from_name: Chris Picone

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
Most of the copyvios aren't from other encyclopedias.

Also, I get a copyvio 1 in 10 times... that is way, way too many. I'd
have hundreds of edits if I ran this for hours a day.

People don't realize how serious a problem this is... I've been
noticing this for months, and I want to give Earle Martin a million
barnstars for writing this (it inspired me to start learning Perl so I
can write an automated, newpages based one... hint hint)

--Chris

On 12/23/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/12/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> > geni wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> > > Certain searches of existing content would be useful the most obvious
> > > being running a copy of the database against a copy of britianica.
> > >
> >
> > And other databases of copyrighted texts, such as InfoTrac
> > (http://www.gale.com/onefile/) or similar, and things like Google Book
> > Search.
>
> I wonder how practical it would be to find some way of running a
> comparison search of a Wikipedia dump against a Britannica/Encarta/etc
> CD? It could be done offline, and at leisure, for catching out past
> offenders - I suspect the worst cases are those we don't catch, and
> sit ignored and unrewritten for months. I know of at least one case
> where we were getting copy-pasted articles from the OxDNB...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
	English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

body:
On 23/12/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I had already made this suggestion previously, but it was in the
> context of renaming users, but I'll make it again, as it can also help out
> with this monumental mess:
>
> Why don't we write the "home wiki" of a user in the global login database?
>
> Originally, I had suggested it to be a way to stop a rouge bureaucrat in the
> Siberian Wikipedia (just picking one off the top of my head) from renaming
> my account in the global database, and by default, from renaming my account
> in every Wikimedia project. However, by exposing the home wiki of a user,
> perhaps in Special:Contributions and after every diff link (perhaps so it
> looks like $user ($wiki) (contribs | block)), an English Wikipedia admin can
> see whether the user created his account in the Japanese Wikipedia, and ask
> a Japanese-speaking admin to tell us whether the user has an objectionable
> username or not.
>
> I hope I don't get flamed for suggesting this, but it's something I just
> came up with.
>
> Titoxd.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert Scott
> Horning
> Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 10:57 AM
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
> English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)
>
> David Gerard wrote:
>
> >On 23/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >Well, Brion is watching this thread and waiting for us all to stop
> >trying to kill each other ...
> >
> >
> >- d.
> >
> He isn't the only one.  This seems to be much ado about nothing, other
> than perhaps some indivudal over-zealous admins.
>
> Here is hoping this thread dies a quick death soon.  Please make that a
> Christmas present to the Wikimedia Community!
>
> There are other topics to spend bandwidth on, and this one has a
> particularly low S/N
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l


body:
On 23/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23/12/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:

Sorry, clicked wrong button.

- d.


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
But it is a noble task. It rights a wrong.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 12/23/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That'd be a hell of a task. There's a lot of them.
>
> On 12/23/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > > How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked ones. That would be
> a
> > > great gesture.
> >
> > I invited you to identify them..  :)
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
Mark Wagner wrote:

>On 12/20/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>A respect for the legal culture of other countries helps to build mutual
>>co-operation even if there is no conceivable avenue for enforcing those
>>laws.  Why shouldn't North Korean, Chinese or Iranian law be respected
>>when they are relevent?
>>
>>
>So, no maps showing that Kashmir is not entirely and undisputedly part
>of India.  No pictures of women with uncovered faces.  No criticism of
>Kim Jong-Il.  No mention that Arab countries call it the Arabian Gulf,
>or that most other countries call it the Persian Gulf.
>
>There's a whole lot that we couldn't include in Wikipedia if we were
>to respect all the relevant laws of countries where Wikipedia is
>accessible.
>
Respect for foreign laws does not extend to abjectly kowtowing to all
their peculiarities.  That would be impossible even if we knew them
all.  If we must follow Indian law about Kashmir we must also follow
Pakistani law on the same issue.

Much of the respect comes from applying NPOV, and treating everyone with
fairness, and taking note of the fact that Wikipedians living in those
countries have to live with what they have.  If the common criticisms of
Kim Jong-Il are valid it still does not justify gratuitously insulting
language.  If the United States ignores the copyright laws of another
country because it does not have copyright relations with it, that does
not mean that we too should be free to ignore them.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-12-24

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

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test Thumbnail image caption with a free URL... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A RFC with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A mailto link with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail- we don't render math in the parsertests by default,
so math is not stripped and turns up as escaped <math> tags.... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Image caption containing another image... FAILED!
Running test Bug 3090: External links other than http: in image captions... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Fuzz testing: image with bogus manual thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Don't fall for the self-closing div... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Always escape literal '>' in output, not just after '<'... FAILED!

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...

Reading tests from "/home/brion/src/wiki/phase3/extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

Passed 455 of 482 tests (94.4%)... FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Office actions

body:
geni wrote:

>On 12/21/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Sure.  I think we first need to recognize that an OFFICE action is an
>>emergency action by a person who is faced with a crisis and must act
>>immediately.  Powers exercised in an emergency have a greater likelihood
>>of being wrong than those which have been subject to consultation and
>>reflection.  The errors do not impugn the good faith of the person
>>exercising the power.
>>
>>Extraordinary powers require extraordinary safeguards against both their
>>intentional or accidental abuse.
>>    1. OFFICE actions should automatically expire after a week unless
>>there has been separate positive efforts to extend for a further period
>>of one week.
>>
>>
>I would argue for 2.
>
The length of time is a negotiable detail.

>>    2. Key admins should be notified of the reasons for the action, and
>>asked to initiate a cleanup.
>>
>>
>Can see problems with this one. I would argue that letting arbcom know
>after 2 weeks would provide a significant measure of protection.
>
They probably have their hands full, and I would respect their autonomy
to choose what cases they will take on.  In any event I wouldn't want to
assume that there is a greater conflict than what there in fact is.  The
problems will most likely be repairable with easy agreement from the
offending editor(s).as long as the required fix is clearly explained.

>>    3. Disciplinary sanctions for defying the action  should not be the
>>responsibility of the office.
>>
>>
>Who else is there? Stewards? Generaly stay away from en.
>
Ordinary admin action should be enough unless things get nasty.  Taking
it out of the hands of the Office is akin to not blocking people when
you are a party to the argument.  The purpose is to protect Danny from
the crossfire.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric
 policy affects other communities

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>"Peter Ansell" wrote:
>
>
>>that situation screams the remains of british imperialism
>>through and through?
>>
>>
>Postage stamps come in two kinds: British stamps, in sets, at the
>beginning of the album, and foreign ones all jumbled up at the back.
>Any gibbon can tell you that...
>
Gibbons represents a particularly British form of monkey business.

U. S. made albums put the U. S. stamps at the beginning of the album.
These albums are regularly sold in Canada.  When he buys such an album
in looseleaf format a Canadian collector's first act will be to refile
that section under the letter "U".

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
geni wrote:

>On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>"James Hare" wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
>>>
>>>
>>So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden?  Really?
>>
>>
>It might count as fair use under certain conditions. A painting of
>Patrick Stewart would probably be a safer bet although there would be
>other issues with things such as in the US at least the Right of
>Publicity.
>
I believe Major League Baseball already lost that case to the rotisserie
leagues.

Ec


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] Importing images (plus deletion)

body:
On 12/23/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
>
> If the feature is restricted to only work on wikis that share a single login
> then the security risk is removed.  It may also simplify the code, e.g.
> instead of having to pass the images via XML/http it could perhaps copy them
> directly on the disk.  My point was that in situations where SUL isn't
> available (e.g. current WM-wikis, or non-WM wikis in general) then there is
> a big risk in opening up this kind of functionality.

The most obvious application (and probably the only significant
application) of this feature (deleting the file from the source wiki)
would be for transwikiing media to Commons from other Wikimedia
projects. As such I think it would be safe to confine the feature to
our specific conditions, which include a central location for media
files, regardless of which wiki they are on (so requiring no moving of
files), and in the near future SUL.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Main Page Featured Article

body:
On 12/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/21/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've done pretty much all of them other than messing with monobook.js
> > and monobook.css
>
> Yep. Know anyone who has used all of them?

I haven't edited [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]] or
[[MediaWiki:Common.css]], etc, although I have edited other MediaWiki
pages in addition to doing everything else in that list. I've also
undeleted pages, unblocked users, and used [[Special:Unwatchedpages]].
I can't remember if I've ever moved a move-protected page, although
I'm fairly certain I haven't hidden the contributions of any vandals
from [[Special:Recentchanges]].

Over the course of time a reasonable active admin will use all of the
buttons at some point or another. How big a deal each of them are
varies. The original admin work, the janitorial stuff, really is no
big deal and never has been.

