body:
2007/1/28, Angela <beesley at gmail.com>:
>
> On 1/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 28/01/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
>
> > What sort of thing would we bug them with, through what channel?
>
> For the topics, see the bios at
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board to see what topics
> would be relevant to each person or the whole group.
> (...)
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
> Angela
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Well, a photo next to the bio's would be marvellous :) That way the
community can discover a face with the name. it's not exactly necessarily,
but would just be a nice thing :)

lodewijk


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Goodman

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Just like companies, a school can be notable for being a widely
publicized failure. In the one case it may no longer be listed on a
stock exchange, in the other, there may be no notable alumni.

Notability should not depend on the size or success or the nature of
the community. It's a question of there being something worth writing
about. There is no point in merely repeating directory information
findable on the web, & if more cannot be said, there should be no
article.

Of the NYC public elementary schools, 2 have articles  in WP. They are
both excellent schools. One of them wrote a few lines about where it
is located & which school board it's in. The other has a real article.
What we need is good articles, and while we accept anything in some
areas, we do not encourage good articles.  -DGG


list: wikien-l

from_name: Cheney Shill

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable published
	sources will be deleted."

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> I subscribe to the notion that _every_ first draft
> article follows NPOV.

That has at least 7 problems:
1.  It's not policy or guideline to assume first drafts
meet policy.
2.  By assuming first drafts meet policy, one gives it an
advantage over all future edits, regardless of how much
better those edits may be.
3.  It violates applying AGF equally among all writers'
edits.
4.  It violates the basic premise of Wikipedia that the
more contributors to an article, the better.  Otherwise,
why put it on the Internet and leave it open to anyone to
edit?
5.  Psychologically, in terms of faulty decision making,
it's an application of the primacy effect, which I presume,
given the recent discussion of mental disorders here,
requires no further explanation.
6.  It applies a personal standard that interferes with the
policy expressed in the the subject.
7.  It promotes the creation of new articles on the same
subject instead of adjusting the existing article, thus
creating redundant articles.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
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(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.
http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
On 1/28/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Despite certain bizarre aspects of Parker's interaction here, he has
> remained within the general bounds of civil discourse.  I would object
> to kicking him off.

I think this email

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/060314.html

where he pretended to be someone else (and, in fact, had a whole
conversation with himself) is quite enough to be put on moderation.
That's so much over the line that, as Joey from friends would have it,
the line is a dot to him. I mean, look at his response to his own
email:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/060315.html

He has no business here anymore.

--Oskar


body:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Cheney Shill wrote:
> >Interesting, but policy is policy, not your opinion or
> >consensus, both of which you have no NPOV reliable
> sources
> >for.  Besides this discussion is with regard to articles
> >that are completely uncited.  In other words, you're
> >providing a false dilemma.  It's not about citing every
> >last fact or deleting the article.  It's about getting
> >substantial ("significant") reliable sources cited, as
> is
> >clearly and repeatedly stated in policy and guidelines.
> >
> Oh please!  Consensus guides policy, not the other way
> around which
> would be wikilawyering.

And how do we determine what the present consensus is?  You
gave no citations to reliable sources.  Are you arguing
that the stated policy is not consensus?  If so, where is
this consensus and why isn't it in policy?  Could you point
us to where it says consensus is absolute and
non-negotiable?

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't get soaked.  Take a quick peak at the forecast
with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather


list: foundation-l

from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
persons contributions? :S

Eia

2007/1/28, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey op wolfmountaingroup.com>:
>
>
> All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
> being used, and the money from
> the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
> someone object to images
> being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
> recall my interactions
> on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
> debates I had there.
>
> Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
> nailed. The foundation will
> be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
> defend the Foundation. It's
> pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
> then do not use them.
>
> There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
> pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
> unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
> torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
> and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
> it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
> it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
> >I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> >en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> >curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> >might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> >faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
> >
> >The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> >Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> >if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> >this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> >their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> >mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
> >
> >In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> >(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> >recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> >significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> >section 107:
> >
> >* Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> >institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> >* Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> >organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> >are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> >use content.
> >
> >My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> >for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> >stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> >Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> >significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> >the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> >here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> >be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> >reproduction.
> >
> >The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
> > They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> >permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> >attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> >through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> >article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> >a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> >to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> >displayed on a website run by the WMF.
> >
> >I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> >group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> >be going.
> >
> >I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> >with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> >I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> >unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> >under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> >Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> >fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> >these to be merely a copyright violation.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
persons contributions? :S

Eia

2007/1/28, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
>
>
> All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
> being used, and the money from
> the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
> someone object to images
> being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
> recall my interactions
> on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
> debates I had there.
>
> Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
> nailed. The foundation will
> be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
> defend the Foundation. It's
> pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
> then do not use them.
>
> There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
> pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
> unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
> torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
> and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
> it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
> it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
> >I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> >en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> >curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> >might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> >faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
> >
> >The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> >Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> >if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> >this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> >their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> >mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
> >
> >In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> >(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> >recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> >significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> >section 107:
> >
> >* Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> >institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> >* Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> >organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> >are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> >use content.
> >
> >My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> >for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> >stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> >Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> >significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> >the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> >here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> >be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> >reproduction.
> >
> >The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
> > They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> >permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> >attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> >through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> >article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> >a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> >to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> >displayed on a website run by the WMF.
> >
> >I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> >group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> >be going.
> >
> >I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> >with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> >I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> >unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> >under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> >Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> >fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> >these to be merely a copyright violation.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
On Sunday 28 January 2007 19:42, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
> worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
> with his finger in the dyke

What a dirty boy!

Perhaps you meant "dike"...

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>


body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> Whether to delete an unreferenced
> article-in-progress or leave it to be improved is a
> subjective decision

I don't have any problem with the concept of an
ariticle-in-progress being left and tagged for important
missing elements, such as citations of reliable published
sources.  The problem is how does one determine what is
in-progress.  Edits to the page or talk page within the
last week?  Month?  Half year?  Year?

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Eugene van der Pijll

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson schreef:
> On 1/28/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Despite certain bizarre aspects of Parker's interaction here, he has
> > remained within the general bounds of civil discourse.  I would object
> > to kicking him off.
>
> I think this email
>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/060314.html
>
> where he pretended to be someone else (and, in fact, had a whole
> conversation with himself) is quite enough to be put on moderation.

He has been put on moderation. But that doesn't mean that none of his
mails will reach the list; moderators will judge all mails from him, and
the useful ones will still appear. For example, this one was a valid
contribution to the discussion here (and I was surprised to see one...):

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/061471.html

> He has no business here anymore.

I have to agree with George here; if P.P. has any constructive
contributions, there's no reason why we shouldn;t see them.

Michael Smith on the other hand...

Eugene


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is the fundamental goal of the project?

body:
On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Quotations are the most fundamental application of fair use.  If we are
> unable to use direct quotations, and must paraphrase the ideas the risks
> of inacurracy are too high.

Text quotations are legaly fairly safe under most legal systems.

> You have to admit that there are some people around here who have
> extreme views about this. :-)

There are people around who want to go for the de option. At the
present time their numbers are too small to be considered a movement.

> In reviewing the copyrights for such a picture it's important to
> remember exactly when the Armenian genocide took place.

1915 to 1917 however since the events took place in europe there is
the posibilty for pics to still be under copyright.

> We can safely assume that the picture was actually taken in 1938, but do
> we know who took it?  There's a strong probability that the picture is
> already in the public domain, and if research establishes that we don't
> need fair use.

Talk to danny. Photos involveing that subject area are something he is
rather good at.

> Allowing fair use depends on the material fitting the legal definitions,
> or at least having a legal rationale of some sort.

