subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
William Pietri wrote:

>Ron Ritzman wrote:
>
>
>>How would you define "good faith" in this context? I would say that if
>>a contributor continues to do "X" after several good faith "please
>>don't do X" requests from reasonable people, then that person is no
>>longer a "good faith contributor" and any of his contributions with
>>"X" in them are not "good faith contributions".
>>
>>
>>
>I don't think that follows.
>
>To me, acting in good faith only means that you are well-intentioned.
>There are a lot of reasons why a person might not follow advice that you
>see as reasonable; a lack of good faith is only one of them.
>
>To come to a conclusion about somebody else's motivations, which is
>something you can never know for sure, is rarely something they will
>enjoy. You could well be wrong, and even when you aren't, you've created
>ground for an endlessly unwinnable argument.
>
>More importantly, people are creatures of context. If you treat them
>like they are good people who have made perfectly reasonable mistakes
>and just need a little help to fit in, they are much more likely to
>start acting that way. Act like somebody who's in a fight, and they will
>obligingly step up and fight you back. Get them mad enough and they'll
>do it forever.
>
>To me, that's the magic of AGF. Most of the time, most people really are
>acting in good faith. By treating them that way, we avoid letting
>miscommunication, misunderstanding, or their good-faith flubs wreck the
>relationship. And when people come to us with mischief in their hearts,
>treating them as if the meant well can bring out the side of them that
>does mean well.
>
>That's not to say that we shouldn't boot people that are hopelessly
>disruptive. We've got an encyclopedia to build. But we should do it with
>"a countenance more in sorrow than in anger," and without impugning
>their motives. Not just because it's the kind thing, but because also
>because it's the practical thing.
>
These are important points.

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fairness in Wikipedia

body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>"Ron Ritzman" wrote
>
>
>>I would say that if
>>a contributor continues to do "X" after several good faith "please
>>don't do X" requests from reasonable people, then that person is no
>>longer a "good faith contributor" and any of his contributions with
>>"X" in them are not "good faith contributions".
>>
>>
>>Therefore, Arbcom is not being "unfair" to such a person by ruling against him.
>>
>>
>It is rarely so simple.
>
>One of the reasons is that our policies are not drafted by legal professionals. Therefore the assumption that they can be used as the basis of an entirely judicial approach to resolving disputes is flawed from the outset.
>
This sounds more like an excuse than a reason.

>The policies, for most editors, are a rough indication of what Wikipedia expects in the way of behaviour. That's good enough for most editing.
>
Agreed.

>ArbCom cases are not 'everyday situations' (thank God). They cover all possible variations on editing that transgresses or tries to exploit policy. If someone is working with a misconception of what policy means, or is in effect wikilawyering by sailing very close to the wind, there does come a point at which Arbitrators look at the substantive effect of editor behaviour, not the letter of policy.
>
Rulings can be based on equity, but that's when fairness to the persons
is most important, as is giving the person the benefit of the doubt..
Shifting the buoys because you think someone is sailing too close to the
wind does not leave an impression of fairness.  When justice is done but
not seen to be done it leaves the judges undermining their own
authority.  This is not to say that following the letter of policy is
without provlems of its own.

There are problems with activist judges even if sometimes judicial
activism is necessary.  Generally, I don't believe that Arbcom members
should participate in the development of policy; it puts them in a
conflict of interest, or in situations where the rules mean exactly
where they thought them to mean.  I think too that many of our policies
are very badly written, and sometimes reflect only thye opiniuons of
those who happened to be available to participate at the time.  Tiny
incremental changes to those policies can easily go by unnoticed.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
A syntax highlighting extension based on GeSHi is now live on
test.wikipedia.org. There's a test page at:

http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi

The documentation is now out-of-date, but it might contain some useful
information:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi

Some comments and background about the review process are at:

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7163

I'd like to invite comments now. I'll be aiming to deploy it on the main
site some time in the next week.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:23:01 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>> A not copyrighted response would simplify things, but not so for the
>> contrary view.
>
> If they assert copyright, then we should simply exclude the list. It's
> not like it matters, we can have some examples, preferably in prose.
> This does not prevent us discussing the topic of the Cool Wall, and it
> does not materially degrade the article, in that it's not actually
> necessary to have the entire list in order to understand the concept.
>
> Guy (JzG)

Here is where I see the crux of the issue in this thread: you are not
interested in keeping the information in question. You do not value it.
You are willing to eliminate it at request (which is all that their
reply could possibly be seen as).

Wikipedia/Wikimedia was established (and I hope continues to exist) to
make information freely available. Caving in to unreasonable claims of
copyright is not the way to do that.

Note that I'm not saying that their claim would be unreasonable--I am
not an expert in copyright law. But your position is that their mere
request should result in our removing the information, when the question
of whether this is a copyright violation is still very much in question.

-Rich


from_name: Ron Ritzman

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are some legit concerns on Danny's RFA, and a lot of "OFFICE bit
> me he sucks", sometimes written slightly more coherently.

WP:IDONTLIKEHIM(HER)


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
You may want to disable the inline <style> declarations and move all the CSS
to an externally loaded document like Common.css.

(Yes, yes, I know that premature optimization is the root of all evil)

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)

On 4/6/07, Artur Fija?kowski <wiki.warx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2007/4/6, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>:
> > A syntax highlighting extension based on GeSHi is now live on
> > test.wikipedia.org. There's a test page at:
> >
> > http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
> >
> > The documentation is now out-of-date, but it might contain some useful
> > information:
> >
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
> >
>
> Not enough intensive colors in first few lines :(
>
> People wearing glasses would have problems with reading it!
>
> AJF/WarX
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Review Committee

body:
--- Arbeo M <arbeo.wiki at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Which is the lesser evil - having a Wikipedia with a
> few, temporary
> imperfections or not having a Wikipedia at all?
> Though one, isn't it?

Or more neutrally:

Which is the lesser evil - A) having a Wikipedia with
a few, temporary problems or B) restricting a
community to creating content in the Incubator until
the few, temporary problems are solved?

And honestly the answer depends on what temporary
turns out to be. I would ask everyone how long of time
is acceptable to try and solve these problems with the
oversight and help of LangCom before cutting the
Incubator apron strings and expecting the new
community to work the answers out on their own?   It
is obvious from the this thread that many people think
that taking five months to solve such problems tips
the scale towards A being the lesser evil.  But what
about 3 months or 1 month, which is the lesser evil at
those points?  What are the benchmarks that we need to
look for to evaluate which is the lesser evil?

I think it obvious that people of both different
opinions care about these new communities and believe
their position is the best one for the benefit of the
new wikis.  However the attempts to shut down or show
up those that one disagrees with does nothing further
a solution or bring new insight to the problem that we
all understand to exist.

Birgitte SB

____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for earth-friendly autos?
Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center.
http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

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

Jim Wilson wrote:
> You may want to disable the inline <style> declarations and move all the CSS
> to an externally loaded document like Common.css.
>
> (Yes, yes, I know that premature optimization is the root of all evil)

No, it's a good point. If they don't get moved, admins can't customize
the colors of the syntax highlighting.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGFlK6qTO+fYacSNoRAnM4AJ4lBWOZEC8UKmbH/HTa2vJtDiiocQCfXvvt
FEZcW7qpdaKWcD8czgUFmfA=
=Jksg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

references:
<ev4nd2$tpg$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ea8e5e7f0704060602i4cca26d2vdc973d6edbeb46@mail.gmail.com>
	<ac08e8d0704060629j75645627o6ab3439a406b9787@mail.gmail.com>
	<ev5m3b$1vk$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
You could give the wrapper elements (<pre> and <div> tags) CSS classes to
identify that it's source code and what language.

So

<source lang="php">
echo('hi there');
</source>

Might become

<pre class="sourcecode php">
....
</pre>

Then the pre-generated GeShi files could be modified to have all elements
prefixed with .sourcecode .php or whatever.

It would probably make sense though to put all of this generated stuff into
something other than Common.css but still loaded via a <link> tag which only
appears on pages with at least one <source> block.  Reason being that the
CSS for all supported GeShi languages will probably be large, and
unnecessary for the wide gamut of Wikipedia articles.

