from_name: Siebrand Mazeland

subject: [Commons-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

body:
Ouch. You have to start appreciating the benifits of multi language projects a bit more here, AJF/WarX. It is a fact that there are people that do not have too much of a clue of the English language and they can be, and are, valuable members of the Commons community.

At the same time we have to help those non English speakers/readers. Those that are able to speak the languages that are used and are at the same time able to participate in English, have to take care of translating basic documentation and templates, so that the messages we're throwing at them can be understood[1]. Please do assume that speaking English is a requirement to be able to participate on Commons. If you do, you are violating the basic goal of Commons: "Welcome to the Wikimedia Commons a database of 969,179 media files to which anyone can contribute" [2]

Cheers, Siebrand

[1] Check the main page, it's available in dozens of languages. Quite an archievement if you ask me: "Alemannisch | Aragon?s | ??????? | Asturianu | Catal? | ?esky | Cymraeg | Deutsch | ???????? | English | Espa?ol | Fran?ais | Gaeilge | Galego | Bahasa Indonesia | Italiano | ??? | ??? | ????? | Latine | L?tzebuergesch | Lietuvi? | Magyar | Bahasa Melayu | Plattd??tsch | Nederlands | Norsk (nynorsk) | Norsk (bokm?l) | Polski | Portugu?s | ??????? | Sloven?ina | Sloven??ina | Sunda | Suomi | Svenska | ??????? | Tagalog | T?rk?e | ???? | ???? | ??? | ?????????? | Brezhoneg | ????????? | Dansk | Eald Englisc | Eesti | Esperanto | Euskara | ????? | F?royskt | ??????? | ?????? | Hrvatski | Interlingua | ?slenska | ??????? | ????? | Kapampangan | ???????????? | Nedersaksisch (NL) | Rom?n? | Seeltersk | Shqip | ??????hrvatski | ?????? | ????? | ?????????? | Ti?ng Vi?t.
[2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org [mailto:commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] Namens Artur Fijalkowski
Verzonden: dinsdag 14 november 2006 0:54
Aan: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
Onderwerp: Re: [Commons-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

<snip>

Not for:
<snip>
* teaching people what are copyrights (especially when they DON'T understand English language)

AJF/WarX


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
On 14/11/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Sun Microsystems will make all the Java code they own available under the GPL:
> http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/
> This is a very major step. IMHO we should now make Java core part of
> our own strategy, as it's one of the best ways to deliver interactive
> content (high quality animations, learning tools, etc.). There are
> large numbers of free applets that we can potentially use, esp. in
> Wikipedia and Wikiversity.

Certainly as soon as there's actually a free-software JRE (with
classes) the good Java media players should be accessible from all
image and media pages with just a click.

- d.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not
 the	place for national constitution

body:
For your information.
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol shows quite clearly
that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for Moldavian. To
complicate this http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets it right, not even
the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.

We have had our fill with this nonsense too often. Mark is correct where
he says that the language is not the country. The Dutch language is just
one example where the name does not imply that everyone who speaks Dutch
as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your argument does not
wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you looked last in a
mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That may be kinda hard but
consider, if this project stinks, anyone knowledgeable will be able to
sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best on dung.

Thanks,
    GerardM

Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 12:00:31 AM, Mark wrote:
>
>
>> Standard language of PMR is written in Cyrillic.
>>
>
>
>> Yes, it is a "separatist region", but that does not cancel the fact
>> that it is taught in schools there.
>>
>
> Yes, it has been discussed this before: it's not standard Moldovan,
> as used by the government of Moldova. So why is it at the mo subdomain?
> Shouldn't it be at mo-cyr.wikipedia.org ?
>
> I think that's the main point of disagreement and both Moldovans and
> Romanians disagree with the current state.
>
> Anyway, Mark, what do you want to do with this encyclopedia? I don't
> that in the last six months it got *any* new original content, despite
> the thousands of trolling edits by numerous sock-puppets of Romanian,
> Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, American and possibly Georgian origin.


list: commons-l

from_name: Artur Fijałkowski

subject: [Commons-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

body:
2006/11/14, Siebrand Mazeland <s.mazeland at xs4all.nl>:
> Ouch. You have to start appreciating the benifits of multi language projects a bit more here, AJF/WarX. It is a fact that there are people that do not have too much of a clue of the English language and they can be, and are, valuable members of the Commons community.

I know, I'm helping lots of people from pl.wiki who have same problem,
but ... finding something on commons is very very difficult - I'm
admin for 9 months and I'm able to find maybe 5% of important
technical info.

My first proposal was to teach people to use Commons on their home
wiki. Translating everything to 200 languages won't change much if 10
people on commons know about it and know how to use it.

We are simply ignored by es.wiki and pt.wiki know and we have to change it...

AJF/WarX


from_name: David Monniaux

subject: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>I'm not trolling; I'm being appalled at the attitude of Commons admins
>to the projects that are supposed to be using Commons, particularly
>es: and pt: for which Commons is their only image store.
>
>
David, you're generalizing. Say "some Commons admins" if you wish, but
don't paint everyone with the same brush.

In addition, there's definitely a problem if projects decide to close
local uploads and redirect everybody to commons and:
1) They don't warn Commons beforehand.
2) At least some of their admins don't apply for adminship on Commons.

We just cannot cope with languages we don't speak.

-- DM


list: foundation-l

subject: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l]  Bands from Brazil - Why?


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

body:
Florian Straub wrote:
>> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>> Brianna Laugher wrote:
>>>> On 12/11/06, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
>>>>> Awesome! Is there any chance to activate it directly for new
>>>>> registrations
>>>>> on commons or do they people have to confirm their adresses first?
>>>> Thanks, Brion. Specifically, could we require that new registered
>>>> users must have a confirmed email address before uploading? With talk
>>>> page email notifications as default setting.
>>> That's a complete about-face from Wikimedia's traditional policy of
>>> allowing anonymous contributions, so before I set that up I'd need to
>>> know this is acceptable to Wikimedia.
>> (I should clarify that I think it's a good idea, personally. But I would
>> not feel comfortable implementing that policy without both community
>> agreement and approval from upstairs for the ground rules changing
>> dramatically.)
>
> I've just talked to Elian. She said that if it was a consensus between the
> commons people it would be ok.

No disrespect to Elian, but since when does she set Wikimedia-wide
policy singlehandedly?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Simetrical

body:
On 11/14/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see client-side Java as serving any major purpose beyond
> providing an alternative platform-independent way to deliver
> multimedia content for people who don't have native players installed.
>  Trying to implement any of the core application in Java at the client
> end targets too small of a usability segment; many people have no JRE
> installed in their computer (or at least no JRE extension in their web
> browser), and even if they do they have a JRE that only supports
> version 1.2 or even 1.1 of the specification.

The major application right now is probably Wikiversity.  Interactive
applications could be extremely useful to them for a wide variety of
purposes, such as quizzes or physics demonstrations.


body:
David, I fully agree with what you are saying. These are, for not having a
proper English term, groeistuipen: 'us' not being able to cope - in the
short term - with the screening of added content. We need more active
administrators. We do have to advocate on the wikis that are sending their
uploaders to Commons. Please do post messages in their Village Pumps so that
they can be made aware of the problem. Post them in English, if you do not
speak their language. Then you will get reactions from those users you
want/need. Staying put on Commons will not solve the problem, IMO. We have
to reach out.

A bit off topic, bit here's where I think it's going and how it should be
handled. Personally, I do a lot of image maintenance on nl.wp, with the
ultimate goal to make the nl.wp licensing compatible with that of Commons so
that nl.wp can also redirect uploads to Commons and move it's the bigger
part of its image repository to Commons - we have a long way to go, but we
might get there in a year or so. We, the commons community, should in my
opinion actively approach the top 25 wikis (at first those that currently do
not allow fair use, I would say) to start making their users (more) aware of
the benifits of Commons. Try and get in touch with the image maintainers
there and guide them to get their wiki to a point where they could start
redirecting their uploads to Commons, to not make it a scary and/or sudden
event for either the other wiki or Commons. Once we are involved in their
transition and help them with it, we also have a large chance that their
image maintainers will hop over to Commons and do the same on Commons as on
their native language wiki.

I'll stop now to keep this a bit-size mail.

Cheers! Siebrand

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] Namens David Gerard
Verzonden: dinsdag 14 november 2006 1:22
Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
Onderwerp: Re: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

The whole point is to be a service project. All wikis that don't allow
non-free images were ultimately supposed to use Commons.

If you're saying Commons really can't handle that, then the thing that's
seriously wrong is at the Commons end.


