from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
Hi!

Thanks, it worked. Only I can't seem to be able to edit common.css from the
"system messages", so I temporarily put the changes into monobook. It works,
but it would be better to have these classes where all the other editions
have them. How do I transfer them to common.css?

B?rto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Minh Nguyen" <mxn at zoomtown.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

> Berto wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > I am in the process of importing templates into pms. Yet we appear to
have
> > no "infobox bordered" class in our monobook. Is there any standard
source I
> > can get it from? Also, how do I edit the monobook.css file? The "system
> > messages" special page does not show it, it only shows a comment to it.
Do I
> > just add stuff there?
> >
> > Berto
>
> Hi Berto,
>
> The largest Wikipedia editions tend to have heavily modified
> monobook.css and common.css stylesheets that you can choose from.
> (Common.css applies to all skins, not just the Monobook skin.) You
> probably won't need most of any of these stylesheets for the time being,
> though.
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Monobook.css>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css>
> <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Monobook.css>
> <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css>
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Monobook.css>
> <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css>
> <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Monobook.css>
> <http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css>
>
> In Special:Allmessages, you can click on the link under the "Name"
> column. If you have admin privileges, you can then click "edit" to add
> the CSS code, and your new code will appear in place of that comment at
> Special:Allmessages.
>
> --
> Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
> AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Breaking promises (was Re: Where we are headed)

body:
Troy Hunter wrote:

>Anthere wrote:
>
>
>>Erik Moeller wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_committee_conduct
>>>>
>>>>
>>>With regard to this resolution in particular, which tried to guarantee
>>>a minimal level of openness in the committees:
>>>- Why was it rejected -- what were the arguments against it? Who voted
>>>against it?
>>>- Is any similar resolution planned for the future?
>>>
>>>Erik
>>>
>>>
>>Tim and Michael against. Angela and I for. Jimbo abstained.
>>
>>
>This is a violation of Jimmy's promise to never vote against Anthere and Angela except on matters of grave importance. The September 2004 Wikimedia Quarto states:
>
>"To date, Tim and Michael have played a minimal part in board discussion and decisions, and there is no plan to change this. In order to ensure that the community voice is real, Jimbo has pledged, as a matter of convention, never to vote against Angela and Anthere, unless he feels that it is an issue of an absolutely fundamental change of direction for the project -- which is not likely to happen, since Angela, Anthere and Jimbo share the essential values of the community and the project. So as a practical matter, power is in the hands of the two democratically elected board members on most issues, and Jimbo defers to that."
>
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WQ/1
>
>Restated in February 2005:
>
>"Angela and Anthere are unbelievably good as board members, and we have
>a casual agreement between us that if the two of them ever vote in one
>direction, I will defer to them, so that it does not matter how Tim
>and Michael vote.  The only exception I would make to this is if they
>wanted something that I felt endangered us in some very extreme way --
>but this is basically impossible because they are so good at what they
>do."
>
>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/20359
>
>and in April 2005:
>
>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/2922
>
>Jimmy wrote:
>
>
>>The first resolution was something that we discussed at the
>>board level but never quite came to a firm conclusion.  I think that's
>>one which we will revisit at some point in the future.  The general idea
>>was to make sure that committees not engage in excessive secrecy, which
>>is a good idea, but at the same time, we did not want to encumber them
>>with a lot of paranoia that they have to announce evertything all the
>>time.  Different board members had different perspectives on how to get
>>those central points across.
>>
>>
>Yes, different board members had different perspectives. That's to be expected, they come from different backgrounds. Some of them represent the community, some do not. But the elected members were not arguing for an "absolutely fundamental change of direction", were they?
>
The problem is that the optics of the situation are all wrong.  There is
a situation where a resolution  in favour of ensuring openness is
apparently rejected by the two appointed directors and supported by the
two elected.  That the wording could be improved is understandable, and
attaching priority to a reworded resolution would go far to dispel the
cynicism that the current situation has generated.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Lord Voldemort

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

body:
On 6/5/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.
>
> Note that I'm not saying this is a possibility right now, but it would
> make planning easier if we had something more than guesswork of who
> might be a candidate to go on.

I think before (or maybe along with) this call, you need to specify
the requirements of Board members. Some people may not understand
fully the time requirements, etc. but may be interested in being on
the Board. Although my guess is the kind of people we want on the
Board already know what this requires.  So I guess you can probably
disregard this message.
--LV


list: wikien-l

from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures (was: cancelation of the
	deletion review of the satanism userbox)

body:
On 6/5/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> The "cutesie sigs" problems seems to be like the userbox problem all
> over again... once again you have a bunch of users who seem to be
> treating Wikipedia like another Myspace or LiveJournal, and another
> bunch of editors/admins who are so offended by this that they insist
> on taking draconian action against the first group...

You were going okay until you got to "draconian action". I just don't
see how editing  talk pages in small increments that make it easier
for everybody to edit can be described as "draconian".  That's, at
most, a minimal bit of good housekeeping.


from_name: Mark Wagner

body:
On 6/5/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's also easier to follow conversations
> long conversations when you can pick out the sigs without reading them

When you're reading a talkpage via a diff, it's a lot harder to pick
out the end of a paragraph and figure out who wrote it when the author
used a fancy signature with a half-dozen links in it.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> Steve Summit wrote:
>> So when you delete or alter it, it's a direct personal affront,
>> a slap in the face, the equivalent of an  ad hominem argument.
>> They react angrily, and this should come as no surprise.
>
> So send them off to read WP:OWN and WP:NOT...
> Anybody who complains about anything they add to Wikipedia just about
> anywhere other than their own user-page being edited mercilessly needs to be
> handed a bunch of clues.
>
> If that does not work, a few sharp taps with a cluebat should help,
> and if they still insist on their "right" to scrawl graffiti across the
> encyclopedia, then maybe they should take time out to sit on the naughty
> chair and think about their activities. If it works for naughty children,
> it should work for them.

Go read "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy".

Do you handle every aspect of your children's education with
cluebats, paddles, and naughty chairs?  I pity your children.

On some issues, the advance warning about merciless editing is
fine and adequate.  On some issues, the retroactive cluebat
thwack is fine and adequate.  But not for all issues --
sometimes, it's just too, too contrary to people's perfectly
reasonable expectations.

The point is that some conflicts -- the interesting ones, really
-- can *not* simply be resolved by fiat, by writing down an
arbitrary policy somewhere which a given person may or may not
have read, and by castigating anyone who has not read or accepted
the policy as a child or an idiot.

(It's a lot like the antics of the [[BOFH]], beloved in sysadmin
circles and bemoaned by actual users.  Come to think of it, the
BOFH likes cluebats, too.)

Human nature is what it is and cannot be swept aside or redefined.
For some of these conflicts, a more diplomatic approach is
necessary, and if we've noticed that the "traditional" solutions
haven't worked, and if we still want to resolve them, we might
have to take a step back, question some of our assumptions, and
try a different approach.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
One more problem... when I copy the infobox to make the localisation I get
this...

http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_lenga

Why? I'd like to keep the english template format, because it looks very
efficient, but here must be something I did not import...

B?rto


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Angela wrote:
> With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.
>
> Note that I'm not saying this is a possibility right now, but it would
> make planning easier if we had something more than guesswork of who
> might be a candidate to go on.

And I would like to add that this might or might not involve going
through the election process, depending...


subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
	userbox

body:
On 6/5/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Jun 2006 16:12:18 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >My objection in short: "Fuck process" is, here and now, more of a problem
> >for Wikipedia than any of the individual wrongs Tony has righted using that
> >justification, of late.  Playing well with others is more important now.
>
> Up to a point, I'd say.  As far as I can tell Tony's beef with
> "process wonks" is that the slavish following of rules has come to
> replace building a great encyclopaedia as the primary goal.

No.  So far as I'm aware most of the actual decision-making is made in
a manner that would drive a serious process enthusiast to distraction
if he was aware of it.  This is not a bad thing.  I see little or no
evidence to support the claim that Wikipedia is yet anything
resembling a process-bound institution.  Process-building is of course
necessary so those who work on that aspect of the encyclopedia are
doing as much to build the encyclopedia as those who, through normal
everyday good decision-making, smash unnecessary and onerous process.
We have an equilibrium and a fairly healthy one, and this is how it
should be.


from_name: Selina .

subject: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia

body:
On 05/06/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> > > It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned
> > > by administrators because his political views was diametrically
> > > opposite to theirs.
> >
> > Ai yi yi.  I think you should take another look at this case.  I see no
> > reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
>
> Then I guess you missed the dozens posts accusing Saladin 1970 of
> being an Anti-Semite, Islamist and Al-Qaeida supporter? Did you also
> miss SlimVirgin's statement, part of which reads "If the Arbitration
> Committee hears appeals from every racist, anti-Semitic, and
> Islamophobic account that's blocked after 20 edits for trying to
> insert bigotry into Wikipedia..."?
>
> Sorry, but I think it is you that should take a second look. It would
> be enough to just skim through the recent threads to see how vile and
> ridiculous (i.e: abumahza = Al-Qaeida) the motivations for
> indefinitely banning Saladin1970 has been.
>
> --
> mvh Bj?rn
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Racism is illegal and as well as the editor puts Wikipedia in a bad
position. If people can't put bigotry aside and instead try to force
articles into their personal view of the world, it's right to ban them.

