from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/28/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not that I'm sold on it, but if you're going down *that* avenue, just
> RFA in batches of twenty or thirty and hand out accounts en bloc...

I'm not sold either, but the debate should perhaps be had. There are
basically three broad options:

1. "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which
administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course.
2. "Pseudonyms" - each admin has an account used exclusively for
administrative actions. At his discretion, he may disclose this link.
Problems - maintaining the secrecy, convincing users that
accountability is maintained, users having no idea of the history of
each admin (where they suddenly came from...)
3. As current - problems: targetability, admins having more sway than
is reasonable when acting outside their role (eg, content disputes)
etc.

Comments and opinions pls.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikitech-l] Categories on nap.wikipedia.org don't work

body:
Hi,

I didn't understand exactly what you're proposing. Can you clarify?

On 5/28/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> You have to allow for the way the pywikipedia bot works. There is a
> whole infrastructure around MediaWiki. and interpreting these things
> differently depending will create breakage.

Interpreting which things differently? What is the piwikipedia bot?

> Depending on what software you use two double quotes and two two
> apostrophes are displayed in a different way. It is therefore

Yes, I'm not necessarily suggesting every displaying a double quote as
if it was two apostrophes.

> important to keep things as they are in that language. It is imho much
> better to have language dependent behaviour.

What is "language dependant behaviour" in this context exactly?

Steve


from_name: Platonides

body:
May be of help  unicode version of ' and " ?

I included them at http://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Platonides. Of
course, they'd need to be included at the "Inserisci" section.

The table show a quote, two quotes and the double quotes (both the ascii and
unicode s). My browser doesn't show any difference (they're different at the
edit time, though).

Note: I made some babel templates, but i'm not sure if the language names
are those on napolitan, can you check?

-------------------
"Sabine Cretella" wrote:
Sorry, I cannot answer extensively right now - I have more time in the
afternoon.

A space inbetween would be wrong. We actually have a user who puts that
space inbetween where we than have to correct. The grammatical
background is that the preposition and the article become "one word" and
some letters are substituted by ' --> de + la --> d''a

This is similar to the Italian rule where di + la becomes della.

So it would be wrong. Inserting '' seems to work - so we could
live with that one - if people insert '' and then they find italic text
normally they ask or have a look at other pages - so it creates some
questions, but at least it would be a valid solution for us.

Best, Sabine


list: wikien-l

from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google indexes quickly!

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> What is:
> 3. John Q. Highschoolstudent is a brilliant basketballer and has made
> numerous appearences on TV.
>
> Presume that we can't find any google references to back this up.
> Presume (debatable) for the sake of argument that if the claim is
> true, this is notable enough. Do we classify it as unverifiable? Do we
> call it hoax? Is it still vanity, whatever that means?

My own personal response is: zao it, don't look back.  Be kind about it.
 But zap it.

--
#######################################################################
#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free Knowledge #
#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free world         #
#######################################################################


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request - Critique on administrators is no
 personal attack

body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
<snip/>
>
> It was a list of blocks performed by administrators just doing their
> jobs.  The list included not merely your "victims", but also the names
> of the administrators who you thought had abused their powers.  That is
> a hit list.
>
 >
 >> Mark Gallagher wrote:
 >>
>>> This is inappropriate.
 >>>
 > Raphael wrote:
 >
>> Why?
>
> You honestly do not understand why a hit list is an inappropriate use of
> your userspace privileges?  You do not know why it is frowned upon to
> maintain a list of users you dislike?
>

I don't actually dislike them, instead I merely criticize some of
the blocks they made to enforce a 3 month old poll result.

<snip/>
>
>> And why isn't it inappropriate for administrators to block editors
>> to "keep Wikipedia from my brand of censorship" (IIRC I haven't
>> removed the cartoons since I created my account, instead I've moved
>> them behind a link) and enforce their brand of censorship instead?
>
> You're implying, it seems, a quotation.  Who said they were "keep[ing]
> Wikipedia from [your] brand of censorship"?
>

The admin who censored my critique and blocked me did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Raphael1&diff=prev&oldid=54584481

<snip/>

--
Raphael


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>> with the territory. I'm a freelancer without family, so there are very
>> few ways in which a person on the Internet can harm me -- and my
>> feelings don't get hurt if someone whose opinion doesn't matter to me
>> harasses me.
>
> Out of curiosity, doesn't being a freelancer mean your reputation is
> quite important to your income? Wouldn't you be hurt if "Eric Moeller
> is a child molester" was the first thing that came up on Google under
> your name?

