from_name: Pointer Institute for Media Studies

subject: [WikiEN-l] More work needed on wiki's Roman Salute article etc

body:
Wikipedia's Roman salute article has gained many improvements thanks to the
work of the historian Rex Curry. But more work remains to be done and
everyone can assist.  http://rexcurry.net/wikipedialies.html  Also see
http://rexcurry.net/wikipedia-lies.html

It is unfortunate that, due to some wikiling writers, the "Roman Salute"
becomes more dishonest each week. An earlier version referenced the work of
Professor Rex Curry and started thusly: "The Roman salute is a gesture in
which the arm is held out forward straight, with palms down. Sometimes the
arm is raised upward at an angle, sometimes it is held out parallel to the
ground. The salute was supposed to have been used in the Roman republic, but
there is no clear evidence of this. Indeed it is not known whether salutes
in the military sense existed at all in Roman culture" (by Paul Barlow).  A
more recent version of the same article is written as if a wikiling writer
is a neo-Nazi covering-up again.

A big initial problem is that no wiki writer will even attempt to discover
the first use of the phrase "Roman salute" and thus the writers remain stuck
in intellectually dishonest confusion about dates and origins.

Eventually, the wiki article reverts back to its earlier opening concessions
to the work of Dr. Curry, and the article concedes that there is no clear
evidence of the salute in the Roman Republic and it concedes that there is
no evidence of salutes in the military sense at all in Roman culture.
http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-pledge.html

The wikiling writer then engages in speculation that people today
misunderstood some images from ancient Rome.  There is no support for the
idea that the "Roman Salute" concept arose long ago from misinterpretations
of Roman images.  There is as much evidence that, after Dr. Curry's shocking
discoveries about the salute's origin with the Pledge of Allegiance, modern
writers (including wiki writers) deliberately looked for other explanations
and then those writers misinterpreted Roman images in order to cover-up
Professor Curry's discoveries.

The wikiling writer then engages in speculation that neoclassical artists
misunderstood some images from ancient Rome.  There is no support for the
idea that the "Roman Salute" concept arose among neoclassical artists from
misinterpretations of Roman images.  There is as much evidence that, after
Dr. Curry's shocking discoveries about the salute's origin with the Pledge
of Allegiance, modern writers (including wiki writers) deliberately looked
for other explanations and then those writers seized upon neoclassical
artists in order to cover-up Professor Curry's discoveries.

For example, there is no evidence that Jacques-Louis David actually thought
that his painting "The Oath of the Horatii" represented an actual historical
Roman salute.  All of the evidence indicates that David created the scene
out of whole cloth for drama. All of the speculating otherwise is actually
the machinations of wiki writers and people of their ilk. The intellectual
dishonesty is all the more evident in that the wiki writers deliberately
fail to address those very points already made by Dr. Curry
http://rexcurry.net/pledgehoratii.html  Further, the Horatii painting
depicts three people reaching for weapons.

The Tennis Court Oath was painted by David later, and repeats David's use of
the dramatic gesture that David concocted, but in a more modern setting.
There is no evidence that it accurately depicts the event protrayed. David
was not there. Further, the oath was written on paper (the paper being read
by the central figure?) and the "oath was taken" by signing the document.
There is no evidence that anyone is taking an oath in the painting (the
central figure might be swearing, or he might be reading his document) while
those people about him waive hats, talk, holler, point, etc.  Three figures
on the left seem to be an inside reference to the Horatii painting.
The Distribution of the Eagle Standards was painted by David even later, and
repeats David's use of the dramatic gesture that David concocted, but in
another modern setting.  There is no evidence that it accurately depicts the
event protrayed and there is no evidence that anyone is taking an oath in
the painting at all.  The wiki writer claims that this is the most important
of these paintings.  That painting shows no use of the salute in pledging or
oath-taking at all and simply shows various people, with various gestures,
grabbing for, and shouting for, the "Eagle Standards." Some gestures are
toward the front, some gestures are toward the crowd.

The wiki writer misrepresents the paintings and reads into them. The wiki
writer shows that he does not understand the historical events that actually
occurred before the paintings.

The wiki writer then claims that other painters during the nineteenth
century regularly depicted the straight-arm gesture in scenes of Roman
imperial history.  The writer cites no support because there is no support.

There is no support for the idea that the "Roman Salute" concept arose among
neoclassical artists from misinterpretations of Roman images.  There is as
much evidence that, after Dr. Curry's shocking discoveries about the
salute's origin with the Pledge of Allegiance, modern writers (including
wikilings) deliberately looked for other explanations and then those writers
misrepresented neoclassical art to cover-up Professor Curry's discoveries.

The cover-up is also supported by the fact that wiki writers know (or should
know) that Francis Bellamy explained the origin of his salute and that it
had nothing to do with imitating any painting, nor imitating any "Roman"
salute myth.

At this paragraph the intellectual dishonesty doubles.  The writer is
attempting to imply that there is a relationship between the original Pledge
salute and the myth of the "Roman salute."  No support is cited because
there is no support. The writer is not honest enough to clearly state that
the supposed Roman myth was not an influence upon Francis Bellamy or
Bellamy's cohorts. The writer will not reference Dr. Curry's clear
explanation of how the Pledge salute was selected by Bellamy and Bellamy's
cohorts, which is known because Bellamy explained its creation.  The writer
knows that it does not support the myth that the writer is trying to
perpetuate.

The writer will not mention Professor Curry's voluminous dissection of
Bellamy's love of the military, national socialism, and the Bellamy term
"military socialism."  The writer is still covering-up for socialism. The
writer is also completely evading the fact that the use of the military
salute in the Pledge evolved into the classic hard stylized salute of the
National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis).  The writer is evading the
point that the Nazi salute is an extended military salute, via the Pledge of
Allegiance. All of those are discoveries by Professor Curry.

The writer is unclear because the writer has knowingly refused to
acknowledge Dr. Curry's discovery that the use of the military salute by
Bellamy, caused the extended arm salute to change in use.  Wikipedia
articles are so intellectually dishonest that they are comical.  It had
nothing to do with the "Roman salute" myth, but the writer cannot bear to
give up his distortions.

The Wikipedia writer implies that the Olympic salute came from a classical
painting, but the wiki writer knows that he has no support to cite.  The
wiki writer is aware of Dr. Curry's voluminous and ground-breaking work
exposing the Olympic salute, but the writer is too intellectually dishonest
to even mention it. http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter1a1c.html   The writer
evades Professor Curry's explanation that the Olympic salute also derived
ultimately from the Pledge of Allegiance.

The wiki writer references how Dr. Curry exposed the work of Martin Winkler
regarding the use of the Roman salute in films.
http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html Professor Curry pointed out that
Martin Winkler did not realize at the time of Winkler's article that the
films were all pre-dated by the use of the salute in the U.S. Pledge of
Allegiance.  Martin Winkler, while discussing the old films, was unaware
that the salute had been the original salute of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Dr. Curry long ago challenged Martin Winkler to debate these issues in
public and Dr. Curry has maintained that standing debate challenge, which
has been met with complete silence.
http://rexcurry.net/pledge-professor-martin-winkler.html

The wiki writer adopts Martin Winkler's intellectually dishonest use of the
term "fascist" to further aid the wiki writer in covering-up for the
National Socialist German Workers' Party and for the National Socialism of
the Bellamys.

The wiki writer also mentions a chest variation of the salute but the writer
is too intellectually dishonest to mention Dr. Curry's photographs and
explanation that the same variation was used earlier in the Pledge of
Allegiance to the U.S. flag.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not institute the hand-over-the-heart, and the
writer acknowledges the error in the next sentence when referencing the act
by Congress. The writer fails to mention that through most of Roosevelt's
time in office the straight arm salute was used and Professor Curry
possesses photographic examples of Roosevelt himself being saluted with the
notorious salute. It is interesting to note that Congress did not inject
itself into the mess until after the U.S. entered World War II, December 7,
1941.

The article uses four (or more) forms of the word "Nazi" and never gives the
actual correct name of the horrid party: the National Socialist German
Workers' Party.  It is a classic example of the usual cover-up for
socialism, and the cover-up of the philosophical relationship between the
German National Socialists and U.S. National Socialists (e.g. the Bellamys).
The wiki writer's behavior is comparable to that of neo-Nazis and Holocaust
deniers (and Wholecaust deniers). It reinforces the hackneyed use of the
shorthand "Nazi" and the myth that members of the National Socialist German
Workers' Party referred to themselves as "Nazis" (they did not refer to
themselves as "Nazis").  There are many people who use the word "Nazi" to
avoid ever stating the actual name of the party.  Technically speaking,
there was no "Nazi Party" as that is simply shorthand slang that has been
spread by people like the wiki writer.  The writer makes constant use of the
shorthand "Nazi" even when discussing the very topic at hand.

Wiki writers evade the topic that Professor Curry has raised, which is that
Francis Bellamy and Edward Bellamy were  self-proclaimed National Socialists
in the USA three decades before the National Socialist German Workers'
Party, and Edward's book was an international bestseller, translated into
every major language (including German, which Edward spoke and wrote, and
where Edward had studied as a young man) and that Edward's dogma inspired
"Nationalism" clubs worldwide, including in Germany.

The Bellamy salute was not originally the same as the salute of the National
Socialist German Workers' Party, as noted by Professor Curry. However, as
anyone who looks at Dr. Curry's historic photographs of the salute can see,
it developed into the same salute as that of the National Socialist German
Workers' Party. Even the writer above concedes Dr. Curry's point that the
flag was saluted with a normal military-style salute and then the arm was
straightened out toward the flag during the oath. The writer above tellingly
evades the point that the use of the military salute led to the change in
the salute to the U.S. flag.  It is as if the writer above is conceding the
point made by Professor Curry.

