subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
You have a fundamental misunderstanding. We have in the past
sanctioned a user who called an obviously stupid user a moron. Truth
is no defense, footnotes don't help.

Fred

On Jan 11, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Rob Smith wrote:

> Fine; I'll discuss my behavior if asked.  It would therefore be
> only fair to
> discuss others behavior likewise.  That would lead done the path of me
> trashing the ArbCom process which (a) would be out of character (b)
> self-defeating.  Reexamining the whole case would discover numerous
> problems
> related to process, etc.  And as I told Cberlet probably 50,000
> times, I'm
> not gonna get into a game trashing & innuendo, despite being baited
> 50,000
> times.
>
> It is distinctly odd however, that I am probably the first user
> banned for
> personal attacks who provided footnotes & citations for his personal
> attacks.
>
> nobs


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Effects of fixed release version on a Wikipedia? (was
	Ads on Wikipedia?)

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 1/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I really really really want en: to be good enough to pull a DVD-ROM
>>edition from!
>>
>>
>
>Me too! I just worry it'll be used as an excuse for ever-more layers
>of needless hierarchy and bureacracy, and ever more attempts to make
>articles suitable for printing to dead trees instead of part of a
>dynamic web.
>
>

Imagine a DVD with a dozen or so Steigenthaler-type messups (quite
likely in almost a million articles).

The German DVD had problems because someone dumped articles about east
Germany from a copyrighted and biased book. They were in Wikipedia for
quite some time, and Directmedia was rather picky about which articles
to use. AFAIK, they had to throw some of the DVDs away (please correct
me if I'm wrong about that).

Wikimedia has just been sued by the family of a (deceased) German hacker
for publishing his real name (even though his name is well known to the
public). The court order, however, was send to Wikimedia Foundation, St.
Petersburg, Russian Federation ;-)

Whoever publishes an English Wikipedia DVD is likely to become target of
legal trouble, which will backfire on Wikipedia in some way. We should
undertake everything in our power to offer articles that are more
reliable than the random "current version". This means additional
controls, which might mean some kind of hierarchy/buerocracy, however mild.

Incidentially, I have recently added a feature to the software which
allows to filter Recent changes to show only changes of articles in some
categories (and their subcategories). It is currently turned off for
fear it might make the database servers explode under the additional
load, though.

Magnus


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Book: Producing Open Source Software

body:
On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>     http://www.producingoss.com/
>
> It's mostlly about how to run a *big* open project. Not so much about
> technical infrastructure, but about how to interact with people.
>
> Have a read. It'll give you a lot of good ideas we can apply to Wikipedia.
>
>
> - d.

1). don't expect people to read stuff that has a contents page more
than one screen long.

--
geni


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
Interesting that you're interested in revisiting this issue up until people
start discussing your behavior in particular.

On 1/11/06, Rob Smith <nobs03 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As noted, I plead guilty to certain things (like cutting & pasting a
> section
> from the Chip Berlet talk page onto my user page).  I don't see the point
> in
> revisiting everybody's sins in the whole affair, Chip Berlet and ArbCom
> included.
>


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Book: Producing Open Source Software

body:
geni wrote:
>On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

>>     http://www.producingoss.com/
>> It's mostlly about how to run a *big* open project. Not so much about
>> technical infrastructure, but about how to interact with people.
>> Have a read. It'll give you a lot of good ideas we can apply to Wikipedia.

>1). don't expect people to read stuff that has a contents page more
>than one screen long.

That could be why that subject line says "book". You know, those
things which are like a few hundred, er, screens, printed out on paper
and bound together at one edge.

- d.


body:
On 1/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >     http://www.producingoss.com/
> >
> > It's mostlly about how to run a *big* open project. Not so much about
> > technical infrastructure, but about how to interact with people.
> >
> > Have a read. It'll give you a lot of good ideas we can apply to Wikipedia.
> >
> >
> > - d.
>
> 1). don't expect people to read stuff that has a contents page more
> than one screen long.
>

ok more seriously

Avoid Private Discussions- someone needs to tell the board this.

Benevolent Dictators- This section misses out must be preparded to
spend the time required to do the job properly (currently at least 16
hours a day on the various wikimedia projects)

--
geni


body:
On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> >On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>     http://www.producingoss.com/
> >> It's mostlly about how to run a *big* open project. Not so much about
> >> technical infrastructure, but about how to interact with people.
> >> Have a read. It'll give you a lot of good ideas we can apply to Wikipedia.
>
> >1). don't expect people to read stuff that has a contents page more
> >than one screen long.
>
>
> That could be why that subject line says "book". You know, those
> things which are like a few hundred, er, screens, printed out on paper
> and bound together at one edge.
>
>
> - d.

Ah you would be the expert on dead tree technology we were looking for
on wikijuinor.

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In
discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia?
What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No,
some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they
know nothing about it."

So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics
authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.

Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now
have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts,
because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be
considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.

I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about
this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) -
this was actually an independent example from the same field.

Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally
don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more.
Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the
outside world?

(yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)

- d.


from_name: Jason Gazeley

subject: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks

body:
Is there any way to block IP's yet allow logged in users to edit from that
IP? My college's IP got blocked this morning due to Vandalism. I was just
about to revert some other vandalism at lunch when I got the blocked notice.

Checking the IP's edit history, a couple of the vandalism edits have still
not been reverted. The pages on "Proponent" and "United States Department
for Transportation" are still vandalised but being blocked I can not revert.

Thanks

Burwellian

_________________________________________________________________
Are you using the latest version of MSN Messenger? Download MSN Messenger
7.5 today! http://messenger.msn.co.uk


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 11 Jan 2006, at 14:57, David Gerard wrote:

> There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In
> discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia?
> What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No,
> some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they
> know nothing about it."
(snip)
> Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally
> don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more.
> Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the
> outside world?

There are other reasons to create non wikipedia wikis too.

There simply is no significant community in wikipedia for some
subjects, so progress tends to be slow. You get occasional random
anon IPs editing but two or three people cant cover an entire
field. An external site may (or may not of course) get more
contributors.

Encourage them to use a compatible license, and encourage them
to use commons for media.

Maybe just merge all their articles into WP once a month
until they come back...

Whats the field?

Justinc


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using of mediawiki engine

body:
On 10/01/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> You'll be looking at borrowing our parser, although I suspect you'll
> want to remove several things, including the cache (since it's a
> CMS)...

Rather than hacking into the raw code, it might be worth looking at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers - which lists
various approaches and attempts at doing basically what you're
after...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

body:
Justin Cormack wrote:

>There are other reasons to create non wikipedia wikis too.

Yes, but in this case it's essentially the same sort of thing as a
specialist area in Wikipedia - they're specifically not wanting to
bother because AFD is *officially* an ignorantocracy now.

>Encourage them to use a compatible license, and encourage them
>to use commons for media.

At least the first, certainly!

>Whats the field?

Doll collectors, as I said. Significant hobby economically, these
things go for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars ... see
http://www.denofangels.com/ and [[Super Dollfie]] (one of the most
popular examples).

You can argue that Wikipedia can live without them. And of course it
can. But having a (deserved IMO) reputation for stupidity making
people from specialist fields not even want to bother with Wikipedia
is surely NOT a good thing for us. At all.

- d.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Steward elections

body:
Here are the final results:

Ausir (100%)
Walter (100%)
Jon Harald S?by (100%)
Suisui (100%)
Asc?nder (100%)
Rdsmith4 (97,78%)
Romihaitza (97,67%)
villy (96,25%)
Paginazero (90%)

The other candidates didn't get 80% of support.

Seeing as the Wikimedia projects need new stewards ("and a lot of
'em!"), I'd be really happy to see the Board supporting all of the
mentioned candidates.

--
Best regards,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Steward elections


body:
Nobs01 wrote:

>Take from a user victimized by the concerted efforts of sockpuppet trolls
>given licence to run rampant throughout Wikipedia: Reputation is everything.

You were banned for personal attacks and placed on probation after
that for disruption:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others#Nobs01_banned_for_personal_attacks

Oddly enough, cases like yours are not what I was talking about.

- d.


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

body:
David's original point is a valid one and is an excellent example of the
fact that failing internal processes do affect the success of Wikipedia.
 AFD, RFA, the AC election, and the AC itself are examples of processes
that are not scaling well, and they are also examples of the way that a
changing editor and administrator base is affecting the quality of
processes throughout Wikipedia.  There's no one minding the store
anymore: Jimbo, Angela, and Anthere have minimal engagement with the
community itself, having instead chosen to look outward and emphasize
publicity and financial matters.  Recent policy initiatives, such as
the deletion of unsourced images and the restrictions on anonymous
creation of articles, have been driven by legal, financial, and public
relations concerns rather than anything that any contributors to the
project have said.

One thing that is clear is that the community can't make any
nonincremental changes to policy itself without solid leadership, and
there are any number of contributors with social insight who have quit
even discussing meaningful change (as well as those who have quit the
project entirely) because of the impossibility of accomplishing it.
The reasons for this have to do with the size of the contributor base,
the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community, and
the presence of many contributors who are perhaps excellent writers and
editors but who lack skills and experience in group decisionmaking.

