subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

references:
<dlsuat$ieb$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<41a006820511211006g2ad30338h21a256b234d853b@mail.gmail.com>
	<dlt3oo$6ia$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Hoi,
When it comes to voting, I hate voting because so often the people who vote
are not the ones that suffer the consequences. What we have seen in the
votes are all kinds of motivations that I have tried to debunk. When you
understand what is behind a vote (in any direction) you often find that the
reasoning given does not really make sense.

What I do not like is that voting is the only obstacle for a Wikipedia. When
a Wikipedia has been squatted by people who do not know the language and
make a 'best effort' of writing in a language, we are not willing to say
this should not be. I think this is appalling. I think more highly of an
intellectual effort like the Klingon one than of this mongrel languages.

When the voting is as political as it apparantly is with these Spanish
languages you can expect all the bad things when voting happens including
ballot stuffing. So when you find people who are passionate about their
language let them have their wikipedia. When it is not viable recognise it
for a non viable project and kill it off.

When you want to decide these things with a vote, you will deny the people
who believe in their language and want to make it happen. You do not give
anything to the people who do not know this language. In a way it is
discrimination pure and simple. When you have some quality and quantity
demands for the continued existence of a project, you make it more honest.
When a project fails to meet these criteria, it means that the people who
asked for it are not the persons to do a good job. Lock it maybe save and
delete it and wait for better times.

My opinion is therefore clear; do not have votes but have quality and
quantity demands.

NB Given the amount of wikipedias where the language exists because of its
army, denying new wikipedias for this reason is problematic. Either a
wikipedia exists because of some language criteria and quantitative and
qualititative demands or it should not.

Thanks,
GerardM

On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> GerardM wrote:
> > On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi
> >>
> >>I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new
> >>languages creation, the editor
> >>* has an account on meta
> >>* has an account on any already existing project
> >>
> >>I do not know what the current policy is.
> >>I am hesitant to be in favor of one or another.
> >>I would rather say the voter should be at least a participant to another
> >>language, because this would imply he at least know the concept.
> >>However, I am not sure this should be mandatory... except that....
> >>
> >>Someone raised a complaint about the current vote here :
> >>
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Murcian_.28Murciano.29_.2825_support.3B_12_oppose.29
> >>
> >>On this new languages, we have
> >>* anon ips voting
> >>* accounts on meta with no edits voting
> >>* accounts on meta with just a user page on meta voting
> >>* accounts on other projects voting.
> >>
> >>Fact is, I made a bunch of quick semi-random checks (in short, on red
> >>meta accounts in particular), and admittedly, many of them are probably
> >>sharing the same living-room...
> >>
> >>I fear the editor who complained is probably right in mentionning sock
> >>puppetry... though we can not entirely prove it of course.
> >>Which raise the question of how fair is a vote on a controversial
> >>language, when half voters are not current participants and may not even
> >>be different poeple ?
> >>
> >>
> >>What should we do ?
> >>
> >>Ant
> >
> >
> >
> > Hoi,
> > When you read many of the nay-sayers, you can read in many of their
> remarks
> > that this many of these language problems are really political. Not only
> is
> > it denied that many of these languages are languages, it is also
> suggested
> > that people who ask for some recognition are extremists that should make
> do
> > with the one and only language that suffices for all.
> >
> > When you know about these languages, I often wonder what a good reason
> is
> > for supporting a language. One of the languages that is voted down
> because
> > it 'does not exist' is Stellingwerfs. Stellingwerfs has a very active
> > language community; a dictionary has been published the bible is being
> > translated into Stellingwerfs and now there are these people who think
> it
> > does not need its own wikipedia. Now Stellingwerfs is not as politicial
> as
> > the Spanish languages. Then again take an other infamous example; the
> nds-nl
> > is denied because people consider that it should be part of the nds-de.
> What
> > people do not mention is that the nds-de has a vocal community that
> insists
> > on an orthography that is German oriented. This is a great example of a
> > language where there is NO standard orthography. The same can be said
> for
> > Limburgs, there is something of a 'standard' orthography but it does not
> > match the language that is actually spoken. The Limburg wikipedia is
> alive
> > and well. It gets mentioned in the press I am really happy with it.
> However
> > if a good example needs to be found of a WIkipedia that also does not
> have a
> > 'standardised' spelling have a look at Neapolitan or Sicilian. The
> Napolitan
> > WIkipedia for instance has already more than 3000 articles.. the amount
> of
> > local involvement is great. It is there because local people are
> > entheausiastic about this project.
> >
> > From my perspective I do not mind to have many wikipedias. I do want
> > wikipedias by local people who are interested in doing this. I would
> welcome
> > many projects. We will see what works and what does not. If people who
> start
> > a project steal a page out of the Neapolitan book we will do exceedingly
> > well. The argument that we do not need to revive languages is
> problematic in
> > my opinion. The problem is that WE do not revive these languages, it is
> the
> > people wo are the community of this wikipedia who do that. When they do
> well
> > they will become us as well. My point is, do we want to be inclusionist
> or
> > do we want to exclusionists. There is always a reason why we should not
> do
> > something. The point is that it is not you who is doing it, it is you
> who is
> > denying someone else.
>
>
> Thanks for your long and detailed answer Gerard.... but it is not the
> point I really raise. I absolutely do not want right now to enter into
> issues of whether a language should or should not exist, but only in the
> issue of "if we make a vote, this vote must be fair. If not, then let us
> not do any vote at all". And "if we choose the vote option, how to make
> a vote fair" ?
>
>
> > As to anonymous people voting, might it be possible that they are
> actually
> > be people speaking that language that say they want to get involved?
> (assume
> > good faith) And given all these people who are NOT going to involve
> > themselve in a language why would they vote against, what is it to them?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
>
> I assume good faith up to a certain point. After some point, this is not
> good faith, this is innocence :-)
>
> My problem is that if we start a project because there are 10
> supporters, we sort of hope that a certain momentum will exist from the
> very beginning. When it actually turns out that only 1 person is behind
> 10 supports... errrrr.... there is no momentum.
>
> And if a language is started with 10 supports and 5 oppose. And the 10
> supports are only one person... is there sense in making a vote at all ?
>
> Ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: GerardM

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> But just what did Jimmy mean by this statement:
>
> "We are not talking about dissidents and being critical of the
> Chinese government," he said, stressing that Wikipedia was about
> having the tools to promote your culture.
>
> Is Wikipedia (the Chinese version) censoring out any dissident or
> government-critical views in the hopes of getting unblocked by the
> Chinese (mainland) government?

NPOV is, as always, non-negotiable.  It's just that, as I say in the
quote, I wasn't talking at that moment about dissidents and being
critical of the Chinese government at that moment.

--Jimbo


body:
charles matthews wrote:
> Whatever Jimbo did mean, I'm sure he didn't mean that NPOV was on hold.

:-)  It is always safe to assume that I say the same things all the time
and that there will never be any compromises on freedom of speech and
neutrality.  We will never co-operate with censorship.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Google Alert - Wikipedia

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> My impression of what he was meaning (and I suspect that quote is much
> cut-down from his original wording) was that in blocking the Chinese
> Wikipedia, the information being suppressed is not just that stuff, which
> you wouldn't really be surprised about the Chinese Government wanting to
> keep quiet, but also the **other** stuff about general topics.
>
> The block means that people in China cannot see Wikipedia **at all**.
> They're not simply prevented from accessing articles which might (or might
> not) be critical about their Government, they can't see even articles about
> everyday life, utterly non-controversial and often important.

The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit
on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:

1.  Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese
government.  We are not a site for dissidents nor for government
supporters.  We are neutral.  NPOV is non-negotiable.  It is impossible
to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese
government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese
government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.

2.  It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia,
most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all.  It is
that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in
the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as
Wikipedia is blocked.  Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to
have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living
in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is
to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.

It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of
criticism.  But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not
critics of the Chinese government.  My argument was that censoring
Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from
hearing the voice of the Chinese people.

--Jimbo


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is viable ?

This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should be
removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though the
entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?