The writers are thanked for conceding that the "Roman salute" page has
contained inaccuracies, and for correcting some of those errors.  The
writers have "become wiser," by incorporating some of Professor Curry's
discoveries.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] On Transparency

body:
G'day Michelle,
> Steven Ericsson Zenith wrote:
>> A brief contrarian point of view.  If Wikipedia is to succeed in any
>> measure to move beyond its tabloid status then transparency is essential.
>> That is, every admin must necessarily have their identity exposed and
>> it surprises me somewhat to see the resistance here - and I find it
>> hard to justify.
>
> Ah, but admins don't control the content, do they?  In just a quick
> glance at several of the encyclopedias I have lying around, none of them
> mention who wrote each article, most don't source their facts and many
> don't have editors listed by name anywhere in the set.  What makes
> Wikipedia so special?

While I agree with you *in general*, on the specific point of named
contributors ... uh ... not in my experience.

I've got two encyclopaedia-like thingies sitting about; /The World Book
Encyclopedia/ (1966) and /A Woman's Body/ (199X).

The World Book includes a list of its contributors, and where an article
was contributed by someone not on the list (for instance, their entry
for association football) it includes direct credit over the article
("this was contributed by Mr $NAME, president of the USSSF" or whatever
it was at the time).

/A Woman's Body/ lists its contributors, with qualifications and area of
interest.  So, that exceedingly interesting article about the workings
of the nervous system, while not *directly* credited, can easily be
traced to Dr Josephine Bloggs, PhD and author of numerous textbooks on
brain surgery.  Meanwhile, that piece of new-age claptrap about the
aquatic ape causing women to stick their pinkies out while drinking tea
and subverting the dominant paradigm of male superiority as a gesture of
independence --- or whatever it was --- is presumably the fault of Ms
Karma Roe, astrology expert extraordinaire.

Of course, real names don't necessarily confer authority (/A Woman's
Body/ is a remarkable combination of excellent information and utter
tosh), but as I read somewhere, "Britannica have Oxford's greatest
expert on Shakespeare to write their article.  Wikipedia has
User:ShakespeareFan00", or words to that effect.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Bartosz Milewski

subject: [Wikitech-l] REQUEST_URI undefined index

body:
We are running MediaWiki on a Windows Server at
http://www.relisoft.com/wiki
- MediaWiki 1.5.4
- PHP 5.0.5
- MySQL 4.0.18-nt
First problem: When I access it from one of my home machine, I see a
completely blank main page. Other people can see the full page. I can see
some of the other pages, if I specify the title.
Second problem: I get the error:
Undefined index: REQUEST_URI in includes\WebRequests.php, line 284.
This is the offending line of code:

/**
  * Return the path portion of the request URI.
  * @return string
  */
 function getRequestURL() {
  return $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
 }

Is this a problem with PHP/MediaWiki mismatch?

Bartosz


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wiktionary-l] creation of a Lombard wiktionary

body:
 Sirs,
    I am now asking a wiktionary to be initalized for the already existing lombard wikipedia: http://lmo.wikipedia.org.
    Many thanks.
    Sincerely yours,

    Claudio Meneghini

---------------------------------
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from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Very odd goings-on concerning Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent
	material

body:
On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 01:43:36PM +0000, Sam Korn wrote:
> On 12/28/05, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > How about:
> > (*warning, objectionable link*)
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice
>
> That would also qualify as [[WP:POINT]].

I hope that those who are complaining about the above page have already
taken action against the vandals, harassers, and blatant abusers that
Deeceevoice is reporting.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] CheckUser log

body:
Use of CheckUser feature is now officially permitted on French Wikipedia.
As a "checker" I made some test on my own user name / IPs and have
questions about the feasibility of:
- Add the source site of the check (like prefix: m, fr.w, en.wb, etc.)?
- Add a "comment" field? (Because on fr.w any check must be justified)
It may also be good to respect the same order than other Wikimedia logs
(newer on top), but it's just a detail.

Aoineko / Guillaume Blkanchard


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] List archives?

body:
I'm not sure who to point this out to, so may as well list it here.

There's a six-day hole in the August archives for wikien-l, between
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027229.html
(Mon Aug 8 04:14:26 UTC 2005) and
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027237.html
(Sun Aug 14 05:46:43 UTC 2005).

Any idea why, and if it's salvageable?

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


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Stable versions policy

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>As I said before, the question is if we are primarily a wiki (show
>work-in-progress first, with link to stable version) or an encyclopedia
>(show the stable version first, and link to the work-in-progress).
>
>
But this is _also_ a false dichotomy. I say we're option number three: a
project to _write_ a free encyclopedia that happens to have hit upon a
wiki as a the best means to that end that we've come up with so far.

I'm not fanatically dedicated to the "wiki way", I don't think it's some
sort of prime ideal we should hold before all else. We could use some
other means to write a free encyclopedia instead, perhaps by winning a
giant lottery and buying the copyrights to existing encyclopedias to
relicence under the GFDL. But the key point is that our goal is
_writing_ an encyclopedia rather than just displaying the best version
we've managed to come up with so far. If you were proposing something
that departed from "wikiness" but that I thought would help the writing
process I'd be all over it with sloppy kisses.

>You can buy the German wikipedia on DVD. ?9,90 including a softcover
>book about Wikipedia. This is the third release of this DVD, by the way.
>
>
I'm very happy for them. I work exclusively on the English encyclopedia,
however, so my point still stands. Furthermore, I point out that (from
what I've heard) they used an approach making a "publishable" copy that
didn't change the ongoing functioning of de.wikipedia in any way - they
forked a copy and then culled out the usable stuff from it in private. A
stable version tag would help this approach immensely without in any way
needing to be the default view on the "working" copy.

In any event, as soon as we've got Wikipedia 1.0 I'm going to throw a
brief private party and then get right to work on upgrading it to
Wikipedia 2.0. I go where the work is being done.


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>
>>> "This is the public version. An updated, editable draft is [[here]]."
>>
>> Well, it does imply that the "stable" version isn't public.
>
> Gah. I meant the editable version isn't public, of course.

It does, but is that a bad thing? The line would still make access to
the editable version pretty clear, plus billing it as "updated" in
comparison to the stable version. And people might well be more
interested in finding out what's going on in "private" than now, when
all they see is a counterintuitive "edit" tab. Anyway, the words to
choose are basically an issue of how to market things to the audience.

--Michael Snow


body:
Wow. Just...wow.

I detest people praising themselves in the third
person, which is what this sounds like. While I'm sure
Professor Curry is a very intelligent person, to
suggest that anything that didn't come straight from
him is BS is just, well, showing extreme confidence in
his researching abilities, to put it mildly. And am I
mistaken, or isn't "Nazi" long-accepted shorthand for
"National Socialist..."?

And I don't know anything about this subject, so I
should probably just shut up now.

-Hermione1980

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
I cannot take seriously someone who refers to himself in the third person.

Known nutjob, I presume.

-Matt


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>So showing stable versions by default will *kill* one of the best aspects of Wikipedia; its
>ability to record history as it happens. It will also encourage needless forking of articles with
>stable versions whenever its subject is in the news. Not because doing that is best for covering
>the subject, but *only* to be able to report on the current events (no stable version = live
>version is displayed).
>
>
How would marking a revision as stable cause a fork of an article when
the subject comes up in the news? Editing would still be done from the
latest revision.

For that matter, it should be standard practice to unflag the stable
version if current events make it too obsolete. And if there is no
stable version (for most of our articles at present, there shouldn't
be), then everyone gets the editable version by default regardless.

>For these reasons and others, I am **EXTREMELY** against hiding the live version behind stable
>ones on Wikipedia. If that is what they want, then there will be plenty of mirrors that will only
>display stable versions of our articles. Or they could simply choose to view stable versions by
>default; either by clicking on a 'View stable version of this article' link for selected articles
>or logging in and setting their preferences for that.
>
>
Trying to twist the arms of casual readers into doing any of this is a
fool's errand. If they're on Wikipedia already, they're not going to do
the work to figure out which sites mirror our stable versions (as
opposed to outdated unstable versions) and navigate to those sites. And
using low-quality content to try and lure people to sign in for the
better stuff is one of the mistakes that turned AOL into the butt of so
many jokes.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> Why not having the current version as the default at wikipedia.org and
> a link to the stable version *and* a separate website where only the
> stable versions are displayed - maybe a revival of nupedia.org (no
> joke intended, it would be like a homage, IMHO).

I suggested exactly that same thing a couple years ago when we were talking about the sifter idea
that Larry Sanger wanted to start. Nothing ever came of those talks, however.

Such a separate site could also have adverts on it whose revenue would go to the foundation. It
would simply be a mirror that we controlled and would benefit from.

This way we keep adverts off of Wikipedia but still get the benefit of it. Granted, it will take a
long time before nupedia.org became highly ranked enough to generate any significant revenue. But
then, it will also take a long time before there are enough stable articles there to make it a
useful place to visit.

In fact, it might be best to create a separate non-profit organization that would manage that site
and distribute CDs/DVDs and print versions of Wikimedia content. That way Wikimedia could
concentrate on providing a forum for creating content and thus retain all the ISP-related legal
protections (ISPs are not considered to be publishers and thus are not liable for content posted
through their service).

