license
> *removing duplicates
> *dealing with backlog in deletion requests
> *deling with images that have {{delete}} tag but aren't in deletion
> requests
> *Orgullobots Welcome log
> *{{CopyrightedFreeUse}}
> *http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedcategories
> *many other
> *sorting images
>
> The benefits of weekly tasks and working on a common goal include at least:
>
> 1. Doing things together is more fun
> 2. Working together shows our combined power
> 3. Achieving a goal feels good
> 4. Even big tasks are doable
>
> Working on this model further, I propose we have two weekly (or biweekly
> or whatever) tasks: one which requires admin privileges and one which
> doesn't. This way we'd always have something to offer to those who are not
> admins - and vice versa. Also when we see who participate in CommonTasks
> (tm) we know who could be future admins.
>
> PS. Now expect you to tell me that this already exists but I just don't
> know about it ;)
>
> --
> Yst?v?llisin terveisin,
> Samuli Lintula

I think, it's wonderful idea!

We could highlight problem area and improve our spirit - it much more
easy to do job when you could see that it's not Sisyphean toil :-)

Eugene.


from_name: Dan Li

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mediawiki table use

body:
On 9/25/06, Mike O <mikeo at operamail.com> wrote:
> Is there a document somewhere that explains how the page, text, and revision tables
> are used to keep track of articles?

Try maintenance/tables.sql.

Regards,
  - Dan Li


from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal re: sep11.wikipedia.org

body:
On 9/25/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:

(...)

I'm not exactly sure where to go
> with it, but closing it down completely just doesn't seem right to me.
>

But for at least 104 editors [1], sep11wiki isn't welcome on Wikimedia
servers.

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Archive#Closure_of_September_11_Wiki


from_name: David Russell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Schools, notability, inclusionism, deletionism, etc.

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

Mark Wagner wrote:
> Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
> school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
> the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
> particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
> Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
> or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
> an article on it?

Yes. The unusualness (is that a word?) of this arrangement means that it
would be inherently notable.

Cynical
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from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Extension to [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]]

body:
gwern branwen wrote:
> Reading that page leads me to believe that this is a quick hack which
> filters all edits to the relevant pages,  and somewhat of a
> performance hog.  Doesn't seem like something that could be applied to
> thousands and thousands of images or pages.

I wouldn't call it a quick hack, and it is fast enough in its current
application. But it is most certainly not intended for fair use enforcement
and it would indeed scale quite poorly if an attempt was made to use it that
way. The filter applies to page views, not edits, so it acts retroactively
for history views and diffs.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 25/09/06, David Russell <webmaster at davidarussell.co.uk> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Wagner wrote:
> > Define "school".  Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private
> > school: the Vernon-Dunlap School.  I can even cite sources that prove
> > the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this
> > particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of
> > Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious
> > or philosophical objection to teacher certification.  Should we have
> > an article on it?
>
> Yes. The unusualness (is that a word?) of this arrangement means that it
> would be inherently notable.

Ah, no. The *arrangement* is highly notable - an individual incidence
of the arrangement isn't. We can and should write about the legal
loophole Michigan uses to handle homeschooling; this doesn't mean that
a single specific homeschool is notable, unless it's the only one that
loophole applies to.

To use a different, and hopefully clearer, example... you know "John
Doe"? The name comes from an archaic English law proceeding, which
involved having to make up fictional plaintiffs and defendants in
order to permit a court to hear land-possession cases.

The proceeding (a mixed action of ejectment) is very notable - not
only did it give the English-speaking world a commonly used
general-purpose name, but it made all sorts of interesting leaps
forward in jurisprudence. But any individual case of it - this or that
particular occurence of John Doe in a land register in 1342 - is not
itself notable.

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


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 25/09/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I've implemented an extension to the [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] feature.
> You can now specify a list of exceptions, i.e. articles where the image is
> allowed to be displayed inline. The typical format is:
>
> * [[:Image:Penis.jpg]] except on [[Penis]]
>
> The text "except on" is ignored, it is not special. Only the links are relevant.
>
> I've documented the format at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Bad_image_list
>
> -- Tim Starling

Good work. Given your recent operation, I wouldn't have thought you'd
be able to stomach much programming right now (heh, bad, I know).