There is actually a strange irony.  Some of the people who post to
Wikipedia Review are or could be legitimate critics, with thoughtful and
perhaps even interesting criticisms of things that we have done wrong,
either through honest mistakes, human failings, or bad policy.  Such
critics might be hard to listen to, but traditionally we have been quite
good at doing so, and I am always one of the first to say that we should
try to listen to all criticism for nuggets of wisdom.

But those who are potentially legitimate critics do themselves a serious
 disservice by participating in a forum with people who are, quite
simply, mental cases, and who discredit the entire operation with what
can only be classified as offensive hate speech and stalking.

--Jimbo


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Google indexes quickly!

body:
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have now idea how much spammers take stuff like this into account though.
>
> Steve

Judging by what appears on their forums a lot have given up. The bots
that we get hit by are probably only targeting us in passing (with a
few exceptions).

--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Still, it saddens me greatly whenever
> > a good user like Katefan0 gets trampled on, and I wish we could do
> > more to help them.
>
> I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
> actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
> criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.
>

Ignore them.

--
geni


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

subject: [WikiEN-l] The shift of Wikipedia

body:
Just extrapolating from the fact that his email address is at free.fr

A. Nony Mouse

On 5/28/06, Pedro Sanchez <pdsanchez at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/28/06, A. Nony Mouse <mousyme at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I believe that is because you are looking at the wrong Wikipedia.
> >
> > http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Lerichard
> >
> > Perhaps?
>
> Hmm.. shouldn't he complain at wikifr-l then?
>


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Separating admin accounts from user accounts (Re:
	katefan0)

body:
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you can't tell the identity of the person who performed an
> administrator action, then there's no way to detect administrators who
> abuse their powers to gain advantage during a content dispute.

In the pseudonym system, you could have a sort of low-powered
checkuser, which checks whether the admin has ever edited the account
with their nonadmin account.

> If you have the "borg" solution then it becomes very difficult even
> for the system to track who actually performed which sysadmin action.

Well, it would need some modifications to the mediawiki software.

> If instead you have a shadow admin account for each admin user, we're
> back where we started, but with the disadvantage that we can't see
> anything about an admin except his admin actions.  I cannot see what

Are non-admin actions necessarily relevant? Is the fact that an admin
spends all his time editing Pokemon articles relevant when he blocks
someone for racist propaganda? These aren't rhetorical questions.

> possible good such concealment could do.  Administrators need to be
> accountable. We need to see who is up to what.

Accountable to the extent that they could get rung up at work? How accountable?

Steve


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
 > > I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
> > actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
> > criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.
> >
>
> Ignore them.

Ignoring them didn't do Katefan0 any good.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed. (was Wikimedia main office)

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Being in NYC, DC, or varrious other locations would being us closer to
>>some subset of interesting orginizations...  But being near a solid
>>airport places us near all of them.  This really is the way a lot of
>>business is done today.
>>
>>Whenever we have a critical mass of people in a spot we should
>>consider opening an office, but lets not let the tail wag the dog.
>>The increased cost of travel doesn't justify the cost of an additional
>>office in a prime location and if the location is non-prime, what did
>>you save on travel?
>>
>>
>That is not the same at all. I live a 20 minute metro ride from the busiest airport in the world
>and that is not AT ALL the same as being a 20 minute metro ride to various contacts we would want
>to be in close communication with. There is added cost and time needed for air travel and that
>leads to fewer opportunities to meet. Proximity is very important.
>
Proximity for whom and to whom?  We are an online organization with a
global perspective.  We depend on online communications.  Wherever the
headquarters happens to be will involve travel by some people if they
want to meet in person.  If all you're trying to do is improve meetup
opportunities for the select few you just end up promoting the idea that
Wikimedia is a much less broadly based organization than it really is.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google indexes quickly!

body:
On 5/28/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Heh, ok, but by "what's the lesson", I mean, in what way, if any,
> > should Wikipedia consider changing its policies considering there is
> > now such a big payoff for people adding vanity information.
>
> Sorry I'm replying to this weeks-old message, but ... "big payoff"? How
> is the payoff any bigger than before? I think you're forgetting that if
> Google gets faster at indexing new articles, it also gets faster at
> removing articles from its index as they get deleted from Wikipedia.

