body:
Earle Martin wrote:

>On 04/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>By getting them published somewhere.  Unpublished true facts are
>>original research by the generally accepted Wikipedia definition.
>>
>>
>So if there were an article about, say, my grandfather, and I edited
>it to add something that was true (say, that he was in the RAF during
>the war) but unpublished, this information is not suitable for
>inclusion? (Surely notability does not imply that all relevant facts
>on a topic have been published.)
>
>Anyway, I was under the impression that "original research" was taking
>facts A, B, and C about topic X and concluding N. In the case that I
>am following up, I've asked Z, an authority on X, if A is true, and
>they have confirmed that it is. But according to your definition, this
>proven fact A must float in limbo because it is unpublished. That
>doesn't feel right.
>
Perhaps then one legitimate application of Ignore All Rules would be if
a constellation of rules led us into a paradox.  My one concern with the
statement that initiated this thread was that "No approval was
obtained..." is a negative statement.  By their nature negative
statements are mostly impossible to substantiate.  Allowing personal
communications from a subject or official body that something has not
been done as prima facie evidence may be the only way to establish a
fact.  Prima facie evidence is always rebuttable.  Is it realistic to
expect that someone will publish a statement in an acceptable
publication for the sole reason of saying that they have not followed
trivial requirements?

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's official: AFD is dead.
>
> Because if you don't like the decision, you can always just try again,
> and keep trying until you get the decision you want.
>
> A disgrace.

Don't most review mechanisms work this way? In Wikipedia and the real
world (examinations)...

There is nothing wrong with this because there is no reason to think
the standards of measurement would fall (if people were to try again
and again on RfA without reason, people would come out in solidarity
against them). Also, people can change and improve so have the right
to be retested.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/04/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's official: AFD is dead.
> >
> > Because if you don't like the decision, you can always just try again,
> > and keep trying until you get the decision you want.
> >
> > A disgrace.
>
> Don't most review mechanisms work this way? In Wikipedia and the real
> world (examinations)...

I think of it this way:

If the article could be kept in the past and the current version
cannot be kept, it seems obvious that the correct course of action is
to revert to the version that consensus was to keep.

Of course, in the current case, there was no consensus, but an admin
deleted it anyway.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>>Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 13:09:50 -0700
>>From: "phoebe ayers" <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com>
>>
>>A nice example :)
>>
>>Well, the OED, generally recognized as the gold standard in
>>etymology, lists
>>the first use of the term in a figurative sense ("leading to
>>disaster")  in
>>1951: *"1951* J.
>>FLEMING<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#j-fleming>
>>*Man who looked Back* x. 132 You go off down the slippery slope;
>>it'll do
>>you good." There are two more quotations, one from 1964 and one
>>form 1979.
>>There are of course earlier uses of the phrase but they are not
>>meant in the
>>same way. Seems to me that to really make your case based on your
>>original
>>research in the NYT, you'd need to check every single use of the
>>citation to
>>make sure they were talking about a slippery slope (figuratively,
>>as in
>>leading to disaster) and not a slippery slope (literally). Did you
>>do this?
>>
>>
>
>I made a sort of loosy-goosy due-diligence effort.
>
>There were really two questions here. One was: what are some example
>of early uses in its present sense. That's sort of a separate topic.
>The second is: despite the fact that there _are_ early uses in its
>present sense, its use exploded circa 1980 or so. Based on casual
>sampling, virtually all uses after 1980 are in the present figurative
>sense. (Before that, quite a lot of them are not).
>
>If I search _only_ for articles in which the phrase "slippery slope"
>appears _in the title_, the very first such reference is in 1943, and
>is to a literal use: "Dauntless Is the Skier Seeking Snow; The
>Uncertainties of Travel Fail to Halt His Quest for Slippery Slopes as
>Shown by a Railroad Trip to Snow Valley Above Manchester, Vt." The
>next nine span 1963 to 1988, and all are, I claim, I judge, I opine,
>the modern use. "Russia and China Edge Down a Slippery Slope;" "The
>Nation; U.S. and Cambodia: Down the 'Slippery Slope' Again?;" "On the
>Slippery Slope To Another Vietnam," etc.
>
>So, again, what would you do here? State the common-sense inference
>("the very first such reference is in 1943, and is to a literal use;
>the next nine span 1963 to 1988 and are all the modern use," and give
>title, date, and page of all ten in a footnote? Surely not: put
>title, date, page of all ten in the article itself?
>
>With regard to the OED and first use in its present sense, why yes, I
>know better than that edition of the OED. First of all, William
>Safire gives a 1909 example in a 2002 column:
>
>"The key task of the phrasedick is to find earliest uses of
>["slippery slope"] in its present sense of "a course that leads
>inexorably to disaster." The OED tracks it to a 1951 novel, but new
>retrieval technology lets us do better than that.... We have this
>1857 use from Chambers' Journal: "When the educated person of the
>middle class is reduced to pennilessness... what but this gives him
>the desire to struggle again up the slippery slope of fortune?"
>In both of these citations, the meaning is closer to "the greasy
>pole...." The current sense... probably surfaced in the early 20th
>century, possibly in an article by a writer in a 1909 Quarterly
>Review, published in London: "the first step down that slippery slope
>at the bottom of which lies a parliamentary government."
>
>But new retrieval technology, namely Google Books, lets me do better
>than Safire.
>
>I found an 1878 reference by one Bernard O'Reilly: "It is not with
>them we are concerned: they will not be taught or reformed; so, they
>will go down the steep and slippery slope on which the heartless
>move, to perdition!"
>
>I think that's unquestionably an example of usage to mean "a course
>that leads inexorably to disaster." (Of course, I'd never draw such
>an inference; I'd just quote it and let the reader decide. The
>reference is: The Mirror of True Womanhood, A Book of Instruction for
>Women in the World, 2nd Edition, Dublin, M. H. Gill and Son,
>"Reprinted from the Thirteenth American Edition." p. 136." Actually
>the question of the year is complicated because the Google Books
>image is from an 1883 edition, but the 1883 edition says it's from
>the Thirteenth American Edition, which was published in 1878. Whether
>it was in earlier editions I don't know. But it's older than 1951 and
>by golly it's older than 1909.
>
>And I found an 1837 reference that does not actually use the phrase
>"slippery slope," but does say: "There are points where the Christian
>must always stand on guard. His danger is seldom found in gross
>offenses... but in small indulgences, and weak compliances, where
>conscience rather doubts, than condemns. These gradually draw him
>nearer and nearer to the world, till the line of separation is lost.
>Many a Christian has glided down this slope to perdition." Osler,
>Edward (1837), Church and King," Smith, Elder and Co., London, p. 13
>
A wonderful piece of research!  It's the kind of thing that should be in
Wiktionary.

It might be interesting to investigate the similar term "slippery ground".

Ec


list: foundation-l

from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I can confirm that a leak of the ongoing vote counts did, in fact,
> occur in the last election. It occurred because an election official
> felt that the then-Board (and possibly others) should know the results
> of the election ahead of time to prepare. The leak occurred at a time
> when the result was very unlikely to change. Still, this was a serious
> error in judgment, and it is certain that this particular election
> official will not be asked to coordinate future elections.
>
> Working with an independent group seems like a reasonable way to
> reduce risks. The Board has discussed this internally. The Debian
> project was named as a potential partner in overseeing the next
> election. If we do want to pursue that, it is about time to initiate
> discussions with them.

I agree that an independent group should be involved. In fact I think the
vote should be run on external servers, with a voter list (usernames and
password hashes) sent to them before time. If it has to be run on our
servers, it should be on an isolated server with limited shell access, and
we should end our policy of giving the keys for the voting record to
emotionally involved volunteers or staff.

-- Tim Starling


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/7/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course, in the current case, there was no consensus, but an admin
> > deleted it anyway.
>
> It'd be nice if someone actually let those of us learning about it
> here know what article this is about.

Barbara Bauer.


from_name: Jeff Raymond

subject: [WikiEN-l] And over at RFA ...

body:
Charli Li wrote:

> Of course he will win RFA.  Everybody's two cents are there, but it
> looks like the rational reasons for *Support* are dominating.