There are a couple of extra requirments on en (material must have been
previously published for example.
--
geni


from_name: Bryan Tong Minh

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>
	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<73f3ff1b0701281150s13e15e88m7eed42982b0039ec@mail.gmail.com>

body:
In response to effe iets anders, I think this clause of the GFDL applies:

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright
resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights
of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not
apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves
derivative works of the Document.

It is section 7, the aggregration section.

Bryan

On 1/28/07, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
> breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
> which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
> following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
> thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
> persons contributions? :S
>
> Eia
>
> 2007/1/28, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>:
> >
> >
> > All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
> > being used, and the money from
> > the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
> > someone object to images
> > being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
> > recall my interactions
> > on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
> > debates I had there.
> >
> > Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
> > nailed. The foundation will
> > be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
> > defend the Foundation. It's
> > pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
> > then do not use them.
> >
> > There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
> > pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
> > unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
> > torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
> > and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
> > it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
> > it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> > Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> >
> > >I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> > >en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> > >curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> > >might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> > >faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
> > >
> > >The philosophy is essentially that fair use images are permitted on
> > >Wikipedia, even if you are not going to be legally permitted to use them
> > >if you copy them and try to re-publish the Wikipedia article.  I guess
> > >this same philosophy also applies to the whole issue of NC images and
> > >their inclusion in Wikimedia projects, but in this case the issue is
> > >mainly centered on fair use applications of image content.
> > >
> > >In reading through the Wikipedia Fair Use guideline talk page
> > >(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3AFair_use), I noticed a
> > >recurring theme to justify many fair use images based around two
> > >significant points of the fair-use doctrine as described in USC 92
> > >section 107:
> > >
> > >* Educational fair use  - Wikipedia is part of an "educational
> > >institution" and the images are used as a form of instruction.
> > >* Non-commercial entity - Because the WMF is a 503 (c) 3 non-profit
> > >organization, and because all of the editor/contributors to Wikipedia
> > >are unpaid volunteers, Wikipedia can claim non-commercial usage of fair
> > >use content.
> > >
> > >My counter argument is that neither of these justifications are valid
> > >for inclusion into Wikipedia.  The educational exception is a major
> > >stretch and I just don't see how it really applies in the case of
> > >Wikipedia, particularly with some common-law cases that have
> > >significantly reduced the scope of educational fair use.  In the case of
> > >the non-commercial entity, I would argue that the GFDL is the trump card
> > >here, as reproducing Wikipedia (and almost all Wikimedia) content must
> > >be done under the terms of the GFDL, which explictly permits commercial
> > >reproduction.
> > >
> > >The response to this is that it doesn't matter if the GFDL applies.
> > > They just want to include fair use images, even if the GFDL doesn't
> > >permit their reproduction.  This is essentially a "buyer beware"
> > >attitudue where you, as the end-user, are required to explicitly go
> > >through the licensing terms of all images you download together with an
> > >article and remove those images if you decide to pass the article on to
> > >a 3rd party.  The inclusion of an image on Wikipedia has no connection
> > >to the GFDL, but only if it is legal (even if barely) for it to be
> > >displayed on a website run by the WMF.
> > >
> > >I had a hard time understanding this philosohpy, but a fairly vocal
> > >group insists that this is where fair use policy on Wikipedia ought to
> > >be going.
> > >
> > >I should note that I got into this whole mess because I was involved
> > >with a group that was trying to write a Wikibook about M.C. Escher, and
> > >I tried to point out that they couldn't reproduce the Escher artwork
> > >unless they somehow were able to obtain a license that could be used
> > >under the GFDL.  The response was that the images were being used on
> > >Wikipedia, so why not Wikibooks?  The Escher reproductions are claiming
> > >fair use, but I think it has gone way too far on Wikipedia, as I believe
> > >these to be merely a copyright violation.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>
	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<45BD03F1.3020000@netzero.net>

body:
On 1/28/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> I am being told that the one and only way that these images are going to
> possibly be removed from Wikipedia is through a WP:OFFICE action.  I
> think that is one of the most ridiculous sentiments ever made.  For
> example, see the "disclaimer" that was thrown onto this image:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AHand_with_Reflecting_Sphere.jpg
>

Hmm yes that is rather a worry. I would argue it's inclusion in [[Hand
with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)]] at a low
enough resolution could be legitimately argued to be fair use.

> IMHO, this disclaimer by itself is almost proof by itself that this
> particular image is a copyright violation,

It is prooof that someone doesn't know what they are doing

> and I would argue that the
> other 40,000 images also in [[en:w:Category:Fair use images of art]]
> also are very likly to be copyright violations.  That is not a trivial
> number of images to be removing.

While it is a bit messy a lot of it isn't to bad. As long as people
talk about the artwork in the article it is in it is posible to start
building a fair use case.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
The Cunctator schreef:
> On 1/28/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> All it takes is one lawsuit from someone who is upset at the images
>> being used, and the money from
>> the last fund drive could get used up in legal fees pretty durn fast. If
>> someone object to images
>> being used, then TAKE THEM OFF THE SITE, Fair use argments are not. I
>> recall my interactions
>> on en.wikipedia with people using copyrighted materials and some of the
>> debates I had there.
>>
>> Bottom line, these anonymus editors are not the people who will get
>> nailed. The foundation will
>> be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm to
>> defend the Foundation. It's
>> pretty simple -- if someone who owns th images does not want them used,
>> then do not use them.
>>
>> There are a lot more torts than just copyright infringement they could
>> pull out of the bag and use. They could claim
>> unfari competition, tortious interference, and a whole host of other
>> torts they may win with. It's cheaper, easier,
>> and honorable to simply take down the images and tell the offended party
>> it is being done as a courtesty. This makes
>> it appear the foundation is acting in good faith.
>>
>
> This argument is pure copyright paranoia. What I mean by that is that
> Jeffrey is asserting as fact a hypothetical scenario ("The foundation
> will be the ones who get served and Brad will have to hire a law firm
> to defend the Foundation.") That's possible, but certainly not
> guaranteed.
Hoi,
What Jeffrey says is absolutely true. The way you would apparently have
it that you only believe it when there is a day in court, having lost
all our marbles losing our money as well. People donate their money to
have Wikipedia serve content to the world, not to play IANAAL brinkmanship.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable published
 sources will be deleted."

body:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Cheney Shill wrote:
> And how do we determine what the present consensus is?  You
> gave no citations to reliable sources.

Oh, please.  Next you'll be saying we can't do a Google test to see if a
subject is notable because that's original research.

The requirement for citations and reliable sources is, at best, a
requirement for Wikipedia articles.  It is *not* a requirement for talk
pages, mailing lists, or anything else related to Wikipedia.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
On 28/01/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/28/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:

> > I am being told that the one and only way that these images are going to
> > possibly be removed from Wikipedia is through a WP:OFFICE action.  I
> > think that is one of the most ridiculous sentiments ever made.  For
> > example, see the "disclaimer" that was thrown onto this image:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AHand_with_Reflecting_Sphere.jpg

> Hmm yes that is rather a worry. I would argue it's inclusion in [[Hand
> with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)]] at a low
> enough resolution could be legitimately argued to be fair use.

Yeah, there's a place for fair use, and that's probably where it would
be. Maybe in a general article on Escher, maybe not.

For the actual *likelihood* of a legal apocalypse for the Foundation -
my favoured example again, [[Xenu]] - the important IMO) fair-use
image are owned by the Church of Scientology, who are really quite
notable for now far they will take legal action to protect what they
see as their interests (see [[Scientology and the legal system]] - SCO
is *nothing* by comparison) but literally haven't uttered a peep about
the CoS-owned images on [[Xenu]] in two years, while CoS staff editors
participate extensively in the Scientology-related articles on
Wikipedia. Because the educational fair use *in the context of the
article* is really not reasonably contestable under US law. And nor
have they approached any mirror sites that I know of (and I'm hooked
in enough to the Scientology critic community that think I'd know).

