from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia

body:
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:36:48 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> Hi ?var,
>
> Thank you for the elaboration.
>
> I still don't see the problem. The logo is not "unfree". It is very much
> free, and even more so than permitted by a traditional GNU license - as I
> recall it.

Well no, the problem is that it must be used to represent atheism
specifically, and could not be placed on the agnosticism article for
instance.

> I do find it ironic that companies like Microsoft that has a long tradition
> of fighting free licenses with their more commercial and restrictive
> approach, are allowed to have their logo on Wikipedia, just because they
> belong to some other commercial or "ill-replaced" category.
>
> As for the phrase "Now, since your image is not the Microsoft logo or some
> ill-replaceable image like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TrangBang.jpg
> it will get deleted [..]", you might as well be telling me that the
> Microsoft logos is allowed because they are Microsoft logos and the IPU is
> not. It comes very close to telling me that the IPU logo, with the identity
> invested in it, pr. definition simply is not allowed.

That might have been a bit quick of me, what i meant that some images
are more replaceable than others while some are unattainable under a
free licence, like the images on past events such as the Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989.

Make no mistake, we're currently seeking replacement for *all* our
none-free images, but since we have a large pile to go through it's
best to start at the simple things, like images of everyday objects or
not-so-notable subjects.

> The way I interpret all this, is that I now have 2 options:
>
> 1. Define the IPU logo as a product, so that it would be strictly commercial
> and thus belong to a different set of rules.
>
> 2. Alter the logo license to allow it to be used for whatever purpose, and
> thus totally obliterate the identity for which it was specifically designed.
>
> Neither of the above is fair to the general idea of the IPU logo, and both
> would be very unfair (if not legally impossible by now) because there are
> people out there that has adopted the logo on the current license - and for
> what it represents. So I *cannot* alter the license by now, and based on the
> explanation that I've been given so far, this is luckily not something that
> I have any reason to regret.

Well actually you can, the copyright holder (you) can re-issue his or
her work under other licences at any time, all you would have to say
is "i grant permission to use this image under the GFDL" and it would
be so.

However since it's pretty clear at this point that you have no desire
to do so the purpose of this email is to better explain and elaborate
on my intentions and what i meant.

> Because...
>
> We are talking about a free encyclopedia service that actively wants to
> alter the identity of the very object it sets out to document. It even wants
> to purge itself from facts of reality that does not conform to some dogma of
> how the reality "should" be like. (It gives me associations to when Libya
> removed certain countries from the World Map *LOL*) These matters can hardly
> be to be a desirable attributes of a media type from whom, one should be
> able to expect objectivity.
>
> As far as I understand you, this is not your doing ;-) You're merely
> relaying some facts to me and I'm glad that you brought this matter to my
> attention. Thanks.
>
> I will cc this mail correspondence to the mailing list mail address you
> provided to me, hoping that this matter can be settled in a prudent and
> rational way. Should this process, in contrary to my expectations, result in
> the logo being removed, I will also upload our mail correspondence on
> www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com, urging the visitors to complain about this
> unfair and irrational ruling - and in the process I fear - undermining
> Wikipedia's credibility.

You can of course list this email on your website asking people to
object, i have no objection to you posting our email correspondence
since it was known all along that this was not a private email.

However you're unlikely to achive anything by it, Wikipedia is
specifically, to quote the Wikipedia article: "an online multilingual
'copyleft' encyclopedia designed to be read and edited by anyone.".
And images and content which does not fit the criteria is actively
being purged out or replaced.

>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Tim Ahrentl?v
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> Sent: 27. december 2004 13:32
> To: ta at ateist.org
> Subject: Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
>
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:34:19 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> > Hi ?var,
> >
> > A simple search on Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft)
> shows
> > the Microsoft logo. A click on the Encarta link
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Encarta) shows the Encarta logo,
> and
> > so on.
> >
> > Are these logos under the GNU license? Can these logos be used for
> whatever
> > purpose *you* may choose? Can they even be used at all, without
> Microsoft's
> > written consent? I must admit I do not understand why the IPU license is a
> > problem for Wikipedia.
> >
> > Do you write to Microsoft or many of the other very restrictive license
> > holders, informing them that their logos and identities *must* be allowed
> to
> > be used for any purpose imaginable? I find that hard to believe. I also
> find
> > it counterproductive to Wikipedia's role of simply relaying facts.
> >
> > ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason, please allow me to doubt that your request
> actually
> > conforms to the standards set by Wikipedia, and please be aware that I
> will
> > protest to this seemingly unfair and illogical ruling.
> >
> > Mvh
> > Tim Ahrentl?v
>
> Not all images on wikipedia are "free", some, like the ones you
> mentioned are fair use logos, and others are under a none-commercial
> licence and more others have other terms, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_by_copyright_status
>
> There is an active movement to purge these images from wikipedia
> and/or replace them with free ones which can be used without
> restriction, a central staging area for this "operation" is
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images , your
> image got listed there (not by me) stating that it "imposes condition
> that [the] symbol must represent atheism".
>
> Now, since your image is not the Microsoft logo or some
> ill-replaceable image like
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TrangBang.jpg it will get deleted
> on January 10, 2005 (30 days from the initial listing) unless we can
> get a licence for it which is compatible with the GFDL.
>
> The reason for doing this is because wikipedia is not simply a fact
> relaying device, but a free encyclopedia, most other languages than
> the english version of it do not even accept none-free images and en.
> is actively phasing them out.
>
> As for any "official" protest please make them if you desire to do so,
> the english mailing list (wikien-l at wikipedia.org) would probably be
> the best way to do so, however note that I'm in no way making any sort
> of "ruling" on this, I simply saw the listing of the image on Possibly
> unfree images and decided to E-Mail the author of it to request that
> he grant permission to use it under a compatible licence.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> > Sent: 27. december 2004 02:48
> > To: ta at ateist.org
> > Subject: Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
> >
> > On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:04:37 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> > > Hi ?var,
> > >
> > > The IPU license is available here:
> > > http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu_logo_license.htm
> > >
> > > I fail to see what this license lacks in regard to the more formal GNU
> > > license. Basically, the license allows *anyone* to use the logo for
> *any*
> > > purpose (also commercial!) as long as it is used to represent atheism.
> The
> > > logo no longer belongs to me or www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com, but to a
> > > purpose. I don't see that it can get any better or more public domain
> than
> > > that.
> > >
> > > Please elaborate on what seems to be missing from this current license,
> > > because I don't see any problems.
> > >
> > > Kind Regards,
> > > Tim Ahrentl?v
> > >
> >
> > The problem specifically is the "used to represent atheism" part,
> > which does not give permission to use the image for porpoises other
> > than the representation of atheism which conflicts with PD and the
> > GFDL which allow the use of material for any porpoise.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> > > Sent: 26. december 2004 23:26
> > > To: ta at invisiblepinkunicorn.com
> > > Subject: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
> > >
> > > Notice: Consider this a none-private email.
> > >
> > > The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on wikipedia will be deleted on the
> > > next few days if it is not placed under a licence compatible with the
> > > GNU Free Documentation Licence or similar within the next few days,
> > > would you be willing to dual licence the image under the IPU Logo
> > > License and the GFDL so that it can be used in the article?
> > >
> > > URLs:
> > > IPU Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn
> > > IPU Photo:
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Invisible_Pink_Unicorn_Logo.png
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>


list: textbook-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Karl Wick

subject:
[Textbook-l] Very general discussion of goals and methods (long
	post)

body:
Dr. Ashendel,

If you like, I will work with you to create an outline of a
Biochemistry book that can later be slowly be developed
into a set of modules that professors can compile for class
use. My scientific education stopped just before a deep
understanding of Biochem, that is, I did Ochem and a
section of Biochem as part of a lower-level Bio course,
then skimmed through a friend?s Biochem book. So I know
some of the basic terminology but not much more. But if you
provide, for example, a list of basic unavoidable topics
and the beginnings of a reproducable structure that I can
apply to each of the topics, such as:

Biochemistry: Protein folding (high school)
Biochemistry: Protein folding (pre-med)
Biochemistry: Protein folding (science majors)
Biochemistry: Protein folding (two-semester)
Biochemistry: Protein folding (one-semester)

Then I can do some of the grunt work to wikify the
structure. What I am saying is, if you have a vision of how
the book(s) could take shape and there is any way that I
can help save you time realizing it by helping with
lower-level work, just say the word.

And of course I will mention that Purdue is viewed around
here as the Harvard of the Midwest and I am honored and
excited that you have taken an interest in this project. I
hope that the site can be of service to you and to many
other biochemistry profs out there.

Karl

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

from_name: sandyweill @hotmail.com

body:
Each time I check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist I'm on
top with a 24 hour forward expiration.