-Selina


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism
 userbox

body:
G'day George,

> Even discounting a lot of the pile-on me-too complaints against Tony from
> problem editors, there remain significant numbers of people who aren't and
> object to some of the stuff he's done.

"Significant" is a bit strong.  I'd go with "not insignificant". (Hey,
it's a fine line ...)

> My objection in short: "Fuck process" is, here and now, more of a problem
> for Wikipedia than any of the individual wrongs Tony has righted using that
> justification, of late.  Playing well with others is more important now.

"Fuck process" is an entirely appropriate attitude for any experienced
Wikipedian to take.  If you're doing the Right Thing, it doesn't matter
if process backs you up or not --- if it does, well, whoopee, and if it
doesn't, well we don't follow process when it leads to obvious
absurdities (like not doing the Right Thing).

The thing is, you've got to be prepared to accept that what you're doing
may not be the Right Thing and, if so, be willing to apologise.  And
Right/Wrong isn't binary: it's a spectrum from Wrong Thing to Right
Thing and you can be 90% Right and still be causing legitimate editors
to complain because you didn't get spot on.  That's where "my ideals
were right, but it lacked something in the execution" comes in.

And to make things more complicated, sometimes (but not as often as
we're led to believe) the Right Thing can only be achieved by following
process, lest we get 10% Wrong by pissing a legit editor off ...

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


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed

body:
Arne Klempert wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:
>
>>> Why do you suppose that an outsider would be chosen for this?
>>>
>> Do you have any candidates in mind at the moment? How
>> many edits do each of them have?
>>
>
> Oh yeah, let's adopt the Requests for Adminship process for chosing
> Wikimedia Foundation's employees and contractors. Or let's just count
> the edits, then probably a bot will become CEO. And thanks to Free
> Software anyone can write his own CEO. Great idea! ;)
>
> -- Arne (akl)
Hoi,
When a bot can get the job, please consider RobotGMwikt .. it has
clocked some 500.000+ edits easily.. probably many more. Giving this bot
the job would expose some other projects as well. :)
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Psychology of problem Wikipedians: excessive "need
	for cognition"

body:
On 05/06/06, Katie the Obscure <nihthraefn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> > David Gerard wrote:
> >
> > >Karl A. Krueger wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >>When people attempt to explain other people's actions in terms of
> > >>psychological disorders or oddities, it seems to me that it often
> > >>reflects a lack of respect or human sympathy for the people thus
> > >>diagnosed.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >[snip long post not addressing the point at all]
> > >
> > >
> > >Gosh, I guess that means we can't call obvious problem cases obvious
> > >problem cases, and certainly can't try to address the actual problem,
> > >because it might be rude to do so. Thanks for clearing that up.
> > >
> > >
> > >- d.
> > >
> > >
> > On a similar topic, I would like to know if anyone has added "Wikipedia
> > is not a counseling or rehabilitation centre" to [[WP:NOT]] yet. We're
> > here to write an encyclopaedia, not deal with people who have issues,
> > however deserving of our help and/or sympathy they may be. If they need
> > help, the Befrienders, Alcoholics' Anonymous, and other such
> > organisations are in /that/ direction.
> >
> > I don't believe people should attribute to insanity what can be
> > attributed to ignorance or plain dickery, but when the insanity/problem
> > is obvious, we shouldn't kid ourselves.
> >
> > John
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_therapy
> It's only an essay, but it says a lot.
>
> --
> niht-hr?fn
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keitei
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_therapy?action=history
As you can see it was written only about 2 months ago, ENTIRELY by Fred
Bauder (see differences between his last edit and the most recent edit -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_therapy?diff=48498374&oldid=45622959).
It's his personal opinions, it's not policy at all.
In fact it should probably be in his userspace.

--
Selina -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=55639088 /
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mistress_Selina_Kyle?oldid=41845454
http://wikipediareview.com/?showuser=1
"I *do* think criticism is good for Wikipedia [...] Good quality criticism
is valuable, and Wikipedians should listen to it, and actually make changes
based on it. Are there corrupt administrators, then we should get rid of
them." --Jimmy Wales ( http://wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=1693 )


body:
G'day Tony,

> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It is never good to piss people off.
>>
>>That you feel that you have to do so is a stunning indictment of your
>>current attitude problem.
>
> I don't have an attitude problem.  I don't have to piss people off.
> However it seems to me that some people are queuing up to be pissed
> off over trivia.  There is no substance to the complaint.
>
> And that is quite a different situation.

You're both wrong.  Sometimes pissing people off is inevitable; it's to
be regretted, certainly, but just because Hothead Jock McHothead, the
hottest head to grace the field of professional hotheads since 1872, has
become upset doesn't mean we're going to say "damn, Hothead Jock got
upset with me, what have I done wrong?"  There are editors on Wikipedia
who do not understand how things work, and get upset as a result; worse,
there are editors on Wikipedia who get upset just for the fun of it, and
that's hardly Tony's fault.

On the other hand, this "I don't have to piss people off" bizzo implies
that *nobody* ever has a legitimate complaint against Tony Sidaway.
While legit complaints aren't as common as certain userbox-loving
newbies think, they *do* exist, and we can't dismiss them all.  If a
legitimate editor starts complaining about your attitude, you don't
decide "they're complaining, they must not be legitimate" --- what you
do is say "what have I done that has upset this person?  How can I
achieve my aim without pissing off such people?"

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


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
Sorry Fred, I think you misunderstood Angela's email. I believe this
was an entree intended for someone specifically, at least thats the
impression I got, and the email is just a mere polite pretext. Is this
not the case?

We've had past board elections, and based on the turnout it is clear
that there is no shortage of people who believe they are willing to
take the charge. So I can see no other reason to ask this question now
and here other than to begin discussion with a specific person without
creating an impression of private dealings.

Since Angela has been advocating a high degree of openness, why don't
we start with this request?  When did random requests on troll
infested mailinglists become an appropriate way to select board
members?

On 6/5/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I could be but am unable to travel (I care for my disabled brother).
>
> Fred
>
> On Jun 5, 2006, at 11:06 AM, Angela wrote:
>
> > With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> > interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> > interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> > available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.
> >
> > Note that I'm not saying this is a possibility right now, but it would
> > make planning easier if we had something more than guesswork of who
> > might be a candidate to go on.
> >
> > Angela.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Here's a tip: When two dozen people complain about your unilateral
decisions to delete things or what have you, you should consider
re-opening it up to discussion, rather than insisting on your
correctness.

Blundering into a controversy is one thing. Exacerbating it by
refusing the recognize that there are other, valid takes on it, is
another thing. You could head these things off way before they became
RFCs if you weren't so damned stubborn, arrogant, and uncompromising,
in my frank opinion.

Howabout this as a general rule: if more than two reasonable admins
with good track records find your unilateral action to be a bad idea,
why not cede to the process? None of these things (userboxes,
signatures) are so hazardous that they will endanger the encyclopedia
if normal process is allowed to be run thorugh. Cutting people off in
a show of questionable judgment only builds antagonism, not good will.

But I'm sure you already know my opinions on these things, and will
disregard them as usual.

FF

On 6/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 6/4/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Well obviously I don't know I'm going to piss someone off until I do.
> >
> >
> > Oh, please.  This stretches credulity.  Surely you've noticed the pattern by
> > now.
>
> Absolutely not.  I discern no predictable pattern to which things will
> piss people off.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> (I have
>> several pictures of Jimbo in medieval garb, but not sure what I'll use
>> them for.)
>
> Blackmail?

Dear god that was the worst pun ever. You should be ashamed.

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed


body:
valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:
> The community could accept only representative members voted with normal
> procedure.

Of course.

But community vote is not the only way to get board members.  We have
some very good board candidates who are not famous in the community and
who could bring to the table professional expertise that we greatly
need, but who would not put themselves through the troll wars of an
election.


body:
On 6/5/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Howabout this as a general rule: if more than two reasonable admins
> with good track records find your unilateral action to be a bad idea,
> why not cede to the process?

Well what if two (or more) admins in good standing side with Tony (or
anybody for that matter)?  Then what, another massive wheel war?  Just
wondering.  Thanks.
--LV


from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > Indeed not. But (a) we "encouraged" it the day we implemented
> > the "Raw signature" checkbox next to the Nickname field on the
> > Preferences page, and (b) because it's an intensely personal
> > issue, when it comes time to discourage abuses, the way you do it
> > matters.
>
> Would it be possible to limit the length of the signature? There's
> probably a limit to how offensively creative one can be in 50
> characters...
>
> Steve

A good idea. Unless one has an absurdly long name, it should be
possible to add one's name, a link to the talk page and contribs, and
a little extra something- but no more! - within ~ 50 characters.
Someone want to file a bug request for this?

