from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/4/06, Redvers @ the Wikipedia <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> From: "Anthony DiPierro"
> > I still have no idea what it means to "assert
> > notability" or what "an
> > article with no claim to notability" is.
>
> Neither do our vandals. I'd go as far as saying that
> the majority of CSD-A7 deletions that are immediately
> recreated go from "Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from
> Melbourne" to "Joe Bloggs is a notable bicyclist in
> Melbourne".
>
Well, that certainly does seem like it would assert notability.

> This is a Good Thing, as claiming notability is not
> the same as asserting it, and Mr Bloggs and his bike
> can be deleted again. I'm always surprised that the
> vandals haven't worked out that they should *assert*
> notability. But they don't and I think the reason is:
> they can't.
>
OK.  So "claiming notability" = not sufficient.  "establishing
notability" = more than enough.  "asserting notability" = just right,
but impossible.

How much kool-aid do I have to drink before that starts making sense?

> A good encyclopedia article, especially one about a
> person or group, sums up the entire article in the
> first sentence. You learn everying that is notable and
> important about the subject in a couple of dozen words
> (less in the better written articles). Anything,
> anything at all, that is notable can be summed up in
> the opening sentence.

Surely the speedy deletion criterion doesn't require that notability
be summed up in the first sentence.  Or is that what "asserting
notability" means?

> Wikipedia is the free
> encyclopedia anyone can edit.

So if I make a free encyclopedia anyone can edit, that's notable?
Considering that I once did make a free encyclopedia that anyone could
edit, and the article about it was deleted (and later replaced with an
article about some boy-band that stole my name), I don't think so.

> Jimbo Wales is an
> internet entrepreneur who founded Wikipedia. ABC is a
> national television and radio network in the United
> States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up.

"Brian Peppers is a registered sex offender whose unusual appearance
caused his mug shot to be passed around the Internet."  "Crab Smasher
is an unsigned indie band from Rock City, Australia."  "Hawkin's
School of Performing Arts is a dance school located in Folsom,
California."  "Brian Chase is an operations manager at Rush Delivery
who started a controversy over Wikipedia when he posted a hoax for its
article on [[John Seigenthaler Sr.]]"

These are all easily summed up, so they are all notable?

[snip]

> But it's very difficult to *define* what is and isn't
> an assertion of notability. Notability is largely a
> /quality/, a property something has or doesn't have.
> Producing an exact definition of what an assertion of
> it looks like is probably beyond the English language.
> Like modern art, you can't produce a definition of it,
> but know it when you see it!
>
I certainly don't know modern art when I see it.  In fact, I think
there is a lot of disagreement over what modern art is.

I'm starting to think that "notability" is even more this way.  It
means something radically different to different people, to the point
where the ability to delete due to non-assertion of notability is
equivalent to the ability to delete for any reason whatsoever.

> I think we can trust our admins to rule on it, if
> nothing else because admin actions are undoable. And
> if something or someone *is* notable after all, an
> article will spring up in its place later and
> hopefully better.
>
Possibly even over and over again until admins put up a blank page and
protect it.

> For AfD decisions its harder to know if we can trust
> the consensus, but that's because the cut-and-dried
> non-notables have been deleted by admins already. Its
> the grey-area ones that go to AfD and are subject to
> people's prejudices, deletion/inclusion leanings and
> the author's potential for disrupting of the process.
>
> If AfD worked, it would be the ideal place to discuss
> all of these things. Ho hum.
>
> =REDVERS=


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability equating to notability

body:
On 5/4/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > How does an article go about asserting the notability of its subject?
>
> Typically, "Bill Smith is a DJ best known for winning the British DJ
> of the year award in 1983".
>
I'm just going to give up on that first question.  Apparently
"asserting the notablilty of a subject" means whatever the admin doing
the deletion wants it to mean.

> > What would be an example of an article which asserts notability but
> > doesn't establish it?
>
> Not citing a verifiable source which shows that Bill Smith did indeed
> win that award.
>
> Steve

Thanks, an actual answer to that second question of mine.  One that
makes sense, to boot.

Anthony


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] add a start reply

body:
>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Bennett
>>>>> <stevage at gmail.com> writes:
   >>
   >> The first type of reply seems to me quite insane!

   Steve> No, it's perfectly logical, and is very easy to read. The
   Steve> only problem arises if there are replies to replies. Note
   Steve> that you *can* sign every line:

I disagree, since people tend to use indentation to emphasise points,
having such a structure without signature, looks for me completely confusing!!!

   Steve> | The text is incorrect because
   Steve> | #Fermat was a genius
   Steve> | :no he was insane ~~~~
   Steve> | #Fermat knew already things he never published.
   Steve> | :Like what? ~~~~
   Steve> `----

Of course you can and I think you *must*

Uwe


from_name: julieharding1 at charter.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
---- Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>You better watch it Phil.  I am fingerprinted and accepted by the State of California and it is illegal for you to make false allegations against me, even if it is in cyberspace.  The police know how to track people down with just their email addresses.  What's wrong?  Does a little intelligence from a woman intimidate you?  One more public false allegation and I'll turn you in.
Julie Miller Harding
951-788-8934

 Julie Harding has been put back on moderation while she learns how to
> format posts and to not be on crack.  If you were dying to get
> Julie's response to your point, you may want to e-mail her privately.
>
> -Phil
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] We need a policy against vote-stacking

body:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete,
> but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am
> going to close it with a keep.
>

Not going to happen. There is no way you are going to get 27 people
who care enough to  vote delete. With they way AFD is currenly set up
any significant minority can have the articles they want kept kept in
most cases.

> So, what's our bridge guy to do?  Well, one thing he can do is go around
> to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to
> them.    Vote stacking?  Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge
> people come in and have a say?

He could contact the other people who voted on the AFD. Most of them
will be prepared to listen to reason.

--
geni


from_name: Kirill Lokshin

body:
On 5/4/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/4/06, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > > b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their
> > >    content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
> >
> > With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed
> > by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that.  (Not
> > necessarily looking for things to delete in particular; but those tend
> > to drop out naturally when going through articles to grade.)
>
>
> Article rating programs?  Can you point me towards some of them?  Thanks

[[WP:WVWP]] should have pointers to most of them; off the top of my
head, the Tropical cyclones, Military history, Chemistry, and Beatles
WikiProjects are ones I've recently had experience with, but many of
the more active projects have them at this point.

Kirill Lokshin


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Towards MW 2.0

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 12:39:23PM +0200, Tels wrote:
>
>>> I'd humbly suggest that there are better things to discuss here than
>>>if certain languages are more maintainable than others. A good
>>>programmer can write maintainable code in any language; similarly a bad
>>>programmer can write crap anywhere, too.
>>>
>>>Are we here to have a meaningful discussion about MW, or just engage in
>>>useless language debates?
>>
>>Er, my mail should have gone only to the author, not the list. My
>>apologies.
>
> What, you mean mailing lists with reply-to set to the list are a *bad*
> thing?

What, you mean you'd rather have hundreds of e-mails constantly go to
the individuals when they were meant for the list?

Timwi
(P.S. I use the newsgroup interface and I don't really get why anyone
would use the mailing list. :-) )


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watchlist feature requests (was Re: Cruft)

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 03/05/06, Pete Bartlett <pcb21 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> The JS version of transclusion appears to be:
>>
>> document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'
>>              + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/popups.js'
>>              + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');
>>
>> I think it would be a brilliant idea to modularise and bring together all scripts
>> in a consistent fashion under a WikiProject umbrella, so the editor just has
>> to include a selection of subpages.
>
> Can such a thing be achieved through javascript? I'm imagining
> something like this:
>
> 1. User makes a single modification to their monobook.js to include
> the module tool.
> 2. The module tool provides an interface such that they can select the
> modules that interest them
> 3. Modules currently selected are saved somewhere like user:Stevage/modules
> 4. When the user confirms, the tool retrieves the originals and writes
> them to something like user:Stevage/modulecode
> 5. Either the user, or the tool automatically adds a line which
> includes everything in user:Stevage/modulecode as you described above.
>

Theoretically, yes. I thought about having a similar system, only the
entire code would be written back to the monobook.js, because it's
protected from other users. However, I'm not sure that it would be
/practical/ to implement it without something like XUL to get the UI
setup - ie. it would be a Mozilla extension.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/2d5661f5/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?

body:
Rob Church wrote:
> On 03/05/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We need the ability to upload images onto en to deal with vandalism.
>> Secondaly how would [[MediaWiki:Bad image list]] work?
>
> We could change things a bit, of course; if the shared image repo.
> version of the file is protected, then we could disallow local
> uploads.
>

Better yet, don't allow a local upload if the Commons version exists.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/0e7c29a3/attachment.pgp


list: commons-l

from_name: Brianna Laugher

subject: [Commons-l] Direct copy to commons

body:
> I plan on another script that looks for, say, 20 commons-compatible
> images on a wikipedia (or wikibooks) which are /not/ on commons yet.
> These should be displayed with thumbnail images, links, etc. There would
> be a checkbox in front of each, and the checked ones can be uploaded en
> block to the commons. Would that be desirable?

