subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
> You excel in hiding important issues under details. Fact is that  Romanian/Moldovan is complex, and that you cannot write Moldovan  correctly.

Whether or not the language(s) is/are complex is entirely irrelevant
to the discussion. Also, my abilities (or alleged lack thereof) aren't
particularly relevant to the discussion.

>   Concerning your claim that Moldovans are not Moldovans, it's pure FUD.  If you want to continue in the same direction, please provide proof of  your existence, and that you are not a KGB/FSB agent. :)

I never claimed that "Moldovans are not Moldovans". What I did claim
is that those people who claim on Wikipedia to be Moldovans have not
substantiated their identity in the least, with the exception of
Pavel.

>   As concerns the "Moldovan" schools of Transnistria, you forgot to tell  that Moldovans there are forced to go to these schools, and that their  attempts to open latin-scripted schools were crushed by security forces.

No -- there are schools that teach in Latin. However, they are forced
to operate as private schools and do not receive support from the
state.  There are two Latin-script highschools and a total of 8% of
Transnistrian kids go to Latin-script schools. There are also 14
Moldavian schools (total), using Cyrillic, and 2 Moldavian-Russian
bilingual schools.

The Romanian press was happy to report when schools were closed, on
the front page, but when some were re-opened (as private
institutions), it was much farther back.

Mark

>
>
> Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:  > Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but I think that discussing
> > politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
> > is off-topic on this list. :-)
>
> That was a sub-topic of an e-mail. When replying to e-mails, you are
> more than welcome to ignore topics you find irrelevant.
>
> > Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
> > evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
> > a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
> > must be in Moldova.
>
> Still, do you have evidence that any of the other so-called
> "Moldovans" are real people, in Moldova?
>
> > Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
> > with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
> > language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.
> >
> > Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
> > is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
> > same language and just the name is different.
>
> That's not really the issue here. What is the issue, is that 36% of
> Moldovans (excluding residents of Transnistria) claim "Moldovan" as
> their native language; the official script in Transnistria is
> Cyrillic, the official language in Transnistria is Moldavian (they
> still call it that in English officially in Transnistria, I think),
> and many schoolchildren in Transnistria/PMR/Stinga Nistrului go to
> "Moldavian schools", where the teaching is in Moldovan Cyrillic, or
> "Russian/Moldavian bilingual schools", where teaching time is divided
> between Russian, and Moldovan Cyrillic.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
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> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Yes, some unbelievable yet factual featured stuff on the main page and some
shenenigans in the Wikipedia namespace is enough. The last of which
shouldn't involved deleting something or mass nominating something.

Mgm

On 3/6/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I've made a proposal on how we present the [[Main Page]] on April Fool's
> Day
> to address some concerns we had last year.
>
> You can read the proposal here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_Fool%27s_Main_Page
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback that you may have.
>
> Thanks!
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject:
[Foundation-l] Results of second (German) Wikipedia usability test
	online

body:
Hi Wikipedians,

please note, that you can find first results of the second usability
test ("Editing Information in the German Wikipedia") from
OpenUsability.org here:
http://openusability.org/download.php/89/germanwikipedia_usabilitytest_edit.pdf

This isn't only interesting for Germans.

Bye, avatar.

--
telnet hundehalsband.georg.hunde.sonnenstrasse.muenchen.de
Trying 942884947298374923847982472983.2398749874987249247.2398472372349.
       3249782374927898324.2987238479874987398634.2987428901171209471.
       23987432923.23478987923. (Julien Oster gibt 'IPv6' Beispiel)
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body:
Hi Wikipedians,

please note, that you can find first results of the second usability
test ("Editing Information in the German Wikipedia") from
OpenUsability.org here:
http://openusability.org/download.php/89/germanwikipedia_usabilitytest_edit.pdf

This isn't only interesting for Germans.

Bye, avatar.

--
telnet hundehalsband.georg.hunde.sonnenstrasse.muenchen.de
Trying 942884947298374923847982472983.2398749874987249247.2398472372349.
       3249782374927898324.2987238479874987398634.2987428901171209471.
       23987432923.23478987923. (Julien Oster gibt 'IPv6' Beispiel)
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list: wikimedia-l

body:
Hi Wikipedians,

please note, that you can find first results of the second usability
test ("Editing Information in the German Wikipedia") from
OpenUsability.org here:
http://openusability.org/download.php/89/germanwikipedia_usabilitytest_edit.pdf

This isn't only interesting for Germans.

Bye, avatar.

--
telnet hundehalsband.georg.hunde.sonnenstrasse.muenchen.de
Trying 942884947298374923847982472983.2398749874987249247.2398472372349.
       3249782374927898324.2987238479874987398634.2987428901171209471.
       23987432923.23478987923. (Julien Oster gibt 'IPv6' Beispiel)
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body:
Hi Wikipedians,

please note, that you can find first results of the second usability
test ("Editing Information in the German Wikipedia") from
OpenUsability.org here:
http://openusability.org/download.php/89/germanwikipedia_usabilitytest_edit.pdf

This isn't only interesting for Germans.

Bye, avatar.

--
telnet hundehalsband.georg.hunde.sonnenstrasse.muenchen.de
Trying 942884947298374923847982472983.2398749874987249247.2398472372349.
       3249782374927898324.2987238479874987398634.2987428901171209471.
       23987432923.23478987923. (Julien Oster gibt 'IPv6' Beispiel)
-------------- next part --------------
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from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hello, straw man, burning in the square.
> > >
> >
> > Is it acceptable to urinate on it if I'm trying to put it out?
>
> Fine with me, but I think we should take a *straw poll*.
>
That was an egregious use of "scare crowtes".


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
>
> I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move
> the
> main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".

LOL!

Ryan


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: future civilization

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org

body:
---------------------------------
 Yahoo! Mail
 Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
It wasn't Main Page is Communism?

On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
> >
> > I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move
> > the
> > main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".
>
>
> LOL!
>
> Ryan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

references:
<5c5f03dd0603061414q106fb34eyfda2976db69fb39b@mail.gmail.com>
	<fb7fdd9c0603062150m557bb8degebad8ff85b5af3fe@mail.gmail.com>
	<avnq02la2k3u6qumm139hq0co8nsl88r6j@4ax.com>
	<648a461a5135e9687edf127143966720@netwood.net>

body:
If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
Fool's Day.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Mar 7, 2006, at 9:03 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>>> If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
>>> too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
>>> serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
>>> Fool's Day.
>
> How else would non-admins get involved?

I think we had plenty of non-admins editing "Britannica takeover of
Wikimedia" last year.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
On 3/7/06, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
>
> See http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/marketing_and_w.html for
> details. I consider the word "marketing" misleading. There is no reason
> why companies shouldn't update information about themselves in wikipedia
> if they have a source and if they follow the NPOV and other wikipedia
> policies.

I agree. We've already decided that pedophiles can edit Wikipedia as long as
they maintain neutrality and so forth. You're not really saying that
marketers are lower than pedophiles, are you, David? ;-)

Ryan


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Glad we are not in New Jersey

body:
Hoi,
I found this http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM
My question, if this happened in Florida, would we indeed insist on
knowing the names of our users ? Or would we say that our projects are
not a forum?

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Allow political userboxen? *runs*
--NSLE

On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/6/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What would REALLY mess with people's heads would be announcing some
> > dramatic change in policy like the abolishment of Articles For
> > Deletion on April 1, and then sticking with it.
>
> Done by google.
>
>
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Good point. Damn. Can't we put flaccidpenises on the mainpage? :P

--NSLE

On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/7/06, NSLE (Wikipedia) <nsle.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Allow political userboxen? *runs*
> > --NSLE
>
> Don't need a policy change for that. Created, speeded then undeleted
> through DR and you have a political userbox.
>
> --
> geni
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin Power Abuse

body:
On 3/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello, straw man, burning in the square.
> >
>
> Is it acceptable to urinate on it if I'm trying to put it out?

Fine with me, but I think we should take a *straw poll*.

Steve


from_name: KKemper at wiley.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Tools book

body:
I am the open source editor at Wiley Publishing and I am interested in
publishing a beginning level book on wikis that would focus on the tools,
techniques and best practices in building, rolling-out and administering a
wiki.  In keeping with the topic, I am looking for suggestions from the
community with regard to topics and technologies that should be covered. I
am also looking for potential author candidates.  If you would be
interested in contributing to this project, please email me at
kkemper at wiley.com and I will provide you with more details.  The project
is very much in the early stages, but chances are that it will go into our
Wrox Beginning series www.wrox.com.

