from_name: Robert Scott Horning

body:
Anthere wrote:

>Hi
>
>Let me try to address your various points the best I can.
>
>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>
>
>>Anthere wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>The reason for the 25 votes limit comes from two reasons
>>>* A community with less than 25 users is unlikely to really need
>>>frequent checkusers, because it is a project with reduced activity. So,
>>>it can not be a heavy load for stewards.
>>>* A community with less than 25 users has a rather serious risk to have
>>>a rather little known editor become a checkuser, rather than a trusted
>>>oldbie. If we start handing out status just as we do for sysop status on
>>>small projects, I think there will be abuse. I say this from my
>>>experience, as I had to unsysop several sysops on small projects (the
>>>guys did not know our basic rules, behaved like dictators with the
>>>handful of editors, put advertisements on the main page, controlled povs
>>>etc...).
>>>
>>>I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a big enough base of
>>>editors to vote on a check user...
>>>I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page to check. But can
>>>you roughly say how many active editors per month the project currently
>>>has ? How many very active editors per month ?
>>>
>>>ant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Since the stats page hasn't been updated since November of last year, it
>>is completely useless to even gague what the current activity is on any
>>Wikimedia project.  I can only use the current activity on the Wikibooks
>>staff lounge to even remotely gague what the current user activity level
>>is, but I would guess it is pretty close to about 20 user at the
>>absolute top.  Really stretching it perhaps we can get to 25 total at
>>the most.
>>
>>And as for advertising this, I guess we could put it in bold 40 point
>>type on the project main page with a link to a special page only for
>>this kind of request.  I think that is way over the top and something
>>that is not needed in this situation.  The advertising was more than
>>adequate, it is just that this is a very unreasonable request.
>>
>>As for a "community with less than 25 users unlikely needing frequent
>>checkuser scans", I think this is mistaken totally what is going on.
>> en.wikibooks has numerous links from within Wikipedia, and is being
>>hammered by vandals that have moved on from Wikipedia, indeed with
>>excellent training on how to be a vandal on Wikipedia, and taking on
>>other projects as well that don't have quite the same pool of
>>administrators.
>>
>>
>
>I see.
>Perhaps the number 25 was too high then. That would tend to suggest this.
>But again, let me explain why we put a minimum limit. We have some small
>projects with a number of editors of less than 5. What usually happens
>is that the most active one simply ask sysop status (and even sometimes
>bureaucrat status) on meta because their project *need* a sysop. Which
>means the status is given without any community voting whatsoever.
>Sometimes, when it is a new language in particular, the editor has been
>on our projects only for a couple of days and have no idea of our basic
>rules of operating whatsoever (npov in particular).
>More than once, we had problems later on. And it was not always easy for
>the very small growing community to have a black sheep unsysoped.
>
>What I think should NOT be allowed to happen, ever, is that the new
>wikiquote project in maori be created, and a total stranger be given
>sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser status so that he can start the
>community. In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
>number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
>25 votes. Which may be too high a value.
>
>
>So, option 1 : decreasing the number of votes requirements.
>
>Now, there are other options we could follow.
>

I would suggest that the standards for becoming a bureaucrat should be
much higher for brand new projects in this case, and this is perhaps
something that needs to be established on a Wikimedia-wide policy as
well and not just on a project by project basis.  The point about
becoming a bureaucrat is that they have the ability to create other
administrators and are presumed to be users trusted enough that they not
only have full editorial control over a project to do all of the
administrator functions, but they also have the ability to create more
administrators.  The charges of a cabal in some cases are justified when
you grant bureaucratship to somebody when there is no other means of
oversight about what they are doing, and they in turn grant adminship to
others with their same point of view but refuse to grant it to others
that have a different point of view, and for that reason alone.  This
has happened on some of the smaller projects, especially in languages
that Foundation board members don't speak fluently and can't monitor
directly.

>>As for handing out checkuser status to people who are not trusted
>>oldies, that is totally rediculous as well.  There are admins and
>>bureaucrats on en.wikibooks who are also admins on other projects,
>>including meta, wikinews, and even en.wikipedia.  Active ones at that.
>> I see absolutely no reason why the standards for giving somebody
>>bureaucrat status when you can't also give them checkuser status.
>>
>>
>
>I do not know what are the standards for giving bureaucrat status.
>I think they are not the same at all depending on projects.
>
>I see a **major** reason for the standards for giving bureaucrat status
>to be different from the standards for giving checkuser status.
>
>The standards for giving bureaucrat status are different in each project
>and each language. On one project, it will be a vote by all editors of a
>project. On another project, it will be a vote by administrators only.
>On another project, it might even be a vote by other bureaucrats. Or it
>might be no vote at all (just ask on meta). It may be 80% support. It
>may be 66%. There are no standards.
>
>But if the bureaucrat makes a mess, it is a technical/community issue.
>Only the projects can be damaged (which is bad enough). So, it is the
>community business to define its own rules.
>
>If a checkuser makes a mess, the Foundation itself may be concerned. We
>might have problems with an editor for release of private data. So, the
>Foundation has a right to have a say in WHO is granted this access.
>Hence the policy being *more* standard.
>
>
I'm not really understanding this point of view here.  Under what area
is the Foundation directly threatened when this release of private data
occurs?  It is still a technical/community issue with the checkuser
data, and people with checkuser rights can still only do the scan only
on registered users for their individual project.  This might be a much
bigger concern if they had access to the general Wikimedia user
database, such as is being proposed with the common login project.  In
this situation where somebody with checkuser rights could access the
data on not just the users for their individual project but for anybody
on any Wikimedia project, you are correct that the standards should be
much higher.... indeed IMHO higher than perhaps even becoming a steward.
 That is not the situation right now, from my understanding.

If I take the presumption that the current process of becoming a
registered user is still going to continue for some time, and somebody
with local checkuser status can only do a checkuser scan on that much
smaller group of users, I fail to see where the Foundation is really
going to be hurt if they get out of control.  The privacy policy is that
reasonable steps are going to happen to protect private data, but you
should be aware that if you log onto any website, including Amazon.com,
Google, CNN, Microsoft, BBC, or whatever including hackerz.com, that
your IP address is going to be logged together with whatever activity
that you do on that website.  And that information may be released to
interested government agencies.  All the Foundation is promising is that
some sort of due process is going to happen before that information is
released, like a supeona, and that the information may also be used
internally for the protection of the project, such as performing
checkuser scans.

Indeed the current privacy policy doesn't even do that.  It is really
just a disclaimer that the data is going to be logged, and that if you
don't like it, you shouldn't be logging into any Wikimedia server.
 There are some "policies" that go into more depth about how some of
this data is protected, but this is more for how the Foundation is going
to respond to outside groups that insist on obtaining this information,
including not only legal proceedings but also marketing consultants and
outside businesses who want to do data mining on the access logs.  I
think it is a prudent policy in this regard.

