from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Jimbo Wales comments are policy or opinion?

body:
Also I feel someone should note that in many cases Jimbo states a
personal opinion, but does not seem to want it to be considered
policy, for example when he voted for the deletion of [[GNAA]] -- that
doesn't mean the article will automatically deleted because of his
vote, obviously.

Usually though it is quite clear when he is making policy, and when he
is expressing an opinion but doesn't want it to be made policy Because
He Said So.

Mark

On 14/04/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/14/06, Ian Tresman <it at knowledge.co.uk> wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
> > The Wikipedia policy and guidelines pages says that one way that
> > policies are decided, are by Jimbo himself.
> >
> > Does Jimbo have to physically update the policy page himself for his
> > word to become law, or do his mailing list comments on policy
> > clarification carry equal weight, or does the community have to
> > decide on his comments and have a consensus?
>
> When Jimbo makes a public statement which is clearly a statement of
> policy, it is policy.  The question of if it must be put on the policy
> pages is somewhat moot, because someone should just go ahead and do so
> as whenever he makes such a comment.
>
> This isn't as odd as it might sound. The policy pages on the Wiki are
> constantly evolving, and it can be difficult for someone who isn't
> busy traveling around the world promoting Wikipedia to track where the
> appropriate place is... much more difficult for someone who is.
>
> Here is an example of Jimbo setting policy without, as far as I'm
> aware, updating the policy pages:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html ...
>
> In may times, Jimbo's raw decision alone doesn't make for great policy
> language... so thats another factor why we should not expect him to
> always update the policy directly. It's fine for users to enhance the
> policy beyond his statements, so long as they remain true to his
> intentions... the standard practice of distributing editing and
> Jimbo's own ability to execute oversight should ensure that is the
> case.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
Locke Cole wrote:
> On 4/14/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It doesn't make sense to have whitespace between the # and the if, and no
>> demonstrable reason to have it before the colon.
>
> For formatting, to make it easier to read.
>
I've never found adding a space before the colon at the end of a sentence
fragment to be easier to read, either.

What's hard to read about "#if:"?  "#ifeq:"? "#ifexpr:"?  Spaces are
allowed after the colon, correct?

>> The logic of qif was often confusing.  There's only very short term
>> advantage to backward compatibility.  Having #eval and #if work like
>> other languages will be easiest to document in the long term.  Remember,
>> features aren't of much use without easy to understand documentation.
>
> Having #if test for blank/non-blank makes more sense. #ifexpr now
> wraps what would have previously been a call to #if *and* #expr into a
> single call. If you still need to test against 0 or 1, you can use
> #ifeq.
>
The documentation just changed today, so it's a done deal.

Note that even the documentation says:
   ... It is intended as an "if defined" structure. ...

So, it should be called "#ifdef:" to match ingrained expectations.  Could
"#if:" be quickly retired?

Also, "#ifexpr:" just showed up in the documentation today, so you'll
forgive me for not knowing about it.  And wouldn't we just use
    "#ifexpr: X = 0" otherwise?

"#ifeq:" is for matching strings, not against "0".  See what I mean
about ingrained expectations?


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
On 14/04/06, Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is <gangleri at torg.is> wrote:
> Niklas and Rob suggested
> http://yi.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=user:Nikerabbit/monobook.css&action=edit
> form#editform textarea#wpTextbox1 { direction: ltr }
> form#editform input#wpSummary { direction: ltr }

As it happens, I didn't. I took Ilmari's CSS suggestion

form#editform textarea#wpTextbox1 { bidi: bidi-overriide; }

and put it live on a test wiki, then asked Gangleri to check it. He
seemed to have been in a discussion with Niklas prior to that.

I've had occasion to edit the RTL test wiki a couple of times (testing
other, simpler RTL issue fixes) and as far as I notice right now, with
the patch, the wikitext doesn't seem to "play silly buggers" in the
text box so much.

Rob Church


list: wikien-l

from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
>
> I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable
> historical
> figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two
> wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official government-
> issued
> marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he
> had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to
> add to
> this person's article?

When you've published your findings.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that that
is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.

How about, as a compromise, if someone would like to include a source
from an archive, they are required to submit a copy of the document,
so everyone can see it for themselves.

The WP:NOR argument is better, but it's still sketchy. WP:NOR is kinda
devious, and if we take it to an absolute, one might arrive at strange
conclusions. The classic case is book summaries, that you can't write
a book summary based solely on the book, because then you might be
construed as doing research about it (this is obviously ridiculusly
exagerrated (I have no idea whether I spelled any of those two words
right), but one could make that argument).

The fact is, it's really hard to define research in this context. How
is looking up someones birth certificate in an archive worse than
looking it up on the internet?Technically, they're both research.
Honestly, I'd prefer it if the info got directly from the source. Same
thing with things such as trial transcripts, if we quote someone from
a trial, I'd prefer it if we knew excactly, word by word, what they
were saying instead of trusting a third party.

As long as you don't do analysis, and pick your information straight
from the source, document it and be sure other people can see it too,
what's the big deal? How is that any different from looking up
information on the internet or in a magazine from half a century ago?
Especially so if we make them provide a copy of the document.

--Oskar

On 4/12/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia:Archives as sources <WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org>
>
> There is a proposal going on to alter the No Original Research policy.
>
> Just in case people missed it.
>
> Garion96
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests
	for	CheckUserinformation?

body:
Patrick, Brad wrote:

>My personal two cents on WS:User:Birgitte Arco is that she is a
>responsible and valuable member of the community generally, and in large
>measure the soul of Wikisource (tortured, fragmented or otherwise).  I
>was disturbed to hear about questioning of her ulterior motives, and
>having been involved with Checkuser issues for Wikisource myself, in my
>experience she acted positively and appropriately.
>
>>From my perspective, I would hate to see damage done to the projects
>"for want of a nail."  The kingdom should not be lost; we should find a
>way to either grant status on an interim basis or otherwise adjust the
>guidelines.  The vandals have tools, so should we.  We must act to
>defend ourselves - even Wikisource - and not let the primary goal of
>promoting the projects fall flat in the face of rather arcane
>administrative details (not that Checkuser isn't important - to the
>contrary - but it shouldn't be more important than the project itself).
>
I haven't had any contact with Birgitte, but I'm happy to hear that she
is doing as you say.  Questioning motives foes hand-in-hand with
people's attitudes towards leadership.  Even for myself I can easily say
that I am the senior active editor on Wiktionary because I can justify
that as a function of time.  I am also the senior of two bureaucrats,
but I prefer not to draw any conclusion about how that translates into
leadership.  I am hesitant to draw any unwarranted conclusion from the
fact that a person is a bureaucrat or administrator.  I see Robert cast
in a similar role at Wikibooks.

Maybe it's the role of the bureaucrat that should be reviewed.  A
bureaucrat needs to have the broad support of his community, but he also
needs the authority to act when the situation requires even when those
actions conflict with the views of other important community members.
Naturally if a bureaucrat becomes excessive in taking such measures he
will lose broad support.

Bureaucrats should know their own communities enough to recognize the
abilities and personalities of their own projects' members.  Perhaps all
bureaucrats who have built up a certain level of trust and experience
should have Checkuser access.  I don't particularly want it for myself.
I trust that I have enough social skills and legal understanding to use
the tool responsibly, but I shudder at the prospect of having to cope
with yet another technical skill.

Perhaps the tools available to bureaucrats should be expanded, to cover
a wider range of project-specific appointments that are not appropriate
for even a steward who does not have experience with a particular
project.  I would recommend that bureaucrats have the authority to grant
the checkuser tool to any project member (not necessarily just sysops);
these could easily be for the limited amount of time required to deal
with specific problem users.  A non-sysop who is granted this tool would
be able to investigate and report (confidentially if need be), but leave
it to others to take measured disciplinary action.

I also think that bureaucrats should have the right to de-sysop.  I
think that I would be less hesitant to appoint some people if I felt
that could be reversed if my suspicions proved true.  It would also make
it easier to remove, without prejudice, any sysop that we just haven't
seen for a long time.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for CheckUser
	information?

body:
This is gotten really long so I going to attempt
summaries:

--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Birgitte SB wrote:

> > However, in general the people who are trusted
> from a
> > Foundation perspective take little interest in the
> > running of the smaller projects.
>
> I would not say this at all. Trust does not come
> from being a
> participant in a *big* project, or on a major
> language. Trust comes from
> the frequent interaction we have with some editors
> and from sharing
> certain tasks, which allow to get to know each
> other.
>
> How does that happen ?

>{{Explanation of getting noticed by Foundation
people}}

I completely understand how someone from a project big
or small
becomes trusted and agree that it can only happen by
getting to
know a person.  What I meant was in the other
direction; that the
trusted people don't check in on the small projects.
Before the
copyright issue I always assumed the Foundation knew
generally
what happened at Wikisource.  I certainly thought some
one was
reading our policy pages and approved of them.  That
someone
made sure we had an active bueraucrat and responsible
admistrators.
However in reality the Foundation knows very little of
how smaller
projects are run and makes no effort that I know of to
check-in.
The only attention such projects recieve is if they
come to a
Foundation level people with a problem.  That is not
good.
I really believe if a big Wikimedia scandal occurs it
will be
in one of these small non-English, non-German,
non-Japanese,
non-French projects.  Right now there could be
policies in
place that expose the Foundation to as much liability
as
abuse of Checkuser.  Who knows?