Thanks,
Kit Kemper
Acquisitions Editor
Wiley Publishing, Inc.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

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

geni stated for the record:

> On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
>
>>I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move the
>>main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".
>
> Anyone trying to do that will be blocked within seconds I happen to be online.

/me makes a note to use his AOL account.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Give a person a fish and you feed them for
 sean at epoptic.org | a day; teach a person to edit Wikipedia
                  | and they won't bother you for months.
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iD8DBQFEDc2dMAt1wyd9d+URAkQ1AJ42+LN3nzbqaQPfj237E/roRCCopQCfUZQf
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] The necessary steps to delete the Moldovan Wikipedia

body:
These are the necessary steps to delete the Moldovan Wikipedia:

  1. "VALIDATION" and "ACCEPTING" by the Stewards, Bureaucrats of the votes made by the contributors on Moldovan Wikipedia.

  (Voting was done legally on the following link: http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri)
  (A CheckUser can be done in order to validate the votes of every contributor).

  2. "Deletion of the Moldovan Wikipedia" as it was the only accepted solution proposed by the users.

  According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia must be deleted. It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.

---------------------------------
 Yahoo! Mail
 Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Kelly Martin wrote:

>Robert was surely aware of the early evolutionary development of
>parliamentary procedure in the English House of Lords resulting in a
>movement from "consensus," in its original sense of unanimous
>agreement, toward a decision by majority vote as we know it today.
>This evolution came about from a recognition that a requirement of
>unanimity or near unanimity can become a form of tyranny in itself. In
>an assembly that tries to make such a requirement the norm, a variety
>of misguided feelings--reluctance to be seen as opposing the
>leadership, a notion that causing controversy will be frowned upon,
>fear of seeming an obstacle to unity--can easily lead to decisions
>being taken with a psuedoconsensus which in reality implies elements
>of default, which satisfies no one, and for which no one really
>assumes responsibility.
>
In a consensual system the risk of pseudoconsensus is definitely there,
as is the risk of institutional paralysis.  An effective system of
consensus depends on both assuming and exercising good faith, and the
belief that if people work toward it a mutually satisfactory solution
will be found.  It is inimical to those who want a quick solution
favoring their individual objectives.  Paradoxically consensus cannot be
achieved by *making* it the norm; such "making" is contrary to the
spirit of consensus.  If we recognize the above-stated and very real
difficulties of a consensual system that should be a first step for
finding a solution to those difficulties, not an excuse for abandoning
the system.

>I think it's time we reconsider whether "consensus" is a valid
>principle of governance in as large and contentious a community as
>this one has become, and whether we need to make more of an effort to
>move to parliamentarianism as a method of governance.
>
Obviously, the larger and more contentious the community, the bigger the
challenge of consensus.  But we cannot undertake such a debate without
an open analysis of parliamentarianism's defects.  Such a system
encourages the forming of parties that will promote and protect
particular policies, and who will be happy to have their POV succeed by
a bare majority.  It leads to the tyranny of the majority.

>I'm not quite crazy enough to sign Karmafist's manifesto,
>
Any manifesto is like the opening gunshots in a battle of bad faith.

>but I am now
>convinced -- after reading the discussions here and in other places --
>that Wikipedia needs a strict rule prohibiting administrative "wheel
>wars": if an admin performs ANY admin action and any other admin
>objects to it, it MUST be reverted and the matter referred for
>discussion and decision amongst a proper deliberative body.  The
>current methods are yielding "pseudoconsensus" -- or sometimes
>multiple pseudoconsensuses -- and are magnifying disputes instead of
>tempering them.  Until something is done, things will only get worse.
>Continuining on this course cannot be the best thing for Wikipedia.
>
Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple
user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a
maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed
that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for
the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support
having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that
aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly
libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: B W

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2 different databases behind 1 wiki

body:
In the context of an educational project I would like to offer several case
studies on a wiki, but these case studies should also be available in
another database (=a database that is different from the wiki-database).

My question is: How can I set up a database that contains the description
and elaboration of the case studies and that is linked to the wiki-database?
Is it possible to connect them so that e.g. case studies which are written
down in the wiki are automatically put in the case-study-database (or
viceversa)? Has someone any experience with this?

Thanks in advance!

B. Weynants


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 06:50:27 +0100, you wrote:

>Yes, some unbelievable yet factual featured stuff on the main page and some
>shenenigans in the Wikipedia namespace is enough. The last of which
>shouldn't involved deleting something or mass nominating something.

I'm sure we can come up with a hilarious spoof on userboxes if we try.
Or not.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 06:50:27 +0100, you wrote:
>
> >Yes, some unbelievable yet factual featured stuff on the main page and
> some
> >shenenigans in the Wikipedia namespace is enough. The last of which
> >shouldn't involved deleting something or mass nominating something.
>
> I'm sure we can come up with a hilarious spoof on userboxes if we try.
> Or not.
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I prefer not to. There's always going to be people who take it too serious
and spark a big row again.


from_name: Paulo Valdivieso

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Voting for the closing down of Moldovan Wikipedia

body:
Hi there...

Although not Moldovian or Romanian, I would like to bring some "outsiders"
insight to this discusion that seems (to me) more of a political  issue.

I recall the problem with the, then known, Serbo-Croat. It was very similar
writen in Latin and Cyrilic scripts. Today, by a strong degree of political
pressure, the language is refered as Croat in Croatia and Serb in Serbia. I
understand that Serb and Croat have some distinct diffrences but are largely
the some language writen in different scripts.

If this situation is similar to the ro and mo issue, then the mere fact that
Moldovian is the recognized and oficial language of a soveran state should
give it the right to existe as a seperated wiki.

But I not in for a dispute (I'm portuguese)

On 07/03/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> >> It seems that I need to justify my participation in this
> >> discussion. I have two arguments for it: 1. Fluency in Moldovan.
> >> By any linguistic standards I speak  the Moldovan dialect of
> >> Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact alone
> >> should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can
> >> even read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
> >
> >
> > Somehow I doubt you are able to read and write "correctly" in
> > Cyrillic.
> >
> >
>
> Mark, I have some questions which I think you should answer before
> anyone takes you seriously on this matter:
>
> 1. How old are you?
> 2. Where do you live?
> 3. Where were you brought up?
> 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
> 5. How did you learn those languages?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>
>

--
Paulo Valdivieso


from_name: Servien Ilaino

body:
Lets create an English, Dutch and German Wikipedia in runes... seems just as
weird.

Serv

2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
> >  1. He is not able to contribute correctly in Moldovan. All original
> text by him is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. And you must
> understand that this is a disgrace for a language that has a rather complex
> grammar, close to the Latin one.
>
> I'm not sure how that is relevant to the issue at hand, and I also
> have a hard time believing you've read all of my original articles.
>
> To state that Moldovan grammar is close to Latin is a load of bull --
> Moldovan may have a case system, but there are less cases than in
> Latin. Verbs also are much simpler than Latin. Overall it's somewhere
> between French and Latin as far as grammatical complexity goes.
>
> >  2. The correct articles added by Mark have been transliterated from
> ro.wiki. This guy is not even interested in learning correct moldovan. All
> he wants is to make a political statement (which is not the purpose of
> wikipedia).
>
> You think I want to make a political statement, you are wrong. My
> concern is equitable distribution of information. If I was really
> wanting to make a political statement, I would inject POV into
> articles at mowiki.
>
> >  3. Mark is alone in claiming that he speaks Moldovan ***and*** wants a
> mo.wiki. All other users that declare themselves Moldovan (and prove it by
> writing correctly) believe that the current mo.wiki is at best weird
> and/or a very bad joke. And note that Moldovans are the actual audience Mark
> claims to care for.
>
> This is quite inaccurate. A few Moldovan users have surfaced. Some
> have been against mowiki, some have been ambivalent, and some have
> supported it. I don't claim to "care for" a Moldovan audience. What I
> care for is the facts. People really do use Cyrillic. It really is
> used for teaching schoolchildren.
>
> >  4. As you say, the creation and development of mo.wiki should be the
> work of Moldovans themselves. The problem being that no Moldovan editor
> wants it. I therefore suggest we close it until actual Moldovan contributors
> want to create and develop it.
>
> That's entirely untrue -- an outright lie.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Moldovan only exist politically, not linguistically so I've been told
(confirmed by Moldovans). I don't think that is a good 'starting point' to
set up a wiki (not very neutral as Wikipedia says it should be)