The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)


from_name: Arkady Rose

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>>Whats the field?
>>
>>
>
>
>Doll collectors, as I said. Significant hobby economically, these
>things go for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars ... see
>http://www.denofangels.com/ and [[Super Dollfie]] (one of the most
>popular examples).
>
>
Specifically, Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls, as opposed to porcelain or any
other types of dolls. They have only been around about 10 years, but
already they have gained so rapidly in popularity that a recent example
of a limited-edition doll sold on eBay for $5100.

The sort of information likely to be put into an ABJD wiki is going to
be histories of the companies producing the dolls, details of all the
different resin types and head molds produced, details of the most
widely-acclaimed face-up artists (people who paint the faces) and
customisers, and sections with how-tos on customisation and modding etc.
- not the sort of thing for Wikipedia, perhaps. But the fact remains
that basically the doll community has seen how specialists in other
fields have been treated by the rabid AfD morons who assume that because
*they've* not heard of something it must be not noteable and promptly
delete, and quite frankly they fail to see why they should even bother
touching the doll-related articles in WP when instead they can just
create their own wiki, free of the current poisonous WP politics and
petty instruction-creep that at present seems, quite frankly, endemic
throughout WP at present and incidentally is the main reason I've pretty
much gone on indefinite hiatus from both editing and from wikien-l
personally.

-a


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
Good point. But I do hope that during his year off he thinks about
why we banned him.

Fred

On Jan 11, 2006, at 2:06 PM, charles matthews wrote:

> I don't think a whole load of Maoist-style self-criticism should
> actually be required of those who fall foul of the ArbCom.


subject: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks

body:
Jason Gazeley wrote:

>Is there any way to block IP's yet allow logged in users to edit from that
>IP? My college's IP got blocked this morning due to Vandalism. I was just
>about to revert some other vandalism at lunch when I got the blocked notice.

MediaWiki bug 550:

    http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550

At present it's got a few suggested patches, it's working out what's
the best one to implement in terms of its social effects.

(cc to wikitech-l - what's the current developers' view on a good
solution to 550? Are we anywhere near having one implemented?)

As for the block itself, that's obviously collateral damage, and if
you can tell us the IP it should be promptly unblocked. What was the
text of the block message?

- d.


body:
On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In
> discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia?
> What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No,
> some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they
> know nothing about it."
>

Unlikely. The problem is the people who do know a little about it.
People don't tend to delete the maths stuff because they don't
understand it at all. People do understand webcomics a little with the
result that they feel they know enough to list them on afd.

> So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics
> authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
>

Evidence that there is in fact a link here? Generaly if you look at
the spred of info about wikipedia across weforums webcomic are not
mentioned.

> Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now
> have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts,
> because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be
> considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
>
> I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about
> this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) -
> this was actually an independent example from the same field.
>

Why? Pretty much any forum on the web you go to has at least one
thread on wikipedia these days. We can't hide stuff any more.

> Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally
> don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more.
> Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the
> outside world?

Without changeing it's fundimental structure? Not really. If you are
going to write about areas of popular culture there are going to be
other people around and they are sometimes going to dissagree with
you.

> (yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)

No I'd accept them also decideing not be anoying.

--
geni


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
My apologies Fred, for not joining any social clubs in Wikipedia.

nobs

On 1/11/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> Good point. But I do hope that during his year off he thinks about
> why we banned him.
>
> Fred
>
> On Jan 11, 2006, at 2:06 PM, charles matthews wrote:
>
> > I don't think a whole load of Maoist-style self-criticism should
> > actually be required of those who fall foul of the ArbCom.
>
>
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: 6 Free Offers - Clearance - Extended until 31st
	January

body:
I asked Arkady if there was a public link to the discussion. She said:

> You have to be a member of DoA to read most of the threads, so no - it's
> not publically viewable. However from a quick glance through the
> discussion as it stands, the overwhelming consensus is "fuck WP" - only
> more polite than that. They don't want to get involved with the
> insidious bureaucracy and delete-happy morons, and frankly I don't blame
> them. They want to share their enjoyment of dolls, not get caught up in
> stupid edit-wars with Cat Piss Men.
> And you can quote me on that, too.

Note, by the way, that this field has NOT yet been through the AFD
grinder that schools and webcomics have been through - rather, they're
another group who have seen the rubbish going on there and decided
"bugger that."

Who will be next? Who will be next that we don't hear about until well
after the event?

Tell me that's not AFD culture being directly damaging to Wikipedia,
now and for the future.

The AC has resoundingly failed to deal with the issue. (And I
apologise myself for being marked away at the time.) It needs dealing
with. Who can or will do something about it that will stick?

- d.


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Userbox reframing?

body:
> How can we build a neutral encyclopedia while providing common
> resources to enable the wide propagation of such rabid political
> statements as "Love my Country ?Fear my Government" (with  wikilinks
> to the articles on patriotism and neo-nazism) and "This user trusts
> the EU (an over-powerful, non-democratic bureaucracy) about as far as
> they can throw it"?

Well, we can and we are and it's not a *large* problem. But we'd still be
better off without.

I don't mind people ranting a bit against this and that on their userpages
but - if I may speak metaphorically - using the Wikipedia printing press
to mass-produce standardized stickers with glib political catchphrases
doesn't give people the right idea about this project.

Check out this userpage:

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

This guy is now my poster-boy on how to use userboxes. His boxes are
useful and non-divisive but still whimsical and expressive.

But we need to *discuss* and *educate* not speedy-delete the same template
again and again and again and again as you did yesterday, Tony :) Maybe
some actions like that were necessary at the start to bring attention to
the matter but continuing them now is completely unnecessary. The issue
has all the attention it needs (and then some, I would say). Continuing
this "rouge admin" game makes this be about abuse of administrator tools,
not reaching a consensus on what is, all things considered, a relatively
minor issue.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
On 1/11/06, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think a very good first step would be to find a specialist wiki or
> two that are GFDL (Whether forks like Comixpedia or not) and copy
> them in. It shows humility, improves our project, and directly
> addresses the issue.
>
> I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too
> controversial right now, this doll
> wiki is too new. Any other ideas?
>
> -Phil
>

Problem is that most people avoid GFDL.

Going through the list at [[List_of_wikis]] might help.

http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/

Is GFDL but I don't know if has anything we don't.

http://www.strategema.net/index.php?title=Main_Page

Is GDFL but they are tied to a specific version. Again I don't know if
they have anything we don't. I
--
geni


from_name: Andreas von Rüden

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to change topbar?

body:
Hello wikitechs,

i use the classic-skin and want to change top/bottom-bar. I.e. i want to
have the link "discuss this page" at the top instead of bottom of the page.
How can i do this?

thanks for any information

Andreas


body:
nobs01 wrote:

>Enduring six months of personal attacks, responding to it once during an
>ArbCom Hearing, and being banned for a year, while those who trashed me and
>smeared me as being "banned for personal attacks" are given license to do it
>again. This why the image and reputation of Wikipedia, and the image and
>reputation of editors contributing in good faith is everything.

    http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Template:Boohoo

- d.


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/11/06, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too
> controversial right now, this doll
> wiki is too new. Any other ideas?

We should *encourage* the creation of forks, so long as they have a
compatible licence.  We should make downloading the pages necessary
for content only (article, template, image namespaces) easy, and make
GFDL compliance easier from a technical point of view (I know it can't
be made easier from a content point of view).  Then we can merge them
back in and hopefully restore our image within the specialist
communities.  A little more assumption of good faith and preparedness
to admit to being wrong on AfD would also help.

--
Sam


body:
Mason Patrick E SSgt 28 MUNS/MXWKB wrote:

>I am going to have to agree with the doll people about the current
state of wiki... in fact when I have made my three months and 1000
edits and I become an admin, I will be an admin for the little
people... why bother with all of the political crap... if it seems
like someone is abusing their power, I will do everything in my power
to stop it all the while giving the little people like the doll
specialists a fair shake.

That doesn't take admin powers ... fixing the AFD problem will take
truly incredible powers of gentle convincing persuasion! Apply those
successfully and your admin nomination would be a shoo-in.

- d.


body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>We should *encourage* the creation of forks, so long as they have a
>compatible licence.

I'm speaking of a particular reason for a fork. Are you saying you
think the current example, and the image of Wikipedia that's the
reason for it, is a *good* thing?

>Then we can merge them
>back in and hopefully restore our image within the specialist
>communities.

That's a good idea, but ...

>A little more assumption of good faith and preparedness
>to admit to being wrong on AfD would also help.

Go reread (or read) the evidence in the webcomics case. Note the
direct assumptions of bad faith on the part of subject experts saying
to AFD "actually, you're wrong on this one." They didn't start out
having no faith in AFD's good will.

Funnily enough, many people when confronted with utter blithering
stupidity will go so far as to say out loud "that's blithering
stupidity."

- d.


body:
[fixed subject, ahem!]

John Lee wrote:

>While I understand the webcomics concern, what do schools have to do
>with this?

You're right, schools is a bad example in the present case. I
mentioned them as an area where mutual assumption of bad faith (from
literal uncomprehension of why the other side could possibly think
what they did) resulted in an entrenched factionalised battle.

I'm all for a deletion mechanism - there are vast mountains of
unutterable shit that need to die. AFD/DRV as it currently operates,
however, is poisonous to Wikipedia.

- d.


body:
On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Funnily enough, many people when confronted with utter blithering
> stupidity will go so far as to say out loud "that's blithering
> stupidity."
>
>
> - d.

Perhaphs but it helps if you provide evidence to support you case.
This has the secondary advantage of slightly decreaseing the amout of
blithering stupidity in future. People watching will learn. And with
luck they will not make the that mistake in future. Of course they
will find new ones but that is what keeps things interesting.

