from_name: Skyring

body:
On 7/12/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Cyberjunkie (swatso at optusnet.com.au) [050712 03:32]:
>
> > I think it's plainly obvious to you what is going on, and your
> > involvement is not something that can be ruled out just because you say
> > so. However, I do believe Jtdirl may have unintentionally jumped the
> > gun. On the face of it, I suspect that because Jtdirl joined the
> > discussion after the obvious sock puppetry of one "Kangaroopedia", he
> > mistook both Kangaroopedia and Pwqn to be incontestable sock puppets,
> > not knowing of Pwqn's history. I don't believe Pwqn is a sock puppet.
> > Nevertheless, I do find it entirely strange that s/he would just,
> > completely out-of-the-blue, and in contrast to prior edits, edit an
> > obscure topic on Australian government and rehash the same flawed
> > understanding as Skyring. We can all draw conclusions, but I don't
> > suppose there is anyway prove such duplicity. It is good that Pwqn has
> > been unblocked, and s/he does deserve an apology of sorts from Jtdirl.
> > Skyring doesn't.
>
> Well, not really. I just checked the IPs (since Skyring on Australian
> government topics has been a matter of AC interest) and while Pwqn and
> Kangaroopedia are definitely the same person, they are *not* also Skyring,
> unless the box in question is an open proxy. Which I wouldn't assume from
> the evidence to hand.

Thanks, David!

> > >I see his intemperate and abusive blocking of a good faith
> > >editor as something warranting discussion.
>
> > I encourage everyone to recognise the emotiveness of this seemingly
> > irrelevant issue.  The harassment Jtdirl was subjected to should be
> > considered, and he ought to be given a little bit of leeway. If Pwqn and
> > Kangaroopedia are in some way linked to Skyring, then his actions would
> > be perfectly justifiable. As it is, such a link may not exist or may and
> > not be proven. But let's be clear, there was no abusiveness here and it
> > is bad faith to assume bad faith.
>
> I can't say there's *no* link, but I can say the IP evidence doesn't
> suggest any link, fwiw. However, Kangaroopedia is a sock of Pwqn, and Pwqn
> deserves at the absolute least a stern word for blatant sockpuppeteering.

Perhaps he or she felt that unjustly blocked? Jtdirl blocked Pwqn over
a day before Kangaroopedia showed up:
"04:52, 10 July 2005, Jtdirl blocked Pwqn (expires 04:52, 10 August
2005) (contribs) (sockpuppet of suspended Skyring, or one of the
'people' he threatened to unlease to continue doctoring articles if he
was banned.)"

08:07, 11 July 2005 Kangaroopedia (an obvious sockpuppet) makes his
one and only appearance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Kangaroopedia

08:20, 11 July 2005, Jtdirl blocked Kangaroopedia (expires 08:20, 11
August 2005) (contribs) (sockpuppet of Skyring or one of those he
promised to unleash to push his agenda when banned from certain pages)

--
Peter in Canberra


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Demonstrable Abuse of Admin powers

body:
On 7/12/05, Cyberjunkie <swatso at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> On 11/07/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:>I must stress this point.
> Zero connection.
> >Zero communication. Not a sockpuppet, not a friend, not anything at
> >all.
>
> I must say, you really can't blame anyone for being suspicious given your
> intimation that you would indeed use "a different IP address every day" and
> find "some other editor(s) to present the same facts." I certainly believe
> those comments to be more than mere braggadocio.

Sheer fantasy, more like. Where did I say I *would* do this?

But you raise an interesting point. Do you personally see anything
wrong with asking another editor to act on your behalf? If you
yourself were asked by another editor to (say) vote a certain way in a
VfD for an article you had never heard of previously, what would you
do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Vicarius_Filii_Dei&diff=next&oldid=15452264

>  >I would like to know what is going on,
> >because it looks to me like an editor in good faith has been treated
> >very poorly indeed, and that both he and I deserve apologies,
> >especially from the admin who blocked him.
>
> I think it's plainly obvious to you what is going on,

Indeed it is. I have stated it here quite plainly.

> and your involvement
> is not something that can be ruled out just because you say so.

I have asked for those with access to "sockpuppet-detection" tools to
use them. May I suggest that you calm down, read what has been written
and stick to the facts?

The reason why I would like IP addresses, ISPs etc compared is because
I am quite certain of the outcome. I can say this because I know the
result with a certainty that you cannot have. It's plain common sense
that I MUST know if another account is a sockpuppet of mine or not. I
MUST know if I've communicated with another editor or not. I know the
answer, and I'd like to make it as plain as possible.

> However, I
> do believe Jtdirl may have unintentionally jumped the gun.

He blocks a legitimate editor for a month and it's "unintentional"!
You astonish me, brother!

The user page where he announces his blocking contained several
existing comments, yours among them, where doubt of sockpuppetry is
strongly expressed. If jtdirl took action unintentionally, then he
must have failed to read the existing discussion. If on the other
hand, his action was intentional, then he must have disregarded your
advice. How do you feel about this?

He's a party to the dispute, he's in the habit of reverting without
discussion (or thought in some cases, as noted by the ArbCom), he
blocks a legitimate user for a month and you are trying to defend him?

> On the face of
> it, I suspect that because Jtdirl joined the discussion after the obvious
> sock puppetry of one "Kangaroopedia", he mistook both Kangaroopedia and Pwqn
> to be incontestable sock puppets, not knowing of Pwqn's history.

He BLOCKED a legitimate user for a MONTH without doing the most basic
of checks. A single mouseclick on "contribs" would have sufficed. How
on earth can you defend this?

More to the point, you are completely wrong. Jtdirl blocked Pwqn over
a day before Kangaroopedia showed up. I quoted from the list of
blocked IP addresses previously, but perhaps if you look at the
sequence of events it will be clear to you what happened:
"04:52, 10 July 2005, Jtdirl blocked Pwqn (expires 04:52, 10 August
2005) (contribs) (sockpuppet of suspended Skyring, or one of the
'people' he threatened to unlease to continue doctoring articles if he
was banned.)"

08:07, 11 July 2005 Kangaroopedia (an obvious sockpuppet) makes his
one and only appearance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Kangaroopedia

08:20, 11 July 2005, Jtdirl blocked Kangaroopedia (expires 08:20, 11
August 2005) (contribs) (sockpuppet of Skyring or one of those he
promised to unleash to push his agenda when banned from certain pages)

> I don't
> believe Pwqn is a sock puppet. Nevertheless, I do find it entirely strange
> that s/he would just, completely out-of-the-blue, and in contrast to prior
> edits, edit an obscure topic on Australian government and rehash the same
> flawed understanding as Skyring. We can all draw conclusions, but I don't
> suppose there is anyway prove such duplicity.

Where someone comes out of the blue to edit on a matter widely
discussed here and on WP, I don't think there is much of a mystery.
Pqwn makes the same point that I do - the article is POV on the head
of state issue.

> It is good that Pwqn has been
> unblocked, and s/he does deserve an apology of sorts from Jtdirl. Skyring
> doesn't.

Do you support personal abuse? Jtdirl made some very offensive
comments to me. How do you think I feel after reading his little
provocations?

>  >I see his intemperate and abusive blocking of a good faith
> >editor as something warranting discussion.
>
> I encourage everyone to recognise the emotiveness of this seemingly
> irrelevant issue.  The harassment Jtdirl was subjected to should be
> considered, and he ought to be given a little bit of leeway.

Cripes. And what about the vitriol that came my way? Even the Arbcom
made the observation that it was a bit one-sided.

> If Pwqn and
> Kangaroopedia are in some way linked to Skyring, then his actions would be
> perfectly justifiable.

Would they? I disagree. An editor is responsible for his or her own
edits. I repeat that I have had no contact or communication with Pwqn,
but even if I had dictated his precise edits verbatim, it's still up
to him as to whether he makes them or not.

Besides which, he's merely correcting a POV statement in the article.
His edits are plain common sense, are well backed up with verifiable
sources, and are completely in line with wikipolicy.

> As it is, such a link may not exist or may and not be
> proven. But let's be clear, there was no abusiveness here and it is bad
> faith to assume bad faith.

The facts speak for themselves. Jtdirl blocked a legitimate editor for
a month without making the most basic of checks, he did so over an
issue in which he has a long history of revert-warring and abusive
discussion, and he took the opportunity to take a few more personal
abuse shots at me.

I think that it is a clear abuse of admin powers, and it is hard to
see any evidence of good faith on jtdirls's part. I'd like to see him
explain his actions, admit his errors and apologise to those he has
wronged.

--
Peter in Canberra


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Orthography in interwiki links

body:
> This means that  should be general MediaWiki policy and it should not
> be used only on Wikipedias where communities are strongly against it.
> So, Names.php should be with small letters in the main distribution,
> but it should be changed for Wikipedias where communities are strongly
> against.

Millosh, with this you are making the assumption that it is correct
orthography for all those languages -- including some you've probably
not heard of, like Venda, Herero, and Chamorro -- and this is not the
case. In some cases it is correct orthography, HOWEVER in others it is
not. It should be on a case-by-case basis, rather than switching all
to lowercase.

Obviously you know best about Serbian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian, and
Bosnian, but instead of changing all Wikipedias we should have a vote
at each one, or find if it is correct orthography.

Mark


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
Actually I think that some of those we might imagine to be bad would,
if they were elected, get down to work and a lot of imagined trouble
might not happen at all.

