from_name: Angela

body:
On 4/16/05, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> I advocate blocking projects when there is no real activity until one or
> several volunteer(s) come(s) It would prevent them being squatted by spammers
> like the Slovak Wiktionary recently (21 articles).
>
> This was already proposed some time ago and a page was made on Meta in order
> to have a general overview of the situation. However AFAIKno action was
> taken.

I created the Inactive wikis page
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis>) for this, but I'm
not sure now whether I agree with what I proposed there. It was never
clear whether one person requesting a wiki to be locked or unlocked
was enough, or whether there ought to be more of a procedure for this.
Very few wikis were ever locked as a result of this proposal, though I
don't know how much of this was related to the objections to the
procedure and how much was just due to a lack of motivation by the
stewards to lock these wikis.

Spam and vandalism at inactive wikis can be reported at
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_reports>.

Angela.


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Chinese Wikinews: board action required


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] translation to spanish

body:
Hi,

I have seen a page in english that doesn't have a equivalent in
spanish.
I was born in Argentina, my primary language is spanish and I would like
to cooperate translating this page into spanish.

What should I do ?

Thank you,

Alberto

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list: wikien-l

from_name: Theo Clarke

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
John Cheese has written to me to thank us for deleting the article.

He also says that he wishes "it didn't happen the way it did". ?He acknowledges that he had not understood "that there was 5-day voting period" and he thought we were leaving the article there simply to make a point.

He has promised to do his best to ensure that his readers "leave in peace. ?If you guys ever have trouble with any of my readers, please don't hesitate to contact me, and I'll put a stop to it. ?I don't foresee anything like that happening, but I'd still like to extend that olive branch just in case."

Theo


from_name: Alphax

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
ClockworkSoul wrote:

<snip>

> "Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}.
> Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a
> brand new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the
> administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be
> another user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock
> puppet"). Please understand that this is the common practice on
> Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of
> our votes. "
>
> I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I
> will also report this email to the Admin board.
>
Added to [[Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace]].

--
Alphax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
>>
> Our policy should not depend on the user's understanding of browser
> settings.

Indeed.  But it should not operate to the detriment of all users just
because some of them are ignorant of browser settings.


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Puddl Duk said:
>>
>
> Linking gives more choice than it takes away.

No.  There is no way for current browsers to include in the selected page
an image that is contained in another page that is linked from it.  Ever
since Mosaic, however, there has been the choice to download or not to
download the image inline.  Most browsers for most of that time have
supported the selective downloading of images on an individual basis.
Complete choice, complete control.


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
ClockworkSoul (mtitmus at optonline.net) [050416 23:22]:

> Perhaps, as a beginning, we should at the very least create a template
> that can be throw onto the user page of newcomers that head directly
> into a voting situation, to let them know of our common practice, and
> why it is so. Something along the lines of:
> "Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on {{{1}}}.
> Community activity is encouraged, of course, but your status as a brand
> new user means that your vote ''might not'' be counted if the
> administrator that tallies your votes believes that you might be another
> user logged in under a second account (a so-called "sock puppet").
> Please understand that this is the common practice on Wikipedia, and
> that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading" of our votes. "
> I am going to create this template under the name {{newvoter}}, and I
> will also report this email to the Admin board.

Don't forget to note that "Votes" for deletion aren't "votes" per se -
they're an attempt to ascertain whether there is community consensus to
delete. If you've made your first-ever Wikipedia edit to VFD, and were
there only because of a call to arms on another site, you might reasonably
be considered not (yet) part of the community in question. That would need
noting.

(This is similar to the Calvinball rule of Wikipedia policy, i.e. "if you
think you've come up with a stunningly clever hack of our rules which will
get your way against our community wishes, good for you! The rule just
changed.")

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why linking an image gives less choice to the reader

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
>>
> It seems to me that allowing a person to click on a link give a lot
> more  choice to the reader than being forced to see (or not see) an
> image.

I tried to explain earlier.  Here it is again in detail.  By the way, in
case you're wondering, my phobia is real.  This is a fictional example,
but my extreme reaction to pictures of certain bugs is very real.
Suppose I know that there is a web page out there in entomology-land that
contains several pictures, many of which I'm pretty sure will give me
waking hallucinations.  Other pictures on the web page, well I'm very keen
to look at them.
It seems that the site owners have wisely interspersed the text of the
page with inline images, they're all in the appropriate place in the page
and they all have appropriate filenames, alt tags or captions.
So it's a doddle, I just go to the website and read it like normal.  If I
see a picture caption that looks interesting, I use the right button menu
to make it appear in the page--which takes a second or so for most
pictures.  If a caption suggests an image that may cause me to have a
terrifying hallucination, I don't click it.
Now suppose we caterpillarphobes all ganged up and said it wasn't right
showing pictures of caterpillars on bug websites, and we convinced them
that this was very distressing and shouldn't be ignored.  Maybe they'd
react by linking those images.  That would suck because it wouldn't make
things any better for me (I'm already quite happy because I know which
pictures I want to see in the article and I select them). But everybody
who didn't mind looking at ugly bugs (and I'm told there are quite a few!)
would no longer have the option of making their own mind up whether to see
the caterpillars alongside the text that they illustrate.
Inline an image on Wikipedia, and you give the reader three choices:

He can look at the image as you intended it to be seen, in the article.

He can look at the article without the image.

He can look at the image without the article.

Link the image and you leave him with only two of those choices.  The most
valuable of those choices--which should probably be the default for all
readers who do not have a serious reaction to the image, is removed.
There is no way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Once you
displace an inlined image to a link, the text and the illustration are
divorced.
All you have done is to take away from the run-of-the-mill reader the
opportunity to see the text and the illustration together, so he can read
the description and look at the corresponding picture.


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Conflict between two Wikipedias

body:
OK. As I supposed, Romanian variant have more morphological attributes
then Moldovan.

It is possible to solve that. First, with a lot of exceptions, then
with smaller number of exceptions, but with dictionary.

And, it is interesting computational linguistic work :)

On 4/16/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Milos,
>
> The difference is that while Romanian uses both ? and ? to represent
> the same sound, in Moldovan both of these are spelled ?. Thus, "O,
> brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat pomului de Cr?ciun.
> C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i este r?sp?ndit la
> nivel mondial." is "O, brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat
> pomului de Cr?ciun. C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i
> este r?sp?ndit la nivel mondial."
>
> Other than that the differences are very minimal, and they include the
> Moldovan preference to use native words or Russian loanwords rather
> than the Romanian preference for French and Italian words.
>
> Cyrillic, however, is written very phonetically.
>
> You asked earlier about the difficulties in orthographical conversion
> between Cyrillic and Latin.
>
> The letter i can be ?, ? or ? in Cyrillic, it depends on its pronunciation.
> The combination iu can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ?, ??.
> The combination ia can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ??, ??, ??,
> or ??, but on its own the Cyrillic letter "?" is translitereated "ea"
> in Latin (for example, the name of the popular song "Dragostea Din
> Tei" is ???????? ??? ??? in Cyrillic.)
>
> Mark
>
> On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
> > situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
> > phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
> > transliteration?
> >
> > May you tell me where to find mor data?
> >
> > On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> > > UTC 2005:
> > >
> > > >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> > > as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
> > >
> > > But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> > > seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> > > that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> > > wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> > > Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> > > created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> > > code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> > > Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> > > as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> > > "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> > > "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
> > >
> > > Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> > > doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> > > found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> > > far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> > > very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> > > a goon!
> > >
> > > >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> > > Only a dunce would
> > > think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> > > "Moldoveneasca",
> > > /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> > > non-Cyrillic content."
> > >
> > > Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> > > I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> > > politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> > > link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> > > what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> > > Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> > > Moldovan is always written, or at least
> > > majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> > > it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> > > they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> > > opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> > > "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> > > since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> > > specify.
> > >
> > > Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> > > against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> > > else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> > > and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> > > clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> > > would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
> > >
> > >
> > > __________________________________
> > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> > > http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
>
> Another technique that could prove useful in some cases would be to
> insure that possibly offensive pictures are not near the top of an
> article.  This would avoid shocked reactions from first reactions by
> people who just came to the page.  The picture would not be visible
> until the reader has scrolled down the page.

This really does work.  If someone genuinely doesn't know what the word
"clitoris" means, or gets sent there by a joker who knows he would be
offended, it's best if he is not confronted unexpectedly by an unwantedly
graphic picture but has a chance to get his bearings.
Another example of where this works well is the "Bah?'u'll?h" article.
Bahais are resigned to the fact that a Wikipedia article should probably
contain a picture of him, but they have brokered an agreement with others
to the effect that the article should state that it contains a picture of
him, but the actual picture is at the end.
I and one or two other admins (Geni? I think you were there) blocked
Martin2000 and around a dozen of his socks who tried to edit that picture
to the top.  He seems to have pretty much given up for the time being.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
> I prefer a
> Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
> realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.

All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good bit of
ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the king is so
keen to display his march brazenly down the street insisting that we pay
due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail to point out that he appears
to be stark bollock naked would be a gross failure of citizenship.


body:
Puddl Duk said:
>>
> The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to
> linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most
> people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something
> that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes on
> autofelletio).

Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"?  I don't
think it resembles what I have described in any way.


body:
Tony Sidaway said:
> Puddl Duk said:
>>>
>> The fallacy in your reasoning is to compare browsing without images to
>> linking. Browsing without images is not an acceptable choice to most
>> people (I think) and shouldn't be used as a comparison to something
>> that is an acceptable choice to most people (as evident in the votes
>> on autofelletio).
>
> Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"?  I don't
> think it resembles what I have described in any way.

I would also like to point out that the first successful deletion of an
autofellatio picture only occurred well after a vandal had exploited a
loophole to turn many talk pages into illustrations of autofellatio.
I take great pleasure in pointing out that, even so, prior to a very
substantial vote packing effort on the last Autofellatio vote (the one on
the new image) the keep vote was about twice as strong as the delete vote.
Even when desperate, blatantly unethical measures were taken, there was no
consensus to delete. The copyright objections had been satisfied and the
vandalism had been curtailed by a code fix.  Thus the day was won by the
merit of having a GDFL-compatible picture of a man sucking his own penis
available to illustrate an article about that encyclopedic and otherwise
rather incredible subject.


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Jimmy Wales said:
>
> So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet
> Jackson incident.  But also, you can flip the channels any night of the
> week and  see people having sex on television.  My local grocery store
> puts  discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge
> porn  stores are open for business just down the street.  In my town, a
> woman  can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you can
> go any  night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people
> having sex  openly.  Diversity. :-)

Of course.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that the United
States produces more hard core pornography than any other country on the
planet.
But what you describe isn't diversity, it's dysfunction.  The lady
arrested on the beach doesn't benefit from the fact that an entertainment
venue has different rules in your legal system. Please don't try to
explain away the limitation of expression of non-Americans by claiming
falsely that they're benefiting by the exportation of a completely
fictitious diversity.


body:
Puddl Duk said:
> On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>>
>> Could you explain what you mean by "browsing without images"?  I don't
>> think it resembles what I have described in any way.
>>
> Ok, requiring the right mouse button extra click to see any image.

Absolutely not.  The reader is free to download the entire article, images
and all, or the article without images, or to select which images he does
or does not want to see.   He has complete control.  He is not forced to
browse with images, or without them, or to download any given image he
does not want to.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton said:
> On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> Ray Saintonge said:
>> > I prefer a
>> > Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
>> > realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.
>>
>> All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good bit
>> of ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the king
>> is so keen to display his march brazenly down the street insisting
>> that we pay due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail to point out
>> that he appears to be stark bollock naked would be a gross failure of
>> citizenship.
>
> What harm can be cause by personal attacks, which we have a policy
> against?

We're not going to get anywhere if you insist on lumping attacks on ideas
alongside attacks on persons.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Steve Rapaport

subject: [Foundation-l] Report on DotOrgBoom Stockholm Panel, April 12, 2005

body:
By popular demand, my report (with pictures) is here:

http://romlin.com/worldtour/sweden/FinnishEmbassy/index.html

It is extremely POV, because otherwise it would just be boring.

--
\Steve


from_name: Steve Lefevre

subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Hey folks -

I'm pitching an idea for a postmodern wikipedia. What I mean by that is
that there are multiple concurrent versions of an article. Instead of a
zero-sum game where only one text can inhabit a title at any time, a
user can choose from different branches. The user basis this decision on
who the authors are, and how many people agree with the text.

A PGP sign-off system will keep track of who wrote what, and who agrees
with it. Authors who have had a lot of people sign off on their word
will get bonus scores on their texts, and articles that well-reputed
authors sign off on will get also get bonus scores.

 A 'troll pit' of low-rated articles by low-rated authors will be
automatically filtered from casual browsers.

The immediate wikipedia problems that this solves are:
 - Edit wars. This is common with articles covering controversial
topics, such as abortion. Proponents of different truths will build and
maintain their side of the story, including counter arguments, instead
of trying to destroy the other side. There is no negative sign-off, so
the only thing the article measures is how many people agree with it,
not how many disagree.
 - Graffiti. Small, hard-to-detect changes to articles will not be
signed off on by many people, so they will not survive a reputation
filter. Those branches will go into the troll pit.
- Trolling. See graffiti. Giving a definition of trolling that makes it
distinguishable from grafitti is left as an exercise for the reader.
- Lack of attribution.With a PGP sign-off system, articles can be
attributed to authors, even if they are anonymous.
-  Public perception. The steady maintenance of well-respected articles
by reputable authors will make wikipedia a trusted source of information.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
ClockworkSoul (mtitmus at optonline.net) [050417 02:15]:

> Several others (including myself) are inclined to agree. The current
> draft reads:
>    Welcome, {{PAGENAME}}! We noticed that you placed a vote on
>    [[{{{1}}}]]. Participation in the community is encouraged, of
>    course, but your status as a brand new user means that your vote
>    ''might not'' be counted. Voting on Wikipedia is meant to measure
>    community concensus, and should not necessarily not be taken as
>    literal voting. Please understand that this is a common practice on
>    Wikipedia, and that it is necessary to prevent deliberate "loading"
>    of our votes. However, we encourage you to make further
>    contributions to Wikipedia and to become a valuable member of the
>    community.

That's pretty good :-)

- d.


from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board

body:
On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 10:09:11PM -0400, Delirium wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
> >The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
> >legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
> >course involves profound respect for the community.
>
> That's only true for the unelected 3/5 of the board---two of the board
> members very explicitly represent the community, and indeed the
> community can replace them at the next election if it dislikes how it's
> being represented.
>
> >This only comes up in some counterfactual hypotheticals -- suppose we
> >have a huge influx of newcomers from our newfound fame, and people
> >want to turn this into a big joke project?  Suppose the community
> >votes to abandon neutrality in favor of, hmm, let's say support for
> >the US war on terror?  Some things, like Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
> >and NPOV, are not negotiable, as is my firm insistence that what we
> >are doing is to be a *high quality* work first, are not negotiable,
> >and if the community doesn't like it, we have to find different people
> >to be a part of the community.
>
> This seems incompatible with en eventual move to an all-elected board;
> does that mean the board will perpetually have less than 50% of its
> members be elected?  I was under the impression that that was only a
> temporary situation, not a permanent one.
>

Maybe the time has come to consider creating a "constitution" of sorts
that constrains the board against corrupting the purpose of the project,
then.  While it is true that elected boardmembers can make decisions
counter to the intended spirit of the endeavor, it is also true that
constraining them from engaging in that sort of behavior is possible
through the application of a set of rules that are, as Jimbo indicated,
not negotiable.

I'm no devotee of democracy for its own sake.  What makes the United
States government tolerable is not the fact that it has representative
democratic elements; it is the fact that the government is constrained
by the terms of the Consitution in general, and the Bill of Rights in
particular.  Given enough time and corruption in the right places, this
can of course be undermined to a great degree in practice, but at least
the attempt has been made to limit the damage that can be done.  This is
a good thing, in my way of thinking, and I think it may in time become a
necessary thing for Wikipedia and sibling projects as well, if the
spirit of the entire project is to be preserved at all.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Foundation-l] The role of the board


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Richard Holton said:
> On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> Richard Holton said:
>> > On 4/16/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
>> >> Ray Saintonge said:
>> >> > I prefer a
>> >> > Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when
>> >> > he realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.
>> >>
>> >> All hail to Fyodor, but really what harm can be caused by a good
>> >> bit of ridicule?  Are we simply to modestly avert our gaze when the
>> >> king is so keen to display his march brazenly down the street
>> >> insisting that we pay due deference to his kingly robes?  To fail
>> >> to point out that he appears to be stark bollock naked would be a
>> >> gross failure of citizenship.
>> >
>> > What harm can be cause by personal attacks, which we have a policy
>> > against?
>>
>> We're not going to get anywhere if you insist on lumping attacks on
>> ideas alongside attacks on persons.
>>
>
> Your distinction, in this case, is false. Ridicule can be just as
> easily addressed to people as to ideas.

Well one normally ridicules an idea (such as the idea that the king is
fully dressed) by addressing the person of the king.
This cannot be avoided if the king insists on parading himself without any
clothes.
I suppose it's all the little boy's fault.

