body:
--- Tomos at Wikipedia <wiki_tomos at hotmail.com> wrote:
> There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
> Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
> Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.
>
> We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
> license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
> is something like this:
>
> "by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
> within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

While I think this does reflect actual practice, I'm not sure if it is at all
legal or practical (esp since IANAL). For example, I would assume that any
current GFDL-only article could not be edited under such a dual license until
the authors of the GFDL-only article agree to dual license their work.

Why? Because the edited article is a derivative work of the original and since
the original was only under the GFDL, the derivative work can only be under the
GFDL. The only way to really change that is to get permission from all the
article's authors to add another license.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs

body:
Andre-
(regarding the commons and similar ideas)

> I want this, I have wanted it for many months. I have
> made proposals to implement it, and all I need is to
> get a wiki set up.

As I've explained on the proposal talk page, I think this project needs
proper planning so that we avoid shooting ourselves in the foot in one way
or another. But let me just assure you that I completely understand your
frustration. I have here 4 CDs full of interesting material, historical
images of different sorts, which I can't wait to upload, but I have no
immediate use for them on Wikipedia, for some of them I don't have precise
source information (although the images are all public domain), etc., so
this would be perfect for a media repository like the one we both want.
And part of me says "Why not set this up now?".

My main concern is doing things right from the start. Evolutionary growth
is a strange thing. You may end up with useless appendices, or with a
chaotic structure that somehow works but which nobody understands. And
evolutionary changes must always build upon what's there. A third arm is
not going to pop up out of nowhere just because you need it.

In our context, I'm worried about the following:

- This is our best opportunity to get single sign-on working, a feature
which we desperately need. Because the Commons effectively requires access
to a shared database, this is a natural extension. But starting with a
separate login system makes single sign-on a *separate* goal. This is not
just a technical issue of yet another redundant user table. It's also a
social issue of not being able to use the synergy from the launch of the
commons to promote single sign-on (which will likely have some initial
hurdles to overcome) and vice versa. It's difficult to generate excitement
about small, evolutionary steps.

- The initial edits on a wiki lay the foundation of what that wiki will
become. If just a few people get involved in this project, because it
offers no really cool, exciting possibilities, then the project foundation
may well not be as solid as it could be. For example, people may decide to
create image categories and upload requirements in the first two weeks.
This structure will then become harder and harder to change as it seeps
in, and when we add all the new cool features which attract more people --
a better upload form, transparent use of commons media from all wikis,
single sign-on -- it may already be too late to quickly and effectively
fix certain problems. Too much may have grown into the structure already.

- More generally, any and all things which we do on a quickly set up wiki
will have to be upgraded when the wiki itself is. If we decide at some
point that we need certain information on all image description pages, we
have to add that information to all existing ones. If we add some fancy
new feature for building image galleries, we have to convert our existing
ones. We do this all the time, of course, but that is born out of
necessity. Here no necessity exists. We can afford to wait a couple of
months until we have everything we need.

These concerns outweigh my desire to have something usable as soon as
possible. As soon as MediaWiki 1.3 is final and all the wikis are
upgraded, I and hopefully others will start working on this project. This
*is* going to happen, but I want to get it right from day 1.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs


list: wikien-l

from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
> From: "KNOTT, T" <tknott at qcl.org.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 12:58:25 +0100
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] How we should be dealing with Wik
>
>> It is very difficult to decide whether this or that
>> sockpuppet is really Wik so we will certainly disrupt others if we are
> too
>> aggressive.
>
> Most of the sockpuppets have been pretty easy to detect so far. The
> chance of onnocent users being affected is minimal IMO. I'm not saying
> we should be aggressive, I'm saying we should be firm.

Firm is good.

>
>> Removing stuff from Jimbo's talk page (if indeed it was Wik and
> not some provocateur) is a really bad idea.
>
> Why? Also if it isn't wik, but some provocateur then a ban of 7 days
> seems a pretty apt punishment for impersonating Wik in order to stir up
> trouble.

The ip that posted that can be banned for a bit, of course. Jimbo has
specifially asked folks to not delete stuff from his talk page. I think
that probably should apply to all of us in the "cabal" so that criticisms,
unfounded or not are clearly visible.

Fred

>
>
>
> Theresa
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Here's what goes on.

Everyone, after preliminary greetings, sits silently. When the spirit moves
them anyone in the congregation may speak. This does not result in a
spirited conversation or an argument but again the group sits quietly until
the spirit moves someone else.

The group as a whole will not take a position not supported by all after
delibration.

As noted in the original post, the spirits which move some are given more
weight than others and occasionally the athmosphere of quiet contemplation
is disrupted.

Fred

> From: Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: anthere9 at yahoo.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 21:56:57 +0200
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and Quaker meetings
>
> Sorry, what is particular to a quaker meeting ?
>
> dpbsmith at verizon.net a ?crit:
>> Subject line says all: is there an organizational similarity between
>> Wikipedia and Quaker meetings?
>>
>> Anyone is theoretically authorized to speak/contribute; some (elders/sysops)
>> are slightly more equal than others; subtle social mechanisms make the
>> overall process more orderly than one might expect; decision-making is done
>> by consensus; deliberately disruptive behavior occasionally occurs and is
>> dealt with but the process is not easy...
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: living_english_structure at go2.pl

subject: [WikiEN-l] The Role of Wikipedia is to promote understanding

body:
On 27-05-2004, Peter Jaros wrote thusly :
> On May 27, 2004, at 8:59 AM, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
> >This will gradually change, as public awareness increases. Imagine
> >Wikipedia as a top 100 website (it's already flirting with the top-500
> >boundary, you know). Forget the slashdot effect; think about Wikipedia
> >as a rival to Google!
>
> Indeed, I have come to depend on the Wikipedia as a reader.  Looking
> things up in the 'Pedia was become a reflex, as Googling has been
> for me for a while.  I actually have an impulse to look things up
> when I'm not at my computer.  I've started making lists of things
> to look up later.  I find that I can soak up knowledge like a sponge
> in wiki format.  It's kind of like in the Matrix, the way Trinity
> learns to fly the helicopter, or Neo does his combat training.  If I
> don't know something I need to know, I just type it in the box, hit
> "Go", read a little and...I know kung fu.
>
> One of these days I'll outfit my Newton with a WiFi card so I can
> take the Wikipedia with me wherever I go.  And while I'm dreaming,
> I'd like a pony...

Hi,

Magnus has already invented a way to fit the German Wikipedia on a
memory stick and take it wherever he goes.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-March/009505.html

Regards,
Kpjas.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: w to properly use articles ...

body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

---------------------------------
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body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

---------------------------------
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body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

---------------------------------
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Friends.  Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles ...

body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
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body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
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URL: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/attachments/20040528/9410192f/attachment.html>


body:
Hi Tomos

I do think this kind of discussion do not belong to the english mailing list.

The issues you are raising are not only relevant to the english wikipedia. Articles could be copied from other languages than english to the japanese wikipedia, so that makes it at a minimum wikipedia-l issue, and since you are mentionning wiktionary, I guess it should go to foundation-l.

