subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
jayjg wrote:

>On 5/20/06, abu hamza <abuhamza1970 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>just for the record, and for all of those who have suggested it is wrong to
>>use a controversial name. My name is abu hamza..
>>
>>
>That's as believable as your claims that your friends at work and home
>simply reverted for you as IPs.  It wasn't you at all, it was all your
>"friends".
>
This seems highly disrespectful to disbelieve a person who claims to be
using his own name.  There needs to be more to that than your personal
finding that the name is objectionable.  If you doubt that it is his
name you should provide evidence that he is lying.

>>However it is not my wiki
>>name, it is the name on the email.
>>
>>
>Right.  Your wiki name is Saladin1970, Saladin being the Muslim
>conquerer who drove the Crusaders out of Palestine.  I suppose that's
>your real name too, and there's no political implication there?
>
There may certainly be political implications, but Western teaching
about the Crusades rarely mention the names of the Muslim leaders.  The
tone in [[Saladin]] emphasizes his chivalrous character.  He was,
however, intolerant of Christian terrorists.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 10:03:45AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/22/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We want them to have WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean).  We
> > generally do not want editors fussing with appearance too much while
> > working on content, at least so long as we want people to stay
> > productive (rather than spending hours futzing with getting the most
> > attractive customized fonts for every heading) and so long as we want
> > the look and feel to be even remotely consistent.
>
> I don't think anyone has proposed allowing customised fonts for each
> heading. By WYSIWYG, I simple mean "You see bold when you want bold -
> you don't see ''' ". What distinction are getting at with "WYSIWYM"?

Don't we already get that with the preview?

--
Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Brian K. Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."


list: wikien-l

from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Philip Welch wrote:

>On May 20, 2006, at 3:27 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>
>>>It seems like the "only accept canon depictions" is the rule to go,
>>>since it seems silly and arbitrary, and in any case, far less
>>>important than "only use free content". Artist depictions would be
>>>appropriate in this case, just like almost any other case where we
>>>only have fair use images to use.
>>>
>>>
>>Doesn't get you off the hook though, since an artist's depiction is
>>a derivative work. In fact, the more accurate the depiction, the more
>>of a copyright infringement it is. So you end up making a choice
>>between accuracy and freeness.
>>
>
>Only if the artist chooses to reproduce one photograph or still.
>
>If the artists references multiple photographs and produces an image
>of Han Solo where Han is standing in a pose different from any of the
>photographs, or in a different or neutral setting, then it's not a
>derivative work of any one photograph.
>
*Still* not off the hook! The copyright covers any sort of
depiction of the character, irrespective of the mechanics of
production. For instance, a Han Solo action figure is not an
exact reproduction of any screenshot from the movie, but it
can only be legally sold under license from the moviemaker. Ditto
for 3D meshes and textures ending up in a Star Wars-themed video
game. As I said in another message, the pros at this are wise to
all kinds of trickery, and there is case law for a remarkable
variety of attempts to find loopholes.

Stan


list: foundation-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
Nothing wrong with it. For one thing, inactive administrators would
be purged, as well as those who simply don't work out. On English,
they can only be removed if they are nasty enough that they end up in
arbitration, and that is very nasty indeed.

Fred

On May 22, 2006, at 9:21 AM, THD wrote:

> Hi, Friends,
> There are some people proposing a policy for administrator's term
> of service
> in Chinese Wikipedia. In the proposing policy, when the term of
> service is
> over, administrators shall get their administrative power through a
> re-election. I want to know that is there any Wikimedia project
> with this
> kind of policy? In my own opinion, this is quite weird. I want to
> know what
> will other language editions do when facing this kind of proposal.
> Thanks.
> THD
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Sep 11 memorial, systemic bias, lunacy in Wikipedians,
	and other fine topics (was Re: jaygy and indefinate ban)

body:
On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Methylphosphonyl difluoride onto a pipe that the Weapons inspctors
> wanted to cheack or the like
>
> And you think that the Iraqis would allow that? They wouldn't be
> (heavily) guarding the areas that the U.N Inspectors wanted to check?
> Heh!, you don't know much about security-systems do you?
>

I Know a fair bit. Use a spayt and you could probably contaminate
everything in the room within a few seconds. You could hide then can
in your cloths.

>
> Soldiers would be willing to cut the wires and kill their own
> colleagues? Anyway the pilot would probably do a pre-flight check so
> it wouldn't work.

So the US goverment can kill ~3000 but not one.

> B-52s are bombers- fighters are used as patrol-craft
> not bombers, how would the U.S explain why they were using a bomber to
> patrol the no-fly-zone?

Able to spend a longer time in the ear. A more stable observing
platform. Reasons could be found. Far less effort than your proposed
9/11 conspirocy hypothsis

--
geni


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Is this a bug (strikethrough doesn't carry onto
	lists)

body:
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 07:23:05PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> > On Mon, May 15, 2006 at 09:16:46PM +0300, Rotem Liss wrote:
> >
> >>As far as I understand, a block element (<ul>) cannot be included in an
> >>inline element (<s>).
> >
> > You can always redefine block elements as inline elements, and vice
> > versa, though.  Of course, I'm not entirely sure that's relevant to this
> > discussion.
>
> No, you can't. You can use CSS to make <s> appear as a block element, or
> <ul> as an inline element, but that doesn't make <ul> allowed inside <s>.

. . . for what definition of "allowed"?

In answer to which specific statement was "No, you can't" written?
Intuitively, it looks like you're responding to the statement that block
elements can be redefined as inline elements, but then you say that you
can make ul and inline element.  You seem to contradict yourself, unless
you're making some kind of distinction between "redefine [block
elements] as inline elements" and "make [a block element] appear [. . .]
as an inline element".

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/22/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>>So you can release a photograph as GFDL if you do not hold the copyright
>>to
>>it? Is this fair dinkum?
>>
>>No. Check the {{GFDL}} template. It's not a release, it's an assertion. If
>>you stamp the photo {{GFDL}}, you're simply saying that the person who took
>>it has previously released it - a different kind of sin, that may or not let
>>you sleep better at night.
>>
For instance, if my wife takes a picture of me, I ask her to
release it under GFDL so it can be on WP and she agrees, I can
legitimately do the uploading and GFDL-tagging myself, crediting
her as photographer. We do take it on a certain amount of faith
that I'm representing the situation truthfully, but given that the
GFDL requires that the creator of the work be identified, a skeptic
would in theory have enough info to contact her directly and
confirm the license.

Stan


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Bennett
>>>>> <stevage at gmail.com> writes:

   Steve> Anyone written an MS word/javascript macro to convert
   Steve> to/from MS word format? I was just thinking it might be kind
   Steve> of cool to be able to pop the code of the page out into
   Steve> word, where ==Level 2== would be converted into the Heading
   Steve> 2 format and so forth. It might even be able to embed images
   Steve> within the article.

You could save the word file in HTML. (You might have to run tidy or
something like this since the HTML output of words was/is hm not very clean)
then there is a perl script
html2wiki (--dialect MediaWiki)
which works quite nicely.

Uwe Brauer


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>> Well, apparently you can copyright pointing a device that
>>
>>takes a photo and pressing a button - with no further
>>creative input.  As you pointed out, it's not necessarily a
>>creative process.
>>
>>
>Please don't be crass. Possibly the photographer went to immense trouble to
>take a photograph. It doesn't matter, anyway. We can't just claim copyright
>over photographs because we think that the photographer didn't have much
>creative input.
>
In the good old pre-digital photography days the subject might take the
film home and develop it in his own darkroom doing whatever would be
needed to improve the picture.  He would at least merit joint
authorship.  Who owned the original negative was influential in
determining the outcome.

Ec


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
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Hash: SHA1

Stan Shebs stated for the record:

> *Still* not off the hook! The copyright covers any sort of
> depiction of the character, irrespective of the mechanics of
> production. For instance, a Han Solo action figure is not an
> exact reproduction of any screenshot from the movie, but it
> can only be legally sold under license from the moviemaker. Ditto
> for 3D meshes and textures ending up in a Star Wars-themed video
> game. As I said in another message, the pros at this are wise to
> all kinds of trickery, and there is case law for a remarkable
> variety of attempts to find loopholes.
>
> Stan

Oh, Stan, you are such a pessimist!  Surely you're not saying that five
minutes of reasonably clever thought isn't enough to make corporations
spending billions of dollars on thousands of lawyers smack themselves in
the corporate forehead and shout "D'oh!"

- --
 Sean Barrett     | You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot
 sean at epoptic.com | like women. You just have to read the manual
                  | and press the right button. --Homer Simpson
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from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] jaygy and indefinate ban

body:
On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As a side-note have any of you noticed that the 9/11 Memorial Wiki has
> not been deleted despite ample consensus being achieved towards its
> deletion? Don't you guys feel that there were far greater tragedies
> which occured during the 20th century-like World War 2 or the
> Holocaust or the Nagasaki-Hiroshima Nuclear bombing, apartheid in
> Africa, to name a few? Making such a big deal about the loss of 3000
> lives while fully neglecting much more horrific incidents is a
> shockingly clear example of how America-centric Wikipedia has become.
> I urge someone to please delete this absurd memorial which seems (in a
> way) to place the people who died on 9/11 on a much higher pedestal
> than (for example) the 7 million who were murdered in Nazi Germany.