>From: David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] can an admin help me? why no action?
>Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:42:22 +1100
>
>Skyring (skyring at gmail.com) [041227 15:45]:
> > On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:53:43 +0000, Theresa Knott
> > <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I've unblocked you. It seems as if blocks are not expiring properly. I
> > > assume this has something to do with the new media wiki software. Will
> > > somebody in the know please fix this. In the meantime will all admins
> > > keep an eye on the list of blocked IP's and manually unblock all
> > > blocks whose time has expired.
>
> > 24 hours are added on to the sentence each time the same IP address is
> > used to access Wikipedia, even innocently.
>
>
>Access, or edit? Those are blocks against *editing*.
>
>(The developers are aware of this one, btw.)
>
>
>- d.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


from_name: Skyring

subject: [WikiEN-l] can an admin help me? why no action?

body:
On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:53:43 +0000, Theresa Knott
<theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've unblocked you. It seems as if blocks are not expiring properly. I
> assume this has something to do with the new media wiki software. Will
> somebody in the know please fix this. In the meantime will all admins
> keep an eye on the list of blocked IP's and manually unblock all
> blocks whose time has expired.

24 hours are added on to the sentence each time the same IP address is
used to access Wikipedia, even innocently.

--
Peter in Canberra


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
Hoi,
I find it funny to be writing about this subject as I do not believe in
any God.

I am heavily involved in Wiktionary and one of the things that is a
constant issue is how to promote the things we think important. Not only
would we like to have a bigger community, we would also like more
sophisticated software to support what we do. Every now and again there
are things that make our life easier. One of these things was the
introduction of Commons as it allowed us to have soundfiles that can be
used in ANY project.

The wikimedia projects have a rule that the only soundfiles allowed are
the .ogg files. This is a handicap as many people do not have software
to play these files. So the only way to have people GET the necessary
software is by making these files more relevant. The next question is
HOW do you make them relevant. Sabine of the Italian wiktioanry had this
brilliant idea of asking people to contribute to a list she had with
Christmass wishes. A month ago we started to ask people to contribute
translations of *"Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo!" and record the
pronunciation as well using the .ogg format. It proved to be a struggle
to get translations and an even bigger stuggle to get soundfiles.

We have been really gratefull for the contributions that we got. In so
many ways we were happy with the responses that we had. We had people
explain about their Christmas, we learned that Happy Newyear is only
said in Japan once the new year has started. We learned that the
Armenian christmas is on another day from the Western and the Eastern
traditions. It was really good fun. Still, it was a wiktionary project
and religious contributions that were added were deleted from the pages
being not relevant to a lexicological project.

On Christmas eve, I added wishes to several projects among them the
en:wikipedia as this was the moment were we could expect a big amount of
people to help in our effort. This was not to be. Apparantly not only is
the American society very religious. They are also very "correct" about
it. Some said that because the "C" word was used (christmas) it could
not be on a wikimedia page. "Because it would have the wikimedia
organisation endorse Christmas". I was am and am utterly amazed. My
exhortions that it had little to do with christmas and everything to do
with the promotion of all these wikimedia values was to no avail.. This
was "SO WRONG".. :( So I found myself in a revert war. And was told that
because of Christmas I was not banned).

I am still amazed about this. Another thing that happened in this
timeframe was this "minkukel" (you can look the word up on the
nl:wiktionary) who added a picture of a pig and some foul language on a
template called "Islam" on the nl:wikipedia. Now THIS I knew to be
wrong; so I deleted the references to this template  and put it up for
deletion for this is sacrilidge. I am still amazed about our community
that some find it necessary that we cannot, under the pretext of
neutrality, have a project like our Italian wiktionary project because
of the anti-religious ideas that they harbour.

I do not understand it. I do not care for these uptight attitudes. I
hope that next time when people ask for contributions like we did for
our **"Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo!" project that people will be
less rigid and more forthcoming. I am aware that some people will be
angry with me for saying all this. But hey, I am still reeling from this
experience.

Thanks,
    GerardM

PS If you care to have a look at the Italian project,
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21

**
 *****


list: wiktionary-l

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Religious intolerance


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Culture, religions,
	believes etc. (was: Religious intolerance)

body:
I agree with a lot of what you said but this response has one purpose
only, to ask a question:

What on earth is "yyy"???

Mark

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:59:55 +0100, Sabine Cretella
<sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Hi, being in the middle of this discussion I'd like to underline some
> points and tell you what came out in a private conversation with Gerard,
> half joking half being serious. Sorry, probably this mail is going to be
> a very long one.
>
> I am copying this message to wiktionary and wikipedia list ...
>
> >>For the nl:wiktionary we have over 300 sound files with pronunciations
> >>of words in the Dutch language alone. They are much easier to use than
> >>phonetic notations. As such it would be cool to have the standard
> >>pronunciations recorded and available from Commons for all wiktionary words.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I agree, the only phonetic notation I understand is Spanish.
> >
> >
> Sound files are the only way to really learn to understand a foreign
> language - the reason is quite simple: every region of a country
> pronounces things a bit different - so we need these soundfiles and if
> possible different versions of them - talking about German: take a
> person from Hamburg, one from Berlin and one from Munich and have them
> say the same sentence (not talking in dialect, but talking "pure
> German") - you'd be surprised ...
>
> I cut the part Gerard wrote as I'll come back to it below.
>
> >
> >
> >
> >Ramadan is one of those meaningful holidays, not the happy kind (like
> >TV news anchors won't tell people to have a Happy Yon Kippur). There's
> >probably some Arabic greeting used throughout much of the Islamic
> >world, so its probably not as interesting of a project.
> >
> >
> Why not? I think it is not only interesting, but it is a must to make
> people understand that Islam is one thing and yyy is another ... in many
> parts of the world people don't know anything about the Islam besides
> the fact that some of them are yyy (like there are catholic, protestant
> etc. etc. ones)  - I am curious what you thought when you saw yyy (were
> you influenced by the media as you don't know enough about it yourself?)
> - I know many people that grew up with the muslim religion and they are
> more or less practicing - none of them are yyy, all very fine and
> helpful people, some of them real friends. Not knowing helps to create
> fear and fear helps to create racism - knowledge helps to create
> security - if you know about Ramadan start writing about it, start
> telling people about it - make them curious - it is the only way to
> globalise our world: understand the culture of each other.
>
> >>So again, do write about channuka and ramandan in wikipedia and do add
> >>relevant phrases and words in wiktionary. Inform us about the difference
> >>times of the start of ramadan. About the three days of the birth of
> >>Jezus. About the differences in the way a christmastree is decorated in
> >>Italy compared to Germany. About the carp as a traditional dish at
> >>easter in Poland. But  other people do have different sensibilities and
> >>do not make what you believe override everything and everyone else
> >>believes and values. To me the censorship of the "Bon Natale" project
> >>was a nasty surprise, to me it shows an intolerance that I had not
> >>expected from the wikipedia crowd.
> >>
> >>There will be other projects and other moments, that will be mo
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>    GerardM
> >>
> >>
> >
> >People are overly sensitive on the subject. You stumbled into a
> >dispute which has already occurred regarding whether to turn the
> >Wikipedia ball into a Christmas ornament (as the Italian Wikipedia did
> >this year). I did think it was kind of odd that my boss wished us all
> >a Merry Christmas even though about a 1/4 of my co-workers are Muslim.
> > But, at the same time, who cares, I'm sure they didn't.
> >
> >
> >
> Again: I agree to what Gerard says - write about your religions and
> about those you know - create sentences, glossaries etc. etc. ask people
> for translations and help - this helps to get attention to all -
> "deleting" religion out of our lifes does not help anyone - creating
> knowledge and understanding is the only way to go. Even people not
> believing in anything: write about atheism, connect it to science. All
> the world talks about globalisation - the only way to globalise is to
> understand and accept diversity. If we try to uniform things we will
> have some very unexpected results - dangerous results. We can only
> accept things we understand - it is impossible to accept things we don't
> understand. It is easy to create propaganda against a group of people if
> hardly anyone knows details about their habits, if hardly anyone has
> friends there - it is quite impossible instead to create propaganda
> against a group of people you know well.
>
> Let's take a part the political and religious points of view - everyone
> has to be heard and no one may be surpressed.
>
> Some short notes about my life: I was born in a protestant lutheran
> region in Germany - when I was about 6 years old Siemens had lots of
> workers coming from Turkey and I remember well their ramadam period when
> everyone was waiting for dawn to start to prepare for dinner - it became
> part of our life - often I was at a friend's home in the evening and
> even not understanding a word of Turkish I felt at home - the same
> poeple who did not believe in Christmas allowed their children to
> participate when we prepared for our Christmas feast at school - often
> you could also see some stars painted on the windows, just like we did.
> As anywhere in Germany you find protestant and catholic people living in
> the same place and we prepared things together. This was the
> "globalisation" of a small village of approx. 6000 people. This kind of
> "living together" is not possible in huge cities and so many different
> cultures live one beneath another without knowing - really sad ... Now I
> live in Italy - people in this small village hardly know any other
> religion (at least up to some time ago) - better not to tell what they
> considered me to be ... and how surprised some were that I have a
> Christmas tree and a Crib at home ... some years ago I still worked as a
> German teacher - imagine where: in a catholic grammar school - and they
> wanted me to tell pupils about German protestantism as they believed
> this would help pupils to find their place in life ... strange, isn't
> it? To me it is not strange at all: only knowing whatever exists can
> help us to find our way of life.
>
> But back to the Christmas project: while it seems as if people thought
> that the Christmas project would disturb other religions the strangest
> thing of all is that many contributions came from people not believing
> in Christmas ... so shouldn't we think a bit about what this means? To
> me this means that those people are really tollerant - they know and
> want others to know. And this takes me back to the conversation with
> Gerard. Talking about the project and what came out of it there was a
> point when i said: yes, really there's so much to tell about the
> different usages that one could build up a Chrismaspedia ... and then
> talking about religious and cultural feasts in general what came out was
> "no, not a Christmaspedia, but an Eventpedia that aims on showing on
> which day which feast/event is on anywhere in the world creating links
> to all the relevant articles on the wikimedia projects.
>
> I am sure there are translations, literature, proverbs, glossaries etc.
> about any event of any culture and religion (don't forget to add them to
> the different projects).
>
> Wikimedia is made for people by people, the best thing of all: it is
> free; culture and religion is part of all of us, understanding each
> other is fundamental - it will never be possible to be neutral as even
> neutrality is a very wide expression - to my opinion the only way we
> have to really globalise the world is to contribute to understand each
> other describing local habits, thoughts (even our own thoughts). Give
> and conserve wisdom to and for people is great and all wikimedia
> projects already do this - but wisdom is not all - we are humans and
> like all humans we need "food for the soul" and not only for the brain.
>
> If you, yes you, who is reading this long letter now, are from another
> culture and/or religion - think about what you would like us to know and
> write about it - and ask others for help to make it grow - make people
> talk and more and more poeple will understand you and your culture, thus
> leading to what globalisation really means: open up frontiers, live
> together as peaceful as possible.
>
> Thank you for your patience reading this long letter!
>
> Wishing you all the best and
>
> Seasons greetings ;-)
>
> Ciao, Sabine
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Thomas R. Koll

