body:
Usually the courts give a lot of leeway to derivative works which do a
lot of transformation, especially when pitted up against claims from
works which don't do a lot of transformation.

In this case, the photograph is obviously sufficiently original to
have a copyright claim. However it is not *so* original to have a
copyright claim no matter what happens (i.e., it has none of the
distinctive style of indisputably artistic photographers). It is a
sports photograph by a sports photographer (or, at least it appears to
be one, which is probably fine for our purposes). There's nothing
wrong with that, but it does not exhibit the creativity of, say, a
Leibowitz or a Cartier-Bresson or even something which would appear in
National Geographic.

Now all of this, like a lot of copyright law, is fundamentally
unknowable without a court test of it, but my personal feeling on it
is that this drawing would pass any "fair use" bar in the United
States, because it is highly transformative and very creative (it is
not a simple tracing, for example). The derivative work uses only the
most schematic elements of the original (composition, but not
lighting, coloring, development, etc. etc. etc.) and then applies
totally unique judgments about line weight, color, style, what to
bring out of the background, etc.

The full copyright status would, in my opinion, be a very strong "fair
use" claim regarding the original photograph, and a strong copyright
claim to the transformative work, which could then be licensed CC-SA
etc. after that.

FF

On 6/12/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Ruud Koot wrote:
> > Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> >>Ruud Koot wrote:
> >>
> >>>I doubt the drawing preserves any features of the photograph of which
> >>>the photographer could claim to have copyright on.
> >>
> >>It does seem to preserve composition.
> >
> > Yes, but photographer did not arrange it. If it wasn't indicated I
> > couldn't have told you (with absolute certainty) that the drawing was
> > based on the photograph, or because the author had seen that game.
>
> That's an interesting argument.  Not having ever watched cricket, I
> can't tell if the viewpoint chosen by the photographer if one from which
> people in the audience might plausibly also see the game.
>
> Of course, in any case, the photographer presumably did pick his vantage
> point deliberately, and chose to record and publish that particular
> moment in time rather than, say, take the photo two seconds later from a
> point five meters to the left.
>
> The copyrightability of photographs is a surprisingly complex question,
> but also one which most jurisdictions have chosen to answer with a firm
> "yes".  Nonetheless, it is important to note that the creative content
> in a photo consists of only three elements:
>
>   1. Where to point the camera?
>   2. When to click the shutter?
>   3. What settings to use?
>
> Of course, postprocessing may involve additional creative decisions, but
> that is not essential to the image being copyrightable.  Thus it
> follows, as a logical consequence, that any reproduction of the subject
> that preserves a significant fraction of those elements must constitute
> a derivative work.
>
> The drawing in question preserves the former two, together known as the
> composition.  While it effectively masks (some of) the technical choices
> used to produce the photograph, the fact that the drawing depicts the
> same moment in time from the same vantage point -- even with the same
> field of view -- makes it highly unlikely that the drawing could've been
> created without basing it on the photograph.
>
> In fact, having thought about it, I must disagree with your claim above.
>   The drawing does contain enough distinguishing details, including the
> pose of the players and the position of the balls, that, if presented
> side by side, I would find the odds of the drawing being based on
> anything other than that specific photograph vanishingly small.
>
> --
> Ilmari Karonen
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
> >Wikipedia offers no defense, and no protection. And users who have
> >had nothing to do with Daniel Brandt are put in danger. I had never
> >edited his article and had never spoken with him when he began
> >contemplating making me leave my PhD program. But I became a target.
> >I was and am powerless to stop being a target. So are about 200 other
> >people. Including, let's note, a bunch of teenagers. And do you
> >really think most of us, when we made our first edit or accepted our
> >RFA, thought we were getting into this?
> >
> So how is working on WP fundamentally different from selling items on
> eBay, getting into arguments on Usenet, or sending patches to a Linux
> mailing list? You play around on the net, you're going to be visible
> to the whole world, for better or worse. The archives still record
> various stupid things I wrote in public over two decades ago, they
> are never going away.

Such is life. IMHO, Wikipedia could still do a better job in helping
its contributors protect their identities. Publishing "anonymous"
contributors IP numbers should have been fixed a long time ago.
Reminding users of the carelessness of putting personal information on
Wikipedia pages is another no-brainer. Encouraging users *not* to
reveal their real identity by using their real name as their Wikipedia
account name. Actually punish contributors who, without permission,
publishes personal details about another contributor. I don't know,
people are responsible for their own actions. But things could still
be improved.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> Such is life. IMHO, Wikipedia could still do a better job in helping
> its contributors protect their identities. Publishing "anonymous"
> contributors IP numbers should have been fixed a long time ago.
> Reminding users of the carelessness of putting personal information on
> Wikipedia pages is another no-brainer. Encouraging users *not* to
> reveal their real identity by using their real name as their Wikipedia
> account name. Actually punish contributors who, without permission,
> publishes personal details about another contributor. I don't know,
> people are responsible for their own actions. But things could still
> be improved.

I agree. I, for one, find it very frustrating when I accidentally make
a contribution without being logged in (happens sometimes) and have my
IP published, and just hope that no one can make the connection back
to me.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: John Ky

subject: [Wikitech-l] "selected unions"

body:
Hi,

I have the problem on my wiki where if I try to use the word
"selected" and then somewhere later in the same article use the word
"unions" I get the following error when previewing or saving:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access
/economics/index.php/Special:Search on this server.

Apache/1.3.36 Server at greens.timesprint.com Port 80

I get the same error when typing "selected unions" into my search box.

I am using the following version:

This wiki is powered by MediaWiki, copyright (C) 2001-2006 Magnus
Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik M?ller,
Gabriel Wicke, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason, Niklas Laxstr?m and others.

MediaWiki is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.

MediaWiki is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301, USA. or read it online

    * MediaWiki: 1.6.5
    * PHP: 4.4.2 (apache)
    * MySQL: 4.1.19-log
    * Extensions:
          o Parser hooks:
                + Cite, adds <ref[ name=id]> and <references/> tags,
for citations, by ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
          o Extension functions:
                + wfCite and wfCalendarExtension
          o Parser extension tags:
                + <ref>, <references> and <calendar>
    * Hooks:
          o ParserClearState: (cite, clearState)

thanks

-John


subject: [Wikitech-l] "selected unions"

body:
Actually, I have the problem if the words "union" and "select" - and I
had the order wrong:  "union" must come first for the error to occur.

On 6/12/06, John Ky <newhoggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have the problem on my wiki where if I try to use the word
> "selected" and then somewhere later in the same article use the word
> "unions" I get the following error when previewing or saving:
>
> Forbidden
> You don't have permission to access
> /economics/index.php/Special:Search on this server.
>
> Apache/1.3.36 Server at greens.timesprint.com Port 80
>
> I get the same error when typing "selected unions" into my search box.
>
> I am using the following version:
>
> This wiki is powered by MediaWiki, copyright (C) 2001-2006 Magnus
> Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik M?ller,
> Gabriel Wicke, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason, Niklas Laxstr?m and others.
>
> MediaWiki is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
> under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
> Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
> option) any later version.
>
> MediaWiki is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
> WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
> General Public License for more details.
>
> You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
> Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
> 02110-1301, USA. or read it online
>
>     * MediaWiki: 1.6.5
>     * PHP: 4.4.2 (apache)
>     * MySQL: 4.1.19-log
>     * Extensions:
>           o Parser hooks:
>                 + Cite, adds <ref[ name=id]> and <references/> tags,
> for citations, by ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
>           o Extension functions:
>                 + wfCite and wfCalendarExtension
>           o Parser extension tags:
>                 + <ref>, <references> and <calendar>
>     * Hooks:
>           o ParserClearState: (cite, clearState)
>
> thanks
>
> -John
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] "selected unions"

body:
Sorry, it had nothing to do with the wiki.  My webserver is rejecting
the words union and select in my query string.  I have no idea what is
going on.