Fred

On Jul 11, 2005, at 9:38 PM, Rebecca wrote:

> On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> In a lot of cases, I don't know that there is anything. I mean, my
>> understanding is that Ambi would like to stop being charged by the
>> meg for Internet access...
>>
>> -Snowspinner
>>
>
> Well, that's part of it. The key thing though is that I and others are
> just burnt out - it's vastly more fun to be writing articles than
> continually having to deal with the worst of Wikipedia day after day.
> I think it's always going to be something that has a high turnover
> rate, and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing - as long as we keep
> replacing people when they've had enough, the current system, with
> twelve arbitrators, works fine. There's just not always enough decent
> people to replace a huge amount of spots - I can't help but think that
> if another six or eight new arbitrators had been appointed in December
> that there would have been the shitfight from hell all through this
> year, as some very controversial people could've gotten up.
>
> -- ambi
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
Hi

While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer

This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this version contains
factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.

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

I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.

I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves... but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...

Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?

Anthere

---------------------------------
 Sell on Yahoo! Auctions  - No fees. Bid on great items.


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Orthography in interwiki links

body:
A lot of languages don't write language names with capital letter at
the beginning. This rule includes almost all Slavic languages,
Italian, Hungarian (I think Norwegian) etc.

Interwiki links are not headings and it should not be written as
headings. All of them are references. Even we can treat it as
headings, it makes a lot of confusion and bad orthography. For
example, Serbian interwiki link is with bad orthography ("?????? /
Srpski") as well as Serbo-Croatian.

As interwiki links use natural form of language name, we should use
natural orthography, too.

I think that it should be "announced" as Wikipedia policy, because it
seems that it is not just technical question. So, I am writing the
proposal here because of that.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
Reading again and comparing with other sites, I see that the text is probably not there because of protection, but only revision. I find it even more curious. Why does the text seem to say the version has been revised "subsequently" of being possibly covered by copyright ?

I read and read and read it again... and sorry, I think it is very confusing and possibly misleading.

ant

Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi

While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer

This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this version contains
factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.

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

I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.

I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves... but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...

Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?

Anthere

---------------------------------
Sell on Yahoo! Auctions - No fees. Bid on great items.

---------------------------------
 Sell on Yahoo! Auctions  - No fees. Bid on great items.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
A second "team" would be good, but team is the operant word. I think
a second team might develop organically if we could actually get 12
folks on board who were active. Our biggest problem is that the cases
are often very complicated, requiring review of voluminous evidence,
most of it poorly presented. Good presentation would highlight the
truly egregious offenses which a decision can be readily based on.
(But then one must spend time looking at the context -- what everyone
else was doing -- in order to determine whether or not the "offender"
is actually the one causing the trouble).

Perhaps cases could be decided only by the arbitrators who "sign on"
to be part of that particular case. That would then lessen the
problem of waiting around for those whose input in necessary but
don't have time or energy to review the evidence or vote on the
proposals. One problem is that if they are not satisfied with what is
being proposed is that they have to make their own proposals (and
justify them with cites to specific evidence) but that is a skill
which takes some practice. This  can seem discouraging and
frustrating at first. You just have to dive in and start doing it.

Fred

On Jul 11, 2005, at 11:54 PM, Jon wrote:

> The idea of having 24 arbitrators of whom only 7 hear each case is
> designed to lighten the workload and mean not all active
> arbitrators have to wade through every single case. I'd be
> interested to hear from current arbitrators as to whether lessening
> their individual load in such a way would interest them. (Of
> course, it is predicated on being able to find 24 willing volunteers!)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mark watch out you are trolling!

body:
This isn't as it appears to me. For example, "un denn de wildkatt" ->
"un denn gifft 't noch de wildkatt", "dorbi dominant" -> "daar bi
tov?rkamen", "dor een mumie rut" -> "daar 'n mumie vun", "de Kierl
kreeg sien Straaf" -> "bestraaft"...

You say "where usually both words are acceptable for different people"
-- how would YOU know this, since Platt isn't your native language??
Maybe, it sounds unnatural to all native speakers? It's awfully
strange that you expect me -- nay, everyone -- to take your word over
that of Ron Hahn.

Mark

On 12/07/05, Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann at gmx.de> wrote:
> Dear Mark,
>
> > I certainly do not believe that I am right and everybody else is
> > wrong... well, I do, but it is an opinion easily changed by solid
> > evidence -- Boris did a very good job of presenting real evidence, and
> > convinced me partially. I still haven't been able to sort out:
> > 1.Differences caused by the use of Patentplatt,
> We are still talking about nds/Katt. And you are still accusing us of using
> "Patentplatt", a pejorative word for "deficient Platt".
> Please have a look at
> http://nds.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katt&diff=21810&oldid=18531
> This is a diff between the last version before the anonymous changes (by
> Ron) and the end of his edits.
>
> Almost all of them involve spelling. In a few cases a different word was
> proposed, . The
> only real improvement is the last paragraph under "biology". Here the
> overall structure has improved a bit and the point in the last sentence was
> made clearer.
>
> So in short: this does not at all allow anyone to describe the whole article
> before to be "deficient Platt". And frankly I cannot stand that accusation
> any longer.
>
> Regards,
>
> Heiko Evermann
>
> --
> Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
> Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interwiki-Link-Checker

body:
Hi Flacus / Moin Moin Flacus,

There are already bots that do this. / Es gibt Funktionseinheiten
bereits, die das tun.

Cheers,
Mark

On 12/07/05, FlaBot <flabot at googlemail.com> wrote:
> URL : http://www.flacus.de/wikipedia/Interwiki-Link-Checker/
> FAQ : [[Benutzer:Flacus/Wikipedia Interwiki-Link-Checker/de]]
>
> Worum geht es?
>
> In den verschiedenen Sprachversionen der Wikipedia gibt es immer noch
> zahlreiche Seiten, die zwar den gleichen Namen tragen, aber nicht
> miteinander verlinkt sind. Mit dem Interwiki-Link-Checker kannst Du
> mithelfen, die Internationalisierung der Wikipedia zu verbessern.
>
> Wie funktioniert das?
>
> Benutzer:SirJective erstellt anhand der Eintr?ge in den
> Wikipedia-Datenbanken eine Liste von Seiten die die gleichen
> Artikelnamen tragen (Info). Dies ist schon der halbe Schritt zum Ziel.
> Die dann notwendige ?berpr?fung, ob es sich bei den beiden Artikeln um
> denselben Inhalt handelt, kann aber leider nicht automatisiert werden
> und mu? von einem Menschen vorgenommen werden.
>
> Was kann ich tun?
>
> Hier kommst du ins Spiel. Mit dem Interwiki-Link-Checker l?dst du
> beide Sprachversionen in ein Browserfenster, vergleichst sie und
> tr?gst das Ergebnis in ein Formular ein. Anhand dieser Eintr?ge k?nnen
> dann sp?ter Interwiki-Links auf die beiden Sprachen automatisch
> eingetragen werden.
>
> Wie benutze ich es?
>
> Du gehst auf http://www.flacus.de/wikipedia/Interwiki-Link-Checker/.
> Dann w?hlst du die Datenbank aus. Hier musst die Datenbank ausw?hlen,
> die Artikel aus der Sprachkombination enth?lt, die du ?berpr?fen
> m?chtest. Anschlie?end startest du das Script.
>
> Jetzt werden dir zwei Artikel aus den beiden ausgew?hlten Wikipediae
> gegen?berstellend angezeigt. Im unteren Frame kannst du jetzt mit
> Hilfe der Console dem Script mitteilen, ob die beiden Artikel das
> gleiche Thema behandeln.
>
> Im rechten Teil der Console kannst du die Sprache des Scriptes (nicht
> der Artikel) ?ndern.
>
> Was muss ich beachten?
>
> Dein Browser muss Framesets unterst?tzen und in deinem Browser muss
> Java-Script deaktiviert/ausgeschaltet sein. Weiterhin m?ssen zur
> Speicherung der Sprache der Konsole Cookies aktiviert sein.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Jon

body:
I did, of course, mean that only administrators at 30 November should be able to stand for election. The point being that the community has already said it is willing to put an amount of trust in those elected as administrators. By publicising such a fact well in advance, those wishing to be arbitrator candidates who aren't admins will have time enough to apply for the role. It's an idea to weed out clearly unsuitable candidates as I find it inconceivable that the community would be willing to trust someone as an arbitrator but not as an admin. There are all sorts of admins too - many of which probably wouldn't make good arbitrators - but at least such a requirement would remove the trolls from the election.

The idea of having 24 arbitrators of whom only 7 hear each case is designed to lighten the workload and mean not all active arbitrators have to wade through every single case. I'd be interested to hear from current arbitrators as to whether lessening their individual load in such a way would interest them. (Of course, it is predicated on being able to find 24 willing volunteers!)

Jon

Fred Bauder wrote:

It is not. Although all current Arbitrators happen to be.

Fred

On Jul 11, 2005, at 8:21 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:

> On 7/11/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "Only Wikipedians on the English Wikipedia that are _Administrators_
>> as at 30 November are eligible for the year end elections..."
>>
>
> I wasn't aware that there was a requirement that arbitrators be
> administrators.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with voicemail


body:
We have restricted the amount that can be presented. But what is
really needed is better organized evidence. Most time and energy
expended by Arbitrators goes into trying to figure out what is
significant.