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 04:46:13PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> The wikimedia projects have a rule that the only soundfiles allowed are
> the .ogg files. This is a handicap as many people do not have software
> to play these files. So the only way to have people GET the necessary
> software is by making these files more relevant. The next question is
> HOW do you make them relevant.

On de: we have now 35 spoken articles, some quite outdated but it's
a beginning. All ogg of course.

About the other things, I think you should retry it but this time
include all the other big religious events like Ramadan, Chanukka,
Chinese New Year etc.

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


from_name: Tim Ahrentløv

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia

body:
Hi ?var,

Just to summarize my points. I will not change the license because:

 a. People have begun using it under the current license - trusting that the
identity invested in the logo will not be tampered with.

 b. Since the sole purpose of the logo *IS* to identify Atheism it does not
make any sense to demand the logo must be able to be used for anything else.
I find it suspicious that an encyclopedia service in this manner, actively
tries to alter the reality it wants to document.

c. The logo *is* free to be used for any purpose, commercially or otherwise.

d. Logo's from other companies like Microsoft are shown in Wikipedia, but
logos under a more lenient license like the IPU license are not allowed.

I sincerely doubt that there is any value in an encyclopedia service that
has taken upon itself, to purge identity symbols from its archives simply
because the originators insist that their company name, company logo or
whatever is protected from misuse. I would think that someone would choose
to defend the "Wikipedia" name or logo, should I choose to misuse them for a
competing service or for example a Porn site. I find this "Wikipedia"
politic very unfair and un-reasonable.

Now...

You mention that you think I'm "unlikely to achieve anything" by going
public with this mail correspondence because the "encyclopedia [is] designed
to be read and edited by anyone. And images and content which does not fit
the criteria is actively being purged out or replaced".

In that case I hope that people reading this will actively try put the logo
back, and complain about the person(s) that tries to purge the logo from the
archives from what I only can interpret as some misguided zeal.

Kind Regards,
Tim Ahrentl?v

-----Original Message-----
From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
Sent: 27. december 2004 15:57
To: ta at ateist.org; English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:36:48 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> Hi ?var,
>
> Thank you for the elaboration.
>
> I still don't see the problem. The logo is not "unfree". It is very much
> free, and even more so than permitted by a traditional GNU license - as I
> recall it.

Well no, the problem is that it must be used to represent atheism
specifically, and could not be placed on the agnosticism article for
instance.

> I do find it ironic that companies like Microsoft that has a long
tradition
> of fighting free licenses with their more commercial and restrictive
> approach, are allowed to have their logo on Wikipedia, just because they
> belong to some other commercial or "ill-replaced" category.
>
> As for the phrase "Now, since your image is not the Microsoft logo or some
> ill-replaceable image like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TrangBang.jpg
> it will get deleted [..]", you might as well be telling me that the
> Microsoft logos is allowed because they are Microsoft logos and the IPU is
> not. It comes very close to telling me that the IPU logo, with the
identity
> invested in it, pr. definition simply is not allowed.

That might have been a bit quick of me, what i meant that some images
are more replaceable than others while some are unattainable under a
free licence, like the images on past events such as the Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989.

Make no mistake, we're currently seeking replacement for *all* our
none-free images, but since we have a large pile to go through it's
best to start at the simple things, like images of everyday objects or
not-so-notable subjects.

> The way I interpret all this, is that I now have 2 options:
>
> 1. Define the IPU logo as a product, so that it would be strictly
commercial
> and thus belong to a different set of rules.
>
> 2. Alter the logo license to allow it to be used for whatever purpose, and
> thus totally obliterate the identity for which it was specifically
designed.
>
> Neither of the above is fair to the general idea of the IPU logo, and both
> would be very unfair (if not legally impossible by now) because there are
> people out there that has adopted the logo on the current license - and
for
> what it represents. So I *cannot* alter the license by now, and based on
the
> explanation that I've been given so far, this is luckily not something
that
> I have any reason to regret.

Well actually you can, the copyright holder (you) can re-issue his or
her work under other licences at any time, all you would have to say
is "i grant permission to use this image under the GFDL" and it would
be so.

However since it's pretty clear at this point that you have no desire
to do so the purpose of this email is to better explain and elaborate
on my intentions and what i meant.

> Because...
>
> We are talking about a free encyclopedia service that actively wants to
> alter the identity of the very object it sets out to document. It even
wants
> to purge itself from facts of reality that does not conform to some dogma
of
> how the reality "should" be like. (It gives me associations to when Libya
> removed certain countries from the World Map *LOL*) These matters can
hardly
> be to be a desirable attributes of a media type from whom, one should be
> able to expect objectivity.
>
> As far as I understand you, this is not your doing ;-) You're merely
> relaying some facts to me and I'm glad that you brought this matter to my
> attention. Thanks.
>
> I will cc this mail correspondence to the mailing list mail address you
> provided to me, hoping that this matter can be settled in a prudent and
> rational way. Should this process, in contrary to my expectations, result
in
> the logo being removed, I will also upload our mail correspondence on
> www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com, urging the visitors to complain about this
> unfair and irrational ruling - and in the process I fear - undermining
> Wikipedia's credibility.

You can of course list this email on your website asking people to
object, i have no objection to you posting our email correspondence
since it was known all along that this was not a private email.

However you're unlikely to achive anything by it, Wikipedia is
specifically, to quote the Wikipedia article: "an online multilingual
'copyleft' encyclopedia designed to be read and edited by anyone.".
And images and content which does not fit the criteria is actively
being purged out or replaced.