There are more and more discussions about copyrights. They spread over several mailing lists. It would be nice that they are all at the same place, especially as Tomos wisely remind us "when someone translate a gfdl article from one language to another language, history from original authors is usually lost - unless the translator thinks of mentionning the origin of the content. Even when the origin of the article is mentionned, it is tough for a user to go to the original article and consult the original list of contributors as defined at the moment of the translation. In short, most of the time, when trade of content is done, we do not respect the gfdl requirements."

Since translations happen quite often between all languages, I think any discussion of change of cp status or addition of new status or recommandation to have PD content rather than gfdl, should be project wide.

Note : I would like to know whether all wikimedia projects are under gfdl, or if some are not, or if it is planned that some will not be

Greetings

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 10:36:04 +0000
From: "Tomos at Wikipedia"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside
GFDL source?
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

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from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and Quaker meetings

body:
On Thu, 27 May 2004 21:56:57 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sorry, what is particular to a quaker meeting ?
>From [[Quaker]]:
#REDIRECT [[Religious Society of Friends]]

Erm. From [[Religious Society of Friends]]:
The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers or
Friends, is a religious community founded in England during the 17th
century. Quaker congregations are scattered across the world. Though
the number of Quakers in the world is rather small, Quakers have
shaped the world to a degree far beyond their numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious Society of Friends
I will not copy and paste the entire article here. :)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Quakers

body:
Ahhhh, hmmmm, welllll, there are some similarities then yes ;-)
Though I fear we are a bit disruptive kids then

------------------

Here's what goes on.

Everyone, after preliminary greetings, sits silently. When the spirit moves
them anyone in the congregation may speak. This does not result in a
spirited conversation or an argument but again the group sits quietly until
the spirit moves someone else.

The group as a whole will not take a position not supported by all after
delibration.

As noted in the original post, the spirits which move some are given more
weight than others and occasionally the athmosphere of quiet contemplation
is disrupted.

Fred

> From: Anthere
> Reply-To: anthere9 at yahoo.com, English Wikipedia
> Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 21:56:57 +0200
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia and Quaker meetings
>
> Sorry, what is particular to a quaker meeting ?
>
> dpbsmith at verizon.net a ?crit:
>> Subject line says all: is there an organizational similarity between
>> Wikipedia and Quaker meetings?
>>
>> Anyone is theoretically authorized to speak/contribute; some (elders/sysops)
>> are slightly more equal than others; subtle social mechanisms make the
>> overall process more orderly than one might expect; decision-making is done
>> by consensus; deliberately disruptive behavior occasionally occurs and is
>> dealt with but the process is not easy...

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from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] How we should be dealing with Wik

body:
Wik has declared a "War" on Jimbo's talk page. He appears to feel that
since there are a large number of proxies he could use, that there is
nothing we can do to stop him. I disagree. There is only one of him, and
hundreds of us. I suggest we adopt the following approach.

For admins

1) revert anything wik posts no matter what it is or where it is posted
to. (Jimbo has a note on his talk page asking people not to revert,
Jimbo would make an exception in this case please, Wik needs to get the
message that he is not permitted to post anywhere for a period of 7
days)
2) Block the IP in question for 7 days
2) If he is logged in as a sockpuppet do not bother to warn if you are
_sure_ it's him.

For non admins
1) revert as above and make sure you put Wik as the reason in the
summary box. That way any admin RC watching can block the IP in question

For everyone
 Keep an eye on [[wikipedia:block log]] look out for mistakes by admins,
we don't want to block innocents. Check range blocks very carefully to
make sure they are legit, done correctly, and have an appropriate
message so that innocents don't get confused.

_Do not_ under _any_ circumstances speak to Wik. Not to antagonize him,
or to support him. He is banned for 7 days. He is not respecting it but
we all should. (Lot's have people have argued that the AC is too
reluctant to act, or that they are too powerless; in this case the AC
has acted. The AC's authority comes from us, if _we_ don't respect AC
rulings  then _we_ undermine the AC's power. An important precedent is
being set here, no matter how much we hate or love Wik we _must_ support
the AC by our own actions)

Keep this up until we have a 7 day period of no posting by Wik. Once the
7 days are up, unblock all Wik accounts and welcome him back (unless the
AC decide otherwise in the meantime).

Any objections?

Theresa


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>I object. Putting us all on a war footing is not worth it. When and if Wik
>accepts the brief ban that was imposed on him is soon enough. If that is
>never, so be it. It is very difficult to decide whether this or that
>sockpuppet is really Wik so we will certainly disrupt others if we are too
>aggressive. Removing stuff from Jimbo's talk page (if indeed it was Wik and
>not some provocateur) is a really bad idea.
>
>
I agree with this approach.  Identifying sockpuppets correctly can be a
lot of work, and can drain a lot of energies.  We become suspicious of
every newbie with a different approach to subjects, and that doesn't
create a good atmosphere.

Generally I think that removing messages from somebody else's talk page
is a bad thing.  If Wik had something to say to me (and I don't see why
he would) I would want the chance to read it no matter how nasty it is.
Only then would I decide what to do with it.  A few avenues for
communications always need to be kept open.  If he abuses those avenues,
it will work against his redemption.

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2u server delivered!

body:
Ricky Beam wrote:
> These have a hardware watchdog that could be of great value (esp. to
> whomever has to drive over to the colo to reset a hung box.)

Fortunately, unlike our old colo in San Diego, the Tampa facility is
staffed 24x7, and so merely resetting a hung box is a matter of a
phone call.  I will be adding a few more people to the authorized list
before I head for Europe, but right now it's Jason and me.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Ricky's magical kernel concoctions

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> We apparently now know how to get DMA working on those SATA drives,
> thanks the combination of a BIOS tweak and Ricky Beam's magical kernel
> concoctions.

Should we make it a priority when I get to the colo today to get DMA
working on all of the other 1U boxes?  It's important because I will
be out of town for a month, so if we don't do it now, we will not be
able to do it until much later.

(Actually, Michael could come in and help with it, but that's a bit
more difficult since he's not familiar with the setup as much as I
am.)

We need someone onsite to do it, because of the required BIOS tweak.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Problem with Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Erik Moeller schrieb:
>
> >No, that is incorrect. Jimbo said:
> >"For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think."
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-May/015324.html
>
> along with
>
> "Regarding Klingon, I have no objections to it.

I obviously contradicted myself, which is rare.  That's obviously not
good.

We should talk about it, and I should not make the final decision, but
I am inclined to say that I see no real harm in it.  When I made my
first statement, I was unaware that (a) Klingon does have an ISO code
and (b) it has an active community of hobbyist speakers.  I thought it
was just created for the movies and studied by 3 or 4 super-trekkies.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
Anthere-
> I was notified my candidacy statement was unfair.

By whom?

I'm only aware of a general discussion about normalizing the length of
candidate profiles which does not single out any specific user. In fact my
own profile exceeded the allowed length, although only slightly, until I
abridged it, and yours is only the second longest. Nobody is alleging that
anyone acted in bad faith.

