from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 4/1/05 8:41 AM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- SPUI <drspui at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Obviously the 'vandalism' being talked about was moving the page back
>> into the main article space. How can this be called vandalism? Can
>> someone be as kind as to unban me? I won't do it again, after seeing how
>> Stiffy McSitfferson some of us can be.
>
> If you won't do it again, then I'll unblock you.
>
> There, done.
>
Wow, you're a jerk.


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: In a massive, and often anonymous context,
	how do we know each other?

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Joseph Reagle a ?crit:
>
>> Hello, I have a question about your article that appeared in Wired.
>> One of my difficulties within the Wikipedia community, or, say for
>> example, this e-mail list, is the large number of people one is
>> likely to come across. It can be difficult to keep track of everyone,
>> particularly in the context of editing a diverse set of web pages So,
>> I was wondering how do people come to know of each other? In
>> particular, for your article, how did you select the folks you did?
>> Asked Jimbo? Looked at the top contributors?
>> Thanks!
>
> At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say
> and do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment
> a couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher
> the person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again
> to see what could make him tick. Then I store the information
> somewhere. And go on noting what he writes. Usually, one day come
> where I think "oh, but X would be the perfect person for this". And I
> go ask the person :-) Hence meet him a bit more :-)

Excellent.  An interesting rule might be one requiring people who
complain about something being wrong with one article, must match that
comment with one that is just as strongly favorable about another
article.  Failing to make positive comments about anybody could be
grounds for de-sysopping.

Ec


list: wikien-l

from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Richard Holton (richholton at gmail.com) [050402 00:06]:
>
>
>>And how would you respond to someone publishing on Wikipedia the name
>>of you 12 year old daughter, what she looks like, where she goes to
>>school and when she leaves, and where you work and when you get home
>>from, and the names of several of your trusted neighbors?
>>
>>
>I'd be asking her some rather pointed questions about how all that
>information ended up in a listed and verifiable reference source. And you
>forgot to mention autofellatio.jpg.
>
>
I'd VfD it as non-notable and non-encyclopedic information. And that's
even taking into account that I'm a rabid inclusionist.


from_name: Gutza

subject: [WikiEN-l] The best thing you'll ever see...

body:
... is created by volunteers in their spare time (there are exceptions,
and some people get caught "doing it" at the workplace; however, we're
talking about the mainstream trend);

... offers full, free access to all of the information it stores to its
respective users, who can use it in any way they like, and even alter it
in any way they want (there usually are some peer-imposed limits, but
again, we're talking about the concept);

... has even its internal workings free to study, fix and enhance by
anybody who has the interest and time to;

... is able to store virtually unlimited amounts of data;

... is enhanced and refined each day in any direction;

... is inherently plagued by disputes and even wars -- and it can only
survive if it is able to negotiate these conflicts; however, each such
conflict makes it stronger and more able to negotiate such internal
conflicts in the future (unless it kills it, of course);

... stores accurate facts and erroneous opinions, useful insight and
useless trivia, exhaustive information in certain areas and sketchy data
about other domains -- however, the overall trend is towards fixing the
wrong data and filling in the missing information;

... needs minimal maintenance compared to its resources;

... has been able to maintain an active interest, and even fascination
for some, for a very long time;

... has intrinsic human and social value, since it stores information
collected by the mankind;

... is most probably the most wonderful, fascinating and open-ended
mechanism you'll ever see in this lifetime:

It's the human body.

(April Fool's :-))


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Here's an example of a minor secret which I would never divulge or publish:
>
>I used to work for a company which had radio communications with a central
>dispatcher. We had a secret word which if used alerted the dispatcher that
>there was a serious problem. It was a pretty nifty system and as far as I
>know, none of the thousands of people who ever worked for that company ever
>let that secret out.
>
>
The fact that there _is_ such a system wouldn't be a significant secret.
Many documentaries about airplane hijackings mention that pilots have
subtle ways of letting air traffic control know they're under duress,
for example, and sometimes even mention specifics. Smart criminals would
deduce the possibility for themselves and dumb ones probably won't be
reading Wikipedia before pulling their heists anyway.

However, the secret code word itself wouldn't be included in Wikipedia
unless it was verifiable using external sources, in which case the
secret would have already been ruined anyway. Existing "verifiability"
and "no original research" policies would seem to already prohibit the
posting of any secrets that aren't already blown, so I doubt any sort of
specialized policy on secrets will ever be necessary.


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia projects in Papiamentu en Sranang Tongo

body:
On Mar 31, 2005 9:39 PM, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Official status? I didn't say anything about that. And AFAIK only
> >Dutch is official.
> >
> >
> >
> Ever been in Surinam? Ever lived there? Ever gone to school there? Ever
> seen that part of the curicullum is Sranang?
>
> W
>

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suriname http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam

Native-language curricula don't nessecarily equal official status.

For example, there have been at times native-language instruction
programs in Grenada for Grenadan Creole English, but that is
definitely NOT an official language of Grenada.

Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

body:
His point is is that, at least from his standpoint, the opinions and
population aren't as diverse.

The Netherlands and Belgium are right next to each other. And what
percentage of Dutch speakers are from outside of them?

Mark

On Mar 31, 2005 10:13 PM, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> > I don't see how this is a good policy.  By happy accident of
> > languages, we have no US-specific Wikipedia, in which Americans get to
> > decide how their Wikipedia is going to look---they have to share their
> > English Wikipedia with the opinions of all other English speakers on
> > the planet who choose to participate.
>
> Ermmmmm even if their were a US-english specific wikipedia, still
> everyone who considers themself to speak US-english would want to
> participate. I do not see the difference. Also on nl we welcome everyone
> who speaks Dutch. Whether they happen to be Belgium/Dutch/Surinamese or
> not. For all I care a Dutch speaking Martian contributes. I mean we have
> Dutch speaking trolls so why not :)
>
> Walter/Waerth
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocked for 'vandalism' on a friggin April Fools
	article

body:
On 4/1/05 9:12 AM, "Phil Sandifer" <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>
> On Apr 1, 2005, at 7:48 AM, The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>
>> Wow, you're a jerk.
>>
>
> The fact that it is April Fool's does not invalidate our policies. Edit
> warring to move false information into the main namespace is not
> acceptable behavior on Wikipedia. That Mav lifted the block on a
> promise not to do it again, and that he did so despite the personal
> attack in the promise seems to me reasonable beyond the call of duty.
>
> Your personal attack, on the other hand, seems petty, and beneath
> someone I was kind of sorry lost their reelection to the arbcom.
>
> While I can accept that some of you are extremely upset that you don't
> get to make mischief on Wikipedia today, it boggles my mind that this
> fact is worth making stupid personal attacks against well-meaning
> contributors. With all due respect, what the fuck?

Nice way to raise the vulgarity bar :)

I wrote that because it's pretty evident (to me) that SPUI's actions weren't
vandalism. They may not be acceptable, but not vandalism. And people who
block others for "vandalism" are, in my opinion, being abusive.

I think Mav knows me well enough to take my comment in context (i.e., that I
respect him). I called him a jerk--I didn't insult his mother.


body:
Robert Merkel wrote:

>Hi guys,
>
>Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
>information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
>A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
>secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
>the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
>Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
>assuming it's relevant?
>
I wouldn't think so.  Starting a fuss of this kind would only bring
attention to the fact that there is a government secret on the web.
Neither denying nor confirming the information is a more effective
tactic.  That way you can always use the argument that the material
comes from the writer's own imagination, and that he's just putting out
his own crank theory.

What ever happened to the bloke, who some years back was avoiding
prosecution under Britain's "Official Secrets Act." by living in Australia?

IIRC during WW2 some U.S. science fiction writers were arrested because
what they wrote suggested knowledge of defence secrets.

Ec


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Syntax for texts in verse

body:
"Tels" wrote :
[snip many good suggestions about using templates and CSS and stuff]

Why not lobby for a new CSS clas called "verse"?

Then you could write your template to invoke the CSS class, and anyone can
modify their private CSS if the prefer verse stuff to look different?
--
Phil
struggling to post through Outlook Express, not certain if this will make it
through


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google urgently in need of Wikipedia's earnest admins

body:
On Apr 1, 2005 10:03 AM, Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl> wrote:
> http://www.google.com/googlegulp/
>

Those Beta's never work right...I'll wait 'til the production release.

(thanks for the chuckle...)

--Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Made me look

> From: Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org>
> Organization: Boskonia
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 07:54:08 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> duress code


body:
Well, again made me look, but as it has already been published in a
newspaper of general circulation...

> From: Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com>
> Reply-To: wpmail at pcbartlett.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:58:53 +0100
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> Inspector Sands


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day

body:
On Apr 1, 2005 7:04 AM, Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> OK, it's out of control now.  Changing all of the edit
> button titles and making people think they have new
> messages when they don't are just confusing people.
> And now people are changing the counts of articles on
> minor language Wikipedias.  We're getting lots of
> people totally confused and thinking that we've been
> hacked, and I'm worried that we're not going to be
> able to put things back to the way they were.
>
> Page move vandalism is vandalism, I don't care what
> you call it.
>
> And some "apparent" vandal changed the Main Page to
> say that Terri Schiavo died from autofellatio.  How do
> we tell them not to vandalize Wikipedia if everybody
> else is doing it, too?
>
> RickK
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

I presume the madness will be "officially" terminated at 12pm UTC, and
all can get to work restoring things.