>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Tim Ahrentl?v
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> Sent: 27. december 2004 13:32
> To: ta at ateist.org
> Subject: Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
>
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:34:19 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> > Hi ?var,
> >
> > A simple search on Microsoft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft)
> shows
> > the Microsoft logo. A click on the Encarta link
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Encarta) shows the Encarta logo,
> and
> > so on.
> >
> > Are these logos under the GNU license? Can these logos be used for
> whatever
> > purpose *you* may choose? Can they even be used at all, without
> Microsoft's
> > written consent? I must admit I do not understand why the IPU license is
a
> > problem for Wikipedia.
> >
> > Do you write to Microsoft or many of the other very restrictive license
> > holders, informing them that their logos and identities *must* be
allowed
> to
> > be used for any purpose imaginable? I find that hard to believe. I also
> find
> > it counterproductive to Wikipedia's role of simply relaying facts.
> >
> > ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason, please allow me to doubt that your request
> actually
> > conforms to the standards set by Wikipedia, and please be aware that I
> will
> > protest to this seemingly unfair and illogical ruling.
> >
> > Mvh
> > Tim Ahrentl?v
>
> Not all images on wikipedia are "free", some, like the ones you
> mentioned are fair use logos, and others are under a none-commercial
> licence and more others have other terms, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_by_copyright_status
>
> There is an active movement to purge these images from wikipedia
> and/or replace them with free ones which can be used without
> restriction, a central staging area for this "operation" is
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images , your
> image got listed there (not by me) stating that it "imposes condition
> that [the] symbol must represent atheism".
>
> Now, since your image is not the Microsoft logo or some
> ill-replaceable image like
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TrangBang.jpg it will get deleted
> on January 10, 2005 (30 days from the initial listing) unless we can
> get a licence for it which is compatible with the GFDL.
>
> The reason for doing this is because wikipedia is not simply a fact
> relaying device, but a free encyclopedia, most other languages than
> the english version of it do not even accept none-free images and en.
> is actively phasing them out.
>
> As for any "official" protest please make them if you desire to do so,
> the english mailing list (wikien-l at wikipedia.org) would probably be
> the best way to do so, however note that I'm in no way making any sort
> of "ruling" on this, I simply saw the listing of the image on Possibly
> unfree images and decided to E-Mail the author of it to request that
> he grant permission to use it under a compatible licence.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> > Sent: 27. december 2004 02:48
> > To: ta at ateist.org
> > Subject: Re: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
> >
> > On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:04:37 +0100, Tim Ahrentl?v <ta at ateist.org> wrote:
> > > Hi ?var,
> > >
> > > The IPU license is available here:
> > > http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu_logo_license.htm
> > >
> > > I fail to see what this license lacks in regard to the more formal GNU
> > > license. Basically, the license allows *anyone* to use the logo for
> *any*
> > > purpose (also commercial!) as long as it is used to represent atheism.
> The
> > > logo no longer belongs to me or www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com, but to a
> > > purpose. I don't see that it can get any better or more public domain
> than
> > > that.
> > >
> > > Please elaborate on what seems to be missing from this current
license,
> > > because I don't see any problems.
> > >
> > > Kind Regards,
> > > Tim Ahrentl?v
> > >
> >
> > The problem specifically is the "used to represent atheism" part,
> > which does not give permission to use the image for porpoises other
> > than the representation of atheism which conflicts with PD and the
> > GFDL which allow the use of material for any porpoise.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason [mailto:avarab at gmail.com]
> > > Sent: 26. december 2004 23:26
> > > To: ta at invisiblepinkunicorn.com
> > > Subject: The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on Wikipedia
> > >
> > > Notice: Consider this a none-private email.
> > >
> > > The Invisible Pink Unicorn Logo on wikipedia will be deleted on the
> > > next few days if it is not placed under a licence compatible with the
> > > GNU Free Documentation Licence or similar within the next few days,
> > > would you be willing to dual licence the image under the IPU Logo
> > > License and the GFDL so that it can be used in the article?
> > >
> > > URLs:
> > > IPU Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn
> > > IPU Photo:
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Invisible_Pink_Unicorn_Logo.png
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
Thomas R. Koll wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 04:46:13PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>
>
>>The wikimedia projects have a rule that the only soundfiles allowed are
>>the .ogg files. This is a handicap as many people do not have software
>>to play these files. So the only way to have people GET the necessary
>>software is by making these files more relevant. The next question is
>>HOW do you make them relevant.
>>
>>
>
>On de: we have now 35 spoken articles, some quite outdated but it's
>a beginning. All ogg of course.
>
>About the other things, I think you should retry it but this time
>include all the other big religious events like Ramadan, Chanukka,
>Chinese New Year etc.
>
>ciao, tom
>
>
For the nl:wiktionary we have over 300 sound files with pronunciations
of words in the Dutch language alone. They are much easier to use than
phonetic notations. As such it would be cool to have the standard
pronunciations recorded and available from Commons for all wiktionary words.

As to the project. There are many more projects in wiktionary that are
more important than also having wishes for ramadan, chanukka just to
satisfy this false sense of "equality" of some. When someone starts to
record these wishes in wiktionary, I will be happy to lend a hand.

On the English wiktionary there is a project to have the 1000 "most
important" words defined and translated to many languages. There are
people experimenting with bots that may automagically copy content from
one wiktionary to another. There are the many thousands of words that we
would like to add to the wikitonaries and have in files on our local
harddisks. There are the phrases that people may want to know when they
go abroud. There are the ideas about a next generation wiktionary. There
is the GEMET data that we really want to include in the wiktionaries.
There is so much more going on than just this project that was intended
as a fun thing to do.

The "Buon Natale" project was a small fun project with an intentional
small scope. We love it. It was and is fun. But it is what we made it
and not what someone else wants it to be. I am not aware of people
sending cards at chanukka or ramadan. I also do not know if and how you
say "Happy Ramandan". We have written several times during the last
month or so about our project and everytime we asked people to
contribute and expand the project by writing about the traditions that
they know. Not only but also about their christmas.

So again, do write about channuka and ramandan in wikipedia and do add
relevant phrases and words in wiktionary. Inform us about the difference
times of the start of ramadan. About the three days of the birth of
Jezus. About the differences in the way a christmastree is decorated in
Italy compared to Germany. About the carp as a traditional dish at
easter in Poland. But  other people do have different sensibilities and
do not make what you believe override everything and everyone else
believes and values. To me the censorship of the "Bon Natale" project
was a nasty surprise, to me it shows an intolerance that I had not
expected from the wikipedia crowd.

There will be other projects and other moments, that will be mo

Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A creole translation

body:
Pascale, there is already available a Kwey?l Ayisyen version of
Wikipedia (with 2 or 3 articles), http://ht.wikipedia.org/ At one time
there was a Haitian woman working on it a little, but it's been mostly
abandonned now.

As for Reunionnais, I personally think that it's a good idea to have a
Wikipedia in it, but I think probably we will get some objections from
people who say "il n'est pa un 'lang', est soulement 'patwa'". My
guess is based on the results of previous sociolingustic studies, and
also the fact that when somebody mentioned "french dialect" somebody
else said "There are no French dialects, except perhaps creole which
can be considered a sort of dialect".

Also, there is probably going to be some resistance (perhaps
subconcious) because "la langue de la R?publique est le fran?ais", and
some might think people in Reunion would be served better by
fr.wikipedia for 2 reasons, 1) "they should have to learn French
anyways" and 2) "reunionnais is a patois" or "reunionnais is already
nearly identical with French".

The simple truth is that Reunionese is a language separate from
French, as are Haitian, Mauritian, Seychellese, Guianese, Amapa, St
Lucian, Caledonian, and Chagossian (the status of Chagos itself at the
moment means that Chagossian may soon cease to exist as a language
distinct from Seychellese, if Chagossians continue to not be allowed
in the Chagos Archipelago and are further integrated to Seychelles
society).

There are entire websites written in Reunionese (R?nyon?), for example
http://www.renyone.com/,
http://forum.europeanservers.net/cgi-bin/liste.eur?SINTOMER,
http://www.temoignages.re/article.php3?id_article=3547...

Mark

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 01:55:21 +0100, Pascale <pascale at rezo.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have already translated the Frenc CMS Spip in Reunion French Creole
> and I am finishing an Haitian version in creole too, for I want to
> people to have tools in teir own language in those economically poor but
> culturaly rich countries...
> Well, today I want to translate  Wikitools in those two creole to make
> wikipedia version in this languages and to create  creole dictionary for
> thes communauty in Indain Ocean and Caraibes.
>
> I would like to know how can i do to start up with my translations,
> whixh are the tools (software ? website and mailing-list) that i could
> share with yo to manage this project.
>
> Best regards
>
> Pascale Lemoigne
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
Without commenting on my side on the issue, I think I should note that
paganism is a religion as well, and thus symbols of paganism are
religious symbols. That is however separate from the issue of whether
or not it's OK for us to display religious symbols.

Recently there was a small debate on it.wikipedia about their holiday
logo (there was a poll before it was displayed, but some people
believed that the poll doesn't matter if the logo is against policy)
with objections similar to the ones on fr.wikipedia when they faced a
similar issue. One person said something along the lines of "I find it
ironic that we should display symbols of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.
holidays when the audience of this Wikipedia itself is so religiously
homogenous" (however, the person who said it was still in favor of
having festive logos for holidays from these faiths anyways). This is
a very good point (besides the fact that their are Muslims, Jews, and
Hindus who speak Italian, and the fact that Italian is spoken as a
second language in Somalia [the people there couldn't read the Somali
Wikipedia instead since it currently has only a couple of articles],
Libya...).

But there is an equally good point: if we celebrated a "Chechnya
independence day" with a logo of that theme, there would be many
objections because it indicates support for a cause. I think that
perhaps there are some comparisons that can be drawn here...