All excess revenue from that separate organization would go to the Wikimedia Foundation to help
support content creation.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Spam from Wikimedia?

body:
I just received a message from Francesca at textappeal.com about some job
opportunity in translation and my Gmail claims it's been sent through
Wikimedia.org

Is Wikimedia suddenly allowing unsollicited mail or is there something
I'm unaware of? How did they get my name?

Mgm


body:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> How would marking a revision as stable cause a fork of an article when
> the subject comes up in the news? Editing would still be done from the
> latest revision.

Because all those updates would be hidden behind the stable version. Thus a new article would be
created that dealt just with that event so it can be linked from the Main Page and current events.
No stable version = development version displayed.

> For that matter, it should be standard practice to unflag the stable
> version if current events make it too obsolete.

It is not practical to expect we'd be able to adequately vette new versions fast enough to keep
up.

> Trying to twist the arms of casual readers into doing any of this is a
> fool's errand. If they're on Wikipedia already, they're not going to do
> the work to figure out which sites mirror our stable versions (as
> opposed to outdated unstable versions) and navigate to those sites.

If they want a stable version, all they need to do is click on the big fat notice at the top of
the article that points them there. Once there, they should be able to set a cookie that
remembered their preference to see stable versions by default.

The point, however, is that Wikipedia is where content is created. That is what makes us
fundamentally different from our mirrors.

Mirrors display a static version of our content with a link to the development version on
Wikipedia. Us doing the *exact* same thing makes little sense. Being up to date is what makes us
different from the mirrors.

All we need to do is make sure what we do display by default does not have obvious vandalism in
it. Everything else will be links to selected older versions that have been validated for
accuracy, bias, completeness and readability (sic: Stable).

> using low-quality content to try and lure people to sign in for the
> better stuff is one of the mistakes that turned AOL into the butt of so
> many jokes.

Most up to date versions are most certainly not going to be the lower quality version by any
stretch. True, that happens sometimes, but that is not the general rule. But hiding the
development version in a dark closet will not tend to make that version improve over time.

Sunlight is the best medicine. Since stable versions are just that, static, they don't need
medicine.

-- mav

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


from_name: nigel kerr

subject: [Wikitech-l] Navigational structure experiment

body:
Good Wikitech-l Folk,

I write in the hopes of getting some input or ideas about an extension
I've written that attempted to solve a particular maintenance and
navigation problem I think I have.  I most interested in whether it's
anything like The MediaWiki Way of doing things.

My problem: I have a lot of documents with a fairly straight-forward a
priori order (these are digitized notebooks and papers of family
memorabilia), where lots is hundreds of individual page-sides.  I wanted
a couple of things:

	To put them in a wiki to allow for them to be viewed, commented on,
linked, &c.

	To lay down the original order the page-sides occured.

Sure, my audience is going to come along and add other connections, but
this is the first path they can start with.

One way I could have done this was to have each page contain a link to
the next and previous pages explicitly.  Straihghtforward, and fairly
easy to have a bot go through and programmatically add the links.  But
this approach also struck me as a maintenance problem: suppose I got
something wrong the first automation, and wrong in a tedious way to fix?
  Suppose new information comes along later than makes us want to
re-arrange this order?  Suppose I don't want to just write a bot to do
this for me?

If, on the other hand, instead of explicit links, something like
MediaWiki's Categories were added to each page, something that placed
the specific page in a broader context through code, then that would be
preferable.  Categories, though, didn't quite answer, they are really
for grouping things that have some trait in common together, not for
sequencing many things.

Suppose one page in the wiki contained a map of some other pages?  If I
included a tag in a page that refered to some map page, then my
extension could look up the map, find the context of the referring page,
and print out suitable navigation links.

Some crufting around later, Nav.php was born: at a little sandbox
mediawiki 1.5.4 at
http://www.nigelk.org/wiksand/index.php?title=Nav_Map_Demonstration,
find a couple of demonstrations of this Nav.php extension I've written.

Is there a built-in or better way of trying to solve this problem I
think I have?  Would it be thought of differently by the mediawiki
developers here?  Is this kind of lashup of interest to anyone?  Is my
php completely horrible?  Any thoughts or inputs, either here on the
list or in discussion at that sandbox above, is appreciated.

Respectfully submitted,
Nigel Kerr
nigelk at nigelk.org


from_name: Fix Beforeigo

subject:
[WikiEN-l] I seem to have been blocked by accident or bug--no
	notice on my Talk, and my edits are still on top

body:
Also, the block was made Dec. 25 even tho' I had no edits since the 18th.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist?action=search&limit=500&ip=Fixbeforeigo
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fixbeforeigo
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fixbeforeigo

  I emailed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard but his User  page indicates he's on extended break, and won't be back for more than  a week.

  Help?

---------------------------------
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list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 13 Fund Drive Report

body:
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_13
--------------------------------------------------------------

=Wednesday 28 December=
A total of 287 donations were made through PayPal on '''Day 13''', yielding the equivalent of
$9,139.82 USD; an increase of $806.73 over Day 12. The average donation this day was $31.85
(second highest in the drive so far).

Mail donations since the last update amounted to an amazing $7,788, bringing that total to
$8,508.00 and the day's overall total to $16,927.82.

:Grand total at end of day: '''$139,324.11'''

Breakdown of Day 13 PayPal donations:

 AUD     76.24     (57.22 USD)
 CAD 	185.39 	  (152.56 USD)
 EUR 	1,561.37  (1,896.58 USD)
 GBP 	310.32 	  (556.50 USD)
 JPY 	75,224.00 (679.65 USD)
 USD 	5,797.32
 Total 	9,139.82 USD

Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-28/report/

==Special thanks to those who gave large donations==
An anonymous donor gave a $2000 USD donation this day! There were also many donors who gave the
equivalent of about $100 or more (listed in no particular order); Raymond Maceiras, Prof J G
Malone-Lee, Armando Ferreira, Masayoshi Sakaguchi, John Lehmann, Seshadri Ramani, Mark Svendsen,
Dennis Maki, Henry Gurr, Carlan Met, and 6 anonymous donors.

:<small>Note: While large donations are great, it should be noted that about 70% of all the money
donated to the Wikimedia Foundation comes from donations that are the equivalent of $50 or less
and the average donation is about $25.</small>

==Selected donor comments==

Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.

:Full listing at: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-28/detail/

*"Thank you! An interactive encyclopedia is a great idea! We use Wikipedia quite a lot and we like
it as it is now, without ads, collaborative, and independent." by Carola and Miguel Andrade
*"Travailler en communaut? et pour la Communaut?. Merci pour ce bel id?al." by anonymous
*"Sorry, you can't edit this donation!" by Roberto Frangi
*"Wiki is an excellent encyclopedia." by Masayoshi Sakaguchi
*"Geniales, weltveraenderndes, offenes Projekt. Ich moechte da was zurueckgeben." by Bj?rn Kuhlen
*"thanks for the great infomation. I am a Fine art student and this is such a great site for a
wealth of infomation. i use it almost everyday!" by jordan wolff
*"perch? portate nelle case la conoscenza....grazie" by carlo bernardini
*"An impressive and valued intellectual and cultural resource" by Dennis Maki
*"I refer to you amost daily - keep it up!" by anonymous
*"May this site be an example for others to follow in social participation" by Seshadri Ramani
*"wikipedia!!! la miglior enciclopedia del mondo!!!! fantastca!!!!! se ognuno donasse un euro o un
dollaro, si arriverebbe facilmente alla quota prefissata..." by anonymous
*"I'm just sharing a part of what you've saved me. Thank you." by Dennis Storm
*"With the stones of the past we build our future, and knowledge is how to use those stones." by
Daniel Scallon
*"Thank you. This is the power of internet." by anonymous
*"A very valuable resource. Thank you." by anonymous

Some of my personal favorites:
*"After I become a billionaire, count me in for 10 million" by anonymous
*"Thank you! The most reliable and comprehensive source I've found yet. Keep up the great work!"
by anonymous
*"A few years ago, I thought corporations would take over the Internet. Wikipedia is an example of
community ownership that amazes me." by Mark Svendsen
*"WikiPedia is a great progect that helps all humanity. I'm impressed by how good you are and in
such a short time! Keep up the good work!!!!!!" by Henry Gurr
*"Wikipedia got me an A this semester." by Matthew Harrison
*"Thanks to everyone who has contributed" by Daniel Cardenas
*"Don't be a hippo! Donate now like me!" by John Devor

-- Daniel Mayer

__________________________________________
Yahoo! DSL ? Something to write home about.
Just $16.99/mo. or less.
dsl.yahoo.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Day 13 Fund Drive Report


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Day 13 Fund Drive Report


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Timeouts

body:
Is Wikipedia down at the moment? I'm getting connection times out errors.

Theresa
--


subject: [WikiEN-l] Timeouts

body:
On 28/12/05, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is Wikipedia down at the moment? I'm getting connection times out errors.

Fine here. I have, however, had a complete collapse /from one specific
ISP/ happen before, a month or two back - Blueyonder, I think - where
it was inaccessible for a day, but working fine for anyone else I
consulted with. Perhaps a similar routing issue?

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


from_name: Jitse Niesen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Change red links color in Monobook?

body:
On 12/28/05, Billy Covington <wrcovington at gmail.com> wrote:
> a.new, #p-personal a.new {
>     color: #c2a32d;
>     font-weight: bold;
>     }

I did not try it, but you might need to change this to

a.new, #p-personal a.new {
   color: #c2a32d !important;
   font-weight: bold;
   }

If I remember correctly, the !important is needed because you override
the default style specified elsewhere.