~maru


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You could use (2x or 3x user name length + some fixed amount), to let
> people
> > have separate links to User: and User talk: pages, which I find useful.
>
> Nah. If you really want that, just make the strings %T% and %C%
> automatically substitute for those links, if necessary.

I'd buy that for a dollar.  Code?

Hard limit on
> sigs for everyone! Allowing people with longer names twice as many
> characters in their sigs makes the problem worse, by encouraging
> longer names. Hard limit on sigs for everyone!
>
> Seriously, my only complaint with silly sigs is trying to wade through
> them in the wikimarkup. Hard limit on sigs for everyone!
>
> > Tony (and others) - what length and display mode of page editing gets
> > signatures to the point that they bother you?  Past two lines of
> standard
> > screen size edit window?
>
> Let's see...[[User Talk:Stevage|]] has 22. I'll be generous. 30
> characters.

Some form of the basic template that we use for {{user|Name}} and
{{vandal|Name}} might also help.  Those templates are extremely compact on
pages and yet allow you to pack a bunch of displayed info on pages.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] HTML normalization, transclusions, nesting

body:
> Well, what do you mean by "equivalent to" here?

I mean this:
 === '''
and probably this:
 === '''

>  normal'''bold
>  normal
> [ ... ]
> at the end of the line?
>
normalbold
>  ?????

Yes at the end of the line.

As part of the Wiki Syntax Project we spent lots of time cleaning up
excess line breaks (especially from newbies), and the sooner people
realize line breaks are not required (or even helpful in most cases),
the better.

> How should we treat something like this:
> bold'''????'''????

Like this:
bold????????

> It would probably *not* make sense to treat that as equal to:
> bold????????

Why not? It makes perfect sense to me!  ;-)

There is no such thing as a double-bold. There is no bold-bold, and
there's no point in hiding that from people, or in pretending that
such a thing exists by giving them two independent bolding mechanisms
that refuse to talk to each other.

As a result of treating them differently, this renders wrong:
======================================
bold'''????'''????
======================================
(using r14547 *without* Tidy the line renders as "bold????????",
all in bold)

If it was this treated as this, it would render better:
======================================
'''bold'''????'''????'''
======================================

Even with that, it still leaves the entire line in bold because it
doesn't close that font tag - so it's still not perfect, but it is
better.

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> When you see someone with a big, fancy, "cutesie" signature,
> it is obvious that (a) they spent a lot of time on it, and
> (b) it is very personal to them, it is part of their identity.

Yes, of course.  This isn't something to be encouraged.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Angela wrote:

>On 6/6/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I think before (or maybe along with) this call, you need to specify
>>the requirements of Board members. Some people may not understand
>>fully the time requirements
>>
>>
>
>It's hard to say what the time requirements will be since a lot of
>what the Board previously did is being decentralised though
>committees, or handed over to staff, such as the future CEO.
>
>
This is a semi-digression, but one thing that would also be nice to know
is how to get on those (new or old) committees, and what sorts of time
and expertise they require.  I know I'd be willing to devote some time
to a committee if it aligned with my interests and expertise, but the
process is currently a bit murky to me.

As for the board, I don't think there will be a lack of interested
people.  Both of the board elections we've had so far, if I recall
correctly, have had at least 8 or so people with significant approval
(though 6 of those had approval less significant than the two who were
actually elected to the board, of course ;-).

-Mark


subject: [Wikitech-l] Some statistics I wish I had...

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>Tels wrote:
>
>
>>Moin,
>>
>>On Monday 05 June 2006 09:54, Tim Starling wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I would be fascinated if we could figure out such statistics as
>>>>
>>>>"For any given edit, what is the average length of service of the
>>>>editor?"  "For any given edit, what is the median length of service
>>>>of the editor?"  These could be measured by either time since first
>>>>edit, or total number of edits or (perhaps best) some weighted
>>>>average of the edit history.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Turns out we can.
>>>
>>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Days_since_first_edit.png
>>>
>>>Average was easiest, so I did that as a first try. It shows an initial
>>>upward trend, stabilising in early 2005 at about 300 days.
>>>How's that?
>>>
>>>
>>Cool :)
>>
>>Does that mean after about 300 days after account creation, people give up
>>at editing?
>>
>>
>No, the average time before people abandon their accounts would be much
>shorter. Many accounts have never edited at all, I imagine there are also
>many accounts with only 1 or 2 edits. An average over accounts would be
>skewed towards this end. This is an average over edits, so it is skewed
>towards very active editors.
>
>One interpretation would be to assume that most edits are performed by a
>core group of very active editors. Then you could say that the average age
>of a very active editor is about 300 days. You have to phrase it carefully,
>because there are two factors which limit this figure: attrition and growth.
>Editors getting tired and leaving will cause it to be reduced, as will an
>influx of new editors.
>
>
What could also be interesting is the edit patterns which would graph
the number of edits on each day of their editing life.  How gradually
does it tail off?

Also, to what extent do people effectively stop editing on en:wikipedia
but still remain active on other projects?

Ec


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] [[WP:OURS]] - A proposal for admin-user relations

body:
Stephen Bain wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>> Dear Resid,
>>
>> unfortunately now even my copy of your latest version
>> of Wikiethics got deleted. I've filed a Deletion review,
>> but it seems like some admins are already at a point,
>> where they completely disregard any policy and act as
>> one thinks best.
>
> I deleted it because copy and paste moves of pages are unacceptable
> normally, and especially unacceptable when the original page is
> deleted, because of the GFDL requirement that the history of all pages
> be kept. If you want the content, you need to post to DRV about the
> original page, since there is no possibility that the copy will be
> restored.
>

Done. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#User:Rgulerdem.2FWikiethics

--
Raphael


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> Sorry Fred, I think you misunderstood Angela's email. I believe this
> was an entree intended for someone specifically, at least thats the
> impression I got, and the email is just a mere polite pretext. Is this
> not the case?

Not at all!  We are genuinely interested in assessing who from the
community would be available and interested.

> Since Angela has been advocating a high degree of openness, why don't
> we start with this request?  When did random requests on troll
> infested mailinglists become an appropriate way to select board
> members?

This is foundation-l, where we discuss the foundation.  The board has
expressed an interest in having more people involved on the board, and
would like a general indication of interest in serving, both from people
who are willing to go through the election process to be a "community
representative" in the formal sense, and also those who have
professional or other qualifications but who might not have the fame or
popularity within the community to go through that process.

--Jimbo


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed

body:
On 6/5/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > (I have
> > several pictures of Jimbo in medieval garb, but not sure what I'll use
> > them for.)
>
> Blackmail?

No, but I am hoping to use the one of Stephen Colbert picking his nose
for that purpose. :)

Kelly


subject: [Foundation-l] List admin needed


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> A good idea. Unless one has an absurdly long name, it should be
> possible to add one's name, a link to the talk page and contribs, and
> a little extra something- but no more! - within ~ 50 characters.
> Someone want to file a bug request for this?

[[User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me|32Can't sleep, clown will eat me]]

I think that's 70 characters including spaces, punctuation and
brackets.  Just for reference purposes.
--LV


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:

> [[User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me|32Can't sleep, clown will eat me]]
>
> I think that's 70 characters including spaces, punctuation and
> brackets.  Just for reference purposes.

Ignore the "32" I was using that for counting purposes and forgot to remove it.
--LV


body:
It isn't a question of who is right. It's a question of whether normal
processes can be used. If one admin says that something is so obvious
that unilateral decisions can be made over it, and a number of other
admins without direct connection to the issue at hand judge it to be
NOT so obvious, then I think it stands to reason that the issue is
"not obvious" and should not be decided unilaterally.

I think we should err on the side of non-unilateral action whenever it
comes into serious question, and whenever it is not connected to some
sort of legitimate real-world consequence (i.e. WP:OFFICE). I think it
has been shown time and time again that acting unilaterally often
prolongs debates rather than hastening them, and builds a tremendous
amount of bad faith and antagonism.

FF

On 6/5/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Howabout this as a general rule: if more than two reasonable admins
> > with good track records find your unilateral action to be a bad idea,
> > why not cede to the process?
>
> Well what if two (or more) admins in good standing side with Tony (or
> anybody for that matter)?  Then what, another massive wheel war?  Just
> wondering.  Thanks.
> --LV
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
Delirium wrote:
> Anyway that's a pretty off-the-top-of-my-head outline of how to design a
> system that merges community consensus and sensitivity towards potential
> members who aren't politicians, so I'm sure there are better ways of
> doing it.  I do think some sort of balancing of those goals is
> necessary, though.