Serv

2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
> > It seems that I need to justify my participation in this discussion.
> >  I have two arguments for it:
> >  1. Fluency in Moldovan.  By any linguistic standards I speak  the
> Moldovan
> >  dialect of Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact
> alone
> >  should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can even
> read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
>
> Somehow I doubt you are able to read and write "correctly" in Cyrillic.
>
> >  2.  I have relatives in the Republic of Moldova, and I know what they
> have
> >  no linguistic identity problems. Just take a look in the list of
> Moldovan
> >  editors: regardless of official politics (aimed at preserving good
> relations
> >  with Russia), not one is for a moldovan wikipedia.
>
> Five or six "Moldovan editors" voted. There is no proof that they are
> all separate people or that they are all even Moldovans. Some of them
> barely have 25 edits, or registered within the duration of the vote.
> Anyhow, even if they were all confirmable as real people with hundreds
> of edits, 6 editors voting for the deletion of a Wikipedia are hardly
> enough for it to be a for-sure thing.
>
> >  3. My participation into this discussion was subject to one strong
> rule: I have never entered in conflict with a Moldovan editor, for I believe
> they have the moral authority to do what they want with mo.wiki. What I
> have done was in line with their requirements.
>
> That's because you've downright never communicated with a Moldovan
> editor. They are elusive creatures. The only ones who make more than
> the occasional appearance aren't living in Moldova, examples being
> Oleg Alexandrov (California) and Liviu Andronic (Toulouse). Then there
> is Serhio Dudnic (who is in Chisinau), but he didn't want to get
> involved and all he said is that although he claims to speak Romanian,
> he believes everybody can choose their own name (more or less).
>
> All other Moldovan editors showed up and then left within a matter of
> days; some made only one edit.
>
> There are a couple of exceptions. But including all of the Moldovan
> editors, there are a few who do support a Moldovan-Cyrillic WP, and a
> few who are ambivalent.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Nathan Carter

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikinews Australian Portal Promotion

body:
Hi all,
A fellow contributor to Wikinews has come up with an idea to promote
Wikinews' Australian Portal using pamphlets. These pamphlets refer to
Wikinews Australia and use a Wikinews Australia logo (adapted from the
Wikinews official logo). What I am curious of is does this need board
permission as it essentially is using a trademark owned by the foundation.
I have attached his proposed pamphlet.
Cheers,
Nathan Carter.

>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Mar 7, 2006, at 1:08 PM, Death Phoenix wrote:

> Would you prefer that I did everything in my proposal without
> discussion?

I'd prefer that discussion took place on IRC or some other place that
serves as the online equivalent of "over beers at a local pub". The
listserv is the online equivalent of "during a staff meeting at work"
or, at best, "at the water cooler".

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


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
    http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/using_wikipedia.html

If it's not there already, could someone please post this link to
[[WT:CSD]]? Our beloved speedy patrollers really need to know about
this one and shoot as needed. (Speedy cleanup can follow behind
reviving anything that actually warrants an article.)

- d.


body:
If the only difference is that it's written in Cyrillic then you can use
some kind of program for that.

Serv

2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
>
> I'm not sure all of those questions are relevant. Most of them are
> publicly-accessible information anyhow. I will answer those that
> aren't.
>
> > 1. How old are you?
> > 2. Where do you live?
> > 3. Where were you brought up?
> > 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
> I don't "claim to speak" any languages. I know a number of languages
> to widely varying degrees -- for example, I can say a few things in
> Okinawan, I can understand Spanish to a degree, and I can make myself
> understood in Japanese. Whether I "speak" a language or not depends on
> what you mean -- what level of fluency?
> > 5. How did you learn those languages?
> How does anyone learn any language? By hearing it/reading it, and
> speaking it/writing it.
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Bogdan Giusca

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
Sorry for not replying to Mark's emails, but I think that discussing
politics and whether Romanian or French has a grammar closer to Latin
is off-topic on this list. :-)

Node, please do not accuse people for sockpuppetry without any
evidence: when Pavel was on #wikipedia, he had an IP address of
a .md ISP and since Freenode does not allow proxies, he really
must be in Moldova.

Also, we should not confuse this Romanian/Moldovan situation
with other situations where it's the debate whether a dialect/close
language should have a Wikipedia, like Scots/English or Serbian/Croat.

Nowadays, the dispute that "Moldovan" is different from "Romanian"
is absurd: even Voronin, the Moldovan president said that they're the
same language and just the name is different.


from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject:
[Foundation-l] Results of second (German) Wikipedia usability
 test online

body:
Hi Wikipedians,

Gregory Maxwell schrieb am 07.03.2006 08:38:
> I think it's interesting that it mentions the "Don't know" license trap.
[...]
> I see on english wiki that someone has bolded the text mentioning
> deletion, I've changed that.

I pointed Ellen to your reply.
She wrote (she isn't subscribed to this list):

> hey - interessant! Das fruehere Template war sehr viel weniger Furcht
> einfloessend :)
> Waere zusaetzlich gut, wenn die Anweisung, wie man Tags einsetzt
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
> nicht gleich zu Anfang die "gefaehrlichen" Tags zeigt, sondern die
> gebraeuchlichsten. Ausserdem waere im Einleitungssatz
>
> These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
> pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
> the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
> full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.
>
> der Zusatz "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
> image description pages..." hilfreich, evtl durch einen Screenshot
> veranschaulicht.

I try to translate (sorry for my bad english):

hey - interesting! The former template was much less awesome :)
It would be better if the instruction how to insert tags
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
don't list the "dangerous" tags at the bginning, but the ones most often
used. Also in the beginning sentence

These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

the addition "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
image description pages..." would be helpfull, perhaps illustrated by a
screenshot.

Bye, Tim.

--
> rm ist *kein* Packer.
Doch. Aber verlustbehaftete Komprimierung.
(Jens Mueller in de.talk.jugend)
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body:
Hi Wikipedians,

Gregory Maxwell schrieb am 07.03.2006 08:38:
> I think it's interesting that it mentions the "Don't know" license trap.
[...]
> I see on english wiki that someone has bolded the text mentioning
> deletion, I've changed that.

I pointed Ellen to your reply.
She wrote (she isn't subscribed to this list):

> hey - interessant! Das fruehere Template war sehr viel weniger Furcht
> einfloessend :)
> Waere zusaetzlich gut, wenn die Anweisung, wie man Tags einsetzt
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
> nicht gleich zu Anfang die "gefaehrlichen" Tags zeigt, sondern die
> gebraeuchlichsten. Ausserdem waere im Einleitungssatz
>
> These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
> pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
> the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
> full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.
>
> der Zusatz "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
> image description pages..." hilfreich, evtl durch einen Screenshot
> veranschaulicht.

I try to translate (sorry for my bad english):

hey - interesting! The former template was much less awesome :)
It would be better if the instruction how to insert tags
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
don't list the "dangerous" tags at the bginning, but the ones most often
used. Also in the beginning sentence

These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

the addition "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
image description pages..." would be helpfull, perhaps illustrated by a
screenshot.

Bye, Tim.

--
> rm ist *kein* Packer.
Doch. Aber verlustbehaftete Komprimierung.
(Jens Mueller in de.talk.jugend)
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body:
Hi Wikipedians,

Gregory Maxwell schrieb am 07.03.2006 08:38:
> I think it's interesting that it mentions the "Don't know" license trap.
[...]
> I see on english wiki that someone has bolded the text mentioning
> deletion, I've changed that.

I pointed Ellen to your reply.
She wrote (she isn't subscribed to this list):

> hey - interessant! Das fruehere Template war sehr viel weniger Furcht
> einfloessend :)
> Waere zusaetzlich gut, wenn die Anweisung, wie man Tags einsetzt
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
> nicht gleich zu Anfang die "gefaehrlichen" Tags zeigt, sondern die
> gebraeuchlichsten. Ausserdem waere im Einleitungssatz
>
> These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
> pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
> the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
> full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.
>
> der Zusatz "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
> image description pages..." hilfreich, evtl durch einen Screenshot
> veranschaulicht.

