subject:
[WikiEN-l] Category:<Subjective-pejorative>, weak consensus,
 and ! NPOV

body:
G'day Steve,

> Of course when I start putting Category:Anti-Arab
> people on various pages, people should rightly revert
> me. Such a subjective categorization, as its based on
> mere political rhetoric, or actions, should be
> regarded as drastically POV.
>
> [[Category:Anti-Semitic people]] on the other hand
> seems to get more leeway:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_June_13#Category:Anti-Semitic_people_to_Category:Anti-Semitism_.28people.29

<muchos snips />

Well, folks and folkettes, we always have a long wait for these things,
but it looks like we've finally found another violation of WP:POINT.
Unless there's some fantastic joke there that's gone zooming over my
poor little head ...

For what it's worth, I do agree with you: [[Category:Anti-Semitic
people]] a) does not appear to serve a useful purpose, b) is not exactly
neutral, c) could well be described as a lawsuit waiting to happen, if
applied improperly.  I don't see a good reason for keeping it on that
TfD --- but that could be because most of the posters seemed to assume
the default position that *of course* it should exist, and we're just
talking about other stuff now because the keep/delete debate has already
been settled, and that unanimously.

You could do with being a little less strident about it, though.  Your
comment on that TfD wasn't going to change anyone's mind: it looks quite
logical to someone who already agrees with you, but that's not as
beneficial as you might think.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Daniel Bregman

subject: [Foundation-l] (Wikipedia)^RED

body:
(Product)^RED (RED is in superscript) is a brand name which works with other
well-known brands to produce a product of which at least 1% of the profit
goes to (Product)^RED, and this goes in aid of helping fight AIDS and
related diseases. See http://joinred.com for information

Why not set up a (Wikipedia)^RED which would essentially be a skin through
which the normal Wikipedia is viewed: it would change the colours to red (or
shades thereof), have a different Main Page which explains the scheme and
has inobtrusive advertisements on the side (under the interwiki links) which
generate revenue to do to (Product)^RED (and Wikimedia).

I think that the aim of this is wholly consistent with that of the Wikimedia
Foundation, and I would like to hear your views.

--
-Daniel (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dbmag9)
dbmag9.blogspot.com


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] (Wikipedia)^RED


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Berto

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sort?

body:
Hi all!

How do I implement a localised sort criteria?

pms alfabet is as follows:

A B C D E ? F G H I J L M N N- O ? P Q R S T U V Z

So I need the accented letters to come in right places in lists... thank God
there is NO word starting with N-, so we can simply forget about it.

Yet we do use ? ? ? ? ? ? that are NOT letters, but only accents. So this
ones should simply be ignored. It would also be nice if the search would be
able to find "P?gina" by a wrong request for "pagina". That is, if it could
ignore accents (apart from ? and ?, as they are proper letters).

Is this somehow possible?

Thanks
B?rto


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikimarkup request: -- to em-dash

body:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 10:33:27PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 12:21:28PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before
> > converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?
>
> Please don't.
>
> <snob type=typography>
> Em dashes are properly set in English text without spacing on either
> side, though the ASCIIography of this usage is much less picky.
>
> If someone decides that it needs to be " -- " that's mapped, at least
> take the spaces out when setting the glyph?
> </snob>

. . . except that the notion that it's strictly "foo--bar" instead of
"foo -- bar" is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in times past
whether or not there was a space was largely a matter of taste, regional
custom, and (even farther back) what leads the typesetter had on-hand
when he was laying out the page for pressing.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
unix virus: If you're using a unixlike OS, please forward
this to 20 others and erase your system partition.


list: wikien-l

from_name: xaosflux

subject: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

body:
Most non trivial MediaWiki changes are generally at least mentioned on the
associated MediaWiki_talk: pages.

xaosflux
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

> On 6/23/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Technically these are not changes to the monobook skin itself but to
>> some of the messages (from the msg: namespace) that are transcluded
>> into the interface by it.  These messages are editable (although many
>> are protected and thus editable only by admins) and there has not
>> been, up to now, any formal procedure for approving changes to them.
>> They are handled like policy pages and the like.
>
> It's the MediaWiki namespace actually. The whole namespace is only
> ever editable by admins, and cannot be unprotected.
>
>> Currently we have no global warnings if someone edits policy pages
>> either.
>>
>> Perhaps it would be a good idea, but it would be a significant change
>> to the way things are done.
>
> It's easier to keep track of changes to MediaWiki pages, just select
> the MediaWiki namespace in Recent Changes like so:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ARecentchanges&namespace=8
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I think people are seriously underestimating the seriousness of some
> personal privacy violations.
>

Since the problem existed pre oversite the odds are quite a few admins
know exactly how serious the problem is.

--
geni


from_name: Ilya N.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

body:
On 6/22/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Commons has one of the best that I've seen; it was taken from de.wp,
> de.wikt and en.wikt - the code for it is at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Edittools.js
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>

I believe that it was tried on en.Wikipedia but then rejected for
some reason or another.

--
~Ilya N. (Now with 2% Juice)
http://ilya.nepfamily.com (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] A very interesting recent "fair use" case ruling

body:
On 6/21/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> This part doesn't seem at all new.  "Transformative use" has long been
> considered to include the context of the work, and not just whether or
> not the work itself was altered.  Use of an artistic work for the
> purposes of commentary, such as in an encyclopedia, would generally be
> considered highly transformative.  Of course, note the qualification
> "of an artistic work".  Taking a diagram from an educational textbook
> and using it in an encyclopedia article to accomplish the same basic
> purpose would be much less transformative.

Agreed. But in cases where the change of context and purpose is
drastic, I think we can be more confident. I'm thinking here of things
like magazine covers, screenshots, fine art, posters, etc., which
were, by definition, never originally in an encyclopedic context,
where we always had a lot of them but the justification always felt a
little shakey (which occasionally gave way to purging).

FF


body:
On 6/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Yes, transformative use has long been a feature of fair use in the US.
> However, it's not a feature of fair use/dealing under English common law or
> the Berne Convention. Unless there is some amount of harmonisation, US law
> will remain largely irrelevant for Wikipedia. As I've repeatedly argued,
> Wikipedia should be freely redistributable throughout the world, not just in
> the US.

Right, guys, but that's another discussion entirely, and one which
we've had before and one which hasn't changed much since the last time
we talked about it.

I think people are missing the bigger points about this ruling that I
and Jamesday are trying to point out -- there are some major
implications for how we use fair use in this ruling, it is much more
specific to Wikipedia's situation than most of these fair use rulings
have been.

FF


body:
On 6/21/06, James <user_jamesday at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> This aspect applies to almost all uses in articles in the work called
> Wikipedia by its authors. Whether it's a baseball card, poster, album
> cover, book cover, mural, painting or postcard, it's not an
> encyclopedia article and the use is in one is transformative and
> strongly favors fair use.

Exactly. Of course I think taking it *too* far would be dangerous but
it does mean we can be more confident in instances where we are
clearly being transformative by putting something into an encyclopedic
context.

The one problem I have with this is that I don't know where the line
between "moving contexts is transformative" starts and where one gets
away from things like the Seinfeld case, where the context is
definitely different (TV show to trivia book) but it was found to be
infringement because it cut into the copyright holder's ability to
make a trivia book in the future. Obvious one case does not simply
trump another case, but in any event this is a nice assurement that
"encyclopedic use" has plausibility as transformative.

> You don't need to have specific justification for each image use -
> readers know from the context that you're illustrating your point (but
> we should still say so in the fair use explanation, because it's
> prudent to do so and remove doubt about our intentions).

Additionally having a fair use justification is also meant to scare
off cheap trouble by making our case look strong from the beginning
and demonstrating an awareness of the legal issues involved.

> Reduced resolution is helpful but do remember that you can use
> whatever size is required. You do need to use sufficient resolution of
> portion so the viewer can clearly see what you're trying to show!
> We're already using suitable sizes, I think, so no change necessary,
> except reassurance for those who wondered whether small images were a
> problem if it was showing a small version of it all.

We've had a policy for some time that fair use images should be as
small as necessary to do the work they need to do for the article,
which is pretty much what this decision seems to indicate is a good
idea. It's nice to see it in writing since until now there's been
nothing to point to specifically in this respect (that image size had
some relation to proportion of the work used) except for the _Kelly_
ruling, which is so specific to automatic search engines as to be
plausible irrelevant.

As for the issue on fees: the fourth factor is always an "after the
ruling" factor anyway (if the first three point towards it being
"fair", then it doesn't matter). I have always thought it an important
consideration despite the law since edging into someone else's profit
is a good way to call unwanted attention to yourself.