Just imagine a situation where this election wouldn't be done on a
website, but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to
introduce themselves. Now, would it be fair if some candidates were
allowed to talk for 8, 10, 12 minutes, while others struggled to fit
everything into 5, even though the limit had been clearly defined at the
onset? Of course it wouldn't be fair. You would have someone with a
stopwatch, or at least someone checking his wristwatch, who says "Time's
up". Or you would give people some advance notice that the time limit has
been increased.

This may be a smaller issue of fairness compared to others, that doesn't
mean it doesn't matter. Given that the solution is so simple and obvious,
what is petty is not trying to fix the problem, but arguing about whether
we should fix it.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: w to properly use articles from an outside GFDL
	source?

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Tomos at Wikipedia <wiki_tomos at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
>>Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
>>Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.
>>
>>We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
>>license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
>>is something like this:
>>
>>"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
>>within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."
>>
>>
>
>While I think this does reflect actual practice, I'm not sure if it is at all
>legal or practical (esp since IANAL). For example, I would assume that any
>current GFDL-only article could not be edited under such a dual license until
>the authors of the GFDL-only article agree to dual license their work.
>
>Why? Because the edited article is a derivative work of the original and since
>the original was only under the GFDL, the derivative work can only be under the
>GFDL. The only way to really change that is to get permission from all the
>article's authors to add another license.
>
>
If, as many feel, the issue is one of finding an appropriate, but
different, copyright regimen it would be more constructive to look for
ways to make it work rather than to find excuses for it not working.

If "new" licence is chosen, then it could be noted that all
contributions after a decided year would come under the new licence.  If
a contributor was also active before that date any contribution that he
makes after that date will carry a retroactive application of the
licence to his previous edits.  We can deal with the others later.

The problems with this issue are only insurmountable because we have
declared them insurmountable.  Does anyone know of a situation where the
courts have tried to deal with this kind of issue?  When dealing with
laws there is a need to give them the most favorable interpretation, and
to be prepared to mount a reasonable defence.  Those who stand to profit
are usually ready to do that.

Ec

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness and the elections

body:
The limit as defined on the candidate page is 1000 characters total.

--------

This is inaccurate. the candidate page mentions that 2 questions should limit themselves to 500 characters maximum. There was no mention of any limitation on other points. There is no mention of a total of 1000 characters anywhere.

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body:
The limit as defined on the candidate page is 1000 characters total.

--------

This is inaccurate. the candidate page mentions that 2 questions should limit themselves to 500 characters maximum. There was no mention of any limitation on other points. There is no mention of a total of 1000 characters anywhere.

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body:
The limit as defined on the candidate page is 1000 characters total.

--------

This is inaccurate. the candidate page mentions that 2 questions should limit themselves to 500 characters maximum. There was no mention of any limitation on other points. There is no mention of a total of 1000 characters anywhere.

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body:
The limit as defined on the candidate page is 1000 characters total.

--------

This is inaccurate. the candidate page mentions that 2 questions should limit themselves to 500 characters maximum. There was no mention of any limitation on other points. There is no mention of a total of 1000 characters anywhere.

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body:
The limit as defined on the candidate page is 1000 characters total.

--------

This is inaccurate. the candidate page mentions that 2 questions should limit themselves to 500 characters maximum. There was no mention of any limitation on other points. There is no mention of a total of 1000 characters anywhere.

---------------------------------
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

body:
Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com wrote:

>Hi all, new user here.  I hope to get the lay of the land here soon and
>contribute some articles and edits on Egyptology.  Particularly I'd like
>to do write-ups on Sneferu and his pyramids, which often seem to get
>overlooked in favor of the Giza group.  Any thoughts would be most
>welcome.
>
Yeah.  Just go ahead and write.

Ec


body:
Tim-

> Jimbo said he wanted it. As far as I'm concerned, developers are still
> answerable to him not the other way around. If you want to hold a site
> wide vote, go for your life. If there's enough support, we'll delete the
> wiki.

No, that is incorrect. Jimbo said:
"For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think."
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-May/015324.html

Given that your action was based on a false premise, please disable the
wiki now.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
"Tim Starling" <ts4294967296 at hotmail.com> schrieb:

> Jimbo said he wanted it. As far as I'm concerned, developers are still
> answerable to him not the other way around. If you want to hold a site
> wide vote, go for your life. If there's enough support, we'll delete the
> wiki.

No, Jimbo did not see that, all he said was that "I have no objections
to it." That's quite a bit different from wanting it. Also, the
developers should not be answerable to Jimbo (nor the other way around).
They should be answerable to the community.

My personal opinion on Klingon is a hesitating 'for', where however my
reasoning has nothing to do with 'embarassment' but with the question
whether it's really a language used for communication. Regarding the
other languages, I am in favor of deleting Toki Pona, see no reason to
keep Serbocroatian, and would not object against deletion of Moldovan.

Andre Engels


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Andr?-
>
>
>>Okay, well... you created the Klingon Wikipedia yesterday. Today you
>>suspended it again.
>>
>>
>
>It had been created without discussion. We can have this discussion now.
>You may also want to read previous threads on the subject from the
>archive.
>
>However, given that all notable arguments have already been exchanged, I
>think the best way to go about this is to simply start a vote on Meta on
>whether we want a Klingon Wikipedia. I suggest you do it.
>
>
I don't see what a vote there would accomplish.  The criterion for
acceptance should be the presence of a significant minority in support.
A majority vote of only those who visit Meta seems like an attempt to
stack a vote against.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> daniwo59-
> > The intention was for 500 characters (words in the
> previous response was my
> > error) to respond to each of the two questions. As
> I stated earlier, we did
> > not specify whether blank spaces between words are
> characters or whether
> > links are characters.
>
> This doesn't make much of a difference, I don't care
> about 100 chars extra
> here or there, I care about 1000 characters here or
> there.
>
> Since you don't want to do anything else about this,
> I will change the
> candidate page to reflect the current practice.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Excellent move :-)
Thanks

__________________________________
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subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


body:
Correction

"Jimbo would make an exception in this case please" -->
Jimbo would you make an exception in this case please?

I really should read emails before I send them:-(
Anyway I was asking him to make an exception, not stating that he would.

Theresa


from_name: Mathias Schindler

body:
Erik Moeller schrieb:

> No, that is incorrect. Jimbo said:
> "For example, it would be bad to have a Klingon Wikipedia, I think."
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-May/015324.html

along with

"Regarding Klingon, I have no objections to it.

I guess when it comes right down to it what I mainly want is that we
have some external objective way to determine the difference between a
language and a vanity project.  I don't particularly care what
official list we use.

--Jimbo"

later on,

Mathias
--
nach uns der synflood.


from_name: Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

body:
Hi all, new user here.  I hope to get the lay of the land here soon and
contribute some articles and edits on Egyptology.  Particularly I'd like
to do write-ups on Sneferu and his pyramids, which often seem to get
overlooked in favor of the Giza group.  Any thoughts would be most
welcome.  See you all on the web...
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from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Optionalizing Real Names

in_reply_to:
<99fnoDXCpVB@erik_moeller> (Erik Moeller's message of "27 May
	2004 22:43:00 +0200")

body:
>>>>> "EM" == Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> writes:

    EM> I agree with Anthere on this one. The real names feature
    EM> simply adds unnecessary complexity.