Let's presume that any piece of vandalism gets cleaned within 12
hours. Let's presume that "before" Google indexed a given page every
month, and now it's every day. My statistics isn't very good, but I
guess that means that the average time your vandalism appears on
google doesn't change, but the variance is much lower now. Now, you
had a 50% chance of being on Google for 24 hours. Before, you probably
had a 1 in 60 chance of being on there for a month.

I have now idea how much spammers take stuff like this into account though.

Steve


from_name: mingli yuan

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Help: Chinese Wikipedia error on Variant zh-cn, zh-tw,
	zh-hk, zh-sg

body:
Hi, buddies. We need your help on Chinese Wikipedia.

This morning all pages are shown with errors: internal links are missing,
pictures can not be shown, tables are upset. But if you change the language
variant from zh-cn, zh-tw, zh-hk, zh-sg to zh, all things return to normal.


from_name: Delirium

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> You are right that putting insulting pictures on Wikipedia was a bad
> idea. Why so many of our users have a blind spot regarding this issue
> I don't know, but there is a consensus that the pictures ought to be
> shown.

It's hardly the case that pictures insulting to Muslims are being
singled out for inclusion on Wikipedia.  I'm not sure if anyone still
remembers, but there was a bit of an uproar in the United States a few
years ago about anti-Christian artwork, and we have a photo of the piece
that triggered that uproar included in the article, [[Piss Christ]].

-Mark


from_name: Will "Sceptre" Noble

body:
On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/29/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 1. "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
> > is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which
> > administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course.
>
> Oh yes please, then when trolls complain at being blocked we can tell
> them that "resistance is futile".
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

i vote for this

--
-Sceptre
http://tintower.co.uk


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
Since when was WR a criticism site anyway? It's just a place for banned
editors to slag of Wikipedia


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 29 May 2006 at 01:17, "Stephen Bain" <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
> > actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
> > criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.
>
> That would be sinking to their level, wouldn't it?

It would be hard, if not impossible, to sink to their level.

I don't see any moral dilemma in eliminating (using only legal and
ethical means, of course) a threat to the project and especially to
the privacy, employment, and potentially safety of individual
contributors.  The Foundation should take one of these trolls (it
doesn't matter which one but the guy who caused Snowspinner his police
problems would be an excellent choice if he can be identified) and use
the legal system and/or the press to crucify him.  The value of a
troll's head on a pike as a deterrent to other trolls would be worth
the cost and difficulty.  Otherwise we're going to have the "wasn't
s/he a great contributor, too bad s/he had to leave Wikipedia"
conversation again and again and again.  Maybe you see this as sinking
to their level; I see it as a matter of self-preservation.  But then
I've always been less of a turn the other cheek fellow and more of a
don't bring a knife to a gunfight kind of guy.


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
No, you haven't even remotely been good at listening to criticisms whenever
it comes to the behavior of certain admins who are far too close to you, Mr.
Wales.

Instead, you treat them like dirt, you harass them, your high personages
spin lies about them, and desperately do all they can to ensure that anyone
with a legitimate gripe is labeled a "troll."

I'll note that once, I spoke to you on IRC, and you demanded that I not
refer to you as "preening", and that you would in return speak with me
later. You never bothered responding to my PM attempts again.

I've never participated on wikipediareview, despite the many times your
admins have inundated me with links to it in #wikipedia.

So you'll understand if I find this little claim of yours hard to swallow.
Far from being "good" at listening to critics, you do your level best to
block them out.