> And that's the reasoning that's going to apply to uses in Wikipedia as
> well, for pretty much the same fundamental reasons: transformative use
> and not primarily of value just because of the images, which are
> accompanied by the articles that provide the main part of the content.

Well, in this case. Which we shouldn't over-exaggerate the importance
of -- there are plenty of other cases which have contradictory rulings
to this very liberal one. But in any case it could definitely be
something to use towards shoring up wording and specifics of certain
policies. And hopefully ward off paranoia.

> But once this legal aspect is taken care of, do remember that it's
> nice to seek to replace fair use images with more freely licensed
> images as those become available. Recruit friends, take pictures on
> vacations and around your town and encourage others to do so, so we
> can gradually replace all those that can be replaced. It'll take a
> while to get everyone on the planet working with us so we have done
> this for everything but it'll happen eventually... meanwhile, remember
> we're a wiki and successive improvement over time is one of the
> fundamental principles of wiki use. We don't insist on perfect first
> versions of an article and nor should we do so for images. But we
> should encourage perfection in both over time.

Agreed of course. And "fair use" should be minimized where possible on
the account of re-users in other countries of course. But in terms of
Wikipedia's current fair use situation, this is a very heartening
ruling.

FF


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 12:21:28PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before
> converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?

Please don't.

<snob type=typography>
Em dashes are properly set in English text without spacing on either
side, though the ASCIIography of this usage is much less picky.

If someone decides that it needs to be " -- " that's mapped, at least
take the spaces out when setting the glyph?
</snob>

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

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

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


from_name: Cobb

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Category:<Subjective-pejorative>, weak consensus,
	and ! NPOV

body:
stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

>I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture
>which respects NPOV or we do not.

We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the
admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they
do they don't act on them. We have a deletion process
that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent
people from using it and getting the idea that deleting
anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.

We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly
any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia.
These areas are controlled by organised groups
who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone
who tries to clean it up. Editors with the best
intentions but without the stomach for a fight try their
best and end up being driven off after being
reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or
just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any
article they edit.

To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor
has to have the patience of a saint and an
encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia
rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the
most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith...
all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good
faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid
games. He's got to have the support of a group
of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.

Naturally, most editors don't have this. So the
way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the
auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal
paradise that treats legitimate editors
as an endless renewable resource. it uses them
up and throws them away by giving them little or
no support and instead it defends the rights of
vandals to edit. It even makes the finding out
of who is socking up a tedious and officious
process... just for that extra kick in the teeth
for legitimate editors who do play by the rules
and are faced with those who don't.

In summary, the system is broken. But you won't
get any sense on this mailing list, because most
of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia
these days. They just pontificate and have faith
in some mystical power of the Wiki.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> No. Absolutely not. If anyone apart from the oversight group knows that
> a revision has been deleted, they can just find a database dump that was
> taken before the deletion occurred, compare the history, and go post the
> deleted revision somewhere else on the internet.

Couldn't they just compare pre- and post-deletion database dumps to find
the "missing" revision anyway, if they're willing to spend that much
effort? SQL is good for these sorts of searches.

It seems to me that attempting to come up with a "perfect" system for
expunging all traces of an edit from existence utterly and without
recourse is going to run pretty solidly against the fundamentally open
nature of Wikipedia required by the GFDL. And at some point doesn't it
become more the _other_ guy's responsibility if he's going to go to that
much effort to dig libel out of old database dumps and republish it?

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body:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 11:16:56PM +0300, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Using -- for en and --- for em dashes seems reasonable to me (that's how
> TeX does it, IIRC), thought I'd be willing to live with – and --.

I'd like to vote strongly against that first mapping, for the
(hopefully) perfectly sound reason that "--" for mdash *is what people
already do* (see my hopeless case commentary about *bold* and
_italics_, weeks ago :-).

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

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

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


body:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 05:22:46PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> is viewing the content source, in the case of MediaWiki).  Frankly, I
> tend to expect that if we used -- and --- for endash and emdash,
> respectively, we'd get thousands of endashes were emdashes were
> intended, and that it's a problem that would never entirely go away as
> new users/editors join the Wikimedia community all the time.

I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.
I will read everything before writing anything.

:-)

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

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

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


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

subject: [WikiEN-l] What is "spam?"

body:
I had a friend who's email address was (let's call her Jane)
janedotcodotuk at aol.co.uk.

And in Nathan's case, Nathan and Nathanr was already taken.

On 6/22/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ilyanepatgmaildotcom
>
> That'd be a mouthful.
>
> Anyways, I'm think and hoping that Alphax was kidding
>
> On 6/22/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> > >
> > > Nathan wrote:
> > >> I remember having an imposter with a weird unicode version of the
> > >> first
> > >> "N" in my username. In fact, it's my only imposter.
> > >>
> > >> I think such usernames should be blocked too.
> > >>
> > >> - Nathan (nathanrdotcom)
> > >>
> > >
> > > I think *your* username is innappropriate since you're spamming
> > > your URL
> > > in it.
> >
> > Yeesh. Give him a break.
> >
> > It's unobtrusive. It's a username, so it never appears in the main
> > namespace. It's not a link, so it won't affect his site's pagerank.
> >
> > And if you look at that site, _it's just a personal website,_ no
> > different in kind from a Wikipedia user page.
> >
> > On the spectrum from where co-opting Wikipedia for commercial gain is
> > a ten and obnoxious self-promotion is a one, this is a zero. It's
> > about as objectionable as using a username that happens to resemble
> > one's email address.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~Ilya N. (Now with 2% Juice)
> http://ilya.nepfamily.com (My website; DarkLordFoxx Media)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ilyanep (on Wikipedia)
> http://www.wheresgeorge.com - Track your money's travels.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


from_name: Jesse W

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

body:
On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:04 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
> if you've got the time, take a visit at the article on [[Truth]],
> and especially what's going on at its talk page, as i would be
> very interested in hearing your observations about what in
> the devil is going on there.
Oh, [[Truth]]!  One of the
articles-which-are-nearly-all-the-time-in-a-state-of-total-complete-
insane-edit-war/massive-blather!  It's a highly subtle concept, that
*everyone* thinks they know a vast amount about, that there are very
few clear, uncontroversial facts about.  That's enough to make the
devil jump with joy at all the craziness that can be created there.
I'm sorry you got sucked in, but it's one of the worst tar pits on the
wiki!

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 22/06/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> TK:
> "Unfortunately this means that the log itself has to
> be kept private. Those people with oversight can view
> it. No one else can."
>
> What people seem to disagree with is with the notion
> that the log "has to be kept private" due to someone's
> claim of 'legally problematic revisions.' Is Google
> facilitating the "damage of Starbucks' reputation" by
> not removing "consumer whore" from its Image searches?
>
> Understanding that legal systems are not always
> reasonable, WM cant reasonably be responsible for
> everything in the history of its articles. And to say
> the risk is great is simply to court the clique of
> privelege who think they can simply make a phone call
> and get things deleted through a privileged legalistic
> and back-door process -- for what everyone else does
> with the edit button.

Wait, wait, wait.

There isn't a "clique of privilege" who "think they can get ... a
back-door process". There are normal people who write to us saying
"You have an article about X school, where I work, giving my home
address and saying I'm a child molestor. Please get rid of this!"

It's not only impolite to expect people to tactfully and quietly learn
how our system works and remove this material, it's also fundamentally
stupid. /That isn't going to happen/. They're going to write to us,
and we're going to have to handle it.

And the risk *is* great - I've dealt with a suprising number of emails
to the info-en address which complain about their article and say
*someone else told them*. What if that someone else is the employer,
the client... the schools inspector?

We cannot be held legally liable for everything that's there. We may
not even be legally liable for leaving it up once they've told us it's
there (though I'm sure that question will be tested by someone
somewhere someday). But we are *morally* liable if we don't at least
try to do something about helping a person who, through no fault of
their own, is suffering from the misuse of our resources. It's simple
humanity.

And on the first part... if we're deleting these things, expunging
them totally, is there any *reason* for the log to be public? Any at
all? Oversight, perhaps. But... what effect does this oversight have?
Are we really, honestly, concerned about the dozen people with this
capacity using it in some nefarious way to win arguments or to rewrite
history? I sound like I'm attacking a strawman here, but I honestly
don't think I've seen a good reason why people think this tool is
dangerous. Please, someone, give me a scenario where this could be
used badly, where the ability to expunge deleted revisions is somehow
harmful in a way that a public log would prevent...