Yes, that is more or less what I would have said, Mark.  I agree with
the general outlines, and share with you some uncertainty as to whether
the exact details you outlined are exactly right.  But certainly,
something in that neighborhood.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Some form of the basic template that we use for {{user|Name}} and
> > {{vandal|Name}} might also help.  Those templates are extremely compact
> on
> > pages and yet allow you to pack a bunch of displayed info on pages.
>
> Can you elaborate? Transcluding would be a huge performance hit.
> Substing would put us back where we started. Do we really need all
> those links? Surely user and talk are enough? No?
>

Not being even vaguely involved in the server management / performance side
of things, how much of a hit are we talking about?  How much additional
resources do the various admin pages full of {{vandal|}} and {{user|}}
impose?

Has anyone got benchmark results on testing?

Computer systems architect work pays most of my bills, and I see where
you're coming from, but I always prefer to quantify where possible.  If it
hasn't been quantified yet, we should test.

In terms of parsing the proposed %T% %C% etc variables, are there other
variables being run in-line which would serve as a performance comparison as
well, for that approach?

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> I thought of a simple mood metric: the percentage of wikipedians
>
>(active for at least two months) who made more edits this month than
>the previous month. It would be affected by seasons but it might be
>interesting.
>
Patterns by day of the week would also be interesting.  My entirely
subjective observation is that there are fewer people around on a
Saturday night.

Ec


from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
>Another key to the problem here, Sam.  You don't see yourself as
>having an opinion; you see yourself as bearing the Truth.  You
>percieve your biases as neutral.

Wise words.

On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > my version of the God intro:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=God&oldid=46819733
> >
> > or the current version:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
>
> For what it's worth, and only because you asked, I vastly prefer the
> current version.
>
> "God denotes the deity believed by monotheists to be the sole creator
> and ruler of the universe."
>
> as opposed to
>
> "God is the term for the Supreme Being believed by the
> majority[1][2][3] to be the creator, ruler and/or the sum total of,
> existence."
>
> "believed by the majority" is an awful, weaselly, phrase (majority of
> whom?) that has no place in the first sentence of such an important
> article. I also take exception to "X is the term" articles - see
> [[Wikipedia:Grapefruit]].
>
> The fact that a majority of people in some sphere (all humans? all
> Americans?) believe in God is highly relevant, but at the end of the
> day, it is a belief system, and most people recognise that. I imagine
> that most believers are happy with the statement "I believe in God,
> but I recognise that others don't", rather than requiring "God exists,
> but some people refuse to recognise that".
>
>
> > And finally, what is abetter version of Human, the featured article
> > version i endorsed:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Human&oldid=24562750
> >
> > or the secular humanist version we find today:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
>
> Fwiw, I don't like your version here either. The initial sentence is a
> bad definition "X defines itself in terms of Y"???
>
> Since you asked.
>
> Steve

Well thank you Steve. If there had been a method of determining which
version was prefered, it certainly would have saved us all alot of
time and trouble. Unfortunately, each of our opinions are just as
arbitrary as yours.

To the peanut gallary, no, my opinions are not always facts, but the
information I was inserting into the respective articles is. Check the
cites.

SS


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just goes to show that the first random number thrown out is invariably wrong...
>
> But nevertheless, surely we can agree that *some* limit is needed?

Four lines of 80 characters.

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
People should be allowed and encourage to develop their personal
identity on Wikipedia, so long as they are also working on the
encyclopedia.

Wikipedia survives because editors feel loyalty to it, because they
keep coming back, because they invest in it psychologically. This
should be encouraged.

It is only at the level when such activities really start to interfere
with the activities of others that we should be arrogant enough to
step in.

If the sigs interfere with editing, posting, discussing, etc., then we
should encourage the users to change them and, if they are a serious
disruption (and many people agree to this), perhaps change them
forcibly after a few polite times asking them to change them.

Otherwise we should leave well enough alone. The entire userbox debate
ended up being a pointless waste of time and human resources. In the
end very little positive was accomplished by it. A number of good
editors were antagonized on both sides of it.  Let's try and actively
avoid things like this in the future. It is perhaps even more
detrimental to the encyclopedia to argue pointlessly over what end up
essentially being aesthetic judgments.

I could care less if someone has a cute signature, as long as it
doesn't actually get in the way of my editing. It is not my job to
enforce aesthetic judgments.

FF

On 6/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> >
> > When you see someone with a big, fancy, "cutesie" signature,
> > it is obvious that (a) they spent a lot of time on it, and
> > (b) it is very personal to them, it is part of their identity.
>
> Yes, of course.  This isn't something to be encouraged.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Lombard wiktionary

body:
Claudi Meneghin wrote:

>Hello,
>  I am sysop at Lombard wikipedia. We would like a Lombard
>wiktionary to be created, so I would like to ask you if this item should be
>discussed at metawiki or if it's enough that a Lombard wikipedia exists.
>Maybe I had already made such a request: if so, and if a Lombard
>wiktionary is being created, please ignore this and let me apologize for
>duplicating request.
>      Sincerely yours,
>      Claudi Meneghin
>
This request might be better placed on the Wiktech list.

Ec


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
The first thing I can find is here:

class="infobox bordered" style="width:270px

the "class" infobox bordered should be somewhere in the css if I
understand well.

let me see if I can find this in the allmessages

ciao, sabine

Berto schrieb:
> Here you are :)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Language
>
> B?rto
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sabine Cretella" <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook
>
>
> Berto, can you please give me the link to the template on en.wikipedia?
>
> Thanks, Sabine
>
> Berto schrieb:
>
>> One more problem... when I copy the infobox to make the localisation I get
>> this...
>>
>> http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_lenga
>>
>> Why? I'd like to keep the english template format, because it looks very
>> efficient, but here must be something I did not import...
>>
>> B?rto
>>
>>
>
> Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
>  http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: geni

body:
On 6/5/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
> Racism is illegal

No it isn't.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> So send them off to read WP:OWN and WP:NOT, and in the meantime check out
> the bit on every edit page about "merciless editing".
>

No you do that first.

> Anybody who complains about anything they add to Wikipedia just about
> anywhere other than their own user-page being edited mercilessly needs to be
> handed a bunch of clues.
>

So why do people keep complaing about others undoing their blocks and deletions?
--
geni


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
maru wrote:
>On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Would it be possible to limit the length of the signature? There's
>> probably a limit to how offensively creative one can be in 50
>> characters...
>
> A good idea. Unless one has an absurdly long name, it should be
> possible to add one's name, a link to the talk page and contribs, and
> a little extra something- but no more! - within ~ 50 characters.
> Someone want to file a bug request for this?

At the same time, or maybe even first, we should change the
default, software-supplied sig to automatically include `talk'
and `contrib' links -- that way, many of us wouldn't need custom
sigs at all.


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 6/5/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> available.

I probably would throw my hat into the ring once more, especially now
that the Board is shifting towards strategic long-term thinking and
planning. I might also be interested in working within an ExecCom,
depending on its roles and responsibilities. However, this should all
be decided through open processes.

I think the more relevant discussion is the one about outsiders or
semi-insiders who have important qualifications and whom we might want
to invite to serve in a board role or an advisory one.

Erik


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
Hi Berto,

start with this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.css

it is not present on pms wikipedia - I tried to create the same template
on nap wikipedia - and this is what I found was missing there as well.

then when reloading the Template: Infobox Lenga
you will find that another template is missing.

I don't have time to follow this now - I can have a look at it tomorrow
morning.

Ciao, Sabine

Berto schrieb:
> Here you are :)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Language
>
> B?rto
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sabine Cretella" <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook
>
>
> Berto, can you please give me the link to the template on en.wikipedia?
>
> Thanks, Sabine
>
> Berto schrieb:
>
>> One more problem... when I copy the infobox to make the localisation I get
>> this...
>>
>> http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_lenga
>>
>> Why? I'd like to keep the english template format, because it looks very
>> efficient, but here must be something I did not import...
>>
>> B?rto
>>
>>
>
> Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
>  http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Scott Stevenson

body:
John Lee,

Resid Gulerdem appears to be expressing sour grapes by the proposal of
this new policy due to the fact that he was repetitively disruptive
(on both English Wikipedia and independently on Turkish Wikipedia) and
was permanently blocked for it (at least on English Wikipedia).
As an editor who's witnessed his disruptive behavior I see this new
proposal as an attempt to weasel his way back into Wikipedia where he
can once again return to his disruptive ways.

