subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
Also, people are talking about Language vs Dialect. Does it matter?

Who cares if Serbian is a language separate from Croatian? It is
entirely irrelevant. What *is* relevant, is that _IN WRITTEN FORM_
Croatians, Bosnians, and Serbians can all understand each other at
maybe greater even than 99%. There is a question of writing system,
but unlike some cases, there is a direct 1-to-1 symbol correspondence
(sort of).

Wikipedia is NOT about petty politics. It is NOT about having a place
to promote a culture or a country. It is NOT about whether or not a
language is different enough from another. It is about Building an
Encyclopaedia, first and foremost.

And every situation should be considered from THAT PERSPECTIVE.
Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian Wikipedias are growing quite large now.
Imagine how much bigger it would be if they shared a single Wikipedia?
It would be among the largest!! That excites me, and that's why I
copied a few dozen articles to sh.wp. And, if you put petty politics
and patriotic feeling aside and remember that we're here to build an
encyclopaedia, it should excite you too!!! Sure, maybe it will require
a little more work to integrate such different communities. But will
it be worth it? I think ultimately, the answer is "yes".

But such an outcome cannot be reached without the cooperation of each community.

Obviously, there are still strong divisions from the wars. But please,
let's not let that divide us on Wikipedia. Wikipedia should be
something that unites us.

The English Wikipedia unites Brits, Americans, Australians, Serbians,
Italians, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, young and old.
Yes, there is sometimes infighting -- the Ukrainians and Russians will
disagree. But in the end there is fraternity, and the encyclopaedia is
all the better for it!!!!!

Why, then, can't a Neo-?tokavian Wikipedia unite Bosnian, Serbian,
Croatian, Montenegrin,  Metohijan, and Hercegovinian, Muslim,
Catholic, and Orthodox?

Mark

On 13/01/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> From what I understand, at least of Milo?'s view, he hopes one day to
> have a united Neo-?tokavian Wikipedia, perhaps called the "Wikipedia
> in Our Language" or something similarly uniting.
>
> That means, I think, that everybody here has, ultimately, the same goals.
>
> Whether or not sh.wiki would eventually be the breeding ground for a
> Neo-?tokavian Wikipedia is uncertain.
>
> But one thing which is certain about sh.wiki: it has already served to
> unite people from different countries under the same goals. A large
> group? No. But, a group nonetheless. I know that among the main
> supporters of sh.wp, some are based out of Serbia and others out of
> Croatia. I don't think there are any Bosnians nor Montenegrins (nor
> Zlatiborians ;p) involved, though.
>
> The main issue seems to be the current structure of sh.wiki.
>
> If sh.wikipedians really dream that some day, all speakers of
> Serbo-Croatian "languages" can be united with one Wikipedia, I think
> it is up to them to take the first reconciliatory step, namely, form
> community ties with the Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian Wikipedias.
>
> Also, a power structure needs to be formed. Although it should be OK
> to block a person who is unquestionably vandalising pages, anybody
> else should be blocked, but later it needs to be discussed with the
> other admins. A full agreement should be reached among admins before
> making a final decision.
>
> Also, for better oversight, I think sh.wp should try to recruit people
> from other Wikipedias, or recruit non-Wikipedians to join sh.wp. With
> a larger community, there is a bigger diversity, and eventually more
> admins, which leads to better oversight of admin actions.
>
> Really, sh.wiki is not in a position to be confrontational. In
> English, there is a saying, "you get more flies with honey than with
> vinegar", which means, you will get further by diplomacy and attempts
> at reconciliation and genuine goodwill, than petty bickering.
>
> Someone will probably say, "Oh, well, *we're* not arguing, it's them."
> But this is never the case. For any argument, there are two people.
>
> And it's obvious that many people here share the same ideals.
>
> And let's get one thing straight -- NOBODY, again, NOBODY (save
> perhaps Mav) wants to FORCEFULLY unite projects without democratic
> agreement from all of them.
>
> Mark
>
> On 11/01/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> > On 1/11/06, Dejan Cabrilo <dcabrilo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Milos, you first said that nobody tagged POV articles as such, and
> > > that I should've. We concluded that I did. Now you are saying that I
> > > didn't attempt to improve them, but did tag them. I did try to improve
> > > some, but I was constantly reverted and even rolled back by some
> > > admins (I can look into those). So, don't tell me I am not saying
> > > truth again, please.
> >
> > Try it again with ONE article, first (please, use some which where you
> > are more familiar) and if you would have some problems, they will be
> > solved. But, please, don't behave aggressive.
> >
> > > It doesn't matter if our edition is called Serbo-Croatian, or
> > > Neo-Shtokavian, or "our language". It's about not being country, or
> > > ethno-centric, but information centric.
> >
> > Do you think that building one more community is a right way to make
> > differences smaller? I don't think so. In this moment the right way
> > is, as I see, to work inside of present communities. When sh: grows up
> > to 10 people, we would have a lot more difficult situation because the
> > space for possible merging would be filled with one more community.
> >
> > However, as I said, one of the important reasons why I am not for
> > closing sh: in this way is a possibility of deactivating couple of
> > active sh: Wikipedians.
> >
> > In other words, the only possible way for relocking of sh: is your
> > (i.e. sh: Wikipedians) intention to do so; as well as your start to
> > work in all of other three encyclopedias/communities on the long
> > process of merging content. Is it possible?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
It's fun to think that way, but what should actually be done?

It would be equally unfair to ban him from Wikipedia, he has a right
to express his opinions.

Voting may be evil, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen anyways.
Is there a way to compromise between Voting-is-evil and
Voting-solves-everything? There must be, in some form or another.

Mark

On 13/01/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > The conflict at the Moldovan Wikipedia has reignited.
> >
> > A new user made a page called "Alegeri" (elections).
> >
> > It starts with him espousing his POVs.
> >
> > The requirements of the vote are:
> >
> > 1) You have to speak Romanian/Moldovan "adequately". Whether or not
> > your skills are "adequate", is to be judged by this particular user
> > himself.
> > 2) You have to have at least 25 contributions on the Moldovan
> > Wikipedia... OR the Romanian Wikipedia!!!
> >
> > Now, that strikes me as inherently unfair. Romanian Wikipedians are
> > allowed to vote, sort of like a free pass? But no other Wikimedians??
> > It's not the ROmanian Wikipedia after all, it's the Moldovan
> > Wikipedia!
> >
> > You may argue all you want about whether or not Moldovan and Romanian
> > are a single language, whether or not that Wikipedia should exist, but
> > to let everybody from one Wiki vote for the future of another one, but
> > nobody from any other wikis may participate, seems inherently unfair.
> >
> > The same user has been very... shall we say, "headstrong". He moved
> > dozens and dozens of pages from Cyrillic titles to Latin titles
> > (instead of creating brand-new pages in Latin), and replaced their
> > entire contents with direct copy from ro.wiki, systematically. He
> > obviously didn't even review his work, because many images were broken
> > because the image tag for ro: ([[imagine:...]]) doesn't work on
> > mo.wiki (you have to use the default, [[image:...]]).
> >
> > Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority are
> > Romanians. How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of the
> > Moldovan Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?
> >
> > Well, maybe some Romanians don't see themselves as foreigners, but in
> > the eyes of the world, they are. And besides, very clearly, there are
> > two separate subdomains. Whether or not Romanians are Moldovans and
> > vice-versa, very clearly most ro.wikipedians are NOT mo.wikipedians,
> > though a few are.
> >
> > Your thoughts, please?
> >
>
> Voting is evil. If your description of events is accurate, then this
> user should be (to quote Garfield) dragged out into the street and shot.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>

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


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Apparently fixed.
> Jimbo, Angela and myself agree.
> And the final number is pretty cool.
> So, all is well.
>
> Now, the old stewards go on holidays and let you clean up the request
> for bot status :-)
>
> ant

I have only just become active again and now you want me to go on
holidays again ;) ......

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Nicolas GUERIN

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problème avec mon wiki.

body:
Bonjour,
Je me permet de vous contacter, je suis Nicolas GUERIN et j'ai ouvert mon
wiki sp?cialis? dans AOL, par contre j'ai un soucis assez important je ne
sais pas comment, avec quels identifiants et je cherche la console
d'administration de mon wiki.

http://www.city-online.net/wikiaol

Je ne sais pas comment faire pour administrer ce dernier et prot?ger entre
autre certains pages, l'aide en anglais n'est pas super pratique, et je m'en
remet donc ? vous pour me dire comment faire pour r?cup?rer mes droits
d'administrateur ayant mis en place moi m?me mon wiki et pouvoir ainsi
modifier certaines fonctions du wiki que j'ai ouvert.

Je n'est qu'un login et un pass mais visiblement ils ne me donnent que des
droits d'utilisateur simple.

Le seul compte que j'ai n'a qu'un acc?s comme simple utilisateur, pourtant
c'est bien mes serveurs
sur lequel je l'est install?.

Pourriez vous m'aider.
Merci pour votre aide.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body:
shi zhao wrote:
> hehe, and username at jawiki not work.
>

To change permissions on the yaseo wikis, use

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5:Makesysop

Datrio is the only one with access there at the moment, ask him to put all
the stewards in the ?????? group on ja. Or pester me for a while and I
might get around to doing it with direct database access. You all need to
have accounts there first though.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections


list: wikien-l

from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith

> Well Fred has successfully confused me once again.  No less
> than 5 times he's declared users did not "act in concert",
> yet refused three motions to provide a Finding of Fact.
> Oddly now, the very  faction Fred expresses fear of has been
> created in response to the errors the ArbCom made in handling
> the case. And this phenomenea is discussed in the Laird
> Wilcox Report, the basis of the verifiable citations the
> ArbCom attributed to Nobs as "personal attacks".