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


from_name: Sherool

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Jimbo's rule, copyright,
	old images with permission only

body:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:46:12 +0200, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Revisiting
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html
> and checking the long long long list of images at [[Category:Images
> used with permission]] there are many of them kept becuase they were
> uploaded before such date.
>
> It's been more than a year since the ruling, I believe older images
> weren't removed in order to let uploaders tag them properly, find
> replacements, or so they could be processed at the old Vfd.
>
> Quoting Jimbo
>
> "It is very unfortunate that such images are still being uploaded _new_
> when we have not be happy about them for a long time.  It is not fair to
> contributors who are working on such things, since we have no intention
> to keep them in the long run."
>
> Well, if in the long run they have to go, it could start now. So, I
> was wondering why aren't they being processed yet.  I'm thinking of
> nominating batches of them at IFD every certain time. On the other
> hand, however [[WP:IFD]] is clogged, so I was a bit hesitant about
> doing so without more feedback.
>
> Thus I created [[User:Drini/OldCopyrightedImgs]] which has a small
> sample for the first bacth and shows how I would be nominating them. I
> tried to sample different kind of images (uploaded by the webmaster's
> site, by random users, by respected old users, without source,
> orphaned images, etc) so we can get an idea what we're dealign with.
>
> Still, IFD is overloaded, so maybe better alternatives can come up?
> Maybe a IFD-like for this kind of images?
>
> Jimbo, what's your current view about such things?

I don't see how anyone could object, either they come up with a fair use
rationale or secure a permission to release the image under a free license
or it gets deleted, simgple as that, as you say there have been plenty of
time to fix this. Ok a lot of people don't know that these kind of
licenses are no longer allowed, but they will know once they get the IFD
notice on theyr talk page, and images can be undeleted now too, so there
is rely no excuse to delay this any further, if people are uneable to come
up with a compelling reason to keep an image within the IFD wait period
they can simply request the images be undeleted though Deletion review at
a later time if the copyright holder agree to release it under a free
license after all. Nothing like a pending deletion to make people spring
into action.

Just be sure it's done "by the book", notifying uploaders and adding
{{ifdc}} to captions where the image is used and so forth to boost
awarenes about why they are beeing deleted. IMHO making as many people as
possible understand why this kind of licenses are not acceptable are more
important than getting them all hastily deleted, "by permission" and "non
commercial" images are still a fairly big problem, people just don't use
those tags anymore becase they are not listed (they tend to pick "no
rights reserved" instead for some reason). I actualy think {{permission}}
and {{noncommercial}} should be added to MediaWiki:Licenses (at least
after all the old ones have been cleared out), that way we can easily
track them down and delete them rather than digging them out of some other
random license tag the uploader choose because he didn't find a good fit
(same deal as "don't know" and "some website"). But I digress.

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:
>
> I suppose I should go look at the bugzilla discussion now.  I seem to
> recall, last time I looked at it, that the endash people were advocating
> for -- being translated to endashes and --- to emdashes, which seems
> counterintuitive for both, since endashes are supposed to be shorter
> than - and emdashes have been represented as -- for so long and in so
> many contexts that using three dashes will just confuse the heck out of
> many.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Wot?  En dashes are, by definition, one en long.  Hyphens are usually
shorter.

Compare:
  - hyphen
  ? en dash
  ? em dash

The difference may be minor if you're reading this in a monospaced font,
but both dashes should still be noticeably longer than the hyphen.

Using -- for en and --- for em dashes seems reasonable to me (that's how
TeX does it, IIRC), thought I'd be willing to live with – and --.
   However, I do believe other languages (German?) tend to use the en
dash more than English.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/22/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before
> converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?  It
> should at least solve the image name problem, since spaces in image
> names should (in my honest opinion) be considered a no-no in any case.
> Then again, I'm not in charge, of course.

I actually don't like this solution, even though it seems neat. The
trouble is, it's just not "intuitive" in the sense that no one would
expect markup to behave differently whether it has spaces around it or
not. Someone is likely to see "foo--boo" get rendered as an en-dash
and think "damn, how do I get an em-dash?" Nothing else -- with the
exception of space indentation itself -- in mediawiki gets rendered
differently depending on spaces surrounding it.

Or maybe I'm confusing Wikipedia and MediaWiki here - your solution is
perhaps not bad for MediaWiki, switchable by individual site admins.
But for Wikipedia it's a bad idea.

> I suppose I should go look at the bugzilla discussion now.  I seem to
> recall, last time I looked at it, that the endash people were advocating
> for -- being translated to endashes and --- to emdashes, which seems

That was one or two tex-fans...

> counterintuitive for both, since endashes are supposed to be shorter
> than - and emdashes have been represented as -- for so long and in so
> many contexts that using three dashes will just confuse the heck out of
> many.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

It's "intuitive" *after the fact*. "Oh, I get how it works now -
that's cute!" Em-dash from -- is blissfully ignorantly intuitive -
people will get it right without even realising that they were doing
anything. Many editors probably don't even realise that -- is not a
good way of doing an em-dash at the moment.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
On 22/06/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I sound like I'm attacking a strawman here, but I honestly
> > don't think I've seen a good reason why people think this tool is
> > dangerous. Please, someone, give me a scenario where this could be
> > used badly, where the ability to expunge deleted revisions is somehow
> > harmful in a way that a public log would prevent...
>
> Person A vandalizes a biographical article, replacing believable
> claims to notability with unbelievable ones.  Person B, not realizing
> that the article was vandalized, lists it for deletion.  Person C
> reverts the vandalism.  Person A's edit is vanished.
>
> At this point, to anyone looking through the article history, it
> appears that person B is attacking the subject of the article, trying
> to get that article deleted.

Does anyone do history deletions this way? I don't. You don't delete
the revision where the material was *added*, you delete *the revisions
containing the material* (which can be a real bastard if it wasn't
caught for ages)

This way does leave minor attribution problems, but nothing a note or
three can't cure, and it's certainly better than the alternative.
Incidentally, because of the odd way we show deleted revisions, the
same problem would apply for non-admins (or admins who don't look very
hard) even without bringing in oversight...

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


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight log

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

> And the risk *is* great - I've dealt with a suprising number of emails
> to the info-en address which complain about their article and say
> *someone else told them*. What if that someone else is the employer,
> the client... the schools inspector?
>
> We cannot be held legally liable for everything that's there. We may
> not even be legally liable for leaving it up once they've told us it's
> there (though I'm sure that question will be tested by someone
> somewhere someday). But we are *morally* liable if we don't at least
> try to do something about helping a person who, through no fault of
> their own, is suffering from the misuse of our resources. It's simple
> humanity.
>
> And on the first part... if we're deleting these things, expunging
> them totally, is there any *reason* for the log to be public? Any at
> all? Oversight, perhaps. But... what effect does this oversight have?
> Are we really, honestly, concerned about the dozen people with this
> capacity using it in some nefarious way to win arguments or to rewrite
> history? I sound like I'm attacking a strawman here, but I honestly
> don't think I've seen a good reason why people think this tool is
> dangerous. Please, someone, give me a scenario where this could be
> used badly, where the ability to expunge deleted revisions is somehow
> harmful in a way that a public log would prevent...
>

I agree totally with much of what you say here.  The only thing I'll
disagree with is that I would say there /is/ a risk of harm from misuse.
  One problem is that using this facility can distort the history.
Anything added in a deleted edit, and not reverted in later edits, will
be attributed to the wrong editor when the deletion is done.  This can
happen with normal deletions, but at least there it's easy for a lot of
people to see the real story.

The other risk is it being used to remove information that it's
important for the community to know.  Removing problem edits to hide
them from arbitrators for example.

The first is a necessary evil, but a reason for care and a record of
deletions viewable by some.  The second is less likely, and not a
problem when those with oversight can see what each other are doing and
what has been deleted.

I think the current system is the best balance.  Those with oversight
are responsible for ensuring that none of the group misuse or overuse
this ability, but the information is cleanly removed from view.