Uh... if it just says "these images have been tagged GFDL/PD/whatever,
do you want to transfer them to the Commons?" I would have to say no.
Transferring images is a good opportunity to re-examine the licenses
and sources provided for many images on local projects, which are
often quite suspect! Transferrers should be quite stringent in
requiring a source (that if online, is actually *checked*) and a
license justification - for non "(PD/GFDL/whatever)-self" items. For
self created items, some common sense is needed... low res items
should generally be treated with a great deal of suspicion.

Brianna


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/3/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/en/Author%27s_claim_of_license is
>> the standard reply to "someone keeps tagging my material as copyvio,
>> but I wrote it, damnit"
>>
> From that page: "In order to accept into Wikipedia content which is
> published on another website, we usually require a clear statement
> from the author of the content that the content is being licensed
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) [...].
> This statement must come from an email address that we can clearly
> recognize as being from the operator of the website, or be in reply to
> a message sent to the operator of the website."
>
> Umm, what if the operator of the website isn't the author of the content?
>

Then they're violating the author's copyright? They can demand them to
fix it?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/a938cf8b/attachment.pgp


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject: [WikiEN-l] We need to recognize that advocating is a basic right

body:
John Tex wrote:
[...]
>
> Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process
> and it is harmful to the project.  If we try to prohibit it, it will just be
> taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame.

It already happened for the JP cartoon poll:

http://www.dartblog.com/data/004950.html
http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-on-danish-cartoons.html
http://penumbra604.livejournal.com/25659.html

... and probably many more.

--
Raphael


body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On May 3, 2006, at 9:47 AM, Gallagher Mark George wrote:
>
>>>> Not that it's unprecedented for people on this list to be civility
>>>> hypocrites.
>>> Eep, let's chill, everyone, please?
>> I think he was making a joke (referring to Joe's problem of being
>> accused of "hypocrisy").  If so, it was ... reasonably ... droll.
>> I guess.  Definitely unnecessary, regardless of the verdict.
>>
>> If he was not joking, it was of course an unconscionable insult and
>> I shall stand ready to defend Phil B's honour in a duel at dawn.
>> Smelly socks at twenty paces, Phil W!  Are you ready?
>
> I'm not allowed to call people out for being uncivil while at the
> same time complaining about other people's incivility? "Hypocrite"
> was too strong a word perhaps.

Yes, it was.

> I should have said, "It amuses me how the least civil people on this
> list are the ones complaining about the incivility of others."
> Because now instead of being a hypocrite, you're entertainment. And
> that's better.

Look, how about we call a spade a spade and explicitly categorise people
into [[Category:Wikipedia users with civility problems]]? We could even
make a nice little userbox for it - {{user eff-off}} perhaps?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/584795c6/attachment.pgp


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Office slogan (was Re: Cruft)

body:
Phil Boswell wrote:

>The stabbing will continue until morale improves :-)
>
>
I'll forgive you the misspelling and still give you credit for inventing
the new slogan for the WP:OFFICE policy:

Stubbing will continue until morale improves.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] Cyde should not have violated Deletion policy (

body:
John Tex wrote:
> On 5/3/06, wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org
>
>> From: Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Cyde should not have violated Deletion policy
>>         (Johntex)
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Message-ID: <4459925E.90903 at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>>
>> I didn't "close" the debate so much as I "canceled" it.  My "vote", as
>> you mention, was to cancel it ... and then a minute after that I
>> realized I could go through with what I said should be done.
>
>
> Unfortunately, this misses the point.  Whether you called it a "closure" or
> "cancellation" or a "stoppage" or whatever.  You halted the process that a
> lot of people were contributing to.

The process was /wrong/.

>  They had a right to be heard.

Wikipedia is NOT a democracy; the First Ammendment of the Constitution
of the United States only guarantees "free speech" against intervention
by Congress. Wikipedia is a private website where you have exactly TWO
rights:

* The right to leave
* The right to fork

> This wastes a lot of time and looks like bad behavior for an admin to
> kill an AfD early, especially one he has been involved in.
>

It looks a hell of a lot like using common sense.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/7c327bf5/attachment.pgp


subject: [WikiEN-l] vote-stacking and userboxes

body:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
>
> Raphael Wegmann wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> as everybody probably knows here, userboxes made vote-stacking
>> und campaigning easy, since one can easily find the "right" people
>> to vote on a subject.
>>
>> Maybe a technical solution to this problem is possible.
>> What if a bot substitutes all userboxes on the user-pages?
>> Maybe it's even possible to somehow "tag" a template,
>> so it is always substituted? This could be used on warning
>> templates as well.
>
> It's honestly really funny that you should mention this today, because
> if you check the pywikipediabot CVS logs for yesterday, you'll see that
> I committed a change to the template bot that allows an arbitrarily
> large number of templates to be substituted or deleted from an
> arbitrarily large number of pages all in a single command.
>

Though I'd say it's a good idea to run that bot,
I agree with JohnTex, that campaigning shouldn't
be prohibited per se. Spamming thousands of users,
who happen to have a certain userbox on their
userpage is a different matter.

--
Raphael


body:
Philip Welch wrote:
> On May 3, 2006, at 10:39 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>>> Trial by fire. If someone can't take the "abuse" of a standard RfA,
>>> they can't take the ongoing abuse that admins take all the time from
>>> vandals, trolls, and other trouble-makers.
>>>
>>> Personally, I went through RfA just like a lot of people here. You
>>> don't see me whining about how I was bludgeoned over the head. RfA is
>>> supposed to be a tough process to get through.
>> Oh, I'm not objecting to it being rough. I'm objecting to someone
>> actually being opposed for RfA for petty reasons
>
> That seems fair, but RfA is a community based process, not a policy
> based process. With a community based process, you have to allow
> people to use criteria you disagree with in exchange for allowing
> consensus. With a policy based process, criteria might be more
> rational, but you might lose consensus.
>

The community is full of trolls - to the point where they claim that
they've been made admins. Of course, they could just be trolling, but if
that doesn't say that RFA needs a sanity check, I don't know /what/ does.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 551 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20060504/ce4c1c09/attachment.pgp


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.

Then again, loving bridges, he may not find it in is heart to delete
_any_ article about them that has sources. Which, to a certain extent,
is fine with me, but it does have the potential to significantly
change the whole "deletionism/inclusionism" balance. Imagine the same
concept applied to Star Trek experts. "Tribble Rebellion of 2280?
SPEEDY KEEP!"

Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as
open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they
distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion
on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in
that topical AfD before.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] article rating programs

body:
On 5/4/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> > On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> >> b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their
> >>    content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
> >
> > With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed
> > by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that.
>
> What are these and how do they work.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WVWP for the exhaustive details,
but briefly:

1. A group of people (WP:1.0 team) decided to pick out good articles
for a potential hardcopy release of Wikipedia; one of the approaches
they took was asking individual WikiProject to evaluate articles in
their area and report on the suitable ones.
2. Simultaneously, one WikiProject (Chemistry, if I recall correctly)
hit on the idea of automating this via a "worklist", where articles
would get recorded with an accompanying grade.  The grades eventually
developed into a more-or-less standard system of Stub - Start -
B-Class - A-Class - FA, although some groups have introduced
variations into the system.
3. Other WikiProjects asked to evaluate articles (per point 1) began
to create their own worklists (per point 2).  Each WikiProject adopted
its own system for assigning the grades, though, depending on its own
needs.

We're now seeing some prototype support for automatically constructing
worklists from tags on article talk pages, which should make this sort
of thing easier.

Kirill Lokshin


subject: [Commons-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?

body:
(Fwding to Commons list as well)

Hmm... as a Commons admin I find this very interesting. Does it imply
that the universal login is really in sight? We can only hope! :)

I hope that the universal login does bring with it some kind of
universal talk page "you have new messages...somewhere" notice. Most
Commons users don't check their Commons talk pages with any regularity
and thus don't receive their image warnings, and feel quite slighted
when their copyvios/unsourced images are deleted. Any opportunity to
reduce that would be welcome.

I guess I would say that it's a good idea, except it would very
welcome if en.wp (and any other projects that do this) would consider
"donating" a few admins/keen users to help us out on copyvio patrol.
For non-English projects this is especially essential - it is just so
fantastic to have a native speaker around to be able to ask/tell them,
"you deal with this person, please" :)

Also Commons is, I think, a little more stringent in its application
of free image requirements (that is, when we notice).

Last concern is that Commons really requires uploaders to categorise
their images, something that is not so necessary on en.wp.  Luckily
there are a couple of tools to help with this, perhaps one of these
could be worked into the interface somehow. See the recent commons-l
archive for links.

