subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Ilmari,
>
>> "And yes, anything that can be deleted, probably should be deleted,
>> because we must have articles only on truly worthy topics so to continue
>> to be highly regarded by the reading public."
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Resonance_%28MIT%29
>>
>> (I disagree, obviously.  Other than that, I'll let the article and the
>> debate on it speak for themselves.)
>
> I note, though, that neither you nor anyone else who has commented or is
> likely to comment here has seen fit to add your voices to the AfD in
> question.
>
> AfD is doomed: it doesn't, and can't, scale.  But its only *current*
> problems are social.  And those problems won't be solved if the people
> who can recognise the issue and lend a hand aren't willing to get in
> there and do something about it.
>
> Don't like what someone says on AfD?  *Point it out to them*.  Most
> people, even on the Internet, tend to be smart enough to recognise it
> when they're told they're being silly by enough people.  You obviously
> feel strongly about the opinions expressed there --- so why not, instead
> of/in addition to complaining here, also tell them so on the AfD?
>
> This is especially important as Crzrussian has recently become an
> administrator.  He intends to be heavily involved in the deletion
> process.  It's too late to revisit the RfA, so y'all have a choice ---
> he can be a good admin, or he can routinely fuck up anything related to
> deletion he comes across.  I suspect the former is much more likely if
> everyone here who typically complains about this sort of thing is
> willing to *educate*, as well as bitch.
>

Unfortunately it's difficulte to point things out and educate these sort
of people without violating WP:NPA.

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

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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Thumbnail params,
	Was: Image uploads now undeletable

body:
On 6/20/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That thought of this makes me uncomfortable.  Many people have
> > uncalibrated monitors and weird tastes in brightness and contrast,
> > it's hard to be objective about such changes.. please see the
>
> Sure, but give people *some* credit. Also, all these things are
> available now, they just take a while to carry out. We don't want to
> prevent the 90% of times when this would be useful just to stop the
> 10% when it would be a pain?

The work curve today discourages casual modification.. it's both good
and bad.  If I spend four hours preparing an image, I'd feel better if
the next person in line spend more than four seconds considering his
changes. :)

> > miniessay on the last bullet of my commons userpage
> > (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell). Such knobs would
> > also encourage shed painting and create an unneccessary proliferation
> > of additional versions.
>
> What is "shed painting", and why would there be "additional versions"
> exactly? I'm proposing either:

It's hyperlinked! Follow the link.

> - parameters in [[Image: .... which would only be taken into account
> when it's shown (do you mean the extra versions which would have to be
> stored internally - is there a disk space problem?)
> - parameters on the image page, which would be taken into account
> everywhere it's used - only one version.

Extra parameters in [[Image:]] create scaling problems. If we have a
million images, then we'll have at a minimum of around a million
thumbs. If people tend to use two sizes, two million thumbs. If they
tend ti have two different rotations four million thumbs.   It's not
so much a disk space issue as it is an ability for the operating
system and other software to scale to handling tens of millions of
small files.

It can be permitted, of course, if the feature is important enough...
the whole reason I started this thread was to remind the folks working
on the next gen system (Brion :) ) that there is a justified need for
some additional parameters beyond image width. What features those
are, I'm not sure.. I made a few examples that I would support.

Settings one per image avoid the issue...

> The current situation is the one that risks proliferating extra
> versions, as you have to upload new files each time...

Would you actually have multiple rotations though? If not, and you
were indeed making a correction you overwrite the original.

> > > - rotate arbitrary angle
> >
> > I don't think this can be done without loading the entire uncompressed
> > image into memory which pretty much makes it a non-starter.
>
> Is this not the case for any of the other edits? I was kind of
> presuming this would be the sort of thing where the first time the tag
> was encountered, the image would be rotated then cached. But I don't
> know much about how it works behind the scenes.

All the other changes could pretty simply be done without
decompressing the entire image. (We don't fully decompress jpegs for
resizing today, but we do PNGs.. which is why PNGs have tighter size
constraints.. people were running the servers out of ram with huge PNG
maps)... Rotation OTOH would be much harder to accomplish
incrementally.

> > It doesn't always play out so rosey...  Sometimes someone spends hours
> > getting a photograph just right (because unlike wikitext, even in the
> > best case 98% of the work must be done by a single photographer) and
> > they are proud of their work. Then along comes a self appointed
>
> We have a name for those: Featured Pictures. The vast majority of
> user-created photos are happy snaps taken fairly quickly to illustrate
> the topic. If someone chooses to post-process my photos, so much the
> better!

Fair enough... although the shed painting is sometimes the worst on
Featured Pictures... Most people don't care to correct your happy
snapshots.

> > wiki-photo expert... who goofs up the image to fit his tastes on his
> > uncalibrated display and insists that it's better. Perhaps the new
> > version is more contrasty, with over pumped saturation and
> > sharpness.... At first glance it's more eye catching, so other passers
>
> Ok, again, I think your scenario where suddenly Wikipedia is overrun
> with well-meaning, but tasteless editors destroying beautiful artwork
> is demeaning, unkind, and just not accurate.

It's cost us good photographers. Wikipedia isn't overrun by goons, but
we're desperately short of real photographers.

> > by support the changed version, but it's lost it's depth, lost detail
> > in the shadow, or just lost it's ability to captivate for more than a
> > moment. Perhaps it's cropped to place the subject dead center,
>
> Are we trying to captivate for much more than a moment? Sharp, bright,
> high contrast images suit our encyclopaedic mission better.

No, we're trying to be tasteful, professional, and most of all
informative.  If we were just trying to push people's attention
buttons we could make all the images flash, and make the text red on
yellow.

> > destroying the careful balence achieved in the photo which guides the
> > eye...
>
> Yep, I would probably crop photos to leave the subject dead centre,
> maximising the encyclopaedic value of the photo for a given number of
> pixels. Totally against the rule of two-thirds, but we're an
> encyclopaedia, not an art school.

How does placing the subject dead center maximizes the encyclopedic
value of an image?   Yes, perhaps you could see a few more hairs in
someones eyebrow with a tighter composition, but if someone needs to
see that they can click for the full screen version... Worse, by
overcropping you distort perspective and create an unnatural balance
which is potentially distracting.

If we wrote our text in some sort of compressed always machine
parsable English we could probably express more ideas in a given
number of words... but thats not what we do because the value to the
reader is increased through brilliant prose.

> Don't forget, the original creator can always come back and undo the
> changes, perhaps leaving a note to "please" not crop his image.

And they are reminded that it's a collaborative project not an
exclusive photo publishing ground (unless we're talking about
wikinews)... And, of course, thats quite right.  A balance is
required, and far too often people simple change without asking.

> > We've had photographers leave in digust over this.
>
> That sounds like a totally separate problem. It's already possble to
> over-write each others' images, sounds like social solutions are
> needed to that particular social problem.

I'm a big advocate of socal soutions to social problems... but I'd
prefer that the technoligy not make things worse while we're trying to
figure things out. :) Perhaps that would happen, perhaps it wouldn't..
I'm not sure.

I don't know how to solve it... We have very few real photographers
participating... a majority of our photo involved folks are primarly
finding free images on the web, or just skimming their snapshot
collections, so the culture of image alteration is very different from
what it would be  if more people were photographers.

On solution (as seen on Wikinews) was to compromise the Wikimedia
foundation's goal of distributing free content... I'd hate to see that
same compromise appear elsewhere.

> > So I'm a bit hesitant to suggest we provided technical tools which may
> > encourage bad aspects of our behavior.  But this has gone wayyyy
> > off-topic now. :)  Once someone impliments some of this stuff we can
> > debate the merits of turning it on.
>
> IMHO, debating the merits of a proposed feature is perfectly on-topic.
> I think some of your objections are a bit spurious, but that doesn't
> make them off-topic...:)

Well, it's off-topic until someone codes it...  :) I think that
everything you suggested would be desirable features in *MediaWiki* if
not on the wikimedia wikis, someone should probably solve them for the
zillions of small wikis out there that could use them, and then we can
debate if the solutions are suitable (technically and socially) for
use on the wikimedia wikis.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
	the board?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Errr... Erik explicitely said he was interested in a position on the
>>board...
>
>
> Angela posted a recent thread  "Would you consider being on the
> Board?" It seems that stating my explicit readiness to serve on the
> Board now makes constant accusations of "campaigning" and deep
> personal attacks of any kind allowable. Gregory was right about one
> thing: It's no surprise that only few people commented publicly in
> that thread. I was stupid enough to do so.
>
> Erik

I do not think you were stupid to do so :-)

ant


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: George Herbert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
>(...)

Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your complaint is here that
is causing you to want to withdraw.

You appear not to have been seriously or lastingly sanctioned for
anything; GTBacchus warned both you and JJL not to 3RR / edit war, and
then Voice of All blocked you for 24 hrs and then 2 minutes later,
changed that to just a warning.  I think it's clear that for the
activities of the 12th and earlier, both you and JJL were in some way
misbehaving, though you're the one who got slightly and temporarily
bitten.

None of that concludes the underlying content issue in JJL's favor.