By the way, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User_style says you
should use :link instead of a .

Jitse


subject: [WikiEN-l] List archives?

body:
On 29/12/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:

> The mailing list server(s) suffered some sort of catastrophic meltdown
> and the data they contained was lost. The developers had to reinstate
> a week-old backup of the entire mailing list server, including bans
> and subscriptions (on multiple, if not all, lists). This meant that
> users who had unsubscribed during that week started getting list mail
> again and those who had subscribed stopped getting the mail. It was
> very inconvenient.

Thanks - sounds nasty.

> I'm not sure if it would be possible to salvage that gap in the
> archives. Sure, many people have list emails archived in their mail
> programs, but how would we transfer them across? This is a question
> for the Brion Vibbers and Tim Starlings of this world.

It's not a significant problem - I had been looking for something to
quote, but have a local copy of the relevant email anyway. I just
wanted to flag it in case it was a simple "we just need to tweak a
file, oops" problem.

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


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

body:
Why not having the current version as the default at wikipedia.org and
a link to the stable version *and* a separate website where only the
stable versions are displayed - maybe a revival of nupedia.org (no
joke intended, it would be like a homage, IMHO).

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


from_name: Sam Spade

body:
Is there anybody who doesn't have harassing vandals?

Sam Spade

On 12/28/05, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 01:43:36PM +0000, Sam Korn wrote:
> > On 12/28/05, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > How about:
> > > (*warning, objectionable link*)
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deeceevoice
> >
> > That would also qualify as [[WP:POINT]].
>
> I hope that those who are complaining about the above page have already
> taken action against the vandals, harassers, and blatant abusers that
> Deeceevoice is reporting.
>
> --
> Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiquote logo being used by Mandriva

body:
See
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/KB/Quotation

Compare:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikiquote-logo-en.png

Not sure if this is a big deal or not.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! for Good - Make a difference this year.
http://brand.yahoo.com/cybergivingweek2005/


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] List archives?

body:
On 29/12/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a six-day hole in the August archives for wikien-l, between
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027229.html
> (Mon Aug 8 04:14:26 UTC 2005) and
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027237.html
> (Sun Aug 14 05:46:43 UTC 2005).
>
> Any idea why, and if it's salvageable?

The mailing list server(s) suffered some sort of catastrophic meltdown
and the data they contained was lost. The developers had to reinstate
a week-old backup of the entire mailing list server, including bans
and subscriptions (on multiple, if not all, lists). This meant that
users who had unsubscribed during that week started getting list mail
again and those who had subscribed stopped getting the mail. It was
very inconvenient.

I'm not sure if it would be possible to salvage that gap in the
archives. Sure, many people have list emails archived in their mail
programs, but how would we transfer them across? This is a question
for the Brion Vibbers and Tim Starlings of this world.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list administrator


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: More work needed on wiki's Roman Salute article etc

body:
"Mark Ryan" <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:a4a70770512281920r585528acy at mail.gmail.com...
> This user sent three very large, very similar emails to the mailing
> list. The same three emails had been sent directly to my inbox by the
> same user (and I don't know who else got spammed with them either- the
> recipients list was hidden).

Me, for one: I have no idea why...

> I have rejected the other two emails to
> the list because they were incivil towards Matt Crypto and Paul
> Barlow.

Good call.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Very odd goings-on concerning Snoop Dogg and 50
	Centmaterial

body:
"Sam Spade"
<samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote in
message news:83c116e50512281948j1d6f4efew4c288921331bea02 at mail.gmail.com...
> Is there anybody who doesn't have harassing vandals?

I don't...I just stumble into the path of Netoholic and SnowSpinner and lie
there wondering what class of locomotive just hit me :-)

Take a look at [[en:WT:AUM]] if you like: I'm all for careful management,
but some days you wonder whether it would make less trouble simply switching
off template transclusion and letting certain "carefully-selected experts"
run bots to do all that interesting formatting stuff we normal people use
templates for. (Which is actually a solution which has been proposed, so I'm
not exaggerating much.)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Navigational structure experiment

body:
nigel kerr" <nigelk at nigelk.org> wrote in
message news:43B33F44.5090905 at nigelk.org...
[snip]
> Some crufting around later, Nav.php was born: at a little sandbox
> mediawiki 1.5.4 at
> http://www.nigelk.org/wiksand/index.php?title=Nav_Map_Demonstration, find
> a couple of demonstrations of this Nav.php extension I've written.
> Is there a built-in or better way of trying to solve this problem I think
> I have?  Would it be thought of differently by the mediawiki developers
> here?  Is this kind of lashup of interest to anyone?  Is my php completely
> horrible?  Any thoughts or inputs, either here on the list or in
> discussion at that sandbox above, is appreciated.

Looks interesting: stick a page up on meta so we can discuss it more easily
:-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Conditional templates

body:
What is the current state of any technical solution to the problem with
conditional templates?

I know that at east one solution has been proposed
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AzaToth/Logic which I personally think
is over-egging the pudding, but is a good first step) but I have heard
absolutely nothing as to whether anybody is ever going to actually do
anything about it.

In the meantime, various users (Netoholic and SnowSpinner chief amongst
them) are making vaguely threatening rumblings which imply simply destroying
any and all templates which use anything like conditional code: the dreaded
"meta-template" term is bandied about with wild abandon. Other users, in a
mad attempt to escape from the [[WP:AUM]] bludgeon, are driven to perpetrate
atrocities like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_TV_channel&oldid=33042068
(warning: obscene code alert).

The only response I have heard from anybody on the development side is "we
don't want it Turing compliant", which I assume means that they don't want
sufficient bells and whistles to make it possible to write nasty little
virus thingies.

Well, neither do the users: we simply want something in Mediawiki which will
perform the same function as {{qif}}
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Qif ) and {{switch}}
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Switch ) without the strain these
templates are said to impose on the servers. Anything else (as I implied
earlier) would IMNSHO be overdoing it and unnecessary.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: hunterda at adelphia.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] (no subject)

body: I don't have a clue what you  are saying!Oh and what is Wikitech about?All Im asking  is  for you to please quit me out     THANK YOU.


body:
Phil Boswell wrote:

> Looks interesting: stick a page up on meta so we can discuss it more easily
> :-)

done: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nigelk/Nav

to see the thing in action without installing it, do see
http://www.nigelk.org/wiksand/index.php?title=Nav_Map_Demonstration.

cheers,
Nigel


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Why not having the current version as the default at wikipedia.org and
>>a link to the stable version *and* a separate website where only the
>>stable versions are displayed - maybe a revival of nupedia.org (no
>>joke intended, it would be like a homage, IMHO).
>>
>>
>
>I suggested exactly that same thing a couple years ago when we were talking about the sifter idea
>that Larry Sanger wanted to start. Nothing ever came of those talks, however.
>
>
Well, I *did* code a halfway working extension that you can include in a
MediaWiki, which will then turn import-only. Doesn't work for images
yet, though.

So, you could start such a site yourself. But it would be far better to
do this on the Wikimedia sites. But then why not integrate this directly
into Wikipedia?

Magnus


body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>How would marking a revision as stable cause a fork of an article when
>>the subject comes up in the news? Editing would still be done from the
>>latest revision.
>>
>>
>
>Because all those updates would be hidden behind the stable version. Thus a new article would be
>created that dealt just with that event so it can be linked from the Main Page and current events.
>No stable version = development version displayed.
>
>
One could argue that if there are current events that lead to drastic
changes to an article,
* the stable version can be "unset", thus displaying the current version
again. Reason: The old stable version is obviuosly outdated :-)
* a page could be set to a "current events" or "live" mode individually,
similar to the soft protection tag. This could overrule any stable
version for the time being. That would need a (minor) software change,
though.

Magnus


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Please remove user data and talk pages from database
	dumps!

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:

>Uh, you're being a bit of a hardliner here. We all accept the risk that
>someone will commit fraud and identity theft. What we're suggesting here is
>a simple solution- remove user/talk pages from database dumps. "Don't like
>it? Too bad!" isn't a very constructive attitude.
>
>
But then there'd have to be a new separate database dump that _did_
include the user/talk pages. The purpose of the database dumps is not
just to allow someone to toss up a mirror of the current article
versions and make a few bucks from banner ads, it's to allow Wikipedia
as a whole to be researched or recreated or otherwise manipulated in
ways that can't be done just from the existing website. The user and
talk pages are important parts of how Wikipedia functions, they should
be available for historical reasons if nothing else.


from_name: Nathaniel Sheetz

body:
>
> On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> > unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> > twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
> >
> > -Phil Sandifer
> >
>

Are userspace edits automatically released under the GFDL?  I have a note on
my userpage (and others do too) saying that I multilicense all my
contributions except those I make on my user pages.  Is that pointless to
include?

