from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

body:
05-08-16, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> napisa?(a):
> I am glad to hear of this :-)
>
> Please, do not forget to join tomorrow irc meetup (foundation and
> existing chapters only). Get on #wikimedia at 18 utc.

I don't think TOR will come, Jadwiga and Wulfstan won't be around, but
I'll try to get on with Polimerek.

> There was a mailing list for all board members of chapters,
> chapter-l at wikimedia.org, but it appears to have been lost in the server
> crash the other day (at least, it is unreachable now). We'll probably
> have to create a new one on a working server. For now, cc mails only.
> Could you by tomorrow gather the email addresses of your 5 board members ?

II think I have every email in my Gmail box, I'll give them to you on IRC.

> Also, consider joining the legal mailing list juriwiki-l at wikimedia.org
> mailing list (Soufron is its moderator) if not yet on it. You are
> welcome to suggest lawyers, judges etc... from polish projects to join
> as well.

I'm already there, along with G-dam, one of the Polish users who's
experienced in Polish law. We don't need anyone more, I think - I'll
announce it, if anyone will be interested, either me or TOR will give
you their email addresses.

> I'll be glad that Datrio draft a small announcement of the chapter
> announcement for the foundation website :
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

Actually, we want to finish all the formalities (registring in court,
getting accepted by the Foundation, etc), then I'll post the info on
the Foundation home.

> Also, if one or several of you could make a small recap of the meeting,
> with some nice pictures (and names on it) for Quarto 4, it would be
> great as well.

Hmm... I'll take care of it, and TOR will correct me ;).

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki

PS. Pozdrawiam = "Best regards" ;)


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Polish Chapter founded


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] private: nds.wiktionary.org correction of errors
	in	articles

body:
Heiko Evermann wrote:

>Hi Gerard,
>ok, let us do this in private mail:
>
>
>>We have a letter by a university professor informing us that bitter
>>fights are waged over what is "correct" spelling in nds. Anyway the fact
>>that you have your sources in itself only proves that you can attribute
>>the information that you provide to an orthography. "Werner Eichelberg
>>sien dollet W??rbook" is the source of Sabine's list; Werner indicated
>>that the source were articles that were translated from deutschplatt.
>>
>>
>So do you or does Sabine have the original articles that led to the list by
>Werner Eichelberg?
>
>
No Werner has these origninal articles.

>>Your assertion that this must be incorrect is based on the availability
>>of the resources that you have. There are some 200 valid orthographies
>>and your assertion that some words *must *be wrong can be substantiated
>>when you have considered them all. The sheer fact that this source has
>>been indicated for several years as a good resource on the nds.wikipedia
>>must count for something, (it is not just any old website :)
>>
>>
>No this is not the way to do it. I have shown examples that were wrong. In all
>there have been three people in nds.wiktionary.org, all familiar with the
>language who state that this list is of low quality. We have given examples.
>In such a case it is then up to those who advocate *for* the list that this
>list conforms to some standard. We have given enough evidence. The main
>example is "abschreim". This is High German Slang. The evidence for this is
>1) the word exists as such in High German
>2) it uses the prefix "ab". Low Saxon uses "af-" here. I can document that for
>North Low Saxon in general (Sass), Schleswig-Holstein Westcoast (Neuber),
>Mecklenburg (Hermann-Winter).
>3) it uses "-ei." (German) instead of "-i-" (Low Saxon)
>4) a google search lists 249 instances, most of them written in south German
>slang. Search for "abschreim dat f?r" to filter out High German by also
>searching for two very common LS words (neuter article and a common
>preposition) and you get deutschplatt and a mirror of it.
>
>So this shows that this entry has nothing to do with being one of 200 valid
>orthographies. And now it is really up to you to show which LS orthography
>this word conforms to.
>
>
>
You are missing the point in that you want to make a rule from an example.

>>You again assert that they are misspellings. Given that Sabine is in the
>>process of getting more resources for this discussion, it would be
>>prudent to give it some time and not insist on instant resolution
>>because this is not feasible.
>>
>>
>To me that sounds like you are evading a discussion.
>
>
At this moment there is not much point to the discussion. It can wait
until we have better resoures.

>>First of all I have done nothing here; I have not imported the list, but
>>given your point of view that only what you know to be correct should be
>>inserted I do agree that what Sabine did is in line with the Wiki
>>tradition. She provides information that people can comment on.
>>
>>
>Do you really think that people in it.wiktionary.org will comment on that? If
>you want comments, you can get them in nds.wiktionary.org, where we are doing
>exactly that. And therefore I really cannot understand why she uploaded this
>data into it.wiktionary.org. This just means that when UW will be available,
>we will get all that data again. We can clean things up in
>nds.wiktionary.org, but all the problems will reappear then.
>
>
>
We will get comments from the people that Sabine is contacting.

>>Again, I
>>urge you to identify the words that you know to be correct for the
>>orthography that they represent. This will ultimately give us a list of
>>words that cannot be attributed to any orthography because they are
>>wrong; they will then be indicated for what we will know at that time.
>>
>>
>I think it is not neccessary to flag all words as nds-sass. The data that I
>have entered/corrected is generally correct. If that is not sufficient for
>you, I would still propose to have the main heading flagged with -nds- and to
>have subheadings indicating the spellings and areas where this is correct. To
>me it does not make so much sense to have all entries flagged as
>"Plattd??tsch (Sass, Noordneddersassisch)". Or is that really what you want
>to have? For me (and I think that the others from nds.wikipedia.org do think
>the same) it would be sufficient to list deviant forms as such and I would
>also like to place notes in the articles linking to other forms. But that
>seems to be impossible? My suggestion is to work through the list to clean up
>what can be easily cleaned up and then to have a look at what remains.
>
>
You are wrong. Without flagging words as nds-sass what you do is not
relevant. There is no such thing as "generally correct" if it is correct
it can be atributed to one or more orthographies. If this cannot be
done, the quality is as debatable as the stuff you object to. By
indicating that something is Sass, there is a black and white situation
by saying that something is nds it can be correct for any of the 200
orthographies and at this moment in time I do not take your word for it
being non-nds.

>>>No Gerard, *you* have not delivered substantiated facts. Why haven't you
>>>done that
>>>all along. This discussion has been going on for several weeks now. And
>>>your only
>>>argument is that you found this spelling somewhere on the internet and
>>>therefore
>>>it is a valid spelling. You could of course try to import all this data
>>>with the tag
>>>"very private spelling of xy", but then I really have ask who should
>>>profit from that?
>>>Low Saxon is in a bad shape nowadays. And an nds.wiktionary.org needs to
>>>present data
>>>that reflect actual current usage of words and not private spellings. If
>>>there should be
>>>a place for very private spellings in wiktionary or UW, then certainly
>>>*after* inserting
>>>the real, current use as substantiated by dictionaries etc. of whatever
>>>spelling. What I have been doing is cleaning up (as can be seen in
>>>nds.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges). And I do think that this
>>>has helped to make the data a lot more relevant.
>>>
>>>
>>I am not party in this really because I am not gaining access to new
>>resources. What I am doing is showing that what is being done is
>>relevant and an acceptable way of going forward.
>>
>>
>Sorry, I do not see that you have shown that the list is relevant.
>
>
I am talking about how Sabine is working towards a resolution. I am not
talking about this list here.

>
>
>>To make it relevant you have to state what orthography a word is
>>http://nds.wiktionary.org/wiki/ankieken (a recently changed article)
>>does not indicate an orthography and is from my point of view as
>>relevant as any of the stuff Sabine uploaded.
>>
>>
>I moved it to the basic form. The word is common Low Saxon and does not
>require any further flagging.
>
>
>
I disagree if a word is to be correct we need to know for what
orthographies it is correct. If this cannot be done or if you do not
want to specify this, you devalue your work.

>>As mentioned before, this is the pot calling the kettle black. Start
>>indicating orthographies and you prove the quality of your contributions.
>>
>>
>Words that are common Low Saxon do not need further flagging. Besides I have
>not seen such a thing in any other wiktionary.
>
>
>
We do a similar thing with Chinese where we indicate if it is
Traditional or Simplified Chinese. We do need flagging without it it is
not clear that it is correct.