-- Jim

On 4/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Jim Wilson wrote:
> > You may want to disable the inline <style> declarations and move all the
> CSS
> > to an externally loaded document like Common.css.
> >
> > (Yes, yes, I know that premature optimization is the root of all evil)
>
> The colours are hard-coded into the language-specific files in GeSHi, so
> you can't generate a compact stylesheet that works for all languages. We
> could have a separate generated stylesheet for each language, but that
> would mean an article like [[b:List of hello world programs]] might need
> to load 50 stylesheets, which would be slow.
>
> Admins should be able to customise the colours by using selectors that are
> more specific than the default GeSHi selectors.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: K P

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/6/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/6/07, Vee <vee.be.me at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Danny&curid=10430325&diff=120748248&oldid=120747699
> >
> > "
> >
> >    1. *Strong oppose* per many of the above,
> > WP:OFFICE<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE>is the antithesis of
> > consensus
> >    building <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CON>, which is the heart of
> >    Wikipedia. Danny was the tool that implimented this vicious and
> > unfeeling
> >    policy. He's made his decisions, and those decisions are inconsistent
> > with
> >    adminship.
> >
> > ??? I think I just lost what little faith I had in the RfA system. How
> > dare
> > Danny stop us from getting sued!
> >
> > Also, what's with the trend of writing 'strong', 'firm', etc before
> votes?
> > Does it actually add more weight to your opinion?
>
>
> While we're complaining about illogical votes, I found it incredibly odd
> for
> someone supporting to write "Danny = WP. WP = Danny." Perhaps it was just
> an
> ill-phrased comment, but I think it's dangerous to equate the project with
> any one person. Let's not go overboard, shall we?
>
> Johnleemk

One of the reasons for a nay vote on a recent RFA was that the editor at
issue is a teenager (16 I think).  Now that was a shameful no vote--can't
think of a reason to vote against them, so knock them for their age.
Meanwhile, she really is a teenager and works in areas where few admins
walk.  I didn't see the no vote, so don't know if there was more attached to
it, but age alone?  Since when did Wikipedia show that age in either
direction should be at a premium?  KP


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 19:41:28 -0400, "The Cunctator"
> ><cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I didn't know you were a copyright lawyer.
> >>
> >>
> >Where did I say that?  I said I *think* it's copyright, and gave my
> >reasoning.  In this thread we've seen some sound reasons supporting
> >the idea it's copyright, and some (IMO) rather weaker ones saying it's
> >not.  Obviously I have asked the BBC and will await their response.
> >
> Do you really believe that they can answer objectively when they are the
> putative copyright holder>

I think their opinion is crucial, since if they see no copyright
violation, there can be no claim.


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 4/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
>>HTML Tidy has been upgraded on our servers, as of 04:40 UTC. We have had
>>reports that some wikitext relies on fixed tidy bugs, and is thus broken,
>>e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2orw8n . You can safely assume that we won't be
>>simulating any Tidy bugs in MediaWiki to compensate, so these changes are
>>here for good. If anyone can identify clearly broken behaviour in the new
>>Tidy, then we can arrange to have it fixed.
>>
>>
>
>A point that seems to be biting a lot of people is the improper use of
><span/> to surround block elements. This isn't proper.. so tidy fixes
>it.. but when tidy fixes it on a numbered list you get an odd result
>like
>
>1. an item
>3. another item
>
>This can be solved by using div to surround block things like lists.
>
>
>
>
A lot of this needs to be detected by MediaWiki up front when the pages
are saved rather than waiting for tidy to clean it up later.
I deal with this breakage every time I import and test a dump file.
MediaWiki could avoid a lot of these issues by detecting garbage
when the pages are saved.

Jeff


from_name: Sean Whitton (Xyrael)

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposed overhaul of Meta

body:
> I remember some time ago there was an effort
> for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust.

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:OM

I would suggest that simply reviving this may be a good way forward
because it would draw on a bunch of already interested people who want
to help.

--Sean/Xyrael

On 4/3/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Wiki folk,
>
> After approximately two and a half months of inactivity, I have decided to
> return to Foundation-l. And today, I would like to address something: an
> overhaul of Meta.
>
> The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki is, in my opinion, the portal of things relevant to
> every single involved member of Wikimedia projects. All of them. Yet, Meta
> is not quite to my standard. I remember some time ago there was an effort
> for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust. This won't be some
> fancy project, this is just what I am thinking about and I want to see if
> you all get where I am heading at.
>
> 1) The current primary navigation system, [[Meta:Index]], is looking unhappy
> with needless branching out. I could probably do this on my own, but I was
> thinking that Meta:Index should be condensed as much as possible and -be
> restricted to functions on Meta only-. Things for other projects can have a
> similar navigation page. Likewise, the Meta:Index page should link to each
> of the language categories. Additionally, I would like to see the Index page
> more prominently featured on Meta.
>
> 2) The three messageboard pages -- Meta:Babel, Metapub, and Meta:Babylon --
> have very terrible names, considering their purposes. You'd think Meta:Babel
> would be about languages, but it's about Meta. You'd think Metapub would be
> able Meta, but it's about the WMF in general. Meta:Babylon may hint towards
> the idea of languages, but Meta:Babel sounds like a better candidate. I
> discuss this more here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Renaming_some_pages
>
> 3) The Main Page is a bit big. It's not really a problem, but some things
> could be transitioned over to Meta:Index or similar pages.
>
> 4) The feature where you get to select a language and then the interface is
> in that language is really cool -- but I think its implementation should be
> more conspicuous. For registered users, if they haven't selected their
> language(s) of preference yet, they should be able to set the options in
> Preferences. When this feature becomes available, there should be a message
> in the Sitenotice advertising such a thing. For anonymous users, it could be
> cookie-based; if there is no evidence that there is cache of Meta since the
> implementation of such a feature, then before they could view any other
> pages, they must set their language of preference first. This way, it is out
> in the open, and there is little possibility for confusion.
>
> 5) I've heard about discussion of this, but I think the translation
> functions of Meta should be moved to their own wiki. It would operate a lot
> more efficiently (more main page space could be dedicated to translation),
> and through special features made for translation wikis, it would be much
> more convenient as well. A translation community, so-to-speak, could
> establish a presence on such a wiki.
>
> These are ideas to consider. Additionally, I have thought of an idea
> involving streamlining communication throughout the Foundation, but I'll
> have more information on that later.
>
> Sincerely,
> MessedRocker
> (you can call me James)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
sean at silentflame.com
http://xyrael.net/


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/6/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> If I gave the impression I was kidding in asking this earlier I didn't mean
> to, I'm serious - what is unblock-en-l, and how do I find it?

You should try google first whenever you have a question like that.
The very first hit is "Unblock-en-l Info page". (the URL was given
earlier)

Steve


from_name: James Hare

body:
I withdraw my entire proposal except the whole improving Meta:Index thing,
since I'd rather be banned than see it not improved. (Also, it doesn't seem
to be very active.) The naming is another issue, as I hadn't thought of the
whole implications of English names. (Incidentally, "Meta", "pub", "Babel",
and "Babylon" are all English words.) We could probably figure something
out.

Also, I do not endorse the attacks on Meta by David Gerard. I expect at
least some level of maturity from people who claim Foundation-wide titles.

On 4/6/07, Sean Whitton (Xyrael) <sean at silentflame.com> wrote:
>
> > I remember some time ago there was an effort
> > for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust.
>
> See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WM:OM
>
> I would suggest that simply reviving this may be a good way forward
> because it would draw on a bunch of already interested people who want
> to help.
>
> --Sean/Xyrael
>
> On 4/3/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello Wiki folk,
> >
> > After approximately two and a half months of inactivity, I have decided
> to
> > return to Foundation-l. And today, I would like to address something: an
> > overhaul of Meta.
> >
> > The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki is, in my opinion, the portal of things relevant
> to
> > every single involved member of Wikimedia projects. All of them. Yet,
> Meta
> > is not quite to my standard. I remember some time ago there was an
> effort
> > for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust. This won't be
> some
> > fancy project, this is just what I am thinking about and I want to see
> if
> > you all get where I am heading at.
> >
> > 1) The current primary navigation system, [[Meta:Index]], is looking
> unhappy
> > with needless branching out. I could probably do this on my own, but I
> was
> > thinking that Meta:Index should be condensed as much as possible and -be
> > restricted to functions on Meta only-. Things for other projects can
> have a
> > similar navigation page. Likewise, the Meta:Index page should link to
> each
> > of the language categories. Additionally, I would like to see the Index
> page
> > more prominently featured on Meta.
> >
> > 2) The three messageboard pages -- Meta:Babel, Metapub, and Meta:Babylon
> --
> > have very terrible names, considering their purposes. You'd think
> Meta:Babel
> > would be about languages, but it's about Meta. You'd think Metapub would
> be
> > able Meta, but it's about the WMF in general. Meta:Babylon may hint
> towards
> > the idea of languages, but Meta:Babel sounds like a better candidate. I
> > discuss this more here:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Renaming_some_pages
> >
> > 3) The Main Page is a bit big. It's not really a problem, but some
> things
> > could be transitioned over to Meta:Index or similar pages.
> >
> > 4) The feature where you get to select a language and then the interface
> is
> > in that language is really cool -- but I think its implementation should
> be
> > more conspicuous. For registered users, if they haven't selected their
> > language(s) of preference yet, they should be able to set the options in
> > Preferences. When this feature becomes available, there should be a
> message
> > in the Sitenotice advertising such a thing. For anonymous users, it
> could be
> > cookie-based; if there is no evidence that there is cache of Meta since
> the
> > implementation of such a feature, then before they could view any other
> > pages, they must set their language of preference first. This way, it is
> out
> > in the open, and there is little possibility for confusion.
> >
> > 5) I've heard about discussion of this, but I think the translation
> > functions of Meta should be moved to their own wiki. It would operate a
> lot
> > more efficiently (more main page space could be dedicated to
> translation),
> > and through special features made for translation wikis, it would be
> much
> > more convenient as well. A translation community, so-to-speak, could
> > establish a presence on such a wiki.
> >
> > These are ideas to consider. Additionally, I have thought of an idea
> > involving streamlining communication throughout the Foundation, but I'll
> > have more information on that later.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > MessedRocker
> > (you can call me James)
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> ?Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr)
> sean at silentflame.com
> http://xyrael.net/
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 06:55:10 +0100, Tim Starling wrote:

> A syntax highlighting extension based on GeSHi is now live on
> test.wikipedia.org. There's a test page at:
>
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
>

It's looks nice, but it would be nice if the code was easier to read.