However as WP has scaled, a greater amount (though not, IMHO, a
greater proportion) of work can be a big deal. Certain types of
deleted content, blocks in certain circumstances and so forth.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Japanese translation of ConfirmEdit.i18n.php

body:
Yu Kobayashi wrote:
> I made Japanese translation of
> /trunk/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ConfirmEdit.i18n.php
>
> Could someone add this to SVN ?
> It's line 174 of ConfirmEdit.i18n.php

Thanks, have committed in r18555.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

body:
I love you guys, seriously. All of you.

And that's not just the eggnog talking... Wikipedia and all our
Wikimedia projects are, when you think about it, *pretty darn awesome*
and they exist because some *pretty darn awesome people* are working
together.

Those pretty awesome people include YOU!

YOU are pretty darn awesome!

But we do have a bit of a collective anger management problem.

There's lots of flamefests on the lists, on talk pages, on village
pumps, in edit wars, in irc, in private mail...

I'm no saint either; I believe I used words such as "idiot" in a certain
thread a few days ago which I really oughtn't to have.

Well, there's no point blaming anyone or saying anything specific here.
I just want to pass on a big sloppy group hug love letter to all y'all
Wikimedians out there.

Remember, folks, a community like this functions because its members are
willing and able to communicate to reach some end goal.

If you're about to type off another e-mail or talk page note in anger,
please... get off the computer for a second. Get a beverage of your
choice, take a walk, eat a cookie, make a sandwich, tell a joke, stretch
your legs, anything -- just cool off a second.

When you get back to the computer, pretend for a second that the other
person might have a point. Even if they are wrong, consider whether what
you're typing will lead to a useful conversation or if you know it'll
just make them mad and provoke a further negative response.

The worst thing you or I can do is to assume the other person is a jerk
who refuses to listen to reason and, therefore, we can and should ignore
anything they say.

I know I'm often guilty of assuming bad faith and taking on an automatic
defensive position.

What say we all give the opposite a try when we notice ourselves slipping?

HHHHUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSSSS

love,
brion


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith


subject: [Foundation-l] On hard-to-read usernames

body:
Certain recent threads have become very deep and it's hard to find the
needles among the haystacks, so I thought I'd summarize a couple things
and ask a couple questions.

Background:

There is some concern that usernames which are difficult to read due to
using a different script from the rest of the wiki (such as a Japanese
name on an English site, or a Russian name on a Thai site) can be
difficult for administrators, and other wiki contributors, to deal with.

For instance it can be hard to talk about some other user when you can't
recognize their name.

Conflict:

There has been some fighting over this issue because some admins on
en.wikipedia.org have taken to outright blocking of non-Latin usernames
on that site so as not to have to deal with the issue.

There is additional concern that this will become a more frequent issue
in the future, as the introduction of a unified login system will make
it easier for people to use their existing usernames they already
registered on other wikis; thus there is more concern about solving the
issue in the near future.

Suggestions:

Several suggestions were made in previous threads on ways to make it
easier to recognize and deal with such 'foreign' usernames. In no
particular order, these include:

* Display a user ID number alongside the name

A possible example history line:

(cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
   Brion VIBBER (#51 | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)

This is relatively simple, and relatively culturally neutral, if not
particularly visually attractive.

The ID number could be either the local account number (this is
displayed in Special:Preferences) or, after unified login (SUL) is
introduced, a global account number which would be the same on all wikis.

An example of a site that behaves this way is slashdot.org, which
displays the user ID number next to the username in post headings.

User IDs are possible to use in a few special-page forms that deal with
accounts in part to work around the occasional 'can't figure out how to
pass this username around to people' issue. It may be logical to extend
that.

One thing to consider is that low or high id numbers may indicate
relative age of an account, which may affect perceived prestige or
trustworthiness. This might be considered a useful heuristic, or
alternatively it might be considered anti-egalitarian to display the
number so widely.

* Display a transliteration of the name into Latin or local script

A possible example history line:

(cur) (last)  10:43, 24 December 2006
   ???? (Hoippu | Talk | contribs)

Transliteration is tricky at the best of times. While approximations
good enough to 'get an idea what you're looking at' might not be
entirely impossible, there is some concern that they will be perceived
as culturally biased or incorrect.

More generally, transliterations would not be unique, and so don't
necessarily serve as well for passing around in links or typing into forms.

* Use easily-changable 'nicknames' more extensively

Possibly combined with a default transliteration mode, this could allow
people using a common primary username to choose a more 'friendly' nick
to be displayed and used more widely in the user interface than the
current nickname option for talk page signatures.

In some ways the simplest implementation of this might be to provide a
way to link accounts, so the software can visibly verify that they
belong to the same person, which brings us to:

* Multiple linked usernames

This is for instance how IRC works; on Freenode my usernames "brion",
"brion_away", "brion_work" etc are linked together so that I have the
same password, and when I'm logged in as "brion_work" anyone can check
and confirm that I really am "brion", not just some random guy who says
he is the same brion.

The upcoming single user login (SUL) system is designed to provide this
linked-account guarantee for *the same name* on *different wikis*, but
there can be some benefit to also demonstrating a linkage between
*different names*.

One example that would be useful is when someone wants to change their
username just because they didn't like their old one very much. Right
now they either just make a new account, which doesn't demonstrate the
linkage provably, or they have to ask a "bureaucrat" to perform an
administrative account rename for them.

There would I think be some benefit to simply allowing people to create
a new name for their account, and have the system say to anyone who
needs to verify it that "yes this is the same user".

In the context of "foreign" usernames, this would make it easy for
people who are active on some other wiki to choose an additional name to
work under which is more friendly to local readers.

Possible concerns include a general unease with the idea that people
might then be _forced_ to choose another name (for instance if their
regular name gets banned on sight), or annoyance with people who might
register many linked names and switch among them at whim, for instance
to fit a mood. :)

Anyway, that's just a few thoughts based on the possible remedies I've
seen mentioned previously and a couple others I haven't.

Please try to keep the flames off this thread.

Nothing is decided for certain yet, and I hope we can all work together
and have a conversation like reasonable ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Michael Noda

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
	other communities

body:
On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I am a person. I have a name. You know me by my nick, GerardM, you may have
> deduced that I am known as Gerard Meijssen. You are not likely to know my
> full name.

Indeed.  But, would I really be in a different position if you
appeared in the recent changes log as GerardM (535367), which is how
you appear on Slashdot?  Does Slashdot reduce you to *just* a number,
or are you a name there as well?  To me, GerardM (535367) is as much a
name as GerardM, because it's the same name.

> In the Netherlands in the second world war, people had to identify
> themselves and always have their "persoonsbewijs" with them. At the end of
> the war this was abolished. The Dutch government imposed itself by requiring
> people to have a number and then to always be able to have some form of
> identity with them. Many people resent this. I resent this. It is said that
> it promotes security while in actual fact it makes government more
> intruisive while it hardly helps .. mind you I have a background in
> security.

I see; I thought there might be a cultural difference like this at the
heart of your objection.  But I reiterate my question: would imitating
Slashdot be unacceptable, and if so, why do you post there?

> The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only the
> people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
> things. When it is suggested that the en.wikipedia community may have to do
> things as well it is flatly rejected.

I disagree.  All the proposals I've seen work symmetrically, where an
en user on zh is treated identically to a zh user on en, or a ja user
on nl.

> Admins who go overboard in their heavy
> handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they mean
> well``.

Have you been following news out of en lately?  Several admins have
resigned or been forcibly desysopped by the ArbCom for overzealousness
in vandal fighting in the last few months.

> All in all, my conclusion is very much that, yes people say that the policy
> is wrong, but no they do not want to accept that things will change. This
> leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
> themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
> arguments of others.

This statement is very hurtful to those of us who are en editors who
are making every effort to find an amicable solution to this
unfortunate situation.  I beg you to retract or qualify it.

-Michael Noda


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
 English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

body:
How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked ones. That would be a
great gesture.