>>The software we are using is known to you; we use the pywikipedia bot
>>software. No problems there. Generating the source for the bot is
>>something that is often different depending on what we have for input.
>>It is a typical handjob. If you have a list with Sass compliant words or
>>a list with words in another orthography (preferably with at least one
>>translation) I am quite happy to make you a source so that you can
>>upload this. Are these KDE files .po files ??
>>
>>
>I have had a look at the bot and I have had a look at the import file that
>Sabine sent me by Email. (Which uses a different markup for start/end than in
>the word file.) I have tried to understand the way pywikipedia bot works for
>wiktionary, but I have not understand it. I would really be grateful for a
>short examle consisting of
>1) a short import file with 2-5 entries
>2) the command line to use.
>I would be able to work from there.
>The data is in http://sourceforge.net/projects/aspell-nds. It is a word list
>that we derived from the KDE po-files. We filtered out the Low Saxon parts
>(the po file maps English to Low Saxon), broke it into words, sorted it,
>counted it (with a short shell script) and used that to find inconsistencies
>in our KDE op Platt. We then transformed this list into an input file for the
>aspell spell checker. This list uses some words with a spelling deviant of
>Sass: latin based words are submitted to the double vowel for long vowels. I
>would correct that and add the German translation plus the grammar
>information (noun, verb etc). The list is about 1500 words, and I think that
>it should be relatively easy to create a list of several hundred words for
>importing quite quickly.
>
>
Send me your Sass list and I will send you back an import list with a
command how you can upload it. This will include the Sass indications

>>>Is there really no way for us to cooperate? Does anyone else here
>>>understand what I am talking about for all this time?
>>>
>>>
>>There are many ways in which we can cooperate but the bottom line is; to
>>improve nds content you have to indicate the orthography because without
>>it, the quality of the information is debatable.  So again let us work
>>together and agree that knowing the orthography is key to proving the
>>worth of individual lemmas.
>>
>>
>Well, that would mean flagging all my entries as nds-sass? Is that what you
>want? That still leaves the question what to do with the current list.
>1) I would like to edit it (preferably as text file, because that is so much
>faster) and then get it imported. That would have to be done by Sabine, as
>she wants to see the original author attributed, or would it be sufficient to
>indicate that in the checkin comment? (I really do need a short example to
>see how the robot works.)
>2) Concerning the data of deutschplatt: I would really like to see that data
>*not* included unless the underlying spelling system can be confirmed in some
>way. I think it does not make much sense to import this data without any
>flagging, as there are grave doubts about lots of words (as I have been
>telling for quite a long way). I would not object inserting that data if
>2.1) the spelling system and the content can be substantiated. From what I had
>started to work through, about half the entries cannot be substantiated, and
>that is far too much.
>2.2) the entries get flagged accordingly.
>3) I would really like to find a way that can reuse the nds entries. I would
>not like to see vain repetitions in "is" with a heading {{-nds-sass}}, a
>heading {{nds-harte}} etc all with a complete set of translations.
>
>
*The sheer fact that you do not indicate an orthography makes what you
do as valuable as the work that you criticize. Until you start
indicating orthographies there is no way forward; it is essential in
making plain what is correct and what is not.

*Without explicit repetitions, how would you indicate if something is
correct in a certain orthography ?

*From my point of view, like with Chinese words that are only zh can be
either orthography. It is only when we know that a word is simplified or
traditionel that we can use it for things like error-checking. The same
is true for nds; without an indication of an orthography it is nothing
more than an indication that it is propably correct nds.

>Would that be a proposal that you can live with?
>
>One other thing: is there a way to invert entries to get the German=>LS
>entries prepared, so that they only need little rework or is it neccessary to
>do that by hand?
>
>
>
>>NB this whole exchange of e-mails is not really relevant to the
>>Wikipedia-l so I will only answer from now on at the Wiktionary-l
>>
>>
>I have not subscribed there so far. Hence the private mail.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Heiko Evermann
>
It is high time for you to subscribe to the wiktionary mailing list
because only then can you discuss things that have to do with
lexicological information. The people on the Wikipedia list do not
really apreciate what this is about.

Thanks,
   GerardM


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open
	onSeptember 1st 20

body:
What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or
even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in
developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of
Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a
reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global
south.

On 8/16/05, Zachary Harden <zscout370 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> While I agree with the idea that we should send it all over the world year
> after year, we North Americans are stuck. My country, the United States, is
>
> very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have
> problems getting in, such as those coming from China. So, if the USA is out
>
> of the question, why not try our neighbors up north, Canada? Well, if
> Wikipedians have been convicted of a crime, they can see them being denied
> entry. Such crimes include DUI's, can restrict this entry. Plus, Mexico and
>
> other nations in that region might not have what we need. I know Japan can
> be a good host, but other than Japan and some of Europe, we pretty much
> can't really go anywhere else.
>
> Regards,
>
> Zachary Harden (Zscout370)
>

--
hit me: <robin.shannon.id.au>
jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>

upgrade to ubuntu linux: <http://www.spreadubuntu.org/>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viral marketing?

body:
Alphax wrote:
> How much do the combined Wikimedia servers serve?

About 250 Mbps peak:

http://noc.wikimedia.org/trafstats/trafstats-weekly.png

> What would happen if all the Wikimedia sites were redirected to the
> BBC for a day?

The BBC would let out a cheer. We would lose a lot of traffic. That's
not the best way to conduct a DDoS.

Ryan Delaney wrote:
> Block their IP range if
> absolutely necessary, but DDoSing them is insane.

I don't see what good blocking their IP range would do, since the
article in question ([[Jamie Kane]]) was not created from a BBC
netblock. [[Boy*d Upp]] was, but the author has apologized and stated
that he was acting on his own behalf.

Wikipedians regularly spammed the village pump with gmail invites when
that little craze was at its height, so I find it surprising that there
has been such a negative response against viral marketing. Especially
when it wasn't anything of the kind, it was just speculation and rumour.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Viral marketing?

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

Tim Starling wrote:
> Alphax wrote:
>
>>How much do the combined Wikimedia servers serve?
>
>
> About 250 Mbps peak:
>
> http://noc.wikimedia.org/trafstats/trafstats-weekly.png
>
>
>>What would happen if all the Wikimedia sites were redirected to the
>>BBC for a day?
>
>
> The BBC would let out a cheer. We would lose a lot of traffic. That's
> not the best way to conduct a DDoS.
>

Don't you dare cloud my opinions with facts!

> Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
>>Block their IP range if
>>absolutely necessary, but DDoSing them is insane.
>
>
> I don't see what good blocking their IP range would do, since the
> article in question ([[Jamie Kane]]) was not created from a BBC
> netblock. [[Boy*d Upp]] was, but the author has apologized and stated
> that he was acting on his own behalf.
>
> Wikipedians regularly spammed the village pump with gmail invites when
> that little craze was at its height, so I find it surprising that there
> has been such a negative response against viral marketing. Especially
> when it wasn't anything of the kind, it was just speculation and rumour.
>

Yes, but you're taking the universe out of context... Did you expect
mere proof to sway my opinion?

Handy Hint: Save money on booze by drinking cold tea instead of whiskey.
To simulate a hangover next morning, drink a thimblefull of dishwashing
liquid and repeatedly bang your head against the wall.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDAfJm/RxM5Ph0xhMRAx5IAJ9gxWUTNVkhSCNR2/OkAdUmfeQNdgCfVA5n
VbUbnEnUlnUcnvyOxUWfL60=
=FKoB
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open
 onSeptember 1st 20

body:
Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:
>>What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or
>>even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in
>>developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of
>>Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a
>>reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global
>>south.
>
>
> Well, in my opinion it would be better if Wikimania was organized in a
> country where a local Wikimedia chapter exists. For now we only have
> such chapters in Europe, although I hope we'll get more of them in
> other continents as well.

In what way did the German chapter help to organise Wikimania 2005?
Wikimania had an international organising team and its own finances.
Chapters exist for national pride, grants and dubious tax minimisation
schemes which require locking up money in places where it can't be spent
on servers. I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one
anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.

Australia is a poor choice for other reasons, namely airfares.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject:
[Foundation-l] Chapters,
	deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania 2006 - host city
	contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
> There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter
> (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in
> Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's
> donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole
> in the budget.
> - d.

Well, there are many people who would donate to a local chapter but
not to some distant Foundation in Florida, so I would imagine this
would bring more money, not less. And can't the chapters themselves
donate to the Foundation if it is short on money?

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


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 8/16/05, Pawe? 'Ausir' Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> > There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter
> > (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in
> > Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's
> > donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole
> > in the budget.

> Well, there are many people who would donate to a local chapter but
> not to some distant Foundation in Florida, so I would imagine this
> would bring more money, not less. And can't the chapters themselves
> donate to the Foundation if it is short on money?

If local chapters "donate to the foundation" as such, it may be
conceived by some national legislations as a way for the Foundation to
take advantage of tax deductibility in the chapter's country and make
the chapter just a "proxy" for the Foundation to receive money from
everywhere.
In this, it may not be the best way, but we are trying to find out
what is the best way to make sure money coming in through local
chapter is used "for all the projects, everywhere" (ie. including on
servers and bandwidth, wherever they may be).

Different legislations imply different ways of doing it, but in the
long run, I am pretty sure this will clear itself and happen in a
smooth way.