-- sannse


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] newbie culture

references:
<44940E84.31968.1100E34B@dan.tobias.name>
	<44944C61.1080405@worldnet.att.net>
	<44944C61.1080405-XfrvlLN1Pqtfpb/ySbbPhw@public.gmane.org>
	<980278fa0606171146h719fef74g2bc6333b4d42e826@mail.gmail.com>
	<lroBazAWHFlEFw1c@cartref.demon.co.uk>
	<449A825B.8040203@tonal.clara.co.uk>

body:
Neil Harris wrote:
> Arwel Parry wrote:
>> In message
>> <980278fa0606171146h719fef74g2bc6333b4d42e826 at mail.gmail.com>, John
>> Lyden <rasputinaxp-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>>
>>> On 6/17/06, Conrad Dunkerson
>>> <conrad.dunkerson-XfrvlLN1Pqtfpb/ySbbPhw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ok, stop... you're making me all nostalgic. I think it all started to go
>>>> downhill when the modems became capable of transferring text faster than
>>>> you could read it (aka 2400 baud). :]
>>>>
>>> By that measure, my downhill was 9600 baud.
>>>
>>> Of course, I jumped right from my 1200 baud Multitech to a 14.4K on my
>>> 486. Jump to lightspeed!
>>>
>> Some of us started out on 10 c.p.s. teletypes and input our first
>> programs on paper tape....
>>
>>
> Paper tape? Luxury. What's wrong with toggling your programs in using
> the panel switches?
>

(mutters something about the luxury of switches and having to rely on
compass needles twiddling and having to wave magnets, uphill both ways
in the snow)

--
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:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 09:24:51PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 10:33:27PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 12:21:28PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > > Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before
> > > converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?
> >
> > Please don't.
> >
> > <snob type=typography>
> > Em dashes are properly set in English text without spacing on either
> > side, though the ASCIIography of this usage is much less picky.
> >
> > If someone decides that it needs to be " -- " that's mapped, at least
> > take the spaces out when setting the glyph?
> > </snob>
>
> . . . except that the notion that it's strictly "foo--bar" instead of
> "foo -- bar" is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in times past
> whether or not there was a space was largely a matter of taste, regional
> custom, and (even farther back) what leads the typesetter had on-hand
> when he was laying out the page for pressing.

Ok, then you're more of a typography snob than me.  :-)

I will admit, having seen it both ways, that in typsetting, it tends to
look better to me with little spacing (a shim worth), but in ASCII
text, I tend to put in the spaces, as well.

Clearly, if this is done, it needs to be considered whether surrounding
spaces should be eaten by the parser.

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

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

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


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Sort?

body:
I agree with Berto on this...there should definitely be some kind of
wiki-defined sort order so that accented characters can sort inline with
non-accented in languages where the accents are not separate letters.  I'm
wondering though, does anyone have a proposed solution other than the
sort-keys, that would be more of an actual solution than a loophole?
Perhaps something like a system message which defines a wiki's search order
and which letters the wiki will treat as equivalent?  And something so that
searches for, say, "pago" could turn up results like "p?go" and "p?go"
(since the accents would be ignored)?  And how far along is a solution?

I'm a question guy tonight...

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 2:43 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Sort?

Berto wrote:
> How do I implement a localised sort criteria?
>
> A B C D E ? F G H I J L M N N- O ? P Q R S T U V Z
>
> So I need the accented letters to come in right places in lists... thank
God
> there is NO word starting with N-, so we can simply forget about it.

For sorting of pages within category listings, you can manually specify a
'sort
key' which will be used for sorting instead of the page title as listed.

Since eg 'N-ame' will sort before 'Name' you could fake the sort key using
~,
which will sort after:

[[Category:Sorted pages|Name]]
[[Category:Sorted pages|N~ame]]

(However this will not show the separate letter as a heading in the list.)

For now the actual sorting is done by unicode code point, which is far from
ideal, but that's the situation at present.

> Yet we do use ? ? ? ? ? ? that are NOT letters, but only accents. So this
> ones should simply be ignored. It would also be nice if the search would
be
> able to find "P?gina" by a wrong request for "pagina". That is, if it
could
> ignore accents (apart from ? and ?, as they are proper letters).

I'm working on fixes to the search; this should improve in the coming weeks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Platonides

body:
How fast this thread growed!

Now, hasn't anybody thought in doing it as javascript at user side?
Precisely i did an replace-all javascript feature recently (it's a really
simple code anyway).

So i am writing an article. I don't want to use an — codeinsert link,
so i type -- where i want an — Before i save, as i know i did this
'trick', i press a link which converts all -- to - and save.

No need to deal with the parse code :)

"Ilmari Karonen" wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>>
>> I suppose I should go look at the bugzilla discussion now.  I seem to
>> recall, last time I looked at it, that the endash people were advocating
>> for -- being translated to endashes and --- to emdashes, which seems
>> counterintuitive for both, since endashes are supposed to be shorter
>> than - and emdashes have been represented as -- for so long and in so
>> many contexts that using three dashes will just confuse the heck out of
>> many.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
>
> Wot?  En dashes are, by definition, one en long.  Hyphens are usually
> shorter.
>
> Compare:
>  - hyphen
>  - en dash
>  - em dash
>
> The difference may be minor if you're reading this in a monospaced font,
> but both dashes should still be noticeably longer than the hyphen.
>
> Using -- for en and --- for em dashes seems reasonable to me (that's how
> TeX does it, IIRC), thought I'd be willing to live with – and --.
>   However, I do believe other languages (German?) tend to use the en
> dash more than English.
>
> --
> Ilmari Karonen


body:
Cobb - what is your Wikipedia username, by the way?  I'd be curious to
look over the contributions that led you to these conclusions.  In any
case, getting down to brass tacks...

On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Cobb wrote:
> stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
>
>> I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture
>> which respects NPOV or we do not.
>
> We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the
> admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they
> do they don't act on them.
Some of them do, some of them don't.  Please *do* point out specific
examples where they did not, and we'll work on fixing them.  Unless you
list the vast majority of AfDs, (and we agree that they were closed in
violation of our policies and guidelines), your claim is unsupported.
Sorry.

>  We have a deletion process
> that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent
> people from using it and getting the idea that deleting
> anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.
Wait - editing an article and removing a paragraph is now "opaque and
awkward"?  Hasn't seemed so to me... Oh, you were talking about
deletion in the sense of "hiding from public view all the revisions
under a given page title".  Yes, in most cases this is a deliberately
awkward and deliberative process - it's generally *good* to make it
non-trivial to hide things from the public.  Transparency and all that.
  None of this should seriously impact fixing biased or otherwise bad
articles, as far as I can see.

> We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly
> any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia.
I agree, although I think most of the editors on those areas: 1) Think
they are following Wikipedia polices and guidelines, but are mistaken.
2) *Do* follow some of the guidelines, but miss on others.
> These areas are controlled by organised groups
> who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone
> who tries to clean it up.
Also agree.  Of course, large chunks of Wikipedia are controlled by
groups of editors who *are* following policy and guidelines, and who
make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone who tries to mess the
articles in that area up.  We have much of both.  The bad ones are bad,
and are a shame and a problem.  The good ones are a credit to us, and a
Good Thing.  The problem is determining the difference, which is
nowhere as easy as you seem to think.
>  Editors with the best intentions but without the stomach for a fight
> try their
> best and end up being driven off after being reported for vandalism or
> 3RR violations, or
> just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit.
You bet.  And editors with the worst intentions (or good intentions but
unable to usefully contribute) are also regularly driven off after
being reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or just being
wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit.  Again, the bad ones
are a crying shame, and the good ones are a benefit and a critical
help.  And, it's non-trivial to distinguish them.
> To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor
> has to have the patience of a saint and an
> encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia
> rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the
> most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith...
> all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good
> faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid
> games. He's got to have the support of a group
> of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.
You got it!  This is exactly what it's like being one of our more
active editors on controversial topics.  And you are entirely correct,
it's really hard.
> Naturally, most editors don't have this.
Luckily, Wikipedia also has vast fields of articles where hardly
anybody edits, and people who don't want such fights can happily and
productively improve our articles in those areas.  Also, as I mentioned
above, we have a number of areas that are well-patrolled by
non-nutballs who *do* follow our polices and guidelines, and editors
who don't want to fight can also toil in those areas, and leave the
work of defending the articles against crazies to others.

>  So the way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the
> auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal
> paradise that treats legitimate editors
> as an endless renewable resource.
Well, considering that many vandalistic edits get fixed in minutes, and
many more disruptive users are shown the door eventually (using the
methods you so clearly stated above, along with ArbCom rulings), I
think the term "paradise" is a little exaggerated, but as for
legitimate editors being an endless renewable resource - some of the
work (like what you mentioned above) *is hard* - expecting people to do
it for a while, then take a (sometimes permanent) break is hardly
unreasonable.  We appreciate their work for as long as they can do it,
wish them well when they feel they no longer can, and are ready to
welcome them back (possibly under a new name) whenever they are willing
to return.