-- Nathaniel/Spangineer


body:
This user sent three very large, very similar emails to the mailing
list. The same three emails had been sent directly to my inbox by the
same user (and I don't know who else got spammed with them either- the
recipients list was hidden). I have rejected the other two emails to
the list because they were incivil towards Matt Crypto and Paul
Barlow.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list admin


from_name: Ben Emmel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Merry Christmas from Daniel Brandt

body:
Has anyone tried simply communicating with him civilly? One would think that
we could work out some compromise with his HiveMind website and also our
content. I find it hard to believe that a man who works hard to prevent
"privacy violations" would commit such a large one as posting the private
details of all 650+ admins online.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


body:
On 12/29/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

> But then there'd have to be a new separate database dump that _did_
> include the user/talk pages. The purpose of the database dumps is not
> just to allow someone to toss up a mirror of the current article
> versions and make a few bucks from banner ads, it's to allow Wikipedia
> as a whole to be researched or recreated or otherwise manipulated in
> ways that can't be done just from the existing website. The user and
> talk pages are important parts of how Wikipedia functions, they should
> be available for historical reasons if nothing else.
>

I think that is very true: someone who wished to study the whole project
(community and encyclopedia) as a whole would need those user, talk, and
Wikipedia namespaces. However, having two seperate dumps would defeat the
attempt to conceal some of the personal information of Wikipedia editors.
Joe.Wikipedian could simply download the second dump including the
userspace, and then stick some ads with the content on his own server.

The only way I could see a scheme like this working is if the Foundation
somehow controlled who had access to the second dump. I believe that this
would be too unwieldy, and probably defeat the spirit of the GFDL, if not
the acutal letter of the law.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: Ben Garney

body:
This is a cool extension for my needs so I'm jumping in. :) Hope no one
minds...

nigel kerr wrote:

> i had been taking a cue from MediaWiki:Sidebar here, and just
> including the page names as data to be used, not links.  this does
> make it easier to parse through the list looking for a page, one
> doesn't have to clear the link-structure out of the way first.  what
> advantages can you see from doing as you suggest?

Consistency, it's very confusing to run into this unlinked page. But an
XML list that showed up as a TOC or something when viewed would solve
this nicely. Or maybe just a link to the real TOC page?

>> * the very first page (like in the outline) should have a "next page"
>> link.
>
>
> so, like, to get one started, you're saying?  probably pretty easy.
>
> some parameters or further work that would be probably helpful to be
> able to apply it to a variety of situations:
>
>     * style information for the links and for the toc box
>
>     * controls for what links to show when ("put a 'next page' on the
> TOC page"...)
>
>     * localized messages for whatever language the user prefers

All of these things would be awesome.

>     * it's possible for a single content page to be in more than one
> nav map, so a way to distinguish the nav links for the different maps
> ("Vacation Pictures: Prev - Up - Next" and then "Embarrassing
> Pictures: Prev - Up - Next" could both apply to that one picture from
> the summer at the beach...)

This would be really, really good, too. See comment below for more
thoughts on this.

> Ryan Lane wrote:
>
>> One thing though: When clicking next, and going to a page that
>> hasn't been created yet, it would be nice if the "Previous - Up -
>> Next" dialog
>> didn't dissapear.
>
>
> from what i understand, this means either:
>
> 1. calling all the pages in the nav map into existence at map-creation
> time
>
> 2. checking all maps for a given non-existent page when you come
> across it and inserting the links even if there's no text

I think a third option might be to hook into the Article render and
generate prev/next/up links for all navs the page is in at start and end
of page. That depends on the details of rendering non-existant pages, I
imagine, but it would be the best choice. Also means no ugly link crud
in the page text itself!

Great work so far, I hope this extension matures quickly. :)

Regards,
Ben Garney
Torque Technologies Director
GarageGames.Com, Inc.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:
> > Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
> >> here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
> >> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
> >
> > It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
> > Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
> >
> > On the Nazipedia, it would say:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>
> Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>
> -Phil Sandifer

Surely there's something wrong with taking someone's words and
materially changing them while still attributing the words to that
person.  I have to believe it's illegal too, and not because of
copyright law (such a simple sentence as "I have been an administrator
on Wikipedia since 2003" can't be copyrighted anyway).  You mention
libel laws, and they'd probably be relevant.

Anyway, the problem here seems to be that Nazipedia is making these
changes to the user pages, not that the database of user pages are out
there in the first place.

All that said, I agree that it'd be nice to at least have the option
to download just the articles (I guess you'd have to include the
templates and maybe some other spaces too).  It should probably even
be the default.  I suspect the reason this isn't provided is simply
that no one has bothered to create these dumps.

Does anyone know a free way to host a torrent?

Anthony


from_name: charles matthews

body:
 "Pointer Institute for Media Studies" wrote.

<snip>

http://rexcurry.net/mediapoint.html, the Pointer Institute site, is
fascinating.  Not only was FDR the worst US President ever (something some
of us might have had wrong), Herbert Hoover was a socialist.

Charles


body:
On 12/29/05, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> > But then there'd have to be a new separate database dump that _did_
> > include the user/talk pages. The purpose of the database dumps is not
> > just to allow someone to toss up a mirror of the current article
> > versions and make a few bucks from banner ads, it's to allow Wikipedia
> > as a whole to be researched or recreated or otherwise manipulated in
> > ways that can't be done just from the existing website. The user and
> > talk pages are important parts of how Wikipedia functions, they should
> > be available for historical reasons if nothing else.
> >
>
> I think that is very true: someone who wished to study the whole project
> (community and encyclopedia) as a whole would need those user, talk, and
> Wikipedia namespaces. However, having two seperate dumps would defeat the
> attempt to conceal some of the personal information of Wikipedia editors.
> Joe.Wikipedian could simply download the second dump including the
> userspace, and then stick some ads with the content on his own server.
>
Even if there wasn't a dump at all, someone could still scrape all the
user pages and mirror them.  You're not going to stop someone who is
intentionally doing these types of things.  But you can make it less
likely that someone is going to do so accidently, and you can make
things easier for those who want to include the articles but nothing
else.

> The only way I could see a scheme like this working is if the Foundation
> somehow controlled who had access to the second dump. I believe that this
> would be too unwieldy, and probably defeat the spirit of the GFDL, if not
> the acutal letter of the law.

I really don't see what this has to do with the GFDL.  I guess you
could argue that everything on the website is a single GFDL document,
that Wikipedia must therefore distribute a transparent copy of the
entire document, and that HTML isn't a suitable format for that
transparent copy (even though the GFDL specifically says that it is).

But if you're going to get that technical (and even if you aren't),
Wikipedia's database dumps already are horribly non-compliant with the
letter and spirit of the GFDL.  As was pointed out in the original
post, they don't even contain a complete list of contributors.  And
the distributed copies don't point to the url for the dump anyway.

Anthony


body:
Tels wrote:
> Sounds very interesting for well, slide shows (don't kill me!).

okay, i won't kill you.  seriously, though, slide-shows are indeed a
worthwhile usage here, if you want to lead readers through a sequence of
things at least in a given a priori way.

> Two things missing:
> * the Nav Map should have links to the pages in question instead of being
> just a list.

i had been taking a cue from MediaWiki:Sidebar here, and just including
the page names as data to be used, not links.  this does make it easier
to parse through the list looking for a page, one doesn't have to clear
the link-structure out of the way first.  what advantages can you see
from doing as you suggest?

> * the very first page (like in the outline) should have a "next page"
> link.

so, like, to get one started, you're saying?  probably pretty easy.

some parameters or further work that would be probably helpful to be
able to apply it to a variety of situations:

     * style information for the links and for the toc box

     * controls for what links to show when ("put a 'next page' on the
TOC page"...)

     * localized messages for whatever language the user prefers

     * it's possible for a single content page to be in more than one
nav map, so a way to distinguish the nav links for the different maps
("Vacation Pictures: Prev - Up - Next" and then "Embarrassing Pictures:
Prev - Up - Next" could both apply to that one picture from the summer
at the beach...)

Ryan Lane wrote:
> One thing though: When clicking next, and going to a page that
> hasn't been created yet, it would be nice if the "Previous - Up - Next" dialog
> didn't dissapear.

from what i understand, this means either:

1. calling all the pages in the nav map into existence at map-creation time

2. checking all maps for a given non-existent page when you come across
it and inserting the links even if there's no text

or am i mis-understanding the suggestion?

cheers,
nigel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Merry Christmas from Daniel Brandt (David Gerard)

body:
> David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>:
> The takedown provisions of the DMCA are a matter of
> great concern, but
> a
> DMCA notice when someone is pretty damned clearly
> *ripping off your
> stuff* is IMO quite morally sound.
>
Better send a DMCA notice to Internet Archive too, as they're "clearly
*ripping off your stuff*" at
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~rfernand/index2.html

Anthony


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ideological cliques

body:
Jimbo wrote,

I have concern about people massing together
in groups based on political affiliations at Wikipedia.

This is exactly what was alleged in the case of Nobs01 and orthers acting in
concert; Mr. Bauder stated four times there was no grounds to allege
political affiliations inspired the actions of respondents, yet no finding
of fact was ever made.  It was a blatant abuse of prescribed dispute
resolution processes by tarring five users with guilt by political
association smears -- and worked very effectively to obscure evidence.  And
the clique that engineered this purge and show trial has a free license to
continue the same against whoever their imagined enemies are.

nobs


from_name: Andrew Alder

subject: [Wikitech-l] Unfortunate merge

body:
G'day all

We've had a merge glitch on English Wikipedia I think, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Montreal_Expos#Improper_merge_of_histories

for the story.

I can't be sure just how serious it is. I'd decided that the histories
couldn't be merged because of overlap, but another admin has done it.
Unfortunately I didn't take a copy of the histories, I was waiting for
comments before taking any action so I didn't think it was necessary at
that stage. As you'll see, the other admin is doubtful that there was
significant overlap.

How difficult is it to recover the histories of "Montreal Expos" and
"Montr?al Expos" from the last backup before 09:34, 28 December 2005, so
we can see the exact problem (and even if there is one)?

All I think I need at this stage is the two lists of edits, to manually
see what the problems might be. But all suggestions of how to proceed
are welcome.