Best,

Delphine
--
~notafish


from_name: Heiko Evermann

subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] private: nds.wiktionary.org correction of errors in	articles

body:
Hi Gerard,

> *Without explicit repetitions, how would you indicate if something is
> correct in a certain orthography ?
What I would like to have is something like this:
Article: Oort
{{-nds}}
{{-noun-}}
# Oort: description in LS of  "a place"
{{-nds-sass}}
{{-nds-harte}}
{{-nds-lindow-}}
{{-nds-neuber}}

# Oort: description in LS of "a way"
{{-nds-sass}}

where -nds-harte- has "Aart" instead of "Oort". And there needs to be some
room to indicate that some orthoraphies have "Aart" for "Oort" in case of
meaning 2.

I would not like to see main entries -nds-sass- etc, because they all
translate to the same thing. It would not make sense to multiply the
translation tables.

Besides: in a very high amount of cases these different versions are equal,
and it does not make sense to multiply the content. We are writing a
dictionary for Low Saxon and not one for Sass-Hamburg, Sass-Oostfreesland,
Harte-Oostfreesland etc. And differences are only important where they exist
and only in those cases need they be listed and in those cases they need
comments as to why the differences exist.

If the UW cannot handle that, it would be nice to adapt it. I think that
this is important. It is important to reuse data. If all data that someone
has entered for -nds-sass- has to be reentered for -nds-harte- in those
cases where both are equal (95% of the entries) then this is just an
invitation for trouble, inconsistencies etc. Such redundancies of data must
be caught by the design and not by the data.

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann

--
5 GB Mailbox, 50 FreeSMS http://www.gmx.net/de/go/promail
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Draft: "Dartmouth Do's and Don'ts"

body:
On 16/08/05, Daniel P. B. Smith <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> I thought this was a little general and vague. I wrote a draft taking
> a somewhat different approach at
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dpbsmith/Dartmouth

I think this is the sort of thing I originally vaguely intended to
write, but I got sidetracked into it being too general... excellent
approach!

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Australian chapter (was Re: Wikimania 2006 - host
 city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
Regarding Wikimedia chapters, I wrote:
> I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one
> anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.

I'll just add to that that I did a quick review of the tax situation
with charities in Australia. It seems a Wikimedia chapter in Australia
may qualify as a charity but would not qualify as a "deductible gift
recipient" (DGR). This means that although it would be exempt from
paying income tax, donations would not be tax-deductible. So there would
be very little financial benefit in creating an Australian chapter.

Approved DGR categories: http://tinyurl.com/9kz9q

-- Tim Starling


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] private: nds.wiktionary.org correction of errors
	in articles

body:
Heiko Evermann wrote:

>Hi Gerard,
>
>
>
>>*Without explicit repetitions, how would you indicate if something is
>>correct in a certain orthography ?
>>
>>
>What I would like to have is something like this:
>Article: Oort
>{{-nds}}
>{{-noun-}}
># Oort: description in LS of  "a place"
>{{-nds-sass}}
>{{-nds-harte}}
>{{-nds-lindow-}}
>{{-nds-neuber}}
>
>
The way it will be available in UW will be more like:

{{-nds}}
{{-nds-xxxx-}}
{{-noun-}}
# Oort: description in the particular (xxxx) orthography for "Oort"

This is a requirement for the UW. You can decide not to give a definition but a definition when given should be in the specific orthography.

># Oort: description in LS of "a way"
>{{-nds-sass}}
>
>where -nds-harte- has "Aart" instead of "Oort". And there needs to be some
>room to indicate that some orthoraphies have "Aart" for "Oort" in case of
>meaning 2.
>
>
>
Every word is known by its orthography/dialect/language so in UW every
word will have its own entry for every language. Through the table
SynTrans they can be linked to the same Meaning

>I would not like to see main entries -nds-sass- etc, because they all
>translate to the same thing. It would not make sense to multiply the
>translation tables.
>
>
It does make sense. It is essential that we define things properly. The
only thing you need to worry about is that what you do is correct. So if
you only care about Sass, concentrate on Sass and leave the rest to
other volunteers. You do not need to worry about the number of records
that will end up in the table SynTrans. They are not multiplied. A word
with a single meaning will only have one record in SynTrans.

>Besides: in a very high amount of cases these different versions are equal,
>and it does not make sense to multiply the content. We are writing a
>dictionary for Low Saxon and not one for Sass-Hamburg, Sass-Oostfreesland,
>Harte-Oostfreesland etc. And differences are only important where they exist
>and only in those cases need they be listed and in those cases they need
>comments as to why the differences exist.
>
>
>
They are not equal because they are about different orthographies and we
need to know them as such. Many details may be different depending on
what orthography is used, things like the earliest recording of this
word in this orthography.

>If the UW cannot handle that, it would be nice to adapt it. I think that
>this is important. It is important to reuse data. If all data that someone
>has entered for -nds-sass- has to be reentered for -nds-harte- in those
>cases where both are equal (95% of the entries) then this is just an
>invitation for trouble, inconsistencies etc. Such redundancies of data must
>be caught by the design and not by the data.
>
>
The essence of a proper relational database is that you store relevant
data only once. So there is no need for reusing data because you only
have it once for the use that you want out of it. Ultimate Wiktionary
has not been designed specifically for nds; it is designed to host all
languages, dialects and orthographies. When you can produce a list with
the words that differ between Sass and Harte, you can equally provide a
list with the words they have in common. Technically it will be possible
to create such lists from the UW content when these words have been
properly inserted in the database. I really agree with you that
redundancies must be caught by the design, but you have to apreciate
what the design is ment to do.

Thanks,
    GerardM


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Is there any translation to Basque started?

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Some examples:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageHsb.php (Upper Sorbian, which
> doesn't have a Wikipedia yet)
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageGot.php (Gothic, translation in
> progress, no sysops on got.wiki)
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageBsd.php (Baseldytsch, the
> Wikipedia will probably never be created but that doesn't mean there's
> never going to be a use for the file)
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageSc.php (Sardinian, translation
> still in progress)
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LanguageMn.php (Mongolian, translation
> in progress, no sysops on mn.wiki)
>
> I don't see why anybody feels the need to wipe these files.

Sorry I use a wrong word ('wipe'). The idea is to get ride of Language
files on meta and instead use the cvs / patch / bugzilla / commit
approach. It will make developer reviewing easier.

We can probably add Bsd, Got, Hsb, Mn and Sc support in Mediawiki even
if there isn't a Wikipedia in those languages. This way the PHP code in
the files will be maintained 'correctly'.

I flagged most LanguageXX.php files on meta with a template that warns
people about file obsolescence and pointing them to the guide. Still
need to carefully review each of those files and update the cvs files if
needed!

Sorry If anyone understood that I was going to delete everything from
meta :-/

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: James D. Forrester

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city contest
	to	open	onSeptember 1st 20

body:
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Zachary Harden wrote:
>
> > My country, the United
> > States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from
> > overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
>
> This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
>
> We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from
> consideration.

I agree.

> For citizens of (much of) the EU, Australia, and Japan (and a few other
> places like Singapore and Brunei), there is no need for a visa at all.
> You just show up and come on in, no problem.

... but are iris-scanned, photographed, and fingerprinted as part of
that process (oh, and you have to not check the box marked "I am a
member of a Communist organisation" ;-)). For some, this treatment of
people willing to come to a country and give her money as if they were
criminals is rather rude and a non-minor infringement of civil rights;
certainly, personally, I would have... difficulty overcoming this and
foregoing my moral objections to being seen to acquiesce to such a scheme.

> For China, the case you mention, according to the travel.state.gov
> website, the waiting time for an exchange visa (cultural exchange, one
> of the types of visas which could be used to visit a conference I
> think), is 1 day.  Even an ordinary tourist visa has a wait time of only
> 17 days.

That's not terrible. But what about Iran (which did happen at WM05)?
Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? Palestine? Chechnya? Etc. There are quite a few
countries that are hard to get visas from to visit the EU and the
States, and we should work out the cost vs. the benefit (if, say, it's
impossible to get a visa to a conference in the PRC from the ROC, but we
have no-one at all expressing interest, well, that's not so much a
problem; if, OTOH, there are dozens of active users, this is more serious).

> However my information is quite incomplete, and I am not arguing that
> the visa issue is a non-issue.  I'm just saying that we should not make
> assumptions.

Completely agreed.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabian
	proxies

body:
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Fastfission wrote:

> This is one of those situations where disabling editing for anonymous
> users (and blocking names only, not IPs) would be appropriate, no?
>
> (Is that possible yet?)

No. That's the bug 550 that David was referring to.

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

from_name: Emerson José Silveira da Costa

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Interlingua Wikipedia logo

body:
Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

>The Interlingua logo was created a long time ago, but was never made
>the logo of ia.wiki.

Really, here is the file:

http://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine:Wiki.png

Back then I thought that merely naming it "wiki.png" would make it appear on the pages, but it seems that it doesn't work.

What is missing?