Nobs, mate.

I gave up hoping for justice or fairness from the wikijudiciary a while
back.

The fact is, if you do a lot of work for WP, you can be excused ANYTHING,
even if there's a pile of hard evidence against you. And the longer you've
been around the more you can get away with, mainly because you've got an
established party of supporters to back you up and who will be offended if a
decision goes against you.

Don't think that this place is subject to the same sort of standards you
expect in a court of law or even the due process of a government body. It's
just a website, and the people running the show are all busy doing other
stuff and while they are happy to assume the rank and power of their
position, their top priority isn't listening to you point out their
shortcomings, it's getting an encyclopaedia built.

Accept that from your point of view the system is crooked and rigged and get
on with it. Complaining about it only gets everyone offside.

As I discovered.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use images on user pages and enforcement

body:
On 1/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's quite simple really.  Wikipedia's biggest reason for qualifying
> for fair use is that it is a free educational resource.

Everyone "qualifies" for fair use.  The fact that Wikipedia is an
educational resource is *one factor* in whether or not its use of
certain images in certain ways is fair use.

> Userpages are just not educational.

In general most userpages have a lessened educational purpose than
articles.  I wouldn't go any further than that.  I certainly wouldn't
say "userpages are just not educational".

> User pages would, if I read the situation
> right, be very little different from a GeoCities website or the
> equivilent.

You definitely read it wrong.  Wikipedia userpages are, in general,
very different from the average geocities website.

> Image use would not qualify as fair use there; why should it here?

Image use can and often does qualify as fair use there.

The only reason I can see not to use fair use images on user pages is
that it is never necessary.  So rather than waste time arguing case by
case with each other you just ban it completely.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Kick against the pricks here and you get kicked back. At some stage you ask
yourself just what you came here for in the first place, and if it's because
you like people taking free kicks at you, then you probably shouldn't be
here.

Peter (Skyring)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith
> Sent: Friday, 13 January 2006 07:12
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?
>
> I discerned as much.  The point is, the faction Fred is
> fearful of did not exist, until ArbCom railroaded some
> editors in response to the demands of an existing faction.
> The remedy to an imaginary problem only created the problem.
> Now the faction cries out for leadership.  Pretending ideas
> don't exist or can be dealt with by censorship solves nothing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith

> To contribute content, not to join a social club or be
> targeted and smeared by ideological factions.  My
> contributions can wait, they will endure the test of time,
> the ultimate test.

Well, in that case why don't you find a way that allows you to contribute
without getting everybody including yourself hot and bothered?

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith

> Admittedly, there is alotta technical stuff I don't know, or
> the background of the project.  As an exilee I got the time
> to study.  But on return I'll have a few hundred (or
> thousand) articles to contribute.

WP is just a website. If you have useful stuff to contribute, contribute it.
Just don't stick your head up where it's going to get kicked.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
I'm not going to rehash old stuff. Fred's summarising for the Arbcom was
quite mistaken, but in his defence he didn't understand the constitutional
subleties and he didn't have time to go looking at all the arguments. I was
na?ve enough to think that the thing would be fully investigated, and I
spent a lot of time being righteously outraged and making a damfool of
myself.

Peter (Skyring)

> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith

> I've read some portions of your case; the content issues are
> interesting.
> And I note Fred accepted as per the content issues.  Feel
> free to give your perspective how the whole mess was handled.


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
> heavy-handed with them in requesting removal. A page for this
> would be
> more friendly, and a message could be added something like
> "Hi, you have
> fair use images on your page, Image:X.png and Image:Y.jpg.
> These are not
> permitted to be used on user pages. Please read
> [[Wikipedia:Why fair use
> images are not permitted on user pages]] for more information on why
> this is the case."

Hi, you're using a copyrighted image in a way which actually isn't "fair
use". We're allowed to use certain copyrighted images in Wikipedia
strictly within the terms of "fair use", such as criticising the image.
But we can't just use them everywhere without violating the owner's
copyright. Sorry, but could you please remove the image as soon as
possible. [link link link]

Get heavy handed when they refuse to comply (like {test1}, {test2} etc)

Steve


body:
> I really do think that the only way people will not say "but
> $reason means it's alright" would be a blanket ban.  As this
> is not about to come from our community, which is very
> fractured over this issue, it can only come from above.

Is it technically possible at the moment to prevent images marked as
fair use (ie, with a fair use template) from being used in user space?
If so, is there a good reason for not enforcing that?

I suspect it's not possible because images are marked by using templates
rather than, say, categories, but that could fairly easily be changed,
no?

Steve


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikitech-l] visitor stats

body:
I was recently asked by the Esperanto press for visitor statistics for
the year.  I realize that grabbing the statistics is a very traffic
consuming process, but could we at least allow it to happen once a
year so we can see how much traffic we're really getting or are we
purging the logs regularly?

Thanks,
Chuck


from_name: Quistnix

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Useless "developers"

body:
Sorry - shouldn't reply to e-mail when I have slept less than four hours
the night before. My replies are getting too impulsive if I do ;)

Anton

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Resen with typo corrected "did" in place of "die" :-[
> Ec
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> You're right, and it looks like you just did.  :-)
>> Ec
>>
>> Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>> I thought that required somebody to actually mention Hitler and/or
>>> Naziism?
>>>
>>> Mark
>>>
>>> On 12/01/06, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>>> Let me into a little secret. Seeing things without acting is why WW II
>>>>> could happen.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I guess it's time for Godwin's law.
>>>
>>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PHP 5

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:
> "Tim Starling"
> <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote in
> message news:dq8dj1$e9d$1 at sea.gmane.org...
>> The dual opterons in the Wikimedia cluster have now been upgraded to from
>> PHP 4.4.0 to 5.1.1. Presumably the rest of the cluster will follow soon,
>> although there doesn't seem to be any problem with running a mixed cluster
>> aside from the administrative overhead.
>
> Does this presage a massive rewrite of Mediawiki, or is the intended policy
> to remain backwards-compatble with PHP 4? If the latter, for how long?

No massive rewrite right away, but we will probably break PHP 4 compatibility
here and there pretty soon.

1.6 probably will require PHP 5. The next major version definitely will.

Fixing error handling to use exceptions is something I'd dearly love to see, but
the first incompatible changes will probably mostly be things like letting
object references work 'naturally' rather than hacking in reference parameters
in so many places.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
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Rob Smith stated for the record:
> All so true.  But a "fucked up censored encyclopedia" would hurt the effort
> to be a valid and credible source, and thus no more than a waste of
> everyone's time.
>
> nobs

So stop wasting your time.

- --
 Sean Barrett
 sean at epoptic.org
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from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
You can say it a thousand times, but when diligent contributors acting in
good faith, are driven off by a political machine with an agenda of its
own, nullifies the premise.  It not only deters the goal of writing an
encyclopedia, it risks the issues of validity and censorship.

nobs

On 1/12/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> >
> >
> >Don't think that this place is subject to the same sort of standards you
> >expect in a court of law or even the due process of a government body.
> It's
> >just a website, and the people running the show are all busy doing other
> >stuff and while they are happy to assume the rank and power of their
> >position, their top priority isn't listening to you point out their
> >shortcomings, it's getting an encyclopaedia built.
> >
> >Accept that from your point of view the system is crooked and rigged and
> get
> >on with it. Complaining about it only gets everyone offside.
> >
> >As I discovered.
> >
> >Peter (Skyring)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> I couldn't have put it better. [[WP:NOT]] a social experiment - it's an
> encyclopedia. For some people, this is too much to accept, but the rest
> of us who are here to write an encyclopedia couldn't care less.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Stacey Doljack Borsody

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
--- wikipedia-l-request at Wikimedia.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:27:15 -0700
> From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia
> To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <849f98ed0601130027ufdf1101j at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252
>
> Why, then, can't a Neo-?tokavian Wikipedia unite Bosnian, Serbian,
> Croatian, Montenegrin,  Metohijan, and Hercegovinian, Muslim,
> Catholic, and Orthodox?
>
> Mark

Because they don't want to be united.  The word balkanize isn't named after the Balkans for no
reason.  Yugoslavia broke up after communism for a reason.  And it has been going on like this for
centuries.  In the 20s and 30s during the Depression,  my grandfather (Slovene) played baseball
all around the country.  He couldn't understand why two of his teammates, one Serb the other
Croat, would not speak to each other.  He would harass them saying, "You are both born here in
America!  You are Americans!  You're on the same team!"  I doubt Wikipedia is going to solve their
self-inflicted problems and I honestly think it is a waste of everyone's time on this list for
them to come here and try to ask foreigners to solve their problems.

.s


from_name: Siva Balan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Autoblock

body:
My IP address is 165.21.154.114 and my user name is siva1979. I feel that I
have been autoblocked from editing Wikipedia by Wgfinley. I hope that the
problem will be resolved as soon as possible. Thank You.