--
geni


body:
On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Korn wrote:
> >We should *encourage* the creation of forks, so long as they have a
> >compatible licence.
> I'm speaking of a particular reason for a fork. Are you saying you
> think the current example, and the image of Wikipedia that's the
> reason for it, is a *good* thing?

No, we should encourage forks in a different way.  We should encourage
the creation of forks with the specific intention of having the
content merged into Wikipedia when it is of better quality and
therefore less likely to be deleted.

> >Then we can merge them
> >back in and hopefully restore our image within the specialist
> >communities.
>
>
> That's a good idea, but ...

If your point is that it's impractical, we should damn well *make* it practical.

> >A little more assumption of good faith and preparedness
> >to admit to being wrong on AfD would also help.
>
>
> Go reread (or read) the evidence in the webcomics case. Note the
> direct assumptions of bad faith on the part of subject experts saying
> to AFD "actually, you're wrong on this one." They didn't start out
> having no faith in AFD's good will.
>
> Funnily enough, many people when confronted with utter blithering
> stupidity will go so far as to say out loud "that's blithering
> stupidity."

I'm talking about both sides.  However, it is easier to deal with
people acting in bad faith when you're not acting in bad faith
yourself.

--
Sam


body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>I'm talking about both sides.  However, it is easier to deal with
>people acting in bad faith when you're not acting in bad faith
>yourself.

In the present case, the webcomics debacle seems to the doll
collectors a good reason not to trust in the good faith of AFD. Do you
have any ideas on how to remedy this perception - or reality - other
than just saying to them "trust us, really, it'll be better this time
around"?

I'm looking for ideas on this *specific* problem: specialists who see
how AFD has treated other specialists (very badly indeed) and decide
they can really do without even risking that degree of uncaring and
self-righteous stupidity. This is one, there will be more. I submit
that this is a really bad thing.

- d.


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New BoingBoing piece: "Correcting the Record:
	Wikipedia vs The Register"

body:
On 1/11/06, Jim Redmond <jim at scrubnugget.com> wrote:
> Cory Doctorow has a new posting on BoingBoing comparing his struggles
> against inaccuracy on Wikipedia and in The Register:
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/11/correcting_the_recor.html

Very amusing, but not the greatest praise to say we're better than the
lowest of gutter tech journalism ... ;)

-Matt


body:
geni wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:

>> That could be why that subject line says "book". You know, those
>> things which are like a few hundred, er, screens, printed out on paper
>> and bound together at one edge.

>Ah you would be the expert on dead tree technology we were looking for
>on wikijuinor.

This is that "the reward for a job well done is another three jobs"
thing, right?

(Diva's Meta-Rule: be careful what rules you notice, in case they notice you.)

- d.


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

body:
On Wednesday 11 January 2006 07:03, Magnus Manske wrote:

>
> Whoever publishes an English Wikipedia DVD is likely to become target of
> legal trouble, which will backfire on Wikipedia in some way. We should
> undertake everything in our power to offer articles that are more
> reliable than the random "current version". This means additional
> controls, which might mean some kind of hierarchy/buerocracy, however mild.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been in the process of saving all Featured
Articles (at the revision at which they achieved FA status) to make a CD-ROM
release.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 1/10/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Or [[User:Kelly Martin]].  I count one article edit in the last 500,
>>>though I might have missed a few.
>>>
>>>Deleting userboxes is as productive toward the goal of creating an
>>>encyclopedia as creating them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>These people have assumed duties that aid the process of building an
>>encyclopedia which do not (directly, at least) involve article editing.
>>A new user (and pretty much everyone who isn't on the Board, Medcom,
>>Arbcom, etc.) does not have such responsibilities. The only way they/we
>>can help out will almost certainly involve article editing (stub
>>sorting, AfD/speedy tagging, etc.). Even some niche tasks (like
>>preparing spoken articles or uploading images) involve some article editing.
>>
>>John Lee
>>([[User:Johnleemk]])
>>
>>
>
>So, it's bad to not make many article edits.  And the response to my
>comment that there are board members and arbcom members who don't make
>many article edits is that it's OK, because they're board members and
>arbcom members?
>
>I'm sorry, but that seems circular to me.  I think there are lots of
>ways to improve Wikipedia which don't involve any article editing, and
>most of them don't involve admin powers either.
>
><snip>
>
>Anthony
>
>
I don't consider it circular reasoning. These people have gained the
trust of the community to perform certain tasks that ordinary/new
editors may not (at least without getting in hot soup). They are
building the encyclopedia, too. I don't care if they create a billion
userboxes (provided this doesn't overload the servers), as long as they
continue helping out to build the encyclopedia. Article editing is but
one metric for measuring this enyclopedia-building quotient, but it
generally applies to all editors unless they have other duties that do
not involve article editing but do involve encyclopedia-building. And if
you can think of ways to build an encyclopedia without editing or
gaining the trust of the community, please, do share.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>SCZenz wrote:
>
>
>>I've become more and more convinced that the inmates are indeed
>>running the asylum on these issues, so my question to you is: what do
>>you think we (as ordinary users who agree with your non-decree) should
>>do?
>>
>>
>
>Work gently to build a friendly loving culture in which outright
>partisanship is discouraged, while individuality and an appreciation for
>differences is valued.  Sometimes, of course, individuality and
>differences are manifested in outright partisanship, so there's no
>simple answer to how to draw the line between the two.
>
>I mostly worry about userboxes being a leveragepoint for the building of
>political factions within Wikipedia.  (And I don't mean "wikipedia
>politics" like "deletionists/inclusionists" but actual politics like
>"The Association of Anti-Evolutionist Wikipedians" who might want to
>turn wikipedia articles into ideological battlegrounds.)
>
>Mostly I would like to see people not beating each other up about this.
>:)  I have a preference here for a social attitude that "here we are
>Wikipedians," meaning: let's leave our political fights at the door to
>the greatest extent that we can.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>
I strongly agree with this. IMO, attempting to factionalise (not merely
putting a userbox identifying your political affiliations) is putting us
on the slippery path to POV pushing/warring. I believe we need to, as
Jimbo said, leave our views at the door while editing. For instance, I
have very strong negative opinions of [[Article 153 of the Constitution
of Malaysia]], [[Ketuanan Melayu]], [[Bumiputra]], etc. However, on
[[Talk:Bumiputra]] I have strenuously argued against certain edits which
I would ordinarily (in real life) agree with. However, leaving my
political views at the door, I viewed those edits as unacceptable under
our NPOV policy. If this is something we can all agree on, I would have
no problem with "political" userboxes; after all, I have one of them myself.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
On Wednesday 11 January 2006 09:21, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
>
> On that note, why not give more authority to WikiProjects?  We'd need
> some sort of community sanity-checking process to limit it to
> "legitimate" projects; but certainly some of the larger and more
> organized ones (particularly those that deal with areas where
> "notability" isn't a very contentious issue) could handle their own
> deletion/guidelines/etc. with minimal supervision.  We already have
> this for stubs, but is there some reason it wouldn't work for at least
> some subject areas?
>

I've suggested something along these lines before; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29/Archive&oldid=30229812#Autonomous_Subdivisions
--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: Jim Redmond

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New BoingBoing piece: "Correcting the Record: Wikipedia
	vs The Register"

body:
Cory Doctorow has a new posting on BoingBoing comparing his struggles
against inaccuracy on Wikipedia and in The Register:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/11/correcting_the_recor.html

Jim Redmond
[[User:Jredmond]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] The top users of userboxes

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:

>Seeing as this userbox discussion is all the rave around here I
>thought I'd do a little project based on them, so here it is, an RSS
>feed on zedler updated every 24hrs that lists the top 50 users of
>userboxes:
>
>http://tools.wikimedia.de/~avar/cgi-bin/userbox_feed
>
>
Just wondering - does this include subst'd userboxes?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: charles matthews

body:
 "Sam Korn" wrote

>We should encourage
the creation of forks with the specific intention of having the
content merged into Wikipedia when it is of better quality and
therefore less likely to be deleted.

Nurseries. Yes, not a bad attitude. I would add that in typical
popular-cultural areas a good WP article might be a survey with 50 redirects
leading to it, while a specialist wiki would stretch out to one page per
minor character or whatever.

Charles


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/11/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> > Why are we deleting bad quality articles anyway? AFAIK there is no
> > due-by date for Wikipedia and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get
> > a good article.
> >
> > Chris
> >
>
> It is posible for an article to be worse than nothing.
> --
> geni

Sure, and it's also possible (even trivial) to make that article
better than nothing without deleting it.


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: userbox : insanity ?

body:
"Anthony DiPierro" <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote
in message
news:71cd4dd90601110429s40cd6cdby363bfb3d01010c9e at mail.gmail.com...
On 1/11/06, Phil Boswell
<phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Anthony DiPierro" <wikilegal at inbox.org>
> wrote
> in message
> news:71cd4dd90601101110n590dc1c4j45a6d17d6a112da8 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 1/10/06, Chris Jenkinson
> <chris at starglade.org>
> wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
[snip]
> > > Yes, I'm running an open proxy, specifically a proxy which anonymizes
> > > http connections.  See http://tor.eff.org/.
>
> > That's not an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_proxy, that's an
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Router which is an entirely different
> beast.
>
> I suppose you'll excuse my confusion which is based on the fact that
> Tor exit node IP addresses are regularly blocked as open proxies :).