Ensjo.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Australian chapter (was Re: Wikimania 2006 -
 host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> I was curious and had a look there is this "PUBLIC FUND ON THE
> REGISTER OF CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS" thingie I would think that it
> might fit the bill. Then again what do I know I live in cloggie land
> :)

I thought that was the closest one too. But I didn't think Wikipedia fit
the description:

"its principal purpose is the promotion of literature, music, a
performing art, a visual art, a craft, design, film, video, television,
radio, community arts, Aboriginal arts or movable cultural heritage"

Do we promote literature? Well, it depends on your definition of
literature, but it seems like a long shot. A list of registered
organisations is available at:

http://www.dcita.gov.au/arts/arts/?a=24048

Even if we overcame that hurdle, there's a second one which is just as
scary, which is that we'd have to be considered to be "in Australia":

: To be in Australia, the applicant (or the relevant part of the
: applicant's organisation) must:
:
:     * be established in and operating in Australia, and
:     * have its purposes and beneficiaries in Australia.
:
: Purposes or beneficiaries do not have to be in Australia if a fund is:
:
:     * an overseas aid fund, or
:     * a public fund on the Register of Environmental Organisations.
:
: For these funds, it is still necessary that the fund itself be
: established and operating in Australia.

And an overseas aid fund must be "solely for the relief of people in a
country declared by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to be a developing
country," so we wouldn't be one of those either.

: If the overseas activities are merely incidental to its Australian
: operations, or minor in extent and importance, an institution or
: authority can still meet the ?in Australia? requirement."

I think that rules out a fund with its primary purpose being to put more
servers in Florida.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] "brittle"

body:
I personally would like to see more attention to rewarding good
behaviour and less to punishing bad. I think that would help alot.
Maybe if adminship was determined my a long and complementary process,
rather than an open vote (where you get to see the names of those who
oppose you), some of the bad blood would reduce. I can say from my
studies in behavioural psychology and job coaching that the wikipedia
has '''far''' too much emphasis on scolding and potential punishment
processes, and not nearly enough on compliments. The ratio of
compliment to criticism which has been shown most effective in
modifying the bahaviour of others is 5 to one. Thats five compliments
for every critisism, something rather far off from where the wiki is
now.
Cheers,

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 8/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I think this is a great word to describe the phenomenon we are talking
> about.  It's very easy to stereotype such people as being trolls or
> deliberate troublemakers, but it's hard to reconcile that with the
> amount of good work they also do.
>
> Something which is brittle can also be beautiful and functional.  Handle
> with care. :-)  The only problem with brittle people is that they don't
> bend, they break.  So the rough and tumble of social interaction on
> Wikipedia can often deteriorate very quickly in a way that less brittle
> people have a hard time understanding.  Moral condemnation comes easily
> to hand, but it isn't always appropriate, and in any event is rarely
> productive.
>
> As with many others who have answered David Gerard's original post, I
> have no answers, but I think the question of how we can better serve
> such people is a great one.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] "brittle"

body:
We have alot of work to do in the area of nube training/integrating
(as opposed to newcomer biting) as well.

Jack (Sam Spade)


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
There's quite a stink going on about this
[[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]] and its ensuing VfD. I
think the project is totally bogus and un-Wiki, but I'm interested in
what some other people (Jimbo, although I somehow doubt he would want to
go near this one) have to say about it.

Anyway, I pity the admin who closes that VfD.

- Ryan


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters, deductibility and donation	profiles
	(was Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember	1st 20)

body:
Dirk Riehle wrote:

> Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us,
> the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from
> Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it
> without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
>
> Dirk

This is just a thought out loud, but what possible arrangements could be
made for not necessarily returning the money to the US, but using funds
from local chapters that may be furthering goals in 3rd countries?  i.e.
spending money on developers in 3rd world countries, helping develop
specific language wikis, seed money for new chapters, etc.?  Or is the
money "stuck" in Germany proper and can't go anywhere else at all for
any reason?

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Welcoming Peter C. Wayner and...

body:
Ryan W. (Merovingian) (bigwiki at earthling.net) [050817 04:57]:

> It's an awful idea, but only because there's no way to differentiate between accounts made for the purpose of good, and those made for the purpose of evil.
>
> > On 16/08/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > > > Open question to all: do you think that new accounts should be prevented
> > > > from creating pages? Would it clean out VFD? Or is the idea
> > > > fundamentally unwiki?

Please note the above quote is from Alphax, not me!

(gotta watch that trimming and those quote levels)

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Chapters,
	deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania
	2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050816 23:48]:

> Chapters exist for national pride, grants and dubious tax minimisation
> schemes

The tax minimisation angle is good to encourage donations at all - people
will happily throw money at a deductible charity they wouldn't at something
that isn't. Also (assuming a recent court case brought by the Inland
Revenue doesn't fuck it up), Gift Aid [1] in the UK makes the donation even
larger than it would be otherwise.

> which require locking up money in places where it can't be spent
> on servers.

There are other uses for such money, e.g. the possibility of paying a
MediaWiki dev or Wikimedia admin. I believe you were desperate for some of
these ...

There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter
(everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in
Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's
donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole
in the budget.

- d.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_Aid


from_name: Dori

body:
On 8/17/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/08/05, Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The problem is how do you distribute the translations with MediaWiki?
> > I guess the various MediaWiki: namespace for each language could be
> > exported.
>
> Yes, the bulk of the PHP file can be generated using the "&ot=php"
> parameter to Special:Allmessages (e.g.
> http://eu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php)
> and relatively minor changes can be posted as patch attachments at
> bugzilla. The up-to-date PHP files are then distributed with the
> software and used in updating the messages on existing wikis (although
> I'm less clear about how this last part is handled).

Well, minor changes can be done by hand, the problem is when there are
many changes. Can someone create a patch for this:
http://sq.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php ?
I know the translation I did for LanguageSq.php is way older than
what's on w:sq now, but I doubt it would be all that easy to write a
patch (but would love to be proved wrong).

If you have the LanguageXx.php I imagine you can just rebuilt the messages.

Dori


from_name: ZH Wikipedia

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: problem with wikipedia.org log in

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Xin Zhang <cyferzhang at gmail.com>
Date: Aug 16, 2005 11:19 PM
Subject: problem with wikipedia.org log in
To: zh.wikipedia at gmail.com

Hello, Dear Admin,

I forget my password at wikipedia.org and the system didn't send a new
password to me. So could you help me regain my user name?

I have a user name of "Cyfer" at wikipedia.org, and I contributed some
items in the polymer and related areas.  In most case I post from
129.2.52.139. Hope this could help.

Xin


from_name: Tobias Denninger

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Research access to logs

body:
Tim Starling <t.starling at ...> writes:

>
> Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
> > I thought it would be obvious, but giving you a sample of the logfile is
> > a violation of the (current) privacy policy.  So your options are to
> > offer a script to alter the logfile so that we would not violate the
> > policy by giving the resulting file to you, or to get the policy changed.
>
> Well, it was me who suggested that, we could just give him log files for
> a few IP addresses corresponding to people who have given their consent.
> For example, we could give him logs of his own requests.
>
> I'm now thinking, however, that log files are not what Tobias wants at
> all, instead he wants something similar to the page view counter, which
> was disabled for efficiency reasons.
>

A page view counter does not include any information on the frequency two
articles are viewed within a short timeframe by the same user. This information
is stored in the logfile or it could be obtained changing the mediawiki software
so that the relevant statistics are stored online in a database table with a
kind of the following structure: (id_article_a, id_article_b, counter,
timestamp). To prevent the table from scaling with the square of the number of
articles the entries with the lowest counter could be deleted if they have not
been changed for a specified period of time.


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> There isn't an automated spam filter on Wikipedia. If you are saying
> that someone removed it as spam, then it would probably be most
> helpful if you linked to the page from which it was removed, which
> would let us know who removed it and why.

Actually, yes, there is.  There is a list of "unacceptable" urls, the
inclusion of any of which into an article will cause the edit to be
refused.  The devs maintain that list; I forget where it's kept.

Kelly


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
Okay, I'll get on it right away, just see if I don't!

Ed Poor

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryan Derksen [mailto:bryan.derksen at shaw.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 10:22 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Welcoming Peter C. Wayner and...
>
>
> Fastfission wrote:
>
> >You know, the ultimate way to save VFD trouble is to just disable
> >editing altogether! Can I get an amen?
> >
> >
> Excellent idea! And we can remove all possible NPOV violations by
> blanking all of the existing articles. Imagine how this will ease the
> server load - we could finally enable the article version
> rating feature. :)
>
>


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
That's a pretty ugly discussion, but reading over their (somewhat
misguided) page does bring up one possible addition to the discussion
on "inappropriate" images which I didn't see raised before.

Namely, if the English Wiki servers are hosted in a U.S. state, then
the site does, if I am not mistaken, fall under various laws about the
distribution of "obscene" images to minors. "Obscene" is of course a
subject term, in the legal realm as well as here, but there is some
precedent which could allow one to make such decisions.