>  it uses them up and throws them away by giving them little or
> no support
Hm.  Not sure exactly what you mean by "support", but good editors are
certainly able to avail themselves of a large number of tools in
editing, and defending articles against less-good editors.  These
include the ones you mentioned above, and others:  reversion, user_talk
pages, RfCs, the Village Pump, the Mediation group, the Arbitration
Committee, the mailing lists, and a large body of advice (i.e. the
guidelines and essays in the Wikipedia namespace).
>  and instead it defends the rights of
> vandals to edit.
How does it do that?  We do take as a fundamental principle that anyone
should be able to edit unless we already know they intend to damage the
project, but we also are quite quick and willing to stop obvious
mis-use of editing, and (more slowly and deliberately, i.e. through the
ArbCom) subtle mis-use of editing.  Examples, please?
>  It even makes the finding out of who is socking up a tedious and
> officious
> process... just for that extra kick in the teeth for legitimate
> editors who do play by the rules
> and are faced with those who don't.
Finding out who is "socking up" (nice phrase) is *a hard problem*.
It's not obvious, and it's not simple.  The current process is an
attempt to balance a number of opposing factors - privacy of good users
vs sock puppeting by bad users being the main one.  It's hardly a
perfect solution, and if you have some specific suggestions, please do
post them.

> In summary, the system is broken.
As I hope I pointed out above, all the evidences you gave for the
system being "broken" are also evidence for the system working
precisely as designed.  Undoubtably, the wiki has seriously broken
spots - it also has seriously great spots.  If you have specific
suggestions about how to improve the broken spots without damaging the
working ones, we'd love to hear them.

>  But you won't get any sense on this mailing list,
You won't?  In my reading of the list, we get a a post claiming the
"system is broken" about once a day on average.  That doesn't sound
much like not "get[ing] any sense of this".  Your message (and the one
you were responding to) are examples.  Or did you mean that such
messages generally don't get a rousing round of - "absolutely right",
"good for you", "I've thought that for a long time", and the like in
response?  That's not a "sense", that's "agreement"; if you meant that,
I agree - unsurprisingly, most of the people who bother to wade through
the many posts on this list do so because they believe Wikipedia to be
working, and want to help.  This would be true whether Wikipedia was
really doing absolutely wonderfully or entirely terribly.  Don't use
replies on the mailing list to get a gage of public opinion of
Wikipedia.  If you didn't realize that already, now you know.
>  because most of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia these
> days. They just pontificate and have faith in some mystical power of
> the Wiki.
This has been responded to earlier; your facts are simply wrong.  Have
a nice day.

Thanks for the message,
	Jesse Weinstein


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-06-23

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

Running test External image... FAILED!
Running test External image from https... FAILED!
Running test External links: Clickable images... FAILED!
Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!

Passed 390 of 406 tests (96.06%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] semi-stuff (was Re: New York Times article)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> I am not totally opposed to the concept, but we have to think carefully.
>>  Every change to the tools gives rise to changes in the equilibria.
>> Will we have to sit through watching some troll be successively banned
>> from one action after another as people cry "Why prevent him from
>> editing articles about Chemotherapy? All he was doing was uploding
>> goatse to articles on homosexuality?  He might be a good user."
>
> In the case of a recidivist copyviolater, simply banning image
> uploading seems like a sensible move, though. However, that would
> imply banning it for all anons too - almost certainly a good thing.
>

I didn't think that uploads had *ever* been enabled for IP users, at
least not under Mediawiki...

--
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: Chad Perrin

body:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 08:10:43AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/23/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > Rendering foo--boo as an endash would be inappropriate, even if the
> > editor intended an endash, anyway.  Endashes are not meant to be used as
> > hyphens, and should have a space on either side of them.
>
> Ok, well, imagine foo=1900 and boo=1910.

Wow, that was an interesting typo.  I meant that to say "bar".

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham


body:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 11:44:22PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 09:24:51PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 10:33:27PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 12:21:28PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > > > Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before
> > > > converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?
> > >
> > > Please don't.
> > >
> > > <snob type=typography>
> > > Em dashes are properly set in English text without spacing on either
> > > side, though the ASCIIography of this usage is much less picky.
> > >
> > > If someone decides that it needs to be " -- " that's mapped, at least
> > > take the spaces out when setting the glyph?
> > > </snob>
> >
> > . . . except that the notion that it's strictly "foo--bar" instead of
> > "foo -- bar" is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in times past
> > whether or not there was a space was largely a matter of taste, regional
> > custom, and (even farther back) what leads the typesetter had on-hand
> > when he was laying out the page for pressing.
>
> Ok, then you're more of a typography snob than me.  :-)

Err, thanks, I guess.  I tend to be willing to overlook either, though
no spacing bothers my eyes -- kinda like looking at Python source code.

>
> I will admit, having seen it both ways, that in typsetting, it tends to
> look better to me with little spacing (a shim worth), but in ASCII
> text, I tend to put in the spaces, as well.

I don't recall for sure how it all started out.  It may be that before
leading availability was an issue the emdash was one of those things
that was supposed to have a half-space rather than a full space or no
space, but leading availability screwed with the "standard" until
everything kinda went to hell, then a new "standard" arose -- though in
this case it was two standards.  Similarly, in handwriting, there was
supposed to be a space after a period, but no specific two-space
standard was in place.  Then, with the advent of print text, they went
to two spaces because it was easier to read.  Eventually, because of
leading availability, typesetters went to 1.5 spaces (didn't want to use
up all their full-size space leads on spacing between sentences), which
made folks like the Microsoft Word developers decide that one space or
two was six of one and half a dozen of the other, and they made one
space the standard operating format for their software.  Despite that,
it's still more natural looking and easier to read with two spaces after
a period than with one.

Meh.  Yeah, I'm kind of particular about all this stuff, I guess.
Frankly, I'd like 1.5 spaces after periods, but in absence of that
capability on my Thinkpad, I'll just use two spaces and be happy it
doesn't have to be one.  Same with two hyphens, with a space on either
side, instead of an emdash with a half-space on either side (which is
what I think was the more "proper" use originally in print).

>
> Clearly, if this is done, it needs to be considered whether surrounding
> spaces should be eaten by the parser.

Agreed.  I vote "no".

>
>      A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>      Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>
>      A: Top-posting.
>      Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?

At least we agree on posting order.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);


from_name: Warren Blanco

subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR policy proposal: No "Gotcha" rule

body:
>
> WP:3RR was changed (without there first being consensus) back in April so
> that reverts count towards the 3RR even if they are unrelated. This has
> resulted in some editors playing "gotcha" by invoking the 3RR without first
> giving a warning.

I'd like to propose the following exception to the 3RR policy:

Exception:

Lack of warning

A 3RR ban cannot be imposed against an editor who has not been warned that
he or she is in danger of violating the 3RR. A ban can only be imposed when
an editor violates the 3RR after receiving a warning even if he or she has
already tecnically violated the 3RR prior to receiving a warning.
----
This policy is already implied on ANI:3RR which states:
"If you find yourself in a revert war, it is a good idea to ensure that the
"other side" is aware of the 3RR, especially if they are new, by leaving a
warning about WP:3RR <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:3RR> on their talk
page. Administrators are unlikely to block a user who has never been
warned."

Unfortunately, admins seem increasingly willing to block without regard to
warnings, a practiced that assumes bad faith.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Vancouver university

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 6/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I did.  Why don't you folk take the time to get a credible
>>accreditation to answer your critics?
>>
>>
>This sentence is kind of amusing: "This process is not primarily about
>further study. It is mostly about the 'assembling' and credentialing -
>by the issuance of degree and formal transcript - what you have
>already accomplished. "
>
>Heh:
>But in various subjects, and in places which do not have a competitive
>or ideological axe to grind, we are well-known and highly respected.
>The media are not very helpful.  Did you read in 1997 that the AAUA
>announced us runner-up in the prestigious global Khaladjian Award
>competition for Innovation in Higher Education (winner NY State U)?
>No, you didn't read it, because not a single newspaper or magazine -
>not even the locals in Vancouver BC or Bellingham WA - bothered to
>report the item. Also, you won't usually find us in 'authoritative'
>directories of universities, because we don't pay to be in them.
>
>Hmm.
>
As a resident of the greater Vancouver area I take particular concern
with such outfits.  This a couple years ago I defensively registered the
domain wikiversity.ca.