Mark

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 03:42:55 +0100, Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
> I.
> Christmas is the holiday previously known as Yule or Yuletide. It was a
> northern European seasonal festival since time immemorial. If (and only
> if) you consider Yuletide to have been a religious holiday, it was a
> NON-Christian religious holiday. But AFAIK Yuletide was a seasonal
> festival in the first instance -- only possibly with associated
> (non-Christian) religious connotations in the second instance.
>
> II.
> Yuletide became known as Christmas thanks to the goody old
> three-E-method (of latter-day Microsoft fame): Embrace, Extend,
> Extinguish. The Christian church of the day was running a major
> conversion effort. They quickly found they couldn't beat old and
> cherished traditions such as Yuletide. So they accepted it as a
> legitimate festival into the church calendar, they added Christian
> symbolism and merged it with Christian ideology (most notably the
> holiday was "calculated"/defined to match Jesus of Nazareth's birth),
> and finally the entire festival got usurped and monopolized by
> Christianity. (Yuletide symbols/traditions such as Christmas trees and
> mistletoe still remain. Even Santa Claus is based on a Yuletide figure,
> I hear.)
>
> Why am I telling you this?
>
> Well, IMHO "Christmas" is in actuality a quite secular festival. It
> ''used to be such'' before those Christian missionaries came to
> northern Europe and ''it is again today''. Millions if not billions of
> non-Christians happily celebrate Christmas all over the world. Which
> leads to another point I'd like to make: IMHO "Christmas" (or "xmas")
> has become a GENERIC term and to many, many people all over the world
> "Christmas" simply denotes the festival around this time in the year
> (which again was previously known as Yuletide), and to many, many
> non-Christians it doesn't matter in the least that etymologically
> speaking the word "Christmas" carries with it that later added
> Christian connotation. For example millions of Japanese
> Shinto-Buddhists are quite happy to celebrate Christmas without wanting
> to become Christians. I too am quite happy to celebrate Christmas (and
> to call it "Christmas"), despite me being a budding polytheist whose
> religious beliefs and ethics are decidedly at odds with Christian ones.
>
> And it's not just me to think so: Some French school recently found
> itself challenged (in protest) by pupils to remove a Christmas tree as
> a supposedly "conspicuous religious symbol". The tree was restored
> after it was officially ruled that Christmas trees are pagan symbols:
> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05E40EA7-8A8C-486E-BF0E
> -8F257310AB5E.htm
>
> IMHO braindead practices of avoiding to say "Merry Christmas"
> (spearheaded by corporate America, for fear of some dimwitted
> non-Christian suing) actually REINFORCE the mistaken perception of
> Christmas as a Christian holiday. ("Happy Holidays." Oh feck off.) I
> mean, I'm not trying to be a spoilsport to Christians here. If you're
> Christian and you consider Christmas a Christian holiday, well, fine by
> me. Just don't expect everybody else to agree.
>
> For the above reasons, I believe any and all concerns over Gerard's
> very nice, harmless and well-intended "Merry Christmas and happy New
> Year"-project
> (http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21) are
> totally unnecessary and inappropriate. Only someone ignorant of both
> the origins of Christmas and the extent to which Christmas is presently
> celebrated by followers of the majority of non-Christian religions of
> the world could have found fault with Gerard's idea. Thank you Gerard.
> :)
>
> Merry Christmas and a happy New Year !!!
>
> :-) :) :-D
>
> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>      www.ropersonline.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Miscellaneous Comments

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>1. It would be helpful to create a new position in Wikipedia, with
>the powers to investigate charges of sockpuppety, & provide an answer
>within a short period of time -- say 12 or 24 hours. Currently, one
>has to attract the attention of a developer (who obviously is more
>interested in adding or fixing the Wikimedia code), who then must
>investigate before the relevant logs are purged.
>
>What I'm envisioning is someone who does nothing more than receives
>an allegation that "X is a sockpuppet of Y", checks the logs, & reports
>whether the 2 accounts come from the same IP number, or a subnet
>belonging to the same ISP. (I don't know exactly how nuch info is
>captured in the logs, & whether it is possible for one to determine
>if a given IP address is a dial-up connection or a proxy address.)
>There has been some objections about making this kind of information
>even partly available because it would violate contributor's privacy.
>
><snip>
>
YES. We absolutely need this. I think this would be perfect for
Bureaucrats. They could help out with other chores that require
developer work, although I'm not sure on the feasibility of this (would
changing usernames and helping reattribute edits be too complicated?).

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Stirling Newberry wrote:

>
> On Dec 26, 2004, at 6:04 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>
>> This is a non-sequitur.  I was just translating your comment so that
>> English speakers would understand it. ;-)
>>
>> Ec
>>
>
> Oh it was a spelling flame. Forgive me, I assumed good faith. My error.
>
Can we not snap at each other please? :-)

John Lee
([[en:User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: GNAA on VFD for the fifth time

body:
Tony, sorry, the comment wasn't directed at you. I know you did this in
good faith. I'm addressing this to the other people people who placed it
on VfD 3 times already.

TBSDY

Tony Sidaway wrote:
> csherlock at ljh.com.au said:
>
>>Snowspinner wrote:
>>
>>>[[Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point]]
>>
>>Ya, I know. But if it's officially sanctioned that GNAA can go onto VfD
>> as many times as people want, then that's not disruption, right? So
>>then  a precedent is set.
>>
>
> You have to take into account intent.  I nominated GNAA for the fifth
> time.  I nominated what appeared to me to be a clear candidate for
> deletion.  Had I known its full history I would not have done so.  If a
> more experienced editor had done so, I think you'd have a good point about
> disruption to make a point.  With me, the intent to disrupt was not there.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 07:22:51PM +0100, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Thomas R. Koll wrote:

> >On de: we have now 35 spoken articles, some quite outdated but it's
> >a beginning. All ogg of course.
> >
> For the nl:wiktionary we have over 300 sound files with pronunciations
> of words in the Dutch language alone. They are much easier to use than
> phonetic notations. As such it would be cool to have the standard
> pronunciations recorded and available from Commons for all wiktionary words.

I wasn't talking about pronunciations of words but whole articles.

ciao, tom
--
== Weblinks ==
* http://shop.wikipedia.org - WikiReader Internet zu kaufen
* http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32
* http://www.hammererlehen.de - Urlaub in Berchtesgaden


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: can an admin help me? why no action?

body:
Two things here:

1. Unfair if the user is never informed of they were blocked
2. Unfair if someone else uses an IP address they share. In that case
the user has CLEARLY not evaded the block.

Care to explain how that system is a good thing?

TBSDY

Skyring wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:53:43 +0000, Theresa Knott
> <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I've unblocked you. It seems as if blocks are not expiring properly. I
>>assume this has something to do with the new media wiki software. Will
>>somebody in the know please fix this. In the meantime will all admins
>>keep an eye on the list of blocked IP's and manually unblock all
>>blocks whose time has expired.
>
>
> 24 hours are added on to the sentence each time the same IP address is
> used to access Wikipedia, even innocently.
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Mark Richards said:
> Deliberate disruption of WP by rampant deletionists
> seems to be tollerated for now. I guess it will have
> to cause even more damage before anything is done.
> Mark

Again I am forced to correct a false statement to the effect that the
recent listing of GNAA was a deliberate attempt to disrupt Wikipedia.  As
a relatively new editor and no deletionist, I listed the article in
ignorance of all but its most recent (three months ago) VfD history, on
the merits.  I would not have listed it for a fifth, a fourth, or even a
third time.  I have voted Keep and suggested that others opposed to
vindictive listings do otherwise, irrespective of the merits. A line must
be drawn somewhere.


from_name: David Gerard

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Setting up a Wikipedia in _______ (what ever
	language)

body:
On Cantonese: there are (a) a minor language which is noticeably different
to the local major language (b) books and newspapers published in a
reasonably fixed script in said minor language that are distinctly not in
the major language (c) people asking for the Wikipedia. Given these, what's
the remaining problem? That the local major language is Chinese?

- d.


from_name: James R. Johnson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
So long as Wikimedia isn't advocating a religion, simply presenting phrases
or pictures from religions doesn't seem very objectionable to me unless the
person objecting has some anti-religion motives.  Simply saying, "This is
what religion x says/believes/does during December," then there is no harm
done.  But the line is drawn when Wikimedia says, "You all must believe X
and worship Y."  And that was not done here.  Anyone getting in a huff over
it should get over it.

Anyhow, "S?lige Cr?stesm?sse and s?lig n?we g?ar" in Anglo-Saxon.  S?lige
Cr?stesm?sse everyone!!!!!

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 10:12 PM
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

Without commenting on my side on the issue, I think I should note that
paganism is a religion as well, and thus symbols of paganism are
religious symbols. That is however separate from the issue of whether
or not it's OK for us to display religious symbols.

Recently there was a small debate on it.wikipedia about their holiday
logo (there was a poll before it was displayed, but some people
believed that the poll doesn't matter if the logo is against policy)
with objections similar to the ones on fr.wikipedia when they faced a
similar issue. One person said something along the lines of "I find it
ironic that we should display symbols of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.
holidays when the audience of this Wikipedia itself is so religiously
homogenous" (however, the person who said it was still in favor of
having festive logos for holidays from these faiths anyways). This is
a very good point (besides the fact that their are Muslims, Jews, and
Hindus who speak Italian, and the fact that Italian is spoken as a
second language in Somalia [the people there couldn't read the Somali
Wikipedia instead since it currently has only a couple of articles],
Libya...).

But there is an equally good point: if we celebrated a "Chechnya
independence day" with a logo of that theme, there would be many
objections because it indicates support for a cause. I think that
perhaps there are some comparisons that can be drawn here...