Anyone can start a wiki on any subject.  If you feel that the tragedy
of the Holocaust, for example, is terribly underrepresented on the
internet, go start a wiki on the subject.  The solution is to fix the
problem of underrepresentation, not to delete what is already
represented.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

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

Stan Shebs stated for the record:

> For instance, if my wife takes a picture of me, I ask her to
> release it under GFDL so it can be on WP and she agrees, I can
> legitimately do the uploading and GFDL-tagging myself, crediting
> her as photographer. We do take it on a certain amount of faith
> that I'm representing the situation truthfully, but given that the
> GFDL requires that the creator of the work be identified, a skeptic
> would in theory have enough info to contact her directly and
> confirm the license.

California being a community-property state, my wife and I own each
other's copyrights and freely use (and license) each other's work.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot
 sean at epoptic.com | like women. You just have to read the manual
                  | and press the right button. --Homer Simpson
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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh to chose a random country, paid Tajikistan to put a base

Prasad, none of this message was at all relevant to the English Wikipedia.
Would you mind giving it a rest?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Arwel Parry wrote:

>I think we need to apply a modicum of common sense when handling
>copyrights, particularly when determining who is the actual copyright
>holder is inherently indeterminable.
>
>For example, if I had sufficiently bad taste as to upload the primary
>school portrait of me at age 7, taken in 1966, I would consider it
>reasonable for the subject, me, to release the photo under GFDL, or PD
>or whatever, as:
>- I have absolutely no idea who took photographs of primary school
>children in Denbighshire, Wales forty years ago,
>- my parents paid good money for that photo (possibly as much as a
>shilling or two),
>
This could make it a work for hire.  A licence from your parents may be
required. :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On 5/22/06, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> You could save the word file in HTML. (You might have to run tidy or
> something like this since the HTML output of words was/is hm not very clean)
> then there is a perl script
> html2wiki (--dialect MediaWiki)
> which works quite nicely.

Yeah, that's a good point. Since my goal is to make something that
quickly and painlessly converts back and forth from Word and Wiki, I'd
have to make that scripting launchable automatically. But I suspect
the dedicated Word macros would be easier.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>But for casual shots, it is not only
>>unnecessary to doubt the word of the user in these cases
>>about the copyright status, but the risk of legal
>>intervention is so low as to be nil. Additionally, in a case
>>like this, it will be absolutely clear to the copyright owner
>>who to complain to. I think this sort of thing is very, very
>>low priority.
>>
>>
>You seem to be saying it's OK to break the law if you can get away with it,
>but I think you misunderstand my point.
>
Your misconception of law is phenomenal.  In some situations the breach
of the law does not happen until there has been a complaint by someone
with standing.

>I agree that these photographs are (mostly) non-controversial. But what is
>the absolutely correct way of uploading them so we can use them with *zero*
>risk of being sued?
>
Zero risk is a figment of your imagination.

Ec


from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] jaygy and indefinate ban

body:
As a side-note have any of you noticed that the 9/11 Memorial Wiki has
not been deleted despite ample consensus being achieved towards its
deletion? Don't you guys feel that there were far greater tragedies
which occured during the 20th century-like World War 2 or the
Holocaust or the Nagasaki-Hiroshima Nuclear bombing, apartheid in
Africa, to name a few? Making such a big deal about the loss of 3000
lives while fully neglecting much more horrific incidents is a
shockingly clear example of how America-centric Wikipedia has become.
I urge someone to please delete this absurd memorial which seems (in a
way) to place the people who died on 9/11 on a much higher pedestal
than (for example) the 7 million who were murdered in Nazi Germany.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>In the case you outline, I would suggest fair use. Releasing a photograph to
>which you do not hold the copyright into the public domain is morally
>indefensible, even if it is a very small sin and you will get away with it.
>But fair use to illustrate a user page seems reasonable to me.
>
>Pete, stealing the moral high ground
>
Sometimes the moral high ground is on an innacessible ledge on the side
of a cliff.  You're welcome to say there.

Ec


body:
On 5/22/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I Know a fair bit. Use a spayt and you could probably contaminate
> everything in the room within a few seconds. You could hide then can
> in your cloths.

Hi geni,
  This message too has nothing to do with the English Wikipedia. Maybe you
could carry on the conversation in private?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Peter Mackay wrote:
>
>
>>It's morally wrong in any sort of degree. Stealing a cent is the same crime
>>as stealing a million.
>>
>>
>I would have to say there are precious few ethical systems that make
>that claim.
>
In some cases the people stealing the million are the ones who write the
laws; they are in a position to ensure that stealing a cent is punished
more severely. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>Fair enough. US criminal law is something of which I have no direct
>knowledge - and happy to keep it that way, thanks! - but I think we're
>splitting hairs and arguing fine points at this stage.
>
Sorry, but I thought that that was why you started this thread in the
first place.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>>
>>On 5/21/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I note that Jimbo's picture on his user page doesn't use anything
>>>along those lines, even though the picture taken by a neighbour is
>>>non-controversial and used with permission.
>>>
>>>Peter
>>>
>>>
>>[[Image:Leeinvelo1.JPG]], which is also on Jimbo's user page,
>>was apparently uploaded by the same person who claims to have
>>released it into the public domain.
>>
>>
>Yeah, we got lots of such pictures. I think we've established that these
>images are non-controversial and the problem is finding the best way for
>uploaders to license them without claiming ownership.
>
If the person owns the copyright why shouldn't he claim that ownership?

Ec


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Delirium
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
> > It's morally wrong in any sort of degree. Stealing a cent
> is the same
> > crime as stealing a million.
> >
>
> I would have to say there are precious few ethical systems that make
> that claim.

Most criminal codes will identify the crime of theft (or larceny) without
discrimination as to amount:
 Theft is "...the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another
with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#Theft_in_English_law

There is no "flagfall" amount to constitute the offence. However, it would
be difficult to imagine being prosecuted for stealing a cent. Perhaps if you
stole the pennies from a dead man's eyes, that might be deemed outrageous
enough to prosecute?

Peter, firm but fare


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/21/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>If it's so unremarkable and so uncreative, isn't the whole
>>>question of copyright totally moot?
>>>
>>>
>>Hardly. We put a lot of effort into monitoring the license status of
>>photographs in WP. It doesn't matter if the photographs themselves are
>>good
>>or bad, exciting or boring.
>>
>>
>I think it does matter what the chances of the copyright violatee making a
>complaint are. I could be wrong on this. But if we are to focus our efforts
>anywhere, surely they should be areas where there actually is a potential
>complainant.
>
This is a more important question.  You cannot legally make a formal
complaint without standing.

Copyright is an economic right and a property right.  If no-one exists
who has standing to claim a copyright that copyright may have become a
nullity.  This is the crux of the problem with orphan copyrights.  This
also explains the absence of legal precedent on this point; nobody is
available to be plaintiff.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Is this a bug (strikethrough doesn't carry onto
 lists)

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 07:23:05PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
>> Chad Perrin wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 15, 2006 at 09:16:46PM +0300, Rotem Liss wrote:
>>>
>>>> As far as I understand, a block element (<ul>) cannot be included in an
>>>> inline element (<s>).
>>> You can always redefine block elements as inline elements, and vice
>>> versa, though.  Of course, I'm not entirely sure that's relevant to this
>>> discussion.
>> No, you can't. You can use CSS to make <s> appear as a block element, or
>> <ul> as an inline element, but that doesn't make <ul> allowed inside <s>.
>
> . . . for what definition of "allowed"?

For the definition "a validating XHTML parser won't barf up errors".

> In answer to which specific statement was "No, you can't" written?
> Intuitively, it looks like you're responding to the statement that block
> elements can be redefined as inline elements, but then you say that you
> can make ul and inline element.  You seem to contradict yourself, unless
> you're making some kind of distinction between "redefine [block
> elements] as inline elements" and "make [a block element] appear [. . .]
> as an inline element".

He's making a distinction between the two similar, but different document
structures:

* (X)HTML document tree
* CSS layout tree

(X)HTML calls certain elements "block" elements and certain other elements
"inline". This implies certain things about how they are displayed, but more to
the point you're explicitly disallowed from placing a block element (such as a
<ul>) inside an inline element (such as an <s>).

In (X)HTML these are intrinsic to the schema definition; most of the
prohibitions are specified in the DTD, and can be enforced by a validating parser.

For example:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fleuksman.com%2Fmisc%2Flist-ok.html
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fleuksman.com%2Fmisc%2Flist-bad.html

CSS has concepts of "inline" and "block" objects which control how parts of the
document are laid out. These are not necessarily inherent; you can define
whether any particular object should be treated by setting its 'display'
property at the appropriate place in the cascading style sheet.