Brianna

> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 16:05:28 +0100
> From: "Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>,
>        wikitech-l at wikimedia.org,       "MediaWiki announcements and site admin
>        list" <mediawiki-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <e92136380605030805n7ccef094r346d29ca168037f3 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> [Cross-post to wikien-l, wikitech-l and mediawiki-l; apologies for duplication]
>
> On 03/05/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >   The "Upload file" link in the left pane of monobook still takes you
> > to the page for uploading an image to the English wikipedia. In most
> > cases, it would be more helpful to be uploading the image to Commons
> > (US fair use being the notable exception).
> >
> > Since I notice that certain other wikipedias at least make a commons
> > upload link equally prominent, is it time we considered removing the
> > upload-to-EN link entirely, or hiding it somewhere for those that
> > really do want to upload fair use images? And instead, provide a link
> > to upload to commons?
>
> Allow me to recall a #mediawiki anecdote from about a week ago. A user
> new to the software wanted to set up about three wikis using a fourth
> as a mini version of our Commons (their own implementation); the
> "usage" side had been established, but the user queried whether or not
> uploads from all wikis could be diverted to the new.
>
> Given that the "slave" wikis would all have access to the "master"
> database (excuse the confusing mix of terminologies for those who are
> placing this into 'SQL context), I considered it wouldn't be too
> difficult.
>
> Now for the relevant bit. It's been discussed before, a little, and I
> touched upon it in a recent discussion sparked off from the newbie's
> questions...but it could be feasible for us to replace our
> Special:Upload pages with something a bit more intelligent. Making use
> of the licencing dropdowns, we could, I think, redirect free images to
> Commons in a seamless fashion (after checking existence and providing
> a courteous note to the user, of course).
>
> This has advantages and disadvantages. The user's upload experience is
> simple, and the image can be used as before without trouble. On the
> other hand, deliberate or accidental mis-selection of the licence
> [cw]ould result in an influx of non-free materials arriving on the
> Commons.
>
> Nevertheless, I think the idea has potential, and it's something I
> might be interested in helping to hack together in the future. I'll
> throw it out here and see what people think. And since I'm at it, I'll
> cross-post to mediawiki-l and wikitech-l, too.
>
>
> Rob Church
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 17:35:14 +0200
> From: Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?
> To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list
>        <mediawiki-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Cc: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>,
>        wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <4458CDB2.90706 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > [snip]
> > Now for the relevant bit. It's been discussed before, a little, and I
> > touched upon it in a recent discussion sparked off from the newbie's
> > questions...but it could be feasible for us to replace our
> > Special:Upload pages with something a bit more intelligent. Making use
> > of the licencing dropdowns, we could, I think, redirect free images to
> > Commons in a seamless fashion (after checking existence and providing
> > a courteous note to the user, of course).
> >
> That's a brilliant idea. I'd really like to see it implemented. Not only
> for English Wikipedia, but for all Wikimedia projects.
> > This has advantages and disadvantages. The user's upload experience is
> > simple, and the image can be used as before without trouble. On the
> > other hand, deliberate or accidental mis-selection of the licence
> > [cw]ould result in an influx of non-free materials arriving on the
> > Commons.
> >
> Even though I'm not a Commons expert, I can deduce that Commons too has
> a problem with wrong licenses, hence some of the deletion.
> > [snip]
> Filip
>
> P.S. Sorry for doubleposts... I used Reply to all
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 16:53:22 +0100
> From: "Rob Church" <robchur at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?
> To: "MediaWiki announcements and site admin list"
>        <mediawiki-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <e92136380605030853v488e0b4btf0e62fa9f0d6275b at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 03/05/06, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's a brilliant idea. I'd really like to see it implemented. Not only
> > for English Wikipedia, but for all Wikimedia projects.
>
> If it wasn't clear that that was the implication, then I apologise.
>
> > Even though I'm not a Commons expert, I can deduce that Commons too has
> > a problem with wrong licenses, hence some of the deletion.
>
> Yes, but how much extra workload would it produce, and would the
> benefits outweigh the disadvantages?
>
>
> Rob Church
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 17:58:41 +0200
> From: Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] [WikiEN-l] Upload by default to Commons?
> To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list
>        <mediawiki-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <4458D331.1020104 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Rob Church wrote:
> > On 03/05/06, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Even though I'm not a Commons expert, I can deduce that Commons too has
> >> a problem with wrong licenses, hence some of the deletion.
> >>
> >
> > Yes, but how much extra workload would it produce, and would the
> > benefits outweigh the disadvantages?
> I think they would. But that's just my opinion and I can see why you
> have doubts about this. It'd be a step that could have a great impact in
> the future. I'm interested in what others think, though.
>
> Filip
>
>
> ------------------------------


list: foundation-l

from_name: Daniel Arnold

subject:
[Foundation-l] The status of smaller languages on the Wikimedia
	Commons

body:
Hi,

Just in order to get the background on the issue. I am rewriting since
Februrary all english help pages in Commons and the large majority does like
my changes and in case not I was able to solve the issues in no time with all
people but Teofilo in a collaborative manner (if you do not count
licensing/deletion flames every admin faces).

@Teofilo: Do you think that Wikimedia foundation list is the right place for
such an issue?
* This small step was not a sudded one (or shall I give you the all the links
discussing that matter since February?).
* There is a debate on the issue at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Main_page_tweaks so
there is really no need to debate such an issue here.

@Erik: Yes the criterias for doing so are at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_page_maintenance (yes was
created by me ;). For sure they were and will be adapted further with
experience. Of course this page is also prominently linked in several places
in Commons and of course also on Commons IRC topic and I made a lot of
advertising of that page (by the way I badly need many people translating the
first steps tutorial, and yes French is sadly one of the worst supported
languages in Commons).

Currently the hiding affects only static content of pages that have more than
20 translations and only in case certain translations are outdated
("outdated" gets defined as well there and as well also a detailed rationale
why doing so at all).

@Pawe?: I don't think that the current solution is the best one but it was the
easiest one. Have a look at the link to Village pump above where I gave more
details. The nicest solution would be a expandable list displaying by default
only the up to date translations but I hesitated doing so as this would
require JavaScript which I think is not such a nice requirement at our main
page if you want to access the outdated pages too.

@Delphine: The problem was that at first Commons help pages were just crap
even  in english. So since February I'm mainly doing nothing else but totally
rewriting all english Commons help pages and have come quite far. So now a
greater translation call can take place. However I have often advertised it
in the past to others doing more translations of pages that are done
(especially to French people) but success of these translations calls was
quite limited.

@GerardM: Commons bashing does help nobody and is in case of nl.wikipedia also
at least in some cases far from truth have a look at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Commons-actions_damage_Wikipedia
(especially my last call and the end of the thread, as otherwise I predict you
that "suddenly" there will be the next nl.wikipedians flame against Commons
because of a severe copyright issue, only nl.wikipedians can solve).

So sorry for the larger post here and I really hope that people just keep the
following in mind:
* Wikimedia Commons is a project faceing many technical difficulties (much
more than Wikipedians can imagine). We have written several essential tools
and interface tweaks on our own but Rome wasn't build in one day...
* Multilinguality in Commons is no easy matter. You always need to keep in
mind that the projects needs to remain maintainable and that creating just
some non-english strings is not enough.
* Many people do upload images in Commons throw them over the wall and forget
about them as they don't want to contribute to the Commons project itself.
Now try to imagine how busy the tiny fraction of active Commons
administrators is...

Regards,
Daniel Arnold - Arnomane


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Redvers @ the Wikipedia

subject:
[WikiEN-l] AfD reform (was Re: We need a policy against
	vote-stacking)

body:
From: Jimmy Wales
> So how should this work in practice?

How about tweaking the {{afd2}} template to force a
more rational line of conversation and debate? At the
moment, our AfD debates are free for alls. By forcing
a bit of structure onto the debate, might we be able
to being an end to *both* "NN, del" votes on one side
and the screaming for blood on the other?

The template could generate the following type of
layout:

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

==[[Foo]]==
[[User:Foouser]] proposes that this article be deleted
'''five days from today''' because:

{{reason}}

Your opinions on this proposed deletion are
encouraged. Please give clear, well-thought-out
reasons for your thinking in this matter. Editors with
experience in this subject field are encourage to
identify themselves. This is '''not a vote'''; a
neutral administrator will weigh up the rough
consensus and '''make a decision based upon it and
other factors''' when this process has ended.

===Keep===

===Delete===

===Other options===

'''Note: Comments, rebuttals and discussion are
welcome on ''[[Wikipedia talk:Articles for
deletion/Foo]]'' but will be removed from this
page.'''