You essentially "got away with" a 3RR vio (block was changed back to a
warning), which is unusually tolerant.  You may not be very familiar
with block policy, but generally only well known and apologetic
editors are unblocked early after a 3RR 24 hr block.  You were clearly
by normal standards given the benefit of the doubt regarding whether
it was serious misbehavior.

Being blocked and warned is merely a symptom that you carried on the
mutual edit warring with JJL for a couple of hours too long after the
warnings.  That's not a decision that you were all wrong and he was
all right.

I also think that you and JJL have not constructively engaged in
discussion on the article talk page regarding the key points of
dispute.  Nor have you asked for mediation with JJL.

This is not intended as a personal attack on you, but you appear to be
an ineffective editor, in that you do not appear to understand the
mechanisms Wikipedia is using here.  Your perception that you're being
picked on or driven away is an overreaction to what are really
fundamentally mild warnings and reactions to your making some mild but
clearly good intentioned steps across the WP policy line.

There are cases where I believe longer experience "more popular"
admins and editors have abused newer editors to some degree or
another.  But I think your claims here are unsubstantiated.  If you
cannot understand Wikipedia well enough to work with the system, then
perhaps you should stop editing for the time being.  But blaming the
system, when it has not fundamentally mistreated you, is an excuse.

The system is not perfect, but the system isn't the problem here.  You
have a perfectly normal, reasonable content disupute with another
editor.  You haven't been abused or pushed around.  If you can't work
within the Wikipedia rules to resolve the problem, then that is your
problem.  Thousands of other active editors are able to resolve these
sorts of problems routinely.

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


body:
On 6/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikinews permits unfree images (CC-BY-ND) as a result of this.
>
> wha....?!?!?!! I can't believe it! How disappointing. According to
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Image_use_policy they also allow
> NC images! Is that not the very definition of nonfreeness for
> Wikimedia... is it really that they allow these because of photography
> quality concerns, or something else?

I was shocked too.
I think it's a mix of factors.

The real photographers have significant and largely reality-based
concerns about modification and unfair commercial exploitation. This
has provided folks who wish to see Wikimedia distributing pseudo-free
content a chance to claim pragmatism as an excuse...

I don't see fairuse images on as the same as NC/ND, because fair use
images don't pretend to be free, they are annoying enough that they
will and are replaced, and at least when they are used correctly they
are used where there is no alternative possible. The argument made, I
believe, is that the images aren't really part of the content and thus
don't have to be free content if it helps us make better news.  I
think this is ridiculous because if the images weren't part of the
content, then why do we bother having them at all... But not everyone
agrees...

Of course, the concerns of photographers could be addressed in other ways...

Concerns over modification could be largely ameliorated through a
combination of healthy social norms (don't shed paint) and
photographer education (if someone mucks up your image than
distributes it in a way which implies that it's your doing we call
that fraud, you don't need annoying copyright terms to protect you
from fraud)... and perhaps somewhat through copyleft licenses which
require history preservation.

Concerns over unfair commercial exploitation could be significantly
reduced through education and the support of aggressive copyleft
licenses like the GFDL which require a copy of the license terms to be
included, thus making sure the recipient knows exactly what he's
getting and creating an incentive for commercial users to separately
negotiate more favorable and traditional terms with the photographers.
 Unfortunately some self-professed visionaries involved with some of
our projects have come out strongly in opposition to the GFDL, making
decidedly non-reality-based claims about it (like the preposterous
claim that it's a violation to transmit GFDL content over an SSL
connection, or store your own copy on an encrypted disk).

> FWIW I agree on the point of image-editing. I think the best approach
> is, when the original uploader is offended at "improvements" to an
> image, revert to their version and upload the edited version as a
> separate file. Then the community can argue about which they prefer
> and the original uploader doesn't feel their work is being "mauled"
> (even if everyone else has incredible bad taste).

The challenge is that if their version sits orphaned it might as well
not exist.  I don't believe that we should let prima donnas prevent us
from having high quality content... But when someone did a awesome job
with 98% of a picture (subject, composition, lighting, image quality,
etc) and there is 2% which is highly subjective/viewer dependant which
remains debatable (altered saturation, contrast, sharpening)... we
should probably trust the person who got the 98% right to make the
call on the rest, given our input. That it also keeps the photographer
happy contributing is a secondary, but critical, effect.

I'm now managing to turn this thread into my own personal soap box...
It really has gone OT. please forgive me, .. it's so hard not to reply
on all this stuff that I care about. :)


from_name: Craig Spurrier

body:
Wikinews has never really allowed NC images. That policy disagrees with
our practice. NC only  images are frequently deleted, as they should be.
I have removed the non-commercial images portion from Wikinews:Image use
policy and nominated the NC image tag for deletion. There were only two
images in the NC category, both qualified as very clear examples of fair
use, and were recategorized.
Craig

Brianna Laugher wrote:
>> It doesn't always play out so rosey...  Sometimes someone spends hours
>> getting a photograph just right (because unlike wikitext, even in the
>> best case 98% of the work must be done by a single photographer) and
>> they are proud of their work. Then along comes a self appointed
>> wiki-photo expert... who goofs up the image to fit his tastes on his
>> uncalibrated display and insists that it's better. Perhaps the new
>> version is more contrasty, with over pumped saturation and
>> sharpness.... At first glance it's more eye catching, so other passers
>> by support the changed version, but it's lost it's depth, lost detail
>> in the shadow, or just lost it's ability to captivate for more than a
>> moment. Perhaps it's cropped to place the subject dead center,
>> destroying the careful balence achieved in the photo which guides the
>> eye...
>>
>> We've had photographers leave in digust over this.
>>
>> Wikinews permits unfree images (CC-BY-ND) as a result of this.
>>
>
> wha....?!?!?!! I can't believe it! How disappointing. According to
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Image_use_policy they also allow
> NC images! Is that not the very definition of nonfreeness for
> Wikimedia... is it really that they allow these because of photography
> quality concerns, or something else?
>
> FWIW I agree on the point of image-editing. I think the best approach
> is, when the original uploader is offended at "improvements" to an
> image, revert to their version and upload the edited version as a
> separate file. Then the community can argue about which they prefer
> and the original uploader doesn't feel their work is being "mauled"
> (even if everyone else has incredible bad taste).
>
> Brianna
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>Right now, it seems that the membership model is so inclusive, it seems  more
>reasonable to ask who is *not* a member?
>
>This is not so unreasonable a question. Plenty of people contact us daily
>about advertising with us, or using us as a place to add links to their sites.
>Just Friday I got a call from a PR firm that suggested we pay them to add
>content about all of their clients. Are they "members"?
>
Asking you to make the edits is not editing.  Is a corporaion itself
capable of editing, and thereby becoming a member?  It seems that only
individuals are able to edit.

>(Note that other PR
>firms have been making edits and complaining if they are reverted. Are they
>members too?)
>
I guess they could be.

>Willie on Wheels has thousands of "edits." Is he a member?
>
Why not?  His thousands of edits would still only give him one vote.
People of that caliber are still a tiny minority.  There is less agony
to marginalizing their effects than to putting enormous effort into
weeding them out.

>Some of the most active members on this list make very few real content
>edits. Are they members?
>
>Membership in any organization implies a certain level of responsibility.  By
>granting membership--and with it, the right to vote--we are allowing people
>to determine the future direction of the organization. It seems that this
>would  necessitate something more than just goodwill, presence, or a vested
>interest in  the course of the foundation.
>
The proposed changes would strenghthen the hand of only those with a
vested interest, and not the others.

Ec


body:
On 6/20/06, Craig Spurrier <craig at craigweb.net> wrote:
> Wikinews has never really allowed NC images. That policy disagrees with
> our practice. NC only  images are frequently deleted, as they should be.
> I have removed the non-commercial images portion from Wikinews:Image use
> policy and nominated the NC image tag for deletion. There were only two
> images in the NC category, both qualified as very clear examples of fair
> use, and were recategorized.
> Craig

The same is not true for ND images.


from_name: poore5 at adelphia.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
---- Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> post 8.
>
> response to a friendly off-list message,
> which i will go ahead and post here in
> the hopes that a different stroke might
> work better for different folks.  ja.
>
> thanks for the friendly response.
>
> I'm a 50+ year old person with a solid lib arts BA,
> MA's in math and psych, lots of post-grad study in
> multiple fields, and years of cross-disciplinary
> experience as a statistical consultant where i
> specialized in constructing software and even
> philosophical bridges between sub-communities
> of researchers who had all but lost the ability
> to comprehend each others' ways and motivations.
>
> i understand about high ideals and non-elitism --
> I'm a onetime flower-child from a generation
> of non-elitists.
>
> but WP defeats me, and it's largely because
> it enforces a regime of dishonest communication,
> and it's gotten confused about the difference
> between non-elitism and anti-knowledge-ism.

Jon Awbrey,

Take a break from editing till your batteries are recharged then come back and help fix the problems. Theere is a place for you at Wikipedia. You need to learn the ropes.

Look me up: User:FloNight, a former Register Nurse, mother of three college students and a Wikipedia Administrator.  I'll give you some tips on how to deal pov pushing editors and bullies.

Take care,
Sydney Poore
Georgetown, KY


from_name: Neil Harris

subject:
[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of
 the board?