Mark

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 03:42:55 +0100, Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com>
wrote:
> I.
> Christmas is the holiday previously known as Yule or Yuletide. It was a
> northern European seasonal festival since time immemorial. If (and only
> if) you consider Yuletide to have been a religious holiday, it was a
> NON-Christian religious holiday. But AFAIK Yuletide was a seasonal
> festival in the first instance -- only possibly with associated
> (non-Christian) religious connotations in the second instance.
>
> II.
> Yuletide became known as Christmas thanks to the goody old
> three-E-method (of latter-day Microsoft fame): Embrace, Extend,
> Extinguish. The Christian church of the day was running a major
> conversion effort. They quickly found they couldn't beat old and
> cherished traditions such as Yuletide. So they accepted it as a
> legitimate festival into the church calendar, they added Christian
> symbolism and merged it with Christian ideology (most notably the
> holiday was "calculated"/defined to match Jesus of Nazareth's birth),
> and finally the entire festival got usurped and monopolized by
> Christianity. (Yuletide symbols/traditions such as Christmas trees and
> mistletoe still remain. Even Santa Claus is based on a Yuletide figure,
> I hear.)
>
> Why am I telling you this?
>
> Well, IMHO "Christmas" is in actuality a quite secular festival. It
> ''used to be such'' before those Christian missionaries came to
> northern Europe and ''it is again today''. Millions if not billions of
> non-Christians happily celebrate Christmas all over the world. Which
> leads to another point I'd like to make: IMHO "Christmas" (or "xmas")
> has become a GENERIC term and to many, many people all over the world
> "Christmas" simply denotes the festival around this time in the year
> (which again was previously known as Yuletide), and to many, many
> non-Christians it doesn't matter in the least that etymologically
> speaking the word "Christmas" carries with it that later added
> Christian connotation. For example millions of Japanese
> Shinto-Buddhists are quite happy to celebrate Christmas without wanting
> to become Christians. I too am quite happy to celebrate Christmas (and
> to call it "Christmas"), despite me being a budding polytheist whose
> religious beliefs and ethics are decidedly at odds with Christian ones.
>
> And it's not just me to think so: Some French school recently found
> itself challenged (in protest) by pupils to remove a Christmas tree as
> a supposedly "conspicuous religious symbol". The tree was restored
> after it was officially ruled that Christmas trees are pagan symbols:
> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05E40EA7-8A8C-486E-BF0E
> -8F257310AB5E.htm
>
> IMHO braindead practices of avoiding to say "Merry Christmas"
> (spearheaded by corporate America, for fear of some dimwitted
> non-Christian suing) actually REINFORCE the mistaken perception of
> Christmas as a Christian holiday. ("Happy Holidays." Oh feck off.) I
> mean, I'm not trying to be a spoilsport to Christians here. If you're
> Christian and you consider Christmas a Christian holiday, well, fine by
> me. Just don't expect everybody else to agree.
>
> For the above reasons, I believe any and all concerns over Gerard's
> very nice, harmless and well-intended "Merry Christmas and happy New
> Year"-project
> (http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21) are
> totally unnecessary and inappropriate. Only someone ignorant of both
> the origins of Christmas and the extent to which Christmas is presently
> celebrated by followers of the majority of non-Christian religions of
> the world could have found fault with Gerard's idea. Thank you Gerard.
> :)
>
> Merry Christmas and a happy New Year !!!
>
> :-) :) :-D
>
> -- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
>      www.ropersonline.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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


body:
Skyring (skyring at gmail.com) [041227 15:45]:
> On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 23:53:43 +0000, Theresa Knott
> <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I've unblocked you. It seems as if blocks are not expiring properly. I
> > assume this has something to do with the new media wiki software. Will
> > somebody in the know please fix this. In the meantime will all admins
> > keep an eye on the list of blocked IP's and manually unblock all
> > blocks whose time has expired.

> 24 hours are added on to the sentence each time the same IP address is
> used to access Wikipedia, even innocently.

Access, or edit? Those are blocks against *editing*.

(The developers are aware of this one, btw.)

- d.


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Hi, being in the middle of this discussion I'd like to underline some
points and tell you what came out in a private conversation with Gerard,
half joking half being serious. Sorry, probably this mail is going to be
a very long one.

I am copying this message to wiktionary and wikipedia list ...

>>For the nl:wiktionary we have over 300 sound files with pronunciations
>>of words in the Dutch language alone. They are much easier to use than
>>phonetic notations. As such it would be cool to have the standard
>>pronunciations recorded and available from Commons for all wiktionary words.
>>
>>
>
>I agree, the only phonetic notation I understand is Spanish.
>
>
Sound files are the only way to really learn to understand a foreign
language - the reason is quite simple: every region of a country
pronounces things a bit different - so we need these soundfiles and if
possible different versions of them - talking about German: take a
person from Hamburg, one from Berlin and one from Munich and have them
say the same sentence (not talking in dialect, but talking "pure
German") - you'd be surprised ...

I cut the part Gerard wrote as I'll come back to it below.

>
>
>
>Ramadan is one of those meaningful holidays, not the happy kind (like
>TV news anchors won't tell people to have a Happy Yon Kippur). There's
>probably some Arabic greeting used throughout much of the Islamic
>world, so its probably not as interesting of a project.
>
>
Why not? I think it is not only interesting, but it is a must to make
people understand that Islam is one thing and yyy is another ... in many
parts of the world people don't know anything about the Islam besides
the fact that some of them are yyy (like there are catholic, protestant
etc. etc. ones)  - I am curious what you thought when you saw yyy (were
you influenced by the media as you don't know enough about it yourself?)
- I know many people that grew up with the muslim religion and they are
more or less practicing - none of them are yyy, all very fine and
helpful people, some of them real friends. Not knowing helps to create
fear and fear helps to create racism - knowledge helps to create
security - if you know about Ramadan start writing about it, start
telling people about it - make them curious - it is the only way to
globalise our world: understand the culture of each other.

>>So again, do write about channuka and ramandan in wikipedia and do add
>>relevant phrases and words in wiktionary. Inform us about the difference
>>times of the start of ramadan. About the three days of the birth of
>>Jezus. About the differences in the way a christmastree is decorated in
>>Italy compared to Germany. About the carp as a traditional dish at
>>easter in Poland. But  other people do have different sensibilities and
>>do not make what you believe override everything and everyone else
>>believes and values. To me the censorship of the "Bon Natale" project
>>was a nasty surprise, to me it shows an intolerance that I had not
>>expected from the wikipedia crowd.
>>
>>There will be other projects and other moments, that will be mo
>>
>>Thanks,
>>    GerardM
>>
>>
>
>People are overly sensitive on the subject. You stumbled into a
>dispute which has already occurred regarding whether to turn the
>Wikipedia ball into a Christmas ornament (as the Italian Wikipedia did
>this year). I did think it was kind of odd that my boss wished us all
>a Merry Christmas even though about a 1/4 of my co-workers are Muslim.
> But, at the same time, who cares, I'm sure they didn't.
>
>
>
Again: I agree to what Gerard says - write about your religions and
about those you know - create sentences, glossaries etc. etc. ask people
for translations and help - this helps to get attention to all -
"deleting" religion out of our lifes does not help anyone - creating
knowledge and understanding is the only way to go. Even people not
believing in anything: write about atheism, connect it to science. All
the world talks about globalisation - the only way to globalise is to
understand and accept diversity. If we try to uniform things we will
have some very unexpected results - dangerous results. We can only
accept things we understand - it is impossible to accept things we don't
understand. It is easy to create propaganda against a group of people if
hardly anyone knows details about their habits, if hardly anyone has
friends there - it is quite impossible instead to create propaganda
against a group of people you know well.

Let's take a part the political and religious points of view - everyone
has to be heard and no one may be surpressed.

Some short notes about my life: I was born in a protestant lutheran
region in Germany - when I was about 6 years old Siemens had lots of
workers coming from Turkey and I remember well their ramadam period when
everyone was waiting for dawn to start to prepare for dinner - it became
part of our life - often I was at a friend's home in the evening and
even not understanding a word of Turkish I felt at home - the same
poeple who did not believe in Christmas allowed their children to
participate when we prepared for our Christmas feast at school - often
you could also see some stars painted on the windows, just like we did.
As anywhere in Germany you find protestant and catholic people living in
the same place and we prepared things together. This was the
"globalisation" of a small village of approx. 6000 people. This kind of
"living together" is not possible in huge cities and so many different
cultures live one beneath another without knowing - really sad ... Now I
live in Italy - people in this small village hardly know any other
religion (at least up to some time ago) - better not to tell what they
considered me to be ... and how surprised some were that I have a
Christmas tree and a Crib at home ... some years ago I still worked as a
German teacher - imagine where: in a catholic grammar school - and they
wanted me to tell pupils about German protestantism as they believed
this would help pupils to find their place in life ... strange, isn't
it? To me it is not strange at all: only knowing whatever exists can
help us to find our way of life.

But back to the Christmas project: while it seems as if people thought
that the Christmas project would disturb other religions the strangest
thing of all is that many contributions came from people not believing
in Christmas ... so shouldn't we think a bit about what this means? To
me this means that those people are really tollerant - they know and
want others to know. And this takes me back to the conversation with
Gerard. Talking about the project and what came out of it there was a
point when i said: yes, really there's so much to tell about the
different usages that one could build up a Chrismaspedia ... and then
talking about religious and cultural feasts in general what came out was
"no, not a Christmaspedia, but an Eventpedia that aims on showing on
which day which feast/event is on anywhere in the world creating links
to all the relevant articles on the wikimedia projects.