This CSS property does not alter the (X)HTML schemas, but only the display layout.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
I suggest you observe the URL more closely-
http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam. It states that it ispart
of wikipedia.org. Even otherwise this Wiki is affliliated with the
Wikimedia Foundation-of which Wikipedia is a part- so it is our job to
give a fuck about it.

 Do you think you could muster up some people who can combat
our systemic bias problem but also wouldn't go flying off the deep end
and start confusing neutrality with Zionism?  Because that would be very
welcome.

Me? I'm not a Muslim like Abu Hamza so I don't really have any views
about Zionism. So now you're suggesting that everyone who is not from
the Occidental world is a Muslim?

we're getting more viewpoints, better spellers, etc., etc.

Yes ofcourse you are. That's why a certain group of users is going
around calling anyone who supports the WTC controlled-demolition
theory a "nutjob" isn't it? That's why it's (apparently) an offence
(as implied by one SwatJester) to refer to U.S soldiers with
disrespect isn't it? What next? Do I have to start referring to
Caucasian users as "angrezi saheb"?


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
On May 22, 2006, at 7:13 AM, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:

> Phil, the burden of proof is upon you to show that Wikipedia, in its
> rules and policies, is "concerned with contributors editing Wikipedia
> to further a political agenda."

Read: "[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]]".

> In fact, if it was disallowed, then a
> large porition of Wikipedia's users would be banned, including
> abuhamza1970 and his opponents. You too, would be banned.

No I wouldn't. My only agenda in editing Wikipedia is to provide a
neutral encyclopedia.

> It is very
> unprofessional of you, and others, to accuse abuhamza1970 to be
> "furthering a political agenda" when you are also guilty of the same
> "crime."

Please, if you think I'm trying to further a political agenda,
provide evidence of your accusations, or take them back. Personal
attacks and libel are not welcome on Wikipedia.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocked user Thewolfstar creating "legitimate"
	sockpuppets?

body:
On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately I had to cut short the chat-session after Maggie became
> increasingly abusive, otherwise I could perhaps have fore-warned the
> Community of anymore "anti-Cabal" activities she had planned.

I'm sure the Cabal, which doesn't exist, can defend itself against
activities planned by Maggie.

Don't worry about it.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for a week for these edits

body:
On May 22, 2006, at 11:29 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> For someone like our Abu Hamza (who at first appearance seems to have
> indeed engaged in unacceptable editing) it would help if we had
> mentors
> available who are sympathetic but rationale in dealing with such
> points
> of view.  Perhaps they could pull aside and counsel these wilder
> newbies
> in techniques for constructively presenting their opinions.

So you're willing to have Islamists, white supremacists, etc. openly
editing Wikipedia as long as they attempt to follow NPOV? I don't. I
think the presence of such individuals is harmful to the community.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
On May 22, 2006, at 12:19 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:

>> If the artists references multiple photographs and produces an image
>> of Han Solo where Han is standing in a pose different from any of the
>> photographs, or in a different or neutral setting, then it's not a
>> derivative work of any one photograph.
>>
> *Still* not off the hook! The copyright covers any sort of
> depiction of the character, irrespective of the mechanics of
> production. For instance, a Han Solo action figure is not an
> exact reproduction of any screenshot from the movie, but it
> can only be legally sold under license from the moviemaker. Ditto
> for 3D meshes and textures ending up in a Star Wars-themed video
> game. As I said in another message, the pros at this are wise to
> all kinds of trickery, and there is case law for a remarkable
> variety of attempts to find loopholes.

Well, I guess that's that then. No images of Han Solo. (But images of
Harrison Ford are okay for [[Harrison Ford]]?)

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [Wikitech-l] nofollow in user: space

body:
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Okay, this is a request for the devs.  Can one of you please apply the
> patch at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5523 and enable
> rel="nofollow" outside NS_MAIN?

This is now active. Note that old cached pages may continue to not include the
attribute until they are rerendered due to editing or other updates.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Michael Snow
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> >>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> >>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Delirium
> >>
> >>Peter Mackay wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>It's morally wrong in any sort of degree. Stealing a cent
> is the same
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>crime as stealing a million.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I would have to say there are precious few ethical systems that make
> >>that claim.
> >>
> >>
> >Most criminal codes will identify the crime of theft (or larceny)
> >without discrimination as to amount:  Theft is "...the dishonest
> >appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of
> >permanently depriving the other of it".
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#Theft_in_English_law
> >
> >
> To define theft as a concept doesn't require any statement as to the
> amount or value of the property stolen. Nevertheless, at least in the
> United States, most jurisdictions classify theft in different
> degrees of
> seriousness, generally tied to the dollar amount involved.
> The standard
> sentences that accompany these degrees of theft increase
> along with the
> minimum dollar amount, which is effectively an element of the crime.

Fair enough. US criminal law is something of which I have no direct
knowledge - and happy to keep it that way, thanks! - but I think we're
splitting hairs and arguing fine points at this stage.

I don't think there's any great wrong being committed if you upload a
picture of yourself onto your user page, even though it was taken by someone
else. I think we can AGF enough to say that people doing so will only do it
if they know that the partner/relative/friend/random person on the street
who was the actual photographer isn't going to complain.

My concern is really that a lot of those uploading such images will have
been telling small untruths by identifying themselves as the creator when
they know very well that they didn't take the photograph. I don't think we
should require Wikipedians to tell even small untruths and I think we need
to work out the copyright situation.

My opinion is that fair use would cover it and we aren't likely to have any
problems with this.

--
Peter in Canberra


body:
Ignorant? I suggest you examine the data presented by various
scientists in support of this theory. Incase you are unable to
comprehend such scientific arguements, go through through the logical
arguements put forth at http://www.reopen911.org/.


body:
On May 22, 2006, at 2:29 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

>> So you're willing to have Islamists, white supremacists, etc. openly
>> editing Wikipedia as long as they attempt to follow NPOV? I don't. I
>> think the presence of such individuals is harmful to the community.
>
> That's a very POV statement in itself.
>
> The presence of holders of minority (and majority) viewpoints on WP is
> welcome. So long as they don't attempt to impose their views above all
> others, and they are civil to other editors.

That's a reasonable thing to say about communists, anarchists,
radical feminists, furries, polyamorous transsexuals, anarcho-
capitalists, or almost any fringe group. The difference with anti-
Semites is that we have Jewish editors. If there were people on
Wikipedia who happened to be white supremacists or Islamists and you
had no way to tell they were either of these things from their edits,
that would be one thing. If you make your anti-semitism known,
however, I don't see why you should be welcome on Wikipedia. The very
act of accepting these types into the community would be an insult.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
common-sense systemic bias

Common sense shows that the U.S would have major geo-politcal motives
for orchecstrating the 9/11 attacks. You will agree that the
occuaption of the oil-rich country of Iraq,the extension of U.S
military presence in Afghanistan [which provides America with a
certain amount of significance in the Indian Subcontinent (a highly
important area in terms of political significance)] will be enough
motive for the U.S to fake the "terrorist attacks" on 9/11.


subject: [WikiEN-l] to rob

body:
You were not blocked because of your e-mail
name, but for multiple policy violations and general poor editing

I believe the name issue was raised earlier. Also "poor editing" is
(as far as I know) not really a blockable offence.


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 12:02:56PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > I'd like to get a working group together to start making the specification
> > happen soon:
> >
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec
>
> What's required before that starts? Can people just start hacking on
> it, wiki style?

I just did... :-)

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

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

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 10:03:45AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> You're belittling the value of such a project by suggesting it would
> only be useful for those "unable" to cope with wiki syntax. I have no
> problems with it, but I suspect I would be faster editing directly
> with word,

This conflates a different issue, and I'd like to haul it up into the
light:

"editing directly with Word..."

Any work-cycle which entails pulling part or all of a page out from an
active wiki into a PC-based external editor will have lag-time/edit
collision issues which will increase in importance proportionally to
the traffic on the wiki.

This is to say that you might get away with it on a small to medium
intranet wiki, but I don't expect it would be a practical approach to
Wikipedia.

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

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

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


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
On 5/22/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > As always, Wikipedia is not concerned with the political views of its
> > >> > contributors.
> > >> As always, Wikipedia is concerned with contributors editing Wikipedia
> > >> to further a political agenda.
> > > No.
> > >
> > WTF? Would you care to review your above reply in the light of WP:NPOV and
> > consider rewording it?
>
> Phil, the burden of proof is upon you to show that Wikipedia, in its
> rules and policies, is "concerned with contributors editing Wikipedia
> to further a political agenda." In fact, if it was disallowed, then a
> large porition of Wikipedia's users would be banned, including
> abuhamza1970 and his opponents. You too, would be banned. It is very
> unprofessional of you, and others, to accuse abuhamza1970 to be
> "furthering a political agenda" when you are also guilty of the same
> "crime."