One thing to keep in mind is that the "personally identifying data"
isn't protected that well for editors.  Every editor has all of their
edit information logged, and not only is it logged but the information
is actually published in a very public area for all people to see.
 Indeed for most editors, the information is not only logged, but logged
according to IP address as well.  Only for those who have bothered to
become a registered user is the information partially protected, and it
is only on this very limited set of circumstances that the checkuser
policy even starts to apply.  And for many others (including myself),
not only by handle but it is logged by their actual legal name.  BTW,
this is a conscious decision I made when I created my account, knowing
the legal implications.

Furthermore, somebody with checkuser privileges still don't have access
to the the full access logs.  Having checkuser status, I can't see what
pages another user has been looking at or reading.  All I can do is just
see what pages they have been editing, which doesn't require checkuser
status... or even any kind of special status on Wikimedia projects, and
if they happen to be a registered user, and if they happened to have
done something that looks suspicious, all I get to find out with the
increased privilege of the checkuser policy is just a list of IP
addresses that they have logged in the local project under.  Or just the
last IP address depending on the technical side and how far this should
go.  No other identifying information is given.  I can't get the e-mail
address of the person, nor can I get any of the information on
[[Special:Preferences]], including perhaps even mundane but identifying
information like what time zone they live in or what their language
preference is.

In short, I fail to see where the liability is to the Foundation is
under even the most egregious of abuses, and even that can be dealt with
mostly by technical limitation, including perhaps a system that limits
somebody with checkuser privileges to only a limited number of checkuser
scans per day or some other limiting factor to keep major abuses from
happening.  I'm also pointing out that smaller projects are going to
have proportionally much smaller numbers of users and their ability to
damage all of the Wikimedia projects is going to also be proportionally
less.  Using your example of the Maori Wikibooks user request to become
admin, bureaucrat, and checkuser... all they are going to do is find the
IP addresses of the five or six people who even bothered to register on
that local project.  Is that really a problem?

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for
	CheckUser	information?


list: wikien-l

from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
> Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 23:42:08 -0700
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID: <444095C0.1040106 at telus.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Sean Barrett wrote:
>
> >Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
> >
> >
> >>Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If
> >>you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly
> >>verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that
that
> >>is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.
> >>
> >>
> >I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable
historical
> >figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had
two
> >wives (in series, not parallel).  However, an official
government-issued
> >marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that
he
> >had another wife between those two.  What will I be permitted to add
to
> >this person's article?
> >
> It would make no sense not to include the mid-wife.  If you saw the
> marriage certificate, and it is available for anyone who goes to that
> clerk's office to see it is verifiable.  Is it ethical to maintain
> something which you know to be false just to be in complance with
> technical regulations?

You can mention your dilemma on the talk page with a request that
everyone look out for a citable source for this information.  I think
that would cover the ethics of it without opening the verifiability
floodgates, and might eventually lead to the information being
inserted within the rules.

Zero.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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list: foundation-l

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 4/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
>>number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
>>25 votes. Which may be too high a value.
>>
>>
>
>Yes, I think changing the phrase "25-30 editors approval" to "the
>approval of 10 active editors" would be a reasonable change that can
>be made without too much bureaucracy. While it's good to be cautious
>about these things, specific parameters like this are *meant* to be
>tuned. Be bold :-)
>
>Erik
>
I would be comfortable with a policy that requires XX% of very active
users (defined as 100 edits/month) as an alternative minimum, with a
hard minimum of somewhere between 5-10 users.  Even very small projects
can usually come up with at least five people, or they really are
"one-man band" type projects dominated by a single editor.  For larger
projects like en.wikipedia, the 30 editor minimum approval seems very
reasonable or perhaps even a little bit low.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:

>Essjay schreef:
>
>
>>Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to say "Maybe we could use a
>>couple more stewards?"
>>
>>Essjay
>>
>>
>
>There are already a fair number of Stewards;
>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards
>
>The problem I find as a steward is that is difficult to know what you
>are supposed to do. There is no communication platform for the stewards
>to discuss things. I find that there should be a mailing list for
>stewards. That would be something. Then at least problems could be
>discussed with the other stewards. And agreements  about how to do thing
>could be attempted to me made.
>
>Now not all stewards work by the same standards. Some stewards are more
>easy to give sysop or bureaucrat status then others. The rules of
>conduct are not clear or not existing.
>
>I find it difficult that I need to say to a user that I do not grand
>bureaucrat status because I find his home wiki is to small when other
>stewards do grand bureaucrat status to a similar small wikis.
>
>Walter
>
>
I would have to agree that the current set of steward policies is rather
vague, and even the defintion of what a steward ought to be doing is not
really well defined.  Stewards do grant adminship and bureaucratship to
projects with a small set of users, and I also understand strongly the
reluctance for a steward to get involved with a local project squabble,
such as one recent fight that happened on en.wikibooks of the
deadminship of one user that unfortunately needed a steward to make a
decision on limited information, and community support for deadminship
was not very clear.

My own experience in dealing with stewards is that they do a very good
job of doing the administrative tasks when there is no controversy and
the decisions are obvious.  It is these border-line cases where perhaps
some standards to becomming an admin on a very small project like
simple.wikiquote should be a little bit higher than seems to be done
right now.  Language barriers add still additional levels of
misunderstanding to really complicate this issue.  Having a clear policy
makes deciding these borderline issue much easier, as a codified policy
avoids seemingly arbitrary behavior and allows somebody who was turned
down to at least have something to be angry about, or possibly fight to
try and change the policy.

Futhermore, there is some appearance that perhaps stewards could act as
a sort of ad hoc arbitration board for smaller projects, but I havn't
see that done either.  Is this something that stewards are comfortable
with, or should projects with seemingly irreconsilable problems go
elsewhere for assistance in this matter... i.e. see Jimbo?  Currently
the standard is more to simply muddle through the problem and try to
work the issues out, which BTW really is the best solution ultimately.
 Some people do like to appeal to a "higher authority" and stewards seem
to be a logical step to take some issues.  Unfortunately, this is
something I've very seldom if ever seen any steward willing to
participate in.

--
Robert Scott Horning


body:
Anthere wrote:

>
>I am waiting for your feedback on the various options I have proposed;
>Even if none please you, please be kind to comment on them.
>
>meanwhile, in case there is an urgent need on wikibooks, I propose to
>have Karynn be a temporary checkuser on en:wikibooks whilst a solution
>is found out. She is an experienced checkuser and she has agreed ! (and
>it is free of charge !)
>
>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kelly_Martin. See her as the Brion
>Vibber of the old days (he carried on our requests when necessary).
>
>ant
>
>
I appreciate the offer.  I actually removed one checkuser request from
Meta because the request was over three months old and not going
anywhere, or even a comment by any of the stewards if it was a proper
type of request.  If you look at this page on Wikibooks:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3AVandalism_in_progress

you will see many comments from several admins that all complain about
the lack of somebody with checkuser access locally to help deal with the
growing problems of vandalism.  This page, BTW, is mainly for non-admins
to communicate to admins for potentially blocking a specific user.  It
is also in turn one of the top 5 most vandalized pages on Wikibooks as
well. It also should be an example of the kinds of issues that somebody
with checkuser status might be able to help out with on other projects.
 I especially loved the vandalism done by User:Jimbo wales (lowercase w).