-John

On 6/12/06, John Ky <newhoggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, I have the problem if the words "union" and "select" - and I
> had the order wrong:  "union" must come first for the error to occur.
>
> On 6/12/06, John Ky <newhoggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have the problem on my wiki where if I try to use the word
> > "selected" and then somewhere later in the same article use the word
> > "unions" I get the following error when previewing or saving:
> >
> > Forbidden
> > You don't have permission to access
> > /economics/index.php/Special:Search on this server.
> >
> > Apache/1.3.36 Server at greens.timesprint.com Port 80
> >
> > I get the same error when typing "selected unions" into my search box.
> >
> > I am using the following version:
> >
> > This wiki is powered by MediaWiki, copyright (C) 2001-2006 Magnus
> > Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik M?ller,
> > Gabriel Wicke, ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason, Niklas Laxstr?m and others.
> >
> > MediaWiki is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
> > under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
> > Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
> > option) any later version.
> >
> > MediaWiki is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
> > WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> > MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
> > General Public License for more details.
> >
> > You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> > along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
> > Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
> > 02110-1301, USA. or read it online
> >
> >     * MediaWiki: 1.6.5
> >     * PHP: 4.4.2 (apache)
> >     * MySQL: 4.1.19-log
> >     * Extensions:
> >           o Parser hooks:
> >                 + Cite, adds <ref[ name=id]> and <references/> tags,
> > for citations, by ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason
> >           o Extension functions:
> >                 + wfCite and wfCalendarExtension
> >           o Parser extension tags:
> >                 + <ref>, <references> and <calendar>
> >     * Hooks:
> >           o ParserClearState: (cite, clearState)
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > -John
> >
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright status of drawings based on photos

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > According to the page the author released it under the GFDL and
> > CC-by-SA.  The original author of the photo almost surely also holds a
> > copyright interest in it, but I don't see any information about a
> > license from him/her.
>
> Presuming the photographer didn't license it, it's a copyvio?
>
> Steve

Nah, it's probably fair use.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
On 6/12/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Then your likely best bet is to request a token which inhibits the NUMBERING
> of TOC entries, and add them manually, so that the numbers appear correctly
> regardless of the preferences chosen by the user.
>
> Something like __NOTOCNUMBERING__ maybe?
> HTH HAND

What, like:

intro text
intro text
__NOTOCNUMBERING__
==A. Section A==
aoeueou
==B. Section B==
===B. I. blah===

?

Would there be any differences between that and "true" numbering in
the rendering process?

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree. I, for one, find it very frustrating when I accidentally make
> a contribution without being logged in (happens sometimes) and have my
> IP published, and just hope that no one can make the connection back
> to me.
>
> Steve

Sop useing monobook. that way you will know when you are not loged in.
Either that ore make some very clear change to monobook.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Protection Fund

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/12/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > $20.00 a year would be cheap compared to the cost of private medical
> > insurance, which can easily be 100 times that much.
>
> On the other hand "we" would theoretically only protect against a very
> specific type of accident under specific circumstances.
>
> The whole idea is a bit dubious, and would probably work best if
> editors just formed an "association of Wikipedians" amongst themselves
> that had nothing to do with the foundation. They could chip in as much
> as they liked, and then spend it helping each other out of
> Wikipedia-caused mishaps. If you're not a member, you'd get no
> coverage.

I think that if such a fund/system is made, it really should be handled by
the foundation though.
Plus, that association sounds too much like the (perhaps stereotypical)
american healthcare system to me. If a person does not belong to that
association and something happens, then just too bad so sad?

Garion


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cultural distinctions are accidental? Consensusamong
 cultures is bad?

body:
Ray Saintonge sagte:
> Raphael Wegmann wrote:
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jimbo claims he's said this many times in the past.  I couldn't find
>>>any, but if anyone else can maybe I can better understand what he's
>>>saying.  If Jimbo does "NOT think that cultural distinctions between
>>>difference language Wikipedias are accidental", then he must think
>>>they're intentional.  That raises the question as to who intended
>>>these distinctions, and what distinctions were intended.  I always
>>>thought the English Wikipedia at least was supposed to be neutral with
>>>regard to culture.  Maybe English is the exception?
>>>
>>>
>>Regardless whether the cultural distinctions are intended or not,
>>they are a fact. I would consider i.e. a translation of terms like
>>Islam and Terrorism from english to arabic and vice versa very
>>exciting. I honestly thought about paying a translator to do it.
>>
> Charged as those terms might be, that is not where the translation
> difficulties are going to be.  Islam can be any religion based on the
> Qur'an, and can include a wide range of practices, both moderate and
> extremist.  "Terrorism" as a word transcends language, because the
> debste over just what terrorim is will remain similar in any language.
>

I didn't think about translation difficulties, instead I thought about
cultural bias. I am pretty sure, that there are *major* differences
between the arabic and the english language version of those articles.

--
Raphael


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > According to the page the author released it under the GFDL and
> > CC-by-SA.  The original author of the photo almost surely also holds a
> > copyright interest in it, but I don't see any information about a
> > license from him/her.
>
> Presuming the photographer didn't license it, it's a copyvio?

Surely not?

Theresa


body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > According to the page the author released it under the GFDL and
> > CC-by-SA.  The original author of the photo almost surely also holds a
> > copyright interest in it, but I don't see any information about a
> > license from him/her.
>
> Presuming the photographer didn't license it, it's a copyvio?
>
> Steve

Probably qualifies ans a derivative work so yes.

--
geni


list: foundation-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Foundation-l] Fundraising ideas - using what we've already got

body:
OK, I have started putting together some preliminary 'packs'.

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/WikimediaShop
& http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Commons:Packs

I gather the next fundraiser is coming up reasonably soon, so I
suggest that instead of rolling out something huge, we offer something
quietly. I think I can probably finalise 2-3 'Commons Packs' within
the next few weeks (ZIP consisting of a set of 12 wallpaper-suitable
Wikimedian-created images grouped by theme, + a
README/licensing/intro/seealso/WMpromo HTML page) - definitely a
Science one, plus maybe an animals/insects one or flowers, plus
something landscape-y (we have tons of great images like this and I
haven't started grouping them yet).

Here's the Science one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise/Commons:Packs#Science

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Avgsizebyday2005.png ,
only 3 days out of all the days during the 3 2005 fundraising drives
had average donations of US$40. So I suggest we set that as target for
this sweetener, to try and lift the average donation to $40 more of
the time.

We could then make a statement like "donate more than US$40 and
receive a set of 12 beautiful computer wallpapers for free! 3 themes
to choose from" and then that would take them through to a download
page where they can choose. I don't know anything about what would be
technically required here.

Two possible problems there, one is that it might drag down some
donations if people were already planning to donate, say, $50, they
might think, "Hey, $40 is enough" and only donate that instead.
Another possible problem is that it might take away from all the
goodwill fuzziness and people will instead think, "Hey, $40 for
computer wallpaper, that's a rort. Stuff them" (except possibly think
this in a less Australian way :))

So if, for these reasons, all ye foundation-l folk aren't keen to do
this, then I have a backup suggestion! Offer the downloads to people
who donate above $40 (or whatever), but as a (semi-)secret - don't
tell them before they donate. Then we can say, "Since you donated
above $40, you receive a free wallpaper set as a special thankyou." I
can't see anyone having a problem with this since hey, they already
donated...

I guess we would be able to get download statistics, so we would at
least be able to see if people are keen to download such things, and
we can set up a feedback page obviously and hopefully if people like
them they will let us know. If it seems to be liked then I would look
at expanding into more "Packs" and cross-project material. And if
nothing else, it will promote the Commons ;) and our fabulously
talented Wikimedians.

so... ?

cheers,
Brianna


list: wikimedia-l


body:
On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> According to the page the author released it under the GFDL and
> CC-by-SA.  The original author of the photo almost surely also holds a
> copyright interest in it, but I don't see any information about a
> license from him/her.

Presuming the photographer didn't license it, it's a copyvio?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] User Protection Fund

body:
On 6/12/06, Garion1000 <garion1000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that if such a fund/system is made, it really should be handled by
> the foundation though.
> Plus, that association sounds too much like the (perhaps stereotypical)
> american healthcare system to me. If a person does not belong to that
> association and something happens, then just too bad so sad?

Um, it may sound like an american healthcare system, but it sounds a
lot like thousands of similar associations around the world. I was
actually thinking of something like a union, or a players' association
for various sports.

And yes, if you don't contribute to a fund, you can't really expect it
to look after you. Wikipedia is a slightly special case as serious
editors are putting in a lot of time and effort for nothing, so maybe
that could be taken into account.

Steve


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
G'day Steve,

> On 6/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>As a user of Canadian English I find it best to have a compromise hybrid
>>where some words will have an affinity to AmE and others to BrE,
>>although any single word should be spelled consistently throughout an
>>article.  Insisting on all American or British spelling is really just
>>another form of POV pushing.
>
> Hmm, interesting idea. There is something inconsistent about saying
> that Wikipedia supports all forms of English - except within the one
> article. It would perhaps be better to allow freely mixing spellings
> like this. The downside is that it would be harder to tell when
> someone is changing a spelling to be obnoxious. If someone deletes
> "behavior" and paraphrases to write "civilised people", is that
> changing from Am->Br?

Yes, but inadvertantly.  I'm sure some helpful anon will be along soon
to "correct" the "misspelling" and give us yet another one of those zs
(sorry, zees).

By the way, could we kinda stop using "Br" or "BrE" or "British English"
to refer to variants of English that aren't American?  There's a big,
wonderful, English-speaking world out there that aren't American, and we
aren't British, either.