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Lorenzarius

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools

body:
Hi Frank, thanks for telling us about this really interesting idea! In fact I
see why we could not do the same thing all over the world. If you guys
have any materials you presented or used in this project, please share
with us so that we can reuse your efforts and learn from your experience.
If someone is kind enough to translate the materials and the report, that
would be even greater! Thanks again :)

--Lorenzarius

On 9/25/06, Frank Schulenburg <frank.schulenburg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> last friday Wikimedia Germany realised a pilot scheme for a new project
> called "Wikipedia at schools". It is based on the fact that Wikipedia
> evidently is the most popular source of information for german pupils
> today. During september 2006 we asked 98 pupils at the age of seventeen
> of the "Andreanum" [1] at Hildesheim (about 25 km southeast of Hanover)
> which source of information they would prefer to prepare their homework.
> A total of 63 per cent stated that they favor Wikipedia and Google
> (which will lead them to Wikipedia in nearly all cases) over printed
> works. The pupils answers to other questions clearly showed us that they
> fully trusted in all of the information they find online. Almost never
> they challenge those information nor do they analyze its quality. But
> beside the fact that Wikipedias quality increases each day we have to
> admit that there are certain areas where quality improvement is badly
> needed. We should feel responsible to the pupils for the clarification
> of this fact and for tips how to recognize the quality of a Wikipedia
> article (does the editor cite reliable sources? is the article written
> from a neutral point of view? etc.)
>
> So we organized a day of information about Wikipedia for all pupils of
> the eleventh grade of the Andreanum as well as for their teachers and
> parents. The day started at 10 o'clock in the morning with a general
> introduction about the goals, history and functionality of Wikipedia.
> Afterwards we had two workshops for pupils and one workshop for
> teachers, taking two hours each. In particular the workshop for teachers
> cleary showed us a great need for detailed information about the
> functionality of Wikipedia. None of the teachers knew much about how the
> articles emerge and which instruments of quality improvement already
> exist. After a short break we had another block of workshops for pupils
> and for parents. At five o'clock in the evening all 110 pupils and about
> 20 teachers and parents had attended at least one workshop. The day
> ended with a lecture held by a teacher of a school at Fulda (about 80 km
> northeast of Frankfurt) who wrote a short article for the english
> Wikipedia with the pupils of her English class in 2005[2] and who gave
> us a detailed report about her experiences.
>
> Our next goal will be to evaluate our work and to compile a short
> guidebook about Wikipedia for pupils and teachers[3]. Together with the
> Andreanum at Hildesheim, Wikimedia Germany will enter a contest called
> "Deutscher Innovationspreis f?r nachhaltige Bildung" (German Innovation
> Award for Lasting Education)[4].
>
> Photos we took at Hildesheim can be found on Commons:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Schulprojekt
>
> Wikimedia Germany is deeply indebted to the two administrators
> User:Finanzer and User:Markus_Mueller who worked with the pupils last
> friday and to the Andreanum Hildesheim for its cooperation.
>
> Greetings,
> Frank Schulenburg
>
> Board member of Wikimedia Germany
> Phone +49 (0)551 2726447
> Frank.Schulenburg [at] wikimedia.de
>
> [1] Founded before 1225, the "Andreanum" is one of the oldest schools in
> Germany http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_Andreanum_%28Hildesheim%29
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Norris
> [3]
> http://de.wikiversity.org/wiki/Projekt:Online-Nachschlagewerke_in_der_schulischen_Praxis
> [4] http://deutscher-innovationspreis.de/
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Larry Lo
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lorenzarius
Tel: +852 95825791


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia at schools


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 9/25/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/26/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > I'm working on the (naive?) assumption that sysops care about performance too.
>
> Wouldn't that be violating the "don't worry about performance" guideline? :)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don't_worry_about_performance

Hey, wow. Thanks. :)

I was going to raise that point... but I figured I'd catch Tim in IRC.

In any case, I agree here.. the issue is that for every valid case
where it might be good to be performance minded there are 10 other
cases where people will use uninformed performance oriented arguments
to support whatever policy measure they prefer... The end result is a
lot of silly actions in the name of performance .. or a lot of
needless performance questions. :)


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Taipei chosen to host Wikimania 2007

body:
> It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.

No it wasn't and I wish people didn't have this misconception.

All of the bids were considered against a range of criteria, not only
location. Amongst many other factors, Taipei offered the venue and
accommodation on a single site, and their organizing team had prior
experience from running the Chinese Wikimania this year. It's unfair
to them to suggest they only won because they're in Asia.

If Asia was a sure winner from the start, we wouldn't have needed a
meeting lasting more than 4 hours on Saturday to determine which city
would be successful. A few people seem to think that the others were
rejected purely for being in Europe, but that was not the case, and we
would have said from the start if we were only accepting bids from
other continents so as not to waste people's time.

Angela.


subject:
[Foundation-l] [Wikipedia-l] Taipei chosen to host
	Wikimania	2007

body:
> It was almost certain that a decent bid from Asia would be successful.

No it wasn't and I wish people didn't have this misconception.

