body:
Timwi <timwi at ...> writes:

> > Just because you don't think this is a problem, doesn't mean it isn't
> > a problem.
>
> So far I have addressed only the "problem" of people not knowing whether
> what they are reading is really what the author wrote. People
> complaining about edits is a whole other matter. To address that
> problem, we must think about why they are complaining. I am convinced
> that the large majority of such complaints are solely out of irrational,
> thoughtless behaviour: people just assume that they "own" their comments
> by default, and complain about any form of "tinkering" even when it's
> perfectly legitimate if they thought about it for only a second. Surely
> you can't agree to let this kind of stupidity take precedence over our
> wiki philosophy.
>

It isn't that people wish to "own" their comments, but that people believe their
opinion should be represented as they wrote it. I believe there is a fundamental
difference between an article, and a discussion. I don't understand why you
should need to edit someone's comment, other than possibly spellchecking it.
When you edit someone's comment, you are changing the discussion as a whole.

I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing a person's comment, but can you
give me some examples of non-malicious changes?

> > I can definately see lawsuits based upon this. This is
> > definately a valid argument.
>
> I'm finding your "lawsuits" claim highly dubitable, and your repeated
> misspelling of "definitely" quite irritating. Are you a lawyer? (You're
> clearly not an English teacher, so the chances of you being a lawyer are
> somewhat higher.)
>

Oh shit, I mispelled a word, I must be an idiot. Do you always resort to
flame-style tactics?

How about we get back to the topic at hand? I'm positive some time in the future
we will see a lawsuit generated from userA against userB because userB changed
what userA stated in a discussion page.

I do agree that this is mostly paranoia, so this argument by itself is not a
good enough reason to change the discussions.

> > Why can you assume that the edit was harmless? During katrina, I had
> > no internet access for weeks. If someone maliciously edited some of
> > my comments during that time, would you assume that what was there is
> > actually what I wrote?
>
> And you think you're the only reasonable person in the world and
> everyone else only makes bad-faith edits and vadalises your comments.
> Get real. People already _do_ malicious editing, and other
> (well-meaning) people revert it. It's already happening, on all wikis.
> It's one of our very own Replies to Common Criticisms?!
>

There is a difference between an article, and someone's comments on an article.
The article is a community written piece. Someone's comment is not a community
written piece, it is an individual's written piece. The discussion as a whole is
a community written piece.

> > In this aspect, there is "danger" in others editing comments.
>
> You haven't shown any, except for the possible "lawsuits" claim. Do you
> have anything substantial to back that up?
>

I think there is a danger in changing the meaning of a discussion by changing
the meaning of the comments contained within. Whether this is done maliciously
or not, it can be harmful.

> > I think the original idea of LiquidThreads is a good solution for the
> > problem. I don't believe the implementation would be easy though ;).
>
> I believe a rudimentary implementation would be relatively easy, but it
> would be laborious, and so, few people will be willing to work it
> through until the end, and so, it will likely not get done very soon. A
> _good_ implementation (UI-wise as well as performance-wise) is quite a
> bit more challenging, so it will likely not get done at all.
>

I don't disagree entirely with you here; it probably won't get done. However,
every large piece of software is laborious, and there is quite a bit of software
out there that has been written (take mediawiki for example).

Ryan Lane


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads [WAS: Re: the discussion page:
	summary and better display of the treats, mbox format?]

references:
<877jbu2avo.fsf@mat.ucm.es>
	<dk8225$vc3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dk83h4$4hr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<200511011756.19482@bloodgate.com>
	<742dfd060511011957s5abec50dke7794441b4dfbfee@mail.gmail.com>

body:
SJ wrote:
> On 11/1/05, Tels wrote:
>>Threading by subject, time etc are all possible because these are just
>>rearangements of the post articles.
>
> Yes and yes.  I would dearly like to see the above implemented.  A
> system optimized for threaded discussions, rather than what one could
> hack up with the current transclusion implementation.

Transclusion hacks make the Baby Cthulu cry.

And trust me, you *don't* want to see the Baby Cthulu cry!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2005/11/2, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com>:
>>On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
>>but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
>>wiki-like manner.
>
>
> What is a 'wiki-like manner' in this context?

What one person does, another can change. Through a serious of additions
and corrections by numerous parties over time, the work progresses.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: E-mail notifications for user talk pages

body:
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Gries
>>>>> <mail at tgries.de> writes:

   Thomas> Hello, I justed wanted to ask what stands against enabling
   Thomas> $wgEnotifUserTalk in all wikis ?

Hello

I would support that proposal, it seem very convenient to me.

Uwe Brauer


list: wikien-l

from_name: Nathan Reed

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press badges

body:
I have had thoughts, for some time, that Wikinews might change its
accreditation policy to be more open to editors who, while not terribly
active (or active at all) on wikinews, might still provide useful
contributions to Wikinews and other project.

Surely, the community should still evaluate the editors who wish to be
accredited by Wikinews, but I shall propose to the community that we open
the policy a bit to include editors from other projects...

-N.

On 11/1/05, Jason Y. Lee <jylee at cs.ucr.edu> wrote:
>
> The Accreditation policy below requires someone to be a writer for
> several articles on Wikinews. It doesn't quite fit for any person who
> wants an accreditation for a press badge as a photographer. The reason
> behind my wondering over press badges is that I live in Southern
> California,
> a place where there is opporunity to meet a celebrity. I have no doubt,
> the same applies to anyone living in other parts of the world when it
> comes
> to sports figures and the like. The thing is that a photograph of a famous
> person on the English Wikipedia is usually a press or licensed photograph
> from a professional photographer... unless the copyright has previously
> expired on the photograph or they are a public figure of government, which
> of course means their photograph we get is public domain. But how do deal
> with trying to get a photograph of a television star without having any of
> the copyright restrictions? The only answers I can think of is to ask the
> publication to copyleft it, or take a picture of your own.
>
> --
> Jason Y. Lee
> AKA AllyUnion
>
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Roberto Frangi

subject: [Foundation-l] stewards and bot flagging

body:
Absolutely agree. Flagging bots gives me headaches that I  try to avoid.

Snowdog.

Anthere wrote:

>Please see
>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032025.html
>
>Why could not bureaucrat set bot flags on their
>projects.
>They know the rules better than any steward. Would not
>that make sense ?
>
>Anthere
>
>
>
>__________________________________
>Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
>http://farechase.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l


body:
Another solution is:
Request for bot flags are still posted on meta and stewards set the
flag. But request should be made by a bureaucrat of  local wiki. (Or an
admin if the wiki has no bureaucrat).

Snowdog.

Mihai Floran wrote:

>In this case we have to possible solutions:
>1. Somebody will write the necesary interface so that bureaurcats may add bot flags.
>My idea for this is that Meta MakeSysop interface may be transfered to bureaucrats
>with limited groups. (just Sysop, Bureaucrat and Bot flag - for now)
>
>2. We shall have - as I already proposed in a discution at meta - a new election for
>stewards which can help the existent ones in their job. Most of them have many things
>to do and no time for this kind of issues and at least one of elected stewards in may
>is not and was not active. There are many unsolved requests at meta and persons
>must wait a lot of time for a steward to have time to answer to their request.
>
>M
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


from_name: Jtkiefer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocked for removing a section I added to AN/I,	also
	a 3RR report

body:
SPUI wrote:

> Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Snowspinner.
>
> The reason given is:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=27045064
>
>
> I added that section, and decided it wasn't doing much good, as
> TenOfAllTrades suggested.
>
> When I was blocked I was about to report Boothy443 for a 3RR violation
> on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SEPTA_Suburban_Trolley_Lines&action=history
> . Can someone take care of that?

Considering your edit summary and the fact that you and Boothy are
apparently in a content war I'd be tempted to block you too.  Saying
"eat shit" on an edit summary is never acceptable.

-Jtkiefer


subject: [WikiEN-l] Skyring has been allowed back on

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Skyring (Peter Mackay) has promised to play well with the other kids,
>so I'm letting him back on wikien-l, though he's still moderated for
>now. His arbcom ban on en: itself is still in effect.
>
>
>- d.
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
I have no issue with this especially since Skyring seems to contribute
some useful stuff to the list, with the assumption of course that he'll
be immediately banned from the list if he acts up.

-Jtkiefer


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Russian Wikinews

body:
The Russian Wikinews has now been created by Erik following requests
at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition and the
previous announcement on foundation-l.

http://ru.wikinews.org/

The next edition is expected to be Hebrew.

Angela.


subject: [Foundation-l] Russian Wikinews


from_name: Bjarte Sørensen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Request for (Spanish) mediation on the Spanish
	Wikipedia + culture differences on different wikis

body:
Dear all,

On my meta user pages I received a request from a frustrated
wikipedian for assistance in a dispute on the Spanish Wikipedia
regarding (among other things) uncommented deletions of his (?her)
contributions. It seems like the user doesn't feel he is getting
anywhere through negotiation with the other parts. The other parts are
administrators, and he has now been blocked from editing, something
which he of course finds frustrating and he feels that they abused
their power.