I have a very hard time swallowing many of the support votes concerning
trust and qualifications when he's shown time and time again that he's
been overly abusive with the tools.  When more than a few people are
citing trust, and even more are responding with evidence as to why he
simply can't be trusted (and his flip response to question 20 ("The
question is moot. I have 75 percent. Do they intend to change their
attitudes seeing that 75 percent support me?") certainly isn't condusive
to seeing a need to adjust), I'm not sure what to say.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly
	because you kind of get the impression she
	sang every song either about or to her cats.
	They seem to be the driving force in most of
	her creative process."     - Chuck Klosterman


body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 02/04/07, Earle Martin wrote:
>
>
>>>And?  It's a logo.  Why would it need to be?
>>>
>>>
>>Well, I raised that on the talk page, and Chelseaboy (he of the
>>heraldic interests) commented "It is obvious from looking at the
>>shield (which is illustrated in the box at the top of the article)
>>that it is a shield [...] newly formed shields of arms (this is a
>>shield bearing a chevron and a cross, which are heraldic elements)
>>used in England require authorisation from the College of Arms before
>>display".
>>
>>I wonder then if the logo of the [[Ministry of Sound]] (and probably
>>those of many other outfits) require authorization...
>>
>>
>I'm not sure it's so much "require authorisation" as making the point
>that it *isn't* a shield of arms. It looks like one, it feels like
>one, but it *isn't* one. My understanding is that if you're using it
>as a shield, it has to be authorised; in this case, it isn't, so it's
>simply a pretty and confusing logo.
>
Who but Monty Python would go into a modern battle carrying this type of
shield, and with a full suit of armor. :-)

Is there any penalty for walking around with an unauthorized shield?

>Really depends what you present it as, I suppose.
>
It's very different from the right to bear arms in the US Constitution. :-)

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
James Farrar wrote:
> On 07/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 4/7/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Of course, in the current case, there was no consensus, but an admin
>>> deleted it anyway.
>> It'd be nice if someone actually let those of us learning about it
>> here know what article this is about.
>
> Barbara Bauer.

At DRV now.

-Jeff

--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW: http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly
	because you kind of get the impression she
	sang every song either about or to her cats.
	They seem to be the driving force in most of
	her creative process."     - Chuck Klosterman


subject: [WikiEN-l] Weekly cycles to Wikipedia traffic

body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:

>On 1 Apr 2007 at 19:09 -0400, Versageek <wiki at versageek.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Use Alexa's comparison feature to compare wikipedia.org and google.com,
>>they seem to mirror each other quite closely in terms of the sawtooth
>>pattern.
>>
>>
>Interestingly, youtube.com shows a sawtooth pattern that's almost
>completely the inverse of that of google.com and wikipedia.org.  This
>apparently reflects a distinction between "serious research and
>information" sites that are used at work / school (or that one can at
>least get away with surfing at such environments even if it's really
>for fun) versus "frivolous entertainment" sites that are mostly used
>at home in one's free time.
>
Wikipedia does not generally have audio.  A person who surreptitiously
uses the computer at work to surf the internet cannot risk disrupting
the office with the unexpectedly loud sound track of YouTube video. :-)

Ec


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
On 4/7/07, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> 09/11/06
> - One of the Board members asked us to know the results, promishing
> s/he won't tell anyone
>
> 09/13/06
> - The question of informing other Board members was raised. We all
> were in favor of informing the whole Board, except Angela + Foundation
> office employees
>
> 09/15/06
> - The Board member who originally requested the results wasn't pleased
> that we provided the results to all the other Board members (at least
> that's what I understood from the email s/he sent) and forwarded them
> to Angela
>
> 09/16/06
> - The Board member who orig(blablabla) was concerned with Jimmy's
> email and wanted to declare the elections illegal, but in the end we
> continued them.
>
Let's see then.  Not Angela, since she didn't get the results
originally and she didn't forward them to herself.  Not Jimmy, since
he obviously wasn't mad about his own email.  Ant expressed some anger
publically over Jimmy's email, so it's my bet that she's the one who
originally asked to know the results.

Of course, it could have been Tim Shell or Michael Davis, I suppose.

This cloak and dagger stuff is fun sometimes...</sarcasm>

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
Ehm, am I reading something wrong, or was Angela suggesting that it
was leaked to candidates? Erik has now explained why it was leaked to
the board, although we, i assume, all agree that it should not happen
again, but his mail doesn't say anything about leaking to candidates,
which is in my opinion an even worse thing. Angela, could you maybe
clarify? You seemed to have assumed this was general knowledge, but I
think I was asleep when it came into daylight or so.

Lodewijk

2007/4/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue op gmail.com>:
> Yes, yes we did.
>
> Mark
>
> On 06/04/07, James Hare <messedrocker op gmail.com> wrote:
> > We already had this discussion. We already concluded it was unbecoming of
> > Jimmy-Jimmy to endorse candidates.
> >
> > On 4/6/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue op gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > No matter who was winning, it seems pretty obnoxious to me. It totally
> > > ruins democracy when the God-King steps down from his throne to
> > > endorse certain candidates.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 06/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal op inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > On 4/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik op wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > > > I can confirm that a leak of the ongoing vote counts did, in fact,
> > > > > occur in the last election. It occurred because an election official
> > > > > felt that the then-Board (and possibly others) should know the results
> > > > > of the election ahead of time to prepare. The leak occurred at a time
> > > > > when the result was very unlikely to change.
> > > >
> > > > Presumably this was just before Jimbo made his announcement supporting
> > > > certain candidates and making vague reference to others not being
> > > > suitable, then?
> > > >
> > > > I always suspected that was all about him finding out that you were
> > > > winning and trying to sabotage you.  Pretty obnoxious if it's true.
> > > >
> > > > Anthony
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
Ehm, am I reading something wrong, or was Angela suggesting that it
was leaked to candidates? Erik has now explained why it was leaked to
the board, although we, i assume, all agree that it should not happen
again, but his mail doesn't say anything about leaking to candidates,
which is in my opinion an even worse thing. Angela, could you maybe
clarify? You seemed to have assumed this was general knowledge, but I
think I was asleep when it came into daylight or so.

Lodewijk

2007/4/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> Yes, yes we did.
>
> Mark
>
> On 06/04/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We already had this discussion. We already concluded it was unbecoming of
> > Jimmy-Jimmy to endorse candidates.
> >
> > On 4/6/07, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > No matter who was winning, it seems pretty obnoxious to me. It totally
> > > ruins democracy when the God-King steps down from his throne to
> > > endorse certain candidates.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 06/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > > On 4/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > > > > I can confirm that a leak of the ongoing vote counts did, in fact,
> > > > > occur in the last election. It occurred because an election official
> > > > > felt that the then-Board (and possibly others) should know the results
> > > > > of the election ahead of time to prepare. The leak occurred at a time
> > > > > when the result was very unlikely to change.
> > > >
> > > > Presumably this was just before Jimbo made his announcement supporting
> > > > certain candidates and making vague reference to others not being
> > > > suitable, then?
> > > >
> > > > I always suspected that was all about him finding out that you were
> > > > winning and trying to sabotage you.  Pretty obnoxious if it's true.
> > > >
> > > > Anthony
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Version 0.5 CD *finally* released

body:
[cross-posted to Foundation-l, Wikipedia-l and WikiEN-l]

Well, after a couple of snags that pushed back the release dates, Wikipedia 0.5 is finally available for commercial distribution. Thanks to Linterweb, one of the long-term goals of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team in the English Wikipedia has been accomplished.

The release consists of an eclectic selection of 1964 articles, selected over a period of one year, which span from Art to Zeus. It draws heavily on the English Wikipedia?s featured article base, to have it also be a showcase of the best of our work. The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately ?12 ($15 USD, ?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation. The CD is also publicly viewable online, and the CD?s ISO file is available as well.

Either way, as the number "0.5" indicates, we are not done; static releases, just like Wikipedia itself, are not finished, as they are works in progress. We're starting work on Version 0.7 soon, and as everything else on Wikipedia, "more eyes are always more better" (the bad grammar is intentional ;) ). After v0.7, if things go as planned, we intend to finally publish Wikipedia Version 1.0 and accomplish our goal. But we need everyone?s help.

As part of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, I hope that you will enjoy and use our work, and we hope to provide you with more news of this kind soon.

Titoxd.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Version 0.5 CD *finally* released


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Version 0.5 CD *finally* released


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Cool tool that lets you check for copyright renewals
 on	books

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>This is a new, neat tool that helps you find whether certain US
>published books are out of copyright even if they are published after
>1923. As most copyright savvy people know, there was a period of time
>after that in which copyrights had to be officially renewed to stay
>valid, meaning that a lot of works published after that time are
>officially in the public domain in the United States. But these are
>hard to find, since renewal notices are hard to peruse and in many
>cases not machine-searchable at all.
>
>But no longer! Stanford has created a Copyright Renewal Database,
>making it quite easy to check if any book published first in the U.S.
>between 1923 and 1963 are in the public domain. It could potentially
>clear up copyright ambiguities for certain things taken from these
>works.
>
>http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/
>
>
It's a good beginning, but only includes book renewals.  I hope that
they take it further to cover magazines.