I try to translate (sorry for my bad english):

hey - interesting! The former template was much less awesome :)
It would be better if the instruction how to insert tags
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
don't list the "dangerous" tags at the bginning, but the ones most often
used. Also in the beginning sentence

These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

the addition "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
image description pages..." would be helpfull, perhaps illustrated by a
screenshot.

Bye, Tim.

--
> rm ist *kein* Packer.
Doch. Aber verlustbehaftete Komprimierung.
(Jens Mueller in de.talk.jugend)
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body:
Hi Wikipedians,

Gregory Maxwell schrieb am 07.03.2006 08:38:
> I think it's interesting that it mentions the "Don't know" license trap.
[...]
> I see on english wiki that someone has bolded the text mentioning
> deletion, I've changed that.

I pointed Ellen to your reply.
She wrote (she isn't subscribed to this list):

> hey - interessant! Das fruehere Template war sehr viel weniger Furcht
> einfloessend :)
> Waere zusaetzlich gut, wenn die Anweisung, wie man Tags einsetzt
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
> nicht gleich zu Anfang die "gefaehrlichen" Tags zeigt, sondern die
> gebraeuchlichsten. Ausserdem waere im Einleitungssatz
>
> These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
> pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
> the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
> full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.
>
> der Zusatz "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
> image description pages..." hilfreich, evtl durch einen Screenshot
> veranschaulicht.

I try to translate (sorry for my bad english):

hey - interesting! The former template was much less awesome :)
It would be better if the instruction how to insert tags
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Image_namespace)
don't list the "dangerous" tags at the bginning, but the ones most often
used. Also in the beginning sentence

These are tags to be placed on the image description pages, i.e., the
pages that open up when pictures in articles are clicked. This is not
the complete list (at the moment). When tagging images, please see the
full text list at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

the addition "These are tags to be placed in the License section on the
image description pages..." would be helpfull, perhaps illustrated by a
screenshot.

Bye, Tim.

--
> rm ist *kein* Packer.
Doch. Aber verlustbehaftete Komprimierung.
(Jens Mueller in de.talk.jugend)
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from_name: SCZenz

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Amen.  If our April Fools' jokes are planned in advance and organized,
we've defeated the purpose.

SCZenz

On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
> too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
> serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
> Fool's Day.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 13:56:17 +0000, you wrote:

> http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/using_wikipedia.html

So the guy advises people not to violate [[WP:OWN]], to be open and
transparent, and to let consensus prevail?  We should have more POV
pushers like this!
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
John Lee wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Admins must be held to a higher standard of behaviour than a simple
>>user.  For example, if a policy allows any admin to block a user for a
>>maximum of 24 hours, there isabsolutely no excuse for blocks that exceed
>>that length of time.  Perhaps that admin himself should be blocked for
>>the amount of the excess time.  I would not go so far as to support
>>having ALL admin actions immedialtely revertible, but the ones that
>>aren't should be clearly defined.  Where an admin has removed a clearly
>>libellous statement from an article the discussion should happen first.
>>
>>
>Anyway, I think those ideas are terrible. Process is important, but it
>should not be fetishised. Blocking people for being pricks is one thing,
>but lying about it and using the excuse of "blocking for imposing a
>block exceeding 24 hours" is stupid and crazy.
>
24 hours is enough to cover off any possible urgency to an admin's
unilateral action.  It gives others time to review the block, and extend
it if that's appropriate, perhaps based on a recommendation by that
admin.  Admins should know the rules better than a newbie, so why
shouldn't those rules be applied equally?  I don't see where lying
enters into the picture at all.

>Has everyone gone mad
>over the [[literal rule]] lately? Whatever happened to the [[mischief
>rule]]? Our policies exist only because there tends to be a 1:1
>correlation between the targets of their remedies and people being
>dicks. Now people seem to think this correlation can hold, even if we
>start developing policies with loopholes begging for trolls to demand
>someone be sanctioned for "violating policy". In the end, process exists
>as a guide to ferreting out the dicks in the community. It is not meant
>to be used to find people you can label dicks and then sanction for
>doing something else entirely.
>
The mischief that such a rule would address is admins who are being
dicks by imposing excessive blocks before another admin even has a
chance to look at the problem being addressed.

>I should also remind you that blocks are not meant to be punitive.
>
Absolutely, and that's exactly the problem that is being addressed.

>I find the idea of punishing an admin for a mistake by blocking utterly
>ludicrous. Either the admin made a mistake, is compulsively a
>mistake-maker/dick acting in good faith (not going to name names...), or
>is just a plain dick acting in bad faith. The latter should be dealt
>with by the arbcom or common sense; the two former categories *may* be
>dealt with in a similar manner, but not always.
>
Common sense tells me that this would get the message across to rogue
admins much more quickly than a lot of wangling at arbcom.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
Hi,
  What exactly needs to be shot here?  I see this:

* Give up control, people will take your original content and change
it completely.
* It is ok to put in "corporate" content, as long as it is relevant to
the community.
* Let it live and breath, only step in to correct inaccurate information
* Make sure your own content is not getting pushed out of search
results by this new content

Seems ok to me - the fourth point is a bit of a crack up though. (I
think it's saying, when you write the wikipedia article on
BobJones.com, make sure that bobjones.com itself doesn't get pushed
out of the top 10 by Wikipedia and its mirrors). We've had a million
and one POV's come and go, each advocate getting their POV in more
subtly than the last.

Ultimately, either the topic that they add is notable, or it isn't. In
the latter case, they'll get killed. In the former, content is good -
regardless of by whom, or why it was written.

No?

Steve

On 3/7/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>     http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/using_wikipedia.html
>
> If it's not there already, could someone please post this link to
> [[WT:CSD]]? Our beloved speedy patrollers really need to know about
> this one and shoot as needed. (Speedy cleanup can follow behind
> reviving anything that actually warrants an article.)
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
David Gerard wrote:
>     http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/using_wikipedia.html
>
> If it's not there already, could someone please post this link to
> [[WT:CSD]]? Our beloved speedy patrollers really need to know about
> this one and shoot as needed. (Speedy cleanup can follow behind
> reviving anything that actually warrants an article.)
>
See http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/marketing_and_w.html for
details. I consider the word "marketing" misleading. There is no reason
why companies shouldn't update information about themselves in wikipedia
if they have a source and if they follow the NPOV and other wikipedia
policies.

[[de:Siemens AG]]'s financial figures for 2005 were updated from IPs
from within Siemens. This is fine and not "marketing".

"Incoming!!!" again is misleading. This is not a war and there are no
incoming missiles.

Mathias,
who just had a 20 minutes phone call with the marketing department of a
logistics company trying to explain to them why they did not behave nice
and how they can fix their behavior problems in Wikipedia.


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
In message <fbad4e140603070556w33272ae9v at mail.gmail.com>, David Gerard
<dgerard-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes
>    http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/03/using_wikipedia.html

Actually, I wish we could have more posters like this. He's advocating

     * Give up control, people will take your original content and change
it completely.
     * It is ok to put in "corporate" content, as long as it is relevant
to the community.
     * Let it live and breath, only step in to correct inaccurate
information
     * Make sure your own content is not getting pushed out of search
results by this new content

I don't have any problems with those, though how he expects the last to
happen once Google gets hold of the Wikipedia article and all its
mirrors I have no idea.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
On 3/7/06, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> See http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/marketing_and_w.html for
> details. I consider the word "marketing" misleading. There is no reason
> why companies shouldn't update information about themselves in wikipedia
> if they have a source and if they follow the NPOV and other wikipedia
> policies.

I agree. That would make a great news story. "Company complains:
Anyone can edit our article on Wikipedia - except us".

> [[de:Siemens AG]]'s financial figures for 2005 were updated from IPs
> from within Siemens. This is fine and not "marketing".

As long as they do it transparently.

Is it time we updated [[WP:AUTO]] to cover corporate entities?

Steve


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] The necessary steps to delete the Moldovan
	Wikipedia

body:
"Contributors to the Moldovan Wikipedia"? What %age of the voters had
more than 50 contributions to any Wikipedia project?