You're not alone: I came across a certain amount of confusion whilst I was
looking those up.

In one place there's a notice that Tor users are not welcome on Wikipedia
because of the capacity for anonymous vandalism.

OTOH I also found instructions for Tor users in China to get around the
problem accessing Wikipedia from that country.

Strikes me that the latter would be pointless if the former always held
true...

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body: Just wanna say congratulations to all the new  stewards!


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

> This reminds me of that famous non-quotation by Edmund Burke - "all
> that is needed for evil to triumph is good men to do nothing" and
> variants thereupon.  I am trying to think of a pithy Wikipedia
> equivilent.

"Be bold"


from_name: Rob Church

subject:
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5.5 (^1.5.3) w/ PHP 4.4.1 & MySQL 4.1
	blank page on load

body:
a. The <html><body>... tags mean that it's not a script error.
However, it seems there's no output coming from the script...

b. ...and you mention an excessively long load time...

c. ...could it be the script is timing out due to a long-running
database query? What makes me suggest this is the mention of the long
wait and timeout when "initialising MediaWiki namespace"

Rob Church

On 11/01/06, Brian <neatchee at gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently moved my MediaWiki 1.5.3 database from a MySQL 4.0 server to a MySQL
> 4.1 server.  OLDPASSWORDS is enabled, and PHP 4.4.1 is using the newest MySQL
> libraries.  I am concurrently running a Simple Machines Forum (which works
> flawlessly, showing that there is no problem with password hashing on MySQL 4.1)
>
> After transfering to MySQL 4.1, all pages are returned blank
> (<html><body></body></html) after an excessively long load time.  I've tried
> upgrading to 1.5.5, and even running a fresh install of 1.5.5, all to no avail.
>  During the install, the 'Initialising "MediaWiki" namespace' step takes
> excessively long.
>
> I have no access to my PHP error logs, because my host (servage.net) is about as
> poor as they come when it deals with customer service.
>
> Any help on this issue would be GREATLY appreciated.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Some Wikipedias not accessible through
	anonymouse.org

body:
Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:

> Axel Boldt wrote:

> > Anonymouse.org is a proxy popular with Chinese users to circumvent
> > censorship. Unfortunately, not all Wikipedias are accessible through
> > it.

[...]

> Probably somewhere along the line it's stripping the Chinese characters, or
> misconverting them into question marks (?).

You were right, I told them about the bug, and it is now fixed. Thanks!

Axel


from_name: Chris Jenkinson

body:
Sam Korn wrote:
> No, we should encourage forks in a different way.  We should encourage
> the creation of forks with the specific intention of having the
> content merged into Wikipedia when it is of better quality and
> therefore less likely to be deleted.

Why are we deleting bad quality articles anyway? AFAIK there is no
due-by date for Wikipedia and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get
a good article.

Chris

--
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra


body:
On 1/11/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Why are we deleting bad quality articles anyway? AFAIK there is no
> due-by date for Wikipedia and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get
> a good article.

I am simply saying that bad articles are more likely to be deleted
than good articles.  That isn't my preference, just a fact.

--
Sam


from_name: Brock Batsell

body:
On Jan 11, 2006, at 7:39 PM, geni wrote:
>
> So? I'm free to chose to write about what i want rathen than what
> other people want to rant about.

I'm not sure I understand your argument.  In my opinion, if someone
is willing to go to the trouble to list an article on AfD, they
should be willing to go to the trouble to improve it to non-deletable
standards.  Obviously, this only applies to articles that merit
inclusion in Wikipedia (i.e., meet the standards for notability and
the like).

--
[[en:User:Bbatsell]]
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Please purge the data to help Chinese wikipedians.

body:
Jan: He's on about a Wikimedia wiki.

Far: You can't execute a maintenance script on one of our wikis, since
you don't have access to the shell. Consider using a bot, e.g.
Pywikipediabot - which contains an appropriate script - to "null edit"
or "touch" the affected articles. This will repair the link tables
where needed, without having to ditch the lot and run a script (which
would take a considerable amount of time, although not as much as
En-WP)

Rob Church

On 11/01/06, Far <ffaarr at seed.net.tw> wrote:
> Jan:
>  Thanks a lot for your answer.I have another maybe a little foolish question.  How can I get into the webserver-commandline?I' ve  tried to look for the help in meta pages but can't find it.
>
>                                      ffaarr
>
> >Hello ffaarr,
>
> >the category-links are included in the articles? But the articles are not
> >assigned to the categorys?
>
> >try to execute "maintenance/refreshlinks.php" on webserver-commandline.
>
> >Regards,
> >Jan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: geni

body:
On 1/11/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Why are we deleting bad quality articles anyway? AFAIK there is no
> due-by date for Wikipedia and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get
> a good article.
>
> Chris
>

It is posible for an article to be worse than nothing.
--
geni


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:

>One thing that is clear is that the community can't make any
>nonincremental changes to policy itself without solid leadership, and
>there are any number of contributors with social insight who have quit
>even discussing meaningful change (as well as those who have quit the
>project entirely) because of the impossibility of accomplishing it.
>
>
With respect to this list in particular, that might be because not only
is meaningful change impossible without some kind of deus ex machina,
but even meaningful discussion of change is often impossible.

>The reasons for this have to do with the size of the contributor base,
>the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community, and
>the presence of many contributors who are perhaps excellent writers and
>editors but who lack skills and experience in group decisionmaking.
>
>
I agree in part, although developer work has little direct bearing on
some of the changes that could be discussed. The last point can be an
issue, although I would say that organizational cultures often stand in
for skills and experience; even among successful groups, a large
contingent with prior real training in group decisionmaking is somewhat
rare.

But the size of the community is definitely making the adjustment
process more chaotic and dysfunctional. A couple months ago, I estimated
that the functional size of the English Wikipedia community was
equivalent to a town of 15,000 people. It might be as much as 20,000
now, though due to the change in procedure for the Arbitration Committee
elections, I'm unable to update my method of estimating this.

These kinds of numbers severely strain the ability of an impromptu
system of law and order to keep up, as can be seen in the history of
boom towns in the American West. Their outer limits, if their appeal to
settlers could hold out that long, I would peg the limit at about
30,000, and that scenario would bring rampant problems like massive
fires, labor disputes turning violent, and widespread vigilantism.
Beyond that size, the towns had to develop real systems of government or
be abandoned to a future as museum pieces.

In our case, compared to say a mining economy, we're lucky. Our vein of
ore need not run out. But as our success is less dependent on such
outside factors, it depends instead on internal issues like improving
community self-government. We must create an environment in which people
will still be comfortable developing the resource we have. If the public
loses the general perception that, on balance, our content improves over
time, then the Great Wikipedia Gold Rush will be over.

--Michael Snow


body:
>
>> They do have an embassy - when I got a visa it was up in Notting
>> Hill.
>>
>
> They don't on meta which makes it a bit hard to contact them

I *think* that was meant to be a joke ? Notting Hill is a street in
London, United Kingdom (UK, as opposed to Ukrainian).

--
[[en:User:Bbatsell]]


body:
On Jan 11, 2006, at 8:39 PM, Garion1000 wrote:

> Yes, but someone who puts up an article for AfD thinks the article
> does not
> merit inclusion in wikipedia.

Wasn't this discussion aimed at the listings for "bad-quality"
articles (i.e., salvageable, but when listed, in bad shape)?

--
[[en:User:Bbatsell]]
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from_name: oscar

subject: [Foundation-l] Steward elections

body:
On 1/11/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Here are the final results:
>
> Ausir (100%)
> Walter (100%)
> Jon Harald S?by (100%)
> Suisui (100%)
> Asc?nder (100%)
> Rdsmith4 (97,78%)
> Romihaitza (97,67%)
> villy (96,25%)
> Paginazero (90%)
>
> The other candidates didn't get 80% of support.
>
> Seeing as the Wikimedia projects need new stewards ("and a lot of
> 'em!"), I'd be really happy to see the Board supporting all of the
> mentioned candidates.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
> _______________________________________________

i strongly support dariusz's plea!

grtz, oscar


subject: [Foundation-l] Steward elections


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
"Rob Smith" wrote

>It is distinctly odd however, that I am probably the first user banned for
personal attacks who provided footnotes & citations for his personal
attacks.

Odd.  Or not.  I don't think a whole load of Maoist-style self-criticism
should actually be required of those who fall foul of the ArbCom.  But Clem
Attlee to Harold Laski usually applies.

Charles


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> It is posible for an article to be worse than nothing.
> --
> geni

And that's not some theoretical possibility - that's everyday reality.
Deleting all the contents of [[Category:Articles that need to be
wikified]] would arguably improve the encyclopedia. There would be *some*
worthwhile stuff deleted, though, and the fallout would hurt the
community, which in turn would hurt the encyclopedia. So don't stuff that
bean up your nose you IAR-admins! :)

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: uninvited at nerstrand.net

body:
AEvar wrote:

> What exactly do you mean by this? How are we not accountable and how
should we, in your opinion, be?

If developers were accountable to the community, then the community
would set priorities, schedule, and goals (with due regard to the
technical realities), and expect the developers to follow them.  There
would be some sort of community approval for each functional change.
That's not the case at present.  I don't really know how actual
developer decisionmaking works, although it's clear that the developers
respond rapidly to Jimbo's requests (such as the recently added
semi-protection feature and the recent proscription on page creation by
anons), and it's clear that there's a good deal of internal coordination
within the developer community.