Andrew Alder
aka user:andrewa

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.8/215 - Release Date: 27/12/05


from_name: jkelly at fas.harvard.edu

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images now allowed in userspace?

body:
  Hi,

  There has been some strife, meaning edit-warring and page-protection, over the
use of unfree copyrighted images in userspace over the past week or so.

  Two specific cases are [[:Template:User democrat]] and [[:Template:User
firefox]].  In both cases, a number of users are arguing that because the
images involved are logos, there is no real legal concern over the copyright
infringement.  Following from this, the passage in [[Wikipedia:Fair use]]
disallowing Fair use images in Template and Userspace has been removed.  My
understanding is that the passage is going to go back in with the caveat that
when there is consensus, fair use images may be used in either space.

  It seems to me that this represents a philosophical shift away from a
radically open-licensed project.  Nor is it clear to me that the desire to
decorate ones userpage with official logos should be driving precedent.  I may
be confused about the mission of our project, and am hoping that by posting
this to the list those users who have more history with Wikipedia's
relationship to unfree copyrights might do some thinking about the situation.

  Thanks,
                      Jkelly


from_name: Ryan Lane

body:
nigel kerr <nigelk at ...> writes:

>
>
> Is there a built-in or better way of trying to solve this problem I
> think I have?  Would it be thought of differently by the mediawiki
> developers here?  Is this kind of lashup of interest to anyone?  Is my
> php completely horrible?  Any thoughts or inputs, either here on the
> list or in discussion at that sandbox above, is appreciated.
>

This is pretty neat. Seems like a good way to organize a book or a very long
tutorial/how-to. One thing though: When clicking next, and going to a page that
hasn't been created yet, it would be nice if the "Previous - Up - Next" dialog
didn't dissapear.

V/r,

Ryan Lane


body:
On 12/29/05, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> He's not concerned about privacy; neither his own, nor anyone
> else's.  He's
> more interested in self-promotion, and this is one good way of doing it.
>
> Jay.
>

Careful: with an attitude like that, you'll end up on a certain table run by
Brandt. :)
--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
> Nor is it clear to me that the desire to
> decorate ones userpage with official logos should be driving precedent.

Regarding at least the political templates, I would like to raise,
gently, a different issue.  I have concern about people massing together
in groups based on political affiliations at Wikipedia.

For me, when I enter Wikipedia, I try to leave my personal politics at
the door.  I try to leave my personal opinions about religion, etc. at
the door.  Here, I am a Wikipedian.  And this inspires in me a feeling
of serious quiet thoughtful reflection.  A mood of kindness and love.  A
mood of helpfulness and productivity.  Neutrality and _getting it right_
in the company of others who are doing the same, this is what I'm here for.

Outside, I may be an advocate.  But here, I am a Wikipedian.

--Jimbo


from_name: Wytukaze

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Please aprove an e-mail pending distribution

body:
Sorry, my computer's been having issues recently, so I've not been on the
wiki or clearing out the list's pending mails. I'll get right on it.

On 12/26/05, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hoi
> An  e-mail awaits I was extremely happy to sen awaits approval for
> further distribution.. Its problem is that it has too many
> recipients..
>
> Could someone please oblige me :)
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>
>
>

--
Wytukaze - Any?? m?bi.


body:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
>> I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>
> Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.

Even so, we could do more to discourage it by not including the user
pages in the standard dumps.

--jimbo


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> But then there'd have to be a new separate database dump that _did_
> include the user/talk pages. The purpose of the database dumps is not
> just to allow someone to toss up a mirror of the current article
> versions and make a few bucks from banner ads, it's to allow Wikipedia
> as a whole to be researched or recreated or otherwise manipulated in
> ways that can't be done just from the existing website. The user and
> talk pages are important parts of how Wikipedia functions, they should
> be available for historical reasons if nothing else.

I think this is a reasonable solution.  What would be glorious would be
to have a standard package to allow people to throw up mirrors easily
and *properly*, including what we want them to include, and not
including what we don't want them to include.

--Jimbo


from_name: jayjg

body:
He's not concerned about privacy; neither his own, nor anyone else's.  He's
more interested in self-promotion, and this is one good way of doing it.

Jay.

On 12/29/05, Ben Emmel <bratsche1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Has anyone tried simply communicating with him civilly? One would think
> that
> we could work out some compromise with his HiveMind website and also our
> content. I find it hard to believe that a man who works hard to prevent
> "privacy violations" would commit such a large one as posting the private
> details of all 650+ admins online.
>
> --
> Ben Emmel
> Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
> bratsche1 at gmail.com
> "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
> -- William Blake
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Andrew Gray

body:
On 29/12/05, Nathaniel Sheetz <preparing at psu.edu> wrote:
>
> Are userspace edits automatically released under the GFDL?  I have a note on
> my userpage (and others do too) saying that I multilicense all my
> contributions except those I make on my user pages.  Is that pointless to
> include?

Everything to a Wikimedia wiki is, I believe. (Possible exception for
some of the internal admin ones, and one project which I have a vague
memory uses CC).

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


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

body:
On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 04:48:33AM +0100, Sam Spade wrote:
> Is there anybody who doesn't have harassing vandals?

Is that really relevant?  An editor is being accused of violating
a Wikipedia policy because she complains about racial harassment,
vandalism, and persistent bias (aka "POV-pushing").

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zhuang overtaken by vandals

body:
On 29/12/05, Raphael Wiegand <rdb_wikipedia at gmx.de> wrote:

> Seem to be 2 vandal bots run by germans / german speaking people. Have
> there been any "real" articles before this attack? Anyone who knows
> that? Special:Allpages shows 39 articles now, all of them seem to be
> created yesterday.

You sure? Special:Newpages is showing back to February 21;
http://za.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Newpages - only one page was
created yesterday. The page moves may be confusing things. Weird.

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


from_name: wiki at marcusbuck.org

body:
The Zhuang Wikipedia (za.wikipedia.org) seems to be overtaken by vandals
completely. I can't say for sure, but it seems if there is no real article at
all. Would be nice if somebody with admin access could clean this up.

Slomox
Marcus Buck


from_name: Christian Thiele

body:
Hi,

Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> schrieb am Thu, 29 Dec 2005 17:20:58
+0100:

> See
> http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/KB/Quotation
>
> Compare:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikiquote-logo-en.png

please notice the filename at mandriva:
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/download/Main/Images/wikiquote.png

Sincerely
Christian Thiele


from_name: Raphael Wiegand

body:
wiki at marcusbuck.org schrieb:

>The Zhuang Wikipedia (za.wikipedia.org) seems to be overtaken by vandals
>completely. I can't say for sure, but it seems if there is no real article at
>all. Would be nice if somebody with admin access could clean this up.
>
>
Seem to be 2 vandal bots run by germans / german speaking people. Have
there been any "real" articles before this attack? Anyone who knows
that? Special:Allpages shows 39 articles now, all of them seem to be
created yesterday.

rdb


from_name: Tels

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

Moin,

On Thursday 29 December 2005 15:45, nigel kerr wrote:
> Phil Boswell wrote:
> > Looks interesting: stick a page up on meta so we can discuss it more
> > easily
> >
> > :-)
>
> done: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nigelk/Nav
>
> to see the thing in action without installing it, do see
> http://www.nigelk.org/wiksand/index.php?title=Nav_Map_Demonstration.

Sounds very interesting for well, slide shows (don't kill me!).

Two things missing:
* the Nav Map should have links to the pages in question instead of being
just a list.
* the very first page (like in the outline) should have a "next page"
link.

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Thu Dec 29 18:05:17 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "One man in a thousand is a leader of men, the other 999 follow women"
 -- Groucho Marx

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from_name: Sam Korn

subject: [Wikitech-l] Unfortunate merge

body:
On 12/29/05, Andrew Alder <andrewa at alder.ws> wrote:
> I can't be sure just how serious it is. I'd decided that the histories
> couldn't be merged because of overlap, but another admin has done it.
> Unfortunately I didn't take a copy of the histories, I was waiting for
> comments before taking any action so I didn't think it was necessary at
> that stage. As you'll see, the other admin is doubtful that there was
> significant overlap.
>
> How difficult is it to recover the histories of "Montreal Expos" and
> "Montr?al Expos" from the last backup before 09:34, 28 December 2005, so
> we can see the exact problem (and even if there is one)?
>
> All I think I need at this stage is the two lists of edits, to manually
> see what the problems might be. But all suggestions of how to proceed
> are welcome.

Hi Andrew

This problem can be solved without developers' help -- if you can
identify which revision goes with which article.  This should be
fairly easy, because the text will be in bold on the first line.  If
you then undelete all revisions of the Montr?al Expos article, you can
move them back to their rightful place. Then undelete all the other
revisions at Montreal Expos, and revert the redirect that will be
pointing to Montr?al Expos.

The articles will then be as they were before.