I think that's wrong. I think that having a real name as a field
attached to a unique user ID string has a pretty strong precedent in
computer systems. Unix accounts, email, chat systems, etc., have a
unique string for user ID plus an optional place to put a full,
non-unique name.

    EM> It's difficult enough to convey the difference between
    EM> usernames and nicknames without an additional layer.

If it's difficult to convey that, there's a conceptual disconnect with
nicknames.

I'd be very happy to remove the nickname field from MediaWiki.

Of the two -- real name or nickname -- the first is far more important
than the second.

    EM> What we should instead work towards is easy changing of
    EM> usernames.

That's significantly harder, and I'd say pretty unnecessary.

        http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_names

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Tomos at Wikipedia

body:
There is another solution to this problem in discussion at Japanese
Wikipedia and Wiktionary. It is a bit easier than the migration to GNU Free
Content License, though I would love to see it happen soon.

We may introduce another license - so-called "intra-site public domain
license" or "intra-wikimedia public domain license." What the license says
is something like this:

"by contributing to Wikipedia, you allow others to use your contributions
within Wikipedia's projects as if they are in public domain."

Copying and pasting of GFDL texts are against GFDL in a small way. And it
happens in many contexts. (Moving Village Pump discussions to appropriate
talk pages, dividing an article into two pieces, using a boilerplate texts,
using {{subst:}}, etc.)

It is a bigger concern in Japanese Wikipedia, partly because fair use
usually have to include attribution according to the Japanese copyright law,
and because we do not yet have solid evidence to think that substantial
compliance in spirit is safe enough. In other words, if a troll says, "hey,
you violated my copyright, because you copied and pasted my contribution
into another page without following GFDL, and I am going to sue you," that's
not something we can laugh at.

The introduction of the PD license is also a way to reduce interlingual
troubles - the required level of compliance at Japanese Wikipedia is a bit
more strict/ literal than that suggested at en:Wikipedia:Copyright. But some
English Wikipedians may not know about it, and bring an image or translate
an article to English Wikipedia from ja. without fulfilling the requirement.
That, again, is a violation of GFDL, and therefore likely a copyright
violation.

If we introduce the "intra-wikimedia public domain license," we don't have
to worry about it.

If English Wikipedia can also introduce similar license, that would make
things more convenient.

Also, just in case it matters, we would still promote the GFDL-compliant
preservation of attribution, the purpose is just to reduce the risks from
legal technicalities, not to trivialize the attribution altogether.

Regards,

Tomos

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/


from_name: Jorge Gallardo

subject: [Wikitech-l] help on Spanish Wikiepdia

body:
Made changes on
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Recentchanges
and get the following error message

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object
in
/usr/local/apache/common-local/php-new/includes/Skin.php
on line 1911

JorgeGG

=====
____________________________________________
                      Jorge Gallardo Gastelo

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Informaci?n de Estados Unidos y Am?rica Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias.
Vis?tanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com


from_name: Erik Zachte

subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

"Just imagine a situation where this election wouldn't be done on a website,
but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to introduce
themselves."

Erik, a bad analogy. This medium has its own rules, as you often like to
point out yourself. On one of the talk pages you used unequal TV exposure as
an comparison. Same answer.

If a candidate is willing to take the risk that the reader turns away from
his or her statement because it is more words than content, so be it. I'd
rather be the judge of that myself as a reader. Your second argument, that
this is a rule per se and all have to abide, makes me smile. Wikipedia
convinced me that anarchism can work at times, and now petty fighting over
silly rules takes hold. Let me suggest to the committee to exchange this
rule for a smarter one: present candidacy statements in order of number of
words. Shortest statement comes first.

By the way

- I propose all candidates apply for both positions, so as to make this a
non-issue. We want two candidates that are capable and willing to handle all
kinds of issues, and not be confined to vague role playing. With only three
real wikipedians on the board there is no room for segmentation. Also, I
sensed on several discussions that many do not see a clear distinction
between the roles.

- As for ex officio board members Michael and Tim. I would welcome it if
they took the time to present themselves, or rather their views on
WikiMedias future. Tim has a user page, but not much in it.

Regards, Erik Zachte


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs

body:
Erik Moeller (Eloquence) wrote in part:

>I find it difficult to believe that we would generate a lot of interest
>with an announcement that we have now a shared media repository, but that
>it isn't possible to use images from there anywhere without re-uploading
>them, that there is no improved upload form, no transparent inclusion of
>images, etc.

I haven't been involved in planning Wikicommons (your version or Andre's),
but I for one would make use of even Andre's substandard first version.
I would upload all of the images that I've used onto the Commons,
and I would check the Commons for future images that I may be looking for.
(Then if I find one, I'll copy it to whichever wiki I want to use it in.)

Having a central repository for images means that I don't have to search
all of the individual wikis -- which I would never bother to do anyway.
People just need to upload their images twice -- once to the Commons
and once to whatever wiki they got the image for in the first place.
Most people won't do that -- too bad, but I'm not worse off than before.
Some people /will/ do that (like me, and like Andre presumably) --
then I'm in much better shape!

>On the other hand, when we launch the Commons in one fell swoop, with all
>the changes - the brandnew upload form, the single login, the transparent
>inclusion if images, perhaps a "Move to commons" button on image pages -
>that will certainly generate a lot of interest in "What's going on over
>there?" and thanks to single sign-on, people can try it out immediately
>without having to set up yet another account.

This will be fantastic.  I completely understand if setting up a Commons now
takes away from development that you'd rather spend on the superior design.
After all, if the developers are busy, then Andre can't demand anything! ^_^
OTOH, if the inferior Commons is ready now, then I will use it if it appears,
while anticipating the superior upgrade with relish.

I don't know what the situation is from the developers' point of view.
But this is how one Wikipedia editor would react to a WikiCommons.

-- Toby


subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

body:
On Fri, 28 May 2004 Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com wrote:

> Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com wrote:
>
> >Hi all, new user here.  I hope to get the lay of the land here soon and
> >contribute some articles and edits on Egyptology.  Particularly I'd like
> >to do write-ups on Sneferu and his pyramids, which often seem to get
> >overlooked in favor of the Giza group.  Any thoughts would be most
> >welcome.
> >
> Yeah.  Just go ahead and write.
>
> Well Ray, not to put too fine a point on it, but screw you.
>

This is a puzzling exchange.

New user asks for advice. Ray responds to ``just go ahead and write" --
which is how almost all of us here got started. New user replies with an
obscenity. Somewhere, there has been a failure to communicate.

First, we need help with Egyptian topics. Based on a figure I read a month
ago, there were something over 300 Egyptian kings, & last I counted, probably
not more than 10% of them had entries in Wikipedia. The Egyptian Mythology
article needs work. And there are probably other gaping holes in that
section.