--
Robert Scott Horning


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
* Brion Vibber wrote:

> I assure you it's entirely ad hoc jiggery pokery. :)

Entirely appropriate... it's the Wiki-way. No reason to give up on it now.


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] operational issues

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 14, 2006 at 11:14:21AM -0400, William Allen Simpson wrote:
>
>>Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, Apr 13, 2006 at 09:11:28PM -0400, William Allen Simpson wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'm a recent addition to this list.  I joined after the Apr 9 outage,
>>>>thinking that as a longtime Internet engineer I'd be able to help on
>>>>operational issues.  Sadly, that doesn't seem to be a focus here.
>>>
>>>Note that there are many lists related to MediaWiki and Wikimedia
>>>Foundation issues; it's possible that you're on the wrong one.
>>>
>>
>>Say Jay, you're as acerbic as ever.  Anything's possible.  Any suggestions?
>
>
> You're projecting, William; that was as even-handed as anything I ever
> say.
>
> On looking at the mailing list descriptions at http://mail.wikimedia.org/
> though, I'd have to say I'm wrong; this apparently *is* the ops list.

Unfortunately, most of the mailing list discussion on technical issues such as hardware and
colocation seems to be on private-l. That's still a low volume list though, there's much more action
on IRC. The best place to get involved with operational issues at present is the #wikimedia-tech
channel on irc.freenode.net. Also have a look at https://wikitech.leuksman.com/

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 14/04/06, Tels <nospam-abuse at bloodgate.com> wrote:
>
>>There really is nothing you can do it people absolutely, positively want
>>to re-invent the wheel aka: a new programming language in completely new
>>environment. I have said my reasons against it, and that's it.
>
>
> I don't know if it counts as "re-inventing the wheel" when the old
> wheel is not available. There is no workable alternative to these
> parser functions, correct? And the only partial alternatives were more
> Flindstone vehicles than proper wheels...

As I always say, there's a difference between inventing the wheel and making a wheel. There was no
expression parsing module available written in pure PHP. There were clear advantages to having one,
so I wrote it, and it only took a few hours of work. I based my work on an algorithm invented in
1960 by Edsger Dijkstra.

The same applies for other MediaWiki syntax features. Old ideas in a new form.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 09:07:09AM +1000, Tim Starling wrote:
> > I don't know if it counts as "re-inventing the wheel" when the old
> > wheel is not available. There is no workable alternative to these
> > parser functions, correct? And the only partial alternatives were more
> > Flindstone vehicles than proper wheels...
>
> As I always say, there's a difference between inventing the wheel
> and making a wheel. There was no expression parsing module available
> written in pure PHP. There were clear advantages to having one, so I
> wrote it, and it only took a few hours of work. I based my work on an
> algorithm invented in 1960 by Edsger Dijkstra.
>
> The same applies for other MediaWiki syntax features. Old ideas in a
> new form.

Well, as long as you're stealing your ideas from the right people, then
it's not ad-hoc, or jiggery pokery.

PS: your mailer wraps at about 90 characters...

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

     A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
     Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

     A: Top-posting.
     Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet and in e-mail?


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
On 15/04/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I admit that it is possible to lie on such official documents (I've done
> it myself), but there should be a presumption that most people will
> complete these documents truthfully.

Life is so much easier than that. "According to the official marriage
license, John Bloggson was married on..." Absolute truth is not our
game.

Steve


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

body:
(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
>
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
>
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
>
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
>
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
>
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
>
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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body:
(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
>
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
>
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

body:
(leaving in lots of quoting as original didn't make it to foundation-l)

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
>> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
> hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
> the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
> stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
> idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
> just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

Yep! The fact that a lot of the basic administrative work will be done by
someone else is obviously convenient for a first time...

>> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
> I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
> Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
> juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
> at.
>
> I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
> http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :
>
>      1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
>         is above.
>      2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
>         Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
>      3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
>         accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
>         input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
>         have to be brion or Tim.
>      4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
>         Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
>         I think there are probably other members of the team who would
>         do it, too.
>      5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
>         Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
>         to back myself up.
>      6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

I've held myself out as our "organization administrator" for SoC; we can divide
the rest of the labor as necessary. :)

Once they get us in the system we should be able to set up the individual 'mentor's.

>> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
>> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
> That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Where possible I totally agree.

> Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

Already have, they sounded very positive. Should work its way through the system
soon...

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Sam Spade

subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
Which is ''not'' how you edited that article.  You stated that it was
believed by the majority, when actually it's the majority in one
country according to one poll.

3 polls, have you read the links in question?

I'll disregard the rest of your name calling, mistatements of my
position, and personal attacks. I thought people who read
encyclopedias were better than this?

SS

On 4/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 01:05:00 +0200, you wrote:
>
> >Encyclopedias are not about persuasion, they are about cataloging
> >facts (like the % of people who believe in God in a given country).
>
> Which is ''not'' how you edited that article.  You stated that it was
> believed by the majority, when actually it's the majority in one
> country according to one poll.
>
> >I'd appreciate it if you two stopped the rhetorical games and
> >one-upsmanship, and focused on trying to help improve the articles in
> >question.
>
> And I'd appreciate it if you stopped making tendentious edits to
> support your highly specific POV and started "writing for the enemy",
> and indeed stopped viewing every member of the community who disagrees
> with you as the enemy.
>
> Improving the articles is easily achieved by the simple expedient of
> reverting your POV edits.
>
> But I salute your chutzpah in coming to this list expecting to have
> others support your tendentious editing.
>
> >For example, providing a citation to [[Socialism]] showing
> >that the socialist international opposes racism, and removing the
> >statement currently there (that socialism opposes racism) would be a
> >sign of rigour.
>
> And providing a verifiable citation to show that socialists are more
> prone to racism than any other group would be an ideal staring point
> for making the assertion in the first place. You have a history of
> adding contentious text and then challenging others to disprove it.
> This reversal of the burden of proof is one of the key criticisms on
> your RfC.
>
> >People who assume that theirs is an "informed, scientific opinion" in
> >contrast to others who merely cite facts need to leave their opinions
> >at the door. Books of reference are to have one agenda alone, the
> >cataloging of accurate information. Simply because that information
> >does not suit your POV is no reason to exclude it. Please review
>
> Don't be an ass.  Informed scientific opinion, even among many
> scientists who are also Christians, is that humans and apes are
> descended from a common ancestor.
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Rich Morin

subject: [Wikitech-l] image-map addressing oddities

body:
As discussed previously, I need an automated way to put
clickable (i.e., client-side image-mapped) images on wiki
pages.  Jan Steinman showed me a cute way to do this (see
below), using raw HTML.  Although I've gotten it to work
for me, I've found some oddities in the way that addresses
(e.g., file names, URLs) get interpreted.

What I'm hoping for is a way to use some relatively short
and simple addresses for the images and associated pages.
Ideally, I'd be able to get to uploaded images, using a
name such as 'Image:Segwayabbeyroad.jpg', rather than
having to use my own directory or reverse engineer path
names such as 'images/3/3a/Segwayabbeyroad.jpg'.

I realize that I'm off in an unsupported area, but perhaps
some of you have had (and resolved) similar issues.  Any
helpful advice will be greatly appreciated.