The colors seem too light for good contrast with a white background, but
some don't show up with a dark background, either. It would be nice to
have a default dark on light scheme for the normal background, and maybe a
light on dark if you want to reverse it.

It doesn't seem to allow passing a style option to affect the div, but
that's fairly minor, since you can always add another div.

It would be nice if the lines were less obtrusive, and more obviously not
a part of the code; I.e. smaller, lighter, and only visible every fifth
line.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 06:55:10 +0100, Tim Starling wrote:

> A syntax highlighting extension based on GeSHi is now live on
> test.wikipedia.org. There's a test page at:
>
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
>

One other small thing, it would be nice if it could display wrapped lines
somehow; maybe an arrow character at the end or such.  The border drawn
right through the code doesn't look good.


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:07:17 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>>Where did I say that?  I said I *think* it's copyright, and gave my
>>reasoning.  In this thread we've seen some sound reasons supporting
>>the idea it's copyright, and some (IMO) rather weaker ones saying it's
>>not.  Obviously I have asked the BBC and will await their response.
>>
>Do you really believe that they can answer objectively when they are the
>putative copyright holder>

They can certainly say whether they assert copyright.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:07:17 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>Wow!  I agreed with something before I even started reading the thread!

It was lower down in threaded view, in my mail client anyway.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 14:25:28 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>The various manufacturers certainly own the trademarks for their
>respective products.  I'm surprised that Guy is not arguing for
>trademark violation.

Why would I do that?  We are not required to call a Ford Mondeo a
Ford(R) Mondeo(TM) (All rights reserved).

I don't see how that is in any way related to reproducing in full a
list compiled by someone using their own criteria.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/6/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Danny#.5B.5BWikipedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FDanny.7CDanny.5D.5D
>
> Danny's rerunning.

The comments of the opposers make me cry.
*Oppose, I can't help thinking that someone who resigned his adminship
last month when he didn't need to does not have the best interest of
the project at heart.
*Oppose appears to brush off criticism, I tended to disagree with his
decision processes on WP:OFFICE, his answers to the first few
questions above reads to me sorta like "I'm danny I dont really need
to go through this process". Sorry but I must oppose.

(that one is awful - opposing because he doesn't respect RFA?)

*Oppose Relinquished positions of trust along with his resignation
from WMF. This is in itself a good thing. But he does not explain his
reasons for departure. I would be happy to support if this was
explained. Danny linked his departure with those positions of trust,
including the admin position. Of course he did not need to explain why
he resigned, but once the linkage is forged I can't evaluate his
fitness without understanding the full reasons for his giving them up.
*Oppose Sorry - unsatisfactory answers to questions.
*Oppose per nom. (this is classy - he's opposing based on the fact
that Cyde Weys supported him)

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] unblock-en-l?

body:
On 4/6/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Thank you for this. I never thought of using Google. I plugged
> "unblock-en-l" into a WP search and came up with nothing.

You can google for anything. Almost all the Wikipedia shortcuts
(WP:OR, WP:RFA etc) work just as well in Google as they do in
Wikipedia.

Steve


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission

body:
On 06/04/07, Yoni Weiden <yonidebest at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to receive clarification regarding images which their owner had
> given explicit permission to use the images on
> (1) Hebrew Wikimeida only, or
> (2) Wikimedia projects only.
>
> I happen to remember that the first option - images by permission to use in
> Hebrew Wikimeida only are not allowed. What about the second option?

The latter is the same as the former - "Wikimedia by permission" is
the same as "Wikipedia only by permission" as far as our reusers are
concerned.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Article hit rates -- research at the
	University	of	Minnesota

body:
On Thu, 2007-05-04 at 10:03 -0400, Brad Patrick wrote:

> Which of these statistics has relevance, and at what degree of
> granularity?  The USA Today readers are looking for something as simple
> as "# of daily page views" which any surfer can appreciate.  The http
> request tally makes sense to developers who are concerned about the load
> on our servers, tweaks in performance, etc.  Marketers want uniques per
> day or month, etc.

That's about it: page views per day, hits per day, and unique visitors
per month are the three main stats people care about.

> Which of these stats should be developed to give accurate information to
> the world about what performance is being achieved, in an
> apples-to-apples comparison to existing suites?  What will give WMF the
> most credibility in reporting in the future?

Page views per day, I think.

-Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/


from_name: Erica

subject: [WikiEN-l] Report on unprotected, high-profile articles

body:
FYI--
After some concerns were raised about the indefinite protection or
semi-protection of some high-profile articles, I decided unprotect
some that had been protected for a long time. (I also created a recent
change list and requested the help of a few other editors to help me
watch the pages. A list of pages I unprotected or set end-dates for is
available at [[User:Fang Aili/sandbox2]].)

All articles listed below were unprotected by me around March 29. Here
is a report on what has happened since. All re-semi-protected articles
were protected in response to IP vandalism, unless otherwise
specified.

==Countries and continents==
*France - Indef semi-protected on April 1.
*Mexico - Re-semi-protected, March 31. (expires April 14)
*Iraq - Re-semi-protected, April 4. (expires April 14)
*England - Re-semi-protected, April 3. (expires April 17)
*Europe - Still unprotected. Target of much vandalism, but also
constructive edits by IPs.
*Africa - Re-SP'd April 2. Expires April 7.
*Australia - Much anon vandalism. Re-SP'd on April 3, expires April 24.
*People's Republic of China - Still unprotected. Some vandalism. (I
kept page move protection.)

==People==
*Ayn Rand - Still unprotected. Some anon vandalism.
*Bill Cosby - Semi-protected again by myself after vandals claimed
Cobsy was dead, expires April 16.
*Benito Mussolini - Still unprotected. Some anon vandalism.

==Planets==
*Earth - Still unprotected. Fairly heavy IP vandalism.
*Sun - Re-SP'd on April 2, expires April 7.
*Mars - Re-SP'd on April 5, expires May 17.

==Other==
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - This has gone through many
edits lately, as can be expected. It was unprotected March 28,
re-protected the next day, and unprotected March 31.
*Black Death - A suprising target of much anon vandalism,
semi-protected again by myself, expires April 12.
*Buddhism - Still unprotected. Some IP vandalism.
*Aztec - Still unprotected. Minor IP vandalism.
*Baibars - Still unprotected. No vandalism.
*Amish - Still unprotected. Minor IP vandalism. At least one instance
of a constructive IP edit.
*History of Croatia - Still unprotected. No edits since I unprotected it.

==Analysis==
1. Of this group, countries were most likely to be re-protected.

2. With some articles, it seems our choices are: 1)Constantly monitor,
and revert often, or 2)Semi-protect and still monitor for (perhaps
less frequent) vandalism from registered users.  [[England]], for
example, was still getting vandalized even while semi-protected.

3. We may just have to accept that some articles will be indefinitely
semi-protected, or will go through cycles of one-week-unprotected,
several-weeks-protected.

Take the information for what you will. I am not sure I accomplished
anything other than reasserting what we already know. But it was an
interesting experiment.

Erica
User:Fang Aili


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 06/04/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> (that one is awful - opposing because he doesn't respect RFA?)

That surprises you? The majority of the oppose votes in my RfA were
for the exact same reason.

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission

body:
Yoni Weiden schreef:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to receive clarification regarding images which their owner had
> given explicit permission to use the images on
> (1) Hebrew Wikimeida only, or
> (2) Wikimedia projects only.
>
> I happen to remember that the first option - images by permission to use in
> Hebrew Wikimeida only are not allowed. What about the second option?
>
> Thanks,
> Yoni Weiden
> aka Yonidebest at he.wiki
>
Hoi,
Even the latter is not permitted. It prevents the expression of Freedom
that we seek.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:23:01 -0700, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>A not copyrighted response would simplify things, but not so for the
>contrary view.

If they assert copyright, then we should simply exclude the list. It's
not like it matters, we can have some examples, preferably in prose.
This does not prevent us discussing the topic of the Cool Wall, and it
does not materially degrade the article, in that it's not actually
necessary to have the entire list in order to understand the concept.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

body:
On 4/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> HTML Tidy has been upgraded on our servers, as of 04:40 UTC. We have had
> reports that some wikitext relies on fixed tidy bugs, and is thus broken,
> e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2orw8n . You can safely assume that we won't be
> simulating any Tidy bugs in MediaWiki to compensate, so these changes are
> here for good. If anyone can identify clearly broken behaviour in the new
> Tidy, then we can arrange to have it fixed.