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
Sun Microsystems will make all the Java code they own available under the GPL:

http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/

This is a very major step. IMHO we should now make Java core part of
our own strategy, as it's one of the best ways to deliver interactive
content (high quality animations, learning tools, etc.). There are
large numbers of free applets that we can potentially use, esp. in
Wikipedia and Wikiversity.

My main question is: Are there security considerations with enabling
the upload and embedding of Java Applets? According to

http://java.sun.com/sfaq/

one of the capabilities of applets is to open a connection to the
originating host. Could this be used, e.g., to create auto-vandalism
applets and if so, can we somehow protect against it?

If security is a major issue, might it be feasible to maintain a
whitelist of certificates (to allow applets from trusted authority to
be uploaded directly), and to flag all other applets as
"non-embeddable" until a sysop flips a switch, so they can be reviewed
for security? We could add a big fat warning on the file description
page.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
I think that is what both Jimbo and I said...

What the privacy policy states (the way I read it) is that Checkusers are
allowed to release IP information when one of the conditions for release
(e.g. abuse of resources, or in this case, threats against a community
member) are met, and there is no better alternative than to release them
immediately. For example, a Checkuser in the English Wikipedia is allowed to
release the IP of a vandal who is creating a plethora of accounts with the
sole intent of vandalizing the site; in fact, every time a Checkuser blocks
a vandal IP based on Checkuser information, the IP is released into the
block log. I cannot imagine a scenario in which a police officer approaches
a user with the appropriate privileges, identifies himself satisfactorily,
and makes it clear beyond any doubt that the information is going to be used
in a rape/stalking/solicitation investigation, and is refused the
information he needs. Of course, it may be appropriate to "kick him
upstairs" to the Florida office as soon as possible, if the situation is not
as urgent.

Titoxd.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of roc
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 12:20 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia

By "sexual harassment", THD was trying to explain the online
harassment/stalking/solicitation accident in which a female user at
Chinese Wikipedia was threaten to be raped. It does not mean the kind
of sexual harassment in a working environment. In addition to THD's
description, the victim's real life name was used in the threat; this
name has never been disclosed by the victim on Wikipedia.

We respect the freedom of speech and other civil rights, but we are
not obligated to provide a place for any speech or act, especially
when such an act seriously violates other people's civil rights or
safety. I totally agree with Gregory that we protect the
visitor/user's privacy because of our high ethical values and the
furthering of interests of both the WMF and the public. We are not
going to protect everyone's privacy at all times, especially when it
is *necessary* to protect our values or interests or safety. Indeed,
in Wikipedia's privacy policy
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy, link found at
bottom of every page on Wikipedia), there are several circumstances
that allow the release of IP information:
1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from
law enforcement.
...
6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

I believe that tolerating such a personal violence threat (using the
word "rape" and the victim's undisclosed real-life name) would be a
neglect to the safety of our users and the health of our community,
which is essential to Wikimedia's success and missions.

Regarding policies and procedures, I think that WMF should either
dictate privacy policies of all its projects or give authorizations to
the community/people it trusts, as long as it conforms with the best
interests of WMF, the project, and the public. I believe that the
privacy policy of Chinese Wikipedia is governed by the WMF. In this
privacy policy, it is stated that "personally identifiable data...may
be released by...users with CheckUser access", does it mean that
checkusers/stewards are authorized to release IP information of a
registered user without seeking approval for each case from the Board
or Executive?

Best regards,

roc
--

2006/11/13, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>:
> see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
>
> "6 Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
> safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public."
>
> plese help!
>
> 2006/11/11, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> > On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > > Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is
> > > capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily
> > > jump to conclusions.
> >
> > Yes. One question is whether we want every language and project
> > community to develop its own policy on these matters, or whether this
> > is an area where it makes sense to have a single policy that is
> > localized. This goes for checkuser and oversight as well. Perhaps an
> > in-between solution makes sense, where the WMF requires that local
> > policies identify and propose a group that consists of the most
> > trusted users before granting these privileges on a language/project
> > level.
> >
> > Perhaps it should also be a requirement that users who have the
> > technical permission to use these tools disclose their identity to the
> > WMF, so we have someone to deal with in case of abuse.
> > --
> > Peace & Love,
> > Erik
> >
> > Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> > in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> > position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
> My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
> CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
> Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
> cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/
>
> [[zh:User:Shizhao]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] Sexual harassment in Wikipedia


from_name: roc

body:
By "sexual harassment", THD was trying to explain the online
harassment/stalking/solicitation accident in which a female user at
Chinese Wikipedia was threaten to be raped. It does not mean the kind
of sexual harassment in a working environment. In addition to THD's
description, the victim's real life name was used in the threat; this
name has never been disclosed by the victim on Wikipedia.

We respect the freedom of speech and other civil rights, but we are
not obligated to provide a place for any speech or act, especially
when such an act seriously violates other people's civil rights or
safety. I totally agree with Gregory that we protect the
visitor/user's privacy because of our high ethical values and the
furthering of interests of both the WMF and the public. We are not
going to protect everyone's privacy at all times, especially when it
is *necessary* to protect our values or interests or safety. Indeed,
in Wikipedia's privacy policy
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy, link found at
bottom of every page on Wikipedia), there are several circumstances
that allow the release of IP information:
1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from
law enforcement.
...
6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

I believe that tolerating such a personal violence threat (using the
word "rape" and the victim's undisclosed real-life name) would be a
neglect to the safety of our users and the health of our community,
which is essential to Wikimedia's success and missions.

Regarding policies and procedures, I think that WMF should either
dictate privacy policies of all its projects or give authorizations to
the community/people it trusts, as long as it conforms with the best
interests of WMF, the project, and the public. I believe that the
privacy policy of Chinese Wikipedia is governed by the WMF. In this
privacy policy, it is stated that "personally identifiable data...may
be released by...users with CheckUser access", does it mean that
checkusers/stewards are authorized to release IP information of a
registered user without seeking approval for each case from the Board
or Executive?

Best regards,

roc
--

2006/11/13, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>:
> see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
>
> "6 Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
> safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public."
>
> plese help!
>
> 2006/11/11, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
> > On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > > Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is
> > > capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily
> > > jump to conclusions.
> >
> > Yes. One question is whether we want every language and project
> > community to develop its own policy on these matters, or whether this
> > is an area where it makes sense to have a single policy that is
> > localized. This goes for checkuser and oversight as well. Perhaps an
> > in-between solution makes sense, where the WMF requires that local
> > policies identify and propose a group that consists of the most
> > trusted users before granting these privileges on a language/project
> > level.
> >
> > Perhaps it should also be a requirement that users who have the
> > technical permission to use these tools disclose their identity to the
> > WMF, so we have someone to deal with in case of abuse.
> > --
> > Peace & Love,
> > Erik
> >
> > Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
> >
> > DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> > in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> > position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
> My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
> CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
> Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
> cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/
>
> [[zh:User:Shizhao]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation -
	who do we serve?

body:
David Gerard wrote:
> And another ...
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
> Date: 14-Nov-2006 00:24
> Subject: Re: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?
> To: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List <commons-l at wikimedia.org>
>
>
> Florian Straub wrote:
>
>>>Brion Vibber wrote:
>>>
>>>>Brianna Laugher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On 12/11/06, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Awesome! Is there any chance to activate it directly for new
>>>>>>registrations
>>>>>>on commons or do they people have to confirm their adresses first?
>>>>>
>>>>>Thanks, Brion. Specifically, could we require that new registered
>>>>>users must have a confirmed email address before uploading? With talk
>>>>>page email notifications as default setting.
>>>>
>>>>That's a complete about-face from Wikimedia's traditional policy of
>>>>allowing anonymous contributions, so before I set that up I'd need to
>>>>know this is acceptable to Wikimedia.
>>>
>>>(I should clarify that I think it's a good idea, personally. But I would
>>>not feel comfortable implementing that policy without both community
>>>agreement and approval from upstairs for the ground rules changing
>>>dramatically.)

Why do you think it is a good idea ?

Anthere


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Anthony wrote:

>Sorry if you find my sarcasm rude, but using java in this way has some
>major security issues.  In fact, just using java applets at all has
>enough security and privacy issues that it isn't enabled by default on
>Firefox, and I personally haven't turned it on in quite a while.
>
>Sorry again if I've been overly blunt.  It's a good general idea, but
>I think it's way before its time.  Hopefully the opening of the source
>code to java will speed up the addressing of these types of issues.
>
>Alternatively, though this would be a much harder route, maybe some
>subset of the java language could be made available, in much the same
>way wiki-syntax translates into a subset of html.
>
>Anthony
>
Adding my own $0.02 here, this is indeed a bad idea for security issues
alone.  I completely agree here with Anthony's sentiments as Java has
some very significant security holes that would open up some incredible
liability and other problems if used on Wikimedia sites.  The very
thought of allowing anonymous users to post Java source code that would
be served up through Wikimedia servers..... I can't think of a worse
possible problem.  It makes all of the issues with hacking the front
page of Wikimedia projects seem very tame and mild by comparison.