Now this isn't a plea to delete such images; it's a point of departure
for thinking about them. If images which would very likely count as
"obscene" under that particular state law (Florida?) were able to be
X-ed out (that is, their presence would be visible, even though their
content would not be) by default, and could be "enabled" by people who
swore that they were not minors (or didn't live in the U.S.), wouldn't
that solve a few problems at once? Those who are worried about seeing
a nipple wouldn't by default, while those who wanted to see them could
easily do so, and instead of doing it under the guise of someone's
projected "decency", we were doing it simply to comply with U.S. law
(blame  U.S. prudery on this all you want, but I'm betting laws of a
similar sort, though with different boundaries set, exist in most
countries).

Well.. it's a thought. I'm not interested in playing nanny to the
world but I am interested in Wikipedia being legally safe. An
additional thought which occurred to me is that I'm fairly sure a
federal law was passed not too long ago which requires age
verification information for nude models to be hosted by the website
hosting their pictures (proof that they are at least 18 years old). If
that's the case, that's another unpleasant legal/technical thing to
think about.

FF

On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's quite a stink going on about this
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]] and its ensuing VfD. I
> think the project is totally bogus and un-Wiki, but I'm interested in
> what some other people (Jimbo, although I somehow doubt he would want to
> go near this one) have to say about it.
>
> Anyway, I pity the admin who closes that VfD.
>
> - Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
Fastfission wrote:
> If images which would very likely count as
> "obscene" under that particular state law (Florida?) were able to be
> X-ed out (that is, their presence would be visible, even though their
> content would not be) by default, and could be "enabled" by people who
> swore that they were not minors (or didn't live in the U.S.), wouldn't
> that solve a few problems at once? Those who are worried about seeing
> a nipple wouldn't by default, while those who wanted to see them could
> easily do so, and instead of doing it under the guise of someone's
> projected "decency", we were doing it simply to comply with U.S. law
> (blame  U.S. prudery on this all you want, but I'm betting laws of a
> similar sort, though with different boundaries set, exist in most
> countries).

I'm sorry but I think it bears repeating firmly and often that a nipple
showing is in absolutely no way illegal in the United States.  We could
show full-blown mainstream pornography on the main page of Wikipedia 24
hours a day and not be in violation of any laws in the United States.

It is pretty difficult to come up with something which is legally
"obscene" by US standards in the context of Wikipedia.  And our own
internal processes seem so far quite adequate to keep us very far from that.

One thing I like to emphasize in this context is that sound editorial
judgment is not the same thing as censorship.  We don't show full-blown
mainstream pornography on the front page of wikipedia as a matter of
editorial taste and judgment, not out of concern with censorship law.

> An
> additional thought which occurred to me is that I'm fairly sure a
> federal law was passed not too long ago which requires age
> verification information for nude models to be hosted by the website
> hosting their pictures (proof that they are at least 18 years old). If
> that's the case, that's another unpleasant legal/technical thing to
> think about.

I do think that this law may have some applicability, but it does *not*
apply to models who are merely nude.  It applies, and I would have to
look it up again to get the exact language, to models engaging in
specific explicit activity -- I don't think we have any images of this,
but this law could be used to argue that we can't host photographs on
[[autofellatio]] unless I'm willing to keep documentation on file from
the models (and I'm not).  But this does not apply to drawings, which is
what we have there now, for better or worse.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
> Well I'm making a big assumption here. But I'm going to assume that
> Florida is a reasonable state with reasonable laws on obscenity. If
> that is the case then we simple shouldn't have any images that are
> obscene.

It is a reasonable state on these matters, and in any event the
controlling law in this sort of matter is generally the U.S.
constitution (First Amendment).

> Wikipedia is an encylopedia not a pornshop.

I agree completely.

> For example. I do not believe that the picture of an erect penis on
> the penis article is obscene. It it encylopedic and entirely
> appropriate for minors, and I cannot believe that the state of Florida
> would think otherwise. _If_ we have any pornographic pictures, and we
> do have a lot of pics of pornstars, I haven't checked them all but
> it's certainly possible that someone might upload a pornographic image
> of one of them we should simplr delete them as innapropriate for an
> encylopedia.

I think this is very well put.

In many cases the distinction between an appropriate illustration and
inappropriate pornography is a matter of style, of editorial taste and
judgment.  This may sound like a useless non-answer, but it's the exact
same answer we routinely employ in our process of determining what
articles should say.  We think about it, discuss it, try to get
consensus, try to find the best way to *get it right*.

--Jimbo


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters,
 deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania
 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
>
>>There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter
>>(everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in
>>Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's
>>donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole
>>in the budget.
>
>
> Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the
> fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website, and
> that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate to a
> local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation. And as far as I
> know, that money is still unspent.
>
> Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate
> to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations
> will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan
> for spending that money?
>
> -- Tim Starling

German users will very probably give to the Verein again, and if the
french association is ready, french users will very probably give to the
Wikimedia France as well.

And as it was hinted by several editors already, we can't just transfert
money from one country to another.

This issue is one of the main reason we want to stimulate the group
dynamics for people involved in Foundation or in chapters, so as
* to have a clear picture of the amount of money collected by each legal
entity
* to have a clear picture of the budget of each entity, and naturally
work toward both local spending (such as promotion in the country) and
global spending solutions (such as financial participation to an event
such as Wikimania)
* to have a good knowledge of legal possibilities for money transfer or
spending for each country involved.
* to see how money can be gathered collectively and spend for global
good (such as through a grant asked by several chapters at the same time)

This is precisely what we have been discussing at Wikimania and the
reason for the chapter-l mailing list and a new wiki. Right now,
coordination is very weak and communication insufficient. It would be
the main role of the chapter coordinator to ensure a better
communication occur, and ultimately to work on budget coordination with Mav.

You may see a description of the role here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_co-ordinator

Since it has been mentionned recently that description of roles where
not sufficient, please do not hesitate to complete or comment on that
proposition.

ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
There isn't an automated spam filter on Wikipedia. If you are saying
that someone removed it as spam, then it would probably be most
helpful if you linked to the page from which it was removed, which
would let us know who removed it and why.

FF

On 8/17/05, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> For some reason, the following link triggers a spam filter. Could somebody
> rectify this please?
>
> http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/josephus/ant-20.htm
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exercises in social engineering

body:
On 8/17/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. How long have you been an editor?
I've been editing off and on since January 2003.

> 2. Are you an admin?
No. I was nominated once but I turned down the nomination. It makes
you too jaded over time.

> 3. Do you promise never to do anything so completely stupid ever again?
The experiment has run its course, with results far beyond what I
could have anticipated. I won't be doing it again.

A. Nony Mouse


from_name: Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters,
	deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania 2006 - host city
	contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
>> Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate
>> to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations
>> will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan
>> for spending that money?
> German users will very probably give to the Verein again, and if the
> french association is ready, french users will very probably give to the
> Wikimedia France as well.

Wouldn't it be better to give those willing to donate two links - to
the Foundation and the Verein, with a description of what each does
with the money?

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


from_name: Dirk Riehle

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters, deductibility and donation
	profiles (was Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember
	1st 20)

body:
>Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate
>to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations
>will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan
>for spending that money?

As people said, for tax reasons (to get deductions), people will always
want to donate locally.

I work for a U.S.-based non-profit that has been trying to get money from
its German chapter, which is a stand-alone Eingetragener Verein. We have
not been able to do that; tax implications according to our German lawyers
are too severe, meaning the German tax authorities are threatening to take
the non-profit status away.

 From the U.S. side, the theory, I'm being told, is to make all non-US
chapters "friends-of" organizations. This is not an officially recognized
term, much like there is no officially recognized international non-profit.
However, it is a practice recognized by the IRS. Key supposedly is to have
stable predictable behavior (ie cashflows). Then they won't be on your back.

Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the
IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the
U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering
non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!

Dirk

Interested in wikis? Please go to http://www.wikisym.org!
Take a Geek's Tour of Silicon Valley! http://www.ageekstour.com
Dirk Riehle | +49 172 184 8755 | http://www.riehle.org


subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
Well, you learn something new every day!