I would love to mediate in this dispute as it would also be a certain
booster for my Spanish knowledge, however I have my final exams these
days and feel pressed for time.

Can anyone help direct me to somebody who may be able to help? Please
find the request and my response on my meta user pages (in Spanish):

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BjarteSorensen#Petici.C3.B3n_de_ayuda

On this note, I would also like to ask a broader question to the
community: How different do you think are the cultures of the
different languages' wikipedias? In particular I'm interested in
inclusivist/deletionist matters, dispute resolution, administrator
"powers" and I suppose general feeling of welcome. And, not
specifically with Spanish Wikipedia in mind, how well do we monitor
aberrance from our common goal of wikilove and NPOV on the more
"peripheral" wikipedias?

Cheers,

Bjarte Sorensen


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: stewards and bot flagging

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Angela wrote:
>
>>> There was an objection to this last time it was raised
>>> (<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-Otober/032050.html>),
>>>
>>> but the main reason it's not possible seems to be technical; there is
>>> currently no interface for bureaucrats to be able to do this
>>> (<http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3855>).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A letter disappeared from that URL. The correct link was meant to be
>> <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032050.html>.
>>
>>
>> Angela.
>
>
> In that mail, Tim notes
>
> > It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and
> > that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has
> been
> > quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we
> > should just get more stewards.
>
>
> But no, I do not think the problem is a workload frankly.
> If you look at the page, most of the pending requests are due to the
> fact people making a request do not follow the requirements (in
> particular first asking on their wiki and linking the request page on
> meta).
> And this is in particular for the bots. Many of those asking a bot
> just list a huge collection of languages where they wish the bot to be
> flagged. But that's about it. The problem is that all projects have
> different policies for granting bot access. Some projects have quite
> strict policies and others just do not have any policies. This is
> something very difficult for a steward to just know.
>
> And at the prospective of having to go to each project in turn to
> ask.... well, energies are sinking :-)
>
> Here are a couple of current examples
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Sau.C3.B0kindin
> request for a bot to work on two projects. There are two links
> One goes to a village pump, with no comments there
> The other link goes to a page in swedish, with one editor asking a
> question in swedish. The request on meta has been done 3 days after
> the candidacy on sv.
> What do we do ?
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Chobot
> Chobot, to work on about all projects
> Nearly no page where we can find approval.
> Andre gave approval where the bot had support. Otherwise, the bot is
> pending.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Santa
> As no consensus was visible, we waiteddddddd
> Good thing we waited, the user quited the project and was guilty of cp
> violations. Only editors on the project could know.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#RobotJcb
> Ahhhh, Dallas on meta...
>
> So, no, the problem is not workload.
> The problem is editors not following a bunch of basic rules, such as
> gaining consensus on their project first
> And the positive side would be that bureaucrats on a local project
> would precisely know what the local rules are about granting a bot.
> This is all I want to point out.

I support your approach and interpretation.  We have some very impatient
people   Their desire to use bots seems consistent with that
impatience.  Doing things the "hard way" more often would have
therapeutic value for them. :-)

Ec


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
This is particularly important in the case of disruptive users who an
administrator has blocked for a long period of time, perhaps
indefinitely. Any administrator who feels it is appropriate can
unblock them, but if no one out of hundreds of administrators is
willing to, perhaps it is best to leave it in place.

The downside is that some of those blocked don't know how to ask to
be unblocked as perhaps they would be unblocked if they knew better
who to appeal to.

Fred

On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:33 PM, Andrew Lih wrote:

> On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
> but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
> wiki-like manner.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>
> On 11/2/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking
>> users. In
>> particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another
>> sysop
>> blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
>>
>> --
>> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
>> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>


from_name: Anthere

body:
Angela wrote:
>>There was an objection to this last time it was raised
>>(<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-Otober/032050.html>),
>>but the main reason it's not possible seems to be technical; there is
>>currently no interface for bureaucrats to be able to do this
>>(<http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3855>).
>
>
>
> A letter disappeared from that URL. The correct link was meant to be
> <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032050.html>.
>
> Angela.

In that mail, Tim notes

 > It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and
 > that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has been
 > quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we
 > should just get more stewards.

But no, I do not think the problem is a workload frankly.
If you look at the page, most of the pending requests are due to the
fact people making a request do not follow the requirements (in
particular first asking on their wiki and linking the request page on meta).
And this is in particular for the bots. Many of those asking a bot just
list a huge collection of languages where they wish the bot to be
flagged. But that's about it. The problem is that all projects have
different policies for granting bot access. Some projects have quite
strict policies and others just do not have any policies. This is
something very difficult for a steward to just know.

And at the prospective of having to go to each project in turn to
ask.... well, energies are sinking :-)

Here are a couple of current examples

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Sau.C3.B0kindin
request for a bot to work on two projects. There are two links
One goes to a village pump, with no comments there
The other link goes to a page in swedish, with one editor asking a
question in swedish. The request on meta has been done 3 days after the
candidacy on sv.
What do we do ?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Chobot
Chobot, to work on about all projects
Nearly no page where we can find approval.
Andre gave approval where the bot had support. Otherwise, the bot is
pending.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Santa
As no consensus was visible, we waiteddddddd
Good thing we waited, the user quited the project and was guilty of cp
violations. Only editors on the project could know.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#RobotJcb
Ahhhh, Dallas on meta...

So, no, the problem is not workload.
The problem is editors not following a bunch of basic rules, such as
gaining consensus on their project first
And the positive side would be that bureaucrats on a local project would
precisely know what the local rules are about granting a bot. This is
all I want to point out.

ant


body:
Mihai Floran wrote:

> In this case we have to possible solutions:
> 1. Somebody will write the necesary interface so that bureaurcats may add bot flags.
> My idea for this is that Meta MakeSysop interface may be transfered to bureaucrats
> with limited groups. (just Sysop, Bureaucrat and Bot flag - for now)
>
> 2. We shall have - as I already proposed in a discution at meta - a new election for
> stewards which can help the existent ones in their job. Most of them have many things
> to do and no time for this kind of issues and at least one of elected stewards in may
> is not and was not active. There are many unsolved requests at meta and persons
> must wait a lot of time for a steward to have time to answer to their request.
>
> M

I disagree

There are not many pending requests. There are many requests where
stewards are waiting for editors to provide relevant data to receive
satisfaction.

As of this morning, I see two real pending requests waiting for steward
action. One is dated of the 31th, the other of the 1rst of november. I
think that is a decent waiting time.

Ant


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Foundation-l] Sideline on the China issue .... Thai minister
	praises China's mediacontrol

body:
Will Thailand be the next country Wikipedia gets blocked in? Thailand
recently slipped on a mediafreedom list published by a Paris based
mediawatchdog from 50 something to 100 something. A slip of 50 places.
Thailand now ranks behind Cambodia! On that list.

Thaksin (our beloved despot) said he couldn't believe it as the Thai
press was free according to him. Today these 2 messages were in the press:

From:www.2bangkok.com:

*The real harm to country's image
<http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/01Nov2005_news17.php>*

/Bangkok Post/, November 1, 2005
[This is the kind of tough editorial that used to only be in /The Nation/.]
/...Proof of that, if any were needed, was supplied by the minister
himself in a report by the government's official mouthpiece, Radio
Thailand. Mr Suranand, just back from a trip to China, told the radio
service he praised the Chinese system of media control extensively, and
apparently had not a word to say about the official protection of press
freedom in Thailand. Mr Suranand said he was strongly impressed with
China's ``state-of-art technology system'' which is used to monitor
citizens, control the media and block access to thousands of internet
websites which the Chinese find inconveniently democratic, including
several in Thailand.
According to Mr Suranand, some media ``make problems for society'' and
he signed an agreement with China to cooperate on this issue. Mr
Suranand made no attempt to defend his country's democratic system and
constitutional protection of free speech and press. Instead, he publicly
agreed with the statements of his hosts, who represent a dictatorship
with no pretence of press freedom. He agreed with the Chinese that the
government should ``play a more important role in examining the members
of the press who trigger problems to the society''. That seems a good
reason to downgrade Thailand's press freedom and harm Thailand's image
yet again.
The climate of harassment is well known. Last year, police in the South
invited reporters to a news conference on the Tak Bai homicides, then
locked them in the room and demanded notes, photos and video footage. Mr
Thaksin has claimed several times that the press is hurting the image of
the country by certain news coverage or commentary. On the contrary, it
is clear the government is harming the country's image abroad by
creating an environment of badgering that has caused a huge loss of
respect for Thai media independence. And it is using state agencies,
including security forces, to help...

/From:www.2bangkok.com:
/*Thairath
*/(translation of Thai newspaper articles)/*
*After the by-election in four areas and knowing the official vote, the
opposition parties are happy that opposition MPs now reach 125. This
means they will be able to call no-confidence debates on ministers
concerning corruption issues. Meanwhile Thaksin Shinawatra said during
his mobile cabinet meeting at Nakornsawan Province that Nakornsawan is
the province that trusts TRT and select all TRT MPs so this province
will get privileges to help specifically. Provinces that trust TRT less
will be helped later in a queue. He said this frankly and revealed to
the media what he thought.