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

=REDVERS=

___________________________________________________________
24 FIFA World Cup tickets to be won with Yahoo! Mail http://uk.mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] The status of smaller languages on the Wikimedia
 Commons

body:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
> GerardM said:
>
>
>> It is abundantly true that we need better support for the localisation
>> of our project and of our software. There is a subcommittee that deals
>> with communication and translation. I am sure that they were consulted
>> before these punitive measures were enacted.
>>
>
> Sorry, what subcommittee? The meta subcommittee that is completely
> divorced from commons? (I'm not saying that's their fault or the
> Commons' fault, but it's a fact)
>
> folengo said:
>
>> The issue has
>> been discussed on the English speaking village pump of Commons.
>> But should we consider the English speaking village pump of
>> Commons as an authoritative voice in a multilingual project, which
>> includes tiny minority languages, and also somewhat less tiny
>> minority languages yet less active and dynamic than the English
>> speaking community (and represented there mostly by bilingual
>> people, non bilingual people being almost absent and
>> underrepresented if not unrepresented) ?
>>
>
> What is the alternative???? How do you honestly propose that we
> communicate with all these monolingual people?
>
> As you know Teofilio I have supported some of your measures (like the
> &uselang links one) and disagreed with others (parallel category
> structures), and as it happens I disagree with the "hiding" links
> approach of Arnomane. Although the Arabic front page is quite
> appalling: literally one paragraph. It is the *only* page in
> [[Category:Commons-ar]]. I did suggest to an admin candidate who spoke
> Arabic that they might like to update it substantially. But if native
> speakers are not interested in maintaining their translations what
> exactly are us non-speakers supposed to do about it? We cannot force
> them. They have to take the initiative. But they are more interested
> in their Wikipedia or other projects - of course! The vast majority of
> English and German speakers are too, actually. These projects are just
> lucky enough to have a "surplus of interest" to allow something
> resembling a Commons community to exist.
>
> Realistic, workable, technically-feasible ideas to promote
> multilinguality, I will always support. But it is unrealistic to
> expect the people who are interested in the Commons to consult over
> 100 different language groups on ANYTHING let alone EVERYTHING.
>
> Look at the Village Pumps - look at how active they are.
> (als) Commons:Br?nnele No topics.
> (ar?) Commons:????????? One line, not even set up. Should probably be deleted.
> (bg) Commons:????????? One topic in October 2005.
> (ca?) Commons:La taverna 6 topics, last active November 2005.
> (de) Commons:Forum Active.
> (en) Commons:Village pump Active.
> (es) Commons:Caf? Active.
> (fi) Commons:Kahvihuone No topics.
> (fr) Commons:Bistro Maintained, but not very active (6 topics).
> (gl) Commons:A Taberna Maintained, not very active (9 topics).
> (he) Commons:?????? 1 topic, unanswered.
> (hu) Commons:Kocsmafal One line, no topics.
> (it) Commons:Bar italiano Moderately active, seems to be maintained by
> our one native Italian speaking admin.
> (ja) Commons:??? Moderately active. I see the most recent discussion
> concerns Captchas - another technical limitation we never asked for
> but had to work around (and I recall being accused of "English
> villainy" on this occasion too)
> (lb) Commons:Stamminet No topics.
> (nl) Commons:De Kroeg 4 topics, remarkably unused considering the
> NL.wp controversy. (We can never solve problems on Commons if they are
> not discussed there...)
> (no) Commons:Tinget Maintained, not very active (7 topics).
> (pl) Commons:Bar Surprisingly inactive, 4 topics.
> (pt) Commons:Esplanada Maintained, moderately active (24 topics).
> (ru) Commons:????? 2 topics, seems to be unmaintained and inactive.
> (sl) Commons:Pod lipo No topics.
> (sv) Commons:Bybrunnen Moderately active/active, maintained.
> (zh-hans) Commons:???? 4 topics, but basically unused.
> (zh-hant) Commons:???? No topics.
>
> So of the 20-odd groups, there are not even ten that have any decent
> amount of activity. Realistically, what do you propose we do? How
> should we conduct discussions?
>
> To me the bottom line is that the whole thing is volunteer, just like
> everything else. That means people only translate if they are
> interested. We can't force them.
>
> As you criticise us, please consider coming and helping us improve. It
> is hard for us to be everything to everyone when very few people want
> to devote much time to maintaining or improving the place.
>
> Help us harass the developers for automatic translation of templates,
> automatic language selection based on browser settings and/or
> drop-down menu for language choice on the main page, for adoption of
> Duesentrieb's proposed category translation scheme via interwikis.
> These are just a few of the proposals that we dream of being
> implemented but have no idea if it will ever happen.
>
> Join the Commons mailing list and start throwing out proposals:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>
> Brianna
> [[user:pfctdayelise]]
Hoi,
I hoped for a reaction and I am pleased with what I got. The problem is
one of communication. A decision is made in Commons for all the best
intended reasons and it is implemented. Great. Well, actually yes and
no. Yes because something happens and, no because the communication is
sadly lacking. Why you are talking about a meta-subcommittee I wonder, I
was thinking more in terms of the communication committee and its
translation subcommittee. With the new structures that are put in place,
there are new opportunities to find ways of getting your message out.

As to your request to harass developers for automatic translation .. a
large part of what needs doing is called http://wiktionaryz.org and we
are getting towards the point where we can do some good. Another part of
making Commons more relevant is called InstantCommons and we are waiting
for the special projects committee to finally inform us that we can
start coding. You may also know that we are coding Multilingual
MediaWiki, this will help Commons in its quest for multi linguality.

So yes, we do try to get things done. We will get you the functionality
that will allow a 7 year old to find her picture of a "chien" or a
"cheval". But please do communicate big things, do use the Foundation or
the Wikipedia list for things that are profound. It is the lack of
communication that creates resentment it is not the fact that things are
done.

Thanks,
   GerardM


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] RfAs (was: Re: Verifiability equating to notability)

body:
On 04/05/06, Pete Bartlett <pcb21 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> If precise minimum criteria was phrased in terms like
> :Create 1 featured article or N good articles
> or
> :Graduate from Erik's "Wikipedia School" (which itself had precise criteria)
>
> then I would support it.
>
> Sadly I expect any proposal would actually be terms of (virtual meaningless)
> edit counts, so I wouldn't.

I agree that edit counts are *relatively* meaningless, but people use
them anyway. The reason I support formalising them as a requirement,
is to prevent people citing lack of edit counts for increasingly high
limits.  Once we fix that 1000 edits is enough to be an admin, "not
enough edits" will cease to be a reasonable reason to oppose a person
with 2000, for instance.

People should still use their own judgment on questions such as the
severity of a given incident of incivility, for example. But questions
of basic "has this would-be admin been around long enough" should not
be left so open to individual whims. And opposing admins for silly
things like not yet having validated their email is totally
inappropriate.

Steve


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
Julie Harding has been put back on moderation while she learns how to
format posts and to not be on crack.  If you were dying to get
Julie's response to your point, you may want to e-mail her privately.

-Phil


body:
On 5/4/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is the lack of communication that creates resentment it is not the fact that
> things are done.

Yes. Why do people from Commons not communicate enough?
- They do not speak the same language as the content users.
- They do not have accounts on the other projects.
- It is too much effort -- the software doesn't assist them.

On the other hand, it is largely not because:
- They are arrogant and like to tell others what to do.
- They don't care about the projects that use the content.
- They are secretly plotting to take over all of Wikimedia.

We all do share your frustration. We all do want to improve
communications and integration. And that makes anger and resentment
unhelpful and reasoned debate necessary.

The technical changes you mention are just one part of it. Simply put,
the problem of maintaining a multilingual media repository that is
transparently used by many projects in many languages is a _hard_
problem. We will need years to fully solve it.

Finally, it's not a one-way problem. Users who access Commons _must_
understand the free content philosophy. Many do not, and that causes
much of the friction. I believe that the recent discussions about
Wikisource show that this philosophy needs to be much more strongly
communicated to all projects and all languages. Ideally, a few months
from now, I'd like every Wikimedia project to have a "free content"
logo with a link to the definition in its footer.

Last mail for the day,
Erik


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Commons-l] Direct copy to commons

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brianna Laugher wrote:
>
>> Uh... if it just says "these images have been tagged GFDL/PD/whatever,
>> do you want to transfer them to the Commons?" I would have to say no.
>> Transferring images is a good opportunity to re-examine the licenses
>> and sources provided for many images on local projects, which are
>> often quite suspect! Transferrers should be quite stringent in
>> requiring a source (that if online, is actually *checked*) and a
>> license justification - for non "(PD/GFDL/whatever)-self" items. For
>> self created items, some common sense is needed... low res items
>> should generally be treated with a great deal of suspicion.
>>
>
> I agree very strongly with Brianna on this.  Commons should be extremely
> hardcore about sourcing and license checking... this is a great point in
> the overall workflow to do a rigorous second check on anything being
> brought from individual projects.
>
As someone also working on de.wikipedia, which is quite strict on
license issues itself, I totally agree. The decision about an image
being suitable for the commons has to be made on a case-by-case basis.

However, in the light of hundreds of thousands (didn't count them all)
of suitable images "trapped" on local wikipedias, I merely strive to
provide a means to easily assess the states of images, then take
appropriate action. The tool in question can be used to identify images
without suitable information for the given wikipedia, something which
does not involve commons at all.

On the other hand, an image tagged with "{{GFDL-self}}", a text like
"made this myself", and a good-but-non-professionally looking image -
who would go back to the user and say "Well, I want to upload this on
commons, but you have convince me you took this yourself first!"? At
most, one would check for consumer-type camera EXIF data, and then copy
it to commons in good faith, right?

Try [1] (will take a minute or so to load fully), and you will see that
there are some cases clearly *not* destined for the commons, some
doubtful cases, and some that are (maybe with a little additional
checking) clearly suited to be copied to the commons.

With the demands for making commons the default upload site, the
tendency is clear: put all multimedia content that is suitable for
commons there, so all wikimedia projects (and others) can benefit from
them. I merely try to ease that effort.