I have two copies of the image, located at:

  images/3/3a/Segwayabbeyroad.jpg
  images_raw/Segwayabbeyroad.jpg

The saved page can be viewed at

  http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/MW/index.php/IM_X1

Here's the code for the page:

=============================
This image shows up.

[[Image:Segwayabbeyroad.jpg]]

<RawHtml>

 These two images, not surprisingly, don't show up at all.

A

B

 These two images only show up in preview mode.

C

D

 These two images show up in both preview and save mode.

E

F

 The left-most image-map links (George, Paul) work in preview mode,
          but not after a "Save page".  The other two work in both modes.

<map name="foo">

  <area coords="  0,  0, 83, 199"
        href="?title=George">

  <area coords=" 84,  0,167, 199"
        href="./index.php?title=Paul">

  <area coords="168,  0,251, 199"
        href="/rdm/mediawiki/index.php?title=Ringo">

  <area coords="252,  0,332, 199"
        href="/rdm/mediawiki/index.php?title=John">
</map>
</RawHtml>
=============================

Finally, here's RawHtml.php:

=============================
<?php
  # RawHtml.php - raw HTML extension
  #
  # Defines the tag pair <RawHtml></RawHtml>.
  # Sends the content out without any processing.
  #
  # To use, include this file into your LocalSettings.php
  # To configure, set members of $wgRawHtml after the inclusion.
  #
  #   include 'RawHtml.php';
  #
  #   $wgRawHtml = array('JoeUser', 'JoeUserBot')
  #
  # Adapted from code by Jan Steinman <Jan at Bytesmiths.com>

  class raw_html_settings { };

  $wgRawHtml              = new raw_html_settings;
  $wgExtensionFunctions[] = 'wf_raw_html_ext';

  function wf_raw_html_ext() {

    global $wgParser;

    $wgParser->setHook('RawHtml', 'render_raw_html');
  }

  function render_raw_html($raw_html_src, $style='') {

    return $raw_html_src;
  }
?>
=============================
--
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm            Rich Morin
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume     rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog     +1 650-873-7841

Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
On 4/15/06, William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The semantics of "#if:" no longer match the semantics of PHP if.
>
> The semantics also do not match the semantics of CPP #if, but the visual
> representation will bring that to programmers' minds.
>
> This is closer to CPP #ifdef.  If not changed to "#ifdef", I foresee
> eons of queries and errors.

Maybe this is the devs hinting that they don't want to turn wikisyntax
into a fully fledged programming language. Make people stop and think
"hey, this isn't exactly the same implementation as in so-and-so
language... oh wait, that's right, this isn't so-and-so langauge, it's
just wikisyntax."

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

body:
On Fri, 2006-14-04 at 14:01 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.

Great! I think SoC is good for MediaWiki for a couple of reasons. First,
hey, free code. Second, I think getting the intern process straight for
the SoC would make it easier if the Wikimedia Foundation ever wants to
stimulate development by giving the same kind of grant packages. (The
idea's been floated before, I don't know what the status is right now,
just thought I'd point out that SoC might be good practice.)

> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006

I've added the list of future directions that Wikia, Wikitravel, and
Wikimedia developed in LA last month. I think there are a lot of hot,
juicy projects on there that a smart student might want to take a swipe
at.

I want to quickly run through the requirements, from
http://code.google.com/soc/mentorfaq.html#2 :

     1. A pool of project ideas for students to choose from. Check. Link
        is above.
     2. Someone available to review student "blue-sky" proposals.
        Uncheck. I'll volunteer here if needed.
     3. Someone available to decide which applications should be
        accepted. This is more of a lead developer job, albeit with
        input from the community and other developers, so I think it'd
        have to be brion or Tim.
     4. A person (or people) to monitor the progress of the students.
        Unknown. Again, I would be happy to give some time to this, and
        I think there are probably other members of the team who would
        do it, too.
     5. A mentor ready to take over for the assigned mentor(s) .
        Unknown. I can volunteer to be a mentor, but I can't volunteer
        to back myself up.
     6. A written evaluation of each student developer. I can do that.

> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
> projects if we want to keep them. :)

I'd strongly suggest that any new development be made as an extension.
That will keep it from being problematic for our mainstream codebase.

Brion: will you be sending the application to Google?

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/) -- the free, complete, up-to-date
and reliable world-wide travel guide


from_name: Rotem Liss

subject: [Wikitech-l] templates and RTL issues

body:
Well, I don't see the need of "bidi=normal" and "bidi=override" - it
will confuse everyone a lot, and not really needed. If someone has a
problem, he just switches to LTR text-box. There are (built-in) shortcut
keys: Ctrl+LeftShift in Internet Explorer (in almost every Windows
program), Ctrl+Shift+X in Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, etc. (when
bidi.browser.ui is working, or when the system locale is a RTL language
- it was automatically enabled in Windows XP I've installed, by
unluckily not in Manriva Linux; however, most of the people use Windows
XP, and it is automatically enabled for them in Firefox; and most of
them use Internet Explorer, which has no problem at all with
Ctrl+LeftShift), but a button may help. Maybe additional button in the
toolbar for switching the text direction.

By the way, Firefox has additional problems, because it preserves the
direction of the text even after a line-break; however, it's a known
problem, and Firefox users know it - and most of the world uses Internet
Explorer. Additionally, the most problems are fixed when switching to LTR.

You may say that some of the users don't know they can switch to LTR -
but who will deal with the problems? The more technical users, which
edit templates, and know some things about the computers. Including that
info about Ctrl+LeftShift and Ctrl+Shift+X. I don't think there is a
need to add buttons, but if you want, you can add a button to the
toolbar - nothing more. (I'm not sure it's technically possible, but
maybe there is a way that a button in the toolbar won't use addButton.)

rotemliss, a writer in all the Hebrew projects, excluding Wikinews

Brion Vibber wrote:

>Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
>
>
>>On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 11:53:17 -0400
>> William Allen Simpson <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>In fact, I just tested it by adding:
>>>>>
>>>>>FORM#editform TEXTAREA#wpTextbox1 { unicode-bidi: bidi-override; }
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>[snip]
>
>
>>>It wasn't a suggestion, it was a question.  Please say whether it helps?
>>>
>>>
>
>As a testing hack I've set up control buttons on one of our test wikis to change
>the CSS 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' values at edit time.
>
>Here's a copy of the Hebrew Wikipedia main page source; since the test wiki is
>LTR it shows LTR by default, but you can switch the edit box around with the
>buttons:
>http://test.leuksman.com/edit/New_page
>
>(Briefly tested in Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Safari 2.0.3.)
>
>It's pretty ugly, but being able to switch in the unidirectional mode at will
>might be helpful.
>
>The JS:
>http://test.leuksman.com/extensions/BidiSwitch/switch.js
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikitech-l mailing list
>Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: William Allen Simpson

subject: [Wikitech-l] ParserFunctions trial

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> William Allen Simpson wrote:
>> Stephen Bain wrote:
>>> Maybe this is the devs hinting that they don't want to turn wikisyntax
>>> into a fully fledged programming language.
>> Actually, wikisyntax is a language by definition.  Looks LALR(1).  I've
>> always assumed there was solid computer science going on here, rather
>> than mere ad hoc jiggery pokery.
>
> I assure you it's entirely ad hoc jiggery pokery. :)
>
Well, picture my jaw hitting the floor.