I am sure there are translations, literature, proverbs, glossaries etc.
about any event of any culture and religion (don't forget to add them to
the different projects).

Wikimedia is made for people by people, the best thing of all: it is
free; culture and religion is part of all of us, understanding each
other is fundamental - it will never be possible to be neutral as even
neutrality is a very wide expression - to my opinion the only way we
have to really globalise the world is to contribute to understand each
other describing local habits, thoughts (even our own thoughts). Give
and conserve wisdom to and for people is great and all wikimedia
projects already do this - but wisdom is not all - we are humans and
like all humans we need "food for the soul" and not only for the brain.

If you, yes you, who is reading this long letter now, are from another
culture and/or religion - think about what you would like us to know and
write about it - and ask others for help to make it grow - make people
talk and more and more poeple will understand you and your culture, thus
leading to what globalisation really means: open up frontiers, live
together as peaceful as possible.

Thank you for your patience reading this long letter!

Wishing you all the best and

Seasons greetings ;-)

Ciao, Sabine


subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Culture, religions,
	believes etc. (was: Religious intolerance)


from_name: Pascale

subject: [Wikipedia-l] A creole translation

body:
Hello,

I have already translated the Frenc CMS Spip in Reunion French Creole
and I am finishing an Haitian version in creole too, for I want to
people to have tools in teir own language in those economically poor but
culturaly rich countries...
Well, today I want to translate  Wikitools in those two creole to make
wikipedia version in this languages and to create  creole dictionary for
thes communauty in Indain Ocean and Caraibes.

I would like to know how can i do to start up with my translations,
whixh are the tools (software ? website and mailing-list) that i could
share with yo to manage this project.

Best regards

Pascale Lemoigne


from_name: Jens Ropers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
I.
Christmas is the holiday previously known as Yule or Yuletide. It was a
northern European seasonal festival since time immemorial. If (and only
if) you consider Yuletide to have been a religious holiday, it was a
NON-Christian religious holiday. But AFAIK Yuletide was a seasonal
festival in the first instance -- only possibly with associated
(non-Christian) religious connotations in the second instance.

II.
Yuletide became known as Christmas thanks to the goody old
three-E-method (of latter-day Microsoft fame): Embrace, Extend,
Extinguish. The Christian church of the day was running a major
conversion effort. They quickly found they couldn't beat old and
cherished traditions such as Yuletide. So they accepted it as a
legitimate festival into the church calendar, they added Christian
symbolism and merged it with Christian ideology (most notably the
holiday was "calculated"/defined to match Jesus of Nazareth's birth),
and finally the entire festival got usurped and monopolized by
Christianity. (Yuletide symbols/traditions such as Christmas trees and
mistletoe still remain. Even Santa Claus is based on a Yuletide figure,
I hear.)

Why am I telling you this?

Well, IMHO "Christmas" is in actuality a quite secular festival. It
''used to be such'' before those Christian missionaries came to
northern Europe and ''it is again today''. Millions if not billions of
non-Christians happily celebrate Christmas all over the world. Which
leads to another point I'd like to make: IMHO "Christmas" (or "xmas")
has become a GENERIC term and to many, many people all over the world
"Christmas" simply denotes the festival around this time in the year
(which again was previously known as Yuletide), and to many, many
non-Christians it doesn't matter in the least that etymologically
speaking the word "Christmas" carries with it that later added
Christian connotation. For example millions of Japanese
Shinto-Buddhists are quite happy to celebrate Christmas without wanting
to become Christians. I too am quite happy to celebrate Christmas (and
to call it "Christmas"), despite me being a budding polytheist whose
religious beliefs and ethics are decidedly at odds with Christian ones.

And it's not just me to think so: Some French school recently found
itself challenged (in protest) by pupils to remove a Christmas tree as
a supposedly "conspicuous religious symbol". The tree was restored
after it was officially ruled that Christmas trees are pagan symbols:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05E40EA7-8A8C-486E-BF0E
-8F257310AB5E.htm

IMHO braindead practices of avoiding to say "Merry Christmas"
(spearheaded by corporate America, for fear of some dimwitted
non-Christian suing) actually REINFORCE the mistaken perception of
Christmas as a Christian holiday. ("Happy Holidays." Oh feck off.) I
mean, I'm not trying to be a spoilsport to Christians here. If you're
Christian and you consider Christmas a Christian holiday, well, fine by
me. Just don't expect everybody else to agree.

For the above reasons, I believe any and all concerns over Gerard's
very nice, harmless and well-intended "Merry Christmas and happy New
Year"-project
(http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21) are
totally unnecessary and inappropriate. Only someone ignorant of both
the origins of Christmas and the extent to which Christmas is presently
celebrated by followers of the majority of non-Christian religions of
the world could have found fault with Gerard's idea. Thank you Gerard.
:)

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year !!!

:-) :) :-D

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] A creole translation

body:
Hello Mark

Mark Williamson a ?crit :

>Pascale, there is already available a Kwey?l Ayisyen version of
>Wikipedia (with 2 or 3 articles), http://ht.wikipedia.org/ At one time
>there was a Haitian woman working on it a little, but it's been mostly
>abandonned now.
>
>

Ok, that is great. I could try to continue this work :)

>As for Reunionnais, I personally think that it's a good idea to have a
>Wikipedia in it, but I think probably we will get some objections from
>people who say "il n'est pa un 'lang', est soulement 'patwa'". My
>guess is based on the results of previous sociolingustic studies, and
>also the fact that when somebody mentioned "french dialect" somebody
>else said "There are no French dialects, except perhaps creole which
>can be considered a sort of dialect"
>
In r?unionnais, yes we say the langague is a "patwa" but even for French
or English ;)
I am a linguist and a French teacher that taught the French language and
French littearture in Villers-Cotter?ts, the town where Fran?ois Premier
made that "?dit ( august 1539)", that law which says "La langue de la
R?publique est le fran?ais". But, you know, there is today in France a
sort of new vision about creole languages. The institutions recognize
this languages with the creation of a CREOLE CAPES (degree for teachers
in "L'Ecole de la R?publique :")  for example ( I use to work for two
French Prime Minister, so I know the Frenc administration  very well) .

>.
>
>Also, there is probably going to be some resistance (perhaps
>subconcious) because "la langue de la R?publique est le fran?ais", and
>some might think people in Reunion would be served better by
>fr.wikipedia for 2 reasons, 1) "they should have to learn French
>anyways" and 2) "reunionnais is a patois" or "reunionnais is already
>nearly identical with French".
>
>
Non, there is, today in Reunion Island, creole language courses, you
know, and it is not a real problem with French. 80 % of the population,
and it ws my case, has creole maternal tongue and you can learn Frenc
anyway. The 'diglossie" if you have a reflexion about language, is not a
true problem.

Linguistic shoes that creole are languages witrh specific structures and
you know all  romanian langauges are "creolisation" of the latin
language. So all, thes arguments can be evaluate with an historical and
scientifical position. The issue is politic or not. But there is no
troubles with R?unionnais in the French area. I am positive.

>The simple truth is that Reunionese is a language separate from
>French, as are Haitian, Mauritian, Seychellese, Guianese, Amapa, St
>Lucian, Caledonian, and Chagossian (the status of Chagos itself at the
>moment means that Chagossian may soon cease to exist as a language
>distinct from Seychellese, if Chagossians continue to not be allowed
>in the Chagos Archipelago and are further integrated to Seychelles
>society).
>
>
>
In fact, and if  you have an interest in this language, the truth is
that there is a "continumm" between French, a sorte of regional French
that some call "Frenc creolised" and creole himself , in La Reunion :)

>There are entire websites written in Reunionese (R?nyon?), for example
>http://www.renyone.com/,
>http://forum.europeanservers.net/cgi-bin/liste.eur?SINTOMER,
>http://www.temoignages.re/article.php3?id_article=3547...
>
>
>

Thans for having answered so quickly and completly.

>Mark
>
>
>

Pascale

>On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 01:55:21 +0100, Pascale <pascale at rezo.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>I have already translated the Frenc CMS Spip in Reunion French Creole
>>and I am finishing an Haitian version in creole too, for I want to
>>people to have tools in teir own language in those economically poor but
>>culturaly rich countries...
>>Well, today I want to translate  Wikitools in those two creole to make
>>wikipedia version in this languages and to create  creole dictionary for
>>thes communauty in Indain Ocean and Caraibes.
>>
>>I would like to know how can i do to start up with my translations,
>>whixh are the tools (software ? website and mailing-list) that i could
>>share with yo to manage this project.
>>
>>Best regards
>>
>>Pascale Lemoigne
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>
>>
>>


from_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote:
> Personally, I think we should remove the image. We don't *need* it so we
> can just remove it. The article might not have a nice graphic, but so
> what? The license is too constrictive. I might even list it on Images

This is nuts. Here's the license, for anyone just tuning in:

---begin license---
IPU Logo License
Version 1.0, November 18, 2003

Copyright (c) 2003, Tim Ahrentl?v (ta at invisiblepinkunicorn.com)
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use, with or without modification, for commercial and
non-commercial purposes alike, are permitted provided that the IPU logo
is used to represent atheism.