/


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Sideline on the China issue .... Thai minister
	praises China's mediacontrol


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
2005/11/2, Peter Gervai <grin at grin.hu>:
> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 17:49:49 +0100
> Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking users. In
> > particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another sysop
> > blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
>
> Was this a general question, or are you interested in particular examples?

A general question. There's discussion about this between the Dutch
sysops. One person has unblocked some addresses, I have done the same
before. Others get angry about that because we did not discuss our
action with the sysop who did the blocking before we unblocked. They
say it shows that we distrust the sysop who did the blocking

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
2005/11/2, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com>:
> On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
> but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
> wiki-like manner.

What is a 'wiki-like manner' in this context?

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press badges

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

> I still maintain that press-badge-generating bureaucracy will
> be easier to penetrate with Wikinews as an excews - er,
> excuse :-) - than Wikipedia.

You are correct, but who will issue the Wikicredentials to show p-b-g
bureaucrats? If it is automatic ("This is to introduce HindBrain, a
certified Wikireporter since [[2 November]] [[2005]]") then anyone with
access to the web can get credentialled and hang out in the press pavillion
noshing on the caviar that is customarily served to reptiles of the press.
It will turn into a rort.

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikitech-l] How actually usable are audio captchas?

body:
Well, I for one tend to avoid media like the plague (although quite
obviously I don't do the same for cliches).

Video, audio, and PDFs are things I don't enjoy on a website.

Now, that aside, there's another major problem: accent. Who's to say I
could understand what you were saying, if you said "star"?

There is no unambiguous way to represent words through audio.

Mark

On 02/11/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> With various discussions around Wikipedia of captchas to impede
> vandalbots, I was wondering how usable audio captchas actually are for
> those who can't see images. Most sites with visual captchas offer an
> audio option ... but what's the actual usability of these? Are they a
> minor impediment, as a visual captcha is, or a major usability
> problem? Is there data on this?
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

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

body:
To change time settings, do as Timwi instructed.

To change _time_, on the other hand, is a great deal more complex, and
I don't think anybody on this mailinglist wants to explain it.

Mark

On 02/11/05, Servien Ilaino <servien at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know how you can change the time settings (NL wiki)? I've
> tried to go to Preferences and then to Daten and time settings, I
> entered "add from browser"... it doesn't work, I entered it by hand +2
> hours... doesn't work... I entered +8 hours, still doesn't change...
> c'est tr?s irritant! Please hellup mii!!
>
> Serv
> _______________________________________________
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>

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
The problem seems to lie in smaller, more authoritarian communities.

Any Wiki could turn into a dictatorship with the policy we currently
have in place. The bureaucrats get to make all of the decisions. Of
course, they can be voted out, but I don't think it's likely that
people would attempt to organise a vote against someone who has
probably already scared them away.

Something of this sort seems to've happened at cz.wiki. There was a
rift. Some admins wanted to unblock one guy, but the bureaucrat didn't
like him.

Thus it seems to me that every Wiki should have two or more bureaucrats.

Mark

On 02/11/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> This is particularly important in the case of disruptive users who an
> administrator has blocked for a long period of time, perhaps
> indefinitely. Any administrator who feels it is appropriate can
> unblock them, but if no one out of hundreds of administrators is
> willing to, perhaps it is best to leave it in place.
>
> The downside is that some of those blocked don't know how to ask to
> be unblocked as perhaps they would be unblocked if they knew better
> who to appeal to.
>
> Fred
>
> On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:33 PM, Andrew Lih wrote:
>
> > On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
> > but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
> > wiki-like manner.
> >
> > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> >
> > On 11/2/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking
> >> users. In
> >> particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another
> >> sysop
> >> blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> >> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
Ahh, and, to ward off any flamewars:

I don't claim to know the true nature of the conflict on the Czech
Wikipedia. Who was doing what, I only have a very vague idea of.
Frankly, I don't want to know anymore either, because I might get
involved and well that would just ruin my week.

Mark

On 02/11/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem seems to lie in smaller, more authoritarian communities.
>
> Any Wiki could turn into a dictatorship with the policy we currently
> have in place. The bureaucrats get to make all of the decisions. Of
> course, they can be voted out, but I don't think it's likely that
> people would attempt to organise a vote against someone who has
> probably already scared them away.
>
> Something of this sort seems to've happened at cz.wiki. There was a
> rift. Some admins wanted to unblock one guy, but the bureaucrat didn't
> like him.
>
> Thus it seems to me that every Wiki should have two or more bureaucrats.
>
> Mark
>
> On 02/11/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > This is particularly important in the case of disruptive users who an
> > administrator has blocked for a long period of time, perhaps
> > indefinitely. Any administrator who feels it is appropriate can
> > unblock them, but if no one out of hundreds of administrators is
> > willing to, perhaps it is best to leave it in place.
> >
> > The downside is that some of those blocked don't know how to ask to
> > be unblocked as perhaps they would be unblocked if they knew better
> > who to appeal to.
> >
> > Fred
> >
> > On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:33 PM, Andrew Lih wrote:
> >
> > > On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
> > > but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
> > > wiki-like manner.
> > >
> > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> > >
> > > On 11/2/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking
> > >> users. In
> > >> particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another
> > >> sysop
> > >> blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > >> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> 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
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> If you would like a gmail invite, please send me an e-mail.
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> un mensaje.
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>

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subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy

body:
As a reminder, a check user policy is being worked out on meta.

You may find it here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_CheckUser_Policy

Though the opinion of many was seeked out, rather few people commented.
Which might mean approval or disapproval. I just do *not* really know.

On the other hand, amongst the comments this proposed policy got :
* if this policy goes live, horrible things will happen
* give me checkuser access now, we need it anyway
* you are too slow in doing this policy and blocking the process.

I am a bit pissed off :-)

So, what I propose is a 7 days approval.
If there is support or no comments at all (or minor constructive
comments) within 7 days, this policy will go live.

If comments such "horrible things will happen" or equivalent comments
are made, I will simply put that policy in the *trash*.

The policy which will then go live until *someone else* works on a
general policy, will be very simple : you ask Jimbo (and Jimbo only) (I
am sure he will hate it so much that it will not last long anyway)

Anthere


subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy


from_name: Ivan Krstic

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads

body:
Timwi wrote:
> Secondarily I want to be able to fix spellings, in the faint hope that
> it will help some people learn better spelling. Again, the only people
> who would object to this would be people who can't spell and are
> therefore unsuitable for writing an encyclopedia anyway.

Totally broken reasoning.

> I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing an article. Yet
> articles on Wikipedia tend to get better. Interesting, innit?

That's an irrelevant non-answer to Ryan's question.

> No, the purpose of this was to test your reaction. You fell right for it
> exactly the way I expected: you picked up only on the emotional side of
> the paragraph (taking it as an insult)

Do you understand how conceited this makes you sound?

> And this highlights what I mean: you (and many other people) only object
> to being able to edit comments because it somehow "feels" wrong. You
> can't really say why it *is* wrong.

You need to relax, and start spending less time writing
borderline-offensive e-mail to people who are trying to reason
constructively, and more time thinking about what they're saying. I can
tell you exactly why it *is* wrong: comments are not Wikipedia articles,
even if you seem to be constantly confounding the two.

A Wikipedia article isn't signed by a single person's name. It doesn't
represent the views of an individual, but tries to become an objective
reflection of its topic. As Brion puts it, a wiki is a place where you
let wackos edit your site, and with luck, the good wackos outnumber the
bad. The iterative editing process is a good way to ensure eventual NPOV
conformance.

Comments are absolutely different. They are written and signed by a
single person, represent only that person's views, have no requirement
of adherence to a NPOV, and that means that essentially none of the
reasons that Wikipedia articles are editable by everyone apply to them.
If allowing comment cross-editing was in any way beneficial, the popular
web-based discussion forums with tens of millions of posts would have,
without a doubt, adopted such a model quite a while ago. There's a
reason they haven't done it.

I am not interested in continuing this discussion further, so please
refrain from writing a snide reply that questions my intelligence so as
to "test my reaction".

--
Ivan Krstic <krstic at fas.harvard.edu> | 0x147C722D


from_name: Christian Sieber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads

body:
Thank you Ivan for a voice of reason. Your statements seem perfectly
accurate.

The gains made by editable comments are minor: The community can
collaboratively prevent flamewars and edit spelling.

The losses are major: The community could prevent speech that they deem
offensive, which is an violation of free speech in general, (especially
since people often consider differing viewpoints "offensive" and would
edit them out) and people would not have their comments represented as
written, which makes the discussion difficult to follow at best and
pointless at worst.

To say exactly why it IS wrong that I edit other people's comments:

This has as much to do with free speech as the concept of wikis in
general. (Go read "Free Software, Free Society" for a good chunk of
Stallman on the issue of opinion writing.) The purpose of an
encyclopedia is to be informative about specific topics, hopefully in a
NPOV manner as far as this is possible. Because of this goal, the wiki
structure is amazing--the wiki structure fulfills the goal through
collaboration.