I typically don't respond to your posts, Bjorn, because they're filled
with nonsense like this, but every once in a while you really step
over the line in your outrageously ignorant and plainly false
statements.  "Abu hamza"/"saladin" has joined Wikipedia with a clear
political (and other) agenda; his "opponents" have not done so.
Perhaps you are trying to justify the fact that you created the userid
"Palestine-info" for the exact same purpose, to advance an obvious
political agenda; in any event, what you are doing is known in
psychological terms as "projection".

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 5/22/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Has anyone ever tried contacting Lucasfilm and seeing what they will allow
>>us to use?
>>
>
>
>
>Dear George,
>  We understand that no one has ever been allowed to legally produce or sell
>an image of Han Solo without your permission. However, would it be ok if we
>copied such an image, and put it on our website with the proviso that anyone
>is allowed to download, modify, sell, distribute, or do anything they like
>to it?
>
>Look forward to hearing from you,
>Wikipedia
>
It's at least remotely possible that an image or two of limited
quality would be given a free license, sort of like a "free
sample"; several professional photographers have done just this
on commons for instance. But I don't see that Lucasfilm currently
has any incentive to relinquish control, given that pretending not
to be aware of our maybe-maybe-not fair use leaves them with all
rights intact, and it would be available as a way to hassle WP if,
say, our captions weren't sufficiently admiring or something. :-)

If en: scrubbed out all nonfree images top to bottom, and if it
was clear that it was a choice between text-only and donated
images, the donation might seem worthwhile. But we would have to
be utterly ruthless - none of this making of exceptions for
"historic photos" or whatever.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Prasad J

body:
I did not start the arguement. I was only asking why the 9/11 Memorial
Wiki had not been deleted despite obvious consensus toward it's
deletion. That is (in my opinion) Wikipedia-related since the Memorial
Wiki has .wikipedia in it's URL.


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
THD wrote:

>Hi, Friends,
>There are some people proposing a policy for administrator's term of service
>in Chinese Wikipedia. In the proposing policy, when the term of service is
>over, administrators shall get their administrative power through a
>re-election. I want to know that is there any Wikimedia project with this
>kind of policy? In my own opinion, this is quite weird. I want to know what
>will other language editions do when facing this kind of proposal. Thanks.
>THD
>
I think that this idea should be strongly discouraged on the Chinese
Wikipedia.  As long as the people in the PRC are not fully represented
because of their government's actions, this sort of action could easily
be seen as discriminatory.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


body:
Oh to chose a random country, paid Tajikistan to put a base

India already has bases there-the sudden entry of the U.S would offend
the former , and I'm pretty sure a former Soviet-block country like
Tajikistan, or any other country in proximity to the Subcontinent,
would not really allow U.S military presence on it's soil.

Or they could have gone to
Nepal to sort out the Maoist lot.

That would make it appear as if America was supporting the King-who
has always been viewed as somewhat of a dictator.

 the US wanted a solid motive for invading Iraq it would
be fairly trivial to plant some WMD for the inspectors to find. Or
allow them to shoot down one of the planes patrolling the no fly zone.
Fair trivial and produces a much stronger case than the unrelated 9/11

 These would not have evoked as strong a reaction in the U.S as the
killing of 3000 Americans ON American soil would. As for WMDs- it is
not really all that easy to "plant" them without the act being
noticed.

Or
allow them to shoot down one of the planes patrolling the no fly zone.

The Iraqis are not foolhardy enough to actively provoke the U.S by
shooting down one of the latter's planes. Also,  by analysing the
plane's flight-path it would be obvious that the pilot did not make
any effort to dodge the missile. Also the lack of flares (used to
avoid heat-seeking missiles) or chaffs would be noticed. Thus, it
would be obvious that the American pilot was not making any effort to
evade the attack-a very unusual occurence indeed. More importantly I
doubt whether the U.S. airforce has a kamikaze squadron.

Good arguements nontheless.


from_name: Mark Wagner

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

references:
<71cd4dd90605211259x1260092ucddd9b1db4f57cdc@mail.gmail.com>
	<71cd4dd90605211259x1260092ucddd9b1db4f57cdc-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
	<068f01c67d18$3667b090$6400a8c0@Tiny>
	<85h$2lPYBOcEFwPy@cartref.demon.co.uk> <4472196E.6080405@telus.net>

body:
On 5/22/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Arwel Parry wrote:
>
> >I think we need to apply a modicum of common sense when handling
> >copyrights, particularly when determining who is the actual copyright
> >holder is inherently indeterminable.
> >
> >For example, if I had sufficiently bad taste as to upload the primary
> >school portrait of me at age 7, taken in 1966, I would consider it
> >reasonable for the subject, me, to release the photo under GFDL, or PD
> >or whatever, as:
> >- I have absolutely no idea who took photographs of primary school
> >children in Denbighshire, Wales forty years ago,
> >- my parents paid good money for that photo (possibly as much as a
> >shilling or two),
> >
> This could make it a work for hire.  A licence from your parents may be
> required. :-)

Depends.  When did they implement the "everything is copyrighted" law
in Wales?  If it was after 1966, then your parents were paying for the
*service* of having the photo taken, and the image itself was never
copyrighted.  (Of course, now we'd get into the mess of "unpublished
works" and "date and place of first publication"...)

--
Mark
[[User:Carnildo]]


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
> >> > As always, Wikipedia is not concerned with the political views of its
> >> > contributors.
> >> As always, Wikipedia is concerned with contributors editing Wikipedia
> >> to further a political agenda.
> > No.
> >
> WTF? Would you care to review your above reply in the light of WP:NPOV and
> consider rewording it?

Phil, the burden of proof is upon you to show that Wikipedia, in its
rules and policies, is "concerned with contributors editing Wikipedia
to further a political agenda." In fact, if it was disallowed, then a
large porition of Wikipedia's users would be banned, including
abuhamza1970 and his opponents. You too, would be banned. It is very
unprofessional of you, and others, to accuse abuhamza1970 to be
"furthering a political agenda" when you are also guilty of the same
"crime."

--
mvh Bj?rn


body:
I was conversing to the indefinitely blocked user Thewolfstar (which I
believe is her username) and she claims that Bishnonen in this message
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dot_Bitch#Indefinite_username_block
is urging her to create sockpuppets to evade the block. I'm very
doubtful of Maggie's (which is apparently Thewolfstar's name) claim
and, since Maggie is a somewhat notorious troll, would suggest that an
Administrator look into it. Amggie wused to troll the mailing-list
under the e-mail ID thewolfstar at gmail.com and contact at earthhope.net
but was apparently blocked. She was also indefeintely blocked from
Wikipedia after the Community agreed that she was trolling and pushing
her point-of-view.


body:
Methylphosphonyl difluoride onto a pipe that the Weapons inspctors
wanted to cheack or the like

And you think that the Iraqis would allow that? They wouldn't be
(heavily) guarding the areas that the U.N Inspectors wanted to check?
Heh!, you don't know much about security-systems do you?

So? Cut a few wirers and the pilot would never see the thing comming.
There would be various other methods. Send a B-52 over for example.

Soldiers would be willing to cut the wires and kill their own
colleagues? Anyway the pilot would probably do a pre-flight check so
it wouldn't work. B-52s are bombers- fighters are used as patrol-craft
not bombers, how would the U.S explain why they were using a bomber to
patrol the no-fly-zone?


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 08:47:24PM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/22/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > Don't we already get that with the preview?
>
> Yep. Sort of how people with traditional cameras could see what their
> photos looked like by printing them.
>
> Editing *in* the preview is an improvement.

According to exactly what criteria?

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


body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 02:00:45PM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
> This CSS property does not alter the (X)HTML schemas, but only the display layout.

Fair 'nuff.  I guess that's the relevant bit.

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


body: I was responding to Geni. Sorry if it strayed off topic too much.


from_name: Claudi Meneghin

subject: [Wikitech-l] to Platonides: hide and show at Lombard wikipedia

body:
Dear Platonides,
  thank you for exactly quoting the code: I have copied and pasted.
  Unfortunately, I am afraid it still doesn't work, even clearing the cache of  the browser. Please, have a look again at:
  http://lmo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Directori_comprimit2
  and
  http://lmo.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Monobook.js
  Maybe there is a bug elsewhere?
  Many thanks.
  Sincerely yours,

  Claudi

---------------------------------
 Faites de Yahoo! votre page d'accueil sur le web pour retrouver directement vos services pr?f?r?s : v?rifiez vos nouveaux mails, lancez vos recherches et suivez l'actualit? en temps r?el. Cliquez ici.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Yury Tarasievich

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Classical Belarusian in Wikipedia

body:
On 22/05/06, Eugene Zelenko <eugene.zelenko at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> I think one person could not speak for all community. You have valid
> points, but why do you dismiss the same right for other people?

Now and again, you want to discuss not the proposals but the person
making the proposals (me). Please, re-read carefully what I've written
in message you are replying to. I've just retold my proposals in Be:
and gist of your replies. Did I omit something relevant? Did I
mis-represent the facts?