But seriously, yes people will be offended when their ideas are attacked.
But this is not a good reason to refrain from pouring your tea into the
harbor when they come up and ask you to cope with the unpalatable
consequences of an unreasonable idea.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ray Saintonge said:
>
> Certainly kings and emperors leave themselves open to ridicule, but
> there are very few kings and emperors in the world and far more of the
> rest of us.  Ridicule is an integral part of military propaganda.  It
> was used in World War 2, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to
> characterize orientals whether they believed in their countries' war
> policies or not.  It is used in schoolyard bullying as a form a
> psychological abuse when a child is somehow different from the norm.
> For revolutionaries it tells me that they are more interested in
> personal power than in an ethical change to what ails a society.
>

You seem to be equating ridicule of popular ideas with bullying, unethical
warfare, child abuse and whatnot.  Please consider that you may be wrong.


from_name: Sj

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Encarta goes wiki - sort of...

references:
<d3n2i4$i4p$1@sea.gmane.org> <BE84874C.E3C8%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<2ed171fb05041420024e2114eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<426004AE.2000003@wikia.com>

body:
On 4/15/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Andrew Lih wrote:
> > FYI, something I just found on the Encarta Feedback FAQ, that might be
> > of interest:
> >
> > ---
> > How are my suggested edits researched?
> >
> > Graduate students at the University of Washington Information School
> > are fact-checking all proposed changes to Encarta. They are trained in
>
> Microsoft has extended an invitation for me to come and give a talk in
> Redmond.  I'll also see if I can give a talk at the University of
> Washington Information School.  It would be interesting to chat with
> these graduate students, I think, to learn more about their experience.

Neat.  Is there a date set?

Of course there are lots of other information schools out there;
perhaps none as focused as this one; but it would be interesting to
compare their curriculum with that of other information management
programs teach.   I would love to think that this school is going to
be on the forefront of founding a true study of information itself
(generation, propagation, creativity, evolution, analysis &
verification), independent of computers and the unfortunately named
field of "information technology."

+sj+


body:
I understand what is the problem between Cyrillic and Latin... Long
time ago, I made program in Perl which devides Serbian words into
syllabs (the heart of it is at
http://millosh.org/software/ltafos/afos/AFOS-0.6.4-16/mod/Slog.pm). As
I see, Cyrillic-Roman conversion for Moldovan needs similar algorithm.
The complete algorithm is formal, not fuzzy.

During the next week, I'll go to the Philological Faculty in Belgrade,
I hope I would find some Romanian phonologist there and I would ask
him/her for transliteration rules.

On 4/17/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, it's the other way around.
>
> Romanian writes a number of different sounds with the same letter or
> combination of letters.
>
> Unless you're talking about Moldovan written in the Latin alphabet.
> That's not an issue - the difference there is so minor we don't need
> to worry about it.
>
> I don't like to make generalisations, but what I would say is: "i"
> becomes ? in most situations, ? usually after another vowel (or if
> it's a double "i") and sometimes before, and ? most often at the end
> of the word.
>
> I think there's some really complex situational rules.
>
> If you want (I would suggest some sort of neural networking to learn
> complex rules), you can use the paralell texts of
> http://mo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BE%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%9F%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BB_%D0%B0%D0%BB_%E2%85%A1-%D0%BB%D1%8F
> and http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioan_Paul_al_II-lea both about the
> late Karol Jozef Wojtyla, the Moldovan version is currently a simple
> transliteration of the Romanian with a few small exceptions.
>
> Mark
>
> On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > OK. As I supposed, Romanian variant have more morphological attributes
> > then Moldovan.
> >
> > It is possible to solve that. First, with a lot of exceptions, then
> > with smaller number of exceptions, but with dictionary.
> >
> > And, it is interesting computational linguistic work :)
> >
> > On 4/16/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Milos,
> > >
> > > The difference is that while Romanian uses both ? and ? to represent
> > > the same sound, in Moldovan both of these are spelled ?. Thus, "O,
> > > brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat pomului de Cr?ciun.
> > > C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i este r?sp?ndit la
> > > nivel mondial." is "O, brad frumos este un c?ntec de Cr?ciun ?nchinat
> > > pomului de Cr?ciun. C?ntecul a fost tradus ?n multe limbi ale lumii ?i
> > > este r?sp?ndit la nivel mondial."
> > >
> > > Other than that the differences are very minimal, and they include the
> > > Moldovan preference to use native words or Russian loanwords rather
> > > than the Romanian preference for French and Italian words.
> > >
> > > Cyrillic, however, is written very phonetically.
> > >
> > > You asked earlier about the difficulties in orthographical conversion
> > > between Cyrillic and Latin.
> > >
> > > The letter i can be ?, ? or ? in Cyrillic, it depends on its pronunciation.
> > > The combination iu can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ?, ??.
> > > The combination ia can be written in Cyrillic as ??, ??, ??, ??, ??,
> > > or ??, but on its own the Cyrillic letter "?" is translitereated "ea"
> > > in Latin (for example, the name of the popular song "Dragostea Din
> > > Tei" is ???????? ??? ??? in Cyrillic.)
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 16/04/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > What are the differences between Romanian and Moldovan variant? Is it
> > > > situation where one language has morphological alphabet and another
> > > > phonological or it is possible to make some kind of simple
> > > > transliteration?
> > > >
> > > > May you tell me where to find mor data?
> > > >
> > > > On 4/16/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > > In response to Mark's comments on Fri Apr 15 06:10:23
> > > > > UTC 2005:
> > > > >
> > > > > >"I don't see mo: as the Moldovan Wikipedia. I see it
> > > > > as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia..."
> > > > >
> > > > > But mo: *is* the Moldovan Wikipedia, it can never be
> > > > > seen as the Moldovan Cyrillic Wikipedia. Seeing it
> > > > > that way would just be biased. If we look at how mo:
> > > > > wiki started, it started because the ISO assigned the
> > > > > Moldovan language a code of "mo" and therefore it was
> > > > > created as such by Wikimedia. The language with the
> > > > > code "mo" is Moldovan, which is officially written in
> > > > > Latin script. Hence, the mo: subdomain cannot be seen
> > > > > as the Moldovan *Cyrillic* Wikipedia.
> > > > >
> > > > > >"So far, nobody who claims to speak
> > > > > "Moldovan" as their mother tongue has challenged it.",
> > > > > "You and your ro.wikipedian goon squad may care"
> > > > >
> > > > > Firstly, just because no-one challenges an idea
> > > > > doesn't mean it's right! Concerning the goon squad, I
> > > > > found that notion quite amusing actually. We have so
> > > > > far argued logically and, at least I believe so, in a
> > > > > very good manner. I don't think anyone has acted like
> > > > > a goon!
> > > > >
> > > > > >"Why not "Moldoveneasca" in the Cyrillic alphabet?
> > > > > Only a dunce would
> > > > > think, without some prior experience, that a link to
> > > > > "Moldoveneasca",
> > > > > /in the Cyrillic alphabet/, would get them to
> > > > > non-Cyrillic content."
> > > > >
> > > > > Look, again you're thinking too pratically here. Maybe
> > > > > I'm wrong because I think everything through too
> > > > > politically. The issue about how to put the interwiki
> > > > > link is not about dunces and practicality, it's about
> > > > > what's right and correct. If you put a link with
> > > > > Moldoveneasca in Cyrillic, people will think that
> > > > > Moldovan is always written, or at least
> > > > > majoritarily/officially written in Cyrillic. Plainly,
> > > > > it is not, hence we need to specify that the version
> > > > > they will be clicking on is Moldovan (Cyrillic) as
> > > > > opposed to Moldovan Latin. If there was
> > > > > "Moldoveaneasca" in both scripts, it would be OK, but
> > > > > since only the Cyrillic will be present, then we must
> > > > > specify.
> > > > >
> > > > > Anyway, I don't understand why you're so committed
> > > > > against forming a new subdomain for mo-cyr:. No-one
> > > > > else has seemed to mind too much about its formation,
> > > > > and it would surely delimit the issue much more
> > > > > clearly. What's so wrong? I don't even see why it
> > > > > would be detrimental to the Moldovan Cyrillic authors.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > __________________________________
> > > > > Do you Yahoo!?
> > > > > Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
> > > > > http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> > > QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> > > POSSIT MATERIARI
> > > ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 09:19:18AM +0200, Finne Boonen wrote:
> if I understood it correctly, doesn't it makes it difficult to edit,
> not everybody has a pgp key, if you want to base the key on the
> computer they're working with, what about people that use several
> computers from wich they edit?
>
> how is it possible to benefit from several people editing a text? add
> the (weighted) scores of all the parts? Or not possible?
>
> I do like the idea however :)
>
> Finne
>

Also . . . considering the (unofficial?) FLOSS bent of Wikimedia's
projects in general, shouldn't that be GPG instead of PGP?

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Finne Boonen wrote:

>if I understood it correctly, doesn't it makes it difficult to edit,
>not everybody has a pgp key, if you want to base the key on the
>computer they're working with, what about people that use several
>computers from wich they edit?
>
>
It would be more difficult to edit, and that is a drawback. Instead of
having an anonymous anybody editing, you do have to sign the stuff you
write with a key. Hopefully that will act as a filter to anyone trying
to create havoc.

The idea is to have 1 person , 1 key; otherwise, this authorship
reputation system doesn't work.

>how is it possible to benefit from several people editing a text? add
>the (weighted) scores of all the parts? Or not possible?
>
>

Well, the exact scoring formula would probably have to be decided over
trial an error. Or, you can build different filters that present the
wikipedia tree differently, based on different scoring rules. For
example, if you only wanted to see the articles that had x numbers of
signatures, or that had x signatures of authors with more than x
signatures on their texts.

>I do like the idea however :)
>
>

Thank you! I was expecting a few flames at first.