Ant

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> When it comes to voting, I hate voting because so often the people who vote
> are not the ones that suffer the consequences. What we have seen in the
> votes are all kinds of motivations that I have tried to debunk. When you
> understand what is behind a vote (in any direction) you often find that the
> reasoning given does not really make sense.
>
> What I do not like is that voting is the only obstacle for a Wikipedia. When
> a Wikipedia has been squatted by people who do not know the language and
> make a 'best effort' of writing in a language, we are not willing to say
> this should not be. I think this is appalling. I think more highly of an
> intellectual effort like the Klingon one than of this mongrel languages.
>
> When the voting is as political as it apparantly is with these Spanish
> languages you can expect all the bad things when voting happens including
> ballot stuffing. So when you find people who are passionate about their
> language let them have their wikipedia. When it is not viable recognise it
> for a non viable project and kill it off.
>
> When you want to decide these things with a vote, you will deny the people
> who believe in their language and want to make it happen. You do not give
> anything to the people who do not know this language. In a way it is
> discrimination pure and simple. When you have some quality and quantity
> demands for the continued existence of a project, you make it more honest.
> When a project fails to meet these criteria, it means that the people who
> asked for it are not the persons to do a good job. Lock it maybe save and
> delete it and wait for better times.
>
> My opinion is therefore clear; do not have votes but have quality and
> quantity demands.
>
> NB Given the amount of wikipedias where the language exists because of its
> army, denying new wikipedias for this reason is problematic. Either a
> wikipedia exists because of some language criteria and quantitative and
> qualititative demands or it should not.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>GerardM wrote:
>>
>>>On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi
>>>>
>>>>I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new
>>>>languages creation, the editor
>>>>* has an account on meta
>>>>* has an account on any already existing project
>>>>
>>>>I do not know what the current policy is.
>>>>I am hesitant to be in favor of one or another.
>>>>I would rather say the voter should be at least a participant to another
>>>>language, because this would imply he at least know the concept.
>>>>However, I am not sure this should be mandatory... except that....
>>>>
>>>>Someone raised a complaint about the current vote here :
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Murcian_.28Murciano.29_.2825_support.3B_12_oppose.29
>>
>>>>On this new languages, we have
>>>>* anon ips voting
>>>>* accounts on meta with no edits voting
>>>>* accounts on meta with just a user page on meta voting
>>>>* accounts on other projects voting.
>>>>
>>>>Fact is, I made a bunch of quick semi-random checks (in short, on red
>>>>meta accounts in particular), and admittedly, many of them are probably
>>>>sharing the same living-room...
>>>>
>>>>I fear the editor who complained is probably right in mentionning sock
>>>>puppetry... though we can not entirely prove it of course.
>>>>Which raise the question of how fair is a vote on a controversial
>>>>language, when half voters are not current participants and may not even
>>>>be different poeple ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>What should we do ?
>>>>
>>>>Ant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Hoi,
>>>When you read many of the nay-sayers, you can read in many of their
>>
>>remarks
>>
>>>that this many of these language problems are really political. Not only
>>
>>is
>>
>>>it denied that many of these languages are languages, it is also
>>
>>suggested
>>
>>>that people who ask for some recognition are extremists that should make
>>
>>do
>>
>>>with the one and only language that suffices for all.
>>>
>>>When you know about these languages, I often wonder what a good reason
>>
>>is
>>
>>>for supporting a language. One of the languages that is voted down
>>
>>because
>>
>>>it 'does not exist' is Stellingwerfs. Stellingwerfs has a very active
>>>language community; a dictionary has been published the bible is being
>>>translated into Stellingwerfs and now there are these people who think
>>
>>it
>>
>>>does not need its own wikipedia. Now Stellingwerfs is not as politicial
>>
>>as
>>
>>>the Spanish languages. Then again take an other infamous example; the
>>
>>nds-nl
>>
>>>is denied because people consider that it should be part of the nds-de.
>>
>>What
>>
>>>people do not mention is that the nds-de has a vocal community that
>>
>>insists
>>
>>>on an orthography that is German oriented. This is a great example of a
>>>language where there is NO standard orthography. The same can be said
>>
>>for
>>
>>>Limburgs, there is something of a 'standard' orthography but it does not
>>>match the language that is actually spoken. The Limburg wikipedia is
>>
>>alive
>>
>>>and well. It gets mentioned in the press I am really happy with it.
>>
>>However
>>
>>>if a good example needs to be found of a WIkipedia that also does not
>>
>>have a
>>
>>>'standardised' spelling have a look at Neapolitan or Sicilian. The
>>
>>Napolitan
>>
>>>WIkipedia for instance has already more than 3000 articles.. the amount
>>
>>of
>>
>>>local involvement is great. It is there because local people are
>>>entheausiastic about this project.
>>>
>>>From my perspective I do not mind to have many wikipedias. I do want
>>>wikipedias by local people who are interested in doing this. I would
>>
>>welcome
>>
>>>many projects. We will see what works and what does not. If people who
>>
>>start
>>
>>>a project steal a page out of the Neapolitan book we will do exceedingly
>>>well. The argument that we do not need to revive languages is
>>
>>problematic in
>>
>>>my opinion. The problem is that WE do not revive these languages, it is
>>
>>the
>>
>>>people wo are the community of this wikipedia who do that. When they do
>>
>>well
>>
>>>they will become us as well. My point is, do we want to be inclusionist
>>
>>or
>>
>>>do we want to exclusionists. There is always a reason why we should not
>>
>>do
>>
>>>something. The point is that it is not you who is doing it, it is you
>>
>>who is
>>
>>>denying someone else.
>>
>>
>>Thanks for your long and detailed answer Gerard.... but it is not the
>>point I really raise. I absolutely do not want right now to enter into
>>issues of whether a language should or should not exist, but only in the
>>issue of "if we make a vote, this vote must be fair. If not, then let us
>>not do any vote at all". And "if we choose the vote option, how to make
>>a vote fair" ?
>>
>>
>>
>>>As to anonymous people voting, might it be possible that they are
>>
>>actually
>>
>>>be people speaking that language that say they want to get involved?
>>
>>(assume
>>
>>>good faith) And given all these people who are NOT going to involve
>>>themselve in a language why would they vote against, what is it to them?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>GerardM
>>
>>I assume good faith up to a certain point. After some point, this is not
>>good faith, this is innocence :-)
>>
>>My problem is that if we start a project because there are 10
>>supporters, we sort of hope that a certain momentum will exist from the
>>very beginning. When it actually turns out that only 1 person is behind
>>10 supports... errrrr.... there is no momentum.
>>
>>And if a language is started with 10 supports and 5 oppose. And the 10
>>supports are only one person... is there sense in making a vote at all ?
>>
>>Ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is viable ?

This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should be
removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though the
entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?

Ant

GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> When it comes to voting, I hate voting because so often the people who vote
> are not the ones that suffer the consequences. What we have seen in the
> votes are all kinds of motivations that I have tried to debunk. When you
> understand what is behind a vote (in any direction) you often find that the
> reasoning given does not really make sense.
>
> What I do not like is that voting is the only obstacle for a Wikipedia. When
> a Wikipedia has been squatted by people who do not know the language and
> make a 'best effort' of writing in a language, we are not willing to say
> this should not be. I think this is appalling. I think more highly of an
> intellectual effort like the Klingon one than of this mongrel languages.
>
> When the voting is as political as it apparantly is with these Spanish
> languages you can expect all the bad things when voting happens including
> ballot stuffing. So when you find people who are passionate about their
> language let them have their wikipedia. When it is not viable recognise it
> for a non viable project and kill it off.
>
> When you want to decide these things with a vote, you will deny the people
> who believe in their language and want to make it happen. You do not give
> anything to the people who do not know this language. In a way it is
> discrimination pure and simple. When you have some quality and quantity
> demands for the continued existence of a project, you make it more honest.
> When a project fails to meet these criteria, it means that the people who
> asked for it are not the persons to do a good job. Lock it maybe save and
> delete it and wait for better times.
>
> My opinion is therefore clear; do not have votes but have quality and
> quantity demands.
>
> NB Given the amount of wikipedias where the language exists because of its
> army, denying new wikipedias for this reason is problematic. Either a
> wikipedia exists because of some language criteria and quantitative and
> qualititative demands or it should not.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
>
> On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>GerardM wrote:
>>
>>>On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi
>>>>
>>>>I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new
>>>>languages creation, the editor
>>>>* has an account on meta
>>>>* has an account on any already existing project
>>>>
>>>>I do not know what the current policy is.
>>>>I am hesitant to be in favor of one or another.
>>>>I would rather say the voter should be at least a participant to another
>>>>language, because this would imply he at least know the concept.
>>>>However, I am not sure this should be mandatory... except that....
>>>>
>>>>Someone raised a complaint about the current vote here :
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Murcian_.28Murciano.29_.2825_support.3B_12_oppose.29
>>
>>>>On this new languages, we have
>>>>* anon ips voting
>>>>* accounts on meta with no edits voting
>>>>* accounts on meta with just a user page on meta voting
>>>>* accounts on other projects voting.
>>>>
>>>>Fact is, I made a bunch of quick semi-random checks (in short, on red
>>>>meta accounts in particular), and admittedly, many of them are probably
>>>>sharing the same living-room...
>>>>
>>>>I fear the editor who complained is probably right in mentionning sock
>>>>puppetry... though we can not entirely prove it of course.
>>>>Which raise the question of how fair is a vote on a controversial
>>>>language, when half voters are not current participants and may not even
>>>>be different poeple ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>What should we do ?
>>>>
>>>>Ant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Hoi,
>>>When you read many of the nay-sayers, you can read in many of their
>>
>>remarks
>>
>>>that this many of these language problems are really political. Not only
>>
>>is
>>
>>>it denied that many of these languages are languages, it is also
>>
>>suggested
>>
>>>that people who ask for some recognition are extremists that should make
>>
>>do
>>
>>>with the one and only language that suffices for all.
>>>
>>>When you know about these languages, I often wonder what a good reason
>>
>>is
>>
>>>for supporting a language. One of the languages that is voted down
>>
>>because
>>
>>>it 'does not exist' is Stellingwerfs. Stellingwerfs has a very active
>>>language community; a dictionary has been published the bible is being
>>>translated into Stellingwerfs and now there are these people who think
>>
>>it
>>
>>>does not need its own wikipedia. Now Stellingwerfs is not as politicial
>>
>>as
>>
>>>the Spanish languages. Then again take an other infamous example; the
>>
>>nds-nl
>>
>>>is denied because people consider that it should be part of the nds-de.
>>
>>What
>>
>>>people do not mention is that the nds-de has a vocal community that
>>
>>insists
>>
>>>on an orthography that is German oriented. This is a great example of a
>>>language where there is NO standard orthography. The same can be said
>>
>>for
>>
>>>Limburgs, there is something of a 'standard' orthography but it does not
>>>match the language that is actually spoken. The Limburg wikipedia is
>>
>>alive
>>
>>>and well. It gets mentioned in the press I am really happy with it.
>>
>>However
>>
>>>if a good example needs to be found of a WIkipedia that also does not
>>
>>have a
>>
>>>'standardised' spelling have a look at Neapolitan or Sicilian. The
>>
>>Napolitan
>>
>>>WIkipedia for instance has already more than 3000 articles.. the amount
>>
>>of
>>
>>>local involvement is great. It is there because local people are
>>>entheausiastic about this project.
>>>
>>>From my perspective I do not mind to have many wikipedias. I do want
>>>wikipedias by local people who are interested in doing this. I would
>>
>>welcome
>>
>>>many projects. We will see what works and what does not. If people who
>>
>>start
>>
>>>a project steal a page out of the Neapolitan book we will do exceedingly
>>>well. The argument that we do not need to revive languages is
>>
>>problematic in
>>
>>>my opinion. The problem is that WE do not revive these languages, it is
>>
>>the
>>
>>>people wo are the community of this wikipedia who do that. When they do
>>
>>well
>>
>>>they will become us as well. My point is, do we want to be inclusionist
>>
>>or
>>
>>>do we want to exclusionists. There is always a reason why we should not
>>
>>do
>>
>>>something. The point is that it is not you who is doing it, it is you
>>
>>who is
>>
>>>denying someone else.
>>
>>
>>Thanks for your long and detailed answer Gerard.... but it is not the
>>point I really raise. I absolutely do not want right now to enter into
>>issues of whether a language should or should not exist, but only in the
>>issue of "if we make a vote, this vote must be fair. If not, then let us
>>not do any vote at all". And "if we choose the vote option, how to make
>>a vote fair" ?
>>
>>
>>
>>>As to anonymous people voting, might it be possible that they are
>>
>>actually
>>
>>>be people speaking that language that say they want to get involved?
>>
>>(assume
>>
>>>good faith) And given all these people who are NOT going to involve
>>>themselve in a language why would they vote against, what is it to them?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>GerardM
>>
>>I assume good faith up to a certain point. After some point, this is not
>>good faith, this is innocence :-)
>>
>>My problem is that if we start a project because there are 10
>>supporters, we sort of hope that a certain momentum will exist from the
>>very beginning. When it actually turns out that only 1 person is behind
>>10 supports... errrrr.... there is no momentum.
>>
>>And if a language is started with 10 supports and 5 oppose. And the 10
>>supports are only one person... is there sense in making a vote at all ?
>>
>>Ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l-AeOJrEpdGNeGglJvpFV4uA at public.gmane.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Marcio - CSP