Waerth

>On 12/23/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>>Overall there are fewer then I expected.. but there
>>>are not all that
>>>many in the blocked list that don't look like
>>>vandals... so..
>>>::shrugs::
>>>
>>>
>>Please be fair here.  Which of my 20 looked like
>>vandals?  How many non-vandals do you need to see to
>>acknowledge that people are being blocked just for a
>>non-latin username and not vandalism?  How many do you
>>need to see that are blocked with no edits to agree
>>that automatic blocks are happening to non-trivial
>>degree?  There were plently left on my list when I
>>stopped at twenty.
>>
>>
>
>I'm not claiming that there aren't valid users who have been blocked.
>You showed quite clearly that there are... (although there have been
>some vandals there too, some of the 'valid people' are blocked for
>vandalism on their home projects! :) )
>
>I was only saying that "There are fewer active users with non-latin
>names than I expected" but then balencing it with the fact that "The
>overwealming majority of the non-latin blocks are not to good users
>being blocked for using their names".  I'm not denying that some
>improvement wouldn't be good.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Rob Church

body:
On 24/12/06, Yu Kobayashi <mail at yukoba.jp> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I made Japanese translation of
> /trunk/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ConfirmEdit.i18n.php
>
> Could someone add this to SVN ?
> It's line 174 of ConfirmEdit.i18n.php
[snip]

The usual method for submitting these is to open a new bug on
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org, attach a unified diff from Subversion
as a patch (and make sure it's marked as a patch), then add the patch
and need-review keywords to the bug.

Rob Church


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 12/23/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>>How about starting to unblock the unjustly blocked ones. That would be a
>>great gesture.
>>
>>
>
>I invited you to identify them..  :)
>
I believe Birgitte has done that ;) In one of the earlier emails in one
of the threads someone identified some of my "weak points" like
childishness and so on ;) I added some to that like rude and stubborn.

I will add one more weak point of myself. I can be extremely lazy if I
do not believe in something anymore or are not motivated for something
anymore :)

Also I do not spend any more time on any of the wiki's, if not
absolutely necassary. I only try to stear things that I feel are against
the principles of the wikimedia foundation asI still believe in the
initial principles.

I have lost all of my believe in community processes and consensus to
reach the goals though, I feel we are on a dead-end road with that which
will collapse somewhere in the short/medium term future .... but that is
another story alltogether.

Waerth


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 12/24/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> * Use easily-changable 'nicknames' more extensively
>
> Possibly combined with a default transliteration mode, this could allow
> people using a common primary username to choose a more 'friendly' nick
> to be displayed and used more widely in the user interface than the
> current nickname option for talk page signatures.
>
> In some ways the simplest implementation of this might be to provide a
> way to link accounts, so the software can visibly verify that they
> belong to the same person, which brings us to:

An implementation of this via some means other than linked accounts
would might also be beneficial  because it would allow for the setting
of a non-unique preferred name.

(cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
  SuperNinja92349 (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)

There are a number of users that I interact with whom login using
pseudonyms for reasons of account uniqueness but actually prefer to be
addressed by their real names.

They often express this by customizing their signature, but since this
preference is only displayed in their signature it often creates
confusion. For example, they'll mention edit of theirs on a talk page
and you'll waste a long time scanning the history for the wrong name.

Actual implementation would be a little ..fun, at least if it were to
support at will changes to preferred name.


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Automatic username transliteration for SUL

body:
What I would like to know is how a machine will be able to deduce a
pronounciation through a username.

On 12/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Neil Harris wrote:
>
> > If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the automatic
> >
> >transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> >this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
> >
> >Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the m
> >x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA tables
> >to bootstrap this.
> >
> >Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
> >
> Probably linguistic nonsense.  Although it serves a very useful purpose
> in conveying pronunciations, anly a limited community interested in
> linguistics will be familiar with it.  For everybody else (which to be
> fair must include the English speakers) it amounts to attaining equality
> by putting everything into a common language which all will equally not
> understand. :-)
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation's help to the projects

body:
On 12/23/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Can we have a semi-restricted mailing list?  The purpose of the list
> would be to find solutions to copyright dilemmas.  (That we are here
> discussing it in relation to copyright law would not prevent this
> technique from being applied for other lists with different purposes.)
> Full membership in the list would be limited in number.  Read-only
> membership would be much larger.  If the list reaches its arbitrarily
> established membership limit, a new "list2" could be started with
> similar restrictions.  List2 members could then move to list1 when there
> is a vacancy.  Preset criteria, including prolonged absence, could be
> established for dropping people from the list.
>
Is a mailing list really the best way of handling this?  It seems to
me that there would be a lot of unnecessary repetition coming from a
list.  Most of the copyright dilemmas that come up from time to time
have already been resolved to a point where anything further is just
speculation.  The only benefit I see from a semi-restricted list as
opposed to a wiki (or subset of a wiki) would be that perhaps experts
would feel more comfortable contributing to a list.  Is this even
true?  And would there be a way around it (maybe a semi-restricted
wiki)?

A list in general would also be helpful for just pointing people who
don't know where to look to the information in the wiki, but any of
the existing open mailing lists could easily handle that volume in
addition to the present volume.

Anthony


body:
On 24/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> This is indeed the usual method for people who are also developers. For
> others it is often a bridge too far.

I'm not in the least bit surprised.

The point is, that having a record on the bug tracker, where all the
other damn patches are submitted, helps out with code review, if, god
help us, an i18n patch goes nuts and wipes half the enwiki database.

Please drop the whole, "I'm not a developer, why the hell should I
co-operate with you" attitude. I daren't actually copy directly out of
the email because I don't know if my machine is configured well enough
that what I'll paste ends up being Japanese or Wingdings, or a bunch
of little squares.

Rob Church


body:
Hoi,
This is indeed the usual method for people who are also developers. For
others it is often a bridge too far.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 12/24/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 24/12/06, Yu Kobayashi <mail at yukoba.jp> wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > I made Japanese translation of
> > /trunk/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ConfirmEdit.i18n.php
> >
> > Could someone add this to SVN ?
> > It's line 174 of ConfirmEdit.i18n.php
> [snip]
>
> The usual method for submitting these is to open a new bug on
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org, attach a unified diff from Subversion
> as a patch (and make sure it's marked as a patch), then add the patch
> and need-review keywords to the bug.
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
On 12/24/06, Michael Noda <michael.noda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > I am a person. I have a name. You know me by my nick, GerardM, you may
> have
> > deduced that I am known as Gerard Meijssen. You are not likely to know
> my
> > full name.
>
> Indeed.  But, would I really be in a different position if you
> appeared in the recent changes log as GerardM (535367), which is how
> you appear on Slashdot?  Does Slashdot reduce you to *just* a number,
> or are you a name there as well?  To me, GerardM (535367) is as much a
> name as GerardM, because it's the same name.

On Slashdot my name is shown as GerardM and my Karma: Excellent. Slashdot
associates me with a number.. there is not much that I can do about it. I
resent it. It may be that to you GerardM (535367) and GerardM are the same
.. I will not react to the first when addressed like that.

> In the Netherlands in the second world war, people had to identify
> > themselves and always have their "persoonsbewijs" with them. At the end
> of
> > the war this was abolished. The Dutch government imposed itself by
> requiring
> > people to have a number and then to always be able to have some form of
> > identity with them. Many people resent this. I resent this. It is said
> that
> > it promotes security while in actual fact it makes government more
> > intruisive while it hardly helps .. mind you I have a background in
> > security.
>
> I see; I thought there might be a cultural difference like this at the
> heart of your objection.  But I reiterate my question: would imitating
> Slashdot be unacceptable, and if so, why do you post there?

When I read /. it says GerardM, they do not show this pesky number. Also I
do not associate myself with /. in the same way I do with the WMF. /. is
news for nerds.

> The other thing that I have noticed is that in the proposals it is only
> the
> > people from outside the English language Wikipedia who are forced to do
> > things. When it is suggested that the en.wikipedia community may have to
> do
> > things as well it is flatly rejected.
>
> I disagree.  All the proposals I've seen work symmetrically, where an
> en user on zh is treated identically to a zh user on en, or a ja user
> on nl.

Meaning that the proposals are ok because they insist on implementing bad
practice on other Wikipedias as well?

> Admins who go overboard in their heavy
> > handed zeal of fighting vandalism get a blanket excuse because ``they
> mean
> > well``.
>
> Have you been following news out of en lately?  Several admins have
> resigned or been forcibly desysopped by the ArbCom for overzealousness
> in vandal fighting in the last few months.

What news? If anything it is news on the English Wikipedia and it does not
necessarily gets much attention outside of its community,

> All in all, my conclusion is very much that, yes people say that the
> policy
> > is wrong, but no they do not want to accept that things will change.
> This
> > leads me to conclude that people in the English language Wikipedia see
> > themselves as a rule onto themselves and will not really consider the
> > arguments of others.
>
> This statement is very hurtful to those of us who are en editors who
> are making every effort to find an amicable solution to this
> unfortunate situation.  I beg you to retract or qualify it.
>
> -Michael Noda

What I have found is that as part of this fracas users are being de-blocked.
In essence the current practice is on the way out. That is indeed good news.
Arguments put forward by some did not consider anything outside of the
English language Wikipedia, from my perspective this is something that says
something about the people that use these arguments, not about all
en.wikipedia editors.