>Finne
>
>
>On 4/17/05, Steve Lefevre <lefevre.10 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>Hey folks -
>>
>>I'm pitching an idea for a postmodern wikipedia. What I mean by that is
>>that there are multiple concurrent versions of an article. Instead of a
>>zero-sum game where only one text can inhabit a title at any time, a
>>user can choose from different branches. The user basis this decision on
>>who the authors are, and how many people agree with the text.
>>
>>A PGP sign-off system will keep track of who wrote what, and who agrees
>>with it. Authors who have had a lot of people sign off on their word
>>will get bonus scores on their texts, and articles that well-reputed
>>authors sign off on will get also get bonus scores.
>>
>> A 'troll pit' of low-rated articles by low-rated authors will be
>>automatically filtered from casual browsers.
>>
>>The immediate wikipedia problems that this solves are:
>> - Edit wars. This is common with articles covering controversial
>>topics, such as abortion. Proponents of different truths will build and
>>maintain their side of the story, including counter arguments, instead
>>of trying to destroy the other side. There is no negative sign-off, so
>>the only thing the article measures is how many people agree with it,
>>not how many disagree.
>> - Graffiti. Small, hard-to-detect changes to articles will not be
>>signed off on by many people, so they will not survive a reputation
>>filter. Those branches will go into the troll pit.
>>- Trolling. See graffiti. Giving a definition of trolling that makes it
>>distinguishable from grafitti is left as an exercise for the reader.
>>- Lack of attribution.With a PGP sign-off system, articles can be
>>attributed to authors, even if they are anonymous.
>>-  Public perception. The steady maintenance of well-respected articles
>>by reputable authors will make wikipedia a trusted source of information.
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>
>Also . . . considering the (unofficial?) FLOSS bent of Wikimedia's
>projects in general, shouldn't that be GPG instead of PGP?
>
>
>

You are correct. It should be GPG.

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 04:53:14AM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
> >
> >Also . . . considering the (unofficial?) FLOSS bent of Wikimedia's
> >projects in general, shouldn't that be GPG instead of PGP?
> >
> >
> >
>
> You are correct. It should be GPG.

Whew.  I was half-expecting someone to tell me why I was wrong.

By the way, in case it wasn't clear, I do think the idea as a whole is
intriguing and has merit.  It would be a very different project, though,
with a very different community surrounding it.  I'd like to see what
such an experiment would produce.  I may, in fact, end up "borrowing"
the principles of implementation behind it for a project of my own at
some point in the distant future.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] 501(c)(3) status granted to Wikimedia Foundation

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Hooray! Finally!
>
> The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> date), so this is fully retroactive.

Spread the word. Time to email every one of our thousands of donors in the U.S.
Too bad we didn't know about this until *after* tax day. :(

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


from_name: Aphaia

body:
On 4/17/05, Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hooray! Finally!
> >
> > The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> > date), so this is fully retroactive.
> >
> > --Jimbo
> >
>
> Great news indeed!

Really.
Angela announced it already on the Home page of WMF site. Any language
translators are invited to upldate "Latest news" to announce that, as
same as currently published privacy policy announcement by Anthere ...
;-)

Cheers,

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>
>...  I may, in fact, end up "borrowing"
>the principles of implementation behind it for a project of my own at
>some point in the distant future.
>
>
>
You have my blessing so long as you return the favor ;)

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 05:10:49AM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
> >
> >...  I may, in fact, end up "borrowing"
> >the principles of implementation behind it for a project of my own at
> >some point in the distant future.
> >
> >
> >
> You have my blessing so long as you return the favor ;)
>

Naturally.  Anything for which I have the opportunity to do so, I
release under a software/content libre license, email included.

Speaking of which, I need to get back to rewriting CCD.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Idea for a new Wikipedia

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The original poster was interested primarily in a wikipedia in German
> for children.  This raises a whole bunch of very interesting questions,
> I think, and we should not confuse those questions with the questions of
> simple language for adult learners.

The whole idea of Simple is now largely redundant due to the concept of having
lead sections that are maximally accessible and concise encyclopedia articles
in their own right.

Please, let's not make the same 'simple' mistake with any other language. Just
make sure that the first section of each article is non-specialist in language
and content while at the same time touches on the most important facts about
the topic.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lead_section

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Microsoft has extended an invitation for me to come and give a talk in
> Redmond.  I'll also see if I can give a talk at the University of
> Washington Information School.  It would be interesting to chat with
> these graduate students, I think, to learn more about their experience.

Great idea! We should learn from the Encarta wikish experience to see if it is
a viable model, which will be good for us to use in comparing and contrasting.
I really doubt it will be nearly as scalable as what we do, but we could still
learn from them nevertheless. Who knows, we could even eventually apply some of
what we learn from them to better handle our more complete and stable articles.

The point we need to keep in mind is our goal - our process is a means to
*that* end and should not be held sacrosanct for every article at each stage of
its development.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
On 4/17/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, he probably won't be able to help you because very few
> Romanians know Cyrillic.

I just hope that some university professor of Romanian phonology knows
Moldovan Cyrillic :)

> It's also not entirely an issue of syllables, and there are no exact
> formal rules for how to read letters. There are some patterns, but in
> general you just have to be fluent. That's why I suggested a neural
> networking approach.

Approach is similar. I think that algorithm is called in English
"finite automates": if first, second and fourth letter are something,
then third letter should be changed from x to y :)

However, I hope we would have more informations at the beginning of
the next week.


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki

body:
If every active member takes one "dead" wiki under his/her guide by
guarding it (and having sysop rights to delete trash) against spam and
immediately greating and talking to newcomers. Than we do not have to
lock inactive wikis! Just a check once every two or three days suffices
like I do at Laotian. You do not really have to speak the language.

Walter/Waerth


subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ray Saintonge (saintonge at telus.net) [050417 08:11]:

> There is a kind of utilitarian truth to your observation, but I would
> still question the ethics of such a revolutionary.  I prefer a
> Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
> realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.

Yeah, but then there's some incredulity at how far one can be expected to
bend over backwards.

x: (suggestion that is not only nonsensical but defies technical
    possibility)
y: "That's ridiculous."
x: "YOU BASTARDS ARE ALWAYS MAKING FUN OF US! HAVE RESPECT!"

It's a tricky one.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
On 4/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Microsoft has extended an invitation for me to come and give a talk in
> Redmond.  I'll also see if I can give a talk at the University of
> Washington Information School.  It would be interesting to chat with
> these graduate students, I think, to learn more about their experience.

Their school is quite new. It would be great to see how they are
organizing the effort, as part of a class, a grant, or volunteerism.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


from_name: Finne Boonen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
if I understood it correctly, doesn't it makes it difficult to edit,
not everybody has a pgp key, if you want to base the key on the
computer they're working with, what about people that use several
computers from wich they edit?

how is it possible to benefit from several people editing a text? add
the (weighted) scores of all the parts? Or not possible?

I do like the idea however :)

Finne

On 4/17/05, Steve Lefevre <lefevre.10 at osu.edu> wrote:
> Hey folks -
>
> I'm pitching an idea for a postmodern wikipedia. What I mean by that is
> that there are multiple concurrent versions of an article. Instead of a
> zero-sum game where only one text can inhabit a title at any time, a
> user can choose from different branches. The user basis this decision on
> who the authors are, and how many people agree with the text.
>
> A PGP sign-off system will keep track of who wrote what, and who agrees
> with it. Authors who have had a lot of people sign off on their word
> will get bonus scores on their texts, and articles that well-reputed
> authors sign off on will get also get bonus scores.
>
>  A 'troll pit' of low-rated articles by low-rated authors will be
> automatically filtered from casual browsers.
>
> The immediate wikipedia problems that this solves are:
>  - Edit wars. This is common with articles covering controversial
> topics, such as abortion. Proponents of different truths will build and
> maintain their side of the story, including counter arguments, instead
> of trying to destroy the other side. There is no negative sign-off, so
> the only thing the article measures is how many people agree with it,
> not how many disagree.
>  - Graffiti. Small, hard-to-detect changes to articles will not be
> signed off on by many people, so they will not survive a reputation
> filter. Those branches will go into the troll pit.
> - Trolling. See graffiti. Giving a definition of trolling that makes it
> distinguishable from grafitti is left as an exercise for the reader.
> - Lack of attribution.With a PGP sign-off system, articles can be
> attributed to authors, even if they are anonymous.
> -  Public perception. The steady maintenance of well-respected articles
> by reputable authors will make wikipedia a trusted source of information.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
"Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but
unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
http://hekla.rave.org/cookbook.html - my crossplatform dieet/recipe app


subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki

body:
>Dori has a point of course, but do we really have this problem?
>
>If so, then "soft closing" might be a good solution to explore.  A "soft
>closed" wiki requires a captcha for posting, disallows external links,
>implements the 'nofollow' tag, etc.
>
>
Forgive my ignorance as a non geek-english speaking cloggy ........ what
is captcha?