Not knowing anything about you other than these two emails, Steve, I really
can't offer any advice than what Ray said: yes, there are some concerns about
fair use, copyright, NPOV, & so forth, but if you were able to read enough
of the Wikipedia website to understand how to subscribe to this list, is it
fair to assume you have at least looked at those sections? You probably
currently know more about Wikipedia than I did when I started about a year
& ahalf ago -- & I've made a few edits since then.

You will butt heads with other editors. You will have your writing changed,
sometimes not for the better. You will discover that someone knows things you
don't. You will sometimes feel that Wikipedia's not worth it, & want to abandon
it to the trolls, fools & wackos who keep appearing here.

And sometimes you will have an enjoyable exchange with someone, or learn
something you want to share. Or maybe you will find reward in the act of
sharing something you find important with strangers.

Again, I don't know anything about you, other than these two emails. And
the second one didn't show you at your best. Would you like to try again at
introducing yourself?

Geoff
itself.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Irresponsible version upgrade on several Wikipedias

body:
Meir Mendelovich wrote:
> Both me and the other Hebrew and Arabic wikipedians would be happy to help
> debuging the new skin and version but it is not acceptable to update the
> live site version without ANY proper tests!

We've been testing it in public for weeks (eg, http://rtl.wikidev.net/).
Please, *please* provide specific information about what is wrong
(preferably including screenshots) and please *please* say which web
browser and what version you are using.

> We have long list of bugs that I would be happy to translate to English when
> it will be needed. But, for now, install the old version that worked fine.

Sorry, no. Then we'll be back to the previous state where nobody's
interested in working out the bugs.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Dan Miller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Egyptology?

body:
Sorry--I'm sure Ec didn't mean that in a harsh way.
The thing is, we're a pretty live-and-let-live bunch
here--the feeling is that there are plenty of things
that deserve articles, so just write what you feel
like, and eventually it'll get done. No offense was
meant, and I understand that it's hard to get into the
mindset.  Best,

Meelar

Steve Parsons wrote:

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Well Ray, not to put too fine a point on it, but
> screw you.
>
>
>
>
>
> Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Sent by: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> 05/28/2004 12:23 PM
> Please respond to English Wikipedia
>
>
>         To:     English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>         cc:
>         Subject:        Re: [WikiEN-l] Greetings
>
>
> Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com wrote:
>
> >Hi all, new user here.  I hope to get the lay of
> the land here soon and
> >contribute some articles and edits on Egyptology.
> Particularly I'd like
> >to do write-ups on Sneferu and his pyramids, which
> often seem to get
> >overlooked in favor of the Giza group.  Any
> thoughts would be most
> >welcome.
> >
> Yeah.  Just go ahead and write.
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
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>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 10, Issue 72
> ****************************************

=====
"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not to be sneezed at."

--George Will, on hyphen use

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
I want to clarify regarding the discussion on the length of the candidates' statements.

There is NO discussion between Imran and myself about invalidating any candidate because of the length of their statements on the Candidate Page. NONE.

One candidate simply pointed out that on that page, people were asked to limit their comments to 500 characters. Without getting into a discussion over whether that number includes spaces or not (and the issue has been raised), the purpose was to allow each candidate to provide a BRIEF summary of their positions on two questions. Much lengthier statements could (and were) be made on the candidates own pages. In fact, there was no limit to the amount of space that could be used there. People could write thousands of words, or they could provide succinct comments about what they believe and the which goals they hope to pursue.

However, one candidate brought up the issue that certain candidates had exceeded the 500 word limit on the Candidates Page and there only. In fairness, and since that was a request by a candidate, I asked the candidates who had exceeded that amount to try and trim their statements. This was done via personal email precisely because I wanted to avoid this kind of ruckus. They were asked to cut out some words and redirect to their user pages. Nowhere was there any talk of disqualifying anyone.

This is not an issue I intend to pursue any further. 15 words more or less on that page is not going to sway the election one way or another. 500 characters was a round figure, chosen arbitrarily, to provide an approximate size of a text that would ensure that the page was readable.

I hope that no one intends to drop out of the race because of this request. I hope all the candidates understand my position on this and will not use this to contest the election, that has been proceeding smoothly so far.

Thank you,

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)

body:
The intention was for 500 characters (words in the previous response was my error) to respond to each of the two questions. As I stated earlier, we did not specify whether blank spaces between words are characters or whether links are characters. We expected that the candidates would understand that their answers to these two questions would be succinct, so that the page would be wieldly and user-friendly--nothing more and nothing less. I have asked those users who exceeded 500 characters to shorten their statements, but I do believe that _everyone_ acted within the spirit of the 500 characters, so I do not intend to chop up their statements or disqualify them.

Danny


subject: [Foundation-l] (no subject)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Ivan Krstic wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> That argument is speculative and alarmist.  There is no evidence
>> whatsoever to support any significant loss of support would result
>> from having a Klingon Wikipedia.
>
> It's not loss of support I'm worried about, it's gaining more of it.

Almost anything we do can lose AND gain support.  We can't please
everybody.  Unless the effect is demonstrably significant it's not worth
worrying over it.

>> There is a difference between a serious project, and taking one's
>> view of the project too seriously.  Your view is reminiscent of one
>> who guides his views by what the neighbours think.  It's like being
>> intimidated by the old neighbourhood busybody who is always looking
>> out of her window to see what everyone is doing just so she can have
>> ammunition for her next session of hen cackling.
>
> Hardly. Think of it more as a parent sending their kid to first day of
> school, and making sure they're dressed nicely so the other kids don't
> immediately find a reason to pick on them. Not a matter of
> intimidation or taking something too seriously - but a matter of
> picking your fights.

The decisions that kids make to pick on another one are a lot more
complex than that.  An overdressed kid is just as likely to be picked
on.  My son is 14, and it has never been a problem.  I don't worry about
what he wears. (His mother does enough of that.)

> Some years ago, a friend of mine designed a language of her own,
> complete with a reasonably elaborate grammar, vocabulary, style, etc.
> Stories and poems of varying length are written in it. Would creating
> a Silverelven encyclopedia be alright, then, too? (If this isn't as
> ludicrous to you as it is to me, then let's just agree this is a large
> difference of opinion and leave the issue at that).

I believe everything you state about the development of this language.
The fact is that she hasn't tried to start a Silverelven Wikipedia.
It's unrealistic to expect that she ever will.  Why bother to deal with
a hypothetical question that has no practical application.   Until she
tries I can remain open-minded about it.

>> Wikipedia should not reduce itself to being solely a refuge for
>> academic elitists.
>
> Academic elitists? I think that's opening a whole other can of worms.
> An encyclopedic effort just needs to know where to draw the line.

What's so important about drawing lines?

> tojo'Qa'...

I have no idea what that means. :-)
Ec


body:
>It is very difficult to decide whether this or that
>sockpuppet is really Wik so we will certainly disrupt others if we are
too
>aggressive.