A message board, comment thread, or whatever you want to call it, does
NOT have this purpose. The purpose is to discuss something. More
fundamentally, the purpose of *my comment* is to represent *my opinion*,
which is not subject to the bounds of an encyclopedia article.
Therefore, my comment as posted fulfills this goal in a way directly
proportional to my ability to express myself. Assuming I can express
myself sufficiently to reflect my thoughts, then my comment *as posted*
fulfills the purpose of a comment 100%. Editing of any fashion only
harms the effectiveness of my comment--it makes it fulfill less of its
purpose, whereas editing an encyclopedia article improves the
effectiveness thereof.

That is why comments DO "belong" to their authors, not in a sense of
ownership per se, (they belong to the community for reading and to
inform the community about the poster's opinion) but because any changes
to those comments by others defeat the philosophical purpose of a
comment/threaded discussion.

Thanks for reading. No invective responses, please.

Take care,
--
Christian Sieber
Brigham Young University

Ivan Krstic wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>Secondarily I want to be able to fix spellings, in the faint hope that
>>it will help some people learn better spelling. Again, the only people
>>who would object to this would be people who can't spell and are
>>therefore unsuitable for writing an encyclopedia anyway.
>
>
> Totally broken reasoning.
>
>
>>I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing an article. Yet
>>articles on Wikipedia tend to get better. Interesting, innit?
>
>
> That's an irrelevant non-answer to Ryan's question.
>
>
>>No, the purpose of this was to test your reaction. You fell right for it
>>exactly the way I expected: you picked up only on the emotional side of
>>the paragraph (taking it as an insult)
>
>
> Do you understand how conceited this makes you sound?
>
>
>>And this highlights what I mean: you (and many other people) only object
>>to being able to edit comments because it somehow "feels" wrong. You
>>can't really say why it *is* wrong.
>
>
> You need to relax, and start spending less time writing
> borderline-offensive e-mail to people who are trying to reason
> constructively, and more time thinking about what they're saying. I can
> tell you exactly why it *is* wrong: comments are not Wikipedia articles,
> even if you seem to be constantly confounding the two.
>
> A Wikipedia article isn't signed by a single person's name. It doesn't
> represent the views of an individual, but tries to become an objective
> reflection of its topic. As Brion puts it, a wiki is a place where you
> let wackos edit your site, and with luck, the good wackos outnumber the
> bad. The iterative editing process is a good way to ensure eventual NPOV
> conformance.
>
> Comments are absolutely different. They are written and signed by a
> single person, represent only that person's views, have no requirement
> of adherence to a NPOV, and that means that essentially none of the
> reasons that Wikipedia articles are editable by everyone apply to them.
> If allowing comment cross-editing was in any way beneficial, the popular
> web-based discussion forums with tens of millions of posts would have,
> without a doubt, adopted such a model quite a while ago. There's a
> reason they haven't done it.
>
> I am not interested in continuing this discussion further, so please
> refrain from writing a snide reply that questions my intelligence so as
> to "test my reaction".
>


from_name: Puddl Duk

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger (formerly
	Can you trust Wikipedia?)

body:
On 10/30/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:

> ...I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I
> came back I noticed that a host of articles I had
> keeping an eye on because they were in my area of
> expertise had had some appalling edits done.

I rarely edit in my area of expertise for just this reason, too disturbing.

>... the people who had brought the articles up to a very
> high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven
> away from the frustration of trying to maintain
> quality, or because they had other commitments
> elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or
> were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those
> articles...

We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who create
high quality work. These people often aren't the kind who come to
Wikipedia for interaction and socializing. They often contrast to the
large numbers in our community who *do* interact a lot.

Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. He's an expert on optics,
writes well, makes great illustrations and has been a contributer for
over FOUR years. He has about 2000 edits, actually more - some were
lost in software changes long ago. He takes an occasional wikibreak of
several months every year.

His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact
enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the
wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he
occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.

This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA.  Ability and
desire to interact a lot will certainly help in some areas of
wikipedia, administrator or not, but not the main administrative
duties- vandalism revert, speedy deletes, copyvio cleanup and IP
blocking. Remeber, this is not a person with no interaction, quite the
opposite; this is an editor who seeks interaction from time in the
communites public forms.

Admin's are NOT mediators, or mothers, or babysitters. The vast
majority of their work doesn't require much interaction. If a guy has
chosen not to interact on the the talk pages of politically charged
middleast related articles in the last four years (where special
interaction skills might help) then giving him admin power is not
likely to change this.

Furthermore, we need a diverse goup of adminstrators and users alike.
Requiring a ton of interaction for administratorship will cut out, in
one fell swoop, all the quiet, hard working people who are here to
write an encyclopedia, silently toiling behind the scenes. I think
people like these are currently some of the very best admins. And I
sometimes think that reserves silence and wisdome go hand in hand.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] change of templates

body:
Hoi,
On the Dutch wiktionary it has been proposed to change the template for
adjective -adj- to -adjc-. The reason for this change is that adj is an
ISO 639 code for a language. I am happy to change this template and the
places where it is used on your wiktionary..

Please let me know if you have any problems with this..
Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

subject: [Wiktionary-l] change of templates

body:
On 11/2/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> On the Dutch wiktionary it has been proposed to change the
> template for adjective -adj- to -adjc-. The reason for this change
> is that adj is an ISO 639 code for a language. I am happy to
> change this template and the places where it is used on your
> wiktionary..
>
> Please let me know if you have any problems with this..

This is just a suggestion. I think using prefixes similar to Hungarian
notation would be a perfect idea for wiki template naming policies.
If all languages were prefixed with lang_ or even l_ then you could
have say pos_adj for "adjective" and l_adj for "new exotic
language".
You can also think of the prefix as a kind of namespace. Or
perhaps use : instead of _ to make it seems ever more namespace-
like.

The downside is longer template names, the upsides are that it's
easier to see what unfamiliar templates are for and easier to
prevent name clashes.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Thanks,
>    GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> Wiktionary-l mailing list
> Wiktionary-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger (formerly
	Can	you trust Wikipedia?)

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:

> The "version rating" feature that's been put in Wikimedia software but
> not yet optimized to the point where it can be used in a production
> Wikipedia would be ideal for reducing backsliding without limiting the
> ability to edit or otherwise making things difficult. I've been
> looking forward to this feature for quite some time myself. If the
> problem is simply one of not having developers with the right
> combination of free time, interest, and skills to complete this
> feature, might it perhaps be a reasonable idea to spend some of the
> money raised in the fund drives to provide a reward to get it done?
> Spending money to improve the software's scalability could be worth it
> for the reduced cost of hardware upgrades and the reduced "cost" in
> terms of the volunteer effort of editors keeping articles clean.

Well, as the author of said feature, I've been asking for a long time
what's the holdup. I'm fairly certain it is, at the very least, ready
for the planned test phase. I keep asking people what should be fixed,
but so far (that is, in the last few month) noone could tell me the
reason it remains turned off.

If parts of it are broken or not up to MediaWiki standard or Evil(tm) in
some other important way, please, PLEASE tell me so I can fix it.

Should I backport it from CVS HEAD to some other branch? Which one?
Anything!

So far, I've been mostly ignored.

Magnus


from_name: Evan Martin

body:
On 11/2/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have or know of *actual data* (rather than hypothesis or
> anecdote) on whether non-visual captchas are any good as yet?

Anecdote, again, but it is a success story: when we launched CAPTCHAs
on LiveJournal which included audio support, we got a surprising
response of thank-you letters from blind users (maybe two or three,
which is pretty significant in comparison to the feedback about other
features...).

One way to look at it is: with a visual CAPTCHA, a blind user is
completely out of luck.  So even with awful usability, it's better
than nothing.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Indexing Wikisource

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>> It was only this summer that wikisource.org was split into language
>>> subdomains like de.wikisource.org and en.wikisource.org, so it is
>>> understandable that pages in the new subdomains still have a low
>>> Google rank.  However, this is the same for all languages, and doesn't
>>> explain the difference that I see between the German and the English
>>> language subdomain.
>>
>> This is wrong; it is not the same for all languages. The English one is
>> privileged because wikisource.org/wiki/Anything redirects you to it.
>
> No it doesn't. See for yourself: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Asdflkj

I did see for myself, and I did notice it doesn't actually forward you
to a URL with "en." in front, but I just assumed that it's the English
one nonetheless... :)

Thanks for the clarification,
Timwi


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Ratings again

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:
>> Magnus Manske wrote:

>>> P.S.: I think I actually found a *real* bug; it seems anyone can change
>>> the list of topics. I'll have to restrict that to sysops.

>> I'd expect on Wikipedia that'd be a steward-level thing. Remember that
>> after the testing phase, it's unlikely to change very often if at all,
>> and then only with the consent of the wiki's community.

>As the selection of topics/ranges is a per-wikipedia thing, wouldn't
>that be more suitable for a buerocrat?

Someone rare and high-up, anyway ;-) Certainly not every admin.