Waerth/Walter

ps) I am willing to take 2 or 3 more wikipedia's under my eye toprevent
it from clutter/vandalisme so it can stay open.


subject: [Foundation-l] guarding a wiki


body:
It's also a nice excuse to get around to thanking all of them properly.    SJ

On 4/17/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Hooray! Finally!
> >
> > The effective date of the exemption is June 20, 2003 (our founding
> > date), so this is fully retroactive.
>
> Spread the word. Time to email every one of our thousands of donors in the U.S.
> Too bad we didn't know about this until *after* tax day. :(
>
> -- mav

--
User:Sj  |  Wikimedia, now a 501c3 -- http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home


from_name: Matt R

subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
--- Steve Lefevre <lefevre.10 at osu.edu> wrote:
> Hey folks -
>
> A PGP sign-off system will keep track of who wrote what, and who agrees
> with it. Authors who have had a lot of people sign off on their word
> will get bonus scores on their texts, and articles that well-reputed
> authors sign off on will get also get bonus scores.

I don't have any comments (yet) on your idea, but I thought I'd mention that
cryptographic signatures would be overkill here, IMO: it's quite reasonable to
trust the "history" function of a wiki to verify that someone wrote something,
or "voted" for an article fork, etc.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com


from_name: Puddl Duk

body:
On 4/17/05, Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Rebecca said:
> > The reader is *not* free. The reader is given a choice to either go to
> > a patently ridiculous extreme, and manually enable each image, or to
> > have it thrown in their face regardless. This is opposed to the awful
> > (and one-off) strain that clicking one link would cause to the poor
> > person who really must see the autofellatio picture.
>
> We appear to have a difference of opinion on the ease of operation of
> modern browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.  As a person who
> often uses both in this mode I can assure you that it's neither extreme
> nor ridiculous.  It's very sensible and it solves the problem totally.
>
I can't get this to work in firefox (maybe I'm computer illiterate).
Works fine in  IE, but FF doesn't have a rightmousebuttonclick to show
image inline (when image downloads are off). New FF downloaded
yesterday.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Expanding CheckUser permissions

body:
>
> I would not support any such list to be public. It seems to me that
> bringing public suspicion over someone is already a bit condemning him.
> This is not wikilove at all, and prone to further heat conflicts.
>
> Another solution could simply be to name two people ombudsmen over this
> topic. We should choose two people trusted by the community, BUT
> generally out of usual cabalistic discussions. Rather quiet and discreet
> people, not involved in current internal politics. These are most likely
> to be independant from those with the right to check the ips.
>
> Ant
>
Secrecy checked by more secrecy. This is going in the wrong direction.
A user should be notified some way when they are targeted for
investigated.


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>
>> Richard Holton wrote:
>>
>>> Mocking people for their world view is not constructive.
>>
>> I understand the point you were trying to make Richard but mocking
>> people's world view actually has a hugely constructive history. Many
>> a revolution would never had happened if this form of polemic had not
>> being employed.
>
> Trolls looking up through a tranparent bridge floor would be
> encouraged by such a comment.
>
> There is a kind of utilitarian truth to your observation, but I would
> still question the ethics of such a revolutionary.  I prefer a
> Dostoevskian revolutionary who will hesitate to throw a bomb when he
> realizes that it would harm others beyond his intended victim.

That's quite a revealing conflation of mocking and throwing bombs if I
might say so. I'm reading The Vote: How It was Won and How It Was
Undermined, by Paul Foot, at the moment. It's a long history of "moral
force" reformers (most from the comfortable middle class) undermining
the reformers and revolutionaries who could have got the job done
centuries ago.

We came across exactly the same situation on the human shield action to
Iraq. We had a bunch of comfortable middle class Brits with us who made
every effort to undermine the action and further their own resume (and
pockets in one case). One even pronounced the slogan "Truth Justice
Peace" too "hardcore" and pushed for it to be removed from the buses.
When in Turkey some argued that we shouldn't criticise the Turkish
government because it wasn't our government and therefore might cause
"offence"!!

The millions of people around the world who came out onto the streets
to protest the invasion of Iraq on February 15th, 2003 were again
afflicted by this horrible disease; had they been ready to riot and
confront our rotten politicians with violence (the only language they
know) then I don't doubt for a second that the invasion of Iraq would
never had gone ahead.

I prefer the revolutionary who gets the job done and doesn't foreclose
on any strategy on any basis other than that of effectiveness; I've
learnt from experience to despise the so-called "revolutionary" or
"reformer" who does otherwise, they're barrier to emancipation and
always will be, and they're certainly not revolutionaries.

Christiaan


subject: [WikiEN-l] On cultural sensitivity

body:
Good point Tony.

Christiaan

On 17 Apr 2005, at 2:01 am, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Jimmy Wales said:
>>
>> So, yes, in the US large fines were levied for the bizarre Janet
>> Jackson incident.  But also, you can flip the channels any night of
>> the
>> week and  see people having sex on television.  My local grocery store
>> puts  discreet covers on magazines which have racy titles, and huge
>> porn  stores are open for business just down the street.  In my town,
>> a
>> woman  can get arrested for going topless on the beach, and yet you
>> can
>> go any  night of the week to a nightclub where you can see people
>> having sex  openly.  Diversity. :-)
>
> Of course.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that the United
> States produces more hard core pornography than any other country on
> the
> planet.
> But what you describe isn't diversity, it's dysfunction.  The lady
> arrested on the beach doesn't benefit from the fact that an
> entertainment
> venue has different rules in your legal system. Please don't try to
> explain away the limitation of expression of non-Americans by claiming
> falsely that they're benefiting by the exportation of a completely
> fictitious diversity.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: REDIRECT to anchor

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:
> On 4/13/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Also, in reference to Timwi's comment on bug 218 about not wanting an
> extra from= param to  exist, I think it worth mentionning that
> interwiki redirects really need this rather badly, so that you can get
> back and edit the redirect.

 From what I can see, inter-wiki redirects have been disabled. For
example, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User_talk:Timwi no longer
redirects you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Timwi but
instead displays the redirection as a big link. I would imagine the
rationale being that this makes the redirects easier to edit.

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: "target=_blank"-behaviour for external links?

body:
Philipp wrote:
>
> Is there a possibility/parameter (or patch) which opens a new window when
> left-clicking something like [http:/www.domain.tld/directory/filename.html Click
> here]?

People have already mentioned to you that forcing a new window to open
is widely considered bad usability; I would like to add that the link
text "click here" is similarly frowned upon.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Multiple forks save edit wars, but I'm entirely unconvinced they're a good
>thing for the reader. I think NPOV is Wikipedia's really startling and
>useful innovation, on a par with attempting to write an encyclopedia by the
>wiki process.
>
>

I don't think NPOV is that startling -- hasn't that idea been around in
journalism for the past century? I would think that most other
encyclopedias make that claim.

Furthermore, I don't buy any claims to NPOV. Language is inherently
biased. One bias is what gets mentioned. Wikipedia is more comprehensive
than other encyclopedias in another realm, but  Another bias is what
gets mentioned first. Wikipedia articles are currently serial, so there
is always an order to the mentioning of any topic. There are also biases
in the wording and terminology of 'controversial' figures and unpopular
viewpoints. Who arbitrates who is controversial, or what is unpopular?
In the sign-off system I propose, we actually have hard numbers as to
what is controversial and unpopular.

Language did not evolve as a mirror of the truth. Writing that purports
to come from a neutral point of view comes off as stilted and awkward.
Language is a way to debate, argue, and convince. I say put language to
its best use and let proponents make their case.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Enotif - sent to Sysops for any new page ?

body:
Thomas Gries wrote:
> I would like to know, whether you also like a new feature
> which sends an Enotif (e-mail notification) to the SDBs on creation of a
> new page - if the RE matches.

Such a RE would quickly become extremely long and hard to edit. Why not
use a user's watchlist for this purpose?


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Mediawiki and mysql 5

body:
Tom Cherry wrote:
> Hello, new around here, so if I'm posting to the wrong place, sorry.

Please could I ask you not to use "Reply" on a posting that you're not
actually replying to? :-) Thanks.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Matt R wrote:

>I don't have any comments (yet) on your idea, but I thought I'd mention that
>cryptographic signatures would be overkill here, IMO: it's quite reasonable to
>trust the "history" function of a wiki to verify that someone wrote something,
>or "voted" for an article fork, etc.
>
>

Does the 'history' function maintain separate forks? I haven't really
looked at it, but it doesn't seem to really jump out at the user. When I
read a wikipedia article, I see only one text under a title at any given
time. I can't choose between different competing articles.

What I am suggesting is something like this: when a user looks up, say,
"Abortion", they are presented with a listing of high-rated articles to
choose from, probably with a summary or something to help them make
their decision about what to read.


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Misspellings and non-native speakers

body:
--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Rick wrote:
> > --- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
> >
> >>5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed
> >>'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no
> >>problem were they not already enraged.
> >
> > Not too sensitive to non-native speakers, are
> they?
> > Talk about arrogance!
>
> What is this thing about non-native speakers all the
> time? Native
> speakers misspell their words thousands of times
> more often than
> learners, *especially* in English; and a misspelling
> like "vanderlism"
> is thousands of times more likely to come from a
> native speaker than a
> learner.
>
> Timwi

Um, are you attacking me for daring to stand up for
Geni?