>
> Do you have kids ?
>

No.

>>{{My  exeperience needing checkuser an blocking
dicomfort}}

> nod.
>
>>{{There are small project divested from the
Foundation in all but name}}

> nod.
> Recently, some chinese editors also joined.
> We need a common ground where to meet each others.
>
> :I believe there
> > are other problems we haven't yet imagined already
>> out
> > there.  Things need to be handled differently.
> > Perhaps new projects are approved to easily.
>
> Waitaminutehere. The last approved project...
> was...wikinews. It was
> quite a while ago !

Perhaps project was the wrong word.  I mean new
community.
New languages that don't have adminstrators in place

> > {{Numerous ideas for better intergration}}

>{{Numerous previous attempts at intergration and
stories
>of past horrors}}

> If you have ideas, please, by all means, provide
them. Or better,
>IMPLEMENT them.

>>{{How Wikisource and other small projects are
different
>>from Wikipedia}}

>Which strongly suggest me that we should rather try
to have
>inter-projects checkusers.
>Let me see... Karynn for example, is apparently a
motivated checkuser,
>with the full tech knowledge necessary. She may not
be an arbitrator, I
>think she is trusted as a checkuser. Why not having
her checkuser on
>several english speaking projects ?

>Would not it be wiser than some inactive editors
becoming checkuser on
>wikibooks just because *there ought to be* a
checkuser ? If the user
>has
>done less than 50 edits in the past 3 months, it
makes no sense that he
>becomes checkuser really.

>In any cases, I fully understand the different nature
of editorship.

Inter-project checkusers would be fine.  Actually I
think that having stewards
do checkuser is fine.  Except that it doesn't happen.
I don't have problem
with the denial of local checkusers, so much as the
denial of the checkuser
information completely.  The current system would be
fine if it only worked :)

>>Also as Robert
>> Horning said, we attract vandals of a sophisticaton
WP
> >never even imagined when there were only 12
> >administrators.  I feel that if projects like
> >Wikisource and Wikibooks are continually regarded
by
> >the Foundation the way they are now, they will
become
> >like difficult step-childrem.

>How are they regarded ?

>As far as I am concerned, Wikibooks at least has a
life on its own. It
>knows very well how to keep joke books, remove
Wikiversity or wikimania
>proceedings. And it has a few vocal representatives
on its list :-)

>Admittedly, I know much less of Wikisource. But you
are here now, no ?
>:-)

They are regarded in this way.  They are left alone
without guidelines or
advice and told to make thier own community; govern
themselves.  Then when
everything seems to be going fine some one steps in
and says "Oh you guys
are doing *that*.  That is no good, you have get rid
of that.   And you must make up your
own rules with the details of what goes and what can
stay.  Sorry I can't really give
advice"  And then they make new policies and no one is
willing say the new policy
actually kosher.  So they hold their breath and hope
the whole thing doesn't repeat
again.

It is not that I don't think we are valued so much as
I feel we don't really know
where we stand.  It as if we want to build something
wonderful and strong and
proper; then it rains and we find out it was just a
sandcastle.  And when we ask for
new materials we are just given more sand.  I know
eveyone only wants the best
for us, and I do not think there is any lack of
respect.  I just see these situations
repeating and people becoming frustrated if nothing
changes.  And that is why I
am here.  Why I joined this list, because maybe that
way Wikisource can be better
informed in policy decisions.  But I am more worried
about the other communities that
are not currently represented here.  I want to speak
up for them and say Wikisource
was once not plugged into the Foudation and we were
unaware of major problems.
Some other community is out there is with no idea they
will have to destroy
their own work when it comes to light.  This is not so
much about Wikisource as them

>>{{Intergration and Trust are needed}}

>Speaking of trust. One suggestion made last summer
was that those given
>checkuser access should provide their real names.
What is your opinion
>about this ?
>If the Foundation trusts those with checkusers to use
it according to
>policy, would checkusers trust the Foundation enough
to provide their
>real names ?

I am surprised that this is not already required.  I
think you mean the
Board would have access to the real names and not the
people
who are being checked, right?

>>{{Old copyright policy problems}}

>No. It is worse than this...
>The Foundation board did not discuss this issue, even
less took a
>decision about copyrights on wikisource. I presume it
came from a
>discussion between Jimbo and legal bodies. I am
intentionally vague on
>your UN resolutions and Crown legislation deletions
because I am not
>aware of it.
>Sorry.

That is worse.  Really the discussion happened on this
list.  We never
got any real official ruling just vague comments that
GFDL is good
everything else is bad.  This really not good enough
for many
reasons I will not get into.  It is not simple but I
do not want to
force answers from people who are not knowledgable,
because
that is what caused the deletion of UN and Crown in my
opinion.

>>{{Being cautious with copyright waiting for the
other shoe to drop}}

>This is a problem. Have you talked to JImbo for
clarification ? You are
>lucky, you share a language... Imagine japanese
editors...

See above.  Yes I think some other languages are going
to have
rude shock about these kind of issues in the future.
It will be worse
because they will be much further along than we were
when this
happened. Thats why I am bringing this up.  I want to
find a solution
before there is another 6 months of work put into
these projects
that will have to be deleted.  I am thinking of those
people most of
all.

>>{{ either too gun-shy to keep contributing, or
decide to just ignore
> > the rules they feel are arbitrary.}}

>I am a proponent of ignore all rules...

Well yes, but we don't want people to go too far out
of bounds.

>PS : do you like mint tea ?

I really do like all kinds of tea.  But I never make
it at home
I only order it at rrestaurants.

BirgitteSB

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


subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring
	requests	for	CheckUser	information?

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>Essjay wrote:
>
>
>>Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to say "Maybe we could use a
>>couple more stewards?"
>>
>>
>r perhaps the minimum requirement for the number of votes for users to
>get checkuser status on smaller projects like en.wikibooks is
>unreasonable?  We have had a couple of candidates for checkuser status
>for almost two months now, and we simply can't get the number of votes
>necessary because of the size of our active user base.  Yet we are the
>target of repeated vandalism, and even sockpuppet voting from die-hard
>sock puppets.  If the concern is that checkuser privileges are going to
>be abused, it is a smaller user base that can be abused.
>
>Should projects be allowed to set their own standards for people with
>this status, or is it something that is imutable and only set by the
>Foundation board?  So far, only Wikipedias are seemingly allowed to have
>somebody with checkuser status at all.  And if stewards are overwhelmed
>with this task of dealing with checkuser scans, perhaps the policy needs
>to be reviewed.
>
I don't think that simply adding more stewards is the solution.  Because
of the legal privacy issues involved the Foundation needs to retain some
control over the process, but this does not mean that projects cannot
set application policies within parameters.  This is not the kind of
tool that is well granted by voting.  The risk there is that the process
will be taken over by those who are paranoid about sockpuppets, rather
than those who will review the problem objectively.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 4/14/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable historical
> figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two
> wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official government-issued
> marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he
> had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to add to
> this person's article?

Well, in your case, the archival material directly contradicts the
published result, then that may not be an appriopriate use of archival
material. I talking about cases like, was Nancy Reagan born in 1921 or
1923? Was Jennifer Lopez born in 1969 or 1970 (I use these two
examples only because they come to mind right now, I was looking
through WP:LAME earlier today :P)? Also, the article that started all
this [[Hopkins School]], also used archival sources in a pretty clear
way.

Having said that I don't think you should include archival information
in that specific situation (because of the contradiction thing), you
could if you wished write something like (now, this is without knowing
any specifics) "There exists a marriage liscense that suggests that he
may have been married inbetween these two marriges, however there are
no research to support this" or something a little bit slicker.

Your example is a very good counter-argument for why we should use
archival material sparingly, if at all, but I still think that it can
be very useful for finding out very specific things like dates of
birth and marriages, city-populations, etc. (hard data, that is).

--Oskar


from_name: Anthere

body:
Hi

Let me try to address your various points the best I can.