A. Nony Mouse

On 5/28/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 5/28/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> with the territory. I'm a freelancer without family, so there are very
> >> few ways in which a person on the Internet can harm me -- and my
> >> feelings don't get hurt if someone whose opinion doesn't matter to me
> >> harasses me.
> >
> > Out of curiosity, doesn't being a freelancer mean your reputation is
> > quite important to your income? Wouldn't you be hurt if "Eric Moeller
> > is a child molester" was the first thing that came up on Google under
> > your name?
>
> There is actually a strange irony.  Some of the people who post to
> Wikipedia Review are or could be legitimate critics, with thoughtful and
> perhaps even interesting criticisms of things that we have done wrong,
> either through honest mistakes, human failings, or bad policy.  Such
> critics might be hard to listen to, but traditionally we have been quite
> good at doing so, and I am always one of the first to say that we should
> try to listen to all criticism for nuggets of wisdom.
>
> But those who are potentially legitimate critics do themselves a serious
> disservice by participating in a forum with people who are, quite
> simply, mental cases, and who discredit the entire operation with what
> can only be classified as offensive hate speech and stalking.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Francis Tyers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tajik Wikipedia

body:
Are there actually any Tajik native speakers working on the Tajik
Wikipedia at the moment?

I'd like to discuss some software I'm making with them...

http://82.133.33.43/~spectre/tajik/tajik.php

I've had a look over at tg. but it seems to be very inactive.

Regards,

Fran


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Performance issues with transformed messages ( {{ ) on
	skins

body:
Hi,

I already wrote about this issue here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/
pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-January/033518.html

The problem - messages on default skin include project name, and the
inclusion costs milliseconds. I didn't do proper profiling now, but
it may consume up to 20% of time required to push out a simple page.

The easy immediate cure for any site is to check that there're no
transformations happening in these messages:

mediawiki:aboutpage
mediawiki:privacypage
mediawiki:disclaimerpage
mediawiki:aboutsite
mediawiki:pagetitle

As for mediawiki development, the urls may point to Project: (what
would be rewritten into proper project namespace afterwards), or have
$wgSitename used in Message files...
Message transformations matter in many other cases, but those at
least are not triggered on every page load.

I guess this doesn't matter that much with Tim's new Skin rendering
engine, but I can't tell now, :)

Cheers,
Domas

--
http://dammit.lt/


from_name: Ceyda Lacin

subject:
[WikiEN-l] 'Death of Wikipedia' well summarizes the future of
	Wikipedia!

body:
'Death of Wikipedia' is a motto already invented to summarizes the future of
Wikipedia.
Good luck!
CLacin

>------------------------------
>
>Message: 3
>Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 11:47:38 -0700
>From: Jesse W <jessw at netwood.net>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request - waiting for unblock
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <11a683e55c6ed34062d8acb6d6a40977 at netwood.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
>On May 28, 2006, at 11:36 AM, Ceyda Lacin wrote:
> >   Hi Jesse,
> >   So, will someone unblock me form editing?
> >   Thank you,
> >   Ceyda ([[User:Light&Truth]])
>
>No.  I have reviewed the evidence at the CheckUser subpage, and
>considering the history Rgu has with creating fake other people who
>share his typos, only edit when he isn't editing, and otherwise are
>clear sockpuppets, I have changed my opinion.  I no longer believe that
>you are in fact a different person, and Rgu has without any question
>worn out his welcome here.  Sorry.
>
>Jesse Weinstein
>
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  > > I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
> > > > actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
> > > > criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Ignore them.
> >
> > Ignoring them didn't do Katefan0 any good.
>
> Brandt is seperate from WR. Need to find him something else to campain against.