Magnus

[1] http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/pushforcommons.php?language=en&max=20


from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
On May 4, 2006, at 6:24 PM, <julieharding1 at charter.net>
<julieharding1 at charter.net> wrote:

> ---- Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You better watch it Phil.  I am fingerprinted and accepted by the
>> State of California and it is illegal for you to make false
>> allegations against me, even if it is in cyberspace.  The police
>> know how to track people down with just their email addresses.
>> What's wrong?  Does a little intelligence from a woman intimidate
>> you?  One more public false allegation and I'll turn you in.
> Julie Miller Harding
> 951-788-8934
>
>  Julie Harding has been put back on moderation while she learns how to
>> format posts and to not be on crack.  If you were dying to get
>> Julie's response to your point, you may want to e-mail her privately.
>>
>> -Phil

Case in point.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
On May 4, 2006, at 9:40 PM, Garion1000 wrote:
>
> The mod doesn't seem to be working....
>
> Garion96
'
I let it through. Seemed fair to let her criticism of me go through.

-Phil


body:
From: "Anthony DiPierro"
> I still have no idea what it means to "assert
> notability" or what "an
> article with no claim to notability" is.

Neither do our vandals. I'd go as far as saying that
the majority of CSD-A7 deletions that are immediately
recreated go from "Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from
Melbourne" to "Joe Bloggs is a notable bicyclist in
Melbourne".

This is a Good Thing, as claiming notability is not
the same as asserting it, and Mr Bloggs and his bike
can be deleted again. I'm always surprised that the
vandals haven't worked out that they should *assert*
notability. But they don't and I think the reason is:
they can't.

A good encyclopedia article, especially one about a
person or group, sums up the entire article in the
first sentence. You learn everying that is notable and
important about the subject in a couple of dozen words
(less in the better written articles). Anything,
anything at all, that is notable can be summed up in
the opening sentence. Wikipedia is the free
encyclopedia anyone can edit. Jimbo Wales is an
internet entrepreneur who founded Wikipedia. ABC is a
national television and radio network in the United
States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up. So
you get CSD-A7 articles that wander all over the shop
- sometimes for thousands of carefully crafted words -
but don't assert the notability of the subject because
they can't.

Of course, there is a large grey area on either side.
It is, after all, perfectly possible to write an
article about Albert Einstein without once summing him
up and asserting notability for him. Difficult, but
not impossible. Albert Einstein was a Swiss patent
clerk who later became a professor. Articles like that
by right shouldn't be deleted since the person in
question was and is notable. But it's not up to
another editor to discover why someone or something is
notable and insert it. It's *certainly* not up to our
customers - millions and millions of readers - to try
to guess why the person is included if they don't know
already. If that article stayed up, it becomes the
equivilant of the old empty articles that I seem to
remember as a feature of Wikipedia 5 or 6 years ago.
And it's less likely to grow into a full article than
a redlink would, as it acts as a barrier to growth.

On the other side, it is possible to assert notability
where no exists, but when people do that they tend to
assert improbable or just downright bollocks
notability. Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne
who owns all the money in the world and your sister.
Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne who has
ridden around the world 18 times since he first
learned to ride a bike when he was 3 months old. If
true, these things would be a sign of notability. But
they then fall foul of CSD-G1 - patent nonsense - and
bite the dust on that score.

I think it's a small thing to ask of an article and
its creator - assert some reason why this subject
should be in our encyclopedia. If they don't, CSD-A7.
If they do but don't do it very well, AfD. If they do
but it's a lie, CSD-G1.

But it's very difficult to *define* what is and isn't
an assertion of notability. Notability is largely a
/quality/, a property something has or doesn't have.
Producing an exact definition of what an assertion of
it looks like is probably beyond the English language.
Like modern art, you can't produce a definition of it,
but know it when you see it!

I think we can trust our admins to rule on it, if
nothing else because admin actions are undoable. And
if something or someone *is* notable after all, an
article will spring up in its place later and
hopefully better.

For AfD decisions its harder to know if we can trust
the consensus, but that's because the cut-and-dried
non-notables have been deleted by admins already. Its
the grey-area ones that go to AfD and are subject to
people's prejudices, deletion/inclusion leanings and
the author's potential for disrupting of the process.

If AfD worked, it would be the ideal place to discuss
all of these things. Ho hum.

=REDVERS=

___________________________________________________________
Switch an email account to Yahoo! Mail, you could win FIFA World Cup tickets. http://uk.mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
If you're going to act like this in public, maybe you shouldn't append
your phone number.

On 5/4/06, julieharding1 at charter.net <julieharding1 at charter.net> wrote:
> ---- Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >You better watch it Phil.  I am fingerprinted and accepted by the State of California and it is illegal for you to make false allegations against me, even if it is in cyberspace.  The police know how to track people down with just their email addresses.  What's wrong?  Does a little intelligence from a woman intimidate you?  One more public false allegation and I'll turn you in.
> Julie Miller Harding
> 951-788-8934


from_name: Rob Church

subject: [Wikitech-l] Towards MW 2.0

body:
On 04/05/06, Elliott F. Cable <ecable at avxw.com> wrote:
> On May 4, 2006, at 9:57 AM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 11:44:52AM -0700, Carl Witty wrote:
> >>> Maybe we should just drop the "1." and call the next release 7.0.
> >>> Makes for
> >>> less typing. Someone remind me which software project did that...
> >>
> >> GNU Emacs: went from version 1.1 to 1.12, then dropped the initial
> >> "1"
> >> and has continued from version 13 to version 21 (so far).
> >
> > Less has never had "traditional" version numbers; it's up near version
> > 247 or something.
> Mac OS X? Other way around - went from system 7, 8, OS 9 - then 10.1
> (10), 10.2 (11), 10.3 (12), 10.4 (13) and soon, 10.5 (14) - I tend to
> find that copying something apple did leads to success, ESPECIALLY
> when they changed something - usually, when they admit they made a
> mistake (very rare) and fix it in a given way (much less rare) then
> they usually fix it 100%, and put lots of thought into their
> decision. I see the fact that they ended up using a X.YY system means
> we should stick to the same, but maybe that's just me.

I can't believe that people are bothering to go out and research the
version numbering schemes of different products in order to bolster
this one's reputation through some implied connotation.

What's the problem with sticking to 1.x.y, and incrementing the 1 when
we can all agree that a single release has inserted something highly
significant into the product?

Don't count your bridges before you cross them. Don't worry about
numbering your versions until you have them.

Rob Church


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Thu, 4 May 2006 19:42:16 +0200, you wrote:

>Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as
>open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they
>distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion
>on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in
>that topical AfD before.

I support this idea in that it is more likely that interested parties
will review the article and arguments in detail, because there will be
fewer of them, but it has the weakness of an inherent bias towards
keeping what for want of a better word we call fancruft.

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


body:
On Thu, 4 May 2006 20:36:57 +0200, you wrote:

>I agree that edit counts are *relatively* meaningless, but people use
>them anyway. The reason I support formalising them as a requirement,
>is to prevent people citing lack of edit counts for increasingly high
>limits.  Once we fix that 1000 edits is enough to be an admin, "not
>enough edits" will cease to be a reasonable reason to oppose a person
>with 2000, for instance.

Indeed.  And it will deter those who self-nominate after their third
edit.  Just as with notability criteria we can, by consensus,
de-emphasise those things which some have thought significant but
others have sown are not.  A low edit count number will make it plain
that edit counts are indeed meaningless.

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


body:
On Thu, 4 May 2006 08:57:15 -0700, you wrote:

>We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy
>in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project.

A right?  Perhaps I missed that.  I thought the only rights were to
fork or to leave.

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


body:
On 04/05/06, Redvers @ the Wikipedia <wikiredvers at yahoo.ie> wrote:
> [[User:Foouser]] proposes that this article be deleted
> '''five days from today''' because:
>
> {{reason}}

I've stated before that I think there should be a small number of
defined reasons for deletions, and that's it. These are basically:

Subject inappropriate for Wikipedia (unencyclopaedic)
Subject non verifiable (possible hoax, no verifiable sources exist at all)
Subject not notable enough for its own article (arguably doesn't need
AfD - page can be merged, then replaced with a redirect)

Bad writing etc just doesn't come into it.

So anyway, create: {{AFDInappropriateSubject}} etc.

Steve


body:
On 04/05/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam
> Wantman.  Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of
> people who know each other and work on bridge articles.  Super.  This is
> why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
>
> If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a
> horrific mess.  People who don't know anything about bridges are likely
> to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between
> inclusionists and deletionists.  If someone cares deeply about the
> issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote.  The
> admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to
> figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the
> various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously
> bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes
> the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and*
> people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
>
> Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually
> have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people
> ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.

Replace "bridge" with "Pokemon character" and you'll see the problem :)

Steve


body:
On 04/05/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Now, the right thing to do here, and what used to work, is that our
> bridge expert writes a few sentences:  "This is an important bridge, and
> part of an ongoing project we have in the bridges area to flesh out
> articles on the top 1,000 longest bridges in the world.  This one is
> currently ranked 797.  May not seem important to you, but we have
> verifiable sources and are planning to fill these stubs in over the next
> 6-9 months.  Thanks."