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>
>>The reason for the 25 votes limit comes from two reasons
>>* A community with less than 25 users is unlikely to really need
>>frequent checkusers, because it is a project with reduced activity. So,
>>it can not be a heavy load for stewards.
>>* A community with less than 25 users has a rather serious risk to have
>>a rather little known editor become a checkuser, rather than a trusted
>>oldbie. If we start handing out status just as we do for sysop status on
>>small projects, I think there will be abuse. I say this from my
>>experience, as I had to unsysop several sysops on small projects (the
>>guys did not know our basic rules, behaved like dictators with the
>>handful of editors, put advertisements on the main page, controlled povs
>>etc...).
>>
>>I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a big enough base of
>>editors to vote on a check user...
>>I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page to check. But can
>>you roughly say how many active editors per month the project currently
>>has ? How many very active editors per month ?
>>
>>ant
>>
>>
>
> Since the stats page hasn't been updated since November of last year, it
> is completely useless to even gague what the current activity is on any
> Wikimedia project.  I can only use the current activity on the Wikibooks
> staff lounge to even remotely gague what the current user activity level
> is, but I would guess it is pretty close to about 20 user at the
> absolute top.  Really stretching it perhaps we can get to 25 total at
> the most.
>
> And as for advertising this, I guess we could put it in bold 40 point
> type on the project main page with a link to a special page only for
> this kind of request.  I think that is way over the top and something
> that is not needed in this situation.  The advertising was more than
> adequate, it is just that this is a very unreasonable request.
>
> As for a "community with less than 25 users unlikely needing frequent
> checkuser scans", I think this is mistaken totally what is going on.
>  en.wikibooks has numerous links from within Wikipedia, and is being
> hammered by vandals that have moved on from Wikipedia, indeed with
> excellent training on how to be a vandal on Wikipedia, and taking on
> other projects as well that don't have quite the same pool of
> administrators.

I see.
Perhaps the number 25 was too high then. That would tend to suggest this.
But again, let me explain why we put a minimum limit. We have some small
projects with a number of editors of less than 5. What usually happens
is that the most active one simply ask sysop status (and even sometimes
bureaucrat status) on meta because their project *need* a sysop. Which
means the status is given without any community voting whatsoever.
Sometimes, when it is a new language in particular, the editor has been
on our projects only for a couple of days and have no idea of our basic
rules of operating whatsoever (npov in particular).
More than once, we had problems later on. And it was not always easy for
the very small growing community to have a black sheep unsysoped.

What I think should NOT be allowed to happen, ever, is that the new
wikiquote project in maori be created, and a total stranger be given
sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser status so that he can start the
community. In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
25 votes. Which may be too high a value.

So, option 1 : decreasing the number of votes requirements.

Now, there are other options we could follow.

> As for handing out checkuser status to people who are not trusted
> oldies, that is totally rediculous as well.  There are admins and
> bureaucrats on en.wikibooks who are also admins on other projects,
> including meta, wikinews, and even en.wikipedia.  Active ones at that.
>  I see absolutely no reason why the standards for giving somebody
> bureaucrat status when you can't also give them checkuser status.

I do not know what are the standards for giving bureaucrat status.
I think they are not the same at all depending on projects.

I see a **major** reason for the standards for giving bureaucrat status
to be different from the standards for giving checkuser status.

The standards for giving bureaucrat status are different in each project
and each language. On one project, it will be a vote by all editors of a
project. On another project, it will be a vote by administrators only.
On another project, it might even be a vote by other bureaucrats. Or it
might be no vote at all (just ask on meta). It may be 80% support. It
may be 66%. There are no standards.

But if the bureaucrat makes a mess, it is a technical/community issue.
Only the projects can be damaged (which is bad enough). So, it is the
community business to define its own rules.

If a checkuser makes a mess, the Foundation itself may be concerned. We
might have problems with an editor for release of private data. So, the
Foundation has a right to have a say in WHO is granted this access.
Hence the policy being *more* standard.

Note as well that other access similarly are granted by a limited number
of people, according to internal rules which are not the community
business. I typically will mention developer status, with shell access;
Only a few developers will grant it to you, according to their own
rules. And the Foundation can kick you off.

> Furthermore, what abuse could possibly happen with somebody having
> checkuser scans?  Really, at the most extreme?  With bureacrat status I
> could give admin status to a whole team of 'bots that would then in
> tandem go through and systematically delete every page on a project and
> block every user.  Talk about damage to a project.  With checkuser
> privileges, all you have access to is just the IP address of each user.
>  So the absolute worst damage is that they publish on an external
> website (making it harder for the board to go after that user) all of
> the IP addresses of every user.  Which is worse?  Really, think about it.

I really think about it.
I agree that practically, the projects are more important.
*However*, I was elected on the board of the Foundation, which means
that *I* must think as well of the protection of the organisation
itself. If the Foundation is sued for lack of respect of privacy, I am
concerned. You might be indirectly concerned if less money goes to the
servers due to legal requirements (trial costs).

So, yes, you are correct. For 99,99% of you, the projects are more
important.

> More to the point, show me a single user that has been given checkuser
> rights on any local project besides a Wikipedia and meta.  This would be
> a contrary example to prove me wrong.  If not, why not?  Because
> checkuser rights are not needed except on Wikipedia?

Well, technically, because no requests were done on meta to turn on the
status :-)

Here is option 2, which I hesitate to offer, but will nevertheless.
CheckUser might be related to a language rather than a project. Which
means that all current checkusers on the en.wiki, could be granted
checkuser on any other en speaking project automatically, or on their
request.
Potential pit : en.wikibooks might be unhappy about an unknown person
from en.wiki having checkuser on its project.
Note : it is a bit complex for stewards to do.

Option 3 (also controversial) :
If en.wikibooks holds a vote to grant checkuser status to some of its
editors, make it possible that any english editor of any project can vote.
Potential pit : en.wikibooks might not be happy that an unknown person
from en.wiki comes voting on en.wikibooks while he is not an editor there.
Note : the Foundation does not care if you do this. It is internal business.

Option 4
What about a global community approval (todo on meta) for a collection
of people who could do checkuser on absolutely any project and
absolutely any language. Those would NOT be stewards. Only checkusers.

Option 5
Same than option 4, but for language only. For example, 10 english
speaking editors would be checkusers on en.wiki, en. wikibooks,
en.wikiquote etc... And a set would have checkuser on commons.

What else ?

Ant


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 14/04/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
>
> > Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
> > you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
> > verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that that
> > is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.
>
> I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable historical
> figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two
> wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official government-issued
> marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he
> had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to add to
> this person's article?

----

"It has generally been accepted that Smith married Joan in 1972, after
Janet died in 1967. However, an archived marriage certificate suggests
an intermediate marriage, to Jane, from 1969 to an unknown date, which
was not known to biographers until recently.[1]"

[1] See /A third wife?/ Barrett, S. 2006. http://www.epoptic.org/~sean/

----

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


body:
Birgitte Arco wrote:
>
>>I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a
>>big enough base of
>>editors to vote on a check user...
>>I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page
>>to check. But can
>>you roughly say how many active editors per month
>>the project currently
>>has ? How many very active editors per month ?
>>
>>ant
>>
>
>
> The number of editors who edit a small project, and
> the number of editors who pay any attention to the
> community pages are two completely different things.
> At English Wikisource which has over 3,000 registered
> users (There is no stats on the languages of
> Wikisource) often closes consensus deletion with two
> votes plus the nomination.  There are less than 10
> people who regularly edit at the Scriptorium, although
> I hope more read it.  There are a lot of editors who
> come over from Wikipedia to work on a single project,
> and only pay attention to our policies if that project
> is up for deletion of a copyright violation.  And
> vandalism is definitely on the rise.  We used to have
> a few vandals that just messed up one page (Macbeth is
> a favorite).  In the past month we have had three
> attacks that seem to be by a bot.  It registered some
> name with Troll in it and replaces entire pages with
> Animations of a troll until blocked.  It seems each
> attack has targeted the sames pages.  I feel the need
> of a project for checkuser and ability to gather 25
> votes are completely unrelated.  Perhaps if everyone
> still feels this is non-negotiable we could have a
> steward who is generally available personally assigned
> to each project that requests one.

I would rather prefer having a checkuser generally available to each
project. Again, checkuser requires technical knowledge. And checkuser
and stewards are too different jobs. But otherwise, your proposal looks
fine.

> When I have needed a checkuser in the past I have had
> to go through third parties on IRC because no
> available steward felt comfortable fulfilling my
> request directly.  And that makes it hard on me when
> my blocks are questioned and I am accused having
> ulterior motives (this was from outside the project).
> I feel in my case I alerted and consulted with other
> administrators and people outside of Wikisource enough
> to feel confident these accusations cannot taken
> seriously.  However, administrators of small projects
> are being put in the position of deciding between
> protecting the project legally or from vandalism or
> else protecting their reputations from accustions of
> blocking people on unconfirmed suspicions.  If I
> hadn't been trusted by someone who was trusted by
> stewards, I would have been put in a very nasty
> postition.  If things continue as they are, sooner or
> later some one on some project is going to be stripped
> of adminship because they did what they needed to do
> to protect the project, and didn't think to cover
> themselves as well as I did.
>
> Birgitte SB

Nod. I understand what you say.
Unfortunately, absolutely *any* editor may be attacked anytime and have
his/her reputation attacked. If you doubt that, check out the recent
emails between David Gerard, Aurevilly and myself :-(

Now, I must also say that it is quite unconfortable to do checkuser on a
project you absolutely do not know and in a language you do not know either.

Something that occured to me recently. I got a checkuser from a small
language project. A person A, made the request to check if person B did
not edit under several accounts. He suspected sockpuppetry. He said he
was sysop (I checked, he was). I did the check. The ip was shared by
three editors names. Impossible for me to try to see if edits were
similar or on similar topics. I gave the information to person A (only
the name of the other editor).
Then, person B contacted me a few days later, to ask me to check person
A, to see if he had a certain ip, which vandalised several articles...
and user B own user page. A bit perplex, I checked, and indeed, UserA ip
was the one which vandalized the articles (it was really vandalism) and
the user page. So, I confirmed person B that person A shared an ip with
a vandal. Likely, person A was a vandal. And a sysop...