Not anymore, they've achieved a sort of nasty symbiosis. WR has become
an echo chamber for trolls, where their grievances are reinforced and
rationalized by other trolls.  Brandt, despite his claims of being a
private person, is an attention whore and craves the cheering section
that WR provides.  He'd still be nasty and angry without this
audience, but they spur him on to new depths like threatening
Katefan0's livelihood.  And without this audience, he probably would
wander off and find something more sane to do.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>>
>>> It's more the opposite: I consider in-person meetings of such low value
>>> that they are not worth going out of my way to attend or send someone to
>>> attend.  This is not 1930; internet projects for decades now have been
>>> coordinated solely by means of the internet.
>>>
>> In person meetings may be of low value to you, but I've found them to be extremely productive
>> compared to email/IRC or even phone. For example, we accomplished more in a single weekend during
>> the January face-to-face meeting of all the board members and most of the officers than we did in
>> the six months prior to that.
>>
>
> That is absolutely right.  A LOT can be done face to face which is
> difficult or impossible online.
>

I think it would be more accurate to say that you (and some others) find
that to be the case; it's not a universal truth of some sort.

Since the main bulk of my job (academic research) involves collaborating
with people, I have a pretty decent sample size.  I find that some of my
collaborations require seeing the other person face-to-face regularly,
but that with others it makes little to no difference.  The main
predictor seems to be whether the other person grew up using online
tools as a normal part of their life, or whether it's a more recent
retrofit for them.

-Mark


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If instead you have a shadow admin account for each admin user, we're
> > back where we started, but with the disadvantage that we can't see
> > anything about an admin except his admin actions.  I cannot see what
>
> Are non-admin actions necessarily relevant? Is the fact that an admin
> spends all his time editing Pokemon articles relevant when he blocks
> someone for racist propaganda? These aren't rhetorical questions.

Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon
article that he is also editing.  And if you don't know what he edits,
there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors
can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not
involved in a content dispute on the article.


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Unblock request - Critique on administrators is no
	personal attack

body:
No, they won't be, creating an image of Mohammed is generally
prohibited and sacrilegious.

Fred

On May 28, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Raphael Wegmann wrote:

> Do you think, that the cartoons would ever be shown in a mosque?


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nothing we can do. Legaly they are untouchable.

Are they?  Surely some of their behavior has crossed or will cross the
line into illegal stalking.


body:
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon
> > article that he is also editing.  And if you don't know what he edits,
> > there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors
> > can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not
> > involved in a content dispute on the article.
>
> Is that not problem not solved by a cut down "checkadmin" that tells
> you whether an admin has been involved in a given article?
>
> Steve

Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon
articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly
trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.

--
geni


body:
Raphael Wegmann wrote:
> geni wrote:
>
>> On 5/28/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>>
>>> Laws in the country, where I live, limit free speech.
>>> For example it is forbidden to deny the Holocaust.
>>>
>>>
>> And if that prevented us from writing about holocaust denial then we
>> would have a problem in your country.
>>
>>
>
> IANAL, but I don't think that this law would prevent me
> from writing *about* Holocaust denial, as long as it is
> clear, that I don't deny the Holocaust myself.
>
> The same should IMHO apply to the J-P cartoon article:
>
> There's no problem to write *about* insulting cartoons
> and the controversy following it, as long as we distance
> ourself from the publishing of the cartoons by i.e.
> moving them one click away instead of re-publishing them
> as we do right now.
>

Indeed the law doesn't prevent us from doing so, which is why it isn't a
problem for Wikipedia (whether it's a good law or not is another matter,
but one that doesn't affect us).  But your suggestion of not publishing
the J-P cartoons isn't analogous to what we do with holocaust denial at
all.  Our articles *do* republish statements, cartoons, posters, and
other material denying that the Holocaust occurred, as part of a general
encyclopedic treatment of the subject.  The article would be quite a bit
worse if we were prohibited from republishing any material that could be
considered Holocaust-denying, and had to just talk about it without
showing any examples.  I would say the same goes of the J-P cartoons.

-Mark


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] The shift of Wikipedia

body:
> As a recent contributor to Wikipedia, I'd like to give you some feedbacks.
> I edited a few pages, some of them about Mathematics or Science (my
> username is
> Lerichard).

I can't find User:Lerichard.

Charles


from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [Wikitech-l] A slightly different feature request

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 5/24/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It would be very handy if even basic tools like cropping,
>>rotating/straightening and increasing contrast were available, to
>>allow one to quickly modify fairly large numbers of images.
>
> That's also true. ImageMagick does provide some nifty command-line
> utilities which could be used for some basic, quick operations.