Now, for that passage:
> As far as I remember, Kiryl and you had a conflict in the past. This
> explains a lot.
I've never known the guy, however, he foul-mouthed me in maillists
several times, with no provocation on my side, AFAIR. So what's that
"lot" this supposedly explains and how is it related with my message
at all? My remark on my belief was just a remark, I should put it in
P.S. properly.

> I think good idea to discuss this first on be:, not behind the backs
> of be: contributors.

I've done my bit of discussing in Be: already, to no avail. And I'm
not under any obligation to continue "discussing" there indefinitely,
too. Now I'm taking the issue to where I believe it would be handled
more efficiently, if at all.

-regards


from_name: Kiryl Nieviarouski

body:
On 5/22/06, Eugene Zelenko <eugene.zelenko at gmail.com> wrote:
> > And yes, I do not believe in "good faith" of your fraction any more.

You can belive whatever you want. We are all free people.

> > (Just look at what your pal Kiryl writes here

What exactly am I writing here? What's the problem?

>or what your pals wrote
> > in Pravapis:Talk -- those people seem to be genuinely *pleased* with
> > demise of "official Belarusian" community?!!)

Definitly I am not pleased with any kind of demise or something like
that. My only point is that belarusian community should be united.
Period.

>
> As far as I remember, Kiryl and you had a conflict in the past. This
> explains a lot.

The issue which we discuss here has nothing to our personal
relationship with my friend Tarasievich.

--
Regards,
Kiryl
mobile +375 29 374-82-79
Jabber ID: k.nieviarouski at gmail.com
Belarusian Linux Team


body:
Actually, according to what Maggie was telling me, she is planning to
circumvent her block and bring down (what she calls) the
Administrative Cabal. This seems to be a threat of toward disrupting
Wikipedia. I merely posted the mail as an advisory, given the previous
behaviour Maggie had indulged in during the course of her efforts to
bring down the "Cabal" and put "facts" (most of which have been found
to be pro-Democartic party. Maggie also insists she has "friends" in
and outside Wikipedia who are "pissed off of being pissed on" and who
were planning to take some sort of action against the project. Most of
this can be viewed on her earlier mails- in some of which she claims
she has supporters who are "journalists" who would back her efforts.
Unfortunately I had to cut short the chat-session after Maggie became
increasingly abusive, otherwise I could perhaps have fore-warned the
Community of anymore "anti-Cabal" activities she had planned.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
On 5/22/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> And the ultimate reason why I want this made plain is that when I'm
> eventually able to edit my own user page again, I want to upload a picture
> of my smiling face, and I don't want the same mean-minded individual who
> pulled it off last time to do it again, citing the exact same quibble with
> ownership.
>
> Here's the photograph I want to upload.
> http://static.flickr.com/35/123137544_d055e4bebf.jpg Me in Hiroshima with
> cherry blossoms, taken by my friend Cari.
>
Do you still speak to Cari?  If so, just get Cari to agree to release
the photo under a free license.  But please don't pick {{GFDL}}.

Anthony


body: No problem.


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
The Swedish Wikipedia also uses this system, with terms of one year at
a time; re?lections are held four times a year, once a quarter. They
just enacted the policy, and the first round of re?lections seems to
have gone quite well, with many administrators re?lected, and some
being desysopped.

On 5/22/06, Ryan Dabler <zhaladshar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/22/06, THD <theodoranian at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, Friends,
> > There are some people proposing a policy for administrator's term of
> > service
> > in Chinese Wikipedia. In the proposing policy, when the term of service is
> > over, administrators shall get their administrative power through a
> > re-election. I want to know that is there any Wikimedia project with this
> > kind of policy? In my own opinion, this is quite weird. I want to know
> > what
> > will other language editions do when facing this kind of proposal. Thanks.
> > THD
>
>
> This sounds like Meta's policy for administrators.  At the end of each
> year-long term, an administrator is up for election and he must win a
> majority of the votes to keep his sysop powers for another year.  On the
> English Wikisource, a similar policy was just enacted, where a vote of
> confidence is held at the end of each adminstrator's term of service and the
> community must give support to have the admin keep his rights.  Having terms
> of service isn't a common policy, but it is not unheard of on the Wikimedia
> projects.
>
> Z
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: Johan Bos

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
The Dutch Wikipedia (NL.wiki) has this policy. After each year, people can
make objections against an administrator. When no objections appear within
one week, nothing happens. When there is at least one objection, there will
be a vote, in which the administrator has to get at least 75% support. We
organize this every three month, to re-elect the administrators whose year
end in that quarter. Normally all administrators are re-elected, bus
especially too inactive moderators loose support.

Johan Bos (Jcb)

----- Original Message -----
From: "THD" <theodoranian at gmail.com>
To: <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 5:21 PM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

> Hi, Friends,
> There are some people proposing a policy for administrator's term of
> service
> in Chinese Wikipedia. In the proposing policy, when the term of service is
> over, administrators shall get their administrative power through a
> re-election. I want to know that is there any Wikimedia project with this
> kind of policy? In my own opinion, this is quite weird. I want to know
> what
> will other language editions do when facing this kind of proposal. Thanks.
> THD
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 11:53:32PM +0200, Chuck Smith wrote:
> We have actually implemented this kind of WYSIWiki (What You See Is
> Wiki) editor as a Java applet called WikiWizard for the JSPWiki.  We
> will also be presenting it at Wikimania if our proposal is accepted.
> I have already talked with Brion Vibber about integrating it into
> Wikipedia and we would be happy to do that, but we are now waiting for
> the Wikipedia wiki markup spec to be finalized.  In the meantime, we
> are continuing to debug our software and add new features.  One of its
> more interesting features is the ability to copy from Word and paste
> formatted directly into the applet and have your content automatically
> pasted in as wiki syntax.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but it would probably be good to keep
in mind, too, that wiring the wikitext syntax into an editor like this
puts binders on the extension of that syntax: it has to be done in two
places.

That may not be the best thing.

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

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

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


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Sep 11 memorial, systemic bias, lunacy in Wikipedians,
 and other fine topics (was Re:  jaygy and indefinate ban)

body:
G'day Prasad,

> As a side-note have any of you noticed that the 9/11 Memorial Wiki has
> not been deleted despite ample consensus being achieved towards its
> deletion? Don't you guys feel that there were far greater tragedies
> which occured during the 20th century-like World War 2 or the
> Holocaust or the Nagasaki-Hiroshima Nuclear bombing, apartheid in
> Africa, to name a few? Making such a big deal about the loss of 3000
> lives while fully neglecting much more horrific incidents is a
> shockingly clear example of how America-centric Wikipedia has become.
> I urge someone to please delete this absurd memorial which seems (in a
> way) to place the people who died on 9/11 on a much higher pedestal
> than (for example) the 7 million who were murdered in Nazi Germany.

It may have escaped your notice, but the "9/11 Memorial Wiki" is not a
part of Wikipedia (IIRC it's on Wikicities, but ICBW).  It therefore
slots neatly into that segment of the Internet that I like to pleasantly
describe as "my not-giving-a-fuck zone".  I'm sure most Wikipedians have
a similar view.  It is *not* our problem, *not* our business, and *not*
our fault that it exists.  Now, there are good reasons for it to be
created, and good reasons for it to not have been created.  And it's my
pleasant duty, as a good (I hope) Wikipedian, to happily Not Give A Fuck
about those reasons, or indeed any other project on the Internet that
happens to have the word "wiki" in it somewhere.

You cannot infer anything about Wikipedia from the existence of an
unrelated project, and I'll thank you not to even make the attempt.  And
for what it's worth, we are getting *less* America-centric, not more.
The project began in America, and for a time (with a few brave
exceptions) was largely American.  We still bear the scars!  But slowly
we're getting more viewpoints, better spellers, etc., etc.

In a way, it's rather frustrating to have someone from a non-Western
culture show up and immediately begin behaving incredibly badly,
screaming about "Zionist conspiracies on Wikipedia" and so on.  We
*need* editors who don't share the same worldview, but we *don't* need
lunatics.  Do you think you could muster up some people who can combat
our systemic bias problem but also wouldn't go flying off the deep end
and start confusing neutrality with Zionism?  Because that would be very
welcome.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.6.1/344 - Release Date: 19/05/2006


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
On 5/22/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> In the good old pre-digital photography days the subject might take the
> film home and develop it in his own darkroom doing whatever would be
> needed to improve the picture.  He would at least merit joint
> authorship.  Who owned the original negative was influential in
> determining the outcome.
>
Actually, that's a good point.  If the person pictured in the photo
set up the scene, and it isn't a work for hire, then it might very
well be a joint work...  In which case either owner is independently
able to license the photo under any free license (but permission of
both would be needed to release it into the public domain).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
On 5/22/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> It's at least remotely possible that an image or two of limited
> quality would be given a free license, sort of like a "free
> sample"; several professional photographers have done just this
> on commons for instance. But I don't see that Lucasfilm currently
> has any incentive to relinquish control, given that pretending not
> to be aware of our maybe-maybe-not fair use leaves them with all
> rights intact, and it would be available as a way to hassle WP if,
> say, our captions weren't sufficiently admiring or something. :-)
>
> If en: scrubbed out all nonfree images top to bottom, and if it
> was clear that it was a choice between text-only and donated
> images, the donation might seem worthwhile. But we would have to
> be utterly ruthless - none of this making of exceptions for
> "historic photos" or whatever.
>
> Stan

A completely free license would give away the rights to produce
derivative works.  It's not going to happen.  The most you could hope
for is an ND license or maybe "free for use in an encyclopedia only".