And I deeply wondered if I had done well to tell UserA that UserB had
sockpuppets. And UserB that UserA was a sysop.

Requests may be done by *good* editors and by *bad* editors. Stewards
have no way to know. I am not sure it is good.

ant (who heard you were a good person :-))


subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
Locke Cole wrote:
> It's not just literal spaces, but *any* whitespace (carriage returns,
> tabs, etc). So you could do, for example:
>
> {{#if
>   :<string>
>   |<then result>
>   |<else result>
> }}
>
Any number of strange examples could be proposed, but I'd expect that
parsing the token is easier with the colon attached.  I'll leave that to
the expert implementors.  I just want to put my oar in saying it's really
a waste of effort.

Oh, and I'd just write that as (I hate it when folks move the test away
from the conditional):
{{#if: <string>
      | <then result>
      | <else result>
}}

> Note also that the result strings are also trimmed of whitespace, so
> the CR/LF are ignored.
>
Yeah, saw that in the code.

>> So, it should be called "#ifdef:" to match ingrained expectations.  Could
>> "#if:" be quickly retired?
>
> #if is shorter which is probably why it'll be kept as-is.
>
Here's where I jump up and down and holler!

Short is *NOT* an important desired design constraint!

Speaking as somebody with a fair amount design, documentation,
implementation, and operational experience (you all use my work every day),
it's really important to keep things as consistent as possible.  Remember
the principle of least surprise!

Folks are likely to do things based on prior experience.  Folks writing
templates are even more likely than the general editors to have
programming language experience.

Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but there are a lot of
small minds to worry about -- it's not foolish!

The semantics of "#if:" no longer match the semantics of PHP if.

The semantics also do not match the semantics of CPP #if, but the visual
representation will bring that to programmers' minds.

This is closer to CPP #ifdef.  If not changed to "#ifdef", I foresee
eons of queries and errors.

Now is the time to rectify the situation.  There are only a few instances,
and it should be easy to add #ifdef: and remove #if: a few days later.
With the holiday activities, there should be less going on right now, so
this is an excellent time to work on such changes in the background with
less stress on the servers.

> I proposed it on the talk page a little while ago (which is where most
> discussion is going on right now).

I tried to join meta some time ago, but it wouldn't let me login or create
my name.  I checked the logs, and there are no others with my name.
There is/was some form of restriction of participants?  I'm hoping that
single sign-on will handle everything soon.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 4/14/06, Ian Tresman <it at knowledge.co.uk> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
> The Wikipedia policy and guidelines pages says that one way that
> policies are decided, are by Jimbo himself.
>
> Does Jimbo have to physically update the policy page himself for his
> word to become law, or do his mailing list comments on policy
> clarification carry equal weight, or does the community have to
> decide on his comments and have a consensus?

When Jimbo makes a public statement which is clearly a statement of
policy, it is policy.  The question of if it must be put on the policy
pages is somewhat moot, because someone should just go ahead and do so
as whenever he makes such a comment.

This isn't as odd as it might sound. The policy pages on the Wiki are
constantly evolving, and it can be difficult for someone who isn't
busy traveling around the world promoting Wikipedia to track where the
appropriate place is... much more difficult for someone who is.

Here is an example of Jimbo setting policy without, as far as I'm
aware, updating the policy pages:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html ...

In may times, Jimbo's raw decision alone doesn't make for great policy
language... so thats another factor why we should not expect him to
always update the policy directly. It's fine for users to enhance the
policy beyond his statements, so long as they remain true to his
intentions... the standard practice of distributing editing and
Jimbo's own ability to execute oversight should ensure that is the
case.


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
Trying to add
a view that National Socialism was, er, the only real socialism
ever implemented seemed rather foolish, and out of place there.

The article needs more references, but I can see it is hard to
do this in the overview (havent yet had time to read all the
subarticles).

Justinc

Thats a pretty uninsightful interpretation of what was going on.
Editors have been trying to insert that claim that socialism opposes
racism:

"Socialism rejects the [[racist]] theories and [[totalitarianism]] of
the Nazis, while Nazism rejected the policies of [[internationalism]],
[[egalitarianism]], [[class struggle]], and common ownership of the
[[means of production]] pursued by many socialists.<ref>[[Leon
Trotsky|Trotsky]], Leon.
''[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-ger/330610.htm
What is National Socialism?]'' June 10 1933</ref>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socialism&diff=46506992&oldid=46506617

That is a highly misleading "citation" there. Trotsky doesn't define
Socialism any more than Hitler, Mao or Marx does. They all are persons
who claimed to be socialists, with wildly divergent views. There is no
consensus amongst socialists on these issues, and it is false to claim
their is one.

SS

On 4/14/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 13 Apr 2006, at 23:25, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
> > Yes, and when I got to looking at it, some of it was still the old
> > National Socialism is socialism stuff.
>
> Yes that seemed to be the main issue when I looked.
>
> I looked over the Socialism article and it didnt seem too bad,
> especially as it is an overview article that mainly is referencing
> other articles, always a hard thing to write well. Trying to add
> a view that National Socialism was, er, the only real socialism
> ever implemented seemed rather foolish, and out of place there.
>
> The article needs more references, but I can see it is hard to
> do this in the overview (havent yet had time to read all the
> subarticles).
>
> Justinc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 4/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Option 4
> What about a global community approval (todo on meta) for a collection
> of people who could do checkuser on absolutely any project and
> absolutely any language. Those would NOT be stewards. Only checkusers.
>
>
>
> Option 5
> Same than option 4, but for language only. For example, 10 english
> speaking editors would be checkusers on en.wiki, en. wikibooks,
> en.wikiquote etc... And a set would have checkuser on commons.

I think both of these has merit.  I've previously indicated that I
would be willing to serve as a "guest checkuser" on any project where
I can either read the language used (en or de) or where someone
trustworthy is available to collaborate with me (e.g. a local
bureaucrat or a steward with the appropriate language experience).
Checkuser requires both (a) technical knowledge of how to use it to
get useful results and (b) trustworthiness not to misuse the tool or
the results.  Most of the checkuser policy is catholic; local policy
doesn't come all that much into play, and the checkuser can coordinate
with local admins and bureaucrats to resolve questions as to whether,
e.g., a local policy violation has occured.

I think option 5 is probably best insofar as translation issues become
problematic.  However, there are a number of wikis (the gaggle of
wikis for the Eastern European languages) that probably need a
checkuser and may not be likely to produce one sufficiently
trustworthy to meet the Foundation's requirements.

Also, I suspect Brad (based on my conversation with him) would prefer
that we avoid proliferating the number of checkusers; using pooled
checkusers across projects as much as practical is likely a better
solution than having lots of local checkusers, from that standpoint.

Kelly


from_name: Ian Tresman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: Undue weight

body:
I've now found clarification of this issue, from Jimbo Wales in a post here:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-September/006653.html
This seems to provide verification of the issue.

I replaced the existing paraphrased text with Jimbo's verifiable
quotes, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&diff=48465303&oldid=48462905

But editors are telling me that:

1. Policy pages aren't subject to the verifiability policy

2. Jimbo is not the supreme lawgiver. The only thing he has made
"law" is that having a policy of writing from a neutral point of view
is a must. Everything else he has said are contributions from a
respected member of the community, as the policies are community-decided.

Comments?

Regards,
Ian Tresman


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Alexa - rankings differenciated among users
 from	different countries

body:
Guettarda wrote:
> So what's with Alexa - the English-speaking Caribbean doesn't exist to them?
>

The way Alexa works is:

1. Install Alexa toolbar for IE
2. Sites you visit are reported back to them.

Obviously very few people in the Caribbean use the Alexa toolbar.

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

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from_name: Angela

subject:
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Privacy Policy: Update to account for
	CheckUser access

body:
The Privacy policy at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy is now out of date,
since it precedes the large scale use of "CheckUser" and claims only
"developers" have access to the IPs of logged in users.

I am suggested a revised version at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Angela/Privacy_policy (see
http://tinyurl.com/nbguc for a diff from the current version).

The main changes are to these two paragraphs:

"IP addresses of users, derived either from those logs or from records
in the database are frequently used to correlate usernames and network
addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the wiki, including the
suspected use of malicious "sockpuppets" (duplicate accounts),
vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruption of the wiki."

"It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data
collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via
the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or
users with CheckUser access, in the following situations:"

I intend to propose that the Board accept the new draft as official
policy, but would appreciate feedback or further improvements before
then. Please comment on this list, or at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy

Thanks.

Angela.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:10:30 -0600, you wrote:

>Yes, I mean democratic socialism or social democracy, not
>totalitarian movements which adopt some socialist elements or label
>themselves socialist while butchering millions. Of course they don't
>label themselves totalitarian.