A point that seems to be biting a lot of people is the improper use of
<span/> to surround block elements. This isn't proper.. so tidy fixes
it.. but when tidy fixes it on a numbered list you get an odd result
like

1. an item
3. another item

This can be solved by using div to surround block things like lists.

Here is an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/test


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

references:
<ev5n0e$6df$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e692861c0704060952t5333bfffp13c4c97f7fdb9bf6@mail.gmail.com>
	<46167BDB.1090600@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 4/6/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> A lot of this needs to be detected by MediaWiki up front when the pages
> are saved rather than waiting for tidy to clean it up later.
> I deal with this breakage every time I import and test a dump file.
> MediaWiki could avoid a lot of these issues by detecting garbage
> when the pages are saved.

This is a philosophical issue about how Wiki works.  The lack of hard
syntax rules that people must conform to facilitates discover and
greatly softens the learning curve. ... it also means that our content
will perpetually be rubbish syntactically.

I used to find this very distasteful. But a lot more time thinking
about it, I don't feel as bad about it.  What is bad is that our
syntax is not well defined (and is, in fact, partially defined by tidy
of all things) ... this means that making changes while remaining bug
to bug compatible is nearly impossible.

I don't think syntax checking is a desired feature, ... but having a
grammar which is well defined enough that changes can be made without
breaking dependencies on unexpected aspects of our behavior would be
very desirable. ... but doing so without breaking compatibility with
the existing syntax is probably impossible.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 4/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
> > > > hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
> > > > whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
> > > > type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.
> > >
> > > I actually think that merely describing lists of photos, or
> > > transcribing what is in them, doesn't infringe their copyright at all.
> > >  We're not transforming artwork (Rogers case), we're transforming a
> > > list of facts from one format (images of cars) into another (text); in
> > > the US, mere lists of facts aren't copyrightable (cf all the phone
> > > book copyright-doesn't-apply rulings).
> > >
> > This isn't a mere list of facts, though.  It's a mere list of opinions
> > (what cars are cool, which are uncool, etc).
> >
> > Actually, it's not a *list* of opinions, because order isn't
> > preserved.  It's a mere *collection* of opinions.  This is, sadly,
> > probably copyrightable.
> >
> > Anthony
> >
> > BTW, regarding the suggestion that we waste any money asking a lawyer
> > about this, I say no way.  If we're going to waste money on a lawyer,
> > let's get him or her to explain how the DMCA protects the foundation
> > even *if* this is a copyright infringement.
>
> It's the TV show/ magazine's opinion that gets a car on the Wall.
>
> That it's on the wall is factual.
>
> Any detailed description or justification they give is content, and
> copyrightable.  The mere fact of appearance isn't, under US law, with
> as I understand it rare exceptions.
>
If that's true, then collections can't be copyrighted, as whether or
not an item is in a collection is always a fact.  If that's what
you're saying, I don't actually have any case law in mind that
directly contradicts it, but the text of the law dealing with
"compilations" (as well as the dicta of Feist) seems to suggest that
collections *can* be copyrighted, *if* they're creative.

But then, you could change pretty much any creative work into a fact.
Want to copy page 3 of War and Peace?  Just add "Page 3 of War and
Peace says..." to the beginning.

Anthony


from_name: Jim Wilson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
> Yes it would be large, which is why I didn't make it that way.

Here's my proposal (in as much detail as I can muster):

1) Give all <pre> and <div> tags generated from <source> a css class (or
several).

2) Modify Brion's syntax-hightlight extension so that it doesn't add any
<style> tags to the header, but a single <link> instead OR one <link> for
each language represented in the article.  Preferably this would be earlier
in the link chain than User CSS so that users can modify how source code
looks for themselves.

3) Set the link urls to the "action=raw&ctype=text/css&maxage=whatever"
version of something like "MediaWiki:SyntaxHighlighting.css" or "MediaWiki:
SyntaxHighlighting-LANG.css" where LANG is the name of a language used in a
<source> element in the page.

4) Fill MediaWiki:SyntaxHighlighting.css or MediaWiki:
SyntaxHighlighting-LANG.css files with the GeShi generated versions of all
the css, modified slightly so that all selectors are prefixed with the
class/classes identified in step 1.

I feel that the gains of doing this are the following:

1) Less bandwidth since the style information is not being fed for every
page which happens to contain a <source> block (the syntax highlighting
files can be browser/proxy cached)

2) If the <link> is added early enough in the document <head>, then either
Skin CSS or User CSS could be used to override the styles.

I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about this problem or
how wikipedia does business, so if there are flaws/holes in the proposal
above, I'd love to hear them so that together we can come up with the best
solution. :)

-- Jim

On 4/6/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Jim Wilson wrote:
> > You could give the wrapper elements (<pre> and <div> tags) CSS classes
> to
> > identify that it's source code and what language.
> >
> > So
> >
> > <source lang="php">
> > echo('hi there');
> > </source>
> >
> > Might become
> >
> > <pre class="sourcecode php">
> > ....
> > </pre>
> >
> > Then the pre-generated GeShi files could be modified to have all
> elements
> > prefixed with .sourcecode .php or whatever.
>
> That's what it does already, except for the bit about generating files.
>
> > It would probably make sense though to put all of this generated stuff
> into
> > something other than Common.css but still loaded via a <link> tag which
> only
> > appears on pages with at least one <source> block.  Reason being that
> the
> > CSS for all supported GeShi languages will probably be large, and
> > unnecessary for the wide gamut of Wikipedia articles.
>
> Yes it would be large, which is why I didn't make it that way.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Edward Z. Yang

subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

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

Tim Starling wrote:
> HTML Tidy has been upgraded on our servers, as of 04:40 UTC. We have had
> reports that some wikitext relies on fixed tidy bugs, and is thus broken,
> e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2orw8n . You can safely assume that we won't be
> simulating any Tidy bugs in MediaWiki to compensate, so these changes are
> here for good. If anyone can identify clearly broken behaviour in the new
> Tidy, then we can arrange to have it fixed.

TinyURL is broken, use: http://tinyurl.com/2xzn72

On a more relevant note, any code relying on Tidy bugs must be shot and
refactored.  I wholeheartedly agree. :-)
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGFoNPqTO+fYacSNoRAnr1AJ0cam2tYfaIFSZIw5H5YF1aM255MwCcCmR7
s2qgDVCsekMAAx5XnxE6qTs=
=MLXu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


list: commons-l

from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Commons-l] 3D printers!

body:
On 4/5/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 4/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/business/05scan.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
> >
> > So when can we start putting 3D printer files on Commons?
>
> I think the file format we need to support for that is COLLADA (kind
> of the SVG of 3D file formats); Brion has looked into that a while
> ago. There are still a couple of security & efficiency issues to sort
> out.
>
> > And should we recommend a content-like licence (e.g. GFDL, CC by-sa)
> > or a software-like license (e.g. GPL)?
>
> Neither. Put it into the public domain.

In some jurisdictions, an individual cannot put their work into the
public domain, the best they can do is say "it's usable for all
purposes" without any legal frame but their word. As far as I am
concerned, a licence is therefore a better choice, especially one that
has a viral form to it.

I'd go for a content-like license myself.

Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.


from_name: Yoni Weiden

subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission

body:
Hi,

I would like to receive clarification regarding images which their owner had
given explicit permission to use the images on
(1) Hebrew Wikimeida only, or
(2) Wikimedia projects only.

I happen to remember that the first option - images by permission to use in
Hebrew Wikimeida only are not allowed. What about the second option?

Thanks,
Yoni Weiden
aka Yonidebest at he.wiki


subject: [Foundation-l] Images by permission


from_name: Matthew Brown

subject:
[Commons-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check
	forcopyright renewals on books

references:
<fbad4e140704030226y2f603a42r6f1427de48d38daf@mail.gmail.com>
	<CBEGLCFKGFBHNOLMKIMHOECPDCAA.plugwash@p10link.net>
	<e692861c0704031124r74a9d5e2l36f869e2ba078f3e@mail.gmail.com>
	<42f90dc00704031328u39ae36e3xf3ba8584cce8adf8@mail.gmail.com>
	<f80608430704060840j61339c8ah20f0b9e05e5f610c@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 4/6/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> The copyright holder of the book still under copyright would still be
> the copyright holder thus surely Stewart v. Abend would apply?

I can't see that Stewart v. Abend is really applicable in this
situation, which is rather different; Stewart v. Abend covers a
copyrighted work and the details of how rights over a copyrighted work
pass to the heirs on the author's death and how this affects copyright
assignments and permission for derivative works.

The scenario I asked about is when two independently copyrighted
works, where neither is a derivative work of the other, include the
same image that has not been independently copyrighted.