> Hopefully we'll get it sorted out and formally defined "soon". (It would be a
> lot easier to get reliable wysiwyg editing going with reliable transformations.)
>
Please add to the Summer of Code projects.  I'm over a quarter century out
of date on the latest language theory and tools, but serious students will
be most helpful in this area.

I'd put edit input syntax checking ahead of wysiwyg.  I'm sure I'm not the
only one that gets bored fixing bad links and tables.


subject: [Foundation-l] [Fwd: Re: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code]

body:
Hi. I responded to Brion's message on wikitech-l, but I got bounced from
foundation-l. Just thought I'd pass this along.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
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body:
Hi. I responded to Brion's message on wikitech-l, but I got bounced from
foundation-l. Just thought I'd pass this along.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
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body:
Hi. I responded to Brion's message on wikitech-l, but I got bounced from
foundation-l. Just thought I'd pass this along.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
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body:
Hi. I responded to Brion's message on wikitech-l, but I got bounced from
foundation-l. Just thought I'd pass this along.

~Evan

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
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from_name: Essjay

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests
	for	CheckUser	information?

body:
I don't know that the issue that concerns me is the same that concerns
the Foundation, but I know what scares the hell out of me about
Checkuser is this:

We have users from all over the world. Not all of them live in countries
where their safety is guaranteed; there are, most assuredly, editors
from regimes where if their personal information was discovered, they
could be imprisoned and perhaps even killed. That terrifies me, because
I don't want anybody dying over Wikipedia, nor do I want them to end up
in prison. If checkuser falls into the wrong hands (I'm no conspiracy
theorist, but I don't think it's too hard to imagine foreign governments
wanting to hunt down our contributors; after all, at least two have
blocked us flat out already), the result could literally be a matter of
life and death. *Life and death.*

Some people have advocated granting checkuser liberally, and I disagree
strongly with that; I'm not even particularly comfortable with the idea
of it being election-based at all, although I trust the Board, and I
don't believe they would have allowed for local elections if they
weren't convinced it was safe. I do think, however, that it should be
kept to as few users as possible, whether that means having guest
checkusers as Kelly & I have advocated, or whether it means some  other
system. I for one am certainly willing to perform checks for other
projects (indeed, I offered to do so for Wikisource), and I am sure that
some of the others would as well (Kelly has already stated her
willingness to do so).

As I said, I can't say that the dire scenario I laid out above is what
the Board has in the back of their minds when thinking about checkuser,
but I certainly know it is what is in mine. I really don't want to turn
on CNN some morning and see "[Insert country here] dissident
assassinated after link to Wikipedia discovered."