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:
> On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>>
>
> Hey, didn't I hear Bill Gates will be free soon. ;-)  --LV
>
>
I suggest we try to get _both_ Bill Gates _and_ RMS, just to see what
would happen.

-- Neil
>
>
>


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>  By discussing the *possibility*
> that it could ever exist on Wikipedia, we were giving the wrong
> impression about the purpose for which Wikipedia exists, and saying
> that we don't care about our core policies.

This is nonsense. One should be able to discuss anything on Wikipedia,
even things which are plainly bad ideas. The idea that some things are
"beyond discussion" is the sort of weak nonsense that people who don't
or can't engage with others throw out as a justification for shutting
down debate, which you seem to make a habit of.

Beyond that, discussing the possibility is a useful heuristic, as
others have pointed out, for deciding exactly where to draw the line.
If we all agree that a Conservative Noticeboard is a bad idea, do we
necessarily think that a LGBT Noticeboard is a bad idea? What about a
Political Noticeboard? What about an Evolution Noticeboard?  Most of
the "Restore" votes on the DRV were made not because they thought the
board should exist, but because it was out-of-process and that full
discussion had not taken place. Though if you think that "discussion"
itself is a dangerous thing, I suppose you'd fine those invalid
reasons. I think you have far too little faith in the Wikipedia Way
and far too little appreciation for how to be involved in a large
organization.

I think there's more evidence to support the idea that a few arrogant
admins can do a lot more long term damage to Wikipedia's productivity
than a few discussions.

I'm not a fan of "Wikilawyering", if that's the term we want to use
for asking politely that others follow rules and guidelines developed
by the community, even if it is not as expedient than just breaking
them. But I do believe that communities function better when there are
reliable rules, when actions do not appear arbitrary, and when it is
clear that people are not being shut down simply because of their
political opinions. In this case none of that is clear in the
slightest.

FF


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] texvc improvements?

body:
Hello

I am not sure whether is the right place to discuss it, but are there
any plans to improve the implementation of texvc for the display of
mathematical formula, the most urgent things seems to me

    -  Implement at least the equation environment in order to
       enumerate the equations.

    -  Improve the inline expressions, whose height sometimes is quite
       ugly

Regards

Uwe Brauer


from_name: Selina .

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 20/06/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sam Korn wrote:
> > On 6/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> But people are not doing that. People are discussing why they want it.
> >> If you cannot tollerate discussion you have lost.
> >
> > Please can we remove all reference to "winning" or "losing" from this
> > mailing list.  We are all working for Wikipedia.  We aren't looking to
> > win.  We may disagree, and one person's opinion may prevail.
> > Wikipedia wins or loses, not Tony Sidaway, Geni or Sam Korn.
> >
> > Suggesting that Tony was seeking to "win" is provocative, puerile and
> > completely unnecessary.
> >
>
> YHBT. YHL...
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>

Wow, I actually agree with Tony Sidaway for once

That project looked like it was pretty much a remake of "Wikipedians for
Decency"...

what next, a "MOTHER'S ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED WIKIPEDIANS"? lol. :)

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 6/20/06, Pawe? Dembowski <fallout at lexx.eu.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >> Well, I wouldn't want to live a world with only "free" content.
> >>
> > And I wouldn't want you on the board of Wikimedia.
>
> I never said I wanted to be on the board. Anyway, free content has its
> advantages, but I don't see it as either realistic or even good for it
> to replace all other sorts of content in all situations.
>
I don't know.  I bet a lot of people a few years ago would have said
it wasn't realistic to create a free encyclopia that anyone could
edit.  Now I have my doubts as to whether or not free quality fiction
will ever catch on, but fiction is rather outside the scope of
Wikimedia, and if it were realistic I certainly think it'd be a good
thing.

Anthony


body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Erik Zachte wrote
>
>
>>Oh, an important clarification.
>>Naturally, appointed may be from outside of the community or from the
>>community. On this matter, Angela, Jimbo and myself agree that at least
>>the majority should be from the community.
>>
>>The major benefit of "appointed" is there is more chance to get a united
>>team with complementary skills.
>>The major drawback is to risk similar-thinking people and limit
>>diversity of view points.
>>
>>
>Another risk is that the expertise and skills that are available in the
>community will view all Wikimedia Foundation activities as the
>responsibilities and problems of the Board.  Volunteers not happy with
>how the governing/management structure is arrived at may simply continue
>to decline to participate other than within their chosen spheres of
>influence within specific projects.
>
The same thing can be said of those who are happy with the governance.
They can feel no need to tinker with what they feel to be going well.

Ec


from_name: Aphaia

body:
On 6/20/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/19/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >   - Al Gore
>
> Is having a highly prominent -- and still very active -- political
> figure on the board such a good idea?  Something like that will
> inevitably raise questions about Wikipedia's neutrality in political
> issues;

Agreed, and I strongly oppose that idea. Not personally, but all
candidates from the US political world. It can be somehow benefical
for managing the WMF in the USA, but at the same time it can place a
certain tention between other political groups, including the outside
the USA both the external of the project and within the community.
Please remember, the majority of editors are * not * US citizens, and
I convince many of them do never want to US political debates at all.
It can even a cause of forks, specially the majority of population
against or not favor of US foreign policy,  I predict.

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


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
Jon Awbrey wrote:
<snip>
> If you have heard this before, then
> you should think about the fact
> that you keep hearing it.
>


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[Commons-l] An interactive copyright tutorial as a requirement
	for uploading?

body:
On 6/18/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hm, I'm not sure what would stop users just guessing and hitting
> 'back' a lot to get through it.

I think the first question we should ask is why users upload obvious
copyvios on Commons. Here are some factors I can think of:

Most importantly, copyright policies are fairly lenient in many
projects and languages. This is in spite of the fact that the user
interface typically warns very strongly against uploading copyright
violations. I think standardizing copyright policy to a certain extent
will help in dealing with that. We cannot communicate clearly while
the facts are blurry to begin with.

Users come to Commons from one of the existing projects. Why do they
go to Commons? Because the projects advertise it quite actively. And
this is not limited to links on the local upload form. It is part of
the social dynamic ("Why did you not upload X to Commons?"). There are
also sister project links to Commons in many articles. The projects
portray using Commons as a good and right thing to do.

When users come to Commons, do they set their UI language? Many may
not be aware that this is possible. If they aren't native English
speakers, this means that they are likely to ignore any message above
a certain complexity. So they understand how to upload, but they don't
understand anything else.

I believe Commons newbies are often clueless or semi-cluess about the
purpose of Commons, and only discover it more or less by accident. I
think if we can ensure that every user who visits Commons views a
tutorial in _their_ language, we might be able to address many of the
factors that are currently leading to copyvio uploads.

> And what questions would we ask? That
> would be the hardest bit. (Well, maybe collecting all the translations
> would be the hardest...)

I think the questions wouldn't be so hard, really. For example, "Can
you upload a movie poster to Commons?" Many people seem to think that
press photos, promotional materials and such are OK. This is also in
line with the "fair use" policy of the projects. We need to explain
clearly that this is not so.

Andre's suggestion that it should be hard to complete the tutorial by
randomly clicking is a good one. It could be done with a JavaScript
that checks several multiple choice boxes on a page, and only allows
you to continue if all the answers are correct. If we accept that
users without JavaScript (a minority) can just click through it, this
is relatively easy to code.

> I had an idea which would hopefully achieve a similar outcome, that we
> could introduce "throttled" or "reviewed" uploads. Once a user uploads
> say, 5 files, an admin has to review the files before they can upload
> any more. If they made any mistakes, they stay on reviewed upload. If
> they didn't make any mistakes with licensing, they can go onto
> unreviewed upload (what we have at the moment).

Hmm, negative points I can see here:
- complex: you need a good and effective review interface for admins.
- a lot of additional work for admins; if they do not catch up, users
will have frustrating waiting periods.
- takes away from the wiki notion of doing things "quickly".

The tutorial solution is also somewhat un-wiki, but at least you would
only have to go through it once, and then the normal wiki processes
apply. We probably want to try multiple strategies, though.

Erik


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

body:
Platonides wrote:
> "Steve Bennett" wrote:
>
>>Hmm, not bad. A bit more info, like "There are 3 unconfirmed edits, by
>>vandal1, vandal2 and niceguy3". Click here to review these, or click
>>here to discard them and continue editing.
>
> That looks like the kind of message humans (''those stupid machines'') will
> press 'ok, they're all good edits' '''without reviewing''' only to get the
> editbox shown. :(

The way I proposed it would work was the way editing an old version
currently works.  That is, you do get an edit box containing the version
you were trying to edit, but you _also_ get a big red box saying
something like: "You are editing an old version.  If you save it, any
changes made since this version will be lost."

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 6/19/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/20/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It would be inapproiate to quies criticism of board hopefuls.
>
> I will leave it to others to decide whether your comments represent a
> personal attack or not. If they do, and you continue to make them, I
> hope that you will be put on moderation. I do not participate in
> discourse on that level.

I thought it was a pretty entertaining retort. By promoting yourself for
consideration you certainly leave yourself open when you criticize other
possibilities.


from_name: Steve Block

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
Keith Old wrote:

> Excellent point. Many people whinge about articles for deletion on this
> forum but few people vote.