Thanks,
    GerardM

http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:vesel%C3%A9_v%C3%A1noce


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

body:
On 24/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> I love you guys, seriously. All of you.
>
> And that's not just the eggnog talking... Wikipedia and all our
> Wikimedia projects are, when you think about it, *pretty darn awesome*
> and they exist because some *pretty darn awesome people* are working
> together.
>
> Those pretty awesome people include YOU!
>
> YOU are pretty darn awesome!
>
>
> But we do have a bit of a collective anger management problem.
>
> There's lots of flamefests on the lists, on talk pages, on village
> pumps, in edit wars, in irc, in private mail...
>
> I'm no saint either; I believe I used words such as "idiot" in a certain
> thread a few days ago which I really oughtn't to have.
>
>
> Well, there's no point blaming anyone or saying anything specific here.
> I just want to pass on a big sloppy group hug love letter to all y'all
> Wikimedians out there.
>
>
> Remember, folks, a community like this functions because its members are
> willing and able to communicate to reach some end goal.
>
> If you're about to type off another e-mail or talk page note in anger,
> please... get off the computer for a second. Get a beverage of your
> choice, take a walk, eat a cookie, make a sandwich, tell a joke, stretch
> your legs, anything -- just cool off a second.
>
> When you get back to the computer, pretend for a second that the other
> person might have a point. Even if they are wrong, consider whether what
> you're typing will lead to a useful conversation or if you know it'll
> just make them mad and provoke a further negative response.
>
>
> The worst thing you or I can do is to assume the other person is a jerk
> who refuses to listen to reason and, therefore, we can and should ignore
> anything they say.
>
> I know I'm often guilty of assuming bad faith and taking on an automatic
> defensive position.
>
> What say we all give the opposite a try when we notice ourselves slipping?
>
> HHHHUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSSSS
>
> love,
> brion

All so, so true. Thanks for the message - hope you have a fantastic,
bliss-filled day.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith


subject: [WikiEN-l] Crediting images inside the article text

body:
On 12/23/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, Katie the Obscure <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Several people have mentioned (in this thread) crediting authors of a
> > page on the page itself. Wikia has/had an attribution feature which is
> > somewhat similar (see http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Attribution ).
> > This incarnation probably wouldn't work for Wikipedia, but if it
> > appears useful, perhaps someone can submit a feature request/argue it
> > to death in the Village Pump until all our eyes are bleeding.
>
> Two problems:
> 1) it presents some performance challenges on pages with longer histories

What kind of challenges?  Just cache the results periodically - then
you only have to look up the modifications made since the last cache.
The only real challenge is a political one, not many people have
permission to make the changes to the software and database to support
it.

> 2) It's a terrific vandalism tool which is, I believe, why wikia turned it off.
>
Considering the ability to "remove_credits", I don't see why it's any
better of a vandalism tool than any other.  Care to elaborate?

(according to http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Attribution, it was
removed for performance reasons)

> It also, like page history, does a poor job of fairly representing attribution.

It's a start, and it's much better than the page history.  In addition
to "remove_credits", there should be a way to "add_credits".  Then
you've got all the advantages of a manually edited list, plus the
additional advantage that it's automatically populated with a good
default.

Anthony


from_name: Gianluigi Gamba

subject: [Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire

body:
Titoxd at Wikimedia ha scritto:
> ...However, by exposing the home wiki of a user,
> perhaps in Special:Contributions and after every diff link (perhaps so it
> looks like $user ($wiki) (contribs | block)), an English Wikipedia admin can
> see whether the user created his account in the Japanese Wikipedia, and ask
> a Japanese-speaking admin to tell us whether the user has an objectionable
> username or not.
>
It sounds to me a very promising idea. And rather technically simple to
implement (I suppose).
+1.

G.


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> An implementation of this via some means other than linked accounts
> would might also be beneficial  because it would allow for the setting
> of a non-unique preferred name.
>
> (cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
>   SuperNinja92349 (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)
>
> There are a number of users that I interact with whom login using
> pseudonyms for reasons of account uniqueness but actually prefer to be
> addressed by their real names.
>
> They often express this by customizing their signature, but since this
> preference is only displayed in their signature it often creates
> confusion. For example, they'll mention edit of theirs on a talk page
> and you'll waste a long time scanning the history for the wrong name.
>
> Actual implementation would be a little ..fun, at least if it were to
> support at will changes to preferred name.

Shouldn't be that hard, actually; mainly we'd need to add a field to the
user table and do appropriate joins for queries that make lists of users.

There is actually a "real name" field, which we have disabled on our own
wikis... not sure if it would be wise to use that or add another
'nickname' field.

Generally though it gives me warm fuzzy feelings to have easily-settable
nicks that aren't as dispruptive as administrative name changes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 24/12/06, Michael Noda <michael.noda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > I am a person. I have a name. You know me by my nick, GerardM, you may have
> > deduced that I am known as Gerard Meijssen. You are not likely to know my
> > full name.
>
> Indeed.  But, would I really be in a different position if you
> appeared in the recent changes log as GerardM (535367), which is how
> you appear on Slashdot?  Does Slashdot reduce you to *just* a number,
> or are you a name there as well?  To me, GerardM (535367) is as much a
> name as GerardM, because it's the same name.

Or, rather, GerardM is still the same name whatever we stick after it.
(535367) isn't a name; it's an administrative convenience. My name is
Andrew Gray; my name at university was still Andrew Gray, but - for
reasons of administrative convenience, we having four Andrew Grays,
one with the same  middle name and college - some records used the
identifying code d037n8. When I did my second degree, some records
listed me with 0402330 alongside my name. For reasons of personal
convenience, I use a uniform nickname in many online systems - it's
unique to me and unlikely to cause confusion.

None of this was dehumanising, and it never infringed on my privacy.
Per your second remark, we had identity cards too, in the UK, for
fifteen years; we are fighting against having them now (and losing,
damnit). But having a number assigned to you *for administrative
convenience*, used only to help identify you in a computer system, is
not even remotely comparable with requiring you to carry papers and
present them to minor officials on a whim.

We're not talking about making everyone change their name to fit a
bureaucratic mould. We're not talking about increasing security, save
in that by making people comfortable with unfamiliar scripts they're
less likely to react stupidly to seeing them. We're talking about
taking a number *which MediaWiki already uses, internally, to refer to
you* and making it optionally visible in order to aid the use of the
wiki by those who cannot read certain scripts.

(It has wider benefits, too, even with users of the same alphabet - a
screenreader program for the blind, in any language, is much more
likely to render a six-digit number in a memorable manner than it is
to come up with a decent interpretation of a "confusing" word foreign
to it. God knows what average Anglo-American screenreader software
makes of a moderately uncommon form of a Dutch or Turkish name at the
best of times - many of them still think England had a king called
"Henry Viyeiyeiye". Instituting the number would be marvellous *just
to deal with silly signatures on enwp alone*, much less the beneficial
effects on scripts!)

I have a hard time seeing any significant privacy implications. The
only additional information disclosed is roughly how old your account
is - for accounts created since September 2005 we can tell this to the
minute anyway, and there's nothing stopping us arbitrarily randomising
numbers if this goes live.

Gerard, your objections to dehumanising or ethnocentric actions are
clear, but I'm not sure that this proposal is quite what you interpret
it to be; it certainly doesn't seem to deserve quite this strong a
reaction.

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy
 affects other communities

body:
Birgitte SB wrote:

>en.WP's username policy is incompatible with SUL.
>This is a problem.  We have heard from brion that the
>implementation of SUL is not negotiable.  We have
>heard from several en.WP editors that they are not
>willing to give up the non-Latin username blocks
>without further development work to mitigate the
>issue.  Considering that the brion (the developer) is
>not negotiating, I find the arguments about exactly
>which technical developments en.WP would demand in
>order for a policy change strange.
>
I don't find it strange.  What it does is push the extremists to modify
their position.

>This appears to be heading to a showdown.  I think
>*that* is the worse than blocking ru.WP admins and
>non-latin vandals going to town at en.WP together.  I
>would like to hear from anyone who does not strongly
>disagree with one of the two polar positions that have
>restated many times.
>
Are you sure that that's what you mean, and that a conjunction of
negatives has not resulted in a misstated position? :-)
A strict reading suggests that you only want to hear from those with
strong views on this. :-)

>Are there any en.WP editors who believe blocking users
>on sight based on their font is not a useful enough
>process to be worth breaking SUL for other editors?
>
>Is there anyone outside of en.WP who believes that SUL
>is not a useful enough process to be worth creating
>bad blood between wikis?
>
As important as vandal-fighting may be, and as dedicated as some may be
to that task, it is also useful to avoid a police mentality where the
innocent are victimized for the sake of catching the miscreants.  One
needs to accept that some streakers will run around the football field a
little longer than others.