_________________________________________________________________
Get an advanced look at the new version of MSN Messenger.
http://messenger.msn.com.sg/Beta/Default.aspx


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
All so true.  But a "fucked up censored encyclopedia" would hurt the effort
to be a valid and credible source, and thus no more than a waste of
everyone's time.

nobs

On 1/13/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
> Rob Smith wrote:
>
> >You can say it a thousand times, but when diligent contributors acting in
> >good faith, are driven off by a political machine with an agenda of its
> >own, nullifies the premise.  It not only deters the goal of writing an
> >encyclopedia, it risks the issues of validity and censorship.
> >
> >nobs
> >
> >
> >
> Now, that has nothing at all to do with what I was saying. (And this is
> giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are correct that there is a
> political cabal seeking to drive away opposing viewpoints.) I was saying
> Wikipedia is not a social experiment. It is a privately funded attempt
> to create an encyclopedia by allowing anyone to edit it, as long as they
> don't fall foul of the owners. Typically, the community/admins act as
> the owners by blocking people who fall foul of them, because the owners
> of Wikipedia (the Wikimedia Foundation) give them considerable autonomy
> to do so and set their own customs, etc. But the fact remains that this
> is a private enterprise, so if you don't like how the Wikimedia
> Foundation behaves, just up and leave. It won't hurt anyone if we end up
> producing a fucked up/censored encyclopedia, because private businesses
> and non-profits have no social obligations beyond following the law.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] kelvSYC's take on userboxes

body:
On 1/13/06, kelvSYC <kelvSYC at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Name one.
>

writeing our article on 133t to start with

> True, but if it doesn't help, it's as good as dead weight, right?
>

not really. Makes no odds one way or the other and trains people in
the use of templates.

> How about "admins by specialty" boxes?  "This user is a designated
> user blocker" sounds mighty useful...

Maybe but it makes no sense in the context of how adminship currently works.

> What would prevent someone, say, an admin, from rewriting this in
> userbox (albeit a large one) form...?  And if a block is appealed,
> what would prevent someone from writing their rebuttal in userbox form?

As a general rule userboxes are not used to comunicate on talk pages.

--
geni


from_name: Evan Martin

subject: [Wikitech-l] visitor stats

body:
On 1/12/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Some nonintrustive statistical logging would probably be useful, but this hasn't
> happened yet.

Could you just log one in 1000 accesses?  Hardly statistical in the
fancy sense, but you'll end up with megabytes instead of gigabytes and
you can multiply to get approximations of the actual numbers.


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] French Wikipedia community ask for a new namespace

body:
For the first request, please open a new bug on
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org as it makes things easier to track.

As to the second, while that's not implemented in the software at the
moment, there is an active feature request at
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4469 for a "namespace
banner" of some description, which would, I think, achieve the effect
you're after.

Rob Church

On 13/01/06, Guillaume Blanchard <blanchardg at cavia.com> wrote:
> Bonjour,
> The French Wikipedia community decided at unanimity the use a new
> namespace called "r?f?rence".
> Here is the poll page
> [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence]
> and an English translation of the proposal (thanks to Rama)
> [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence/en].
>
> Final result is:
>
> - For: 43
> - Against: 0
> - Neutral: 4
>
> Please active this new namespace and the corresponding talk page namespace.
> We also would like to have a MediaWiki page (like [MediaWiki:Reference]
> or so) automatically include (and parse) at the top of all the pages of
> this namespace (to put common links and information).
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Aoineko / Guillaume Blanchard
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Giuseppe DAngelo

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia in Tetum

body:
Could someone please confirm whether a Wikipedia in Tetum has recenlty been set up, or whether it is about to be set up?  Thanks!
  pippu d'angelo

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice: chiama da PC a telefono a tariffe esclusive


from_name: Sherool

body:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:15:37 +0100, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>> I really do think that the only way people will not say "but
>> $reason means it's alright" would be a blanket ban.  As this
>> is not about to come from our community, which is very
>> fractured over this issue, it can only come from above.
>
> Is it technically possible at the moment to prevent images marked as
> fair use (ie, with a fair use template) from being used in user space?
> If so, is there a good reason for not enforcing that?
>
> I suspect it's not possible because images are marked by using templates
> rather than, say, categories, but that could fairly easily be changed,
> no?

I doubht there is any such feature at the moment, though it might be
possible implement by building on the existing "bad image" feature,
effectively turn anyting labeled with a "fair use" template into a "bad
image" with regards to the User: namespace (and others). You can't hard
code this in because templates change, new are added and so forth, but a
list in the MediaWiki namespace of "blacklisted" templates (or categories
if that is easier) might be doable.

In the meantime someone with toolserver access could relatively easily
make a bot that automaticaly remove anyting "fair use" from userpages,
userbox templates and things like that.

--
[[User:Sherool]]


body:
On 1/13/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >>User pages would, if I read the situation
> >>right, be very little different from a GeoCities website or the
> >>equivilent.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >You definitely read it wrong.  Wikipedia userpages are, in general,
> >very different from the average geocities website.
> >
> >
> How so? Neither are exempt from legal requirements to justify fair use.
>

Actually, neither are publishers anyway, they are ISPs, so they don't
have to justify fair use to anyone - they just have to take the
content down if they receive a DMCA takedown notice.

But the two are different because the purpose of Wikipedia userpages
is to help build an encyclopedia.  Wikipedia is not a webhosting
project - Geocities is - in my opinion that makes the two extremely
different.


body:
On 1/13/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 1/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's quite simple really.  Wikipedia's biggest reason for qualifying
> > > for fair use is that it is a free educational resource.
> >
> > Everyone "qualifies" for fair use.  The fact that Wikipedia is an
> > educational resource is *one factor* in whether or not its use of
> > certain images in certain ways is fair use.
>
> My phrasing was wrong, forgive me.  I meant to say that Wikipedia's
> biggest asset in asserting that its use of copyright media is fair use
> is that it is a free educational resource.
>
Being an educational resource is a factor, but it's only one.  And
being a free resource seems to me to provide as much of an argument
against fair use as for it, as it means the distribution is much more
widespread.  Being nonprofit counts for something though, although
userpages are pretty much always nonprofit as well as articles.

I think there's also some confusion over who is asserting fair use.
It isn't really "Wikipedia", but rather the person who is using the
content.

> > > Userpages are just not educational.
> >
> > In general most userpages have a lessened educational purpose than
> > articles.  I wouldn't go any further than that.  I certainly wouldn't
> > say "userpages are just not educational".
>
> Um, I have never seen an educational userpage.  Have you an example?
>
They're pretty much all educational to some extent.  Just picking one
randomly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrainyBroad.  That's
educational.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, the rule applies to the entire namespace,
including subpages.  Subpages are quite often educational in purpose,
in fact many subpages either used to be or will be an article
(actually more than one *userpage* wound up being turned into an
article as well).

> > > User pages would, if I read the situation
> > > right, be very little different from a GeoCities website or the
> > > equivilent.
> >
> > You definitely read it wrong.  Wikipedia userpages are, in general,
> > very different from the average geocities website.
>
> How?
>
I explained in another post, but the biggest difference is that
Geocities is a personal homepage provider, and Wikipedia:ISNOT.  The
whole purpose of the user pages is to facilitate the production of an
encyclopedia - that's very different from the purpose of Geocities
pages.

> > > Image use would not qualify as fair use there; why should it here?
> >
> > Image use can and often does qualify as fair use there.
>
> On someone's personal website about themselves?  Either you Merkins
> have *seriously* liberal copyright laws or we're talking at
> cross-purposes.
>
Fair use is fairly liberal.  The fact that the image is being
distributed on a personal website isn't really a factor.  What matters
is how the image is being used.

> > The only reason I can see not to use fair use images on user pages is
> > that it is never necessary.  So rather than waste time arguing case by
> > case with each other you just ban it completely.
>
> At least we agree on something!
>
Well, there's a flipside to that argument, though, and it goes back to
my previous statement that "what matters is how the image is being
used".  The fact that one namespace is considered out based on
horribly flawed legal reasoning only serves to confuse people into
thinking that another namespace (the article namespace) is OK.

The fact is that what namespace is being used is irrelevant, and even
just the fact that Wikipedia is an educational website is only *one
factor*.