Wouldn't it be better for this guy to add a couple of sentences *to
the article* explaining the significance of the bridge?  Anyone can
recognise that "3rd largest bridge in the county of Borkshire" is at
least somewhat notable. All the claims that you make above should be
made in the article, or at the very least in a related Wikiproject. I
don't think it's reasonable to expect AfD voters to carry this kind of
meta Wikipedia content in their heads - it ought to be recorded for it
to count somewhere.

And yes, I feel bad for disagreeing with you, Jimbo :)

Steve


body:
On 04/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> How does an article go about asserting the notability of its subject?

Typically, "Bill Smith is a DJ best known for winning the British DJ
of the year award in 1983".

> What would be an example of an article which asserts notability but
> doesn't establish it?

Not citing a verifiable source which shows that Bill Smith did indeed
win that award.

Steve


from_name: Molu

body:
I wouldn't use the word right for apparently some people do not like talking about rights on a privately owned website, but I agree with your words. And it is not simply a matter of voting. When a person thinks of something that he thinks will be beneficial to the project, he SHOULD gather others who are likely to be interested to marshall his cause. This helps rather than disrupts the consensus building process and is totally helpful to the ultimate goal of building an encyclopedia. Incidentally, there was an inconclusive debate about this issue at AN/I and my talk page not long ago, the admins may remember it.

  Molu

  >>Message: 7
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 08:57:15 -0700
From: "John Tex"
Subject: [WikiEN-l] We need to recognize that advocating is a basic
right
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy
in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project. Two basic tenets
of this are discussing the ideas and building up groups of people who agree
with you and who will help you bring about the beneficial change.

This is "advocacy". Contacting people to recruit them to support you or to
act according to beliefs you think they may already have should rightly be
called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.

Let's stop insulting people by calling them "meat puppets" or "vote
stackers". Let's stop confusing the issue by calling it "spamming". It is
not spamming. Spamming is indiscriminately notifying people that are
probably not interested in the hopes that a few people will be. This is
practically the opposite.

Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process
and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be
taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame.
>>Johntex

---------------------------------
Get amazing travel prices for air and hotel in one click on Yahoo! FareChase


subject: [Wikitech-l] Towards MW 2.0

body:
On 04/05/06, Elliott F. Cable <ecable at avxw.com> wrote:
> Try - mail, RSS, AIM, MSN, ICQ, iChat, 4x web interfaces, at least 30
> forums, at least 50 wikis, IRC (usually in around 10 channels on 4
> servers) Limewire/azeureus chat, SEE chat, ventrilo, teamspeak,
> Squeak, skype - the list goes on. Telephone? Fax? Not to mention
> people trying to swarm me in RL while I'm trying to communicate with
> the really important ones online...

How long does it take to notify everyone everytime you go on holidays? :)

Steve


body:
You may be interested to know that the practice you describe as great is considered a blockable offence by some admins.

  Molu

On Thu, 4 May 2006 13:04:24 -0400, Fastfission wrote:
    "Consulting others is not a problem. Writing to people and saying, "I'd
like it if you'd weigh in on this," is great practice. Especially when
the people consulted are thoughtful and will even on occasion disagree
with the person who had solicited them! All the better."

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do.  Get it on your phone.


body:
That was an extraordinary case, such a thing is not likely to happen again within some time now. Wikipedia's systemic bias is not exposed in such a candid way very often. We can not use it as a benchmark.

  Molu

    On Thu, 04 May 2006 19:09:28 +0200, Raphael Wegmann wrote:

  "John Tex wrote:
[...]
>
> Attempting to stifle advocacy is harmful to the consensus building process
> and it is harmful to the project. If we try to prohibit it, it will just be
> taken off-wiki, which would be a huge shame.

It already happened for the JP cartoon poll:

http://www.dartblog.com/data/004950.html
http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-on-danish-cartoons.html
http://penumbra604.livejournal.com/25659.html

... and probably many more.

--
Raphael"

---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1?/min. Make  PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More Angry Admin Abuse

body:
On 04/05/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 4, 2006, at 2:51 PM, Bacchante Maenad wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >   I tried again to create a username and predictably the self
> > described
> > angry Wikipedia admin username, Freakofnurture, immediately blocked
> > me from
> > editing.  The name I choose was "Even Small Children Can Edit
> > Wikipedia" and
> > his explanation is "yep, and i'm keeping it safe for them".  It's
> > curious
> > how this person became an admin, being so angry, his consistent not
> > assuming
> > good faith and not being genuine in his communications.  It seems
> > in the
> > wikipedia user-space there is plenty of room for anger and
> > nastiness and not
> > much for humor.
>
> I've got an idea. Stop registering inflammatory usernames and we'll
> stop blocking them.

For those who like their drama, select from the following responses:

"Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

"Oh my god, it's admin abuse! I am shocked to my very core."

and

"Where are we going, and what's with the handbasket?"

Rob Church


body:
In practice any such implementations will lead to elitism. Trolls or no trolls, we look a contributions and not contributors, so everyone should be able to make their say count. A rule that allows only established bridge experts to vote on bridge deletions will be disastrous. The ideal process involves a large part of the community, not a small focused minority who are not statistically representative of the community.

  Molu

  On Thu, 04 May 2006 11:51:48 -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:

""Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually
have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people
ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.

So how should this work in practice?"

---------------------------------
Love cheap thrills? Enjoy PC-to-Phone  calls to 30+ countries for just 2?/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-05

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 303 of 313 tests (96.81%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] "should not be written by an interested party

body:
I do not know what top-posting is, so I can hardly stop it. I do not fall into either of your divisions. I edit Wikipedia first and foremost all right, but I do make negative comments about admins I dislike, though obviously I wouldn't call my comments acerebic and utterly ignorant. I also believe that posting my pesonal beliefs and convictions on my personal userpage does not harm the encyclopedia and if anyone else is offended by them they can bloody well go see a different page, I didn't invite them to look at mine. How would you or Jimbo categorise me in that case?

  Molu

    On Fri, 05 May 2006 04:55:22 +1000, Mark Gallagher wrote:

  "G'day Molu,

[stop bloody top-posting, please]

> So wikipedians like me who have (unsucessfully) supported the
> userboxes are all bad people just clogging up the system?

Well, that depends. I've never seen you on Wikipedia, TMK, so you're
going to have to answer this one yourself. Let your conscience be your
guide ...

Do you:
a) Edit Wikipedia first and foremost, and very occasionally decorate
your userpage as a fun diversion, or
b) Edit userboxen first and foremost, turning your attentions to
Wikipedia only to "vote" on TfD or DRV and make acerbic and utterly
ignorant comments about hard-working admins? Do you resent the fact
that people consider Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, even though the
"anyone can edit" tag implies that if you want to treat it like
MySpace no-one should be allowed to stop you?

If you answered 'a' to that one, then you're one of the unfortunate
victims of the way the userbox situation was handled. If you answered
'b', seriously, fuck off and don't come back until you've re-adjusted
your way of thinking about this project. Wikipedia is not a hosting
service.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse"

---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls.  Great rates starting at 1¢/min.


from_name: Steve Block

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Ben McIlwain wrote:
>> Vote-stacking is wrong, it is harmful to Wikipedia, and it needs to be
>> discouraged and stopped.  The simple way to do this is to block users
>> who are doing this.  If it's not in the policy now, it should be.
>
> I am with you in spirit, but it seems quite difficult to define "vote
> stacking" in a way that won't be the source of endless horrible fights.
>
> I have been thinking lately about some radical solution to AfD woes.
> Here are some thoughts.
>
> 1. Consensus works when there are a small number of people who have
> reputations with each other who are willing to work for compromise and
> positive progress.  The importance of social capital in the process
> (earning it and spending it) can not be overemphasized.
>
> 2. As we get to be a larger community, consensus still works well on
> individual articles and areas of interest, because there are
> subcommunities in negotiation there who know each other.
>
> 3. Certain global processes, though, have turned quite bitter and sour,
> likely because it is increasingly hard to have a process of reputation
> and social capital when you have tons of people who don't know each other.
>
> 4.  The solution to this may well be to attempt to move the "locus of
> control" for deletion decisions into subcommunities.
>
> --------
>
> I have an example, based on a nice dinner conversation I had with Sam
> Wantman.  Sam knows a lot about bridges, and there is a subcommunity of
> people who know each other and work on bridge articles.  Super.  This is
> why our stuff on bridges is super excellent.
>
> If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a
> horrific mess.  People who don't know anything about bridges are likely
> to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between
> inclusionists and deletionists.  If someone cares deeply about the
> issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote.  The
> admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to
> figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the
> various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously
> bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes
> the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and*
> people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.
>
> Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually
> have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people
> ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
>
> So how should this work in practice?

Remind admins that closing afd's is not a matter of vote counting, and
that if in doubt don't delete means that if someone establishes doubt in
your mind on deleting a topic, close as keep or no consensus and note
the doubt in your closing remarks.  I wonder if it mightn't be wise to
allow afd's to play out for a longer period, perhaps extend afd to ten
days with the proviso that after five days anything with a 100% swing
either way can be closed.  Too many discussions seem to get started just
as they are closed.  Maybe comments from people who don't go on to
discuss the issue if circumstances change should be disregarded?  I
don't know what I'm edging towards, but I think it's that admins should
be clear on the responsibilities involved in closing afd discussions.  I
know I've got a bias on unreferenced articles, which is why I won't
close such discussions; I'd rather argue the case and allow someone else
to work out how the discussion flows.  That's me tossing stuff out, anyway.

