from_name: Brian

subject: [Foundation-l] Hosting scans of the 1911 Britannica on Wikimedia

body:
For those who don't know, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica is a famous
public domain encyclopedia, advertised as the "sum of all human
knowledge" in 1911.

I recently (today) acquired a DVD containing scans of every page of the
1911 Britannica, along with index files for it all, organized by letter
and page number. I've already talked with avar, TimStarling, and brion
on IRC, and TimStarling specifically asked me to tell you all that he is
"confident that the server requirements will be minimal." They would set
up a domain name, generate some web pages automatically using the index
files, and host the entire set of 29,700 files totaling about 4 GB.

One more thing, these are black and white TIFs, and there is discussion
about whether they should be mass converted to PNGs to be easily viewable.

brian0918 at gmail.com


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: wikien-l

from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Try out the rating scheme

body:
> Well, I guess just having a vote cascade on the mailing list isn't going
> to work. Hrmph. Anyone know who specifically is "in charge" of deciding
> what Wikimedia configuration to use? Or is the problem perhaps that
> there _isn't_ anyone specifically in charge? :)

Yes, of course that is the problem. There are several developers who
could enable the feature, but all of them are now in fear that something
will go Horribly Wrong?, so each individual one of them doesn't want to
be held responsible in the end, so they don't do it and hope that
someone else will do it and take the blame instead.

Which is kind of weird, because Brion and Tim have done much more
"dangerous" things in the past, and every once in a while it does bring
the servers down, but they always fix it swiftly and it's never a big deal.

This wouldn't be any different, had it not been for the initial
FUD-laden discussion, which now leaves the developers fearful of social
repercussions.

Timwi


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Soviet spies

body:
No, but we do have [[Category:Rapists]]. However the description page
for the category says that "This category is for individuals who have
been convicted of rape, or those for whom there is little academic
doubt as to whether they committed the crime."

If we limited [[Category:Soviet spies]] to people who had been
convicted or for cases where there is little academic doubt, it would
be a pretty small list. That's part of the reason that the people
opposed to renaming the category are opposed to it -- it de-emphasizes
the point they want to make (see my last posting) if the category is
small.

You couldn't classify Ethel Rosenberg as a "Soviet spy" in this
definition -- there is considerable academic doubt whether she
participated in espionage. There is no doubt that she was convicted
for it*, though -- it is a plain fact.

FF

*Well, technically for "conspiracy to commit espionage", but now we're
splitting hairs.

On 11/8/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> >> I put "Category:Soviet spies"  on Categories for Deletion, but even
> >> though most of the people thought a name change was a good idea, since
> >> most of them did not vote to Delete, the ruling was to Keep.  I
> >> objected, but got no response.
> >>
> > It seems strange to me that any category which could be defamatory would
> > be subject to the whims of the voting process.  This is not just a
> > question of "Soviet spies".  Any category suggesting a criminal activity
> > of any kind should be viewed as POV.
> >
>
> Do we have "Category:Convicted rapists"?
>
> - --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
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> =916B
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
David Gerard wrote:
>
> Brion is

You mean Brion has monopoly over configuration decision? I didn't know
that and I find that very disappointing.

> and he doesn't like the current implementation

It seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Brion has failed to
provide adequate explanation with regards to the perceived problems with
the feature. It seems that several times, Magnus Manske (the author of
the feature) has posted to wikitech-l asking why the feature isn't being
enabled; Brion would reply stating a few "problems" which Magnus quite
convincingly demonstrates are either fixed by now, or have never
actually been a problem. Brion then never replies to those refutations
again and just leaves everyone puzzled.

> but it's understandably frustrating to those of us who REALLY REALLY
> WANT IT IN.

The situation as I have outlined it above is not only frustrating, but
actually somewhat angering. If he can't turn the feature on or explain
what's wrong with it, then maybe he shouldn't be "in charge" or at least
not the only one.

Timwi


list: foundation-l

from_name: TOR

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Wikinews is giving out press credentials

body:
Any File wrote:
>>Credentials are given by organizations - not by just some people on the
>>Internet (which is all any Wikimedia project is by itself). Using that term -
>>in the real world where it has a specific meaning - to describe that process is
>>very misleading.
>
>
> In normal newspapers also the emplyment status and the wages are given
> by the organization
> More precisely the credential is given by the same organization is
> given by who recruit the journalist. Since here the "journalist" is
> not recruit by the Board, there is no reason why it should the only
> one entitle to give out creential.

I think you got mav very wrong here. He never said the Board should be
the one giving out credentials. In fact, he stressed that the current
process is good and the only thing it lacks is "officiality". To be
official as far as logo and trademark usage is concerned there has to be
a green light on the part of the trademark holder, i.e. WMF. The Boards
role, as I understand it, would be simply to legitimize the decisions
made by the community and, if something happens to go awfully wrong,
step in and save the day.

> In my Opinion what is misleading is the way normal journalist consider
> themselves.
>
> Why should journalist be treated in a different way of normal people
> when asking for informations?

One step at a time, please. Consider: We're changing the media world
simply by participating in this project. Article by article, step by
step. Do not try to make big leaps, it's not gonna work. Not in this
case, at least.

--
Best,
?ukasz 'TOR' Garczewski


from_name: Chip Berlet

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Soviet spies

body:
Yes, but I am the one who added "Several denied they
were spies, and even more were never indicted."

And even that caveat is not sufficient to ameliorate the heading.

-Cberlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Andrew Gray
Sent: Tue 11/8/2005 9:21 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Category:Soviet spies

<<SNIP>>

For [[Category:Soviet spies]], however, the description is: "This
category lists people who are said to have spied for the Soviet Union
by some sources. Many are not Soviet citizens. Several denied they
were spies, and even more were never indicted."

This is somewhat less stringent, certainly. I mean, there's no
shortage of claims that [[Harold Wilson]] was a Soviet spy - should he
be in that category? God no - and if there'd been accusations of rape
he wouldn't be in [[Category:Rapists]]. But under the wording now,
you'd be perfectly justified adding him...

The difference between the scope of the categories can be put this
way: you wouldn't be able to add Bill Clinton to the Rapists category,
but you would be able to add Wilson to the Soviet spies one. Yet the
accusations are only accusations for both...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Hosting scans of the 1911 Britannica on
	Wikimedia

body:
Let's not forget the thousands of illustrations that we will now have
access to as a result of this.

Tim Starling wrote:

>Brian wrote:
>
>
>>For those who don't know, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica is a famous
>>public domain encyclopedia, advertised as the "sum of all human
>>knowledge" in 1911.
>>
>>I recently (today) acquired a DVD containing scans of every page of the
>>1911 Britannica, along with index files for it all, organized by letter
>>and page number. I've already talked with avar, TimStarling, and brion
>>on IRC, and TimStarling specifically asked me to tell you all that he is
>>"confident that the server requirements will be minimal." They would set
>>up a domain name, generate some web pages automatically using the index
>>files, and host the entire set of 29,700 files totaling about 4 GB.
>>
>>One more thing, these are black and white TIFs, and there is discussion
>>about whether they should be mass converted to PNGs to be easily viewable.
>>
>>
>
>A few notes on this: firstly it seems that the guy who made the scans has no
>intention of claiming any rights to them. He seems to be interested in
>disseminating the material widely, for religious reasons. His webpage is here:
>
>http://freierscientologe.netfirms.com/booksbritannica.htm
>
>The CD/DVD sets are apparently quite rare, Brian was lucky to get his hands
>on one at a fairly cheap price.
>
>There's the trademark issue -- Britannica may attempt to scare us with legal
>threats over this. A disclaimer on every HTML page declaring non-affiliation
>with Britannica would probably put us on sound legal footing, although I'd
>be willing to hear advice about this from people who are more knowledgeable.
>If the "LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia" (1911encyclopedia.org) can host
>this content, then we should be able to find a way too. And we can do it
>without the abominable license restrictions and "copyright traps" scattered
>throughout the work to enforce them.
>
>Wikipedia owes a lot to the 1911 edition -- we've copied many of its
>articles. A public, canonical copy will be a valuable tool to deal with
>LoveToKnow's frequent OCR errors, its incompleteness, and its specious legal
>threats against us based on our use of unspecified copyright material hidden
>in their doctored online copy. Hopefully the availability of page images
>will spur development of a complete and accurate OCR copy.
>
>The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
>eb1911.wikipedia.org? We could make it visually distinct, to avoid confusion
>with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org be better? Or
>eb1911.wikisource.org?
>
>-- Tim Starling
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: SPUI

subject: [WikiEN-l] Citation categories?

body:
A while ago I was reading an article about something in Texas and came
across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Handbook_of_Texas_citations
on the bottom. That category is added by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Handbookoftexas , a useful
external link template. But the category seems like simple clutter in
the list of categories on the article. So I listed it for deletion (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_September_23#Category:Handbook_of_Texas_citations
). Due at least in part to someone spamming the talk pages of Texas
Wikipedians, the category was kept.