Essjay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay
Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>
>> Hi
>>
>> Let me try to address your various points the best I can.
>>
>> Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Anthere wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> The reason for the 25 votes limit comes from two reasons
>>>> * A community with less than 25 users is unlikely to really need
>>>> frequent checkusers, because it is a project with reduced activity. So,
>>>> it can not be a heavy load for stewards.
>>>> * A community with less than 25 users has a rather serious risk to have
>>>> a rather little known editor become a checkuser, rather than a trusted
>>>> oldbie. If we start handing out status just as we do for sysop status on
>>>> small projects, I think there will be abuse. I say this from my
>>>> experience, as I had to unsysop several sysops on small projects (the
>>>> guys did not know our basic rules, behaved like dictators with the
>>>> handful of editors, put advertisements on the main page, controlled povs
>>>> etc...).
>>>>
>>>> I am perplex that the en.wikibooks does not have a big enough base of
>>>> editors to vote on a check user...
>>>> I am quite lazy, so I will not go to the stats page to check. But can
>>>> you roughly say how many active editors per month the project currently
>>>> has ? How many very active editors per month ?
>>>>
>>>> ant
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Since the stats page hasn't been updated since November of last year, it
>>> is completely useless to even gague what the current activity is on any
>>> Wikimedia project.  I can only use the current activity on the Wikibooks
>>> staff lounge to even remotely gague what the current user activity level
>>> is, but I would guess it is pretty close to about 20 user at the
>>> absolute top.  Really stretching it perhaps we can get to 25 total at
>>> the most.
>>>
>>> And as for advertising this, I guess we could put it in bold 40 point
>>> type on the project main page with a link to a special page only for
>>> this kind of request.  I think that is way over the top and something
>>> that is not needed in this situation.  The advertising was more than
>>> adequate, it is just that this is a very unreasonable request.
>>>
>>> As for a "community with less than 25 users unlikely needing frequent
>>> checkuser scans", I think this is mistaken totally what is going on.
>>> en.wikibooks has numerous links from within Wikipedia, and is being
>>> hammered by vandals that have moved on from Wikipedia, indeed with
>>> excellent training on how to be a vandal on Wikipedia, and taking on
>>> other projects as well that don't have quite the same pool of
>>> administrators.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I see.
>> Perhaps the number 25 was too high then. That would tend to suggest this.
>> But again, let me explain why we put a minimum limit. We have some small
>> projects with a number of editors of less than 5. What usually happens
>> is that the most active one simply ask sysop status (and even sometimes
>> bureaucrat status) on meta because their project *need* a sysop. Which
>> means the status is given without any community voting whatsoever.
>> Sometimes, when it is a new language in particular, the editor has been
>> on our projects only for a couple of days and have no idea of our basic
>> rules of operating whatsoever (npov in particular).
>> More than once, we had problems later on. And it was not always easy for
>> the very small growing community to have a black sheep unsysoped.
>>
>> What I think should NOT be allowed to happen, ever, is that the new
>> wikiquote project in maori be created, and a total stranger be given
>> sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser status so that he can start the
>> community. In short, I think that only editors known by a significant
>> number of other editors should ever be given checkuser access. Hence the
>> 25 votes. Which may be too high a value.
>>
>>
>> So, option 1 : decreasing the number of votes requirements.
>>
>> Now, there are other options we could follow.
>>
>>
>
> I would suggest that the standards for becoming a bureaucrat should be
> much higher for brand new projects in this case, and this is perhaps
> something that needs to be established on a Wikimedia-wide policy as
> well and not just on a project by project basis.  The point about
> becoming a bureaucrat is that they have the ability to create other
> administrators and are presumed to be users trusted enough that they not
> only have full editorial control over a project to do all of the
> administrator functions, but they also have the ability to create more
> administrators.  The charges of a cabal in some cases are justified when
> you grant bureaucratship to somebody when there is no other means of
> oversight about what they are doing, and they in turn grant adminship to
> others with their same point of view but refuse to grant it to others
> that have a different point of view, and for that reason alone.  This
> has happened on some of the smaller projects, especially in languages
> that Foundation board members don't speak fluently and can't monitor
> directly.
>
>
>>> As for handing out checkuser status to people who are not trusted
>>> oldies, that is totally rediculous as well.  There are admins and
>>> bureaucrats on en.wikibooks who are also admins on other projects,
>>> including meta, wikinews, and even en.wikipedia.  Active ones at that.
>>> I see absolutely no reason why the standards for giving somebody
>>> bureaucrat status when you can't also give them checkuser status.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I do not know what are the standards for giving bureaucrat status.
>> I think they are not the same at all depending on projects.
>>
>> I see a **major** reason for the standards for giving bureaucrat status
>> to be different from the standards for giving checkuser status.
>>
>> The standards for giving bureaucrat status are different in each project
>> and each language. On one project, it will be a vote by all editors of a
>> project. On another project, it will be a vote by administrators only.
>> On another project, it might even be a vote by other bureaucrats. Or it
>> might be no vote at all (just ask on meta). It may be 80% support. It
>> may be 66%. There are no standards.
>>
>> But if the bureaucrat makes a mess, it is a technical/community issue.
>> Only the projects can be damaged (which is bad enough). So, it is the
>> community business to define its own rules.
>>
>> If a checkuser makes a mess, the Foundation itself may be concerned. We
>> might have problems with an editor for release of private data. So, the
>> Foundation has a right to have a say in WHO is granted this access.
>> Hence the policy being *more* standard.
>>
>>
>>
> I'm not really understanding this point of view here.  Under what area
> is the Foundation directly threatened when this release of private data
> occurs?  It is still a technical/community issue with the checkuser
> data, and people with checkuser rights can still only do the scan only
> on registered users for their individual project.  This might be a much
> bigger concern if they had access to the general Wikimedia user
> database, such as is being proposed with the common login project.  In
> this situation where somebody with checkuser rights could access the
> data on not just the users for their individual project but for anybody
> on any Wikimedia project, you are correct that the standards should be
> much higher.... indeed IMHO higher than perhaps even becoming a steward.
>  That is not the situation right now, from my understanding.
>
> If I take the presumption that the current process of becoming a
> registered user is still going to continue for some time, and somebody
> with local checkuser status can only do a checkuser scan on that much
> smaller group of users, I fail to see where the Foundation is really
> going to be hurt if they get out of control.  The privacy policy is that
> reasonable steps are going to happen to protect private data, but you
> should be aware that if you log onto any website, including Amazon.com,
> Google, CNN, Microsoft, BBC, or whatever including hackerz.com, that
> your IP address is going to be logged together with whatever activity
> that you do on that website.  And that information may be released to
> interested government agencies.  All the Foundation is promising is that
> some sort of due process is going to happen before that information is
> released, like a supeona, and that the information may also be used
> internally for the protection of the project, such as performing
> checkuser scans.
>
> Indeed the current privacy policy doesn't even do that.  It is really
> just a disclaimer that the data is going to be logged, and that if you
> don't like it, you shouldn't be logging into any Wikimedia server.
>  There are some "policies" that go into more depth about how some of
> this data is protected, but this is more for how the Foundation is going
> to respond to outside groups that insist on obtaining this information,
> including not only legal proceedings but also marketing consultants and
> outside businesses who want to do data mining on the access logs.  I
> think it is a prudent policy in this regard.
>
> One thing to keep in mind is that the "personally identifying data"
> isn't protected that well for editors.  Every editor has all of their
> edit information logged, and not only is it logged but the information
> is actually published in a very public area for all people to see.
>  Indeed for most editors, the information is not only logged, but logged
> according to IP address as well.  Only for those who have bothered to
> become a registered user is the information partially protected, and it
> is only on this very limited set of circumstances that the checkuser
> policy even starts to apply.  And for many others (including myself),
> not only by handle but it is logged by their actual legal name.  BTW,
> this is a conscious decision I made when I created my account, knowing
> the legal implications.
>
> Furthermore, somebody with checkuser privileges still don't have access
> to the the full access logs.  Having checkuser status, I can't see what
> pages another user has been looking at or reading.  All I can do is just
> see what pages they have been editing, which doesn't require checkuser
> status... or even any kind of special status on Wikimedia projects, and
> if they happen to be a registered user, and if they happened to have
> done something that looks suspicious, all I get to find out with the
> increased privilege of the checkuser policy is just a list of IP
> addresses that they have logged in the local project under.  Or just the
> last IP address depending on the technical side and how far this should
> go.  No other identifying information is given.  I can't get the e-mail
> address of the person, nor can I get any of the information on
> [[Special:Preferences]], including perhaps even mundane but identifying
> information like what time zone they live in or what their language
> preference is.
>
> In short, I fail to see where the liability is to the Foundation is
> under even the most egregious of abuses, and even that can be dealt with
> mostly by technical limitation, including perhaps a system that limits
> somebody with checkuser privileges to only a limited number of checkuser
> scans per day or some other limiting factor to keep major abuses from
> happening.  I'm also pointing out that smaller projects are going to
> have proportionally much smaller numbers of users and their ability to
> damage all of the Wikimedia projects is going to also be proportionally
> less.  Using your example of the Maori Wikibooks user request to become
> admin, bureaucrat, and checkuser... all they are going to do is find the
> IP addresses of the five or six people who even bothered to register on
> that local project.  Is that really a problem?
>
>


from_name: David Miller

subject: [WikiEN-l] blocked for NO REASON, multiple times.

body:
Hello, I'm having trouble with a user named "Hall Monitor" who blocked
me for absolutly no reason, asating the following completely absurd
claim:

"returning vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly, sixth unique
block; have your system administrator contact me"
Your IP address is 209.165.134.49.

This is either a huge error, or a complete lie.

I have absolutely no idea why I've been blocked, but this has happened
before. I have contributed a good amount of worthwhile helpful material
to wiki over the the past year and a half and I hereby request that
measures be taken to ensure this does not happen again. I have a message
that says a picture I took might be removed, but since I'm blocked, I
can't do anything about it.

Also, since this guy "Hall Monitor" blocked me, I can't email him to ask
what reason he had for blocking me. What should I do to make sure this
doesn't happen again?

How do I get in touch with this fellow named "Hall Monitor" when he
blocked me from wiki? What right does he have to block me in the first
place?
|:).  |V|.


body:
I forgot to tell you my wiki username: knowmoore

|:).  |V|.

----- Original message -----
From: "David Miller" <davidmm at alumni.upenn.edu>
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:30:40 -0800
Subject: blocked for NO REASON, multiple times.

Hello, I'm having trouble with a user named "Hall Monitor" who blocked
me for absolutly no reason, asating the following completely absurd
claim:

"returning vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly, sixth unique
block; have your system administrator contact me"
Your IP address is 209.165.134.49.

This is either a huge error, or a complete lie.

I have absolutely no idea why I've been blocked, but this has happened
before. I have contributed a good amount of worthwhile helpful material
to wiki over the the past year and a half and I hereby request that
measures be taken to ensure this does not happen again. I have a message
that says a picture I took might be removed, but since I'm blocked, I
can't do anything about it.

Also, since this guy "Hall Monitor" blocked me, I can't email him to ask
what reason he had for blocking me. What should I do to make sure this
doesn't happen again?

How do I get in touch with this fellow named "Hall Monitor" when he
blocked me from wiki? What right does he have to block me in the first
place?
|:).  |V|.