If there were some very heavilily restricted Java-language sub-set that
was allowed (a sanitized version used with MediaWiki) that might be
something worth looking at, but that is a major developer task and not
somthing to simply throw Java support into MediaWiki just because you
can do it.  Similar issues have come up with even having Javascript
enabled with Wikimedia projects, for the very same reasons.

That said, it would be incredible if we could allow Wikimedia users the
option of having some custom tools that go beyond what can be served up
with HTML and server-side tool.  The discussion to deal with this is
going to be long and involved and will take a team of very dedicated
individuals who really understand the software engineering issues before
it will become a reality.

--
Robert Scott Horning


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image thumbnail (re)generation etc

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 10/11/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> action=purge on the image description page has the additional effect of
>> deleting all existing thumbnails for that image, and sending purge requests
>> to the squids for those thumbnails. It's a special case for image
>> description pages, action=purge for any other page purges only the HTML cache.
>
> OK that's good to know... so, um, why doesn't it seem to work? :)

Good question. The answer is: our thumbnail system is broken in more ways
than I thought. A certain system administrator who shall remain nameless set
up a crazy distribution system for thumbnails, apparently forgetting to take
into consideration that errors can be generated, and that images can change.
I will try to fix it.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not the
	place for national constitution

body:
Do you have some sort of inability to comprehend social cues? Where
did I indicate that any of my most recent e-mails were intended to be
humourous?

On the other hand, every e-mail about Zlatiborian was full of things
that should've made it fairly obvious.

Maybe in your world only children laugh, but here everybody does.

Mark

On 14/11/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You showed extremely high level of irresponsibility. As well as all
> > > people from the community forgot to say me that you are a kid.
> > > However, I see that it seems that you became mature now... And this is
> > > good for you. Because your relevancy in talk with other people will
> > > increase.
> >
> > Whether or not I am a "kid" is was and is completely irrelevant.
> > Having a sense of humour is not limited to kids.
>
> Oh, yes. You are joking again, so I shouldn't take for real all other
> things which you wrote after that in you email.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


list: wikien-l

from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Using search to explore and find issues w/ articles

body:
> Better than france -> Italy
> Better than germany -> Italy
> Cheese Eating Surrender Monkies -> France

I've deleted these redirects as vandalism.

Angela.


from_name: Manjunath H.T

subject: [Foundation-l] Remove/Disable Move and Edit Tabs...

body:
Can Anyone suggest how to remove/disable the Move,Edit and History Tabs.I am using Monobook skin...

---------------------------------
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.


subject: [Wikitech-l] where are mediawiki extensions?

body:
> >       http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/
> Not all extensions/plugins are available via SVN (mine for instance).

There are hundreds on Meta at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_extensions and a few
on mediawiki.org at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions

Angela.


body:
No -- you were the only one confused after the first, oh, say, 5 e-mails.

Perhaps you are incapable of understanding the finer points of humour.

It was so obvious to _everyone but yourself_ that it was a joke. The
only reason anybody wondered at all is because you took it so
seriously. But despite that, people were still pretty sure it was a
joke. You, on the other hand, believed I was serious and proceeded to
say that I should be sentenced to death (!) were I not so young.

I had already made known my views on BCS, it was foolish of you to
believe that I would oppose separate BCS Wikis but support a
_Zlatiborian_ Wikipedia. And not just support it, but act militantly
ultranationalistic for a non-existant nation to such a degree that was
isn't even mirrored in Zlatibor itself?

Either you have a poor sense of humour, or you have a willingness to
believe anything about Americans. Perhaps it is the later. Well, there
are some pretty crazy things about America. There are a lot of morons
here. But there are a lot of morons everywhere. American morons just
have more visibility and tend to draw more attention and make bigger
fools of themselves. This reminds me of the mistranslation in the UN
General Assembly of a speech, rendered as "1 million people in the
United States live in caves..." (and in case you're wondering, it's
not actually true. I don't have statistics for cave population density
in the US, but I'm pretty sure we have less than 100 people living in
caves, if any at all). Mistranslation, yes. But nobody noticed it. It
wasn't until the transcripts were printed that a delegate noticed the
error. The word was "slums", not "caves". Why did nobody notice it?
The very same reason you did not realise I was joking. Contrary to
popular opinion, Americans are human beings too. Well, at least most
of us are.

Mark

On 14/11/06, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do you have some sort of inability to comprehend social cues? Where
> > did I indicate that any of my most recent e-mails were intended to be
> > humourous?
> >
> > On the other hand, every e-mail about Zlatiborian was full of things
> > that should've made it fairly obvious.
> >
> > Maybe in your world only children laugh, but here everybody does.
>
> Mark, you confused not only me, but a lot of other people. As well as
> you didn't say that you are joking. As well as you are not saying that
> you are joking now.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

body:
Alternatively, we can make the process much more bureaucratic. It'll suck,
but Java is a harsh mistress. What I was thinking was that code could be
submitted, then it'd have to be audited by a developer (or anyone approved
by the Foundation to evaluate Java), make sure it's appropriate, then add to
the site thusly.

Yes, I know, bureaucratic, but we can't afford to have our sites screwed up
because of a single vandal. (At least text vandalism is revertable.)

On 11/14/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Sun Microsystems will make all the Java code they own available under
> the GPL:
>
> and on wikitech-l Erik wrote:
>
> > A community review process, where open source applets can be nominated
> > for inclusion in Wikimedia, or particular resources / applet authors
> > can be community-certified as trustworthy, with the final step being
> > implemented by a sysop or bureaucrat, strikes me as a reasonable
> > compromise between security and ease of inclusion.
>
>
> Check this out - I'm an English Wikiversity bureaucrat, and I haven't
> a clue about how any of this works or could/should be managed! In my
> opinion, in order to most productively conduct this conversation, we
> need to think of the people on the projects this will impact - by
> asking things like the following:
>
> *Is an "evil" java resource going to be easily spotted by a project
> sysop/bureaucrat? (How do you spot an "evil" or potentially evil
> resource?)
> *How would java resources be added to a project? The same as - or
> similar to - a file? Or simply through adding code into a page?
> (and consequently)
> *How much patrolling will this require?
>
> I'd of course be incredibly excited to have engaging learning
> materials added to Wikiversity, as well as applications for all our
> projects. I'm just trying here to imagine how we would deal with this
> "in the trenches", so to speak.
>
> Please pardon my war-like language here - must be a hangover from the
> [[w:Armistice]] weekend :-)
>
> Cormac
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Geohack

body:
On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 09:52:09PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> On 11/13/06, Jens Frank <jf at mormo.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 09:27:20AM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> > >
> > > As it is tradition for temporary fixes, this one seems to have become
> > > permanent ;-) with ~640000 hits in October, making up >8% of
> > > toolserver traffic.
> > >
> > Could you please change the logo of that page? I guess it's not really
> > necessary to use a 1MB big image on a page frequented that often.
>
>  Done.
>
> About my original question...?

geohack is not an extension, but a standalone tool. It does not
integrate at all into MediaWiki, but does everything on its own. Thus,
it ignores all user settings for example. No matter which skin a user
uses, he'll get pseudo-monobook from geohack.

geohack is full of hardcodes, and has no support for
internationalization.

I don't think it can be easily activated right now.

Regards,

	jens


from_name: Jacky PB

body:
Hello GerardM,

Accusing Bogdan of trolling is utter nonsense.
And, to cite you, I've had my fill with this nonsense
too often.

As to your "arguments":

Of course, the Soviet Union managed to create an ISO
code for Moldovan. Still, the language is regulated by
the Moldovan Academy, which states that standard
Moldovan is identical with standard Romanian.

Don't invent your nice world full of endangered
minorities. Moldovans are not a minority in Moldova,
nor intend to unite with "Imperialist Romania". So,
the Moldovan Academy is doing its job without external
pressure.