Fred

On Jul 12, 2005, at 6:51 AM, Dan Grey wrote:

> Have the arbcom ever considered reducing the amount of evidence
> presented? I know there are already guidelines but 100 diffs seems a
> bit too many... surely any worthwhile case could be presented with a
> fraction of that number. Some of the essays seem a bit more than 500
> words (is that the limit?) too.
>
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Milos Rancic wrote:

>A lot of languages don't write language names with capital letter at
>the beginning. This rule includes almost all Slavic languages,
>Italian, Hungarian (I think Norwegian) etc.
>
>Interwiki links are not headings and it should not be written as
>headings. All of them are references. Even we can treat it as
>headings, it makes a lot of confusion and bad orthography. For
>example, Serbian interwiki link is with bad orthography ("?????? /
>Srpski") as well as Serbo-Croatian.
>
>As interwiki links use natural form of language name, we should use
>natural orthography, too.
>
>I think that it should be "announced" as Wikipedia policy, because it
>seems that it is not just technical question. So, I am writing the
>proposal here because of that.
>
>
Hoi,
I love to second this request. We also write Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew,
Thai, Chinese and Farsi it in its script, the whole point IS that we
write it as it is written in the script of the language, why write it
with bad orthography?? The name of the language in Italian is:
*italiano. *Please make it so.
Thanks,
GerardM


from_name: Ole Andersen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: separate Wikipedias for
	cultures, peoples, and countries, or for languages?

body:
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> Robin Patterson is, as you know, the most prolific contributor. He is
> not of Maori heritage, and his level of Maori is (self-admitted) mi-1.
...

How precise is this level mearurement? One person's mi-1 may be better
than another person's mi-2, if the two persons have different views of
language abilities. Not that I know anything about Robin's (or anyone
else's) Maori, but you cannot really use the language skill
measurement like that.

--
http://palnatoke.org * Ole Andersen, Copenhagen, DK
CV: http://palnatoke.org/CV.doc
ICQ: 86989486 phone: +45 22 34 72 92


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
In real life such "flunkies" are called lawyers, on Wikipedia
Advocates. We could require advocates. However our experience with
advocates is that they pay no attention to presenting evidence, a
real lawyers actual function, but engage in weird Wikilawyering that
harms their clients cause. Challenging our jurisdiction and demanding
that we all recuse ourselves is not going to work.

Fred

On Jul 12, 2005, at 7:27 AM, Phil Boswell wrote:

> "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote in
> message news:B845F36D-E8A8-4C7C-B5F1-A683CE6FAC55 at ctelco.net...
>
>> We have restricted the amount that can be presented. But what is
>> really
>> needed is better organized evidence. Most time and energy
>> expended by
>> Arbitrators goes into trying to figure out what is  significant.
>>
>
>
> Many is the time when I've tried to puzzle out badly-formatted
> evidence and
> my editing fingers have been itching to re-format into some sort of
> readable
> state, but there's this notice which says not to.
>
> Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the
> evidence and
> wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Hoi,
Yes, and from Sicilians and from others and from myself as well. Then
again what is it to you. Do you need to reply to everything? Are you
"the keeper of our collective conscience"??
And to be absolutely plain about it, you are not the only one speaking
about languages with other people. I at least have the courtesy of
keeping almost all of it of this or any other list. I need to learn
about languages and I do but your learning process if way too public.

On the subject of interwiki links, both no and nb give the same name for
the language in the Interwiki links. This does not work out well in
Wiktionary where you find no and nb often side by side.

Thanks,
GerardM

Mark Williamson wrote:

>Gerard, have there been complaints from Italians yet?
>
>Mark
>
>On 11/07/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Milos Rancic wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>A lot of languages don't write language names with capital letter at
>>>the beginning. This rule includes almost all Slavic languages,
>>>Italian, Hungarian (I think Norwegian) etc.
>>>
>>>Interwiki links are not headings and it should not be written as
>>>headings. All of them are references. Even we can treat it as
>>>headings, it makes a lot of confusion and bad orthography. For
>>>example, Serbian interwiki link is with bad orthography ("?????? /
>>>Srpski") as well as Serbo-Croatian.
>>>
>>>As interwiki links use natural form of language name, we should use
>>>natural orthography, too.
>>>
>>>I think that it should be "announced" as Wikipedia policy, because it
>>>seems that it is not just technical question. So, I am writing the
>>>proposal here because of that.
>>>
>>Hoi,
>>I love to second this request. We also write Arabic, Georgian, Hebrew,
>>Thai, Chinese and Farsi it in its script, the whole point IS that we
>>write it as it is written in the script of the language, why write it
>>with bad orthography?? The name of the language in Italian is:
>>*italiano. *Please make it so.
>>Thanks,
>>GerardM
>>
>>


from_name: Michael Turley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Writing with our readers in mind

body:
On 7/12/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > I wonder if there is also a problem wherein
> > people are afraid to make short, simple articles
> > defining technical terms, which would cut
> > downdrastically on duplication and allow wider
> > linking, because of the perceived mania for
> > "getting rid of stubs" and "moving definitions
> > to wiktionary".
>
> One solution might be to use links
> to Wiktionary more than we currently do.
>
> Regards,
> Haukur

Starting from when I was a small child reading them on the living room
floor, I've never fully grasped the reasons why an encyclopedia was
not just a superset of the dictionary.

I understand why dictionaries don't have encyclopedic articles in it;
they're more narrowly focused, and don't have the space.  But why
encyclopedias don't also contain a full dictionary is still a mystery
to me.  Each good article starts with a general definition of the term
already.

That said, interwiki links to Wiktionary are a very good thing to
have.  In the absence of a merged project, I would like to see them
used much more.  I think a section at the bottom of some articles,
with links to definitions of uncommon words used in the article would
also be nice.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
We talked about this time ago - and then we also said that if all are
capitalised Italian of course can be capitalised as it is then part of a
list where ALL interwikilinks are capitalised.

And for example the language names for the interwiki links on the Main
Page of en.wiktionary are not all capitalised, so the ones that should
go with a lower case should be adapted accordingly.

And I remember that even then you told Gerard that he is not Italian and
that he could not tell this. And I remember someone saying that in
Italian schools kids are taught to write Italian "italiano" since it is
correct ortography.

Now there's the big question on why for example I don't start such
discussions (that's quite easy): a simple thing like this one starts a
never ending discussion and really I don't have much time - so I prefer
to use my time working on wiktionary instead.

Going back to work.

Ciao, Sabine

___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
Mark, the details are not even important.

Just remember three words - respect the community.

-User:Fuzheado


body:
On 7/12/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/07/05, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that it is a clear abuse of admin powers, and it is hard to
> > see any evidence of good faith on jtdirls's part. I'd like to see him
> > explain his actions, admit his errors and apologise to those he has
> > wronged.
> >
> > --
> > Peter in Canberra
>
> Now, while I believe  from what I know that jtdirls "got it wrong", he
> is also a human being and therefore falliable, so I see no reason to
> pursue this further.

I'd like to see jtdirl accept that he has made a mistake. If you look
at his comments on this matter, you can see that he considers that he
has done the right thing and he sneaks in a bit more personal abuse. A
lot more, actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=18623967&oldid=18623722

We're all fallible, and I'm happy to admit that I'm far from perfect
in that regard, but I think that having an admin who blatantly abuses
his powers and doesn't accept that he has done anything wrong is a bit
much to swallow.

> Pwqn was unblocked by another admin, that's all that matters. Proof
> the admin system works, and works well.

He was promptly blocked again for creating a sockpuppet account to
evade the wrongful block. Two wrongs don't make a right.

> If jtdirls starts blocking left right and centre then open an RfC on
> him, but until then, move on.

Two points.

1. How do I open an RfC?
2. Jimbo asked for people to present cases of admin abuse with links
and diffs. I've done that.

--
Peter in Canberra


from_name: SJ

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Reviving the "kidpedia" -- Using Wikipedia for
	Education?

body:
Andy Carvin writes about using Wikipedia productively for K-12
classes; both to help them learn to research and to help fact-check
the encyclopedia.
   http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/acarvin/view?PostID=4746

Carvin hearkens back to a '96-era discussion on the "WWWEdu" email
list (now housed at yahoogroups :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwwedu/), in which they discussed
setting up a "kidopedia" with St. Johns University.  Kidopedia had
many things in common with wikipedia: it had nomenclature issues; it
began with a mailing list (restricted to eight-letter addresses?)
named "kidpedia at sjuvm.edu"; and it was meant to be "an encyclopedia
for and by the K-12 Internetters who will be multicultural and
multilingual, as well as multimedia."    (http://tinyurl.com/9bakq)

Here is mention of a related grant proposal, which might be relevant
to Wikipedia grant efforts:
  http://www.evergreen.loyola.edu/~rcrews/sl/archives/95/jun95/0005.html

And our own project focused on kids, with a much narrower scope (which
could still use your help):  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior

--
++SJ


from_name: Kelly Martin

body:
On 7/12/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence and
> wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.

The idea of the ArbCom having a "special master" corral the evidence
into good order is a good one, but the problem is in finding people to
do that.  Finding people who are willing to do such tedious work
without compensation and also disinterested in the matter _sub judice_
is very difficult -- even harder than finding good arbitrators.

Kelly


body:
On 7/12/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> In real life such "flunkies" are called lawyers, on Wikipedia
> Advocates. We could require advocates. However our experience with
> advocates is that they pay no attention to presenting evidence, a
> real lawyers actual function, but engage in weird Wikilawyering that
> harms their clients cause. Challenging our jurisdiction and demanding
> that we all recuse ourselves is not going to work.

I think what you're really looking for are law clerks.  The only
reason lawyers do all the dirty work in organizing material for courts
in real life is that failure to do so harms their cases.  The ArbCom
is FAR more generous about such matters than any real life court.
Since the current "penalty" for being uncooperative with the ArbCom is
that the ArbCom will simply drop the matter without finding (or delay
ruling for months), at least one litigant in every case is usually
incented to be uncooperative.