The strict blocking policy catches too many innocents.  The Earls of
Efficiency who engage in such tactics look for technical solutions that
allow them to enforce rules while neglecting mitigating circumstances.
They make no effort to find out why something happened, and are no
different from traffic cops who ignore assumptions of good faith to meet
their quota of tickets.

The block on sight policy needs to stop immediately.  One needs to
remember that the unintelligible user names are far less of a problem
than intentionally misleading alternative characters.  I have supported
SUL ever since the idea was floated at least three years ago, before the
conversion problems had a chance to multiply.  It does require some
adjustments of which I am technically ignorant, but I suspect that
anglo-naval-gazing is more of a problem than what the techies need to do.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

body:
Bravo. :)

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 3:21 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

I love you guys, seriously. All of you.

And that's not just the eggnog talking... Wikipedia and all our
Wikimedia projects are, when you think about it, *pretty darn awesome*
and they exist because some *pretty darn awesome people* are working
together.

Those pretty awesome people include YOU!

YOU are pretty darn awesome!

But we do have a bit of a collective anger management problem.

There's lots of flamefests on the lists, on talk pages, on village
pumps, in edit wars, in irc, in private mail...

I'm no saint either; I believe I used words such as "idiot" in a certain
thread a few days ago which I really oughtn't to have.

Well, there's no point blaming anyone or saying anything specific here.
I just want to pass on a big sloppy group hug love letter to all y'all
Wikimedians out there.

Remember, folks, a community like this functions because its members are
willing and able to communicate to reach some end goal.

If you're about to type off another e-mail or talk page note in anger,
please... get off the computer for a second. Get a beverage of your
choice, take a walk, eat a cookie, make a sandwich, tell a joke, stretch
your legs, anything -- just cool off a second.

When you get back to the computer, pretend for a second that the other
person might have a point. Even if they are wrong, consider whether what
you're typing will lead to a useful conversation or if you know it'll
just make them mad and provoke a further negative response.

The worst thing you or I can do is to assume the other person is a jerk
who refuses to listen to reason and, therefore, we can and should ignore
anything they say.

I know I'm often guilty of assuming bad faith and taking on an automatic
defensive position.

What say we all give the opposite a try when we notice ourselves slipping?

HHHHUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSSSS

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith


body:
There's also the other proposal I made, and which no one has objected to
[yet]:

In diff pages and histories, perhaps instead of having

* Titoxd (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) m (reverted edits by Titoxd
(talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

Have something similar to
* Titoxd (en_wikipedia | Talk | contribs | block) m (reverted edits by
Titoxd (talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

With the en_wikipedia pointing to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Titoxd,
Special:Listusers, or perhaps even a combination report of the block log and
the Listusers display (to show whether a user is a sysop, or if he has been
blocked in his home wiki).

This could be coupled with an option to declare a home wiki somewhere (e.g.
so Anthere can put her home wiki as [[:foundation:]] if she desires), but
that could be optional. The reason I say it would be a good idea is that the
data is going to be collected anyways during the migration, and instead of
it being thrown out after SUL work is done, it could be put into some use by
perhaps adding a line of code or two. ;)

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 1:10 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On hard-to-read usernames

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> An implementation of this via some means other than linked accounts
> would might also be beneficial  because it would allow for the setting
> of a non-unique preferred name.
>
> (cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
>   SuperNinja92349 (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)
>
> There are a number of users that I interact with whom login using
> pseudonyms for reasons of account uniqueness but actually prefer to be
> addressed by their real names.
>
> They often express this by customizing their signature, but since this
> preference is only displayed in their signature it often creates
> confusion. For example, they'll mention edit of theirs on a talk page
> and you'll waste a long time scanning the history for the wrong name.
>
> Actual implementation would be a little ..fun, at least if it were to
> support at will changes to preferred name.

Shouldn't be that hard, actually; mainly we'd need to add a field to the
user table and do appropriate joins for queries that make lists of users.

There is actually a "real name" field, which we have disabled on our own
wikis... not sure if it would be wise to use that or add another
'nickname' field.

Generally though it gives me warm fuzzy feelings to have easily-settable
nicks that aren't as dispruptive as administrative name changes.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric
	policy affects other communities

body:
On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 01:04:38 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>U. S. made albums put the U. S. stamps at the beginning of the album.
>These albums are regularly sold in Canada.  When he buys such an album
>in looseleaf format a Canadian collector's first act will be to refile
>that section under the letter "U".

"F".  For Foreign :o)

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


from_name: Yu Kobayashi

body:
Hello

I made Japanese translation of
/trunk/extensions/ConfirmEdit/ConfirmEdit.i18n.php

Could someone add this to SVN ?
It's line 174 of ConfirmEdit.i18n.php

--

$wgConfirmEditMessages['ja'] = array(
	'captcha-short'              => "??????????URL??????????????????????????????????????

([[Special:Captcha/help|??????]])",
	'captchahelp-title'          => 'Captcha ???',
	'captchahelp-text'           => "?Wiki??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

???????????????????????Wiki??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

??????????????????????????????",
	'captcha-createaccount'      => "???????????????????????????????????????????

([[Special:Captcha/help|??????]])",
	'captcha-createaccount-fail' => "?????????????????????",
);

--

Yu Kobayashi


body:
Hoi,

On 12/24/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 24/12/06, Michael Noda <michael.noda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/23/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > I am a person. I have a name. You know me by my nick, GerardM, you may
> have
> > > deduced that I am known as Gerard Meijssen. You are not likely to know
> my
> > > full name.
> >
> > Indeed.  But, would I really be in a different position if you
> > appeared in the recent changes log as GerardM (535367), which is how
> > you appear on Slashdot?  Does Slashdot reduce you to *just* a number,
> > or are you a name there as well?  To me, GerardM (535367) is as much a
> > name as GerardM, because it's the same name.
>
> Or, rather, GerardM is still the same name whatever we stick after it.
> (535367) isn't a name; it's an administrative convenience. My name is
> Andrew Gray; my name at university was still Andrew Gray, but - for
> reasons of administrative convenience, we having four Andrew Grays,
> one with the same  middle name and college - some records used the
> identifying code d037n8. When I did my second degree, some records
> listed me with 0402330 alongside my name. For reasons of personal
> convenience, I use a uniform nickname in many online systems - it's
> unique to me and unlikely to cause confusion.
>
> None of this was dehumanising, and it never infringed on my privacy.
> Per your second remark, we had identity cards too, in the UK, for
> fifteen years; we are fighting against having them now (and losing,
> damnit). But having a number assigned to you *for administrative
> convenience*, used only to help identify you in a computer system, is
> not even remotely comparable with requiring you to carry papers and
> present them to minor officials on a whim.
>
> We're not talking about making everyone change their name to fit a
> bureaucratic mould. We're not talking about increasing security, save
> in that by making people comfortable with unfamiliar scripts they're
> less likely to react stupidly to seeing them. We're talking about
> taking a number *which MediaWiki already uses, internally, to refer to
> you* and making it optionally visible in order to aid the use of the
> wiki by those who cannot read certain scripts.
>
> (It has wider benefits, too, even with users of the same alphabet - a
> screenreader program for the blind, in any language, is much more
> likely to render a six-digit number in a memorable manner than it is
> to come up with a decent interpretation of a "confusing" word foreign
> to it. God knows what average Anglo-American screenreader software
> makes of a moderately uncommon form of a Dutch or Turkish name at the
> best of times - many of them still think England had a king called
> "Henry Viyeiyeiye". Instituting the number would be marvellous *just
> to deal with silly signatures on enwp alone*, much less the beneficial
> effects on scripts!)
>
> I have a hard time seeing any significant privacy implications. The
> only additional information disclosed is roughly how old your account
> is - for accounts created since September 2005 we can tell this to the
> minute anyway, and there's nothing stopping us arbitrarily randomising
> numbers if this goes live.
>
> Gerard, your objections to dehumanising or ethnocentric actions are
> clear, but I'm not sure that this proposal is quite what you interpret
> it to be; it certainly doesn't seem to deserve quite this strong a
> reaction.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

There is a big difference how it is perceived by people from your cultural
background and the way it is seen by those who have a different cultural
background. From your point of view it is clear, my POV seems to be
unreasonable. The problem is that for you to get a NPOV you have to address
the other POV as well. When people say that discrimination is blind, it is
meant that people do not understand how a certain attitude, opinion affects
others. For the record, I do not mean to say that you MEAN to discriminate,
if I did I would not respond at all. What I do say is that there are
sensitivities here, sensitivities that when not addressed will and do lead
to resentment.

Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation has a great reputation for its NPOV
and its wish to accommodate people with different backgrounds. The problem
is that because of expediency choices are likely to be made who clash with
these other backgrounds. If I do not protest now, if I do not fight for a
more acceptable solution now, the chance to be heard will be gone and we
will be stuck with a system like the one of /.

Thanks,
     GerardM

http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:%D0%A1%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%9B%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%9B


body:
Hoi,
It does not. There is no standard yet that includes the differentiation
between spoken dialects. With the ISO-639-6 this will become to
differentiate between different linguistic entities even for pronunciations.
When this standard becomes functional, it will be possible to identify a
word as to be associated with a specific spoken linguistic entity and
consequently software will be able to guess how it needs to be pronounced.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On 12/24/06, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What I would like to know is how a machine will be able to deduce a
> pronounciation through a username.
>
> On 12/24/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> > Neil Harris wrote:
> >
> > > If we can make it as simple as that (and acknowledge that the
> automatic
> > >
> > >transliteration will often be very, very,  bad) we could possibly make
> > >this work, with the option to change your nick to something else later.
> > >
> > >Perhaps language -> IPA -> language might be a good way of helping the
> m
> > >x n problem for this, in which case we could use language <-> IPA
> tables
> > >to bootstrap this.
> > >
> > >Would this be a good idea, or would it be linguistic nonsense?
> > >
> > Probably linguistic nonsense.  Although it serves a very useful purpose
> > in conveying pronunciations, anly a limited community interested in
> > linguistics will be familiar with it.  For everybody else (which to be
> > fair must include the English speakers) it amounts to attaining equality
> > by putting everything into a common language which all will equally not
> > understand. :-)
> >
> > Ec
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
Hoi,
You missed the proposal made by Anthere ... The best proposal so far.

A user can be associated with metrics that indicate the status of a user ..
this can have several attributes, amounts of positive contributions, the
status on other projects like admin/bureaucrat etc.  This will provide the
information people say they need; a clue as to if someone can be trusted to
do good.

Another point, in the proposals you do not indicate that some of these are
seen as problematic by some.

Thanks,
    GerardM

http://www.omegawiki.org/Expression:Selamat_Hari_Natal

On 12/24/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Certain recent threads have become very deep and it's hard to find the
> needles among the haystacks, so I thought I'd summarize a couple things
> and ask a couple questions.
>
>
> Background:
>
> There is some concern that usernames which are difficult to read due to
> using a different script from the rest of the wiki (such as a Japanese
> name on an English site, or a Russian name on a Thai site) can be
> difficult for administrators, and other wiki contributors, to deal with.
>
> For instance it can be hard to talk about some other user when you can't
> recognize their name.
>
>
> Conflict:
>
> There has been some fighting over this issue because some admins on
> en.wikipedia.org have taken to outright blocking of non-Latin usernames
> on that site so as not to have to deal with the issue.
>
> There is additional concern that this will become a more frequent issue
> in the future, as the introduction of a unified login system will make
> it easier for people to use their existing usernames they already
> registered on other wikis; thus there is more concern about solving the
> issue in the near future.
>
>
> Suggestions:
>
> Several suggestions were made in previous threads on ways to make it
> easier to recognize and deal with such 'foreign' usernames. In no
> particular order, these include:
>
> * Display a user ID number alongside the name
>
> A possible example history line:
>
> (cur) (last) 10:09, 24 December 2006
>    Brion VIBBER (#51 | Talk | contribs | block) (word to the wise)
>
> This is relatively simple, and relatively culturally neutral, if not
> particularly visually attractive.
>
> The ID number could be either the local account number (this is
> displayed in Special:Preferences) or, after unified login (SUL) is
> introduced, a global account number which would be the same on all wikis.
>
> An example of a site that behaves this way is slashdot.org, which
> displays the user ID number next to the username in post headings.
>
> User IDs are possible to use in a few special-page forms that deal with
> accounts in part to work around the occasional 'can't figure out how to
> pass this username around to people' issue. It may be logical to extend
> that.
>
> One thing to consider is that low or high id numbers may indicate
> relative age of an account, which may affect perceived prestige or
> trustworthiness. This might be considered a useful heuristic, or
> alternatively it might be considered anti-egalitarian to display the
> number so widely.
>
>
> * Display a transliteration of the name into Latin or local script
>
> A possible example history line:
>
> (cur) (last)  10:43, 24 December 2006
>    ???? (Hoippu | Talk | contribs)
>
> Transliteration is tricky at the best of times. While approximations
> good enough to 'get an idea what you're looking at' might not be
> entirely impossible, there is some concern that they will be perceived
> as culturally biased or incorrect.
>
> More generally, transliterations would not be unique, and so don't
> necessarily serve as well for passing around in links or typing into
> forms.
>
>
> * Use easily-changable 'nicknames' more extensively
>
> Possibly combined with a default transliteration mode, this could allow
> people using a common primary username to choose a more 'friendly' nick
> to be displayed and used more widely in the user interface than the
> current nickname option for talk page signatures.
>
> In some ways the simplest implementation of this might be to provide a
> way to link accounts, so the software can visibly verify that they
> belong to the same person, which brings us to:
>
>
> * Multiple linked usernames
>
> This is for instance how IRC works; on Freenode my usernames "brion",
> "brion_away", "brion_work" etc are linked together so that I have the
> same password, and when I'm logged in as "brion_work" anyone can check
> and confirm that I really am "brion", not just some random guy who says
> he is the same brion.
>
> The upcoming single user login (SUL) system is designed to provide this
> linked-account guarantee for *the same name* on *different wikis*, but
> there can be some benefit to also demonstrating a linkage between
> *different names*.
>
> One example that would be useful is when someone wants to change their
> username just because they didn't like their old one very much. Right
> now they either just make a new account, which doesn't demonstrate the
> linkage provably, or they have to ask a "bureaucrat" to perform an
> administrative account rename for them.
>
> There would I think be some benefit to simply allowing people to create
> a new name for their account, and have the system say to anyone who
> needs to verify it that "yes this is the same user".
>
> In the context of "foreign" usernames, this would make it easy for
> people who are active on some other wiki to choose an additional name to
> work under which is more friendly to local readers.
>
>
> Possible concerns include a general unease with the idea that people
> might then be _forced_ to choose another name (for instance if their
> regular name gets banned on sight), or annoyance with people who might
> register many linked names and switch among them at whim, for instance
> to fit a mood. :)
>
>
> Anyway, that's just a few thoughts based on the possible remedies I've
> seen mentioned previously and a couple others I haven't.
>
> Please try to keep the flames off this thread.
>
> Nothing is decided for certain yet, and I hope we can all work together
> and have a conversation like reasonable ladies and gentlemen.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 24/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> A user can be associated with metrics that indicate the status of a user ..
> this can have several attributes, amounts of positive contributions, the
> status on other projects like admin/bureaucrat etc.  This will provide the
> information people say they need; a clue as to if someone can be trusted to
> do good.

It's not clear why processing users' contributions by machine is less
dehumanising than allowing display of their user-ID number.

Also, mechanical processing of contributions leads to a gameable
system which *will* then be gamed.

- d.


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:59:21 +0100, Ryan Wetherell <renardius at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 12/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I found one once where a woman was even using photos I'd taken
>> on her site...I wasn't sure whether to be flattered, offended, or
>> just...confused.
>>
>> Steve
>
> I guess that depends on the context in which the photos were being used.

Heh, the Register used one of my photos in theyr "Wikipedia Chicken
attacked" article (mostly because it happens to be the first image in the
article I guess). That's cool though, I released it to the public domain
so I can hardly complain about people using it, and in that context it
would have been a fair use either way I guess.

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
On 12/24/06, HeinzJ <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> Meaning:
>
> Wikipedia has the full responsibility for contents
> and  everyone may use the Logo in a similar form.
>

No you need permission to use the logo.

--
geni


from_name: Parker Peters

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
Do we really have to deal with antisemitic bastard behavior the day before
most of the world celebrates the birth of the world's most famous Jew?

I mean, seriously. This kind of racist POV-pushing is bad enough on
wikipedia, now we have to deal with it on the ML and at this time of year?

Shame on you.