Ec


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Hello,

On 4/6/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
> The voting period was long, but there was very little time between the
> finalization of candidates and the beginning of voting. One consequence
> of this was that translators had not completed translation of candidate
> statements at the time the voting began.
>
> There should be more time ahead to prepare.

Indeed. Though translators really do their best, it is very difficult to
achieve translation of all candidate's statements. Last time the statements
were *suggested* not to exceed 1,000 characters [1]. Some rules must be
changed.

I suggest the following extra rules :
* For the pre-(s)election candidates, only a *short presentation* (~50
words) ; easy and fast to translate, even for many candidates. These
statements may be translated only in ? big ? languages, i.e. those of the
most developed projects.
* For the final candidates, *no more than 150 words*. These statements
should be translated in as many languages as possible.
* All statements *must* be written in simple words, simple sentences without
any idioms.
* All candidates *must* write their statement in all languages they speak.
They know what they want to say better than anyone, so it's better to have a
rough translation by themselves that will be refined later than a
well-written serious mistranslation.

To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, some
candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespect
to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
representative, first respect the community by following these simple rules.
Thanks.

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En

--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/7/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Of course, in the current case, there was no consensus, but an admin
> > deleted it anyway.
>
> Your options include asking me to clarify my reasoning if you couldn't
> understand it,

I've queried the reasoning in an appropriate place.

> or taking the close to deletion review if you disagreed with it.

No point, since I have no faith in the process.


from_name: Sam Blacketer

subject: [WikiEN-l] RfA reform

body:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 06:50:29 +0100, "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> RfA should be reduced to a determination of whether the user is
> trustworthy or not. Their ability to make intelligent decisions should
> come into it somewhere.

That is indeed what RfA should become, but the problem which needs to
be solved is how to set up the process so that this assessment is made
in a more intelligent way other than simple voting. If, for instance,
instead of asking the community to "Support" or "Oppose", they were
asked "Is <x> trustworthy? Yes/No" the result would be
indistinguishable from what we have now. The only change would be the
heading over the top of the !votes.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/04/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's official: AFD is dead.
> >
> > Because if you don't like the decision, you can always just try again,
> > and keep trying until you get the decision you want.
> >
> > A disgrace.
>
> Don't most review mechanisms work this way? In Wikipedia and the real
> world (examinations)...
>
> There is nothing wrong with this because there is no reason to think
> the standards of measurement would fall (if people were to try again
> and again on RfA without reason, people would come out in solidarity
> against them). Also, people can change and improve so have the right
> to be retested.

Apologies, I though the statement was about RfA for some reason... My
response was to "RfA is dead"

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
On 4/7/07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
> To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, some
> candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
> however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
> translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespect
> to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
> representative, first respect the community by following these simple rules.
> Thanks.

Sure - though there is no reason why candidates should not be allowed
to make extended statements on a separate page, which may be
translated into fewer languages.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] RfA reform

body:
On 07/04/07, Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 06:50:29 +0100, "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > RfA should be reduced to a determination of whether the user is
> > trustworthy or not. Their ability to make intelligent decisions should
> > come into it somewhere.
>
> That is indeed what RfA should become, but the problem which needs to
> be solved is how to set up the process so that this assessment is made
> in a more intelligent way other than simple voting. If, for instance,
> instead of asking the community to "Support" or "Oppose", they were
> asked "Is <x> trustworthy? Yes/No" the result would be
> indistinguishable from what we have now. The only change would be the
> heading over the top of the !votes.
>
> --
> Sam Blacketer
> London E15

Or demand justification for opposition in terms of why the user
shouldn't have these powers.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
London SE1 ;)


subject: [WikiEN-l] RfA reform

body:
On Sat Apr 7 00:05:44 UTC, Mets501 mets501wiki at gmail.com wrote:
>
> But the important thing is that not all admins do everything.  A user who
> has never reverted a single vandal can become an admin as much as a user who
> has never tagged an article for speedy deletion, or written a featured
> article.  This system would prevent that.

I think you have it the wrong way round.

Under the present system, an admin candidate who comes up on RfA
having not done any vandal fighting probably attracts a slew of oppose
!votes from people saying "has not demonstrated any need for the
tools". Under my proposal, there would be an opportunity for other
editors to say that the user had no experience of this aspect of
adminship, but it would be up to the closing bureaucrat to say whether
this lack of experience demonstrated unsuitability as a whole. I would
expect, if the candidate had good experience of other areas, that it
wouldn't pose a problem.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
On 4/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> It occurred because an election official
> felt that the then-Board (and possibly others) should know the results
> of the election ahead of time to prepare.

It appears that I received incorrect information regarding the
sequence of events. Given conflicting statements about who requested
to know results and who made them known, I can't really say anything
for sure, as I've only heard about this through others.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
On 4/7/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 4/7/07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
> > To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time,
> some
> > candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
> > however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
> > translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a
> disrespect
> > to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
> > representative, first respect the community by following these simple
> rules.
> > Thanks.
>
> Sure - though there is no reason why candidates should not be allowed
> to make extended statements on a separate page, which may be
> translated into fewer languages.

Or not translated at all. Or (more likely) translated once all other
statements have been translated.

--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Christiano Moreschi

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
No, not a disgrace.

1. Consensus can change. Community standards re inclusion/deletion can
change as well.

2.Wikipedia is most emphatically not governed by precedent.

3.You don't like decision X, DRV exists for a reason.

4. Persistent nomination of Article Y for deletion in the face of
overwhelming consensus to keep will, in fact, get you blocked for
disruption.

So, AfD is not dead. Consensus for what can and can not be included in
Wikipedia can easily change over the months and years. That's just the way
the wiki-model works.

Moreschi

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Hotmail is evolving - check out the new Windows Live Mail.
http://ideas.live.co.uk/


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:49:45 -0500, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I'm not interested in discussing the merits of this case. As I said
>before, I am not a copyright lawyer. Nor do I consider myself to have
>anything beyond a basic acquaintance with copyright law.

Ah, right, so you just want to have a go at me for taking an action ha
conflicts with your view that we should include copied conflict unless
someone actually sends us a takedown notice or sues us.  I can see why
this is an unproductive discussion.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 08:16:34 +0100, "James Farrar"
<james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:

>Because if you don't like the decision, you can always just try again,
>and keep trying until you get the decision you want.

No, it's OK, if they keep creating it eventually we salt the earth.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> 1. Consensus can change. Community standards re inclusion/deletion can
> change as well.
>
> 2.Wikipedia is most emphatically not governed by precedent.

[...]

> So, AfD is not dead. Consensus for what can and can not be included in
> Wikipedia can easily change over the months and years. That's just the way
> the wiki-model works.

s/dead/pointless, then. OK, I'll happily spend my time elsewhere instead.


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
If you feel like it. Just out of random interest, I wonder what
Citizendium's deletion fora are like. Do they have any?

_________________________________________________________________
Get Hotmail, News, Sport and Entertainment from MSN on your mobile.
http://www.msn.txt4content.com/


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
On 07/04/07, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> If you feel like it.

Why waste time when I could be doing things for the project that might
actually be useful? It seems like there's an awful lot of time
committed to meta-activity; and whilst some is essential, it can
easily spiral out of control. Exhibit A: RFA.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Chicago situation resolved.

body:
It's infuriating that people who want nothing more than to build a
free-content encyclopedia in relative peace and quiet have to chase their
tails in this farcical manner just because some trolling jackass in Chicago
announces he's going to top himself.

On the other hand, what else can we do? The headlines of "Guy kills himself
while eminent Wikipedians did zilch" hardly sound promising.

It just infuriates me that Wikipedia can so easily be hijacked for
attention-seeking like this.

Moreschi

_________________________________________________________________
Solve the Conspiracy and win fantastic prizes.
http://www.theconspiracygame.co.uk/


subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
>On 07/04/07, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> > If you feel like it.
>
>Why waste time when I could be doing things for the project that might
>actually be useful? It seems like there's an awful lot of time
>committed to meta-activity; and whilst some is essential, it can
>easily spiral out of control. Exhibit A: RFA.
>
Yeah. Shrug. Maybe just write articles. It's more fun anyway.