Evidence of the lack of community accountability can be seen by such
things as the changes in deletion log behavior being somewhat of a
surprise to most Wikipedians, and by the fact that relatively important
yet minor tweaks such as the repeatedly requested change to the effect
of IP blocks on logged-in users have gone unaddressed for over a year.

I realize that the developers spend a great deal of energy on
scalability issues on an ongoing basis.  I don't intend to be critical
of their work.  Rather, I am trying to point out the reality of our
governance situation.  That reality is that any process change that
involves a software development component is unrealistic to plan
without strong leadership to Jimbo, because the community alone can't
compel the software developers to act.

I also think it's worth pointing out that the MediaWiki software
project, the WikiMedia project as a whole (of international scope and
covering wikibooks, wiktionary, and like projects in addition to the
encyclopedias), the en: Wikipedia, and other projects have goals that
are sometimes in conflict.


body:
Michal Snow wrote:
> uninvented at nerstrand.net wrote:
>>
>>The reasons for this have to do with the size of the contributor base,
>>the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community, and
>>the presence of many contributors who are perhaps excellent writers and
>>editors but who lack skills and experience in group decisionmaking.
>
>
>I agree in part, although developer work has little direct bearing on
>some of the changes that could be discussed.

One of the things we've never really done much is discussed possible
technical solutions to some of the community governance issues.  The
addition of categories and templates had a big, positive effect on
community and on the project as a whole but the decisions about how
these features would be used were made after they became available.
Even minor features can change the community considerably -- look at
how the availability of Kate's tool has changed the spirit of RFA, for
example.

So we've never had a discussion, for example, of what we could do about
deletion if we had the technical capability to implement it in a
totally different way.

Michal Snow wrote:
> [many other excellent points with an analogy to mining towns]

I agree wholeheartedly with Michael's other conclusions.


subject: [Wikitech-l] How to change topbar?

body:
Edit the skin files to change the order of elements in the document.

Rob Church

On 11/01/06, Andreas von R?den <Andreas.von.Rueden at web.de> wrote:
> Hello wikitechs,
>
> i use the classic-skin and want to change top/bottom-bar. I.e. i want to
> have the link "discuss this page" at the top instead of bottom of the page.
> How can i do this?
>
> thanks for any information
>
> Andreas
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Jason Gazeley

subject: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks

body:
Yup, that's the IP.

The Vandalism justified the block, it just is a major inconvinience to those
of us who want to contribute usefully :)

Burwellian / Jason Gazeley

>From: Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks
>Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 13:12:53 -0600
>
>Looking at the headers from that e-mail, it appears to be:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User:212.219.116.67
>
>On Jan 11, 2006, at 10:09 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>>Jason Gazeley wrote:
>>
>>>Is there any way to block IP's yet allow logged in users to edit  from
>>>that
>>>IP? My college's IP got blocked this morning due to Vandalism. I  was
>>>just
>>>about to revert some other vandalism at lunch when I got the  blocked
>>>notice.
>>
>>
>>MediaWiki bug 550:
>>
>>     http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550
>>
>>At present it's got a few suggested patches, it's working out what's
>>the best one to implement in terms of its social effects.
>>
>>(cc to wikitech-l - what's the current developers' view on a good
>>solution to 550? Are we anywhere near having one implemented?)
>>
>>As for the block itself, that's obviously collateral damage, and if
>>you can tell us the IP it should be promptly unblocked. What was the
>>text of the block message?
>>
>>
>>- d.
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

><< PGP.sig >>

>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN Search Toolbar now includes Desktop search!
http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/


subject: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks

body:
Oh, the IP was blocked for "vandalism" which makes sense when you look at
the edits made to Help:Contents and the other Community Portal page (name
escapes me off the top of my head)

Jason

>From: Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] IP Blocks
>Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 13:12:53 -0600
>
>Looking at the headers from that e-mail, it appears to be:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/block?page=User:212.219.116.67
>
>On Jan 11, 2006, at 10:09 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>>Jason Gazeley wrote:
>>
>>>Is there any way to block IP's yet allow logged in users to edit  from
>>>that
>>>IP? My college's IP got blocked this morning due to Vandalism. I  was
>>>just
>>>about to revert some other vandalism at lunch when I got the  blocked
>>>notice.
>>
>>
>>MediaWiki bug 550:
>>
>>     http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550
>>
>>At present it's got a few suggested patches, it's working out what's
>>the best one to implement in terms of its social effects.
>>
>>(cc to wikitech-l - what's the current developers' view on a good
>>solution to 550? Are we anywhere near having one implemented?)
>>
>>As for the block itself, that's obviously collateral damage, and if
>>you can tell us the IP it should be promptly unblocked. What was the
>>text of the block message?
>>
>>
>>- d.
>>_______________________________________________
>>WikiEN-l mailing list
>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

><< PGP.sig >>

>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN Search Toolbar now includes Desktop search!
http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/


body:
On Jan 11, 2006, at 8:38 PM, geni wrote:
>
> Why? I might know that an article on an area of chemistry is a hoax.
> Doesn't mean I have the slightest interest in writeing about that bit
> of chemistry.

Well, you seem to have removed the last sentence of my post, which
read, "Obviously, this only applies to articles that merit inclusion
in Wikipedia (i.e., meet the standards for notability and the
like)."  A hoax article would obviously fall under these terms.  I'm
*not* talking about articles like that, and I didn't think the
discussion was either.

--
[[en:User:Bbatsell]]
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from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 1/11/06, Kurt Maxwell Weber <kmw at armory.com> wrote:
> For the past couple of weeks, I've been in the process of saving all Featured
> Articles (at the revision at which they achieved FA status) to make a CD-ROM
> release.

It's probably worth remembering that the FA criteria have evolved
through time, and early FAs were not of the same quality as current
ones.

--
Sam


body:
On 1/11/06, uninvited at nerstrand.net <uninvited at nerstrand.net> wrote:
> One thing that is clear is that the community can't make any
> nonincremental changes to policy itself without solid leadership, and
> there are any number of contributors with social insight who have quit
> even discussing meaningful change (as well as those who have quit the
> project entirely) because of the impossibility of accomplishing it.

We've managed to expand speedy a few times. The community can make
changes but only when the option of doing nothing has been completely
exusted.

--
geni


body:
On 1/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> We've managed to expand speedy a few times. The community can make
> changes but only when the option of doing nothing has been completely
> exusted.

This reminds me of that famous non-quotation by Edmund Burke - "all
that is needed for evil to triumph is good men to do nothing" and
variants thereupon.  I am trying to think of a pithy Wikipedia
equivilent.

--
Sam


from_name: David Boothroyd

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nobs

body:
"charles matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> writes:
>
>I don't think a whole load of Maoist-style self-criticism
>should actually be required of those who fall foul of the ArbCom.  But Clem
>Attlee to Harold Laski usually applies.

Shockingly this quote appears in the biography of neither, nor on
Wikiquote - I must change that! It is, oddly in [[Talk:Herbert Morrison]].

(Laski, then Chairman of the Labour Party, wrote to Attlee, then Leader
and just appointed as Prime Minister, after the 1945 election to say
that he should now have a leadership election. Attlee wrote back that "A
period of silence on your part would be welcome")
--
David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
david at election.demon.co.uk (home)
dboothroyd at westminster.gov.uk (council)


from_name: Ben Emmel

body:
But wait:

They can have their comixpedia, dollpedia, and whatnot. Many of the articles
that they will produce aren't notable for Wikipedia anyways. Their standards
and ours are going to be different. I don't see these little forks as a Bad
Thing. Maybe some of their Featured Articles (or the equivalent) can be
incorporated, but the majority most likely don't belong.

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: John Lee

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: 6 Free Offers - Clearance - Extended until
	31st	January

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>I asked Arkady if there was a public link to the discussion. She said:
>
>
>
>>You have to be a member of DoA to read most of the threads, so no - it's
>>not publically viewable. However from a quick glance through the
>>discussion as it stands, the overwhelming consensus is "fuck WP" - only
>>more polite than that. They don't want to get involved with the
>>insidious bureaucracy and delete-happy morons, and frankly I don't blame
>>them. They want to share their enjoyment of dolls, not get caught up in
>>stupid edit-wars with Cat Piss Men.
>>And you can quote me on that, too.
>>
>>
>
>
>Note, by the way, that this field has NOT yet been through the AFD
>grinder that schools and webcomics have been through - rather, they're
>another group who have seen the rubbish going on there and decided
>"bugger that."
>
>Who will be next? Who will be next that we don't hear about until well
>after the event?
>
>Tell me that's not AFD culture being directly damaging to Wikipedia,
>now and for the future.
>
>The AC has resoundingly failed to deal with the issue. (And I
>apologise myself for being marked away at the time.) It needs dealing
>with. Who can or will do something about it that will stick?
>
>
>- d.
>
>
While I understand the webcomics concern, what do schools have to do
with this? Just because I'm an expert on the schools I've attended
doesn't give me the right to whinge about them being deleted (which I'd
gladly vote to do). I think things have gotten out of hand where schools
are concerned -- the only reason I don't vote delete on most of them is
because there's, ironically, *too much* of a backlash against deleting
schools, to the point where being a school alone is good enough to merit
inclusion in an encyclopedia.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body:
Dariusz Siedlecki schreef:
> Here are the final results:
>
> Ausir (100%)
> Walter (100%)
> Jon Harald S?by (100%)
> Suisui (100%)
> Asc?nder (100%)
> Rdsmith4 (97,78%)
> Romihaitza (97,67%)
> villy (96,25%)
> Paginazero (90%)
>
> The other candidates didn't get 80% of support.
>
> Seeing as the Wikimedia projects need new stewards ("and a lot of
> 'em!"), I'd be really happy to see the Board supporting all of the
> mentioned candidates.
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki

I and the others are now stewards.