Hey, prove me wrong.  I'd be thrilled :).

Anthony


body:
On May 22, 2006, at 2:44 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> So you're willing to have Islamists, white supremacists, etc. openly
>> editing Wikipedia as long as they attempt to follow NPOV? I don't. I
>> think the presence of such individuals is harmful to the community.
>
> I think you're being borderline intolerant.

I'm not the one denouncing the Jews.

> What is an "Islamist" exactly?

Wikipedia has an excellent article on this. I'm using the term to
denote fundamentalists who support things like terrorism and
destroying the Jews.

> If they merely have Islamist sympathies, etc etc. Meanwhile, we
> have openly
> Bush-supporting, pro-Iraq war, pro-gun etc editors. Banning Yin
> without
> banning Yang (particularly when we have far more Yang than Yin)
> isn't going
> to help our NPOV problem, nor our systemic bias.

I'm willing to ban any editors who believe in exterminating Muslims.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On May 22, 2006, at 2:54 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> That's a reasonable thing to say about communists, anarchists,
>> radical feminists, furries, polyamorous transsexuals, anarcho-
>> capitalists, or almost any fringe group. The difference with anti-
>> Semites is that we have Jewish editors. If there were people on
>> Wikipedia who happened to be white supremacists or Islamists and you
>> had no way to tell they were either of these things from their edits,
>> that would be one thing. If you make your anti-semitism known,
>> however, I don't see why you should be welcome on Wikipedia. The very
>> act of accepting these types into the community would be an insult.
>
> It's a pity we're using the example of anti-Semitism. Maybe we
> could keep
> this more abstract? Say I'm a rabid anti-Pokemonite (not far from
> the truth
> :)). Does the existence of Pokemon fans on Wikipedia make me
> unwelcome? Nah,
> I just keep my distance.

That's different for so many important reasons. One big reason is
that there are no actual Pokemon editing Wikipedia, because Pokemon
don't exist in reality. Jews do.

> You might find similarities in the fact that we have both sides of
> various
> ethnic conflicts, in Yugoslavia or Israel and whatever. We also have
> anti-abortionists and pro-abortionists. Do they bicker? Yep. Does
> the very
> fabric of Wikipedia fall apart? Nah.

Imagine if we had editors who belonged to the KKK as well as large
numbers of black editors. Still don't see the problem?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On May 22, 2006, at 3:16 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

> The biggest battles seem to be waged over the smallest details.
> Change the
> colour or border of {{Infobox_Ukkingstyles}} by so much as a pixel
> and you'd
> best dig in for a long campaign.
>
> Give me the big issue campaigners any day. At least they are
> fighting over
> something you can see and understand, rather than the length of
> their penis.

I'd rather not see Wikipedia turn into a battleground over whether or
not the Jews are the spawn of Satan. You're welcome to visit the
Stormfront forums for that nonsense.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


body:
On May 22, 2006, at 4:47 PM, Peter Mackay wrote:

>> That's a reasonable thing to say about communists, anarchists,
>> radical feminists, furries, polyamorous transsexuals, anarcho-
>> capitalists, or almost any fringe group. The difference with anti-
>> Semites is that we have Jewish editors. If there were people on
>> Wikipedia who happened to be white supremacists or Islamists and you
>> had no way to tell they were either of these things from
>> their edits,
>> that would be one thing. If you make your anti-semitism known,
>> however, I don't see why you should be welcome on Wikipedia.
>> The very
>> act of accepting these types into the community would be an insult.
>
> Perhaps we should ban all intolerant users.

That's precisely my proposal.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
I agree with Bjorn, if Islamism is a political agenda that is to be
avoided, then so is anti-Islamism.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge
>>
>>Peter Mackay wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>But for casual shots, it is not only
>>>>unnecessary to doubt the word of the user in these cases
>>>>about the copyright status, but the risk of legal
>>>>intervention is so low as to be nil. Additionally, in a case
>>>>like this, it will be absolutely clear to the copyright owner
>>>>who to complain to. I think this sort of thing is very, very
>>>>low priority.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>You seem to be saying it's OK to break the law if you can get away with
>>>
>>>
>>>it, but I think you misunderstand my point.
>>>
>>>
>>Your misconception of law is phenomenal.  In some situations
>>the breach
>>of the law does not happen until there has been a complaint
>>by someone
>>with standing.
>>
>>
>So it's legal to breach copyright until someone complains? If you steal from
>an outlaw it's not theft?
>
One needs to make a distinction between civil and criminal law.  The
element of wilfullness is key to the finding of criminal infringement.
"Breaking the law" can result in punitive penalties.  The statutory
damages in civil infringement are really there to avoid the complexities
of determining actual damages; the plaintiff cannot have both actual and
statutory damages in a case.

A person who in good faith publishes material where a reasonable fair
use argument can be made is not breaking the law.  Other defenses which
would exculpate him also exzist.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
Jan Kulveit wrote:
> But is it that way anywhere? In both wiki communities I know something
> about it seems
> -any explicit level of trust has social implications
> -status of admins in the community is increased more than what would
> derive from technical powers of admins
> -this leads to increased demands on adminiship candidates
> -there is a positive feedback, more trust is demanded and admins are
> more trusted group
>
> My guess is this works naturally, and repeatig "adminship is not a
> big deal" doesn't help much.
>

I know I got adminned on en.wikipedia.org without much discussion, while
I was still pretty new.  I edited for 4-5 weeks, requested adminship,
and was given it.  Since admins don't really have that much power, and
what they do have is easy to take away, I don't see why that isn't ideal.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.6.5 JavaScript Execution Vulnerability

body:
Please report security problems by private mail if possible so we can prepare a
fix for the public before release. Thanks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
On 5/22/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> Mmmm, but does requesting someone to take a photograph actually give you
> copyright over the resulting image? I don't think it does, without
> explicit
> assignment.

The suggestion was {{GFDL}} not {{GFDL-self}}. No worries.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On 5/22/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> Don't we already get that with the preview?

Yep. Sort of how people with traditional cameras could see what their
photos looked like by printing them.

Editing *in* the preview is an improvement.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
Arwel Parry wrote:

>In message <4472196E.6080405 at telus.net>, Ray Saintonge
>
>
>>Arwel Parry wrote:
>>
>>
>>>For example, if I had sufficiently bad taste as to upload the primary
>>>school portrait of me at age 7, taken in 1966, I would consider it
>>>reasonable for the subject, me, to release the photo under GFDL, or PD
>>>or whatever, as:
>>>- I have absolutely no idea who took photographs of primary school
>>>children in Denbighshire, Wales forty years ago,
>>>- my parents paid good money for that photo (possibly as much as a
>>>shilling or two),
>>>
>>>
>>This could make it a work for hire.  A licence from your parents may be
>>required. :-)
>>
>>
>Err, no, if I recall correctly it was a speculative job - all the kids
>in school had their photos taken, then some days later a strip of three
>photos each about 6x4" turned up and the kids took them home. If the
>parents liked them (or were sufficiently nagged...) then they'd cut off
>as many copies as they wanted and sent the rest back to school with the
>money. In any case, it's a bit difficult to get a licence from beyond
>the grave, so I suppose I inherited half the copyrights anyway in that
>case (and I'm not bugging my brother for the other half!).  :)
>
The practice is still alive and well in the schools.  As a father I can
resist the sales pitch better than my wife.  I have no compunctions
about scaning the sample photo before sending it back without payment. ;-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
Keith Old wrote:

>On 5/23/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Well, I guess that's that then. No images of Han Solo. (But images of
>>Harrison Ford are okay for [[Harrison Ford]]?)
>>
>>
>Hi all,
>
>Has anyone ever tried contacting Lucasfilm and seeing what they will allow
>us to use?
>
>After all, we are a top 20 website and we probably have the most Star Wars
>related articles of any big site on the web. We are a non-profit
>organisation and we don't provide material that directly competes with them.
>
>If they told us what they are happy with and what they are not happy with
>us, it would make life a whole lot easier for all concerned. Perhaps we
>should look at identifying the rights holders for much of the so-called fair
>use material we have and try contacting them.
>
It's not in their best interests to answer such letters.  That avoids
getting caught by any conceivable trick question, ogetting tangled in
legal loose ends..  If they say "yes" they establish a precedent that
could be followed by others.  If they say "no" there's a risk of bad
publicity.  To the extent that your use of the pictures is free
advertising of their movie, they aren't likely to complain about you
using it.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
On 5/22/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> So you can release a photograph as GFDL if you do not hold the copyright
> to
> it? Is this fair dinkum?