Most of the sockpuppets have been pretty easy to detect so far. The
chance of onnocent users being affected is minimal IMO. I'm not saying
we should be aggressive, I'm saying we should be firm.

>Removing stuff from Jimbo's talk page (if indeed it was Wik and
not some provocateur) is a really bad idea.

Why? Also if it isn't wik, but some provocateur then a ban of 7 days
seems a pretty apt punishment for impersonating Wik in order to stir up
trouble.

Theresa


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] I'm infuriated.

body:
Hello,

I'm pretty damn angry now. I can't believe you suspended the entire
Klingon wiki.

I can understand if you don't want inter-wiki links to it. I can
understand if you don't want any links to the site. But can't you just
let those that WANT TO WORK ON IT, work on it?!

Seriously, guys, I'm indescribably disappointed. Put Klingon back up, or
trash Toki Pona.

Pretty damn annoyed,
Timwi


body:
Andre Engels wrote:

> however my
> reasoning has nothing to do with 'embarassment' but with the question
> whether it's really a language used for communication.

More so than Toki Pona.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

body:
Well Ray, not to put too fine a point on it, but screw you.

Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
Sent by: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
05/28/2004 12:23 PM
Please respond to English Wikipedia

        To:     English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
        cc:
        Subject:        Re: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

Steve.Parsons at inveresk.com wrote:

>Hi all, new user here.  I hope to get the lay of the land here soon and
>contribute some articles and edits on Egyptology.  Particularly I'd like
>to do write-ups on Sneferu and his pyramids, which often seem to get
>overlooked in favor of the Giza group.  Any thoughts would be most
>welcome.
>
Yeah.  Just go ahead and write.

Ec

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki editing for databases

body:
Has anybody thought about wiki databases? By these I mean applying the
wiki idea to data that is most naturally organized as a database
rather than as plain text. In practice, I visualize the edit page as
resembling a list of smaller text boxes, and then having one or more
display formatters to build a readable page from the raw database
entry. The closest I could see online is a TWiki plugin, but it didn't
look like it had a special UI.

The reason I'm interested in the general concept is that it seems to
have cropped up in several contexts:

1. I've been working on a scheme to handle WP's thousands of
bibliographic references. The idea is to have a sort of combination of
BibTex and the Image namespace; each referenced work gets an entry
with a name, you fill in fields of the entry, then just mention the
name as something like [[Ref:Arnett2001]] in articles and the software
puts out formatted author/title/ISBN etc. However, the ability to
format consistently depends on the reference's data being stored in
database style, while still being available for editors to fix up.

2. Wiktionary. Dictionary entries are database entries, not free
text. There should be a popup menu to add/choose the language for
which you're writing the definition, a list of definition numbers that
can be xref'ed properly, popups for parts of speech, and so on.

3. "Wikistamp". As part of my philatelic obsession, I've built up a
database of worldwide postage stamp data.  It now includes info on
about 150,000 types - about half of all in existence - but the details
are often incomplete, and wiki seems like a good way both to publish
what exists and to enlist others in filling in, plus links to WP could
have info on the stamps' subjects. However, I've only been able to do
this singlehandedly because I have custom C code that does extensive
validity checking - it knows that "ltolgrn" is a valid shorthand for
the color "light olive grenn" but "grnollt" is not, that "1sh6p" is
only valid for UK stamps before 1971, how to apply ranges of defaults,
and so forth. A wikified version of this data would need to have the
rules continue to be enforced by software.

These kinds of things seem like obvious uses for the application of
the wiki approach to database content. Is this just something that
people haven't thought of doing before? Are there fundamental
obstacles to implementation? (I'm reading the MediaWiki sources now,
haven't yet tried to hack on them.)

Stan


subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs

body:
"Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> schrieb:
> Andre-
> (regarding the commons and similar ideas)

I'll try to remain calm...

> - This is our best opportunity to get single sign-on working, a feature
> which we desperately need. Because the Commons effectively requires access
> to a shared database, this is a natural extension. But starting with a
> separate login system makes single sign-on a *separate* goal. This is not
> just a technical issue of yet another redundant user table. It's also a
> social issue of not being able to use the synergy from the launch of the
> commons to promote single sign-on (which will likely have some initial
> hurdles to overcome) and vice versa. It's difficult to generate excitement
> about small, evolutionary steps.

I think the effect will rather be opposite. By introducing many things at
once, it is likely that some will not be used that would be if presented
separately.

Also, I think we can diide the users of Wikicommons in two groups - those
directly interested, and those who are interested because it helps them
with another project. The first group can be got without extra features.
The second group will more likely be caught with content than with features.
If that idea is correct, the best way would be to start now with the first
group, and capture the second one when the direct upload and reference
from Wikipedia/Wikibooks/whatever is created, by showing them that there
is something they can actually use - a collection of pictures, already
divided into galleries.

> - The initial edits on a wiki lay the foundation of what that wiki will
> become. If just a few people get involved in this project, because it
> offers no really cool, exciting possibilities, then the project foundation
> may well not be as solid as it could be. For example, people may decide to
> create image categories and upload requirements in the first two weeks.
> This structure will then become harder and harder to change as it seeps
> in, and when we add all the new cool features which attract more people --
> a better upload form, transparent use of commons media from all wikis,
> single sign-on -- it may already be too late to quickly and effectively
> fix certain problems. Too much may have grown into the structure already.

Again, the cool, exciting features are I think not what draws people to the
project. Their own wish for a project like this, and the content of the
project are the more likely elements.

Problems like you describe will definitely happen, but I think they will
happen just as much if we wait as when we don't.

> These concerns outweigh my desire to have something usable as soon as
> possible.

I still feel it differently. Apart from having a long lasting desire to
just do this, even if there aren't any extras, I also think that having
a database and a community already in existence will help, not hinder
in getting the features working and used.

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs


from_name: Philip Newton

body:
Mathias Schindler <neubau at ...> quotes Jimbo saying about Klingon:

> I guess when it comes right down to it what I mainly want is that we
> have some external objective way to determine the difference between a
> language and a vanity project.  I don't particularly care what
> official list we use.

Is "inclusion in ISO 639" an objective way to determine this? I presume that ISO
does not allocate language codes to just anyone's conlang project, but Klingon
and Lojban, for example, are there (tlh, jbo).

Cheers,
Philip


body:
"Timwi" <timwi at gmx.net> schrieb:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > however my
> > reasoning has nothing to do with 'embarassment' but with the question
> > whether it's really a language used for communication.
>
> More so than Toki Pona.

That's why I would be for removal of Toki Pona, while agreeing with
keeping Klingon, just not wholeheartedly.

Andre Engels


from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Klingon Wikipedia

body:
On 5/28/04 1:43 PM, "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> Ray-
>> I don't see what a vote there would accomplish.  The criterion for
>> acceptance should be the presence of a significant minority in support.
>
> We are not a wiki hosting provider.
>
Sure we are.


from_name: KNOTT, T

body:
>The ip that posted that can be banned for a bit, of course. Jimbo has
>specifially asked folks to not delete stuff from his talk page. I think
>that probably should apply to all of us in the "cabal" so that
criticisms,
>unfounded or not are clearly visible.
>
>Fred

The reason that I am suggesting it, is because by allowing Wik to post
anywhere on wikipedia during a ban gives him a place to argue. All the
time he can argue with someone, he'll try to do so. If we cut off all
communication with him, he may decide to give up and go away. (we all
know he likes an argument). Anyway it's just a suggestion. I'll wait and
see what Jimbo says.