Kelly


from_name: Chip Berlet

body:
Hi,

Essentially, this is psuedo-legal gibberish. Many people who do not understand copyright and Fair Use have been taking relatively legitimate disclaimer statements from various websites and then rewriting them into this form. It is a sort of populist faux law. There are actually scholars who study the creation of fake legal writing.  It is especially popular in the U.S. right-wing militia and Patriot movements, but some on the left have picked it up.

-Chip Berlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Anthere
Sent: Tue 7/12/2005 9:08 AM
To: wikien-l at wikimedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] disclaimer at the bottom of pages

Hi

While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer

This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this version contains
factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.

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

I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.

I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves... but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...

Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?

Anthere

---------------------------------
 Sell on Yahoo! Auctions  - No fees. Bid on great items.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: foundation-l

from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Brilliant thinkers brainstorm over fate of the world

body:
Today in my news paper "Het Nieuwsblad" on page 8.

"Oxford wil de wereld redden"
/Oxford wants to save the world/

subtitel;
"Geniale denkers brainstormen over lot van de wereld"
/Brilliant thinkers brainstorm over fate of the world/

It is about TED-Global. It is an highly exclusive conference for the most most
brilliant thinkers alive to think about the future.

There will be 45 persons present. From those 45 there are 6 persons selected in
the newspaper whit there picture and some info about what for people the are.

One of those is .... Jimmy Wales!

Whit the label "De allesweter" /the knowitall/
occupation:  "internetspecialist uit Alabama" /internet specialist from Alabama/

Goal;  "Iedereen moet gratis toegang tot kennis hebben" /Everybody must have
free access to knowledge/

http://www.ted.com/conference/flashpage.cfm?conferenceKey=TG2005


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

body:
Which article?

UtherSRG

On 7/12/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the
> page the following disclaimer
>
>
>
> This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
> This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
> Besides normal editing, the reason for revision may have been that this
> version contains
> factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the GFDL.
>
>
> ----------------
>
> I am *very* perplex. There are MANY reasons why an article can be
> protected on Wikipedia, and I would dare saying that having part of its
> content under copyright is probably the least probable reason for it to be
> restricted in edition. Protection is most of the time against vandalism or
> to cool down spirits. On the contrary, if an article contains factual
> inaccuracies or copyrighted material, it should be OPEN to editing so that
> it can be fixed as quickly as possible.
>
> I perceive this disclaimer as possibly be meant to protect ourselves...
> but also as giving a very inacurate reason why we protect articles...
>
> Second, WHY this reference to the US law code here?
>
> Anthere
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Sell on Yahoo! Auctions - No fees. Bid on great items.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Mark Ryan

body:
On 7/12/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> 5. Only Wikipedians on the English Wikipedia that are Arbitrators as at 30 November are eligible for the year end elections (to eliminate trolls and WPians that are clearly undesirable as Arbitrators from the election) - maybe a little harsh - but if publicised in advance would allow all interested candidates that aren't admins to apply for adminship.

I don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying that in your
proposal, only people who are currently Arbitrators can be elected as
Arbitrators at the year end elections? Or that only current
Arbitrators can vote in the year end elections (election by peers, so
to speak)?

~Mark Ryan


from_name: Heiko Evermann

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Hi Mark,
> > Nevertheless Mark changed "veel" into "v??l". I then reverted it. In
> > general Sass favours "e" ?ver "?". Mark does otherwise. He changed a lot
> > of "e"s into "?"s. I do not consider that an improvement.
>
> I've said before and I'll say again, those changes were originally
> made by Ron Hahn. You reverted them, and then I reverted you. So they
> do not originate from me.
Maybe. But after all, anonymous edits are living a dangerous life. As I said
somewhere else: I use the recent changes patrol flags to check each and every
edit in nds.wikipedia.org. Anonymous edits are something I check twice.

> > 1) We have been tidying up a lot recently, but Mark fails to notice. He
> > just comes along, has an idea, does not ask the community about its
> > customs and just does whatever he has in mind. He gets reverted, does it
> > again and gets into trouble. This is egotism. Wikipedia however is
> > supposed to be a community project.
>
> If it's supposed to be a community project, then why are you excluding
> opinions such as Servien's and Ron's as if they were from outside,
> even though these people tried to contribute?
I have had a long discussion with Servien. The result of which is that we
would like to have two different wikipedias: nds and nds-nl, and we perfectly
agree. The problem with you is just that you do as you please, and when
someone disagrees, you just go on as you please. Again: "respect the
community". And a further piece of information: community is those people who
were already there. If someone comes to join, the best way to earn respect
within a community is by doing good work. Good work being work that the
community that is already there likes. If however someone comes and just
changes things without caring about previous discussions, then this is what
might happen:
1) the changes happen to be in line with previous decisions. Good luck.
Respect points earned.
2) the changes happen to go against local policy. Bad luck. No respect points
earned.
2.1) the changes were anonymous. Community suspects some kind of vandalism.
Quick revert. Such things happen at least twice a week. The problem with
anonymous users is that you cannot even drop them a note. Hence the quick
revert.
2.2) the changes were made by a logged in user. Community might complain. A
discussion starts. Changes may or may not be reverted.

The first edits of the article about "Katt" were anonymous and they did not
fit into our local policy. They got reverted. Then you stepped in and just
did the same thing. And that brought you into trouble.

> > 2) Whether or not these phonetic distinctions are neccessary or not is
> > not just for me or for Mark to decide. The main orthography (according to
> > Sass) thinks otherwise. And therefore it is fine not to make that
> > distinction. 3) That also means that his orthographic converter will not
> > be needed. Unless, of course, a community process over time comes to a
> > different conclusion.
>
> How is the conclusion about an orthographic converter even RELATED to
> your other conclusion??
We do not need your orthographic converter, because we are not converting from
Sass to Ron's spelling.

> > > And then, after this, there needs to be a recognition that nds.wiki at
> > > the current time can only be for Northern and Western Low Saxon, ie
> > > excluding Plautdietsch, Westphaelsch, Eastphaelsch... otherwise we
> > > open the Pandora's box of incomprehensibility.
> >
> > Yes, this is indeed the case. But these variants of Low Saxon are
> > different no matter what orthography you use. Nordneddersassisch is one
> > of the variants within Low Saxon that developed into a standard. (BTW:
> > Harry Potter vol 1+2 were translated into Low Saxon, guess into which
> > version... Right: Nordneddersassisch)
>
> What is your point here? That's basically what I said.
My point is that you seemed to present your point in a way that suggests that
this decision is deplorable. I said. Yes! This is the way it is.

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann


body:
This post made me very happy  :-)  Thank you for sharing, Haukur.
It's hard for me to imagine a car with a mouse tail...

SJ

On 7/12/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Starting from when I was a small child reading them on the living room
> > floor, I've never fully grasped the reasons why an encyclopedia was
> > not just a superset of the dictionary.
>
> Me too :) But I think I have a better idea now.
>
> An encyclopedia shouldn't be too language-specific.
> An ideal English encyclopedia and an ideal Icelandic
> encyclopedia could have approximately a one-to-one
> correspondance between articles. This would not at
> all be the case with an ideal pair of dictionaries.


from_name: Bennett Haselton

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] collaborative editing system for
	controversial content

body:
At 03:15 PM 7/12/2005 +0700, Walter van Kalken wrote:
>Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
>>Bennett Haselton wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>(c) Indicate that you disagree with the reply if it's a rebuttal.  If
>>>this happens, then a "jury" of other users on the site will be selected
>>>at random to vote on who is right,
>>>
>>
>>One reason that voting is so often avoided in online communities is that
>>it is unclear who is eligible to vote.  While one-person-one-vote is a
>>beautiful principle, it is not self-evident who can be counted as "a
>>person".  How do you convince your users that the voters aren't just sock
>>puppets, or that they are of a mature enough age to make an informed
>>decision?
>>
>>
>>
>Most people do not make informed decisions anyway IMHO. It is all about
>emotion. Someone can be a great admin never abuse his admin buttons but
>still be voted out of adminship because people do not like the person.
>Viceversa also happens.

Yes and this is exactly why the system only allows voting on highly
specific questions of fact or logic and not just whether you "like"
someone.  The theory is that people will vote more honestly on specific
questions one at a time, where there's less room for rationalization.

This theory may or may not end up being correct, but that's why I'm
encouraging people to sign up and try it out.

         -Bennett

bennett at peacefire.org     http://www.peacefire.org
(425) 497 9002


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Shouldn't we kick paedophiles off Wikipedia?

body:
"Jon" <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:20050709175125.81541.qmail at web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com...
[snip]
> Let me ask the question again - is Wikipedia a haven for paedophiles?

No, Wikipedia is a haven for **info**-philes. We crave information. What
people then do with it is between them, their deity of choice, and the local
ordnances and bylaws.

Thinking about X is not a crime. Doing X might be, and for certain values of
X is almost anywhere in the world.

> If so, I can see many parents banning their children from using it - to
> the detriment of us all.

To the detriment of said children: if parents are so stupid as to let their
children surf the internet without adequate supervision, they might as well
be letting them wander around their local red-light district (which is
likely perfectly respctable during daytime) at midnight.

With great power comes great responsibility.

The Internet is one of the most powerful things anybody has access to these
days.

Wikipedia might well be one of the most powerful things on the Internet.

Do the math.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/07/05, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just remember three words - respect the community.
>
> And if the community is composed basically of just one person who
> doesn't really speak the language...?

As Angela wrote:
"Have you discussed this with any of the people who have edited this
Wikipedia? There are 75 registered users and 8 admins. I'm not aware
of any of them having a problem with Robin's approach, which as far as
I can tell simply involves adding explanations in English to some
pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and a pointer to that explanation
from the main page and site notice."