No. Check the {{GFDL}} template. It's not a release, it's an assertion. If
you stamp the photo {{GFDL}}, you're simply saying that the person who took
it has previously released it - a different kind of sin, that may or not let
you sleep better at night.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>Some of WP's greatest debates have been anything but lame, but yes, there
>would be a bit of overlap.
>
>I love [[WP:LAME]]. We can all learn something about not seeing the tree for
>the leaves.
>
>Pete, occasional contributor to the lameness
>
Or make a movie about it called "The Silence of the Lame". ;-)

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.6.5 JavaScript Execution Vulnerability
 # 2

body:
Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Unlike the previous one, this one affects the live Wikipedia too (i.e.
> tidy does not prevent it).
>
> Vuln is here: http://nickj.org/MediaWiki/Parser25

Fixed in r14349. I'll go over your others and put out fix releases shortly.

One-line patch available here:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=14349

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Daniel Schwen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
>> something like this since the HTML output of words was/is hm not very
>> clean)

The whole export to Word and back thing will only be feasable it the
wikicode that is put in and the wikicode that is put out after editing
differ just in the edited parts. Otherwise diffs between revisions  will
be cluttered and rendered useless.


subject: [WikiEN-l] jaygy and indefinate ban

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob
>>
>>On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>As a side-note have any of you noticed that the 9/11 Memorial Wiki has
>>>
>>>
>>>not been deleted despite ample consensus being achieved towards its
>>>deletion? Don't you guys feel that there were far greater tragedies
>>>which occured during the 20th century-like World War 2 or the
>>>Holocaust or the Nagasaki-Hiroshima Nuclear bombing, apartheid in
>>>Africa, to name a few? Making such a big deal about the loss of 3000
>>>
>>>
>>>lives while fully neglecting much more horrific incidents is a
>>>shockingly clear example of how America-centric Wikipedia has become.
>>>
>>>
>>>I urge someone to please delete this absurd memorial which seems (in a
>>>
>>>
>>>way) to place the people who died on 9/11 on a much higher pedestal
>>>than (for example) the 7 million who were murdered in Nazi Germany.
>>>
>>>
>>Anyone can start a wiki on any subject.  If you feel that the
>>tragedy of the Holocaust, for example, is terribly
>>underrepresented on the internet, go start a wiki on the
>>subject.  The solution is to fix the problem of
>>underrepresentation, not to delete what is already
>>represented.
>>
>>
>Hear hear! All of the above are tragedies of immense proportions and should
>be known and understood by as many as possible. We should have MORE memorial
>wikis, not fewer. I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington last year and
>it was a distressing and sobering experience. Last month I was in Hiroshima,
>where the scars of the attack remain beneath the cherry blossoms, and it was
>a poignant but beautiful moment in my life.
>
>We should learn about these and other tragedies and say "NEVER AGAIN!"
>
I visited Dresden last summer.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
On 5/22/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Nothing wrong with it. For one thing, inactive administrators would
> be purged

I never understood the need for that. It should be sufficient to flag
them as inactive. It's true that the irreversibility of image
deletions does represent a bit of a security hole, of course, but that
applies to active admins as well.

> as well as those who simply don't work out. On English,
> they can only be removed if they are nasty enough that they end up in
> arbitration, and that is very nasty indeed.

As long as adminship only represents a certain level of trust and is
primarily used to push buttons for those who can't, that shouldn't be
a problem. I've long felt that admins should be called "trusted
users". To de-admin someone is then to explicitly label them as
untrusted, and that should only be done in nasty cases. It would also
mean that everyone who contributes and understands the policies should
eventually become trusted, without a need to sum up percentages for
namespace contributions or edit summaries.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 12:18:33AM +0200, Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> > Not to rain on anyone's parade, but it would probably be good to keep
> > in mind, too, that wiring the wikitext syntax into an editor like this
> > puts binders on the extension of that syntax: it has to be done in two
> > places.
> >
> > That may not be the best thing.
>
> For pure extensions, it should be possible to have a simple fall-back:
> any unrecognised code is simply displayed. If some time from now the
> code ((foo)) has some new meaning, well, you'll still be able to edit
> it as normal - it just won't be WYSIWYGged. Should the reverse happen
> - [[Image:foo.jpg|notreallyanimage]] suddenly should be rendered as
> text - well, true.

The latter is obvious, but the former may wll be more important, and
was my actual point.  "Let's not break the WYSIWYM editor" can be a
more powerful force than you'd think.  An explicit policy should
probably be discussed in advance.

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

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

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


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 22, 2006, at 7:32 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote:

>> Imagine if we had editors who belonged to the KKK as well as large
>> numbers of black editors. Still don't see the problem?
>
> Nope, and we've been around and around on this on the mailing list
> before.
> People who make good edits are welcome to do so, regardless of
> ideological
> affinity.

Alright. I see you weren't keeping up with the context of the
discussion, so let me fill you in:

Imagine if we had editors who belonged to the KKK and made it obvious
they belonged to the KKK with the following pattern of behavior:
making contributions about European history while making biased edits
against pro-African or African-American political causes, along with
a rigid obsession with mentioning in the lead paragraphs of [[OJ
Simpson]], [[John Muhammed]], et. al. that these convicted or
suspected murderers were black, and making posts to the listserv
under the pseudonym of "David Duke". Now do you see the problem?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: abu hamza

subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and his islamaphobia

body:
Well welch you are at it again with your accusations of anti semitism, and
being an al qaida operative, and supporting 911 and anything else you can
make up.

And all this when just a few posts ago you talked about how there is no
place in wikipedia for personal attacks. I nearly fell on the ground
laughing at that one.

So once again for the record.
adding a section on the three oaths is not evidence of anti semitism
neither is putting back the reference to harold shipmans geneolgy .

what is islamaphobic however  and down right racist and bigoted is to accuse
someone of being an alqaida operative, supporting the blowing up of 911, etc
because their email address is abuhamza.

I am really, really shocked at the level of unprofessionalism you have shown
phil. how on earth someone allowed you to act as an adminstrator for
wikipedia is beyond me.

>From: Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use
>Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 14:21:39 -0700
>
>On May 22, 2006, at 12:19 PM, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
> >> If the artists references multiple photographs and produces an image
> >> of Han Solo where Han is standing in a pose different from any of the
> >> photographs, or in a different or neutral setting, then it's not a
> >> derivative work of any one photograph.
> >>
> > *Still* not off the hook! The copyright covers any sort of
> > depiction of the character, irrespective of the mechanics of
> > production. For instance, a Han Solo action figure is not an
> > exact reproduction of any screenshot from the movie, but it
> > can only be legally sold under license from the moviemaker. Ditto
> > for 3D meshes and textures ending up in a Star Wars-themed video
> > game. As I said in another message, the pros at this are wise to
> > all kinds of trickery, and there is case law for a remarkable
> > variety of attempts to find loopholes.
>
>Well, I guess that's that then. No images of Han Solo. (But images of
>Harrison Ford are okay for [[Harrison Ford]]?)
>
>--
>Philip L. Welch
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
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from_name: Jan Kulveit

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 09:28:46PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> As long as adminship only represents a certain level of trust and is
> primarily used to push buttons for those who can't, that shouldn't be
> a problem. I've long felt that admins should be called "trusted
> users".

But is it that way anywhere? In both wiki communities I know something
about it seems
-any explicit level of trust has social implications
-status of admins in the community is increased more than what would
derive from technical powers of admins
-this leads to increased demands on adminiship candidates
-there is a positive feedback, more trust is demanded and admins are
more trusted group

My guess is this works naturally, and repeatig "adminship is not a
big deal" doesn't help much.

> To de-admin someone is then to explicitly label them as
> untrusted, and that should only be done in nasty cases. It would also
> mean that everyone who contributes and understands the policies should
> eventually become trusted, without a need to sum up percentages for
> namespace contributions or edit summaries.
>

Does it actually work that way on any project of moderate to large size?

Jan Kulveit (Wikimol)


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 5/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> Imagine if we had editors who belonged to the KKK as well as large
> numbers of black editors. Still don't see the problem?

Nope, and we've been around and around on this on the mailing list before.
People who make good edits are welcome to do so, regardless of ideological
affinity.

Ryan


from_name: jayjg

body:
On 5/22/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> >
> > Imagine if we had editors who belonged to the KKK as well as large
> > numbers of black editors. Still don't see the problem?
>
>
> Nope, and we've been around and around on this on the mailing list before.
> People who make good edits are welcome to do so, regardless of ideological
> affinity.

Right.  Which, of course, was not the case here; quite the opposite in
fact, as there is no evidence of even a single "good edit".

Jay.


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
On 5/22/06, Jan Kulveit <jk-wikifound at ks.cz> wrote:
> > To de-admin someone is then to explicitly label them as
> > untrusted, and that should only be done in nasty cases. It would also
> > mean that everyone who contributes and understands the policies should
> > eventually become trusted, without a need to sum up percentages for
> > namespace contributions or edit summaries.