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brazilian Portuguese

body:
Hi,

my name is Marcio.
I would like to know if there is any project involving the Brazilian Portuguese language.
If not, there is a chance of starting one ?
Brazilian Portuguese is similar to European and African Portuguese are similar, but there is a lot of differences in writing and meaning of the words that can make the enciclopedia articles tricky.

Best regards,
Marcio


from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: crew]

body: (This message removed from archives by request.)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> For those of you who were around when it kicked off... when it
> went live, was it intended to become a reference tool *on the
> web* like it has now, or was the web process intended to be
> somewhat less obvious than it became (a top-40 site, eek)?
> Open, yes, freely editable, yes, but a live "proper"
> encyclopedia from Year One?

My first edit was on 2 January 2002. Boy was the place a mess (have you seen
UseMod ; ugly ; en.wikipedia had less than 20,000 articles and Larry Sanger was
still around). But I loved it since there was so much to do. Almost every
article I saw was obviously a work in progress. We were still working out basic
rules and conventions. WikiProjects were just getting underway. Just about
anybody could have a major influence on policy formation and the direction of
WikiProjects.

At the time we thought it would take us 5 years to to reach our initial goal of
100,000 articles. All the focus I saw was on development, not use in the near
to mid term. I don't think anybody, except maybe Jimbo, could have dreamed we
would get so popular so fast, or so useful.

Now when I look around, most articles that cover subjects encyclopedias should
cover look fairly complete. Articles on technology, popular culture, and
current events are even better on average.

Wikipedia becoming useful; well, that is something that kinda snuck up on me
while I was helping make it useful. I'm sure it also surprised many other old
timers as well. The idea seemed too far in the future to even think about.

There were fewer than 20 reads per write when I started. Now  there are now
more than 200 reads per write.  I guess now somebody has to work on sorting the
wheat from the chaff for our readers. Heck, let them do it through an article
validation feature. We have an encyclopedia to write. :)

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Roy Ben-Baruch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Dutch Main Page

body:
On 11/21/05, Galwaygirl <galwaygirl at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Sabine Cretella wrote:
> > I don't think that there are real problems with that page - and to tell
> > the truth: I like it - where did you get the icons from?
>
> I have no idea. :-) Ask Rex
> (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Rex), he designed the new main page.
>
> Galwaygirl
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

In fact, it was originally designed for the Hebrew Wikipedia, but was
later copied to other Wikis. The icons were designed by a Hebrew
wikipedian as well.

-- [[w:he:User:Roybb95]]


from_name: Any File

body:
 Rob Lanphier wrote:
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: <link> elements for interlanguage link
>         information
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <1132538575.6605.35.camel at localhost.localdomain>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> I'm not aware of any <link> syntax, but one way to do it would be for
> MediaWiki to issue an HTTP 301 status (permanent  redirect) to the new
> page, rather than returning 200 and giving the content.  That probably
> introduces an unacceptably large performance penalty, though (extra
> round trip per request).
>
> The "Content-Location" HTTP header is a potential longshot.  I don't
> think Google documents their use/non-use of this header, but it's one of
> those "can't hurt" kind of things.
>
> http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.14
>
> It appears it can be tacked on using a meta http-equiv tag in the HTML
> head.
>

Reading the specs it seems more to differenziate among different
content retrived from the same URI/URL rather than (as is our case) to
state that different URL/URI correspond to the smae content.

Despite of this, it seems a brillant idea to use this header. Does
anybody has any contact with google or yahoo (or other web search) to
ask them their opinion about this and other possible solution?

AnyFile


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[WikiEN-l] How to self-cite without crossing the streams? (was
	Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias)

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Jack Lynch wrote:

>> Regrding anti-expert bias, does anyone think verifiable experts should
>> be allowed to cite themselves when editing wiki articles relating to
>> their skills? I'm not sure what I think, but it seems an important
>> question. I can definitely see it being a major step towards a
>> citable, peer-reviewed journal level of quality.

> I don't see how that would help at all; quite the opposite.  I'm not in
> favor of a blanket prohibition against citing yourself, but it should be
> viewed with caution and vetted by others.

It Depends. I cited my own blog on [[Sharity]], but placed a note on
the talk page about it if anyone thinks it's unsuitable. (Sharity is
a minor but important piece of software allowing computers running
Solaris to mount SMB shares. Linux and FreeBSD do this effortlessly,
on Solaris you have to buy the software. And people do.)

- d.


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On 11/21/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
Research is a
> ridiculous requirement for admins at peak time.  Work is hard enough
> as it is.

I cannot believe that a Wikipedia editor is seriously suggesting that
research is too much to ask.  Please reconsider.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
	Howdidthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
grm_wnr wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:

>>  People also suggest things like "clean up spelling" or "remove the
>> bright purple tables" or whatever, and those are often good ones too.

> The problem being, I can remove the bright purple tables and correct the
> spelling while the article's still in AFD (if I think it's worth it, I
> wouldn't do that for a very probable deletion candidate...) What I
> *can't* do is speedy merge, because it's strictly verboten to mess with
> the AFD tag. So, I've got to *vote* merge and hope that somebody
> listens, or I have to revisit the article after the AFD is over (if I
> don't forget about it).

Bollocks it's verboten to speedy merge. Anyone who thinks it is has a
bad case of process over product and is inappropriately asserting the
supremacy of AFD over writing an encyclopedia.

- d.


body:
On 11/21/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
You
> > cannot merge information without keeping it.  If you don't keep it, it
> > isn't there to be merged.  This is pretty basic stuff.
>
> In your opinion.

I suppose if we had Wikipedia installed quantum computers there would
be a sense in which this could be said to be a matter of opinion.
Otherwise I think we must be arguing to cross purposes.  I've stated
that information cannot be removed and not removed at the same
time--which I think we can safely assume is a fact.


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose if we had Wikipedia installed quantum computers there would
> be a sense in which this could be said to be a matter of opinion.
> Otherwise I think we must be arguing to cross purposes.  I've stated
> that information cannot be removed and not removed at the same
> time--which I think we can safely assume is a fact.