(And the image of the word "Xenu" in L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting has
been widely distributed in the UK, and worldwide, on Roland
Rashleigh-Berry's 'Xenu leaflet' since 1997. I've handed it to CoS
staff myself. Not a peep of a legal threat over it.)

IMO, every fair use image on en:wp should have a {{fairusein}}
template and only be used in articles carrying that template with an
article and a rationale. I'm a big fan of fair use, but I also think
it's taken *way* too far in practice. And I think it would be a bad
thing for the encyclopedia for fair use to be abused to the point
where the Foundation says "no more."

> > IMHO, this disclaimer by itself is almost proof by itself that this
> > particular image is a copyright violation,

> It is prooof that someone doesn't know what they are doing

Assume good faith! But by no means let doing so stop us from winding
fair use on en:wp back to something considerably more hardarsed.

> > and I would argue that the
> > other 40,000 images also in [[en:w:Category:Fair use images of art]]
> > also are very likly to be copyright violations.  That is not a trivial
> > number of images to be removing.

> While it is a bit messy a lot of it isn't to bad. As long as people
> talk about the artwork in the article it is in it is posible to start
> building a fair use case.

I know you're pretty knowledgeable about the state of fair use images
on en:wp, so it's very reassuring that it's not *too* bad. Not
unfixably so, anyway.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Gregory Kohs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Right of rebuttal

body:
Dan Tobias wrote:

>> Why should any part of main article space (or
>> templates included in it) be controlled by outside people and used to
>> present their (perhaps distorted) view of reality?

Why?  Maybe because all parts of current main article space are controlled
by "inside" people and used to present their (perhaps distorted) view of
reality.

By policy, rule, and decree, the "outside" people are told to try to voice
their concerns on Discussion pages, which we all know, are not mandated to
be heeded.  So, the "outside" people don't have equal power.  If the
guideline is that contributors to the article should have no conflict of
interest in the topic on which they're editing, almost by definition,
experts are thus driven out by those who merely know how to do citation
searches in the library (if even that).  So, Dan, that's why Ray thinks it
might be more "neutral" if such a space could be provided to "outside"
people to even the playing field and maybe get the "inside" people to
understand how things actually work among the experts in the area that the
article covers.

But, Geni's concerned that this will take up too much server space.

Why don't the "outside" people just do what Angela does -- serve "inside" on
the Board for a while, then go "outside", but retain the special "insider's"
privilege of editing articles (like the one about Wikia) directly from the
"outside"?  I guess that rule doesn't scale so well.

Greg


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
> Delirium wrote:
>
>
>> Christopher G. Parham wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares
>>>> on an important stock exchange.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a
>>> criterion.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by
>> virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on
>> a major exchange isn't.  I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more
>> clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
>>
>>
> While most Wikipedians have probably attended some elementary school, I
> sometimes can't help but feeling that there is a profound lack of
> understanding  about the corporate world.  Maybe it's just that our
> younger crowd has never had the occasion to figure out what the
> financial pages are about.  Listed companies have their share prices
> reported on a daily basis.  Objective studies are constantly being done
> and published by brokerage and other investment firms.  Even a confirmed
> opponent of most corporate activities needs to "know his enemy" in oder
> to fight them more effectvely.  I wonder whether those who support the
> current guidelines for corporate notability have ever bought, owned or
> sold any stock in their lives.  The usual image of a corporation st
> least gives the appearance of being contrary to any kind of open access
> to information.  We probably don't have much of a corporate lobby at all.
>
> Ec
Hoi,
I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages.
My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies
that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are
economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When
you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they
are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these
companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people
want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong
opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the
system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a
strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting
relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company
that sold pet food over the Internet...

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
On 28/01/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think that deleting people off the list who merely are
> unlikely to be taken entirely seriously is a good approach.  He's not
> flooding the list and is not a major part of the list's bandwidth, nor
> is he causing any serious disruption or rudeness.
> As long as the list is open, I don't want subjective decisions of this
> nature made about who can participate.  Short of disruption or
> incivility or such abuse, leave him alone.
> My opinion only, of course.

More importantly, it would resemble work, and the mods find dealing
with the actual spam queue horrible enough. We don't consider it our
job to save the readers from stupidity - there's quite enough of that
that's actually on-topic.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I did not want to suggest we should do this, I just want to point out that
we have quite a risk when we really want fair use in the long run. Both from
the side of the authors of the picture as from the authors of the text of
wikipedia.

Eia

2007/1/28, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning op netzero.net>:
>
> effe iets anders wrote:
>
> >I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
> >breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
> >which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
> >following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
> >thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
> >persons contributions? :S
> >
> >Eia
> >
> >
> I've actually thought about doing a sort of mass-mailing to several
> prominent artists featured on Wikipedia, saying in effect "do you know
> that your art work is being used here without permission" and giving an
> address of the WMF to get it removed.
>
> I think that might get a reaction, but it may not be in the best
> interest of the WMF to go that far.  It does illustrate at least an
> avenue to force this issue.
>
> For myself, I would rather that the concept of fair use be legitmately
> reviewed, and that applications of fair use that might be objectionable
> would be removed well before there is any problem that might surface
> instead.  Unfortunately this is something that may have to come from
> "the top" on a WMF level and be forced down onto the project.  The only
> ones who are interested right now in setting fair use policy are those
> who want to see it extended even further rather than those who want to
> scale it back.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
I did not want to suggest we should do this, I just want to point out that
we have quite a risk when we really want fair use in the long run. Both from
the side of the authors of the picture as from the authors of the text of
wikipedia.

Eia

2007/1/28, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net>:
>
> effe iets anders wrote:
>
> >I think all it takes is one person writing the foundation that they are
> >breaching their copyright, as they do not follow the GFDL-license, under
> >which the person has given his/her texts free? And if Wikipedia is not
> >following GFDL, GFDL doesnt apply to those articles either i guess. In
> >thery, IANAL, it might even be that the foundation has to remove all that
> >persons contributions? :S
> >
> >Eia
> >
> >
> I've actually thought about doing a sort of mass-mailing to several
> prominent artists featured on Wikipedia, saying in effect "do you know
> that your art work is being used here without permission" and giving an
> address of the WMF to get it removed.
>
> I think that might get a reaction, but it may not be in the best
> interest of the WMF to go that far.  It does illustrate at least an
> avenue to force this issue.
>
> For myself, I would rather that the concept of fair use be legitmately
> reviewed, and that applications of fair use that might be objectionable
> would be removed well before there is any problem that might surface
> instead.  Unfortunately this is something that may have to come from
> "the top" on a WMF level and be forced down onto the project.  The only
> ones who are interested right now in setting fair use policy are those
> who want to see it extended even further rather than those who want to
> scale it back.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] An obscene example of remote loading

body:
On 28/01/07, Roberto Alfonso <rpgrca at gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe reference.com and about.com are, along with answers.com,
> the biggest reusers in profile and size.

Does Yahoo still take a live feed?