Anyway, I think what's important is that things are explained right.
All the other Wikipedias are doing fine without fair use, surely the
English Wikipedia could do so as well.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Rob Church wrote:
>> For the first request, please open a new bug on
>> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org as it makes things easier to track.
>>
>> As to the second, while that's not implemented in the software at the
>> moment, there is an active feature request at
>> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4469 for a "namespace
>> banner" of some description, which would, I think, achieve the effect
>> you're after.
>>
>>
>> Rob Church
> Active a namespace in a wiki now take around 2 minutes (the time to
> load/write/save confiig file on the server). Do you really think we
> have to open a new "bug" (?) for that?
>
> For the second, it is just a hopped feature. If not available we will
> just include manually the same template at the top of each page. No
> problemo.
>
> Aoineko / Guillaume Blanchard
Hoi,
In the not to distant future, it will be possible to create namespaces
by other people than the developers. The helptext for this is already
available on Meta; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Namespace_manager
My suggestion would be; read this text and try to understand its
implications. When you do understand its implication write down what you
want to do and why. Have this read by developers for potential problems
and then be bold.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It would be nice to have more internal leadership. I think part of
>>> the trick is to model after professional societies and trade unions,
>>> where most leadership positions are part-time on a volunteer basis.
>>> For instance, projects could elect lead editors, whose special role
>>> during their terms is to preside over discussion on issues, and then
>>> make an executive decision, thus eliminating the indecision arising
>>> from those 56%-44% votes (think of city naming conventions). A lead
>>> for user page policy could have saved a lot of userbox anguish by
>>> being on top of the practice from the beginning.
>>>
>>> Stan
>>>
>> The problem is that these positions are often elected - and as we
>> have learnt from the debacle of this and last last year's arbcom
>> elections, campaigning for these positions is *brutal*. There'll be
>> even more anguish if the 56%-44% vote decides more than just one
>> issue. My suggestion would be something similar to the current arbcom
>> elections, but less divisive. The community nominates certain people
>> (how this is done is up to them), who will then write their candidate
>> statements, etc. Those who oppose/support must provide
>> links/diffs/etc. showing why they oppose/support. For instance,
>> "Oppose. [a few links to instances of POV pushing]" Unless the
>> situation may be ambiguous, there should be no need to say "POV
>> pusher" or "bad attitude". Then, the board will review the
>> candidates' statements (and those of the people opposing/supporting
>> them), and make its decision. (If this was a bit hard to follow,
>> please let me know.) It sounds a bit bureaucratic, but I think it has
>> a bit of potential if we're going to have a "lead editor".
>
>
> Arbcom is perhaps the hardest kind of position to elect, because the
> people involved have to get in the middle of all the worst fights in
> WP. To take the project I've been involved with the longest,
> WikiProject Ships, there have only been a couple serious arguments in
> the nearly three years of its existence. Most of the time it works to
> have one person propose, one or two say "good idea", and the rest
> silently acquiesce in the new order of things. Other times you get a
> proposal, an objection, a bit of discussion, and then deadlock; nobody
> wants to call a vote even, because it would simply numerify the near
> even split. The irony is that everybody is acting in good faith, and
> if a "first among equals" were to break the tie, project members would
> just go along. For many projects, I imagine that if someone were to put
> a hand up, that person would be elected by acclaim; others may indeed
> need to set up more of a formal balloting process.
>
> I'm not sure how much WP as a whole needs to get involved. It might be
> sufficient just to announce that projects are free to have "leads", let
> them each experiment, and then later recommend to all projects what
> seems to work the best.
>
> To tie back to AfD, if it were a project's prerogative to define
> deletion criteria, then AfD could become more of a routing mechanism
> that delegates articles' fates to projects. I'm not going to scan
> AfD every day on the off-chance that a nautical topic comes up, but
> would take time for a lower-volume "AfD/Ships", for instance.
>
> Stan

Ah, a bit of a misunderstanding there. I thought you were referring to
different Wikimedia projects, and not WikiProjects. I still think having
a general "lead editor" to break the deadlock would be a good idea,
though. Jimbo and Angela used to play this role on en until their
fundraising and PR work to them elsewhere. I think my proposal would be
applicable here, especially as the "lead editor" would be the board's
representative for the project, allowing him to make the tough calls
Jimbo, et al used to make but no now longer can't. This devolution of
power might be a feasible idea, as right now, our wild and woolly way of
resolving content disputes, etc. just isn't working, as UninvitedCompany
has pointed out - at some point, we'll either have to find a better way
than calling a vote, or just have the project break down into anarchy.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

> <snip>
>
>
>Don't think that this place is subject to the same sort of standards you
>expect in a court of law or even the due process of a government body. It's
>just a website, and the people running the show are all busy doing other
>stuff and while they are happy to assume the rank and power of their
>position, their top priority isn't listening to you point out their
>shortcomings, it's getting an encyclopaedia built.
>
>Accept that from your point of view the system is crooked and rigged and get
>on with it. Complaining about it only gets everyone offside.
>
>As I discovered.
>
>Peter (Skyring)
>
>
>
>
I couldn't have put it better. [[WP:NOT]] a social experiment - it's an
encyclopedia. For some people, this is too much to accept, but the rest
of us who are here to write an encyclopedia couldn't care less.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm just curious whether we have a policy on the use of fair use
> images on user pages, rather than a guideline, and if so, what our
> procedure is for enforcement of that policy if it says no such images
> permitted. Obviously discussion is the first stepping stone, but if
> the user in question refuses to remove it, what actions should admins
> take in order to do so? I'm thinking of page protection and blocking
> here. I know someone has been indefinitely blocked in the past because
> he did not license his user page under the GFDL.
>
> Also, is there a straightforward page which can be used to simply
> explain our rationale for not permitting fair use images in userspace?
> If not, might I recommend the creation of one as then it could be
> linked to. It may be the case that part of the reason that users are
> not removing fair use images on request is because some people are
> being heavy-handed with them in requesting removal. A page for this
> would be more friendly, and a message could be added something like
> "Hi, you have fair use images on your page, Image:X.png and
> Image:Y.jpg. These are not permitted to be used on user pages. Please
> read [[Wikipedia:Why fair use images are not permitted on user pages]]
> for more information on why this is the case."
>
> Just a thought,
>
> Chris
>
IANAL and this is just my opinion, but if the page discusses the topic
of the image in a manner that an article would ordinarily qualify for
fair use, I think fair use images should be permissible. For instance,
[[User:Johnleemk/A History of Malay Special Rights Post-World War II]]
discusses Malay privileges in Malaysia, and therefore a fair use image
used on our relevant articles (i.e. [[Ketuanan Melayu]], [[Article 153
of the Constitution of Malaysia]]) is probably fair use.

For userpages in general (i.e. [[User:Johnleemk]]), though, I think it
is insufficient to claim fair use, unless a substantial portion of the
page discusses the image's topic in a manner that would qualify for fair
use.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:
> John Lee wrote:
>
>> Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It would be nice to have more internal leadership. I think part of
>>> the trick is to model after professional societies and trade unions,
>>> where most leadership positions are part-time on a volunteer basis.
>>> For instance, projects could elect lead editors, whose special role
>>> during their terms is to preside over discussion on issues, and then
>>> make an executive decision, thus eliminating the indecision arising
>>> from those 56%-44% votes (think of city naming conventions). A lead
>>> for user page policy could have saved a lot of userbox anguish by
>>> being on top of the practice from the beginning.
>>>
>>> Stan
>>>
>> The problem is that these positions are often elected - and as we have
>> learnt from the debacle of this and last last year's arbcom elections,
>> campaigning for these positions is *brutal*. There'll be even more
>> anguish if the 56%-44% vote decides more than just one issue. My
>> suggestion would be something similar to the current arbcom elections,
>> but less divisive. The community nominates certain people (how this is
>> done is up to them), who will then write their candidate statements,
>> etc. Those who oppose/support must provide links/diffs/etc. showing
>> why they oppose/support. For instance, "Oppose. [a few links to
>> instances of POV pushing]" Unless the situation may be ambiguous,
>> there should be no need to say "POV pusher" or "bad attitude". Then,
>> the board will review the candidates' statements (and those of the
>> people opposing/supporting them), and make its decision. (If this was
>> a bit hard to follow, please let me know.) It sounds a bit
>> bureaucratic, but I think it has a bit of potential if we're going to
>> have a "lead editor".
>
>
> Arbcom is perhaps the hardest kind of position to elect, because the
> people involved have to get in the middle of all the worst fights in
> WP. To take the project I've been involved with the longest,
> WikiProject Ships, there have only been a couple serious arguments in
> the nearly three years of its existence. Most of the time it works to
> have one person propose, one or two say "good idea", and the rest
> silently acquiesce in the new order of things. Other times you get a
> proposal, an objection, a bit of discussion, and then deadlock; nobody
> wants to call a vote even, because it would simply numerify the near
> even split. The irony is that everybody is acting in good faith, and
> if a "first among equals" were to break the tie, project members would
> just go along. For many projects, I imagine that if someone were to put
> a hand up, that person would be elected by acclaim; others may indeed
> need to set up more of a formal balloting process.
>
> I'm not sure how much WP as a whole needs to get involved. It might be
> sufficient just to announce that projects are free to have "leads", let
> them each experiment, and then later recommend to all projects what
> seems to work the best.
>
> To tie back to AfD, if it were a project's prerogative to define
> deletion criteria, then AfD could become more of a routing mechanism
> that delegates articles' fates to projects. I'm not going to scan
> AfD every day on the off-chance that a nautical topic comes up, but
> would take time for a lower-volume "AfD/Ships", for instance.
>

>From memory [[WP:DS]] is sorting out AFD by topic/subject area...

(In case WP:DS is something else, it should be [[Wikipedia:Deletion
sorting]]...)

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How to bring back people who don't want to

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
>
>>>Instead of redirecting or deleting, how about getting someone to merge it
>>>into the immigration article?
>>
>>Merging a semi-coherent unsourced essay which is probably original
>>research into even a half-decent article is not the way to go.
>>
>>But, by all means, anyone who is arguing that the best way to proceed with
>>this case is not to delete the article, please do something. And here it
>>is again:
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_immigrant_groups_extended_family_positions
>>
>
> Frankly, in this particular case, I wouldn't have any problem if
> someone who thinks the best way to proceed with this case is to delete
> the article just deleted the article.  But apparently there isn't a
> speedy criterion for it.
>
> I do think a redirect would be better, but between deletion,
> redirection, and just keeping it the way it is, I don't really think
> it matters all that much.
>

Forgive me for not knowing enough about the Foundation's other projects
(and if I've just mangled an apostrophe), but isn't this what Wikisource
is for?