I'm off work for a week now (yeah  half term! -  working in a school is
brilliant!) so I won't be checking my email, if anything comes of this
thread that people think I really out to know about, you'll have to
leave me a note on my user page.

Theresa


from_name: Ivan Krstic

references:
<99jnu0oxpVB@erik_moeller> <40B6DF07.8000302@cranbrook.edu>
	<40B70F73.3040803@telus.net>

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> That argument is speculative and alarmist.  There is no evidence
> whatsoever to support any significant loss of support would result from
> having a Klingon Wikipedia.

It's not loss of support I'm worried about, it's gaining more of it.

> I do agree that Klingon to be completely useless. If it is that useless
> then after a flurry of initial activity people will just ignore it, and
> it can safely be allowed to die "not with a bang but a whimper."  It is
> unlikely that I will ever participate in the Klingon project, but I can
> respect the desire of others to do so.

The problem I have with this reasoning is that it destroys the notion of
a line being drawn - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is *not*
Everything2 (http://www.everything2.com). It's not one Klingon wiki that
's going to be Wikipedia's downfall - but I posit it will hurt the
project image or at best not help it, will be completely useless, and at
the end of the day provide no benefit to anyone.

> There is a difference between a serious project, and taking one's view
> of the project too seriously.  Your view is reminiscent of one who
> guides his views by what the neighbours think.  It's like being
> intimidated by the old neighbourhood busybody who is always looking out
> of her window to see what everyone is doing just so she can have
> ammunition for her next session of hen cackling.

Hardly. Think of it more as a parent sending their kid to first day of
school, and making sure they're dressed nicely so the other kids don't
immediately find a reason to pick on them. Not a matter of intimidation
or taking something too seriously - but a matter of picking your fights.

Some years ago, a friend of mine designed a language of her own,
complete with a reasonably elaborate grammar, vocabulary, style, etc.
Stories and poems of varying length are written in it. Would creating a
Silverelven encyclopedia be alright, then, too? (If this isn't as
ludicrous to you as it is to me, then let's just agree this is a large
difference of opinion and leave the issue at that).

> Wikipedia should not reduce itself to being solely a refuge for academic
> elitists.

Academic elitists? I think that's opening a whole other can of worms. An
encyclopedic effort just needs to know where to draw the line.

tojo'Qa'...

Cheers,
Ivan.


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: I want to start a new language...
	with	the	code"eg" please.

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at ...> writes:

> Regarding Klingon, I have no objections to it.
>
> I guess when it comes right down to it what I mainly want is that we
> have some external objective way to determine the difference between a
> language and a vanity project.  I don't particularly care what
> official list we use.

Would the ISO 639 list be sufficiently objective? I imagine they don't add just
anybody's pet conlang to their list.

Cheers,
Philip


from_name: Fennec Foxen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Greetings

body:
Well, Steve, not to put too fine a point on it, but messages of this
nature do not help your cause. This tone and this *attitude* are not
desirable; continued use of such bears the potential to get you banned
from the mailing list and possible from the wiki (if that is where you
post such content). Ray's point was entirely in earnest. This is a
Wiki. Anyone can edit.

However, I suggest you read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers
and related links, particularly the "Wikiquitte" section.

----- Original Message -----
From: steve.parsons at inveresk.com <steve.parsons at inveresk.com>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 13:28:39 -0400
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Greetings
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>

Well Ray, not to put too fine a point on it, but screw you.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikitech-l] Error in 1.3-conversion - HTML UTF entities

body:
On fy: I noticed that there seems to have occurred an error in the
conversion to MediaWiki 1.3. Where HTML UTF is used (like Ӓ),
the ; at the end is removed. See
http://fy.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Haadside&oldid=6849 -
I checked on Google that previously this was correct.

Andre Engels


from_name: André Müller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

This is my first posting to this mailing list; my name is Andr? and in
the Wikipedias you might either know me as ?N-true? or ?Andr? M?ller?.

Okay, well... you created the Klingon Wikipedia yesterday. Today you
suspended it again. I don?t quite understand why you did the latter. The
Wikipedia project is to create an encyclopedia in many languages. Also
artificial are included, such as Esperanto, Interlingua and Volap?k.
Even dead languages like Latin or Sanskrit (which remains unused
though). There?s even a Wikipedia in Toki Pona, another artificial
language even known to much fewer people than Klingon, for instance. I
don?t see how Toki Pona stayed up and Klingon didn?t? If this is because
you think there?d be too few contribuents, you?re wrong ? there?ll be
many enough. If it?s because the Wikipedia might lose credibility when
it adds ?silly? languages ? no. The Klingon language community is a
growing one, just like the one of Toki Pona. I don?t think this would
offend anyone out there. Wikipedia might just get some more famous. And
speaking about credibility... I don?t know if some validated languages
are more realistic than Klingon; there?s Plattd??tsch, which is indeed
considered a language, but it doesn?t have a orthographic norm ? it?s
written as you speak it, and thus may differ from speaker to speaker.

As you have probably seen, I had already started to work on the Klingon
Wikipedia. Don?t get me wrong ? I?m not trying to make you suspend
Plattd??tsch or Toki Pona. It?s just that I and many other Klingon
speakers/learners and future contribuents would like to have our
wIqIpe?DIya back.

- Andr?
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from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki editing for databases

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Has anybody thought about wiki databases? By these I mean applying the
> wiki idea to data that is most naturally organized as a database
> rather than as plain text. In practice, I visualize the edit page as
> resembling a list of smaller text boxes, and then having one or more
> display formatters to build a readable page from the raw database
> entry. The closest I could see online is a TWiki plugin, but it didn't
> look like it had a special UI.

I'd have to see this in action before I pass judgement.

> 1. I've been working on a scheme to handle WP's thousands of
> bibliographic references. The idea is to have a sort of combination of
> BibTex and the Image namespace; each referenced work gets an entry
> with a name, you fill in fields of the entry, then just mention the
> name as something like [[Ref:Arnett2001]] in articles and the software
> puts out formatted author/title/ISBN etc. However, the ability to
> format consistently depends on the reference's data being stored in
> database style, while still being available for editors to fix up.

The idea is interesting, and the bibliography on many articles is weak
to say the least.  Developing the data table will be the challenge.
There may not be a conflict with Arnett2001 but [[Ref:Smith2001]] could
apply to nearly any topic.

> 2. Wiktionary. Dictionary entries are database entries, not free
> text. There should be a popup menu to add/choose the language for
> which you're writing the definition, a list of definition numbers that
> can be xref'ed properly, popups for parts of speech, and so on.