I honestly don't understand any of the arguments for keep. Some are
plain erroneous (one person likens it to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1911_Britannica , which is for
articles that *contain* text from the 1911 EB) and others don't make sense.

Basically I'm asking for a reason why this category should exist, and
why I shouldn't be bold and remove it from the template.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

> It may seem this way from where you are. But let's look over a few things:
>
> 1) Dialects. So far, nearly all proposals have been classified by the

The situation we have had on this list over the last year is that
(1) there is a constant fighting over new languages and (2) Mark
Williamson is constantly involved in these fights, one way or the
other.  Further, I think that (3) most people find these fights
tiresome and should be avoided, (4) except, apparently, for Mark.

I don't know if this is a contributing reason behind Elian's
posting, but I personally would want a language policy that helped
us never having to hear a single word on new languages ever again.
In fact, I'm developing a personal aversion against Mark and
anybody who mentions language issues.  They are fueling a fire
that we ought to put out.

One radical approach could be to completely block new languages,
which would make further discussion pointless.  Another approach
could be to create a new mailing list for language issues, where
Mark can have lengthy discussions with himself.

There are a thousand different issues that are crucial to the
success of Wikipedia, but that don't have to be debated daily on
this mailing list.  Why not put language issues among those?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] CheckUser questions

body:
Hello

Although I have not been following this discussion, I was asked this  evening
to grant 5 arbitrators on the English Wikipedia CheckUser powers.

While the request was made, I think it is sage for us to let it sit there
for some time to see if there are any valid protests to giving it to these
individuals. Usually, steward requests can remain for several days until someone
acts upon them, and I don't see why this should be any different.

I also wonder whether they should be given the power on a permanent or a
need-to-know basis. That is, should they always have this ability, or should
they only be given it when a case requires invesigation, and then have it
removed? Personally, I favor the latter option. I do not think anybody needs to  be
able to do this in all instances.

I welcome comments.

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] CheckUser questions


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
Now just implement a captcha for account creation and anonymous editing
which requires the user to convert a sentence or two to text.

J/K, it probably wouldn't work, but it would be neat...

On 11/8/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For those who don't know, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica is a famous
> public domain encyclopedia, advertised as the "sum of all human
> knowledge" in 1911.
>
> I recently (today) acquired a DVD containing scans of every page of the
> 1911 Britannica, along with index files for it all, organized by letter
> and page number. I've already talked with avar, TimStarling, and brion
> on IRC, and TimStarling specifically asked me to tell you all that he is
> "confident that the server requirements will be minimal." They would set
> up a domain name, generate some web pages automatically using the index
> files, and host the entire set of 29,700 files totaling about 4 GB.
>
> One more thing, these are black and white TIFs, and there is discussion
> about whether they should be mass converted to PNGs to be easily viewable.
>
> brian0918 at gmail.com


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] check user policy

body:
Angela wrote:

>>Another point is, right now, all stewards have check user access. But no
>>steward was approved by a developer or by Tim himself (who is at the
>>origine of the steward status creation), nor by Jimbo.
>>So, do you suggest that stewards are asked not to use this tool ? Or
>>should they be allowed only after approval by Jimbo or Tim ? Or should
>>stewards be only nominated by Jimbo or Tim in the future ?
>
>
> It isn't true that all stewards have CheckUser access. Stewards have
> the ability, though not the right, to assign themselves this access.
> It's unfortunate that some have violated their privileges by assigning
> themselves CheckUser access without approval of the communities
> they're using it on. I thought stewards could be trusted not to do
> that, but seemingly not.
>
> Angela
> A steward with no checkuser access

Correct. They have the ability, not necessarily the rights. The requests
I fulfilled were done per request of french editor and french arbcom.
They were legitimate.

Ant


from_name: Nicholas Moreau

body:
>
> Why should journalist be treated in a different way of normal people when
> asking for informations?
>
> AnyFile

They shouldn't, but they are. That's just the way marketing works.

It's a good way of choosing who gets a piece of your infinitely limited time
when you're busy.

Nick/Zanimum


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: checkUser live

references:
<dkpr94$qsp$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4370B649.7080307@starglade.org>	<dkqejk$p4s$1@sea.gmane.org>	<4370C727.4060702@starglade.org>	<dkqlr6$kq2$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<4370E10A.4020405@starglade.org>

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Anthere wrote:
>
>> No. I suggest you ask to the original author of that sentence. I think
>> it is David. Otherwise, perhaps Datrio, I did not check.
>
>
> As you are someone on the Board (who are ultimately responsible for the
> privacy policy, among other things), I would be grateful if you would
> find out this information and get back to me on it.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris

First draft here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:CheckUser&direction=prev&oldid=221082

Some changes afterwards...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help%3ACheckUser&diff=221090&oldid=221089

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: checkUser live


list: wikitech-l

from_name: ilooy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Help with translating database

body:
Hi all,
I have a question regarding editing a specific language
database to aid in translating it to another language.

I have set up a test wiki on a Linux/Linspire 4.5 notebook
and have the software running quite nicely.

My wish is to upload a backup of one of the language
wikis and see how I can tweak a translation out of the
file, something that will go through the database and
basically do a search and replace using a vocabulary
list.

Is there a better way of doing this?

With regards,
Jay B.
ilooy.gaon at gmail.com


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: CheckUser policy (was Status of Wikimedia)

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Alphax wrote:
>
>> I was just thinking that. The people who currently have checkuser status
>> were granted it by the developers, who currently already have that
>> capability. The developers were effectively approved to do (whatever) by
>> the board; hence, the board decides who is allowed access to the
>> checkuser function.
>
>
> The board does not approve developers. Developers approve themselves.
>
> The majority of users with checkuser access are stewards. Stewards
> have been approved by the community, neither by developers, nor by the
> board, nor by Jimbo.

Errrrrmmmm there is one thing that is oversighted in this discussion.
Stewards can actually grant themselve or anyone else  checkuser rights.
There is no developer needed for that. From having used it two or three
times, I know it is not just Taw and David Gerard using it.

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
> One radical approach could be to completely block new languages,
> which would make further discussion pointless.  Another approach
> could be to create a new mailing list for language issues, where
> Mark can have lengthy discussions with himself.

It's quite daft of you to assume that I'm the only person who would
subscribe to such a mailing list.

Mind you, such a mailinglist used to exist -- intlwiki-l -- but it was
merged into this list. Thus, this list is the proper venue for
discussion of internationalisation, localisation, languages, and
Wikipedia.

If you don't like discussion of languages here, you're welcome to
attempt to get intlwiki-l re-opened.

I suggested it a while back, but dropped the effort when Anthere asked me to.

Mark

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


from_name: Alphax

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] CheckUser policy (was Status of
	Wikimedia)

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

David Gerard wrote:
>>But right now, we do NOT have this log. And people are ASKING for the
>>check user status to go live !
>
>
>
> I would really like to know who thought voting for checkuser was a
> good idea and why.
>

Apparantly Wikipedia is a democracy where all problems can be solved by
voting. One user has even written a script to "help automate further
voting processes".

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Privacy policy and editing anonymously notice.

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Timwi wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:
>
>> On 10/31/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>>
>>> [...]. Maybe "click 'Save'" would be best.
>>
>>
>> Please don't ever tell people to click something in MediaWiki
>> messages, not everybody browses with a mousepointer, say something
>> like "follow the link" or "submit the form" etc.
>
>
> I used to think that way too, but I've come to realise that people who
> don't use the mouse usually still understand what is meant by "click the
> button", while the people who *do* use mouse pointers - presumably on
> the order of 99% of people - wouldn't understand any other phrasing as
> clearly. Note that the word "click" doesn't actually imply a mouse; when
> you press Enter or Right-Arrow in lynx, you could just as well refer to
> that as "clicking a link".
>
> So why doesn't lynx refer to it as "clicking"? Well, I think the main
> reason this opposition to the terminology "click" has developed, is that
> the people who use the keyboard by choice (rather than due to
> disability) tend to think of themselves as more competent computer
> users, and therefore tend to regard the mouse users as inferior. As a
> result, the suggestion to "click" something feels subtly condescending
> to them, so they get offended at it. I find this pattern of behaviour
> quite anti-social, so I don't want to reinforce it.
>

Ever heard people talking about websites on radio or TV saying "click
onto www.asdf.com"? GARGH! HOW DO YOU CLICK SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE
CONTEXT OF IT BEING A HYPERLINK ON A PAGE???????????????

(Sorry, grammar is a pet peeve of mine...)