> Does it actually work that way on any project of moderate to large size?

I don't know if you count en.wikinews.org as moderate to large, but it
certainly has a very high percentage of admins (41, 0.5% of reg'd
users vs. en.wikipedia's 0.06%), much more so among active users.
There are two conditions for becoming an admin:

   1. You've done at least a month's work on Wikinews.
   2. You are trusted by the community.

We flag inactive admins as such. We've had a couple of wheel wars, but
I think over time policy will evolve to prevent that. So far I haven't
seen a trend at all to assign admins editorial roles, rather there
seems to be a strong community culture against that.

WN is different from WP in many ways (most importantly, community
attention always focuses on a small set of articles at a given time).
Yet, I see no automatism towards bigger editorial roles for sysops or
stronger criteria for nomination within any given community. For
instance, in spite of both communities being huge, admin roles in
de.wp are significantly broader than in en.wp.

I think it depends more on what the philosophy of the most active
initial contributors in a community is. This tends to guide the
evolution of policy and practice. Newbies tend to assume the word of
oldbies as unquestionable fact. "It is so because it has always been
so."

The notion that policy itself is a mechanism that can be radically
edited, literally, is alien to many. After all, it doesn't work like
that in the real world. In the real world, people whine about things
they feel they cannot change. So, rather than proposing constructive
changes to policy, newbies often whine about evil admin power abuse,
etc.

As I said, I also think the term "adminship" notoriously tends to lead
to stronger assumptions of roles. I have seen countless media reports
where "admins" were, essentially, considered to be the staff of the
site that makes editorial decisions. This is understandable given the
choice of name, and many newbies have the same expectations. And
doesn't "admin cabal" sound much scarier than "trusted user cabal"?
The name suggests much more power than I think the role should hold.

This discussion, particlarly on foundation-l, is a good idea, BTW. We
need a lot more communication about policies across projects and
languages. Statistics and comparison grids would be even nicer.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
> > NO! The right to remain anonymous on Wikipedia is SACRED. Don't mess
> > with it unless you want someone to reveal who "alphasigmax at gmail.com"
> > is. If you want to inquire about someones real identity, then email
> > that person DIRECTLY.
>
>  This should interest you:
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Asperger_syndrome&diff=21282302&oldid=21132475
>
>  Here, my "sacred" right to remain anonymous was ignored as blatantly as any has ever been in Wiki's history. No wrong was ever found in the party who did it, and I was the one who ended up abused by Wiki instead - by admins blatantly swanking that there are no rights - at the end of the affair this exposure of identity began.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell. I feel
sorry for you that some Wikipedians behave so disrespectfully. In
general, people on Wikipedia love to contribute to the largest
knowledgebase on earth, but then there are some that just generally
love to act like pricks. However, there is no rule forcing you to out
yourself. Getting yourself a throwaway webmail account and a fake
identity is dirt simple. You didn't.

--
mvh Bj?rn


subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
On 5/22/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Several people have drawn attention to
> the fact that i am called abu hamza as a mechanism to accuse me of
> supporting 911
>
> My Math Professors is named Hamza , and he teaches in a Christian
> institution. Do you reckon he's a terrorist on account of his name?

Do you understand the difference between "Hamza" and "Abu Hamza". Or
what a "strawman argument" is?

> I typically don't respond to your posts, Bjorn, because they're filled
> with nonsense like this, but every once in a while you really step
> over the line in your outrageously ignorant and plainly false
> statements
>
> Please refrain from making personal attacks. Such immaturity is
> unbecoming of you, Jay.

LOL! So Prasad says even as he personally attacks me by calling me
"immature". Hey Prasad, this will be both the first and last time I
respond to any of your posts on this list.  I'm sure you can undersand
why; you're well enough fed here as it is.

Jay.


from_name: THD

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
Hi, Friends,
There are some people proposing a policy for administrator's term of service
in Chinese Wikipedia. In the proposing policy, when the term of service is
over, administrators shall get their administrative power through a
re-election. I want to know that is there any Wikimedia project with this
kind of policy? In my own opinion, this is quite weird. I want to know what
will other language editions do when facing this kind of proposal. Thanks.
THD


subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


body:
On 5/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> So you're willing to have Islamists, white supremacists, etc. openly
> editing Wikipedia as long as they attempt to follow NPOV? I don't. I
> think the presence of such individuals is harmful to the community.

I think you're being borderline intolerant. What is an "Islamist" exactly?
If they merely have Islamist sympathies, etc etc. Meanwhile, we have openly
Bush-supporting, pro-Iraq war, pro-gun etc editors. Banning Yin without
banning Yang (particularly when we have far more Yang than Yin) isn't going
to help our NPOV problem, nor our systemic bias.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of bad fair use

body:
On 5/22/06, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Has anyone ever tried contacting Lucasfilm and seeing what they will allow
> us to use?

Dear George,
  We understand that no one has ever been allowed to legally produce or sell
an image of Han Solo without your permission. However, would it be ok if we
copied such an image, and put it on our website with the proviso that anyone
is allowed to download, modify, sell, distribute, or do anything they like
to it?

Look forward to hearing from you,
Wikipedia


from_name: Chuck Smith

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
> Well, I would be more in favor of having a built-in code highlighter
> instead of a WYSIWYG editor. I think it'd improve readability,
> especially with the new endnote syntax threatening to take over some
> articles. I was going to propose doing something like this for the
> Summer of Code, but I just couldn't think of an elegant way to implement
> it. Using TinyMCE for code would require converting HTML-encoded
> HTML/wikitext into HTML/wikitext, and a feature using Flash or Java
> probably wouldn't be that popular with users.

We have actually implemented this kind of WYSIWiki (What You See Is
Wiki) editor as a Java applet called WikiWizard for the JSPWiki.  We
will also be presenting it at Wikimania if our proposal is accepted.
I have already talked with Brion Vibber about integrating it into
Wikipedia and we would be happy to do that, but we are now waiting for
the Wikipedia wiki markup spec to be finalized.  In the meantime, we
are continuing to debug our software and add new features.  One of its
more interesting features is the ability to copy from Word and paste
formatted directly into the applet and have your content automatically
pasted in as wiki syntax.

You can see our project details at www.wikiwizard.net.  I am currently
working on the final steps to make it easy to install and run within
JSPWiki as well as the ability to add other editors to JSPWiki.  I
have almost finished coding a feature to let users upload multiple
files simultaneously (for intranet use).  Feel free to contact me
privately for more details about WikiWizard.

Best wishes,
Chuck


body:
On 5/22/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> That's a reasonable thing to say about communists, anarchists,
> radical feminists, furries, polyamorous transsexuals, anarcho-
> capitalists, or almost any fringe group. The difference with anti-
> Semites is that we have Jewish editors. If there were people on
> Wikipedia who happened to be white supremacists or Islamists and you
> had no way to tell they were either of these things from their edits,
> that would be one thing. If you make your anti-semitism known,
> however, I don't see why you should be welcome on Wikipedia. The very
> act of accepting these types into the community would be an insult.

It's a pity we're using the example of anti-Semitism. Maybe we could keep
this more abstract? Say I'm a rabid anti-Pokemonite (not far from the truth
:)). Does the existence of Pokemon fans on Wikipedia make me unwelcome? Nah,
I just keep my distance.

You might find similarities in the fact that we have both sides of various
ethnic conflicts, in Yugoslavia or Israel and whatever. We also have
anti-abortionists and pro-abortionists. Do they bicker? Yep. Does the very
fabric of Wikipedia fall apart? Nah.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
On May 22, 2006, at 11:12 PM, Prasad J wrote:

>> OH MY GOD. Prasad, we've put up with your shit for long enough.
>
> Since I am not a hick or a hillbilly you will understand that I do not
> appreciate the use of profanities against me. I ask that you not use
> your "git-r-done" lingo whilst communicating with me.

I don't know about where you live, but in most places people use
profanity in cities too. In North America, it's generally only
backwards rural people who get offended by profanity. However, as a
special favor to you, I've rephrased what I said:

Prasad, we've put up with your non-sequitur outbursts for long
enough. This list is about Wikipedia. This list is not about
denouncing America or arguing about whether the World Trade Center
was destroyed by planted explosives. Everybody who isn't from the
United States hates America. We get it. Now please kindly cease and
desist.

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-23

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

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 305 of 314 tests (97.13%) FAILED!


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
On 5/23/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Not to rain on anyone's parade, but it would probably be good to keep
> in mind, too, that wiring the wikitext syntax into an editor like this
> puts binders on the extension of that syntax: it has to be done in two
> places.
>
> That may not be the best thing.

For pure extensions, it should be possible to have a simple fall-back:
any unrecognised code is simply displayed. If some time from now the
code ((foo)) has some new meaning, well, you'll still be able to edit
it as normal - it just won't be WYSIWYGged. Should the reverse happen
- [[Image:foo.jpg|notreallyanimage]] suddenly should be rendered as
text - well, true.

Steve