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Advice to AOL users

body:
There's been talk on several forums about how there should be such a
page, but no-one's actually written one.  Until now, that is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Advice_to_AOL_users

Improvements are welcome, especially from actual AOL users.  It's fairly
prominently linked to from the message shown to blocked users, so keep
that in mind when editing.

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject:
[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for CheckUser
	information?

body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> On one hand, our project is held together by a
> couple of major rules,
> which should absolutely be followed by all projects.
> Hmmm, I see only a
> few ones
> 1) general goal of a project should be respected,
> whatever the language.
> 2) content should be freely usable, freely reusable
> and free to modify.
> 3) content should follow NPOV rule
>
> And that's about it.
>

Although these three rules apply equally to the
Wikipedias the same cannot be said of all projects.
Wikisource and Wikiquote particularly do not hold a
NPOV policy on material.  Of course, editorial notes
are another story but they make up a very, very small
part of our project.  Free to modify is also not a
consideration on Wikisource as we explicitly forbid it
in almost all cases.  Also since next nothing in our
project is available under GDFL it make the "freeness"
very complicated.  Even public domain is not
straightforward.  There are things that are PD in the
US bur not in England for example.  I could give many
more inconsistencies of international copyright.

> On the other hand, our project is not run in a
> top-down fashion. There
> is no reason why the Foundation should know or
> approve local project
> policies.  So, generally, I see not why "this is not
> good" unless the
> policy is about the goal, or the licence or the
> npov.
>

I do not think things should be run completely from
the top down.  But we should have some basic
guidelines similar to what you gave above actually on
the wikis somewhere and translated in the correct
language at the very least.

>Would you be interested to create a group of people
>whose goals would
>be
>* To study which languages should be covered in our
>projects, or not
>* To study the wiseness to open a new language of a
>given project
>(according to number of interested editors etc...)
>* To gather a collection of pages of rules and
>guidelines to
>mandatorily
>translate in the future language before any creation
>of the new wiki
>* To collect pages to suggest new wikis to help them
>find their way in
>the jungle (with recommandations such as "register
>to foundation-l",
>"follow requests for permission on meta" etc...)

>Do you think that would be interesting ?
>If so, would you agree to lead the creation of that
>group ?

>Ant

I think that is very interesting and would definately
want to be involved.  I do not know that I have enough
conacts amoung people with different language skills
to start it up myself.  If such group of people can be
rounded up I would definately want to see this
through.  One the first things I feel is needed is
updated stats on the current wikis so we can see what
worked in the past and what has stalled.  Also if the
stats page gave numbers of admins and buerucrats (if
any) that might be useful.

BirgitteSB

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


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Socialist POV

body:
On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 10:41:01 +0200, you wrote:

>I'll disregard the rest of your name calling, mistatements of my
>position, and personal attacks. I thought people who read
>encyclopedias were better than this?

And instead it turns out that some of them are nearly as bad as you.

Nearly.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


body:
Rich Morin wrote:
>
>
 These two images only show up in preview mode.
>
>
C
>
D
>
>
 These two images show up in both preview and save mode.
>
>
E
>
F

This shouldn't be a surprise.  In the first two examples above, you're
using _relative_ URLs.  The browser converts them to absolute URLs based
on the URL of the page you're viewing.  In preview mode that URL will be
something like:

   http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/mediawiki/index.php?title=Foo&action=submit

which will yield the expected image URLs.  When viewing the article in
normal mode, however, the page URL will look like:

   http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/wiki/Foo

which causes the browser to try to fetch an image named:

   http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/wiki/images_raw/Segwayabbeyroad.jpg

MediaWiki interprets that as a request for an _article_ named
"images_raw/Segwayabbeyroad.jpg", which obviously doesn't exists.  (And
even if it did, it would be an article, not an image file.)

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Matt Brown

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Why Wikipedia should not be a random collection of
	facts

body:
Despite largely agreeing, that's proof by assertion / appeal to authority ;)

-Matt


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-04-16

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test Magic Word: {{NUMBEROFFILES}}... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!

Passed 300 of 303 tests (99.01%) FAILED!


from_name: Anthere

body:
Hello

>>{{Explanation of getting noticed by Foundation
>
> people}}
>
> I completely understand how someone from a project big
> or small
> becomes trusted and agree that it can only happen by
> getting to
> know a person.  What I meant was in the other
> direction; that the
> trusted people don't check in on the small projects.
> Before the
> copyright issue I always assumed the Foundation knew
> generally
> what happened at Wikisource.  I certainly thought some
> one was
> reading our policy pages and approved of them.  That
> someone
> made sure we had an active bueraucrat and responsible
> admistrators.
> However in reality the Foundation knows very little of
> how smaller
> projects are run and makes no effort that I know of to
> check-in.
> The only attention such projects recieve is if they
> come to a
> Foundation level people with a problem.

That is correct. Usually, attention is given when there is a problem.
One can not assume the Foundation is aware of everything that is going
on on all projects. And one certainly should NOT assume the Foundation
knows and approve of local policies. For a simple and good reason. The
Foundation is 3 people on the projects (Angela, Jimbo and myself).
Whilst the projects are 8 and some are in over 100 languages. So,
knowing and approving is simply impossible. Plus, do we really want that ?

  That is not
> good.

Well. I only half agree.

On one hand, our project is held together by a couple of major rules,
which should absolutely be followed by all projects. Hmmm, I see only a
few ones
1) general goal of a project should be respected, whatever the language.
2) content should be freely usable, freely reusable and free to modify.
3) content should follow NPOV rule

And that's about it.

On the other hand, our project is not run in a top-down fashion. There
is no reason why the Foundation should know or approve local project
policies.  So, generally, I see not why "this is not good" unless the
policy is about the goal, or the licence or the npov.

>>How are they regarded ?

> They are regarded in this way.  They are left alone
> without guidelines or
> advice and told to make thier own community; govern
> themselves.

Well, yes... it is great it is this way :-)

Then when
> everything seems to be going fine some one steps in
> and says "Oh you guys
> are doing *that*.  That is no good, you have get rid
> of that.   And you must make up your
> own rules with the details of what goes and what can
> stay.  Sorry I can't really give
> advice"  And then they make new policies and no one is
> willing say the new policy
> actually kosher.  So they hold their breath and hope
> the whole thing doesn't repeat
> again.

I see what you mean.
But again, I have no idea who stepped in and who told you you were doing
wrong etc... So, I can't really comment and mostly can not really say
who could better help you set up new policies.

>
>>>{{Intergration and Trust are needed}}
>
>
>>Speaking of trust. One suggestion made last summer
>
> was that those given
>
>>checkuser access should provide their real names.
>
> What is your opinion
>
>>about this ?
>>If the Foundation trusts those with checkusers to use
>
> it according to
>
>>policy, would checkusers trust the Foundation enough
>
> to provide their
>
>>real names ?
>
>
> I am surprised that this is not already required.  I
> think you mean the
> Board would have access to the real names and not the
> people
> who are being checked, right?