Not for the first time on this message list, I feel the cross-purposes
hypothesis is highly likely.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> I cannot believe that a Wikipedia editor is seriously suggesting that
> research is too much to ask.  Please reconsider.

Please attempt RC patrol at ~12-1am UTC on a weekday.  Then you will
see what I mean.

--
Sam


body:
Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 21/11/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:

>>They found what is pretty much the real state of Wikipedia right now;
>>that we have some excellent articles, a fair number which are OK but
>>need improvement, and some real stinkers.  We've come a long way, BUT
>>there's still a long way to go.

> David Gerard has argued that "if we want a good encyclopedia in ten
> years, it's going to have to be a good Wikipedia" - the Rubicon of
> free-content has been crossed, and good-but-costly doesn't handle well
> against free-but-patchy in the marketplace (at least, not in the
> general public sphere).
> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/more_on_wikiped.php
> We've come a long way, and there's still a long way to go - but the
> key third clause is, arguably, that we've already gone too far to
> stop...

Yeah. Note that that's Wikipedia *or a fork*. Could be an internal fork,
could be an external one.

I do think we've peaked way too early. What we have now is an
interesting alpha that should have 1995-style heavily aliased
"UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs on most pages, and that really isn't
something you want as a top-40 website. The article rating feature
won't really help this for three to six months, as we will expressly
not be doing anything with the results except have them available
(until we've gathered enough data to see what makes sense to do
with them). Going hogwild with deletions won't hold back the tide
and will piss off the actual contributors. I'm not sure there *is*
a quick answer :-)

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Another Webcomics Bit

body:
geni wrote:
> On 11/21/05, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>>He is referring, I believe, to your advocacy of removing well-
>>referenced "in popular culture" sections from articles.

> I know. But he can't show I have systematically done so (that would
> suggest I care way more about the subject than I really do).

WTF? "I know I proudly declared it, but you didn't prove I was lying!"?

> Still it appears people object to the removal of these sections so I
> wont.

Good. Thank you.

> I do however reserve the right to argue that the GWB article
> does not need a trivia section.

Oh Ghod no.

I must confess I started a popular culture section today, on [[Xenu]].
I maintain it was relevant to the topic and not just a list!

- d.


from_name: joao miranda

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Brazilian Portuguese

body:
The Portuguese Wikipedia (http://pt.wikipedia.org) is a multiversion
wikipedia by design. Several versions of the portuguese language as
well as people from several countries, including many brazilians,
coexist in the same wikipedia. There are rules that must be followed
so that the wikipedia remains neutral in respect to versions of the
portuguese language.

Please see:

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vers%C3%B5es_da_l%C3%ADngua_portuguesa
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Usu%C3%A1rios_do_Brasil

JoaoMiranda

On 11/21/05, Marcio - CSP <marcio at csp.org.br> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> my name is Marcio.
> I would like to know if there is any project involving the Brazilian Portuguese language.
> If not, there is a chance of starting one ?
> Brazilian Portuguese is similar to European and African Portuguese are similar, but there is a lot of differences in writing and meaning of the words that can make the enciclopedia articles tricky.
>
> Best regards,
> Marcio
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On 11/21/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I cannot believe that a Wikipedia editor is seriously suggesting that
> > research is too much to ask.  Please reconsider.
>
> Please attempt RC patrol at ~12-1am UTC on a weekday.  Then you will
> see what I mean.

Is research more difficult to perform during those hours for some
reason?  Is Google less accessible, perhaps, or do your arms tire and
becom unable to lift books from the shelf and open them?  Assuming
that both of those circumstances pertain, perhaps you should refrain
from performing RC patrol at that time of day.  Especially if it may
lead to your deletion of articles without bothering to perform any
research.


from_name: TariqAsh

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Mediation on Pronunciation Para. Of "Bangladesh" page &
	Un-Ethical MisConduct Of SysOp

body:
Hi , I'm still waiting for the mediation process to start, since, Nov
18, 2005, 3:44AM (PST). Seems no one doing anything, whats the next
step ?
thanks.
- Tarikash

On 11/19/05, Fennec Foxen <fennec at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikien-l-owner at wikipedia.org is not an appropriate address to contact
> with these concerns.
>
> > On 11/18/05, TariqAsh <tariqash at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi David, i cannot find / don't know which page is discussing this
> > issue, or, where this complain is listed. Please send me link. Also
> > please suggest what should be be my next step to solve this problem.
> > Thanks.
> > -Tarikash ~~~~
> >
> >
> > On 11/18/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Cheers, I've forwarded the text version to the list!
> > - d.
> >
> > On 11/18/05, TariqAsh <tariqash at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Subject: Mediation on Pronunciation Paragraph Of "Bangladesh" page
> > & Un-Ethical behaviour of SysOp
> > Hi David, I have been trying to keep a very necessary paragraph on
> > pronunciation of the word "Bangladesh" on [[Bangladesh]] page and also
> > another similar pronunciation para on the word "Bangla" in the
> > [[Bengali Language]] page . But paragraphs were often deleted and page
> > was often reverted back by sysop "Ragib" & sysop "Idleguy" and lastly
> > by sysop "Dmcdevit" . These three sysops worked as a team and did 3RR
> > by themselves . This paragraph is very important, because it can
> > remove confusion and reduce harassment on Bangladeshi people . Wrong
> > pronunciation of "Bangladesh" leads to an incorrect meaning . The
> > sound of "a" in "Bang" & "la" should be pronounced like the sound of
> > "a" in the word "Lava", for correct pronunciation . Which most
> > non-native speakers don't do, even some Bangladeshis, when they are
> > talking with non-native speakers . I'm looking forward to solve this
> > issue . Please start a mediation process to solve this problem . Many
> > thanks . I've already expressed and exchanged opinion about this issue
> > with "Ragib" in [[Bengali Language]] and [[Bangladesh]] discussion
> > page and also in our own Talk/discussion page . Please see those .
> > Admin/SysOp "Dmcdevit" performed many unethical steps outside of the
> > Wikipedia Policy . "Dmcdevit", "Ragib" and "Idleguy" deleted, reverted
> > even my improved version of that paragraph, again and again . Please
> > look into it . I'm looking for OnWiki (Public) type of mediation to
> > re-include this paragraph and an warning be issued for these SysOps,
> > or, revocation of their privilege which they have mis-used . Many
> > thanks for solving the problem related to post in my own page.
> > - Tarikash
> > IP:69.237.236.7
> >
>


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 21/11/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > We've come a long way, and there's still a long way to go - but the
> > key third clause is, arguably, that we've already gone too far to
> > stop...

> I do think we've peaked way too early. What we have now is an
> interesting alpha that should have 1995-style heavily aliased
> "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs on most pages, and that really isn't
> something you want as a top-40 website. The article rating feature
> won't really help this for three to six months, as we will expressly
> not be doing anything with the results except have them available
> (until we've gathered enough data to see what makes sense to do
> with them). Going hogwild with deletions won't hold back the tide
> and will piss off the actual contributors. I'm not sure there *is*
> a quick answer :-)

This prompts a question I've been idly toying with for an hour or
three. I first ran across Wikipedia in late 2003 (I think) - someone
on Usenet mentioning it. I don't believe I encountered it as a
reference until shortly before I first edited, looked at it properly,
about a year ago. I suspect a fair chunk of people on the list are
about the same.

For those of you who were around when it kicked off... when it went
live, was it intended to become a reference tool *on the web* like it
has now, or was the web process intended to be somewhat less obvious
than it became (a top-40 site, eek)? Open, yes, freely editable, yes,
but a live "proper" encyclopedia from Year One?

A lot of our problems seem to be that we've been declared to be An
Encylopedia when, frankly, we're not - we're a pile of working
documents, some of which are fit to be finalised. And we can't do
anything about this. It's a wonderful thing - we wouldn't get anything
like the contributions we get if we hadn't become An Encyclopedia for
the web. But it brings with it a lot of misapprehensions, because
we're really 10-25% of an encyclopedia, with a lot of working papers
that are quite interesting to read in a big folder at the back. As you
say, there's no quick answer... and by the time we've got one, god
only knows what else the project will have developed into.

It'll be interesting to read the book on this, ten years from now.

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


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Anthere wrote:
>>
>>> then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
>>> languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is
>>> viable ?
>>>
>>> This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should
>>> be removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though
>>> the entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>>
>> Objective criteria can be established for this.
>>
>>    1. A key set of interface pages must have been written in or
>> translated into the language,
>>    2. There must be a minimum number of articles exceeding a
>> specified length written in the main namespace of the project, and
>>    3. There must be a minimum number of contributors, EACH of whom
>> has written a minimum number of qualifying articles in the main
>> namespace.
>>
>> Perhaps there could be others too.
>>
>> Ec
>
> Nod. I think these are good criteria;
> But I presume interface can only be translated really if there is a
> separate independant project, rather than a unique seedwiki ?