THE IPU LOGO IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THE IPU
LOGO, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
--- end license ---

1) While you're trying to delete the image because of its
extraordinarily liberal license that poses NO practical problems for
either Wikipedia OR anyone copying Wikipedia's content, ANOTHER IPU logo
sits at [[Image:Ipu.gif]] and is linked in the article with no license
at all under "fair use".

2) This license is, very similar to -- and if anything MORE liberal than
-- any restrictions on trademarks, and we happily used trademarked
images ALL THE TIME.

3) We use many, many copyrighted images under "fair use" that fall into
the category of "questionable but probably fine". In this case, it's not
questionable at all. This image is avalible to us under a perfectly
reasonable license.

If we're going to start rejecting images avalible to us under liberal
and trouble-free but non-GFDL-compatible licenses while accepting images
that our rights to are questionable, people are going to think we're
idiots, and they're gonna be right.


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
I personally think that since the image is a logo, we should treat it
as other logos: it is usable under fair use.  I don't think we should
be HARSHER on a logo that explicitly allows us to use it than the huge
number of logos we use where our ONLY rationale is fair use.

This situation is analogous to "permission and fair use" licensing.
We accept permission and fair use.

-Matt (User:Morven)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Happy New Year

body:
Hoi,
I came across this and I think you will appreciate it.
http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=12477&PHPSESSID=1376c34e797f5e88c04c957cf552fe5d

For those who hope to enjoy a Happy New Year, here (
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Felice_Anno_Nuovo%21 ) is a place to add
the appropriate words for your own language, you may pronounce these and
record your pronunciation in the .ogg format. When saved in Commons you
can use it in any and it here and on all of our glorious projects.

For those for whom the year does not start on the first of January, we
hope that you appreciate this project in the manner it is intended.

If you are interested in the customs around the celebrations and the
origin of customs relating to the New Year celebrations or have an
intrest about dates and dating, please add your observations to wikipedia.

:)

Thanks,
    Gerard


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Happy New Year


from_name: Olve Utne

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Religious intolerance

body:
Hello all,

I think there is a difference between wishing "a happy Yule/Yuletide" --
which could be argued to be equally Pagan and Christian,  and also somewhat
inclusive even of other festivals of light (like Hanukka) as long as the
timing of this greeting is considerate of the events outside Christianity.

"Merry *Christmas*", whilst covering much of the same contents as Yule in
practice, is much more exclusivist in that it explicitly denotes the
"Christ Mass" (compare also Anglo-Saxon "Cr?stesm?sse"...).

That being said I have no problem with Wikipedia using the "Merry
Christmas" greeting on front page level -- IF (!!!!!!!) it one also takes
care to include the other festivals excluded by this wording through
parallel greetings at relevant times.  I agree that the "happy holidays"
greeting is a bit "lobotomised". Since we are building a base of knowledge
here -- wouldn't the best strategy be to emphasise inclusiveness and
spreading of cultural knowledge through greetings for ALL holidays of some
widespread significance? That would include major holidays in Christianity,
Judaism, Islam, Bah?'?, Buddhism and Hinduism, to mention a few...

Happy New Year! (And a Happy Yuletide for those who celebrate Yule in its
8, 12 or 20-day duration variants; as well as a well completed Hanukka,
Dipavali, etc...)

-Olve

___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org


list: commons-l

subject: [Commons-l] category problem

body:
Hi, during the last days I uploaded several soundfiles in Italian and
German - the strange thing is they are not included in the category
listing even if on the page of the file itself the category is being showed.

Example:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:It-Felice_Anno_Nuovo.ogg
On the bottom of the page there is

Categories
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Categories&article=Image%3AIt-Felice_Anno_Nuovo.ogg>:

GFDL <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:GFDL> | Italian
pronunciation
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_pronunciation>

But when I click on Italian pronunciation it is not listed.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_pronunciation

So what is wrong?

When I upload files I use a Summary like this:
own recording [[User:SabineCretella|SabineCretella]]  {{GFDL}}
[[Category:Italian pronunciation]]

Thanks for any hint!

Best, Sabine


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Undeletion: new ability and policy on its use

body:
When it has community support. The last I heard, there wasn't even
majority support, let alone consensus, for changing the status quo in
the poll on this matter.

-- ambi

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:20:14 -0800 (PST), Mark Richards
<marich712000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> When is the ability to view deleted pages going to be
> made available to all users?
> Mark
>
> --- Charles Podles <charles.podles at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > When undeleting pages, sysops now have to ability to
> > restore selected
> > revisions rather than the full deleted history. I
> > have posted some
> > questions about the use of this feature to
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Undeletion_policy
> > and
> > would appreciate comments there. The feature seems
> > useful but has
> > potential for abuse; a policy discussion is needed.
> >
> > I have also added an explanation of what I figured
> > out by testing the
> > feature to [[Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted
> > pages by sysops]]
> > (
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Viewing_and_restoring_deleted_pages_by_sysops&diff=8781571&oldid=8754475
> > ); I would be grateful if the technical team would
> > make sure I've
> > explained it properly.
> >
> > --Charles Podles ([[en:User:Mirv]])
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
> http://my.yahoo.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Tony, I don't think that Mark was talking about you :) It's cool... we
know that you are a very good and consientious (spelling?) contributor
to Wikipedia! At least, I think you are anyway.

Ta bu shi da yu

Tony Sidaway wrote:
> Mark Richards said:
>
>>Deliberate disruption of WP by rampant deletionists
>>seems to be tollerated for now. I guess it will have
>>to cause even more damage before anything is done.
>>Mark
>
>
> Again I am forced to correct a false statement to the effect that the
> recent listing of GNAA was a deliberate attempt to disrupt Wikipedia.  As
> a relatively new editor and no deletionist, I listed the article in
> ignorance of all but its most recent (three months ago) VfD history, on
> the merits.  I would not have listed it for a fifth, a fourth, or even a
> third time.  I have voted Keep and suggested that others opposed to
> vindictive listings do otherwise, irrespective of the merits. A line must
> be drawn somewhere.


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] GNAA on VFD for the fifth time

body:
When i first heard about GNAA on some slashdot post (or mailing list
or something, i cant remember...), i didnt have a clue what it was
talking about, so the first thing i did was go to [[GNAA]]. Equaly as
this thread has progresed SOLLOG was mentioned and i went to
[[SOLLOG]], and both times i found exactly what i wanted to know to
put the origanal posts in context. I would much prefer blanking of the
article and a redirect to slashdot trolling (or whatever). It is
important the next person who comes along can type in [[GNAA]] and
find the info they want. For me wikipedia is the new google. When i
dont understand a term, i wikipedia it, and i think that this is
something that should be kept in mind on VfD.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 12:26:47 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au
<csherlock at ljh.com.au> wrote:
> Guys, how many times are we going to list this before we stop this abuse
> of process? This is now the fifth time the article has been on votes for
> deletion and that sucks.
>

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks

body:
Please dont mix up trolls and vandals with hackers and crackers. Sure
some members of those four gropus are members of others, but just
cause someone breaks the copyright on a CD does not mean they are at
all anti-social, just anti-corporate.

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >If they aren't, they'll have friends who are. It's the same reason Digital
> >Rights Management and copy-protection on CDs doesn't work - if one person
> >breaks it, it's broken for all.
> >
> The average vandal is probably more likely to be interested in computers
> than history.  History is may be too boring for him, but he may have
> some experience with computer games.  His online presence is just
> another way to have "fun".
>
> Copy protection on CDs is treated as one more challenging puzzle.  It's
> another "boss" at a deeper level of the game.  The people who produce
> copy protection systems want you to believe that they will work for the
> obvious reason that their income depends on it.

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: notafish

subject: [Commons-l] category problem

body:
Dear Sabine,

I don't see any problem with the category listing. When I click on the
category http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_pronunciation,
I do see your file listed. The only thing is that it is displayed with
a music icon, but it does appear without any problem. Maybe you did
not wait long enough and the cache of your brwser had another version
of the category page in store, and did not update when you looked at
it ?

Hope this helps,

Best,

Delphine

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:38:46 +0100, Sabine Cretella
<sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
>
> Hi, during the last days I uploaded several soundfiles in Italian and
> German - the strange thing is they are not included in the category
> listing even if on the page of the file itself the category is being showed.
>
> Example:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:It-Felice_Anno_Nuovo.ogg
> On the bottom of the page there is
>
> Categories
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Categories&article=Image%3AIt-Felice_Anno_Nuovo.ogg>:
>
> GFDL <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:GFDL> | Italian
> pronunciation
> <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_pronunciation>
>
> But when I click on Italian pronunciation it is not listed.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_pronunciation
>
> So what is wrong?
>
> When I upload files I use a Summary like this:
> own recording [[User:SabineCretella|SabineCretella]]  {{GFDL}}
> [[Category:Italian pronunciation]]
>
> Thanks for any hint!
>
> Best, Sabine
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list
> Commons-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
>