I can't load any afd day page, my system can no longer handle it, it's
an old '98 firefox running PIII.  Those day pages are simply far too
large now, for me, and if I may, from my perspective I'd like to suggest
that perhaps we need to think about stopping the transclusion.  Maybe
that would also have the advantage of forcing people to think about
which discussions they are going to vote on.  Also, perhaps the afd
listing could link to the article rather than the discussion, so we
could guarantee someone would have to look at the article before
commenting at the deletion debate.

Just some thoughts.

Steve Block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.1/369 - Release Date: 19/06/06


subject: [Commons-l] Image donations?

body:
On 6/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Er...you mean for the general public? I support seeking image
> donations for historical topics or specific holes in our coverage, but
> I don't know that we need more general amatuer
> my-dog-in-my-backyard,sunset-over-my-fence,my-street-my-school-my-car
> whatever photos. It seems to me the vetting system would have to
> discard 90% of what they were offered, so I rather question if it
> would be a worthwhile exercise.

Maybe. I think if we clearly define, in big friendly letters and with
pretty icons, what we want and what we don't want, we could get a lot
of good stuff. People aren't stupid. I suspect that there are quite a
few amateur photos of celebrities, for instance. In any case, the
campaign would be two-sided: an interface for instantly sharing media,
and a contact form for negotiations. If we advertise this broadly, I
think we could get contacts from places we don't expect.

> Back to the topic of image donations. Not just image donations,
> actually - it would be really good if we could find out if there were
> some unis with, for example, recorded speech excerpts or phonemes or
> whatever, that they were willing to donate. Someone would have to
> convert them to OGG. This would be fantastic support for Wikibooks
> language-learning books as well as linguistics articles in /all/
> language Wikipedias. I don't know how good our recordings are of
> clicks and trills, or uvuvular sounds, for example, are. It would be
> great to have native speakers' recordings.

If we organize a "media donation" campaign well and make it part of
the next fundraiser, I think it could lead to such people coming to us
and talking to us. But I do think we should be open for contributions
from the general public. Yes, a lot of images uploaded to Commons
aren't used. But from my own checks of the FlickrLickr uploads, a lot
of them _are_ used. FlickrLickr also automatically generates wikitext
for galleries like this:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FlickrLickr/Slice_55

This is meant for easy copy and pasting of links into Wikipedia
articles, and I encourage all "my" FlickrLickr reviewers to add images
to articles wherever they can. If we use a similar, somewhat more
refined process for a media donations campaign, I think it could work.

Erik


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> I won't speak for Erik, but I've read enough by Lessig to know that
> his philosophy on this matter goes well beyond mere pragmatism.
> Lessig doesn't just recognize that he lives in a world with unfree
> content, that's the world he wants to live in.

Well, I wouldn't want to live a world with only "free" content.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Cobb

subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
>"Steve Bennett", Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:38:14 +0200, wrote:

>This all has the positive side effect of making it easier for people
>expert in one domain to contribute to discussions in their domain.

Making it easier for trekkies to vote on trekkie AFDs... I was
actually thinking more along the lines of ensuring that an
AFD is exposed to a wider selection of Wikipedians. One
criticism of AFDs is that after the second day, the only
people who still bother to vote/comment are those with
an interest in the article. A recent AFD of Star Trek material
had to resort to repeatedly relisting it in order to get
wider exposure... otherwise, it would have just been the
Trekkie voters still hammering away (OMG! Trek article!
Keep! Keep!) despite the subject being 100% original
research.


from_name: Jakob Voss

subject: [Wikitech-l] [Fwd: [wiki-standards] Wiki Markup Standard Workshop]

body:
Hi!

This is relevant to Wikimedia. See also my workshop on Wikipedia
research and Max V?lkel's workshop on Semantic Wikis. You should
definitely consider to come to WikiSym.

Greetings,
Jakob

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: [wiki-standards] Wiki Markup Standard Workshop
Datum: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:04:37 +0200
Von: Chuck Smith <chuckssmith at gmail.com>
An: wiki-standards at wikisym.org

In the upcoming WikiSym in Denmark, Christoph Sauer and I will be
leading a workshop on creating a wiki markup standard.  More
information can be found here:

http://ws2006.wikisym.org/space/Workshop%3E%3EWiki+Markup+Standard

Would anyone else be interested in working with us to provide a more
balanced wiki markup standard to present during WikiSym?  I heard
there are some very interested parties from SnipSnap interested in
helping with this.  You are all welcome to attend our workshop and we
would appreciate any feedback you have for us.

For our workshop, we plan to follow Suggestion B on
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiMarkupStandard

Best regards,
Chuck

_______________________________________________
wiki-standards mailing list
wiki-standards at wikisym.org
http://www.wikisym.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wiki-standards


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Re: "crop" and "zoom" - seems like it would have very undesirable
> "suprise" consequences if the original file was replaced (and changed
> dimensions - for example if it itself was cropped).
>
> Sharpness could be good though. See
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Low_sharpness
> for a striking example.

>From that discussion, the issue seems to be the file size of the
generated thumbnail: smaller file size (lower quality JPEG
compression) produces fuzzier images.

This is closely related to the basic divide that exists:
Camp A: Thumbnails exist only to be clicked on, to show the real image
related to the page
Camp B: Thumbnails are a fundamental part of the layout of the page,
and should be made as big and pretty as necessary to achieve a
pleasing and effective page design.

Those in camp A tend to believe that thumbnails should have a small
file size (15kb maximum), should not have a size imposed on them
(respect users' preferences), and should probably be all laid out in a
vertical column.
Those in camp B tend to believe that thumbnails should have larger
file sizes (30-50kb), should be resized as necessary, and should
definitely not be laid in a vertical column.

Camp B here.

Steve


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] double apostrophes in titles

body:
On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 03:28:58PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> > I've managed to avoid any insane mutterings about "smart quotes", too.)
>
> Why the reticence? I want to hear them!
>
> Not that I don't have my own: if you think smart quotes make life
> complicated in English, try writing documents that consist of both
> French and English. Now, write a document that is about translation
> between the two: you will want French text that has English text
> embedded in French smart-quotes (? bad English text ?). Sooner or
> later Word works out that the quoted text is in English, and switches
> back to English smart-quotes  when you close it (? this English
> text... was too long"). Lovely.

You might be a geek if (like me) you're roaring in laughter over this
paragraph.

(Just like last week, when someone on NANOG itemized the power and
cooling requirements for a 450Kserver data center, in detail.)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


body:
On 6/20/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > L''''oeuf mimosa'''...

> See this is where using real apostrophes would actually be an advantage,
> insane mutterings about MS "smart quotes" be damned...

I don't follow - real apostrophes as opposed to what? How? Where? Whodunnit?

Steve


body:
On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 07:58:30PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > All the other changes could pretty simply be done without
> > decompressing the entire image. (We don't fully decompress jpegs for
> > resizing today, but we do PNGs.. which is why PNGs have tighter size
> > constraints.. people were running the servers out of ram with huge PNG
> > maps)... Rotation OTOH would be much harder to accomplish
> > incrementally.
>
> Incrementally? I'll leave that one to the image manipulation specialists.

He's correct; if you want multiple rotations of an image, do them all
from the original.

> > How does placing the subject dead center maximizes the encyclopedic
> > value of an image?   Yes, perhaps you could see a few more hairs in
>
> Depends what the subject is. But fairly evidently, the more stuff in
> the thumbnail (and we are talking about the thumbnail that appears in
> the article here - the full picture is still accessible) that is
> relevant to the article, the better. Our thumbnails are already small,
> like 200x150. If 100x150 of that is empty space caused by artistic
> positioning, then we've lost a lot of possible informational content.
> There are times and places for it - but small images that illustrate
> an article are not them.

Correct.  Pictures (can be for) art.  Thumbnails are for *information*.
I, personally, am always quite favorably impressed when I click through
someone's thumbnail of a closeup of a person, and discover that it's a
full-sized picture, in which that face merely happens to appear.  Good
choice in cropping the thumbnail appeals to my sense of aesthetics.

> > If we wrote our text in some sort of compressed always machine
> > parsable English we could probably express more ideas in a given
> > number of words... but thats not what we do because the value to the
> > reader is increased through brilliant prose.
>
> Your example is good - we *do* cut waffle, and we *do* cut all the
> background discussion that you need to understand the article, or we
> put it down the bottom of the article, out of the way. Our lead
> paragraphs are idea-rich, information-dense text exactly comparable to
> cropping and increasing contrast in our thumbnails. Your example of
> "compressed always machine parsable English" might be comparable with
> "overcropping" - taking the idea too far and losing context.

Very nice metaphor, yes.

> > I'm a big advocate of socal soutions to social problems... but I'd
> > prefer that the technoligy not make things worse while we're trying to
> > figure things out. :) Perhaps that would happen, perhaps it wouldn't..
> > I'm not sure.
>
> Just remember that Wikipedia couldn't possibly work.

Hee.

> > I don't know how to solve it... We have very few real photographers
> > participating... a majority of our photo involved folks are primarly
> > finding free images on the web, or just skimming their snapshot
> > collections, so the culture of image alteration is very different from
> > what it would be  if more people were photographers.
>
> And better image manipulation tools would discourage real photographers?