-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]

On 6/5/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
> Resid Gulerdem wrote:
>
> >The proposal [[WP:OURS]] is below. Since I am
> >referring to another proposal [[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]]
> >in this proposal, I copy-pasted the updated version of
> >the Wikiethics proposal below too for your
> >convenience. Right after the proposals, I provided
> >further explanations about them.
> >
> >Please consider this as a sincere effort from a
> >relatively new user who lived through some hard times
> >because of some structural problems. I would like to
> >see the success of this project like many others,
> >liked the philosophy behind Wiki movement, and would
> >like to suggest some small changes for a better
> >environment at which Wikiediting has some written
> >ethical statements and standards and user rights and
> >admin privileges are well-balanced. That, I believe
> >will have some positive impact on Wikipedia. The
> >proposals are needed in my opinion if Wikipedia will
> >be a welcoming community and an encyclopedia at the
> >same time in the future while it is growing.
> >
> >
> Just so we're all on the same page, what is the "philosophy" behind the
> Wiki movement? Also, what makes this relevant to Wikipedia? Wikipedia is
> an encyclopaedia being built through a wiki because a wiki happens to be
> the most efficient way to write an encyclopaedia, not for any
> philosophical reasons.
>
> >(The sections below are my earlier messages to some
> >people during the discussion on this list. I combined
> >the relevant ones together and cc'ing to the list if
> >anyone else missed them too.)
> >
> >------------
> >[[WP:OURS]]
> >------------
> >
> >[[WP:OURS]] (sysOp User RelationS or Wikipedia is
> >ours) is a policy aimed to clarify the relations
> >between sysops and users.
> >
> >[This could be named as [[WP:AURS]] (Admin-User
> >RelationS) as well.]
> >
> >
> Um....what problems are there between sysops and users that need
> clarification? I rarely see a strict dividing line between admins and
> ordinary users. In many polemical meta issues, Wikipedians have not been
> divided along any demarcation boundary that would indicate a significant
> causatory relationship between the sysop flag and one's views of a
> particular subject.  The fact that admins often seem to "gang up" is
> usually caused by the fact that they've been here the longest, so they
> *tend* to have a better view of what's going on. ([[Correlation does not
> imply causation]], for anyone who's interested.)
>
> >1. '''Ethics and Standards'''
> >
> >'Content disputes' are one of the main dispute type
> >encountered. To avoid that, users need to follow
> >well-established ethics and standards of Wikipedia
> >(e.g.
> >[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rgulerdem/Wikiethics])
> >
> >
> Those "ethics" are controversial and are not supported by the community.
> What's wrong with current policy that necessitates a new policy?
>
> >[I think content disputes and the disputes around a
> >controversial issue are very important to address. If
> >the standards are applied strictly to everyone, that
> >would reduce the energy loss around these kind of
> >disputes.]
> >
> >
> This ignores the fact that in a [[meritocracy]] (which includes
> encyclopaedia publishing houses), some people's opinions do count more
> than others.
>
> >[It is easier to write an article on a purely
> >technical matter ''in general'' (e.g. nose, motor,
> >etc). If the issue is controversial, that cause some
> >problems because sometimes (if not all the times)
> >admins are also part of the disputes. Their experience
> >and privileges then does not constitute a base for
> >neutralization of the article but -let me put it this
> >way- rather make them a target for
> >accusations. 'Wikilawyering' is not a term to explain
> >only ordinary user behavior. It is important to
> >realize that there is no stronger factor to polish the
> >reputation of Wikipedia than a neutral account
> >of the controversial issues.]
> >
> >
> This seems to be grandstanding to me. What're you getting at?
>
> >[I referred to an updated version of a proposal I
> >started. I could not have a chance to put it to a vote
> >properly.]
> >
> >2. '''Subject oriented study groups and committees'''
> >
> >Based on the area of specialization and interest,
> >experienced users (more than 6 months of editing
> >experience) may join the study groups. Study groups
> >work on the controversial articles categorized
> >as being related to their area of specialization and
> >can make recommendations on particular points. If
> >necessary, the study groups may also supervise
> >controversial articles until the dispute is resolved.
> >
> >
> This idea may have some merit, and is worth exploring. It depends on how
> the community reacts, however. Such committees should not be placed on a
> pedestal, nor should they be given excessive privileges. Standing
> mini-arbcoms for dealing with content disputes is something worth
> considering, nevertheless.
>
> >[Another way of eliminating disputes, I think, is to
> >form some study groups based on the area of
> >specialization of the users, say 'history of science',
> >etc., for example. When the disputes arise,
> >the users may ask the opinion of the related study
> >groups. The group may vote if necessary on the dispute
> >and comes up with a decision. It does not have to be a
> >final decision though, as usual. Many
> >violations such as 3RR, edit-wars, etc. can be
> >diminished that way which may result in a more
> >friendly atmosphere between users and admins who feel
> >obligated to force the rules consciously.]
> >
> >3. '''Mentor-mentee program'''
> >
> >Each user is strongly encouraged to chose only one
> >admin mentor when s/he create an account in Wikipedia.
> >The users blocked by more than 3 admins are required
> >to have a mentor. Users can change their
> >mentor anytime they like before involved in a dispute
> >by the approval of the new admin chosen to be a
> >mentor. Anonym users are out of this program and these
> >accounts will be managed as before.
> >
> >
> What is the purpose of this? Isn't this just coddling confirmed problem
> editors? This smells like pointless [[m:instruction creep]].
>
> >[This will indicate the popularity of the admins and
> >will provide a dynamic measure of their success. This
> >dynamic approach might be better than reelecting them
> >periodically. There is almost no accountability of
> >admins in a practical way. They should be accountable
> >to the community. A periodic reaffirmation can be
> >added to this too, if someone thinks is of paramount
> >importance.]
> >
> >
> We've gone down this road before. RECONFIRMATION OF ADMINS IS NOT A GOOD
> IDEA. (Refer to the talk page archives of RfA.) Also, [[WP:NOT]] a
> democracy. Popularity should never be a factor in deciding whether an
> admin should remain an admin or not. The only thing that matters in any
> encyclopaedia publishing house is whether an editor or supervisor's net
> contribution is positive or negative.
>
> >4. '''Limited block policy'''
> >
> >A user can be blocked by only the mentor. In the case
> >the mentor is not available, an explanation should be
> >posted to the mentors talk page. The mentor can
> >unblock the user anytime s/he thinks is appropriate.
> >Anonym IP's will be managed as before.
> >
> >Indefinite block can only be decided by ArbCom, not by
> >an admin.
> >
> >
> Any reason for this? As far as I can tell, rogue decisions are undone
> pretty quickly (refer to Carnildo's actions in the Joeyramoney scandal)
> and legitimate decisions stand. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
>
> >[Admins know the rules better. If there is a concern
> >about a user's edits, they can discuss and get an
> >agreement on a block based on the rules. It should not
> >be hard to convince an admin about the applicability
> >of a specific policy. This approach put the discussion
> >of the validity of a block onto the admins involved
> >rather than to an admin-user dialogue which, not
> >surprisingly, results in a block. This part also gives
> >the flexibility to the admins who think a block is
> >unnecessary but do not want to step on another admin's
> >toe.]
> >
> >[And maybe for once, all users who are blocked so far
> >should be able to ask for an unblock, unconditionally,
> >after this policy gets approval, if it does. That may
> >bring some reconciliations and peace
> >to the project.]
> >
> >
> WHY?
>
> This seems to be a very poorly thought out proposal to me, with no
> unifying theme. It appears to be something created solely for the
> purpose of mollycoddling trolls who have issues of their own. Wikipedia
> is not a counseling centre, and it is not a place for the reformation of
> editors who cannot work with other editors either. If you have personal
> problems in working with other Wikipedians, and as a result are
> contributing a net negative, you have no place here. End of story. We're
> an encyclopaedia publishing house, not a democracy.
>
> John
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Instant Commons : INCORRECT

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
>
>>InstantCommons (see [[m:InstantCommons]]) is a perfect example of
>>that. We met with Kennisnet in February, and they basically said "Wow,
>>good idea, let's do it! But, we would like the WMF to authorize it."
>>Since then, the project has been in organizational limbo, moving
>>slowly as molasses through several layers of bureaucracy, from SP to
>>Legal to SP to Board and back again, with complex contracts being
>>drawn up when all that needed to be done was giving them a call and
>>letting Gerard manage the project. This is about building a
>>relationship with a developer in Ghana, who could have started work on
>>this project as early as March. Now it's June and we still can't go
>>ahead. We're talking about a EUR 5000-10000 project. How on Earth do
>>you intend to manage large grants with that kind of attitude towards
>>project realization?
>
>
>
> Ah NO. No and No.
>
> The WMF has authorized it. See
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Resolutions#2006-23A
>
> The authorization is from at least a month ago. And you know that Erik.
>
> The problem now is to get the grant from Kennisnet. They have not yet
> agreed to provide this sum for the development of the project. You
> should not blame WMF for not convincing Kennisnet to support your
> project. This is very largely incorrect.
>
>
> Anthere

Important correction : the SPC gave its go. Since the SPC does not have
a delegation by the board to make the final decision on that project,
the InstantCommons still needs final approval by the board to start.

Apologies.

Now, that still change nothing to the fact the issue is stuck NOT
because of layers of bureaucracy in WMF.

Simply stuck because Kennisnet may not be interested in giving 5000
euros to realize that project (3000 for Paa Kwesi, 1500 for project
management - Gerard and 500 for the developer who assists Paa Kwesi with
developing this software on the Foundation side).

Again, you should not blame WMF for the fact Kennisnet may not be so
willing to support that project as you were thinking they would.