That's the simplistic view of dictionaries.  The definition numbers
should be soft numbered to allow for the insertion of additional
definitions.  Some of it may work.  Understanding the definition of a
word and all its many connotations is never just a black and white
process.  One of the Wiktionarians who felt that Shakespeare quotes were
out of date for understanding the meanings of words has introduced a
list of words appearing in the Sherlock Holmes stories.  I can envision
eventual links between Wiktionary and Wikisource (perhaps the other
projects too) that could give examples of actual usage.

> 3. "Wikistamp". As part of my philatelic obsession, I've built up a
> database of worldwide postage stamp data.  It now includes info on
> about 150,000 types - about half of all in existence - but the details
> are often incomplete, and wiki seems like a good way both to publish
> what exists and to enlist others in filling in, plus links to WP could
> have info on the stamps' subjects. However, I've only been able to do
> this singlehandedly because I have custom C code that does extensive
> validity checking - it knows that "ltolgrn" is a valid shorthand for
> the color "light olive grenn" but "grnollt" is not, that "1sh6p" is
> only valid for UK stamps before 1971, how to apply ranges of defaults,
> and so forth. A wikified version of this data would need to have the
> rules continue to be enforced by software.

This one is a very interesting idea.  I've thought about it before.
I've thought about it in terms of a whole new cataloging system that
could challenge the proprietary and closely protected system that Scott
uses in North America.  This would involve a three level system that
would be suitable for beginning, intermediate and advanced collectors.
A Wikibook stamp catalog maybe?

Ec


from_name: Lightning

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Irresponsible version upgrade on several
	Wikipedias

body:
On May 28, 2004, at 3:44 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>
> No.  Firstly, switch back to the previous version.  Secondly, announce
> to the writers list, a software upgrade/update is file for 2004-06-15
> (or something like that).  Then I would happily report bug and
> problems.

Giving orders like that probably won't get you far with unpaid
volunteers....

>
> The switch to xhtml I appreciate a lot!  But why on earth did someone
> change existing CSS stylesheets?  Even if they were buggy we were used
> to them!

I can't even begin to formulate everything that is wrong with that
statement, but ill try.  bugs are ok because you are used to them?
what about new-comers? or people that aren't used to them? or just in
general things working like they are supposed to? is there something
wrong with that?


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
 Thus, I would like that a
> real
> > english speaker edit my statement to make it
> appear
> > good, clear, respect editorial rules, style,
> spelling
> > and such. It also needs to be shorten (though I
> would
> > not say of how much exactly since I thought I was
> > below 500 caracters).
>
> Sure - I just saved an edit of your statement.
> Revert anything you didn't like.

Thanks a lot ! that looks better... I like it.

ant

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subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Timwi-
>>first of all, thanks for setting up the Klingon Wikipedia :)
>
>
> Er, excuse me? Who did this and why? I thought we had agreed to put these
> borderline languages on hold until there's a consensus on how to deal with
> them. I'm not very happy about facts being made through administrative
> action. As far as I can tell, there was no vote and no discussion on this.
>
> Erik

Jimbo said he wanted it. As far as I'm concerned, developers are still
answerable to him not the other way around. If you want to hold a site
wide vote, go for your life. If there's enough support, we'll delete the
wiki.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Klingon Wikipedia

body:
Andr?-
> Okay, well... you created the Klingon Wikipedia yesterday. Today you
> suspended it again.

It had been created without discussion. We can have this discussion now.
You may also want to read previous threads on the subject from the
archive.

However, given that all notable arguments have already been exchanged, I
think the best way to go about this is to simply start a vote on Meta on
whether we want a Klingon Wikipedia. I suggest you do it.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness

body:
Erik-
> "Just imagine a situation where this election wouldn't be done on a website,
> but orally, and each candidate would be given 5 minutes to introduce
> themselves."

> Erik, a bad analogy. This medium has its own rules, as you often like to
> point out yourself. On one of the talk pages you used unequal TV exposure as
> an comparison. Same answer.

That is not an argument. If the medium is indeed different, you will have
to show how it is so different that the above logic does not apply.

> If a candidate is willing to take the risk that the reader turns away from
> his or her statement because it is more words than content, so be it. I'd
> rather be the judge of that myself as a reader.

If we clearly state at the onset that candidate profiles should be limited
to 1000 characters, and some go to more than twice than that length, we
can do two things - either get rid of the size limit altogether, or
enforce it. I personally think enforcing it is a good idea as otherwise
the page may become unwieldy, without being easy to fix because the
candidates' statements are pretty much their own. This is not just about
"giving the reader a choice" but also about making the page useful.
Similarly, if some people deviate from the template, we can either change
the template or enforce it being used. In this case I can live with both
options, but we need to settle on a fair and equal solution.

I hope you agree that we shouldn't make rules which we don't enforce. That
is often the origin of conflicts.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Fairness


subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs

body:
Andre-
> I think the effect will rather be opposite. By introducing many things
> at once, it is likely that some will not be used that would be if
> presented separately.

I find it difficult to believe that we would generate a lot of interest
with an announcement that we have now a shared media repository, but that
it isn't possible to use images from there anywhere without re-uploading
them, that there is no improved upload form, no transparent inclusion of
images, etc. I think it would generate about the same interest that
Wikisource did, with a few people like yourself starting to put up what
they've been wanting to put somewhere for a long time and creating the
basic structure (with the associated problems I have described below).

On the other hand, when we launch the Commons in one fell swoop, with all
the changes - the brandnew upload form, the single login, the transparent
inclusion if images, perhaps a "Move to commons" button on image pages -
that will certainly generate a lot of interest in "What's going on over
there?" and thanks to single sign-on, people can try it out immediately
without having to set up yet another account.

> Also, I think we can diide the users of Wikicommons in two groups - those
> directly interested, and those who are interested because it helps them
> with another project. The first group can be got without extra features.
> The second group will more likely be caught with content than with
> features.

I think the first group is very small, and I think the second group will
be initially interested, but turned away by the samll things like having
to create a new account, having to re-upload files, etc. Most people have
a very low tolerance of frustration, especially when working on hobby
projects. That's why usability is so essential, and the features we want
are really usability features. For example, I also think that
participation on Meta would be much greater if we had single sign-on.

>> - The initial edits on a wiki lay the foundation of what that wiki will
>> become. If just a few people get involved in this project, because it
>> offers no really cool, exciting possibilities, then the project foundation
>> may well not be as solid as it could be. For example, people may decide to
>> create image categories and upload requirements in the first two weeks.
>> This structure will then become harder and harder to change as it seeps
>> in, and when we add all the new cool features which attract more people --
>> a better upload form, transparent use of commons media from all wikis,
>> single sign-on -- it may already be too late to quickly and effectively
>> fix certain problems. Too much may have grown into the structure already.

> Again, the cool, exciting features are I think not what draws people to the
> project. Their own wish for a project like this, and the content of the
> project are the more likely elements.

See above.

> Problems like you describe will definitely happen, but I think they will
> happen just as much if we wait as when we don't.

Why do you think that?

Regards,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Re:Wikimedia Communs