Dpotop

--- Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> For your information.
> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=mol
> shows quite clearly
> that under both ISO-639-1/2/3 there is a code for
> Moldavian. To
> complicate this
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=mol
>
> does nor agree with this sentiment. So nobody gets
> it right, not even
> the organisation that maintains ISO-639-3.
>
> We have had our fill with this nonsense too often.
> Mark is correct where
> he says that the language is not the country. The
> Dutch language is just
> one example where the name does not imply that
> everyone who speaks Dutch
> as his or her mother tongue is Dutch. Bogdan your
> argument does not
> wash. When you mention trolling, I wonder when you
> looked last in a
> mirror. Anyway the best you can do is ignore. That
> may be kinda hard but
> consider, if this project stinks, anyone
> knowledgeable will be able to
> sniff it out personally. Then again, roses grow best
> on dung.
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> Bogdan Giusca wrote:
> > Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 12:00:31 AM, Mark
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Standard language of PMR is written in Cyrillic.
> >>
> >
> >
> >> Yes, it is a "separatist region", but that does
> not cancel the fact
> >> that it is taught in schools there.
> >>
> >
> > Yes, it has been discussed this before: it's not
> standard Moldovan,
> > as used by the government of Moldova. So why is it
> at the mo subdomain?
> > Shouldn't it be at mo-cyr.wikipedia.org ?
> >
> > I think that's the main point of disagreement and
> both Moldovans and
> > Romanians disagree with the current state.
> >
> > Anyway, Mark, what do you want to do with this
> encyclopedia? I don't
> > that in the last six months it got *any* new
> original content, despite
> > the thousands of trolling edits by numerous
> sock-puppets of Romanian,
> > Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, American and possibly
> Georgian origin.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Anthony

body:
On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> > Adding my own $0.02 here, this is indeed a bad idea for security issues
> > alone.  I completely agree here with Anthony's sentiments as Java has
> > some very significant security holes that would open up some incredible
> > liability and other problems if used on Wikimedia sites.  The very
> > thought of allowing anonymous users to post Java source code that would
> > be served up through Wikimedia servers..... I can't think of a worse
> > possible problem.  It makes all of the issues with hacking the front
> > page of Wikimedia projects seem very tame and mild by comparison.
>
> We're talking about applets, wich have a specific sandbox security
> model. Let's not discuss on the basis of FUD, please.
>
I know a pretty good deal about java's basic sandbox security model.
I'm pretty rusty, haven't written anything in java in a couple years,
but the basic concept of the security model probably hasn't changed
that much.

There are two issues here.  The first is that the sandbox security
model is invariably broken from time to time.  The second is that, in
default browser implementation, the security model relies entirely on
the fact that applets which come from a server were written by an
administrator of that server.

That said, I probably wasn't open-minded enough about this.  Maybe
there's a way to solve problem #2 (and problem #1 will get better over
time).  Hosting the applets on a completely separate webserver?
Probably not good enough, but it might be something to look into.
Providing a static wrapper applet which lowers its security privileges
and then embeds the untrusted class?  More likely to succeed, but
harder to implement.

Just turning on the ability to upload applets would be a really really
bad idea.  But something a little less than that could possibly work.

Anthony


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject:
[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do
	we serve?

body:
Is it 90%?  I haven't seen anyone actually define what
the problem is on foundation-l at least.  Is it images
with no info, or false info?   Or is just that the new
users aren't using Commons category system unrelated
to copyright?  I tried to read the Commons-l archive
to catch up, but I am still unclear on what scope of
the problem is.  Does anyone actually have numbers?

Without really knowing the situation, I would say that
I believe all communities struggle to keep up on these
things.  Everyone has backlogs they are working
through and these things happen in cycles.  One month
you make great progress, another month things are
overwhelming and ground is lost.  Perhaps threatening
drastic action is a good way to draw attention and
hopefully solutions when the situation gets
particularly bad.  However I think it would really be
useful to talk about the real numbers in this
situation. How much worse is it than what others are
dealing with?

Birgitte SB

--- Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:

> Or, the es.wp users are all not aware of the
> restrictions on what is
> acceptable. Your earlier post appeared to support
> the es.wp position.
> This is a problem that should be handled at the
> source, not creating
> better tools to fix what should not be happening in
> the first place.
> If, say, 90% of the material being uploaded is
> against the grain, why
> should we not try to fix the problem at the source?
> We are clearly
> not doing a good enough job explaning what is okay
> and what is not if
> this kind of situation has evolved.
>
> On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 14/11/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Commons exists to be a repository for free
> culture *and* to serve as
> > > an inter-wiki storage medium for *free* media.
> it is not a place to
> > > dump stuff, nor is it a place which exists
> independently of other
> > > wikis.
> > > Copyright violations are not a minor or trivial
> problem.  They are a
> > > serious problem, for which we are obligated to
> act when they are
> > > properly brought to our attention.  This is all
> nothing new.
> > > If there are Wikimedians who are advocating
> housing copyrighted media
> > > in Commons, speak up now, because we need to get
> clear on why that is
> > > not cool immediately.
> >
> >
> > There isn't anyone advocating that; this
> discussion started with a
> > Commons admin threatening to block all es:wp users
> from Commons to
> > stop copyvios from es:wp, because the Commons
> admins can't keep up,
> > evidently because their admin process is strict
> enough that pretty
> > much no-one even bothers trying.
> >
> >
> > - d.
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Brad Patrick
> General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> bradp.wmf at gmail.com
> 727-231-0101
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Commons-l] Uploading files beyond the size limit

body:
Those who have a need to  upload files beyond the current size limit
may now contact me by e-mail to do so. I have set up an FTP server
where these files can be uploaded, and will transfer them manually to
the Wikimedia servers using my shell account. However, I'm currently
only handing out the FTP access data on request.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 11/14/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Even ignoring the sandbox breakout issues, the halting problem
> ultimately means that we can not determine what arbitrary code will
> do... The possibilities for vandalism are endless..  Imagine a little
> animation of an atom turns into dancing penises for ten minutes on
> alternate tuesdays.

Work with people and resources you can trust and, in cases where such
trust cannot be established, at least have a process in place for open
source code review (which may take a while, but it's better than
denying a submission altogether). Even with the best security, there
may be the occasional penis hokey pokey -- just like even the biggest
software companies occasionally end up shipping products that have
been tainted by disgruntled engineers.

We allow any sysop to edit the site JavaScript. What is more, many
ordinary users copy & paste JavaScript code they have not looked at
from other users. I'm not aware of any major exploit that has ever
resulted from this. On the other hand, editable user JavaScript has
enabled rapid innovation in client-side scripting. I'm confident that
we will be able to come up with a security approach for Java applets
that works just as well.

> All of this is ignoring the amazing accessibility problems of Java.
> Not only will all of this be totally inaccessible to people on low
> tech devices and the visually impaired, but a huge amount of our
> viewers just don't have java installed (I posted numbers on this
> previously).

Accessibility does not mean making everyone equally disadvantaged. We
do not discourage images because some people cannot see them. Nor
should we deny interactive learning resources to those who have
computers capable of running them in order to accommodate people who
do not. Certainly, if we allow applets, some people will propose using
them in situations where it does not make sense or only offers
marginal advantages over more commonly usable formats such as GIF
animations. These applets should then either be eliminated or
complemented with alternative resources. That is a matter of policy.

The installation basis of JREs is of secondary importance. Most people
do not have Ogg Vorbis players installed on their systems either, yet
we use Ogg Vorbis as our primary audio format. What matters is
identifying and establishing a free software solution for interactive
content in Wikimedia sites, and providing generally understandable
instructions for its use. There are large repositories of Java applets
that can be used in an instructional context, e.g.:

http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/users/Murphy/JavaOverview/default.html
http://www.arcytech.org/java/
http://www.cs.brown.edu/exploratories/freeSoftware/catalogs/repositoryApplets.html

Many of these are free software, or their authors might be persuaded
to release them as such. We should find a way to make use of these
resources, rather than hiding under a false security blanket. For a
project like Wikiversity, finding a solution to this problem is not
optional -- it is necessary. This is an example where
Wikipedia-centric thinking must not dominate the decision-making
process in Wikimedia.

A community review process, where open source applets can be nominated
for inclusion in Wikimedia, or particular resources / applet authors
can be community-certified as trustworthy, with the final step being
implemented by a sysop or bureaucrat, strikes me as a reasonable
compromise between security and ease of inclusion.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 11/14/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> I definitely don't think anything whatsoever should be available to
> non-sysops at all unless uploaded by a sysop, no matter how large the
> warning message.  People are *way* too used to ignoring warning
> messages.

I was talking about a scenario where you could upload an applet class
file, but where Wikimedia would not embed it in a runnable form. You
would have to explicitly download and run such an applet (using the
appletviewer application or by embedding it into a webpage). I think
under such a setting, an applet is unlikely to do much harm (not to
mention that it would not be run from any Wikimedia domain), since the
users who are the most likely to do something stupid are the least
likely to be able to figure out how to run the thing in the first
place.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 11/14/06, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> A JavaScript "click to load" link would be
> necessary for usability.