Anthere


from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
Here you are :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Language

B?rto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sabine Cretella" <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

Berto, can you please give me the link to the template on en.wikipedia?

Thanks, Sabine

Berto schrieb:
> One more problem... when I copy the infobox to make the localisation I get
> this...
>
> http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_lenga
>
> Why? I'd like to keep the english template format, because it looks very
> efficient, but here must be something I did not import...
>
> B?rto
>

Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
 http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 6/5/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> is about the creation of a freely-accessible encyclopedia to every person
>> on the planet*.
> [snip]
>
> And when did the purpose of the project relax from being the creation
> of perpetually [[Free content]] to merely the creation of content
> which is accessible without a charge?

Greg, please, calm down.  I am quite certain that Alison means
"freely-accessible" as in "free as in speech, not free as in beer".

I say "freely accessible" a lot myself.

--Jimbo


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>valdelli at bluemail.ch wrote:
>
>
>>The community could accept only representative members voted with normal
>>procedure.
>>
>>
>
>Of course.
>
>But community vote is not the only way to get board members.  We have
>some very good board candidates who are not famous in the community and
>who could bring to the table professional expertise that we greatly
>need, but who would not put themselves through the troll wars of an
>election.
>
>
This sounds reasonable, although I think they're not entirely different
things, if we're speaking in an informal sense (which is really what
will dominate community-board relations more than the formal setup
will).  It's possible, for example, that there are people who would
actually prevail in an election, but are deterred from running because
of the election process.  If they were appointed, those people could be
said in some tea-leaf-reading sense to actually represent the
community.  Then there are gradations---people who wouldn't actually win
an election, but who are generally respected and don't engender much
objection; then unknown people; and finally people who are actively
disliked by a large segment of the community.

We could try some variation on some of the consensus-style methods we
tend to use on the encyclopedia.  For example, solicit nominations,
possibly in private, and then privately contact the people nominated to
ask if they'd accept a position if chosen.  Then make a (public) list of
potential candidates, and solicit feedback on them, possibly
privately-expressed feedback so people don't have to publicly attack
anyone.  Then appoint the people who have reasonably good consensus
support.  Assuming the feedback is indeed expressed in private, and the
list is more than a handful of people, those not selected shouldn't
really be negatively impacted (not being selected for 2 slots out of a
list of, say, 15 isn't particularly bad).

This is a little trickier than the way we do it on articles, because to
avoid public flamewars and driving people off, much of it would have to
be done in private communications, and therefore the decision of what
constitutes consensus would have to be made by whoever reads those
emails.  It could be the current board, or someone they designate.
Technically/formally, that would essentially be the board appointing new
members itself, but if you five agree to follow some rough community
consensus in making those appointments, I'm pretty sure you're not going
to actually lie to us and claim someone had consensus support when they
didn't, even if we have no way of verifying that.

Anyway that's a pretty off-the-top-of-my-head outline of how to design a
system that merges community consensus and sensitivity towards potential
members who aren't politicians, so I'm sure there are better ways of
doing it.  I do think some sort of balancing of those goals is
necessary, though.

-Mark


body:
On 6/5/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> With the talk on this list recently of jobs that need doing, I'm
> interested to know whether there are many people who would be
> interested in being a member of the Board if there were more seats
> available. If that is something you'd consider, please let me know.
>
> Note that I'm not saying this is a possibility right now, but it would
> make planning easier if we had something more than guesswork of who
> might be a candidate to go on.

I find it far more interesting how many more volunteers for the Board
we got than we did for general volunteer help.....

I certainly am not volunteering for the Board.  If asked, I would not
reject the request out of hand, but I have a busy life already and I
am not convinced that I can commit the time required for the position
without compromising my other obligations.

Kelly


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
> Yes, I put it in the monobook.css, because I cannot find access to
> common.css
>
> Template:Infobox now works well, it's only infobox language that still
> misbehaves.
>
>
Simply copy and paste the whole page to pms ... I cannot do that not
being an admin.

I did it on nap.wikipedia and it worked out well (I did not copy all
missing templates by now)

Just have a look at the recent changes on Nap.wikipedia

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category analysis with perl

body:
On 6/5/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:

> Guess I have to add in some sort of loop detection.  Of course, "Port
> cities" shouldn't be in "Ports and harbours", "Edinburgh" shouldn't be
> in "Port cities", and "Arthur Conan Doyle" shouldn't be in "University
> of Edinburgh alumni" :).

Meanwhile, "Arthur Conan Doyle" shouldn't be a category, and if it is,
it's a thematic one and should not be a subcategory of Alumni of any
university.

I can understand the confusion Doyle/Sherlock holmes though. Logic
dictates that it's Doyle (or "Works of Arthur Conan Doyle") that's the
supercategory though.

Steve


from_name: jf_wikipedia at mac.com

body:
On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Steve Summit wrote:

> Unfortunately, no matter how polite we are about it, it's going
> to keep getting harder to get rid of the maniacs, now that
> Wikipedia has gotten Big and Significant.  Once upon a time, if
> you were a maniac who had been raking muck on Wikipedia but got
> blocked or banned, you probably didn't care so much; there were
> plenty of other equally interesting sites on the 'net where you
> could stalk off to torment instead.  Today, however, although the
> "plenty of other interesting sites on the 'net" are all still
> there, they're no longer as equally interesting; Wikipedia is
> now much, much more interesting.  If you're a POV-pusher with a
> vengeance, you're not content to just go and push your POV
> somewhere else; it's vital that you find ways to keep pushing it
> *on Wikipedia*, since your potential audience is so much bigger.

... and that is why those to whom we need to override "our desperate
urge to choke the living shit out of [them]", not only want to raise
a racket outside WP and engage in personal attacks against our
editors, they also want at the same time to continue attempting to
push their POV, expecting we treat them with respect and accept their
edits in good faith!

-- Jossi


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Would it be fair to say that the rights to cutesie sigs are probably
> about as strong as the rights to refactor cutesie sigs?

I think that's about right.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 6/5/06, Alison Wheeler <wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:
[snip]
> is about the creation of a freely-accessible encyclopedia to every person
> on the planet*.
[snip]

And when did the purpose of the project relax from being the creation
of perpetually [[Free content]] to merely the creation of content
which is accessible without a charge?

I'm picking a nit here, no doubt, but it's an important one... and I
don't want to see this thread cited in a later argument when Wikimedia
UK isn't around to clarify.


body:
On 6/5/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> I deleted it because copy and paste moves of pages are unacceptable
> normally, and especially unacceptable when the original page is
> deleted, because of the GFDL requirement that the history of all pages
> be kept. If you want the content, you need to post to DRV about the
> original page, since there is no possibility that the copy will be
> restored.

Um, slow down a little bit.

User A posts some content
Admin B deletes the content, erasing its history
User C reposts the content as a service to user A
Admin D (or B?) redeletes the content, citing the lack of history preservation!

Did user A complain about the lack of history?

I haven't seen the deletion reviews or whatever, but what is so bad
about this content that it has been (speedy? unilaterally?) deleted
like this? Sure, it's probably a bad proposal, but we've seen millions
of those. What's going on here?

Steve


body:
On 6/5/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> The "cutesie sigs" problems seems to be like the userbox problem all
> over again... once again you have a bunch of users who seem to be
> treating Wikipedia like another Myspace or LiveJournal, and another
> bunch of editors/admins who are so offended by this that they insist
> on taking draconian action against the first group... and then both
> groups escalate matters and get much more heated-up about it than the
> whole silly issue deserves.

You forgot the bit where a third, unrelated group jumps on the
bandwagon complaining about "freedom of speech" violations...

Would it be fair to say that the rights to cutesie sigs are probably
about as strong as the rights to refactor cutesie sigs?

Steve (simple, customised sig - my username, but linked to my talk page)


from_name: John Lee

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sun, 4 Jun 2006 16:12:18 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>
>>My objection in short: "Fuck process" is, here and now, more of a problem
>>for Wikipedia than any of the individual wrongs Tony has righted using that
>>justification, of late.  Playing well with others is more important now.
>>
>>
>
>Up to a point, I'd say.  As far as I can tell Tony's beef with
>"process wonks" is that the slavish following of rules has come to
>replace building a great encyclopaedia as the primary goal.  He has no
>patience with people who look first at the rules and only second at
>whether a given thing is good for the encyclopaedia or not.  The
>decision hierarchy at present for many people seems to be community,
>guideline, policy, encyclopaedia - it should be the other way round.
>
>Guy (JzG)
>
>
Bravo, Guy. That's exactly what's wrong with Wikipedia these days.
People often seem to take issue with [[WP:IAR]] and [[WP:SNOW]] without
reading them in the first place; WP:SNOW in particular has some good
words for process. The point is to use your head when doing something,
and if you get headbutted back, get consensus before trying that again.
(Of course, if you already have consensus, you can just steamroll the
association of well-meaning but clueless newbies and trolls that stand
in your way.)