- d.


from_name: Andrew Gray

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
On 02/11/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> > > What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking users. In
> > > particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another sysop
> > > blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
> >
> > Was this a general question, or are you interested in particular examples?
>
> A general question. There's discussion about this between the Dutch
> sysops. One person has unblocked some addresses, I have done the same
> before. Others get angry about that because we did not discuss our
> action with the sysop who did the blocking before we unblocked. They
> say it shows that we distrust the sysop who did the blocking

It depends on the unblocking

01:00 01/11/05  One_Admin blocks 127.0.0.1 for a year (silliness)
01:05 01/11/05  Another_Admin unblocks 127.0.0.1 (a year is too long)

versus

01:00 01/11/05  One_Admin blocks 127.0.0.1 for a year (silliness)
01:05 01/11/05  Another_Admin unblocks 127.0.0.1 (a year is too long)
01:10 01/11/05  One_Admin blocks 127.0.0.1 for a week (silliness)

versus

01:00 08/11/05  One_Admin blocks 127.0.0.1 for a year (silliness)
01:05 08/11/05  Another_Admin unblocks 127.0.0.1 (a year is too long)

The first is something that is likely to get people annoyed - it's
removing the block completely because the first one was too long. The
second is pragmatic - essentially "correcting" the length of the
block. The third ditto; a week has passed, so correcting the length of
the block essentially means "letting them off now" (a bit like courts
will sometimes sentence someone to X months in prison, and then
declare they've spent it whilst waiting for the trial, so they can
walk free)

The latter two cases are more defensible than the first - contesting
the length isn't contesting the ban itself - but in all cases it'd be
polite to let the blocking admin know what you've done and why. That's
common form as I've seen it on en., anyway...

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Please see
>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032025.html
>
>Why could not bureaucrat set bot flags on their
>projects.
>They know the rules better than any steward. Would not
>that make sense ?
>
Speaking as a bureaucrat who could end up with this awesome
responsibility I admit that I favour a conservative approach to the use
of bots and templates.  The templates are relatively easy to identify
and deal with, but I often wonder about those bots quietly carrying on
their job in the background.  There are probably also those bots that
were set up a long time ago, and that should probably be deleted for
lack of activity.  All bots should be periodically reviewed to see if we
still need them.

Bots are apparently now treated as some kind of special user in the user
namespace, but I wonder whether they might be managed better if they had
their own namespace.  Any existing bot could also be moved there.

Ec


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Verification

body:
On 2 Nov 2005, at 02:32, Fastfission wrote:
>
> True, but philosophy is a good case in point. I've gotten in
> discussions on the talk page of philosophers before (i.e. [[Thomas
> Kuhn]]) where one user seems to have read a completely different text
> than I did and come to completely different conclusions about it. How
> to resolve this? Do I reason through Kuhn's argument and come up with
> my own interpretation? Do I try and create a synthetic argument
> buffetted by quotations? It's a legitimately difficult thing to do, as
> anyone who has read some philosophy and discussed it with others would
> know, especially with a character like Kuhn whose interpretations vary
> and historically varied quite widely with one another (some saw him as
> an unabashed relativist, others saw him as a form of Cold War
> reaffirmation of science, some saw him as painfully unoriginal, etc.).
> In the end, you hope for a very conservative, "just the facts, ma'am"
> reading of the text itself, with perhaps a section featuring various
> prominent interpretations properly attributed to their best-known
> articulations.

In this case there is plenty of secondary material on interpretations
and I would use that if necessary. If you come up with an argument
supported by quotes you may just end up being accused of selective
quoting.

Justinc


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads

body:
Ryan Lane wrote:
>
> It isn't that people wish to "own" their comments, but that people believe their
> opinion should be represented as they wrote it.

That's the same thing. Or it comes down to the same thing, namely a
strong objection to anyone editing one's comments. As you said, it's a
belief -- not an argument.

> I believe there is a fundamental difference between an article, and a
> discussion. I don't understand why you should need to edit someone's
> comment, other than possibly spellchecking it. When you edit
> someone's comment, you are changing the discussion as a whole.

Primarily I want for people to be able to edit out offensive remarks and
personal attacks. The only people who would object to this being done
would be the people who would make such remarks and then scream blue
murder when they're removed. Clearly we can live without them.
Secondarily I want to be able to fix spellings, in the faint hope that
it will help some people learn better spelling. Again, the only people
who would object to this would be people who can't spell and are
therefore unsuitable for writing an encyclopedia anyway.

> I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing a person's comment,
> but can you give me some examples of non-malicious changes?

I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing an article. Yet
articles on Wikipedia tend to get better. Interesting, innit?

>>>I can definately see lawsuits based upon this. This is
>>>definately a valid argument.
>>
>>I'm finding your "lawsuits" claim highly dubitable, and your repeated
>>misspelling of "definitely" quite irritating. Are you a lawyer? (You're
>>clearly not an English teacher, so the chances of you being a lawyer are
>>somewhat higher.)
>
> Oh shit, I mispelled a word, I must be an idiot. Do you always resort to
> flame-style tactics?

No, the purpose of this was to test your reaction. You fell right for it
exactly the way I expected: you picked up only on the emotional side of
the paragraph (taking it as an insult) and responded only to that. You
didn't address any of what it actually *says*; in particular, you
haven't answered my question. Are you a lawyer?

And this highlights what I mean: you (and many other people) only object
to being able to edit comments because it somehow "feels" wrong. You
can't really say why it *is* wrong. You just think that it will
"somehow" change the comment "and hence" the entire discussion, "and
therefore" it must not be done. Same with the malice argument: people
could edit comments maliciously OMG that's bad "and thus" the whole idea
is really bad!... Get my drift?

> There is a difference between an article, and someone's comments on an article.
> The article is a community written piece. Someone's comment is not a community
> written piece, it is an individual's written piece. The discussion as a whole is
> a community written piece.

In order for the discussion to be a community-written piece, the
community must be able to intervene when something (or someone) in the
discussion is (or becomes) disruptive. Not letting people edit comments
paves the way to flamewars, trolling and (dare I say it) just another
clone of Usenet.

>>>In this aspect, there is "danger" in others editing comments.
>>
>>You haven't shown any, except for the possible "lawsuits" claim. Do you
>>have anything substantial to back that up?
>
> I think there is a danger in changing the meaning of a discussion by
> changing the meaning of the comments contained within. Whether this
> is done maliciously or not, it can be harmful.

Notice how you haven't answered my question again?

>>I believe a rudimentary implementation would be relatively easy, but it
>>would be laborious, and so, few people will be willing to work it
>>through until the end, and so, it will likely not get done very soon. A
>>_good_ implementation (UI-wise as well as performance-wise) is quite a
>>bit more challenging, so it will likely not get done at all.
>
> I don't disagree entirely with you here; it probably won't get done. However,
> every large piece of software is laborious, and there is quite a bit of software
> out there that has been written (take mediawiki for example).

What I meant was, a _good implementation_ won't get done. MediaWiki has
been written, yes, but it's a rather bad implementation.

Timwi


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Edit bailouts

body:
Evan Prodromou wrote:
> So, I got interested a few days ago in the question of how many
> Wikitravel contributors start editing a page but bail out before
> completing their edit. I started combing the Apache logs for some
> answers.
>
> wikitravel.org's robots.txt hides editing pages, but there are some
> non-compliant spiders that still follow edit links; some even mask their
> identity with a fake User-Agent header.
>
> Still, I can say with some confidence that of non-spider hits on our
> edit pages, only about 25% result in a "submit" post afterwards.
> Although I think there are a lot of people who click "edit" without the
> idea of seriously contributing (the aforementioned spiders; people who
> are curious to see what will happen; people who hit edit by mistake),
> this still seems quite high.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has similar statistics for other Mediawiki
> sites, other wiki-engine sites, and specifically for Wikimedia sites.
> I'd like to get a comparison to see what we can do on Wikitravel to cut
> down on these bailouts and help people finish their contributions; a
> rough idea of what rate of bailing out other sites get would be helpful
> for that.

I suspect a lot of the hits on edit pages are due to readers following red
links, rather than people clicking the edit tab. I'm not sure how many hits
per second Wikimedia gets, but from the profiling data I can tell you that
about 8% of our backend requests (i.e. squid cache misses) are edit form
requests. About 16% of edit form requests result in a save attempt.

Here's an amusing story about this phenomenon: Jerome, on first seeing the
huge number of edit requests in the logs, thought we were under a DoS attack
from "many IPs", and made moves to start blocking them. Luckily we set him
straight before he did any damage :)

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads

body:
Christopher Granade wrote:
> Timwi wrote:
>
>>So far I have addressed only the "problem" of people not knowing
>>whether what they are reading is really what the author wrote. People
>> complaining about edits is a whole other matter. To address that
>>problem, we must think about why they are complaining. I am convinced
>> that the large majority of such complaints are solely out of
>>irrational, thoughtless behaviour: people just assume that they "own"
>>their comments by default, and complain about any form of "tinkering"
>>even when it's perfectly legitimate if they thought about it for only
>>a second. Surely you can't agree to let this kind of stupidity take
>>precedence over our wiki philosophy.
>
> I have two major issues with this comment. First, your tone is very
> confrontational, and is far more aggressive than the situation calls
> for. Please, let's keep civil here.