To my fellow new stewards;
You have on meta now in the section "Restricted special pages" the
option "User rights management" This is the wrong one, you need "Make a
user into a sysop".

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections


from_name: Andreas von Rüden

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: How to change topbar?

body:
Rob Church wrote:

> Edit the skin files to change the order of elements in the document.
Thank you... where can i find them?

thanks for any information

Andreas


from_name: Ryan Lane

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LDAP Group authentication problem

body:
Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at ...> writes:

>
> Ryan Lane wrote:
> > This is probably not the right list to post to about this. Please post this
> > information on the discussion page at:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LDAP_Authentication
> >
> > I'll help you out there.
>
> Ryan,
>
> Is there anything that prevent your patch from being an extension ? :)
>

Well, it isn't really a patch. You just drop it into /includes and set some
variables in LocalSettings.php. I guess it's more of a plugin? If you are asking
why it isn't included in the normal release, I believe Brion mentioned somewhere
that it is third party and not ever likely to be maintained by any of the
mediawiki developers (and I can understand that).

V/r,

Ryan Lane


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: 6 Free Offers - Clearance - Extended until
	31st January

body:
On 11 Jan 2006, at 17:44, Matt Brown wrote:

> If I were a newer or less eloquent contributor, I'd certainly worry
> that MY pet topics might get deleted, that's for certain.

Yes, once I did; once I had a few articles listed on AfD; now my
standards have risen, still some I need to add references to.
>
> 1. Anti-vandalism assistance.  Vandals can utterly destroy a small
> wiki with automated tools.  Natural responses to such vandalism -
> including making it hard to edit - effectively kill off the project
> because no "new blood" gets in.
> 2. Writing assistance.  Even if I don't know anything about your
> topic, I can help you with grammar, presentation, etc.  Wikipedia is
> big enough that such help will come along.
> 3. No hosting worries.  If you start your own wiki, you have to host
> it, you have to be sure you can pay for it, and you have to be sure
> it'll stay up.  If you put your stuff on Wikipedia, it's pretty
> certain to remain available.
> 4. Prominence and advertising.  You're much more likely to find new
> contributors if you attach your project to a top 20 website.

Very good reasons.

Perhaps the doll people arent interested in these much, small community
quite possible they are not interested in writing encyclopaedic
articles anyway - more like the Sothebys catalogue thats lying on the
floor I would guess - it has information you wouldnt get from any other
source, but no references; I treat it as something between a primary
and secondary source myself. Good for illustrations if they were free
though. I would quote it in a WP article to back up better sources.

Show me a real functioning wiki that is making encyclopaedic
articles and I will be more worried.

Justinc


body:
On 11 Jan 2006, at 15:43, David Gerard wrote:
>
>> Encourage them to use a compatible license, and encourage them
>> to use commons for media.
>
>
> At least the first, certainly!

Why not the second?

Commons now has 300,000 media files. In under 18 months. Which puts
it just behind German wikipedia and ahead of all other languages
if you want to compare size.

It doesnt have the deletionism or license problems of other parts.

Justinc


body:
On 1/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Sure, and it's also possible (even trivial) to make that article
> better than nothing without deleting it.

So? I'm free to chose to write about what i want rathen than what
other people want to rant about.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body:
congratulations from me too :-)

oscar

On 1/12/06, shi zhao <shizhao at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hehe, and username at jawiki not work.
>
> [[zh:user:shizhao]]
>
>
> 2006/1/12, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be>:
> >
> > Dariusz Siedlecki schreef:
> > > Here are the final results:
> > >
> > > Ausir (100%)
> > > Walter (100%)
> > > Jon Harald S?by (100%)
> > > Suisui (100%)
> > > Asc?nder (100%)
> > > Rdsmith4 (97,78%)
> > > Romihaitza (97,67%)
> > > villy (96,25%)
> > > Paginazero (90%)
> > >
> > > The other candidates didn't get 80% of support.
> > >
> > > Seeing as the Wikimedia projects need new stewards ("and a lot of
> > > 'em!"), I'd be really happy to see the Board supporting all of the
> > > mentioned candidates.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Best regards,
> > > Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
> >
> > I and the others are now stewards.
> >
> > To my fellow new stewards;
> > You have on meta now in the section "Restricted special pages" the
> > option "User rights management" This is the wrong one, you need "Make a
> > user into a sysop".
> >
> > --
> > Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
> > Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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] Re: Steward elections


body:
On 1/12/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> It doesnt have the deletionism or license problems of other parts.
>
> Justinc

They have some lisenceing problems. Mostly in the form of misslabled stuff

Incerdently does anyone know how to contact the ukranian wikipedia
people? The images on: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stauromedusae are
copyvios. I tried to contact an admin there who has the EN:3 userbox
but nothing has happened. They don't have a embasy.

--
geni


body:
On 12 Jan 2006, at 01:45, geni wrote:

> On 1/12/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>> It doesnt have the deletionism or license problems of other parts.
>>
>> Justinc
>
> They have some lisenceing problems. Mostly in the form of
> misslabled stuff

ok, but that can be fixed.

> Incerdently does anyone know how to contact the ukranian wikipedia
> people? The images on: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stauromedusae are
> copyvios. I tried to contact an admin there who has the EN:3 userbox
> but nothing has happened. They don't have a embasy.

Stop wikis using stuff that isnt on commons.

They do have an embassy - when I got a visa it was up in Notting Hill.

Justinc


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

body:
On 1/11/06, uninvited at nerstrand.net <uninvited at nerstrand.net> wrote:
> the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community

What exactly do you mean by this? How are we not accountable and how
should we, in your opinion, be?


body:
On 1/12/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
> On 12 Jan 2006, at 01:45, geni wrote:
>
> > On 1/12/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> >> It doesnt have the deletionism or license problems of other parts.
> >>
> >> Justinc
> >
> > They have some lisenceing problems. Mostly in the form of
> > misslabled stuff
>
> ok, but that can be fixed.
>

Problem is that due to it's lower traffic people are less likely to
notice the problem. Still the people there do seem to react fairly
fast when you point stuff out to them. Pitty about the main page
vandalism incerdent.

> > Incerdently does anyone know how to contact the ukranian wikipedia
> > people? The images on: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stauromedusae are
> > copyvios. I tried to contact an admin there who has the EN:3 userbox
> > but nothing has happened. They don't have a embasy.
>
> Stop wikis using stuff that isnt on commons.
>
Would solve the fair use problem but not really practicle unless
commons is prepared to give admin powers to any en (or pretty much any
language) admin who requests it. Certianly commons only for projects
below a certian size is tempting and it would probably expand commons
further as a media source.

> They do have an embassy - when I got a visa it was up in Notting Hill.
>

They don't on meta which makes it a bit hard to contact them

--
geni


body:
On 1/12/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
> On Jan 11, 2006, at 7:39 PM, geni wrote:
> >
> > So? I'm free to chose to write about what i want rathen than what
> > other people want to rant about.
>
> I'm not sure I understand your argument.  In my opinion, if someone
> is willing to go to the trouble to list an article on AfD, they
> should be willing to go to the trouble to improve it to non-deletable
> standards.

Why? I might know that an article on an area of chemistry is a hoax.
Doesn't mean I have the slightest interest in writeing about that bit
of chemistry.

--
geni


from_name: Ryan Delaney

body:
On 1/12/06, Snowspinner <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think a very good first step would be to find a specialist wiki or
> two that are GFDL (Whether forks like Comixpedia or not) and copy
> them in. It shows humility, improves our project, and directly
> addresses the issue.
>
> I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too
> controversial right now, this doll
> wiki is too new. Any other ideas?

I agree, and incidentally, I think copying comixpedia would be a terrific
idea. If we can copy the comic articles and win an AFD battle, we might win
back some good editors from the fork.

Ryan


body:
On 1/12/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
> In my opinion, if someone
> is willing to go to the trouble to list an article on AfD, they
> should be willing to go to the trouble to improve it to non-deletable
> standards.  Obviously, this only applies to articles that merit
> inclusion in Wikipedia (i.e., meet the standards for notability and
> the like).

Yes, but someone who puts up an article for AfD thinks the article does not
merit inclusion in wikipedia.

Garion


body:
On 1/12/06, Brock Batsell <wikipedia at theskeptik.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 11, 2006, at 8:39 PM, Garion1000 wrote:
>
> > Yes, but someone who puts up an article for AfD thinks the article
> > does not
> > merit inclusion in wikipedia.
>
> Wasn't this discussion aimed at the listings for "bad-quality"
> articles (i.e., salvageable, but when listed, in bad shape)?

Perhaps, but I don't see many articles being nominated for AfD with the
reason that it's a bad quality article. It might well be so. But the reason
is usually, hoax, nonsense, or the most popular one "non notable".

Mind you, I don't spend that much time on AfD so I could be missing a lot.