Not necessarily.  The seed could begin with interface in an agreed more
common language, where the translated interface as ordinary pages in the
appropriate namespace.  These could be transferred to the proper place
when the project is promoted.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>On 11/21/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I cannot believe that a Wikipedia editor is seriously suggesting that
>>>research is too much to ask.  Please reconsider.
>>>
>>>
>>Please attempt RC patrol at ~12-1am UTC on a weekday.  Then you will
>>see what I mean.
>>
>>
>
>Is research more difficult to perform during those hours for some
>reason?  Is Google less accessible, perhaps, or do your arms tire and
>becom unable to lift books from the shelf and open them?  Assuming
>that both of those circumstances pertain, perhaps you should refrain
>from performing RC patrol at that time of day.  Especially if it may
>lead to your deletion of articles without bothering to perform any
>research.
>
Midnight UTC = 1900 EST, just when the masses in that populous time zone
are sitting down after dinner to spend a little computer time.

Ec


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] six wikipedia conjectures, and slowness

body:
What about:

Conjecture 8. Regardless of the final result, the inner workings of
Wikipedia are so chaotic and at times unpleasant that most readers
would rip all of their hair out if they watched a documentary about
the creative process behind the articles.

Fair?

Mark

On 22/11/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/22/05, S. Woodside <sbwoodside at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Conjecture 1. That the distance between any two wikipedia pages,
> > randomly chosen, as measured by wikilinks, is on average 6.
> >
> > Conjecture 2. That wikipedia is sufficiently formal and complete that
> > you could build a useful general purpose AI knowledge base using it.
> >
> > Conjecture 3. That wikipedia has low information entropy.
> >
> > Conjecture 4. That the development of a wikipedia article over time
> > occurs in a manner consistent to the biological evolution of a species.
> >
> > Conjecture 5. That the relationship between the amount of material in
> > wikipedia and the number of article views is exponential.
> >
> > Conjecture 6. That wikipedia is, on average, factually accurate.
>
> Ohoh ! can I produce one?
>
> Conjecture 7. The amount of wanky conjectures produced by bloggers is
> bound only by the number of sites that will allow them to spam their
> URLs.
>
> Do I get a prize? ;)
>
> On a more constructive note, If you're interested in AI taught using
> wikipedia... you should take a look at the state of the art in English
> parsers (such as [[Link Grammar]]) and how they fair on Wikipedia.
> Impressive that it works at all, but I don't think we need to worry
> about a hostile takeover of the planet by a self-aware encyclopedia
> any time soon.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

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


from_name: S. Woodside

body:
Hi there, I've just joined the list. I've been contributing to the
wiki for a while, but I've got some technical interest now. To start
off with, here is a list of "conjectures" that I think are
interesting about wikipedia. I'm crossposting from my blog ( http://
simonwoodside.com/weblog/2005/11/20 ).

Conjecture 1. That the distance between any two wikipedia pages,
randomly chosen, as measured by wikilinks, is on average 6.

Conjecture 2. That wikipedia is sufficiently formal and complete that
you could build a useful general purpose AI knowledge base using it.

Conjecture 3. That wikipedia has low information entropy.

Conjecture 4. That the development of a wikipedia article over time
occurs in a manner consistent to the biological evolution of a species.

Conjecture 5. That the relationship between the amount of material in
wikipedia and the number of article views is exponential.

Conjecture 6. That wikipedia is, on average, factually accurate.

The one that I'm most interested in today, actually is #5 (known as
Reed's law) ... because today I went to do some editing and found
that the system was very slow... I'm actually a little worried that
wikipedia is going to be overwhelmed by it's own popularity. I saw
something like this happen before, when I joined a MUD called
MicroMUSE back in er... 1993??? Wired issue #3 wrote about it and
then they were inundated with users... everything was really slow...
well back then I didn't have the technical chops to do something
about but now I do. I have some ideas about architectural design of
WP's servers in mind that I discussed with some people on #wikimedia-
tech today... I'll probably write them up in a few days.

Anyway, the motivational reason is that IF conjecture #5 is TRUE,
then there's probably some severe architectural implications for WP's
technical design.

--simon
(founder of semacode, contributor to mozilla, etc.)

--
http://simonwoodside.com


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 11/22/05, S. Woodside <sbwoodside at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Conjecture 1. That the distance between any two wikipedia pages,
> randomly chosen, as measured by wikilinks, is on average 6.
>
> Conjecture 2. That wikipedia is sufficiently formal and complete that
> you could build a useful general purpose AI knowledge base using it.
>
> Conjecture 3. That wikipedia has low information entropy.
>
> Conjecture 4. That the development of a wikipedia article over time
> occurs in a manner consistent to the biological evolution of a species.
>
> Conjecture 5. That the relationship between the amount of material in
> wikipedia and the number of article views is exponential.
>
> Conjecture 6. That wikipedia is, on average, factually accurate.

Ohoh ! can I produce one?

Conjecture 7. The amount of wanky conjectures produced by bloggers is
bound only by the number of sites that will allow them to spam their
URLs.

Do I get a prize? ;)

On a more constructive note, If you're interested in AI taught using
wikipedia... you should take a look at the state of the art in English
parsers (such as [[Link Grammar]]) and how they fair on Wikipedia.
Impressive that it works at all, but I don't think we need to worry
about a hostile takeover of the planet by a self-aware encyclopedia
any time soon.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On 11/22/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Why not? If it can't, either feed them in more slowly in the first place
> or extend the IfD deadline to allow the backlog to build up without
> overwhelming processing.
>

5000 links causes issues with page load time. The page would probably
be inacesserble on dialup and frankly and meaningful review of that
number of images would be imposible.

> If we're having to delete articles without taking adequate care because
> our current mechanisms aren't capable of providing adequate care, that's
> an argument for changing our current mechanisms rather than an argument
> that we _should_ be deleting articles that way.

We did change stuff after that. We redid all our fair use templates.
Now we just need to get people to read them.

--
geni


from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Anthere wrote:

>> For 2), the voting process should require some evidence that the voter
>> is interested and able to contribute on the resulting wiki if it is
>> created (to avoid dead wikis).  A fine way to demonstrate such
>> evidence is to have a space on the same wiki as the votes (in this
>> case, on meta) where people can edit a sample main page... say
>> "[[m:Voro Wikipedia]]" and its subpages.
>>
>> This way a) proving you're not a sockpuppet also develops the fledling
>> project; the contributions can later be transwikied to the new
>> lang-project.
>>
>> SJ
>
> True...
>
> At the same time, I think editors on meta are however tired to see wikipedia
> type pages in minor languages being developped there. Overall, allowing the
> pages to be developped on meta is likely to be poorly accepted.

I'm all in favor of a separate seed-wiki for this...

And a separate translation-wiki for organizing interface translations,
site-wide message translations, &c.

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Chinese wikipedia unblocked?

body:
Based on a mostly unscientific calculation...

Of the 33 zhwp editors with the most edits over the last 30 days,
51.5% (17) were primarily users of Traditional Chinese.

In total, these 33 people have made 16570 edits over the last 30 days.
Percentage of edits made by primary TC users was 45.0% (7466).

I never did such a check before the blocking of Wikimedia in China,
but I'm guessing percentages were quite different.

A more specific breakdown based on current geographical location:

42.4% (14) were in the PRC;
24.2% (8) were Taiwanese;
21.2% (7) were Hong Kongers;
09.1% (3) were Canadians;
03.0% (1) was in Germany.

All of the users in PRC and Germany were users of Simplified. All
users in Taiwan and HK were users of Traditional. 2 users in Canada
were Traditional, 1 simplified.

Geographical breakdown of edits:
50.6% (8379) were from Mainlanders;
21.7% (3594) were from Hong Kongers;
18.0% (2979) were from Taiwanese;
06.4% (1065) were from Canada;
-- 05.4% (894) were from Traditional users in Canada; (83.8% of Canadian edits)
-- 01.0% (172) were from Simplified users in Canada; (16.2% of Canadian edits)
03.3% (553) were from Germany.

My guess is that pre-block, it was much more concentrated on
Simplified users and users from the Mainland.

Cheers
Mark

On 22/11/05, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
> >
> > As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia
> > would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I
> > feel we should change tactics.
>
> A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP
> to request the site to be unblocked.
>
> You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
>
> The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit
> on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:
>
> 1.  Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese
> government.  We are not a site for dissidents nor for government
> supporters.  We are neutral.  NPOV is non-negotiable.  It is impossible
> to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese
> government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese
> government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.
>
> 2.  It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia,
> most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all.  It is
> that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in
> the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as
> Wikipedia is blocked.  Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to
> have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living
> in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is
> to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.
>
> It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of
> criticism.  But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not
> critics of the Chinese government.  My argument was that censoring
> Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from
> hearing the voice of the Chinese people.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] new language policy

body:
Hello

On 11/22/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new
> languages creation, the editor
> * has an account on meta
> * has an account on any already existing project
>
> I do not know what the current policy is.

I'm afraid we have no an established policy on new lang edition vote
at all at least for Wikipedia .. for Wikinews there is A fixed rule
but I am not sure IF it could be applied on Wikipedia ...

For Wikinews vote the current policy says:
*All voters should have an account on meta
*Some voters should have a resonable amont of edits on the same lang project.
*All voter should have edits on a certain project.

It works for Wikinews fairly ... as far as Japanese Wikinews is
concerned. 5 supports, including 4 regular ja users could indicated a
certain number of potential contributors. On the other hand, as for
Wikipedia vote, we can't use the second criteria though. In my humble
opinion the second one is the core of those rules: a new launched
project should be have a number of regular who can prove themselves to
be a regular editor on the target language. But for most Wikipedias,
there is no previous project in the same language.