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

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from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikify, why don't you?,
	was Re: How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
On 1/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/12/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A while back when there was only one stub catigory and it became
> > completely overloaded someone came up with the idea of substubs.
> > People tended to object to the template on the basis that substubs
> > shouldn't be in wikipedia at but that was mostly a side issue. the
> > core was correct. Single lines do not qualify as stubs. Of course when
> > we switched over to stubs by subject the substub catigory was lost.
> > Still all the details can still be found in the page history:
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Substub&oldid=32649995
> >
>
> The way to get rid of the substub category was not to move all its
> contents somewhere else.  The only way was by deleting them.  I see
> your point about why they aren't stubs.
>
So is a substub a candidate for speedy deletion?  If so, and a substub
is better than the original article, then what's that make the
original article?

IOW, if you replace a really bad article with a one line substub, can
someone else then delete it?  LMAO, this "build an encyclopedia" game
is silly sometimes.

Anthony


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [WikiEN-l] kelvSYC's take on userboxes

body:
>> Name one.
> writeing our article on 133t to start with

And we're going to have a 1337 Wikipedia in the near future?  Or
people who speak 1337 natively?  Do we really need to divide users in
their proficiency in 1337?

>> True, but if it doesn't help, it's as good as dead weight, right?
> not really. Makes no odds one way or the other and trains people in
> the use of templates.

... trains people in the use of templates in a not-too-good way.
Then it degrades into general template mania.  And then we have an
article consisting of nothing but templates...

>> What would prevent someone, say, an admin, from rewriting this in
>> userbox (albeit a large one) form...?  And if a block is appealed,
>> what would prevent someone from writing their rebuttal in userbox
>> form?
> As a general rule userboxes are not used to comunicate on talk pages.

We know that, but they might not.  After all, admins have been made
even though they have made only 100 useful edits at en.  We might
even have an admin who have made even less, based on the people who
nominated and confirmed their adminship


from_name: Arbeo M

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

    >Hi,

>The conflict at the Moldovan Wikipedia has reignited.

>A new user made a page called "Alegeri" (elections).

>It starts with him espousing his POVs.

>The requirements of the vote are:

>1) You have to speak Romanian/Moldovan "adequately". Whether or not
>your skills are "adequate", is to be judged by this particular user
>himself.
>2) You have to have at least 25 contributions on the Moldovan
>Wikipedia... OR the Romanian Wikipedia!!!

>Now, that strikes me as inherently unfair. Romanian Wikipedians are
>allowed to vote, sort of like a free pass? But no other Wikimedians??
>It's not the ROmanian Wikipedia after all, it's the Moldovan
>Wikipedia!

>You may argue all you want about whether or not Moldovan and Romanian
>are a single language, whether or not that Wikipedia should exist, but
>to let everybody from one Wiki vote for the future of another one, but
>nobody from any other wikis may participate, seems inherently unfair.

>The same user has been very... shall we say, "headstrong". He moved
>dozens and dozens of pages from Cyrillic titles to Latin titles
>(instead of creating brand-new pages in Latin), and replaced their
>entire contents with direct copy from ro.wiki, systematically. He
>obviously didn't even review his work, because many images were broken
>because the image tag for ro: ([[imagine:...]]) doesn't work on
>mo.wiki (you have to use the default, [[image:...]]).

>Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority are
>Romanians. How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of the
>Moldovan Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?

>Well, maybe some Romanians don't see themselves as foreigners, but in
>the eyes of the world, they are. And besides, very clearly, there are
>two separate subdomains. Whether or not Romanians are Moldovans and
>vice-versa, very clearly most ro.wikipedians are NOT mo.wikipedians,
>though a few are.

>Your thoughts, please?

>Also, I encourage everybody to vote. I explained it at the enwiki
>village pump--news.

>Mark

  Hi Mark!

  Not a thought, actually. Just an observation: We've got around 200 Wikipedias here and this is the one that's got issues every few weeks that obviously can't be solved internally. The 'mo' edition of Wikipedia is but a tiny one and still we keep hearing more about it here than about most of the really big ones.

  Another thing everybody who reads this list could easily observe in the recent weeks and months is that the vast majority of users from both Moldova and Romania seem to be pretty unhappy with the current modus operandi (to tell the truth I can't remember a single user from the area telling us he or she likes the current arrangement and wants to keep it).

  With this in mind I believe the only way we can assure that there will be less fuss about that Wikipedia here in the future is to listen to the users who are most concerned by it.

  Best wishes

  Arbeo

---------------------------------
Telefonieren Sie ohne weitere Kosten mit Ihren Freunden von PC zu PC!
Jetzt Yahoo! Messenger installieren!


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: PHP 5

body:
"Tim Starling"
<t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote in
message news:dq8dj1$e9d$1 at sea.gmane.org...
> The dual opterons in the Wikimedia cluster have now been upgraded to from
> PHP 4.4.0 to 5.1.1. Presumably the rest of the cluster will follow soon,
> although there doesn't seem to be any problem with running a mixed cluster
> aside from the administrative overhead.

Does this presage a massive rewrite of Mediawiki, or is the intended policy
to remain backwards-compatble with PHP 4? If the latter, for how long?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Jan

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problème avec mon wiki.

body:
To get (more) answers, perhaps you should try to wirte in english or use
Wikimediafr-l  	Discussion ? propos de l'association Wikim?dia en France
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediafr-l

regards,
jan

Nicolas GUERIN schrieb:
> Bonjour,
> Je me permet de vous contacter, je suis Nicolas GUERIN et j'ai ouvert mon
> wiki sp?cialis? dans AOL, par contre j'ai un soucis assez important je ne
> sais pas comment, avec quels identifiants et je cherche la console
> d'administration de mon wiki.
>
> http://www.city-online.net/wikiaol
>
> Je ne sais pas comment faire pour administrer ce dernier et prot?ger entre
> autre certains pages, l'aide en anglais n'est pas super pratique, et je m'en
> remet donc ? vous pour me dire comment faire pour r?cup?rer mes droits
> d'administrateur ayant mis en place moi m?me mon wiki et pouvoir ainsi
> modifier certaines fonctions du wiki que j'ai ouvert.
>
> Je n'est qu'un login et un pass mais visiblement ils ne me donnent que des
> droits d'utilisateur simple.
>
> Le seul compte que j'ai n'a qu'un acc?s comme simple utilisateur, pourtant
> c'est bien mes serveurs
> sur lequel je l'est install?.
>
> Pourriez vous m'aider.
> Merci pour votre aide.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 06:48:40AM +1100, Peter Mackay wrote:
> The fact is, if you do a lot of work for WP, you can be excused ANYTHING,
> even if there's a pile of hard evidence against you.

One counterexample is sufficient to disprove a blanket generality
like that one.

Counterexample:  Ed Poor.

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


from_name: Hans Andresen S.

subject: [WikiEN-l] LALE ANDERSEN

body:
Dear Sirs:

It is not clear to me if I have directed this message to the correct e-mail address. If not, I hope
you can help me to fordward it to the correct place.

I read your biography on Lale ANDERSEN, and found an important incorrect information.

Wikipedia says:
"She married Rolf Libermann who was Jewish, and lived with him for the rest of her life."

This information is not correct, because Lale Andersen was married to someone else:

"... at age 17 she married the Worpswede painter Paul Ernst Wilke. In 1931, now the mother of three
children, she left her husband to make her own way in Berlin."

See here:
http://www.istrianet.org/istria/music/lili-marleen.htm

Rolf Libermann (or Liebermann (1910 - 1999).
http://www.universaledition.com/truman/en_templates/view.php3?f_id=164&spr=en

Here you can see the relationship between Lale Andersen and Rolf Liebermann:
http://www.sikorski.de/en/frameloader.html?frame=http%3A//www.sikorski.de/composers/composer52.html

"When one glances back to the early 1930s, one encounters the Swiss-born composer as a composer of
chansons and collaborator in cabaret events who made the artistic acquaintance of Liselotte Wilke,
the later legendary Lale Andersen."

Lale Andersen and Rolf Liebermann:
http://www.schulla.com/covergalerie/DATEN/L/LALE%20ANDERSEN/Lale%20Andersen.htm

"Hier berichtet sie ?ber ihre erste Begegnung mit Rolf Liebermann."
..............
"Ich traf ihn nicht nur einmal. Ich traf ihn oft. Wo immer in den letzten Jahren ein musikalisches
Ereignis in der Luft lag, war auch er: Rolf Liebermann."
..............
"Mit G?ndi, seiner reizenden, jungenhaften Frau, ist Rolf Liebermann heute ?berall zu Hause, wo
Musikbesessenheit, Gastlichkeit und Humor Menschen zusammenf?hrt."

More here:
http://www.gus-manager.de/index.php?lfd=4&ulfd=5&datei=frames/standard.php&txt=lili_marleen

"Am 27. M?rz 1922 heiratet sie den Maler Paul Ernst Wilke. Zwischen 1924 und 1929 werden drei Kinder
geboren. Bj?rn, Carmen-Litta und Michael. 1931 wird Lieselotte Wilke geschieden."
......................
"1933 begegnet sie Rolf Liebermann, mit dem sie eine intensive Liebes- und Arbeitsbeziehung sowie
eine lebensl?ngliche Freundschaft verbindet."