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


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> But I also don't see why it's
> appropriate *for Wikipedia*, unless we happen to have an article which
> is discussing the original, or at the very least, the event.  (In the
> case of talking about the event there are probably better drawings
> which could be made, though.)

Exactly - it's being used in a generic cricket article, for which a
wikipedia user photographer could go to a cricket match and photograph
the event in question (assuming a bowl-out happened at that match).

-Matt


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/12/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> By the way, could we kinda stop using "Br" or "BrE" or "British English"
> to refer to variants of English that aren't American?  There's a big,
> wonderful, English-speaking world out there that aren't American, and we
> aren't British, either.

Got a better term? Wikipedia sometimes uses "Commonwealth English" but
I've never heard it outside that context. Probably the best would be
something descriptive, like "ize" English vs "ise", sort of like
Languedoc and Languedo?l in France (or zezeo (sp?) in Spanish).

I don't think Australia really uses British spelling...we use a
variety of spelling generally closer to the British end of the scale,
but we're not that fussy.

Steve


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> We should be identifying and booting all underage editors (admin
> status is irrelevant, from legal pov) until their parents have
> been informed of the risks and give permission.
>
> Stan
>

You do realise that we currently have a great arbitrator who is 17,
and we have a bureocrat who was elected when he was 13 (I think it was
13 at least).

Booting underage users is not an option, because frankly, some of them rule.

--Oskar


from_name: Fred LaCroix

subject: [Wikitech-l] Newbie SMTP troubles

body:
Good question but yes 192.168.1.2 has an SMTP server on it.  I've confirmed functionality by relaying an email message through it using Outlook.

  I'll try setting display_errors to On and see what I get.

  Thanks for your help.

Platonides <Platonides at gmail.com> wrote:
  Seems obvious but... do you have a configured and running SMTP server on
192.168.1.2 ?

Teh blank page is due to _some error_ Your php configuration is such that
when an error is found it doesn't reveal anything. More difficult to debug,
but more secure as intruders don't know the error message. Perssonally, i'd
low it.

"Fred LaCroix" a ?crit:
> Hi,
>
> I've got Mediawiki 1.6.6 running on a Windows XP SP2 system with Apache
> 2.2, php 5.1.4, PEAR's Mail package ver. 1.1.10 and MySQL 5.0.21. This PC
> is being run behind a firewall and will be accessed only by internal
> users. The system is up and running and I can login, create new
> discussions, edit...etc but when I try to "Confirm your email address" by
> pushing the "Mail a confirmation code" button, all I get is a blank page
> and no email is sent.
>
> My localsetting.php file contains the following:
>
> $wgEnableEmail = true;
> $wgEnableUserEmail = true;
>
> $wgEmergencyContact =
> "wikiadminl at internaltest.com";
> $wgPasswordSender = "wikiadmin at internaltest.com";
> $wgSMTP = array(
> "host" => '192.168.1.2',
> "IDHost" => 'internaltest.com',
> "port" => "25",
> # 'auth' => false,
> "auth" => true,
> "username" => 'wikiadmin',
> "password" => 'BlahBlah'
>
> For "host" I have tried the ip address of the system, the machine name,
> smtp.machine name, smpt.machine name.FQDN but no luck.
>
> My php.ini has:
>
> [mail function]
> ; For Win32 only.
> SMTP = 192.168.1.2
> smtp_port = 25
>
> ; For Win32 only.
> sendmail_from = wikiadmin at internaltest.com
>
> Any suggestions that could be offered would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
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list: commons-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> I tried it on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Alcib%C3%ADades.jpg.
> Note the weird character in the filename.
>
The reason for this not working /may/ be that there's a text, but no
image to copy ;-)

Anyway, that error is now caught and shown.
>
>> * Check the image text for "delete me" templates; list of templates has
>> to be expanded, please tell me which to use
>>
>
> which ones do you have so far?
>
You can see the current list by clicking on "source of this script"
(even if you don't speak code;-)
>
>> The deleting admin *has* to copy the new image url line, otherwise the
>> image can never be found again! That way, the image is stored away from
>> public eyes but still restorable through the deleting admin.
>>
>
> I think instead it should make an edit to the image page saying
> "BACK-UP COPY AT (url)". Because the image is about to be deleted
> anyway. If time proves the image should be undeleted, you can just
> undelete the image page, recover the URL and go from there. That seems
> much easier than storing the URL on my local machine for example. It
> would also save one manual step ;)
>
I added a button which will open the edit page and append that message
(also fill in the summary). You'll have to click it (and "Save")
manually, though...

> I didn't get one that was actually used, though, so I'm not sure what
> the check-usage part of the interface will look like.
>
One line for each wikimedia project that uses the image; in this line,
project name, how many articles, talk pages, project pages, etc. use it
For details (which pages actually use the image), click on "details" ;-)
> Do TPTB approve of this use of the toolserver? If commons admins get
> into it, it seems like it could be reasonably intensive...
>
I posted it on toolserver-l, and so far, noone complained. Tim Starling
made a good suggestion; I'll talk to him about this.

At some point, I'll have to really delete these images, no matter the
disk space available. I'd assume it's safe to /really/ delete them if
they were not resurrected within three month or so.

Magnus


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>What harm to us follows from a 13 year old administrator? Sometimes
>someone tries to claim they were unfairly censored, "And by a 13 year
>old". All that means is that even a 13 year old can see through their
>game. I suppose there are questions of legal liability and copyright.
>Generally I have been impressed by our teenagers (at least the ones
>that don't add "poop" to articles).
>
>
It would suck if half of a featured article was not actually GFDL
and thus not legally redistributable. Presumably even teenagers own
the copyrights to what they produce, but I imagine that the parents
would have effective control during minority, and so at least in
theory they could claim copyright violation and ask for removal of
all their child's edits. Could be a huge headache if it was one of
our more productive teen editors...

Stan


subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> Also (I am really warming up to this :)), it would be good to be able
> to override the "last edit 14 days ago" thing when necessary. For
> example when I see logos labelled *-self, I have a strong prejudice
> not to believe this and to delete on sight. If I could delete on sight
> with a backup handy just in the odd occasion ;) I'm wrong, it would be
> incredibly handy to calm the screaming hordes down.
>
manually add "&days=7" to the URL for 7 days etc.

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I agree. I, for one, find it very frustrating when I accidentally make
> > a contribution without being logged in (happens sometimes) and have my
> > IP published, and just hope that no one can make the connection back
> > to me.
> >
> > Steve
>
> Sop useing monobook. that way you will know when you are not loged in.
> Either that ore make some very clear change to monobook.
>
> --
> geni

If one were of the industrious sort, one could concievably program a
simple Greasemonkey script that would not let one edit if one weren't
logged in.

--Oskar


from_name: Farshad Bashir

subject: [Wikitech-l] Math output dir

body:
Hi all,

Is it possibble to put all the math outputs in just one directory, for
example ../images/math and not ..images/math/0/4/d/ or
../images/math/f/6.d

I can only use the math if I can put everything in just one dir.

I hope someone can help me!

Kind regards,

Farshad Bashir


from_name: Ruud Koot

body:
geni wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>> According to the page the author released it under the GFDL and
>>> CC-by-SA.  The original author of the photo almost surely also holds a
>>> copyright interest in it, but I don't see any information about a
>>> license from him/her.
>> Presuming the photographer didn't license it, it's a copyvio?
>>
>> Steve
>
> Probably qualifies ans a derivative work so yes.
>
>

I doubt the drawing preserves any features of the photograph of which
the photographer could claim to have copyright on.

Ruud


subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
On 09/06/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> Solution C:
> I would expect that most problematic uploads come from new users.
> Disable the creation of new users (or their ability to upload) while the
> total backlog is >X files (no pun intended).

I was thinking about this. What could work quite well, is if we had
reviewed uploads. So you upload your first five files. Then you can't
upload any more files until an admin reviews your uploads. Users stay
in 'review mode' until they can upload 5 files in row without
copyright concerns. If they upload 5 images fine then they can go into
'free mode', or 'unreviewed mode', or whatever you want to call it,
which is what we have at the moment. It would also be great to be able
to put users back INTO review mode!! Especially since we can't ban
people from uploading only (bugzilla:4995), which is a great shame.
This would be a good alternative.

This would be super nifty. Like all super nifty ideas, it's probably
quite hard to solve technically, otherwise someone would've done it by
now. :)

The only bad point is that it might lead people to create a new
account every 5 images. Might not matter that much though...

Brianna


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Re : on (re)organizing wikimedia

body:
On 6/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> osar's ideas as outlined below are far too general to
>   It would be far too large to be effective.  I can't
> see how a group of more than 20 people max could be
> useful in an advisory role.  And I have no idea what
> "supervision of the projects" actually entails.  Any
> duties I can think of that could be considered
> supervision need a group no larger than 13.