In fairness, I think after such time the gloves are off in terms of
dealing with those who wish to ensure continued disruption.

Regardless of the madness, I'm glad people decided not to be too high
and mighty and pretend Wikipedia was something it's not. The attitudes
of Wikipedia's editors mean it will *never* be Encyclopaedia
Britannica. But perhaps it has already won some measure of respect for
being something a lot more real, and likely to be just as valuable, if
not more so (and again, possibly this is already the case).

I hope people are not kept awake at night because we looked a bit (OK,
very) silly for half a day.

Zoney
--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Zigger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Small schema change in CVS

body:
Having a public deletion trail in page histories and contribution
lists will be a big help in evaluating vandalism.

But I would like to see the summaries for deleted revisions either
removed from the public listing (& public database?) or replaced by
the deletion reason, as the summaries can contain the same type of
content as the deleted text, just less of it.

-- Zigger


body:
Matt R wrote:

>--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote (snipped):
>
>
>>...I think classified weapons information should not be
>>published by any responsible person. The reason for this is the harm which
>>can result...
>>
>>For example, while I see no problem with extensive material regarding
>>Israel's successful effort to develop nuclear weapons, I would oppose
>>publishing the precise details regarding a specific weapon. While we are far
>>from the jurisdiction of Israel, some things are just wrong and dumb.
>>
>>
>My view is that what people do with the information we provide in Wikipedia is
>not our moral responsibility. If there are no legal problems, I would support
>the inclusion of any verifiable, on-topic and noteworthy information.
>
>
Omitting material because it harms the interests of a particular nation
means taking a political stand, and that would be contrary to NPOV.

Ec


body:
Richard Holton wrote:

>On Apr 1, 2005 7:26 AM, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote (snipped):
>>
>>
>>>...I think classified weapons information should not be
>>>published by any responsible person. The reason for this is the harm which
>>>can result...
>>>
>>>For example, while I see no problem with extensive material regarding
>>>Israel's successful effort to develop nuclear weapons, I would oppose
>>>publishing the precise details regarding a specific weapon. While we are far
>>>from the jurisdiction of Israel, some things are just wrong and dumb.
>>>
>>>
>>My view is that what people do with the information we provide in Wikipedia is
>>not our moral responsibility. If there are no legal problems, I would support
>>the inclusion of any verifiable, on-topic and noteworthy information.
>>
>>
>And how would you respond to someone publishing on Wikipedia the name
>of you 12 year old daughter, what she looks like, where she goes to
>school and when she leaves, and where you work and when you get home
>from, and the names of several of your trusted neighbors?
>
How do you get from the issue of state secrets to invasion of privacy?
The activities of Matt's hypothetical daughter are not on-topic to
anything.  How can she possibly be involved with the cloak of national
security?

Ec


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Blocked for 'vandalism' on a friggin April
	Fools	article

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>On 4/1/05 9:12 AM, "Phil Sandifer" <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>On Apr 1, 2005, at 7:48 AM, The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Wow, you're a jerk.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>The fact that it is April Fool's does not invalidate our policies. Edit
>>warring to move false information into the main namespace is not
>>acceptable behavior on Wikipedia. That Mav lifted the block on a
>>promise not to do it again, and that he did so despite the personal
>>attack in the promise seems to me reasonable beyond the call of duty.
>>
>>Your personal attack, on the other hand, seems petty, and beneath
>>someone I was kind of sorry lost their reelection to the arbcom.
>>
>>While I can accept that some of you are extremely upset that you don't
>>get to make mischief on Wikipedia today, it boggles my mind that this
>>fact is worth making stupid personal attacks against well-meaning
>>contributors. With all due respect, what the fuck?
>>
>>
>
>Nice way to raise the vulgarity bar :)
>
>I wrote that because it's pretty evident (to me) that SPUI's actions weren't
>vandalism. They may not be acceptable, but not vandalism. And people who
>block others for "vandalism" are, in my opinion, being abusive.
>
>I think Mav knows me well enough to take my comment in context (i.e., that I
>respect him). I called him a jerk--I didn't insult his mother.
>
I thank my son for bringing to my attention that in Dilbert's world this
is Administrative Professionals Day.

Ec


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax standardization effort

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker (lee at piclab.com) [050401 10:55]:

> Forgive me if there was a big discussion of this while I was in lurker
> mode for the past year or so, but is it really a good idea to allow
> arbitrary transclusions at all?  I can see the usefulness of templates
> overriding the problems and limiting their spread to a few cases; but
> arbitrarily including text that constantly changes seems like a good
> way to screw up things like article provenance, evaluations, and such.

At present it's used to very good effect in the Wikipedia: namespace, to
make pages such as [[WP:FAC]] and [[WP:VFD]] manageable. Note that VFD
actually transcludes pages largely made of transclusions.

Templates that masquerade as actual article text are considered decidedly
improper - one of the earliest candidates on [[Wikipedia:Templates for
deletion]] was one such - and [[Wikipedia:Template namespace]] includes the
admonition "Templates should not masquerade as article content in the main
article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article."
(which I wrote.)

(I have no idea of what whacky tricks people may have gotten up to on other
language Wikipedias.)

So far people haven't gotten much away with egregious template abuse, and
the category system has *mostly* quelled the urge to bloody ugly subject
series boxes.

- d.


from_name: Bishonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm taking Friday off

body:
Rick wrote on 2005/04/01 09:53:

> Wikipedia is currently a mess.  Vandalism disguised as
> "April Fool's Day" is out of control.
>
> I hope you all have fun cleaning up this mess.
>
> RickK

I 'm inclined to agree. :-(

Bishonen


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>What is involved is balance. Weighting the slight increase in information
>here against the likely harm that is done. There are close questions, even
>cases where disclosure of secret information becomes a moral imparative, but
>in the usual case the benefit gained by disclosure of military secrets does
>not outweigh the potential harm.
>
>
But if both side have equal access to the same information and
technology a balance is achieved, as was the case with MAD during the
Soviet days.  That was a form of balance.

Ec


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia

body:
I love this thread.  It points out just about everything that's wrong
with the surreal, insular world of Wikipedia.

Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.

The fact that any of you are considering anything other than immediately
removing the information indicates that you care less about human life
than your petty authority over a toy encyclopedia.  It's sad and it's scary.

--Blair


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article

body:
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:

> get into a revert war on the issue... now that ''would'' be
> lame.

Seems I seriously underestimated how lame some people were prepared to be.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Britannica proud to lag years behind recent
 developments such ...

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> Yes, we are way ahead of Britannica in many areas, but, to be realistic,
> just as we have many excellent articles that they simply don't have, they also
> have many articles that we don't. Of course, we are in a better situation,
> because we can easily fill in the gaps.
>
> I therefore encourage people to take a look at [[Wikipedia:2004  Encyclopedia
> topics]]. Make redirects if we have the articles, and see what  articles they
> have that you can fill in. Start with a sub, or even a substub. It  is bound
> to grow. Let's make sure we have everything they have and more.
>
> Danny

Can I join Danny in saying what a good idea it is to browse
[[Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics]].

I was a bit wary of the Countering Systematic Bias project - thinking
that it was too much being used as a vehicle to take a pop at proud
Americans. However this list of topics really makes plain that WP is
systematically weaker in some areas.

Pete


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Database errors on watchlist?

body:
For three or four days now, I am frequently getting database errors when I try to call up my watchlist. I'd say I'm getting them about 80% of the time and it's getting worse.

I had about 1500 articles on it. Thinking that might be the cause, I've been trying to prune them, rather difficult since the "checkbox" method of deleting them seems to get database errors too, so I've been calling up the articles one at a time and unwatching them. I'm down to about 1300 now, with no apparent improvement.

Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone got any ideas about what to do about it? (Yes, I know... not having a watchlist is a good way to reduce Wikistress...)


from_name: Walter van Kalken

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Official status? I didn't say anything about that. And AFAIK only
>Dutch is official.
>
>
>
Ever been in Surinam? Ever lived there? Ever gone to school there? Ever
seen that part of the curicullum is Sranang?