-User:Fuzheado


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Joseph Ballesteros

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Tagalog Wikipedia logo

body:
Thanks Ashar! :-)

On 7/12/05, Ashar Voultoiz <hashar at altern.org> wrote:
> Joseph Ballesteros wrote:
> > We have created a logo for the Tagalog Wikipedia.  It is uploaded,
> > protected and ready to switch.
> >
> > I hope that this is the right venue to request it. My apologies if it is not.
> >
> > One of the administrators of the Tagalog Wikipedia project had posted
> > a request here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_logos
>
> Hello Joseph,
>
> Logo for tl got switched to:
>  http://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wiki.png
>
> Other logos switchs, that were waiting on meta, got switched too.
>
> --
> Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/
> IM: hashar at jabber.org  ICQ: 15325080
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
"This means that  should be general MediaWiki policy and it should not
be used only on Wikipedias where communities are strongly against it.
So, Names.php should be with small letters in the main distribution,
but it should be changed for Wikipedias where communities are strongly
against."

I took this to mean that all language names should by default be small
letters, and it can be changed later if it is a problem. Is that what
you were saying?

Mark

On 12/07/05, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > This means that  should be general MediaWiki policy and it should not
> > > be used only on Wikipedias where communities are strongly against it.
> > > So, Names.php should be with small letters in the main distribution,
> > > but it should be changed for Wikipedias where communities are strongly
> > > against.
> >
> > Millosh, with this you are making the assumption that it is correct
> > orthography for all those languages -- including some you've probably
> > not heard of, like Venda, Herero, and Chamorro -- and this is not the
> > case. In some cases it is correct orthography, HOWEVER in others it is
> > not. It should be on a case-by-case basis, rather than switching all
> > to lowercase.
> >
> > Obviously you know best about Serbian, Croatian, Serbo-Croatian, and
> > Bosnian, but instead of changing all Wikipedias we should have a vote
> > at each one, or find if it is correct orthography.
>
> I heard that English speakers/writers write "English" with capital
> letter at the beginning and I didn't think to ask en: community to
> vote about that ;) (I am sorry if my English said that I think that
> small letters should be implemented for English, too :) )
>
> I don't have an idea what is Venda or Herero orthography; but if the
> orthography says (and this is very simple if we are talking about
> standardized language) that they should write their language name with
> small letter at the beginning, it should be implemented in MediaWiki.
> If community says that they want to write with capital letter,
> Wikipedia should implement it with capital letter. And I think that
> this is very simple: MediaWiki default is the matter of orthography,
> Wikipedia is the matter of community (even it should not be).
>
> If we are talking about non-standardized language, then community on
> Wikipedia should standardize language and then it is the real matter
> of community.
>
> But... You should keep in mind that a lot of small Wikipedias have
> standardized languages. (last year Serbian Wikipedia was very small
> and Macedonian was existed only as "if you know this language, please
> start to write something", but both of languages have standardized
> language). And the relevant person who should be asked for what is
> right and what is wrong is not Wikipedian (who is probably programmer)
> but some linguist: in the cases like this we should ask some linguist
> from MIT, Harvard... specialized for that language. For example, out
> of developed communities, we should make some questionnaire for each
> language: (1) Does language X has standard orthography? (2) If
> language X has standard orthography, what is the right writing of the
> language name in this language? ... And to send it to a couple of
> universities. I am sure that we would get answers.
>
> Of course, we can realize maybe a lot without asking any question;
> examples are: (1) Sicilian is not standardized, but follows Italian
> standard; (2) Klingon is not standardized, but follows English
> standard; (3) Esperanto has a lot of grammars so we can see what the
> rules are; etc. etc.
>
> And, of course, it should be implemented in MediaWiki. For Wikipedias
> communities should be asked with the question like this: Interwiki
> links are not headings, but references. We found that your orthography
> says that the name of your language is written with the starting small
> letter; do you want to implement this in interwiki links or you prefer
> to leave interwiki links like they are now?
>
> And to add to the list Macedonian and Slovenian (I am sure that they
> would agree about that).
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
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POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Fwd: [Wiki-research-l] Announcement: Survey study on
	the motivation of contributors to Wikipedia

body:
Hello

Best is to forward it to Wikipedia-l

http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/

Cheers

Ant

--- Joachim Schroer
<schroer at psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote:

> Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 15:55:42 +0200
> From: Joachim Schroer
> <schroer at psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de>
> To: wiki-research-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Announcement: Survey
> study on the motivation of	contributors to Wikipedi
>
> Dear all,
>
> we're a team of organizational psychologists at the
> University of
> Wuerzburg (Germany), and at the moment we're
> conducting a survey study
> on the motivation of contributors to Wikipedia.
>
> The study is available at:
> <http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/>
>
> Our project page is here:
>
<www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/wikipedia.php?lang=en>
>
> I have already sent the announcement to the WikiEN
> list:
>
<http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026281.html>
>
> The questionnaire is in English, but participants
> from other Wikipedias
> are of course invited to take part as well. Do you
> have ideas how to
> make the survey known in other projects?
>
> We'd also be happy...
> - if you could forward this link to other people who
> might be
>   interested, but do not read the mailing lists, and
> - if you might put up links to our survey where they
> fit.
>
> Thank you!
> Best wishes from Wuerzburg,
>
> Joachim Schroer
>
> --
> Joachim Schroer, Dipl.-Psych.
> University of Wuerzburg
> Department of Psychology II, Industrial and
> Organizational Psychology
> Roentgenring 10
> 97070 Wuerzburg
> Germany
>
> Phone:	+49 931 31 6062
> Fax:	+49 931 31 6063
>
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/staff/schroer.php
> _______________________________________________
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l at Wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>

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


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Zlatiborian Wikipedia: request for comments

body:
Hi all,

I have been asked to advocate for the creation of a Zlatiborian Wikipedia.

However, it seems that the status of Zlatiborian as a language is in
question. Apparently, non-Zlatiborian Serbians assert it is not a
language, or even a dialect, but an accent.

The relevant message on my talkpage is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Node_ue#Differences_between_Zlatiborian_and_Serbian

Obviously, that's not much information, but I hope that some people
can give their opinions here.

Mark

--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: Bishonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 8th Duke of Wellington image crisis

body:
On Mon Jul 11 15:30:23 UTC 2005, Jack Lynch (Sam Spade) wrote:

bump

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 7/10/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
 > Please have a look @
 >
 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Image_use
 >
 > we have a rather difficult situation, spanning several pages and a
 > number of policies, which I would like to see handled promptly and
 > effectually.
 >
 > Jack (Sam Spade)

There is no 8th Duke of Wellington image crisis. It was amicably
resolved with mutual apologies on July 10, and I do not understand
why Sam Spade keeps trying to re-awaken it. Some hours after Richard
Harvey had posted a conciliatory message at [[Talk:Arthur Wellesley,
8th Duke of Wellington]], stating that he wasn't upset with John
Kenney and would gladly buy him a pint, Sam posted an urgent-sounding
crisis warning at

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=18530575&oldid=185298
75

And despite Fred Bauder's soothing reply, and John Kenney's apology
slightly later on the 10th, Sam has now posted *and re-posted* his
call for "handling" of the "difficult situation" to the mailing list.
Please try to get over it, Sam. Everybody else has.

Best wishes

Bishonen


from_name: Jean-Baptiste Soufron

subject: [Foundation-l] Fair Use and Registered Trademarks

body:
Actually, I don't think you can digitize some public domain work and
change its title unless you also change its content.

At least in France, that would be forbidden by the moral rights
legislation.

Le 11 juil. 05 ? 14:33, Robert Scott Horning a ?crit :

> Lars Aronsson wrote:
>
>
>> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>
>>> There must be more to the story than what Michael Hart is
>>> suggesting here.
>>>
>>>
>> Why do you think that "must be"?  Project Gutenberg is run by
>> Michael Hart.  Who else should answer your questions?  A strong
>> disclaimer doesn't always have a strong reason.
>>
>> When we digitize old (Scandinavian) encyclopedias, magazines, and
>> other printed works in Project Runeberg, we never had to alter the
>> title, but always reproduced the title as it was printed.  There
>> seems to be no risk that readers should confuse the old issues
>> with the current product.
>>
>>
> It just seems as though the natural route would have been to simply
> leave it alone and not call it something special like Project
> Gutenberg Encyclopedia, but instead call it by its original name,
> such as exactly what you just described, and about 99% of all items
> found in Project Gutenberg.  A disclaimer like what is put on that
> particular e-text is furthermore unusual, even for a PG text
> because it is in addtion to the usual disclaimer found on most
> other PG texts.
>
> What is more, there is another Encyclopaedia Britannica text in the
> PG archive that does not have this disclaimer, although that text
> (e-text #13600) does not appear to have the same scruitiny that
> previous e-texts went through at the beginning of the PG archive.
> It will be interesting to see what happens when several more
> volumes are released for this edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica,
> as they are currently in the final stages of proofreading/assembly
> right now.
>
> --
> Robert Scott Horning
> 218 Sunstone Circle
> Logan, UT 84321
> (435) 753-3330
> robert_horning at netzero.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Haukur Þorgeirsson

body:
> I wonder if there is also a problem wherein
> people are afraid to make short, simple articles
> defining technical terms, which would cut
> downdrastically on duplication and allow wider
> linking, because of the perceived mania for
> "getting rid of stubs" and "moving definitions
> to wiktionary".

One solution might be to use links
to Wiktionary more than we currently do.

Regards,
Haukur


body:
Unforunately I do not know this.