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


body:
On 4/17/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Puddl Duk a ?crit:
> >>I would not support any such list to be public. It seems to me that
> >>bringing public suspicion over someone is already a bit condemning him.
> >>This is not wikilove at all, and prone to further heat conflicts.
> >>
> >>Another solution could simply be to name two people ombudsmen over this
> >>topic. We should choose two people trusted by the community, BUT
> >>generally out of usual cabalistic discussions. Rather quiet and discreet
> >>people, not involved in current internal politics. These are most likely
> >>to be independant from those with the right to check the ips.
> >>
> >>Ant
> >>
> >
> > Secrecy checked by more secrecy. This is going in the wrong direction.
> > A user should be notified some way when they are targeted for
> > investigated.
>
> I did not imply that the user should not know. I think he should probably.
>

Yes, I agree. My suggestion on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser accounts for this.

> However, I do not think the other editors should know.
>
> In many countries, a person is considered not guilty until convinced of
> a crime. Now, we know better than that. Practically, when the police
> starts looking suspiciously to someone, the neighbours get suspicious as
> well.
>

Also, with regards to Wikipedia, if editors don't know for sure that
their account information is private then they are less likely to
write honestly about  government, politics, the company they work at,
etc.

Whereas if an editor knows they will receive notification when someone
looks into their ip address, then they can have confidence in the
transparency and accountability of our privacy policy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
--- Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Because the Christian culture, at least in the
> United
> > States, DEMANDS, that ONLY their particular
> cultural
> > sensitivities and prejudices be catered to.  There
> is
> > no "If you don't want to see it, don't look at
> it."
> > No, rather, it's "I don't want to see it, so you
> > can't, either."
> >
> > RickK
>
> Rubbish, Rick. What I (who am most *certainly* not
> Christian, or of
> any other religious faith), and others are arguing,
> is that "if we
> don't want to see it, we have the choice not to see
> it". It still
> remains available for others to see - after they
> click a link. What
> you and Tony seem to be arguing for it is "I want to
> see it, so you
> must also". Somehow I think this seems closer to the
> quote in your
> post.
>
> -- ambi

Rebecca, are you really trying to say that the
campaigns to DELETE the autofellatio and Kate Winslet
images are all in order to make them links to the
article pages?  Hardly.  They are campaigns to REMOVE
the images COMPLETELY from Wikipedia, so that NOBODY
can see them.

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 12:36:45PM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
> Furthermore, I don't buy any claims to NPOV. Language is inherently
> biased. One bias is what gets mentioned. Wikipedia is more comprehensive
> than other encyclopedias in another realm, but  Another bias is what
> gets mentioned first. Wikipedia articles are currently serial, so there
> is always an order to the mentioning of any topic. There are also biases
> in the wording and terminology of 'controversial' figures and unpopular
> viewpoints. Who arbitrates who is controversial, or what is unpopular?
> In the sign-off system I propose, we actually have hard numbers as to
> what is controversial and unpopular.

I disagree with that characterization of NPOV as a goal.  Rather than
say that it's some kind of myth to which we pretend to subscribe here,
I'm of the opinion that it's more an asymptote rather than a point on a
graph, and we are (in general) "approaching NPOV" incrementally with our
efforts.  The fact that we may never reach an absolute value of NPOV
idoesn't make it any less real, though.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Yes, Wikinfo is more or less this, alternative articles on any subject,
possiblility of signed articles and peer review.

Fred

> From: Till Westermayer <till at tillwe.de>
> Organization: till we *)
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: 17 Apr 2005 17:16:00 +0200
> To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea
>
> Isn't Wikinfo (Infopedia?, what was the name) a Wikipedia fork trying to
> do something like, although without the technological base?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: pitching an idea

body:
Yes, you do need to go on. Different problems come up and there are
alternative solutions.

Fred

> From: Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 17:10:49 +0100
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: pitching an idea
>
> Steve Lefevre wrote:
>>
>> I'm pitching an idea for a postmodern wikipedia. What I mean by that is
>> that there are multiple concurrent versions of an article.
>
> Good idea!
>
>
> SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are under 16 years of age, see [[sex (child version)]].
> If you are over 16 years of age, see [[sex (adult version)]].
>
>
> JOHN KERRY
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you live outside the US, please view [[John Kerry (non-US view)]].
> If you are a Republican, please view [[John Kerry (Republican view)]].
> If you are a Democrat, please view [[John Kerry (Democrat view)]].
>
>
> ABORTION
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are religious, please view [[abortion (anti-abortionist)]].
> If you are atheist, please view [[abortion (pro-abortionist)]].
>
>
> ADOLF HITLER
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are a Nazi...
>
>
> Need I go on?
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: Re: Bambara et wikipedia

body:
A mail transmitted by Philippe.

Could someone make a comment and/or translate the
issue ?

Thanks

> >Merci, Philippe, pour tes courriels concernant
> Wikipedia, et sa version esperee
> >en bamanankan ... et par extension le julakan. La
> derniere question souleve des
> >questions interessantes sur l'intercomprehension
> voire sur la normalisation de
> >la forme ecrite a travers ces langues (en effet des
> dialects mandingues, bien
> >sur). Ces questions ne sont pas les notres a
> resoudre, mais il existe des
> >programmes en Afrique qui s'en occupent (tel que
> CASAS, base en Afrique du
> >Sud).
> >
> >Il y a aussi des questions concernant l'utilisation
> de l'unicode pour le bambara
> >sur le site. Je comprends que "wikimedia," le
> logiciel de la Wikipedia (et
> >disponible librement aux autres projets wiki),
> support bien l'unicode. Mais
> >comment faciliter la saisie avec les caracteres
> speciaux c'est une
> >problematique au centre des discussions sur
> l'utilisation de beaucoup de
> >langues africaines sur les NTIC. Deux aspects en
> particulier - polices unicodes
> >et dispositions de clavier - sont clefs... (On
> reviendra sur ce sujet...)
> >
> >En tout cas, j'entends que le Geekcorps entreprend
> des initiatives tres
> >interessantes au Mali. Et au Burkina Faso??
> >
> >Merci encore et a bientot...
> >
> >Don Osborn
> >Bisharat.net
> >

http://mali.geekcorps.org/mediawiki/index.php/Bambara_Wikipedia

>

__________________________________
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Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:

>Wikipedia is a collaborative project. With this system, articles would not
>be of as high a quality. Your not considering quality over quantity. Why
>have 10 good articles to choose from when you can have one excellent one?
>
>

I disagree that the articles would not be of higher quality. It's not a
matter of quantity over quality. I think, if proponents of a particular
truth are allowed free control over their version of the truth, their
passion for their version of things, to make their case and convince
other people, will make for a better article. Articles that purport to
be neutral, or take all sides into account, tend to be mushy overviews.
Also, the multiple concurrent versions does allow for the creation of
articles that claim to be neutral.

Furthermore, wikipedia is not necessarily a collaborative project. It
seems to work best when people collaborate, but they don't always --
there are edit wars, trolling, grafitti, etc. The current wikipedia
loses out from non-collaboration -- there is wasted person-hours in
clean up, reversion, and the most damning of all, loss of public
confidence.  My proposal is allows for both collaboration and
disagreement to enrich the project.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Titanic, illustrated

body:
--- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
wrote:
> Rick said:
> >
> > Rebecca, are you really trying to say that the
> > campaigns to DELETE the autofellatio and Kate
> Winslet
> > images are all in order to make them links to the
> > article pages?  Hardly.  They are campaigns to
> REMOVE
> > the images COMPLETELY from Wikipedia, so that
> NOBODY
> > can see them.
> >
>
> Absolutely. And a look at the talk page history for
> Autofellatio will show
> that I am no opponent of linking.  The severe
> limitations of this
> technique must, however, be recognised, and it's
> clearly not a suitable
> way of treating an really very unobjectionable
> illustration of a movie,
> just because it contains tits which some very
> sensitive people don't like.

*A* tit.  A blurry tit.

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


body:
--- geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Um, are you attacking me for daring to stand up
> for
> > Geni?
> >
> > RickK
>
> I'm a native speaker. Problem is that I'm dyslexic.
> I will run article
> contibutions through a spell checker but I don't
> normaly bother for
> anything else.

I'm very sorry, Geni, I apologize for my
misapprehension.

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Plan great trips with Yahoo! Travel: Now over 17,000 guides!
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: pitching an idea

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Steve Lefevre wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm pitching an idea for a postmodern wikipedia. What I mean by that
>> is that there are multiple concurrent versions of an article.
>
>
> Good idea!
>
>
> SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are under 16 years of age, see [[sex (child version)]].
> If you are over 16 years of age, see [[sex (adult version)]].
>
>
> JOHN KERRY
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you live outside the US, please view [[John Kerry (non-US view)]].
> If you are a Republican, please view [[John Kerry (Republican view)]].
> If you are a Democrat, please view [[John Kerry (Democrat view)]].
>
>
> ABORTION
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are religious, please view [[abortion (anti-abortionist)]].
> If you are atheist, please view [[abortion (pro-abortionist)]].
>
>
> ADOLF HITLER
> -----------------------------------------------------
> from Wikipedia, the free postmodern encyclopedia
>
> If you are a Nazi...
>
>
> Need I go on?
> Timwi

Yes, go on to the realization of this project!