Moreschi

_________________________________________________________________
Match.com - Click Here To Find Singles In Your Area Today!
http://msnuk.match.com/


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Charli Li <chengli1 at verizon.net>
> Obviously the site has violated NPA, and even on the NPA policy
> page, it
> says that :
> > Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted
> > threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the
> > substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the
> > suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that
> another> editor needs to visit the external source containing the
> substance of
> > the attack.
> This site is an external source of personal attacks.  Even
> planning to
> sue us and our fellow Wiki*edians is a personal attack.

This "violation" is highly dependant on the context in which it's made. You can't just find one instance where a link to a web site is used as a personal attack and then declare _all_ links to anything on the entire site, used _anywhere_ in Wikipedia, to be a personal attack. I could probably get major news sites like The Register banned under this interpretation.

The hard banning of external sites should be sparingly used and only in cases where it's absolutely clear that it's appropriate for all concievable situations. We have human editors with human editorial judgement for a reason.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Chicago situation resolved.

body:
On 07/04/07, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> It's infuriating that people who want nothing more than to build a
> free-content encyclopedia in relative peace and quiet have to chase their
> tails in this farcical manner just because some trolling jackass in Chicago
> announces he's going to top himself.
>
> On the other hand, what else can we do? The headlines of "Guy kills himself
> while eminent Wikipedians did zilch" hardly sound promising.
>
> It just infuriates me that Wikipedia can so easily be hijacked for
> attention-seeking like this.

This kind of thing is not specific to Wikipedia. Communities exist on
the internet and all such communities can be faced with this. It is
the price of having a community at all.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Chicago situation resolved.

body:
OK, sure, but when you have community for the sake of community that's the
sort of stuff you can expect to put up with. Wikipedia has an encyclopedic
purpose distinct from that: we are not supposed to be collection of
self-help services, suicide prevention, and social services all rolled into
one.

Moreschi

_________________________________________________________________
Match.com - Click Here To Find Singles In Your Area Today!
http://msnuk.match.com/


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Chicago situation resolved.

body:
Moreschi wrote:
> OK, sure, but when you have community for the sake of community that's the
> sort of stuff you can expect to put up with. Wikipedia has an encyclopedic
> purpose distinct from that: we are not supposed to be collection of
> self-help services, suicide prevention, and social services all rolled
> into one.

And for the most part, we're not.  But turns out that *you can't
escape the community stuff*.  Any time you get a bunch of people
working together on something, the community aspects are going
to surface, whether you want them to or not.  You can try to
mitigate them, but you can't eliminate them, and if you try too
hard, you'll royally piss people off, to everyone's detriment.

If you haven't read "A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy", do so:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html .


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
effe iets anders wrote:

>2) the time
>Last year, the elections took three whole weeks. I think it should be
>possible to shorten this period. In real life elections usually take
>one day. I can understand that it should take some longer in an online
>community, as people can be at work, temporarily very busy etc. But on
>the other hand, these elections demand quite a work from the
>candidates, and I think it will also mean usually that the board will
>not decide a lot of things. (As it is not very good to decide while
>being voted on you) Thus, a three week period seems a bit long to me.
>
>I think it should be possible to have the final elections in 3-10 days
>on the condition that it is outside the summer vacation.
>
While I haven't yet formed an opinion about the three week period, I do
think that seven days should be an absolute minimum.  This would account
for those people whose personal schedule allows them to be on line on
only one pre-determined day of the week.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Robert Horning

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 4/7/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately ?12 ($15 USD, ?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>>
>
> Why so expensive?  Can't CDs be made for a couple bucks a piece?  How
> much goes to the foundation?
>
> Anthony
>

I've actually thought of competing for this reason, as I have sources
that can produce a DVD-R disc for about $1.50 each (including case) and
postage would only be an addional dollar.  Of course that does take some
capital resources that I current have tied up in other projects.  But to
do something like this for an American distro, it might be something
attractive.

And of course, I can obtain a copyright license for this material too :)

-- Robert Horning


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
Gah, I've written a lengthy email, but decided to check my Gmail
history and investigate it even further. Since I was an election
official, I can comment on this situation (although I wasn't that
active, I took part in this "leak" speciffically). Here's the whole
timeline:

09/11/06
- One of the Board members asked us to know the results, promishing
s/he won't tell anyone

09/12/06
- The election officials were in favor (three people were active then,
two were for this)

09/13/06
- The question of informing other Board members was raised. We all
were in favor of informing the whole Board, except Angela + Foundation
office employees
- The Board member who originally requested the results got an email
with the STATISTICS (how many people from what projects did vote,
etc.).

09/15/06
- I have personally emailed the four Board members + Foundation office
employees with the percentage results.
- The Board member who originally requested the results wasn't pleased
that we provided the results to all the other Board members (at least
that's what I understood from the email s/he sent) and forwarded them
to Angela

09/16/06
- Jimmy sent his email to foundation-l
- The Board member who orig(blablabla) was concerned with Jimmy's
email and wanted to declare the elections illegal, but in the end we
continued them.

That's all, in a nutshell. The problem was that we didn't have the
_authority_ to NOT give the Board the results (at least that's what we
thought). How should it be fixed this year? Having an independant
group is an option, but I think that just clearly stating that
something like this should not happen - or going even further,
prohibiting direct contact between the Election Officials and the
Board - wouldn't let a situation like that happen again.

Just to make it clear - I am fully responsible for my actions,
althought right now, looking back at them, I don't think that this
"leak" was really dangerous in any way to the elections (since Jimmy's
email didn't really "help" any other candidates, and nothing else was
done).

That is all, I'm open for any more questions regarding this situation.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz Siedlecki


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Christopher Hagar wrote:
> Instant run-off voting is a bad idea and fails some basic requirements for a
> good voting system. For example, you can have situations where: if you rank
> a candidate _higher_ on your ballot, he will actually do _worse_ in the
> election than if you had ranked him lower.
>
> Ranked ballots are good, but instant run-off is a bad method for evaluating
> the ballots; a better way to do it is with the Condorcet method, which is
> what Debian uses. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method and
> http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#A (section A.6)
>

As I pointed out, ever single voting system has its flaws, although in
the particular case I would tend to disagree with you in the
particulars.  If you rank a candidate lower, they are more likely to be
eliminated in the algorithms that cull out the weaker candidates.  It
really is to your advantage to rank candidates according to your
preference.  Of course there are also multiple algorithms that can be
considered even in an instant run-off election.

I don't want this to turn into a holy war over various voting methods,
but I would like to call attention that systems other than what has been
done in the past for the board may not be the ideal method of choosing
members.... particularly when we are now in a situation where there will
likely be many very strong candidates running for multiple positions.  I
expressed my preference, but certainly other suggestions are not only
going to happen, but I openly encourage them to be made here.  I would
hope that a reasoned discussion of how the actual voting process has
worked out in the past and what changes could be made might occur.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


from_name: Denny Colt

body:
On 4/7/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article,
> [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are
> considered to be "attack sites". <snip>

Whatever microscopic benefit  can be (argued by some) to be gained by
linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by
the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples'
identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for
others.

Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan,
and phaedriel, and so on...?

I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link
to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen
arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.

If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind as well,
and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?

--
- Denny


from_name: Samuel Klein

body:
<whistles for Linterweb, and eclectic selections>
Congrats to everyone involved!

--SJ

On Sat, 7 Apr 2007, Titoxd at Wikimedia wrote:

> [cross-posted to Foundation-l, Wikipedia-l and WikiEN-l]

Well, after a couple of snags that pushed back the release dates,
Wikipedia 0.5 is finally available for commercial distribution. Thanks to
Linterweb, one of the long-term goals of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team in
the English Wikipedia has been accomplished.

The release consists of an eclectic selection of 1964 articles, selected
over a period of one year, which span from Art to Zeus. It draws heavily
on the English Wikipedia?s featured article base, to have it also be a
showcase of the best of our work. The CD is available at
http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately ?12 ($15 USD,
?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The CD is also publicly viewable online, and the CD?s ISO file is
available as well.

Either way, as the number "0.5" indicates, we are not done; static
releases, just like Wikipedia itself, are not finished, as they are works
in progress. We're starting work on Version 0.7 soon, and as everything
else on Wikipedia, "more eyes are always more better" (the bad grammar is
intentional ;) ). After v0.7, if things go as planned, we intend to
finally publish Wikipedia Version 1.0 and accomplish our goal. But we need
everyone?s help.

As part of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, I hope that you will enjoy and
use our work, and we hope to provide you with more news of this kind soon.