It can be representatives of the largest part(s), like the English
Wikipedia is the largest and perhaps most active, and most of active
members of this mailinglist are its regular, and I agree it will be
efficient, but at the same time it can happen such body of
representatives fail to representative the broader population of
Wikimedia project editors (like Enlgish Wikipedia editors are less
than the sum of editors of  all other projects). If it aims to reflect
voices of users in a systematical scheme, not as well current sporadic
and relying on personal relationships, it would make a sense. But I'm
afraid it isn't at all the representatives of the entire Wikimedia
project community, neglecting the majority of editors who are not
involved into foundation activities.

--
Aphaia
aka
Kizu Naoko
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


from_name: jareth at crimsonblade.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Quoting Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com>:

> The "don't negotiate with terrorists" policy makes sense. But it
> assumes some things. Specifically, it assumes a general means and
> policy of defense. "Millions for defense, but not one cent for
> tribute" makes sense because of the millions for defense. Yes, the US
> doesn't negotiate with terrorists. It also invades their countries
> and murders them.

Yes, it does make sense.  Negotiating implies that you have an honorable and
sane person whom you can reasonably expect to follow through on their
promises.
That's certainly not what we have in Brandt.

> If Wikipedia is adopting a policy of not negotiating with terrorists,
> fine. But if it won't protect us that way, it has moral obligation to
> protect us some other way. A negative answer doesn't cut it here. If
> we're not negotiating with Brandt to get rid of Hive Mind, what are
> we doing? Because "nothing" isn't an acceptable answer.

Unfortunately, he's attacking the community, not the entity.  Legally,
there may
not be much Wikipedia can do.  I've contacted my local prosecutor who's
reviewing Hivemind, WR and things that have happened to me personally.  In the
end, I'm not certain whether anything will come of it or not, but I'm
trying. I guess the question becomes - what is the rest of the
*community* doing?

Shell Kinney


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikis in Enterprises (Survey)

body:
Hi,

one and a half month ago I started an online survey "Wikis in
Unternehmen" (Wikis in Enterprises) in German language. Until today more
than 200 people took the German survey but I was often asked to
translate it to English to open it up to an international audience.

I needed some time (my english is awfull...), but it is done now: the
English online survey "Wikis in Enterprises" can be found here:
http://wikipedistik.de/survey/

This survey is part of the study "Wikis in Enterprises" by the
Department of Personnel Economics and Human Resource Management of the
University of Cologne. I'm writing my diploma thesis about this subject.

The survey adresses enterprises of any size and also enterprises not
using a wiki. It is held short on purpose and answering it will take
only 5-10 minutes at most.

Aim of the survey "Wikis in Enterprises" is the examination of the
factors which work in favor or disfavor for the use of wikis in
enterprises. These factors can for example be the affiliation to a
business sector, the size of an enterprise, the listing or the
outsourcing of IT activities. Dependencies between these factors may
also lead to interesting conclusions.

Why should you participate?

* The survey is answered in only a few minutes.
* Only with a large group of participants a big data pool can be
generated which allows valid results and cognitions and recommendations.
* The participans get noticed about the results.
* You support "Wikimetrics"...

Thank you!

Feel free to blog it :-)
The German survey was named in two printed magazines, but most
participants came through the blogosphere.

Bye, Tim 'avatar' Bartel.

--
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Avatar


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search status

body:
Last week I added some statistics reporting to our search daemon. It keeps track
of a 1-minute rolling average of the rate of handled requests, discarded
requests, the time it takes to service a request, and the number of
simultaneously active threads.

This info is reported to Ganglia, and can be watched at eg:
http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/large/?m=search_rate&r=hour&s=descending&c=Search&h=&sh=1&hc=2
http://ganglia.wikimedia.org/large/?m=search_time&r=hour&s=descending&c=Search&h=&sh=1&hc=2

With a better idea of the actual performance of the system, we've been able to
put some work into optimizing the system a little better.

First, several more old Apache boxes have been commandeered, increasing the
search cluster from 3 to 8 machines. Second, Tim has switched the load balancing
from simple round-robin plus failover to a more flexible and cleaner system
using perlbal.

We found that the boxes with 3+ gigabytes of RAM performed significantly better
than the boxes with only 1 gig, probably because they could not dedicate as much
memory to caching the on-disk index files.

As of today, the cluster has been split into two groups, each separately managed
by perlbal. The four 3+-gigabyte machines handle en.wikipedia.org and
de.wikipedia.org, our two biggest and most active wikis, and the 1-gigabyte
machines handle everything else. We'll know better during peak hours tomorrow,
but so far it looks pretty good; reported dropped connections have nearly
vanished, and average service times are below 50ms for all boxen.

Future work:

River has done some work on fancying up the search for Wikia, but we haven't yet
gotten a clear agreement on whether or not the company is willing to open-source
it. If they do do this soon, we may adopt Wikia's code.

If not, we'll continue working on the base we've got to spiffy it up. The first
order of business is doing another round of comparisons on the base VM:
currently we're running on Mono, which was chosen originally for the combination
of being 1) open source, 2) reasonably performant, 3) not leaking memory. GCJ
was a touch faster, but leaked memory. Sun's JVM didn't leak memory, but isn't
quite open-source. Somewhere along the line, though, the Mono version sprung a
memory leak and we have to restart the daemon regularly to keep it from dying.
I'm uncertain whether this is in our code, in the Lucene port, or in Mono itself.

I'll want to check with a more current update to the C# Lucene port, and update
the Java code to test against current versions of GCJ/Classpath and Sun's JVM,
now that Lucene 2.0 is available.

Another important improvement we could make is better indexing updates: we
should at least be able to add new pages to the index in close to real time,
even if full rebuilds are still more intermittent.

And if it's ready for another release, I may check out the Sphinx search engine
as well. It claims better speed and result ordering than Lucene, but when I was
first testing it out it was too much in flux with a lot of new stuff going into
the development version.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > There's no reason it has to be an international match, or even a real
> > match at all.  Get a few people together, have them throw a ball at
> > some sticks, and take a picture of it.
>
> Oh god no, I've seen photos like that, I abhor them. They're so
> amateurish I cringe...

I suspect if one got a local cricket club to act it out, it'd be a bit
more convincing.  Still, too many people introduce fair-use images
into Wikipedia just because they think that user-produced pictures are
too amateurish - I think amateurish-but-free is better.

-Matt


body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Ruud Koot wrote:
>> I doubt the drawing preserves any features of the photograph of which
>> the photographer could claim to have copyright on.
>
> It does seem to preserve composition.
>

Yes, but photographer did not arrange it. If it wasn't indicated I
couldn't have told you (with absolute certainty) that the drawing was
based on the photograph, or because the author had seen that game.

Ruud


from_name: poore5 at adelphia.net

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal
 Counsel

body:
Congratulations Brad!

Based on my recent experience, Brad is an excellent choice.

Back to lurking,
FloNight aka Sydney Poore
Georgetown, KY

---- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
> position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
> posted and discussed publicly as well.)
>
> Who is Brad?  Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past
> several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the
> projects.  He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig,
> and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff.  Rather than doing
> "merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has
> gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping
> Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc.
>
> The need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone
> involved with the projects.  We are increasingly approached with
> interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways
> that are consistent with our community values and missions, and we
> really need fulltime legal support to make sure these deals are done in
> a way which is safe for the foundation.  Additionally, of course there
> is an ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints
> that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner.
>
> The need for help in the executive arena is also obvious to
> most of you... particularly any of you who have had to deal with the
> critical lack of human bandwidth at the foundation level to get things
> done in a timely fashion.
>
> Brad was selected first and foremost because he is of the community,
> actively involved for several months, and deeply committed to our mission.
>
> Additionally, when I consulted recently with our volunteer attorneys,
> including Alex Roshuk, Jean-Baptise Soufron and Michael Snow, as well
> as consulting with Eben Moglen of the FSF and Larry Lessig of Creative
> Commons, a common refrain was that we need someone who is familiar with
> the particulars of Florida law, as well as someone who can effectively
> co-ordinate and manage pro-bono legal resources.
>
> This is important to emphasize: we are not hiring an in-house counsel
> *instead of* seeking pro-bono help, but hiring in-house counsel *so
> that* we can effectively seek and manage pro-bono help.  As an example:
> when I asked Eben Moglen for help, he said that he can (starting this
> fall, most likely) arrange for us the equivalent of a half-time lawyer,
> except he was quite adamant that he could do so only if we could manage
> the pro-bono hours effectively, and he was very strongly in support of
> us having someone fulltime.
>
> Additionally, Brad will be taking on a number of job responsibilities
> that fall outside of the strictly legal scope, *on an interim basis*.
> We, the board, have been overwhelmed for many months, and we need help
> and assistance with business deals, legal matters, finance, audit,
> planing, etc., etc., the list goes on and on.
>
> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
> community*.  It is my intention that we be very very careful in this
> process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at
> the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to
> empower and defend the community model. :)
>
> Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
> search process, in conjunction with the board and community leaders of
> all kinds.
>
> We expect there to be significant press attention to this hiring, and
> significant support and attention from the community.  If you have been
> following the discussion on foundation-l, you will know that there are
> serious excitements and of course concerns in the community about what
> this direction means for the future of the foundation and for the community.
>
> I intend to keep repeating my same message strongly and simply: it is my
> intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of openness and
> community involvement, while at the same time playing close attention to
> the needs of the organization which makes all of that possible.
> Whatever side any of you personally may come down on, relating to some
> of the details of all that, I hope that you will join me in saying that
> our similarities and hopes and dreams for the future are more important
> than any minor differences, and that we can work our way forward as we
> always have... slowly and carefully, with genuine respect for everyone
> who is taking part in the discussions in a constructive way...
>
> It is important to emphasize that the ED position is primarily about the
> organization, not about the community.  That is to say, now is not the
> time to start leaving "please unblock me" messages on Brad's talk page. ;-)
>
> Brad is starting work immediately.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> #######################################################################
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
> #######################################################################