It's not the first time I've come across Sam's line of reasoning.
Saying that socialists were racist because the National Socialist
German Workers Party were racist is about as valid as saying that
democracies and republics are all police states because the German
Democratic Republic was a police state.  It is an absurd and easily
demolished inference.

I have more of a problem with those whose decision to believe in
literal biblical inerrancy leads them to conclude that any evidence
which is not superficially consistent with the King James Version is
therefore wrong, and who edit accordingly.  Not that Sam is
necessarily one such, but his contentious edits to Human and other
articles do indicate a viewpoint at odds with informed scientific
opinion on this.  The fact that many Americans agree is not really
persuasive, since a goodly number also apparently believe that Elvis
is still alive.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
On 4/14/06, Essjay <essjaywiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to say "Maybe we could use a
> couple more stewards?"

Yes, I'm sure we could use some more.

But perhaps addressing the inadequacies of the privacy policy would
also make stewards more confident in handling CheckUser requests
without feeling they were in violation of that. See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privacy_policy#Update_to_account_for_CheckUser_access

Angela.


from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
"Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is" <gangleri at torg.is> escribi?
en el mensaje news:web-153858978 at heimsnet.is...
(....)
> Editing RTL in MediaWiki is a mather of practice. As requested in
>
> Allow users to change text direction in all text input and textarea boxes
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4011
>
> the change from LTR to RTL editing and viceversa should be as easy as
> possible.
> I would realy be happy to have a choice in 'special:Preferences'.
>
> Anonymous editors would not have this posibility. If they accept cookies
> one
> could offer two radio buttons for a 'LTR' or 'RTL' choice.
>
> reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]

At http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4011 there is a a
javascript workaround by Zigger,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zigger/Bookmarklets and it seems to work
fine. Why is it not in the common monobook.js?
I know it woill only work on javascript browsers or even only on those who
support our toolbar but it seems would be a GREAT improvement, and any easy
change would use javascript...

Platonides


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>As long as you don't do analysis, and pick your information straight
>from the source, document it and be sure other people can see it too,
>what's the big deal? How is that any different from looking up
>information on the internet or in a magazine from half a century ago?
>Especially so if we make them provide a copy of the document.
>
Providing a copy of a document could open up copyright issues.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
>
>
>>Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
>>you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
>>verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that that
>>is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.
>>
>>
>I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable historical
>figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two
>wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official government-issued
>marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he
>had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to add to
>this person's article?
>
It would make no sense not to include the mid-wife.  If you saw the
marriage certificate, and it is available for anyone who goes to that
clerk's office to see it is verifiable.  Is it ethical to maintain
something which you know to be false just to be in complance with
technical regulations?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 4/14/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Taken at face value, I think that the simple answer to both Oskar and Sean's
> questions is yes, thes are OR.
>
> In the case of Oskar's first question, when you read a book to write a
> summary, or view a film to write a summary, it constitutes OR.  I suppose
> ideally what you should be doing in consulting book or film reviews, and
> using them to construct your own.  Why is it a problem?  For the most part,
> it probably isn't.  Nonetheless, if you are doing more than relating the
> simple facts of the movie, it becomes a creative endeavour, and that isn't a
> good thing.

Honestly, I think that is taking WP:NOR way too far. A book summary is
one of the easiest things to verify, just pick up the book and see for
yourselves. It is easy to spot where there is strict outlining of the
facts, and it is just as easy to see where the author inserts his own
opinion or analysis. For instance, take [[Pride and Prejudice]]. It
contains a long detailed summary of what's in the book. What if we
were to ask for a source that Mr Collins first proposed to Elizabeth
Bennet and, when turned down, asked Charlotte Lucas. The contributor
would probably say "Just read the damn thing and see for yourselves!"
And he'd be right, that is by far the best way, instead of relying on
a third party, which may or may not be entirely trustworthy (and migth
be hard to find).

One can also get all philosophical and say that when you something
from a secondary source, you do the same thing, you analyze and parse
the information and put it in your own words. Infact, besides making
straight-copyvio copies of text, arn't we all breaking WP:NOR by
simply contributing? However, that argument is just plain silly :P

>In the case of the number of wives of a famous person or the birth date of
>Nancy Reagan, if one of us can find the birth or marriage certificates, then
>hopefully so should their biographers.  In the case of Nancy Reagan or
>Jennifer Lopez, it amounts to a WP:V issue - and their press agent isn't a
>reliable source.

First off, does J.Lo even have a biographer? I assume she does, but
it's not like her life is totally over or anything............

Second, you are right, the press agent is not reliable as a source, so
that's why we should go to the birth certificate. What's more accurate
in informing of a birth date than a birth certificate.

>In the case of a discrepancy between what you can find for yourself and what
>the article says - I suppose the place to start is with {{fact}} or
>something stronger.  Obviously, if you have found the marriage certificate,
>why haven't other people?  Or is it that they just aren't famous enough to
>have a real biographer?  I'd say it is problematic.  Personally I wouldn't
>think twice about trusting Sean's veracity - but the truth is, we don't have
>"trusted editors" and in theory, what stands for Sean should stand for any
>anon.

I agree, that's why he should submit a scanned copy of whatever he
finds, and provide detailed information about where he found it. That
way, what stands for Sean, stands for everyone.

>I wouldn't have a huge problem with the examples cited, but any alteration
>of policy would have to be extremely tightly worded.

Yes, I completely agree.

--Oskar


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 4/14/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/04/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
> >
> > > Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
> > > you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
> > > verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that that
> > > is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.
> >
> > I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable historical
> > figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two
> > wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official government-issued
> > marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he
> > had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to add to
> > this person's article?
>
> ----
>
> "It has generally been accepted that Smith married Joan in 1972, after
> Janet died in 1967. However, an archived marriage certificate suggests
> an intermediate marriage, to Jane, from 1969 to an unknown date, which
> was not known to biographers until recently.[1]"
>
> [1] See /A third wife?/ Barrett, S. 2006. http://www.epoptic.org/~sean/
>

Yeah, that does sound really silly, doesn't it. :P Well, as I said,
that's a case where should probably NOT use the archival information.
I'm just not so comfortable with a blanket ban against them.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 4/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
> number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
> 25 votes. Which may be too high a value.

Yes, I think changing the phrase "25-30 editors approval" to "the
approval of 10 active editors" would be a reasonable change that can
be made without too much bureaucracy. While it's good to be cautious
about these things, specific parameters like this are *meant* to be
tuned. Be bold :-)

Erik


from_name: Essjay

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for
	CheckUser	information?

body:
I agree with Kelly entirely. Additionally, I'm willing to serve in the
same capacity; I don't have the length of tenure with checkuser that
Kelly does, but I have been quite active in using it for en.wikipedia,
and am certainly willing to do so elsewhere as needed.

Essjay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Kelly Martin wrote:
> On 4/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Option 4
>> What about a global community approval (todo on meta) for a collection
>> of people who could do checkuser on absolutely any project and
>> absolutely any language. Those would NOT be stewards. Only checkusers.
>>
>>
>>
>> Option 5
>> Same than option 4, but for language only. For example, 10 english
>> speaking editors would be checkusers on en.wiki, en. wikibooks,
>> en.wikiquote etc... And a set would have checkuser on commons.
>>
>
> I think both of these has merit.  I've previously indicated that I
> would be willing to serve as a "guest checkuser" on any project where
> I can either read the language used (en or de) or where someone
> trustworthy is available to collaborate with me (e.g. a local
> bureaucrat or a steward with the appropriate language experience).
> Checkuser requires both (a) technical knowledge of how to use it to
> get useful results and (b) trustworthiness not to misuse the tool or
> the results.  Most of the checkuser policy is catholic; local policy
> doesn't come all that much into play, and the checkuser can coordinate
> with local admins and bureaucrats to resolve questions as to whether,
> e.g., a local policy violation has occured.
>
> I think option 5 is probably best insofar as translation issues become
> problematic.  However, there are a number of wikis (the gaggle of
> wikis for the Eastern European languages) that probably need a
> checkuser and may not be likely to produce one sufficiently
> trustworthy to meet the Foundation's requirements.
>
> Also, I suspect Brad (based on my conversation with him) would prefer
> that we avoid proliferating the number of checkusers; using pooled
> checkusers across projects as much as practical is likely a better
> solution than having lots of local checkusers, from that standpoint.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>Having said that I don't think you should include archival information
>in that specific situation (because of the contradiction thing), you
>could if you wished write something like (now, this is without knowing
>any specifics) "There exists a marriage liscense that suggests that he
>may have been married inbetween these two marriges, however there are
>no research to support this" or something a little bit slicker.
>
So a marriage license (presumably found in a public archive) merely
"suggests" that this marriage exists. ;-)
I admit that it is possible to lie on such official documents (I've done
it myself), but there should be a presumption that most people will
complete these documents truthfully.

Ec


from_name: Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 11:53:17 -0400
 William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
> >> In fact, I just tested it by adding:
> >>
> >> FORM#editform TEXTAREA#wpTextbox1 { unicode-bidi: bidi-override; }
> >>
> >> to my monobook.css on yi.wiktionary and it seems to work.  Gangleri, can
> >> you try this and say if it helps any?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Ilmari Karonen
> >
> > Thanks Ilmari for the suggestion.
> >
> It wasn't a suggestion, it was a question.  Please say whether it helps?