W


body:
Sj wrote:

> On Apr 1, 2005 5:26 AM, Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com> wrote:
>
>>Can I join Danny in saying what a good idea it is to browse
>>[[Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics]].
>>
>>I was a bit wary of the Countering Systematic Bias project - thinking
>>that it was too much being used as a vehicle to take a pop at proud
>>Americans. However this list of topics really makes plain that WP is
>>systematically weaker in some areas.
>
>
> Not just in British/European placenames, you mean?
>

I've seen a lot of British placenames in the [[Wikipedia:List of
encyclopedia topics]], but the EB list tends to be more interesting than
that.


body:
Sj wrote:

> On Apr 1, 2005 5:26 AM, Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com> wrote:
>
>>Can I join Danny in saying what a good idea it is to browse
>>[[Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics]].
>>
>>I was a bit wary of the Countering Systematic Bias project - thinking
>>that it was too much being used as a vehicle to take a pop at proud
>>Americans. However this list of topics really makes plain that WP is
>>systematically weaker in some areas.
>
>
> Not just in British/European placenames, you mean?
>

For example check out [[Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics/26]] that
Danny was working through last night... no Brit/European placenames
spring out there..


from_name: Joseph Reagle

body:
On Friday 01 April 2005 00:19, Anthere wrote:
> At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say and
> do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment a
> couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher the
> person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again to
> see what could make him tick. Then I store the information somewhere.

So you keep a "log" of people you've encountered? I've started this myself
actually...


body:
In the UK they kept a psychic in jail for years for the same "crime." Quite
a lot of published material on that, could be an article.

Fred

> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 09:57:22 -0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> IIRC during WW2 some U.S. science fiction writers were arrested because
> what they wrote suggested knowledge of defence secrets.
>
> Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Autofellatio

body:
> I don't see how this is a good policy.  By happy accident of
> languages, we have no US-specific Wikipedia, in which Americans get to
> decide how their Wikipedia is going to look---they have to share their
> English Wikipedia with the opinions of all other English speakers on
> the planet who choose to participate.

Ermmmmm even if their were a US-english specific wikipedia, still
everyone who considers themself to speak US-english would want to
participate. I do not see the difference. Also on nl we welcome everyone
who speaks Dutch. Whether they happen to be Belgium/Dutch/Surinamese or
not. For all I care a Dutch speaking Martian contributes. I mean we have
Dutch speaking trolls so why not :)

Walter/Waerth


body:
That's part of the problem. It's not at all a toy, nor is an obscure corner
that somehow will escape notice. It is one of the most influential sources
of information on the web now. And this is just the beginning.

Again, those with power have responsiblity.

Fred

> From: "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:14:41 -0700
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> I love this thread.  It points out just about everything that's wrong
> with the surreal, insular world of Wikipedia.
>
> Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
> harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
> way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.
>
> The fact that any of you are considering anything other than immediately
> removing the information indicates that you care less about human life
> than your petty authority over a toy encyclopedia.  It's sad and it's scary.
>
> --Blair
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
You can Google translate Japanese and Chinese :)

I also recommend http://translate.ru for Russian,
http://www.uco.com.ua/translate for Ukrainian,
http://www.internostrum.com/ for Catalan (it translates Catalan ->
Spanish, so you will need to use another MT too),
https://websmart.kielikone.fi/eng/kirjaudu.asp for Finnish,
http://presis.amebis.si/prevajanje/index.asp for Slovene,
http://www.poltran.com/ for Polish,
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html
for Greek, and actually for most of the languages Google supports I
recommend http://www.reverso.net/ instead (although Reverso has a
limit of 200 characters for plain text translation).

Mark

On Apr 1, 2005 10:54 AM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Joseph Reagle a ?crit:
> > On Friday 01 April 2005 00:19, Anthere wrote:
> >
> >>At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say and
> >>do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment a
> >>couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher the
> >>person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again to
> >>see what could make him tick. Then I store the information somewhere.
> >
> >
> > So you keep a "log" of people you've encountered? I've started this myself
> > actually...
>
> I keep a log of people in my head.
> The only problem is that I can only easily "observe" people in languages
> I understand. Or at least those I can google translate. It is much
> harder with say... russians, japanese, chinese...
>
> Those are actually less involved in the international community than for
> example the french, the germans or the dutch. Very unfortunately.
>
> I know not how other people do; but I know most editors like to be in a
> homy environnement, and just stick to their project. Their project can
> be a certain wikipedia, or development, or precisely international issues.
>
> In the end, most editors reconstruct a little community united by a
> common goal. You just need some bridging people to insure flows
> circulate between the little community patches. When an editor belongs
> to two patches, you get a point :-) Ultimately, there is just a tightly
> network of little communities, and even if one can't know everyone, one
> can feel at home :-)
>
> Ant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] JURIST citing Wikipedia profiles

references:
<1a6.34a56b24.2f782a7a@aol.com> <d2j6q6$rsj$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<742dfd060504010218f541bdb@mail.gmail.com>
	<d2j7s6$udo$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
I spotted this while searching Google News to see if anyone had mentioned
the Britannica "hostile takeover" hoax.
Paperchase, an online news service operated by JURIST, has taken to citing
Wikipedia profiles of people in its stories.
About JURIST

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/faq/

"JURIST is the authoritative legal news and real-time legal research
website powered by a team of over 20 law student reporters, editors and
web developers led by law professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA."
Paperchase appears to be the brand name for their free legal news service.

Alas, we don't seem to have a Wikipedia article about this service.

Examples of use of Wikipedia profiles:

Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/03/corporations-and-securities-brief-sec_28.php
Conrad Black

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/03/corporations-and-securities-brief_23.php


body:
There are elements of a police state in the UK, and not all related to the
IRA. Why that is so would be very hard to explain in a NPOV article. I have
no problem with publishing most of that sort of stuff.

Fred

> From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
> Reply-To: minorityreport at bluebottle.com, English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 19:20:08 +0100 (BST)
> To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> Blair P. Houghton said:
>> There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
>> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
>> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.
>
> This simply is not true of information that is routinely restricted in the
> UK.  There is lots of quite harmless information that I can get
> legimitately from US archives via FOIA, but may not legally publish in the
> UK.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Phil Sandifer

body:
Well, that or it says that some of us are more than a little skeptical
about the motives and authority of the people doing the classification,
and suspect that in many cases secrecy puts people in harms way too,
it's just that those people are more politically desirable to
endanger...

Tough to say, really.

-Snowspinner

On Apr 1, 2005, at 12:14 PM, Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> I love this thread.  It points out just about everything that's wrong
> with the surreal, insular world of Wikipedia.
>
> Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
> harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
> way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.
>
> The fact that any of you are considering anything other than
> immediately removing the information indicates that you care less
> about human life than your petty authority over a toy encyclopedia.
> It's sad and it's scary.
>
> --Blair
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
Anthere wrote:

> Rick a ?crit:
>
>> OK, it's out of control now.  Changing all of the edit
>> button titles and making people think they have new
>> messages when they don't are just confusing people. And now people
>> are changing the counts of articles on
>> minor language Wikipedias.  We're getting lots of
>> people totally confused and thinking that we've been
>> hacked, and I'm worried that we're not going to be
>> able to put things back to the way they were.
>
> One thing I am noticing is...
>
> This is the first year we see such an explosion of april fool jokes.
> The article I saw this morning just a paragraph
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bad_jokes_and_other_deleted_nonsense/Wikipedia:April_1%2C_2005/2005_Britannica_takeover_of_Wikimedia)
> has become a huge pile of .... euh, how to call this ?
>
> I think such days are precisely meant for people to relieve their
> daily stress; just as Cesar organised circus games to have people
> forget how tough their lives where. And I would dare to say : is the
> over reaction a sign that the current project has become too
> "restricting" in editors freedom that they feel they need to get so
> wild the one day this is permitted ?
>
>> Page move vandalism is vandalism, I don't care what
>> you call it.
>>
>> And some "apparent" vandal changed the Main Page to
>> say that Terri Schiavo died from autofellatio.  How do
>> we tell them not to vandalize Wikipedia if everybody
>> else is doing it, too?
>
> ROFLLLLLL

What some people don't seem to realize is that making a fuss over
something like April Fools articles only encourages more of them.
Instead of a handful of subtle hoaxes that harmlessly fool the brightest
among us we end up with a stream of endless silliness and
auto-felching.  Humour is in a sad shape when people have to be told
that what they just heard is an obvious joke.

Of course there are facts that are stranger than humour.  Alarmed by the
length of the list of people waiting for srgery, our provincial is
taking steps to reduce these lists by removing names that don't belong
there.  This includes women who have been waiting more than a year for a
Caesarean delivery.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day

body:
Chad Perrin said:
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 11:53:00AM -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>> A few people have hoped that I would weigh in with an opinion.
>>
>> I'm torn.  I think it's really fun, but we're also a very serious
>> project.  So I gave it some thought and I have this idea...
>>
>> Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an
>> alternative main page, linked from the main page?  "Click here to see
>> our April Fool's Page."
>>

I missed Jimbo's comment first time around.