Parker

On 12/23/06, Argis Rohat <argis.rohat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is the entire passage under the heading "Israel" in the article
> "Allegations of apartheid"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid
>
> Does any objective person consider it to be NPOV?
>
> *Israel*
> *Main article:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Allegations
> of Israeli apartheid<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid>
> *
>
> The phrase "Israeli apartheid" (or the terming of
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Israel<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel>an
> "apartheid state") is a controversial phrase used by some critics of
> Israel, who compare Israel's treatment of
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Palestinians<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians>with
> the treatment of blacks in apartheid-era South Africa.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[82]<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Pilger>The
> majority of academics and journalists who have commented on the term
> are
> reported to deplore its use
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[83]<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Adam>on
> the grounds that it is historically inaccurate,
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>antisemitic<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[84]<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Pulzer
> >propaganda,
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[83]<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Adam>and
> a
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>political
> epithet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_epithet>used to justify
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>terrorist attacks
> against Israel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism>.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[85]<
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Phillips>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>
> -------
> For one thing the sentence states as fact that the term "Israeli
> apartheid"
> is "*historically inaccurate,
> *antisemitic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism>
>   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>, propaganda,
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>and a
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>political
> epithet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_epithet>used to justify
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>terrorist attacks
> against Israel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism>.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>" something a
> wikipedia article should not be asserting. Secondly the paragaraph is not
> neutral and strongly weighted with the view that Israeli apartheid is not
> an
> acceptable term.
>
> Several editors have attempted to correct this paragraph's bias but they
> have been blocked by a larger number of determined editors pushing a POV
> against the term.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Dirk Franke

subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

body:
brion,

thanks. you made my day.

southgeist

2006/12/24, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>:
>
> I love you guys, seriously. All of you.
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jeff Raymond wrote:

>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>
>>So you think that every sentence should have a tag denoting who wrote
>>the sentence?
>>
>>
>Every sentence, no.  Every section that takes its reference from a
>specific source, yes.  I come from a history background, I'm a bit intense
>about sourcing.
>
This would open up a whole different can of worms:  Ownership.  The
scope for editing images is not as wide as for text, so a person
uploading an image is less likely to have another editor come along and
turn it into something else, and using that as a basis for an edit war.
Thus it is easier to give personal credit to a Wikipedian for a
photograph.

With text, however, we have long held the notion that it may be brutally
edited  I don't think that any of us wants to deal with the situation
where an editor defends his own text on the grounds that his prose style
is better than anyone else's.

Ec


body:
On 12/24/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> This could be coupled with an option to declare a home wiki somewhere (e.g.
> so Anthere can put her home wiki as [[:foundation:]] if she desires), but
> that could be optional. The reason I say it would be a good idea is that the
> data is going to be collected anyways during the migration, and instead of
> it being thrown out after SUL work is done, it could be put into some use by
> perhaps adding a line of code or two. ;)

How about we just combine ideas here.. Allow the preferred name field
to also have a user specified internal link to any of our projects?
Same data could be made part of the default signature.

* Titoxd ([[:commons:User:Titoxd|John Doe]] | Talk | contribs | block)
m (reverted edits by Titoxd
(talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

(obviously clickable and not wikitext)

The problem with this is that would allow for some sneaky behavior
that we'd have to deal with. (i.e. people claiming to be someone that
they are not)  So an alternative would be to make the username field
clickable, and have a user field that indicates which wiki the link
will take them to... If we're going to have a join against the user
table to obtain a prefered name, it would be easy enough to grab a
homewiki id to use for the userlink. ...

Although, do we really want userlinks randomly wisking you off to another wiki?


from_name: Tom Tolnam

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
On 24/12/06, Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu- <tariqabjotu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why not? Not everyone celebrates Christmas; the majority of the world is
> not Christian.

As I remember, 3 billion Christians in the world over 6 billion total
population equals a close minority or a close majority.

However, this is not important.  I used unverified figures sure to be
controversial, and probably incorrect.  Despite this, Christianity IS the
largest religion.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Wiktionary-l] On Christmas eve ..

body:
This is a Wikimedia mailing list. You should probably save the news for an
Omega Wiki list.

Danny


from_name: Jan-Bart de Vreede

subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith

body:
Possibly the best email I have read this year :)

Jan-Bart

Brion Vibber wrote:
> I love you guys, seriously. All of you.
>
> And that's not just the eggnog talking... Wikipedia and all our
> Wikimedia projects are, when you think about it, *pretty darn awesome*
> and they exist because some *pretty darn awesome people* are working
> together.
>
> Those pretty awesome people include YOU!
>
> YOU are pretty darn awesome!
>
>
> But we do have a bit of a collective anger management problem.
>
> There's lots of flamefests on the lists, on talk pages, on village
> pumps, in edit wars, in irc, in private mail...
>
> I'm no saint either; I believe I used words such as "idiot" in a certain
> thread a few days ago which I really oughtn't to have.
>
>
> Well, there's no point blaming anyone or saying anything specific here.
> I just want to pass on a big sloppy group hug love letter to all y'all
> Wikimedians out there.
>
>
> Remember, folks, a community like this functions because its members are
> willing and able to communicate to reach some end goal.
>
> If you're about to type off another e-mail or talk page note in anger,
> please... get off the computer for a second. Get a beverage of your
> choice, take a walk, eat a cookie, make a sandwich, tell a joke, stretch
> your legs, anything -- just cool off a second.
>
> When you get back to the computer, pretend for a second that the other
> person might have a point. Even if they are wrong, consider whether what
> you're typing will lead to a useful conversation or if you know it'll
> just make them mad and provoke a further negative response.
>
>
> The worst thing you or I can do is to assume the other person is a jerk
> who refuses to listen to reason and, therefore, we can and should ignore
> anything they say.
>
> I know I'm often guilty of assuming bad faith and taking on an automatic
> defensive position.
>
> What say we all give the opposite a try when we notice ourselves slipping?
>
> HHHHUUUUUGGGGSSSSSSSSS
>
> love,
> brion
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>

--

I am actively involved in the Wikimedia Foundation.

You can give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia!
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising>


subject: [Foundation-l] Assume good faith


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>As important as vandal-fighting may be, and as dedicated as some may be
>to that task, it is also useful to avoid a police mentality where the
>innocent are victimized for the sake of catching the miscreants.  One
>needs to accept that some streakers will run around the football field a
>little longer than others.
>
>The strict blocking policy catches too many innocents.  The Earls of
>Efficiency who engage in such tactics look for technical solutions that
>allow them to enforce rules while neglecting mitigating circumstances.
>They make no effort to find out why something happened, and are no
>different from traffic cops who ignore assumptions of good faith to meet
>their quota of tickets.
>
>The block on sight policy needs to stop immediately.  One needs to
>remember that the unintelligible user names are far less of a problem
>than intentionally misleading alternative characters.  I have supported
>SUL ever since the idea was floated at least three years ago, before the
>conversion problems had a chance to multiply.  It does require some
>adjustments of which I am technically ignorant, but I suspect that
>anglo-naval-gazing is more of a problem than what the techies need to do.
>
>Ec
>
>
I was trying to think about how all this applies to Wikibooks, where on
at least en.wikibooks such a policy certainly has not been in force, at
least to my knowledge, ever.

Indeed, in terms of permitting users to use non-latin characters in a
user name, this user's account came up:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User%3A%D0%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%92%D0%B5_%D0%94._%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%9B

Not only is he "permitted" to be involved in the development of
Wikibooks, he was elected to become an administrator. (There aren't that
many admins on Wikibooks.)

I don't know how many admins on en.wikipedia have non-latin characters
that are like this, but this certainly seems to be an en.wikipedia-only
policy.  I certainly had never even heard about this being done until
this current flamefest started.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
On 24/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/24/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Also, mechanical processing of contributions leads to a gameable
> > system which *will* then be gamed.

> How the metrics are to be created is something that has not been discussed
> at all. It is clever that you already know that it will be possible to game
> it.

Experience on en:wp, rather than cleverness.

- d.


body:
George Herbert wrote:

>The conflict here is being exaggerated.  There is only one reason for there
>to be a "showdown" here - if SUL is right around the corner and we haven't
>had time to think through the implications for the en.WP policy and come to
>agreement on how to deal with those.
>
>If SUL is right around the corner, with all due respect to its importance to
>the project as a whole and its importance in development, can it be held off
>long enough to discuss appropriately and develop a reasonable global
>consensus?
>
If SUL is just around the corner, so too is some as yet undiscussed
controversy about it.  Some time ago the delay was over what to do when
different people had the same user name on different projects.  The
current dispute was never mentioned then.

When en:wiktionary moved to case sensitive first letters in the title of
articles there were a few who were ready to whine and bitch as much as
they had to to prevent it.  Suddenly it was implemented.  Some
opportunities to make the transition an easier one were lost, and that
did inconvenience many of us who nevertheless supported the change.  But
it had to be done.