Steve Block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 02/05/06


subject: [WikiEN-l] article rating programs

body:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> On 5/4/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>> b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their
>>    content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!
>
> With the recent explosive growth of article rating programs (as pushed
> by the WP:1.0 people), a number of projects are doing just that.

What are these and how do they work.

Steve Block

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 02/05/06


body:
Hell, no! That's an extremely bad idea in a long history of bad ideas. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia *written by a community*. You can't ignore the community component, or there would be no Wikipedia. It's because the community take the decisions around here that Nupedia is long dead and gone while Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the world. Transferring the power of making deletion decisions to a small committee that's not even elected will be another bad blow to "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit". AfDCom probably won't be a good idea even if they were elected.

  Molu

    On Thu, 04 May 2006 18:14:27 -0400, Ben McIlwain wrote:

  "The AfdCom members would be
appointed, NOT elected. I don't even want to think of how messy a
voting situation would be ... many, many votes would be based on
members' past decisions on specific subject area Afds rather than an
actual objective analysis of the merit of that person."

---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.


subject: [WikiEN-l] More Angry Admin Abuse

body:
I think I'll go with the second option. What on earth is inflammatory about Even Small Children Can Edit Wikipedia?!? It's bloody true all right!!! This username paranoia is attaining ridiculous heights.

    On Fri, 5 May 2006 00:14:32 +0100 "Rob Church" wrote:

  "For those who like their drama, select from the following responses:

"Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

"Oh my god, it's admin abuse! I am shocked to my very core."

and

"Where are we going, and what's with the handbasket?"

Rob Church"

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do.  Get it on your phone.


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

body:
On 5/4/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.
>
> Then again, loving bridges, he may not find it in is heart to delete
> _any_ article about them that has sources. Which, to a certain extent,
> is fine with me, but it does have the potential to significantly
> change the whole "deletionism/inclusionism" balance. Imagine the same
> concept applied to Star Trek experts. "Tribble Rebellion of 2280?
> SPEEDY KEEP!"

I don't see the problem? Wikipedia works because autonomous persons
and communities can work on their areas of expertise without having to
go layers of bureaucracy. Except for a few global rules; Wikipedia is
an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not paper, it is those communities and
their ability to work autonomously that is shaping Wikipedia. That
work process scales very well and is the reason why Wikipedia contain
millions of articles. Centralized processes (like AFD) does not scale
very well at all. Therefore I think it makes sense to avoid
centralized processes.

The more decentralized, the less people involved, the more easy it is
to form consensuses. So if there is a consensus among the group of
Wikipedians working on Star Trek articles that "Tribble Rebellion of
2280" should be kept, then that is what should be done. I think it is
perfectly clear that those who work in the topic area knows best what
articles belong in it. The last thing THEY need is a centralized
process involving clueless opinionated people interfering in their
business.

> Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as
> open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they
> distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion
> on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in
> that topical AfD before.

In theory yes. In practice, people are more likely to listen to
someone who has credentials.

--
mvh Bj?rn


body:
Am Donnerstag, 04. Mai 2006 20:17 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
> Why you are talking about a meta-subcommittee I wonder, I
> was thinking more in terms of the communication committee and its
> translation subcommittee. With the new structures that are put in place,
> there are new opportunities to find ways of getting your message out.

Hm there is a local "translation committee" in Wikimedia Commons:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_page_maintenance

I was just bold and did create it some time ago and I think it is perfectly
suited for Wikimedia Commons needs without to much bureaucracy overhead. For
sure I am always open to experience of others and I always try to reuse ideas
from other projects but I simply am not that familar with meta-wiki internals
(and thus might have missed something).

Regards,
Daniel Arnold


body:
Don't know if it's mentioned before, but there is a proposed
policy/guideline about this. See [[Wikipedia:Vote Stacking]].

Garion96


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
geni wrote:
>
> On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>> THEN, some admin comes along and says, gee, the vote is 27-3 to delete,
>> but frankly, this bridge guy knows what he is talking about, so I am
>> going to close it with a keep.
> Not going to happen. There is no way you are going to get 27 people
> who care enough to  vote delete. With they way AFD is currently set up
> any significant minority can have the articles they want kept kept in
> most cases.
> So all of those "nn, delete" pile-ons are simply a figment of my
> imagination?

>> So, what's our bridge guy to do?  Well, one thing he can do is go around
>> to all the other bridgipedians (great word, huh?) and point it out to
>> them.    Vote stacking?  Maybe, but don't we prefer that these bridge
>> people come in and have a say?
> He could contact the other people who voted on the AFD. Most of them
> will be prepared to listen to reason.
>
You are obviously aware of AfD discussions which have simply escaped my
notice.

Please provide links to AfD discussions which contain reasonable arguments
like those suggested which are not then countered by piled-on "nn, delete"
entries; even better would be a "nn, delete" replaced with a "keep" as a
result of listening to reason. I would like to sooth my tortured soul with a
bit of good-natured discussion...
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/We-need-a-policy-against-vote-stacking-t1553689.html#a4244452
Sent from the English Wikipedia forum at Nabble.com.


from_name: Brianna Laugher

body:
GerardM said:

>It is abundantly true that we need better support for the localisation
>of our project and of our software. There is a subcommittee that deals
>with communication and translation. I am sure that they were consulted
>before these punitive measures were enacted.

Sorry, what subcommittee? The meta subcommittee that is completely
divorced from commons? (I'm not saying that's their fault or the
Commons' fault, but it's a fact)

folengo said:
>The issue has
>been discussed on the English speaking village pump of Commons.
> But should we consider the English speaking village pump of
>Commons as an authoritative voice in a multilingual project, which
>includes tiny minority languages, and also somewhat less tiny
>minority languages yet less active and dynamic than the English
>speaking community (and represented there mostly by bilingual
>people, non bilingual people being almost absent and
>underrepresented if not unrepresented) ?

What is the alternative???? How do you honestly propose that we
communicate with all these monolingual people?

As you know Teofilio I have supported some of your measures (like the
&uselang links one) and disagreed with others (parallel category
structures), and as it happens I disagree with the "hiding" links
approach of Arnomane. Although the Arabic front page is quite
appalling: literally one paragraph. It is the *only* page in
[[Category:Commons-ar]]. I did suggest to an admin candidate who spoke
Arabic that they might like to update it substantially. But if native
speakers are not interested in maintaining their translations what
exactly are us non-speakers supposed to do about it? We cannot force
them. They have to take the initiative. But they are more interested
in their Wikipedia or other projects - of course! The vast majority of
English and German speakers are too, actually. These projects are just
lucky enough to have a "surplus of interest" to allow something
resembling a Commons community to exist.

Realistic, workable, technically-feasible ideas to promote
multilinguality, I will always support. But it is unrealistic to
expect the people who are interested in the Commons to consult over
100 different language groups on ANYTHING let alone EVERYTHING.

Look at the Village Pumps - look at how active they are.
(als) Commons:Br?nnele No topics.
(ar?) Commons:????????? One line, not even set up. Should probably be deleted.
(bg) Commons:????????? One topic in October 2005.
(ca?) Commons:La taverna 6 topics, last active November 2005.
(de) Commons:Forum Active.
(en) Commons:Village pump Active.
(es) Commons:Caf? Active.
(fi) Commons:Kahvihuone No topics.
(fr) Commons:Bistro Maintained, but not very active (6 topics).
(gl) Commons:A Taberna Maintained, not very active (9 topics).
(he) Commons:?????? 1 topic, unanswered.
(hu) Commons:Kocsmafal One line, no topics.
(it) Commons:Bar italiano Moderately active, seems to be maintained by
our one native Italian speaking admin.
(ja) Commons:??? Moderately active. I see the most recent discussion
concerns Captchas - another technical limitation we never asked for
but had to work around (and I recall being accused of "English
villainy" on this occasion too)
(lb) Commons:Stamminet No topics.
(nl) Commons:De Kroeg 4 topics, remarkably unused considering the
NL.wp controversy. (We can never solve problems on Commons if they are
not discussed there...)
(no) Commons:Tinget Maintained, not very active (7 topics).
(pl) Commons:Bar Surprisingly inactive, 4 topics.
(pt) Commons:Esplanada Maintained, moderately active (24 topics).
(ru) Commons:????? 2 topics, seems to be unmaintained and inactive.
(sl) Commons:Pod lipo No topics.
(sv) Commons:Bybrunnen Moderately active/active, maintained.
(zh-hans) Commons:???? 4 topics, but basically unused.
(zh-hant) Commons:???? No topics.

So of the 20-odd groups, there are not even ten that have any decent
amount of activity. Realistically, what do you propose we do? How
should we conduct discussions?

To me the bottom line is that the whole thing is volunteer, just like
everything else. That means people only translate if they are
interested. We can't force them.

As you criticise us, please consider coming and helping us improve. It
is hard for us to be everything to everyone when very few people want
to devote much time to maintaining or improving the place.