------------------------------------------

With best regards,

Hans Andresen S.
M?dico Veterinario - MSc
Profesor Em?rito UNM San Marcos
Lima - PERU
handres at terra.com.pe
Tel. (51) 1 271-1119


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

body:
Bonjour,
The French Wikipedia community decided at unanimity the use a new
namespace called ?r?f?rence?.
Here is the poll page
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence]
and an English translation of the proposal (thanks to Rama)
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence/en].

Final result is:

- For: 43
- Against: 0
- Neutral: 4

Please active this new namespace and the corresponding talk page namespace.
We also would like to have a MediaWiki page (like [MediaWiki:Reference]
or so) automatically include (and parse) at the top of all the pages of
this namespace (to put common links and information).
Thanks in advance,

Aoineko / Guillaume Blanchard


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/13/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's quite simple really.  Wikipedia's biggest reason for qualifying
> > for fair use is that it is a free educational resource.
>
> Everyone "qualifies" for fair use.  The fact that Wikipedia is an
> educational resource is *one factor* in whether or not its use of
> certain images in certain ways is fair use.

My phrasing was wrong, forgive me.  I meant to say that Wikipedia's
biggest asset in asserting that its use of copyright media is fair use
is that it is a free educational resource.

> > Userpages are just not educational.
>
> In general most userpages have a lessened educational purpose than
> articles.  I wouldn't go any further than that.  I certainly wouldn't
> say "userpages are just not educational".

Um, I have never seen an educational userpage.  Have you an example?

> > User pages would, if I read the situation
> > right, be very little different from a GeoCities website or the
> > equivilent.
>
> You definitely read it wrong.  Wikipedia userpages are, in general,
> very different from the average geocities website.

How?

> > Image use would not qualify as fair use there; why should it here?
>
> Image use can and often does qualify as fair use there.

On someone's personal website about themselves?  Either you Merkins
have *seriously* liberal copyright laws or we're talking at
cross-purposes.

> The only reason I can see not to use fair use images on user pages is
> that it is never necessary.  So rather than waste time arguing case by
> case with each other you just ban it completely.

At least we agree on something!

--
Sam


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problème avec mon wiki.

body:
Quick translation: Nicolas installed Mediawiki on his own server but the
user created through the setup process don't seem to have sysop rights.

According to his wiki user list, the only user is Wikiaol without any
rights
[http://www.city-online.net/wikiaol/index.php?title=Special%3AListusers&group=&username=].
I don't know the new SQL data-base layout ; how set the sysop rights for
a user?

Aoineko / Guillaume Blanchard

Nicolas GUERIN wrote:
> Bonjour,
> Je me permet de vous contacter, je suis Nicolas GUERIN et j'ai ouvert mon
> wiki sp?cialis? dans AOL, par contre j'ai un soucis assez important je ne
> sais pas comment, avec quels identifiants et je cherche la console
> d'administration de mon wiki.
>
> http://www.city-online.net/wikiaol
>
> Je ne sais pas comment faire pour administrer ce dernier et prot?ger entre
> autre certains pages, l'aide en anglais n'est pas super pratique, et je m'en
> remet donc ? vous pour me dire comment faire pour r?cup?rer mes droits
> d'administrateur ayant mis en place moi m?me mon wiki et pouvoir ainsi
> modifier certaines fonctions du wiki que j'ai ouvert.
>
> Je n'est qu'un login et un pass mais visiblement ils ne me donnent que des
> droits d'utilisateur simple.
>
> Le seul compte que j'ai n'a qu'un acc?s comme simple utilisateur, pourtant
> c'est bien mes serveurs
> sur lequel je l'est install?.
>
> Pourriez vous m'aider.
> Merci pour votre aide.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Problème avec mon wiki.

body:
On 1/13/06, Guillaume Blanchard <blanchardg at cavia.com> wrote:
> I don't know the new SQL data-base layout ; how set the sysop rights for
> a user?

INSERT INTO user_groups (ug_user, ug_group) VALUES ('1','sysop'),
(1,'bureaucrat');

I think, judging from the contents of my own installation.

--
Sam


from_name: oscar

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Poll for Wikistandards

body:
fyi, i have started a poll concerning '''wikistandards''' at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards#Poll

best regards,

oscar


from_name: Liviu Andronic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
> It starts with him espousing his POVs.

I agree that this is mostly a Moldovan/Romanian POV on the current issue,
still it does not lie in its statements. http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Wikipedia:Alegeri. And this I can tell, knowing all "four languages" and
having made my school in Moldova (the Transnistria issue is somehow
specific).

Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority areRomanians.
> How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of theMoldovan
> Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?

Probably the vote on http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri is not
quite fair. However, Moldova and Romania are inherently linked together.
Historically Bessarabia (the present day Republic of Moldova, with slight
modifications of course) is to be part of Romania and it was a simple
historical accident that at the time when Moldavia united with Wallachia (in
1859, which become the foundation of modern Romania), Bessarabia was
incorporated into the Russian empire (starting with 1812). This accident was
corrected after the First World War when Bessarabia decided to unite with -
already - Romania. To be continued... This is a personal and probably very
subjective view of my country's history.

My point is that Romanians have the necessary legitimacy to require
essentially the same as Moldovans do: to delete this Wikipedia. Especially
that it is about the Romanian language that we are talking about. But I do
not want to commence here this already annoying debate.

However, I do not believe it is fair to interdict other Wikipedians to vote
there. Nor do I agree much with the 25 necessary contributions to be made on
mo.wiki or ro.wiki. Personally, I cannot vote at the moment, although I
believe I quite have the right. Anyway, anyone can do them in a matter of an
hour. Not necessarily knowing the language.

My thoughts: taking into consideration the current stubbornness of the two
camps (those for and against the deletion of the mo.wikipedia) consensus
cannot be reached in a normal way. A vote may solve this down.
A properly organized vote.

Still, those for the deletion of the mo.wiki come mainly from Moldova and
Romania. And both Moldovans and Romanians have legitimate demands. Even
though some are currently abroad (some for already a long time, others -
like me - have just left Moldova), they all know what language we are
speaking in Moldova. And they all speak this language. I do not think that
the other camp can boast with the same legitimacy. If you tell me that there
are Moldovans between those supporting the Wikipedia, I can bet that these
are primarily Russian language speaking persons. From Russian speaking
families. I may be wrong. (I recall that the Russian speaking minority in
Moldova... Well, they do not feel love towards Moldovans and especially
towards those considering themselves Romanians).

Furthermore, initially the "for the deletion camp" wanted to make this
Wikipedia disappear and not reappear in any form. Finally, on [Wikipedia-l]
Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan, are written in cyrillic ? (
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/042926.html ),
we made a step backward and agreed to move the mo.wiki to a mo-cyr.wiki: it
is agreed that this Moldovan Cyrillic language existed in its time (imposed)
in MSSR and exists (is imposed) in Transnistria. This does not seem to
satisfy the other camp.

This is an endless debate. The issue does not seem to interest much people
on Wikipedia-I, especially those having the authority to make a change. And
it does not get solved. And this is something that concerns our country and
our language. And it is shown in a rather misinterpreted way on Wikipedia.

This is why Romanians and Moldovan's are getting angry from time to time;
quite often, I think. This is why Wikipedia-I is flooded with issues
surrounding the existence of the Moldovan Wikipedia. This is why pages like
the one mentioned at the beginning of this message appear.

And problems around the Moldovan Wikipedia and a presumed Moldovan Cyrillic
Wikipedia will appear as more Moldovans and Romanians discover it.
Personally, when I saw it for the first time, I was nothing else but
outraged.

And I am not that sure where will
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4409
lead to. Neither am I sure what is fairer: the  vote under discussion or
keeping this entire abnormal Wikipedia alive (personal opinion).

--
Liviu


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/13/06, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Voting on everything has become a policy disaster. That in particular needs
> to be strongly discouraged. "The community" as expressed through polls is
> showing itself to be on crack far too often.
>
>
> - d.

I did find away round this. Have a deadline. Start discusing ten
minutes before the deadline. Quite diffcult to hold a vote under those
conditions.
--
geni


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
This looks like an interesting development.  If it's successful I could
end up using it myself in en-Wiktionary.
Ec

Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

> Bonjour,
> The French Wikipedia community decided at unanimity the use a new
> namespace called ?r?f?rence?.
> Here is the poll page
> [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence]
> and an English translation of the proposal (thanks to Rama)
> [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Espace_r%C3%A9f%C3%A9rence/en].
>
> Final result is:
>
> - For: 43
> - Against: 0
> - Neutral: 4
>
> Please active this new namespace and the corresponding talk page
> namespace.
> We also would like to have a MediaWiki page (like
> [MediaWiki:Reference] or so) automatically include (and parse) at the
> top of all the pages of this namespace (to put common links and
> information).
> Thanks in advance,


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>>Or [[User:Kelly Martin]].  I count one article edit in the last 500,
>>>though I might have missed a few.
>>>
>>>Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
>>>encyclopedia as creating them.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>These people have assumed duties that aid the process of building an
>>encyclopedia which do not (directly, at least) involve article editing.
>>A new user (and pretty much everyone who isn't on the Board, Medcom,
>>Arbcom, etc.) does not have such responsibilities. The only way they/we
>>can help out will almost certainly involve article editing (stub
>>sorting, AfD/speedy tagging, etc.). Even some niche tasks (like
>>preparing spoken articles or uploading images) involve some article editing.
>>
>>John Lee
>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>
>
> So, it's bad to not make many article edits.  And the response to my
> comment that there are board members and arbcom members who don't make
> many article edits is that it's OK, because they're board members and
> arbcom members?
>
> I'm sorry, but that seems circular to me.  I think there are lots of
> ways to improve Wikipedia which don't involve any article editing, and
> most of them don't involve admin powers either.
>
> Now let me completely change the topic because I noticed this on one
> of Kelly's edits, [[User talk:Croc Hunter]]: "This account has been
> blocked indefinitely because it has edited from, or was created from,
> the IP address 204.13.170.30, which has been identified as a probable
> compromised webhost or open proxy."
>
> Is it now a bannable offense simply to edit from an open proxy?  If
> so, I'm sure the people over at the or-talk list will be interested to
> hear this.
>

I've used open proxies for editing in order to determine that those
proxies are indeed open and capable of editing. Does that mean that I
should be banned simply because I "used an open proxy to edit Wikipedia"?