Let me run a random thought ....

My general opinion about voting eligibility on meta is "a registered
user whose user page has a link to at least one local project". But I
am not sure if it is the case for the current issue. Perhaps it would
be nice to say "at least one supporter should be so-and-so" but I am
very dubious if we expect all voters have been fairly active on
another language project.

So my proposal is, let them start a test wiki somewhere, on meta or on
a separate wiki, and if they have some core project documents (like
NPOV, Licensing and copyright, Requests for adminship ... and "Ignore
all rules" if preferable) and a certain number of pages of test
articles and then ask the community to vote - support or deny their
proposal.

Somehow it is more generous than for potential Wikinewsies, but I
don't think it unfair; the communities we can guess behind the
proposal are different, so such difference could be reasonable,
hopefully.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Foundation-l] new language policy


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
> then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
> languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is viable ?
>
> This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should
> be removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though
> the entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>
> Ant

Why do it difficult with seedwiki's. Give languages a chance on a real
wiki for say three months. If they haven't created 100 articles of some
length by then (so not 1 line, but lets say approx 10 lines at least) we
lock them. Also make a requirement that a new language has one "adopter"
an experienced wikipedian that regardless if he speaks the language or
not will guide the new wikipedians on the pad of NPOV etc. And who will
be a preliminary admin so he will be able to kick vandalism. This should
be a commitment by that person. If the adopter fails the commitment and
the wiki gets spammed out of existence we lock it. Also an adopter
shouldn't be able to adopt more than one language at the same time.

By doing this you help a language to seriously start up and give people
in the fledgling community someone to learn from. The adopter could even
help think of a strategy to make the fledgling wikipedia reach at least
100 articles of reasonable quality.

This way we can ensure a language gets a serious chance. If the native
speakers of that language do not take that chance we lock the pedia.
Plain and simple.

Give people a fair chance. Do not make a decision by voting. If there
are a couple of people (could be even one very active person) who claim
they speak the lingo and an experienced wikipedian willing to adopt the
language give it a chance. This is equal opportunity. Everyone gets a
shot. If you blow it you blow it and your next requests will not be
taken seriously!

Waerth/Walter


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


body:
OK, I've done some more calculations. From the 33 users with the most
edits before 30 days ago, 36.4% (12) were primarily users of
Traditional Chinese.

Percentage of edits made by primary TC users before 30 days ago was 31.1%.

So, edits by people who used primarily Simplified Chinese went from
67.4% down to 55.0%.

Geographical breakdown:
57.6% (19) Mainlanders;
21.2% (7) Taiwanese;
12.1% (4) Hong Kongers;
06.1% (2) Canadian.
03.0% (1) unknown.

One Canadian simplified, one Canadian traditional.

Geographical breakdown of edits:
65.9% (178232) Mainland;
15.5% (42040) Taiwanese;
11.8% (31981) Hong Konger;
05.2% (14099) Canadian;
- 03.7% (9974) Traditional in Canada (70.7% of Canadian total)
- 01.5% (4125) Simplified in Canada (29.3% of Canadian total)
01.5% (4022) unknown.

So again, a fall in Simplified users.

But keep in mind that these edit counts are from the beginning of zhwp
until 30 days ago, so it's not nessecarily a short-term trend.

Cheers
Mark

On 22/11/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Based on a mostly unscientific calculation...
>
> Of the 33 zhwp editors with the most edits over the last 30 days,
> 51.5% (17) were primarily users of Traditional Chinese.
>
> In total, these 33 people have made 16570 edits over the last 30 days.
> Percentage of edits made by primary TC users was 45.0% (7466).
>
> I never did such a check before the blocking of Wikimedia in China,
> but I'm guessing percentages were quite different.
>
> A more specific breakdown based on current geographical location:
>
> 42.4% (14) were in the PRC;
> 24.2% (8) were Taiwanese;
> 21.2% (7) were Hong Kongers;
> 09.1% (3) were Canadians;
> 03.0% (1) was in Germany.
>
> All of the users in PRC and Germany were users of Simplified. All
> users in Taiwan and HK were users of Traditional. 2 users in Canada
> were Traditional, 1 simplified.
>
> Geographical breakdown of edits:
> 50.6% (8379) were from Mainlanders;
> 21.7% (3594) were from Hong Kongers;
> 18.0% (2979) were from Taiwanese;
> 06.4% (1065) were from Canada;
> -- 05.4% (894) were from Traditional users in Canada; (83.8% of Canadian edits)
> -- 01.0% (172) were from Simplified users in Canada; (16.2% of Canadian edits)
> 03.3% (553) were from Germany.
>
> My guess is that pre-block, it was much more concentrated on
> Simplified users and users from the Mainland.
>
> Cheers
> Mark
>
> On 22/11/05, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > > I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
> > >
> > > As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia
> > > would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I
> > > feel we should change tactics.
> >
> > A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP
> > to request the site to be unblocked.
> >
> > You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
> >
> > The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit
> > on the Information Society can be summarized as follows:
> >
> > 1.  Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese
> > government.  We are not a site for dissidents nor for government
> > supporters.  We are neutral.  NPOV is non-negotiable.  It is impossible
> > to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese
> > government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese
> > government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all.
> >
> > 2.  It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia,
> > most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all.  It is
> > that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in
> > the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as
> > Wikipedia is blocked.  Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to
> > have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living
> > in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is
> > to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs.
> >
> > It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of
> > criticism.  But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not
> > critics of the Chinese government.  My argument was that censoring
> > Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from
> > hearing the voice of the Chinese people.
> >
> > --Jimbo
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
>

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


from_name: Jack Lynch

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: crew]

body: (This message removed from archives by request.)


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
On 11/22/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> still around). But I loved it since there was so much to do.

Me too. The fact that most of the articles were pretty rubbish is what
drew me in. Had I arrived to day, and looked at our quality articles I
would have probably thought (there is nohing I can add) and left.

 I don't think anybody, except maybe Jimbo, could have dreamed we
> would get so popular so fast, or so useful.

I didn't think it would be so fast, but I always knew we'd be a top
website. We've still a way to go before we peak. Until we stop growing
exponentially, we will continue to have a large number of crap
articles. However crap articles cry out to be improved and attract
more editors in o fix them which causes growth.

Theresa


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new project mailing lists

body:
On 11/22/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to above.  My
> suggestion, at least, was not for the new mailing lists to produce
> consensus -- this would come about on the main mailing list once a
> more heated and detailed discussion has been played out on the
> topic-specific list.  I am suggesting that topics which tend to a) be
> quite heated and b) involve the same small set of people over and
> over, should be given their own list for the standard argument-cycle
> to play out; and then can post summaries of that cycle to the main
> mailing list.  When consensus needs to be reached, the whole
> discussion could move to the main list, or better yet a suitable wiki.
>
> SJ

Well, if you're going to obtain organization-wide consensus, then it'd
be a good idea to obtain consensus within a self-selected
sub-committee first.  Of course, that assumes that by consensus you
mean something actually approaching consensus.

It's a good idea in theory, but signing up for and using multiple
mailing lists is somewhat of a pain in the ass, so I'm not so sure how
well it would work in practice.

Anthony


body:
> On 11/21/05, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > When the new project proposals and new language requests are done in a
> > seperate mailing list, this mailing list will not have a representative
> > population of the Wikimedia crowd. The discussions, even when interesting,
> > will not lead to a consensus that is representative.

I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to above.  My
suggestion, at least, was not for the new mailing lists to produce
consensus -- this would come about on the main mailing list once a
more heated and detailed discussion has been played out on the
topic-specific list.  I am suggesting that topics which tend to a) be
quite heated and b) involve the same small set of people over and
over, should be given their own list for the standard argument-cycle
to play out; and then can post summaries of that cycle to the main
mailing list.  When consensus needs to be reached, the whole
discussion could move to the main list, or better yet a suitable wiki.

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] new language policy

body:
People vote for two very distinct things, in the same voting process.
1) Should this language get its own language wikiprojects?
2) Should we create a wikiproject for this language NOW, given the
amount of support it has?

There should be an ongoing project devoted to identifying the set of
languages for which the answer to 1) is YES.

For 2), the voting process should require some evidence that the voter
is interested and able to contribute on the resulting wiki if it is
created (to avoid dead wikis).  A fine way to demonstrate such
evidence is to have a space on the same wiki as the votes (in this
case, on meta) where people can edit a sample main page... say
"[[m:Voro Wikipedia]]" and its subpages.

This way a) proving you're not a sockpuppet also develops the fledling
project; the contributions can later be transwikied to the new
lang-project.

SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] new language policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
On 11/22/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> created (to avoid dead wikis).  A fine way to demonstrate such
> evidence is to have a space on the same wiki as the votes (in this
> case, on meta) where people can edit a sample main page... say
> "[[m:Voro Wikipedia]]" and its subpages.

Giving people a way to translate the interface before requesting new
project creation would also be helpful; we should perhaps have a
separate space for that on Meta, or even a separate wiki devoted to
such translations.