FF

On 8/17/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, there is.  There is a list of sites on Meta which may not
> exist as links in any Wikimedia sites.  See
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist
>
> However, earlychristianwritings.com isn't, and doesn't seem ever to
> have been, on that list.
>
> Sam
>
> On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There isn't an automated spam filter on Wikipedia. If you are saying
> > that someone removed it as spam, then it would probably be most
> > helpful if you linked to the page from which it was removed, which
> > would let us know who removed it and why.
> >
> > FF
> >
> > On 8/17/05, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > > Hi Folks,
> > >
> > > For some reason, the following link triggers a spam filter. Could somebody
> > > rectify this please?
> > >
> > > http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/josephus/ant-20.htm
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] "brittle"

body:
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, Jack Lynch wrote:

> I personally would like to see more attention to rewarding good
> behaviour and less to punishing bad. I think that would help alot.
> Maybe if adminship was determined my a long and complementary process,
> rather than an open vote (where you get to see the names of those who
> oppose you), some of the bad blood would reduce. I can say from my
> studies in behavioural psychology and job coaching that the wikipedia
> has '''far''' too much emphasis on scolding and potential punishment
> processes, and not nearly enough on compliments. The ratio of
> compliment to criticism which has been shown most effective in
> modifying the bahaviour of others is 5 to one. Thats five compliments
> for every critisism, something rather far off from where the wiki is
> now.
>
I'd be very surprised if I'm the only one here who has noticed
JCarriker's proposal, [[User:JCarriker/Esperanza]] -- although he
doubtlessly intends to apply his idea to more than only "brittle"
contributors.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, Violet/Riga wrote:

> On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There's quite a stink going on about this
> > [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]] and its ensuing VfD. I
> > think the project is totally bogus and un-Wiki, but I'm interested in
> > what some other people (Jimbo, although I somehow doubt he would want to
> > go near this one) have to say about it.
> >
> > Anyway, I pity the admin who closes that VfD.
> >
> > - Ryan
>
> Well I just blocked -Ril- for 24 hours for his edit warring there,
> repeatedly placing numerous pornographic images there in violation of
> [[WP:POINT]] but also, I would say, classifiable as vandalism.  I
> don't know why he couldn't just wait until the VfD closed.
>
I'm not surprised. Not only is there an active RfC concerning him, but
an open RfAr. His style of debate has been creating an unnecessary
amount of dissatisfaction; it's likely a sign that he is one of these
"brittle" contributors (to use the word from another thread).

Disclaimer: Yes, I have contributed material towards both. However, I
learned of both by accident; there is no organized group out to get -Ril-,
just an increasing number of people who have grown weary of him. And
many of whom no longer care -- if they ever did -- that David has
determined he is not a sockpuppet for Lir.

Geoff
Geoff


from_name: Jeremy Dunck

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google and Special:Recentchanges

body:
On 8/17/05, Juliano Ravasi Ferraz <ml at juliano.info> wrote:
> According to the link, right before the sentence you quoted:
>
> "...but you can also instruct Googlebot not to crawl individual links by
> adding rel="nofollow" to a hyperlink."

Still, there are other search engines that don't respect the
attribute, and so the point is moot, no?


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Welcoming Peter C. Wayner and...

body:
Let's call it "Nopedia."

It would contain no articles.

The policy, "no point of view" would require no enforcement.

It would satisfy inclusionists, because no articles would ever be deleted.

It would satisfy deletionists, because it would contain no crap articles.

It would satisfy the Wikipedia-whatever-it-is-for-Decency people because it
would contain no obscene images.

Jimbo Wales could be like the captain of the Snark, who

"had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand....
'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) that he's bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!'"


from_name: Violet/Riga

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's quite a stink going on about this
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]] and its ensuing VfD. I
> think the project is totally bogus and un-Wiki, but I'm interested in
> what some other people (Jimbo, although I somehow doubt he would want to
> go near this one) have to say about it.
>
> Anyway, I pity the admin who closes that VfD.
>
> - Ryan

Well I just blocked -Ril- for 24 hours for his edit warring there,
repeatedly placing numerous pornographic images there in violation of
[[WP:POINT]] but also, I would say, classifiable as vandalism.  I
don't know why he couldn't just wait until the VfD closed.

Violet/Riga


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On 16/08/05, Juliano Ravasi Ferraz <ml at juliano.info> wrote:
> > [I wrote:]
> > IIRC rel="nofollow" is badly named - it doesn't stop anything from
> > following the link, only from using it to calculate page rankings.
> > Unless I'm wrong about that, it's irrelevant for the current
> > discussion.
>
> According to http://www.google.com/webmasters/bot.html#www , a
> rel="nofollow" causes google not to crawl through that link.

No, according to that link "When Google sees the attribute
rel="nofollow" on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we
rank websites in our search results." That particular page doesn't
make clear whether or not the page will in fact be added to the list
of pages to crawl, but other discussions of the topic have assumed
that it will. So, despite the name, the link *is* followed, it's just
not used for ranking.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


body:
On 16/08/05, Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is how do you distribute the translations with MediaWiki?
> I guess the various MediaWiki: namespace for each language could be
> exported.

Yes, the bulk of the PHP file can be generated using the "&ot=php"
parameter to Special:Allmessages (e.g.
http://eu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php)
and relatively minor changes can be posted as patch attachments at
bugzilla. The up-to-date PHP files are then distributed with the
software and used in updating the messages on existing wikis (although
I'm less clear about how this last part is handled).

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Jake Waskett

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
Hi Folks,

For some reason, the following link triggers a spam filter. Could somebody
rectify this please?

http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/josephus/ant-20.htm


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
On 8/17/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's quite a stink going on about this
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_Decency]] and its ensuing VfD. I
> think the project is totally bogus and un-Wiki, but I'm interested in
> what some other people (Jimbo, although I somehow doubt he would want to
> go near this one) have to say about it.
>
> Anyway, I pity the admin who closes that VfD.
>
> - Ryan

wikipedia hs been run by super majority for some time. It is to
expected that policticall parties will form

--
geni


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Server selection, debugging

body:
There was a bug in our db.php configuration file which caused all the
load selectors in the database server list to be set to NULL. This
confused the selection code, and everything loaded up samuel even when
there was slight lag on it.

I've fixed this, and it seems to distributing load a bit more equitably
and not pausing on short lags so much.

While tracking this down, I added in the support for secondary debug log
files that we've talked about from time to time. You can add additional
log files for debug groups in $wgDebugLogGroups, calls to wfDebugLog()
take a group name and will log to that file if it's set, or pass through
to wfDebug() otherwise.

This should make it easier to temporarily log particular issues on the
production boxen to help in tracking down problems.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city contest
	to	open	onSeptember1st 20

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Zachary Harden wrote:
>
>
>>My country, the United
>>States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from
>>overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
>>
>>
>
>This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
>
>We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from
>consideration.
>
According to a statement in the English language newspapers in Thailand
about a year ago, over 90% of people applying for a visa to the US at
the Bangkok embassy get refused. It was published in an article in which
they also published a list of requirements and ask people to think
before they apply. This was a reaction to a critical article in one of
the papers about the hefty fees you have to pay to apply for a US visa
and which you do not get back, even when refused.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Phroziac

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
I agree about a penis not being obscene, but it's unfortunately
commonly used as a shock picture, for vandalism. But of course, if it
wasn't there, they'd just upload it for the vandalism, so no problem.

What really bugs me is when people screw up pictures to make them
"less offensive". This means making it black and white, blurring out
parts or all of the picture, making the thumbnail 10px and at the
bottom of the page where nobody could possible see it, etc.

On 8/17/05, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's a pretty ugly discussion, but reading over their (somewhat
> > misguided) page does bring up one possible addition to the discussion
> > on "inappropriate" images which I didn't see raised before.
> >
> > Namely, if the English Wiki servers are hosted in a U.S. state, then
> > the site does, if I am not mistaken, fall under various laws about the
> > distribution of "obscene" images to minors. "Obscene" is of course a
> > subject term, in the legal realm as well as here, but there is some
> > precedent which could allow one to make such decisions.
>
> Well I'm making a big assumption here. But I'm going to assume that
> Florida is a reasonable state with reasonable laws on obscenity. If
> that is the case then we simple shouldn't have any images that are
> obscene.
>
> Wikipedia is an encylopedia not a pornshop.
>
> For example. I do not believe that the picture of an erect penis on
> the penis article is obscene. It it encylopedic and entirely
> appropriate for minors, and I cannot believe that the state of Florida
> would think otherwise. _If_ we have any pornographic pictures, and we
> do have a lot of pics of pornstars, I haven't checked them all but
> it's certainly possible that someone might upload a pornographic image
> of one of them we should simplr delete them as innapropriate for an
> encylopedia.
>
> Theresa
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
signature


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Chapters, deductibility and donation profiles
	(was Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

> Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the
> fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website,
> and that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate
> to a local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation.

The fundraising link went to the german fundraising page on the
foundation homepage. There were the classical ways of donating by paypal
offered as well as the possibility to send the money to the german bank
account.

> And as far as I know, that money is still unspent.

Mostly yes. See below.

> Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to
> donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida?

In my opinion, it should allow people the choice, like last year.

> And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a
> public budget or plan for spending that money?

No, and I don't see it as realistic to have one before the transfer
problems are sorted out and the foundation tells us where they need
money. We are asking the foundation since quite some time how we can
help. The last plan, to buy a big database server as central tool server
for all the useful little programs around wikipedia, was spoiled by a
generous donation (we got it as a gift).

So for now, the money goes into things that are needed locally, like a
legal expertise for the users of the german wikipedia, promotion
material for presentations on conferences, financial support to bring
speakers to wikimania etc.

greetings,
elian


from_name: Arne Klempert

body:
On 8/17/05, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> So for now, the money goes into things that are needed locally, like a
> legal expertise for the users of the german wikipedia, promotion
> material for presentations on conferences, financial support to bring
> speakers to wikimania etc.