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
>
> But, after thinking about it, its my belief that the Foundation owes
> its editors and admins the protections it can give. And one of those
> is offering to delete Brandt's article in exchange for the removal of
> the Hive Mind site. It's an awful trade. It's a horrible, awful
> trade. We should hate making it, and we should hate Brandt for
> forcing us to make it.

There may in fact be reasons to delete Brandt's article.  And it's just
barely conceivable that Brandt, either as part of an exchange or because
he genuinely believes his grievances have been addressed, might take
down the Hive Mind.

But don't think for a moment either of those is going to stay deleted.
Can you say "Wikitruth"?

The fact is, the more popular Wikipedia gets the more it becomes a
target.  And being an administrator on Wikipedia automatically makes you
part of the target.  I _really_ hate to say this, but the only way to
escape the spotlight that has any chance of working, short of shutting
down the site entirely, is to personally dissociate yourself from it.

This means contacting a steward and asking for a voluntary desysoping.

(And if someone here does wish to take that route, it's probably better
to do so _before_ some kook forces you to do it.  At the very least,
let's _not_ have a Signpost article saying "X asked to be desysoped
citing threats made by Y."  That's just begging for copycats.)

We didn't ask our admins whether they wanted to be targets.  But we
can't make them not be targets, not as long as we're running one of the
most popular sites in the world.  In some cases, the best we can do may
be to offer them a way out.

(However, I do believe there are situations where we can do more than
than, and I heartily endorse your suggestion of a Foundation-managed
user protection fund.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher schrieb:
> Also, would it be possible to get a list of all images in
> [[Category:Unknown - June 2006]] that have not been edited since
> before June (these would be the images with malformed/depreciated
> 'unknown' tags)... and that are not used on any projects? (I will
> check en.wp by hand for the moment :/ )
>
> Note that that category has 6000+-200 entries. (I just recounted it.)
>
> I know I'm not the only admin that would do a lot more deleting if
> there was an easy way to check which ones were "easier" (non-easy =
> having to remove from use). And when you delete an image that no one's
> using, you're far less likely to incite angry mobs :)
>
> They're still not easy because half the time the tag is wrong, or the
> uploader was never notified or something stupid... but they're easIER.
>
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/bad_old_ones.php?category=Unknown%20-%20June%202006

(the last one will take some time ;-), better use subcategories)

Magnus


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>Participating in foundation issues doesn't mean wading into a troll >
>fest.
>
> I can assure you that there are other people who are interested that
> didn't bother contacting you.

Well, anyone who is interested, is warmly invited to contact the board,
publicly or privately.  We are seriously trying to assess the best way
forward, and knowing who is interested and what qualifications they have
is important to that process, of course. :)

--Jimbo


body:
On 12/06/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > OK, I have started putting together some preliminary 'packs'.
>
> We have to make absolutely certain that the copyright on those are all
> absolutely kosher before WMF burns and ships anything.

Well, of course... I have said that from the start. Most of them in
the Science set are from well-established regulars on en.wp or commons
Featured Pictures. And I explicitly didn't propose to "burn and ship"
anything.

Brianna


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
>the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
>legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
>accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
>position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
>posted and discussed publicly as well.)
>
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
Of the various candidates I would consider, this seems like a very good
one to me.  I support the decision, and the idea of having a lawyer in
the loop as most of the issues facing the WMF outside of editing
challenges seem to be mainly legal anyway.  I'm sure he will do a good job.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> How, exactly, do you plan on enforcing this on a site that allows
> anonymous and pseudonymous editing?

Currently, we apparently *allow* underage editing. We could begin by
stating that it's not allowed, and asking people to certify that they
are of age. If kids choose to lie, that then becomes their problem.

Just because rules can be circumvented doesn't make them useless.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> If one were of the industrious sort, one could concievably program a
> simple Greasemonkey script that would not let one edit if one weren't
> logged in.

Doesn't help - the times one is most likely to edit while not logged
in is exactly when one is least likely to be using a browser equipped
with that greasemonkey script. For me, it's most often because I'm on
someone else's computer, using my non-habitual browser (eg, IE instead
of FF), etc.

Steve


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 6/12/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would say, no worries, for using it on WP.  It might be a marginal
> concern for commercial use of that drawing, but not for noncommercial
> use.
>
>From a standpoint of whether or not the image is a copyright
infringement, I agree.  OTOH, I have no idea what the point of having
this drawing in an article would be.

Anthony


body:
Ruud Koot wrote:
>
> I doubt the drawing preserves any features of the photograph of which
> the photographer could claim to have copyright on.

It does seem to preserve composition.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [Wikitech-l] Math dir is empty

body:
Dear Jitse,

No, it doesn't work for me...

I am now making new directorys, 47988 new directorys under the
../images/math/ dir. (a b c d etc...)

If the directory exist, I can see the image. I will make all thses
directorys chmod 755 and change the user and group owner. It will take
some time, but I have no other solution.

Kind regards,

Farshad

2006/6/12, Jitse Niesen <jitse.niesen at gmail.com>:
> You say that the ..../images/math directory is empty. It doesn't even
> have subdirectories with one-character names? These should be created
> automatically.
>
> You say that you think it has to do something with the new hierarchy
> of ../images/math/ dir. Did you try going back to the old behaviour,
> where all pictures are stored in .../images/math/ ? This can be
> achieved by changing
>   return $path;
> in the function _getHashPath in includes/Math.php to
>   return $wgMathDirectory;
> (at least I think so, I didn't test it).
>
> To be honest, I have no idea what the problem is, but perhaps it helps.
>
> Jitse


body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The full copyright status would, in my opinion, be a very strong "fair
> > use" claim regarding the original photograph, and a strong copyright
> > claim to the transformative work, which could then be licensed CC-SA
> > etc. after that.
>
> How can it be fair use if it's not being critiqued, or in any way
> referred to explicitly? The derivative work is simply being used to
> illustrate the concept, not the photographer or the photograph.
>
> Steve

You're confusing Wikipedia's rules as to what types of fair use are
acceptable *on Wikipedia*, with the legal principle of fair use.

Fair use does not require that the original is being critiqued, that
is merely one way to get one fair use factor to lean in your favor.

I seriously doubt that photo is a copyright infringement, no matter
what article it happens to be used in.  But I also don't see why it's
appropriate *for Wikipedia*, unless we happen to have an article which
is discussing the original, or at the very least, the event.  (In the
case of talking about the event there are probably better drawings
which could be made, though.)

Anthony


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject:
[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal
	Counsel

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

>
> Brad is starting work immediately.
>
> --Jimbo
>

I must say Brad is an excellent choice.  He was one
the very first Wikimedia people I ever had contact
with. I can safely say that if it were not for that
experience being handled so professionally I would not
have ever stuck my nose out of Wikisource.
Congratulations Brad!

Birgitte SB

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


from_name: John Ky

subject: [Wikitech-l] "selected unions"

body:
Yes, that was the problem.  My webhost unblocked those words.

-John

On 6/12/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/06/06, John Ky <newhoggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually, I have the problem if the words "union" and "select" - and I
> > had the order wrong:  "union" must come first for the error to occur.
>
> Your server seems to have a misconfigured security module, probably
> one running attached to your httpd, which is being a bit jumpy over
> the words UNION and SELECT (both of which are eligible for insertion
> in SQL queries).
>
> Check the server configuration (or ask the hosting provider or whatever).
>
>
> Rob Church
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Math dir is empty

body:
Dear all,

I solved the problem!!!