That makes perfect sense -- most people don't like surprises on webpages.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
On 11/13/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Brion. Specifically, could we require that new registered
> users must have a confirmed email address before uploading? With talk
> page email notifications as default setting.

I oppose this on Commons, for the reasons I have given in this thread
when this was previously brought up:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-June/044555.html
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of {{fact}}, redux

body:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
> Yeah, I hate that. Why not just use {{unsourced}}, it is just a good a
> warning (better, even), and not at all as annoying.

How about we give a class to template:fact so that people could add

#cite-request  {
   display: none;
}

to their skin's CSS and make them vanish, if they're sufficiently
annoyed by them? That way everyone's preferences can coexist.

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from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] AntiSpoof issues

references:
<ej7f1l$9l7$1@sea.gmane.org> <4557C162.3060807@tonal.clara.co.uk>
	<ej8rfq$vrt$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On Mon, Nov 13, 2006 at 03:15:01PM +1100, Tim Starling wrote:
> Generally speaking, you can't tell whether a given pair of names is an
> attempted spoof just by comparing the strings. You need to know the
> motivation of the person who created it.

I think there's a function for that in the Python 2.6 libraries...

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

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fiction and Wikia

body:
On 13/11/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Seems to me the natural solution is to start up a Wikimedia project
> for free information on fictional universes.

Ficipedia?

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


body:
roc wrote:
> By "sexual harassment", THD was trying to explain the online
> harassment/stalking/solicitation accident in which a female user at
> Chinese Wikipedia was threaten to be raped. It does not mean the kind
> of sexual harassment in a working environment. In addition to THD's
> description, the victim's real life name was used in the threat; this
> name has never been disclosed by the victim on Wikipedia.
>
> We respect the freedom of speech and other civil rights, but we are
> not obligated to provide a place for any speech or act, especially
> when such an act seriously violates other people's civil rights or
> safety. I totally agree with Gregory that we protect the
> visitor/user's privacy because of our high ethical values and the
> furthering of interests of both the WMF and the public. We are not
> going to protect everyone's privacy at all times, especially when it
> is *necessary* to protect our values or interests or safety. Indeed,
> in Wikipedia's privacy policy
> (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy, link found at
> bottom of every page on Wikipedia), there are several circumstances
> that allow the release of IP information:
> 1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from
> law enforcement.
> ...
> 6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
> safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.
>
> I believe that tolerating such a personal violence threat (using the
> word "rape" and the victim's undisclosed real-life name) would be a
> neglect to the safety of our users and the health of our community,
> which is essential to Wikimedia's success and missions.
>
> Regarding policies and procedures, I think that WMF should either
> dictate privacy policies of all its projects or give authorizations to
> the community/people it trusts, as long as it conforms with the best
> interests of WMF, the project, and the public.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy

  I believe that the
> privacy policy of Chinese Wikipedia is governed by the WMF. In this
> privacy policy, it is stated that "personally identifiable data...may
> be released by...users with CheckUser access", does it mean that
> checkusers/stewards are authorized to release IP information of a
> registered user without seeking approval for each case from the Board
> or Executive?

They should not... except that it is little practical. Imagine that a
checkuser checks the ip data of a vandal, then blocks the whole ip range
in order to block the person. Or makes correlation with a vandal acting
under ip... then, it is pretty easy to "guess" what the ip or ip range
for the person is. In such case, release will occur somehow. Many checks
done to protect the project itself (pure vandalism, sockpuppetry) will
often reveal the ip.

However, if the check is done for investigation reasons (request by the
police, by a government etc...), rather than to immediately protect the
site from a raw attack, yeah, it would be very shocking that a checkuser
reveals the information. To that date, I do not think it ever occured.

In this case, if a request was made to find out the ip of the user who
issued the threats, I think the request should be made to the
board/executive. But *mostly*, the request should be done either by a
very trusted user, or more likely by a group of trusted editors. If a
totally unknown person mentions threats have been issued in a language
we can not understand, and request to know the ip of another editor, I'd
say the request should not be fullfilled.

Ant

> Best regards,
>
> roc
> --
>
> 2006/11/13, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com>:
>
>>see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
>>
>>"6 Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
>>safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public."
>>
>>plese help!
>>
>>2006/11/11, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>:
>>
>>>On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is
>>>>capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily
>>>>jump to conclusions.
>>>
>>>Yes. One question is whether we want every language and project
>>>community to develop its own policy on these matters, or whether this
>>>is an area where it makes sense to have a single policy that is
>>>localized. This goes for checkuser and oversight as well. Perhaps an
>>>in-between solution makes sense, where the WMF requires that local
>>>policies identify and propose a group that consists of the most
>>>trusted users before granting these privileges on a language/project
>>>level.
>>>
>>>Perhaps it should also be a requirement that users who have the
>>>technical permission to use these tools disclose their identity to the
>>>WMF, so we have someone to deal with in case of abuse.
>>>--
>>>Peace & Love,
>>>Erik
>>>
>>>Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>>>
>>>DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
>>>in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
>>>position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/
>>My blog: http://talk.blogbus.com
>>CNBlog: http://blog.cnblog.org/weblog.html
>>Social Brain: http://www.socialbrain.org/default.asp
>>cnbloggercon: http://www.cnbloggercon.org/
>>
>>[[zh:User:Shizhao]]
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>


from_name: Brad Patrick

body:
Commons exists to be a repository for free culture *and* to serve as
an inter-wiki storage medium for *free* media.  it is not a place to
dump stuff, nor is it a place which exists independently of other
wikis.

Copyright violations are not a minor or trivial problem.  They are a
serious problem, for which we are obligated to act when they are
properly brought to our attention.  This is all nothing new.

If there are Wikimedians who are advocating housing copyrighted media
in Commons, speak up now, because we need to get clear on why that is
not cool immediately.

-BradP

On 11/14/06, Jan Kulveit <jk-wikifound at ks.cz> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 10:30:13AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> ...
> > This discussion appears to demonstrate Commons simply isn't making
> > admins through its own processes anywhere near fast enough and its
> > processes need radical revision.
> >
> ...
>
> for me,  this disscussion again clearly demonstrates the principal
> problem that not  everybody understands the mission of Commons in
> the same way.
> There are basically two main alternatives
>
> A. Commons as free media library. In a way, free counterpart to
> stock media agencies and the like. Such libraries have much added value
> compared to the "raw material" - description, tagging, categories, some
> copyright inspection, possibly some quality checks.
>
> In this case, Commons are viable as an independent project, which may
> attract it's own community. Helping to build and improve such library
> may be interesting.
>
> B. Commons as a Wikimedia-wide file storage facility. Main requirement
> on storage is security (so a file doesn't suddenly disappear) and
> maybe ease of access (so any wikimedian can upload a file without much
> knowledge of commons).
> The "sweet part" is, the file storage is still expected to have some
> functions demanding expensive human resources: 1. copyright inspection.
>
> In this case, IMO Commons are not viable as independent project.
> I can hardly imagine people who would be interested in doing
> copyright inspection of what would be, in quality terms, mostly pile
> of poorly described rubbish, dumped from Wikipedias in high speed.
>
> As in this alternative commons are IMO not self-sustainable as a
> community, Commons tasks would have to be somehow adopted as another
> janitorial task by other Wikimedia projects (those with a mission
> which is able to attract people).
>
> Jan Kulveit [[User:Wikimol]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
A press release announces things after they occurred. Not before.

I would say that when people work on something great, it is cool to
announce a big milestone. But of course, if no one is interested, there
will be no press release.

Ant

Cary Bass wrote:
> Oh my goodness... I can just see it... people uploading images just to have
> the 1000000th.  One out of two images will be copyrighted...
>
> Oh, the inhumanity!
>
> /me is very afraid of a press release announcing this :)
>
> Cary Bass
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
>>[mailto:commons-l-bounces at wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Anthere
>>Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 7:01 PM
>>To: commons-l at wikimedia.org
>>Subject: [Commons-l] press release
>>
>>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I may just fall entirely out of the spot, but... is there a group of
>>people working on a press release for the 1000000 of commons ?
>>
>>I looked around a bit and found only this
>>*http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim?dia_France/Communique_sur_le
>>_million_de_Commons
>>(in french, from the french association)
>>*http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/Construct
>>ionNotes
>>(this gorgious new logo)
>>
>>When is thd 1M expected ?
>>
>>ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Commons-l mailing list
>>Commons-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On Nov 14, 2006, at 7:22 AM, geni wrote:

>
> Gender equality? I wasn't aware that we had people disscriminateing
> against people on the basis of their sex.

Inequality can exist without active discrimination - that's what
systemic bias is.