An interesting note to this discussion: the javascript method for
submitting a form is .submit(); the method for submitting any other
input button (regardless of it's actual behaviour) is .click() - so it
would seem that "convention" dictates that no matter what the actual
method, a button must be "clicked".

(Here's an idea: have a "popup" that asks IP editors "Are you sure you
want to submit this edit? Your IP will be recorded in accordance with
our privacy policy" whenever they submit the edit form. It would slow
vandals down a bit...)

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
Encrypted Email Preferred   |   \ /     ASCII Ribbon Campaign
OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
http://tinyurl.com/cc9up    |   / \
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press badges

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Peter Mackay wrote:
<snip>
> But at what point do we stand up and take responsibility for our actions? If
> an accredited WikiNews photographer comes up with nude photographs of
> Hillary Clinton (say). Who goofed? The wikicommunity in issuing the
> credentials that allowed access to the private fund-raiser, or the
> photographer in an apalling lapse of judgement?
>

Well, some people would be quite happy with nude photos of (whoever),
freely licensed and all :)

(Not that I'm one of them)

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

body:
Two comments, hopefully not already made:

1. This copyright situation is not that hard to understand. You can
tell these guys that the copyright is likely held by Capcom, but that
we use it without permission under the "Fair Use" clause in U.S.
copyright law. They should be able to determine if their use of it
would also be "fair use" as well. Since they are doing it for an art
project (basically their own private use), it's probably fine. Or they
could contact Capcom and ask permission, which will probably be
granted if they emphasize that this won't be displayed outside of one
classroom.

2. It *is* a loophole in a sense, though. I've been somewhat fretting
about this for awhile and not sure where I stand on it. Here's my
argument:

A. Wikipedia is not supposed to have Wikipedia-only or
encyclopedia-only or non-profit-only media.
B. But we allow Fair Use media.
C. But most of our legitimate Fair Use claims rides on the fact that
we are a non-profit encyclopedia.
D. So we end up allowing a lot of things which are unlikely to be
usable except in non-profit contexts.
E. Which seems to contradict A.

Now Fair Use is a bit more than just not-for-profit, of course --
that's just one point in the equation. But in the end the law *is*
skewed to allow that sort of use over for-profit, commercial,
non-critical, non-encyclopedic use. So by deferring to a law which
trends towards non-profit use, and taking advantage of the fact that
we are non-profit and an encyclopedia, we end up having a huge amount
of media which is de facto non-profit only.

Maybe I've gotten tripped up here at some point, which I'd be glad to
see pointed out. I feel that our Fair Use policy ends up being very
much neither in the letter or the spirit of Jimbo's fatwa against
non-commercial only images. Perhaps I worry too much, though.

FF

On 11/8/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jorge Oliva wrote to helpdesk-l:
> > To whom it may concern:
> >
> > I am a student at Westwood College in Los Angeles trying to get a
> > bachelor degree in Video Game Art and Design. We were told to do a
> > poster in one of our favorite video games. I chose to do it in the
> > diffrence between StreetFighter, and I would like to ask for permision
> > to borrow some of the pictures that are in your website.  This poster
> > would be only used for educational purposes.
> >
>
> This is where allowing "Fair use" images is getting us... what do I tell
> them? "Sorry, that's actually a copyright infringment which we can use
> via a legal loophole, but nobody else is allowed to"?
>
> I thought the idea was to allow "maximal reuse" and "free content", not
> "copyright situations so complicated that nobody can understand them"!
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
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David Gerard wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>>On 11/8/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>Apparantly Wikipedia is a democracy where all problems can be solved by
>>>voting.
>
>
>>You have to admit it is an effective way of figureing out who you oponents are.
>
>
>
> This is a good example of how the present AFD structure, for example,
> blatantly encourages assumption of bad faith. Should be added to
> "Voting is evil".
>

Is there a law that says "whenever a user comes up with a really stupid
idea, they will inevitably be referred to [[WP:BEANS]] (the sooner the
better)"? We really, REALLY need it to exist (and auto-invoke) in cases
like this.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Translations between different wikipedias, and GFDL

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 11/7/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
<snip>
> It doesn't seem like a reasonable interpretation to me. In fact, I think
> such an interpretation would completely subvert the intention of the GFDL,
> which is to make a work actually reusable. Again, I think the only sane way
> to apply the GFDL to Wikipedia is to treat the entire article (at the least)
> as a single work by multiple authors. That's the way the GFDL was intended
> to be applied. If two people work on a textbook, the GFDL doesn't require
> them to have a history section listing every single typo that was fixed by
> one or the other. No, they are joint authors of a single text. You only get
> into Modified Versions if someone comes along and forks the text.
>
> Now look, you can argue that this isn't the case, but if you are doing so
> you're saying that Wikipedia is out of compliance with the law, because
> Wikipedia is clearly out of compliance with the GFDL (and not just with
> regard to the History section).
>

Hey, IANAL, and AFAIK RMS approves, so AFAICT we're ok wrt. the GFDL.

- --
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Soviet spies

body:
I'm happy with having some sort of sub-category for people for whom
there is no doubt about their espionage but were never convicted --
such as Theodore Hall. However the blanket category is certainly not
that.

I think even the "Alleged" would be too strong in some cases. A former
Soviet spy chief published a tell-all a few years back claiming to
have recruited Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi as spies, something
for which no evidence has ever been found (and not without both an
army of historians and the FBI looking!). Nobody takes the claim very
seriously, though it is an "allegation" and not from a non-notable
source.

The problem with just saying "little doubt" is *whose* doubt? One can
produce an army of quacks to support any POV, of course, but that's
not NPOV.

The word "academic" is a bit stodgy, admittedly, but in general what
is meant is something like "respectable, established expert community"
-- which usually means academic historians in this specific situation.
If you can come up with a better way to state it, by all means...

FF

On 11/8/05, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
> We should have a similar categorisation in place for Soviet spies removing
> the word academic. For example, Kim Philby was not convicted of being a
> Soviet spy but there is little doubt that he was a spy. He even held a job
> with the KGB after his defection.
>  There have been accusations against other people such as Sir Roger Hollis,
> former head of MI5, but these claims have yet to be proven one way or
> another. If we wanted to put these people into a category, it should be
> alleged spies.
>  Regards
>   *Keith Old*
>
>  On 11/9/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > No, but we do have [[Category:Rapists]]. However the description page
> > for the category says that "This category is for individuals who have
> > been convicted of rape, or those for whom there is little academic
> > doubt as to whether they committed the crime."
> >
> > If we limited [[Category:Soviet spies]] to people who had been
> > convicted or for cases where there is little academic doubt, it would
> > be a pretty small list. That's part of the reason that the people
> > opposed to renaming the category are opposed to it -- it de-emphasizes
> > the point they want to make (see my last posting) if the category is
> > small.
> >
> > You couldn't classify Ethel Rosenberg as a "Soviet spy" in this
> > definition -- there is considerable academic doubt whether she
> > participated in espionage. There is no doubt that she was convicted
> > for it*, though -- it is a plain fact.
> >
> > FF
> >
> > *Well, technically for "conspiracy to commit espionage", but now we're
> > splitting hairs.
> >
> >
> > On 11/8/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA256
> > >
> > > Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > > > Chip Berlet wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I put "Category:Soviet spies" on Categories for Deletion, but even
> > > >> though most of the people thought a name change was a good idea,
> > since
> > > >> most of them did not vote to Delete, the ruling was to Keep. I
> > > >> objected, but got no response.
> > > >>
> > > > It seems strange to me that any category which could be defamatory
> > would
> > > > be subject to the whims of the voting process. This is not just a
> > > > question of "Soviet spies". Any category suggesting a criminal
> > activity
> > > > of any kind should be viewed as POV.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Do we have "Category:Convicted rapists"?
> > >
> > > - --
> > > Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> > > Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> > > "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> > > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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> > > _______________________________________________
> > > 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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:
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Chris Jenkinson wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> So, to answer David question, I think there are roughly three main
>> options
>>
>> First option : people get checkuser access on an automatic basis,
>> through another status (for example, all bureaucrats automatically get
>> the tool).
>>
>> Second option : people get checkuser access through an approval system
>> (with a community vote or an arbitrator vote)
>>
>> Third option : the monarchy system. Tim (as suggested by David) or
>> Jimbo (as recently done for the english wikipedia) decide who has
>> check user access.
>
>
> Surely the enforcement of the Foundation's privacy policy is the
> responsibility of the Foundation, and thus access to personal
> information (such as IP addresses) should be given out upon approval by
> the Board, rather than by some kind of election system?
>

I was just thinking that. The people who currently have checkuser status
were granted it by the developers, who currently already have that
capability. The developers were effectively approved to do (whatever) by
the board; hence, the board decides who is allowed access to the
checkuser function.

A general community vote is a *bad idea*. "Power to the people" sounds
good in theory, but the reality is that "the people" cannot be trusted.