I can confirm that they are a registered charity in Canada.  See
https://apps.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/sec/SrchInput04Render-e?bn=890795792RR0001&name=VANCOUVER+UNIVERSITY+COLLEGES+SOCIETY

According to their most recent report they received $100 in income in
their last reported fiscal year.  :-)
The circumlocutious writing style in their FAQs confirms the triple B
principle:  Bulshit Baffles Brains.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Looks like we suddenly have another big change to monobook, with all
> the unicode symbols below the edit box being reformatted to involve
> hide/show buttons. However, they're still all lumped together, unlike
> at other Wikipedias like the French one, and unlike the brief trial
> that occurred on en.
>

Commons has one of the best that I've seen; it was taken from de.wp,
de.wikt and en.wikt - the code for it is at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Edittools.js

> Similarly, a few days ago it looked like a new warning appeared when
> you create a new page, that advertising etc will be harshly removed.
>

That's [[MediaWiki:Newarticletext]].

> Is there a way of being notified of these changes before they suddenly appear?
>

Read [[WP:VP]]? Anyway, it's not like everything's pink with <BLINK> tags...

--
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: Mathieu Amo

subject: [Foundation-l] New privacy policy

body:
On 6/22/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Privacy_policy&oldid=14088
>
> may be found here.
>
> Please, spread the word that all the translations in various languages
> should be updated. Thanks in advance.
>
> Ant
>

Thanks to the Board for the update.
I strongly agree with Delphine : the translations should have a
warning on them. (remember, that's why we do not have official
translations of the GFDL).

Solensean.

--
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was
mad. And that was all his patrimony.
Sabatini, Rafael.

Wikip?dia, l'encyclop?die libre.
http://fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] New privacy policy


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

body:
On 6/23/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Technically these are not changes to the monobook skin itself but to
> some of the messages (from the msg: namespace) that are transcluded
> into the interface by it.  These messages are editable (although many
> are protected and thus editable only by admins) and there has not
> been, up to now, any formal procedure for approving changes to them.
> They are handled like policy pages and the like.

It's the MediaWiki namespace actually. The whole namespace is only
ever editable by admins, and cannot be unprotected.

> Currently we have no global warnings if someone edits policy pages either.
>
> Perhaps it would be a good idea, but it would be a significant change
> to the way things are done.

It's easier to keep track of changes to MediaWiki pages, just select
the MediaWiki namespace in Recent Changes like so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ARecentchanges&namespace=8

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> On 6/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>> [...] As I've repeatedly argued,
>> Wikipedia should be freely redistributable throughout the world, not just
>> in
>> the US.
> It'd certainly be nice.  To some extent it's unreasonable, of course
> (we don't want to be freely distributable in China, for example).
You what? I thought that was the whole problem, that we AREN'T "freely
distributable in China" because of blocking...or do you mean that we don't
want people we don't like repackaging us?

Don't let your pique with the administration get in the way of providing
information to the people..."freely distributable" means no exceptions as to
"who", it's the "how" and "how much" we're worried about. If the Chinese
government had set up a *true* mirror of Wikipedia inside their area of
control, there would be no basis for complaint, it's that they are imposing
restrictions on the content which is the problem.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/A-very-interesting-recent-%22fair-use%22-case-ruling-t1827857.html#a5008620
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] "the experiment" - did it work?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>> I'm simply arguing that AfC is less work for us, the established
>>> Wikipedia community, than is putting crap new articles through AfD.
>>> It's definitely less convenient for the newcomer.
>> There's no reason that crap new articles have to go through AfD.
>
> By which you mean that we can either leave them alone, or devise some
> alternative process for getting rid of them.

The hypothetical article in question is "[[Jerry the gay wanker]]", I
expect current speedy deletion policies would probably cover it. Failing
that one could use {{prod}}. There's no need to devise an alternative
process, several already exist.

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body:
On 6/22/06, Cobb <sealclubbingfun at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
> In summary, the system is broken. But you won't
> get any sense on this mailing list, because most
> of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia
> these days. They just pontificate and have faith
> in some mystical power of the Wiki.
> _______________________________________________

Excuse me? I know editcount doesn't mean everything. But I would hate
counting the editcount of regular posters on this mailing list. Even if only
counting (main) edits.

Garion


subject: [WikiEN-l] Monobook suddenly changed?

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>
> Commons has one of the best that I've seen; it was taken from de.wp,
> de.wikt and en.wikt - the code for it is at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Edittools.js
>
Something like this was tried on enwiki, but IIRC had the unfortunate
side-effect of increasing the load-time for each page to a scary number of
whole seconds.

The version at commons certainly seems to have no such problem, and it would
be interesting to compare the two: is the difference because of a better
implementation or something inherent to the two wikis?

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Monobook-suddenly-changed--t1830803.html#a5010222
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


body:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 09:10:20AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 6/23/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > > > Rendering foo--boo as an endash would be inappropriate, even if the
> > > > editor intended an endash, anyway.  Endashes are not meant to be used as
> > > > hyphens, and should have a space on either side of them.
>
> > > Ok, well, imagine foo=1900 and boo=1910.
> >
> > Wow, that was an interesting typo.  I meant that to say "bar".
>
> You copied it from me:
> >Someone is likely to see "foo--boo" get rendered as an en-dash
> >and think "damn, how do I get an em-dash?"
>
> (I'm a bit of a trendsetter, I use foo/boo/moo rather than foo/bar/baz...)

Okay.  I'll just agree, and let my confusion over the metasyntactic
variable progression in this thread wash over me.

  I will not be confused
  Confusion is the mind-killer
  Confusion is the little death
  Where the confusion has gone there will be nothing
  Only I will remain

(apologies to Frank Herbert)

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"The ability to quote is a serviceable
substitute for wit." - W. Somerset Maugham


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 6/23/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > What if the page is called "Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Jerry the
> > gay wanker"?
>
> Definitely better than it being in article space.
>
If it's a bad article, it's better being out of the article space.  If
it's a good article, it's better being *in* the article space.  Some
articles created by "anons" are bad, some are good.  So putting these
articles in another namespace would have both positives and negatives.
 The positives probably outweigh the negatives, because having
libellous content (for instance) in the main namespace is much worse
than not having even ten times the amount of good content in it.

> > > I'm simply arguing that AfC is less work for us, the established
> > > Wikipedia community, than is putting crap new articles through AfD.
> > > It's definitely less convenient for the newcomer.
> >
> > There's no reason that crap new articles have to go through AfD.
>
> By which you mean that we can either leave them alone, or devise some
> alternative process for getting rid of them.
>
> Steve

I was referring to the fact that it's certainly *possible* to delete
crap without putting it through AfD, and is probably within policy to
do so.  If it isn't within policy to delete crap started by anons
which no registered user would have bothered to fix and move to
article space, then the policy is flawed, not the software.

Of course, part of my second idea above was that we not only make it
explicitly within policy to speedily delete crap started by an anon,
but that we make it possible for the vast majority of established
users to do so.

Anthony


body:
On 6/22/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/21/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > This part doesn't seem at all new.  "Transformative use" has long been
> > considered to include the context of the work, and not just whether or
> > not the work itself was altered.  Use of an artistic work for the
> > purposes of commentary, such as in an encyclopedia, would generally be
> > considered highly transformative.  Of course, note the qualification
> > "of an artistic work".  Taking a diagram from an educational textbook
> > and using it in an encyclopedia article to accomplish the same basic
> > purpose would be much less transformative.
>
> Agreed. But in cases where the change of context and purpose is
> drastic, I think we can be more confident. I'm thinking here of things
> like magazine covers, screenshots, fine art, posters, etc., which
> were, by definition, never originally in an encyclopedic context,
> where we always had a lot of them but the justification always felt a
> little shakey (which occasionally gave way to purging).
>
Context is definitely different, but purpose is less assuredly
different.  Taking magazine covers, for example, if the purpose of the
magazine cover is to depict a certain person, and the purpose of
putting the magazine cover in the encyclopedia is to depict that
person, then things aren't very transformative, are they?

I only think Wikipedia should use magazine covers when talking about
the magazine cover itself.  That is not to say that it is illegal to
use a magazine cover in other ways, it is simply to say that fair use
is an alternative which should only be used in very limited
circumstances.  Tim Starling gave one reason - countries other than
the US don't have fair use laws.  Another reason is that fair use is
grey area.  It's been said that only nine people in the country really
know what it means, referring to the nine members of the Supreme
Court.