Titoxd.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Version 0.5 CD *finally* released


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
Oy,

> Yes, I know. I carry a trigram index on page_titles in my local
> database, for fuzzy union based title searches.  It's very fast when
> storing the trigrams in an inverted index.

Was that complete enwiki set?

I'd expect that was not loaded box with all free resources, so 400ms
figure is not that low for the main search. The task isn't the
lightest either.
Wanna make public search service? :)

--
Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] AFD is dead

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 08:16:34 +0100, "James Farrar" wrote:
>
>
>>Because if you don't like the decision, you can always just try again,
>>and keep trying until you get the decision you want.
>>
>>
>No, it's OK, if they keep creating it eventually we salt the earth.
>
Salt is a fairly broad-band herbicide.  It tends to kill the good plants
as well as the weeds. :-)

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Guillaume Paumier wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On 4/6/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> The voting period was long, but there was very little time between the
>> finalization of candidates and the beginning of voting. One consequence
>> of this was that translators had not completed translation of candidate
>> statements at the time the voting began.
>>
>> There should be more time ahead to prepare.
>>
>
>
> Indeed. Though translators really do their best, it is very difficult to
> achieve translation of all candidate's statements. Last time the statements
> were *suggested* not to exceed 1,000 characters [1]. Some rules must be
> changed.
>
> I suggest the following extra rules :
> * For the pre-(s)election candidates, only a *short presentation* (~50
> words) ; easy and fast to translate, even for many candidates. These
> statements may be translated only in ? big ? languages, i.e. those of the
> most developed projects.
> * For the final candidates, *no more than 150 words*. These statements
> should be translated in as many languages as possible.
> * All statements *must* be written in simple words, simple sentences without
> any idioms.
> * All candidates *must* write their statement in all languages they speak.
> They know what they want to say better than anyone, so it's better to have a
> rough translation by themselves that will be refined later than a
> well-written serious mistranslation.
>
> To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, some
> candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
> however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
> translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespect
> to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
> representative, first respect the community by following these simple rules.
> Thanks.
>
> [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En
>
>

I disagree with these suggestions here as the only solution.  I
understand that for translators, it is ideal if you have as little to
translate as possible.  Lengthy statements obviously would be a problem
to translate for what are arguably volunteer translators, so certainly
an effort to keep such position statements concise ought to be encouraged.

At the same time, there are significant issues with real meat that will
be brought up this time around, and I expect that candidates will all
want to express opinions on many of these topics.  By limiting the
position statement to only 150 words or even 50 words, they might not be
able to respond to challenges, or even address what may end up becoming
major issues in this campaign.

As has been addressed already on this mailing list, issues about fair
use, trademark policy, fundraising, and perceived America-centrism may
all become issues.  Other issues including chapter relations, project
expansions (or limits) and the scope of the various WMF projects may
also come up.  And I have just scratched the surface over issues that
could be discussed that would be very legitimate points to be debated.

I'm not sure how much of this can or ought to be done through the
translators, or if perhaps a babel-fish type automated translation might
to be substituted for some of this debate.  I know that isn't perfect,
but I am trying to suggest some sort of general accommodation be made
here.  Certainly a NPOV "voter's guide" could have some of the key
points you are suggesting here, with links to other pages that would go
into further depth on candidate positions.  And priorities should be
made over what parts ought to be translated first.  In this regard you
could suggest having a short, medium, and long policy statement that
would have decreasing levels of translation, with the highest priority
to simply list all of the candidates and explain the voting rules in a
given language.


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


body:
On 4/7/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately ?12 ($15 USD, ?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Why so expensive?  Can't CDs be made for a couple bucks a piece?  How
much goes to the foundation?

Anthony


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 07/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Wikipedia does not generally have audio.  A person who surreptitiously
> uses the computer at work to surf the internet cannot risk disrupting
> the office with the unexpectedly loud sound track of YouTube video. :-)

When the Java Ogg Vorbis/Theora player is fully working and lovely in
a free-software JVM (which will include Java itself soon enough), we
can call that bit of Commons ... WikiTube!

- d,


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

body:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article,
[[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are
considered to be "attack sites".  Although this is an essay, and
explicitly says that it is not a policy, he then proceeded to invoke
his own essay in pursuing a draconian campaign to suppress all links
to Wikpedia Review, an anti-Wikipedia web forum.  In doing so, he did
things that are normally considered to be against Wikipedia policy,
such as altering other people's comments on talk and project pages,
and editing archive pages and closed AfDs.

While I am on the record as strongly critical of the tone and
atmosphere of the WR site, I am also strongly against the imposition
of a flat ban on linking to it, even on user, talk, and project
pages.  This is part of a consistent position I have of opposing all
flat bans on linking to particular sites other than blatant spam
sites of the "Buy Herbal Viagra Now" variety (and even *those* might
have rare cases where links to them are appropriate, such as when
methods used by spammers are being discussed and criticized).

When one is engaged in a discussion about those sites themselves, and
the people on them, and the things they're saying, we are tying our
own hands if we can't cite specific things there in the course of the
discussion.  For instance, there's a very interesting thread that
discusses this very "anti-attack-site" campaign:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7988

I don't know about the merits of the legal claims that guy is making
(does fair use for the purpose of commentary require citing and
linking to the source?) but some of his points about how absurd
various talk-page comments became once "redacted" by Denny are right
on target.  But how would I be able to comment on this if I weren't
allowed to link to the thread involved?

We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control
cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and
what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read
such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's
wrongheaded.  But occasionally the critics say something right, too.
Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors,
shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this?  Banning all links to the
site would prevent that too.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Brian Haws

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Derksen
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 1:13 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?

>This "violation" is highly dependant on the context in which it's made. You
can't just find one instance where a link to a web site is
>used as a personal attack and then declare _all_ links to anything on the
entire site, used _anywhere_ in Wikipedia, to be a personal
>attack. I could probably get major news sites like The Register banned
under this interpretation.

>The hard banning of external sites should be sparingly used and only in
cases where it's absolutely clear that it's appropriate for all
>concievable situations. We have human editors with human editorial
judgement for a reason.

The difference is that WR encourages and promotes the investigation and
publication of personal information regarding Wikipedia editors. For that
reasoon, if for no other, is why linking should be banned...

Brian

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Persistent addition of untrue "facts"

body:
You already did the right thing. You provided a counter example to show it
was untrue.
That's the best thing to do with such hard to prove statements.

Mgm

On 4/7/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/6/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have now expanded the "Club Records" section to include the
> > counter-example, and added a hopefully appropriate reference and
> > commented on the talk page, but what should I do if the false
> > statement is added again? I'm conscious of the existence of
> > [[WP:3RR]]...
>
> Best way is to make other editors aware of the issue, as you have done
> here.
>
> Article RFCs are also a way of doing that.
>
> -Matt
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Charli Li

body:
Daniel R. Tobias just had to cough out the following stream of bytes
from the specified email client, on 4/7/2007 1:22 PM:
> Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article,
> [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are
> considered to be "attack sites".  Although this is an essay, and
> explicitly says that it is not a policy, he then proceeded to invoke
> his own essay in pursuing a draconian campaign to suppress all links
> to Wikpedia Review, an anti-Wikipedia web forum.  In doing so, he did
> things that are normally considered to be against Wikipedia policy,
> such as altering other people's comments on talk and project pages,
> and editing archive pages and closed AfDs.
>
> While I am on the record as strongly critical of the tone and
> atmosphere of the WR site, I am also strongly against the imposition
> of a flat ban on linking to it, even on user, talk, and project
> pages.  This is part of a consistent position I have of opposing all
> flat bans on linking to particular sites other than blatant spam
> sites of the "Buy Herbal Viagra Now" variety (and even *those* might
> have rare cases where links to them are appropriate, such as when
> methods used by spammers are being discussed and criticized).
>
> When one is engaged in a discussion about those sites themselves, and
> the people on them, and the things they're saying, we are tying our
> own hands if we can't cite specific things there in the course of the
> discussion.  For instance, there's a very interesting thread that
> discusses this very "anti-attack-site" campaign:
>
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7988
>
> I don't know about the merits of the legal claims that guy is making
> (does fair use for the purpose of commentary require citing and
> linking to the source?) but some of his points about how absurd
> various talk-page comments became once "redacted" by Denny are right
> on target.  But how would I be able to comment on this if I weren't
> allowed to link to the thread involved?
>
> We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control
> cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and
> what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read
> such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's
> wrongheaded.  But occasionally the critics say something right, too.
> Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors,
> shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this?  Banning all links to the
> site would prevent that too.
>
I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site.  I don't know about
editing each other's comments, but probably putting the link in an HTML
comment, and then say, in small text, that "this is a link to an attack
site" or something like this.  But an initiative should be made so that
nobody links to that site.