I've read it again and again and I don't see anything confrontational or
aggressive about it. Either way, I never mean to be confrontational or
aggressive, but I make a point of arguing logically and rationally. It
tends to yield more meaningful conclusions than "hmm this doesn't feel
right let's not do it", much less "hmm this doesn't feel right so let's
prohibit it for everyone". If you misinterpret that as aggression or
confrontationalism, then I can only advise you to get to know me better.

If you felt attacked because you count yourself as one of the people
whose attitude I referred to as "stupidity", then I apologise, but this
must mean that you agree that you "just assume that you "own" your
comments by default, and complain about any form of "tinkering" even
when it's perfectly legitimate if you thought about it for only a
second". Surely you can't agree with me that any intelligent thinking
being would find that kind of behaviour reasonable?

> No one works with me to create a "better comment," but rather I write
> a comment so as to communicate what *I* am saying to someone else.

This sounds like you think that all of your comments are perfect and
never need any form of improvement. This is hardly plausible: everyone
sometimes makes a comment which inadvertantly ticks someone off (like I
did, apparently; I would have liked for someone to be able to replace
the word "stupidity" with "behaviour" or anything that runs a lower risk
of offending someone); and everyone sometimes makes lesser mistakes
(e.g. half of a comment is off-topic; a "not" was forgotten, or inserted
where it was obviously not intended; accidentally referring to the wrong
user or linking to the wrong diff when making an accusation, etc. etc.
etc.). There needs to be a way for other people to correct these
problems, or else (1) threads will too easily drift off-topic; (2)
misunderstandings will exacerbate and get out of control; (3) flamewars
and trolling will thrive.

> In that sense, I *should* own comments, or there should be a large,
> loud disclaimer on every single page in the Talk namespace that
> comments may not belong to their professed authors.

No, but every single comment that was edited by someone else should bear
a small but noticeable disclaimer to that effect. (I was going to insert
some extra polemics here about something being obvious, but I've
realised that this kind of bickering is not going to get us anywhere.)

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
On 11/2/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> This is particularly important in the case of disruptive users who an
> administrator has blocked for a long period of time, perhaps
> indefinitely. Any administrator who feels it is appropriate can
> unblock them, but if no one out of hundreds of administrators is
> willing to, perhaps it is best to leave it in place.
>
> The downside is that some of those blocked don't know how to ask to
> be unblocked as perhaps they would be unblocked if they knew better
> who to appeal to.
>
> Fred

It is important for administrators to both review each other and be
open to criticism.

Generally, I stepped aside and encouraged the other admin to revise my
decision when there is a difference of opinion. Admins who can't
tolerate to be reviewed or criticised maybe shouldn't be an admins.

What really irritates me is when an admin modifies another admin's
block without discussion.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: block

body:
hideki yukawa wrote:
> freestylefrappe sent me a msg to the following effect
> on my talk page:
>
> I suspect you are a sockpuppet of Aldirma's.  [...]

You really shouldn't take this as an insult. It says "I suspect you
are..." and not "Clearly you are...". When people say something like
that, they're not making it up out of thin air; they usually have
grounds to believe this. They have a right to make mistakes every now
and then and be wrong about it. Since, as you state, you aren't a
sock-puppet, just continue as normal and everything will be fine. Just
don't be reckless, or else people might conclude that you are trying to
push an agenda, which in turn strengthens the belief that you may be a
sock-puppet.

> However, in the offchance that you are not, if you go back and look
> at the different versions of the page you'll notice that he is trying
> to paste in the entire Bektashi jokes page. Assuming good faith,
> happy editing.

Note how the user is explaining to you rationally and calmly how they
arrived at their suspicion of you being a sock-puppet. They even
explained to you how you can prevent yourself from appearing like a
sock-puppet again. Lastly, they clarify that they are assuming your good
faith.

It was unfair of you to say this:

> I suspect you start all your messages with offensive accusations like
> "I suspect you're a sock puppet of so-and-so."

because there is no basis for you to believe this, and it's just
polemics anyway, and not an attempt at helping improve the encyclopedia.

> After this short exchange, Wikipedia indicated that I
> was "blocked for personal attacks" by freestylefrappe.

I agree this action was a bit harsh, but I find it understandable.
Please note that "blocked" means temporarily (usually just 24 hours, I'm
too lazy to chcek now). Cool down for that amount of time and then just
come back and continue as normal.

> I suggest that freestylefrappe didn't like
> the fact that I pointed out his message implicating
> users being sock-puppets is HIGHLY OFFENSIVE

I suggest that freestylefrappe didn't like the WAY you said it. You
didn't just say "it's highly offensive", you wrapped it into an
unncessary personal attack. (And he didn't implicate that you are a
sock-puppet, only that he is suspecting it).

Timwi


from_name: Joseph Reagle

subject: [Wikipedia-l] fyi: Wikipedia as only as good as its links

body:
[[ http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/citation-and-trustworthiness?showcomments=yes
2005 Nov 02 | Can you trust the Wikipedia?

In the past week the perennial question of "Can you trust the Wikipedia?"
arose while I was working on the tedious -- though oddly compelling for an
obsessive like myself -- task of reviewing the early period of Wikipedia
history. I slowly worked through the Wikipedia timeline ensuring each event
was dated and sourced. I realize that if I'm ever to trust this timeline, I
need more than a bald claim. And, my appreciation is so much greater when I
can peruse the primary source. For some sources, such as the Nupedia list
archives, I was able to find copies of messages on the Internet Archive.
Another source, Jimbo's explanation about Stallman's proposal for a
competing project, is seemingly lost forever. Fortunately, Stallman was
kind enough to tell me of his recollection of the incident and allow me to
publish it. Most frustratingly, I encountered a tantalizing mention of
Internet encyclopedia proposals from the UN's Millennium Project but failed
to find any source or corroboration; that information is stricken from the
article. Which brings me back to the question of trusting the Wikipedia. I
have addressed the broader question of epistemological authority before,
but now I want to focus on the role of sources.

Simply, Wikipedia is only as trustworthy as its links. Actual scholarly
authority is similar. A critical part of scholarly training is learning why
and how to cite (link to) others. Expert authority is also generated from
experience in the field, and theoretical and methodological training. Yet,
as I've noted many times "'We can never know everything.' We all can't be
experts on everything, so we often need to rely upon credible authority
while remaining critical and skeptical, but never dismissive."
Consequently, the tokens "Ph.D." and "professor" become proxies for an
assessment of trust that very few people are able to substantively test,
but, to which many are willing to defer. Because Wikipedia lacks such
reputation mechanisms Wikipedia is, again, only as trustworthy as its
links. For educational purposes, the implication of this is profound.
Should we teach students to trust a claim because it was simply uttered by
a credentialed person? Or, should we encourage them to click a link and
teach them how to investigate for themselves?

The consequent of this for Wikipedia culture is that it doesn't link enough.
Perhaps my experience with Wikipedia history is exceptional since
Wikipedians take the sources for granted. But, as I found, that's a poor
historical assumption. I also share the concern that articles might become
overly busy or dense with citations. There is a tension here, but one I
think the technology can handle. It's why I believe the trustworthiness of
Wikipedia is in part dependent upon the citation project and furthering a
culture of "if you claim, you cite" as implied by the Verifiability policy.

]]


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject:
[Wikitech-l] prbls with external editor (was: LiquidThreads [WAS:
	Re: the discussion page: summary and better display of the
	treats, mbox format?])

references:
<877jbu2avo.fsf@mat.ucm.es> <dk83h4$4hr$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<dk85j5$c6m$1@sea.gmane.org> <200511011826.56652@bloodgate.com>
	<dk8gep$ic3$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
>>>>> "Timwi" == Timwi  <timwi at gmx.net> writes:
Hello

   Timwi> We already have this "danger", and we've had it since the
   Timwi> beginning of Phase II, and it has not turned out to be a
   Timwi> great problem, so this is not an argument.

   >> Just imagine that this discussion we have is on a wiki, this is
   >> the latest edition (you would need to check the history, aka
   >> mailing list archives to see the full revisions) and it
   >> contained:
   >> On Tuesday 01 November 2005 17:36, Timwi wrote:
   >>>> Any model, if over applied, is harmful.
   >>> Agree.
   >>> I am strongly in favour of LiquidThreads.
   >> See the danger?

   Timwi> A fallacious argument by false dilemma, or by lack of
   Timwi> imagination, or whatever you wanna call it. You almost
   Timwi> provided the answer to this one yourself:

   >> (for the record, the above quote of three lines was
   >> written/shortened by me, not Timwi).

   Timwi> And that is what it should say.

   Timwi> 	COMMENT #328645		by [[User:Timwi]]

   Timwi> 	Agree. I am strongly in favour of LiquidThreads.

   Timwi> 	(This comment was last edited by [[User:Tels]]
   Timwi> 	<date/time>.)

   Timwi> If <date/time> is a minute ago, I better check the diff. If
   Timwi> it was an hour ago, I can probably assume that your edit was
   Timwi> harmless.