Anthony


body:
In 6/22/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > Yes, transformative use has long been a feature of fair use in the US.
> > However, it's not a feature of fair use/dealing under English common law or
> > the Berne Convention. Unless there is some amount of harmonisation, US law
> > will remain largely irrelevant for Wikipedia. As I've repeatedly argued,
> > Wikipedia should be freely redistributable throughout the world, not just in
> > the US.
>
> Right, guys, but that's another discussion entirely, and one which
> we've had before and one which hasn't changed much since the last time
> we talked about it.
>
Yes, and during that other discussion I believe most people agreed
that just because something is *legal* to use in Wikipedia that
doesn't mean it is appropriate to use.

Noncommercial-only and by-permission images are also both legal to use
in Wikipedia.  But they are still not allowed.

The question isn't whether or not the image is legal, the question is
whether or not the image is free.

Anthony


body:
On 6/23/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> > On 6/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> >> [...] As I've repeatedly argued,
> >> Wikipedia should be freely redistributable throughout the world, not just
> >> in
> >> the US.
> > It'd certainly be nice.  To some extent it's unreasonable, of course
> > (we don't want to be freely distributable in China, for example).
> You what? I thought that was the whole problem, that we AREN'T "freely
> distributable in China" because of blocking...or do you mean that we don't
> want people we don't like repackaging us?
>
What I meant was that we don't want to alter our content so that it is
freely distributable in China.

China altering its laws so that Wikipedia is freely distributable
there would be a good thing, of course :).

Anthony


from_name: Fred Bauder

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

body:
On Jun 19, 2006, at 5:07 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:

>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF,
> and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>

I have always viewed Jimbo's suggestion that we "distribute a paper
encyclopedia to African children" as quixotic but I have in
connection with a possible board member wondered if we could create a
series of documents which focus on public health which would prove
useful in Africa, possibly also in China and other regions, and be
worth distributing as part of a public health education campaign.
There was lately a cholera epidemic in Angola which affected most of
the country. There is a lot of ignorance involved in this sort of
situation. I don't see this project so much directed to children as
to local decision makers. It would contain information about disease
and disease prevention, etc. The question, bottom line, is would a
project of this nature actually prove effective? Or should we first
see if we could even mobilize around it? One of the good aspects
regarding this possible board member is that he is a hands on,
computer literate guy with experience in give and take.

Fred

>
>
> --
> ######################################################################
> #
> #    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free
> Knowledge #
> #    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free
> world         #
> ######################################################################
> #
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: stevertigo

body:
--- Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

> WP:POINT doesn't trump WP:NPOV, and I never said it
> did.  One is a core
> principle, the other is a page which, like many of
> our policies, acts
> only to restate "don't be a dick" in more socially
> acceptable language.
> Now, there are multiple ways of making a point.
> Some of them involve
> being a dick.  You appear to be choosing one of
> those ways, as WP:POINT
> makes clear.  It would be nice if you could restrain
> yourself.
>

No, WP:DBAD uses unsuitably dickish language itself
and thus had to be removed to meta. In the hierarchy
its probably lower than {{proposed}}, though the
typically dickish citing of it would leave newbies to
believe otherwise. Please dont mistake casual
terseness for dickishness. I certainly dont.

> > I disagree with the lawsuit paranoia, and dislike
> its usage as a crutch in arguments wherin a plain
> > application of basic bonehead-level NPOV will
> suffice.
>
> Like Ilmari the other day, I just threw that in for
> discussion's sake.
> Discussion is this thing we have occasionally
> although, I admit, not
> very often.

Yes, this 'discussion' is in contrast with the
terseness thing.

> You think the category is incompatible with NPOV.  I
> think you're right.
>   There are those, however, who do not (or who have
> not considered the
> issue, and gone along with the cat because it's
> there). There are two
> ways for you to get your way: you can either
> convince them you're right,
> or you can grind their faces into dust.  Now, you're
> not in much of a
> position these days to do any face-grinding, so
> we're just left with the
> former option.

Dont make this personal. This seems to be a rarer
case, and this is why I brought it to the list. The
basic point is that "consensus" only works if its
overwhelmingly in one direction or another, and (as I
think Cobb was alluding to) AFD doesnt always work as
a discussion forum. Where there are sharp divides
between actual consensus and NPOV, speaks to a deeper
issue of leadership with regard to NPOV, and this
relates to the problem of newbie indoctrination.

> The traditional approach taken when trying to change
> someone else's mind
> is, "your opinion differs from mine.  How can I best
> state my message to
> convince you I'm right?"  The approach *you* are
> taking is, "your
> opinion differs from mine.  How can you be *so
> stupid* as to disagree
> with me?  Can't you idiots see the bleeding obvious?
>  I'm disgusted with
> the lot of you!"

I was simply stating my case in a clear and
incontrovertible way. I dont see the need to make an
argument weak just for sake of endless discussion with
those who hold to a relativist position, or to appease
those, who fail AGF and assume dickishness where there
is none. I dropped a note, to bring some attn to it.

Stevertigo

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
On 6/23/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> Rendering foo--boo as an endash would be inappropriate, even if the
> editor intended an endash, anyway.  Endashes are not meant to be used as
> hyphens, and should have a space on either side of them.

Ok, well, imagine foo=1900 and boo=1910.

> > Or maybe I'm confusing Wikipedia and MediaWiki here - your solution is
> > perhaps not bad for MediaWiki, switchable by individual site admins.
> > But for Wikipedia it's a bad idea.
>
> I'm not sure I see how something good for MediaWiki is bad for
> Wikipedia, in this case.  Could you elaborate on the difference as it
> relates to this issue?

I'm thinking flexibility in the software is generally a good thing, as
different sites have different needs. Wikipedia, on the other hand,
has one fairly well established set of needs.

> Of course, considering the miniscule differences between hyphens and
> endashes, I'm not sure endashes really need to be addressed for general
> visual formatting purposes.  I'm sure there are some strict endash fans
> who will disagree vehemently with me, though.

Yeah I'd like to hear more about where en-dashes should be used. If
it's just for the date range thing, then probably a bot could look for
people mistakenly using emdashes or hyphens in those cases. A much
less frequent occurrence than people using -- for emdashes currently.

Steve


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Non-office OFFICE actions

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Lauder-Frost has been stubbed
following an OTRS query
https://secure.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketID=310629

This article originally stated that Lauder-Frost was cleared on appeal
of charges of theft.  This turns out to be a lie: he was convicted.
His supporters assert that the theft may now not be mentioned
(although they were perfectly happy for the lie to be in there, it
seems), because it is a "spent" conviction under the rehabilitation of
offenders act.  This appears to be a novel interpretation, since the
text of the act as posted to Talk only prevents publication with
malicious intent.

They have argued long and hard for removal of this conviction from the
article.  I do not think neutral biography can omit it.

Lauder-Frost has had his solicitors write to one editor (who made no
significant edits to the article as far as I can see) and has
contacted the Foundation; Brad is involved.  User Sussexman has been
blocked for alluding to these legal threats before they were made - he
is clearly in contact with Lauder-Frost.

I think they are gaming the system.  They wanted a long puff piece
about Lauder-Frost, when it was trimmed and the truth of his
conviction added they wanted it deleted.

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


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] I like Wikipedia!

body:
Seconded on all points!

> In my 4000 or so edits, I've had the misfortune to witness one
> or two petty fights, but rarely get involved.

Seriously, though, how misfortunate is that?  The fights, and the
occasional POV war, are utterly inevitable.  What gratifies me is
that, most of the time, we still *do* do a good job of finding
the elusive NPOV middle ground.  I don't have more than a few
thousand edits myself, but I've had the *pleasure* of wandering
into a couple of POV battles on contentions subjects, learning
a bit more about those subjects, learning a bit more about the
personalities involved, and contributing some compromise wordings
which both sides accepted and which are among my proudest
Wikipedia edits.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oversight -- Really new or not?

body:
On 6/23/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Um, I'm not exactly a en-wp-insider (coming rather from dewp), and I
> don't want to critisize anything but: If a sysop is found to undelete
> stuff to post it afterwards on Wikitruth etc., why isn't he just
> desysopped (/why isn't a desysopping/ArbCom procedure started)?

Because we don't know which admin has done this, just that it happened.

-Matt


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 6/23/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > > Rendering foo--boo as an endash would be inappropriate, even if the
> > > editor intended an endash, anyway.  Endashes are not meant to be used as
> > > hyphens, and should have a space on either side of them.

> > Ok, well, imagine foo=1900 and boo=1910.
>
> Wow, that was an interesting typo.  I meant that to say "bar".