-Phil


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Sun Microsystems will make all the Java code they own available under the GPL:

and on wikitech-l Erik wrote:

> A community review process, where open source applets can be nominated
> for inclusion in Wikimedia, or particular resources / applet authors
> can be community-certified as trustworthy, with the final step being
> implemented by a sysop or bureaucrat, strikes me as a reasonable
> compromise between security and ease of inclusion.

Check this out - I'm an English Wikiversity bureaucrat, and I haven't
a clue about how any of this works or could/should be managed! In my
opinion, in order to most productively conduct this conversation, we
need to think of the people on the projects this will impact - by
asking things like the following:

*Is an "evil" java resource going to be easily spotted by a project
sysop/bureaucrat? (How do you spot an "evil" or potentially evil
resource?)
*How would java resources be added to a project? The same as - or
similar to - a file? Or simply through adding code into a page?
(and consequently)
*How much patrolling will this require?

I'd of course be incredibly excited to have engaging learning
materials added to Wikiversity, as well as applications for all our
projects. I'm just trying here to imagine how we would deal with this
"in the trenches", so to speak.

Please pardon my war-like language here - must be a hangover from the
[[w:Armistice]] weekend :-)

Cormac


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 14/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> (...and perhaps we can make the pertinent point, without whining too
> much, which led some people to consider this option: overwhelming
> copyvios and underwhelming supply of labour.)

I recall that when en:wp was having problems with vandalism of the
Main Page featured article image, Commons admins were remarkably
difficult to find. So some asked "could we have an admin on en: made
an admin on Commons for this reason?" and got back "well, why don't
you make all Commons admins admins on en: first."

Some people in the Commons community seem to want it both ways. Is
Commons an entirely independent project or does it, as a service
project, need to open itself up to administration by people from other
projects to keep up with its actual original purpose?

This discussion appears to demonstrate Commons simply isn't making
admins through its own processes anywhere near fast enough and its
processes need radical revision.

- d.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikitech-l] status JMOL

body:
Hoi,
What is the status of JMOL ? The last I heard was that the code had to
be sanitised for a security reason if I recall correctly. Is it now in
principle available for use ?
Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: SJ

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
Hats off!  Rob Silvers, eat your heart out.  At least in this version
of the WMF logo, you can't see the asymmetry.

SJ

On 11/14/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > *http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
> > (this gorgious new logo)
>
> For once a great, useful and  imaginative derivative of the Wikimedia
> logo. As we say in French, chapeau ! (hat down?) to whoever had the
> idea.
>
> Delphine
> --
> ~notafish
> NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
> this address will probably get lost.
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Milos Rancic

body:
On 11/13/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You showed extremely high level of irresponsibility. As well as all
> > people from the community forgot to say me that you are a kid.
> > However, I see that it seems that you became mature now... And this is
> > good for you. Because your relevancy in talk with other people will
> > increase.
>
> Whether or not I am a "kid" is was and is completely irrelevant.
> Having a sense of humour is not limited to kids.

Oh, yes. You are joking again, so I shouldn't take for real all other
things which you wrote after that in you email.


body:
Or, the es.wp users are all not aware of the restrictions on what is
acceptable. Your earlier post appeared to support the es.wp position.
This is a problem that should be handled at the source, not creating
better tools to fix what should not be happening in the first place.
If, say, 90% of the material being uploaded is against the grain, why
should we not try to fix the problem at the source?  We are clearly
not doing a good enough job explaning what is okay and what is not if
this kind of situation has evolved.

On 11/14/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/11/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Commons exists to be a repository for free culture *and* to serve as
> > an inter-wiki storage medium for *free* media.  it is not a place to
> > dump stuff, nor is it a place which exists independently of other
> > wikis.
> > Copyright violations are not a minor or trivial problem.  They are a
> > serious problem, for which we are obligated to act when they are
> > properly brought to our attention.  This is all nothing new.
> > If there are Wikimedians who are advocating housing copyrighted media
> > in Commons, speak up now, because we need to get clear on why that is
> > not cool immediately.
>
>
> There isn't anyone advocating that; this discussion started with a
> Commons admin threatening to block all es:wp users from Commons to
> stop copyvios from es:wp, because the Commons admins can't keep up,
> evidently because their admin process is strict enough that pretty
> much no-one even bothers trying.
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101


from_name: Samuel Klein

subject: [Foundation-l] Anti-vandalism IRC channel for small projects

body:
That's great, thanks for the effort.

SJ
--

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006, Guillaume Paumier wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On 11/13/06, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I have been willing for quite a long time now to create an anti-vandalism
>> channel on IRC dedicated to projets with a small community and with few
>> edits (usually called "small projects"). <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pgkbot>
>
>
> Thanks to Tangotango's great work, there is now a working channel monitoring
> 20 small wikis. People willing to help can join us in #wikimedia-swmt on
> freenode
>
> --
> Guillaume Paumier
> Disciplus Simplex
> http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 11/14/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Adding my own $0.02 here, this is indeed a bad idea for security issues
> alone.  I completely agree here with Anthony's sentiments as Java has
> some very significant security holes that would open up some incredible
> liability and other problems if used on Wikimedia sites.  The very
> thought of allowing anonymous users to post Java source code that would
> be served up through Wikimedia servers..... I can't think of a worse
> possible problem.  It makes all of the issues with hacking the front
> page of Wikimedia projects seem very tame and mild by comparison.

We're talking about applets, wich have a specific sandbox security
model. Let's not discuss on the basis of FUD, please.

--
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


from_name: Erica Flynn

body:
In my opinion there are 2 basic problems with images:
1. Image copyright and various Wikimedia policies are very complicated. Most
people have no understanding of them or don't even know they exist.
2. (A lesser problem), people who just upload pictures of themselves for the
heck of it, with or without malicious intent. This includes vandals and
people who want a free webhost.

I'm an admin on en:wp and have done a fair share of image cleanup. But even
after reading the image policy pages multiple times, I still feel like I
only have maybe a 40% grasp on all the concepts. I don't think we can or
should make image policy "simpler" (for legal or whatever other
reasons), and I don't have any quick answers. We just have to remain
vigilant and fix the problems as they arise. That said, if anyone has ideas
I'm all ears. The image delete backlogs are always huge.

Erica
User:Fang Aili on various Wikimedia

On 11/14/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Is it 90%?  I haven't seen anyone actually define what
> the problem is on foundation-l at least.  Is it images
> with no info, or false info?   Or is just that the new
> users aren't using Commons category system unrelated
> to copyright?  I tried to read the Commons-l archive
> to catch up, but I am still unclear on what scope of
> the problem is.  Does anyone actually have numbers?
>
> Without really knowing the situation, I would say that
> I believe all communities struggle to keep up on these
> things.  Everyone has backlogs they are working
> through and these things happen in cycles.  One month
> you make great progress, another month things are
> overwhelming and ground is lost.  Perhaps threatening
> drastic action is a good way to draw attention and
> hopefully solutions when the situation gets
> particularly bad.  However I think it would really be
> useful to talk about the real numbers in this
> situation. How much worse is it than what others are
> dealing with?
>
> Birgitte SB
>


body:
On 11/14/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> If there are Wikimedians who are advocating housing copyrighted media
> in Commons, speak up now, because we need to get clear on why that is
> not cool immediately.
>
Of course we advocate housing copyrighted media in commons.  Commons
is not limited to public domain material.

Anthony


from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [Foundation-l] Requests for new languages/cg is a big mess

body:
Hello

I have protected this page on meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Requests_for_new_languages/cg

It is a 91-Kb-long big mess where people are trolling and arguing. There are
lots of sockpuppets, there are people striking votes, there are sysop trying
to clean the mess and there are people messing it again.

I think it is time now for the relevant people (people from the language
subcommitee ?) to take a look at this, ask some checkusers, and clear up the
thing.

--
Guillaume Paumier
Disciplus Simplex
http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.


from_name: Florian Straub

body:
"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> wrote On  Tuesday, November 14, 2006 1:24
AM
> Florian Straub wrote:
>>> Brion Vibber wrote:
>>>> Brianna Laugher wrote:
>>>>> On 12/11/06, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
>>>>>> Awesome! Is there any chance to activate it directly for new
>>>>>> registrations
>>>>>> on commons or do they people have to confirm their adresses first?
>>>>> Thanks, Brion. Specifically, could we require that new registered
>>>>> users must have a confirmed email address before uploading? With talk
>>>>> page email notifications as default setting.
>>>> That's a complete about-face from Wikimedia's traditional policy of
>>>> allowing anonymous contributions, so before I set that up I'd need to
>>>> know this is acceptable to Wikimedia.
>>> (I should clarify that I think it's a good idea, personally. But I would
>>> not feel comfortable implementing that policy without both community
>>> agreement and approval from upstairs for the ground rules changing
>>> dramatically.)
>>
>> I've just talked to Elian. She said that if it was a consensus between
>> the
>> commons people it would be ok.
>
> No disrespect to Elian, but since when does she set Wikimedia-wide
> policy singlehandedly?