-Matt


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
John Lee wrote:

>On 4/3/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, John Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What I'm saying is, there's no reason we can't use primary sources if there
>>>
>>>
>>>are already secondary sources. It's silly not to use what's available. But
>>>
>>>
>>>if there are no secondary sources, how can we justify bringing up our own
>>>
>>>
>>>novel interpretation of the primary sources, and becoming a secondary
>>>source?
>>>
>>>
>>In this case, it's the word "interpretation" which you're stretching out of
>>all reasonableness.
>>
>>Procedures like making simple logical deductions, arranging in
>>alphabetical
>>order, or collecting lists of items are not interpretations.
>>
>>
>I chose the word "interpretation" for a reason. Sorry if I didn't make this
>clear earlier, but I'm not debating the Top Gear case at all - truth be
>told, I forgot that that was the original topic in the first place. I'm
>speaking in general terms about policy, because it seems to me that Phil is
>advocating a view of policy that permits primary sources even where
>secondary sources don't exist.
>
Sometimes that the most sensible approach.  Every article giving a plot
outline of a TV show episode does this.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 19:41:28 -0400, "The Cunctator"
><cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I didn't know you were a copyright lawyer.
>>
>>
>Where did I say that?  I said I *think* it's copyright, and gave my
>reasoning.  In this thread we've seen some sound reasons supporting
>the idea it's copyright, and some (IMO) rather weaker ones saying it's
>not.  Obviously I have asked the BBC and will await their response.
>
Do you really believe that they can answer objectively when they are the
putative copyright holder>

Ec


from_name: Simetrical

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Article hit rates -- research at the University of
	Minnesota

body:
On 4/6/07, Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name> wrote:
> > Which of these stats should be developed to give accurate information to
> > the world about what performance is being achieved, in an
> > apples-to-apples comparison to existing suites?  What will give WMF the
> > most credibility in reporting in the future?
>
> Page views per day, I think.

Better be a bit more granular than that.  Article views, edit-related
views, RC views, front-page views, etc.  As Yahoo! found out recently,
"page views per day" tends to drop rather noticeably when you Ajax
away some of the unnecessary ones.  I would say it's not a very useful
statistic.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

>On 3 Apr 2007 at 08:17, "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>You're slipping into something resembling Copyright Paranoia For Convenience.
>>
>>"It's a copyright violation *and* it's original research. Probably
>>violates a patent too, if I looked closely enough."
>>
>>
>And a trademark.
>
The various manufacturers certainly own the trademarks for their
respective products.  I'm surprised that Guy is not arguing for
trademark violation.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

body:
On 4/6/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a philosophical issue about how Wiki works.  The lack of hard
> syntax rules that people must conform to facilitates discover and
> greatly softens the learning curve. ... it also means that our content
> will perpetually be rubbish syntactically.

It could be made sane on save, though, rather than on render.


from_name: K P

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/6/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/7/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > One of the reasons for a nay vote on a recent RFA was that the editor at
> > issue is a teenager (16 I think).  Now that was a shameful no
> vote--can't
> > think of a reason to vote against them, so knock them for their age.
> > Meanwhile, she really is a teenager and works in areas where few admins
> > walk.  I didn't see the no vote, so don't know if there was more
> attached
> > to
> > it, but age alone?  Since when did Wikipedia show that age in either
> > direction should be at a premium?  KP
>
>
> I became an admin when I was 14. I can't see anything wrong with teenaged
> admins; IIRC at one point we had a 13-year-old 'crat. Still, as long as
> this
> ageism is only a fringe thing on RfA, it's probably not worth knocking the
> process itself over a few misguided Wikipedians.
>
> Johnleemk

You're right, especially since there are plenty of worse reasons for not
voting for someone that I've come across on occassion, and because I didn't
actually see this vote.   KP


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
They were leaked last time? For goodness sakes, why?

On 4/6/07, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If I recall correctly, the term of three board members (Erik, Oscar
> > and Kat) will end in june this year. That will mean elections. I would
> > like to start a civil discussion on what (if anything) should be
> > changed compared to last year in the procedure, so the elections will
> > be as nice as possible.
>
> Perhaps we should also have a rule that results won't be leaked to
> candidates this time. Or even not made available to anyone at all
> until the end of the voting period. The situation with the last
> election was a disgrace.
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Ken Arromdee wrote:

>>But
>>my fundamental reason for removing it is copyright, and if the BBC
>>says it is not copyright then I will add it back.  I have asked them.
>>
>>
>
>Why?  You claim that either it's copyright, or it's OR.  If you truly
>believed this, surely if the BBC says it is not copyright, you would conclude
>it's OR and still leave it out for that reason.
>
>(And what are we doing using British copyright laws in a Wikipedia run in the
>US anyway?  Surely the BBC won't tell you if it's copyright under *American*
>law.)
>
In all fairness, since the programme is produced in Britain then British
law would apply to determine whether the work is copyright.  If US law
differs the work could be reproduced in the USA, but not world-wide.
Having the servers and company offices in the US does imply that we must
consider US copyright law, but not exclusively so.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

body:
On 4/6/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmm ... could give unexpected results. "That's not the text I
> entered!" And bug reports.

We get that today.. except now it's the form of old versions
mysteriously changing even though they can't be edited. With no
obvious record of the changes.. and no easy way to confirm you weren't
imagining what you saw the day before.

> OTOH, MediaWiki reporting it fixed syntax problems might be enough.

We could also go to a hybrid approach once we get revision tagging:
include a syntax checker (which could also check for other more style
related issue), and then only allow people to set certain revision
tags on revisions that pass the test... i.e. the articles overall
syntax might be crud, but the stable version will always check okay.
This will give a nice series of milestone versions which are not only
good to human eyes, but also stand a chance of staying that way as the
machinery changes.

> OTOOH, correcting a typo and getting back that 20 other changes have
> been made could be ... doing the unexpected.

Right.. There lies the rub.


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
I completely agree with Delphine on this.

Danny

In a message dated 4/6/2007 2:19:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
notafishz at gmail.com writes:

Yes. Any  length of time should include both a week-end and some
week-days. But this  is a great proposal too. I would cap it at 4 to  7
days

Delphine

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
In a message dated 4/6/2007 2:35:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
beesley at gmail.com writes:

Perhaps  we should also have a rule that results won't be leaked to
candidates this  time. Or even not made available to anyone at all
until the end of the  voting period. The situation with the last
election was a  disgrace.

The best way would be to have a completely outside organization audit the
elections.

Danny

************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Monahon, Peter B.

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure
 instruction manual?

body:
Hi fellow wiki-admins,

We all gotta start someplace ... here's where I'm at now:

I presume there's something painfully simple I'm missing, but I can't
for the life of me find a reference anywhere simply on how to
setup-and-configure a wiki!

For example, all I wanna do is:

1 - Sign in as admin.  Is that so hard?  How do I sign in as admin?

2 - Make others sign-in as lesser-editors and contributors.  I need to
see how hierarchies of user-capabilities work before I go live.

3 - Lock parts of article contents so users can add to them but not
delete the locked part, admins can change anything.

4 - Change/customize a few visual things, like the sidebar.

Now, I'm not askin' you all to answer my detailed questions above
(unless you want to!).

I'm asking if anyone knows of a reference where I can look up these
kinds of (must be) precedented things.  Does anyone have any leads on a
BASIC (as in "initial") MediaWiki setup-and-configure instruction
manual?

Thank you so much (conversations so far have been ... interesting - I
can't wait to understand what you're all talking about and see how you
respond here!).

- Peter Blaise Monahon, USPTO/OTPC, 571-272-3950, MDE 4D68, WS01419


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Matthew Brown wrote:

>On 4/3/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Not that I couldn't be surprised on this; the boundaries of copyright
>>law are still surprising to me after years of casual study. But I'm
>>pretty sure it's not clearly a violation.
>>
>>
>Copyright law is exceedingly complex, in fact, and in many edge cases
>even a trained and experienced copyright lawyer can only give an
>educated guess and an estimate of risk.
>
Ultimately, except when someone's out to make a bloody-minded point,
it's cost effectiveness that will decide whether a suit is launched.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
But who?