--
++SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] test

body: test


subject: [Foundation-l] test

body: test


from_name: El C

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: crew]


from_name: charles matthews

body:
"Andrew Gray"  wrote

>As you say, there's no quick answer... and by the time we've got one, god
only knows what else the project will have developed into.

I would say that Wikipedia itself (as distinct from its Wikimedia sister
projects) has found its niche.  We Wikipedians have by now a pretty good
idea of its strengths and weaknesses.  On the plus side: good at documenting
factual things and gluing them into an intensely-hyperlinked and
presentable, categorised form, miles ahead of the 'web directory' approach.
Particularly strong at rehashing what is already out there to be googled, or
in the mainstream media.  Weaknesses: always been over-ambitious and
searching for a style, rather than already possessed of one.  To call WP's
role a 'niche' is a bit like calling the [[Mariana Trench]] a shallow ditch,
though.  The Web contains things like 'shopping mall', 'personal webspace',
'blogosphere'.  Wikipedia is the cuckoo in the nest of the 'wikisphere',
certainly to the extent of redefining it.

Charles


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
SJ wrote:
> People vote for two very distinct things, in the same voting process.
> 1) Should this language get its own language wikiprojects?
> 2) Should we create a wikiproject for this language NOW, given the
> amount of support it has?
>
> There should be an ongoing project devoted to identifying the set of
> languages for which the answer to 1) is YES.
>
> For 2), the voting process should require some evidence that the voter
> is interested and able to contribute on the resulting wiki if it is
> created (to avoid dead wikis).  A fine way to demonstrate such
> evidence is to have a space on the same wiki as the votes (in this
> case, on meta) where people can edit a sample main page... say
> "[[m:Voro Wikipedia]]" and its subpages.
>
> This way a) proving you're not a sockpuppet also develops the fledling
> project; the contributions can later be transwikied to the new
> lang-project.
>
> SJ

True...

At the same time, I think editors on meta are however tired to see
wikipedia type pages in minor languages being developped there. Overall,
allowing the pages to be developped on meta is likely to be poorly accepted.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
>> languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is viable ?
>>
>> This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should
>> be removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though
>> the entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>
>
> Objective criteria can be established for this.
>
>    1. A key set of interface pages must have been written in or
> translated into the language,
>    2. There must be a minimum number of articles exceeding a specified
> length written in the main namespace of the project, and
>    3. There must be a minimum number of contributors, EACH of whom has
> written a minimum number of qualifying articles in the main namespace.
>
> Perhaps there could be others too.
>
> Ec

Nod. I think these are good criteria;
But I presume interface can only be translated really if there is a
separate independant project, rather than a unique seedwiki ?

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [Foundation-l] test2

body:
Test2

(sorry, I have no idea why, many of my mails are posted AND retained in
moderation as well. Just trying to understand here...)

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] test2


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

>>> Objective criteria can be established for this.
>>>
>>>    1. A key set of interface pages must have been written in or
>>> translated into the language,
>>>    2. There must be a minimum number of articles exceeding a
>>> specified length written in the main namespace of the project, and
>>>    3. There must be a minimum number of contributors, EACH of whom
>>> has written a minimum number of qualifying articles in the main
>>> namespace.
>>>
>>> Perhaps there could be others too.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>
>> Nod. I think these are good criteria;
>> But I presume interface can only be translated really if there is a
>> separate independant project, rather than a unique seedwiki ?
>
> Please consider that the interface is one of the most difficult parts
> to do - with Neapolitan I have part of it online, part of it here and
> we are still thinking on how to call certain things in Neapolitan -
> because there are no "official terms" for many things - often people
> use English, some Italian and some an Englis/Italian that has been
> adapted to Neapolitan. I'd say the interface cannot be ready fast - it
> takes quite a lot of time to decide, because this is one of these very
> particular situations where thanks to Wikipedia neologisms are being
> created. I very much listen to young people when they talk about
> computers and internet to understand, but believe me: it is more than
> just "translating some words".
>
> I'd leave a lot of time for the interface, but I would expect that
> some basic articles can be written by anyone: descriptions of towns,
> churches, museums etc.

I appreciate that difficulty, and would limit that requirement to
certain *key* interfaces; what is "key" would need to be defined.  In
the Neapolitan example it might be acceptable to keep the less important
interfaces temporarily in Italian, but I'm sure that in an active
project the members would consider that leaving it that way would be an
embarassment.

The dominance of English in technical language can be a big problem for
the guardians of major languages.  It could be almost impossible for
minor languages that lack any significant educational establishment.
This puts us in an awkward situation.  The descriptivist/prescriptionist
divide is an ongoing concern for wiktionaries.  To be true to our
principles we should only include words that are actually used, not in
English, not in Italian, and certainly not in minor languages.  If we on
the outside propose words for the Neapolitans then Neapolitan won't be
Neapolitan anymore.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
IMHO it is difficult to decide:
1.if the criteria is the number of articles an user can be use a bot and
increase this number;
2.if the criteria is the number of users this limit can be avoid with a large
number of sockpuppets.

In any case cannot be defined a special rule to define the removal of a Wikipedia
because in italian, for example, we have used a program of affiliation of
minor languages to help them.

In my opinion should be defined a mixed criteria (articles+users) but the
removal can only be done after a new votation.

Ilario

>
>then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
>languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is viable
?
>
>This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should be

>removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though the
>entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>
>Ant
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


from_name: Santi cluke

subject: [Foundation-l] Question

body:
Hi, I'ld like to know if there is a project to create a new space in
the wiki foundation "Wikitree" for creating a genealogic tree based on
this technology.

Thanks

Diego A. Meretta
"Santicluke"
Argentina


subject: [Foundation-l] Question


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
>> Objective criteria can be established for this.
>>
>>    1. A key set of interface pages must have been written in or
>> translated into the language,
>>    2. There must be a minimum number of articles exceeding a
>> specified length written in the main namespace of the project, and
>>    3. There must be a minimum number of contributors, EACH of whom
>> has written a minimum number of qualifying articles in the main
>> namespace.
>>
>> Perhaps there could be others too.
>>
>> Ec
>
>
> Nod. I think these are good criteria;
> But I presume interface can only be translated really if there is a
> separate independant project, rather than a unique seedwiki ?

Please consider that the interface is one of the most difficult parts to
do - with Neapolitan I have part of it online, part of it here and we
are still thinking on how to call certain things in Neapolitan - because
there are no "official terms" for many things - often people use
English, some Italian and some an Englis/Italian that has been adapted
to Neapolitan. I'd say the interface cannot be ready fast - it takes
quite a lot of time to decide, because this is one of these very
particular situations where thanks to Wikipedia neologisms are being
created. I very much listen to young people when they talk about
computers and internet to understand, but believe me: it is more than
just "translating some words".

I'd leave a lot of time for the interface, but I would expect that some
basic articles can be written by anyone: descriptions of towns,
churches, museums etc.

Ciao, Sabine

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> I will send it again as I am under the impression nobody read it.
>
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new
>> languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is
>> viable ?
>>
>> This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should
>> be removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though
>> the entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>
> Why do it difficult with seedwiki's. Give languages a chance on a real
> wiki for say three months. If they haven't created 100 articles of some
> length by then (so not 1 line, but lets say approx 10 lines at least) we
> lock them.

We have any number of languages with Wikis that never got anywhere, and
it's very difficult to get rid of them.  Having new languages in a
separate project impresses on people the need to perform or have the
project killed.  It leaves them under the axe.

> By doing this you help a language to seriously start up and give people
> in the fledgling community someone to learn from. The adopter could even
> help think of a strategy to make the fledgling wikipedia reach at least
> 100 articles of reasonable quality.

Ultimately, the survival of a project will depend on the speakers of the
language.  The adopter could be helpful, but it may not be his language.

> This way we can ensure a language gets a serious chance. If the native
> speakers of that language do not take that chance we lock the pedia.
> Plain and simple.

Eventually it could even be deleted.  Perhaps lock it after three months
of complete inactivity;  delete it after six months.

> Give people a fair chance. Do not make a decision by voting.

I agree that voting gets us nowhere.  Better to have a standard for
starting and retaining a seed wiki, and a higher standard for promoting
it to full wiki status.

> If there
> are a couple of people (could be even one very active person) who claim
> they speak the lingo and an experienced wikipedian willing to adopt the
> language give it a chance. This is equal opportunity. Everyone gets a
> shot. If you blow it you blow it and your next requests will not be
> taken seriously!

Agreed


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


subject: [Foundation-l] RE:New language policy

body:
pikola Thierry wrote:

>According to the point 2 in
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
>
>the language proposed must have a standard writing
>system.
>
That may not always be realistic.  The writing system for many minor
languages were developed by outsiders because the languages were only
oral.  How "standard" are these impositions?

>
>If we approve the creation of Wikipedias such as
>Andalusian Spanish, ...
>
I'm not in a position to comment on the specific circumstances of
Andalusian.

>Wikimedia community should decide which role new
>Wikipedias play on new writing systems creation.
>
In Star Trek terms it is the problem of the Prime Directive.

>Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I really think
>that Wikimedia Foundation should take much into
>account two points:
>Speakers identity and existence of a standard writing
>on that language.
>
>I think that Wikimedia should not be active part of
>language creation, neither of language identity
>discusion.
>
We still need a basis for acting.  Sometimes the language "differences"
are more political than linguistic as in the case of former Yugoslavia.