To avoid misunderstandings:
Only a very little part of the money has already been spent, and there
are no plans to spend huge amounts for local stuff. Around 30k Euro
are waiting to be spent for servers and other international needs.
When the Foundation signs the logo agreement with Wikimedia Germany we
are able to get another 30k.

-- Arne (akl)


from_name: Theo Clarke

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
It works OK for me so I guess that someone else already fixed it.

Theo

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 13:08:56 +0100, Jake Waskett wrote:
>?For some reason, the following link triggers a spam filter. Could
>?somebody?rectify this please?
>
>?http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/josephus/ant-20.htm


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Is there any translation to Basque started?

body:
On 17/08/05, Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, minor changes can be done by hand, the problem is when there are
> many changes. Can someone create a patch for this:
> http://sq.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php ?
> I know the translation I did for LanguageSq.php is way older than
> what's on w:sq now, but I doubt it would be all that easy to write a
> patch (but would love to be proved wrong).

There appears to be a script that goes some way toward this at
"maintenance/diffLanguage.php" (it can compare two versions of the
same language array); perhaps a modification of that could generate a
fully patchable diff between the two...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
Actually, there is.  There is a list of sites on Meta which may not
exist as links in any Wikimedia sites.  See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist

However, earlychristianwritings.com isn't, and doesn't seem ever to
have been, on that list.

Sam

On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> There isn't an automated spam filter on Wikipedia. If you are saying
> that someone removed it as spam, then it would probably be most
> helpful if you linked to the page from which it was removed, which
> would let us know who removed it and why.
>
> FF
>
> On 8/17/05, Jake Waskett <jake at waskett.org> wrote:
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > For some reason, the following link triggers a spam filter. Could somebody
> > rectify this please?
> >
> > http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/josephus/ant-20.htm
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Interlingua Wikipedia logo

body:
Emerson Jos? Silveira da Costa wrote:
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Interlingua logo was created a long time ago, but was never made
>> the logo of ia.wiki.
>
>
> Really, here is the file:
>
> http://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine:Wiki.png
>
> Back then I thought that merely naming it "wiki.png" would make it
> appear on the pages, but it seems that it doesn't work.
>
> What is missing?

You also have to ask a developer to change the configuration files,
which I've now done. I also took the liberty of resaving the file with
an image editor, reducing its size to 8KB -- don't ask me how you
managed to make it 67KB.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
Jake Waskett wrote:

>
>Thanks folks. I think that this phenomenon deserves a name. Can I propose
>polterwiki?
>
>
I suggest calling it the ghost of Wiki past

-Jtkiefer


subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
On 17/08/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, there is.  There is a list of sites on Meta which may not
> exist as links in any Wikimedia sites.  See
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist
>
> However, earlychristianwritings.com isn't, and doesn't seem ever to
> have been, on that list.

Hm. That's odd - it was definitely blocked earlier, I tested it, but I
couldn't find anything matching on the list either. And now it's not
blocked anymore, but the list hasnt changed.

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Walter Vermeir .

subject:
[Foundation-l] An other attempt for Announce-l;
 central info about wikimedia tech status and info

body:
Crosspost to: foundation-l, wikitech-l

At the end of 2002 on my request the mailing list Announce-l was created.

This because I noticed there was a serious problem whit internal
communication inside Wikipedia. Changes where done to the software,
important decisions where made whitout anybody who is not a mailing list
junky to know about it. Especially the problem to get information form the
English language community to the others.

The idea was to use the mailing list Announce-l for the announcement of
important things that have a impact for all wikipedias in all languages.
This for technical and organisational matters. So at least it could be
possible to inform the non-English wikipdias about what was going on and
maybe even give some feedback.

It has received whit an 100% positive responds but only one (1) reaction.
Again; thank you Daniel Mayer. So it never happened.

We are now 3 years later.

In general, things are a bit better. Aldo I think my original idea would
still be useful.

Now I would like to ask of the following "light edition" of Announce-l can
get support and implemented.

- use Announce-l for the reporting of problems whit the operation of the
services of the Wikimedia projects. Status reports about it and when it
works again.

Not for discussing or for bug rapports, only to inform the community. A
moderated list, low traffic.

This should be done by the technical staff of wikimedia.

Examples;

== search function ==

Some time ago a received by the email system for questions to the Dutch
Wikipedia some questions why the
can not find the new articles the have written.

I know that the search function is not live but it works whit a special
search database. So I asked them to wait until an update. But because it
takes so long for the update I have asked on the lists about it. It seems
that the update system is broken so new articles can not be found.

So now I can inform other users when there are questions about it and can
put up an notice on the search page about this.

When will I work again? I can only test to see.

For something like this Announce-l can be used. When it is known that the
update function for the search system does not work anymore a member of
the technical staf can send an message to Announce-l. And when it works
again or there is news about it again.

== OTRS ==

On a normal day the Dutch Wikipedia receives about 8 emails form visitors.
How the emails are done is an important part of how we can make a good
impression.  All emails must be answered fast and professional.

Because I noticed the lack of new emails I start investigation. On
bugzilla no clue, only a ticket a have created so time ago when OTRS was
also not working. On the IRC #wikimedia-servers (or something like that) I
found a notice that OTRS is down. The last message I have received from
OTRS is from Saturday 13 august around 12 hours GMT. I have discovered it
Tuesday around 22:00 hours.

When I know OTRS does not work or will not work I can redirect the
incoming emails so the do not go to OTRS and we can answer them outside
OTRS. But I need to know it does not work to do so.

Also for this Announce-l would be very useful. Send an email "OTRS is
down, emails are in a que" or so and again when it works again.

Or when there will be an upgrade of MediaWiki. To say between X and x we
will upgrade the wiki to version X of MediaWiki. During the upgrade the
database will be locked for about 10 minutes.

Sysops will have after the upgrade have the option to rename account.  See
http://some-place_whit_more_info.org

Now new functions are discovered after an upgrade.

If, and only if, Announce-l is always used for this type of things this
list can become very useful for those wikipedians who like to inform there
community and visitors about what i going on whit there wiki.

--
Contact: walter AT wikipedia.be
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


subject:
[Wikitech-l] An other attempt for Announce-l;
 central info about wikimedia tech status and info


body:
David Gerard wrote:
> There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter
> (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in
> Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's
> donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole
> in the budget.

Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the
fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website, and
that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate to a
local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation. And as far as I
know, that money is still unspent.

Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate
to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations
will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan
for spending that money?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikitech-l] An other attempt for Announce-l;
	central info about wikimedia tech status and info

body:
NB: Although "whit" is actually a valid English word, it is uncommon
nowadays and I'm pretty sure you meant to say "with".

Cheers
Mark

On 17/08/05, Walter Vermeir . <walter at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> Crosspost to: foundation-l, wikitech-l
>
> At the end of 2002 on my request the mailing list Announce-l was created.
>
> This because I noticed there was a serious problem whit internal
> communication inside Wikipedia. Changes where done to the software,
> important decisions where made whitout anybody who is not a mailing list
> junky to know about it. Especially the problem to get information form the
> English language community to the others.
>
> The idea was to use the mailing list Announce-l for the announcement of
> important things that have a impact for all wikipedias in all languages.
> This for technical and organisational matters. So at least it could be
> possible to inform the non-English wikipdias about what was going on and
> maybe even give some feedback.
>
> It has received whit an 100% positive responds but only one (1) reaction.
> Again; thank you Daniel Mayer. So it never happened.
>
> We are now 3 years later.
>
> In general, things are a bit better. Aldo I think my original idea would
> still be useful.
>
>
> Now I would like to ask of the following "light edition" of Announce-l can
> get support and implemented.
>
> - use Announce-l for the reporting of problems whit the operation of the
> services of the Wikimedia projects. Status reports about it and when it
> works again.
>
> Not for discussing or for bug rapports, only to inform the community. A
> moderated list, low traffic.
>
> This should be done by the technical staff of wikimedia.
>
> Examples;
>
> == search function ==
>
> Some time ago a received by the email system for questions to the Dutch
> Wikipedia some questions why the
> can not find the new articles the have written.
>
> I know that the search function is not live but it works whit a special
> search database. So I asked them to wait until an update. But because it
> takes so long for the update I have asked on the lists about it. It seems
> that the update system is broken so new articles can not be found.
>
> So now I can inform other users when there are questions about it and can
> put up an notice on the search page about this.
>
> When will I work again? I can only test to see.
>
> For something like this Announce-l can be used. When it is known that the
> update function for the search system does not work anymore a member of
> the technical staf can send an message to Announce-l. And when it works
> again or there is news about it again.
>
> == OTRS ==
>
> On a normal day the Dutch Wikipedia receives about 8 emails form visitors.
> How the emails are done is an important part of how we can make a good
> impression.  All emails must be answered fast and professional.
>
> Because I noticed the lack of new emails I start investigation. On
> bugzilla no clue, only a ticket a have created so time ago when OTRS was
> also not working. On the IRC #wikimedia-servers (or something like that) I
> found a notice that OTRS is down. The last message I have received from
> OTRS is from Saturday 13 august around 12 hours GMT. I have discovered it
> Tuesday around 22:00 hours.
>
> When I know OTRS does not work or will not work I can redirect the
> incoming emails so the do not go to OTRS and we can answer them outside
> OTRS. But I need to know it does not work to do so.
>
> Also for this Announce-l would be very useful. Send an email "OTRS is
> down, emails are in a que" or so and again when it works again.
>
>
> Or when there will be an upgrade of MediaWiki. To say between X and x we
> will upgrade the wiki to version X of MediaWiki. During the upgrade the
> database will be locked for about 10 minutes.
>
> Sysops will have after the upgrade have the option to rename account.  See
> http://some-place_whit_more_info.org
>
> Now new functions are discovered after an upgrade.
>
> If, and only if, Announce-l is always used for this type of things this
> list can become very useful for those wikipedians who like to inform there
> community and visitors about what i going on whit there wiki.
>
> --
> Contact: walter AT wikipedia.be
> Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
> http://www.wikipedia.be
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Anthere