Just thought I'd say (because somebody has to) that that's the dumbest
idea I've seen in ages.  The whole point about April Fools is that it's
supposed to take in the reader.  Messing around like you suggest would be
like going trick or treating with a baptist minister.


body:
Yes [[Helen Duncan]], see

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter11.html

Fred

> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 12:11:24 -0700
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia
>
> In the UK they kept a psychic in jail for years for the same "crime." Quite
> a lot of published material on that, could be an article.
>
> Fred
>
>> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 09:57:22 -0800
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia
>>
>> IIRC during WW2 some U.S. science fiction writers were arrested because
>> what they wrote suggested knowledge of defence secrets.
>>
>> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: foundation-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiNL-l] Fight spilling over into the
	ia.wikipedia

body:
On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 02:09:32 +0200 (CEST), Lars Aronsson
<lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> There is a simple solution: Ask the two to show up at a meeting IRL.
> If they refuse, consider them guilty of every accusation.
>
> I've met Jimbo, Angela, Erik M?ller, Elian, and a few other key
> Wikipedians IRL.  I take the liberty to distrust everybody else.
>
> --
>   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
>   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Sorry, but how does having seen Jimbo in real life prove that he
doesnt have sock-puppets?

-[[User:The bellman]]

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

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


list: wikimedia-l


body:
Robert Merkel said:
> Hi guys,
>
> Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
> information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
> A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
> secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
> the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
> Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
> assuming it's relevant?

One for the lawyers, I guess.  But I think you'd have the Secret Service
or the DIA in the colo with some bolt cutters before you could say ACLU.


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
--- Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
> Anthere wrote
>
> > And I would dare to say : is the over reaction a
> sign that the current
> > project has become too "restricting" in editors
> freedom that they feel
> > they need to get so wild the one day this is
> permitted ?
>
> Yep.  Most days of the year WP is in serious mode.
> And it works - we are
> now in the top 100 websites at Alexa, overtaking Ask
> Jeeves last time I
> looked.  We need a 'festival'.
>
> Charles

And how do we clean up all of the leftover hoaxes?  Or
do we just say, "Oh, well, that was created on April
1, we'll just live with it."?

RickK

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- Robert Merkel <robert.merkel at benambra.org> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
> information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
> A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
> secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
> the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
> Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
> assuming it's relevant?

And assuming the information is verifiable -- this might be non-trivial for
leaked secrets.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]

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


from_name: Taco Deposit

body:
>From: Bishonen <bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Database errors on watchlist?
>Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 19:54:32 +0200
>
>
>You might as well stop pruning, dpbsmith, I have exactly the same symptoms
>with a mere 500 pages. My SQL server, come back, all is forgiven!
>Bishonen

When MySQL server goes away, where does it go, exactly?

TD

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


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day

body:
> > And some "apparent" vandal changed the Main Page to
> > say that Terri Schiavo died from autofellatio.  How do
> > we tell them not to vandalize Wikipedia if everybody
> > else is doing it, too?

Saying Terri died of autofellatio is bad taste and totally not funny.
There's a difference between jokes and vandalism and regardless of
what day it is, vandalism should be reverted. With all the Cabal
accusations I don't find [[Wikipedia:Cabal]] particularly funny
either.

-- MacGyverMagic


from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Foundation-l] Syntax for texts in verse

body:
On Mar 31, 2005 10:39 PM, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> There is a need for a special syntax for texts in verse, as
> : creates an indentation and <br/> is quite ugly.

Indeed and one of newbie unfriendly aspect of Wiki editing.

In Wikiquote we have many quotes from verses, and the train of br is
quite ugly and annoying...

--
Buritty d'Avril
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com


subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's and Timezones

body:
Should we restrict April Fool's jokes to April 1st in the UTC time
zone? After all that's the time Wikipedia uses. It would make the
onslaught of hoaxes and the subsequent cleanup far easier to handle.

-- MacGyverMagic


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request for separate English Wikipedias

body:
Hello all,

I would like to request the creation of en-us-jwales: and en-us-node:
for the two separate varieties of American English known as "Jimbwian"
and "Nodelish".

Although they are very similar, there are some important differences.

Some examples:

Jimbwian: "My name is Jimbo Wales."
Nodelish: "My name is not Jimbo Wales."

Jimbwian: "I am the founder of Wikipedia."
Nodelish: "I am not the founder of Wikipedia."

Jimbwian: "I am married and have a daughter."
Nodelish: "I am a single teenager."

Unfortunately there is no 1-to-1 correspondence between Jimbwian and
Nodelish, so machine translation is impossible.

Mark


body:
--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote (snipped):
> ...I think classified weapons information should not be
> published by any responsible person. The reason for this is the harm which
> can result...
>
> For example, while I see no problem with extensive material regarding
> Israel's successful effort to develop nuclear weapons, I would oppose
> publishing the precise details regarding a specific weapon. While we are far
> from the jurisdiction of Israel, some things are just wrong and dumb.

My view is that what people do with the information we provide in Wikipedia is
not our moral responsibility. If there are no legal problems, I would support
the inclusion of any verifiable, on-topic and noteworthy information.

--Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]

> > From: Robert Merkel <robert.merkel at benambra.org>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 18:02:19 +1000
> > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia
> >
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
> > information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
> > A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
> > secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
> > the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
> > Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
> > assuming it's relevant?
> >
> > --
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --> -
> >
> > Robert Merkel
> > robert.merkel at benambra.org
> > http://benambra.org
> >
> > The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.
> > -- Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote:

>For three or four days now, I am frequently getting database errors when I try to call up my watchlist. I'd say I'm getting them about 80% of the time and it's getting worse.
>
>I had about 1500 articles on it. Thinking that might be the cause, I've been trying to prune them, rather difficult since the "checkbox" method of deleting them seems to get database errors too, so I've been calling up the articles one at a time and unwatching them. I'm down to about 1300 now, with no apparent improvement.
>
>Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone got any ideas about what to do about it? (Yes, I know... not having a watchlist is a good way to reduce Wikistress...)
>
Yes, I get this too, filed bug 1793 on it. Response so far is
that somebody is working on a faster scheme. I'm sure WP will
get all messed up in the meantime :-), but that's OK, it's a
good excuse to work down my picture backlog.

Stan


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Are these April Fools' hoaxes?

body:
Actually, apart from the fake announcement over the EB takeover, and
the ETPH, most of the other "jokes" are/were not even proper 1 April
hoaxes.

And even the EB takeover article was far too farcical, rather than
being a subtle piece of misleading humour.

How crude.

Zoney
--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


from_name: Delirium

body:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:

> Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
> harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
> way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.

Unless Wikipedians are personally leaking classified information from
government agencies, I don't see how this is even remotely a
consideration.  If we can get our hands on the information through
public sources, then so can anybody else who would want to use it for
harmful purposes.  They don't need to go through us to get it.

-Mark


from_name: Richard Holton

subject: [Wikitech-l] some code appear in articles

body:
On Apr 1, 2005 12:53 PM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo
>
> I can see
>
> Hi.
>
> public class DansDemo { private static final int ENV_ROWS = 20; private
> static final int ENV_COLM = 20;
>
> ....
>
> When this is inserted in the article
>
> [http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/NEJMp058062v1]
> [http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/330/22/1572??eaf]
>
> Is that normal that links result in text being included in articles ?
>
> Ant
>

>From the history, it looks like common vandalism. I'm guessing that
coincidental timing showed you the results of another's edits after
you submitted yours.

-- Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


subject: [WikiEN-l] Classified information in Wikipedia

body:
--- Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My view is that what people do with the information we provide in Wikipedia
> > is not our moral responsibility. If there are no legal problems, I would
> > the inclusion of any verifiable, on-topic and noteworthy information.
>
> And how would you respond to someone publishing on Wikipedia the name
> of you 12 year old daughter, what she looks like, where she goes to
> school and when she leaves, and where you work and when you get home
> from, and the names of several of your trusted neighbors?

You didn't pay attention to what I wrote: "I would support the inclusion of any
verifiable, on-topic and noteworthy information". In your example, how would
this information be verifiable, notable or on-topic in an encyclopedia article?

There's very little harm you can do by posting verifiable information because,
by definition, you can already get the information somewhere else.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]

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


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
>For three or four days now, I am frequently getting database errors when I
>try to call up my watchlist.
>I'd say I'm getting them about 80% of the time and it's getting worse.
>
>I had about 1500 articles on it. Thinking that might be the cause, I've
>been trying to prune them, ather difficult since the "checkbox" method of
>deleting them seems to get database errors too, so I've been calling up the
>articles one at a time and unwatching them. I'm down to about 1300 now,
>with no apparent improvement.
>
>Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone got any ideas about what to
>do about it? (Yes, I
>know... not having a watchlist is a good way to reduce Wikistress...)

I've been having the same problem.  I had a similar size Watchlist, and also
deleted 300 or so items hoping it would improve, with no success.

Jay.


body:
On Apr 1, 2005 2:27 PM, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
> >For three or four days now, I am frequently getting database errors when I
> >try to call up my watchlist.
> >I'd say I'm getting them about 80% of the time and it's getting worse.
> >
> >I had about 1500 articles on it. Thinking that might be the cause, I've
> >been trying to prune them, ather difficult since the "checkbox" method of
> >deleting them seems to get database errors too, so I've been calling up the
> >articles one at a time and unwatching them. I'm down to about 1300 now,
> >with no apparent improvement.
> >
> >Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone got any ideas about what to
> >do about it? (Yes, I
> >know... not having a watchlist is a good way to reduce Wikistress...)
>
> I've been having the same problem.  I had a similar size Watchlist, and also
> deleted 300 or so items hoping it would improve, with no success.
>
> Jay.
>

FWIW, it's not a universal problem (in case anyone had any doubts). my
small 600+ item watchlist works fine.

-- Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


from_name: Kevin Rector

body:
Yeah, my 107 item watchlist comes back lickity split.

-Kevin Rector

> FWIW, it's not a universal problem (in case anyone had any doubts). my
> small 600+ item watchlist works fine.


body:
I love it when people say "funnily".

-Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of MacGyverMagic/Mgm
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 4:19 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Database errors on watchlist?

I'm pretty sure my watchlist is under 500 articles, but I got too many
errors in that as well recently. Funnily enough "my contributions"
works fine.

--MacGyverMagic

On Apr 2, 2005 12:12 AM, Kevin Rector <krector at compco.com> wrote:
> Yeah, my 107 item watchlist comes back lickity split.
>
> -Kevin Rector


body:
Fred Bauder said:
> Here's an example of a minor secret which I would never divulge or
> publish:
>
> I used to work for a company which had radio communications with a
> central dispatcher. We had a secret word which if used alerted the
> dispatcher that there was a serious problem. It was a pretty nifty
> system and as far as I know, none of the thousands of people who ever
> worked for that company ever let that secret out.
>

Oh have you ever been in a railway station or something and heard an
announcement that goes something like "This is a security announcement:
will Mr Green please contact security immediately."  This gets repeated a
few times, with emphasis on "Mr Green". And then if you look up and stay
alert, you'll see rather a lot of transport police moving around,
spreading through the station, about as discreetly as they can, looking
like they all just happened to be in the station at the same time.
The point is to let the staff know to be ready for a possible evacuation,
without panicking the public.  Stores use similar codes to tip off the
security guards at the exit when a thief is spotted.


from_name: Blair P. Houghton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7

body:
Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Nah, my suspicion is that 99% of classified information would not directly
>place people in harm's way if released to the public. What it might do is cause
>the country concerned varying degrees of disadvantage and embarassment
>(economically, politically, diplomatically etc).

Note close refutation under "purpose":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information

It's not about expressions of suspicion by random, unvetted members of
the general public.  It's about what professionals have determined will
be a likely outcome of the enemy's acquisition of the data.

In some cases, as I said, there are politicized examples of overclassified
data, but the security bureaucracy is tasked with ensuring that this is
minimized.  I'm all for making sure that information that should be free
is free.  I'm totally against making sure that information that should be
secret is published.

Whether the standards are different in different countries isn't relevant.

Someone might die if Wikipedia has such info online.  And at least two
people have continued arguing as though Wikipedia policy should be to
err on the side of plodding deliberation instead of quick prophylaxis.

I repeat my assertion that this is sad and scary.

--Blair


from_name: csherlock at ljh.com.au

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama

body:
Snowspinner wrote:
>
> On Mar 31, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Bishonen wrote:
>
>>
>
>> Please don't, for that purpose, move it, copy it, link to it, or use it.
>>
>
> I'm not sure what to point out - no article ownership or the GFDL.
>
> -Snowspinner

Uh, wrong. I once moved Netoholic's archive subpages to my own page and
got told very quickly by Raul654 that this was not acceptable as what's
in Netoholic's user space was really Netoholic's. Fair enough too.

Care to explain how any of that stuff works for User front pages?

TBSDY


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The best thing you'll ever see...

body:
LOL!

TBSDY

Gutza wrote:
> ... is created by volunteers in their spare time (there are exceptions,
> and some people get caught "doing it" at the workplace; however, we're
> talking about the mainstream trend);
>
> ... offers full, free access to all of the information it stores to its
> respective users, who can use it in any way they like, and even alter it
> in any way they want (there usually are some peer-imposed limits, but
> again, we're talking about the concept);
>
> ... has even its internal workings free to study, fix and enhance by
> anybody who has the interest and time to;
>
> ... is able to store virtually unlimited amounts of data;
>
> ... is enhanced and refined each day in any direction;
>
> ... is inherently plagued by disputes and even wars -- and it can only
> survive if it is able to negotiate these conflicts; however, each such
> conflict makes it stronger and more able to negotiate such internal
> conflicts in the future (unless it kills it, of course);
>
> ... stores accurate facts and erroneous opinions, useful insight and
> useless trivia, exhaustive information in certain areas and sketchy data
> about other domains -- however, the overall trend is towards fixing the
> wrong data and filling in the missing information;
>
> ... needs minimal maintenance compared to its resources;
>
> ... has been able to maintain an active interest, and even fascination
> for some, for a very long time;
>
> ... has intrinsic human and social value, since it stores information
> collected by the mankind;
>
> ... is most probably the most wonderful, fascinating and open-ended
> mechanism you'll ever see in this lifetime:
>
>
>
>
> It's the human body.
>
>
> (April Fool's :-))


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions

body:
Have we asked if they could put a answer.com person to monitor this
mailing list?

TBSDY

Christiaan Briggs wrote:
> Answers.com response to my query (below):
>
> On 31 Mar 2005, at 11:26 am, GuruNet Support wrote:
>
>> Dear Christiaan,
>>
>> Thank you for contacting GuruNet.
>>
>> We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention, Christiaan,
>> and have forwarded your message to our Engineering Team. The problem
>> is that we are working from a dump of Wikipedia content, but
>> apparently, there is no dump of the Commons data. However, our
>> engineers are aware of the problem and are looking into a solution
>> that will work best all around.
>>
>> We'll let you know when we've deployed a solution to this problem.
>> Similarly, if you could keep us informed of any development at
>> Wikipedia regarding this matter, we'd really appreciate it.
>>
>> If we can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to
>> contact us.
>>
>> Sincerely yours,
>> Alan Baklor
>> GuruNet Customer Support
>> http://www.gurunet.com
>> The Answer Engine
>
>
>> On 28 Mar 2005, at 1:32 am, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>>
>>> I sent them the following message via
>>> http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp
>>>
>>> To whom it concerns,
>>>
>>> I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from
>>> Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com
>>>
>>> I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on
>>> Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as
>>> crediting authors):
>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images
>>>
>>> From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are
>>> uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather
>>> than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a
>>> link  to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full
>>> description  on the Wikipedia page.
>>>
>>> So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was
>>> uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added
>>> directly to its Wikipedia page):
>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg
>>>
>>> However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that
>>> matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons
>>> page):
>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08
>>> -14.jpg
>>> The info of which you will find by following the link on the page
>>> above to:
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004
>>> -08-14.jpg
>>>
>>> This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as
>>> we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not
>>> have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons,
>>> we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in
>>> a  technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions.
>>>
>>> I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this
>>> process  but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this
>>> issue at  their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue
>>> at their  end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image
>>> info from  Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second
>>> example above).
>>>
>>> I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia
>>> emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your time,
>>> Christiaan Briggs
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Blair P. Houghton wrote:

>
> I repeat my assertion that this is sad and scary.

And I repeat that it's entirely moot, because the only stuff that's
going to stay on Wikipedia if someone complains about it is stuff thats
_verifiable_. If a classified "secret" is verifiable by members of the
general public from other sources, then it's already well past being a
secret and there's not anything Wikipedia could do about it anyway. The
genie is out of the bottle.

If you come across a classified secret in Wikipedia that was leaked here
first and is published nowhere else (assuming you're able to recognize
it somehow), just ask for references and when none are forthcoming it'll
go away. What else should we do other than that?


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Fred Bauder said:
>
>>Here's an example of a minor secret which I would never divulge or
>>publish:
>>
>>I used to work for a company which had radio communications with a
>>central dispatcher. We had a secret word which if used alerted the
>>dispatcher that there was a serious problem. It was a pretty nifty
>>system and as far as I know, none of the thousands of people who ever
>>worked for that company ever let that secret out.
>>
>
>
> Oh have you ever been in a railway station or something and heard an
> announcement that goes something like "This is a security announcement:
> will Mr Green please contact security immediately."  This gets repeated a
> few times, with emphasis on "Mr Green". And then if you look up and stay
> alert, you'll see rather a lot of transport police moving around,
> spreading through the station, about as discreetly as they can, looking
> like they all just happened to be in the station at the same time.
> The point is to let the staff know to be ready for a possible evacuation,
> without panicking the public.  Stores use similar codes to tip off the
> security guards at the exit when a thief is spotted.

In the UK at least, its Inspector Sands not Mr Green, and yes we do have
a referenced article at [[Inspector Sands]].

Pete


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
> Admittedly I was a bit baffled when 'block' a user became 'crush by
> elephant'.  I do hope that's not permanent.
>
> Charles

Yeah, I was had pressed to resist crushing Brad and Daniel - or saying
Brad had a crush on Daniel - either form may be used, eh?