George claims that they are different; people from sr.wiki are
claiming they are not. It's difficult to separate the opinions here.

Also, there is an unfortunate lack of material on Zlatiborian, and
even on Serbian regional differences, so unlike a case such as
Triestin vs Venet or Baseldytsch vs Alemannisch, it is hard to come up
with the answers.

Mark

On 12/07/05, Wouter Steenbeek <musiqolog at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Angela <beesley at gmail.com>
> >
> >He seems to implying the main differences are in pronunciation:
> >
> >"Zlatiborian uses the Ijekavian pronounce, while Serbian uses the
> >Ekavian. [...] Most of Zlatiborian words are differently stressed than
> >Serbian.
> >
> >This isn't relevant to Wikipedia since it's only written, not spoken.
> >Where projects are moving towards spoken versions
> >([[meta:Wikisound]]), there's no reason to not record multiple
> >versions with different pronunciations.
> >
> You can write any difference in pronunciation, except the really minor ones.
> How big are the differences? Are the dialect groups mutually intelligible?
> Are the differences comparable with English proper and London dialect?
> English and Scots? Spanish and Portuguese? We must know that to judge
> whether or not this Zlatiborian can get a Wikipedia on its own.
>
> Wouter
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN Webmessenger doet het altijd en overal http://webmessenger.msn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

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POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE


from_name: info at AncientSciences.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Submission in www.AncientSciences.com

body:
Hi,

Thanks, We have received Your Submission in our directory of
AncientSciences <http://www.AncientSciences.com> .

Website : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horology/
Category : Horology >> Horology Guides And Resources

Your entry is forwarded to our team for verification.

Regards,
www.AncientSciences.com <http://www.AncientSciences.com>


body:
"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:fb7fdd9c05071105545dabd943 at mail.gmail.com...
On 7/10/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 10/07/05, Fred Bauder
> <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > Take, for example, paracetamol:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol#Mechanism_of_Toxicity
> > What the hell does that mean?! It is, frankly, total garbage.
> > Completely correct, no doubt, but meaningless to the vast amjority of
> > people - and a lot of people want to know why paracetamol can kill
> > them so easily.
> Now that's a good example of overusing scientific terms. If someone
> had described the role of the pathways and what they actually were in
> the article (did they?) a simply explaining what oversaturation is
> would do the trick.

That section has, at time of reading, one single wikilink.

This presents a very good case for raising the bar on frequency of linking
to allow the first instance in any given section to be linked, rather than
in the whole article: I don't want to have to scroll up an unknown distance
to find where [[conjugation]] might be linked just so that I can find out
WTF it means, for example.

I wonder if there is also a problem wherein people are afraid to make short,
simple articles defining technical terms, which would cut down drastically
on duplication and allow wider linking, because of the perceived mania for
"getting rid of stubs" and "moving definitions to wiktionary".

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Phil Sandifer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Changes to RfC Procedures?

body:
I've proposed a change or addition to the RfC procedures on the talk
page of [[WP:RFC]]. I encourage people to have a look there, but the
upshot is that I'd like to see RfCs stop being adversarial/
prosecutorial mechanisms that are mostly a rehearsal for an arbcom
case, and instead be what they should have been all along -
opportunities for users to give constructive comments on each other's
conduct and editing.

My hope is that the RfC will fill a role more akin to mediation, in
which people can go "Oh, wow, a lot of people do wish I'd tone it
down a bit, even though they basically like what I contribute to
articles" or "Wow, a lot of people do think I'm a little brusque with
my administrative actions." Ideally, RfCs would be something people
would consider starting about themselves, asking for input and
council, and that the current petty rules-lawyering about whether an
RfC is "properly" certified would end.

I invite, well, comments. :)

-Snowspinner


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

body:
Dear Mark,

This morning I came back to my computer after only 11 hours of absence and
my mail box was filled with 29 new messages of which no less than 13 were
yours. I have to warn you: you are flooding this mailing list, as 40% of all
messages are yours. Imagine every subscriber being as active as you are: I
would either end my life or my subscription to this list. It took me more
than half an hour only to read your messages. Unlike you, most people have
other things to do than writing to this mailing list, learning languages and
mingling into whatever Wikipedia attracting your intention, such as work,
study, and friends other than those you me(e)t on the internet. Any
discussion topic attracting more than 10, 15 e-mails contains your
contribution. You are streching those topics to a really undesirable length,
often changing the subject radically and to a point where it becomes quite
irrelevant for this mailing list (though I have to admit a few other posters
occasionally also behave that way).

Many of your contributions are relevant, and often I can second them. But
very often you are quite trolling, not only here but also on Wikimedia or
some Wikipedias. WHenever it comes to anything concerning languages, you
jump onto it, and always you are right and the others are wrong. It is not
your vision itself, but your apparent belief that you are always right that
brings you in trouble. I would, as well as you, abhor any regional language
being corrupted by people who want to speak it, and I think English content
on non-English Wikipedias is intolerable. But no other well-intending (or so
I suppose) contributor but you would ever achieve being blocked at two
Wikipedias of which the languages are spoken at almost perfectly antipode
places in the world. Perhaps you are getting too deep in Wikipedias where an
adolescent boy from Arizona (or a student from the Netherlands, for that
matter), unable to speak the language normally has no business. You blamed
Gerard in the interwiki matter to speak for the Italians: he could not do so
because he was not one himself. Then a logical conclusion would be that you
stay away at least at some places, wouldn't it?

I cannot emphasise enough how much I appreciate your sense-making
contributions, but I have to warn you that many of your contributions are
not so positive and that the trolls are gradually overshadowing your good
actions. I know there are many more, both on this list and elsewhere, who
have similar views.  Yann made a similar, albeit briefer, remark on your
meta talk page. A member of the Wikimedia Foundation answered, when asked
what they would do if they got a $2 million donation, that "we should use it
to pay trolls like Mark Williamson to go away". A prominent contributor
e-mailed to me, when I mentioned our personal discord originating in the
Requests page matter: "Don't take it to heart. Mark is constantly boasting
around and pretends the languages are all his. Most people have quitted to
take him seriously for a long time." Another prominent user siad to me in
personal communication: "one of the reasons I haven't joint the Wikipedia
mailing list (so far) is that I do not want to receive five (or more)
e-mails by Node every day".

When saying things like these, I usually defend you by pointing at your good
contributions. I do not share the view that you be a troll. That's why I
urge you to take this council: Stop trolling, just because you aren't one!

Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Speel online games via MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/


body:
> Starting from when I was a small child reading them on the living room
> floor, I've never fully grasped the reasons why an encyclopedia was
> not just a superset of the dictionary.

Me too :) But I think I have a better idea now.

An encyclopedia shouldn't be too language-specific.
An ideal English encyclopedia and an ideal Icelandic
encyclopedia could have approximately a one-to-one
correspondance between articles. This would not at
all be the case with an ideal pair of dictionaries.

Each language has its own arbitrary way of splitting
the world up into words. For example Icelandic has a
lot of more precise words for what English calls "tail".

dindill - sheep tail
hali - cow tail
tagl - horse tail
r?fa - dog tail
st?ri - cat tail
skott - mouse tail
st?l - bird tail
spor?ur - fish tail

When new things with tails come along they get one of
these applied to them. Thus, an airplane has a "st?l",
a car has a "skott" and a smurf has a "dindill". There
is no generic word in Icelandic for "tail".

But an encyclopedia tries to be somewhat independent
of all this. It tries to split the world up into
concepts that make sense from the point of view of
our current state of knowledge. Those tails that
have enough in common to be usefully described
together should form one article, both in an English
encyclopedia and an Icelandic one.

In practice I'm sure that the language an encyclopedia
is written in will significantly impact its choice of
entries.

Hmm... In this case [[tail]] is actually a dictionary
entry masquerading as a disambiguation page.

Regards,
Haukur


from_name: Rebecca

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> In a lot of cases, I don't know that there is anything. I mean, my
> understanding is that Ambi would like to stop being charged by the
> meg for Internet access...
>
> -Snowspinner

Well, that's part of it. The key thing though is that I and others are
just burnt out - it's vastly more fun to be writing articles than
continually having to deal with the worst of Wikipedia day after day.
I think it's always going to be something that has a high turnover
rate, and that this isn't necessarily a bad thing - as long as we keep
replacing people when they've had enough, the current system, with
twelve arbitrators, works fine. There's just not always enough decent
people to replace a huge amount of spots - I can't help but think that
if another six or eight new arbitrators had been appointed in December
that there would have been the shitfight from hell all through this
year, as some very controversial people could've gotten up.

-- ambi


from_name: JAY JG

body:
>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
>
>Dan Grey (dangrey at gmail.com) [050712 22:51]:
>
> > Have the arbcom ever considered reducing the amount of evidence
> > presented? I know there are already guidelines but 100 diffs seems a
> > bit too many... surely any worthwhile case could be presented with a
> > fraction of that number. Some of the essays seem a bit more than 500
> > words (is that the limit?) too.
>
>
>It's a tricky one - not enough evidence and an allegation won't be taken
>seriously; too much and it'll never get read in too many cases.
>

Also, for the most egregious offenders 10 links is enough, but for many, in
order to show a pattern of behaviour, you have to show a number of examples
over a significant period of time.  Also, showing 10 examples of a negative
behaviour might indicate that the behaviour warrants a warning, or a brief
ban from editing certain kinds of articles.  However, 100 links showing
multiple violations with multiple editors and articles might indicate that
this editor is irredeemable, at least in the short term, and warrants a 1
year ban instead.