All kidding aside, you have the basic gist of this idea.

But instead of "If you are..., click _here_", it would present

_John Kerry_ ( 16 authors, 236 signatures, score of 1027, weighted score
of 4,829)
    John Kerry, decorated Vietnam veteran and US Senator, ran for
president...

_John Kerry_ ( 45 authors, 380 signatures, score of 2094, weighted score
of 4,928)
    John Kerry, liberal senator from Massachusetts, made an ill-fated
bid for the presidency...

_John Kerry_ (108 authors, 1,388 signatures, score of 10,000, weighted
score of 6,093)
    John Kerry is a United States Senator. He ran for president on the
Democratic party ticket in 2004...

And here's the troll pit:
_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
     George W. Bush stole the election from Kerry through illegal vote
manipulation in Ohio...
_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
    John Kerry is technically the current U. S. president, succeeding Al
Gore as the next president-in-exile...


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
This is a new guy to me who as far as I know has never edited on Wikinfo.
Basic idea is same though.

Fred

> From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 04:11:11 +1000
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea
>
> Steve Lefevre (lefevre.10 at osu.edu) [050418 03:51]:
>
>> If I and my people can have a our own article under 'Evolution', then I
>> don't need to go disrupting the other side's article. I can put my
>> energy into building and maintaining my side of the story.
>
>
> Is this Wikinfo you're describing?
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 07:20:20PM +0200, Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
> Steve's proposal is interesting and can be defended from a philosophical
> point of view. Indeed most philosophers involved with science agree that
> objectivity is an illusion, and the quasi-objectivity we reach in e.g.
> encyclopaedias is only a broad consensus within one culture. On some
> topics, everyone agrees, on other ones, people hold divergent views. That
> justifies splitting a controversial topic.

I fail to see how that applies to what I said, actually.  I was
discussing our NPOV policy, not objectivity.  The NPOV policy is
something we approach by admitting all verifiable opinions as statements
of fact regarding the existence of such opinions.  It is not an attempt
to produce a truly objective view of the universe.  None of us is God,
but we can all aspire to peacefully, and without undue judgmentalism,
incorporate divergent views on whether or not God exists into our
encyclopedia.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:

>
> Steve's proposal is interesting and can be defended from a
> philosophical point of view. Indeed most philosophers involved with
> science agree that objectivity is an illusion, and the
> quasi-objectivity we reach in e.g. encyclopaedias is only a broad
> consensus within one culture. On some topics, everyone agrees, on
> other ones, people hold divergent views. That justifies splitting a
> controversial topic.
>
> On the other hand, the predominant culture expects encyclopaedias to
> reach a convergent (quasi-)objectivity and therefore both to speak
> with one voice on the same topic and omit statements that are
> generally considerd "opinions" rather than "facts", or even nonsense.
> For Wikipedia in a postmodern setting would have to abandon the
> hitherto drawn line between facts and opinions.
>
> Therefore I oppose this idea, since it goes counter to the
> conventions, which are per se accepted by consensus, applying to any
> encyclopaedia, and will hardly be helpful to achieve the "Brittannica
> or better"-aim formulated by Jimbo.
>
Do you oppose this idea as a replacement for the current wikipedia or
wikipedia system, or just think this project should never exist ?

I think that if we allow multiple branches, then neutral, highly rated
articles that many people have signed off on will emerge.

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 01:35:41PM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
> And here's the troll pit:
> _John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
>     George W. Bush stole the election from Kerry through illegal vote
> manipulation in Ohio...
> _John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
>    John Kerry is technically the current U. S. president, succeeding Al
> Gore as the next president-in-exile...

Don't forget this one:

_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
   John Kerry attempted to take the White House in the name of Godless
sodomites and unpatriotic Atheists...

Heh.  This is fun.  Maybe we should write more, on both sides.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Rick wrote:
>
>> --- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed
>>> 'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no
>>> problem were they not already enraged.
>>
>> Not too sensitive to non-native speakers, are they? Talk about
>> arrogance!
>
> What is this thing about non-native speakers all the time? Native
> speakers misspell their words thousands of times more often than
> learners, *especially* in English; and a misspelling like "vanderlism"
> is thousands of times more likely to come from a native speaker than a
> learner.

There are some interesting Dutch possibilities for this misspelling:
"vanderlijm" or "vanderlist" :-)

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:

>You appear to be claiming that Wikipedia should become a place to prove a
>point. I'm sure theres a page called [[Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to
>prove a point]], and by replacing disrupt with use, you get the same
>concept. Wikipedia isn't a place for persuading people that your conspiracy
>theories are correct, and by "allowing free control to people over their
>version of the truth" and improving articles by "their passion to convince
>people that they are right" won't improve things at all.
>
>
>
I disagree -- I think all articles should have a point.

First off, who gets to say what is a conspiracy theory and what is fact?
I say let all sides of the story be presented, and let the rating system
show what theories are most popular. You're showing your bias right
here. Wikipedia is kind of a tyranny of the majority right now.

This idea will improve things. Look at it this way -- it's sort of like
a honey trap. If there isn't a place for conspiracy theorists to go,
they will disrupt wikipedia and we will waste time and energy cleaning
up after trolls and grafitti, waging edit wars, etc. Currently, having
your version of the truth fall under an article is a zero-sum game. Only
one text can win.  If your truth conflicts with the current article, you
have to erase someone else's text, or else have conflicting text fall
under the same title. It's destructive process at worst, with edit wars,
and at best, it just makes wikipedia a place with contradictory articles.

If I and my people can have a our own article under 'Evolution', then I
don't need to go disrupting the other side's article. I can put my
energy into building and maintaining my side of the story.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 07:44:45PM +0200, Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
> >I fail to see how that applies to what I said, actually.  I was
> >discussing our NPOV policy, not objectivity.  The NPOV policy is
> >something we approach by admitting all verifiable opinions as statements
> >of fact regarding the existence of such opinions.  It is not an attempt
> >to produce a truly objective view of the universe.  None of us is God,
> >but we can all aspire to peacefully, and without undue judgmentalism,
> >incorporate divergent views on whether or not God exists into our
> >encyclopedia.
> >
> It applied at least to what Steve said. He used the argument of cultural
> diversity (transferred on wikipedia in wikipedias in zeveral languages) to
> indicatethe inaccurateness of the NPOV-ideal. I wanted to oppose that.
>
> You are right in saying objectivity and NPOV are not the same. Neutrality
> originates form Latin "neuter" mening neither (ne-uter "none of both"), so
> a Neutral Point of View simply means that there are at least two factions
> with both/ each a fair deal of followers and that the statements agree with
> neither/ none of them. So, I agree with you and I am convinced Wikipedia
> can achieve this.

Ahh.  That makes sense.  With that, I think I can agree.

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>
>I disagree with that characterization of NPOV as a goal.  Rather than
>say that it's some kind of myth to which we pretend to subscribe here,
>I'm of the opinion that it's more an asymptote rather than a point on a
>graph, and we are (in general) "approaching NPOV" incrementally with our
>efforts.  The fact that we may never reach an absolute value of NPOV
>idoesn't make it any less real, though.
>
>
OK, I think I understand what you are saying. First off, a multiple
competing article system does not prevent an article with an NPOV. If
that article exists and it highly rated, great! Second, humor me and
pitcure this.  If we did have a multiple article system, isn't that
approaching the asymptote, albeit in a different way? Say we have three
highly rated and conflicting articles. Some well-reputed author comes
along and creates another article that summarises all three of those
viewpoints. Wouldn't this be a more efficient system? Proponents of each
side are allowed to make their case as they wish. The author who
summarizes has most of the writing work done for him. Nobody has to
destroy the other side's article, and if they don't like the summary,
they can fork it and make their own.  However, if the summary is highly
rated, isn't that the golden NPOV goal we are reaching for?

Can you spell out exactly the current process of getting a NPOV?

Steve


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: pitching an idea

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 01:35:41PM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
>
>And here's the troll pit:
>_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
>    George W. Bush stole the election from Kerry through illegal vote
>manipulation in Ohio...
>_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
>   John Kerry is technically the current U. S. president, succeeding Al
>Gore as the next president-in-exile...
>
>
>
>Don't forget this one:
>
>_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
>   John Kerry attempted to take the White House in the name of Godless
>sodomites and unpatriotic Atheists...
>
>Heh.  This is fun.  Maybe we should write more, on both sides.
>
>
>
Oops! I let my bias show.  I admit, I am the author of both of the above
pro-Kerry trolls. For symmetry's sake, I meant to write an anti-Kerry
troll, but somehw I didn't.