Well, I guess if you *do* get hold of an open proxy that works (many
don't, and it's easy to tell that they don't by the way they mangle
pages), don't tell anyone that you've got it...

Suppose I were to use an "open" proxy because my regular IP has been
blocked (an ISP's shared proxy); would I be blocked for that? Or should
I get my ISP's proxy unblocked so that the half dozen morons who are
vandalising can continue at leisure?

Bug 550 needs fixing, fast.

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
geni wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
>>Well, you seem to have removed the last sentence of my post, which
>>read, "Obviously, this only applies to articles that merit inclusion
>>in Wikipedia (i.e., meet the standards for notability and the
>>like)."  A hoax article would obviously fall under these terms.  I'm
>>*not* talking about articles like that, and I didn't think the
>>discussion was either.
>>
>>--
>>[[en:User:Bbatsell]]
>>
>
>
> It would be quite posible to write a hoax about Sn1 reactions. Doesn't
> mean such reactions would not meet wikipedia's standards for
> notability.
>

As has happened at least once before; Wikipedia has a hoax article,
article is deleted as a hoax, article is recreated to describe the hoax
once the extent of the hoax is discovered.

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

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The conflict at the Moldovan Wikipedia has reignited.
>
> A new user made a page called "Alegeri" (elections).
>
> It starts with him espousing his POVs.
>
> The requirements of the vote are:
>
> 1) You have to speak Romanian/Moldovan "adequately". Whether or not
> your skills are "adequate", is to be judged by this particular user
> himself.
> 2) You have to have at least 25 contributions on the Moldovan
> Wikipedia... OR the Romanian Wikipedia!!!
>
> Now, that strikes me as inherently unfair. Romanian Wikipedians are
> allowed to vote, sort of like a free pass? But no other Wikimedians??
> It's not the ROmanian Wikipedia after all, it's the Moldovan
> Wikipedia!
>
> You may argue all you want about whether or not Moldovan and Romanian
> are a single language, whether or not that Wikipedia should exist, but
> to let everybody from one Wiki vote for the future of another one, but
> nobody from any other wikis may participate, seems inherently unfair.
>
> The same user has been very... shall we say, "headstrong". He moved
> dozens and dozens of pages from Cyrillic titles to Latin titles
> (instead of creating brand-new pages in Latin), and replaced their
> entire contents with direct copy from ro.wiki, systematically. He
> obviously didn't even review his work, because many images were broken
> because the image tag for ro: ([[imagine:...]]) doesn't work on
> mo.wiki (you have to use the default, [[image:...]]).
>
> Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority are
> Romanians. How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of the
> Moldovan Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?
>
> Well, maybe some Romanians don't see themselves as foreigners, but in
> the eyes of the world, they are. And besides, very clearly, there are
> two separate subdomains. Whether or not Romanians are Moldovans and
> vice-versa, very clearly most ro.wikipedians are NOT mo.wikipedians,
> though a few are.
>
> Your thoughts, please?
>

Voting is evil. If your description of events is accurate, then this
user should be (to quote Garfield) dragged out into the street and shot.

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

subject: [Wikitech-l] having Google help Wikimedia Commons

body:
On 1/13/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at ens.fr> wrote:
> One thing that would be nice would be a tool to check whether and where
> an image file is available somewhere else on the web.
>
> I think we can get Google to help us in that matter.

I'll look into it.  (No promises, but the idea seems sound...)


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
David Monniaux wrote:
[...]
> One thing that would be nice would be a tool to check whether and where
> an image file is available somewhere else on the web.
>
> I think we can get Google to help us in that matter.
[...]

This is a very good idea... I can see "Search for this file on the web"
being extremely useful to Google's userbase in general (watching the
spread of certain "viral" images, seeing where people are using images
you authored, also finding copyright violations). This should definitely
be proposed to them.

-- Jake Nelson


subject: [WikiEN-l] kelvSYC's take on userboxes

body:
On 1/13/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Alphax
> > (Wikipedia email)
> >
> > Here's my solution for all the people who have done more
> > editing to userboxes and their userpages than to articles: go
> > start http://www.userboxes.com/ and get the hell off of our
> > encyclopedia, you morons. [[WP:NOT]] a webhost.
>
> Here's my advice to the same people. Stick around, make a lot of good edits,
> become useful members of the community.

The two are not mutually exclusive.  You can have a link from your WP
page to your other page.

--
Sam


from_name: Corum O' Fallamhain

subject: [Foundation-l] Why is the world attacking Microsoft censorship?

body:
Go Alan Knight! I agree, there is no good reason for there to be no Chinese
Wikinews.Wikimedia has already been blocked so the old logic that "we have
to be good boys and girls, otherwise the Communists will block us" is kind
of obsolete. Or maybe Wikimedia has become so spineless that we've moved
onto the next level: "If we don't start a Chinese Wikinews, maybe the
Chinese Communists will stop blocking Chinese Wikipedia and other projects."
We're effectively asking "How high?" before the ChiComs ask us to jump. I
really, really think that the current lack of Chinese Wikinews is a
disgrace.More than the minimum of 5 have expressed an interest in a Chinese
Wikinews. As well as that, a fully functional pre-launch exists. Why not get
a Chinese Wikinews up-and-running?


from_name: Jay Converse

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
On 1/13/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> > <snip>
> >
> >
> >Don't think that this place is subject to the same sort of standards you
> >expect in a court of law or even the due process of a government body.
> It's
> >just a website, and the people running the show are all busy doing other
> >stuff and while they are happy to assume the rank and power of their
> >position, their top priority isn't listening to you point out their
> >shortcomings, it's getting an encyclopaedia built.
> >
> >Accept that from your point of view the system is crooked and rigged and
> get
> >on with it. Complaining about it only gets everyone offside.
> >
> >As I discovered.
> >
> >Peter (Skyring)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> I couldn't have put it better. [[WP:NOT]] a social experiment - it's an
> encyclopedia. For some people, this is too much to accept, but the rest
> of us who are here to write an encyclopedia couldn't care less.
>
>
To add to this, those who are here to fight vandals also couldn't care less
about half of the WikiLawyering that goes on around here.  Sometimes I think
the people involved in that particular sector of the Wiki automagically
assume that they're the only section of the Wiki anymore.

--
I'm not stupid, just selectively ignorant.


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unlicensed use of images

body:
Speaking, as we have been, of images and user pages, I just had to
remove an image from quite a few user pages along with a couple
articles. This is an image I venture that many people would recognize.

In this case the problem was not a bogus claim of fair use; it was a
bogus claim that the image was in the public domain. So, I would like to
take this opportunity to remind everyone of some very important points:

1. Many, if not most, photos on US government websites are *not* in the
public domain. Like many companies, the government makes considerable
use of stock photos. If the site doesn't clearly indicate that the image
was created by a federal government employee, you should assume that it
wasn't.

2. "Royalty-free" is a marketing term in the stock photo industry. It
means that if you buy a license to use the picture, you won't have to
pay royalties every single time you use it. Royalty-free most assuredly
does *not* mean that a photo is freely licensed, in the sense that it
could be used on Wikipedia.

3. The image description page for *every* picture should credit the
photographer or artist if known. The immediate source is also helpful to
know, but this source may well have the image second- or third-hand.

4. When you find an image on another website, if you can't figure out
who took the picture or where it came from, it is almost certain that
the website operator is not in a position to license its use on
Wikipedia. It is actually quite possible that the use of the photo on
the website is already a copyright infringement.

5. Even when using content that has passed into the public domain, the
author or creator should be identified. This is vital in order to be
able to demonstrate that the content is, in fact, in the public domain.
Knowing when the content was first published is also extremely helpful.

Anything that is tagged as being in the public domain without satisfying
these principles should be treated with great suspicion.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: French Wikipedia community ask for a new namespace

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
> Active a namespace in a wiki now take around 2 minutes (the time to
> load/write/save confiig file on the server). Do you really think we have
> to open a new "bug" (?) for that?

The actual process to add a namespace is something like:

1/ check the language file for any additional namespaces
2/ check the general setting file for existing additional namespaces
3/ reserve two namespace id and save the modification
4/ check if there is any duplicate, solve them if any, fix the bugs
5/ propagate the modification
6/ notify the user.