And, remember, folks, since I think we've taken our eyes off the prize;
the original discussion here, AIUI, was "knobs that can be applied to a
thumbnail".

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Jon Awbrey

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Matt Brown wrote:
>
> On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
> > when i started out, i called a spade a spade.
> > things that any mature adult, not to mention
> > trained scholar, would call obvious vandalism,
> > manifest disruption, uninformed statements, or
> > malformed citation are things that i described
> > in precisely those terms.  and all i got was
> > one dire warning after another that you just
> > aren't allowed to say those sorts of things.
>
> I'd agree here that 'No Personal Attacks' gets over-used at times;
> used to stifle criticism of edits, which it should not.  I haven't
> looked at the specific examples of disputes you've been involved in,
> however.
>
> Which is not to say that one should be impolite, but one should be
> allowed to be accurate.
>
> -Matt

I don't like making assertions that I'm not sure about,
and so I've been waiting for more data to develop, but
one of the problems that I've been alluding to here is
that it's gotten where we can't really be sure anymore,
and may no longer have the resources to find out, when
a supposed "newbie" really is a new user, and just how
many ID's, IP's, and ISP's a given (ab)user is capable
of arranging these days.

So I guess I'll just try, in a very provisional way, to illustrate
the general sort of near-worst-case scenario that could already be
happening with the details of a concrete case that I happen to be
familiar with.  Here is the data of a 3RR charge that was levied
against me, which will be easier to read at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Jon_Awbrey_reported_by_User:GeePriest

===[[User:Jon Awbrey]] reported by User:[[User:GeePriest|GeePriest]]===

[[WP:3RR|Three revert rule]] violation on {{Article|Philosophy of mathematics}}. {{3RRV|Jon_Awbrey}}:

* Previous version reverted to, if applicable:  [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&oldid=57946848 23:02, 10 June 2006]

* 1st revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=58160721&oldid=58160574 05:44, 12 June 2006]
* 2nd revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=58161742&oldid=58161103 05:54, 12 June 2006]
* 3rd revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=58166105&oldid=58164770 06:37, 12 June 2006]
* 4th revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=58166640&oldid=58166273 06:42, 12 June 2006]

* I have warned the user per [[WP:3RR]]. '''[[User talk:Voice of All|Voice-of-All]]''' 08:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

====Discussion====

JA: There is some kind of problem with the initial link given above.  It should be this one:

:* [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&oldid=57946848 Revision as of 23:02, 10 June 2006]

JA: [[User:Voice of All]] (VOA) posted the following notice on [[User Talk:Jon Awbrey]]:

'''Regarding reversions[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&action=history] made on [[June 12]] [[2006]] to [[Philosophy of mathematics]]'''

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocked]] from editing Wikipedia under the [[Wikipedia:Three-revert rule|three-revert rule]], which states that nobody may [[Wikipedia:revert|revert]] an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the ''effect'' of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. '''[[User talk:Voice of All|Voice-of-All]]''' 08:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Just got in from travelling, so I will discuss this situation tomorrow.  [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 02:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I subsequently posted the following message on [[User Talk:Voice of All]]:

'''Revert War at [[Philosophy of Mathematics]]'''

JA: Dear VOA, If you check the edit history and the old WQA's, you will see that I had until yesterday been voluntarily observing a zero revert policy and repeatedly begging for community help with [[User:JJL]]'s practice of automatically mass deleting my contributions.  So, thanks a lot for all your help.  Insert <ironicon> here.  Traveling for a few days, so radio slience until then.  [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 12:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I fully sympathize with fact that WP Admins are an overworked and no doubt sleep-deprived bunch, but let me just suggest a few of the things that WP Admins might think to check before acting on a report of this type.

* I do not know if Admins routinely review the edit history links that they post in these actions, but let's now examine the instigating edit of the revert war that ensued, namely, this one:

* [[User:JJL]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=prev&oldid=58160204 05:39, 12 June 2006 "Perennial questions - rm self-indulgent babble"].

JA: It is clear from this that the initial edit by [[User:JJL]], accompanied by a derisive statement in the edit line, consisted in the mass unjustified deletion of an entire section of the article.  I stipulate to the fact that it was inadvisable of me to indulge in repeated reverts, but it was late (1:45 AM) where I was, I was no doubt just a bit sleep-deprived, and JJL's edit line was not just false but inflammatory.  All of my subsequent reverts were to the same point, simply attempting to remedy what I personally consider to be a type of vandalism, whether anybody else calls it that or not, namely, the mass unjustified deletion of good faith and fully cited text.  [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 13:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: [[User:JJL]]'s habitual practice of automatically reverting or deleting any contribution that JJL did not personally authorize, and the personal attacks that JJL resorted to whenever challenged about this conduct, have been the subject of my repeated entreaties on the WQA noticeboard, as shown here:

* [[User:Jon Awbrey]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts/archive5#21_May_2006 Wikiquette Alerts 21 May 2006]

'''21 May 2006'''

* Desperately seeking constructive guidance at [[Philosophy of mathematics]] beginning [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=54212379&oldid=54206376 here] on the proper use of {Verify} and {Drmmt} tags, what to do about a user who automatically reverts or deletes new material before beginning his own edits, proper application of [[WP:VERIFY]], [[WP:ATTACK]], etc.  15:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

* Addendum.  I thought that a ''modus vivendi'' had been reached, but apparently not.  One user continues to act as the self-appointed judge and jury of every contribution, but mostly just executioner.  Some guidance, please.  Thanks, 20:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

* Update.  [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff=54847600&oldid=54841170 Reference point].  Continuing personal attacks.  Nobody who knows my efforts in WP is justified in charging me with trolling or vandalism.  Please, help.  11:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Needless to say, since no hint of moderation from the WP community came in answer to these pleas, the very same practices by JJL continue unmoderated to the present day.  [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 15:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: Another thing that WP Admins might think to check, besides the dossier of the defendant so thoroughly put on exhibit above, would of course be the dossier of the other user or users involved a revert war, and also the dossier of the accuser, in this case, [[User:GeePriest]].  Having done so, a wide-awake WP Admin might well ask:  "What sort of Ostensible Newbie is to be found on the second day of his tenure in WP reporting other editors on Adminstrative Noticeboards?  It's time for my lunch, so I will leave you for a while to contemplate your most likely hypothesis.  [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 15:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: I will forego further comment on some of the above issues pending a promised investigation of Puppet Attacks on a number of related pages.  But there is one further sticking point that I would like to set the record straight about.

JA: The notice that [[User:Voice of All]] posted here and on my talk page is carefully worded, of course, and I realize that it comes from using a standard boiler-plate, but it implicates [[User:Voice of All]] in a misleading insinuation, at least, one that an unfamiliar reader passing by my talk page might be misled by.  Specifically, the charge that I "Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly" might lead people to think that I have no respect for other editors' work, when the fact is that all I did was to revert the mass unjustified deletion of article content.  Thank you, [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 18:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JA: By way of clarification, I am not suggesting that JJL was engaging in puppeteering, merely that the entry of a 2-day old ''bona fide'' newbie on this noticeboard seems to be an event of rather low probability.  I have been collecting data on this problem at the following location:  [[Talk:Charles_Peirce#Last week I couldn't even spell "CONCENSUS", and today I are one]].  Thanks, [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 21:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/20/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> I can't load any afd day page, my system can no longer handle it, it's
> an old '98 firefox running PIII.  Those day pages are simply far too
> large now, for me, and if I may, from my perspective I'd like to suggest
> that perhaps we need to think about stopping the transclusion.  Maybe
> that would also have the advantage of forcing people to think about
> which discussions they are going to vote on.  Also, perhaps the afd
> listing could link to the article rather than the discussion, so we
> could guarantee someone would have to look at the article before
> commenting at the deletion debate.

I would instead propose that AfDs be categorised. Either (as I've
suggested a couple of times) by the reason for AfD (can't determine
notability, unsuitable topic...), or by the field (pop culture,
science, history...). Of course, the field may not always be obvious
in the case of an article being proposed for deletion due to
insufficient context...

In this case, it would probably be best if nominatiors place them all
on one page, then other people distribute them as necessary.
Alternatively, some system whereby {{afd}} gets replaced by
{{afd-pop-culture}} etc, akin to stub sorting, might work.

This all has the positive side effect of making it easier for people
expert in one domain to contribute to discussions in their domain.

Steve


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fwd: [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN: [14835]
	trunk/phase3/languages/Messages.php

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rotem at svn.leuksman.com <rotem at svn.leuksman.com>
Date: 20-Jun-2006 10:56
Subject: [MediaWiki-CVS] SVN:  [14835] trunk/phase3/languages/Messages.php
To: mediawiki-cvs at wikimedia.org

Fixes per Gangleri's request:
* Replacing {{ns:X}} with the real namespace names, for performance -
except for "administrators" which is directly shown.
* Removing the obsolete underscores from the log pages.

I went through the messages files and replaced certain instances of
{{ns:blah}} with canonical names a while ago, per Domas' request. This
change is a little bit needless, since those messages aren't used in
all page views, so the performance hit is reduced. What does happen is
a less intuitive interface readout.

I did explain all this to Gangleri at the time.