Uncle Ed


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
Anthere wrote

> And I would dare to say : is the over reaction a sign that the current
> project has become too "restricting" in editors freedom that they feel
> they need to get so wild the one day this is permitted ?

Yep.  Most days of the year WP is in serious mode.  And it works - we are
now in the top 100 websites at Alexa, overtaking Ask Jeeves last time I
looked.  We need a 'festival'.

Charles


from_name: Tony Sidaway

references:
<20050401132615.33431.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>	<BE72AF28.DAF0%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<34925.194.72.110.12.1112368769.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk>
	<d2jq9v$qic$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Pete/Pcb21 said:
>
> In the UK at least, its Inspector Sands not Mr Green, and yes we do
> have  a referenced article at [[Inspector Sands]].

That's the bunny!  I was with my daughter once at King's Cross when this
happened. She was pretty impressed when I pointed out the discreet plod
activity to her.  This had happened to me a few weeks earlier at Waterloo
and on that occasion the warning had been followed a few minutes later by
a full-scale evacuation of one of London's busiest stations during the
rush hour.


from_name: Robert Merkel

body:
Hi guys,

Here's a hypothetical for you.  Say somebody posts a piece of
information about, say, an American-designed weapon, to the Wikipedia.
A piece of information that the US government would prefer to be kept
secret and thus is classified.  Now, the person that originally leaked
the information could certainly be punished under US law, but is the
Wikipedia under any *legal* obligation to delete the information,
assuming it's relevant?

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

                                           Robert Merkel
                                     robert.merkel at benambra.org
                                        http://benambra.org

The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.
  -- Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: Viajero

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google urgently in need of Wikipedia's earnest admins


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
> I think such days are precisely meant for people to relieve their daily
> stress; just as Cesar organised circus games to have people forget how
> tough their lives where. And I would dare to say : is the over reaction
> a sign that the current project has become too "restricting" in editors
> freedom that they feel they need to get so wild the one day this is
> permitted ?

Juding by the number of joke pages I run across in the wikipedia
namespace on normal days I don't see editors being force to be serious
much.

--
geni


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
Rick a ?crit:
> OK, it's out of control now.  Changing all of the edit
> button titles and making people think they have new
> messages when they don't are just confusing people.
> And now people are changing the counts of articles on
> minor language Wikipedias.  We're getting lots of
> people totally confused and thinking that we've been
> hacked, and I'm worried that we're not going to be
> able to put things back to the way they were.

One thing I am noticing is...

This is the first year we see such an explosion of april fool jokes.
The article I saw this morning just a paragraph
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bad_jokes_and_other_deleted_nonsense/Wikipedia:April_1%2C_2005/2005_Britannica_takeover_of_Wikimedia)
has become a huge pile of .... euh, how to call this ?

I think such days are precisely meant for people to relieve their daily
stress; just as Cesar organised circus games to have people forget how
tough their lives where. And I would dare to say : is the over reaction
a sign that the current project has become too "restricting" in editors
freedom that they feel they need to get so wild the one day this is
permitted ?

> Page move vandalism is vandalism, I don't care what
> you call it.
>
> And some "apparent" vandal changed the Main Page to
> say that Terri Schiavo died from autofellatio.  How do
> we tell them not to vandalize Wikipedia if everybody
> else is doing it, too?

ROFLLLLLL

> RickK

Anthere


body:
This is a rather high traffic mailing list. We cannot ask them to
monitor it, best to contact them directly imho.

Ant

csherlock at ljh.com.au a ?crit:
> Have we asked if they could put a answer.com person to monitor this
> mailing list?
>
> TBSDY
>
> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>
>> Answers.com response to my query (below):
>>
>> On 31 Mar 2005, at 11:26 am, GuruNet Support wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Christiaan,
>>>
>>> Thank you for contacting GuruNet.
>>>
>>> We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention,
>>> Christiaan,  and have forwarded your message to our Engineering Team.
>>> The problem  is that we are working from a dump of Wikipedia content,
>>> but  apparently, there is no dump of the Commons data. However, our
>>> engineers are aware of the problem and are looking into a solution
>>> that will work best all around.
>>>
>>> We'll let you know when we've deployed a solution to this problem.
>>> Similarly, if you could keep us informed of any development at
>>> Wikipedia regarding this matter, we'd really appreciate it.
>>>
>>> If we can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to
>>> contact us.
>>>
>>> Sincerely yours,
>>> Alan Baklor
>>> GuruNet Customer Support
>>> http://www.gurunet.com
>>> The Answer Engine
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 28 Mar 2005, at 1:32 am, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>>>
>>>> I sent them the following message via
>>>> http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp
>>>>
>>>> To whom it concerns,
>>>>
>>>> I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from
>>>> Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com
>>>>
>>>> I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on
>>>> Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as
>>>> crediting authors):
>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images
>>>>
>>>> From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are
>>>> uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather
>>>> than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a
>>>> link  to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full
>>>> description  on the Wikipedia page.
>>>>
>>>> So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was
>>>> uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added
>>>> directly to its Wikipedia page):
>>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg
>>>>
>>>> However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that
>>>> matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons
>>>> page):
>>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08
>>>> -14.jpg
>>>> The info of which you will find by following the link on the page
>>>> above to:
>>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004
>>>> -08-14.jpg
>>>>
>>>> This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as
>>>> we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and
>>>> not  have to direct people to another page, however, for various
>>>> reasons,  we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have
>>>> resulted in a  technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow
>>>> licence conditions.
>>>>
>>>> I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this
>>>> process  but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this
>>>> issue at  their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue
>>>> at their  end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image
>>>> info from  Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second
>>>> example above).
>>>>
>>>> I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a
>>>> Wikipedia  emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response
>>>> you send me.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your time,
>>>> Christiaan Briggs
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan
>>>


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Syntax standardization effort

body:
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> Forgive me if there was a big discussion of this while I was in lurker
> mode for the past year or so, but is it really a good idea to allow
> arbitrary transclusions at all?  I can see the usefulness of templates
> overriding the problems and limiting their spread to a few cases; but
> arbitrarily including text that constantly changes seems like a good
> way to screw up things like article provenance, evaluations, and such.

It was a bad idea. The users made me do it.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Austin Hair

subject: [Wikitech-l] Syntax for texts in verse

body:
In theory, this is best implemented using <l></l> pairs, but browsers
don't widely support XHTML 2 yet.  (You can, of course, cheat using
CSS: l { display: block }, but that's not very nice.)

--
Austin D. Hair <adhair at gmail.com>
http://www.austinhair.org/


from_name: dpbsmith at verizon.net

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please let it be over...

body:
Is it over yet?

Yikes... my two favorite sites, Wikipedia and Slashdot, were totally
worthless today due to an overexuberant excess of April Fool merriment.
I think Wikipedia must define April 1st by GMT, because I see that the
"block" links no longer read "crush by elephant," but Slashdot has
posted _another_ half-dozen or so hoax articles.

Even Google News picked up a couple of April Fool hoaxes (and I do NOT
mean "Google Gulp," either).

I was more productive at work today than I've been in weeks...

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Classified information in Wikipedia

body:
Blair P. Houghton said:
> There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.

This simply is not true of information that is routinely restricted in the
UK.  There is lots of quite harmless information that I can get
legimitately from US archives via FOIA, but may not legally publish in the
UK.


from_name: Mark Pellegrini

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please let it be over...

body:
/I see that the "block" links no longer read "crush by elephant," /

I'm the one who fixed that, thanks. As for who changed it in the first
place, you can blame Packaran.
--Mark


from_name: Theo Clarke

body:
On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 18:57:22 +0100, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>?What ever happened to the bloke, who some years back was avoiding
>?prosecution under Britain's "Official Secrets Act." by living in
>?Australia?

[[Peter Wright]] (author of Spycatcher) died unprosecuted in 1995.

Theo


from_name: Matt R

body:
--- "Blair P. Houghton" <blair at houghton.net> wrote:
> Information is classified because divulging it will place people in
> harm's way.  In some cases, it will place millions of people in harm's
> way.  There are politicized exceptions to this, but for the huge
> majority of classified items keeping the information secret will save
> lives, as will hindering its dissemination if it is somehow leaked.

Nah, my suspicion is that 99% of classified information would not directly
place people in harm's way if released to the public. What it might do is cause
the country concerned varying degrees of disadvantage and embarassment
(economically, politically, diplomatically etc).

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]

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


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: In a massive, and often anonymous context,
 how do we know each other?

body:
Joseph Reagle a ?crit:
> On Friday 01 April 2005 00:19, Anthere wrote:
>
>>At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say and
>>do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment a
>>couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher the
>>person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again to
>>see what could make him tick. Then I store the information somewhere.
>
>
> So you keep a "log" of people you've encountered? I've started this myself
> actually...

I keep a log of people in my head.
The only problem is that I can only easily "observe" people in languages
I understand. Or at least those I can google translate. It is much
harder with say... russians, japanese, chinese...