Mark

On 07/03/06, future civilization <future_civilization at yahoo.com> wrote:
> These are the necessary steps to delete the Moldovan Wikipedia:
>
>  1. "VALIDATION" and "ACCEPTING" by the Stewards, Bureaucrats of the votes made by the contributors on Moldovan Wikipedia.
>
>  (Voting was done legally on the following link: http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri)
>  (A CheckUser can be done in order to validate the votes of every contributor).
>
>  2. "Deletion of the Moldovan Wikipedia" as it was the only accepted solution proposed by the users.
>
>  According to the result of the referendum it was decided that this wikipedia must be deleted. It has to be respected the will and the result of this referendum. There is nothing more to say here.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>  Yahoo! Mail
>  Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


body:
Yes, I do know that.

But there are also practical considerations.

Ideally, Moldovan-Cyrillic should be hosted at the same Wikipedia as
the Romanian Wikipedia, with content conversion.

But will the existing Romanian Wikipedia community accept it? Probably
not. What would Romanians (non-editors) think of it? They would
probably be less forgiving than the Wikipedians.

If somebody wants to enforce the idea, I fully support it, as long as
the converter meets appropriate standards (Cyrillic-Latin is not
1-to-1 for Moldovan, unlike with Serbian, so it will take a fair deal
more listing of rules), and some way is found for the Wikipedia to be
referred to either neutrally (not as Romanian or as Moldovan), or
according to a user's preferences (so if a user selects it to be
called the "Moldovan Wikipedia", the front page will welcome them to
such). The last point isn't as important though -- my main concern is
*accurate conversion*.

If you want to totally ignore any concerns of community acceptance and
possible backlash as the result of such an implementation, that's fine
with me.

Ultimately, what matters to me is that the same goal is reached,
regardless of the method: Free encyclopaedia articles available for
reading in Moldavian Cyrillic.

It matters a little bit what it's called, but what matters the most is
that it's available, and relatively easy to access.

Mark

On 07/03/06, Andreas Vil?n <andreas.vilen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia editions refer to languages, not countries, and you know
> that. If for example Scandinavia whould have been a united country for
> half a century, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish would most probably have
> been considered variants of one language. Language is politics.
>
> /Andreas
>
> On 3/7/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course. But what do you think the chances are that Romanians will
> > allow it on "their" Wikipedia?
> >
> > Many Romanians (and many Moldovans as well) regard Cyrillic as a
> > symbol of communism or Russian imperialism, and if an automatic
> > converter was added to the Romanian Wikipedia, I think it would get
> > negative attention in romania, and some WP'ans might actually leave
> > over it.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 07/03/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > If the only difference is that it's written in Cyrillic then you can use
> > > some kind of program for that.
> > >
> > > Serv
> > >
> > >
> > > 2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > > >
> > > > I'm not sure all of those questions are relevant. Most of them are
> > > > publicly-accessible information anyhow. I will answer those that
> > > > aren't.
> > > >
> > > > > 1. How old are you?
> > > > > 2. Where do you live?
> > > > > 3. Where were you brought up?
> > > > > 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
> > > > I don't "claim to speak" any languages. I know a number of languages
> > > > to widely varying degrees -- for example, I can say a few things in
> > > > Okinawan, I can understand Spanish to a degree, and I can make myself
> > > > understood in Japanese. Whether I "speak" a language or not depends on
> > > > what you mean -- what level of fluency?
> > > > > 5. How did you learn those languages?
> > > > How does anyone learn any language? By hearing it/reading it, and
> > > > speaking it/writing it.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On Mar 7, 2006, at 4:00 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote:

> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's be silly on
>> April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have some
>> weaknesses.
>
>
> This is about humor. What people find funny isn't something that is
> to be
> voted on. There is no "argument" in comedy. It's a joke. That's the
> point.
> Apparently, you don't find this idea funny. Others do. There isn't
> any way
> to resolve the discrepancy, whether in debate or in armed combat to
> the
> death.

On the contrary. Armed combat to the death resolves all
discrepancies, by means of exterminating all dissenters.

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Moldovan/Romanian

body:
First off, I noticed you totally dropped all of your FUD about how the
evil Russians are forcing Transnistrian Moldavians to use Cyrillic.
How come?

You also failed to comment on the fact that only 1 of the "Moldovan"
voters has confirmed his identity in any way, shape, or form.

Now, I'll reply to your message.

On 07/03/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
>  Whether or not you are fluent in Moldovan is extremely important here,
>  because you are the unique contributor. You created mo.wiki,

That's a heaping pile of falsehoods. The majority of contributions are
not by me, but by anonymous contributors (who may or may not be
Moldovan), User:Russ, and User:Gabix.

I did not "create mo.wiki" -- I found it empty, and added content. It
was "created" by a developer. Who originally requested it is
completely unknown to me, although it would be interesting to find out
who it was.

> you
>  copied (from ro.wiki) most articles, and you, alone, are fighting for it.

Again, not true. Various people defended it in the duration of the
vote but you discounted their opinions because they weren't Moldovan,
OR Romanian (but if they're Romanian, of course their opinions
mattered suddenly).

Also, at various times, it has been defended by Moldovans of diverse
backgrounds, including but not limited to Oleg Alexandrov (if I am
correct, he believes that, while it does make sense to have Cyrillic
content, due to the small contributor base and erratic nature of
contributions it is destined to fail without greater participation;
Oleg Alexandrov has said he is of entirely Moldovan/Romanian
heritage), Dmitriid (Dmitriid's view seemed to be that while the
Wikipedia may exist, it should make clear that Moldovan and Romanian
are the same language, and also it should make clear that Cyrillic is
not official in Moldova anymore and is not the primary script for
either Romanian or Moldovan; he said he was ethnically Russian but
born in Chisinau and went to a Turkish school where he learnt
Romanian/Moldovan), Vertaler (he was quite excited about the existance
of the project, but was ultimately disappointed because of the erratic
nature of contributions and small contributor and article bases; he
seems to have been ethnically Moldovan, but he was certainly fluent in
the language), Ali Noali / Elnoel (he held the same opinion as
Vertaler; he said he was from an affluent ethnically Moldovan family
who his webpage suggests were disgusted at the developments after
Moldovan independence and at the current state of the Moldovan
political and economic scene, blaming it on the new government), and
possibly others.

There are also the anonymous Moldovan contributors who wrote or
corrected content in Cyrillic.

>  Given that this wiki is by you and for you, it could be justified as a
>  hobby. But there are two problems: you do not seem to learn Moldovan

It is not "by me", and it is most certainly not _for_ me.

>  and you promote old stalinist linguistic policies that hurt people's feelings.

Stalinist linguistic policy would be to let mowiki fall into disrepair
and encourage people to use the Russian WP instead. I have not done
that.

And whose feelings have been hurt? Who have been most active in this
conflict? Not the Moldovans, no. The Romanians. A few Moldovans said
some stuff, yes, but the _most active_ people were all Romanians --
Ronline, you, Bogdan, Bonaparte, Danutz, Mihaitza, Duca, Goie.

>  And, BTW, you called me a liar earlier, but you somehow failed to mention
>  a single Moldovan editor (i.e. one that claims to be Moldovan) that supports
>  your views.

I already mentioned them, and you already complained about them. Some
of them have few or no contributions, but then, the same is true of
most of the "Moldovan Wikipedians" who voted on your side. How did I
find their opinions? You were sarcastic before and mentioned something
about psychic powers. That would be cool, but I'm not psychic, at
least not that I know of. I e-mailed some of these people a while back
to find out what they thought.

Mark


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Would you prefer that I did everything in my proposal without discussion?

On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
> too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
> serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
> Fool's Day.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/3/06, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> A non-scaling idea of consensus is what we call 'not a consensus'.
>
> There used to be a fairly relaxed view of policy.  That is, there was the
> newbie version, which was fairly aspirational, and the 'old lags' version,
> which tested the limits, but took various good things like 'be bold' and
> 'assume good faith' and 'ignore all rules' (when the situation warranted
> it)
> as central - rather than assuming there was a theory test and manual of
> style handed out as you came in.
>

You know, policy and process used to be relaxed because Wikipedia was a
wholly new thing and no one had any idea how to make it work yet. We could
only figure out what works through experience. But as time passed, and as
experience repeated itself, we learned from it and the patterns inherent in
it. There was quite a lot of naive innocence in the old days, but it
couldn't last forever. What was once an amorphous mass is slowly taking
shape and solidifying. As time passes it will inevitably solidify further.
Corrections and adaptations will be made in an endless process, as it is
with all evolving things, whether they are animals or city-states.