Given the size of the cluster and the number of sysadmins, we have to
track changes made in the configuration files. That's why we want every
requests to pass through bugzilla.

Looks like the requested namespaces have been added (id 104 & 105).

cheers,

--
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080


from_name: John Lee

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>John Lee wrote:
>
>
>>Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hi everyone,
>>>
>>>I'm just curious whether we have a policy on the use of fair use
>>>images on user pages, rather than a guideline, and if so, what our
>>>procedure is for enforcement of that policy if it says no such images
>>>permitted. Obviously discussion is the first stepping stone, but if
>>>the user in question refuses to remove it, what actions should admins
>>>take in order to do so? I'm thinking of page protection and blocking
>>>here. I know someone has been indefinitely blocked in the past because
>>>he did not license his user page under the GFDL.
>>>
>>>Also, is there a straightforward page which can be used to simply
>>>explain our rationale for not permitting fair use images in userspace?
>>>If not, might I recommend the creation of one as then it could be
>>>linked to. It may be the case that part of the reason that users are
>>>not removing fair use images on request is because some people are
>>>being heavy-handed with them in requesting removal. A page for this
>>>would be more friendly, and a message could be added something like
>>>"Hi, you have fair use images on your page, Image:X.png and
>>>Image:Y.jpg. These are not permitted to be used on user pages. Please
>>>read [[Wikipedia:Why fair use images are not permitted on user pages]]
>>>for more information on why this is the case."
>>>
>>>Just a thought,
>>>
>>>Chris
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>IANAL and this is just my opinion, but if the page discusses the topic
>>of the image in a manner that an article would ordinarily qualify for
>>fair use, I think fair use images should be permissible. For instance,
>>[[User:Johnleemk/A History of Malay Special Rights Post-World War II]]
>>discusses Malay privileges in Malaysia, and therefore a fair use image
>>used on our relevant articles (i.e. [[Ketuanan Melayu]], [[Article 153
>>of the Constitution of Malaysia]]) is probably fair use.
>>
>>
>>
>
>If you plan on putting that in article space some time, do it.
>[[WP:NOT]] a webhost...
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
It's inherently POV and to a certain extent original research. Since
WP:NOT paper, there's not much of a point to deleting it, really. When
I'm finished with it, I think I'll link to it from my userpage as a
presentation of my views (since I think [[User:Johnleemk]] and its
relevant subpages might not do that a good job of explaining why I think
what I think). As an aside, WP might not be a webhost, but if you
interprete it strictly, we might as well delete all userpages. :-p I
think writing a lot in userspace is okay as long as you contribute to
the encyclopedia as well.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] kelvSYC's take on userboxes

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>kelvSYC wrote:
>
>
>>geni wrote:
>>
>>
>>>kelvSYC wrote:
>>>
>>>
><snip>
>
>
>>>>* The userbox fad, if left unchecked, may infect other stuff too...
>>>>such as a userbox for "this IP is blocked", "this user is blocked",
>>>>"this user has requested that the page be protected from  movement",
>>>>etc.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>{{subst:test5}}?
>>>
>>>
>>What would prevent someone, say, an admin, from rewriting this in
>>userbox (albeit a large one) form...?  And if a block is appealed,  what
>>would prevent someone from writing their rebuttal in userbox form?
>>
>>
>>
>
>The fact that they are limited to editing their talk page? :)
>
>Seriously, I don't see why people like userboxes so much. It's a bit
>like the AfD (or was it VfD?) vote counting/reason for deletion boxes...
>
>Little boxes, little boxes, all made of ticky-tacky...
>
>Here's my solution for all the people who have done more editing to
>userboxes and their userpages than to articles: go start
>http://www.userboxes.com/ and get the hell off of our encyclopedia, you
>morons. [[WP:NOT]] a webhost.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Now this is where WP:NOT webhost *really* applies - to keep out those
"hey, this social experiment is fun!" people from the encyclopedia.
People who prefer to treat Wikipedia like Friendster really have no
place here.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Eugen Plamadeala

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fairness in voting

body:
Hello everybody, especially Node_ue

It starts with him espousing his POVs.

You know what, I think everything one says is a POV.

The requirements of the vote are:
>
> 1) You have to speak Romanian/Moldovan "adequately". Whether or not
> your skills are "adequate", is to be judged by this particular user
> himself.
> 2) You have to have at least 25 contributions on the Moldovan
> Wikipedia... OR the Romanian Wikipedia!!!
>
> Now, that strikes me as inherently unfair. Romanian Wikipedians are
> allowed to vote, sort of like a free pass? But no other Wikimedians??
> It's not the ROmanian Wikipedia after all, it's the Moldovan
> Wikipedia!
>
> You may argue all you want about whether or not Moldovan and Romanian
> are a single language, whether or not that Wikipedia should exist, but
> to let everybody from one Wiki vote for the future of another one, but
> nobody from any other wikis may participate, seems inherently unfair.

Why should people from other Wikis vote for the future of mo. ?  The future
of mo. is mostly a concern of Moldovans and Romanians, since it (the
"Moldavian" language) is their native language.
Would you consider it OK if all the wikipedians decided to open an Wiki in
American (yes, I do know there's no such language, but that's exactly the
point)?  It just like the ellections in a country:  why should citizens (in
this case speakers) of another country (in this case language) vote for the
fate of the country (in this case, Wiki)?  It would be absurd.

The same user has been very... shall we say, "headstrong". He moved
> dozens and dozens of pages from Cyrillic titles to Latin titles
> (instead of creating brand-new pages in Latin), and replaced their
> entire contents with direct copy from ro.wiki, systematically.

Well, what's the point of keeping mo.,  if it's just like ro. ?

Now, so far, of all the people who voted, the vast majority are
> Romanians. How is that fair? Romanians get to decide the future of the
> Moldovan Wikipedia, but no *other* foreigners may weigh in?

Romanians are not foreigners on the Moldovan Wikipedia!

Well, maybe some Romanians don't see themselves as foreigners, but in
> the eyes of the world, they are.
>

And it's going to be this way as long as people are uninformed by such pages
as mo.wikipedia.org! All the people should know that: There is no
Moldovan/Moldavian/Moldoveneasca Language!
I am saying this as a person who has lived all his life in Moldova, who
speaks Romanian and Russian fluently and who knows much about the history of
his nation's language and traditions.

And please, do not say such things as: "Most of the people who voted were
Romanians (or sth else)", because you HAVE NOT looked in their passports and
you DO NOT really know who they are, you just know they speak Romanian
fluently.

--
Sincerely,
  Eugeniu


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for new feature

body:
To fill out a feature request:

1. Go to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org
2. Create an account or log in
3. Click "Enter a new bug"
4. Set the bug's priority as normal
5. Set the bug's severity as enhancement
6. Provide a useful summary and description of the requested functionality
7. Hit Save/Commit

Rob Church

On 13/01/06, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli at gmail.com> wrote:
> How I can submit a request for a new feature?
>
> It could be nice if a administrator (or also a user) can set a flag to
> decide to receive a confirmation of modification to an article watched.
>
> It could be also nice if in this e-mail there is the difference between
> the new article and the old.
>
> En effect it is very difficult to follow all watched articles most of
> all if the user works during the day. The vandalic acts are easy to
> indentify, but changes with "wrong informations" requires time to
> control these informations. With an helpful e-mail an user can control
> and verify informations when he's the convenient time.
>
> I think that this feature is not implemented yet, but Wikipedia is
> frequently tried by "misleading benchmarks", this feature can easily
> helps administrators and users.
>
> Ilario
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


body:
Special:Userrights unless there's a problem with your own access rights.

Rob Church

On 13/01/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/13/06, Guillaume Blanchard <blanchardg at cavia.com> wrote:
> > I don't know the new SQL data-base layout ; how set the sysop rights for
> > a user?
>
> INSERT INTO user_groups (ug_user, ug_group) VALUES ('1','sysop'),
> (1,'bureaucrat');
>
> I think, judging from the contents of my own installation.
>
> --
> Sam
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Greg Sabino Mullane

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for new feature

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> It could be also nice if in this e-mail there is the
> difference between the new article and the old.

I've already written something like this. Check out:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4323

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg at endpoint.com  greg at turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200601131533
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8

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iD8DBQFDyA6tvJuQZxSWSsgRAiaiAJsFEgQ/CP8/+5msFtfs1NaSx8c9JACg0m7R
YLIn6BvxFC4+hFYNMcXG2Os=
=lPoo
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from_name: Ilario Valdelli

subject: [Wikitech-l] Request for new feature

body:
How I can submit a request for a new feature?

It could be nice if a administrator (or also a user) can set a flag to
decide to receive a confirmation of modification to an article watched.

It could be also nice if in this e-mail there is the difference between
the new article and the old.

En effect it is very difficult to follow all watched articles most of
all if the user works during the day. The vandalic acts are easy to
indentify, but changes with "wrong informations" requires time to
control these informations. With an helpful e-mail an user can control
and verify informations when he's the convenient time.

I think that this feature is not implemented yet, but Wikipedia is
frequently tried by "misleading benchmarks", this feature can easily
helps administrators and users.

Ilario


body:
On 1/13/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> Special:Userrights unless there's a problem with your own access rights.

His point was that there was. ;-)

--
Sam