On 4/6/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 4/6/2007 2:35:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> beesley at gmail.com writes:
>
> Perhaps  we should also have a rule that results won't be leaked to
> candidates this  time. Or even not made available to anyone at all
> until the end of the  voting period. The situation with the last
> election was a  disgrace.
>
>
>
> The best way would be to have a completely outside organization audit the
> elections.
>
> Danny
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
> http://www.aol.com.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Jim Hu

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki
	setup-and-configure instruction manual?

body:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents

On Apr 6, 2007, at 2:43 PM, Monahon, Peter B. wrote:

> Hi fellow wiki-admins,
>
> We all gotta start someplace ... here's where I'm at now:
>
> I presume there's something painfully simple I'm missing, but I can't
> for the life of me find a reference anywhere simply on how to
> setup-and-configure a wiki!
>
> For example, all I wanna do is:
>
> 1 - Sign in as admin.  Is that so hard?  How do I sign in as admin?
>
> 2 - Make others sign-in as lesser-editors and contributors.  I need to
> see how hierarchies of user-capabilities work before I go live.
>
> 3 - Lock parts of article contents so users can add to them but not
> delete the locked part, admins can change anything.
>
> 4 - Change/customize a few visual things, like the sidebar.
>
> Now, I'm not askin' you all to answer my detailed questions above
> (unless you want to!).
>
> I'm asking if anyone knows of a reference where I can look up these
> kinds of (must be) precedented things.  Does anyone have any leads
> on a
> BASIC (as in "initial") MediaWiki setup-and-configure instruction
> manual?
>
> Thank you so much (conversations so far have been ... interesting - I
> can't wait to understand what you're all talking about and see how you
> respond here!).
>
> - Peter Blaise Monahon, USPTO/OTPC, 571-272-3950, MDE 4D68, WS01419
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MediaWiki-l mailing list
> MediaWiki-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

=====================================
Jim Hu
Associate Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2128 TAMU
Texas A&M Univ.
College Station, TX 77843-2128
979-862-4054


from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
2007/4/6, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org>:
> A syntax highlighting extension based on GeSHi is now live on
> test.wikipedia.org. There's a test page at:
>
> http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
>
> The documentation is now out-of-date, but it might contain some useful
> information:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi
>

Not enough intensive colors in first few lines :(

People wearing glasses would have problems with reading it!

AJF/WarX


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0600, Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia allows fair use of copyrighted material, and furthermore it
>>follows American copyright law rather than British so even if the BBC
>>claims "the list is copyright us, don't touch!" and a British lawyer
>>says "they're right, you know" that doesn't necessarily mean we can't
>>include the list. It may be uncopyrighted in the US, and at the very
>>least I expect it's easy fair use.
>>
>>
>You suspect.  But I suspect that reproducing in its entirety a list
>which constitutes original creative work is not an "easy" fair use. If
>you look lower down you'll see that Ray Saintonge agrees.  So:
>probably not "easy".
>
Wow!  I agreed with something before I even started reading the thread!

I generally support the concept of fair use, but I prefer not to use it
when something else will do.  If something is not copyrightable in the
first place, why worry about fair use?

Another way to look at this present problem is to consider the fact that
every car on the list is a link to a Wikipedia article.  We could just
as easily go to each of these articles and add [[Category:Cool Wall
Car|Uncool]] with the sort element depending on which classification the
show used for that car.  The result would be the same list on a category
page.  Would anybody argue that that is a copyvio?

Ec


body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:48:48 -0400, "The Cunctator"
>><cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I thought you said the Cool Wall  list doesn't ever appear in its entirety
>>>on the show.
>>>
>>>
>>Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.
>>
>>
>What if we were to include a screenshot of that?
>
Would it be readable?

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
James Farrar wrote:

>On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 19:41:28 -0400, "The Cunctator" wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I didn't know you were a copyright lawyer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Where did I say that?  I said I *think* it's copyright, and gave my
>>>reasoning.  In this thread we've seen some sound reasons supporting
>>>the idea it's copyright, and some (IMO) rather weaker ones saying it's
>>>not.  Obviously I have asked the BBC and will await their response.
>>>
>>>
>>Do you really believe that they can answer objectively when they are the
>>putative copyright holder>
>>
>>
>I think their opinion is crucial, since if they see no copyright
>violation, there can be no claim.
>
A not copyrighted response would simplify things, but not so for the
contrary view.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

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

effe iets anders wrote:
> 2) the time
> Last year, the elections took three whole weeks. I think it should be
> possible to shorten this period.

The voting period was long, but there was very little time between the
finalization of candidates and the beginning of voting. One consequence
of this was that translators had not completed translation of candidate
statements at the time the voting began.

There should be more time ahead to prepare.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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PAfiGI5E0yiExQ8dsqZPv6U=
=l2KZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:26:50 -0500, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
wrote:

>Here is where I see the crux of the issue in this thread: you are not
>interested in keeping the information in question. You do not value it.
>You are willing to eliminate it at request (which is all that their
>reply could possibly be seen as).

And you are wrong in your assertion.  I am interested in the article
subject, I just don't think we may or should include the list in its
entirety.

Yes, I am prepared to eliminate it on request.  I am prepared to
eliminate *any* asserted copyright on request, and allow it back in
only when it is established that it does not violate copyright.  We
get a steady trickle of complaints of copyright violation, and we
generally *do* remove them.

>Wikipedia/Wikimedia was established (and I hope continues to exist) to
>make information freely available. Caving in to unreasonable claims of
>copyright is not the way to do that.

You are, I think, confusing free-as-in-beer with free-as-in-speech. We
are not allowed to include content that violates other people's
copyright, and this is not in any way seen as incompatible with
Wikipedia's mission.  The subject of the Cool Wall can be discussed
perfectly satisfactorily without including the list, just as we can
discuss popular songs without including mp3s or lyrics of the songs.

In fact, that is probably a good example: a song is part of an album,
as the Cool Wall is part of Top Gear; the song is published in the
form of a performance; the lyrics are in some cases transcribed by
fans; it is generally accepted that these lyrics are copyright.  Not
only do we not allow them to be included, we don't even allow links to
them unless on the official site of the band.

Removing unfree content has never been incompatible with Wikipedia's
mission to make information freely available. We do it all the time.

>Note that I'm not saying that their claim would be unreasonable--I am
>not an expert in copyright law. But your position is that their mere
>request should result in our removing the information, when the question
>of whether this is a copyright violation is still very much in question.

Yes.  The request of any rights owner should always be respected, even
if that respect takes the form of removing the content, debating,
proving that the claim to rights is invalid, and re-inserting. Someone
is right now claiming that some material in [[KRISTI snowcat]]
violates his copyright.  After taking advice from Brad, I removed some
and left other facts in with {{fact}} tags.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
Jim Wilson wrote:
> You may want to disable the inline <style> declarations and move all the CSS
> to an externally loaded document like Common.css.
>
> (Yes, yes, I know that premature optimization is the root of all evil)

The colours are hard-coded into the language-specific files in GeSHi, so
you can't generate a compact stylesheet that works for all languages. We
could have a separate generated stylesheet for each language, but that
would mean an article like [[b:List of hello world programs]] might need
to load 50 stylesheets, which would be slow.

Admins should be able to customise the colours by using selectors that are
more specific than the default GeSHi selectors.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] Tidy upgraded

body:
HTML Tidy has been upgraded on our servers, as of 04:40 UTC. We have had
reports that some wikitext relies on fixed tidy bugs, and is thus broken,
e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2orw8n . You can safely assume that we won't be
simulating any Tidy bugs in MediaWiki to compensate, so these changes are
here for good. If anyone can identify clearly broken behaviour in the new
Tidy, then we can arrange to have it fixed.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Arbeo M

body:
2007/4/5, Mark Williamson node.ue at gmail.com:
Suffice to say, from discussions I have had with people who had
_formerly_ *approved* Wikipedias, they cannot understand why they are
required to do this, many of them don't know what exactly it is that
is required of them, and they are confused. It should be the
responsibility of the LAnguage Committee, not of me, to explain to
them what is happening here and give them a tutorial on how to edit
the messages file and give them help dealing with the problems like
the ones Fulup encountered.

We need to be amicable and try to make this process easier for these
people, not make it some sort of obstacle course.

That sums it up pretty well. In a nutshell, the whole question is:

Which is the lesser evil - having a Wikipedia with a few, temporary
imperfections or not having a Wikipedia at all? Though one, isn't it?

--Arbeo


from_name: Vee

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 06/04/07, Cool Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the overall comments on that RFA (troll festival if you ask me
> which
> you don't) is quite annoying. The allegedly "legit concerns" about the
> office in my opinion has no bearing on weather or not he would abuse admin
> tools.
>
> I sincerely hope Danny continues to serve us despite us.
>
>    - Cool Cat
>
> On 4/6/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > There are some legit concerns on Danny's RFA, and a lot of "OFFICE bit
> > > me he sucks", sometimes written slightly more coherently.
> >
> > WP:IDONTLIKEHIM(HER)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Danny&curid=10430325&diff=120748248&oldid=120747699

"

   1. *Strong oppose* per many of the above,
WP:OFFICE<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE>is the antithesis of
consensus
   building <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CON>, which is the heart of
   Wikipedia. Danny was the tool that implimented this vicious and unfeeling
   policy. He's made his decisions, and those decisions are inconsistent with
   adminship.

??? I think I just lost what little faith I had in the RfA system. How dare
Danny stop us from getting sued!

Also, what's with the trend of writing 'strong', 'firm', etc before votes?
Does it actually add more weight to your opinion?


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> James Farrar wrote:
>
> >On 06/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 19:41:28 -0400, "The Cunctator" wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I didn't know you were a copyright lawyer.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Where did I say that?  I said I *think* it's copyright, and gave my
> >>>reasoning.  In this thread we've seen some sound reasons supporting
> >>>the idea it's copyright, and some (IMO) rather weaker ones saying it's
> >>>not.  Obviously I have asked the BBC and will await their response.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Do you really believe that they can answer objectively when they are the
> >>putative copyright holder>
> >>
> >>
> >I think their opinion is crucial, since if they see no copyright
> >violation, there can be no claim.
> >
> A not copyrighted response would simplify things, but not so for the
> contrary view.

True, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.


body:
2007/4/5, Sabine Cretella sabine_cretella at yahoo.it:

Sorry, I am overloaded right now with work and cannot really take part
in this discussion:

Ciao Sabine!

Is that a permanent work overload? If so, maybe somebody else could chair
the language subcommittee in the meantime.

I guess accepting more work than one can reasonably cope with is something
familiar to many of us (it happens to me every now and then, unfortunately).
I don't think anybody would resent it if somebody else with more time on
their hands were in charge of that position for a while. And if helps to
give the langcom's work a little more momentum than in the past five months
- even better!

Tanti saluti
--Arbeo


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation - muslimwikipedia.com

body:
On 4/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/04/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > On 3/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > http://muslimwikipedia.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page
>
> > I already contacted them a while ago about the name. They seem to be
> > in the process of changing it to "MuslimWiki" now.
>
>
> And they've noted this on their front page. All good, and they're even GFDL :-)

Ah no. Currently no restictions on invariant sections.

--
geni


references:
<fbad4e140704030226y2f603a42r6f1427de48d38daf@mail.gmail.com>
	<CBEGLCFKGFBHNOLMKIMHOECPDCAA.plugwash@p10link.net>
	<e692861c0704031124r74a9d5e2l36f869e2ba078f3e@mail.gmail.com>
	<42f90dc00704031328u39ae36e3xf3ba8584cce8adf8@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 4/3/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it based on the copyright status of the book you copied it from?
> Is it based on the copyright status of the first book in which it was
> published (IOW, its first copyright registration)?  Is it still
> copyrighted if any of the published versions are still in copyright?
> (a version I think is least likely)
>
> I've never found anything useful about this situation in copyright guides.

The copyright holder of the book still under copyright would still be
the copyright holder thus surely Stewart v. Abend would apply?

--
geni


body:
2007/4/5, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
> You're wrong in assuming that the Kabyles have a small community. As
> far as I am aware, they actually had the largest community of the
> formerly "approved" proposals.

Mark is right. In fact, it is an exceptionally large initial community. If
the Kabyle Wikipedia can finally go live in a few days - great! But when
comes to evaluating how easily or not "it can be done", let's rather look at
how start-up communities of typical size will cope.

Regards
--Arbeo


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Foundation-l] Languages files

body:
I imagine most people on the Incubator do not read foundation-l.

The choices seem rather obvious to me.

Latgalian: Start out with Latvian
Saterfrisian: Start out with German
Palatinian: Start out with German
Ottoman: Start out with Turkish
etc.

But I would recommend asking people actually at the incubator, for
example Pyt Kramer for Saterlandic.

Mark

On 06/04/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> We now have a procedure on how we can get new language files in the
> Incubator. What we now need is to know is if people want to start with
> the English language for their initial start or with another language.
> We can imagine that you want to start for Ottoman Turk with either Arab
> or Turkish. For Palatinate German it could be better to start with German.
>
> Please let me know within a week what you want for this and we will
> accommodate you in this way.
>
> For the Kabyle language we will use the work that is currently done in
> BetaWiki. It is not sensible to start with a Kabyle file now in the
> Incubator. We do not want to do things twice..
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


subject: [Foundation-l] Languages files


subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
On 4/3/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you don't get it, my point is that would be A Bad Thing. How many
> redlinks are there in Wikipedia?
>
> Hmmmmmmmm?

Few than you'd think. Most problem new articles are orphans. Indeed
preventing the creation of orphans would be a potential option.

--
geni


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
Hello James,

This email made my day.  I think your ideas -- reworking Meta:Index and
the Main Page, fixing Babel and Metapub to be about language and general
discussion, popularizing the interface-language selection option, and
giving translations their own wiki -- to clear up Meta/Meta-RC and also to
help focus translation functions -- are all excellent.  I have suggested a
separate translation wiki in the past, and would be glad to help set such
a thing up.

Perhaps a good way to start would be with discussiong a babel/metapub/babylon
reorganization on those pages and talk pages, and then having this discussion
move to the resulting "about meta" talk page... since mailing lists are rarely
the best place to launch a wiki cleanup campaign.

There have been other efforts to date; as pointed out elsewhere you
should coordinate this with the older efforts at WM:OM (it had lots of
enthusiasm, and lots of en:wp participants, but not enough input from
active meta contributors at the time, or from people from other language
wikis or non-wikipedia projects... some of the work done through that
effort, including the categorization and image cleanup, were really
fantastic).

--SJ

On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, James Hare wrote:

> Hello Wiki folk,
>
> After approximately two and a half months of inactivity, I have decided to
> return to Foundation-l. And today, I would like to address something: an
> overhaul of Meta.
>
> The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki is, in my opinion, the portal of things relevant to
> every single involved member of Wikimedia projects. All of them. Yet, Meta
> is not quite to my standard. I remember some time ago there was an effort
> for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust. This won't be some
> fancy project, this is just what I am thinking about and I want to see if
> you all get where I am heading at.
>
> 1) The current primary navigation system, [[Meta:Index]], is looking unhappy
> with needless branching out. I could probably do this on my own, but I was
> thinking that Meta:Index should be condensed as much as possible and -be
> restricted to functions on Meta only-. Things for other projects can have a
> similar navigation page. Likewise, the Meta:Index page should link to each
> of the language categories. Additionally, I would like to see the Index page
> more prominently featured on Meta.
>
> 2) The three messageboard pages -- Meta:Babel, Metapub, and Meta:Babylon --
> have very terrible names, considering their purposes. You'd think Meta:Babel
> would be about languages, but it's about Meta. You'd think Metapub would be
> able Meta, but it's about the WMF in general. Meta:Babylon may hint towards
> the idea of languages, but Meta:Babel sounds like a better candidate. I
> discuss this more here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Renaming_some_pages
>
> 3) The Main Page is a bit big. It's not really a problem, but some things
> could be transitioned over to Meta:Index or similar pages.
>
> 4) The feature where you get to select a language and then the interface is
> in that language is really cool -- but I think its implementation should be
> more conspicuous. For registered users, if they haven't selected their
> language(s) of preference yet, they should be able to set the options in
> Preferences. When this feature becomes available, there should be a message
> in the Sitenotice advertising such a thing. For anonymous users, it could be
> cookie-based; if there is no evidence that there is cache of Meta since the
> implementation of such a feature, then before they could view any other
> pages, they must set their language of preference first. This way, it is out
> in the open, and there is little possibility for confusion.
>
> 5) I've heard about discussion of this, but I think the translation
> functions of Meta should be moved to their own wiki. It would operate a lot
> more efficiently (more main page space could be dedicated to translation),
> and through special features made for translation wikis, it would be much
> more convenient as well. A translation community, so-to-speak, could
> establish a presence on such a wiki.
>
> These are ideas to consider. Additionally, I have thought of an idea
> involving streamlining communication throughout the Foundation, but I'll
> have more information on that later.
>
> Sincerely,
> MessedRocker
> (you can call me James)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Aphaia wrote:

> Besides that, I think it would be a good idea to have a new namespace
> for translation work, since some of page names are shared on the wmf
> wiki and meta, we find sometimes name collision on importing item from
> wmf to meta (cf. [[Board of Trustees]]). Does anyone find demerit to
> create a new namespace "Translation" to those two wiki?

A new namespace could also work... since this also offers options for filtering
RC and watchlists.

SJ


body:
>> Also, I do not endorse the attacks on Meta by David Gerard. I expect at
>> least some level of maturity from people who claim Foundation-wide titles.
>
> No secret that parts of the en community have problems with meta

That's sort of like saying that parts of the en community have problems
with en.  Of course it happens, and since it is part of your own
community, you have agency to do something about it -- by working
with others to reach a reasonable consensus about what's broken, and
fixing it.

I do wish people who have problems with meta -- which is a shared
resource for all projects and languages -- would come and partake
politely in discussions there, without pushing too hard for the
way things are done on their home wikis are the only sensible way.
Then we (in the global sense)( might more frequently be able to learn
from the brainstorms of individual projects, rather than discovering
one or two in sudden amazement.

SJ


from_name: Cool Cat

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
I think the overall comments on that RFA (troll festival if you ask me which
you don't) is quite annoying. The allegedly "legit concerns" about the
office in my opinion has no bearing on weather or not he would abuse admin
tools.

I sincerely hope Danny continues to serve us despite us.

   - Cool Cat

On 4/6/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/5/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There are some legit concerns on Danny's RFA, and a lot of "OFFICE bit
> > me he sucks", sometimes written slightly more coherently.
>
> WP:IDONTLIKEHIM(HER)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Commons-l] 3D printers!

body:
On 4/5/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/business/05scan.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
>
> So when can we start putting 3D printer files on Commons?
>
> And should we recommend a content-like licence (e.g. GFDL, CC by-sa)
> or a software-like license (e.g. GPL)?

Heh. It would depend on the context.