Correct

>>>{{Old copyright policy problems}}
>
>
>>No. It is worse than this...
>>The Foundation board did not discuss this issue, even
>
> less took a
>
>>decision about copyrights on wikisource. I presume it
>
> came from a
>
>>discussion between Jimbo and legal bodies. I am
>
> intentionally vague on
>
>>your UN resolutions and Crown legislation deletions
>
> because I am not
>
>>aware of it.
>>Sorry.
>
>
> That is worse.  Really the discussion happened on this
> list.  We never
> got any real official ruling just vague comments that
> GFDL is good
> everything else is bad.  This really not good enough
> for many
> reasons I will not get into.  It is not simple but I
> do not want to
> force answers from people who are not knowledgable,
> because
> that is what caused the deletion of UN and Crown in my
> opinion.
>
>
>>>{{Being cautious with copyright waiting for the
>
> other shoe to drop}}
>
>
>>This is a problem. Have you talked to JImbo for
>
> clarification ? You are
>
>>lucky, you share a language... Imagine japanese
>
> editors...
>
> See above.  Yes I think some other languages are going
> to have
> rude shock about these kind of issues in the future.
> It will be worse
> because they will be much further along than we were
> when this
> happened. Thats why I am bringing this up.  I want to
> find a solution
> before there is another 6 months of work put into
> these projects
> that will have to be deleted.  I am thinking of those
> people most of
> all.

Would you be interested to create a group of people whose goals would be
* To study which languages should be covered in our projects, or not
* To study the wiseness to open a new language of a given project
(according to number of interested editors etc...)
* To gather a collection of pages of rules and guidelines to mandatorily
translate in the future language before any creation of the new wiki
* To collect pages to suggest new wikis to help them find their way in
the jungle (with recommandations such as "register to foundation-l",
"follow requests for permission on meta" etc...)

Do you think that would be interesting ?
If so, would you agree to lead the creation of that group ?

Ant

>>>{{ either too gun-shy to keep contributing, or
>
> decide to just ignore
>
>>>the rules they feel are arbitrary.}}
>
>
>>I am a proponent of ignore all rules...
>
>
> Well yes, but we don't want people to go too far out
> of bounds.
>
>
>>PS : do you like mint tea ?
>
>
> I really do like all kinds of tea.  But I never make
> it at home
> I only order it at rrestaurants.
>
> BirgitteSB
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Guettarda wrote:

>In the case of Oskar's first question, when you read a book to write a
>summary, or view a film to write a summary, it constitutes OR.  I suppose
>ideally what you should be doing in consulting book or film reviews, and
>using them to construct your own.  Why is it a problem?  For the most part,
>it probably isn't.  Nonetheless, if you are doing more than relating the
>simple facts of the movie, it becomes a creative endeavour, and that isn't a
>good thing.
>
Calling this OR is a little severe.  It has the effect of applying
higher standards to fiction than to non-fiction.  Accuracy in reporting
on the real world should be more important.  A work of fiction is its
own verifiable evidence of what it contains.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal

body:
Sean Barrett wrote:

>Guettarda stated for the record:
>
>
>>In the case of a discrepancy between what you can find for yourself and what
>>the article says - I suppose the place to start is with {{fact}} or
>>something stronger.  Obviously, if you have found the marriage certificate,
>>why haven't other people?  Or is it that they just aren't famous enough to
>>have a real biographer?  I'd say it is problematic.  Personally I wouldn't
>>think twice about trusting Sean's veracity - but the truth is, we don't have
>>"trusted editors" and in theory, what stands for Sean should stand for any
>>anon.
>>
>>
>Thank you for the complement, but I would never expect anyone to simply
>take anyone else's word for any source.  In this situation, I would post
>a scanned copy of the certificate and detailed information about where
>to see the original.
>
>I maintain that mere difficulty of access should not be a criterion in
>evaluating sources.  If a source /can/ be obtained by any editor, be it
>by Google, by using the public library, by snail-mail, or by traveling
>by camel to Samarkand, then it is a valid source, IMAO.  In contrast,
>many of us have access to material that cannot be verified by those
>outside our professions.  There is, for example, quite a lot of
>perfectly innocuous, unclassified, public domain data that only people
>with .mil e-mail addresses would be able to verify.
>
By making restricting access in this way the material if effectively
classified.  It is clearly a low level classification, but classified
nevertheless.  The key question should be, "Is the material available to
anyone?"  Can a stranger off the street have anonymous access
somewhere?  Is a website valid if it is the only source of the material
but requires membership for passive access to the material.

Ec


from_name: Minh Nguyen

subject: [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Google's doing their Summer of Code program again this year. We missed last
> years', but I'm going to try signing us up as a mentoring organization this year.
>
> Feel free to put any relevant-sounding project ideas here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Code_2006
>
>
> Mozilla's experience last year wasn't so good[1]; some of their projects didn't
> complete, and most of them haven't been touched since the end of the summer.

Doh. I guess I fall into Mozilla's "not so good" category, then, since
my localization project from last summer's SoC hasn't seen much (public)
activity since last fall. [1] By way of lame excuses, school has taken
about 80% of my time, sleep has taken another 10%, and work on Wikipedia
has greedily eaten up all the rest. :) It seems that I can't go a day
without getting an urgent message asking for help on a Wikipedia article
-- and of course I can't say no to that (c.f. "wikipediholic").

As my project website says, I still hope to get something out the door
by the end of May; hopefully I won't have too much more schoolwork in
the meantime. That's why Google chose to do this in the summer, I guess.
I've found some software that should make the translation process more
efficient, since I had been translating by hand in Notepad.

I think Wikimedia's participants would be more likely than Mozdev to
produce active projects, since the Wikimedia community seems to have a
lot more attention directed at things like localization and
customization [2] than Mozdev did.

[1] http://vi.mozdev.org/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges?namespace=8 for
example

> Mono however had a much more positive experience[2], with most of their projects
> completing and being further developed and adopted after the end.
>
> So I think it will be important to try to engage the folks working on our
> projects if we want to keep them. :)
>
> [1]
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2006/03/summer_of_code_six_months_on.html
>
> [2] http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Apr-13.html
>
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for second opinion templates

body:
Hi Steve,

If you're concerned about slapping an overly prominent notice at the
top, try tacking the {{citation needed}} template onto the end of the
questionable statement(s), since it provides a small "citation needed"
link to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]].

Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi all,
>   Are there any "request for second opinion" templates? There are many
> times where I come across an article that smells fishy to me. However,
> I'm not certain. All the processes like AfD, Prod etc presume that you
> are personally sponsoring the destruction of the page. But at times
> I'd simply like to add the page (with a minimum of effort) to some
> list where smart people can be alerted to possible dodginess.
>
> Ideally for me, such a template would simply add a template, with no
> big ugly banner, again on the basis that I could be wrong.
>
> The kinds of things that I might like to flag an article with:
> - "smells like copyright violation"
> - possible hoax
> - contribution from user with history of bad edits
> - unsourced change of a figure (eg, adjusting a city's population, a
> number of awards won by someone, but not explaining the source for the
> new figure)
>
> I suppose what particularly concerns me is that some tags, like
> cleanup, are really ugly and a bit of a slap in the face to
> contributors to the article.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Steve

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/