We have a board; we might as well use them.

- --
Alphax                      |   /"\
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OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613  |    X   Against HTML email & vCards
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from_name: Chris Jenkinson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Voting is evil (was CheckUser policy)

body:
Alphax wrote:
> Having tried to cross AfD with RFC, I can only agree with you. Someone
> should take all the previous RFCs and publish an essay on Wikisource
> entitled "A study on groupthink in online communities".

I'm filing an RFC against Alphax unless he does it!

Chris


from_name: geni

body:
On 11/8/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> We need MC reform as well as RFA reform as well as RFC reform as well
> as AFD reform... pretty much all of the wikipedia name space process's
> need work. Not to give too many pats on the back, but the system that
> currently seems to be working best is ArbCom...
>
> Jack (Sam Spade)
>

Then again look at the speed with which both RFC and RFA delt with the
Stevertigo issue compared to arcom. On the other can lack of speed has
never really been given as a downside of mob justice.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Look

body:
On 11/8/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >We're going to lose a perfectly good potential bureaucrat to a
> >pusilanimous beauty contest if you don't get down  and at least
> >consider whether Kelly Martin deserves your vote.
> >
>  From what I've seen she would be good, but I do not participate in
> these votes at all.  It would feel it unethical if I only participated
> when there was a candidate that I liked.
>
> Ec

Well I have a long standing policy of only voteing in the cases of
users I've herd of.

--
geni


body:
Alphax wrote:
> Hey, I'm an engineer(ing student), not a sociologist! :)

You've been promoted (demoted?).

Chris


body:
Just find someone with serves access to a non mediawiki wiki and turn
it on and see what happens. If all else fails the person who runs the
other wiki project I work on would love to have this feature.

--
geni


body:
On 11/9/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hereby propose renaming [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] to
> [[Wikipedia:Article mobbing]].

Lynching might be more correct. Certianly we could rename CSD to
[[wikipedia:Vigilante code]]

--
geni


body:
On 11/9/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> geni wrote:
> > Just find someone with serves access to a non mediawiki wiki and turn
> > it on and see what happens. If all else fails the person who runs the
> > other wiki project I work on would love to have this feature.
> >
>
> I think you meant "non-wikimedia" - given that we're talking about
> features of Mediawiki...

err yes.

> Actually, given the number of customisations that have been carried out
> to our wikis, I'm not entirely sure that the results would be valid. We
> need the exact same conditions with only 1 variable changed (the
> presence of the validation feature) for the results to be valid in any way.
>

If we were looking at wether it would be a bulk server hog I think we
could get away with that. Hardwear setups would be more of an issue
but even limited data is better than none

> Given that Commons has traditionally been a place of innovation and
> trying out new features, why not start there?

Because rateing the kind of material they have there doesn't make a
hudge amount of sense. If we wanted to test it on a smaller wikimedia
project then one of the non english wikipedias would be most logical.
Which one would depend on the size of test you wanted to carry out.

--
geni


from_name: Robert Jones

subject: [Wikitech-l] Speeding up Mediawiki

body:
Are there any tricks to speeding up Mediawiki? I have many other pages on my
site that talk to the MySQL database that open in <1s but the Mediawiki ones
tend to take longer c.2-5s, and I don't have an enormous amount of load on
the server.

It is a wiki installation that isn't editable by the public and doesn't use
a skin as such (I just allow all the HTML I want to allow by editing the
parser and another file), so I was wondering if there were any tricks to
bypass things and make the pages load quicker. It's probably worth noting
that I don't use the cache facility and that I have an extension that
displays only if someone is logged in (this is the reason for chche not
being used).

I think Mediawiki is great, just looking to find out if I can make it run
faster. Sincere thanks to all responsible for the hard work that's gone into
the script.


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
On 8 Nov 2005, at 18:39, kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback. One interesting point with my little test
> seems to
> be that the average quality of our content has not much improved
> since March
> (or since 2003, as far as I can remember).

What do you base this on?

> A thought experiment: if we were the editorial committee of an
> encyclopedia
> to be written from scratch and were given Wikipedia's current
> content as a
> basis (but not the user base), what would we do? I guess we would
> put our
> energy into improving the material, i.e. rewriting/deleting/merging
> most of
> it. But we would not try to acquire more articles of that quality.
> (Ah wait,
> we ARE the editorial committee of an encyclopedia to be written from
> scratch...)

I dont know. Despite what other people seem to think there are huge
areas
that are missing. A lot of people find it easier to write with
something to
start from. I have written a few of articles from missing encyclopaedic
articles (ones I knew something about) and other people have found
them and
improved them. So even having more stubs is useful.

Ok, just had a chance to go through your list, and yes the World of
Warcraft
article is fancruft. But it has been edited by 6 people. If people
afre going to
write this much it is hard to recommend merging.

William Roberts the first edit says "information is thin" but clearly
notable.
Someone will fix this one day, using a copy of "Not very eminent
Victorians".
The formatting will be ok then.

Reverse potential is a dab page but not in the usual style. I think
thats ok.

Entertainer I agree is bogus. However it is because it is a remnant
of life before
categories. It and many of the linked lists need to be removed.
Categories make
this stuff redundant.

Gripper. Should die.

Imari porcelain is not incoherent, it makes a good effort at a
difficult subject.

Diego Luna is what I would expect about a not very important actor.
Reads like a
copyvio actually.

Justinc


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Search very intermittent on :en:

references:
<dknu3d$82k$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dkp80u$5hc$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dkq22f$e7q$2@sea.gmane.org>
	<dkqfqp$ttr$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Tim Starling wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>> Do we have to expose this detail to non-technical users? The above user
>> clearly knew a fair bit about IPs, and the message was still meaningless
>> to them; imagine what an average non-technical user might think.
>
> We have detailed error messages so that sysadmins can debug problems when
> users report them.

I've switched it to automatically cycle to the next server if the first
one doesn't respond; if all three fail it'll now print out:

"There was a problem with the wiki search.
This is probably temporary; try again in a few moments,
or you can search the wiki through an external search service:"
[followed by the google and yahoo search forms]

(This is localizable and configurable as MediaWiki:Lucenefallback)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:Soviet spies

body:
On 09/11/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> > It seems strange to me that any category which could be defamatory would
> > be subject to the whims of the voting process.  This is not just a
> > question of "Soviet spies".  Any category suggesting a criminal activity
> > of any kind should be viewed as POV.
>
> Do we have "Category:Convicted rapists"?

In effect, yes. [[Category:Rapists]] states: "This category is for
individuals who have been convicted of rape, or those for whom there
is little academic doubt as to whether they committed the crime".

(There's also a [[Statutory rapists]] subcat, which I'm less
comfortable with having - it's rarely a defining feature of anyone in
the same way as being a convicted rapist is - but also less worried
about; the very nature of the term means you have to be convicted!)

"Little academic doubt" covers things like rape-and-murder where
someone's been convicted on seventeen counts of first-degree murder;
even though they didn't get around to charging him with the rapes,
it's not generally seen as a sign of innocence.

For [[Category:Soviet spies]], however, the description is: "This
category lists people who are said to have spied for the Soviet Union
by some sources. Many are not Soviet citizens. Several denied they
were spies, and even more were never indicted."

This is somewhat less stringent, certainly. I mean, there's no
shortage of claims that [[Harold Wilson]] was a Soviet spy - should he
be in that category? God no - and if there'd been accusations of rape
he wouldn't be in [[Category:Rapists]]. But under the wording now,
you'd be perfectly justified adding him...

The difference between the scope of the categories can be put this
way: you wouldn't be able to add Bill Clinton to the Rapists category,
but you would be able to add Wilson to the Soviet spies one. Yet the
accusations are only accusations for both...

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


from_name: Tim Starling

references:
<dknu3d$82k$1@sea.gmane.org> <dkp80u$5hc$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dkq22f$e7q$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:
>
>>> The symptoms so far include showing the Google/Yahoo boxes and an odd
>>> error message indicating some sort of bad return from an IP in the
>>> [10.*.*.*] range. My IP knowledge is rusty: is that a private range?
>>
>>
>> At the moment, we have three search servers: maurus (10.0.0.16), vincent
>> (10.0.0.17) and coronelli (10.0.0.230).
>
>
> Do we have to expose this detail to non-technical users? The above user
> clearly knew a fair bit about IPs, and the message was still meaningless
> to them; imagine what an average non-technical user might think.

We have detailed error messages so that sysadmins can debug problems when
users report them.

-- Tim Starling


body:
On 11/9/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually that was a pretty stupid statement of me to make. Commons has
> done quite a few things wrt. multilingualism (cf. Babel) but in terms of
> actually getting content out there and available, de: has been the
> leader (cf. the DVD and such).
>
> So: should we ask the de: community what they think? Try it out over there?