A related issue we've already hit to an extent (mostly in explaining
why people can't do certain things I will admit) and are likely to
have to deal with sooner are second life objects. If someone releases
the code to an object gpl would appear to be logical but screenshots
of the object would appear to be better served by a free content
licence.

--
geni


body:
On 4/6/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> I withdraw my entire proposal except the whole improving Meta:Index thing,
> since I'd rather be banned than see it not improved. (Also, it doesn't seem
> to be very active.) The naming is another issue, as I hadn't thought of the
> whole implications of English names. (Incidentally, "Meta", "pub", "Babel",
> and "Babylon" are all English words.) We could probably figure something
> out.
>

At the present time the page that most needs renaming is Spam
blacklist (the header also needs modifying) . Having a page that
directly accuses people of spamming creates potential legal issues.
Renaming to something like "unwanted domains" would solve this
although that is a programing issue

> Also, I do not endorse the attacks on Meta by David Gerard. I expect at
> least some level of maturity from people who claim Foundation-wide titles.

No secret that parts of the en community have problems with meta

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax highlighting

body:
Jim Wilson wrote:
> You could give the wrapper elements (<pre> and <div> tags) CSS classes to
> identify that it's source code and what language.
>
> So
>
> <source lang="php">
> echo('hi there');
> </source>
>
> Might become
>
> <pre class="sourcecode php">
> ....
> </pre>
>
> Then the pre-generated GeShi files could be modified to have all elements
> prefixed with .sourcecode .php or whatever.

That's what it does already, except for the bit about generating files.

> It would probably make sense though to put all of this generated stuff into
> something other than Common.css but still loaded via a <link> tag which only
> appears on pages with at least one <source> block.  Reason being that the
> CSS for all supported GeShi languages will probably be large, and
> unnecessary for the wide gamut of Wikipedia articles.

Yes it would be large, which is why I didn't make it that way.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
On 4/6/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I strongly encourage any 'crat to promote Danny to admin and publicly
> say that the RFA was not a factor in their decision one way or
> another - this was a slam dunk case by any standard, and if the
> community's head is too far up its own ass to recognize that it's not
> the fault of the bureaucrat.

IMHO:

Unnecessarily confrontational.  He's going to "win" the RFA anyways in
a few days, at this rate, and letting the community vent about someone
is an important function of having RFAs.  Clearly not all the opposes
here are cranks or poorly founded.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Александр Сигачёв

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Common Interwiki links

body:
It is good idea. I'll make it next time (next dump).

--
Amike kaj kunlabore,
Alexander Sigachov

2007/4/6, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> Regarding the list of pages that are missing on en.wp, I think it
> would be more useful if it could be checked to see if these were
> missing interwikis not just on de: but also on at least one other
> large Wikipedia.
>
> The reason for that is that out of that list, all of the pages exist,
> most of them are well-linked from fr:, es:, it:, pl:, etc., they just
> happen to be missing from de:, which should be something an Interwiki
> Bot will take care of eventually.
>
> Mark
>
> On 05/04/07, ????????? ??????? <alexander.sigachov at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Do you have the raw data available (in the form of English pages with
> > > the languages they link to)? If so, could I have them so I can do a
> > > new comparison of
> >
> > I have used last dump
> >
> > http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20070401/enwiki-20070401-langlinks.sql.gz
> >
> > (but i used MyISAM db, not InoDB, and only with one index. Otherwise,
> > restore is very slow)
> >
> > --
> > Amike kaj kunlabore,
> > Alexander Sigachov
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:26:50 -0500, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Here is where I see the crux of the issue in this thread: you are not
>> interested in keeping the information in question. You do not value it.
>> You are willing to eliminate it at request (which is all that their
>> reply could possibly be seen as).
>
> And you are wrong in your assertion.  I am interested in the article
> subject, I just don't think we may or should include the list in its
> entirety.

You have more than once referred to the list as "cruft" (or at least
suggested that it was). To me "cruft" is a term of disparagement. Others
have pointed out that you seem to be looking for a good reason to get
rid of the list (your original post suggested that it was either
copyvio, OR, or "cruft").

While I may have stepped over the line by stating as a given what I
perceive to see as your motives, I still hold the opinion that if you
thought this information to be more important than "cruft", you would be
more willing to listen to those opinions that differ from yours. After
asking for "guidance", you have argued strenuously that it is in fact
copyvio (or original research).

>
> Yes, I am prepared to eliminate it on request.  I am prepared to
> eliminate *any* asserted copyright on request, and allow it back in
> only when it is established that it does not violate copyright.  We
> get a steady trickle of complaints of copyright violation, and we
> generally *do* remove them.

No, I don't really think you are. I think that, before you acted on
*any" asserted copyright, you would check things out. If someone said
that certain content was from their web page, you would first go to
their web page, would you not? Before deleting the information? And
you'd see if the content was "really" a copyvio? If it was paraphrased,
wouldn't you try to explain to the complainant why it was not copyvio?
If the alleged source was a printed book that you happened to have on a
shelf, wouldn't you look at the book first? If you didn't have the book,
wouldn't you at least check to see if anyone else had quick access to
it? These things seem to be minimal steps to take before acting on "any"
  asserted copyright violation. Even though you're not a copyright
lawyer, you still see if it is an obvious case (one way or the other)
before acting on it.

In fact, isn't that why you're asking here now?

I really don't *know* what you'd do in any of these cases, but I sure
hope that you are not so paranoid about copyrights that you immediately
act on any allegation of copyvio.

>
>> Wikipedia/Wikimedia was established (and I hope continues to exist) to
>> make information freely available. Caving in to unreasonable claims of
>> copyright is not the way to do that.
>
> You are, I think, confusing free-as-in-beer with free-as-in-speech. We
> are not allowed to include content that violates other people's
> copyright, and this is not in any way seen as incompatible with
> Wikipedia's mission.

No, I understand the difference between free-as-in-beer and
free-as-in-speech. Of course we're not "allowed" to include content that
violates copyright, nor am I suggesting that we do. But I am suggesting
that we not cave to unreasonable claims of copyright. I'd even go as far
as saying that we should push back when copyright claims are not obvious
and go against free-as-in-speech.

This is *not* a clear copyvio. We should fight to include it, and relent
only when it is established that it is a copyvio, which in my mind
requires more than a reply to your inquiry. We have a process for
authors who believe that their copyright is being violated. See
[[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Copyright]]. Again, I don't know
how the volunteers at info-en-c at wikimedia.org behave, but I'd be
surprise if they removed without some level of verification.

> The subject of the Cool Wall can be discussed
> perfectly satisfactorily without including the list, just as we can
> discuss popular songs without including mp3s or lyrics of the songs.
>
> In fact, that is probably a good example: a song is part of an album,
> as the Cool Wall is part of Top Gear; the song is published in the
> form of a performance; the lyrics are in some cases transcribed by
> fans; it is generally accepted that these lyrics are copyright.  Not
> only do we not allow them to be included, we don't even allow links to
> them unless on the official site of the band.
>

I'm not interested in discussing the merits of this case. As I said
before, I am not a copyright lawyer. Nor do I consider myself to have
anything beyond a basic acquaintance with copyright law.

> Removing unfree content has never been incompatible with Wikipedia's
> mission to make information freely available. We do it all the time.
>
>> Note that I'm not saying that their claim would be unreasonable--I am
>> not an expert in copyright law. But your position is that their mere
>> request should result in our removing the information, when the question
>> of whether this is a copyright violation is still very much in question.
>
> Yes.  The request of any rights owner should always be respected, even
> if that respect takes the form of removing the content, debating,
> proving that the claim to rights is invalid, and re-inserting. Someone
> is right now claiming that some material in [[KRISTI snowcat]]
> violates his copyright.  After taking advice from Brad, I removed some
> and left other facts in with {{fact}} tags.
>
> Guy (JzG)

You see, I was right about you. You didn't "eliminate on request". You
got Brad's advice, and then only partially complied with the request for
removal (if I understand correctly). Something led you to ask for Brad's
advice--could it be that it was not an obvious copyvio (i.e. not a
direct copy-and-paste)?

We do make decisions about removing non-free content from Wikipedia. In
some cases (biographies of living people), we often remove first and ask
questions later. In those sort of cases, we need to begin from a
position of not causing harm via unsubstantiated/unreferenced "facts".

But this is a different type of situation, and our position should not
be so quick-to-delete. We can be more deliberate (at least, until we get
an official take-down-request). We can be more assertive of our rights
and of our mission.

-Rich


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Languages files

body:
Hoi,
We now have a procedure on how we can get new language files in the
Incubator. What we now need is to know is if people want to start with
the English language for their initial start or with another language.
We can imagine that you want to start for Ottoman Turk with either Arab
or Turkish. For Palatinate German it could be better to start with German.

Please let me know within a week what you want for this and we will
accommodate you in this way.

For the Kabyle language we will use the work that is currently done in
BetaWiki. It is not sensible to start with a Kabyle file now in the
Incubator. We do not want to do things twice..

Thanks,
     GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Languages files