Yours,
Sam

--
Sam


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>So, you could start such a site yourself. But it would be far better to
>do this on the Wikimedia sites. But then why not integrate this directly
>into Wikipedia?
>
>
Because once you're "hiding" the current editable version of Wikipedia,
the site becomes no different from any other up-to-date mirror of our
content and the unique editing-focused view that Wikipedia currently has
is gone. But this is the same argument I've repeated several times
already so I won't go into detail. :)

As a different argument, though, there's the subject of advertising on
the "stable" version. I didn't want to broach the subject myself since
it's so volatile, but since Daniel already did I'll point out that
considering that very volatility it's an option that we could only pull
off with a separate project held at arm's length from the main site.


from_name: Zigger

subject: [Wikitech-l] REQUEST_URI undefined index

body:
See the unreviewed suggestion at
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3000

-- Zigger

On 29/12/05, Bartosz Milewski wrote:
> We are running MediaWiki on a Windows Server at
> http://www.relisoft.com/wiki
> - MediaWiki 1.5.4
> - PHP 5.0.5
> - MySQL 4.0.18-nt
> First problem: When I access it from one of my home machine, I see a
> completely blank main page. Other people can see the full page. I can see
> some of the other pages, if I specify the title.
> Second problem: I get the error:
> Undefined index: REQUEST_URI in includes\WebRequests.php, line 284.
> This is the offending line of code:
>
> /**
>   * Return the path portion of the request URI.
>   * @return string
>   */
>  function getRequestURL() {
>   return $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
>  }
>
> Is this a problem with PHP/MediaWiki mismatch?
>...


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>One could argue that if there are current events that lead to drastic
>changes to an article,
>* the stable version can be "unset", thus displaying the current version
>again. Reason: The old stable version is obviuosly outdated :-)
>* a page could be set to a "current events" or "live" mode individually,
>similar to the soft protection tag. This could overrule any stable
>version for the time being. That would need a (minor) software change,
>though.
>
>
And one could then also argue that these features would do away with the
basis on which people are arguing for showing the "stable" version by
default - random passers-by would once again be exposed to the raw
underbelly of Wikipedia with no reassurance that there's no vandalism,
lies, libel, etc in what they're seeing. We would no doubt have had news
of our "stable by default" policy spread far and wide in the media by
that point so this could make the situation even worse, since visitors
would now be expecting to see only vetted content when they click a
Wikipedia link (moreso than they already do, that is).

I really think the best solution is just better education for passers-by
of how Wikipedia works - more obvious disclaimers, "this is a work in
progress" banners, etc. Ideally, stuff that would entice them to
contribute themselves when they see problems.


body:
On 12/29/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This way we keep adverts off of Wikipedia but still get the benefit of it. Granted, it will take a
> long time before nupedia.org became highly ranked enough to generate any significant revenue. But
> then, it will also take a long time before there are enough stable articles there to make it a
> useful place to visit.
>
> In fact, it might be best to create a separate non-profit organization that would manage that site
> and distribute CDs/DVDs and print versions of Wikimedia content. That way Wikimedia could
> concentrate on providing a forum for creating content and thus retain all the ISP-related legal
> protections (ISPs are not considered to be publishers and thus are not liable for content posted
> through their service).
>
> All excess revenue from that separate organization would go to the Wikimedia Foundation to help
> support content creation.

That sounds by far the most practical long-term solution to the
where-to-put-them-damned-stable-versions problem.

I like the advertising-by-the-back-door too! (nota bene: that was a joke)

--
Sam


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

Moin,

On Thursday 29 December 2005 19:42, nigel kerr wrote:
> Tels wrote:
> > Sounds very interesting for well, slide shows (don't kill me!).
>
> okay, i won't kill you.  seriously, though, slide-shows are indeed a
> worthwhile usage here, if you want to lead readers through a sequence
> of things at least in a given a priori way.

I was partly joking, but I indeed constructed a slideshow on one wiki for
a presentation, because that seemed much easier for me to edit than using
any other program.

And adding manually "next page, last page" links became tedious :)

> > Two things missing:
> > * the Nav Map should have links to the pages in question instead of
> > being just a list.
>
> i had been taking a cue from MediaWiki:Sidebar here, and just including
> the page names as data to be used, not links.  this does make it easier
> to parse through the list looking for a page, one doesn't have to clear
> the link-structure out of the way first.  what advantages can you see
> from doing as you suggest?

Well, to have an overview with clickable links? Hm, I see, you already get
these on the first page. But my very first instinct was to try to click
any of the headlines to go there.

I think having a human-parsable (with links) and machine-parsable (easier
format) page might be worthwhile. Maybe add an XML or whatever output.

(I can even see that this gets turned into a graph
automatically....*cough*)

> > * the very first page (like in the outline) should have a "next page"
> > link.
>
> so, like, to get one started, you're saying?  probably pretty easy.
>
> some parameters or further work that would be probably helpful to be
> able to apply it to a variety of situations:
>
>      * style information for the links and for the toc box
>
>      * controls for what links to show when ("put a 'next page' on the
> TOC page"...)
>
>      * localized messages for whatever language the user prefers
>
>      * it's possible for a single content page to be in more than one
> nav map, so a way to distinguish the nav links for the different maps
> ("Vacation Pictures: Prev - Up - Next" and then "Embarrassing Pictures:
> Prev - Up - Next" could both apply to that one picture from the summer
> at the beach...)

:-)

Best wishes,

Tels

- --
 Signed on Thu Dec 29 19:40:47 2005 with key 0x93B84C15.
 Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/
 PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.

 "A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
 established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white
 pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls." -- Terry Pratchett

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body:
On 29/12/05, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>   Hi,
>
>   There has been some strife, meaning edit-warring and page-protection, over the
> use of unfree copyrighted images in userspace over the past week or so.
>
>   Two specific cases are [[:Template:User democrat]] and [[:Template:User
> firefox]].  In both cases, a number of users are arguing that because the
> images involved are logos, there is no real legal concern over the copyright
> infringement.  Following from this, the passage in [[Wikipedia:Fair use]]
> disallowing Fair use images in Template and Userspace has been removed.

It's still there.

*Fair use images should only be used in the article namespace. They
should never be used on templates (including stub templates and
navigation boxes) or on user pages.

I tihnk the problem is that people are having trouble with the fact
that Firefox are giving rights /which Wikimedia are choosing not to
use/ wrt reuse of the icon...

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


from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "Fair use" images now allowed in userspace?

body:
Perhaps we need a "This user is a Wikipedian" template. The banding
together in groups is caused by scaling up.

Theresa

On 12/29/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> jkelly at fas.harvard.edu wrote:
> > Nor is it clear to me that the desire to
> > decorate ones userpage with official logos should be driving precedent.
>
> Regarding at least the political templates, I would like to raise,
> gently, a different issue.  I have concern about people massing together
> in groups based on political affiliations at Wikipedia.
>
> For me, when I enter Wikipedia, I try to leave my personal politics at
> the door.  I try to leave my personal opinions about religion, etc. at
> the door.  Here, I am a Wikipedian.  And this inspires in me a feeling
> of serious quiet thoughtful reflection.  A mood of kindness and love.  A
> mood of helpfulness and productivity.  Neutrality and _getting it right_
> in the company of others who are doing the same, this is what I'm here for.
>
> Outside, I may be an advocate.  But here, I am a Wikipedian.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Ben Yates

body:
But passers-by will always be exposed to the underbelly: there's no way
every single article in the wiki could have a stable , agreed-on version.
The top 5% of articles, sure (and those articles will command
disproportionate traffic), but

The solution is to have a really, really good interface that makes it
absolutely clear that (1) the version they're seeing is dynamic, and (2)
there's also a stable version, a click away.

On 12/29/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
> >One could argue that if there are current events that lead to drastic
> >changes to an article,
> >* the stable version can be "unset", thus displaying the current version
> >again. Reason: The old stable version is obviuosly outdated :-)
> >* a page could be set to a "current events" or "live" mode individually,
> >similar to the soft protection tag. This could overrule any stable
> >version for the time being. That would need a (minor) software change,
> >though.
> >
> >
> And one could then also argue that these features would do away with the
> basis on which people are arguing for showing the "stable" version by
> default - random passers-by would once again be exposed to the raw
> underbelly of Wikipedia with no reassurance that there's no vandalism,
> lies, libel, etc in what they're seeing. We would no doubt have had news
> of our "stable by default" policy spread far and wide in the media by
> that point so this could make the situation even worse, since visitors
> would now be expecting to see only vetted content when they click a
> Wikipedia link (moreso than they already do, that is).
>
> I really think the best solution is just better education for passers-by
> of how Wikipedia works - more obvious disclaimers, "this is a work in
> progress" banners, etc. Ideally, stuff that would entice them to
> contribute themselves when they see problems.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ideological cliques

body:
Nobs was banned for personal attacks, not for his right wing
political views.  There are political blocks operating on Wikipedia,
Nobs and his co-defendants were not such a block, nor could one say
that I, Cberlet and Ruy Lopez are a block in that sense despite
sharing certain perspectives. Sometimes there is more than meets the
eye. Real problems will not be solved by imagining phantasms.

Fred

On Dec 29, 2005, at 1:51 PM, Rob Smith wrote:

> Jimbo wrote,
>
> I have concern about people massing together
> in groups based on political affiliations at Wikipedia.
>
> This is exactly what was alleged in the case of Nobs01 and orthers
> acting in
> concert; Mr. Bauder stated four times there was no grounds to allege
> political affiliations inspired the actions of respondents, yet no
> finding
> of fact was ever made.  It was a blatant abuse of prescribed dispute
> resolution processes by tarring five users with guilt by political
> association smears -- and worked very effectively to obscure
> evidence.  And
> the clique that engineered this purge and show trial has a free
> license to
> continue the same against whoever their imagined enemies are.
>
> nobs
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
Ben Yates wrote:

>But passers-by will always be exposed to the underbelly: there's no way
>every single article in the wiki could have a stable , agreed-on version.
>The top 5% of articles, sure (and those articles will command
>disproportionate traffic), but The solution is to have a really, really good interface that makes it
>absolutely clear that (1) the version they're seeing is dynamic, and (2)
>there's also a stable version, a click away.
>
>
Oh, I agree; I'd love to see something like this. The thing I've been
arguing about is setting it up the other way around so that the default
version they're seeing is stable and that the dynamic version is a click
away.