There has been strong support for SUL for a considerable time.  If it's
technically ready let's just do it.  The inconvenience of a handful of
vandal fighters can be dealt with later.

Ec


from_name: HeinzJ

subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
Steve Summit schrieb:
> geni wrote:
>> On 12/13/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is it even legal for them to use the stashed copy? That seems to
>>> potentially violate the GFDL in any number of ways.
>> Do they give credit in any way shape or form?
>
> Absolutely, and quite adequately, IMO.
> I've placed a screenshot at http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/GEWiki.jpg
> for those who are curious.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Nice Picture

Meaning:

Wikipedia has the full responsibility for contents
and  everyone may use the Logo in a similar form.

HeinzJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
Steve Summit schrieb:
> geni wrote:
>> On 12/13/06, The Cunctator <cunctator-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> Is it even legal for them to use the stashed copy? That seems to
>>> potentially violate the GFDL in any number of ways.
>> Do they give credit in any way shape or form?
>
> Absolutely, and quite adequately, IMO.
> I've placed a screenshot at http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/GEWiki.jpg
> for those who are curious.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l-g2DCOkC13y2GglJvpFV4uA at public.gmane.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
Nice Picture

Meaning:

Wikipedia has the full responsibility for contents
and  everyone may use the Logo in a similar form.

HeinzJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
Gregory Maxwell schrieb:
> On 12/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> [snip]
>>  I say get behind World Wind and/or some other free software.
> [snip]
>
> I'd love to see world wind with better Wikipedia integration, however

The problem is the google maps hype >> within wikipedia << - nearly
everyone got adictted.

HeinzJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
Gregory Maxwell schrieb:
> On 12/13/06, Anthony <wikilegal-d6AYu9+njizYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> [snip]
>>  I say get behind World Wind and/or some other free software.
> [snip]
>
> I'd love to see world wind with better Wikipedia integration, however

The problem is the google maps hype >> within wikipedia << - nearly
everyone got adictted.

HeinzJ


subject: [WikiEN-l] new Google Earth tie-in (!!)

body:
Sander Sepp schrieb:
> I like the way it is now. Google's servers load the articles faster
> than wikipedia servers do, at least for me in Europe. Using the live
> articles would cause longer load times.
>
Interesting. Could'nt we move to googlepedia ?

HeinzJ


from_name: Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-

subject: [WikiEN-l] POV on Israel

body:
Why not? Not everyone celebrates Christmas; the majority of the world is
not Christian. And issues on Wikipedia are not going to take a holiday
regardless. And I won't even touch this statement -- "the birth of the
world's most famous Jew"

-- Tariq Ab- Jo- Tu-

Parker Peters wrote:
> Do we really have to deal with antisemitic bastard behavior the day before
> most of the world celebrates the birth of the world's most famous Jew?
>
> I mean, seriously. This kind of racist POV-pushing is bad enough on
> wikipedia, now we have to deal with it on the ML and at this time of year?
>
> Shame on you.
>
> Parker
>
> On 12/23/06, Argis Rohat <argis.rohat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is the entire passage under the heading "Israel" in the article
>> "Allegations of apartheid"
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid
>>
>> Does any objective person consider it to be NPOV?
>>
>> *Israel*
>> *Main article:
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Allegations
>> of Israeli apartheid<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid>
>> *
>>
>> The phrase "Israeli apartheid" (or the terming of
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Israel<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel>an
>> "apartheid state") is a controversial phrase used by some critics of
>> Israel, who compare Israel's treatment of
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>Palestinians<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians>with
>> the treatment of blacks in apartheid-era South Africa.
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[82]<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Pilger>The
>> majority of academics and journalists who have commented on the term
>> are
>> reported to deplore its use
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[83]<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Adam>on
>> the grounds that it is historically inaccurate,
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>antisemitic<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism>
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[84]<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Pulzer
>>
>>> propaganda,
>>>
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[83]<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Adam>and
>> a
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>political
>> epithet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_epithet>used to justify
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>terrorist attacks
>> against Israel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism>.
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>[85]<
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid#_note-Phillips>
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>
>> -------
>> For one thing the sentence states as fact that the term "Israeli
>> apartheid"
>> is "*historically inaccurate,
>> *antisemitic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism>
>>   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>, propaganda,
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>and a
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>political
>> epithet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_epithet>used to justify
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>terrorist attacks
>> against Israel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism>.
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid>" something a
>> wikipedia article should not be asserting. Secondly the paragaraph is not
>> neutral and strongly weighted with the view that Israeli apartheid is not
>> an
>> acceptable term.
>>
>> Several editors have attempted to correct this paragraph's bias but they
>> have been blocked by a larger number of determined editors pushing a POV
>> against the term.
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,

On 12/24/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 24/12/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > A user can be associated with metrics that indicate the status of a user
> ..
> > this can have several attributes, amounts of positive contributions, the
> > status on other projects like admin/bureaucrat etc.  This will provide
> the
> > information people say they need; a clue as to if someone can be trusted
> to
> > do good.
>
>
> It's not clear why processing users' contributions by machine is less
> dehumanising than allowing display of their user-ID number.

The difference is that I do not mind to be associated with what I have done.
It is also exactly the type of information that helps assess if someone is
more likely to be trusted. A number has nothing to do with me.

Also, mechanical processing of contributions leads to a gameable
> system which *will* then be gamed.
>
>
> - d.

How the metrics are to be created is something that has not been discussed
at all. It is clever that you already know that it will be possible to game
it.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Peter Ansell

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Assume good faith" is no longer policy.

body:
On 23/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >On 12/19/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>I haven't participated in any of the discussion about Assume Good Faith, but
> >>>in my experience, I've usually encountered it when users quote it to claim
> >>>that criticism of them is equivalent to not assuming good faith.
> >>>Does it really solve more problems than it causes?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>It's like "don't be a dick".  The idea is to do it, not to quote it.
> >>
> >>
> >I personally agree with Jimbo's elevation of "assume good faith" to be
> >the single mantra which binds us together and makes Wikipedia work.
> >Everyone *does* need to know about. You don't enforce it, you don't
> >beat people over the head with it, but you do make sure people are
> >aware of its existence, and hope they follow it.
> >
> That's better.  More than either a rule or a guideline, "assume good
> faith" is a principle.  It is integral to the five pillars.
>
> Ec
>

Apparently this pillar is unenforceable and does more harm than
good... (Not my thoughts)

Peter


body:
Well, it can be made in a way that the link appears only in special
circumstances. Assuming that my home wiki is commons, it would show up as
Greg suggests:

* Titoxd ([[:commons:User:Titoxd|John Doe]] | Talk | contribs | block) m
(reverted edits by Titoxd (talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

But that would occur if someone were seeing a diff I made on the Spanish
Wikipedia, for example. On commons, it could just show up like this:

* Titoxd (John Doe | Talk | contribs | block) m (reverted edits by Titoxd
(talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

That would minimize the amount of cross-wiki jumping, and make it clearer to
the end user, I believe.

As to having impersonation problems: well, I one way to avoid them would be
to sanitize the nickname or real name field, disallowing all wikitext and
links; then, the software would automatically fill out the defined home
wiki, and prevent the user from doing so. Or, if it gets really bad and
people want to stop me from saying that my name is "Gregory Maxwell" in my
nickname field, the field could be hidden from view by default, and users
would have to follow the current method of writing it on their raw signature
manually. Another option is to forcefully hide the nickname field of
offenders, but that seems unnecessary, IMO.

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gregory Maxwell
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 1:55 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] On hard-to-read usernames

On 12/24/06, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> This could be coupled with an option to declare a home wiki somewhere
(e.g.
> so Anthere can put her home wiki as [[:foundation:]] if she desires), but
> that could be optional. The reason I say it would be a good idea is that
the
> data is going to be collected anyways during the migration, and instead of
> it being thrown out after SUL work is done, it could be put into some use
by
> perhaps adding a line of code or two. ;)

How about we just combine ideas here.. Allow the preferred name field
to also have a user specified internal link to any of our projects?
Same data could be made part of the default signature.

* Titoxd ([[:commons:User:Titoxd|John Doe]] | Talk | contribs | block)
m (reverted edits by Titoxd
(talk) to last version by Brion VIBBER)

(obviously clickable and not wikitext)

The problem with this is that would allow for some sneaky behavior
that we'd have to deal with. (i.e. people claiming to be someone that
they are not)  So an alternative would be to make the username field
clickable, and have a user field that indicates which wiki the link
will take them to... If we're going to have a join against the user
table to obtain a prefered name, it would be easy enough to grab a
homewiki id to use for the userlink. ...

Although, do we really want userlinks randomly wisking you off to another
wiki?
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