{ unicode-bidi: bidi-override; } would not help at
http://yi.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=template:tsayt_-_divisions&action=edit
http://yi.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=template:vokh_-_divisions&action=edit

neither { direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: bidi-override; }

It is a workaround: you can see syntax errors but if you would need to edit you
would start making spelling errors in the 'mirrored' script.

best regards reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/4/14, Ian Tresman <it at knowledge.co.uk>:
> I've now found clarification of this issue, from Jimbo Wales in a post here:
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-September/006653.html
> This seems to provide verification of the issue.
>
> I replaced the existing paraphrased text with Jimbo's verifiable
> quotes, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&diff=48465303&oldid=48462905
>
> But editors are telling me that:
>
> 1. Policy pages aren't subject to the verifiability policy
>
> 2. Jimbo is not the supreme lawgiver. The only thing he has made
> "law" is that having a policy of writing from a neutral point of view
> is a must. Everything else he has said are contributions from a
> respected member of the community, as the policies are community-decided.
>
> Comments?

Jimbo is not saying there that all views should be presented, nor that
there is a minimum size for those views that are presented. What he's
saying is that we might make difference in size and importance between
presented views and that if a view is a minority view, we ought to
state that. This seems not to have bearing on issue at hand, except in
the sense that he says we should NOT give a too large piece on
minority views. Or at least, that NPOV is in no way obliging or even
inviting us to do so.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
What is mainstream socialism? Do you mean Democratic socialism? Or
social democracy? Why is that "mainstream"?

Something like "The socialist international opposes racism" would be
fine, I can't imagine who would object to that.

My point is that plenty of socialists were racist, and that nazi's are
not ruled out from being socialist for racism or opposition to
democracy for that matter. Socialism is known for its centrally
planned command economy, according to my economics textbook. That is a
criteria which all socialists fall under (to my knowledge). It is also
material, rather than rhetorical in nature.

SS

On 4/14/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> On the contrary, the [[Socialist International]], which speaks for
> mainstream socialism, does oppose racism.
>
> Fred
>
> On Apr 14, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Sam Spade wrote:
>
> > Trying to add
> > a view that National Socialism was, er, the only real socialism
> > ever implemented seemed rather foolish, and out of place there.
> >
> > The article needs more references, but I can see it is hard to
> > do this in the overview (havent yet had time to read all the
> > subarticles).
> >
> > Justinc
> >
> > Thats a pretty uninsightful interpretation of what was going on.
> > Editors have been trying to insert that claim that socialism opposes
> > racism:
> >
> > "Socialism rejects the [[racist]] theories and [[totalitarianism]] of
> > the Nazis, while Nazism rejected the policies of [[internationalism]],
> > [[egalitarianism]], [[class struggle]], and common ownership of the
> > [[means of production]] pursued by many socialists.<ref>[[Leon
> > Trotsky|Trotsky]], Leon.
> > ''[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-ger/330610.htm
> > What is National Socialism?]'' June 10 1933</ref>"
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> > title=Socialism&diff=46506992&oldid=46506617
> >
> > That is a highly misleading "citation" there. Trotsky doesn't define
> > Socialism any more than Hitler, Mao or Marx does. They all are persons
> > who claimed to be socialists, with wildly divergent views. There is no
> > consensus amongst socialists on these issues, and it is false to claim
> > their is one.
> >
> > SS
> >
> >
> >
> > On 4/14/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On 13 Apr 2006, at 23:25, Fred Bauder wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Yes, and when I got to looking at it, some of it was still the old
> >>> National Socialism is socialism stuff.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Yes that seemed to be the main issue when I looked.
> >>
> >> I looked over the Socialism article and it didnt seem too bad,
> >> especially as it is an overview article that mainly is referencing
> >> other articles, always a hard thing to write well. Trying to add
> >> a view that National Socialism was, er, the only real socialism
> >> ever implemented seemed rather foolish, and out of place there.
> >>
> >> The article needs more references, but I can see it is hard to
> >> do this in the overview (havent yet had time to read all the
> >> subarticles).
> >>
> >> Justinc
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> WikiEN-l mailing list
> >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >>
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
> I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a big enough base of
> editors to vote on a check user...
> I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page to check. But can
> you roughly say how many active editors per month the project currently
> has ? How many very active editors per month ?

The last full stats are from November, at which time the project had
263 users making at least 5 edits a month and 22 making 100 or more.
(<http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm>)

English Wikibooks currently has 38 admins and 5 bureaucrats. However,
only 14 of those admins have been active in the last month and ten of
them haven't edited this year.

Angela.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-04-15

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!

Passed 300 of 303 tests (99.01%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 01:05:00 +0200, you wrote:

>Encyclopedias are not about persuasion, they are about cataloging
>facts (like the % of people who believe in God in a given country).

Which is ''not'' how you edited that article.  You stated that it was
believed by the majority, when actually it's the majority in one
country according to one poll.

>I'd appreciate it if you two stopped the rhetorical games and
>one-upsmanship, and focused on trying to help improve the articles in
>question.

And I'd appreciate it if you stopped making tendentious edits to
support your highly specific POV and started "writing for the enemy",
and indeed stopped viewing every member of the community who disagrees
with you as the enemy.

Improving the articles is easily achieved by the simple expedient of
reverting your POV edits.

But I salute your chutzpah in coming to this list expecting to have
others support your tendentious editing.

>For example, providing a citation to [[Socialism]] showing
>that the socialist international opposes racism, and removing the
>statement currently there (that socialism opposes racism) would be a
>sign of rigour.

And providing a verifiable citation to show that socialists are more
prone to racism than any other group would be an ideal staring point
for making the assertion in the first place. You have a history of
adding contentious text and then challenging others to disprove it.
This reversal of the burden of proof is one of the key criticisms on
your RfC.

>People who assume that theirs is an "informed, scientific opinion" in
>contrast to others who merely cite facts need to leave their opinions
>at the door. Books of reference are to have one agenda alone, the
>cataloging of accurate information. Simply because that information
>does not suit your POV is no reason to exclude it. Please review

Don't be an ass.  Informed scientific opinion, even among many
scientists who are also Christians, is that humans and apes are
descended from a common ancestor.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Stephen Bain wrote:
>> Maybe this is the devs hinting that they don't want to turn wikisyntax
>> into a fully fledged programming language.
>
> Actually, wikisyntax is a language by definition.  Looks LALR(1).  I've
> always assumed there was solid computer science going on here, rather
> than mere ad hoc jiggery pokery.

I assure you it's entirely ad hoc jiggery pokery. :)

Hopefully we'll get it sorted out and formally defined "soon". (It would be a
lot easier to get reliable wysiwyg editing going with reliable transformations.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 14/04/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
> you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
> verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that that
> is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.

IMHO, verifiability is a scale, not an absolute. Information is not
either verifiable or not verifiable. Instead, it can be "easily
verifiable", "verifiable with some difficulty" etc.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
I have more of a problem with those whose decision to believe in
literal biblical inerrancy leads them to conclude that any evidence
which is not superficially consistent with the King James Version is
therefore wrong, and who edit accordingly.  Not that Sam is
necessarily one such, but his contentious edits to Human and other
articles do indicate a viewpoint at odds with informed scientific
opinion on this.  The fact that many Americans agree is not really
persuasive, since a goodly number also apparently believe that Elvis
is still alive.
Guy (JzG)

Encyclopedias are not about persuasion, they are about cataloging
facts (like the % of people who believe in God in a given country).
I'd appreciate it if you two stopped the rhetorical games and
one-upsmanship, and focused on trying to help improve the articles in
question. For example, providing a citation to [[Socialism]] showing
that the socialist international opposes racism, and removing the
statement currently there (that socialism opposes racism) would be a
sign of rigour.

People who assume that theirs is an "informed, scientific opinion" in
contrast to others who merely cite facts need to leave their opinions
at the door. Books of reference are to have one agenda alone, the
cataloging of accurate information. Simply because that information
does not suit your POV is no reason to exclude it. Please review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_for_the_enemy

SS

On 4/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:10:30 -0600, you wrote:
>
> >Yes, I mean democratic socialism or social democracy, not
> >totalitarian movements which adopt some socialist elements or label
> >themselves socialist while butchering millions. Of course they don't
> >label themselves totalitarian.
>
> It's not the first time I've come across Sam's line of reasoning.
> Saying that socialists were racist because the National Socialist
> German Workers Party were racist is about as valid as saying that
> democracies and republics are all police states because the German
> Democratic Republic was a police state.  It is an absurd and easily
> demolished inference.
>
> I have more of a problem with those whose decision to believe in
> literal biblical inerrancy leads them to conclude that any evidence
> which is not superficially consistent with the King James Version is
> therefore wrong, and who edit accordingly.  Not that Sam is
> necessarily one such, but his contentious edits to Human and other
> articles do indicate a viewpoint at odds with informed scientific
> opinion on this.  The fact that many Americans agree is not really
> persuasive, since a goodly number also apparently believe that Elvis
> is still alive.
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Walter Vermeir

body:
Essjay schreef:
> Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to say "Maybe we could use a
> couple more stewards?"
>
> Essjay

There are already a fair number of Stewards;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards

The problem I find as a steward is that is difficult to know what you
are supposed to do. There is no communication platform for the stewards
to discuss things. I find that there should be a mailing list for
stewards. That would be something. Then at least problems could be
discussed with the other stewards. And agreements  about how to do thing
could be attempted to me made.