All of the bids were considered against a range of criteria, not only
location. Amongst many other factors, Taipei offered the venue and
accommodation on a single site, and their organizing team had prior
experience from running the Chinese Wikimania this year. It's unfair
to them to suggest they only won because they're in Asia.

If Asia was a sure winner from the start, we wouldn't have needed a
meeting lasting more than 4 hours on Saturday to determine which city
would be successful. A few people seem to think that the others were
rejected purely for being in Europe, but that was not the case, and we
would have said from the start if we were only accepting bids from
other continents so as not to waste people's time.

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


body:
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Mark Wagner wrote:
>
> So every one of the tens of thousands of single-student private
> schools in Michigan needs an article?
>

Ah. I was under the impression that ALL of the homeschool students in
Michigan were listed as attending that single school. Obviously if there
is one school for each homeschooling family then no.

Cynical
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from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] process essay nearly cooked

body:
On 25/09/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay
> > I'd most welcome you all looking over it and letting me know of...

> It needs a lot of wordsmithing.  It's obvious to you what it's
> getting at, but it won't be to a first-time, uninitiated reader.

That's the sort of thing I need to hear about it.

> (I took a stab at cleaning up two sections.)

I'll look with trepidation shortly ;-)

- d.


body:
On 25/09/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> > I've written a new bit of the process essay covering the sort of
> > 'policy' that's hardened process, and tested it by applying it to this
> > rewrite. Let's see if it worked.

> "Hardened" process? As in, nuclear hardened?
> The minds, they boggles...

If you can think of a better way of phrasing it ...

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:

>Good news,
>considering that all is paid by sponsorship (Halls and rooms,
>accomodations, catering) I think that these strong opportunities
>could offer to the wikipedians the incentive to make a long journey
>in a pleasant town.
>
>In any case I don't understand if only 450 beds are paid for
>sponsorship or if the sponsors will pay all 889 beds (http://meta.
>wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2007/Taipei#Accommodation) because a
>room in a Grand Hotel is expensive.
>
I saw the hotel room quotes for the Grand Hotel.  I stayed there in 1981
after being advised to ask for an "inside room"; the price for that was
quite reasonable compared to the regular price.  Are any of the given
quotes for an inside room?

Ec


body:
Indeed. Welcome back, Aphaia. By all accounts, take a break; you have
deservedly earned a nice vacation... now let's think where to send you...
would Taipei sound nice? ;) :)

As for Special:Boardvote, can Boardvote be separately installed in one
particular wiki, e.g. for ArbCom elections, (or any other local election,
for that matter) or would that expose the global Board election data? Can a
"localboardvote" user group solve that issue?

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aphaia
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:16 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC:
Keypriorities for my work)

Hello,
Back online. (Mainly due to 'Mania 2007; I promised KJ to give a help
once. Would you sent me your expectations of potential guest/keynote
speakers, KJ?)

Thank you for your kind words and apologies for my rant. Following
advices, I'll take a break - after we've done post-mortem. For several
reasons I would like to keep a distance from the Wikimedia project for
a while. My availability will decrease but I'll be around there, not
completely leave.

Well, as for Boardvote, I expect developers are aware of, however for
the record I would like to stress that anyone who are granted
boardvote right can access to the detailed data of the global
Election. I think a local election is the board/foundation issue hence
rather offtopic on this list, and don't mind if a certain project uses
Boardvote extention (I know another certain Wikipedia which some
people would have liked to use this for local sysop votes ... ),
however, I stress that they can be given the access * only * after the
results of this Election flashed. No local votetaker are allowed per
se to access the private data of over 2300 editors around the world.

On 9/26/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On a related note will special:boardvote be available?
>
> The source code is available in our SVN repository along with other
extensions.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com / brion @ wikimedia.org)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vox populi, vox dei *
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject:
[Foundation-l] The Foundation is not a wiki (was Re: RfC:
	Keypriorities for my work)


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Rewrite (started by Inksplotch, lots of tightening by me):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy/Simplified
>
> Discussion at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Refactored_blocking_policy
>
> I've written a new bit of the process essay covering the sort of
> 'policy' that's hardened process, and tested it by applying it to this
> rewrite. Let's see if it worked.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/Process_essay#Process_hardened_to_policy
>

"Hardened" process? As in, nuclear hardened?

The minds, they boggles...

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

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from_name: geni

body:
On 9/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The elections for arbcom will most likely be run again this year
> precisely as last year.
>

You want to use the system that people kept complaining about last
year? The one that was literaly finalised in the hours leading up to
the election under edit war conditions?

So those on en can't even consider useing special:boardvote?

The elections will not be the same whatever. To start with I'm gonna
try and get minium candidate requirements in.

Incerdentaly how are you justifying your involvement this time?

--
geni