But the bottom line is that we've learned that some things just don't work,
and so we have rules against them to help other people not make the same
mistakes we did when we figured out that those things don't work. When I
first came to Wikipedia I was an acrimonious editor who wrote a lot of hero
worship about people he likee. Since then I've learned a better way, and we
have rules about personal attacks, civility, and against original research
so that other people won't make the same mistakes I did. These rules may not
be broken because we know that they create a negative editing evironment.
There are many other examples like this where rules and process have
developed over time and experience, not drawn up arbitrarily out of thin air
as some people seem to think they have been.

This has all been really stream-of-consciousness, but the point is that I'm
noticing a trend here where people attack process just because it is process,
not because they think it is actually wrong or harmful. Most of the time, we
all agree with the rules. But those few times we disagree, don't criticize
the whole idea of rules. Criticize the rules themselves. They're malleable,
just like everything else here.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:SuggestBot

body:
At a loose end for what to work on? Ask the SuggestBot!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SuggestBot

Put your request in at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SuggestBot/Requests .

My suggested list was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SuggestBot/Suggestions_for_David_Gerard
... I think you can tell I've been around [[WP:SCN]] a lot lately.

- d.


from_name: Sue Reed

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
--- The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's
> be silly on
> April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have
> some weaknesses.

It depends on who the audience for the silliness is. If the
audience for the silliness is the Wikipedia community, than
you're right in his argument having weaknesses. If the
audience for the silliness is the larger Internet community
that might visit Wikipedia during the day, than planning
things out makes a whole lot of sense.

As someone who has worked on many "April Fools" editions of
newspapers, there is a lot of planning that goes into
those.

To add my two cents into the mix, I think doing things like
changing up the logo or even adding silly titles on things
is great fun. However, I do think there needs to be care
taken in any purely fake news that people may choose to
publish. The line between parody and libel can be very
thin.

Sue Anne
[[user:Sreed1234]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> In a consensual system the risk of pseudoconsensus is definitely there,
> as is the risk of institutional paralysis.  An effective system of
> consensus depends on both assuming and exercising good faith, and the
> belief that if people work toward it a mutually satisfactory solution
> will be found.  It is inimical to those who want a quick solution
> favoring their individual objectives.  Paradoxically consensus cannot be
> achieved by *making* it the norm; such "making" is contrary to the
> spirit of consensus.  If we recognize the above-stated and very real
> difficulties of a consensual system that should be a first step for
> finding a solution to those difficulties, not an excuse for abandoning
> the system.

As a political environment grows, the probability of achieving 100%
agreement approaches 0. Therefore there will more and more frequently come
times where some dissenting views must be acknowledged but the dominant view
carried out; that is, we can't sit around debating until everyone agrees.
Eventually we have to take action. That's a vital feature of the democratic
political process; it permits dissent but goes with the predominant view
anyway.

I don't think anyone can disagree that politics on Wikipedia are going to
have to make a turn in this direction some time in the future. (I happen to
think that time will be soon but that's another debate) But we can't do it
without some kind of parliamentarianism, because we can't expect the
"community at large" to be self-regulating about determining the predominant
view and executing it fairly. That would be akin to giving a gun to every
citizen and saying "Whenever you see someone commit murder, go ahead and
execute them." This kind of tribal justice system might work well in a small
group, maybe even a few hundred, because everyone knows everyone else and
any individual can be held accountable for his actions by the group. But
when you do that with thousands of people, they will organize into militias
and initiate warfare, each of them thinking both that justice is on their
side and that they have a right to execute the law themselves.

Historically that has been solved by taking the power to use violence away
from the people and concentrating it into one sovereign power that is
accountable to everyone. We have done half of that by only granting the
dangerous powers to a select batch of administrators. But as that group
grows, we see the need for further stratification and wheel wars emerge.
It's a political inevitability, and any of our historical political
philosophers could have anticipated it. The suggestion here is to take the
next step and create a more organized body so that everyone knows that the
power and the responsibility are in the same hands and on the same
shoulders.

Obviously, the larger and more contentious the community, the bigger the
> challenge of consensus.  But we cannot undertake such a debate without
> an open analysis of parliamentarianism's defects.  Such a system
> encourages the forming of parties that will promote and protect
> particular policies, and who will be happy to have their POV succeed by
> a bare majority.  It leads to the tyranny of the majority.

Well, straight democracy, where any subject is up to a vote and any
individual can be sacrificed if 51% of the population votes to do so would
have this defect. But very few of these democracies actually exist. In the
United States for example, some subjects are emphatically not up for a vote
or discussion, and the parliament may not pass laws on them. I would expect
that this would be the case with Wikipedia as well.

Ryan


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [WikiEN-l] Have I broken my monobook.js?

body:
On 07/03/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Now for something completely different: I think I may have broken my
> monobook.js file. When I try and edit, the screen goes completely
> white, and I can't actually edit. When I'm not logged in, I don't have
> the problem.
>
> So, would some kind admin mind hacking my file so I can edit again?
> Feel free to set it back to default if necessary. I'm assuming that
> I'm not capable of editing it at the moment with this problem...so if
> there's another way...?

I've reset it to the 12th December version for you. This any good?

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


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

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

The Cunctator stated for the record:

> On 3/7/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>It's much like a parent telling their rebellious teenager:
>>>
>>>"You think drugs and rock and roll are punk? What would be REALLY punk
>>>would be to eat vegetables and do your homework and go to Sunday
>>>School! That's how to REALLY break expectations!"
>>
>>[[Straight edge]]
>
>
> Right. Straight edge is about self-empowerment -- being that way not
> because of your parents, but because of self-determination.
>
> It's not so much the message, as the messenger.

That's the Cunctator approach in a single sentence.  Anything said by
anyone with any positive reputation, or, God forbid, actual authority,
is prima facia wrong, regardless of content.  If it were said by someone
else, it might not be, but if Jimbo says it, it is to be dismissed out
of hand.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Give a person a fish and you feed them for
 sean at epoptic.org | a day; teach a person to edit Wikipedia
                  | and they won't bother you for months.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEDimdMAt1wyd9d+URAsYBAJ0UNbx/Y1qi82ZC5Ki7Zp3u/iis5wCdGGfC
jQ9n2Wbt1JO99TbYybPlvCA=
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from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>>Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
>>willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
>>Ourselves Too Seriously.
>>
>>Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
>
>
> Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> earth theory, etc etc?

Well, I've been proposing this idea since last year, and I have to say
that I think both of you will come around to my perspective on this once
you reflect on it a bit.

There is *nothing* clever about having fake articles on the homepage for
the day.  This isn't about "Not Taking Ourselves Too Seriously" it's
about being deliciously clever.  Fake stories on April Fool's day?  *yawn*

But *real* stories, carefully sourced, which people *think* are fake...
now *that's* clever.  It's a second-order trick, a meta-trick.  Surely
I'm not the only one around here geeky enough to consider that kind of
hack to be infinitely more amusing than doing what everyone else does.

--Jimbo

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 06:50:27 +0100, you wrote:
>
>
>>Yes, some unbelievable yet factual featured stuff on the main page and some
>>shenenigans in the Wikipedia namespace is enough. The last of which
>>shouldn't involved deleting something or mass nominating something.
>
>
> I'm sure we can come up with a hilarious spoof on userboxes if we try.
> Or not.

Oh, you have to admit: The Great Userbox War of 2006 is already a
hilarious spoof on itself.  We've rarely been so absurd. :)

--Jimbo

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


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Intent to launch Chinese Wikinews

body:
Chinese Wikinews has long met the formal requirements of a new Wikinews
edition to be launched. There has now been another poll:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

which currently has 36 votes in favor of launching, including many
Chinese Wikipedians, and only one (!) vote opposed. As per the voting
rules, given more than 90% support after a week of voting, this means
that the project can go ahead.

Are there any objections from the Board to launching the project now? If
I don't hear anything by the end of the week, I presume we can go ahead
and set up the site.

Erik


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
Hi all,
  Now for something completely different: I think I may have broken my
monobook.js file. When I try and edit, the screen goes completely
white, and I can't actually edit. When I'm not logged in, I don't have
the problem.