Jay.


from_name: Dan Grey

body:
Have the arbcom ever considered reducing the amount of evidence
presented? I know there are already guidelines but 100 diffs seems a
bit too many... surely any worthwhile case could be presented with a
fraction of that number. Some of the essays seem a bit more than 500
words (is that the limit?) too.

Dan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Thank you RickK

body:
"firstname lastname" <cainwilshire at hotmail.com>
wrote in message news:BAY102-F2EC566A9ABE3150C5EC3CDDDD0 at phx.gbl...
[snip]
> What a colossal clusterfuck Wikipedia is. All this effort put into an
> encyclopedia that will never be finished, will never make any money, will
> never have any credibility.

Right.

Because we're all here for the money (and the babes :-), and we're really
hoping we'll finish it so we can go and find something more fun to do, and
we're worried about whether people like you will ever find us credible?

Frankly, o little-ray-of-sunshine, if we ever gain that kind of credibility,
**that's** when the word "cluster-fuck" will become applicable.

If it's soooo baaaad, why are you still here?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Joachim Schroer

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Announcement: Survey study on the motivation of
	contributors to Wikipedia

body:
Dear all,

we are a research team at the University of Wuerzburg (Germany)
interested in the reasons and motives why participants are involved in
Wikipedia as author, administrator, or software developer. We are also
interested whether these reasons have changed over time.

We would like to invite you to answer our online survey, which is
available at:

    <http://www.unipark.de/uc/wikipedia/>

In this international version of the survey, we included a number of
valuable ideas and suggestions we got from our survey of the German
Wikipedia project a few weeks ago. We hope this study will

    * provide statistical data and insight about Wikipedia,
    * encourage a helpful discussion between participants, and
    * reveal best practices for Wikipedia and related Open Content
      projects.

For more information and the current status of the study, please visit
our website:

<http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/research/wikipedia.php?lang=en>

We would be very glad if

   1. as many contributers as possible complete the questionnaire to
      allow reliable results and
   2. if you could spread the link above or this e-mail to people who
      don't regularly read this list.

If you have questions or suggestions regarding the study or the
questionnaire, please don't hesitate to contact us. We're looking
forward to your participation -- and thanks a lot for your time and input!

Best wishes from Germany,

Joachim Schroer   Guido Hertel   Dana J?ger   Elisabeth Pfeiffer
Nils Sauer

--
Joachim Schroer, Dipl.-Psych.
University of Wuerzburg
Department of Psychology II, Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Roentgenring 10
97070 Wuerzburg
Germany

Phone:	+49 931 31 6062
Fax:	+49 931 31 6063
http://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/ao/staff/schroer.php


body:
On 12/07/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure how to get it to scale. I can only see the workload going up
> as the editor population goes up, and hence the problem children in
> proportion.l.
>
>
> - d.

You could increase the deterrent factor. Longer, more frequent bans etc.

BTW wasn't Raul suggesting a month or two ago that the workload was
actually going _down_?

Dan


from_name: William M Connolley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
On Tue, 12 Jul 2005, Fred Bauder wrote:
> We have restricted the amount that can be presented. But what is
> really needed is better organized evidence. Most time and energy
> expended by Arbitrators goes into trying to figure out what is
> significant.

Speaking as someone experienced in being *in* arbcomm cases :-) I would say that
the arcomm could ease their lot, and that of participants, by being a bit more
active. Ie, people could present a much more restricted set of the important
evidence, the arbcomm review it, and say "OK, thats enough" or "We need more to
demonstrate your point X" or something. At the moment, because the arbcomm give
little if any feedback on how much evidence is needed, people naturally put up
more rather than less.

-W.

William M Connolley | wmc at bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/
Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479
If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders


body:
"Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote in
message news:B845F36D-E8A8-4C7C-B5F1-A683CE6FAC55 at ctelco.net...
> We have restricted the amount that can be presented. But what is  really
> needed is better organized evidence. Most time and energy  expended by
> Arbitrators goes into trying to figure out what is  significant.

Many is the time when I've tried to puzzle out badly-formatted evidence and
my editing fingers have been itching to re-format into some sort of readable
state, but there's this notice which says not to.

Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence and
wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] disclaimer at the bottom of pages

body:
On 12/07/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> While I was reading a protected article, I discovered at the bottom of the page the following disclaimer
>
>
>
> This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108.
> This version of the article has been subsequently revised.
>
> Anthere

You'll also find that at the bottom of old article revisions in
Histories. I've never worked out why.

Dan


from_name: Milos Rancic

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Orthography in interwiki links

body:
> a) is it a good idea?

Yes, it is :) As I see, at least Serbian (we want that), Croatian (one
contributor is strongly pro, one realizes that it is correct, one is
against), Serbo-Croatian (I am a "linguist consultant" there ;) ) and
Italian. (As well as I can say that Bosnian Wikipedia should change
it, but people from bs: should be asked.)

The problem is that a lot of the "first contributors" on small
Wikipedias don't know their own orthography well. (For example, until
we realized that admins can change MediaWiki interface 0:) we had
interface translation on Wikipedia with a lot of orthography errors.)
A lot of them are the first just because they use Internet, not
because they have correct knowledge of their own orthography.

This means that  should be general MediaWiki policy and it should not
be used only on Wikipedias where communities are strongly against it.
So, Names.php should be with small letters in the main distribution,
but it should be changed for Wikipedias where communities are strongly
against.

> b) is someone prepared to do the research, change all the necessary
> entries in languages/Names.php, make a patch and submit it to bugzilla?

If other people think that it is OK, I can try to do that (or to help
to someone to do).


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
"David Gerard" wrote

> I'm not sure how to get it to scale. I can only see the workload going up
> as the editor population goes up, and hence the problem children in
> proportion.

Indeed.  I see that Alexa today for the first time makes WP one of its top
World 50 sites.  WP stands at 35 in its English-language ranking,
immediately below the Dell and then Apple sites.  The reach has become
impressive.

I suppose there are just a handful of options, such as 'lower courts', and
summary procedures in the less serious cases, which are realistic for
extrapolating the ArbCom into the future.  That future is not so far away,
given that WP's growth is untrammelled, it seems, except by the need to get
more heroics out of the developers and servers.

Look at it this way: no bad-guy meltdowns have occurred; and, what is more,
the idea that law-and-order would systematically fail unless this and that
draconian measure were in place is daily refuted.  IP editors come and go
freely, still.  The solution we have is still well adapted to making 'soft
security' look very good.

> Some people also seem to regard the AC as a parent-like authority to run
> to
> in case of conflict, or to try to use a RFAr as a way to bludgeon their
> opponent in debate. This is considered less than ideal.

Redress - my heart sinks every time someone says 'redress' - the mission is
not to redress things but to encyclopedicate the planet.

Charles


from_name: slimvirgin at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimediation

body:
On 7/12/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hot on the heels of my comments about the RfC procedure, I've created
> [[Wikipedia:Wikimediation]], which I think will work much like I want
> RfC to work, without leading to agonizing debates over whether to
> change something. Basically, it's an opportunity for communal
> mediation, where people can leave constructive comments on how
> disputes and behavior might be handled better and more productively.

Phil, I think this is a great idea. Thanks for setting it up.

I have a question. You wrote on the page that it's not intended as a
dry run for an RfC or arbitration, because it's intended to be
non-confrontational. However, if someone were to take a case through
Wikimediation, do you envisage that it could be cited as part of the
dispute-resolution process to allow a case to proceed before the
arbcom? Or is your preference that the two be kept entirely separate?

The reason I ask is that I'm currently dealing with an editor who's in
the habit of launching personal attacks. I'm considering approaching
the arbcom, and so I have to begin dispute resolution. I really
dislike the RfC process because it becomes so vitriolic, and so I'm
thinking about writing it up for Wikimediation instead. However, one
of my aims in doing so would be to fulfill the arbcom requirement of
having tried alternative means of resolving the issue.

Would you see that as an inappropriate use of Wikimediation?

Sarah


from_name: Jack Lynch

body:
If the situation is resolved, what was the resolution regarding the
image? Why I am still getting emails from Mr. Harvey thanking me for
my ongoing efforts? And why has there been so much drama from you,
Bishonen,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Arthur_Wellesley%2C_8th_Duke_of_Wellington#We.27ve_established_what.3F

placed after the 10th. The situation is in no way resolved, and your
attempt to cover-up or smooth things over in no way removes the urgent
nature of this matter. We need to decide how to handle images with
imbedded text, and admins who behave incivilly and quote non-existent
policy in order to harass well meaning image donors. I am calling for
more scrutiny, and you appear to be calling for less. I wonder why...

Jack (Sam Spade)

There is no 8th Duke of Wellington image crisis. It was amicably
resolved with mutual apologies on July 10, and I do not understand
why Sam Spade keeps trying to re-awaken it. Some hours after Richard
Harvey had posted a conciliatory message at [[Talk:Arthur Wellesley,
8th Duke of Wellington]], stating that he wasn't upset with John
Kenney and would gladly buy him a pint, Sam posted an urgent-sounding
crisis warning at

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=18530575&oldid=185298
75

And despite Fred Bauder's soothing reply, and John Kenney's apology
slightly later on the 10th, Sam has now posted *and re-posted* his
call for "handling" of the "difficult situation" to the mailing list.
Please try to get over it, Sam. Everybody else has.

Best wishes

Bishonen


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

body:
On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 01:15:42PM -0000, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote:
> > Starting from when I was a small child reading them on the living room
> > floor, I've never fully grasped the reasons why an encyclopedia was
> > not just a superset of the dictionary.
	[snip]
> But an encyclopedia tries to be somewhat independent of all this. It
> tries to split the world up into concepts that make sense from the
> point of view of our current state of knowledge. Those tails that have
> enough in common to be usefully described together should form one
> article, both in an English encyclopedia and an Icelandic one.