Rob Church


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Fwd: [MediaWiki-CVS]
	SVN:	[14835]trunk/phase3/languages/Messages.php

body:
Platonides wrote:
> I was surprised when Gangleri told me about it.
> {{ns: }} *should be* the preferred method. If you link to
> something/wiki/Project:Foo then whoever clicks on it will go under a
> redirection. People looking at the target of redirection on a chinese wiki
> won't expect an english word.

[[Project:Foo|bar]] will always render with the link normalized (eg
'Wikipedia:Foo' or '??????????:Foo' or whatever, appropriately URL-encoded).

At the moment at least, [[Project:Foo]] will *show* 'Project:Foo', just as
[[foo]] *shows* 'foo' but *links* to 'Foo'.

In general links in UI messages will be using descriptive link text; if they're
not, they probably ought to be changed to a friendlier text form.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Pedro Sanchez

subject: [WikiEN-l] Political User-categories Was: Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/20/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/18/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  By discussing the *possibility*
> > that it could ever exist on Wikipedia, we were giving the wrong
> > impression about the purpose for which Wikipedia exists, and saying
> > that we don't care about our core policies.
>
> This is nonsense. One should be able to discuss anything on Wikipedia,
> even things which are plainly bad ideas. The idea that some things are
> "beyond discussion" is the sort of weak nonsense that people who don't
> or can't engage with others throw out as a justification for shutting
> down debate, which you seem to make a habit of.
>
> Beyond that, discussing the possibility is a useful heuristic, as
> others have pointed out, for deciding exactly where to draw the line.
> If we all agree that a Conservative Noticeboard is a bad idea, do we
> necessarily think that a LGBT Noticeboard is a bad idea? What about a
> Political Noticeboard? What about an Evolution Noticeboard?  Most of
> the "Restore" votes on the DRV were made not because they thought the
> board should exist, but because it was out-of-process and that full
> discussion had not taken place. Though if you think that "discussion"
> itself is a dangerous thing, I suppose you'd fine those invalid
> reasons. I think you have far too little faith in the Wikipedia Way
> and far too little appreciation for how to be involved in a large
> organization.
>
> I think there's more evidence to support the idea that a few arrogant
> admins can do a lot more long term damage to Wikipedia's productivity
> than a few discussions.
>
> I'm not a fan of "Wikilawyering", if that's the term we want to use
> for asking politely that others follow rules and guidelines developed
> by the community, even if it is not as expedient than just breaking
> them. But I do believe that communities function better when there are
> reliable rules, when actions do not appear arbitrary, and when it is
> clear that people are not being shut down simply because of their
> political opinions. In this case none of that is clear in the
> slightest.
>
> FF
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Something tangentially related to this thread.
All the political USER categories are up for CFD since yesterday
Originally it was only the conservative category that was up for CFD,
and people complained about it being "unfair" to nominate only this
one and were opposing in a "all or none way". Later, someoneelse
decided to went ahead and nominate all political user categories. I
think it' an important issue and that more people should join and drop
comments, given ti's quite a big change (there are hundreds of
user-categories dealing with political statements


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Anthere wrote:
> One problem I have with your list and with Jimbo's list is that they
> propose very few great candidates from Korea or Madagascar.

I agree with this concern, but how to address it?  I do not know of any
prominent leaders either "outside" or "inside" Wikipedia from either
Korea or Madagascar... or similar places.

It is not hard to find community leaders in France and Germany and
Holland and Italy and... all of the countries where the "international
crowd" has good connections.  It is harder to find community leaders in
Japanese and Chinese... we know a few but there is unfortunately not as
much communication there as we would like, etc.

In terms of well known outsiders to bring into the board for oversight
and vision and specific talents, again, Korea and Madagascar and
similar, hmm, we lack knowledge.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/20/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > That Wikipedia will always be straddling the uncomfortable
> > divide between reliability and editability,
>
> This is the same false dilemma that reporters just can't seem to grasp.
> There is no such divide.

I think Wikipedia's and Britannica's collective reactions to the
Nature article proved that.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/20/06, Cobb <sealclubbingfun at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Making it easier for trekkies to vote on trekkie AFDs... I was
> actually thinking more along the lines of ensuring that an
> AFD is exposed to a wider selection of Wikipedians. One
> criticism of AFDs is that after the second day, the only
> people who still bother to vote/comment are those with
> an interest in the article. A recent AFD of Star Trek material
> had to resort to repeatedly relisting it in order to get
> wider exposure... otherwise, it would have just been the
> Trekkie voters still hammering away (OMG! Trek article!
> Keep! Keep!) despite the subject being 100% original
> research.
`
If AfD wasn't a vote (and there's absolutely no reason it should be a
vote) this would not be a problem.

Steve


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>> Well, I wouldn't want to live a world with only "free" content.
>>
> And I wouldn't want you on the board of Wikimedia.

I never said I wanted to be on the board. Anyway, free content has its
advantages, but I don't see it as either realistic or even good for it
to replace all other sorts of content in all situations.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Anthere

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>>One problem I have with your list and with Jimbo's list is that they
>>propose very few great candidates from Korea or Madagascar.
>
>
> I agree with this concern, but how to address it?  I do not know of any
> prominent leaders either "outside" or "inside" Wikipedia from either
> Korea or Madagascar... or similar places.
>
> It is not hard to find community leaders in France and Germany and
> Holland and Italy and... all of the countries where the "international
> crowd" has good connections.

Since you have been travelling all over the world for now 2 years at
least, I suppose you met some of those community leaders yourself.

Have you some names to suggest which we could hack ?

ant


body:
On 6/20/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> I've managed to avoid any insane mutterings about "smart quotes", too.)

Why the reticence? I want to hear them!

Not that I don't have my own: if you think smart quotes make life
complicated in English, try writing documents that consist of both
French and English. Now, write a document that is about translation
between the two: you will want French text that has English text
embedded in French smart-quotes (? bad English text ?). Sooner or
later Word works out that the quoted text is in English, and switches
back to English smart-quotes  when you close it (? this English
text... was too long"). Lovely.

Steve


list: textbook-l

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 6/20/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> A number of comments:
>
> 1. If the aim is to provide multimedia learning materials for all age
> groups, not just university-level, then Wikiversity is a very bad name.
> Go for another one - Wikilearning, Wikicollege, Wikischool, something
> else. Just something which does not automatically imply that it is just
> for university-level learning. Otherwise, you will put off a lot of your
> target audience just with the name. Seriously. Give a dog a bad name...
> well, you know the rest.

Yes, well, this issue has been a long-standing one, about which
absolutely no clarity has emerged. There was an initial vote to see
which domain Daniel (Mav) would buy (see:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Old>) - then the
debate was reopened by Erik (Eloquence) (see:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity#Wikiversity_.3D.3E_Wikisophia
and <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-May/003129.html>).
For me, the name does have its problems, but it seems to be still the
best bet to energise a community of people to contribute to it. I also
believe that we can explain a rationale for calling it Wikiversity
while providing for all levels, on a page like Wikiversity:About. No
name, it seems, is unproblematic (incidentally, wikilearning.org is
already taken and active).

>
> 2. Do bear in mind that Wikibooks does use multimedia already -
> at least in terms of audio files - and will wish to continue to do so. Some
> textbooks already have exercises and Q&As. If these can be made
> more dynamic on Wikibooks in the future, then I'm sure they will. Audio
> textbooks also, to my mind, fall within Wikibooks' domain. It's not
> clear to me whether the Wikiversity proposal seeks to dilute effort
> on these elements of textbooks, or not.

Absolutely not - Wikiversity will not seek to undermine or dilute the
effort or material on Wikibooks. Instead, I would see the material as
potentially overlapping with eachother, but formatted differently - in
textbook form on Wikibooks, and broken down into learning activities
on Wikibooks, which could be used by teachers as stand-alone lessons.
Some material will be duplicated, but the mission of Wikiversity is
not to duplicate this material unnecessarily - indeed, to promote the
development of further material on other projects if that is a more
appropriate place for it.

>
> 3. The aims Cormac lists for Wikiversity do not appear to agree with
> Michael Irwin's aims for Wikiversity. If the scope is not clear amongst
> the potential initial participants, it sure won't be clear amongst potential
> students.

I think many of Michael's aims for Wikiversity are absolutely in line
with what I and the rest of the Wikiversity subcommittee want.
However, givenm that there are significantly diverse views about a
topic as broad as education, it is extremely difficult to have a
blueprint for a project which incorporates all these views. What we
have tried to do on the Wikiversity subcommittee is to make a proposal
that gives it the flexibility to develop with this diversity, while
giving it a distinct identity from other projects. I anticipate there
to be significant debate about where the project should go (as
evidenced by the discussions thus far), but I feel this will only
strengthen its development, rather than the other way around.

>
> 4. Wikiversity seems very ambitious (more ambitious than Wikibooks, and
> Wikibooks, to date, has not yet delivered as much as we would wish). It's
> fair to ask - however noble the ideas- why you think they will work.