At one time most linguistic research was being done by missionaries
whose sole objective was to bring religion to the heathens.  Viewed in
the context of their time their contributions to linguistics were
significant.  At the same time they also had an effect on the
development of the language into something other than what it might have
been.  How to handle technical terminology is a particular problem.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] RE:New language policy


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Chinese wikipedia unblocked?

body:
Jiaming Xu wrote:
> Yes, the whole Wikipedia is still dead blocked in China, including the .zh
> section.
>
> On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>>I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being ignored
>>
>>As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia
>>would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I
>>feel we should change tactics.
>>
>>Waerth/Walter

Waerth, you are removing words from my mouth...

Jiaming, Andrew and others, I would like to ask you help on something.

I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the
successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to
lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing
that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.

Additionnaly, one of the organisations we talk with for possible
sponsorship (and who actually sponsored some people to come to
Wikimania) recently asked me to explain a bit what the block state was,
and asked if they could be in touch with some of the chinese actors
helping for the unblocking.

For this reason, I started yesterday a page on the issue on meta :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/China_block where I just had the time to
put Jimbo's words yesterday, before I gave up due to the whole system
slowliness.

I would really appreciate it if you could help summarize the various
steps of the past 2 blocks as well as this one. I think there is
information we can dig in the SignPost as well and Brion made some stats
a few days ago on the matter. The idea is mostly to document the whole
events, not necessarily to do an all clean and well written page.

Could you help here ?

Ant


from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

body:
Anthere wrote:

> My problem is that if we start a project because there are 10
> supporters, we sort of hope that a certain momentum will exist
> from the very beginning. When it actually turns out that only 1
> person is behind 10 supports... errrrr.... there is no momentum.

The simple solution would be to require them to start on
Wikicities (or some other external site) and gather, say, 500
articles (now, that *is* momentum), before their wiki is
"promoted" to a Wikipedia or Wiktionary in the new language, or
some other kind of official Wikimedia Foundation project.

I have no opinion on whether this is a *good* solution, but it's a
simple one.  I'm a technical guy, and appreciate simple solutions.
It would direct energy towards creating articles, rather than
creating sock puppets.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: new language policy


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Help needed for helpdesk-l

body:
On 11/15/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> This sounds to me like a good use of PHPbb.  I am strongly against the
> use of this for general Wikipedia talk, but it seems a useful idea for
> this case.  I'll host a test forum on my own server if this would be
> appreciated.  Does the Foundation have a problem with using this
> software?

It's free software, so it wouldn't be something the Foundation objects
to. Whether it's something any developers are prepared to maintain is
another matter.

Angela


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: crew]

body: (This message removed from archives by request.)


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"Sam Korn" <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote in message
news:cbffa3750511211511m6ea7055g2cd7f9fb82ff3c8f at mail.gmail.com...
On 11/21/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > I cannot believe that a Wikipedia editor is seriously suggesting that
> > research is too much to ask.  Please reconsider.
> Please attempt RC patrol at ~12-1am UTC on a weekday.  Then you will
> see what I mean.

Please consider doing your RC patrol at a time when you are alert enough to
do it properly. If you are in the wrong timezone, that's hardly your fault.

You presumably wouldn't drive or "operate heavy machinery" (to borrow the
cough syrup clich?) when you are feeling tired: why treat what you obviously
regard as an important job with any less care?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 28, Issue 51

body:
A third possibility would be to examine the Magenta Documentation
License to determine if it is compatible.

Ec

Andre Engels wrote:

>This question cannot be answered conclusively. There are two possibilities:
>
>1. The material was originally uploaded under the GNU/FDL by the
>author; they later decided to change the license
>2. The material was originally uploaded by someone not the author,
>wrongly claiming that it was under the GNU/FDL.
>
>In the FIRST case, your rights under the GNU/FDL are remaining just as
>they were, and thus you have the right to re-publish it in the way
>allowed to you by the GNU/FDL. That they changed license doesn't
>matter - all material that has once been published under the GNU/FDL
>remains available as such (but their NEW versions and articles do
>not).
>
>In the SECOND case, they did not have the right to publish the
>material under the GNU/FDL, and they also could not give you that
>right. The claim that it was GNU/FDL material was false, and you have
>no right to publish it as such, nor did you have that right before.
>
>2005/11/22, Konstantinos <geraki at geraki.net>:
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>I'm new to the mailing list and I have some questions regarding GFDL.
>>
>>I'm active in Greek wikipedia. Some months ago greek company
>>http://www.magenta.gr/ created a wiki (http://www.live-pedia.gr) importing
>>in it, its previously commercial encyclopedic dictionary
>>http://www.magenta.gr/gr/lexicons/gr_encycl_dictionary.htm (of questionable
>>quality) to create a wikipedia-like encyclopedia, asking from users to
>>contibute. For months there was a notice that all content is GFDL (in fact
>>they had copied the copyrights page
>>(http://www.livepedia.gr/index.php/Live-Pedia.gr:%CE%94%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE
>>%B9%CF%8E%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B1) from Greek wikipedia
>>(http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%92%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B9%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%
>>B4%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%B1:%CE%A0%CE%BD%CE%B5%CF%85%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%
>>CE%AC_%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%8E%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B1). During
>>this time, some articles from Live-Pedia were transferred to greek wikipedia
>>and articles from greek wikipedia to Live-Pedia (paying attribution
>>according to the GFDL)
>>
>>Last week the notice to GFDL has change to one that states that the content
>>is under another license (Magenta Documentation License) but that license is
>>not uploaded yet, so we do not know the rules.
>>
>>As I understand:
>>
>>* All content that has been copied while there was a notice that it was
>>under the GFDL continues to be like that, and that means that all articles
>>that were copied to wikipedia before they change the license can stay.
>>* I can still use the articles (the 500 longest articles) I had copied to my
>>computer before they change the license (I'd like to put some in wikipedia).
>>
>>Q1: Are these right?
>>
>>Q2: The articles copied from wikipedia to Live-Pedia should be deleted from
>>Live-Pedia or they can stay with a notice that they are under the GFDL
>>unlike the rest of their articles that they are under another license?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>geraki at elwikipedia
>>
>>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias
	(wasHowdidthis happen (comixpedia??))

body:
"Matt Brown" <morven at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:42f90dc00511211942j7d12ed8cn87469568c7d2af0 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 11/21/05, David Gerard
> <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > Bollocks it's verboten to speedy merge. Anyone who thinks it is has a
> > bad case of process over product and is inappropriately asserting the
> > supremacy of AFD over writing an encyclopedia.
> Wholly agreed.  Although I know already that merges have been undone
> for entirely that reason.  I'm surprised nobody has an issue with
> anyone making any edits to a AFD'd article.

There's plenty of people who might have issues with it.

However they can take their issues and [censored].

AFD is like the Sabbath: it was intended to serve Wikipedia, not the other
way around.

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


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Brute force image server upgrade

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Since everybody's so frustrated about this, I'm going to go ahead and
> force the issue with the upload server. I'll be disabling uploads and
> turning off the upload.wikimedia.org web server for a few hours so we
> can get everything moved over and totally copied once and for all.
>
> Alas this'll mean not seeing images for a few hours, but it should
> finally be nicer after this. :D

Data's finally all done copying (gar, what overloaded servers those were
:P), arranging stuff now to set up the new server in use.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Harald Hanek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Gollum now in english

body:
Am Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:15:04 +0100 schriebst du:

> uld it be possible to add Walloon (de: Wallonisch, in the language
> itself: walon)

It's done.

Cheers
Harald


from_name: Ting Chen

body:
> I have thought some time ago that we should have a page summarizing the
> successive blocks (date, range etc...), and the actions done to try to
> lift them up. I felt uncertain if we should do this at all, but hearing
> that we are still blocked, I really feel we should.

I support this suggestion. This page should also list other blocks (I think
I heard that some language versions ware or are blocked by Iran).

Here is a link to the chinese page on this event (including the two blocks
in last
year):
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%86%E5%B0%81%E9%94%81%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E5%AA%92%E4%BD%93%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6
and this is the english version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia_in_mainland_China

Greetings
Ting

--
Highspeed-Freiheit. Bei GMX superg?nstig, z.B. GMX DSL_Cityflat,
DSL-Flatrate f?r nur 4,99 Euro/Monat*  http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


from_name: Philip Sandifer

body:
On Nov 22, 2005, at 10:59 AM, geni wrote:
>
> It doesn't matter how alert you are. At certain times (ok pretty much
> anytime except sunday morning) RC patrol is all about speed. Those ten
> minutes you spent reseaching were ten minuites which could have been
> spent keeping out vandalism.

I would rather let vandalism accidentally survive for ten extra
minutes than delete good content.

-Phil


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lauritsen speedy deletion??

body:
On Nov 22, 2005, at 11:13 AM, Sam Korn wrote:
>
> If pages filling the speedy criteria during those hours, I will not be
> doing research to rescue them.  At other times, the amount of
> vandalism is far lower, so there's more time to research.  My method
> is fully within policy.

It is, however, wholly outside any realm of reason or what is good
for the project.

-Phil