Those are actually less involved in the international community than for
example the french, the germans or the dutch. Very unfortunately.

I know not how other people do; but I know most editors like to be in a
homy environnement, and just stick to their project. Their project can
be a certain wikipedia, or development, or precisely international issues.

In the end, most editors reconstruct a little community united by a
common goal. You just need some bridging people to insure flows
circulate between the little community patches. When an editor belongs
to two patches, you get a point :-) Ultimately, there is just a tightly
network of little communities, and even if one can't know everyone, one
can feel at home :-)

Ant


from_name: Bishonen

body:
dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote on 2005/04/01 19:30:

> For three or four days now, I am frequently getting database errors when
> I try to call up my watchlist. I'd say I'm getting them about 80% of the
> time and it's getting worse.
>
> I had about 1500 articles on it. Thinking that might be the cause, I've
> been trying to prune them, rather difficult since the "checkbox" method
> of deleting them seems to get database errors too, so I've been calling
> up the articles one at a time and unwatching them. I'm down to about 1300
> now, with no apparent improvement.
>
> Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone got any ideas about what
> to do about it? (Yes, I know... not having a watchlist is a good way to
> reduce Wikistress...)

You might as well stop pruning, dpbsmith, I have exactly the same symptoms
with a mere 500 pages. My SQL server, come back, all is forgiven!
Bishonen


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
David Gerard

>WE KNOOOW WHAT YOU PEOPLE THINK IS FUNNY.

Hand the man the GREEN INK.

Charles


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050401 18:52]:
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

> > Forgive me if there was a big discussion of this while I was in lurker
> > mode for the past year or so, but is it really a good idea to allow
> > arbitrary transclusions at all?  I can see the usefulness of templates
> > overriding the problems and limiting their spread to a few cases; but
> > arbitrarily including text that constantly changes seems like a good
> > way to screw up things like article provenance, evaluations, and such.

> It was a bad idea. The users made me do it.

Hey, Paul T. Riddell has an FBI file for selling secrets to the Daleks.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020225052146/www.hpoo.com/columns/hells/news45.html

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
David Gerard a ?crit:
> Charles Matthews (charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com) [050402 02:39]:
>
>>Anthere wrote
>
>
>
>>>And I would dare to say : is the over reaction a sign that the current
>>>project has become too "restricting" in editors freedom that they feel
>>>they need to get so wild the one day this is permitted ?
>>
>
>
>>Yep.  Most days of the year WP is in serious mode.  And it works - we are
>>now in the top 100 websites at Alexa, overtaking Ask Jeeves last time I
>>looked.  We need a 'festival'.
>
>
>
> Obviously as an ACADEMIC and therefore POMPOUS you are trying to SABOTAGE
> THE CREDIBILITY of Wikipedia for your own EEEVIL ENDS. Bloody
> mathematicians. WE KNOOOW WHAT YOU PEOPLE THINK IS FUNNY.
>
>
> - d.

Well, we do not need to keep a pretense of seriousness now that we sold
the fund, no ?


body:
David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050401 20:00]:
> Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050401 18:52]:
> > Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

> > > Forgive me if there was a big discussion of this while I was in lurker
> > > mode for the past year or so, but is it really a good idea to allow
> > > arbitrary transclusions at all?  I can see the usefulness of templates
> > > overriding the problems and limiting their spread to a few cases; but
> > > arbitrarily including text that constantly changes seems like a good
> > > way to screw up things like article provenance, evaluations, and such.

> > It was a bad idea. The users made me do it.

> Hey, Paul T. Riddell has an FBI file for selling secrets to the Daleks.
> http://web.archive.org/web/20020225052146/www.hpoo.com/columns/hells/news45.html

That's not an April Fool's, I'm just posting on crack and answering and
entirely different message to the one in front of me. My apologies.

- d.


body:
Ray Saintonge a ?crit:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> Joseph Reagle a ?crit:
>>
>>> Hello, I have a question about your article that appeared in Wired.
>>> One of my difficulties within the Wikipedia community, or, say for
>>> example, this e-mail list, is the large number of people one is
>>> likely to come across. It can be difficult to keep track of everyone,
>>> particularly in the context of editing a diverse set of web pages So,
>>> I was wondering how do people come to know of each other? In
>>> particular, for your article, how did you select the folks you did?
>>> Asked Jimbo? Looked at the top contributors?
>>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>> At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say
>> and do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment
>> a couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher
>> the person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again
>> to see what could make him tick. Then I store the information
>> somewhere. And go on noting what he writes. Usually, one day come
>> where I think "oh, but X would be the perfect person for this". And I
>> go ask the person :-) Hence meet him a bit more :-)
>
>
> Excellent.  An interesting rule might be one requiring people who
> complain about something being wrong with one article, must match that
> comment with one that is just as strongly favorable about another
> article.  Failing to make positive comments about anybody could be
> grounds for de-sysopping.
>
> E
> c

Hmmm, yup.

Similarly, I had a rule that each time I voted for deletion of an
article on vfd, I took that time to save a stub threatened of deletion
for balance :-)


body:
such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo

I can see

Hi.

public class DansDemo { private static final int ENV_ROWS = 20; private
static final int ENV_COLM = 20;

....

When this is inserted in the article

[http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/NEJMp058062v1]
[http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/330/22/1572??eaf]

Is that normal that links result in text being included in articles ?

Ant


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Artwork samples

body:
I suggest you'd add them to the Commons. At any rate, if you can
provide a neutral article about the artworks in question, I'd welcome
such an article even if it's seperated.

-- MacGyverMagic

On Apr 1, 2005 6:18 PM, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> What is the consensus regarding examples of an artist's work in an article?
>
> It's been suggested that I ask Dr. Laura Brodian, [[Kelly Freas]]'s
> widow, to release digital copies of some of his illustrations under the
> GFDL.
>
> Kelly's article is currently rather short (I can't remain neutral about
> him), and the text would be overwhelmed if more than a handful of images
> were added.  Would a supplementary article -- [[Artwork of Kelly Freas]]
> -- be appropriate?
>
> Most importantly, if I persuade Laura to give away some of her late
> husband's work, will her generosity be welcomed to Wikipedia, or will it
> be promptly nominated for deletion as non-encyclopedic
> Wikipedia-is-not-a-gallery Hugo-winning-art-cruft?
>
> --
>  Sean Barrett     | For days, we survived on
>  sean at epoptic.com | nothing but food and water.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Richard Holton

body:
On Apr 1, 2005 8:57 PM, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hang on, isn't the author still the copyright holder? I get the feeling
> that User space pages are *not* treated as GFDL, but some mix of CC
> licenses. Many userpages I have seen that say "Thanks to (other user)
> for the layout of this page". Also, editing another user's User page
> appears to be seen as vandalism where the 3RR doesn't apply.
>
> --

Well, yes. The author retains the copyright of the work. But by
placing onto Wikipedia (even the User space), the author is releasing
it under the terms of the GFDL. As I understand it, this means that
you may still publish the work in another form and give to mention of
Wikipedia. However, others may also use the submitted work so long as
they meet the requirements of the GFDL.

This applies to anything posted to Wikipedia. You'll see the same
notice about the GFDL below the edit box on a User page as anywhere
else.

What seems to have at least some degree of consensus is that others
should grant people a great deal of control over what they have in
their user space. But this is a matter of courtesy, not a matter of
copyright or Wikipedia policy (that I am aware of).

Many admins seem to treat unwanted changes to another's user pages as
vandalism...and I do not wholly disagree.  But I don't know that it
follows the letter of the policy.

-- Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


body:
On Apr 1, 2005 9:54 PM, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 1, 2005 8:57 PM, Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hang on, isn't the author still the copyright holder? I get the feeling
> > that User space pages are *not* treated as GFDL, but some mix of CC
> > licenses. Many userpages I have seen that say "Thanks to (other user)
> > for the layout of this page". Also, editing another user's User page
> > appears to be seen as vandalism where the 3RR doesn't apply.
> >
> > --
>
> Well, yes. The author retains the copyright of the work. But by
> placing onto Wikipedia (even the User space), the author is releasing
> it under the terms of the GFDL. As I understand it, this means that
> you may still publish the work in another form and give to mention of
> Wikipedia. However, others may also use the submitted work so long as
> they meet the requirements of the GFDL.
>
> This applies to anything posted to Wikipedia. You'll see the same
> notice about the GFDL below the edit box on a User page as anywhere
> else.
>
> What seems to have at least some degree of consensus is that others
> should grant people a great deal of control over what they have in
> their user space. But this is a matter of courtesy, not a matter of
> copyright or Wikipedia policy (that I am aware of).
>
> Many admins seem to treat unwanted changes to another's user pages as
> vandalism...and I do not wholly disagree.  But I don't know that it
> follows the letter of the policy.
>
> -- Rich Holton
>
> en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
>

To fix my own typo that may be confusing: the second sentence in the
first paragraph should read: "As I understand it, this means that you
may still publish the work in another form and give no mention of
Wikipedia.

-- Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
Rick wrote

> And how do we clean up all of the leftover hoaxes?  Or
> do we just say, "Oh, well, that was created on April
> 1, we'll just live with it."?

I don't know about anyone else - but I've deleted [[Google Gulp]] many times
already.  And comparable things.

You know, the (rest of the) media have made a big deal about the
self-healing properties of WP; as they are apparently more reliable, there's
a chance it's true.

Admittedly I was a bit baffled when 'block' a user became 'crush by
elephant'.  I do hope that's not permanent.

Actually, I was just reading in the papers today an LA Times editorial
complaining that Americans were importing too many colloquial expressions
from British English.  Perhaps a bit of the more traditional 'stiff upper
lip, Carruthers' might help with these minor crises.

Charles


from_name: Ray Saintonge

references:
<BE72EAEB.DB22%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<BE72EE56.DB2A%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<f8060843050401132741a272ae@mail.gmail.com>

body:
geni wrote:

>On Apr 1, 2005 8:25 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Yes [[Helen Duncan]], see
>>http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter11.html
>>Fred
>>
>>
>victorzammit is not the most nutral source know to man.
>
Perhaps not, but his article is still useful for a rough outline of the
case.

Conflicts of incredibilities are a problem for governments.  Arresting
psychics suggests that governments believe that psychics have something
to say.  Then when what they say conflicts with what governments say it
can be taken as evidence of the psychic's credibility.

Ec


body:
On Apr 1, 2005 8:25 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Yes [[Helen Duncan]], see
>
> http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter11.html
>
> Fred
>

victorzammit is not the most nutral source know to man.

--
geni


from_name: Christiaan Briggs

body:
Sounds good to me, but what about en-us-gbush?

On 1 Apr 2005, at 10:21 pm, Mark Williamson wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I would like to request the creation of en-us-jwales: and en-us-node:
> for the two separate varieties of American English known as "Jimbwian"
> and "Nodelish".
>
> Although they are very similar, there are some important differences.
>
> Some examples:
>
> Jimbwian: "My name is Jimbo Wales."
> Nodelish: "My name is not Jimbo Wales."
>
> Jimbwian: "I am the founder of Wikipedia."
> Nodelish: "I am not the founder of Wikipedia."
>
> Jimbwian: "I am married and have a daughter."
> Nodelish: "I am a single teenager."
>
> Unfortunately there is no 1-to-1 correspondence between Jimbwian and
> Nodelish, so machine translation is impossible.
>
> Mark


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
I wasn't aware speakers of that variety were literate.

Mark

On Apr 1, 2005 2:30 PM, Christiaan Briggs <christiaan at last-straw.net> wrote:
> Sounds good to me, but what about en-us-gbush?
>
> On 1 Apr 2005, at 10:21 pm, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I would like to request the creation of en-us-jwales: and en-us-node:
> > for the two separate varieties of American English known as "Jimbwian"
> > and "Nodelish".
> >
> > Although they are very similar, there are some important differences.
> >
> > Some examples:
> >
> > Jimbwian: "My name is Jimbo Wales."
> > Nodelish: "My name is not Jimbo Wales."
> >
> > Jimbwian: "I am the founder of Wikipedia."
> > Nodelish: "I am not the founder of Wikipedia."
> >
> > Jimbwian: "I am married and have a daughter."
> > Nodelish: "I am a single teenager."
> >
> > Unfortunately there is no 1-to-1 correspondence between Jimbwian and
> > Nodelish, so machine translation is impossible.
> >
> > Mark
>
>


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Request for separate English Wikipedias

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I would like to request the creation of en-us-jwales: and en-us-node:
>for the two separate varieties of American English known as "Jimbwian"
>and "Nodelish".
>
>Although they are very similar, there are some important differences.
>
>Some examples:
>
>Jimbwian: "My name is Jimbo Wales."
>Nodelish: "My name is not Jimbo Wales."
>
>Jimbwian: "I am the founder of Wikipedia."
>Nodelish: "I am not the founder of Wikipedia."
>
>Jimbwian: "I am married and have a daughter."
>Nodelish: "I am a single teenager."
>
>Unfortunately there is no 1-to-1 correspondence between Jimbwian and
>Nodelish, so machine translation is impossible.
>
>
While the request for Nodelish sounds plausible, I think the request for
Jimbwian has to be rejected because of the expectation that new requests
be supported by at least five potential contributors. According to the
way you've defined it above, there aren't five people in the world
capable of speaking Jimbwian properly. On the other hand, I'm sure we
have any number of Wikipedians capable of speaking Nodelish, although I
am not one of them.

--Michael Snow


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: In a massive, and often anonymous context,
	how do we know each other?

body:
What OS are you using? It should be a simple problem of fonts if you
are using Windows XP or MacOS X or most recent free operating
systems...

Mark

On Apr 1, 2005 10:20 PM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Actually, no, really no
>
> Here is what I see on the main page of russian wikipedia
>
> ???????? ?? ????????? ? ????????? ????????????.
> ?? ?????? ??????
> ???? | ?????? ? ?????????
>
> ????????? ? ????????? ???????????? ????????????. ?????, ? ??
> ????????????? ???????, ??????????? ? ??????? 2002 ????, ??????????
> ?????? ?????????? 14528. ? ?????? ??? ?????????? ???????????? ???
> ????????: ?? ?????? ????? ?????? ???????? ??? ????????? ????? ?????? ???
> ??????? ?????.
>
> Here is what I get after translation
>
> ???????? ?? ????????? ? ????????? ????????????.
> ?? ?????? ??????
> ???? | ?????? ? ?????????
>
> ????????? ? ????????? ???????????? ????????????. ?????, ? ??
> ????????????? ???????, ??????????? ? ??????? 2002 ????, ??????????
> ?????? ?????????? 14528. ? ?????? ??? ?????????? ???????????? ???
> ????????: ?? ?????? ????? ?????? ???????? ??? ????????? ????? ?????? ???
> ??????? ?????.
>
> Well I do not know what *you* see, but *I* see only ???.
>
> The finnish link should work though ;-)
>
> ant
>
> Mark Williamson a ?crit:
> > You can Google translate Japanese and Chinese :)
> >
> > I also recommend http://translate.ru for Russian,
> > http://www.uco.com.ua/translate for Ukrainian,
> > http://www.internostrum.com/ for Catalan (it translates Catalan ->
> > Spanish, so you will need to use another MT too),
> > https://websmart.kielikone.fi/eng/kirjaudu.asp for Finnish,
> > http://presis.amebis.si/prevajanje/index.asp for Slovene,
> > http://www.poltran.com/ for Polish,
> > http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html
> > for Greek, and actually for most of the languages Google supports I
> > recommend http://www.reverso.net/ instead (although Reverso has a
> > limit of 200 characters for plain text translation).
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On Apr 1, 2005 10:54 AM, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Joseph Reagle a ?crit:
> >>
> >>>On Friday 01 April 2005 00:19, Anthere wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say and
> >>>>do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment a
> >>>>couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher the
> >>>>person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again to
> >>>>see what could make him tick. Then I store the information somewhere.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>So you keep a "log" of people you've encountered? I've started this myself
> >>>actually...
> >>
> >>I keep a log of people in my head.
> >>The only problem is that I can only easily "observe" people in languages
> >>I understand. Or at least those I can google translate. It is much
> >>harder with say... russians, japanese, chinese...
> >>
> >>Those are actually less involved in the international community than for
> >>example the french, the germans or the dutch. Very unfortunately.
> >>
> >>I know not how other people do; but I know most editors like to be in a
> >>homy environnement, and just stick to their project. Their project can
> >>be a certain wikipedia, or development, or precisely international issues.
> >>
> >>In the end, most editors reconstruct a little community united by a
> >>common goal. You just need some bridging people to insure flows
> >>circulate between the little community patches. When an editor belongs
> >>to two patches, you get a point :-) Ultimately, there is just a tightly
> >>network of little communities, and even if one can't know everyone, one
> >>can feel at home :-)
> >>
> >>Ant
> >>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>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
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

>I've deleted [[Google Gulp]] many
>times already.

Without even looking at [[Google]] and it subarticles, I just know that
the Wikipedia demographic will have written oodles on Google. If a
section on the several hoaxes they have done is not there already, it
soon will be - just redirect there and then readers get something to
read and it stops a pointless create/delete cycle.

Pete


from_name: sannse

subject: [WikiEN-l] Database errors on watchlist?

body:
I've recently started using related changes on sub-pages as an
alternative.  I've now got several, categorised watchlists - much easier
to manage.  Of course, it does mean that your watchlists are public -
but there is still the usual watchlist as a smaller, private version.

An example of this - my Grammy watchlist is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sannse/grammy_watch

With the related changes at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&target=User%3ASannse%2Fgrammy_watch

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sannse#Watchlists

--sannse


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day

body:
--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I was had pressed to resist crushing Brad and Daniel - or saying
> Brad had a crush on Daniel - either form may be used, eh?

Who is Brad? Is he cute? :)

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com