May be I miss here something important, (or you are talking about a
feature yet to be implemented) but I just did that evil thing we are
discussing. I went to a discussion page, which contained 2 comments,
mine and one from another author. I "bravely" deleted the final dot of
his last sentence, using an external editor.

And no when I later looked at it from show different versions I could
see the chanced but the time stamp you mentioned I could not see,
either it that display nor in the source file.

Another important point. Recently I wrote a comment in another
discussion page (that one quite huge), again using an external
editor. By accident it seems that I changed the coding of the page so,
some non ASCII symbols changed. Now you might say that this is the
danger which may occur also when I edit an article, however I consider
it more annoying in a discussion, where my intention was just to add a
single comment.

Conclusion in a discussion page every comment should be protected
somehow.

Uwe Brauer


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bounties

body:
I ran across this interesting idea last night, and thought it deserved
mentioning to a wider audience: [[Wikipedia:Bounty board]]

Basically, users offer to donate $X to the foundation in return for
someone doing Y - for example, take [[M?decins Sans Fronti?res]] to FA
status, and you get the warm glow of knowing the foundation is $20
better off.

Not sure how good a motivation this will turn out to be in the long
run, but it does sound like an idea worth trying; $35 seems to have
been "won" so far, and as no-one but the Foundation profits there
doesn't seem to be any legal pitfalls waiting to happen.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 11/2/05, Puddl Duk <puddlduk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. <snip>
> His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact
> enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the
> wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he
> occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.
>
> This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA.
>

(cut lots of stuff I agree with for the sake of brevity).

That's saying a lot, given that I recently went through RFA to vote (having
not done so for some time) and was appalled at the idiocy being practiced
and petty objections being expressed.

It's especially distubing since being treated like that has driven off many
good contributors in the past.

-Matt (User:Morven)


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
wiki-like manner.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On 11/2/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> What is the policy on other Wikipedias concerning unblocking users. In
> particular, does a sysop have the right to unblock an IP another sysop
> blocked, if he thinks the block was unreasonably long?
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
>


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy

body:
On 11/2/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> As a reminder, a check user policy is being worked out on meta.
>
> You may find it here :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_CheckUser_Policy
>
> Though the opinion of many was seeked out, rather few people commented.
> Which might mean approval or disapproval. I just do *not* really know.

 Personally I just started using Tor. So CheckUser doesn't affect me any
more. As an added bonus I don't have to worry about Google tracking me
either. Fortunately, most Tor exit nodes aren't currently blocked, though.
If this changes, this workaround might go away. Hopefully the other policy,
to allow (at least some) logged in users to edit through blocked proxies,
will pass by then.


subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy


body:
With various discussions around Wikipedia of captchas to impede
vandalbots, I was wondering how usable audio captchas actually are for
those who can't see images. Most sites with visual captchas offer an
audio option ... but what's the actual usability of these? Are they a
minor impediment, as a visual captcha is, or a major usability
problem? Is there data on this?

- d.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't call them "anon"

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: steve v [mailto:vertigosteve at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 8:10 PM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: Article creation (was Re: [WikiEN-l] More fodder
foryoureditcountitis)
>
>
> I kind of agree with Charles in the sense that some
> institution computers dont allow cookies to cache -
> meaning all edits must be IP edits (dont use term
> 'anon').
>
> It would be interesting to hear from the regular IP
> community what their concerns are - anonymity,
> caching, too busy to log in, dont care to have a web
> ident, dont want to get personal, etc?
>
> SV

I sympathize with this POV for two reasons:

1. Because Steve was recently taken down a peg (he lost his sysop
rights) but he STILL is contributing to the encyclopedia and trying to
find ways to improve the community.

2. Because Steve is right about the term 'anon'. Actually more than 95%
of our contributors are anonymous. Choosing a recognizable pseudonym
does not remove the mantle of anonymity; it just substitutes another.

I'm sure no one means anything derogatory by saying 'anon' - it's just
convenient shorthand for "non-logged in user". But it still can grate on
the ears. It can offend, in the same way that Mark Twain's use of
'nigger' in his otherwise anti-slavery novel [[Huckleberry Finn]]
offends. (The relationship of Huck and Jim clearly showed the moral
superiority of an adult black man to an adolescent white boy. And Twain
would not have put this in his novel, if he hadn't meant Southerners to
take the point. It may even be one of the reasons that he moved up
north, to Connecticut.)

The marginalized, the downtrodden, the people with no formal education
have a voice, and Wikipedia is listening to that voice. We are not
storming the citadel of Academia by the gates, but we are (like bloggers
rebutting TV networks and Matt Drudge scooping news magazines) LEVELING
OUT the playing field. This is democracy in action.

Uncle Ed
Former Bureaucrat


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

body:
Servien Ilaino wrote:
> Does anyone know how you can change the time settings (NL wiki)? I've
> tried to go to Preferences and then to Daten and time settings, I
> entered "add from browser"... it doesn't work, I entered it by hand +2
> hours... doesn't work... I entered +8 hours, still doesn't change...
> c'est tr?s irritant! Please hellup mii!!

Type in "02:00".


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: prbls with external editor

references:
<877jbu2avo.fsf@mat.ucm.es>
	<dk83h4$4hr$1@sea.gmane.org>	<dk85j5$c6m$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<200511011826.56652@bloodgate.com>	<dk8gep$ic3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<874q6vgutc.fsf_-_@mat.ucm.es>

body:
> (or you are talking about a feature yet to be implemented)

Yes, we are.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger
	(formerlyCan	you trust Wikipedia?)

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Magnus Manske [mailto:magnus.manske at web.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 3:56 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets
> bigger (formerlyCan you trust Wikipedia?)
>
>
> Well, as the author of said feature, I've been asking for a
> long time what's the holdup. I'm fairly certain it is, at the
> very least, ready for the planned test phase. I keep asking
> people what should be fixed, but so far (that is, in the last
> few month) noone could tell me the reason it remains turned off.
>
> If parts of it are broken or not up to MediaWiki standard or
> Evil(tm) in some other important way, please, PLEASE tell me
> so I can fix it.
>
> Should I backport it from CVS HEAD to some other branch?
> Which one? Anything!
>
> So far, I've been mostly ignored.
>
> Magnus

Please put this feature into effect immediately! If we don't like it, we
can always turn it off afterwards. But we will NEVER know if thousands
of Wikipedians will like it if we wait for an overwhelming clamor on
this mailing list.

Ed Poor


list: commons-l

from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Commons-l] Introducing FlickrLickr

body:
Karl Eichwalder:
> Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> writes:
>
>
>>	http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:FlickrLickr
>
>
>>There are currently almost half a million CC-BY photos on Flickr, and
>>new ones are uploaded every day.
>
>
> Do you also harvest CC-BY-SA photos?  Is it possible to select photos
> by user name?  I'd like to copy my own photos to the commons server
> using a batch upload tool.

The goal of FlickrLickr is to incrementally build a database of free
photos on Flickr (oldest first) and to collaboratively review them, so
it does not have per-user functionality. How many photos are we talking
about here? If it's worth it, I can write a small script to retrieve and
upload them.

Gru?

Erik


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy

body:
Just a legal reminder about privacy.

If this checkuser policy is enacted, it will be important to precise it
on the edit page by modifying the disclaimer and the privacy policy.

Soufron, writing mails in its train to Paris

Anthere wrote:
> As a reminder, a check user policy is being worked out on meta.
>
> You may find it here :
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_CheckUser_Policy
>
> Though the opinion of many was seeked out, rather few people commented.
> Which might mean approval or disapproval. I just do *not* really know.
>
>
>
> On the other hand, amongst the comments this proposed policy got :
> * if this policy goes live, horrible things will happen
> * give me checkuser access now, we need it anyway
> * you are too slow in doing this policy and blocking the process.
>
>
> I am a bit pissed off :-)
>
>
> So, what I propose is a 7 days approval.
> If there is support or no comments at all (or minor constructive
> comments) within 7 days, this policy will go live.
>
> If comments such "horrible things will happen" or equivalent comments
> are made, I will simply put that policy in the *trash*.
>
> The policy which will then go live until *someone else* works on a
> general policy, will be very simple : you ask Jimbo (and Jimbo only) (I
> am sure he will hate it so much that it will not last long anyway)
>
> Anthere
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy


from_name: Servien Ilaino

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

body:
Does anyone know how you can change the time settings (NL wiki)? I've
tried to go to Preferences and then to Daten and time settings, I
entered "add from browser"... it doesn't work, I entered it by hand +2
hours... doesn't work... I entered +8 hours, still doesn't change...
c'est tr?s irritant! Please hellup mii!!

Serv


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Webcomics/Deletion again

body:
On 11/2/05, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> So? Subjectivity is going to come into play _somewhere_ in the midst of
> all this, even if it's in the process of setting up objective standards
> in the first place.
>

Admins haveing to make subjective judements should be kept to a minium

> There's already a very well-established policy against personal attacks,
> so I don't see how this is relevant. Not all conflict is heated.

Most stuff that would go on beyond 5 days on AFD would be.