I replaced the math.php ver 1.6.7 by the math.php version 1.5.0. And
it works now again!

All the output is now placed in one directory: ../images/math without
subdirectorys!

Jitse, thank you for the hint!!!

Kind regards,

Farshad Bashir

2006/6/12, Farshad Bashir <farshadbashir at gmail.com>:
> Dear Jitse,
>
> No, it doesn't work for me...
>
> I am now making new directorys, 47988 new directorys under the
> ../images/math/ dir. (a b c d etc...)
>
> If the directory exist, I can see the image. I will make all thses
> directorys chmod 755 and change the user and group owner. It will take
> some time, but I have no other solution.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Farshad
>
> 2006/6/12, Jitse Niesen <jitse.niesen at gmail.com>:
> > You say that the ..../images/math directory is empty. It doesn't even
> > have subdirectories with one-character names? These should be created
> > automatically.
> >
> > You say that you think it has to do something with the new hierarchy
> > of ../images/math/ dir. Did you try going back to the old behaviour,
> > where all pictures are stored in .../images/math/ ? This can be
> > achieved by changing
> >   return $path;
> > in the function _getHashPath in includes/Math.php to
> >   return $wgMathDirectory;
> > (at least I think so, I didn't test it).
> >
> > To be honest, I have no idea what the problem is, but perhaps it helps.
> >
> > Jitse
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
Hello,

Is there a way to control the numbering of sections so that:

* Some sections are un-numbered
    ==section unumbered==
    ==section 1==
    ==section 2==
* Sections and subsections start from a value other than 1
    ==section 6==
    ==section 7==
* Subsections continue numbering upwards regardless of parent sectioning
    ==section unumbered==
    ===subsection 1===
    ===subsection 2===
    ==section unumbered==
    ===subsection 3===
    ===subsection 4===
* Sections numbered with non-numeric numbering
    ==section A==
    ==section B==

Thanks

-John


subject: [WikiEN-l] To Australia with love (was "refactoring" signatures)

body:
On 6/12/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
> > There's a big, wonderful, English-speaking world out there that aren't
> > American, and we aren't British, either.
>
> Apparently in that wonderful world of English for non-British
> non-Americans, people has some interesting rules for subject-verb agreement.

Yep, there's definitely some interesting grammar rules in Australian english.

Steve


body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>
>>>There's no reason it has to be an international match, or even a real
>>>match at all.  Get a few people together, have them throw a ball at
>>>some sticks, and take a picture of it.
>>>
>>Oh god no, I've seen photos like that, I abhor them. They're so
>>amateurish I cringe...
>>
>
>I suspect if one got a local cricket club to act it out, it'd be a bit
>more convincing.  Still, too many people introduce fair-use images
>into Wikipedia just because they think that user-produced pictures are
>too amateurish - I think amateurish-but-free is better.
>
Something that I think people don't consider is the value of practice;
maybe the first user-produced image is amateurish, but it's also a
learning opportunity. We see that with our maps for instance - many of
the user-produced maps from three years ago are embarassingly poor,
but more recently we've been getting some really fine uploads, as good
as or better than professional work. I know my own "encyclopedic
photograph" technique has been much improved since my first uploads.

Stan


body:
Ruud Koot wrote:
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>>Ruud Koot wrote:
>>
>>>I doubt the drawing preserves any features of the photograph of which
>>>the photographer could claim to have copyright on.
>>
>>It does seem to preserve composition.
>
> Yes, but photographer did not arrange it. If it wasn't indicated I
> couldn't have told you (with absolute certainty) that the drawing was
> based on the photograph, or because the author had seen that game.

That's an interesting argument.  Not having ever watched cricket, I
can't tell if the viewpoint chosen by the photographer if one from which
people in the audience might plausibly also see the game.

Of course, in any case, the photographer presumably did pick his vantage
point deliberately, and chose to record and publish that particular
moment in time rather than, say, take the photo two seconds later from a
point five meters to the left.

The copyrightability of photographs is a surprisingly complex question,
but also one which most jurisdictions have chosen to answer with a firm
"yes".  Nonetheless, it is important to note that the creative content
in a photo consists of only three elements:

  1. Where to point the camera?
  2. When to click the shutter?
  3. What settings to use?

Of course, postprocessing may involve additional creative decisions, but
that is not essential to the image being copyrightable.  Thus it
follows, as a logical consequence, that any reproduction of the subject
that preserves a significant fraction of those elements must constitute
a derivative work.

The drawing in question preserves the former two, together known as the
composition.  While it effectively masks (some of) the technical choices
used to produce the photograph, the fact that the drawing depicts the
same moment in time from the same vantage point -- even with the same
field of view -- makes it highly unlikely that the drawing could've been
created without basing it on the photograph.

In fact, having thought about it, I must disagree with your claim above.
  The drawing does contain enough distinguishing details, including the
pose of the players and the position of the balls, that, if presented
side by side, I would find the odds of the drawing being based on
anything other than that specific photograph vanishingly small.

--
Ilmari Karonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > > idea to only allow minors to edit with parental permission. Again,
> > > though, we'd lose some editors, and we'd have to present this same
> > > screen to every anon editor. Sigh...
> >
> > Is it such an issue with anons?
> >
> > Steve
>
> Why wouldn't it be? They would have to release their writings under
> the GFDL too, just like regular people (remember, that's a condition
> of the GFDL, that all derivate works, ie every edit on wikipedia that
> was based on an earlier edit, are under the GFDL too).
>
> --Oskar

The reality of the situation is that Wikipedia relies on trust as much
as (if not more than) it relies on law.  Sure, a minor could
contribute to Wikipedia and then back out of the license.  Depending
how much they contributed, it could wreak a lot of havoc for a lot of
people.

Stopping minors from contributing unless they first get parental
permission would probably wreak even more havoc for even more people,
though.

Anthony


body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Exactly - it's being used in a generic cricket article, for which a
> > wikipedia user photographer could go to a cricket match and photograph
> > the event in question (assuming a bowl-out happened at that match).
>
> Apparently they're pretty rare - we have a comprehensive list of all
> the times it's happened in international matches: 2.
>
There's no reason it has to be an international match, or even a real
match at all.  Get a few people together, have them throw a ball at
some sticks, and take a picture of it.

Or if you're really into the drawing thing, just draw a picture of
someone throwing a ball at some sticks (or whatever it is that guy was
doing).  There's no need to copy someone else's picture of it.

Anthony


body:
Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
posted and discussed publicly as well.)

Who is Brad?  Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past
several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the
projects.  He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig,
and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff.  Rather than doing
"merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has
gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping
Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc.

The need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone
involved with the projects.  We are increasingly approached with
interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways
that are consistent with our community values and missions, and we
really need fulltime legal support to make sure these deals are done in
a way which is safe for the foundation.  Additionally, of course there
is an ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints
that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner.

The need for help in the executive arena is also obvious to
most of you... particularly any of you who have had to deal with the
critical lack of human bandwidth at the foundation level to get things
done in a timely fashion.

Brad was selected first and foremost because he is of the community,
actively involved for several months, and deeply committed to our mission.

Additionally, when I consulted recently with our volunteer attorneys,
including Alex Roshuk, Jean-Baptise Soufron and Michael Snow, as well
as consulting with Eben Moglen of the FSF and Larry Lessig of Creative
Commons, a common refrain was that we need someone who is familiar with
the particulars of Florida law, as well as someone who can effectively
co-ordinate and manage pro-bono legal resources.

This is important to emphasize: we are not hiring an in-house counsel
*instead of* seeking pro-bono help, but hiring in-house counsel *so
that* we can effectively seek and manage pro-bono help.  As an example:
when I asked Eben Moglen for help, he said that he can (starting this
fall, most likely) arrange for us the equivalent of a half-time lawyer,
except he was quite adamant that he could do so only if we could manage
the pro-bono hours effectively, and he was very strongly in support of
us having someone fulltime.

Additionally, Brad will be taking on a number of job responsibilities
that fall outside of the strictly legal scope, *on an interim basis*.
We, the board, have been overwhelmed for many months, and we need help
and assistance with business deals, legal matters, finance, audit,
planing, etc., etc., the list goes on and on.

We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
community*.  It is my intention that we be very very careful in this
process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at
the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to
empower and defend the community model. :)

Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
search process, in conjunction with the board and community leaders of
all kinds.

We expect there to be significant press attention to this hiring, and
significant support and attention from the community.  If you have been
following the discussion on foundation-l, you will know that there are
serious excitements and of course concerns in the community about what
this direction means for the future of the foundation and for the community.

I intend to keep repeating my same message strongly and simply: it is my
intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of openness and
community involvement, while at the same time playing close attention to
the needs of the organization which makes all of that possible.
Whatever side any of you personally may come down on, relating to some
of the details of all that, I hope that you will join me in saying that
our similarities and hopes and dreams for the future are more important
than any minor differences, and that we can work our way forward as we
always have... slowly and carefully, with genuine respect for everyone
who is taking part in the discussions in a constructive way...