Maybe.  But while the structure of our language might not overwhelmingly
determine the thoughts that we can have in it (the infamous Sapir-Whorf
conjecture) it certainly determines which thoughts are easier to
communicate to readers of the same language.

It seems to me that the central difference between a dictionary and an
encyclopedia is that a dictionary is about the language, whereas an
encyclopedia is about the world.  A dictionary sets out not to describe
the world in which language-users live, but rather the language that
they use to describe that world.  So a dictionary entry on the words
"God" or "justice" does not need to discuss the issue of whether God
exists, or whether justice can be accomplished -- only with what people
_mean_ when they say or write "God" or "justice".

A dictionary uses language as meta-language:  that is, to describe the
language itself.  An encyclopedia uses language in the ordinary fashion:
to describe the world.

A dictionary, in defining the word "frog", must say that it is usually
used to mean a small amphibian, but also can mean a clothes fastener or
(as derogatory slang) a Frenchman.  An encyclopedia, however, is not in
the business of defining "frog", but in discussing the biology and
ecology of frogs.  The dictionary entry is about "frog", the word; the
encyclopedia article is about frogs, the animals.  Whenever definition
of the word is allowed to overshadow elucidation of the animal, the
encyclopedia starts to fail as an encyclopedia.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

> Actually, I don't think you can digitize some public domain work and
> change its title unless you also change its content.
>
> At least in France, that would be forbidden by the moral rights
> legislation.
>
>
This is likely to be a huge, and perhaps incompatable difference,
between American and French law.  Changing and modifying public domain
works is commonly accepted, and often encouraged under many
circumstances.  That appears to be precisely what has happened here with
the Gutenberg Encyclopedia.

 From what I see, based on some research I've just done searching
various web pages and trying to read court opinons, etc. (IANAL) the use
of a trademark is reserved for the company who holds it.  In this case
we (or at least I am) trying to advertise the project and discuss the
project in public forums.  In this situation, I am not legally entitled
to describe the project as "Wikisource Encyclopaedia Britianica, 11th
Edition", because that implies endorsement from Encyclopaedia
Britianica, Inc.  This puts the Wikimedia Foundation into a real legal
bind if that trademark is used widely, for example as a hyperlink from
Wikipedia articles to Wikisource, or even discussed outside of Wikimedia
projects.

For what is happening right now, the full name is being used, and I
guess for now we will use it and hope the lawyers won't come knocking on
Jimbo's front door anytime soon, unless I hear a contrary opinion from
anybody.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
On 12/07/05, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi :)
>
> The protection referred to there is not Wikipedia's Page Protection
> mechanism, but the legal protection which copyrighted works are given
> in courts.
>
> ~Mark Ryan
>

What does USC 17 1 108 have to do with old revisions of articles?

Dan


from_name: Heiko Evermann

subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Mark watch out you are trolling!

body:
Dear Mark,

> I certainly do not believe that I am right and everybody else is
> wrong... well, I do, but it is an opinion easily changed by solid
> evidence -- Boris did a very good job of presenting real evidence, and
> convinced me partially. I still haven't been able to sort out:
> 1.Differences caused by the use of Patentplatt,
We are still talking about nds/Katt. And you are still accusing us of using
"Patentplatt", a pejorative word for "deficient Platt".
Please have a look at
http://nds.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katt&diff=21810&oldid=18531
This is a diff between the last version before the anonymous changes (by
Ron) and the end of his edits.

Almost all of them involve spelling. In a few cases a different word was
proposed, where usually both words are acceptable for different people. The
only real improvement is the last paragraph under "biology". Here the
overall structure has improved a bit and the point in the last sentence was
made clearer.

So in short: this does not at all allow anyone to describe the whole article
before to be "deficient Platt". And frankly I cannot stand that accusation
any longer.

Regards,

Heiko Evermann

--
Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl


from_name: Gerrit Holl

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Mark watch out you are trolling!

body:
Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> Imagine every subscriber being as active as you
> are: I would either end my life or my subscription to this list.

Why would you need to read every single message that is sent to the
list? If you think Mark is writing too many e-mail messages, it's simple
to skip and not read them.

> It is not
> your vision itself, but your apparent belief that you are always right that
> brings you in trouble.

Well, if someone defends a point of view, it's natural that he/she
believes to be correct. I don't think he/she would defend the point of
view if this was not the case.

regards,
Gerrit.

--
Weather in Twenthe, Netherlands 12/07 12:55:
	25.0?C Clear sky clear wind 2.7 m/s N (57 m above NAP)
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
    -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] collaborative editing system for
	controversialcontent

body:
Lars Aronsson wrote:

>Bennett Haselton wrote:
>
>
>
>>(c) Indicate that you disagree with the reply if it's a
>>rebuttal.  If this happens, then a "jury" of other users on the
>>site will be selected at random to vote on who is right,
>>
>>
>
>One reason that voting is so often avoided in online communities
>is that it is unclear who is eligible to vote.  While
>one-person-one-vote is a beautiful principle, it is not
>self-evident who can be counted as "a person".  How do you
>convince your users that the voters aren't just sock puppets, or
>that they are of a mature enough age to make an informed decision?
>
>
>
>
Most people do not make informed decisions anyway IMHO. It is all about
emotion. Someone can be a great admin never abuse his admin buttons but
still be voted out of adminship because people do not like the person.
Viceversa also happens.

Waerth


from_name: FlaBot

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Interwiki-Link-Checker

body:
URL : http://www.flacus.de/wikipedia/Interwiki-Link-Checker/
FAQ : [[Benutzer:Flacus/Wikipedia Interwiki-Link-Checker/de]]

Worum geht es?

In den verschiedenen Sprachversionen der Wikipedia gibt es immer noch
zahlreiche Seiten, die zwar den gleichen Namen tragen, aber nicht
miteinander verlinkt sind. Mit dem Interwiki-Link-Checker kannst Du
mithelfen, die Internationalisierung der Wikipedia zu verbessern.

Wie funktioniert das?

Benutzer:SirJective erstellt anhand der Eintr?ge in den
Wikipedia-Datenbanken eine Liste von Seiten die die gleichen
Artikelnamen tragen (Info). Dies ist schon der halbe Schritt zum Ziel.
Die dann notwendige ?berpr?fung, ob es sich bei den beiden Artikeln um
denselben Inhalt handelt, kann aber leider nicht automatisiert werden
und mu? von einem Menschen vorgenommen werden.

Was kann ich tun?

Hier kommst du ins Spiel. Mit dem Interwiki-Link-Checker l?dst du
beide Sprachversionen in ein Browserfenster, vergleichst sie und
tr?gst das Ergebnis in ein Formular ein. Anhand dieser Eintr?ge k?nnen
dann sp?ter Interwiki-Links auf die beiden Sprachen automatisch
eingetragen werden.

Wie benutze ich es?

Du gehst auf http://www.flacus.de/wikipedia/Interwiki-Link-Checker/.
Dann w?hlst du die Datenbank aus. Hier musst die Datenbank ausw?hlen,
die Artikel aus der Sprachkombination enth?lt, die du ?berpr?fen
m?chtest. Anschlie?end startest du das Script.

Jetzt werden dir zwei Artikel aus den beiden ausgew?hlten Wikipediae
gegen?berstellend angezeigt. Im unteren Frame kannst du jetzt mit
Hilfe der Console dem Script mitteilen, ob die beiden Artikel das
gleiche Thema behandeln.

Im rechten Teil der Console kannst du die Sprache des Scriptes (nicht
der Artikel) ?ndern.

Was muss ich beachten?

Dein Browser muss Framesets unterst?tzen und in deinem Browser muss
Java-Script deaktiviert/ausgeschaltet sein. Weiterhin m?ssen zur
Speicherung der Sprache der Konsole Cookies aktiviert sein.


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: Re: Improving ArbCom's lot medium-term

body:
"Kelly Martin" <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:bd4c411e05071206555cdd1908 at mail.gmail.com...
> On 7/12/05, Phil Boswell
> <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe the ArbCom could "employ" some flunkies to janitorise the evidence
> > and
> > wrangle it into a standard, readable, format.
> The idea of the ArbCom having a "special master" corral the evidence
> into good order is a good one, but the problem is in finding people to
> do that.  Finding people who are willing to do such tedious work
> without compensation and also disinterested in the matter _sub judice_
> is very difficult -- even harder than finding good arbitrators.

Then you want someone like me, but with more regular access and more spare
time, who could give less than two hoots about who's involved but will
happily wrangle data into a nicer shape because it hurts less to look at.

Happily I have never yet been involved in anything like this, but IMNSHO
almost the worst aspect is just how painful it is to try to figure out what
happened when.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
On 12/07/05, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The reference to the US Code is there because the Wikipedia servers
> (or at least most of them - aren't there some in France now?) are
> physically located in Florida.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain

My point is - what has that bit of code got do with Wikipedia? Is that
the bit "fair use" comes from?

Dan


body:
On 12/07/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Long bans basically don't work. Sockpuppetry seems to be the rule rather
> than the exception
>
> - d.

Are you saying banning doesn't work?

Dan


body:
On 12/07/05, William M Connolley <wmc at bas.ac.uk> wrote:
> the arbcomm review it, and say "OK, thats enough" or "We need more to
> demonstrate your point X" or something. At the moment, because the arbcomm give
> little if any feedback on how much evidence is needed, people naturally put up
> more rather than less.
>
> -W.
>

Sounds very sensible.

Dan