_John Kerry_ ( 1 author, 1 signature, score of 1, weighted score of 1)
 - John Kerry is an anti-American flag burner who threw away medals that he was fraudulently awarded...


from_name: Delirium

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [Wikinews-l] TheWorldForum.org adds Wikinews
	logo

body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>
> Erik Moeller a ?crit:
>
>> I never authorized an "In Association With" heading and am happy to
>> suggest alternatives, and Angela is correct that the "Visit our
>> sponsors" link (which refers to the Google ads above it) was
>> misleading; again, I gave no authorization for that. In any case, as
>> you may recall, you appointed me as "Wikimedia Foundation Content
>> Partnership Co-ordinator" on February 18, 2004, which I (it turns
>> out, wrongly) believed at least gave me some additional leeway to do
>> these things.
>
>
> If I dare say something here... I do not think this position is
> mentionned anywhere. At least, it is not cited on meta, nor on the
> foundation website. As far as I am concerned, this position
> unfortunately does not exist. But I see where the confusion stands of
> course. Perhaps it should be discussed by the board as well as which
> liberty of decision it provides ?

I recall this appointment as well---Jimbo explicitly appointed Erik to
the position.  Doesn't the Foundation president have the authority to
make appointments of that sort?  If so, it would seem that someone
should update the foundation website.

-Mark


from_name: Steve Lefevre

subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

>On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 07:44:45PM +0200, Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>It applied at least to what Steve said. He used the argument of cultural
>>diversity (transferred on wikipedia in wikipedias in zeveral languages) to
>>indicatethe inaccurateness of the NPOV-ideal. I wanted to oppose that.
>>
>>You are right in saying objectivity and NPOV are not the same. Neutrality
>>originates form Latin "neuter" mening neither (ne-uter "none of both"), so
>>a Neutral Point of View simply means that there are at least two factions
>>with both/ each a fair deal of followers and that the statements agree with
>>neither/ none of them. So, I agree with you and I am convinced Wikipedia
>>can achieve this.
>>
>>

OK, I think I understand. And, I don't think that our differences are
very far apart.

Currently, the NPOV model is to try to have competing ideas under the
same article title. My proposal is to have some kind of separation  of
conflicting points of view. In my original proposal, I suggested
concurrent article titles, but it doesn't have to be that. Perhaps
different points can be presented side-by-side. My thought is that in an
NPOV, someone claiming to be neutral may not do the best job of
presenting any side's point of view. Why not let the proponents present
their case, and then make some kind of interface where the end-user can
compare the different points of view? Also, this proposal does not
prevent, in any way, a summary article that attempts to synthesize
different branches.

It's a question of where should we put differing points of view. If I'm
a proponent of the idea that space aliens run the government, I may feel
jilted by someone else's summary of my position. However, the original
author sees my work as crazy and extreme, so they go and 'fix' it. I
'fix' it back, and so on. What results is a wasteful revision process.
Instead, let people build up their sides of the story without destroying
other's work.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Wouter Steenbeek (musiqolog at hotmail.com) [050418 03:20]:
>
>
>
>>Steve's proposal is interesting and can be defended from a philosophical
>>point of view. Indeed most philosophers involved with science agree that
>>objectivity is an illusion, and the quasi-objectivity we reach in e.g.
>>encyclopaedias is only a broad consensus within one culture.
>>
>>
>
>
>Except the ones who are actually scientists. "Sorry, evolution has been
>voted out of science."
>
>
Here we go again. What is the criteria for who is a scientist?

>
>
>
>>On some
>>topics, everyone agrees, on other ones, people hold divergent views. That
>>justifies splitting a controversial topic.
>>
>>
>
>
>Well, only splitting as sections in an article.
>
>

Then we have the biases inherent in serial presentation. Which side gets
to speak first? Which side gets the last word? Does any side get to
respond to another side's argument?

>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] pitching an idea

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Steve Lefevre (lefevre.10 at osu.edu) [050418 03:51]:
>
>
>
>>If I and my people can have a our own article under 'Evolution', then I
>>don't need to go disrupting the other side's article. I can put my
>>energy into building and maintaining my side of the story.
>>
>>
>
>
>Is this Wikinfo you're describing?
>
>
>
>
David, I think you are right! Thanks for pointing this out to me.

Steve


from_name: Philipp

body:
Hallo,

> People have already mentioned to you that forcing a new window to open
> is widely considered bad usability; I would like to add that the link
> text "click here" is similarly frowned upon.

First, you might want to consider the difference between an actual
usecase and a so-called "example". The "Click-Here-Case" was a latter
one.

Secondly, although I fundamentally follow the belief that the editor
dictating the user's browser's behaviour is a Bad Thing[tm], this way
of thinking of course rules out a bunch of considerable exceptions
which might pop up and be good reasons for opening new windows.

By some bizarre conincidence, this is the case here. Always keep in
mind that especially in wiki context "user" (content receiver) and
"editor" (content provider) are not separatable. Especially in closed
user groups. Especially in an intranet. So: For me as administrator of
this intranet wiki, every other day users/editors/colleagues line up
at my desk, my phone and my inbox asking how to open links in an
external window. Get it? The users want it. The editors want it. The
reason for these wishes is irrelevant. And in this very moment the
answer to their request "It isn't available because of a online
community religious war saying 'what you want is defined bad so you
don't get it'" is no longer justified.

One might want to think over these basics of the usual religious war
regarding this question.

Bye
   Philipp


subject: [WikiEN-l] Nude Kate Winslet Picture

body:
There was nothing in what I wrote drawing conclusions about your or any
other specific person's understanding of browser settings.  The ones who
are likely to have problems with the settings are probably not editors,
but simple passive users of the material.  I, in fact, support your view
that users should not need to disable all pictures just to avoid seeing
a few.  I'm afraid that you're the one jumping to erroneous conclusions
about what I said.

Ec

Rebecca wrote:

>Please do not jump to conclusions concerning my understanding of
>browser settings. I know perfectly well how to disable images in my
>browser, and for the record, I use Firefox. However, I have no wish to
>disable them for every site - or to just disable them every time I use
>Wikipedia - because a handful of people want to use Wikipedia to push
>a liberal POV.
>
>-- ambi
>
>On 4/17/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Our policy should not depend on the user's understanding of browser
>>settings.  Many who do not understand these settings have also not
>>figured out how to set the clock on their VCR.  We cannot base policy on
>>a presumption of what others understand about any outside technology.
>>As much as possible we need to accept responsibility for what WE do.
>>Any kind of restrictions about access to images should be based in our
>>own software.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>


body:
Rick wrote:
> --- Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
>
>>5. Mis-spelling by geni (they particularly enjoyed
>>'vanderlism'); I imagine that this would be no
>>problem were they not already enraged.
>
> Not too sensitive to non-native speakers, are they?
> Talk about arrogance!

What is this thing about non-native speakers all the time? Native
speakers misspell their words thousands of times more often than
learners, *especially* in English; and a misspelling like "vanderlism"
is thousands of times more likely to come from a native speaker than a
learner.

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pointlesswasteoftime

body:
Theo Clarke wrote:
> John Cheese has written to me to thank us for deleting the article.

Does he seriously think it's going to stay deleted when there's
obviously no concensus to delete it?


references:
<d3n2i4$i4p$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<BE84874C.E3C8%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<64199.194.72.110.12.1113562458.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk>
	<9f02ca4c05041512117d62efa3@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Rowan Collins wrote:
>
> Of course, I will then claim the credit for *that* word, in the hope
> that someone will come up with an appropriate portmanteau involving
> "Rowan" or "IMSoP"...

Rowpedia!

Appropriately describes the atmosphere on the talk pages of some
controversial articles.


body:
Stuart Orford wrote:
>
> I used to contribute to the [[Internet Movie Database]]

Very good example -- I can relate to your experiences, and I fully agree.

But there is no on-going controversy about movie databases in the way
there is about encyclopedias. It seems to be a deeply-entrenched belief
in people that controlled expert review is the only way information can
be accurate (this applies to IMDb as well as encyclopedias), but they
additionally perceive the accuracy of an encyclopedia as being of
paramount importance (the word "encyclopedia" seems to ring this
particular bell in many people). Hence everybody's stereotypical
reaction when they first hear of Wikipedia, "That'll never work!".

Also, to make this clear: I do not believe that Encarta will attract
more contributors than Wikipedia. Quite to the contrary. What I'm
talking about is the general public view of the resulting encyclopedia.
For a long time, it has been one of Wikipedia's selling points to say,
"If you find a mistake you can correct it yourself!" Now, the general
reply to that will be, "Yawn. You can do that with Encarta too."

> Only about 20 editors process millions of contributions a year,
> giving no feedback, and sometimes changing edits in seemingly
> arbitrary ways.

Heh. I know what you mean. But I don't think the editors "change edits
in arbitrary ways" -- I think it's more likely that their processing of
the information takes *even* longer than you think, and the information
you suggested was actually suggested by someone else long before you,
and they posted his version. :)

> It was frustrating, as you can tell. IMDb may be the most repected
> movie database, but as a community it's hell, and I don't expect
> Encarta to be much better. Public contribution and closing editing
> doesn't scale.

I completely agree. But the "community factor" doesn't help the
reputation outside the community.

Timwi