It is important to emphasize that the ED position is primarily about the
organization, not about the community.  That is to say, now is not the
time to start leaving "please unblock me" messages on Brad's talk page. ;-)

Brad is starting work immediately.

--Jimbo

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>It's just a lot easier to do this when someone's been so kind as to
>point the article out for us, when it slipped past new-pages
>patrollers, rather than wait for someone else to stumble across it and
>suggest deletion. The community does have - not in this case,
>particularly, but generally speaking - an overly "censorship! no!"
>reaction to "could you please get rid of this trivial article?", even
>in cases where the request is honest, well-meant, and polite. We
>should really work on that.
>
>
Wouldn't it be easier to mark it for speedy-deletion and see what
happens instead of outright deleting upon request?  If indeed the case
is as obvious as you say, then it should be taken care of by the
speedy-deletion category cleanup crew in relatively short order, which
will in some sense ratify the decision to delete it by at least one
other person.  That's normally what I do in all but the most obvious cases.

-Mark


from_name: Austin Hair

body:
On 6/12/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> My only dealings with him have been conflicts: first exposing the errors in
> his argument on [[m:Talk:Chapters committee]] and second defending Waerth
> from his bullying on this list. I can only hope that the future will be
> brighter.

That page includes a few snippy comments of my own, and I feel
compelled to state that while we still disagree on that point, we're
now on very amicable terms and in general agreement about the nature
and direction of the Foundation.  It would be an error for anyone
assume that I object to this decision; I have every confidence that
he'll be a capable interim director.

Austin


from_name: Michael Bimmler

subject: [Foundation-l] First Swiss Wikipedia Day

body:
Press release:

First Wikipedia Day at ETH Zurich

Zurich, June 12th 2006 - Even though it exists just since five years
the free online encyclopedia "Wikipedia" is known to many internet
users throughout the world. These days there will be a presentation to
the interested public in Switzerland. Talks and Workshops will be
offered at the Wikipedia Day Saturday, June 17th from 10 AM to 6 PM at
the ETH Zurich. Especially people with non-IT-background and
occassional internet users are invited.

The GEP pavillon at the top station of the Polybahn is open all day
for people who would like to learn more about the Wikipedia and other
Wikimedia projects. One subject will be the usage of Wikipedia in
school and science. Prof. Dr. Betrand Meyer (Referent of Software
Development at ETH Zurich) and Prof. Dr. Beat D?beli Honegger
(Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz) will hold talks on this. Additionally
to further talks there will take place a panel discussion about Free
Knowledge on the programme. All visitors are invited to make their
first edits at the free encyclopedia. The best article will be awarded
at the Writing Contest.

This first public event is organised by Wikimedia CH, Association for
the Advancement of Free Knowledge - which was found at May 14th at
Olten and is under the patronage of VIS - Verein der
Informatik-Studierenden der ETH Z?rich. This is also the first
Wikipedia event in Switzerland, at the same day Wikimedia Deutschland
e.V. hosts at Goettingen the "Wikipedia Academy".

For further information look at
http://wikimedia.ch/wikipedia-day-2006/lang-pref/en/
.

--
Regards
Michael Bimmler

Wikimedia CH - Verein zur F?rderung Freien Wissens
Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch


subject: [Wikipedia-l] First Swiss Wikipedia Day


from_name: amgine at saewyc.net

body:
On Tue, 2006-13-06 at 09:37 +1000, Tim Starling wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> > On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
> >> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
> >> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
> >> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
> >> community*.
> >
> > Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
> > commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
> > When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
> > process?
>
> Mav assured us that Tim Shell and Michael Davis were temporary positions,
> remember that?
>
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000254.html
>
> What optimism we had back then.
>
> -- Tim Starling

Was that when devs were volunteers?

Amgine


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [Commons-l] some statistics

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> I tried it on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Alcib%C3%ADades.jpg.
> Note the weird character in the filename.
>
>> Image:Alcib?ades.jpg is now stored as
>> http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/commons_images/6ae2eda2d5.jpg
>>
>> You should copy the above line into a file on your local machine, as
> it is the only way to recover the file at a later date!
>> Delete file on commons
>> The image below should be identical to the one in the upper right
> corner. If not, copying was unsuccessful, and you should not delete
> the file on the commons!
>
> Neither of the images would load so I couldn't check if this was true.
>
> OK, let's try one without a tricky name: Image:Barrett.jpg
>
> Last edited 78 days ago... bingo!
>
> The delete link worked fine.
>
> OK, interesting.
>
>> * Check the image text for "delete me" templates; list of templates has
>> to be expanded, please tell me which to use
>
> which ones do you have so far?
>
>> The deleting admin *has* to copy the new image url line, otherwise the
>> image can never be found again! That way, the image is stored away from
>> public eyes but still restorable through the deleting admin.
>
> I think instead it should make an edit to the image page saying
> "BACK-UP COPY AT (url)". Because the image is about to be deleted
> anyway. If time proves the image should be undeleted, you can just
> undelete the image page, recover the URL and go from there. That seems
> much easier than storing the URL on my local machine for example. It
> would also save one manual step ;)
>

Agreed. That way we wouldn't have to worry about where the backup of
each image is stored...

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

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from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
> position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
> posted and discussed publicly as well.)

In the many opportunities I have had to work with and converse with
Brad, I have found him to be highly competent, helpful, and
personable.  I have no doubt that he will serve the Foundation's
interests well in these two roles.  Congratulations, Brad, and welcome
aboard!

Kelly


subject: [Wikitech-l] Section numbering

body:
On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> What would this be useful for?

There are lots of documents (eg. legislation) that have special
numbering schemes.  Here's an example:

http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/summarize/inforce/s/1/?TITLE=%22Mining%20Act%201992%20No%2029%22&nohits=y

The numbering scheme used here has unnumbered top level headings and
numbered second level headings that do not restart numbering
regardless of how they are organised under top level headings.

I'm not sure what the best way to deal with these cases are, but I am
finding it difficult to store these sorts of documents under Mediawiki
and still be able to have a sensible TOC.

As far as I can see, a manually written TOC is the only way at the moment.

-John


from_name: Kat Walsh

body:
On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.

Happy to see someone chosen with his experience and his knowledge of
the way the projects work. Congrats, Brad; welcome aboard.

-Kat

--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage  |  G/AIM:LucidWaking
mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net | email for phone
The good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving
-- Lao-Tzu        Wikia: creating communities - http://www.wikia.com


from_name: Daniel Bregman

subject: [Foundation-l] Project Proposal: Wikiscope

body:
Hello, List-Readers,

A week or so ago I had an idea. I had realised for a while that most casual
viewers of the Wikimedia projects are not really aware about most of the
other projects. A user of Wikipedia does not know of Wikiquote, which is a
real pity and something that needs to be remedied if we want the Wikimedia
Foundation to truly succeed.

I conceived of an idea for a project which ties together the various
projects in such a way as to allow any casual viewer to search for a topic
and get all the relevant information - not just that on Wikipedia. This
would have pages with no content but with links, each page on a topic and
each link to something related to that. This is Wikiscope.

Please take a look at my proposal at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiscope and leave your comments and
suggestions.

Thank you very much,

-Daniel (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbmag9)


body:
On 6/12/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> > the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> > legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> > accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
> > position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
> > posted and discussed publicly as well.)
> >
> > Who is Brad?  Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past
> > several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the
> > projects.  He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig,
> > and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff.  Rather than doing
> > "merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has
> > gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping
> > Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc.
>
> Does he have any experience in running an organisation?
>
> My only dealings with him have been conflicts: first exposing the errors in
> his argument on [[m:Talk:Chapters committee]] and second defending Waerth
> from his bullying on this list. I can only hope that the future will be
> brighter.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
His comment that he "disagree[s] that membership would be the correct
manner of organizing WMF in any circumstance" is worrysome.
Fortunately, it's not his decision.  I hope to hear from the board
members that they are not intererested in creating the WMF as an
organization with no members.

I also don't understand Brad's aversion to advisory committees.  I've
seen them work very effectively in the organizations I've been
involved in, and 9 times out of 10 the board adopts a resolution which
is essentially identical to the recommendation of the committee.

On the other hand, much of what Brad is saying shows that he has a
good understanding of Wikimedia and non-profit organizations.  So long
as the channels of communication are kept open I'm sure his expertise
will prove extremely valuable and productive.

Anthony


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 12 Jun 2006 at 23:48,  "Death Phoenix" <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I tend to call it Commonwealth English, except when something gets me
> > really annoyed, and then I'm liable to call it Proper Bloody English.
>
> PBE's a good one.