You probably want to use format-specific tools for this, at least for
lossy (JPEG) or vector (SVG) formats: jpegtran can rotate and crop JPEG
images without degrading the image, while for SVG you need some program
that can manipulate the SVG markup directly (presumably such exist).

--
Ilmari Karonen


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 34, Issue 288

body:
Raphael Wegmann wrote:
> John Lyden wrote:
>>> To be honest the english Wikipedia would have to
>>> change it's NPOV policy and explicitly state, that it is
>>> "purely and simply, generally sympathetic to an American POV"
>>> (which seems to be very anti-Muslim nowadays).
>> Yes yes. We are ALL very anti-Muslim, as has been shown by yourself,
>> Prasad, Abu-Hama-Saladin whoever, Dr. Gulerdem, Rocky Balboa, The New
>> York Times, Marvel Team-Up #193 and last but certainly not least
>> Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.
>>
>
> I never said, that we are ALL very anti-Muslim.
> But my impression so far is, that many editors indeed
> have an anti-Muslim bias. What is even worse is,
> that even some admins have an anti-Muslim bias,
> which influences their blocking habits.
>

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Jay R. Ashworth

body:
On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 08:19:32AM +0200, Sabine Cretella wrote:
> > I strongly recommend you find another way of representing page titles that
> > doesn't require the use of markup.
> >
> You mean a language should change its ortography to comply with
> Mediawiki software? That sounds really strange ... and if instead of
> Neapolitan we talked about English, German or any other of the "big"
> languages? Must these then also comply to the software or do we then
> have the momentum when a way is being searched to have these languages
> write their titles correctly? Hmmm ...

I walked in a bit late... but are you suggesting that the proper
orthographical representation of the language in question requires 2
successive apostrophes in the middle of a word?

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?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock request

body:
Prasad J wrote:
> These users seem to be the faculty of a University, so it seems
> unlikely that they are doing this with malicious intent. Perhaps the
> benefit of the doubt should be given to them.
>

... and the arbcom has previously ruled that for the purposes of
blocking, meatpuppets with the same IP and editing patterns may be
treated as sockpuppets. Now stop spreading straw everywhere, it's making
a mess.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock Request

body:
G'day Nick,

<snip/>

> "Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by
> "Createaccount". The reason given for Createaccount's block is:
> "Username block"." when requesting an unblock as an administrator can
> not help you without that information, they might also need your IP
> address (82.36.106.161), so give that too if possible."
>
> Because my IP is blocked I cant create a new user name or request a
> user name change for createaccount - so for one dumb decision I'm
> permanently excluded from contributing.

I have undone the autoblock.  Please let me know if you have any further
trouble creating an account.

> It may also help you to know that I had some edits reverted because
> one of the administrators was concerned that I including to many
> links to my own site - which is www.podnosh.com.  In every case I was
> confident that I was adding links to relevant information.  If you
> check you should be able to see that my IP has been used for
> constructive contributions and I would like a chance to keep doing that.

The block had nothing to do with the links you were adding, so that's no
problem.  If you'll mind a word ... external links on Wikipedia are
added to make our articles more useful to readers.  That's the essential
test.  We don't care the a website deserves to be on the list, or is
sufficiently relevant, or is popular, or whatever: we care if the
article it's placed on is improved as a result.

It may be that your website does this (having not looked closely at it,
I'm certainly not about to argue otherwise).  If so, well, that's great.
  Just please remember this metric: does it improve the *article* it's in?

Happy editing!

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on adding (many, relevant) links to articles?

body:
Ok, I should clarify: we define the limits of knowledge that we want,
and without respect to other sources of information, we attempt to
fill them. It doesn't matter if there exists a beautiful, free
encyclopaedia out there, if it has information that we lack, we
attempt to replicate it.

I make comment this purely as an observation, not a goal.