So, would some kind admin mind hacking my file so I can edit again?
Feel free to set it back to default if necessary. I'm assuming that
I'm not capable of editing it at the moment with this problem...so if
there's another way...?

Thanks,
Steve (stevage on EN)


body:
Now it seems Dpotop is engaging in personal attacks:

"I suggest Moldovan users go there, because Node_ue is again spreading
FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), which will make admins not to
accept the deletion, even though he is alone. His family must have
very strong anti-romanian feelings."

My family? Anti-Romanian feelings? Just because I support the
existance of Cyrillic content, means I hate all Romanians? Sorry, but
some of the conclusions people have drawn about me throught this
debate are crazy.

I've been accused of being a KGB agent, a Stalinist, a Smirnovist
agent, a Russian spy. Most of the accusations were by... Romanians! Do
I hate Romanians? No.

There are a few people online I don't like, and some of them happen to
be Romanians. On the other hand, there are many Romanians who I do
like. My feelings re:Cyrillic, Moldova, and Moldovan are totally
irrelevant.

Mark

On 07/03/06, Jacky PB <dpotop1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It seems that I need to justify my participation in this discussion.
>  I have two arguments for it:
>  1. Fluency in Moldovan.  By any linguistic standards I speak  the Moldovan
>  dialect of Romanian (with the accent). And I do it correctly. This fact alone
>  should allow me to participate in the vote and discussions. I can even read and write using cyrillic script. Correctly. :)
>  2.  I have relatives in the Republic of Moldova, and I know what they have
>  no linguistic identity problems. Just take a look in the list of Moldovan
>  editors: regardless of official politics (aimed at preserving good relations
>  with Russia), not one is for a moldovan wikipedia.
>  3. My participation into this discussion was subject to one strong rule: I have never entered in conflict with a Moldovan editor, for I believe they have the moral authority to do what they want with mo.wiki. What I have done was in line with their requirements.
>
>  Yours, [[:en:Dpotop]]
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Mail
> Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail  makes sharing a breeze.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


body:
Also, I noticed a few hotbutton names among the list of voters.

Bonaparte, first of all, was banned permanently from the English
Wikipedia for, among other things, malicious sockpuppetry.

Dacodava, second of all, was banned permanently from the English
Wikipedia for making death threats.

And here they are, counted as members of the supposed "Moldovan
Wikipedia community".

Really, both of them have spread such vitriolic unionistic rhetoric
that it's absurd to consider them part of the Moldovan _anything_!

Mark

On 05/03/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> The Moldovan Wikipedia community has decided to close down the
> Wikipedia.
>
> A bit of background on this: Moldovan was the name given to the
> standard Romanian language written with Cyrillic alphabet in the
> Soviet Union.
>
> After the fall of the Soviet Union, the independent Republic of
> Moldova kept this name for the language, although it asserted to
> be the same language with Romanian and began to be written once
> again with Latin script.
>
> More on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language
>
> As such, the "Moldovan language" got its own ISO code and a Wikipedia
> was created for it, although practically it's the same language as
> Romanian.
>
> This Wikipedia remained empty with a redirect to Romanian Wikipedia on
> the main page, until User:Node_ue was made admin and began writing
> articles in Cyrillic alphabet.
>
> About 95% of these articles were simply transliterations of articles
> from Romanian Wikipedia, a part of the transliterations being done
> manually by User:Russ, who can't speak Moldovan/Romanian and the
> resulting articles were rather wrong.
>
> A few articles were actually written by User:Node_ue, but they were
> mostly stubs and rather badly written (with several grammatical
> mistakes per sentence).
>
> The translation of the interface used a large number of obscure
> "pure Moldovan and not found in Romanian" words, which however,
> were not known to actual Moldovans. (examples include
> "bircieste" = "search" and "halaturi" = "tools")
>
> The Voting
> -----------
>
> During the period of 12 January - 12 February, a local voting has been
> organized to determine whether the community sees the need for the
> existence of a Moldovan Wikipedia.
>
> The vote was opened to confirmed (>25 edits) Moldovan and Romanian
> editors. While many of the side discussions were held in English
> and Russian (in addition to Moldovan/Romanian), the vote was
> restrained to determine the will of actual and potential editors.
> Some votes were rejected on this basis.
>
> Romanian editors were accepted to vote for two reasons:
>
> * 95% of the content was simply copied here and transliterated (no
> translation is necessary) from the Romanian wikipedia. In the oppinion
> of the moldovan organizers of the referendum, this gives Romanians a
> right to express their vote.
>
> * Romanian and Moldovan are the same language for all day-to-day
> purposes (cf. [[:en:Moldovan language]]), which makes them potential
> editors.
>
> Two votes were rejected because they were from people who did not
> speak Romanian/Moldovan and didn't had enough contributions to
> either wikipedia.
>
> There are several strong reasons that compelled us to request the
> deletion of the Moldovan language Wikipedia. Among them technical,
> originality, and ethical arguments that we briefly expose here.
>
> History
> -------
> It was created by Node_ue, who was the first admin.
>
> Its deletion has already been discussed. Consensus not reached, for
> the intentions of Node_ue, and the reaction of Moldovan editors was
> not clear at the time. At that time, it was already clear that a
> Latin-script Moldovan wikipedia has no reason to exist (so that even
> Node_ue agreed to point the latin version to the Romanian wikipedia).
> It appeared that his only concern is to maintain the cyrillic version
> of the moldovan wikipedia, which uses the Sovied-imposed script.
>
> Following several abusive administration incidents, the adminship has
> been removed from Node_ue.
>
> ==Deletion referendum==
>
> Was held between between 12 January and 12 February and it was opened
> to confirmed (>25 edits) Moldovan and Romanian editors. Romanian
> editors were accepted here for two reasons:
>
> - 95% of the content was simply copied here and transliterated (no
> translation is necessary). In the oppinion of the moldovan organizers
> of the referendum, this gives Romanians a right to express their vote.
>
> - Romanian and Moldovan are arguably the same language for all
> day-to-day purposes.
>
> The result of the referendum is the following:
>
> * No Moldovan editor supports the existence of this wikipedia.
>
> * No Romanian editor supports the existence of this wikipedia.
>
> * Only two editors have abstained, showing that the overwhelming
> majority of the users find the existence of the moldovan wikipedia
> offensive.
>
> By Moldovan editor we understand here an editor that is able to
> contribute originally in the language.
>
> Conclusion
> ------------
>
> In conclusion, we, the Moldovan and Romanian wikipedia editors,
> believe that the current moldovan wikipedia has no reason to exist
> for:
>
> - it has no editor fluent in Moldovan
>
> - it brings no information
>
> - it is considered offensive by many Moldovans and Romanians.
>
> Voting results
> --------------
>
> The following people voted for the closing of the Wikipedia:
>
> Moldova
> ----------
> #[[User:Pavel|Pavel]]
> #[[User:Furculita|Furculita]]
> #[[User:AndersoN|AndersoN]]
> #[[User:Landroni|Landroni]]
> #[[User:Argos|Argos]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:TSO1D|TSO1D]]
>
> Romania
> ---------
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Out_slide|Out_slide]]
> #[[User:Bogdan|Bogdan]]
> #[[User:Romihaitza|Romihaitza]]
> #[[User:AdiJapan|AdiJapan]]
> #[[User:Dpotop]]/[[:ro:Utilizator:Dpotop]]
> #[[User:Ditae|Ditae]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Vlad|Vlad]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Orioane]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Leinarius]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Wars]]
> #[[Utilizator:Dacodava|Dacodava]]
> #[[User:Vasile|Vasile]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:MobyDick]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Arado]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Waelsch]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:olario]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Bunu vio]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:SCriBu]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Emily]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:R.S.]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Constantzeanu]]
> #[[User:Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?|Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti?]]
> #[[User:Cosco|Cosco]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:AnaZ|AnaZ]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Dumiac|Dumiac]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Evosphere]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Laurap]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:KlaudiuMihaila]]
> #[[:ro:Utilizator:Strainu]]
>
> With these results, a clear consensus has been reached in the group
> of those who speak Romanian/Moldovan language.
>
> http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Alegeri
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, SCZenz <sczenz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Amen.  If our April Fools' jokes are planned in advance and organized,
> we've defeated the purpose.