Now not all stewards work by the same standards. Some stewards are more
easy to give sysop or bureaucrat status then others. The rules of
conduct are not clear or not existing.

I find it difficult that I need to say to a user that I do not grand
bureaucrat status because I find his home wiki is to small when other
stewards do grand bureaucrat status to a similar small wikis.

Walter
--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


from_name: Anthere

body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Essjay schreef:
>
>>Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to say "Maybe we could use a
>>couple more stewards?"
>>
>>Essjay
>
>
> There are already a fair number of Stewards;
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards
>
> The problem I find as a steward is that is difficult to know what you
> are supposed to do. There is no communication platform for the stewards
> to discuss things. I find that there should be a mailing list for
> stewards. That would be something. Then at least problems could be
> discussed with the other stewards. And agreements  about how to do thing
> could be attempted to me made.
>
> Now not all stewards work by the same standards. Some stewards are more
> easy to give sysop or bureaucrat status then others. The rules of
> conduct are not clear or not existing.
>
> I find it difficult that I need to say to a user that I do not grand
> bureaucrat status because I find his home wiki is to small when other
> stewards do grand bureaucrat status to a similar small wikis.
>
> Walter

For the record, there is a checkuser mailing list for those who use
checkuser rights. (checkuser-l ***at*** wikimedia.org)

Ant


subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:39:25 -0700
 Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
> > On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 11:53:17 -0400
> [snip]
> ... { unicode-bidi: bidi-override; }
> [snip]
> >>>
> >> It wasn't a suggestion, it was a question.  Please say whether it helps?
>
> As a testing hack I've set up control buttons on one of our test wikis to
> change
> the CSS 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' values at edit time.
>
> Here's a copy of the Hebrew Wikipedia main page source; since the test wiki
> is
> LTR it shows LTR by default, but you can switch the edit box around with the
> buttons:
> http://test.leuksman.com/edit/New_page
>
> (Briefly tested in Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Safari 2.0.3.)
>
> It's pretty ugly, but being able to switch in the unidirectional mode at will
> might be helpful.
>
> The JS:
> http://test.leuksman.com/extensions/BidiSwitch/switch.js
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Thanks a lot Brion! If you know how to use it it can be very practical because
it has different modes.

At
http://test.leuksman.com/index.php?title=%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%A9%D7%98%D7%A2_%D7%96%D7%B2%D6%B7%D7%98&diff=11518&oldid=11517
you can see that I found a half a dozen of syntax errors and more cosmetic
issues.

It seems to be very practical to have the *option* to disable tidy (which is
not activated on many wikies outside the WMF).

This is starting from a copy of the Main Page fo Yiddish Wikipedia
http://yi.wikipedia.org/
Of cause the Monobook skin of FiverAlpha is LTR and not RTL. I also added
'direction: rtl;' to the table cells and changed font-size and font-family to a
more traditional one known from printed books.

I can keeping testing also on the copy of the Hebrew Wikipedia main page
source.

dankegon!

best regards reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailman upgrade

body:
The mail server will be briefly offline for an upgrade to Mailman 2.1.8.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:39:25 -0700
 Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> >>>
> >> It wasn't a suggestion, it was a question.  Please say whether it helps?
>
> As a testing hack I've set up control buttons on one of our test wikis to
> change
> the CSS 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' values at edit time.
>
> Here's a copy of the Hebrew Wikipedia main page source; since the test wiki
> is
> LTR it shows LTR by default, but you can switch the edit box around with the
> buttons:
> http://test.leuksman.com/edit/New_page
>
> (Briefly tested in Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Safari 2.0.3.)
>
> It's pretty ugly, but being able to switch in the unidirectional mode at will
> might be helpful.
>
> The JS:
> http://test.leuksman.com/extensions/BidiSwitch/switch.js
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

I forgot to mention that when using
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308
Firefox/1.5.0.2
I have problems seeing
 (which I changed to
). I experienced this
(character overlapping) in the past when editing Hindi, Gujarati (and similar
script) pages.

A benefit from pasting a page into a wiki with different namespaces:
One can see the usage of {{template:foo}} == {{muster:foo}} which renders as
{{template:muster:foo}} etc.
http://test.leuksman.com/history/%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%A9%D7%98%D7%A2_%D7%96%D7%B2%D6%B7%D7%98

best regards reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]


body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
The Wikipedia policy and guidelines pages says that one way that
policies are decided, are by Jimbo himself.

Does Jimbo have to physically update the policy page himself for his
word to become law, or do his mailing list comments on policy
clarification carry equal weight, or does the community have to
decide on his comments and have a consensus?

Regards,
Ian Tresman


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mailman upgrade

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> The mail server will be briefly offline for an upgrade to Mailman 2.1.8.

And... done.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 4/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
>>number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
>>25 votes. Which may be too high a value.
>
>
> Yes, I think changing the phrase "25-30 editors approval" to "the
> approval of 10 active editors" would be a reasonable change that can
> be made without too much bureaucracy. While it's good to be cautious
> about these things, specific parameters like this are *meant* to be
> tuned. Be bold :-)
>
> Erik

I'll ask the board its opinion :-)

ant


body:
Birgitte SB wrote:
>>Nod. I understand what you say.
>>Unfortunately, absolutely *any* editor may be
>>attacked anytime and have
>>his/her reputation attacked. If you doubt that,
>>check out the recent
>>emails between David Gerard, Aurevilly and myself
>>:-(
>>
>>Now, I must also say that it is quite unconfortable
>>to do checkuser on a
>>project you absolutely do not know and in a language
>>you do not know either.
>>
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>>Requests may be done by *good* editors and by *bad*
>>editors. Stewards
>>have no way to know. I am not sure it is good.
>>
>>ant (who heard you were a good person :-))
>
>
>
>
> I realize there is fine line here.  And I am confident
> that no one will take the accusations against me
> seriously.  However I was very cautious about things,
> thinking of how everything would look once all the
> evidence was deleted.  All history of any
> contributions made by the editor at Wikisource have of
> course disappeared.  And especially as the person was
> nuked on another project which destroyed most of the
> history there, which I could have used to back up my
> actions.  I kept records of what I could and trusted
> that people would speak up for me if it came that (as
> Brad has done).

Hi

> However, in general the people who are trusted from a
> Foundation perspective take little interest in the
> running of the smaller projects.

I would not say this at all. Trust does not come from being a
participant in a *big* project, or on a major language. Trust comes from
the frequent interaction we have with some editors and from sharing
certain tasks, which allow to get to know each other.

How does that happen ?
Well, perhaps you start writing on this mailing list and I'll notice
what you say sounds wise and interesting and willing to build something.
And perhaps others will tell me they feel the same. And perhaps we'll
exchange a couple of emails on minor issues (such as a checkuser) and I
will find you a cool person. Then, perhaps I will go look at your page
to see who you are. I will notice something which suggest you could be
interested in a certain project, then I'll invite you to join for that
task and you will agree. And we'll have fun doing that and do a good
work. Repeat that a bunch of times, and that will be it.

It is totally unrelated to the size or the nature of your favorite
project :-)

Do you have kids ?

   At the same time,
> those that keep these projects running smoothly are
> told they are not trusted enough to have the tools
> they need.  And then people with access, such as
> yourself, feel uncomfortable even using the tools to
> pass info on.  And I understand why you feel that way
> of course.  Because I feel uncomfortable blocking
> someone indefinitely without being 100% sure he was
> the same person who had caused problems before.  It is
> not just that I worry about what others may accuse me
> of, but I take the responsibility seriously.  In the
> end it is my action, whoever else advised me on it.
> But am convinced the risk of legal exposure is a great
> enough problem that I can overcome the discomfort.

nod.

> This is really a larger and mor far reaching problem.
> No one at Wikisource subscribed to this list until
> someone told us that it had been decided here that our
> copyright policy was not restrictive enough.  That is
> when a few of the regular editors signed up.  I
> imagine there are a great number of active projects
> out there running their own little worlds, divested
> from the Foundation in all but name.

nod.
Recently, some chinese editors also joined.
We need a common ground where to meet each others.

I believe there
> are other problems we haven't yet imagined already out
> there.  Things need to be handled differently.
> Perhaps new projects are approved to easily.

Waitaminutehere. The last approved project... was...wikinews. It was
quite a while ago !