--
Charli
I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the
expat bankers and their girlfriends that are going to be coming. ~Mick
Jagger


from_name: Christopher Hagar

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Instant run-off voting is a bad idea and fails some basic requirements for a
good voting system. For example, you can have situations where: if you rank
a candidate _higher_ on your ballot, he will actually do _worse_ in the
election than if you had ranked him lower.

Ranked ballots are good, but instant run-off is a bad method for evaluating
the ballots; a better way to do it is with the Condorcet method, which is
what Debian uses. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method and
http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#A (section A.6)

On 4/6/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > On 06/04/07, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> 1.2) Pre-*s*election
> >> We could state extra conditions to become candidate. For instance, you
> >> need 25 or 50 supports of your candidature by different Wikimedians
> >> with >1000 edits and 9 months experience on one project. Just for
> >> instance, the numbers can easily be changed. It's about the idea.
> >> Every serious candidate should be able to get these endorsements, and
> >> the candidates who won't state any chance, wont get these
> >> endorsements. Disadvantage is that you won't be able to foresee how
> >> many candidates there will be. Another disadvantage is that you will
> >> have bureaucratic problems with the checking of the endorsements.
> >>
> >
> >
> > This sounds a good way to weed out any hopeless candidates. Can anyone
> > see a downside to this one?
> >
> >
> > - d.
> >
>
> For myself, if I were to suggest another alternative, is to try and go
> with Instant run-off voting
>
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_run-off_voting
>
> In other words, there is more than one way to try and weed down a large
> number of candidates to just a few.  Particularly in this case when
> there is going to be a great many candidates for several offices.  I
> will also point out that there are advantages and disadvantages of
> almost any election system, and no single method is really ideal.  The
> main point is that the system needs to be in place and firm before
> anything happens.
>
> I would also try to suggest that multiple rounds of voting are as likely
> to turn people off as anything else.  Some people just love to vote on
> nearly everything possible, but for something this serious we shouldn't
> be appealing to just that kind of Wikimedia user.  I'm referring here to
> things like the picture of the day/week/month/year or other similar
> kinds of contests that regularly use voting.
>
> As far as why I support instant run-off votes:  It allows you to rank
> your preferences instead of merely casting votes.  Far too often in
> things like logo decisions (look at the failed example of the "new"
> Wikibooks logo that has been rejected by all but fi.wikibooks... and
> expressly rejected by en.wikibooks) end up with only the most tolerable
> of a minority, where a few leading candidates come forward out of
> mediocrity but others who might have made a stronger concensus are
> rejected.  Multiple rounds merely test the patience of both voters and
> the candidates.  Certainly two rounds isn't too bad on this end, but it
> does require double the work to put it together compared to just one
> round of voting.
>
> Even this sort of pre-screening that is suggested here is just another
> way to put an extra round into the voting process.  There certainly
> should be some eligibility rules (as there has been in the past) that
> would require disclosure of your name, nationality, and age (needed for
> legal purposes if you actually are elected).  Not everybody would want
> to do this, and that is also understandable.  The screening should
> involve some sort of verification of this identity.  As far as getting
> some public supporters/endorsements of a particular candidate, I would
> be wary of sock puppets and other gaming that could happen, but it does
> sound like a way to demonstrate viability.  This whole thing is a
> popularity contest of a sort anyway, and signing for viability doesn't
> mean you will actually vote for them in the election itself.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


body:
chengli1 wrote:
> I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site...
> an initiative should be made so that nobody links to that site.

Why?


body:
Steve Summit just had to cough out the following stream of bytes from
the specified email client, on 4/7/2007 1:46 PM
>
> Why?
>
>
>
>
As the original poster has said:
> We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control
> cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and
> what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read
> such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's
> wrongheaded.  But occasionally the critics say something right, too.
> Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors,
> shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this?  Banning all links to the
> site would prevent that too.
Obviously the site has violated NPA, and even on the NPA policy page, it
says that :
> Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted
> threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the
> substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the
> suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that another
> editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of
> the attack.
This site is an external source of personal attacks.  Even planning to
sue us and our fellow Wiki*edians is a personal attack.

--
Charli (Vishwin60)
I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the
expat bankers and their girlfriends that are going to be coming. ~Mick
Jagger


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 4/7/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 4/7/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately ?12 ($15 USD, ?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation.
> >>
> >
> > Why so expensive?  Can't CDs be made for a couple bucks a piece?  How
> > much goes to the foundation?
> >
> > Anthony
> >
>
> I've actually thought of competing for this reason, as I have sources
> that can produce a DVD-R disc for about $1.50 each (including case) and
> postage would only be an addional dollar.  Of course that does take some
> capital resources that I current have tied up in other projects.  But to
> do something like this for an American distro, it might be something
> attractive.
>
Along those lines, I'll gladly ship a copy, on CD-R, to anyone in the
US, for $4, and anyone outside the US for 4 Euros.  Email me for my
paypal address.

Save yourself $10 or so and donate it to the foundation.  I can't
imagine they're getting that big of a cut.

Anthony


from_name: James Hare

body:
Hmm... should I pay $15 for less than 2000 articles (out of the 1.7 million
article Wikipedia), with part of it (what is part?) going to the Foundation?

On 4/7/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 4/7/07, Titoxd at Wikimedia <titoxd.wikimedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for
> approximately ?12 ($15 USD, ?8.50) with part of the sales going directly to
> the Wikimedia Foundation.
> >>
> >
> > Why so expensive?  Can't CDs be made for a couple bucks a piece?  How
> > much goes to the foundation?
> >
> > Anthony
> >
>
> I've actually thought of competing for this reason, as I have sources
> that can produce a DVD-R disc for about $1.50 each (including case) and
> postage would only be an addional dollar.  Of course that does take some
> capital resources that I current have tied up in other projects.  But to
> do something like this for an American distro, it might be something
> attractive.
>
> And of course, I can obtain a copyright license for this material too :)
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:49:45 -0500, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm not interested in discussing the merits of this case. As I said
>> before, I am not a copyright lawyer. Nor do I consider myself to have
>> anything beyond a basic acquaintance with copyright law.
>
> Ah, right, so you just want to have a go at me for taking an action ha
> conflicts with your view that we should include copied conflict unless
> someone actually sends us a takedown notice or sues us.  I can see why
> this is an unproductive discussion.

"Having a go"? Or offering critique. I suppose it's based on your point
of view.

But it's not so much the action that I object to. It's the presumptions
that you're basing the action on.

I believe you wanted to get rid of this content, because you saw it as
"cruft", did not value it, and were looking for any excuse.

I believe your stated presumption of our guilt at any claim of copyright
violation is not good for Wikipedia. It hurts the project. For obvious
(or apparently obvious) copyright violations, of course we act. For
those that are much less obvious, it's much better for the project to
push back. Which is what I'm doing. You apparently don't like that.

But, if you want to drop this topic, I'll drop it. I believe I've made
my point. I'll even let you get the last word in, if you want.

-Rich


body:
Charli Li wrote:
> As the original poster has said:
>> We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control
>> cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics...

Um, you are aware that while you are advocating banning links to
Wikipedia Review, Dan Tobias is advocating *allowing* them.

> Obviously the site has violated NPA,

Obviously that site is a hideous, hideous site.
But it's not obvious that banning links to it will change that
in any way.

> and even on the NPA policy page, it says that :
>
>> Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted
>> threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the
>> substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the
>> suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that another
>> editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of
>> the attack.
>
> This site is an external source of personal attacks.

Those words, "in a manner that incorporates the substance of
that attack into Wikipedia discussion" are significant.

If I say, "Dan Tobias is an idiot", that's a personal attack.
If I say, "Dan Tobias is an idiot, and look, Wikipedia Review
agrees with me: http://wikipediareview.com/dan-tobias-idiocy.html",
that's a personal attack which incorporates the substance of an
external personal attack.

But if I say, "Wikipedia Review is planning to sue us",
that's obviously no personal attack; it's a simple statement.
And if I say, "Wikipedia Review is planning to sue us -- see
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7045", that's a
simple statement backed up by a citation, and we *like* those.