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Dirk Riehle wrote:
>
>> Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us,
>> the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from
>> Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it
>> without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
>>
>> Dirk
>
>
> This is just a thought out loud, but what possible arrangements could be
> made for not necessarily returning the money to the US, but using funds
> from local chapters that may be furthering goals in 3rd countries?  i.e.
> spending money on developers in 3rd world countries, helping develop
> specific language wikis, seed money for new chapters, etc.?  Or is the
> money "stuck" in Germany proper and can't go anywhere else at all for
> any reason?

Good point.

A week ago, at Wikimania, when it was pointed out that the german
chapter had money, while the french and the italian did not, I suggested
that possibly some of the german money could be used for other chapters,
in particular when there is common currency and these countries are in
certain common frame (here, european union). I am not sure I got a
positive feedback on this (nor a negative actually).

Maybe it would help to clarify in which cases we could actually use the
money and in which we can not.

As I understood things, what we can not do is simply transfer from one
organisation to another, which is totally fair.

Here are some examples where I would like to know if feasible or not.

* buying hardware and "donating" the hardware to the foundation (this
would typically be the case for servers; but is that possible ? why
would donating hardware more acceptable than donating money ?)

* buying hardware, putting it in the general pot, but staying the owner
(maybe for such things as certain servers, switches, memory stick (:-)))

* paying for some of the costs for some meetings (in Germany is easy
enough to imagine, but would it be possible for example for the German
verein to fund a Polish meetup ?)

* paying some travel costs which would otherwise be paid by the
Foundation (easy enough probably would be to pay for some speakers to
come to wikimania in Germany, but would it be possible for a german
chapter to pay travel for Jimbo to Germany to meet with german partners,
or for the german chapter to pay travel for Angela to go to South Africa
to meet with some possible african partners ?)

* Paying for some promotional items (easy enough in german for a
conference in Germany, but would it be possible to pay the publishing of
an italian-language leaflet for a conference in Belgium for example ?)

* Paying people for certain activities (such as, but non restricted to,
development). Could these people be paid if non german ? Could they be
paid to work on global issues ? (for example, grant specialist ?)

And there is again the big discussion of whether there would be a way
for a local chapter to make a official donation to another chapter or to
the Foundation. Which would probably require a legal expert to say.

Other than that, I can also imagine financing specific projects, but
these need to be defined (and set up). And *this* is the main issue. We
can always say "let us use the german money to develop for example
arabic wikipedia". Right, but who set this up ? Where are the volunteers ?

I do not think there is any bad will from anyone to use/spend this
money, just need ideas, understand of what is legally authorized and
volunteers to do the job.

All these being limited to german discussion as they now have money, but
  will be applied to all other chapters later on.

Do we have ideas on these first points ?


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] 300 Euro for excellent Articles: an experiment

body:
I propose instead that we all pitch in to write an excellent article as
a gift for Fantasy's wife, and that he direct the money to Guaka to fund
the creation of 300 articles in Bambara Wikipedia.

This seems very nice to me. :-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] "brittle"

body:
On 8/17/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe if adminship was determined my a long and complementary process,
> rather than an open vote (where you get to see the names of those who
> oppose you), some of the bad blood would reduce.

Surely the corresponding reduction in transparency of the process
would simply lead to more people screaming "cabal"? I can see the
disadvantages of both, but I recognise that open voting can be a
hindrance when it comes to voting users voicing their discontent with
the candidate. When it's 49 votes in support, placing one vote in
opposition can be tough, especially as it can lead to animosity from
the supporting voters.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProject Decency

body:
On 8/17/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's a pretty ugly discussion, but reading over their (somewhat
> misguided) page does bring up one possible addition to the discussion
> on "inappropriate" images which I didn't see raised before.
>
> Namely, if the English Wiki servers are hosted in a U.S. state, then
> the site does, if I am not mistaken, fall under various laws about the
> distribution of "obscene" images to minors. "Obscene" is of course a
> subject term, in the legal realm as well as here, but there is some
> precedent which could allow one to make such decisions.

Well I'm making a big assumption here. But I'm going to assume that
Florida is a reasonable state with reasonable laws on obscenity. If
that is the case then we simple shouldn't have any images that are
obscene.

Wikipedia is an encylopedia not a pornshop.

For example. I do not believe that the picture of an erect penis on
the penis article is obscene. It it encylopedic and entirely
appropriate for minors, and I cannot believe that the state of Florida
would think otherwise. _If_ we have any pornographic pictures, and we
do have a lot of pics of pornstars, I haven't checked them all but
it's certainly possible that someone might upload a pornographic image
of one of them we should simplr delete them as innapropriate for an
encylopedia.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Objectionable material

body:
Skyring wrote:
> We should have some mechanism in place where Jimbo can get up on a
> talk show and say "We thought of that already, and you have to do
> this, this and that to see all the objectionable material, so it's
> manageable, and control is in the hands of parents, teachers, school
> boards and so on."

If you know my personal opinions (which, by the way, I do not think
should be controlling policy on these matters) on the issue of
censorship and what kids should be looking at, you'll know how extremely
unlikely it would be that I would be on a talk show saying anything of
the sort.

I prefer to be able to say: "We thought of that already, and we have
gone through a long and difficult process of editorial judgment to treat
delicate topics in a respectful and educational manner.  Nothing in
Wikipedia is intentionally offensive, but of course there will always be
people who are offended by something.  We do our best to take a serious
and thoughtful approach to these matters."

I have at times been supportive of the idea of tagging, and if that is
the best way to treat delicate topics in a respectful and educational
manner, then fine.  But I think the default view of Wikipedia should not
be affected by such measures, so I would never be saying "oh, but you
have to do this, this, and that to see this stuff".

--Jimbo


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Resignation as CRO

body:
I normally try to avoid "me too" posts, but I feel I should speak up to
say that I agree with virtually everything Erik Zachte wrote, and thank
him immensely for taking the time to compose that thoughtful message.

I want to add some thoughts on the transparency issue he raised. A very
critical part of managing any organization, especially one as committed
to ideals of openness as Wikimedia, is reporting back to everyone about
your activities. Given the transparency of most actions on a wiki,
producing such reports is especially important for off-wiki activity.

In particular this applies to the board, the officers (including those
of local chapters), and the developers. I trust all of these people and
the processes by which they were chosen, but we still need to hear from
all of them regularly about their work. The proliferation of non-public
mailing lists and wikis adds to the concern. I understand that some
matters cannot be announced at the outset, and that deliberation and
delay may allow for a more thorough report. But on the other hand,
disappearing behind closed doors, not to be heard from again, is not an
acceptable option.

With the developers this is a longstanding problem, and they struggle
constantly with more pressing issues, like a simple lack of manpower
(womanpower would certainly do as well if we can recruit some female
developers). I'm guessing we could use three or four times as many
developers before we'd have enough of them to spare one to spend much
time reporting. I think most people are willing to give a lot of slack
here as long as the sites keep running.

For the rest, because the issues they deal with are more frequently
"political", people will be more uncomfortable with a lack of
transparency. I see some effort to deal with this, but I'm afraid that
even among those of us who are deeply interested enough to be on this
list, people frequently feel out of the loop on issues of concern to
them. I have tried to contribute a little myself toward more thorough
reporting (and hope to help more in the future), but the overall task is
a full-time job and I already have one of those.

Keeping people informed is essential to sustaining trust, and makes a
tremendous difference in whether they will accept the decisions you make.

--Michael Snow


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Resignation as CRO


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] spam filter

body:
I've had an error w the spam filter before too. It went pretty much
example the same as what you describe, w a certain link triggering the
spam filter warning, despite it not being listed @
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist Then, later, it worked.

Jack (Sam Spade)