Yes, understood. I personally think it will work for the following reasons:
* It is such an engaging idea - to make multilingual learning
resources available under a free licence
* Wikis are making waves in the education world (as I have seen
through working on the Wikimania program committee) - Wikiversity
should be able to occupy a central role in bringing this community
together
* Wikimedia is a massive name in free-content resources - I believe
that people with an interest in education will get involved because of
this
* One of Wikiversity's aims is to act as a spur for development of
other Wikimedia projects - hopefully participants of other projects
will be able to see the benefits that learning communities can bring
to their own projects.
* People like to help other people - many participants of Wikiversity
helping other people to learn will probably be students and not
necessarily professors/lecturers/teachers etc. This creates both
challenges and opportunities - but in order to make it work, we will
need to recognise and accept this. By providing a fully open space for
peer-learning, a user-base is opened up, which, I believe, is
unprecedented both in scale and scope.

>
> Kind regards
>
> Jon

Thanks,

Cormac

>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>; Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Monday, 19 June, 2006 1:10:41 PM
> Subject: [Textbook-l] Wikiversity
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Wikiversity is a proposed Wikimedia project, based specifically around
> education and learning - the proposal to set up Wikiversity as a
> Wikimedia project is at:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal>.
> This proposal has been an attempt to address the fact that the last
> proposal (see: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity>) was not
> approved by the board (the background to this is summarised on the
> current proposal's page).
>
> For the last three months or so, the proposal (which was already in
> development) has been extended and reworked by the Wikiversity
> subcommittee (see:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_subcommittee>). The
> subcommittee is now pretty much satisfied that we have constructed a
> proposal and scope for the project which gives it the flexibility to
> develop, but also the clear rationale to exist as a separate project.
> I'm now in the process of negotiating this with the Special Projects
> Committee, hopefully to get it set up quite soon indeed :-).
>
> In brief, the proposal is to:
> *Host multimedia learning materials for all levels (ie not just
> university) in all languages
> *Develop learning communities around these materials
> *Host research - possibly original research (though this will need to
> be discussed by its community)
>
> There is more to the proposal and scope and, if you are interested, I
> would urge you to read the proposal and its related pages, which you
> can find through a navigational template at the top right of
> meta:Wikiversity pages. There is also a very basic mock-up of the
> front page of Wikiversity, geared towards the current proposal, at:
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Example>.
>
> One of the things the board last recommended was that the community be
> "joyful" about the proposal before setting up Wikiversity. So, this
> post is to gauge just how joyful people are about the proposal, what
> you think works and what doesn't, what you would change, add, remove,
> etc. I would like to use this thread to discuss what the best way
> forward for Wikiversity would be, so we can give it the best start we
> can.
>
> Yours,
>
> Cormac Lawler (m:User:Cormaggio)
> (on behalf of the Wikiversity subcommittee)
>
>
> PS: Please feel free to post this message (or a modification of it) at
> appropriate places - I'm just posting this initially to foundation-l
> and textbook-l (even though it slightly duplicates a discussion
> already underway at the latter).
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
> _______________________________________________
> Textbook-l mailing list
> Textbook-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

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

Jon Awbrey stated for the record:

> ... tells me that this place is utterly beyond
> hope.

Given that this place is utterly beyond hope, why do you insist at
tilting at our windmills?

> I will exercise the remainder of my responsibility
> to try and point out some obvious problems,
> and then I will get out of your hair.

Noted.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Careful. We don't want to
 sean at epoptic.com | learn from this. --Calvin
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subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/20/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> The day system has its advantages, if only to make it easier for
> closing admins to deal with a debates more than five days old by
> closing a day's worth at a time.

I would be proposing a subdivison of the day system, not a replacement.

Jun_20
  /popculture
  /science
  /insufficientcontext
...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Post 11.

Regarding the assertion:

| In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the
| prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor
| of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the
| Accurate Reporters and Responsible Scholars don't stand a chance.

I don't want to argue the details of the specific 3RR charge.
I have already stipulated that it was a "bad thing" for me
to let myself get pulled into that, and probably wouldn't
have let it happen except for the extreme circumstances.

And I am not here to defend my individual self.
I am speaking for what I know to be the generic
attitude of folks who take things like accuracy
and verifiability seriously, who do not suffer
fools gladly, as the saying goes, when it comes
to that.  It's clear to me that most folks like
that would have walked away, probably quietly
but no less disgustedly, long before putting
up with the kind of sophomoric toilet-papering
that I have had to put up with on this score.

I've already been told that the WP hieratchy thinks it can
afford a high attrition rate among conscientious people,
and that is confirming what I already said above.

The fact that nobody has yet bothered to read the stuff that
I have written in those WQAs, RFCs, and my answer to the 3RR
is the thing that tells me that this place is utterly beyond
hope.

I will exercise the remainder of my responsibility
to try and point out some obvious problems,
and then I will get out of your hair.

Let the sun shine in ...

Jon Awbrey

George Herbert wrote:
>
> On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
> >(...)
>
> Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your complaint is here that
> is causing you to want to withdraw.
>
> You appear not to have been seriously or lastingly sanctioned for
> anything; GTBacchus warned both you and JJL not to 3RR / edit war, and
> then Voice of All blocked you for 24 hrs and then 2 minutes later,
> changed that to just a warning.  I think it's clear that for the
> activities of the 12th and earlier, both you and JJL were in some way
> misbehaving, though you're the one who got slightly and temporarily
> bitten.
>
> None of that concludes the underlying content issue in JJL's favor.
>
> You essentially "got away with" a 3RR vio (block was changed back to a
> warning), which is unusually tolerant.  You may not be very familiar
> with block policy, but generally only well known and apologetic
> editors are unblocked early after a 3RR 24 hr block.  You were clearly
> by normal standards given the benefit of the doubt regarding whether
> it was serious misbehavior.
>
> Being blocked and warned is merely a symptom that you carried on the
> mutual edit warring with JJL for a couple of hours too long after the
> warnings.  That's not a decision that you were all wrong and he was
> all right.
>
> I also think that you and JJL have not constructively engaged in
> discussion on the article talk page regarding the key points of
> dispute.  Nor have you asked for mediation with JJL.
>
> This is not intended as a personal attack on you, but you appear to be
> an ineffective editor, in that you do not appear to understand the
> mechanisms Wikipedia is using here.  Your perception that you're being
> picked on or driven away is an overreaction to what are really
> fundamentally mild warnings and reactions to your making some mild but
> clearly good intentioned steps across the WP policy line.
>
> There are cases where I believe longer experience "more popular"
> admins and editors have abused newer editors to some degree or
> another.  But I think your claims here are unsubstantiated.  If you
> cannot understand Wikipedia well enough to work with the system, then
> perhaps you should stop editing for the time being.  But blaming the
> system, when it has not fundamentally mistreated you, is an excuse.
>
> The system is not perfect, but the system isn't the problem here.  You
> have a perfectly normal, reasonable content disupute with another
> editor.  You haven't been abused or pushed around.  If you can't work
> within the Wikipedia rules to resolve the problem, then that is your
> problem.  Thousands of other active editors are able to resolve these
> sorts of problems routinely.
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> gherbert at retro.com / george.herbert at gmail.com

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o


subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:
> but when a gang of sophomoric meta-puppets start
> tracking you back to your more quiet lairs just
> to wreak whatever destruction they can because
> you committed the sin of correcting their more
> obvious errors of fact, that anybody can check
> from the cites you give, or call them on their
> deviance from WP policy, and when the spineless
> cowardice or POV-serving connivance of the rest
> of the local community does nothing to stop it
> after numerous pleadings on WQA and RFC, then
> it becomes clear to any non-brainwashed person
> that this wiki has fallen and it can't get up.

A couple of assholes means the whole system has collapsed? I don't think so.

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Conservative notice board

body:
On 6/20/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/06/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Sam Korn wrote:
> > > On 6/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> But people are not doing that. People are discussing why they want it.
> > >> If you cannot tollerate discussion you have lost.
> > >
> > > Please can we remove all reference to "winning" or "losing" from this
> > > mailing list.  We are all working for Wikipedia.  We aren't looking to
> > > win.  We may disagree, and one person's opinion may prevail.
> > > Wikipedia wins or loses, not Tony Sidaway, Geni or Sam Korn.
> > >
> > > Suggesting that Tony was seeking to "win" is provocative, puerile and
> > > completely unnecessary.
> > >
> >
> > YHBT. YHL...
> >
> > --
> > Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> > Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> > "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> > Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
> >
>
> Wow, I actually agree with Tony Sidaway for once
>
> That project looked like it was pretty much a remake of "Wikipedians for
> Decency"...
>

Sure and we discussed that. not saying it was a fun discussion but we
did discuss it

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
Well, BoingBoing just published Jimmy's propagandistic stylings on
semi-protection (it's not a restriction, it's a freedom!) with the lovely
heading  "NYT falsely reports that Wikipedia has  added restrictions".

Semi-protection certainly is a new restriction. The implementation of
semi-protection may end up being a net positive or a net negative. It's
difficult to tell and Wales isn't particularly interested in doing honest
critical analyses of the effects of his policies.

Semi-protection is one of a series of policies that increases the gates you
have to go through to participate as a full member of the community. Maybe
the net effect is that it makes the site easier to use for more people.

But it's certainly a pain in the ass when you just want to edit an article
without having to log in because you can't remember your password or don't
want to type it on a public computer, or any number of unforeseeable
reasons. And I'm speaking from experience. As an admin, I've also turned
on/off semi-protection in various cases. I just wish people (aka Jimmy)
would be will to admit that there are shades of gray instead of shouting
that it's black and white.