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 4/7/07, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>09/11/06
>>- One of the Board members asked us to know the results, promishing
>>s/he won't tell anyone
>>
>>09/13/06
>>- The question of informing other Board members was raised. We all
>>were in favor of informing the whole Board, except Angela + Foundation
>>office employees
>>
>>09/15/06
>>- The Board member who originally requested the results wasn't pleased
>>that we provided the results to all the other Board members (at least
>>that's what I understood from the email s/he sent) and forwarded them
>>to Angela
>>
>>09/16/06
>>- The Board member who orig(blablabla) was concerned with Jimmy's
>>email and wanted to declare the elections illegal, but in the end we
>>continued them.
>>
>>
>Let's see then.  Not Angela, since she didn't get the results
>originally and she didn't forward them to herself.  Not Jimmy, since
>he obviously wasn't mad about his own email.  Ant expressed some anger
>publically over Jimmy's email, so it's my bet that she's the one who
>originally asked to know the results.
>
>Of course, it could have been Tim Shell or Michael Davis, I suppose.
>
I don't see this as useful speculation.  I would take Dariusz's
narrative as a basis for informing future decisions about how this kind
of thing should be prevented.  The time for finding fault or blaming is
long past.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


body:
On 4/7/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you want to do your bit, donate to the Foundation so they receive
> 100% of what you give, and browse Wikipedia online - for nothing!
> This CD, while good news, is not targeted for Wikipedians with
> Internet access - or am I wrong there?
>
I dunno, is there even a way to order the CDs without Internet access?

When it comes out on DVD it'll be pretty neat.  Not useful, but I'd
probably buy one for a few bucks (not for $15, and I wonder if they'd
charge even more than that).  Wikipedia on USB would be even cooler,
especially if it automatically updated itself.  The CD is, well, a
version 0.5.

Anthony


body:
How many people, though, would buy Wiki P. on U-S-B?

On 4/7/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 4/7/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you want to do your bit, donate to the Foundation so they receive
> > 100% of what you give, and browse Wikipedia online - for nothing!
> > This CD, while good news, is not targeted for Wikipedians with
> > Internet access - or am I wrong there?
> >
> I dunno, is there even a way to order the CDs without Internet access?
>
> When it comes out on DVD it'll be pretty neat.  Not useful, but I'd
> probably buy one for a few bucks (not for $15, and I wonder if they'd
> charge even more than that).  Wikipedia on USB would be even cooler,
> especially if it automatically updated itself.  The CD is, well, a
> version 0.5.
>
> Anthony
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Thomas Dalton

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
> It is maybe not good idea, but we could create 2 level elections in such a way:
> *First level - candidate has to win local election on one of the
> projects - the rules for this local elections should be similar on all
> projects, the number of candidates per projects might depend on the
> size of the project. Smaller projects may create an "alliance" to be
> able to propose a candidate.
> *Second level - 7-10 days elections on meta of the candidates
> preselected on projects.

I like this idea (and was going to suggest it myself before reading
your email). If done correctly, it should give candidates from smaller
projects a more reasonable chance of winning. In the previous
elections, there were too many candidates, so I think knowing lots of
people (ie. being from a big project) was an unfair advantage, since
people just voted for who they knew. If we reduce the number of
candidates, while still ensuring that there are candidates from
smaller projects (which is exactly what this idea does) should allow
people to make informed decisions about such candidates.

The hardest part of this idea is working out the alliances - there are
too many projects to give each project a candidate of their own, so
some kind of alliance system is essential. I would suggest grouping
smaller projects first by language (so the wikipedia and the
wikitionary in a medium sized language would get one candidate between
them) and then by language groups (so all the projects in native
american languages [that's a random example, I'm guessing there are
lots of small projects in such languages] would get one candidate
between them). Determining alliances by language reduces the need for
translating candidate statements for the pre-elections.


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


body:
On 4/7/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> How many people, though, would buy Wiki P. on U-S-B?
>
I have no idea.  Depends on the cost though.

I was just browsing the Linterweb CD, and I can't find any information
about the author(s) or license(s) of the images.  The text is all
supposedly under the GFDL, and you can click for the list of authors
(I have no idea if it's complete, but my name was in there).  But I
can't find any information about the images.

Anthony


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Haws <brian at bhaws.com>
> The difference is that WR encourages and promotes the
> investigation and publication of personal information regarding Wikipedia editors.
> For that reasoon, if for no other, is why linking should be banned...

I know they do that, but it doesn't follow that they should be banned because of it. Sometimes Wikipedia Review might wind up being a source for other information that's used in a Wikipedia article. Banning them as a source simply because we don't _like_ them is ridiculous. Should we ban whitehouse.gov as a source because we may disagree vehemently with the behavior of the administration there?

NPOV is a foundation policy. There are no exemptions for issues that affect Wikipedia directly.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
Longe statements written in Englishe are bad even if you do not
considere translacioun.

You always run the risk of tl;dr. While obviously some voters are
going to be all enthusiastic and willing to read anything you write, I
think the majority is going to have the type of mentality where they
do respond to long statements with a hearty "tl;dr".

Mark

On 07/04/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Guillaume Paumier wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > On 4/6/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> The voting period was long, but there was very little time between the
> >> finalization of candidates and the beginning of voting. One consequence
> >> of this was that translators had not completed translation of candidate
> >> statements at the time the voting began.
> >>
> >> There should be more time ahead to prepare.
> >>
> >
> >
> > Indeed. Though translators really do their best, it is very difficult to
> > achieve translation of all candidate's statements. Last time the statements
> > were *suggested* not to exceed 1,000 characters [1]. Some rules must be
> > changed.
> >
> > I suggest the following extra rules :
> > * For the pre-(s)election candidates, only a *short presentation* (~50
> > words) ; easy and fast to translate, even for many candidates. These
> > statements may be translated only in ? big ? languages, i.e. those of the
> > most developed projects.
> > * For the final candidates, *no more than 150 words*. These statements
> > should be translated in as many languages as possible.
> > * All statements *must* be written in simple words, simple sentences without
> > any idioms.
> > * All candidates *must* write their statement in all languages they speak.
> > They know what they want to say better than anyone, so it's better to have a
> > rough translation by themselves that will be refined later than a
> > well-written serious mistranslation.
> >
> > To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, some
> > candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
> > however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
> > translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespect
> > to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
> > representative, first respect the community by following these simple rules.
> > Thanks.
> >
> > [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En
> >
> >
>
> I disagree with these suggestions here as the only solution.  I
> understand that for translators, it is ideal if you have as little to
> translate as possible.  Lengthy statements obviously would be a problem
> to translate for what are arguably volunteer translators, so certainly
> an effort to keep such position statements concise ought to be encouraged.
>
> At the same time, there are significant issues with real meat that will
> be brought up this time around, and I expect that candidates will all
> want to express opinions on many of these topics.  By limiting the
> position statement to only 150 words or even 50 words, they might not be
> able to respond to challenges, or even address what may end up becoming
> major issues in this campaign.
>
> As has been addressed already on this mailing list, issues about fair
> use, trademark policy, fundraising, and perceived America-centrism may
> all become issues.  Other issues including chapter relations, project
> expansions (or limits) and the scope of the various WMF projects may
> also come up.  And I have just scratched the surface over issues that
> could be discussed that would be very legitimate points to be debated.
>
> I'm not sure how much of this can or ought to be done through the
> translators, or if perhaps a babel-fish type automated translation might
> to be substituted for some of this debate.  I know that isn't perfect,
> but I am trying to suggest some sort of general accommodation be made
> here.  Certainly a NPOV "voter's guide" could have some of the key
> points you are suggesting here, with links to other pages that would go
> into further depth on candidate positions.  And priorities should be
> made over what parts ought to be translated first.  In this regard you
> could suggest having a short, medium, and long policy statement that
> would have decreasing levels of translation, with the highest priority
> to simply list all of the candidates and explain the voting rules in a
> given language.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
Date: Saturday, April 7, 2007 3:23 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

> On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:10:19 -0500, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I believe you wanted to get rid of this content, because you saw
> it as
> >"cruft", did not value it, and were looking for any excuse.
>
> And you are wrong.  That would apply if I AfD'd the article, but what
> I said was that the list is, in my view, copyvio, we can give some
> examples from each category but we should not repeat in its
> entirety a list which is the creative work of someone else.

Here's what you wrote in your initial email on this subject (at <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-April/067483.html>):

>Original research?  You decide.
>Copyright?  I think so, but what do I know?
>Fancruft?  Ooooh, tricky :-)

The smiley on the fancruft question implies that you're being sarcastic, so you don't in fact find it to be a tricky question. I guess that could mean that you think it's obviously _not_ fancruft, but I somehow doubt that. Why even bring it up if that was the case?