Garion


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Serbo-Croatian wikipedia

body:
On 1/11/06, Dejan Cabrilo <dcabrilo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Milos, you first said that nobody tagged POV articles as such, and
> that I should've. We concluded that I did. Now you are saying that I
> didn't attempt to improve them, but did tag them. I did try to improve
> some, but I was constantly reverted and even rolled back by some
> admins (I can look into those). So, don't tell me I am not saying
> truth again, please.

Try it again with ONE article, first (please, use some which where you
are more familiar) and if you would have some problems, they will be
solved. But, please, don't behave aggressive.

> It doesn't matter if our edition is called Serbo-Croatian, or
> Neo-Shtokavian, or "our language". It's about not being country, or
> ethno-centric, but information centric.

Do you think that building one more community is a right way to make
differences smaller? I don't think so. In this moment the right way
is, as I see, to work inside of present communities. When sh: grows up
to 10 people, we would have a lot more difficult situation because the
space for possible merging would be filled with one more community.

However, as I said, one of the important reasons why I am not for
closing sh: in this way is a possibility of deactivating couple of
active sh: Wikipedians.

In other words, the only possible way for relocking of sh: is your
(i.e. sh: Wikipedians) intention to do so; as well as your start to
work in all of other three encyclopedias/communities on the long
process of merging content. Is it possible?


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 1/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/11/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Sure, and it's also possible (even trivial) to make that article
> > better than nothing without deleting it.
>
> So? I'm free to chose to write about what i want rathen than what
> other people want to rant about.
>
Yes, you are.  But the question was "Why are we deleting bad quality
articles anyway?"  You responded that "It is posible for an article to
be worse than nothing."

Surely it is easier to change an article into a one-line stub than it
is to put it through the non-speedy deletion processes.  You don't
*have* to do either, but there's no reason the community *has* to
provide an option for the more difficult and less useful solution.

I was just pointing out how your "answer" was really a non-sequitur.
Of course, maybe you were talking about speedy deletions...

Anthony


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Smith

> Enduring six months of personal attacks, responding to it
> once during an ArbCom Hearing, and being banned for a year,
> while those who trashed me and smeared me as being "banned
> for personal attacks" are given license to do it again.

You get that sort of thing here. I think the thing to do is to not kick
against the pricks, because eventually you just spend all your time trying
to get officialdom to notice the outrages of which they are all too well
aware. Just get your head down, avoid the hassle, and keep on making the
good edits that bring you joy. As I do.

Pete, doping his best


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:

>Recent policy initiatives, such as
>the deletion of unsourced images and the restrictions on anonymous
>creation of articles, have been driven by legal, financial, and public
>relations concerns rather than anything that any contributors to the
>project have said.
>
>
I suspect that kind of policy initiative is simply more visible
because it has to happen quickly. To take an example of an internally
generated shift, consider the citing of sources. Two years ago, some
editors would routinely not supply sources, and defend their practice;
nowadays such edits risk being mass-reverted, and the editors' protests
would be met with scorn by all.

It would be nice to have more internal leadership. I think part of
the trick is to model after professional societies and trade unions,
where most leadership positions are part-time on a volunteer basis.
For instance, projects could elect lead editors, whose special role
during their terms is to preside over discussion on issues, and then
make an executive decision, thus eliminating the indecision arising
from those 56%-44% votes (think of city naming conventions). A lead
for user page policy could have saved a lot of userbox anguish by
being on top of the practice from the beginning.

Stan


body:
On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_cards_and_a_top_hat
>
> It's "mathcruft" or "puzzlecruft" but once a reasonably decent article is
> there we just can't bring ourselves to delete it.
>
Apparently all the "voting" that's taken place on AfD hasn't yet found
a decent title, which is the true problem with the article.  "Three
cards and a top hat"?  That gets 0 google hits.  The info should be
included *somewhere*, but there shouldn't be an article called that.


body:
On 1/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_cards_and_a_top_hat
> >
> > It's "mathcruft" or "puzzlecruft" but once a reasonably decent article is
> > there we just can't bring ourselves to delete it.
> >
> Apparently all the "voting" that's taken place on AfD hasn't yet found
> a decent title, which is the true problem with the article.  "Three
> cards and a top hat"?  That gets 0 google hits.  The info should be
> included *somewhere*, but there shouldn't be an article called that.
>
Actually, now that I've read the article in depth, I see that this
problem is equivalent to the Monty Hall Problem.


from_name: Mason Patrick E SSgt 28 MUNS/MXWKB

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How to bring back people who don't want to

body:
Instead of redirecting or deleting, how about getting someone to merge it into the immigration article?

On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Surely it is easier to change an article into a one-line stub than it
> > is to put it through the non-speedy deletion processes.
>
> Let's do a case study. Here's an article which looks to me like useless
> semi-coherent original research which we'd be better off without:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_immigrant_groups_extended_family_positions
>
> Yet the topic - which the article does a very poor job of defining - is
> probably worthwhile.

Actually I don't think the topic is at all appropriate for an
encyclopedia.  It'd make a good essay, but I seriously doubt you'd see
such a title (or indeed any which start out "Changes in...") in, for
example, Britannica.  For Wikipedia sometimes we get strange article
titles like this for what is really a subpage of another article, but
that doesn't seem to be the case here.

> How would you recommend we proceed?

Redirect to [[extended family]] (optionally merging if you think it's
worthwhile).

> Can you quickly salvage a coherent useful stub out of this?
>
> Regards,
> Haukur

Anthony

> > How would you recommend we proceed?
>
> Redirect to [[extended family]] (optionally merging if you think it's
> worthwhile).

Actually, I'd recommend implementing semi-deletion so that the article
could be deleted while the content kept viewable by everyone.  But
since semi-deletion doesn't exist, redirects are the next best thing.

Anthony


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [Foundation-l] checkuser log improvement

body:
On 1/12/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Date of check --- name of checkuser --- ip or user checked --- local
> project concerned.

Now, if we could just get the dates internationalized....

Kelly


body:
On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Surely it is easier to change an article into a one-line stub than it
> > is to put it through the non-speedy deletion processes.
>
> Let's do a case study. Here's an article which looks to me like useless
> semi-coherent original research which we'd be better off without:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_immigrant_groups_extended_family_positions
>
> Yet the topic - which the article does a very poor job of defining - is
> probably worthwhile.

Actually I don't think the topic is at all appropriate for an
encyclopedia.  It'd make a good essay, but I seriously doubt you'd see
such a title (or indeed any which start out "Changes in...") in, for
example, Britannica.  For Wikipedia sometimes we get strange article
titles like this for what is really a subpage of another article, but
that doesn't seem to be the case here.

> How would you recommend we proceed?

Redirect to [[extended family]] (optionally merging if you think it's
worthwhile).

> Can you quickly salvage a coherent useful stub out of this?
>
> Regards,
> Haukur

Anthony


body:
On 1/12/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_immigrant_groups_extended_family_positions
> >
> > How would you recommend we proceed?
>
> Redirect to [[extended family]] (optionally merging if you think it's
> worthwhile).
>
Actually, I'd recommend implementing semi-deletion so that the article
could be deleted while the content kept viewable by everyone.  But
since semi-deletion doesn't exist, redirects are the next best thing.

Anthony


from_name: shi zhao

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections

body:
hehe, and username at jawiki not work.

[[zh:user:shizhao]]

2006/1/12, Walter Vermeir <walter at wikipedia.be>:
>
> Dariusz Siedlecki schreef:
> > Here are the final results:
> >
> > Ausir (100%)
> > Walter (100%)
> > Jon Harald S?by (100%)
> > Suisui (100%)
> > Asc?nder (100%)
> > Rdsmith4 (97,78%)
> > Romihaitza (97,67%)
> > villy (96,25%)
> > Paginazero (90%)
> >
> > The other candidates didn't get 80% of support.
> >
> > Seeing as the Wikimedia projects need new stewards ("and a lot of
> > 'em!"), I'd be really happy to see the Board supporting all of the
> > mentioned candidates.
> >
> > --
> > Best regards,
> > Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
>
> I and the others are now stewards.
>
> To my fellow new stewards;
> You have on meta now in the section "Restricted special pages" the
> option "User rights management" This is the wrong one, you need "Make a
> user into a sysop".
>
> --
> Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
> Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Steward elections


body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Sam Korn wrote:
>
>> No, we should encourage forks in a different way.  We should encourage
>> the creation of forks with the specific intention of having the
>> content merged into Wikipedia when it is of better quality and
>> therefore less likely to be deleted.
>
>
> Why are we deleting bad quality articles anyway? AFAIK there is no
> due-by date for Wikipedia and it doesn't matter how long it takes to
> get a good article.
>
> Chris

Good question. I usually support deletion of bad quality articles when I
feel the topic is borderline or just plain unworthy for inclusion in
Wikipedia. (So while I might abstain or even keep a well-written school
article, I'd rather delete an article on the same school that was just
junk.) I don't think terrible content alone is a good reason to delete,
unless nothing at all can be salvaged from that content. But in cases
where the topic of the article is borderline, content might be the
tipping point on whether to keep or delete (for me).