If we are looking at limited roleout for a test .de is way too big
something around 10,000 articles (not .nn) would probably be a good
choice. .ko perhaps?

--
geni


body:
On 09/11/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/9/05, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Actually that was a pretty stupid statement of me to make. Commons has
> > done quite a few things wrt. multilingualism (cf. Babel) but in terms of
> > actually getting content out there and available, de: has been the
> > leader (cf. the DVD and such).
> >
> > So: should we ask the de: community what they think? Try it out over there?
>
> If we are looking at limited roleout for a test .de is way too big
> something around 10,000 articles (not .nn) would probably be a good
> choice. .ko perhaps?

Without meaning to sound Eurocentric - how easy is it for the .ko
community to get back to the developers with problems? AIUI we're used
to "experimental" work happening with .en, but not elsewhere...

Huh. Wait a second. We've already said, somewhere upthread, that the
test implementation of the feature is solely to gather information on
how it works. So why not enable it on meta and see what happens?
Ratings will be meaningless, sure (though possibly amusing), but it
lets people play with it, it lets us see if it works, and when
whatever machine meta is on fails to explode into a ball of flaming
debris then we can roll it out somewhere people might actually see it
and rate articles "for real"...

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


body:
On 11/9/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> Without meaning to sound Eurocentric - how easy is it for the .ko
> community to get back to the developers with problems? AIUI we're used
> to "experimental" work happening with .en, but not elsewhere...
>

Hmm then simple english would be the other logical choice. It doesn't
have the size I would like but there would be no language problems.

Othere options would be Wiktionary (bigger than I would like it to be)
and wikibooks (which would be about the right size)

--
geni


body:
On 11/8/05, Fl Celloguy <flcelloguy at hotmail.com> wrote:
> It is clear that reform must be made in the dispute resolution process. It's
> better to do it now, rather than later. SV recently set up a page,
> [[WP:Dispute Resolution Reform]] ([[WP:DRR]]) - should we start
> consolidating discussion on one page regarding the entire dispute resolution
> process?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Flcelloguy

I've seen it. I'm trying to forget the Complex tier sketch. I mean at
least the current system follows a fairly simple order with RFC MC
then arbcom.

--
geni


from_name: Angela

body:
On 11/9/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

> The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
> eb1911.wikipedia.org? We could make it visually distinct, to avoid confusion
> with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org be better? Or
> eb1911.wikisource.org?

Whether at Wikipedia or Wikisource, I'd rather it was "1911" rather
than "eb1911". If there are trademark issues with calling it
Encyclopedia Britannica, then calling it EB just seems a sneaky way
around that since it's obvious what the EB stands for. It annoys me
when people use "WP" on sites we'd not approve the use of "Wikipedia"
since it still implies some official connection, especially
considering how often the abbreviation is used to refer to Wikipedia.

Angela.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> ...
> The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
> eb1911.wikipedia.org? We could make it visually distinct, to avoid confusion
> with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org be better? Or
> eb1911.wikisource.org?

It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is the place
for this.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


references:
<43715ABA.3010509@gmail.com> <dkrncr$tbb$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<8b722b800511081856p456aa189q482d983bf1e4c5f0@mail.gmail.com>
	<dkrpt5$2se$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 11/9/05, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

> I suggested EB as an abbreviation, not as a way to avoid
> trademark issues.

The potential trademark issue was brought up on this list last July:
<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-July/003645.html>.
Since then, Wikisource has been mostly using the EB abbreviation, but
there are still  many mentions of the full name, so perhaps it was
decided it wasn't an issue.

> I didn't suggest 1911.wikisource.org because it violates the following RFC
> 1035 recommendation by not starting with a letter:

I didn't know that, and I've got two Wikicities which violate it.

Since Wikisource are already working on this, after being moved away
from Wikibooks, the Wikisource domain might be the best place for it.

See also:
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/Apr_2005_-_Aug_2005#1911_Wikipedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#1911_Wikipedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/1911wikipedia
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WikiProject_1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica

Angela.


body:
-- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > ...
> > The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
> > eb1911.wikipedia.org? We could make it visually distinct, to avoid
> confusion
> > with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org be better? Or
> > eb1911.wikisource.org?
>
> It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is the
> place for this.

If a subdomain at Wikisource is needed, then it should not be a wiki. Ideally
we would have book support in Wikisource that would all this to be put directly
in Wikisource. But I can accept having this on a separate subdomain until that
feature is added and only if the interim subdomain hack will not host a wiki.

-- mav

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

body:
> Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> > But all is not lost. If we mark articles as bad or stub, we
> could keep
> > them somewhat hidden from the public.
> >
> >
> >
> *COUGH* validation feature *COUGH*
>
> 'cuse me, I'm recovering from a cold ;-)
>
> Magnus

Jeez Louise, Magnus: WHEN are you going to turn on the validation
feature? Are you waiting for Anthere or someone to "certify" that there
is a "consensus" to try out the feature?

Please just turn it on. We will all play with it for a few weeks and
decide if it should be permanent.

And if there's a "performance degradation", surely you will detect that
problem and yank the feature. But you already assured us that this is
highly unlikely.

Ed Poor
A professional software developer at a major TV network


body:
> >If we mark articles as bad or stub, we could keep them
> somewhat hidden
> >from
> >the public.
>
> Ah, the insidious plausibility of the worst ideas!
>
> The default must be that we keep the stubs in view, unless
> people somehow
> opt otherwise.  How else are we going to get the encyclopedia
> written?  I
> thought there was anyway consensus that the content took
> priority over all
> else, including impressing people with excessively tidy minds.
>
> Charles

Fine, make "stub-hiding" an optional feature. Users who want to conceal
stubs or other sub-standard articles can set a "user preferences" option
to do so.

And let's tell magazines that review our project to judge us by our
"good" articles, once Magnus's feature has had a chance to get going.

Ed Poor


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation website

body:
Hello,

The website has been refurbished in the past few
weeks.

You may see it at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

If some people feel like improving the design, please
do (we can work on this on meta or on the foundation
site depending on those interested).

Note that the main page offers various places for
input, either from the board/officers or from editors
themselves. Amongst the latest additions, please see
the opinion of an editor on Le Louvres, the famous
french museum, hosting art such as La Joconde, and
which has recently taken the stance to forbid entirely
any picture taking.
This is currently available in english, french and
german.
Here :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/It_is_forbidden_to_take_pictures_%21

The next steps are currently these ones :

* Setting up a new complete board report (do not go
for now, it is still under work :-))
* We expect a complete financial report of the last
fiscal year within a month or so
* I invite you to work on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_use_or_reuse_our_content
to put on the foundation site later

What I would love to is to set up a FAQ in the next
weeks. I only created the page for now
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_use_or_reuse_our_content)
and invite everyone to put what he thinks are the most
basic questions anyone not knowing *anything* about
the Foundation could find useful. I'll go around here
and there in village pumps to ask for help on this.
For now, just knowing which could be the top 15
questions on the organisation would be great.

Other than that, remember that you are welcome to
participate. If someone does an interview of an
important person... if someone wants to make a report
on Wikimania, or clarify a legal issue, or is ready to
write a general article on one of our projects, or the
wikireaders... please do not feel shy and contact us
:-)

Ant

__________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page!
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


body:
> Thanks for the feedback. One interesting point with my little
> test seems to be that the average quality of our content has
> not much improved since March (or since 2003, as far as I can
> remember).
>
> A thought experiment: if we were the editorial committee of
> an encyclopedia to be written from scratch and were given
> Wikipedia's current content as a basis (but not the user
> base), what would we do? I guess we would put our energy into
> improving the material, i.e. rewriting/deleting/merging most
> of it. But we would not try to acquire more articles of that
> quality. (Ah wait, we ARE the editorial committee of an
> encyclopedia to be written from
> scratch...)
>
> Kosebamse

I'm on the editorial committee of just such a project: the Unification
movement's "[[Encyclopedia Project]]" (see the WP article).

And what are we doing? We are putting our energy into improving a small
subset of Wikipedia articles + commissioning an even smaller number of
brand-new articles. Gosh, I wish I could give a few selected Wikipedians
a tour of the "work in progress". Maybe I'll show a few pages at the
Boston Wikimania meeting next year, if I get some stage/screen time.

Ed Poor


body:
> It seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Brion
> has failed to
> provide adequate explanation with regards to the perceived
> problems with
> the feature. It seems that several times, Magnus Manske (the
> author of
> the feature) has posted to wikitech-l asking why the feature
> isn't being
> enabled; Brion would reply stating a few "problems" which
> Magnus quite
> convincingly demonstrates are either fixed by now, or have never
> actually been a problem. Brion then never replies to those
> refutations
> again and just leaves everyone puzzled.
>
> > but it's understandably frustrating to those of us who
> REALLY REALLY
> > WANT IT IN.
>
> The situation as I have outlined it above is not only
> frustrating, but
> actually somewhat angering. If he can't turn the feature on
> or explain
> what's wrong with it, then maybe he shouldn't be "in charge"
> or at least
> not the only one.
>
> Timwi

This is the kind of politics that made me quit the development team a
couple of years ago, and also what led me to being mostly inactive even
after joining _three_ years ago. Technical leadership is difficult, and
developers are no better than average (merely because they are computer
"scientists") than any other group, at cooperating.