You copied it from me:
>Someone is likely to see "foo--boo" get rendered as an en-dash
>and think "damn, how do I get an em-dash?"

(I'm a bit of a trendsetter, I use foo/boo/moo rather than foo/bar/baz...)

Steve


body:
On 6/22/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> What if the page is called "Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Jerry the
> gay wanker"?

Definitely better than it being in article space.

> > I'm simply arguing that AfC is less work for us, the established
> > Wikipedia community, than is putting crap new articles through AfD.
> > It's definitely less convenient for the newcomer.
>
> There's no reason that crap new articles have to go through AfD.

By which you mean that we can either leave them alone, or devise some
alternative process for getting rid of them.

Steve


body:
On 6/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> My original thought was to allow edits to Talk (and user and project)
> space but not article space - like protection in reverse.  It would
> reduce the number of protected articles, because where there is an
> edit war we just confine the warriors to Talk for a while until
> they've hammered out their differences.

There would definitely be huge complaints of favouritism in such cases
("how come me and my friend are blocked, but his friend isn't?!!").
That's probably no worse than the current situation.

The real downside of these kind of approaches is that as you find
methods of resolving problems that affect less and less people, there
is less impetus to get those problems actually resolved. That is,
protect [[GWB]], and people will kick up a fuss until the page is
unprotected. Ban some small player from some minor article - rightly
or wrongly - and it may be a while before anyone gets around to
unbanning him.

Steve


body:
On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 11:02:06AM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 12:44:09AM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
> > > Clearly, if this is done, it needs to be considered whether surrounding
> > > spaces should be eaten by the parser.
> >
> > Agreed.  I vote "no".
>
> Oh; you're voting "no, the parser should *not* automagically replace
> '--' and/or ' -- ' with —", then?

Err, no, I'm voting "No, the parser should not eat surrounding spaces."
I just don't like the look of emdashes without any spacing at all.

. . . though it looks like the parser automagically replacing it does
present some technical issues all its own, and perhaps I should also say
that I vote "no" for  surrounding spaces being eaten by other
text-replacement techniques that might be used to turn -- into an emdash
(such as the suggested Javascript method, which wouldn't work for
everyone, but would at least circumvent the technical issues with having
the parser do it).

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Ben Franklin: "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of
others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any
Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] semi-stuff (was Re:  New York Times article)

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> On Jun 22, 2006, at 8:12 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> Will we have to sit through watching some troll be successively banned
>> from one action after another as people cry "Why prevent him from
>> editing articles about Chemotherapy? All he was doing was uploding
>> goatse to articles on homosexuality?  He might be a good user."
>
> You exaggerate.

Fair enough.  I was making an extravagant example.  But really, I find
it fairly rare that a person who uploads repeated copyvios after being
warned would also somehow miraculously be of value to us in other ways.

We are no longer a struggling tiny project which needs to go out of our
way to get every possible beneficial scrap of work from anyone.  We seek
to have diverse participation from a wide range of people with different
viewpoints, but we should also remember, always, how many good users we
use when we are too "co-dependent" with our trolls.

--Jimbo

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


body:
On 6/22/06, Mark Wagner <carnildo at gmail.com> wrote:
> A great many users, including some of our most prolific editors, have
> no clue about image copyright law or policy.  The ability to block
> them from uploading images would be quite useful.
>
> What would be even more useful would be for image uploading to be a
> privilege, not a right: you don't get the ability to upload images
> simply by registering an account.

A proper experiment on this would be a good thing. Measure the number
of "good", "bad" and "borderline" images before and after the
implementation of such a privilege system.

How would you work out who to give initial priveleges to? Is there
enough history to determine which editors have uploaded more problem
images than good ones?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l]And you thought Pokémon was trivial...

body:
Sue Reed wrote:
> They are not sourced and there are a bunch of statements like "The reason often given for its retirement ..."

In my opinion, any such statement should be removed on sight by any
editor, with a firm statement on the talk page that Wikipedia is not the
place for idle speculation or original research.

As we get more and more articles, we are doomed to be hoaxed badly if we
do not insist on sources.

> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 6:55:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] And you thought Pok?mon was trivial...
>
> Justin Cormack wrote:
>> The main article includes the memorable part:
>> "Not all episodes of the Cullen run are believed to exist, although many
>> of them do. All episodes of the other versions are believed to exist."
>
> Is there a source?  My main concern about all this fancruft is that we
> are absolutely going to get burned by a hoaxer if we do not become much
> more serious about banning original research and mercilessly editing
> stuff that has no sources.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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#######################################################################
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#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


subject: [WikiEN-l] New York Times article

body:
On 6/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> The missing piece of data is: what proportion of anonymous editors are
> good contributors?  If it's very small, then it's a non-issue.

I have a theory that for any change made by an anon editor:

- if it's a deletion, it's probably vandalism
- if it's the addition of more than a sentence, it will probably be
unsourced and get reverted
- if it's only a net change of plus or minus 5 characters, it's
probably a useful copy-edit

Anon make a lot of typo corrections, but are rarely bold enough to fix
major problems in articles.

Steve


body:
On 6/23/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Quite.  What part of "edit warring is bad" do people have such trouble
> understanding?

The part about the other guy getting away with it so far so why can't they?

Seems to be the constant argument.

-Matt


from_name: Александр Сигачёв

body:
> Now, hasn't anybody thought in doing it as javascript at user side?

So it works in Russian Wikipedia

"Wikificator" is a JavaScript currently used in the Russian Wikipedia.
It is embedded in the source code of an edit page, so that any visitor
can use it just by clicking a link below their editing box. The script
applies certain transformations (mainly regarding typographics, such
as dashes, quotation marks, etc) to text highlighted in the editbox,
if any; otherwise to the whole article. It is very convenient and does
a great job improving the look of the Russian Wikipedia's articles.
Thw script can be modified only by our sysops, since it sits MediaWiki
namespace.

Note that the Russian typographical conventions are quite different to
the Anglo-American ones.

The script
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Wikificator.js
Description
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/?????????:???????????

Example

Befor

Text text "text in quotation marks "nested" text" - mdash.

After

Text text ?text in quotation marks ?nested" text? ? mdash.

--
Alexander Sigachov


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

body:
I believe our infamous EddieSegoura worked on quite a few of those. Not
surprised it isn't sourced.

On 6/23/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Sue Reed wrote:
> > They are not sourced and there are a bunch of statements like "The
> reason often given for its retirement ..."
>
> There are three external links at
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Price_Is_Right_pricing_games>
> that have detailed descriptions of the various specific games:
>
> *[http://www.cbs.com/daytime/price/games/plinko.shtml Official CBS
> website,  games archive]
> *[
> http://www.golden-road.net/modules/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pricing_game_notes
> Pricing Game Timeline and Notes] from Golden-Road.net (I had to repair
> this one, the link 404ed previously)
> *[http://gscentral.net/pricing1.htm The TPIR Pricing Game Directory]
> Features extensive descriptions and screengrabs of all current and past
> pricing games.
>
> I haven't done anything like an extensive comparison (I glanced at ten
> or so of the articles picked at random) but from the amount of
> information I've seen for each game they could well be the source for
> much if not all of the content of these articles. Might do well for a
> start to paste this external links section into all of the individual
> game articles.
>
>
> The current arrangement looks like a reasonable way of organizing this
> information to me, merging them all into one big article on pricing
> games would result in a monsterously huge article. The description from
> the initial posting on this thread,
>
> > And what do we have to say about them? Analyses, statistics, etc? Nah,
> > just when it showed up, and when it went.
>
> _greatly_ misrepresents what I'm seeing here, most of these articles
> have a detailed description of how it works and a substantial "trivia"
> section with a list of other facts about it.
>
> This is actually quite fascinating, I had no idea there were fans of the
> Price is Right who'd keep track of all this sort of stuff. :)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


body:
On 6/23/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> And I see the way that Good Articles has become a
> stepping-stone to Featured Article status, rather than a recognition of
> good articles in their own right.

I noticed this the other day, when I saw someone removing the tag from
an article because "it hadn't passed through the Good Articles process
properly".  And here I was thinking that the point of the thing was
that it was to be a largely process-free way of tagging articles that
seemed reasonably good.

> And ... let's face it, whenever
> someone comes up with a good idea (not that I'm saying this is a good
> idea; just that I thought of it ;-)), someone else will come along with
> a way to bollocks it up completely.

Generally because certain people can never see a good idea that they
don't think could be improved with more process, formality, forms and
bureaucracy.

(of course, this is not the only way that they can bollocks it up; I'm
simply having a rant)

-Matt