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Bryan Derksen wrote:
><snip>
>
>
>>I really think the best solution is just better education for passers-by
>>of how Wikipedia works - more obvious disclaimers, "this is a work in
>>progress" banners, etc. Ideally, stuff that would entice them to
>>contribute themselves when they see problems.
>>
>>
>>
>
>I agree.
>
<snip>

>A number of solutions come to mind:
>
>1. Change the bit of [[Mediawiki:]] text to say "the free encyclopedia
>that anyone can edit" (as someone did a few weeks ago)
>
>2. Have stable versions displaying by default
>
>
Arg. This solution is exactly what I've been arguing _against_. :) I
like the idea of stable versions but I hate the idea of stable versions
being shown by default. I think showing stable versions by default will
cut off much of the influx of new editors since the "working" Wikipedia
will be hidden from view, and it's something that is better done by our
multitudinous mirrors anyway.


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
I'm starting to think, more and more, that a "reader mode" and an
"editor mode" separation would be a good thing for Wikipedia.

Basically:
If not logged in as a user, people see the "reader mode" view- less
edit-specific stuff on the page. (The interface really is a bit daunting
for people just trying to read articles.) Probably wouldn't display red
links, no section-edit links, etc. Still keep the "edit this page" link,
which prompts for login, then sends on to edit of that page... the
"reader mode" would display stable by default with a prominent link to
the current "draft" version (I really like that suggestion of calling it
a "draft"- it's exactly the right description.). I could see a change in
the format of Image: pages for this, too- they look a bit... internal
right now, and throw some people off.

If logged in, they get "editor mode" view, the full thing. They'd see
current version by default. (Though user-preferences should allow them
to switch that back, of course.)

Of course, the second organization taking care of Wikipedia publication
idea is a very good one as well. In that case, they'd handle "reader
mode" for the most part, and core-Wikipedia would be pretty much
strictly an editing project.

-- Jake Nelson


body:
I just realized that two replies I sent 12/24 on this topic just went to
Philip, and not to the list. Figured I might as well resend them:

 >1

Philip Sandifer wrote:

 > Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
 > unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
 > twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.

That's not really much of a point: all the GFDL does is say that as long
as the downstream users of the information comply with the GFDL, they
won't be violating copyright. Even if my contributions were 100% public
domain, editing them in such a way to say something about me that was
untrue and damaging to my reputation would still be libel, and still be
illegal.

GFDL does not make libel legal. It just makes the libelous edit not a
violation of copyright. So GFDL is irrelevant to this issue.

What -is- an issue is which portions of the database are made available
for download for sites wanting a copy of Wikipedia's article base to
start from. And the User space and pages containing user discussion are
of little use to Non-Wikipedia sites, while being potentially
problematic for Wikipedia users.

-- Jake Nelson

 >2

Philip Sandifer wrote:
 > Except that the GFDL mandates that we distribute transparent copies
 > of everything - if we did not distribute transparent copies of the
 > userpages, we would violate the GFDL.

The GFDL only requires you either distribute, or provide a network
address location for, Transparent copies if you distribute more than 100
Opaque copies. So besides legal quibbling about how many "copies" of
Wikipedia we're distributing, there's the matter of whether or not
Wikipedia user pages on the site are Opaque...

The GFDL says that standards-conforming HTML and XML with a publicly
available DTD are considered Transparent. So it could legitimately be
said that the Wikipedia User pages, /on the website/, not in a DB dump,
are available in a transparent format.

Besides, I never said that we had to make it impossible to download the
user space, just that it needn't be in the default dump for downstream
users/content mirrors. If it's argued that the user pages as they are on
the site aren't Transparent (which they are), providing a link to where
the full dump can be had would keep us in compliance with the GFDL.

-- Jake Nelson


from_name: Sherool

body:
On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:28:29 +0100, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Perhaps we need a "This user is a Wikipedian" template. The banding
> together in groups is caused by scaling up.

Oh, they are way ahead of you on that one
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia> there is the
vanilla wikipedian box and one for every wiki philosophy under the sun and
then some.

Collecting these boxes seems to be the latest fad among some users, wich
is fine by me, but some of them get extremely vexed if you try to tell
them they can't use fair use images in them...

--
[[User:Sherool]]


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
Uh, you're being a bit of a hardliner here. We all accept the risk that
someone will commit fraud and identity theft. What we're suggesting here is
a simple solution- remove user/talk pages from database dumps. "Don't like
it? Too bad!" isn't a very constructive attitude.

Ryan

On 12/24/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Dec 24, 2005, at 1:38 AM, Jake Nelson wrote:
>
> > Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >> While I sympathise with your feelings, I don't see the problem
> >> here. You signed up with Wikipedia and someone copies your signup
> >> information on a copy of Wikipedia.  So what?
> >
> > It's a real issue, especially with the search & replace the
> > Nazipedia did. Say I had the following text on my userpage:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Wikipedia since 2003.
> >
> > On the Nazipedia, it would say:
> >
> > I have been an administrator on Nazipedia since 2003.
>
> Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? Unfortunately, if it's a consequence you're
> unwilling to accept in any circumstances, you should probably think
> twice about releasing your contributions under the GFDL.
>
> -Phil Sandifer
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Justin Cormack

body:
On 29 Dec 2005, at 20:03, Andrew Gray wrote:

> On 29/12/05, jkelly at fas.harvard.edu <jkelly at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>   Hi,
>>
>>   There has been some strife, meaning edit-warring and page-
>> protection, over the
>> use of unfree copyrighted images in userspace over the past week
>> or so.
>>
>>   Two specific cases are [[:Template:User democrat]] and
>> [[:Template:User
>> firefox]].  In both cases, a number of users are arguing that
>> because the
>> images involved are logos, there is no real legal concern over the
>> copyright
>> infringement.  Following from this, the passage in
>> [[Wikipedia:Fair use]]
>> disallowing Fair use images in Template and Userspace has been
>> removed.
>
> It's still there.
>
> *Fair use images should only be used in the article namespace. They
> should never be used on templates (including stub templates and
> navigation boxes) or on user pages.

There seems to be an exception to allow FU images on the main page,
which seems just about ok. Although the main page ought to exemplify
our policies really; I dont think featured articles for example should
have any non free content.

If we had cross-project usernames it would make moving all the free
media to commons in a non invasive way much easier. Mirrors could
then just not download the en image dump and remove broken links;
forking a free wikipedia would then be easier.

Justinc


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 12/29/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > But then there'd have to be a new separate database dump that _did_
> > include the user/talk pages. The purpose of the database dumps is not
> > just to allow someone to toss up a mirror of the current article
> > versions and make a few bucks from banner ads, it's to allow Wikipedia
> > as a whole to be researched or recreated or otherwise manipulated in
> > ways that can't be done just from the existing website. The user and
> > talk pages are important parts of how Wikipedia functions, they should
> > be available for historical reasons if nothing else.
>
> I think this is a reasonable solution.  What would be glorious would be
> to have a standard package to allow people to throw up mirrors easily
> and *properly*, including what we want them to include, and not
> including what we don't want them to include.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
What are we supposed to do about Nazipedia, they're basically twisting
our words and still attributing those words to us. While separate
dumps would solve future problems it does nothing to address the issue
at hand.

I have no problem being on there, as long as they clearly state (VERY
clearly) it's a copy of Wikipedia and don't change anything about the
page.

Mgm


from_name: Ryan Norton (direct)

subject: [Wikitech-l] Unfortunate merge

body:
 > This problem can be solved without developers' help -- if you can
 > identify which revision goes with which article.

That's the problem - I'm pretty sure there was a cut n' paste move
between the two which was the reason for the history merge in the first
place (as often happens on WP:RM...). But the mistake I made was
merging the entire history of the two.

It might be just simple redirects after the major history of the
unaccented version, but I'm not sure :(.

(Move from Montreal Expos to accented version of same name).

Thanks,
Ryan


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/29/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> As a different argument, though, there's the subject of advertising on
> the "stable" version. I didn't want to broach the subject myself since
> it's so volatile, but since Daniel already did I'll point out that
> considering that very volatility it's an option that we could only pull
> off with a separate project held at arm's length from the main site.

"The founder of Wikipedia, the charitably funded online encyclopaedia,
says that the website is considering carrying advertisements in a move
that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1962714,00.html


from_name: Matt Brown

references:
<20051228200544.62957.qmail@web31912.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<71cd4dd90512291046q318f5e80sd88833ed93afe350@mail.gmail.com>
	<1135885803.43b43deb94697@webmail.fas.harvard.edu>
	<43B445F3.7000503@wikia.com>
	<1bfe3eb0512291228j12e1d954mec4af5bfcd9bdcad@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.s2kbzaq7r18sbe@mainframe.mshome.net>
	<1bfe3eb0512300009x174517dbncdebe35e89a63524@mail.gmail.com>
	<01F2CAC3-E84E-43E5-8AA2-BB61DE4501E5@specialbusservice.com>

body:
On 12/30/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> You want to check the context of every use of the template to see if
> it promotes the use or not? Wikipedia is not in the business of
> promoting
> anyones products anyway; having this image is by definition not NPOV.

Without regard to the other arguments, this is spurious: NPOV does not
apply outside the article space, and we are talking about user pages.

-Matt