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>
	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<dfd0b40701281141l78582dd6ge2f7773707274607@mail.gmail.com>
	<45BD16AE.1060300@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 28/01/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:

> Yeah? How many of you have actually had to stand in front of a judge
> with millions of dollars of **YOUR**
> money on the line. I have stood there more times than I care to mention,
> and in most cases not by my own choice.
> Judges will not listen to whining exusces and weak arguments, and you
> don't get to argue over and over again
> after they rule -- you have to pay. The real shocker is when the judge
> orders you to pay
> the other sides legal fees. What if they hire Coudert Brothers from new
> York to defend them who charges $500.00/hour
> and they rack up 350,000.00 in fees just to send a dozen letters and
> file a complaint and you get ordered to pay it.

In the example I mentioned, it may be worth mentioning the Church of
Scientology has had to pay the attorney's fees for the people they
sued many a time.

> Cheaper to take down the content.

I suspect in a clear-cut case, you'd be surprised how many friends
Wikipedia has.

Not that I consider it a good idea to push it, of course.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


body:
Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/27/07, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > WP has a high enough count and popularity.  Why not
> start
> > actually focusing on content detail and enforcing the
> long
> > standing yet rarely applied policies?
>
> How do you focus a group of some tens of thousands of
> self-interested volunteers?

Is that, what's the word, cynicism?  So policy and content
doesn't matter to "usefulness", only thousands of
self-interested volunteers (AKA, popularity)?

Step 1 would be actually start applying the policy.  If
they're self-interested, and by that you mean interested in
their own articles, those that created/contributed to the
violating articles will get interested in correcting the
article instead of losing it.  If you mean your
administrators, make it an important part of whatever you
do to make them admins and reward and punish them.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

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


body:
Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Cheney Shill wrote:
> > And how do we determine what the present consensus is?
> > You gave no citations to reliable sources.
>
> Oh, please.  Next you'll be saying we can't do a Google
> test to see if a
> subject is notable because that's original research.

We're not discussing notability, I wouldn't say that (but
it shouldn't be the only test given the problem of echo
chamber effects and obvious marketing abuses of search
engines), and you didn't answer the question.

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

references:
<45BCAEB4.70606@netzero.net>
	<45BCF1E6.9080203@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<dfd0b40701281141l78582dd6ge2f7773707274607@mail.gmail.com>
	<45BD16AE.1060300@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<fbad4e140701281411u3f9e9b89tc661c3ba7ca0321@mail.gmail.com>
	<45BD1C6E.40800@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
On 28/01/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >In the example I mentioned, it may be worth mentioning the Church of
> >Scientology has had to pay the attorney's fees for the people they
> >sued many a time.

> It can go the other way -- depends on who wins. In a case where we are
> using someones copyrighted images and
> they were posted by a n anonymous editor, I woud dare to guess we may
> not alays be on the winning side ...

Oh, yeah. Only a fool *wants* this sort of thing to go to court.

> >I suspect in a clear-cut case, you'd be surprised how many friends
> >Wikipedia has.
> >Not that I consider it a good idea to push it, of course.

> We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
> a "cloud of doubt" and they are
> an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
> would be to remove it.
> " your honor, we always strive to act in good faith in all situations,
> and in the present case, we were notified
> the materials may have been copyrighted and removed them immediately IAW
> with our policies. Given our
> actions in good faith, we cannot be held liable as the other side claims
> since we are simply a third party
> interactive web service and we have complied with the DMCA at all times ..."
> :-)

In a serious battle, the Wikipedia's proven leaning more toward
copyright paranoia than copyright violation will stand us in good
stead! And we do finally have proper channels for outside parties to
raise legal concerns with the Foundation.

So in the general case, yes, you're entirely right.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 1/29/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
>> "groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
>
> "Groupthink" may well be synonymous with "team spirit" or somesuch,
> but with the opposite connotation.
>
> Steve
>

Not that I've thought about it a lot, but I associate groupthink with a
situation in which any sort of disagreement is discouraged by social
pressure. Not so much that differing ideas are "outvoted" by the group,
but that the person offering a different idea is ostracized until they
conform.

So, for me, groupthink is very different from consensus. However, I do
think we see some instances of groupthink in some areas of Wikipedia.

For instance, calling someone a "troll" for (even very persistently)
disagreeing is a step in the direction of groupthink.

Just my 2 cents to the thread...

-Rich Holton


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Berto 'd Sera wrote:

>Hoi!
>
>
>>My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies
>>that the financial pages are concentrated on.
>>
>>
>Besides... in many countries the same companies do OWN the media that are
>publishing info about them. Not always in the open, from Italy you get
>accounts of a total of several hundred people sitting in ALL main national
>Boards. Even if the companies are legally independent from each other you
>can hardly expect Mr. X to attack company Y from company K, since he is
>sitting in company's Y Board himself...
>
Interlocking Board membership is certainly worth writing about, and not
just in Italy.  So too are ownership patterns of subsidiaries who are
themselves owned by other companies.  So too are the relationships of
big-name sportswear companies to third world manufacturers using
low-paid child labour to produce high price goods.  That whole corporate
world is completely alien to believers in open economics.

>Drawing up other people's money to pay one's CEO salary can hardly be used
>as a criterion for excellence. But it's hard to find one that would fit.
>Enron and Parmalat did look stable, didn't they? Most such monsters are
>certified by friends of relatives of friends... so if all you want is nice
>data you'll get tons of it :)
>
>I'd say that the safer thing for an encyclopedia would be avoiding judgments
>altogether. Pointing users toward an article explaining what criteria are
>basically used by banks and agents to attract consumers' money would be far
>more interesting.
>
There's more to writing about companies than such POV expos?s..  We also
need to know which compnies are taking unfair advantage of witless
investors and consumers.   Having unduly rigid entry requirements for an
article about a company leaves us trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle
with half of the pieces missing.

>Everything else is 100% POV. Maybe a fortunate POV that can make you a rich
>man, but nevertheless it's POV. Financial reports are made to meet fiscal
>and marketing requirements, what sort of objectivity would you expect from a
>capitalistic version of the soviet Pravda? :))))
>
Financial reports say what they say.  Your desire to substitute your POV
about companies for theirs does nothing to advance knowledge of
companies.  Our coverage of corporations is seriously deficient.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
>would be to remove it.
>
The biggest fly in that ointment is with establishing that they are the
undisputed owner.  There are as many misconceptions about that as there
are about fair use.  When that has been established it's good corporate
citizenship to remove the material when they ask nicely even if we could
win a court fight over fair use.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


body:
geni wrote:

>On 1/29/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I asked "Should we remove all quotations from Wikipedia?  Should we delete
>>Wikiquote?" and you simply responded "There are many free quotations."  Does
>>this mean that you are in favor of removing all quotations from Wikipedia
>>and Wikiquote unless they are free content?  if not, what do you mean by
>>that statement?
>>
>>
>I mean there are many free quotations (a bit over 4000 years worth).
>It would not be impossible to create a wikiquote that used only free
>quotations.
>
You could do that, but that would mean leaving out many of the juiciest
ones used to describe modern society. :-)

Ec


from_name: Berto 'd Sera

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Hoi!

> My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies
> that the financial pages are concentrated on.

Besides... in many countries the same companies do OWN the media that are
publishing info about them. Not always in the open, from Italy you get
accounts of a total of several hundred people sitting in ALL main national
Boards. Even if the companies are legally independent from each other you
can hardly expect Mr. X to attack company Y from company K, since he is
sitting in company's Y Board himself...

Drawing up other people's money to pay one's CEO salary can hardly be used
as a criterion for excellence. But it's hard to find one that would fit.
Enron and Parmalat did look stable, didn't they? Most such monsters are
certified by friends of relatives of friends... so if all you want is nice
data you'll get tons of it :)

I'd say that the safer thing for an encyclopedia would be avoiding judgments
altogether. Pointing users toward an article explaining what criteria are
basically used by banks and agents to attract consumers' money would be far
more interesting.