Pompous Bullshit English?

It (British/Commonwealth English) tends, in my (probably biased)
experience, to be used by people trying to put on airs and sound
pretentiously superior, like real estate developers naming a
development "Harbour Centre" when it's nowhere near a harbo(u)r nor
particularly close to the center/re of anything important, or fashion
magazines ("Glamour") that desperately want to show how elegant they
believe themselves to be, or snooty academics who would rather be
involved with an "encyclopaedia" than a commoner's "encyclopedia".

I find it especially bothersome to encounter the word "paedophile",
since I hardly think pedophiles deserve to be dignified with a
pretentiously dressed-up spelling.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

>On 6/12/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>
>>We should be identifying and booting all underage editors (admin
>>status is irrelevant, from legal pov) until their parents have
>>been informed of the risks and give permission.
>>
>>Stan
>>
>>
>>
>
>You do realise that we currently have a great arbitrator who is 17,
>and we have a bureocrat who was elected when he was 13 (I think it was
>13 at least).
>
>Booting underage users is not an option, because frankly, some of them rule.
>
>--Oskar
>
>
Yes, exactly. Nevertheless, Stan's point regarding legal standing *is* a
good one...perhaps we make a warning during registration clear that
minors must have parental approval before editing? (Although for anons,
it gets tricky...)

As a 16-year-old, though, I probably wouldn't take kindly to editing if
I had to run through tonnes of red tape just to make some changes,
especially when I began editing anonymously at 13. (And just for the
record, my parents are aware of my activities on Wikipedia, and not only
approve but encourage them. :p)

John


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 11/06/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/11/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We have already deleted or blanked pages that the subjects haven't
> > wanted,
>
> Which cases are you thinking about? I'm aware of the [[Brian Peppers]]
> case, which was a Jimbo Wales decision and which concerned basic
> matters of human dignity. Other cases of actual articles being deleted
> because of the subject's complaints would be interesting to document,
> so we can try to establish reasonable and consistent policy in those
> matters.

I will not name names (mainly since I can't remember any), but a
number of "articles" have been deleted after the subject wrote to us
and asked - I've done a couple. But they weren't deleted just because
they asked - they were deleted because our policies said we probably
ought to.

Pages created solely to disparage the subject are common - and,
remember, there's no notability test there; if [[George W. Bush]] was
created with one revision saying "he's a fascist!" we could speedy it.
Articles which aren't disparaging but are about someone who themself
freely claims to be insignificant - they're not important, they're not
a public figure, why argue the toss just to keep an article no-one
will ever read?

It's just a lot easier to do this when someone's been so kind as to
point the article out for us, when it slipped past new-pages
patrollers, rather than wait for someone else to stumble across it and
suggest deletion. The community does have - not in this case,
particularly, but generally speaking - an overly "censorship! no!"
reaction to "could you please get rid of this trivial article?", even
in cases where the request is honest, well-meant, and polite. We
should really work on that.

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


body:
Peter Ansell wrote:

>On 13/06/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 6/12/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>There's a big, wonderful, English-speaking world out there that aren't
>>>>American, and we aren't British, either.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Apparently in that wonderful world of English for non-British
>>>non-Americans, people has some interesting rules for subject-verb agreement.
>>>
>>>
>>Yep, there's definitely some interesting grammar rules in Australian english.
>>
>>
>
>And as such, these rules should be accommodated for on the "English" wikipedia.
>
>
There's a tendency to prefer "standard" British and American English,
and variations on those such that they're relatively similar or a blend
(like Canadian English).  I'm not sure this is codified anywhere, but
it's mostly a practical matter to maximize its usefulness---American and
British English are the most widely familiar and understood varieties of
English.

Australian English isn't particularly discriminated against in this
regard, any more so than African-American Vernacular English, standard
southern-US English, Singapore English, or various other less common
varieties.  I certainly don't think less of any of those varieties
(being from the southern US myself), but as a practical matter I
wouldn't write an encyclopedia article for a worldwide English-speaking
audience in any of them.

That said the occasional oddity from smaller versions of English doesn't
bother me as long as everything's easily understandable (i.e. no
regional slang, and that including either UK or US slang).

-Mark


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>> We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
>> process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
>> defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
>> good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
>> community*.
>
> Is there a timetable for this? Failing that, is there a definite
> commitment from all sides that this is, indeed, an interim position?
> When can we expect the first report about the outcome of the search
> process?

I think Jimmy was pretty clear about the interim part in making his
announcement. Brad has also commented on another list emphasizing that
point. Executive director and legal counsel are two distinct roles, and
I don't think anybody would be able to fill both of them simultaneously
for any significant length of time without a sizable staff at his or her
disposal (which obviously is not the case here).

Brad hasn't even had his first day on the job yet, so I think it's a
little early to be asking where the timetables and reports are. This
isn't even as far along as the process for replacing Tim Shell on the
Board, and I think Jimmy's response on that issue applies just as well
here. Let's have less haste and more speed. If you want to speed things
along, I'm sure an outline of the strategy for conducting the search
would be welcomed.

To address other questions about the Executive Director position and
this announcement, I've posted a FAQ on Meta
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_Director_FAQ). If people have
more issues they would like to discuss or questions to ask, I recommend
posting to the talk page so we can continue the conversation on the wiki.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
On 6/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> idea to only allow minors to edit with parental permission. Again,
> though, we'd lose some editors, and we'd have to present this same
> screen to every anon editor. Sigh...

Is it such an issue with anons?

Steve


body:
On 6/12/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The full copyright status would, in my opinion, be a very strong "fair
> use" claim regarding the original photograph, and a strong copyright
> claim to the transformative work, which could then be licensed CC-SA
> etc. after that.

How can it be fair use if it's not being critiqued, or in any way
referred to explicitly? The derivative work is simply being used to
illustrate the concept, not the photographer or the photograph.

Steve


body:
On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >From a standpoint of whether or not the image is a copyright
> infringement, I agree.  OTOH, I have no idea what the point of having
> this drawing in an article would be.

Apparently, to circumvent copyright? :)

Steve


from_name: mboverload

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delete Daniel Brandt

body:
Just a note:  Just browsed through the shit-swamp that is Wikipedia Review
and Daniel Brandt has just found another thing to complain about:  Us
equating his threats with terrorist demands. Oh yeah, and he's not even
happy that you guys are considering deleting his article.  He's not happy at
all.  He's moaning that you didn't debate the "ethics" of having an article
on him and are just doing it to get rid of him.  Sad.

On 6/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 6/12/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/12/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 6/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > > > idea to only allow minors to edit with parental permission. Again,
> > > > though, we'd lose some editors, and we'd have to present this same
> > > > screen to every anon editor. Sigh...
> > >
> > > Is it such an issue with anons?
> > >
> > > Steve
> >
> > Why wouldn't it be? They would have to release their writings under
> > the GFDL too, just like regular people (remember, that's a condition
> > of the GFDL, that all derivate works, ie every edit on wikipedia that
> > was based on an earlier edit, are under the GFDL too).
> >
> > --Oskar
>
> The reality of the situation is that Wikipedia relies on trust as much
> as (if not more than) it relies on law.  Sure, a minor could
> contribute to Wikipedia and then back out of the license.  Depending
> how much they contributed, it could wreak a lot of havoc for a lot of
> people.
>
> Stopping minors from contributing unless they first get parental
> permission would probably wreak even more havoc for even more people,
> though.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
On 6/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
> the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
> legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
> accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
> position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
> posted and discussed publicly as well.)

Really dumb question, but one which needs answering:  What's Brad's
new email address?  The only one I have for him is the fowlerwhite
address, and I assume that that's not good, since he doesn't work for
them anymore.

Kelly


from_name: jf_wikipedia at mac.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Another KIND of categories: (Was: Types
	of	categories)

body:
On Jun 7, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 6/7/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, the discussion about the "kind of categories" missed a very
>> important
>> one:
>>
>> Categories used to group wikipedians by poitical/religious beliefs
>> like
>> [[Category:Muslim Wikipedians]]
>> [[Category:Born-again Christian Wikipedians]]
>> [[Category:Flying Spaghetti Monsterist Wikipedians]]
>> [[Category:Roman Catholic Wikipedians]]
>
> As far as the other thread goes, I'm happy to leave them out because
> they only affect user pages, not article pages.
>
> Btw, what's with [[Category:Flying Spaghetti Monsterist Wikipedians]]?
> Surely everyone knows the correct category is [[Category:Pastafarian
> Wikipedians]]?
>
>

IMO, all these categories (in particular the ones related to
religious or political affiliation) are not a good idea, as these
tend to be used for lobbying. I have not problem in users describing
the religious or political affiliation in their user pages, but these
categories divide and polarize. Not good for community-building.

-- Jossi