She wasn't setting wikimedia-wide policies, she just mentioned her opinion..
But it's at least a small tendency. What about casting a vote for this, then
we'll see what the rest of us thinks.

Best regards,

Flo


body:
On 14/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

> Who ever proposed Commons as an "entirely independent project"? All of
> our admins come from other Wikimedia projects. You are the only one I
> ever see say this.

I'm describing the apparent attitude of many Commons habitues.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Foundation logo : pain and suffering

body:
This has caused me pain and suffering for some time, as some of you
know, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in public since the
dawn of logotime: The WMF logo is asymmetric.  most notably the green
region, but also the blue (varying width, inner and outer rings not
quite parallel).   As long as the newly revisited commons logo is
being considered

Can this be fixed?  Should it be?  Does this asymmetry cause just
enough subliminal disjuncture that it sticks in peoples mind?  ...and
causes them to do crazy things?  ...and causes them to run out and
snap free-content photos of celebrities?

==SJ


body:
Could we double the size limit?  That would be most helpful for some
rich media files.

SJ

On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Those who have a need to  upload files beyond the current size limit
> may now contact me by e-mail to do so. I have set up an FTP server
> where these files can be uploaded, and will transfer them manually to
> the Wikimedia servers using my shell account. However, I'm currently
> only handing out the FTP access data on request.
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>

--
++SJ


from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Bands from Brazil - Why?

body:
On 14/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/11/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
>
> > David, you're generalizing. Say "some Commons admins" if you wish, but
> > don't paint everyone with the same brush.
>
>
> And the dissenting voices were ...

Geez. WarX knows as well as anyone that were he to start
indiscriminately blocking any type of user, we would come down on him
like a ton of bricks. That is so obvious that it leads me to believe
he must be humorously exaggerating in order to demonstrate the
seriousness of the problem.

Can't believe that needed spelling out.

> The whole point is to be a service project. All wikis that don't allow
> non-free images were ultimately supposed to use Commons.
>
> If you're saying Commons really can't handle that, then the thing
> that's seriously wrong is at the Commons end.

Well, duh. But where do Commons users and admins come from? 99.99% of
them come from the Wikimedia community. Failure of Commons is then a
failure of Wikimedia as a whole. Yes, we want everyone to ultimately
be using Commons only, but we also need their help to get to that
point. If a local wiki turns off local uploads, the problems that they
have with new uploaders will just be transferred to Commons, but to
the local wiki it seems "all solved". We just need their help in
transferring some of their workers along with their uploaders.

Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


body:
On 13/11/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Brianna Laugher wrote:
> >> On 12/11/06, Florian Straub <flominator at gmx.net> wrote:
> >>> Awesome! Is there any chance to activate it directly for new
> >>> registrations
> >>> on commons or do they people have to confirm their adresses first?
> >>
> >> Thanks, Brion. Specifically, could we require that new registered
> >> users must have a confirmed email address before uploading? With talk
> >> page email notifications as default setting.
> >
> > That's a complete about-face from Wikimedia's traditional policy of
> > allowing anonymous contributions, so before I set that up I'd need to
> > know this is acceptable to Wikimedia.
>
> (I should clarify that I think it's a good idea, personally. But I would
> not feel comfortable implementing that policy without both community
> agreement and approval from upstairs for the ground rules changing
> dramatically.)

Of course, I understand. I am not totally sold on it myself, but it
has been floated as an idea in the past. Good to know that it is
technically feasible if there is community support. There would be a
poll, foundation-l announcement,  a long time would pass, etc.

Thanks,

Brianna
user:pfctdayelise


body:
On 11/13/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Monday, November 13, 2006, 1:34:19 PM, Milos wrote:
>
> > Please, look at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_projects_are_not_the_place_for_national_constitution
>
> Yep. It seems we're going to have the same endless talks again. :-)

As I said, document doesn't intend to solve all questions. Moldovan
may not pass some other recommendations (or, as I think, mo-cyr is a
good idea with mo as a portal).

Document intends to prevent including Wikimedia in disputable
political processes of building new nations. Just that. In short:
don't use Wikipedia for that, build it somewhere else and if you are
relevant enough, then come here.

Also, Ethnologue and other academic institutions are not able to be up
to date (they even didn't solve well situation in former
Serbo-Croatian area; even Wikipedia article [[en:South Slavic
languages]] solved it much better even it is far of perfect). And
Google is not so relevant. And we should allow to small lagnuages to
have their own Wikipedia.

BTW, why do we have Siberian Wikipedia? According to what rule
Siberian Wikipedia passed and Zlatiborian is not? Because Wikimedia
Serbia exists and Wikimedia Russia doesn't?

Just in Serbia, there are dialects which may pass usual definitions or
which may not pass just because of the number of people who opposite
the idea. And my document may help in saying "no". For example, Vlach
language Wikipedia would not pass rules (want-to-be standard;
with(out) significant differences toward Romanian standard; nation not
well constituted). But, some dialect Wikipedia based on southern
Romanian dialects would pass (dialect; with significant differences;
not nation-based language). And this is only about Serbia. I am sure
that only in Europe there are a lot of such examples.

So, we need a clear political statement which say: yes, make Wikipedia
in your dialect, but don't involve Wikip/media in your local politics.


body:
On 11/14/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you have some sort of inability to comprehend social cues? Where
> did I indicate that any of my most recent e-mails were intended to be
> humourous?
>
> On the other hand, every e-mail about Zlatiborian was full of things
> that should've made it fairly obvious.
>
> Maybe in your world only children laugh, but here everybody does.

Mark, you confused not only me, but a lot of other people. As well as
you didn't say that you are joking. As well as you are not saying that
you are joking now.


from_name: mingwangx

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin, 14 November, 2006

body:
*Wikimania 2007 Team Bulletin*

14 November, 2006
  *Call for Help*

   - school promotion tour and volunteer recruitment

   - translation

   - someone who is conversant with PayPal

  According to the November 8th meeting of Wikimania 2007 Taipei Team and
discussion after meeting, the following matters should be publicly
announced, and we the Team is looking for help or opinion about these
matters:

   1. The Team expresses gratitude to Association of Digital Culture of
   Taiwan(ADCT, ??????) for thier participation on Wikimania 2007 preparation
   work.
   2. The Team will investigate the approximate amount of foreign
   attendees before the end of this year.
   3. The Team is considering a separate advance register process for
   attendees from countries or areas where citizens may need further assistance
   in applying for the visa or entry permit to Taiwan.
   4. Logo Contest is in preparation.
   5. The program committee is going to start to meet on IRC. Please
   notice correlative information.
   6. The website division need someone who is conversant with PayPal.
   Please contact
Littlebtc<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Littlebtc>
   .
   7. Hacking Days is under arrangement. If you have any suggestion,
   please contact b6s
<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:B6s>or go to the talk
page of Hacking Day (
   http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hacking_Days).

If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave them at...

   - http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Team_Bulletin/20061114
   - Wikimania-l mailing
list<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l>

Everyone is welcome to reproduce and distribute this bulletin to their
websites, mailing lists, BBS, blogs, and so on, but please kindly include the
Bulletin's original
location<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Team_Bulletin/20061114>on
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from_name: Steve Sanbeg

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Labeled Section Transclusion (need feedback
	oncurrentstatus!)

body:
"Nick Jenkins" <nickpj at gmail.com> wrote in
message news:NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKIEHEJEAA.nickpj at gmail.com...
> > Over the past weeks and months, User:Sanbeg has quietly and modestly put
a lot of work into "Labeled Section
> > Transclusion" as an extension feature to the Wikimedia Software. This
includes code for the extension, test cases, and a
> > new page at the Mediawiki software website describing his extension,
which may be found here:
> >
> > [... snip ...]
> >
> > So what we really need now is some developer feedback!
> >
> > Dovi
>
> I've just had a very quick look at it, and would only make 3 very minor
comments:
>
> Probably add a closing "?>" to the end of the file.
>
> Line 156: "if (0){" : unreachable code, maybe delete or comment out.
>
> Fatal error:  Call to a member function getPrefixedText() on a
non-object in
> /var/www/hosts/mediawiki/extensions/lst/lst.php on line
231

> Example malformed wiki text input which causes this:
> -------------
> {{#lstx:</
> includeonly>
> {|}}
> -------------
>
> All the best,
> Nick.