  It might
> be a good idea to assign official liaisons.  Or maybe
> there should be a mentorship program for bureaucrats.
> Perhaps the Foundation should randomly run a detailed
> assesment of the smaller but active projects.  Or
> maybe there should be a recruitment of the people who
> run these projects to become more active within the
> Foundation.  I do not know the answer, but I can see
> symptoms that this is a larger problem than stewards
> ignoring requests for Checkuser.
>

All good ideas.
But but but, we tried the official liaisons (they were called
ambassadors). It failed.
Recruitement of people : yes indeed. But this can only happen when we
start knowing each other a little bit more.
I absolutely agree with you we have a major problem of communication.
Actually, this has ALWAYS been the case. Just differently.
When I joined, the english wp was on one version of the software and all
others on an older version. There was no meta. There was no common
mailing list (later, non english were parked on one list). Actually, the
miscommunication was SO bad that a language even forked and is still
suffering today of that fork.
Last year, I tried to work to create Quarto with others interested in
communication, such as Sj. It was a place where at least description of
projects state could be made. By lack of human help, I gave up.
Elian also maintained with Aphaia's help a project-state on meta. I
think it is dead now.
There are now several wikizines in different languages (plus Walter's
global one), I hope they communicate a bit between themselves. But each
essentially give news of a specific project. Not cross project

If you have ideas, please, by all means, provide them. Or better,
IMPLEMENT them.

> I will say this, projects like Wikisource are very
> different from Wikipedia.  They are also very
> different from Wikipedia was when it as small as
> Wikisource is now.  What worked then and now for WP
> will not work for Wikisource or Wikibooks.  I can see
> this just from that expectations there are of how X
> voters should be gotten from X active editors.  When
> people were active at Wikipedia years ago, they joined
> the community.  Now these editors are either fed up
> with community from WP experiences, or else they
> devote all their "community" time to WP, but they
> still come edit regularly on places like Wikisource.
> I see many names I recognize from WP community
> discussions in the Recent Changes at Wikisource.  But
> they never join in on any WS general disscussions.  I
> am not saying this is either good or bad; it is just
> makes a different animal entirely.

Which strongly suggest me that we should rather try to have
inter-projects checkusers.
Let me see... Karynn for example, is apparently a motivated checkuser,
with the full tech knowledge necessary. She may not be an arbitrator, I
think she is trusted as a checkuser. Why not having her checkuser on
several english speaking projects ?

Would not it be wiser than some inactive editors becoming checkuser on
wikibooks just because *there ought to be* a checkuser ? If the user has
done less than 50 edits in the past 3 months, it makes no sense that he
becomes checkuser really.

In any cases, I fully understand the different nature of editorship.

  Also as Robert
> Horning said, we attract vandals of a sophisticaton WP
> never even imagined when there were only 12
> administrators.  I feel that if projects like
> Wikisource and Wikibooks are continually regarded by
> the Foundation the way they are now, they will become
> like difficult step-childrem.

How are they regarded ?

As far as I am concerned, Wikibooks at least has a life on its own. It
knows very well how to keep joke books, remove Wikiversity or wikimania
proceedings. And it has a few vocal representatives on its list :-)

Admittedly, I know much less of Wikisource. But you are here now, no ? :-)

   I do not believe anyone
> wants that to happen.  I certainly don't and that is
> why I encouraging for something to change.  There must
> be more intergration and trust on all levels.  And I
> mean trust that our work will be supported as well as
> trust that we act responsibly in the running our
> projects.

Speaking of trust. One suggestion made last summer was that those given
checkuser access should provide their real names. What is your opinion
about this ?
If the Foundation trusts those with checkusers to use it according to
policy, would checkusers trust the Foundation enough to provide their
real names ?

> Although this is old news, I will say this also
> because it regards trust running the other way.  It
> was very hard on us to have to delete all the UN
> resolutions and Crown legislation.  We truly believed
> (trusted) our copyright policy was supported.  And
> even now we have never gotten a straight answer on the
> thinking behind the copyrights.  Any disscussion I
> read about it, leaves me newly aware of the lack of
> understanding people have about the basics of
> Wikisource.  Or else I get the impression that
> everyone from the Foundation is being intentionally
> vague.

No. It is worse than this...
The Foundation board did not discuss this issue, even less took a
decision about copyrights on wikisource. I presume it came from a
discussion between Jimbo and legal bodies. I am intentionally vague on
your UN resolutions and Crown legislation deletions because I am not
aware of it.
Sorry.

  So we are being very cautious, and I worry
> every day someone will come down and say we have get
> rid of X also. And that is the worst part of being and
> admin, when the rules suddenly change on you and you
> are left to enforce them on very unhappy people.  And
> on top of it all I do not understand why they changed
> or even if my current interpration of the rules is
> correct.

This is a problem. Have you talked to JImbo for clarification ? You are
lucky, you share a language... Imagine japanese editors...

  Things like this can only happen so many
> times before everyone becomes too gun-shy to keep
> contributing, or else decides to just ignore the rules
> they feel are arbitrary.  Either of those would be a
> bad thing.  Sorry this was so long.

I am a proponent of ignore all rules...

Cheers and thanks for the long email.

ant

PS : do you like mint tea ?

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


body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>
>>The reason for the 25 votes limit comes from two reasons
>>* A community with less than 25 users is unlikely to really need
>>frequent checkusers, because it is a project with reduced activity. So,
>>it can not be a heavy load for stewards.
>>* A community with less than 25 users has a rather serious risk to have
>>a rather little known editor become a checkuser, rather than a trusted
>>oldbie. If we start handing out status just as we do for sysop status on
>>small projects, I think there will be abuse. I say this from my
>>experience, as I had to unsysop several sysops on small projects (the
>>guys did not know our basic rules, behaved like dictators with the
>>handful of editors, put advertisements on the main page, controlled povs
>>etc...).
>>
>>I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a big enough base of
>>editors to vote on a check user...
>>I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page to check. But can
>>you roughly say how many active editors per month the project currently
>>has ? How many very active editors per month ?
>>
>>ant
>>
>>
>
> Since the stats page hasn't been updated since November of last year, it
> is completely useless to even gague what the current activity is on any
> Wikimedia project.  I can only use the current activity on the Wikibooks
> staff lounge to even remotely gague what the current user activity level
> is, but I would guess it is pretty close to about 20 user at the
> absolute top.  Really stretching it perhaps we can get to 25 total at
> the most.
>
> And as for advertising this, I guess we could put it in bold 40 point
> type on the project main page with a link to a special page only for
> this kind of request.  I think that is way over the top and something
> that is not needed in this situation.  The advertising was more than
> adequate, it is just that this is a very unreasonable request.
>
> As for a "community with less than 25 users unlikely needing frequent
> checkuser scans", I think this is mistaken totally what is going on.
>  en.wikibooks has numerous links from within Wikipedia, and is being
> hammered by vandals that have moved on from Wikipedia, indeed with
> excellent training on how to be a vandal on Wikipedia, and taking on
> other projects as well that don't have quite the same pool of
> administrators.
>
> As for handing out checkuser status to people who are not trusted
> oldies, that is totally rediculous as well.  There are admins and
> bureaucrats on en.wikibooks who are also admins on other projects,
> including meta, wikinews, and even en.wikipedia.  Active ones at that.
>  I see absolutely no reason why the standards for giving somebody
> bureaucrat status when you can't also give them checkuser status.
>
> Furthermore, what abuse could possibly happen with somebody having
> checkuser scans?  Really, at the most extreme?  With bureacrat status I
> could give admin status to a whole team of 'bots that would then in
> tandem go through and systematically delete every page on a project and
> block every user.  Talk about damage to a project.  With checkuser
> privileges, all you have access to is just the IP address of each user.
>  So the absolute worst damage is that they publish on an external
> website (making it harder for the board to go after that user) all of
> the IP addresses of every user.  Which is worse?  Really, think about it.
>
> More to the point, show me a single user that has been given checkuser
> rights on any local project besides a Wikipedia and meta.  This would be
> a contrary example to prove me wrong.  If not, why not?  Because
> checkuser rights are not needed except on Wikipedia?

I am waiting for your feedback on the various options I have proposed;
Even if none please you, please be kind to comment on them.

meanwhile, in case there is an urgent need on wikibooks, I propose to
have Karynn be a temporary checkuser on en:wikibooks whilst a solution
is found out. She is an experienced checkuser and she has agreed ! (and
it is free of charge !)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kelly_Martin. See her as the Brion
Vibber of the old days (he carried on our requests when necessary).

ant


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> On 4/15/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The semantics of "#if:" no longer match the semantics of PHP if.
>>
>> The semantics also do not match the semantics of CPP #if, but the visual
>> representation will bring that to programmers' minds.
>>
>> This is closer to CPP #ifdef.  If not changed to "#ifdef", I foresee
>> eons of queries and errors.
>
> Maybe this is the devs hinting that they don't want to turn wikisyntax
> into a fully fledged programming language.

Actually, wikisyntax is a language by definition.  Looks LALR(1).  I've
always assumed there was solid computer science going on here, rather
than mere ad hoc jiggery pokery.

> ... Make people stop and think
> "hey, this isn't exactly the same implementation as in so-and-so
> language... oh wait, that's right, this isn't so-and-so langauge, it's
> just wikisyntax."
>
You can't "make" people do anything, let alone "stop and think".  Always
better to plan for implementation and operational consequences in the
design process.  Surely, I'm preaching to the choir....

Moreover, why are you denigrating "just" wikisyntax?