Everything else is 100% POV. Maybe a fortunate POV that can make you a rich
man, but nevertheless it's POV. Financial reports are made to meet fiscal
and marketing requirements, what sort of objectivity would you expect from a
capitalistic version of the soviet Pravda? :))))

Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Robert Scott Horning schreef:
> I've somehow found myself embroiled in the middle of a fair-use fight on
> en.wikipedia, but an interesting viewpoint has expressed itself that I'm
> curious with the "powers that be" and other experienced Wikimedia users
> might find a bit interesting, at least in terms of where a significant
> faction of Wikipedia users want to go.
[cut]

I had very recently also a sort of discussion about this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Walter#Say_no_to_fair_use

I do not see any point in responding further there.

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
Groupthink refers to collective faith in the infallibility of a project,
often with disasterous consequences.

nobs01


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Dan Jacobson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Search vs. non 24-hour powerup

body:
Why doesn't Special:Search ever find anything on my test wiki that is
on a computer powered up only a few hours every few days?
Must be some mysterious cron function. OK, this looks like it will
manually refresh things:
$ php rebuildtextindex.php
Dropping index...
A database query syntax error has occurred.
The last attempted database query was:
"ALTER TABLE `searchindex` DROP INDEX si_title, DROP INDEX si_text"
from within function "dropTextIndex".
MySQL returned error "1142: ALTER command denied to user 'wikiuser'@'localhost' for table 'searchindex' (localhost)"

OK, but why wasn't that detected/fixed by the upgrader script when I
upgraded to 1.9.0? Now what? Manually change some/what mysql things?
I don't want to put my fingers in there.


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail]

body:
On 1/28/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know. Let's have a look at the log:
>
>     * 06:29, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
> (redeleting after temporary undelete to export page history)
> [...]

My (un)deletions were so I could export it to
http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Pieism without losing the history
since it wasn't the most recent version of the page that was worth
keeping but a combination of some of the older revisions.

Angela


from_name: Keitei

subject: [WikiEN-l] The downside of creating perfect articles

body:
On Jan 28, 2007, at 23:10, Steve Bennett wrote:
> That is, WikiProjects are self-declared managers of a particular
> domain. But who manages the WikiProjects? Who decides "Our coverage of
> Iranian dung beetles is inadequate, let's fix that?" Also, where is it
> written that all WikiProjects should obey a couple of defined
> conventions? And what happens to articles that aren't covered by any
> WikiProject at all?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council

Eh, they're trying, but it's a bit too bureaucratic for my tastes.
--keitei


subject: [Wikitech-l] how to stop that gaping mouth of an edit box?

body:
Dan Jacobson wrote:
> Is there any way I can stop that gaping mouth of an edit box on empty
> category pages??

Tim says
<Just make the links to categories with no associated pages blue instead of
<red. It's a one-line patch. [OutputPage.php]
-			$this->mCategoryLinks[] = $sk->makeLinkObj( $title, $text );
+			$this->mCategoryLinks[] = $sk->makeKnownLinkObj( $title, $text );
> I wish when one visits action=edit on category pages, it would
> act like action=view.

Nice, but what about [[Special:Categories]]? The empty categories are
still red there. A hack here, a hack there...

<Then you wouldn't be able to edit it, even by clicking the edit tab.
>>I think that's what he wants.

Yes. And me messing in includes/* will only get overwritten next time
as I always don't know what I did six months later. Plus I am not
making a permanent contribution/mark/impact on the MediaWiki that way.

<Create the pages, but give them an empty content.

Hurmf, 1500 empty pages for http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/ . Naw.

So far I have come up with wimpy
    function fnmybla1($text,$title)
    { global $wgSitename;
      if (   ( NS_CATEGORY == $title->mNamespace )
          || ( NS_CATEGORY_TALK == $title->mNamespace ) )
       {$text = "${wgSitename} notice: please put frequencies into
    articles, the categories will be automatically generated";}}
    $wgHooks['EditFormPreloadText'][]='fnmybla1';
for LocalSettings.php, which I wish not to venture beyond.

Anyway, how limiting that MediaWiki can't deny editing (to everybody,
fine with me) in a given namespace! One must create new namespaces,
etc.

It seems even if array $wgGroupPermissions had a added dimension:
namespace, stamping out all those red links would better be
accoplished via hooks into OutputPage.php above and
SpecialCategories.php.

For now I must use
http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/index.php?title=Template:C to help
a little against sending users into the gaping mouth of the edit box.


from_name: SonOfYoungwood at aol.com

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable published
	sources will be ...

body:
In a message dated 1/28/2007 10:33:17 PM Central Standard Time,
stevagewp at gmail.com writes:

Wikipedia started as a joke and is rapidly gaining in prestige.  What
makes you think its trend is the other  direction?

Clarify "prestige"; good prestige or bad prestige?

| Tyler | Zorin Deckiller |
| Wikipedia Administrator |  Former SWU member |
| _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Deckiller)   |
| _http://www.myspace.com/redsectora_ (http://www.myspace.com/redsectora)   |


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:

>On Sunday 28 January 2007 19:42, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
>>worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
>>with his finger in the dyke
>>
>>
>What a dirty boy!
>
>Perhaps you meant "dike"...
>
:-D Great minds think alike.

Your point is well taken, but my New Oxford indicates that both
spellings can be used for both meanings.

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable
 published	sources will be deleted."

body:
Cheney Shill wrote:

>--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Cheney Shill wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Interesting, but policy is policy, not your opinion or
>>>consensus, both of which you have no NPOV reliable sources
>>>
>>>
>>>for.  Besides this discussion is with regard to articles
>>>that are completely uncited.  In other words, you're
>>>providing a false dilemma.  It's not about citing every
>>>last fact or deleting the article.  It's about getting
>>>substantial ("significant") reliable sources cited, as is
>>>
>>>
>>>clearly and repeatedly stated in policy and guidelines.
>>>
>>>
>>Oh please!  Consensus guides policy, not the other way
>>around which would be wikilawyering.
>>
>>
>And how do we determine what the present consensus is?  You
>gave no citations to reliable sources.  Are you arguing
>that the stated policy is not consensus?  If so, where is
>this consensus and why isn't it in policy?  Could you point
>us to where it says consensus is absolute and
>non-negotiable?
>
>
Many stated policies are not the result of a wide consensus because most
people don't get involved in policies.  These policies are the domain of
people who enjoy writing policy.  The rest of us have useful things to
do with our time.  Very few people are active in the policy pages.  The
participants are the proposer and those few who happened to notice.

Ec


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: WIKIPEDIA IS A FRAUD

body:
On 28/01/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> In which case, the moderators need to be a little more strict about
> what they let through...

I didn't let it through. The original email sent by the person was
rejected from the mailing list. If you received it, it means the
person emailed it directly to you in addition to mailing it to the
mailing list address. Notice that this thread was started by someone
*replying* to the email, not the original email itself.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-01-29

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r19680).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  18 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)
      * TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)
      * TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)
      * TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled
      * TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)
      * TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting
      * TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold
      * TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line
      * TODO: dt/dd/dl test
      * TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.
      * TODO: Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.