Planning it is probably the only way to avoid the ridiculous edit war that
happened last time.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
How else would non-admins get involved?

Steve

On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
> too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
> serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
> Fool's Day.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/6/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
> I remember in IRC around Christmas where one of the users said he'd move the
> main page to "Main Page on Wheels!".
>

Anyone trying to do that will be blocked within seconds I happen to be online.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
Heh, cool. Suggest we make it "Wikimedia takeover of Britannica" this
year. Would probably be more accurate. :)

Steve

On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 2006, at 9:03 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >> On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> >>> If there's nothing that proves that Wikipedia's culture has become
> >>> too stuffy and serious for it's own good, it's the existence of
> >>> serious pseudo-policy discussions concerning what we'll do on April
> >>> Fool's Day.
> >
> > How else would non-admins get involved?
>
> I think we had plenty of non-admins editing "Britannica takeover of
> Wikimedia" last year.
>
> --
> Philip L. Welch
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Incoming!!!

body:
On 3/7/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, Mathias Schindler <neubau at presroi.de> wrote:
> > See http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/marketing_and_w.html for
> > details. I consider the word "marketing" misleading. There is no reason
> > why companies shouldn't update information about themselves in wikipedia
> > if they have a source and if they follow the NPOV and other wikipedia
> > policies.
>
> I agree. That would make a great news story. "Company complains:
> Anyone can edit our article on Wikipedia - except us".

Keep an eye on newsmax. We blocked at least one of their
representertives from their article.

--
geni


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> >>Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
> >>willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
> >>Ourselves Too Seriously.
> >>
> >>Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
> >
> >
> > Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> > print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> > ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> > earth theory, etc etc?
>
> Well, I've been proposing this idea since last year, and I have to say
> that I think both of you will come around to my perspective on this once
> you reflect on it a bit.
>
> There is *nothing* clever about having fake articles on the homepage for
> the day.  This isn't about "Not Taking Ourselves Too Seriously" it's
> about being deliciously clever.  Fake stories on April Fool's day?  *yawn*
>
> But *real* stories, carefully sourced, which people *think* are fake...
> now *that's* clever.  It's a second-order trick, a meta-trick.  Surely
> I'm not the only one around here geeky enough to consider that kind of
> hack to be infinitely more amusing than doing what everyone else does.
>
Some might consider the above argument to be a solipsistic defense of
being stuffy and taking oneself too seriously.

Especially considering the source.

It's much like a parent telling their rebellious teenager:

"You think drugs and rock and roll are punk? What would be REALLY punk
would be to eat vegetables and do your homework and go to Sunday
School! That's how to REALLY break expectations!"

If Willy on Wheels spent April Fool's making serious edits, that would
be clever.

Sorry, but when Jimbo advocates making serious, well-sourced,
informative articles on Wikipedia, I don't see that as a big
mind-fuck.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know, policy and process used to be relaxed because Wikipedia was a
> wholly new thing and no one had any idea how to make it work yet. We could
> only figure out what works through experience. But as time passed, and as
> experience repeated itself, we learned from it and the patterns inherent in
> it. There was quite a lot of naive innocence in the old days, but it
> couldn't last forever. What was once an amorphous mass is slowly taking
> shape and solidifying. As time passes it will inevitably solidify further.
> Corrections and adaptations will be made in an endless process, as it is
> with all evolving things, whether they are animals or city-states.

Your use of such phrases as "no one had any idea", "naive","amorphous"
clearly indicates your bias.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Some might consider the above argument to be a solipsistic defense of
> being stuffy and taking oneself too seriously.
>
> Especially considering the source.

Whoa, have your posts actually disintegrated into making overt ad hominems,
rather than thinly veiled ones? Careful, your guard is down.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Your use of such phrases as "no one had any idea", "naive","amorphous"
> clearly indicates your bias.

I admit it; you've outed me. I'm biased toward my own view. Good work,
detective.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Your use of such phrases as "no one had any idea", "naive","amorphous"
> > clearly indicates your bias.
>
>
> I admit it; you've outed me. I'm biased toward my own view. Good work,
> detective.

Ha! Moriarity, your days of profligate editing are over.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Some might consider the above argument to be a solipsistic defense of
> > being stuffy and taking oneself too seriously.
> >
> > Especially considering the source.
>
>
> Whoa, have your posts actually disintegrated into making overt ad hominems,
> rather than thinly veiled ones? Careful, your guard is down.

Huh? I'm just saying that Jimbo is not exactly an anti-authoritarian
figure in the world of Wikipedia. I'm criticizing the argument, not
the man. I'm pretty sure Jimbo doesn't need others to fight on his
behalf, particularly against me.

I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's be silly on
April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have some weaknesses.


from_name: Rich Morin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Where is the database Schema, etc?

body:
I'm looking for any documentation on the MySQL tables
that MediaWiki uses.  Pointers would be appreciated.

-r
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: Andreas Vilén

body:
Wikipedia editions refer to languages, not countries, and you know
that. If for example Scandinavia whould have been a united country for
half a century, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish would most probably have
been considered variants of one language. Language is politics.

/Andreas

On 3/7/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Of course. But what do you think the chances are that Romanians will
> allow it on "their" Wikipedia?
>
> Many Romanians (and many Moldovans as well) regard Cyrillic as a
> symbol of communism or Russian imperialism, and if an automatic
> converter was added to the Romanian Wikipedia, I think it would get
> negative attention in romania, and some WP'ans might actually leave
> over it.
>
> Mark
>
> On 07/03/06, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If the only difference is that it's written in Cyrillic then you can use
> > some kind of program for that.
> >
> > Serv
> >
> >
> > 2006/3/7, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > I'm not sure all of those questions are relevant. Most of them are
> > > publicly-accessible information anyhow. I will answer those that
> > > aren't.
> > >
> > > > 1. How old are you?
> > > > 2. Where do you live?
> > > > 3. Where were you brought up?
> > > > 4. How many languages do you claim to speak?
> > > I don't "claim to speak" any languages. I know a number of languages
> > > to widely varying degrees -- for example, I can say a few things in
> > > Okinawan, I can understand Spanish to a degree, and I can make myself
> > > understood in Japanese. Whether I "speak" a language or not depends on
> > > what you mean -- what level of fluency?
> > > > 5. How did you learn those languages?
> > > How does anyone learn any language? By hearing it/reading it, and
> > > speaking it/writing it.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/7/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Some might consider the above argument to be a solipsistic defense of
> > > being stuffy and taking oneself too seriously.
> > >
> > > Especially considering the source.
> >
> >
> > Whoa, have your posts actually disintegrated into making overt ad
> hominems,
> > rather than thinly veiled ones? Careful, your guard is down.
>
> Huh? I'm just saying that Jimbo is not exactly an anti-authoritarian
> figure in the world of Wikipedia. I'm criticizing the argument, not
> the man. I'm pretty sure Jimbo doesn't need others to fight on his
> behalf, particularly against me.
>
> I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's be silly on
> April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have some weaknesses.
>

Well, I'm actually not saying "let's be silly", at least not w.r.t. the
[[Main Page]]. Rather, I'm proposing that we play a trick (meta-trick?) on
our readers, a task which requires a bit of serious work, but not without
applying a sense of humour. I know I can't edit some of these unusual
articles without at least a drop of humour.

I'm not specifically advocating this, but silliness will likely occur within
the Wikipedia-space, but the main articlespace, especially the Main Page,
probably needs a little more restraint.


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

> I hope you do understand my basic point, that the "let's be silly on
> April Fool's Day by being serious" argument does have some weaknesses.

This is about humor. What people find funny isn't something that is to be
voted on. There is no "argument" in comedy. It's a joke. That's the point.
Apparently, you don't find this idea funny. Others do. There isn't any way
to resolve the discrepancy, whether in debate or in armed combat to the
death.

Ryan


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

body:
On 3/7/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> On Mar 7, 2006, at 1:08 PM, Death Phoenix wrote:
>
> > Would you prefer that I did everything in my proposal without
> > discussion?
>
> I'd prefer that discussion took place on IRC or some other place that
> serves as the online equivalent of "over beers at a local pub". The
> listserv is the online equivalent of "during a staff meeting at work"
> or, at best, "at the water cooler".
>

Sorry, but I don't frequent IRC. Some of the conversation I've seen on the
listserv would definitely belong in the former category, and not in the
latter two.