--
geni


from_name: JAY JG

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger(formerlyCan
	you trust W

body:
>From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Magnus Manske [mailto:magnus.manske at web.de]
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 3:56 AM
> > To: English Wikipedia
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets
> > bigger (formerlyCan you trust Wikipedia?)
> >
> >
> > Well, as the author of said feature, I've been asking for a
> > long time what's the holdup. I'm fairly certain it is, at the
> > very least, ready for the planned test phase. I keep asking
> > people what should be fixed, but so far (that is, in the last
> > few month) noone could tell me the reason it remains turned off.
> >
> > If parts of it are broken or not up to MediaWiki standard or
> > Evil(tm) in some other important way, please, PLEASE tell me
> > so I can fix it.
> >
> > Should I backport it from CVS HEAD to some other branch?
> > Which one? Anything!
> >
> > So far, I've been mostly ignored.
> >
> > Magnus
>
>Please put this feature into effect immediately! If we don't like it, we
>can always turn it off afterwards. But we will NEVER know if thousands
>of Wikipedians will like it if we wait for an overwhelming clamor on
>this mailing list.

If it does anything to further degrade Wikipedia's performance, I'd
recommend not putting it in.

Jay.


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: 2 unrelated questions

body:
Alphax wrote:
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
>>Why would we start a Tetum Wiktionary first? Wiktionaries generally
>>don't hold new contributors as well.
>
> To provide some examples of the language.

You can do that on any Wiktionary. I think active projects such as the
English Wiktionary would be quite grateful for such contributions.

That said, I probably shouldn't be talking because I've always thought
splitting Wiktionary into several-language projects was the dumbest
thing Wikimedia ever did.

Timwi


from_name: Koltwills at aol.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't call them "anon"

body:
In a message dated 11/2/2005 1:51:21 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com writes:

It can  offend, in the same way that Mark Twain's use of
'nigger' in his otherwise  anti-slavery novel [[Huckleberry Finn]]
offends.

WTF?

Hardly.  *chuckling at the hyperbole*

Puh-LEEZE.  Let's not get carried away.

Anonymous is anonymous.  It means what it says.

"Nigger" is a whole nutha futha.

deeceevoice


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Questions on {{{NUMARTICLES}}} + adminship on
	ceb-wp

body:
> 2. Are the date entries (i.e. [[Enero 1]]) acceptable
> for the "This wikipedia is with 1,000 articles"? If
> yes, then ceb-wp is nearing 1,000 pages (698 on last
> count) but 365 of them are day's entries. ;)

Only 365? You're missing two! Get back to work! :))


subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
On 11/2/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2005/11/2, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com>:
> > On English Wikipedia, this often happens. It's not a matter of "right"
> > but at the admin level, unless it's an arbcomm decree, it's done in a
> > wiki-like manner.
>
> What is a 'wiki-like manner' in this context?

Last person wins. :)

-Andrew


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
>>Was this a general question, or are you interested in particular examples?
>>
>>
>
>A general question. There's discussion about this between the Dutch
>sysops. One person has unblocked some addresses, I have done the same
>before. Others get angry about that because we did not discuss our
>action with the sysop who did the blocking before we unblocked. They
>say it shows that we distrust the sysop who did the blocking
>
>
>
Same old same old. We have had the discussion many times before :(

Waerth/Walter


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: LiquidThreads

body:
On 11/2/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am sorry to say that I have seen misrepresentations occur on several
> occasions. Problematic is that when you start adding comments like I do
> now in this post, you are likely to have follow up reactions and as a
> consequence you may not appreciate what was said later in the Wiki
> format. Certainly when a comment is over several paragraphs this is
> often seen. The worst case of splitting is when paragraphs are split up
> resulting in something that that can really be badly read. Asking people
> to refrain from doing this resulted in the statement that it is allowed
> by the GFDL and that it is old style Internet working method (as if this
> is an excuse).
[snip]

You do realize that you are complaining about inline responses while
responding inline yourself, no? :)

I like it when people respond inline in the wiki and break up my long
posts. Yes, sometimes it gets out of hand. However, since I assume
good faith it doesn't worry me.

Might I suggest an additional feature for mediawiki? How about
[{here}] which becomes a difflink to the edit where that tag was
inserted? People could add that to their signatures and thus every
post of their would be equipped to a handy difflink to an original
version.


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia on UserFriendly

body:
Hello all,
I know these "Wikipedia in the press" things can get a bit annoying -
it's no longer surprising that people take notice of us - but I just
thought this was a bit out of the usual. The satirical geek webcomic
User Friendly is today about the oft-mooted (but apparently recently
newsworthy) Paper Wikipedia...

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20051102

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


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

body:
Was already like that but doesn't work. In date and time it displays
my time correct but not in my signature, then it just displays the
normal CET.

Serv

2005/11/2, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>:
> Servien Ilaino wrote:
> > Does anyone know how you can change the time settings (NL wiki)? I've
> > tried to go to Preferences and then to Daten and time settings, I
> > entered "add from browser"... it doesn't work, I entered it by hand +2
> > hours... doesn't work... I entered +8 hours, still doesn't change...
> > c'est tr?s irritant! Please hellup mii!!
>
> Type in "02:00".
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy

body:
2005/11/2, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com>:
> Just a legal reminder about privacy.
>
> If this checkuser policy is enacted, it will be important to precise it
> on the edit page by modifying the disclaimer and the privacy policy.

Yes, I agree - we'll have to quickly change the message on most of the
bigger projects, and if the options to give stewards access will go
through, change the content of [[m:Stewards]].

Well... Hope we'll agree on this policy, and the Board won't be against.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki


subject: [Foundation-l] check user policy


from_name: Andrew Venier

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: block

body:
Timwi wrote:

> From what I hear from people who have blocked or unblocked people, I
> get the impression that there is a high risk of getting scolded for
> it, and as a result I have so far never blocked or unblocked anyone,
> and I wasn't in the mood to get started.

Most of the times I have seen people scolded for blocking, it was
because they were blocking pursuant to a situation in which they were
personally involved.  It's really best to have a third party handle blocks.


from_name: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikipedia-l] unblocking

body:
On 11/2/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ahh, and, to ward off any flamewars:
>
> I don't claim to know the true nature of the conflict on the Czech
> Wikipedia. Who was doing what, I only have a very vague idea of.
> Frankly, I don't want to know anymore either, because I might get
> involved and well that would just ruin my week.
>

Then I'd like to ask you not to comment on the matter (no offense
intended!). I might explain various mistakes in your message, but, as you
said, nobody is probably interested in that specific case.

So just generally: I agree that there should be no strict requirement that
an admin must ask the blocking admin to unblock a user, although as a matter
of politeness you should consider at least informing that admin about your
action. And, of course, in case of a controversial block you should make
yourself sure you have enough information for the unblocking.

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Michelle

subject:
[WikiEN-l] RFA idiocy (was Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets
	bigger (formerly	Can you trust Wikipedia?))

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 11/2/05, Puddl Duk <puddlduk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. <snip>
>>His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact
>>enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the
>>wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he
>>occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.
>>
>>This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA.
>>
>>
>>
>
>(cut lots of stuff I agree with for the sake of brevity).
>
>That's saying a lot, given that I recently went through RFA to vote (having
>not done so for some time) and was appalled at the idiocy being practiced
>and petty objections being expressed.
>
>It's especially distubing since being treated like that has driven off many
>good contributors in the past.
>
>-Matt (User:Morven)
>
>
>

I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of
RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.

 - Jareth


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Now, that aside, there's another major problem: accent. Who's to say I
>could understand what you were saying, if you said "star"?
>There is no unambiguous way to represent words through audio.

That's a theoretical possible problem rather than actual data (which
is why that' s what I asked for) or even anecdote.

I haven't found data yet, but here's a page of theory with anecdote:

    http://www.standards-schmandards.com/index.php?2005/01/01/11-captcha

Note they get around your problem by using numbers. This apparently
worked on three casual test subjects. Though that, of course, is
anecdote, not data.

The W3 paper just provides possible approaches with no words on
effectiveness: http://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/

Evidently the audio option was frequently unusable a couple of years
ago: http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1022814.html - I would *presume*
there's been improvement since then.

Does anyone have or know of *actual data* (rather than hypothesis or
anecdote) on whether non-visual captchas are any good as yet?

- d.


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Does anyone have or know of *actual data* (rather than hypothesis or
>anecdote) on whether non-visual captchas are any good as yet?
>
>
To address one particular type: a conference paper reports experiments
that suggest using speech synthesis degraded by noise is not an
effective basis for audio CAPTCHA:

"...although there seems to be a gap in the ability of understanding
synthesized speech with background noise between humans and computers,
our results discourage using this gap to build an audio-based CAPTCHA"

Only the abstract is available online for free.  The full paper would
require an online purchase or a library visit.

Tsz-Yan Chan. "Using a Text-to-Speech Synthesizer to Generate a Reverse
Turing Test," /ictai/, p. 226,  15th IEEE International Conference on
Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI'03),  2003.
**http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TAI.2003.1250195

Though the paper is from 2003, one would guess that particular CAPTCHA
schemes get less, not more, effective over time as automated recognition
technologies improve.