Passed 489 of 507 tests (96.45%)... 18 tests failed!


subject: [WikiEN-l] David is on Channel 4 tonight re MS issue

body:
Who Cares wrote:

>  On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Handled correctly this could be a PR benefit for WP.
>>
>>Not long ago I expressed my opinion that our view toward Conflicts of
>>Interest was not a workable one.  I'm also of the view that any severe
>>
>>
>>action against editors who are paid to clean up a company's article,
>>will only drive such activities underground.
>>
>>I think that we need to establish a right of defence or rebuttal (or
>>whatever we want to call it).  This would allow anyone who is directly
>>
>>
>>affected by the article a place to defend his point of view.  This could
>>
>>
>>probably be done in a template that is linked from the page in
>>question.  The person or company affected would have the exclusive right
>>
>>
>>to make substantive edits to that template. The result would be a
>>section that is the person's view on the issue; if they want to make a
>>
>>
>>radical departure from the truth that would be their right within that
>>
>>
>>context.  If the subject tries to put the same information in the main
>>
>>
>>body of the article that would be subject to the usual meat-grinder rules.
>>
>>
>>I'm sure that we will have a few of our own dinosaurs complaining that
>>
>>
>>they should have the right to edit everything, and that having such
>>pages would be tremendously unwiki, but I think that giving any person
>>
>>
>>the opportunity to defend himself should improve Wikipedia's image as
>>one of fairness.
>>
>>A few simple rules may be necessary for these persons.
>>    1. The writer must be the person himself or have the right to speak
>>
>>
>>on behalf of the person
>>    2. The writer must be registered and properly identified.
>>    3. All that he writes is subject to GFDL
>>    4. The financial arrangements between the writer and the person are
>>
>>
>>not our concern.
>>    5. We reserve the right to limit the length of submissions to
>>prevent long-winded rants.
>>
>>
>  Um... why? If we write the article as well as we should, they will not have any valid reason to complain, and I refuse to think that we should be hosting blatantly untrue things under the guise of the subject defending himself. Do we really want the White House telling us about how everyone who disagrees with them is a terrorist-lover, in their own page where nobody is allowed to remove the content, or even register disagreement?
>
Think of it as a parallel to User pages.  The purpose would parallel
that structure in many ways.  The prospect that we will write the
article so well that they will have no reason to complain is
unrealistic.  I would not make the presumption that what these people
will write will be so blatantly untrue.  On the other hand, how do we
prevent other writers from creating an article that is biased against
the company.  This can easily happen with people who are focused on the
company's failings..  If what a company says about itself is really
outrageous they'll ruin their own image. If George Bush did what you
suggest the demands on the server would be more than we could handle.
It is not unusual for people to say that the media, including us,
misinterpret them.  This would give them the opportunity to "set the
record straght".  If they take that as an opportunity to make fools of
themselves we can't be blamed for that. :-)

Ec


subject:
[Wikitech-l] [Bug 8473] Special:Allpages should be openable to
	search engines

body:
For my flat structured site with 1500 purposely empty categories, I
have figured out a way to get search engines to index it.

I transclude parts of Special:Allpages to
http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/index.php?title=%E6%A8%A3%E6%9D%BF%E8%A8%8E%E8%AB%96:Robots_temp
which I link from my user page which is linked from the main page.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs

body:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ron Ritzman [mailto:ritzman at gmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 05:09 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"
>
>Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
>"groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
>two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
>on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
>then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
>course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
>
>Same with an edit to an active article. If the edit stands, it's
>"consensus" if it's constantly reverted and your persistence gets you
>banned by a "rogue admin (tm)", it's "groupthink".
>
>Therefore, I have to wonder if "groupthink", as long as it doesn't
>lead to an [[Abilene paradox]] might not just be another way of saying
>"consensus" which can either be good or bad. Good if the "consensus"
>decision squares with previously established policies, bad if it
>doesn't.

Groupthink refers to solidarity by fiat, while consensus refers to a group decision arrived at after full discussion.

Fred


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/29/07, Omegatron <omegatron+wikienl at gmail.com> wrote:
> I asked "Should we remove all quotations from Wikipedia?  Should we delete
> Wikiquote?" and you simply responded "There are many free quotations."  Does
> this mean that you are in favor of removing all quotations from Wikipedia
> and Wikiquote unless they are free content?  if not, what do you mean by
> that statement?

I mean there are many free quotations (a bit over 4000 years worth).
It would not be impossible to create a wikiquote that used only free
quotations.

But I don't deal with with Wikiquote so it isn't really something I'm
going to worry to much about.

> So you are not part of this movement?  You are in favor of the use of
> non-free images on Wikipedia?

I tend to feel that the foundation has a valid case for not releasing
the logo under a free licence. Even debian initialy didn't although I
understand that has rather broken down.

> You've certainly deleted a lot more of it...

 Less than one day's worth of bad uplaods a month

> It doesn't.  I said I was looking at file names only.  That image should be
> replaced with a free one.

But it hadn't been even though I was able to find free images inside
30 seconds. Why do you think that was?

--
geni


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 1/28/07, Cheney Shill <halliburton_shill at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Step 1 would be actually start applying the policy.

Policy really doesn't say what you think it does.

This is trolling wiki-en.

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


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Right of rebuttal

body:
Gregory Kohs wrote:
> Dan Tobias wrote:
>
>>> Why should any part of main article space (or
>>> templates included in it) be controlled by outside people and used to
>>> present their (perhaps distorted) view of reality?
>
> Why?  Maybe because all parts of current main article space are controlled
> by "inside" people and used to present their (perhaps distorted) view of
> reality.

I don't think the solution to this is to allow "outside" people free
reign to present their (perhaps distorted) view of reality as well. It
doesn't improve the overall situation and it formalizes the very thing
we're trying to fix. We don't even allow advertisements _outside_ of the
article's content.

> By policy, rule, and decree, the "outside" people are told to try to voice
> their concerns on Discussion pages, which we all know, are not mandated to
> be heeded.

Which seems fine to me since "outside" people sometimes make
unreasonable demands that we should be free to decline. What would
Daniel Brandt put into his guaranteed-free-from-editing "rebuttal"
space? Or Gene Ray? I can imagine a lot of troublesome possibilities.

My question is, do we have many situations where "outside" people post
something reasonable on a talk page saying "this article misrepresents
fact X and here's a variety of sources that back this up" and our
"inside" people proceed to ignore it anyway? Without some evidence that
there's a systemic problem allowing this sort of thing to go on I don't
see a major problem here.

> So, the "outside" people don't have equal power.  If the
> guideline is that contributors to the article should have no conflict of
> interest in the topic on which they're editing, almost by definition,
> experts are thus driven out by those who merely know how to do citation
> searches in the library (if even that).

If the COI guidelines are such that anyone who is simply an expert on a
field is defined as having a conflict of interest and is therefore
excluded from editing in it, then IMO there's something wrong with the
COI guidelines. There's no need to propose radical alterations to
Wikipedia's basic philosophy and software, work on fixing the COI
guidelines instead.

> Why don't the "outside" people just do what Angela does -- serve "inside" on
> the Board for a while, then go "outside", but retain the special "insider's"
> privilege of editing articles (like the one about Wikia) directly from the
> "outside"?  I guess that rule doesn't scale so well.

"Outsiders" can become "insiders" much more easily than that, just sign
up for a user account and hang around editing for a while. They would
still have some limits when it comes to editing the specific articles
they have conflicts of interest on but it opens up a broad range of
other possibilities. We've got notice boards and talk pages galore on
which to make complaints and draw attention to problems like this.

And there are other approaches that even "outsiders" can take; the ORTS
system, posting here on this mailing list, and in extreme cases
contacting the Foundation or its representatives. An office action is a
thing an "outsider" can have done that explicitly overrides "insiders",
at least temporarily.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
For me "groupthink" has a particular nasty negative conotation.
A dictionary or "wiktionary" might be useful in determining the difference.