John


body:
On 6/5/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Greg, please, calm down.  I am quite certain that Alison means
> "freely-accessible" as in "free as in speech, not free as in beer".
>
> I say "freely accessible" a lot myself.

What the heck Jimbo?

I was asking for the benefit of the archives, and I said as much in
the text you so helpfully snipped from my post in your reply.
Although I was actually surprised at Alison's private response and
we're currently sorting out the confusion out-of-band....


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Monobook

body:
Hi!

>the "class" infobox bordered should be somewhere in the css if I
>understand well.
Yes, I put it in the monobook.css, because I cannot find access to
common.css

Template:Infobox now works well, it's only infobox language that still
misbehaves.

B?rto


body:
The highly disruptive (on both Wiki-En and Wiki-Tr) and now permanently
blocked editor [[User:Rgulerdem]] (Resid Gulerdem) started a policy called
[[Wikipedia:Wikiethics]] that was soundly rejected by the community. A month
or two later due to his highly repetitive disruptiveness Resid Gulerdem
became permanently blocked (with much of his disruptions stemming from his
demonstration of ownership relative to Wikiethics). Resid Gulerdem's
permanent block was lifted under the mentoship of [[User:Johntex]] who
recommended that Gulerdem proceed with developing the formerly rejected
policy proposal he founded in his own user space where he could exercise the
kind of ownership control upon it that he needed. Resid Gulerdem became
permanently blocked again after Check User evidence proved he'd returned to
his disruptive ways while editing on [[Fethullah G?len]] due to his not
following his mentor's advice to refrain from such behavior.  After Resid
Gulerdem's permanent block he returned to editing his user page policy using
anoymous IP addresses (in the 216.xxx.xx.xx range - From University of
Indiana) (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_CheckUser/Rgulerdem ).
Admin [[User:Cyde]] became aware of a banned editor editing in his user
space and deleted this user space copy of the Wikiethics policy to
discourage the return of the banned editor. Just prior to the deletion of
Resid Gulerdem's user page version of Wikiethics [[User:Raphael1]] (Raphael
Wegmann) saved a copy sensing that Resid Gulerdem's copy was about to be
rightly deleted. Raphael Wegmann mentioned having saved a copy of Resid's
user page in his own user space here on the Wiki-En-I mail list though which
admin [[User:Thebainer]] became aware of this additional copy and deleted it
"because of the GFDL requirement that the history of all pages be kept". Now
Raphael Wegmann wants Resid Gulerdem's original user space copy of
Wikiethics to be undeleted so that he can get his own user space copy
undeleted. Essentially this whole thing has been a rather large waste of
time as an extension of Resid Gulerdem's disruptive ways and Raphael Wegmann
appears to fail to realize this.

Hope that helps you understand the situation.

Sincerely,

-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]

On 6/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I deleted it because copy and paste moves of pages are unacceptable
> > normally, and especially unacceptable when the original page is
> > deleted, because of the GFDL requirement that the history of all pages
> > be kept. If you want the content, you need to post to DRV about the
> > original page, since there is no possibility that the copy will be
> > restored.
>
> Um, slow down a little bit.
>
> User A posts some content
> Admin B deletes the content, erasing its history
> User C reposts the content as a service to user A
> Admin D (or B?) redeletes the content, citing the lack of history
> preservation!
>
> Did user A complain about the lack of history?
>
> I haven't seen the deletion reviews or whatever, but what is so bad
> about this content that it has been (speedy? unilaterally?) deleted
> like this? Sure, it's probably a bad proposal, but we've seen millions
> of those. What's going on here?
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/5/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> > People should be allowed and encourage to develop their personal
> > identity on Wikipedia
>
> Why?  Wikipedia isn't a web host, a blog or a social networking site.
> Those who are looking for such sites will find that there are plenty
> of those around.  There is only one Wikipedia.

Playing the devil's advocate a bit...

Why do User pages and space even exist, then?

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] carrying out elementary operations on wiki
	variables

body:
On 05/06/06, Claudi Meneghin <clamengh at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>  maybe I have already sent this mail; however I didn't received it from this mailing list, so I am trying again. I apologize for any trobles.
>  Claudi
> Text follows:
>    Hello,
>  I would like to ask you if there is a way to carry out elementary numerical operations with wiki variables, e.g. (that's I'd need)
>
>  CURRENTDAY mod 2 = 0 if CURRENTDAY is even, 1 if CURRENTDAY is odd

Same response as before. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions.

Rob Church


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Though I'm having trouble finding the exact diff again, the BBC study
you cite on the talk page of the article is only for 10 countries. One
of those omitted is the most populous country in the world, which
happens to generally be pretty low on the whole monotheistic thing.

I don't want to imply you're being unfaithful in your use of
statistics, but the inadequacy of these citations as justifying your
statements was pointed out by others on the page as well. According to
one of the pages there
(http://adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) monotheists make up
only a relatively slim majority. I think your "believed by the
majority" gives somewhat of a different impression as to the actual
split.

In any case, Sam, in the end the content of the article is not up to
YOU, personally, but a process of work and compromise. I'll add my
voice to the large number of people who prefer a more neutral
definition, the one which currently exists, and doesn't play any games
about the numbers.

It's stuff like this which makes people pretty suspicious of your
ability to recognize your own biases, Sam.

FF

On 6/5/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> It was three cites, 2 of american, the third a BBC international
> survey. Not that the facts make any difference, when you already have
> your mind made up. I expected encyclopedia readers to be better than
> this...
>
> SS
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/6/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Playing the devil's advocate a bit...
> >
> > Why do User pages and space even exist, then?
>
> Is that a serious question?

Yes, of course.

They exist so that editors can write
> about personal matters related to their work on the encyclopedia.

Here we come to what's obviously an unresolved dynamic tension in WP:USER.
--
"Anything that is compatible with the Wikipedia project. It's a mistake to
think of it as a homepage: Wikipedia is not a free host, blog, or webspace
provider <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT>. Instead, think of it as a
way of organizing the work that you are doing on the articles in Wikipedia,
and also a way of helping other editors to understand with whom they're
working."

"Some people add a little information about themselves as well, possibly
including contact information (email, instant messaging, etc), a photograph,
their real name, their location, information about your areas of expertise
and interest, likes and dislikes, homepages, and so forth. If you are
concerned with privacy, you may not want to emulate this."

[...]

"You might want to add quotes that you like, or a picture, or some of your
favorite Wikipedia articles or images (free licensed only, see the #What can
I not have on my user
page?<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:USER#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F>section
below), or something like that. Also, someone may choose to award
you a barnstar <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Barnstar.png>. In the
event that your editing privileges on Wikipedia are revoked, a notice of
this may be placed on your user page."
--

To summarize, "This is for Wikipedia work, not personal stuff... but some
personal stuff is OK."  Exactly the sort of ambiguity which lets everyone
get in maximum amounts of trouble by misinterpreting it in their favor.

You (Tony) emphasize the WP work aspect.  Other people take the other
information aspects at its word... and some go overboard.

--
-george william herbert
gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category analysis with perl

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Do you have any examples? What would they look like? Perhaps:
>
> {{thematic category|name of subject}}

I don't think we should make things unnecessarily complicated by making
the templates take parameters, just use {{PAGENAME}}. If the category's
name isn't suitable for use in the template describing it then I suspect
it's an indication that the category's name might need changing. :)

How about "Members of this category should be specific examples of
{{PAGENAME}}" and "Members of this category or its subcategories should
be about the topic of {{PAGENAME}}"? I'm deliberately leaving the "or
its subcategories" off of the is-a template, so that we can continue
having things like [[Category:Seattle]] be a subcategory of
[[Category:Cities in Washington]] (or whatever the real category names
are) like we do now.

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from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A good idea. Unless one has an absurdly long name, it should be
> > possible to add one's name, a link to the talk page and contribs, and
> > a little extra something- but no more! - within ~ 50 characters.
> > Someone want to file a bug request for this?
>
> [[User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me|32Can't sleep, clown will eat me]]
>
> I think that's 70 characters including spaces, punctuation and
> brackets.  Just for reference purposes.
> --LV

Just goes to show that the first random number thrown out is invariably wrong...

But nevertheless, surely we can agree that *some* limit is needed?

~maru


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just goes to show that the first random number thrown out is invariably wrong...
>
> But nevertheless, surely we can agree that *some* limit is needed?

I think we can all agree that in cases where a signature really does
significantly hinder editing, it should be reduced to the point where
it doesn't.

I'm not sure we will ever agree on a quantitative way of deciding
that. The annoyance is a qualtitative effect, so the inability to put
a good number on it won't be helpful.

If you set a hard number, people will just come up with creative ways
to be annoying within that number of characters. If we do have any
guidelines, better for them to be qualtitative, IMO. It will cause
occasional back-and-forth but if people start complaining about
individual signatures then it's probably a good indication that it is
enough of a nuisance to require some changing.