This is a complicated matter and neither the NYT, nor Jimmy, nor BoingBoing
is helping matters by oversimplifying the debate.


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

body:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:.
> I am speaking for what I know to be the generic
> attitude of folks who take things like accuracy
> and verifiability seriously, who do not suffer
> fools gladly, as the saying goes, when it comes
> to that.  It's clear to me that most folks like
> that would have walked away, probably quietly
> but no less disgustedly, long before putting
> up with the kind of sophomoric toilet-papering
> that I have had to put up with on this score.

I'm sorry if you found our rules like 3RR and our dispute resolution
process cumbersome and uninviting.  As flawed as these may be, try to
imagine what Wikipedia would be like *without* these rules.  The 3RR
is not that old, and prior to its implementation, edit warriors could
revert a dozen times a day (I think the record I personally witnessed
was 14) with impunity, a single edit warrior could essentially hold an
article hostage for months.  While it would be nice to summarily ban
idiots or pov pushers or conspiracy nuts, etc., what metric do you
propose we use to separate the wheat from the chaff?  Who gets just
three reverts and who gets more?  How do we decide? It's not often
that clear, and some trolls can talk a good game when they need to
appear reasonable and sane.

I know from personal experience that it is frustrating to deal with
stubborn nutjobs, and frustrating to deal with a system that treats
you and the nutjob as equal players, but I haven't seen any serious
proposal for a better system or one that doesn't introduce more
problems, or reintroduce problems we've largely got a handle on. By
and large, consensus works well.  It can sometimes be difficult to get
enough sane eyes on a particular article, but it can be done.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More quotes from AfD

body:
On 6/20/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, ok. Well why not just add categories to the existing subpages?
> Say, [[Category:Science articles for deletion]] onto all
> science-related AfDs.

It's not possible to transclude all members of a category. (Sadly).

Steve


from_name: Lord Voldemort

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/20/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip] It's
> difficult to tell and Wales isn't particularly interested in doing honest
> critical analyses of the effects of his policies.
[snip]
> This is a complicated matter and neither the NYT, nor Jimmy, nor BoingBoing
> is helping matters by oversimplifying the debate.

Well, to be fair to Jimmy, it really isn't _his_ policy. By framing
the debate with this in mind, I think you too are oversimplifying. ;-)
It was a policy decided by community consensus.

But I would agree with you on some points. As someone who doesn't
really care for WP:SEMI, I think it does place some restrictions on
*how* people can edit, rather than *who*.

Just keep in mind that basically every policy is generated by the
community, and basically every policy places a limit on what we should
do.  But I think it can be argued that these fall under the
"restrictions to make us freer" heading.  --LV


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/20/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/20/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > [snip] It's
> > difficult to tell and Wales isn't particularly interested in doing
> honest
> > critical analyses of the effects of his policies.
> [snip]
> > This is a complicated matter and neither the NYT, nor Jimmy, nor
> BoingBoing
> > is helping matters by oversimplifying the debate.
>
> Well, to be fair to Jimmy, it really isn't _his_ policy. By framing
> the debate with this in mind, I think you too are oversimplifying. ;-)

It was a policy decided by community consensus.

For certain definitions of "community" and "consensus". But I see your
point. I used "his" because I was conflating it in my mind with a policy
that really did come primarily from him (see below) and also because it's
less important where an idea started than who champions it and how. Jimmy is
certainly laying claim to the impassioned defense of the present-day
Wikipedia policies in the public sphere.

But I would agree with you on some points. As someone who doesn't
> really care for WP:SEMI, I think it does place some restrictions on
> *how* people can edit, rather than *who*.
>
> Just keep in mind that basically every policy is generated by the
> community, and basically every policy places a limit on what we should
> do.

Right. Which is why people who argue that something is either TERRIBLE or
PERFECT should tone down the hyperbole. (Which is a fair criticism of me
ofttimes, but then I don't have the soapbox of the Times nor am I one of the
Time 100).

 But I think it can be argued that these fall under the
> "restrictions to make us freer" heading.  --LV

Yup.

Ah, right, this in particular was Jimbo's "experiment":

On 12/5/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Today, as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for
> anonymous users in the English Wikipedia.
>
> It seems to me that the first thing we can do is try to reduce the
> workload on the people doing new pages patrol.  A fairly extensive
> monitoring and survey of new pages conducted by me over the past few
> days, coupled with discussions with several people who keep an eye on
> such things, suggests that we can have a substantial improvement here by
> eliminating the ability for anons to make new pages.


body:
On 20/06/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> Is this a significant performance issue?  When editing the MediaWiki
> messages on enwiki, I've been habitually replacing [[X:Foo]] with
> [[{{ns:X}}:Foo]] to make it easier to copy the messages over to other
> projects with different namespace names.  Should I only do this for
> {{ns:Project}}, on the assumption that the other namespaces will have
> the same names on most English projects?  Or should I avoid using
> {{ns:}} entirely?  Does it only matter for some messages?

As I understood from discussion with Domas, the problem was the
double-brace substitution in messages used within the skins, that is;
messages which are used on each page view. These go through the parser
and impact performance.

Reducing these to using canonical namespace names helps, and doesn't
harm the interface, since all those uses have corresponding "caption"
messages.

With the odd message that is used often, but not on every view, e.g.
"This page is protected, see [[{{ns:project}}:Protected page]] for
help, it's not such a problem, and is in fact acceptable given that it
improves the user experience. The messages I changed were redundantly
using transformations.

Rob Church


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

body:
On 6/13/06, jf_wikipedia at mac.com <jf_wikipedia at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On Jun 7, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > On 6/7/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Well, the discussion about the "kind of categories" missed a very
> >> important
> >> one:
> >>
> >> Categories used to group wikipedians by poitical/religious beliefs
> >> like
> >> [[Category:Muslim Wikipedians]]
> >> [[Category:Born-again Christian Wikipedians]]
> >> [[Category:Flying Spaghetti Monsterist Wikipedians]]
> >> [[Category:Roman Catholic Wikipedians]]
> >
> > As far as the other thread goes, I'm happy to leave them out because
> > they only affect user pages, not article pages.
> >
> > Btw, what's with [[Category:Flying Spaghetti Monsterist Wikipedians]]?
> > Surely everyone knows the correct category is [[Category:Pastafarian
> > Wikipedians]]?
> >
> >
>
> IMO, all these categories (in particular the ones related to
> religious or political affiliation) are not a good idea, as these
> tend to be used for lobbying. I have not problem in users describing
> the religious or political affiliation in their user pages, but these
> categories divide and polarize. Not good for community-building.
>
> -- Jossi
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Perhaps you'll be interested on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CFD#Category:Wikipedians_by_politics_and_all_subcategories
then


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] Image donations?

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:
> On 6/20/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Er...you mean for the general public? I support seeking image
>>donations for historical topics or specific holes in our coverage, but
>>I don't know that we need more general amatuer
>>my-dog-in-my-backyard,sunset-over-my-fence,my-street-my-school-my-car
>>whatever photos. It seems to me the vetting system would have to
>>discard 90% of what they were offered, so I rather question if it
>>would be a worthwhile exercise.
>
>
> Maybe. I think if we clearly define, in big friendly letters and with
> pretty icons, what we want and what we don't want, we could get a lot
> of good stuff. People aren't stupid. I suspect that there are quite a
> few amateur photos of celebrities, for instance. In any case, the
> campaign would be two-sided: an interface for instantly sharing media,
> and a contact form for negotiations. If we advertise this broadly, I
> think we could get contacts from places we don't expect.

I don't have pretty icons yet, but a working form with "this is missing"
feedback and a simplified license selection:

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/image_donations.php

I've added my default tools header so those of you interested can view
the source.

As some of you know, I can use the Eloquence bot to automatically upload
images to the commons. I didn't add that capability to the script yet,
as it is merely a demonstration.

When you "upload" an image, the script will generate a demo
"Information" template, as well as a (yet to be created)
"{{check-automatic-upload}}" template that will ease checking for admins.

Comments, please :-)

Magnus


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>A stand out local feature is there is no state sales tax.   Which means
>by current U.S. Federal law governing transactions over the Internet.
>This means any corporate store owned and operated locally can be set up
>to move goods inside the U.S.  for revenue with no need to do the
>paperwork and collect sales taxes for 48 various U.S. states who do have
>a state sales tax.
>
The sale of goods is a very minor concern for us.  Most businesses only
collect sales taxes from purchasers when the goods are delivered in
state.  For an organization with employees the lack of a state income
tax may be more interesting.  Florida does not have a state personal
income tax.

>Obviously foreign excise duties must be still be investigated and
>serviced if the intent is to ship worldwide.
>
That is usually the responsibility of the purchaser.

>Also various U.S. restraints regarding the export of regulated
>militarily applicable technologies as well as import regulations.
>
What good of this sort are you planning to export?

>The local law library is open by prearranged appointment a few hours a
>week.  If there are any serious specific questions regarding Corporate
>advantage somebody could fly into Coos Bay International and do the
>detailed research.  8)
>
That's always a problem in small towns.

Ec