I hope one person will be BOLD, knowing that if a problem actually DOES
crop up, the feature can simply be shut off.

Ed Poo
Developer Emeritus


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

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

Matt Brown stated for the record:

> There is a strong argument that those concerned with freedom should
> aggressively use the provisions of Fair Use - explicitly to never allow the
> fiction that copyright owners have absolute control to establish itself.
> Fair Use is equivalent to a public right of way, in a sense - and should not
> be a right allowed to lapse through unuse.
>
> -Matt (User:Morven)

An argument promoted all the more strongly since its supporters won't
have to pay any of the shattering price of making it.  "You should
accept the risk that a crippling lawsuit will destroy your project while
I sit over here and cheer you on."

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Videmus nunc per speculum in
 sean at epoptic.org | aenigmate. Nunc cognosco ex parte.
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from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Angela wrote:
>> Another point is, right now, all stewards have check user access. But no
>> steward was approved by a developer or by Tim himself (who is at the
>> origine of the steward status creation), nor by Jimbo.
>> So, do you suggest that stewards are asked not to use this tool ? Or
>> should they be allowed only after approval by Jimbo or Tim ? Or should
>> stewards be only nominated by Jimbo or Tim in the future ?
>>
>
> It isn't true that all stewards have CheckUser access. Stewards have
> the ability, though not the right, to assign themselves this access.
> It's unfortunate that some have violated their privileges by assigning
> themselves CheckUser access without approval of the communities
> they're using it on. I thought stewards could be trusted not to do
> that, but seemingly not.
>
> Angela
> A steward with no checkuser access
Hoi,
I can remember some discussion where it was said that a steward without
the knowledge to use this tool should not use it. This was at a time
where a lot of problems were made worse by the lack of someone able or
willing to do a checkuser on the Dutch wikipedia. The consensus at that
time was that stewards should be considered responsible enough to decide
for themselves if they are able to use a tool like this.

It was also discussed that a checkuser user should have the right to
test for sockpuppetry when it is considered a possibility. It can be
done discreetly. This allows a steward to quietly dispel the notion that
two users are the same. This is less acrimonious than the fact that
something is checked. The fact that someone is checked is often felt as
an insult on its own. By allowing for discretion a lot of feathers will
not be ruffled. Obviously, any project can do it in his/her way but
given that the checkuser tool needs to be timely applied, I would
consider using the tool by committee a self defeating proposition.

Thanks,
   GerardM


subject: [Wikitech-l] check user policy


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Totally unscientific investigation...

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Brown, Darin

> > But all is not lost. If we mark articles as bad or stub, we
> could keep
> > them somewhat hidden from the public.
> >
> > Volunteer contributors could see them, of course, by "opting in".
> > Everyone else (call them "general readers") would be told that we
> > don't have an article on the subject yet BUT that we are
> working on it.
> >
> > "And would you like to see the work in progress?"
> >
> > Ed Poor
> > Quality Maven
>
> Are you being facetious?? If that were put into practice,
> nothing would improve! The reason articles improve is
> *because* people see mediocre, "failing" articles.
> "Shielding" them would only shield them from improvement.

It would slow things down, sure.

Stubs should be visible because although they aren't complete articles, at
least they contain SOME information. Whenever I see a stub where I can add a
bit of information in passing, I'll add it. Sometimes I'll stop, do some
research and add a paragraph or two, maybe a photograph. Sometimes I'll even
find a whole article that needs writing, and that's a special joy.

Of course, all this is, ahem, theoretical because I'm not allowed to edit.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2005/11/8, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>:

> Correct. They have the ability, not necessarily the rights. The requests
> I fulfilled were done per request of french editor and french arbcom.
> They were legitimate.

Mine were made with permission or request of and notification to the
complete set of Dutch sysops.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia

body:
2005/11/9, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:

> Mind you, such a mailinglist used to exist -- intlwiki-l -- but it was
> merged into this list. Thus, this list is the proper venue for
> discussion of internationalisation, localisation, languages, and
> Wikipedia.

intlwiki-l was not meant for the discussion of new languages, but for
things having to do with several Wikipedia languages, in particular
interwiki links. It was split off from this list because people from
other wikis did not want to discuss internal issues of en: that much,
and merged back into this list because wikien-l had split off.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: charles matthews

body:
kosebamse at gmx.net wrote

> One interesting point with my little test seems to
> be that the average quality of our content has not much improved since
> March
> (or since 2003, as far as I can remember).

If we're talking about the _proportion of stubs_, then, yes, I can believe
it is about what it ever was.  You'd expect that on general grounds, if
there was exponential growth.

Other interesting measures would be things like

- prevalence of red links
- categorisation.

I'd guess at least 10% of articles are inadequately categorised; a first
step to improvement is to get them roughly into a sorting category.  I think
red links do get paid attention.  That would be one reason for more stubs,
of course. But, again assuming exponential growth, you'd assume a model
where the well-developed 'core' articles are surrounded by diffuse
'penumbra' articles, large in number.  At what point this starts to 'close
up' and become more uniform is anyone's guess.  We are not there yet,
clearly.

Charles


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Vote to create Wikiversity Vote

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:

>On 11/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>For my part I think Wikiversity is a great idea, but I don't see where it
>>benefits from being part of Wikimedia. Wikimedia is primarily a media
>>company, and a university and a media company are only loosely tied with one
>>another. Yes, books need to be used by a university, but a) most
>>universities don't make all their own books, and b) Wikibooks can handle
>>that part of the project without being part of the university (but merely
>>working hand-in-hand with the university).
>>
>>If there is enough support for this project to be at all successful it would
>>be no problem to start it up as its own organization separate from the
>>Wikimedia Foundation. That doesn't mean it would compete with the WMF, in
>>fact the two would likely co-exist quite amicably.  <*SNIP*>
>>
>>
>
>
>There was a discussion about Wikiversity on IRC last night, as part of
>the Wikimedia Research Network, details and log of which can be found
>here:
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-11-06
>
>I think you're raising some interesting points here - I think what's
>emerging for me is that some people are quite nervous about
>Wikiversity being a Wikimedia project - if it aspires to be an
>e-learning resource.  <*SNIP*>
>
>
I fail to understand what the whole issue is here.  This was a vote to
put a project called Wikiversity onto its own seperate MediaWiki domain
where the participants could organize themselves using the software
while the server itself would be operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.
 Am I missing anything here?  Is there anything else going on?

While I would agree that if eventually the group trying to get
Wikiversity going were to seek accreditation and a more formal academic
standing, it would be a good idea to establish a seperate legal entity
that would be dealing with those academic standards and to work with the
accreditation organizations to improve the standards of Wikiversity.  As
a long-term goal perhaps this is something that needs to be discussed
and certainly this is something that could be done both from within the
community as well as something that could be done with the cooperation
of the Wikimedia Foundation board.

Don't get ahead of ourselves here, however.  There is a long road before
any of that can be accomplished, and to start with some simple
instruction can be perpared with "on-line" classes and other hallmarks
of a learning environment that don't need this seperate legal entity.
 Some incredible opportunities can be made available with a project like
Wikiversity, and the important thing to keep in mind is that by using
some Wiki software for organizing the website for this project, we can
attract people in the creation of Wikiversity that would otherwise not
be technically capable of participating.  There is also a social network
between the various Wikimedia projects that can also serve to support
Wikiversity, including many who are very academically inclined simply
because of other projects like Wikibooks or Wikipedia.  In this case the
whole community is much stronger than the sum of the parts, and there
are resources to draw upon that are already with this community.  This
project should take advantage of those resources and already established
"communities" of support.

There is also a huge opportunity to draw upon collaborative writing as a
resource for instruction.  I've already used this myself for some
college-level instruction for some courses I taught, where I used
MediaWiki software to help write documents together as a part of the
curriculm.  It can't be used for all subjects, but is an interesting
area of human learning and knowledge that I don't think has been fully
explored or even used much at all.

One of the huge problems I saw with other "on-line" educational
communities is that they start with a good idea by a committed
individual.  He usually is paying for the internet server space with his
own money and this is something of a hobby.  This project stikes a chord
and develops a community that begins to grow fast and become so large
that the one individual who was helping to pay for the physical
computers quickly became overwhelmed with the task of trying to keep the
physical equipment going rather than trying to work on the social issues
that were developing within the community. (Sound familiar Jimbo?)