Mgm

On 1/29/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
> "groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
> two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
> on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
> then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
> course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
>
> Same with an edit to an active article. If the edit stands, it's
> "consensus" if it's constantly reverted and your persistence gets you
> banned by a "rogue admin (tm)", it's "groupthink".
>
> Therefore, I have to wonder if "groupthink", as long as it doesn't
> lead to an [[Abilene paradox]] might not just be another way of saying
> "consensus" which can either be good or bad. Good if the "consensus"
> decision squares with previously established policies, bad if it
> doesn't.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>We should act in good faith always. Good faith means if someone creates
>>a "cloud of doubt" and they are
>>an undisputed owner of the materials in question, a good faith action
>>would be to remove it.
>>
>>
>>
>The biggest fly in that ointment is with establishing that they are the
>undisputed owner.  There are as many misconceptions about that as there
>are about fair use.  When that has been established it's good corporate
>citizenship to remove the material when they ask nicely even if we could
>win a court fight over fair use.
>
>Ec
>
>
If they cannot establish they own the rights to the materials to the
Foundation, then it is doubtful they will be able to
convince a judge of this. An attorney sending a letter or posting a
notice asserting such claims are true is about the
only bonafide proof there is, short of a court ruling. Attorneys are
bound by rules of professional conduct. Falsely asserting copyright
ownership on behalf of a client could get them brought up on allegations
with their state bar. If they are disbarred, they
cannot practice law. Lawyers are not allowed to bill their time to
answer bar complaints, and it could take 6-12 hours or more in
what would have been valuable time they could bill for. If they work for
a law firm, bar complaints can get them in a lot of
trouble. As such, any attorney claiming copyright on behalf of a client
is most probably telling the truth and has done their
homework on the claims.

That's how you tell. When an attorney sends a DMCA notice to the
foundation. At which point, the content should come down.

Jeff

>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use (again)


list: commons-l

from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
I see a lot of misplaced pages, spam, and utter insanity appear in the
main namespace on commons.  There is also a lot of confusion about how
the main namespace should be used.

What do you think of the idea of moving all the galleries to a
gallery: namespace, then reserving the main namespace for main pages
and pretty much nothing else. After that point we could prevent main
namespace page creation and make the edit page give a nice "You are
confused, here is how you find help" message.

The work it would take to accomplish this could be completely
automated, although some inter project cooperation would be required
to fix gallery linking templates and the like.

I see a lot of potential to reduce confusion, and not a lot of real
downsides. So I must be missing something. Thoughts?


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:LAME candidate

body:
Earle Martin wrote:
> On 27/01/07, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>> I would like to nominate [[User:I B Wright]]'s current endeavour on
>
> Ideally, he would be arguing with someone called U B Wrong...
>
>

You mean [[User:U B Rong]]. YHBT. Nothing to see here.

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

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from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
I will admit I did not know that dykes are best plugged with a flat
hand rather than a single finger... I had always thought a finger in
them did the trick to prevent any seepage of fluids, but then I have
no experience on the topic, and so am intrigued to learn that one
should use a hand instead to keep the dyke stronger for longer.

I'm curious, is there a specific field where dykes are studied? Or is
it just a subset of hydrology without its own name?

Mark

On 29/01/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ray Saintonge schreef:
> > For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to
> > worry about the floodgates.  Maybe someone should tell the little boy
> > with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
> >
> > Ec
> Hoi,
> Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and
> water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger
> in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts
> to flow. However this will not work for long.
>
> You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the
> Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to
> commemorate this fictional event .. :)
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Welcome to the advisory group

body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>
> You'll find the entire list here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
<snip>

Congratulations and thanks to these people for agreeing to volunteer
their time and effort! I assume that they did agree and weren't forced
into it at gunpoint, right? :)

--
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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body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>
> You'll find the entire list here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
<snip>

Congratulations and thanks to these people for agreeing to volunteer
their time and effort! I assume that they did agree and weren't forced
into it at gunpoint, right? :)

--
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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body:
Florence Devouard wrote:
> As decided last august, we set up an advisory group according to
> resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Advisory_board
>
> You'll find the entire list here:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
<snip>

Congratulations and thanks to these people for agreeing to volunteer
their time and effort! I assume that they did agree and weren't forced
into it at gunpoint, right? :)

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

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from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Sigh, problems with non-Latin usernames again

body:
GerardM wrote:
> According to the definition on the English Wikipedia, this is discrimination
> pure and simple. It is an horrible idea. I am disgusted by it.
>

Did you read the definition on the English Wikipedia?  A requirement
that people on the Chinese encyclopedia use Chinese characters is not
"discrimination", but a requirement perfectly germane to the topic, much
like it is not "discrimination" to allow only people with MDs to
practice medicine.

-Mark


body: But Jim, creating 1500 blank pages is not smart, even if easy.


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google Groups Suggestion

body:
On 1/28/07, George Drummond <georgedrummond at gmail.com> wrote:
> For novices i think it is difficult to read these mailing lists.
>
> I think that it would be an idea to have the mailing lists
> archived to google groups (which i believe is possible)
>
> If you are worried about the possibility of spam etc we could
> set the group to announce, so it is viewable on google groups
> but to reply users must sign up in usual way. It would then just
> be like a mirror of this groups messages but more easily viewed.
>
> Just a suggestion
>
> Thanks
>
> George

I don't know whether this is what you want, but there is a newsgroup
interface using gmane. The adress is
nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english

Google group is just essentially a web newsreader interface, but you
can use any newsreader you like (makes it very easy to see threads and
the like, it's much easier to use an actual application rather than
google groups). You can also do it through a web interface through
gmanes homepage
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english

See here for more information
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english

There are some other options, but I've never tried any of them. You
can find more information at the wikipedia mailing list page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ML

Personally, I love how this list works, especially using gmail. It
doesn't thread, but that isn't much of an issue. It works great for
me.

--Oskar


from_name: Dan Jacobson

body:
And Jim, as you will notice on
http://radioscanningtw.jidanni.org/index.php?title=??:Categories
each category represents a frequency, and assuming the radio spectrum
from 0 to 1000 MHz has a station every 25 kHz, I would need
1000*1000/25=40000 empty categories, when all along there is nothing
really to say about a frequency(category,ns=14), what matters is what
organization(article,ns=0) uses it, for this otherwise fitting use of
MediaWiki, that you shall here more from me on my puny poster at
Wikimania here in Taiwan 8/2007.

As Einstein would have said, "there are many applications that would
be perfect for MediaWiki, if only one could not bother users about
what should be the contents of otherwise meaningless categories.

Do we put comments on various points of a ruler or tape measure? No.
We want to keep it clean."


subject: [Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

body:
Hi Elly,

General mailinglist etiquette says that you should be prepared to
accept all on-topic e-mails. I will admit that we have strayed a bit
from the topic in this thread, but still, on Wikipedia-l, there are
often discussions that result in several dozen e-mails being sent to
you in the course of two or three days.

The obvious solution I would recommend is to get G-mail, but it
appears you already have it. If your Gmail inbox is already full, that
means you ahve a _lot_ of e-mail, and it also means it would be easy
for you to simply delete this thread and other large ones like it.

Mark

On 29/01/07, Elly Waterman <elly.waterman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its
> conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My
> mailbox is so full already...  Thanks, Elly
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Cheney Shill

body:
Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:

> on 1/28/07 11:38 PM, Cheney Shill at
> halliburton_shill at yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > 5.  Psychologically, in terms of faulty decision
> making,
> > it's an application of the primacy effect, which I
> presume,
> > given the recent discussion of mental disorders here,
> > requires no further explanation.
>
> By all means, do explain further.