Help us harass the developers for automatic translation of templates,
automatic language selection based on browser settings and/or
drop-down menu for language choice on the main page, for adoption of
Duesentrieb's proposed category translation scheme via interwikis.
These are just a few of the proposals that we dream of being
implemented but have no idea if it will ever happen.

Join the Commons mailing list and start throwing out proposals:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l

Brianna
[[user:pfctdayelise]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Julie on Mod

body:
On 5/5/06, julieharding1 at charter.net <julieharding1 at charter.net> wrote:
>
> ---- Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >You better watch it Phil.  I am fingerprinted and accepted by the State
> of California and it is illegal for you to make false allegations against
> me, even if it is in cyberspace.  The police know how to track people down
> with just their email addresses.  What's wrong?  Does a little intelligence
> from a woman intimidate you?  One more public false allegation and I'll turn
> you in.
> Julie Miller Harding
> 951-788-8934
>
> Julie Harding has been put back on moderation while she learns how to
> > format posts and to not be on crack.  If you were dying to get
> > Julie's response to your point, you may want to e-mail her privately.
> >
> > -Phil
> > _______________________________________________

The mod doesn't seem to be working....

Garion96


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Jimmy,

<many snips/>

> If a bridge is listed on AfD, the result is of course likely to be a
> horrific mess.  People who don't know anything about bridges are likely
> to vote based on pre-existing battles going on there between
> inclusionists and deletionists.  If someone cares deeply about the
> issue, they can campaign for random other friends to come and vote.  The
> admins who go through and clean it up will find it very difficult to
> figure out what to do, having little idea of the reputations of the
> various parties, and therefore have no choice to follow the disastrously
> bad rule of "one user account, one vote" ... even though this includes
> the votes of trolls, newbies, sockpuppets, meatpuppets, idiots *and*
> people who know what they are talking about and should be the ones deciding.

Ah, ah, ah!  Bit disappointed to see this misconception spread by Jimbo
Wales, of all people.  AfD is not "one user account, one vote": new user
accounts obviously registered in an attempt to influence an AfD "I'm a
member of the web forum you're talking about on this here Wokupeja and I
say keep" are discounted all the time; the opinion of experts, even if
they don't have accounts, can be and is taken into account (although not
as often as it should be).

See for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jonathan_Smith_%28games_programmer%29

> Wouldn't it be better in this case to say, you know what, we actually
> have bridge experts, people who know about bridges, and these people
> ought to be the ones deciding, not random people on AfD.
>
> So how should this work in practice?

Some wikiprojects and the like keep track of deletion debates; I know
Australian wikipedians like to keep informed of whenever, because of
ignorance, a good Australian article is about to be deleted or a crap
Australian article kept, and show up and spread soothing knowledge like
a balm unto the AfDers in question at the appropriate time.  I suppose
you could turn the decision over to them altogether?

But this leads to two issues:
a) some Wikiprojects are formed by excellent Wikipedians who share a
    particular interest.  Others are formed by tragics who haven't got
    the faintest clue what an encyclopaedia is and wouldn't care if they
    did, they just want to write instruction manuals and walkthroughs and
    tourist travel guides and ... is that general enough that I don't
    seem to be talking about anyone in particular?  Good.  In any case, a
    Wikiproject formed by people without any sense of self-control would
    not lead to nearly as much informed decision making as one hopes.

b) Wikiproject members have better things to do than go over their
    content looking for stuff to delete, anyway!

Cheers,

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/330 - Release Date: 3/05/2006


body:
G'day Molu,

[stop bloody top-posting, please]

> So wikipedians like me who have (unsucessfully) supported the
> userboxes are all bad people just clogging up the system?

Well, that depends.  I've never seen you on Wikipedia, TMK, so you're
going to have to answer this one yourself.  Let your conscience be your
guide ...

Do you:
a) Edit Wikipedia first and foremost, and very occasionally decorate
    your userpage as a fun diversion, or
b) Edit userboxen first and foremost, turning your attentions to
    Wikipedia only to "vote" on TfD or DRV and make acerbic and utterly
    ignorant comments about hard-working admins?  Do you resent the fact
    that people consider Wikipedia an encyclopaedia, even though the
    "anyone can edit" tag implies that if you want to treat it like
    MySpace no-one should be allowed to stop you?

If you answered 'a' to that one, then you're one of the unfortunate
victims of the way the userbox situation was handled.  If you answered
'b', seriously, fuck off and don't come back until you've re-adjusted
your way of thinking about this project.  Wikipedia is not a hosting
service.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/330 - Release Date: 3/05/2006


body:
G'day Anthony,

> On 5/3/06, Gallagher Mark George
> <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>> No, it has to *assert* the notability of its subject.  When
>> clearing up CAT:CSD I see a lot of speedy taggings where the tagger
>> simply figured "sure, there's an assertion of notability there, but
>> I don't think it's good enough".  Wrong.
>
> How does an article go about asserting the notability of its subject?
>  What would be an example of an article which asserts notability but
> doesn't establish it?

An article saying "Joe Bloggs is a man from Golbourn" would be speedy
deletable, because it doesn't assert that Joe Bloggs is in any way
notable (it's also obnoxious, because it just assumes that everyone
knows where Golbourn is).

"Joe Bloggs is a man from Golbourn who won the Nobel Prize in partying
down!" would be speedy deletable, because it's nonsense.

"Joe Bloggs is a man from Golbourn who won the Nobel Prize in physics."
would be sufficient, in my book.

"He won the nobel prize!" under the title "Joe Bloggs" would be speedy
deletable because of a lack of context and a desire to see how Jimbo
would react.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/330 - Release Date: 3/05/2006


from_name: Tom Dichiaro

subject: [Wikitech-l] Image Downloads

body:
Sorry if this posts in duplicate - I messed up my first effort to post here
somehow.

Are the image downloads offline?  I can't pull down the files in the normal
way from:

http://download.wikimedia.org/images/wikipedia/en/

Thanks,

Tom Dichiaro


body:
 Why you are talking about a meta-subcommittee I wonder, I
> was thinking more in terms of the communication committee and its
> translation subcommittee. With the new structures that are put in place,
> there are new opportunities to find ways of getting your message out.

OK, I repeat: what subcommittee? Link, please? What is this
committee's relationship with the Commons supposed to be? Were we
informed that it existed and we should use it? Or should we be
scouring [[meta:]] everyday, or...? (Two-way street, & all that...)

Another part of
> making Commons more relevant is called InstantCommons and we are waiting
> for the special projects committee to finally inform us that we can
> start coding.

[[m:InstantCommons]] has nothing much to do with the WM foundation or
its projects, which is what I thought we were discussing?

But please do communicate big things, do use the Foundation or
> the Wikipedia list for things that are profound. It is the lack of
> communication that creates resentment it is not the fact that things are
> done.

Well that's fine! I would be very happy to write a fortnightly or
monthly summary of major activities and discussions taking place on
Commons. Is that what is desired? Maybe it will encourage more people
to take an interest. But nobody's ever told us we should do this! You
are resentful at us for not doing something we were never informed we
had a duty to do. What "big things", exactly, are we remiss in not
reporting?

I look forward to your definition of "profound" and "big things" so I
should know what level of detail to provide. If "profound" includes
***the appearance of a language navigation template*** you should
expect a nice long report!

(BTW - a post without the accusations of conspiracy and racism, on
commons-l or the Village pump, requesting such communications would
have been a much better bridge towards "better communication")
Brianna


from_name: Craig Whitford

body:
Perhaps we should run a CheckUser on AFD votes to see if they are all the same user??
I'm willing to offer my services for CheckUser

Craig

--- geniice at gmail.com wrote:

From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] We need a policy against vote-stacking
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 12:57:02 +0100

On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> It just doesn't seem fair to delete an article on one school of a
> given type while keeping others. And I suspect "notability" there is
> very much dependent on the social milieu of the voters...
>

So you are saying there is no difference between Eton and Sacred Heart
school, Nowheresville

> For all the standard reasons like Wikipedia is not paper, inclusion of
> any single article does almost infinitesimal direct harm.
>

I can think of quite a few that could do considerable harm.

> Got another?
>

Vaporize. Transition to unarticle.

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


body:
I've heard about the Request for comment from the United States Congress.
It's true, Wikipedia is used as a PR/spin machine.
I've also noticed Commons is being used to upload PR pictures too, for spin purposes.

Craig

--- f.crdfa at gmail.com wrote:

From: "Tony Sidaway" <f.crdfa at gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] We need to recognize that advocating is a basic right
Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 12:51:07 +0100

On 5/4/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> On May 4, 2006, at 10:10 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> > On 5/4/06, John Tex <johntexster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> This is "advocacy".  Contacting people to recruit them to support
> >> you or to
> >> act according to beliefs you think they may already have should
> >> rightly be
> >> called "campaigning". This is a Good Thing.
> >>
> >
> > You're on the wrong project, mate.
>
> He's thinking about policy issues and expressing himself in the
> proper forum. He's being courteous. He may be wrong, but input on
> policy questions is welcome.

All of the above may be true, but he's still on the wrong project.
This is a project for the production of an encyclopedia, not for
political campaigning.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l