At some point it becomes expensive enough that the people who are good
at organizing the school itself have to deal with fundraising issues to
the point it completely overwhelms them just trying to keep the existing
equipment going and deal with bandwidth issues so that something can be
accomplished at all.

The advantage of working with the Wikimedia Foundation is that the
fundraising activities for simply paying for the server and the physical
equipment that runs the internet services has already been organized.
 This is also precisely the reason why so many people want to have their
"pet project" idea become a sister project to the Wikimedia
Foundation... because this support system is already in place.  The
legal tax status for doing the fundraising in many countries has already
been thought through, and if Wikiversity were to go off on its own it
would have to do all of that all over again, including establishing
"chapters" in other countries.  This legwork has already been
accomplished, and the real question is why should this work be
duplicated by a seperate organization?

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

body:
Is anyone on this list actually using these credentials? That's who needs to
be listened to. I would think an accreditation system which has the approval
of the board (which doesn't mean the board micromanages it) would be the
only useful system anyway.
 But maybe I'm wrong. Has anyone accomplished anything by saying "yeah, I'm
a reporter for some website, you can go to this url and look at a page that
anyone in the world can edit, and that proves it"?

 On 11/8/05, Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net> wrote:
>
> foundation-l-request at wikimedia.org wrote:
>
> > Why are you mentioning that? That is a strawman due to the fact
> > that I strongly support the scalable approach.
> >
> > -- mav
>
>
> Because your argument reduces the scalability.
>
> Perhaps this entire thread could have been presented differently.
>
> Board members? Would it be possible for you to discuss the Wikinews
> press credentialing process at some point? Currently we use the system
> in the same way high school and other non-professional journalism
> organizations do all over the world, but perhaps we should have
> something more than a tacit approval. One idea would be approval of a
> phrase such as:
>
> ''Wikinews editions may accredit persons according to their policies
> for the purpose of acting as freelance journalists when reporting on
> news events for Wikinews."
>
> Would this answer your concerns, Mav? It clearly states the
> contributors are not representing Wikinews or the Wikimedia
> Foundation, limits when and how the credentials may be used, but
> allows the project to develop credentialing policies.
>
> Amgine
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Hosting scans of the 1911 Britannica
	onWikimedia

body:
Hm. Good points. I think you are correct. This should be on Commons and we
should work with Distributed Proofreaders on this (no special subdomain; treat
like any other related set of images). Keeping the images and the resulting
proofread ASCII text that will go into Wikisource in the public domain is also
important.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that scans of PD work are still PD in the U.S.

-- mav

--- Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> What???  Wikimedia Commons is the best place for images, and indeed
> there have already been several scans of this encyclopedia that have
> been put into Wikimedia projects.  We don't need to use bit torrents
> unless this is a move to do bit torrents for all Wikimedia projects
> (perhaps a good idea but a seperate discussion).  There is also a
> license tag that has been specifically established on commons just for
> content from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica because of the large
> number of potential images that can come from this source.  Look them up
> right now with the associated categories at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template%3APD-Britannica
>
> One thing I see missing from this discussion is working in cooperation
> with Distributed Proofreaders, who is not only transcribing the contents
> of this encyclopedia into plain ASCII text (and XML markup as well), but
> is also providing scans of the figures and images from within the
> volumes and making them available with a public domain license.  What
> more do we want here?  The slow going on that project with Distributed
> Proofreaders is something that goes to show how large of a project it is.
>
> That trying to organize the content onto a Wiki has been difficult, yes.
>  It may also be a good idea to access a direct scan of the image to
> compare against the transcribed text.  The real question is if the
> contents of a whole DVD ought to be moved to commons or not, especially
> if the source of the scans is in the public domain.
>
> That is the real issue here, because you can copyright a scan of an
> image.  Weak copyright protection at best, but you can copyright the
> scan itself which would in turn force you to have to find the original
> materials and do the scan seperately.  In the case of the 1911
> Encyclopaedia Brittanica, however, that is much easier to do than some
> other older works.  Again, working with the Distributed Proofreaders on
> something like this is going to make life much easier because they have
> done the scans themselves and are granting explicitly the scanned images
> and content into the public domain.  It also avoids duplication of labor
> with a huge project like this.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com


subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Hosting scans of the 1911
	Britannica	onWikimedia

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/9/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
>
>
>>--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>...
>>>The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
>>>eb1911.wikipedia.org <http://eb1911.wikipedia.org>? We could make it
>>>
>>>
>>visually distinct, to avoid
>>
>>
>>>confusion with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org<http://eb1911.wikimedia.org>be
>>>better? Or eb1911.wikisource.org <http://eb1911.wikisource.org>?
>>>
>>>
>>It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is
>>the place for this.
>>
>>-- mav
>>
>>This is exactly right. An encyclopedia from 1911 is a primary source of
>>historical interest; it's data, not metadata. If it goes anywhere, it's
>>Wikisource.
>>
>>--Marshall Poe
>>
>>
>
> Wikisource is the place for the text, maybe. For the images themselves I
>don't see the disadvantage of just using bittorrent, maybe by volume.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
What???  Wikimedia Commons is the best place for images, and indeed
there have already been several scans of this encyclopedia that have
been put into Wikimedia projects.  We don't need to use bit torrents
unless this is a move to do bit torrents for all Wikimedia projects
(perhaps a good idea but a seperate discussion).  There is also a
license tag that has been specifically established on commons just for
content from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica because of the large
number of potential images that can come from this source.  Look them up
right now with the associated categories at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template%3APD-Britannica

One thing I see missing from this discussion is working in cooperation
with Distributed Proofreaders, who is not only transcribing the contents
of this encyclopedia into plain ASCII text (and XML markup as well), but
is also providing scans of the figures and images from within the
volumes and making them available with a public domain license.  What
more do we want here?  The slow going on that project with Distributed
Proofreaders is something that goes to show how large of a project it is.

That trying to organize the content onto a Wiki has been difficult, yes.
 It may also be a good idea to access a direct scan of the image to
compare against the transcribed text.  The real question is if the
contents of a whole DVD ought to be moved to commons or not, especially
if the source of the scans is in the public domain.

That is the real issue here, because you can copyright a scan of an
image.  Weak copyright protection at best, but you can copyright the
scan itself which would in turn force you to have to find the original
materials and do the scan seperately.  In the case of the 1911
Encyclopaedia Brittanica, however, that is much easier to do than some
other older works.  Again, working with the Distributed Proofreaders on
something like this is going to make life much easier because they have
done the scans themselves and are granting explicitly the scanned images
and content into the public domain.  It also avoids duplication of labor
with a huge project like this.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Poe, Marshall

body:
--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> ...
> The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
> eb1911.wikipedia.org? We could make it visually distinct, to avoid
> confusion with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org be
> better? Or eb1911.wikisource.org?

It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is
the place for this.

-- mav

This is exactly right.  An encyclopedia from 1911 is a primary source of
historical interest; it's data, not metadata.  If it goes anywhere, it's
Wikisource.

--Marshall Poe

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Try out the rating scheme

body:
> From: Bryan Derksen [mailto:bryan.derksen at shaw.ca]

> Cyberjunkie wrote:
>
> >Be bold!
> >
> >
> Well, I guess just having a vote cascade on the mailing list
> isn't going
> to work. Hrmph. Anyone know who specifically is "in charge"
> of deciding
> what Wikimedia configuration to use? Or is the problem perhaps that
> there _isn't_ anyone specifically in charge? :)

Until now, developers simply judged consensus - usually from the mailing
list. If they hesitate to do so now, with 100 times as many contributors
as we had 2 years ago, then let's put it to a vote.

Angela, what's the proper way to vote on this?

Ed Poor


from_name: Brown, Darin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Longitudinal analysis

body:
I think my original point still went unaddressed...I think we're still going
about using mistaken ideas about judging the current state of the articles
collectively. In particular, I strongly do *not* believe that hitting the
"random page" button 20 times (or even 20,000 times) is a very valid way of
assessing the success of the project, for specific reasons. I don't mean to
sound like I'm attacking those who've done this...after all, who hasn't
played around with the random page button?? I know *I* certainly have. But,
we should remain critical.

There are many objections. First, as Charles pointed out, in any system
which is growing even roughly *exponentially*, you would expect the relative
*percentage* of a particular type of article to remain roughly constant over
time. In other words, it should come as neither a great shock nor a great
threat that the *percentage* of stubs, bad articles, etc. has remained
constant over time. This is what is expected, given the growth, and given
that we're nowhere near an "equilibrium".