FF


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Resid Gulerdem wrote:
>>    The admins are only part of the community now and
>> will stay like that in the future, as far as I can
>> see. Are some modifications needed in your opinion? I
>> believe the answer is yes. I do not know if you could
>> see the proposal [[WP:OURS]] I posted on this list
>> recently. I think it can be useful and can be
>> developed further. I tried to outline some important
>> points which may reduce the conflicts between the
>> admins and the users. If you saw it, do you think it
>> is feasible?
>
> I see no reference to WP:OURS in google, so I am unable to comment.  Can
> you send it to me?
>

I've just created the proposed policy on [[Wikipedia:OURS]].

--
Raphael


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] carrying out elementary operations on wiki variables

body:
Hello,
  maybe I have already sent this mail; however I didn't received it from this mailing list, so I am trying again. I apologize for any trobles.
  Claudi
Text follows:
    Hello,
  I would like to ask you if there is a way to carry out elementary numerical operations with wiki variables, e.g. (that's I'd need)

  CURRENTDAY mod 2 = 0 if CURRENTDAY is even, 1 if CURRENTDAY is odd

  Many thanks.
  Yours sincerely,

  Claudi

---------------------------------
  Yahoo! Mail r?invente le mail ! D?couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface r?volutionnaire.

---------------------------------
 Yahoo! Mail r?invente le mail ! D?couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface r?volutionnaire.


subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
On 6/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
>  But (a) we "encouraged" it the day we implemented
> the "Raw signature" checkbox next to the Nickname field on the
> Preferences page, and (b) because it's an intensely personal
> issue, when it comes time to discourage abuses, the way you do it
> matters.

I think you have a good point about (a).  On (b), I commend discreetly
editing the more obstrusive clutter in place as a helpful and
pragmatic way of dealing with the problem.  It's less intrusive than
trying to get someone to change their signature, and has immediately
beneficial results.


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I would be fascinated if we could figure out such statistics as
>
> "For any given edit, what is the average length of service of the
> editor?"  "For any given edit, what is the median length of service of
> the editor?"  These could be measured by either time since first edit,
> or total number of edits or (perhaps best) some weighted average of the
> edit history.
>

Turns out we can.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Days_since_first_edit.png

Average was easiest, so I did that as a first try. It shows an initial
upward trend, stabilising in early 2005 at about 300 days.

How's that?

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [WikiEN-l] "refactoring" signatures

body:
Steve Summit wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> On 6/5/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>>> When you see someone with a big, fancy, "cutesie" signature,
>>> it is obvious that (a) they spent a lot of time on it, and
>>> (b) it is very personal to them, it is part of their identity.
>> Yes, of course.  This isn't something to be encouraged.
>
> Indeed not.  But (a) we "encouraged" it the day we implemented
> the "Raw signature" checkbox next to the Nickname field on the
> Preferences page,

This crap was well-entrenched before that. The 'raw signature' mode was added to
minimize the damage caused by invalid code being used in hacked-up signatures
breaking thousands of pages when bugs in the wiki got fixed.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 6/5/06, Sam Spade <samspade.thomasjefferson at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Well thank you Steve. If there had been a method of determining which
> version was prefered, it certainly would have saved us all alot of
> time and trouble. Unfortunately, each of our opinions are just as
> arbitrary as yours.

Wikipedia would not work if we stopped at "each of our opinions
are...arbitrary". Maybe our opinions have arbitrary starting points,
but we work towards compromise and agreement by discussion. If you
don't like my "opinion" (I would have called it criticism), I would
welcome your explanation of why, the strong points of your version
etc. Lining people up in camps and dismissing their opinion as
"arbitrary" or biased (and I'm not accusing you of this) is
antithetical to Wikipedia's functioning.

> To the peanut gallary, no, my opinions are not always facts, but the
> information I was inserting into the respective articles is. Check the
> cites.

A "cite" does not make a fact, and it does not make something worthy
of conclusion.

Steve


from_name: Grace Pastorelly Ruiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] MLMW - question about extension page

body:
Hi,

i'm writing a Specialpage named Languages (Special:Languages) to display
some information from language table (multilingual)
but i got a problem, the data is shown twice and also in any special page
this information is shown.

in LocalSettings.php file i have added a line (at the end of the file) like
this: require_once('extensions/SpecialLanguages.php');

and the code in extensions/SpecialLanguages.php file is:
if (!defined('MEDIAWIKI')) die();
        $wgExtensionFunctions[] = "wfSpecialLanguages";

        function wfSpecialLanguages() {
                $mlmw = new MLMWLanguages();
                $mlmw->execute();
        }

        class MLMWLanguages {

                function MLMWLanguages() {
                        SpecialPage::addPage(new SpecialPage('Languages'));
                }

                function execute() {
                        global $wgMessageCache, $wgOut;
                        $wgMessageCache->addMessages( array( 'languages' =>
'Languages Supported by this Wiki'));
                        $dbr =& wfGetDB( DB_SLAVE );
                        $res = $dbr->select(array('language'),
                                array('language_id', 'english_name',
'native_name', 'iso639_2', 'iso639_3', 'wikimedia_key', 'dialect_of_lid'),
                                array('is_enabled' => '1'),
'Languages:wfSpecialLanguages', array('ORDER BY' => 'english_name'));
                        if ( false !== $res ) {
                                if ( $dbr->numRows( $res ) ) {
                                        $wgOut->addHTML("
");
                                        $wgOut->addHTML("
English
name	Native name	ISO 639_2	ISO
639_3	Wikimedia key	Dialect of lidfetchObject(
$res ) ) {
                                                $wgOut->addHTML("
" .
ucfirst(strtolower($row->english_name)) . "	"
.ucfirst(strtolower($row->native_name)) . "	{$row->iso639_2}	{$row->iso639_3}	{$row->wikimedia_key}	{$row->dialect_of_lid}
");
                                        }
                                        $wgOut->addHTML("
");
                                }
                        }
                }

        }

do you have any idea why i get 2 the html code? here is the link of my
development server where you can see what i am talking about
http://mlmw.pastorelly.net/index.php/Special:Languages

thanks in advance
--
regards,
grace


from_name: Scott Stevenson

body:
Do you think it is clever to refer to me as [[User:TT]]? What is the point?
Is it that you are trying to do your best to not violate [[WP:CIV]] when you
refer to me as a "troublemaker"? This is just further evidence of who you
are.
-Scott Stevenson

Resid, please cease from continuing to be a disruptive influence on
Wikipedia and save others the time from having to "deal" with such an
influence.
-Scott Stevenson [[User:Netscott]]

On 6/5/06, Resid Gulerdem <resid_gulerdem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >From: Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at>
> >Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales -
> Admin-driven death of Wikipedia
> >Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 17:49:21 +0200
> >
> >Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > > Resid Gulerdem wrote:
> > >>    The admins are only part of the community now
> and
> > >> will stay like that in the future, as far as I
> can
> > >> see. Are some modifications needed in your
> opinion? I
> > >> believe the answer is yes. I do not know if you
> could
> > >> see the proposal [[WP:OURS]] I posted on this
> list
> > >> recently. I think it can be useful and can be
> > >> developed further. I tried to outline some
> important
> > >> points which may reduce the conflicts between the
> > >> admins and the users. If you saw it, do you think
> it
> > >> is feasible?
> > >
> > > I see no reference to WP:OURS in google, so I am
> unable to comment.  Can
> > > you send it to me?
> > >
> >
> >I've just created the proposed policy on
> [[Wikipedia:OURS]].
> >
> >--
> >Raphael
> >
>
>    Raphael, I do appreciate for it. You are sure
> brave. The troublemaker ([[User:TT]]) is in action
> though, did you realize that?
>    Best, Resid
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Category analysis with perl

body:
On 6/5/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Way back in the mists of history when categories were first implemented
> I created a couple of templates intended to be put onto the category
> pages to identify whether the category contained articles that were
> examples of the category's subject or articles that were just _about_
> the category's subject. There seemed to be no interest in using them and
> I didn't think it important enough to raise a fuss about, so I figured
> I'd just sit back and watch how categorization actually got used rather
> than trying to impose my vision on it.
>
> Perhaps it'd be useful to recreate similar templates now, though, if
> enough people think it's a problem? That way there'd be no major
> disruption to the category tree, but people who wanted to do fancy
> culling of subsets of articles could add just a little parsing
> intelligence to whatever program they're using to determine what types
> of categories they're dealing with.

This does sound like a good start, but will need some intelligence in
its application. One of the problems is that good categorisation is
somewhat challenging, and the "average person" won't necessarily make
good use of these templates. In fact the same could probably be said
for all semantic markup, of which this is an example.

Do you have any examples? What would they look like? Perhaps:

{{thematic category|name of subject}}
--> This category should be applied to all articles which have a
strong link with <name of subject>
and

{{taxonomic category|type of thing|thematic category}}
--> This category should be applied to articles which are an example
of a <type of thing>, and which do not belong to a subcategory.
Articles which are just related to this topic should go in
[[:Category:<Thematic category>]] instead.

Anyone want to mock one up?

Steve