Is this not sufficiently explanatory or reliable?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_effect

~~Pro-Lick
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick
http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (now a Wikia supported site)

--spam may follow--

____________________________________________________________________________________
It's here! Your new message!
Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar.
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from_name: Marc Riddell

subject:
[WikiEN-l] "Articles that do not cite reliable
	published	sources will be deleted."

body:
on 1/28/07 11:38 PM, Cheney Shill at halliburton_shill at yahoo.com wrote:

> 5.  Psychologically, in terms of faulty decision making,
> it's an application of the primacy effect, which I presume,
> given the recent discussion of mental disorders here,
> requires no further explanation.

By all means, do explain further.

Marc Riddell

--
The culture's gonna get us before the climate ever does.


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Wikipedia e-mail]

body:
I don't know. Let's have a look at the log:

    * 06:29, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(redeleting after temporary undelete to export page history)
    * 06:28, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) restored "Pieism" (50
revisions restored: temporary undelete to export page history)
    * 06:27, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(redeleting after temporary undelete to export page history)
    * 06:27, January 29, 2007 Angela (Talk | contribs) restored "Pieism" (50
revisions restored)
    * 11:46, December 10, 2006 Centrx (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(Old protected-deleted page)
    * 12:31, November 1, 2006 Zoe (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(content was: '{{nonsense}}The most true religion in the world, PIEISM. You
must believe in Pie. Pie is mighty, Pie is teh 1337 g0d. You shall not be
tolerated for ...')
    * 19:14, October 4, 2006 Slowking Man (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(content was: 'pieism is a religion created by George Allen in 2005.' (and
the only contributor was 'Computanialator'))
    * 20:15, August 7, 2006 Kusma (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(content was: '<!-- I am adding this really really REALLY long comment to
make sure Special:Shortpages stays clear. --> {{deletedpage}}')
    * 06:28, June 2, 2006 Kusma (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism" (repost)
    * 04:16, May 31, 2006 DragonflySixtyseven (Talk | contribs) deleted
"Pieism" (not an article)
    * 12:22, May 30, 2006 Ezeu (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism"
(Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pieism)
    * 10:06, June 9, 2005 Hadal (Talk | contribs) deleted "Pieism" (content
was: '{{d}}Pieism: the religion of worshipping pie.For more information go
to www.pieism.tk')

--NSLE/Chacor

On 28/01/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
> Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:01:41 GMT
> From: Pieism <james at northover1964.fsnet.co.uk>
> To: Jimbo Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
>
> Please bring back the pieism page, It was the best source of infomation
> about pieism yet. No where existed a united article about pieism. from
> JoJo
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"

body:
on 1/28/07 11:41 PM, Rich Holton at richholton at gmail.com wrote:

> I associate groupthink with a
> situation in which any sort of disagreement is discouraged by social
> pressure. Not so much that differing ideas are "outvoted" by the group,
> but that the person offering a different idea is ostracized until they
> conform.
>
> So, for me, groupthink is very different from consensus. However, I do
> think we see some instances of groupthink in some areas of Wikipedia.
>
> For instance, calling someone a "troll" for (even very persistently)
> disagreeing is a step in the direction of groupthink.
>
> Just my 2 cents to the thread...

Well said! Your input is worth much more than two cents. And don't forget
the presence of the person who decides the flavor of the Kool Aid.

Marc Riddell

--
The culture's gonna get us before the climate ever does.


from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> Perhaps all we need is more admins deleting namespace crud. I delete
> on sight 99%  of anything that is only text. Even if it's in another
> language. A lot of them look like misplaced articles or promo bios.
>
Guilty as charged (the not-deleting part, not the promo-bio part). I
guess I just assumed nobody was creating nonsense pages, silly me. How
many are we talking about?

Proper galleries have at least one image, and not a whole lot of text in
any single language.  Seems like you could have a bot detect excessive
text and mark those for further review, and have a manually-added "yes
this gallery has a good reason for large amounts of text". Seems like
you'd want this no matter the namespaces, people are always going to be
tempted to use commons to park text that has been rejected from other
projects.

Stan


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> Perhaps all we need is more admins deleting namespace crud. I delete
> on sight 99%  of anything that is only text. Even if it's in another
> language. A lot of them look like misplaced articles or promo bios.
>
>
BTW, I don't see "non-gallery" as a speedy delete criterion for pages.
Seems worth adding, if we're doing that anyway.

Stan


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
William Pietri wrote:
> Say, are there examples of people who do this well, contributing back to
> Wikipedia or to the general public? The examples I've seen are all a bit
> disappointing, but perhaps that's just because the outrageous ones
> generate more attention.

Answers.com is an excellent example.  They license Wikipedia content and
also license content from many other more traditional sources, and offer
it up to people who search on their site.  They have always been a
strong supporter of Wikimedia and have been traditionally the #1 sponsor
of the annual Wikimania conference.

So they benefit from our work, and they give back to the community as well.

--Jimbo


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> There are a tone of species pages without any images... there are also
> a lot of locality (cities, etc) pages which appear to be pre-created
> and still without images.
>
> If it were possibly to just mindlessly delete these pages (some 900 or
> so in total), I would set my bot on them and they'd be gone with the
> hour. ... but with our current practices, it's not possible to do so.
>
You have my blessing to set the dogs^Wbot on them. :-) It seems like a
reasonable garbage collection activity; don't want to send readers from
WPs to a commons page that is empty because the images had to be
deleted, for instance. It's also easy to tell people the rules on the
page creation screen - no media, page will go away.
> So I must check them by hand. Yuck.
>
Maybe a seven-day countdown if there's nontrivial history - not unknown
for a gallery to be vandalized.
> In any case, I'm not so sure that it's "park text which is reject" but
> more that people end up on commons accidently by following links and
> then start writing here. We don't see anywhere near so much of this in
> other namespace. Perhaps we could limit anon page creation to talk
> pages?    That too would help,  thoughts?
>
Unless I'm missing something in my quick little scan, it looks like
under 20 bogus page creations / day? That doesn't seem like a killer
workload. I've only ever not looked at these because it takes two whole
clicks to get to the list. :-)

Stan


from_name: GerardM

body:
Hoi,
According to the definition on the English Wikipedia, this is discrimination
pure and simple. It is an horrible idea. I am disgusted by it.
Thanks,
    GerardM

On 1/29/07, Rory Stolzenberg < rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Enwiki users are now trying to change policy so users with non-Latin
> usernames that don't provide transliterations in their signatures when
> they're told to can be blocked. Currently, the policy requests that users
> consider providing a transliteration, but does not require it. This came
> as
> a result of massive amounts of discussion that ended up in this change
> from
> blocking all non-Latin usernames. Now enwiki contributors are trying to
> move
> back towards blocking good faith contributors with non-Latin usernames,
> which will very likely create problems once Single User Login comes into
> effect. Will we block people who are honestly trying to improve the
> encyclopedia just because they haven't changed their signature to a Latin
> script?
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username#Latin_character_transliterations
>
> --rory096
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>
>> There are many people who could make a valuable contribution to this
>> advisory board. You apparently have yours and I do not even know Sunir
>> Shah.
>>
>>
> He was at Wikimania in Frankfort.
>
> Ec
Hoi,
So were you and I, so was Richard Stallman if that is what makes you
notable ...
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Commons-l] Killing the main namespace?

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> Perhaps somebody can run a script through the main namespace that
>> filters out all pages that do not contain images?
>>
>
> Sure. I list these all the time...
>
> You can find a copy of a recent run here:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/scratch
>
Hmm, I see a variety of experiments here, by longtime editors as well as
newbs, also some vandalism. Perhaps post to the pump a proposal to whack
all non-galleries, and put up the list for everybody to review. For
instance, the bird family pages are clearly designed to facilitate
organization and monitoring, but at the same time I'm not sure anybody
is actually using them - family-level organization is almost entirely
category-based (one of the few points of agreement in the ToL area :-) ).

Stan