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Rob Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] userbox : insanity ?

body:
Well Fred has successfully confused me once again.  No less than 5 times
he's declared users did not "act in concert", yet refused three motions to
provide a Finding of Fact.  Oddly now, the very  faction Fred expresses fear
of has been created in response to the errors the ArbCom made in handling
the case. And this phenomenea is discussed in the Laird Wilcox Report, the
basis of the verifiable citations the ArbCom attributed to Nobs as "personal
attacks".

nobs

> On 1/10/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > I think there is a genuine fear of factions or parties and the host
> > of actions which might follow. This was highlighted by what seemed to
> > be attempts to organize a Catholic faction. Part of the problem is
> > potential escalation. First there is point of view editing, then tag
> > team reverting, alerts to other members of the faction. Then imagine
> > an arbitration case and we, looking at these folks, make some kind of
> > remedy. Then all the usual kicking and screaming and politicing which
> > follows what is perceived as an unfair decision follows. Whether an
> > administrator enforces the remedy becomes an issue of whether there
> > is anti-catholic bias and so on. Arbitrators are googled to see if
> > they ever engaged in Catholic or Protestant activity, etc.

>Substitute communist or anti-communist for Catholic and take a look
> at the Nobs case for a real life example.
>
>


from_name: Jean Lamy

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using of mediawiki engine

body:
Ok :)

I've done some tests but it seems that the parser (Parser.php) is links
to too many files.

My dream :) was to have only 1 file to parse the Wiki content, allowing
me to plug mediawiki extension.

I know its a dream.....

Jean

Rob Church a ?crit :

>Never rely on any code in CVS remaining as it is for any length of time. ;-)
>
>
>Rob Church
>
>On 10/01/06, Jean Lamy <jean.lamy at revues.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Rob Church a ?crit :
>>
>>
>>
>>>You'll be looking at borrowing our parser, although I suspect you'll
>>>want to remove several things, including the cache (since it's a
>>>CMS)...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>you're right
>>
>>
>>
>>>Parser.php would be the best place to start looking. There is some
>>>internal (development) documentation available at
>>>http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/doc, but I don't know how up-to-date
>>>or suitable it is.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>thanks, I'm going to look at this. I suppose this file will not change
>>too much in the future. Isn't it ?
>>
>>Jean lamy
>>
>>
>>
>>>Rob Church
>>>
>>>On 10/01/06, Jean Lamy <jean.lamy at revues.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>I was wondering if it was possible to use the mediawiki engine in an
>>>>external project.
>>>>
>>>>My goal is to use the mediawiki engine (only the engine, not all the
>>>>mediawiki application) in Lodel (http://www.lodel.org, french CMS) to
>>>>interpret the WiKi language.
>>>>And if possible, allowing the use off all extension to MediaWiki.
>>>>
>>>>Is there any documentation on this ? Is is possible ?
>>>>
>>>>Sincerely
>>>>
>>>>Jean Lamy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikitech-l mailing list
>>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


body:
John Lee wrote:

> Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>>
>> It would be nice to have more internal leadership. I think part of
>> the trick is to model after professional societies and trade unions,
>> where most leadership positions are part-time on a volunteer basis.
>> For instance, projects could elect lead editors, whose special role
>> during their terms is to preside over discussion on issues, and then
>> make an executive decision, thus eliminating the indecision arising
>> from those 56%-44% votes (think of city naming conventions). A lead
>> for user page policy could have saved a lot of userbox anguish by
>> being on top of the practice from the beginning.
>>
>> Stan
>>
> The problem is that these positions are often elected - and as we have
> learnt from the debacle of this and last last year's arbcom elections,
> campaigning for these positions is *brutal*. There'll be even more
> anguish if the 56%-44% vote decides more than just one issue. My
> suggestion would be something similar to the current arbcom elections,
> but less divisive. The community nominates certain people (how this is
> done is up to them), who will then write their candidate statements,
> etc. Those who oppose/support must provide links/diffs/etc. showing
> why they oppose/support. For instance, "Oppose. [a few links to
> instances of POV pushing]" Unless the situation may be ambiguous,
> there should be no need to say "POV pusher" or "bad attitude". Then,
> the board will review the candidates' statements (and those of the
> people opposing/supporting them), and make its decision. (If this was
> a bit hard to follow, please let me know.) It sounds a bit
> bureaucratic, but I think it has a bit of potential if we're going to
> have a "lead editor".

Arbcom is perhaps the hardest kind of position to elect, because the
people involved have to get in the middle of all the worst fights in
WP. To take the project I've been involved with the longest,
WikiProject Ships, there have only been a couple serious arguments in
the nearly three years of its existence. Most of the time it works to
have one person propose, one or two say "good idea", and the rest
silently acquiesce in the new order of things. Other times you get a
proposal, an objection, a bit of discussion, and then deadlock; nobody
wants to call a vote even, because it would simply numerify the near
even split. The irony is that everybody is acting in good faith, and
if a "first among equals" were to break the tie, project members would
just go along. For many projects, I imagine that if someone were to put
a hand up, that person would be elected by acclaim; others may indeed
need to set up more of a formal balloting process.

I'm not sure how much WP as a whole needs to get involved. It might be
sufficient just to announce that projects are free to have "leads", let
them each experiment, and then later recommend to all projects what
seems to work the best.

To tie back to AfD, if it were a project's prerogative to define
deletion criteria, then AfD could become more of a routing mechanism
that delegates articles' fates to projects. I'm not going to scan
AfD every day on the off-chance that a nautical topic comes up, but
would take time for a lower-volume "AfD/Ships", for instance.

Stan


from_name: Angela

body:
On 1/11/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Incerdently does anyone know how to contact the ukranian wikipedia
> people? The images on: http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stauromedusae are
> copyvios. I tried to contact an admin there who has the EN:3 userbox
> but nothing has happened. They don't have a embasy.

Their [[village pump (policy)]] page is at http://tinyurl.com/7uapb
and the description says this is the page to ask about copyright.
<http://www.uco.com.ua/translate> is a good translator for Ukrainian
by the way.

On 1/11/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> They do have an embassy - when I got a visa it was up in Notting Hill.

There is an Embassy Of Ukraine in Notting Hill, but I'm guessing they
wouldn't help with Wikipedia. Geni was talking about
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Embassy

Angela


body:
On 1/12/06, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> (This discussion is on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_immigrant_groups_extended_family_positions
> )
>
> > Actually I don't think the topic is at all appropriate for an
> > encyclopedia.  It'd make a good essay, but I seriously doubt you'd see
> > such a title (or indeed any which start out "Changes in...") in, for
> > example, Britannica.  For Wikipedia sometimes we get strange article
> > titles like this for what is really a subpage of another article, but
> > that doesn't seem to be the case here.
>
> Nevertheless it would be possible to write a well-referenced article on
> this topic in encyclopedic style and if we had such an article it would be
> kept if brought up for AfD.
>
Maybe it would be kept, I'm not sure, but we weren't really talking
about what would happen but rather what should happen.  An article at
that title just shouldn't exist, in my opinion, regardless of how well
written it is.

This does touch on the question of how to break up articles which are
too large, though.  For example, we have an article, [[Responsibility
for the September 11, 2001 attacks]], even though such an article
title would probably never be found in a traditional encyclopedia.
But I see that as really a sub-article more than an article in itself.

In that vein, maybe [[Changes in immigrant groups extended family
positions]] would make sense as a sub-article of [[extended family]]
or [[immigration]], but barring some space considerations in those
parent articles I'd rather see it merged, regardless of the quality of
the text.

> >> How would you recommend we proceed?
> >
> > Redirect to [[extended family]] (optionally merging if you think it's
> > worthwhile).
>
> I don't think it's worthwhile, I think it's worthless.

Fair enough.  I was more thinking if the person making the redirect
thought any parts of it could be easily salvaged.  Personally, if I
were the one fixing it, I'd just make the redirect without any merge
at all.

> But why should we have a redirect there?

Because the system doesn't support semi-deletion, and redirects keep
the information there for someone else to fix.  I'm not confident
enough to say that no one could ever find any of that information
useful for making an encyclopedia, so I wouldn't feel comfortable
deleting it.  Making a redirect is easily reversible should someone
disagree with my decision, and yet it doesn't require bothering a
large group of people to see whether or not they agree.

The tiny bit of disk space the content takes up in the mean time is
not, in my opinion, worth the time it takes to have a discussion on
whether or not to remove it.

> The title is, as you noted, ridiculously long and
> clumsy so no-one is likely to type it in. And the article has no incoming
> links. Shouldn't we just delete it?
>
In my opinion, no, we shouldn't.  But I'm going on the assumption that
the content wasn't complete patent nonsense, and therefore not
*completely* worthless.

> In any case I realize that since you feel that the topic of the article is
> inappropriate for Wikipedia this was not in fact a good example for the
> discussion we were having :)
>
I guess.  When I made the statement I was more thinking about an
article title which we absolutely should include.  Maybe my statement
was a bit overbroad in not taking these titles which I referred to as
"sub-articles" into consideration.

> Thanks for taking a look!
>
> Regards,
> Haukur

Sure thing.

Anthony


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[WikiEN-l] New BoingBoing piece: "Correcting the Record:	Wikipedia
	vs The Register"

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 1/11/06, Jim Redmond <jim at scrubnugget.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Cory Doctorow has a new posting on BoingBoing comparing his struggles
>>against inaccuracy on Wikipedia and in The Register:
>>
>>http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/11/correcting_the_recor.html
>>
>>
>Very amusing, but not the greatest praise to say we're better than the
>lowest of gutter tech journalism ... ;)
>
At least I was able to take a quote from it for Wiktionary to illustrate
the use of the word "palimpsest". :-)

Ec