Here is a more equitable procedure: hitting the "random page" button
essentially assigns the same probability to each article. But, is this
really useful? What would be *more* accurate would be to assign a
probability to each article proportional to the actual number of hits it
gets from flesh-and-blood readers. By assigning equal probability to every
article, this puts some obscure fan fluff stub article on an equal par with
[[United Stated of America]], even though the latter may command 100s or
1000s of times the actual page views/day of the former.

But an even stronger objection I have to the "hit the random page button 20
times" approach is that it collects an essentially *static* view of the
process. To put it mathematically, we are only looking at the 0th
derivative, instead of the *FIRST* derivative, let alone the 2nd or
higher-order derivatives. Of course -- in order to consider anything beyond
the "0th derivative" you have to have more than a static view. You have to
know what's going on in some time-region. You have to have a *longitudinal*
view.

Here's what I would suggest would be more enlightening: go back 24 months,
when the English wiki had roughly 200,000 articles. *Then*, hit the random
page button 20 times. Then follow and see how those 20 articles have
improved or degraded in the following 24 months. If many of the worst of
these 20 articles show little or negligible improvement in the past 24
months, then I think this is something that needs to be thought about. But
as it is, we're ignoring the possibility that many of the good (or even
brilliant) articles of today might have been classified as stub or atrocious
24 months ago. And then we're pointing to the stubs and atrocious articles
of *today* as evidence that the project is failing?? Does the irony of this
make sense?

There are many other issues which are completely ignored by taking a static
view. For instance, someone noted that general articles on basic issues are
often in a much worse shape than highly-specialised articles on obscure
topics. This has sometimes been an issue in math. It's something that needs
to be thought about.

darin


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Try out the rating scheme

body:
 Yes, of course that is the problem. There are several developers who
> could enable the feature, but all of them are now in fear
> that something
> will go Horribly Wrong(tm), so each individual one of them
> doesn't want to
> be held responsible in the end, so they don't do it and hope that
> someone else will do it and take the blame instead.
>
> Which is kind of weird, because Brion and Tim have done much more
> "dangerous" things in the past, and every once in a while it
> does bring
> the servers down, but they always fix it swiftly and it's
> never a big deal.
>
> This wouldn't be any different, had it not been for the initial
> FUD-laden discussion, which now leaves the developers fearful
> of social
> repercussions.
>
> Timwi

If one developer will turn it on, while half a dozen other articles
eyeball the system for problems, the experiment should be safe enough.

No one will blame you. Tell you what, let ME take the blame.

Uncle Ed


body:
> Well, your list at least led me to [[opcode]], which was
> awful, so I rewrote it. ;)
>
> Our coverage of many basic computing topics is rather
> surprisingly horrendous.
>
> -Matt (User:Morven)

It's so bad, I shudder at the prospect of trying to fix ANY of it -
especially when I have to fight against non-programmers and other
ignorant folks. Now, if a Wikipedia developer or two wanted to join me
for a WikiProject Computing . . .

Ed Poor
Professional Software Development Engineer


body:
> and turn it on and see what happens. If all else fails the
> person who runs the other wiki project I work on would love
> to have this feature.
>
> --
> geni

Well, I'm the technical coordinator for another wiki project - with less
than 100 users. I could have our programming staff (1 young man from
Russia!) test the feature and then report back to you guys in a couple
of weeks.

But you're really making a mountain out of a molehill. The only risk is
a slight degradation in performance. And that goes away instantly, as
soon as ANY of the programmers turns the switch off.

Right, Magnus, Timwi, et al.?

Ed Poor
Developer Emeritus, Wikipedia
Technical Coordinator for the UC's "Encyclopedia Project"


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
On 11/9/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 8 Nov 2005, at 18:39, kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:
>
> I dont know. Despite what other people seem to think there are huge
> areas
> that are missing. A lot of people find it easier to write with
> something to
> start from. I have written a few of articles from missing encyclopaedic
> articles (ones I knew something about) and other people have found
> them and
> improved them. So even having more stubs is useful.

>From my own experience, articles are more often created than improved
as is demonstrated by the large amounts of school stubs for example.
Also, the complete dismal state on the articles on "Acidity" for
example makes me think improvement is not on the top of the list of
enough people. Merging for example episode articles into lists or the
different languages once spoken in Egypt would provide more detailed
articles and help Wikipedia in the end.

The difference lies in what one calls a stub. I call something a stub
when it has a basic definition and just a tad bit more to get an
article on it's way. while "Bill Clinton was the President of the
United States" conveys a basic meaning, I would call it a substub and
request deletion on the basis of speedy deletion criterion A1. If it
went on to mention his date of birth, political party and a few
biographical details it would be a stub. Too many people want to
create an article NOW, rather than wait for themselves to have
collected sufficient information.

--Mgm


body:
On 11/9/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> > ...
> > The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
> > eb1911.wikipedia.org <http://eb1911.wikipedia.org>? We could make it
> visually distinct, to avoid
> > confusion with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org<http://eb1911.wikimedia.org>be
> > better? Or eb1911.wikisource.org <http://eb1911.wikisource.org>?
>
> It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is
> the place for this.
>
> -- mav
>
> This is exactly right. An encyclopedia from 1911 is a primary source of
> historical interest; it's data, not metadata. If it goes anywhere, it's
> Wikisource.
>
> --Marshall Poe

 Wikisource is the place for the text, maybe. For the images themselves I
don't see the disadvantage of just using bittorrent, maybe by volume.


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> wrote in message
news:dkq22f$e7q$2 at sea.gmane.org...
[me originally, then I think Tim Starling]
>>>The symptoms so far include showing the Google/Yahoo boxes and an odd
>>>error message indicating some sort of bad return from an IP in the
>>>[10.*.*.*] range. My IP knowledge is rusty: is that a private range?
>> At the moment, we have three search servers: maurus (10.0.0.16), vincent
>> (10.0.0.17) and coronelli (10.0.0.230).

I managed to capture one: it was "vincent"
* Internal error: no valid response from search server (10.0.0.17)

> Do we have to expose this detail to non-technical users? The above user
> clearly knew a fair bit about IPs, and the message was still meaningless
> to them; imagine what an average non-technical user might think.

You flatter me, for which thank you, but you're reasonably correct. If we're
going to expose messages like that to naive users, they should be bracketed
with a warning, and possibly some idea of someone to inform of the problem.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Brian

body:
Each volume is about 150-200MB. I don't see too many people lining up to
download that much just to get one specific illustration they want to
add to a Wikipedia article. We're trying to make the encyclopedia not
only freely available, but easily accessible. Bittorrent or any such
middle-man is just another easily-avoidable layer of difficulty for the
end-user.

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 11/9/05, Poe, Marshall <MPoe at theatlantic.com> wrote:
>
>
>>--- Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>...
>>>The only question in my mind is the domain: should this be under
>>>eb1911.wikipedia.org <http://eb1911.wikipedia.org>? We could make it
>>>
>>>
>>visually distinct, to avoid
>>
>>
>>>confusion with Wikipedia itself. Or would eb1911.wikimedia.org<http://eb1911.wikimedia.org>be
>>>better? Or eb1911.wikisource.org <http://eb1911.wikisource.org>?
>>>
>>>
>>It absolutely should *not* be on a Wikipedia subdomain. Wikisource is
>>the place for this.
>>
>>-- mav
>>
>>This is exactly right. An encyclopedia from 1911 is a primary source of
>>historical interest; it's data, not metadata. If it goes anywhere, it's
>>Wikisource.
>>
>>--Marshall Poe
>>
>>
>
> Wikisource is the place for the text, maybe. For the images themselves I
>don't see the disadvantage of just using bittorrent, maybe by volume.
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] [OT] IOCCC

body:
Peter Danenberg wrote:

>Is it our Timwi, by the way, who just won the IOCCC?
>
>     http://www.ioccc.org/whowon2005.html
>
>
Looks like it. Congratulations, Timwi!

Let me be the first to welcome our new obfuscating overlord, and express
my deep hope that he never may use this special power on MediaWiki
source ;-)

Magnus


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: CheckUser questions

body:
Anthere wrote:

>As a reference, which might be interesting, David makes checks every
>day. Yesterday (a bad day I guess), he made over a hundred checks. At
>this rate, clearly, more than 1 and actually more than 2 must have the
>tool in the hand.

Yeah. Yesterday I was running a check on someone with lots of dialup
accesses (AC matter, and the user came out completely clear, by the
way). This means check every IP ...

I could easily spend two or three hours a day doing nothing but
CheckUser. Considering I'm currently marked "away" on the en: ArbCom
due to work pressures, I really really don't have the time ...

en: could easily do with another five checkers. All five of the new
ones are on the ArbCom too, by the way.

We could also do with a closed mailing list for CheckUser users - IP
matching is an art, not a science, and needs experienced knowledge and
peer consultation of what's a match and what's a coincidence. (It'll
also help me/us work on [[m:Help:CheckUser]] ;-)

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: CheckUser questions