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)

body:
I think it's fairly obvious considering who it was who publicly
objected to Jimmy's e-mail.

HOWEVER, there was no rule against what she did, and I trust that she
had logical reasons for requesting to know the results because I think
she is a trustworthy person.

I also don't see any reason for laying blame. Okay, we know who it
was, so what? We're not going to punish them because technically they
did nothing wrong. It's in the past.

Rather than trying to get all upset about what happened, why don't we
instead focus our energy on trying to make sure it doesn't happen
again?

On 07/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/7/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Anthony wrote:
> >
> > >On 4/7/07, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>09/11/06
> > >>- One of the Board members asked us to know the results, promishing
> > >>s/he won't tell anyone
> > >>
> > >>09/13/06
> > >>- The question of informing other Board members was raised. We all
> > >>were in favor of informing the whole Board, except Angela + Foundation
> > >>office employees
> > >>
> > >>09/15/06
> > >>- The Board member who originally requested the results wasn't pleased
> > >>that we provided the results to all the other Board members (at least
> > >>that's what I understood from the email s/he sent) and forwarded them
> > >>to Angela
> > >>
> > >>09/16/06
> > >>- The Board member who orig(blablabla) was concerned with Jimmy's
> > >>email and wanted to declare the elections illegal, but in the end we
> > >>continued them.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >Let's see then.  Not Angela, since she didn't get the results
> > >originally and she didn't forward them to herself.  Not Jimmy, since
> > >he obviously wasn't mad about his own email.  Ant expressed some anger
> > >publically over Jimmy's email, so it's my bet that she's the one who
> > >originally asked to know the results.
> > >
> > >Of course, it could have been Tim Shell or Michael Davis, I suppose.
> > >
> > I don't see this as useful speculation.  I would take Dariusz's
> > narrative as a basis for informing future decisions about how this kind
> > of thing should be prevented.  The time for finding fault or blaming is
> > long past.
> >
> Finding out what went wrong is the first step to ensuring that
> something doesn't happen again.  Continuing to shroud the details of
> what happened in secrecy is what is not useful.
>
> In fact, I'd say lack of open discussion is exactly what allowed this
> to happen in the first place.
>
> Anthony
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Leaking (was:elections)


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Denny Colt wrote:
> Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by
> linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed
> by the harm that place and similar pages create.

But what benefit (however microscopic) is to be gained by banning
links to the place?

> Do you support that?

I don't support [[Hungarian notation]], [[female circumcision]],
or the [[2003 Iraq war]].  But I'm not going to try to ban links
to sites which discuss those topics.

> I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link
> to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen
> arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.

Sorry if you find my mention of Hungarian notation &c to be a strawman.
Sorry if you disagree with me that blacklisting is an extremely
dangerous weapon, quite akin to censorship, and to be employed
only as an absolute last resort, under considerable duress, and
when there's a clear case to be made that the blacklisting (or
the censorship) does mitigate an active threat to the project.

Yes, Wikipedia Review is an active threat to the project.  But
banning links to it does not in any way mitigate that threat.

> If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind
> as well, and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?

Speaking of strawmen.  But: where relevant, yes, certainly.
They won't go away if we stop linking to them, either.


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007, Bryan Derksen wrote:
> NPOV is a foundation policy. There are no exemptions for issues that affect Wikipedia directly.

Cool.  Mind if I edit WP:IAR to take this into account?


from_name: effe iets anders

subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
I have hard feelings for this proposal. I am afraigh that it will only
mek the gap between the english Wikipedia and the rest of Wikimedia
bigger. In the current board, there is only one native english speaker
on the elected seats, one french, one german and one dutch. I think
"alliences" would only create a schism, and would also enlarge the
idea that the other communities are evil, as it is for instance the
"Dutch candidate" vs the "Frensh candidate", which is ridiculous.
Further it is not that we want a Boltzmann distribution over the
languages, but we want the best candidates. If the best candidates are
all in the French Wikipedia, well, they shoulc be elected. And if they
are mostly in the english, so be it. I think we should prevent that a
boardmember from for instance the Finnish Wikipedia should only feel
him/herself a representative for that single project. With this type
of elections that idea is stringthened.

Of course you can not and want not to prevent that a user is mostly
supported by the people of his/her own project. Those are the people
who know him/her the best, and are easier able to make a good
decision. But I think it is very important that we are not
discriminating in the election rules on whatever quality, not even
language ability or home project. Please leave that up to the
community that is willing to vote.

So: decreasing the number of candidates: great.
Selecting on origin: Please not.

Greetings, Lodewijk

2007/4/7, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton op gmail.com>:
> > It is maybe not good idea, but we could create 2 level elections in such a way:
> > *First level - candidate has to win local election on one of the
> > projects - the rules for this local elections should be similar on all
> > projects, the number of candidates per projects might depend on the
> > size of the project. Smaller projects may create an "alliance" to be
> > able to propose a candidate.
> > *Second level - 7-10 days elections on meta of the candidates
> > preselected on projects.
>
> I like this idea (and was going to suggest it myself before reading
> your email). If done correctly, it should give candidates from smaller
> projects a more reasonable chance of winning. In the previous
> elections, there were too many candidates, so I think knowing lots of
> people (ie. being from a big project) was an unfair advantage, since
> people just voted for who they knew. If we reduce the number of
> candidates, while still ensuring that there are candidates from
> smaller projects (which is exactly what this idea does) should allow
> people to make informed decisions about such candidates.
>
> The hardest part of this idea is working out the alliances - there are
> too many projects to give each project a candidate of their own, so
> some kind of alliance system is essential. I would suggest grouping
> smaller projects first by language (so the wikipedia and the
> wikitionary in a medium sized language would get one candidate between
> them) and then by language groups (so all the projects in native
> american languages [that's a random example, I'm guessing there are
> lots of small projects in such languages] would get one candidate
> between them). Determining alliances by language reduces the need for
> translating candidate statements for the pre-elections.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l op lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] elections

body:
I have hard feelings for this proposal. I am afraigh that it will only
mek the gap between the english Wikipedia and the rest of Wikimedia
bigger. In the current board, there is only one native english speaker
on the elected seats, one french, one german and one dutch. I think
"alliences" would only create a schism, and would also enlarge the
idea that the other communities are evil, as it is for instance the
"Dutch candidate" vs the "Frensh candidate", which is ridiculous.
Further it is not that we want a Boltzmann distribution over the
languages, but we want the best candidates. If the best candidates are
all in the French Wikipedia, well, they shoulc be elected. And if they
are mostly in the english, so be it. I think we should prevent that a
boardmember from for instance the Finnish Wikipedia should only feel
him/herself a representative for that single project. With this type
of elections that idea is stringthened.

Of course you can not and want not to prevent that a user is mostly
supported by the people of his/her own project. Those are the people
who know him/her the best, and are easier able to make a good
decision. But I think it is very important that we are not
discriminating in the election rules on whatever quality, not even
language ability or home project. Please leave that up to the
community that is willing to vote.

So: decreasing the number of candidates: great.
Selecting on origin: Please not.

Greetings, Lodewijk

2007/4/7, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> > It is maybe not good idea, but we could create 2 level elections in such a way:
> > *First level - candidate has to win local election on one of the
> > projects - the rules for this local elections should be similar on all
> > projects, the number of candidates per projects might depend on the
> > size of the project. Smaller projects may create an "alliance" to be
> > able to propose a candidate.
> > *Second level - 7-10 days elections on meta of the candidates
> > preselected on projects.
>
> I like this idea (and was going to suggest it myself before reading
> your email). If done correctly, it should give candidates from smaller
> projects a more reasonable chance of winning. In the previous
> elections, there were too many candidates, so I think knowing lots of
> people (ie. being from a big project) was an unfair advantage, since
> people just voted for who they knew. If we reduce the number of
> candidates, while still ensuring that there are candidates from
> smaller projects (which is exactly what this idea does) should allow
> people to make informed decisions about such candidates.
>
> The hardest part of this idea is working out the alliances - there are
> too many projects to give each project a candidate of their own, so
> some kind of alliance system is essential. I would suggest grouping
> smaller projects first by language (so the wikipedia and the
> wikitionary in a medium sized language would get one candidate between
> them) and then by language groups (so all the projects in native
> american languages [that's a random example, I'm guessing there are
> lots of small projects in such languages] would get one candidate
> between them). Determining alliances by language reduces the need for
> translating candidate statements for the pre-elections.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>