Thanks for finding those; I've uploaded a new version that fixes those.

Hopefully we can get this out, so we can start using it.

Thanks again
  -Steve


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/13/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not really. Particaly when you consider it is likely that there are a
> number of wikipedians who would probably editify with a gender outside
> the normal two (Just wait untill some of our more ah sexualy illiberal
> critics notice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Furry_Wikipedians)
>
> I don't care how old you are. I don't care what sex you are. I don't
> care what skin shade you are. I don't care what sexual orientation you
> are. I don't care about your marital status.
>
> I will care about the langue you speak and sometimes which country you
> are in when dealing with copyright issues.

You can say that all you want (and I feel the same), but if you are
denying that gender is a factor in wikipedia, you're deluding
yourself.

> > Wikipedia is clearly a place where men feels more comfortable than
> > women and that is something that is a BAD thing.
>
> Why?

Are you asking why wikipedia is a place where men are more
comfortable, if men infact are more comfortable or why it's a bad
thing? Sometimes you really need to reply with more than one word, it
gets hard to understand.

If you are asking why it's a bad thing, here is a few suggestions:
because they comprise more than half of the worlds population, because
we need as many diverse views as possible, because having an
enviroment where a huge group of people are severly underrepresantated
can be damaging to the encyclopedia, ... You can easily make up ten
more reasons for yourself, so take your pick.

You're so naive if you think this is irrelevant.

> > And a bunch of guys
> > trying to ignore the issue is just making it worse.
>
> Why?

Because it's stupid, and stupidity is bad. I don't understand why you
are so opposed to the idea that we should work towards a solid
representation of both genders on wikipedia. Since when is gender
equality a bad thing?

Do you deny that we have a problem with this? Or did the 1:39 ratio
not convince you?

--Oskar


from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-11-14

body:
On 11/14/06, Rotem Liss <rotemliss_net at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> brion at pobox.com wrote:
> >    1 previously failing test(s) now PASSING! :)
> >    1 new PASSING test(s) :)
> >    1 previously FAILING test(s) removed O_o
> >    1 new FAILING test(s) :(
> >
>
> Which tests?

Comparing to yesterday's run, the following two fails are gone:

Running test Fuzz testing: image with bogus manual thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!

The first was fixed, the second removed as dubious.  This one's new:

Running test TODO: Images with the "|" character in the comment... FAILED!

(It would be nice to have this automated, of course, but two devs who
can go and add that code to the file aren't in any position to whine
about that.  :P)


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] An observation

body:
On 11/14/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> You can say that all you want (and I feel the same), but if you are
> denying that gender is a factor in wikipedia, you're deluding
> yourself.
>

I haven't seen it as a factor.

> Are you asking why wikipedia is a place where men are more
> comfortable, if men infact are more comfortable or why it's a bad
> thing? Sometimes you really need to reply with more than one word, it
> gets hard to understand.
>
> If you are asking why it's a bad thing, here is a few suggestions:
> because they comprise more than half of the worlds population, because
> we need as many diverse views as possible, because having an
> enviroment where a huge group of people are severly underrepresantated
> can be damaging to the encyclopedia, ... You can easily make up ten
> more reasons for yourself, so take your pick.
>

I wasn't aware that there any female only views.

> You're so naive if you think this is irrelevant.

Should be fairly easy to test. Set up a double blind test to see if
you can tell if an an article was written by a man or a woman. I don't
thinkl you would be able to.

> Because it's stupid, and stupidity is bad. I don't understand why you
> are so opposed to the idea that we should work towards a solid
> representation of both genders on wikipedia. Since when is gender
> equality a bad thing?

Gender equality? I wasn't aware that we had people disscriminateing
against people on the basis of their sex.

--
geni


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
On 11/13/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> *http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
> (this gorgious new logo)
>
Doesn't that violate the copyright of the logo?

Anthony


from_name: Jan Kulveit

body:
Hi,

On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 10:30:13AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
...
> This discussion appears to demonstrate Commons simply isn't making
> admins through its own processes anywhere near fast enough and its
> processes need radical revision.
>
...

for me,  this disscussion again clearly demonstrates the principal
problem that not  everybody understands the mission of Commons in
the same way.
There are basically two main alternatives

A. Commons as free media library. In a way, free counterpart to
stock media agencies and the like. Such libraries have much added value
compared to the "raw material" - description, tagging, categories, some
copyright inspection, possibly some quality checks.

In this case, Commons are viable as an independent project, which may
attract it's own community. Helping to build and improve such library
may be interesting.

B. Commons as a Wikimedia-wide file storage facility. Main requirement
on storage is security (so a file doesn't suddenly disappear) and
maybe ease of access (so any wikimedian can upload a file without much
knowledge of commons).
The "sweet part" is, the file storage is still expected to have some
functions demanding expensive human resources: 1. copyright inspection.

In this case, IMO Commons are not viable as independent project.
I can hardly imagine people who would be interested in doing
copyright inspection of what would be, in quality terms, mostly pile
of poorly described rubbish, dumped from Wikipedias in high speed.

As in this alternative commons are IMO not self-sustainable as a
community, Commons tasks would have to be somehow adopted as another
janitorial task by other Wikimedia projects (those with a mission
which is able to attract people).

Jan Kulveit [[User:Wikimol]]


subject: [Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

body:
On 11/14/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> We've had an administrator's noticeboard for a while now; all you need
> to do is ask. I don't know who made that other comment.

It might be posible to ask but quicker and safer to copy the iiomage
to en and protect it.

> Ahh, but people from other projects want it both ways too: you want our
> images

Not really. If en.pedia stoped switching images over to commons and
copied the ones we use back to en.pedia we could walk away from you in
less than a  month.

> We've currently got ONE applicant.

And what are you doing about that? Try dropping the "200 edits
(uploads or texts) minimum and should be interested towards the
Wikimedia Commons community" requirement for admins from other
porjects.
--
geni


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
Is that a general trends in all languages wikipedias ? Or only english
wikipedia ?

Are other projects using semi-protection liberally as well ?

anthere

theProject wrote:
> I'm starting to become a bit concerned at the rate at which we're applying
> semi-protection to our articles. This morning I decided to punch in a whole
> bunch of country names into WP to see what would show up. As you can see,
> we're starting to see that padlock icon more and more frequently these days.
>
>
> Australia -- not protected
> Brazil -- not protected
> Canada -- sprotected
> China -- sprotected
> - People's Republic of China -- not protected
> - Republic of China -- sprotected
> France -- sprotected
> Germany -- sprotected
> Italy -- sprotected
> Japan -- sprotected
> Korea -- not protected
> - North Korea -- sprotected (to be fair, this was unprotected, then
> re-protected by me)
> - South Korea -- sprotected
> Mexico -- sprotected
> Russia -- not protected
> Spain -- sprotected
> United Kingdom -- not protected
> United States -- sprotected
>
> Now, this isn't completely unacceptable, but I think we can do a little
> better. What are the implications of holding back a bit more on the use of
> semi-protection (other than the obvious)? Could we do a bit more
> vandal-fighting work to make our encyclopaedia more open?
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Overuse of {{fact}}, redux

body:
Yeah, I hate that. Why not just use {{unsourced}}, it is just a good a
warning (better, even), and not at all as annoying.

On 11/13/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_faux_pas
>
> Highlighting specific examples is left as an exercise to the reader.
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Policy draft: Wikimedia projects are not ... STOP

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> No -- you were the only one confused after the first, oh, say, 5 e-mails.
>
> Perhaps you are incapable of understanding the finer points of humour.
>
> It was so obvious to _everyone but yourself_ that it was a joke.

Olllllla.

Freeze Mark.

Please put yourself on self-moderation for 24 hours to avoid me going to
the interface.

Thanks

Anthere


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Semi-protection

body:
On 14/11/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Is that a general trends in all languages wikipedias ? Or only english
> wikipedia ?
>
> Are other projects using semi-protection liberally as well ?

I believe .de has historically been very liberal with full protection;
I don't know how this has changed with sprotection. Gmaxwell (?) ran
some statistics on long-term-protection of pages on various projects a
while ago - if he (or whoever it was) is listening, any chance of an
update?

(As an aside, I wonder how much of this sprotection will fall by the
wayside as soon as we get some kind of stable versioning in, even if
it's just a five-minute "public update" lag...)

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


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Commons-l] press release

body:
On 11/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> *http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic/ConstructionNotes
> (this gorgious new logo)

For once a great, useful and  imaginative derivative of the Wikimedia
logo. As we say in French, chapeau ! (hat down?) to whoever had the
idea.

Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.