Steve

On 5/28/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> I hope we are not that dumb. How many campsites in individual
> campgounds is way too much detail for us.
>
> Fred
>
> On May 28, 2006, at 4:46 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> > *Remember that Wikipedia is inherently egotistical - it does not
> > accept that better sources of information can or should exist. That
> > is, people will probably want to add everything informative that there
> > is to know from your site, then cut off the link. To put it
> > differently, Wikipedia wants to be the most informative site in the
> > universe on US national parks, and will not respect the right of your
> > site to be more informative than it.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 5/27/06, Will Sceptre Noble <tintower at tintower.tk> wrote:
>> I have to admit, that is disgusting. Especially sgrayban, who I can't
>> believe thinks destroying someones career is ethical.
>
> You have a bunch of people who tend to be somewhat socially difficult
> to begin with, add another bunch of people who are not just difficult
> but downright mental, and give them a single enemy to focus on.
> Witness what humanity is capable of and be glad that it's just a
> website on the Internet. "He's a member of group X, therefore common
> human decency no longer applies."
>
> Unfortunately, being an active admin these days means that sooner or
> later, you're going to be the target of some abuse. It's almost like
> our anal criteria of adminship (x% edit summaries, >n% in namespace
> foo, etc.) have evolved to make sure that only those who are
> sufficiently die hard Wikipedians will be exposed to this ugly side of
> a large, open online community. Still, it saddens me greatly whenever
> a good user like Katefan0 gets trampled on, and I wish we could do
> more to help them.
>

A radical proposal for you all then:

Delink administrative actions from user accounts. Give admins access to
a shared admin account, with a private log linking actions to the users
who have done them, viewable only by other admins.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 5/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well it is relevant if he blocks someone who is editing a pokemon
> article that he is also editing.  And if you don't know what he edits,
> there is also the question of his motivation. Far better that editors
> can plainly see that the administrator who blocked them was not
> involved in a content dispute on the article.

Is that not problem not solved by a cut down "checkadmin" that tells
you whether an admin has been involved in a given article?

Steve


body:
On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:09:31AM +0200, Sabine Cretella wrote:
> A space inbetween would be wrong. We actually have a user who puts that
> space inbetween where we than have to correct. The grammatical
> background is that the preposition and the article become "one word" and
> some letters are substituted by ' --> de + la --> d''a

To answer my own earlier (by a couple minutes -- I will read everything
before writing anything) question, yes, there is a hard collision
between the current MW wikitext markup and the Neapolitan orthography.

Yeah, that's gonna be hard.  No question about it.

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: Berto

body:
Is there a known IP address he comes from?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kyle Moore" <wikipediano at gmail.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 11:55 AM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] User Apcbg using Wikimedia space to violate
copyrights

> Attention:
>
> The User Apcbg is using Wikimedia's space to violate copyrights and for
his
> own personal essays on several WIkimedias. He has so far focused on the
> Hispanic wikis like es:, gl:, ca:, eu:, pt:, and lad:
>
> This message is to alert the Wikipedian community and to request that they
> keep an eye out for this behavior. When seen, the user should be warned
and
> the undesirable content should be deleted.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


from_name: Joseph Hiegel

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:BLP and George M. von Furstenberg

body:
Yesterday a user posted to ANI requesting that excisions be made from the edit history of a biographical article in order that information troubling to the subject should be removed (the discussion, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=55610120&oldid=55608659] was removed from ANI by [[User:Bishonen]] at the request of the original poster, ostensibly because we'd discerned the article the poster was referencing and noted it on the board).  Because I'd replied on ANI, the user e-mailed me with respect to the article, and because I'm not certain how we ought to apply [[WP:BLP]] in this case, I thought I'd ask here.

  The article in question is [[George M. von Furstenberg]], the subject of which corresponds with the user who compiled much of his biography, [[User:Jpbrenna]].  Furstenberg is concerned because, in the edit history, the year of his birth (and only the year) is given (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_M._von_Furstenberg&direction=prev&oldid=41717439) as recently as 1 March; his concerns stem from fears about identity theft, for which reason, apparently, he also seeks the removal of the names of his wife and son (most recently in the article [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_M._von_Furstenberg&direction=prev&oldid=41714012] on 1 March).  BLP suggests that, where a non-public personnage requests birthdate removal, we ought only to leave the year, and the year of birth is all the article ever contained.  With respect to his wife and son, I'm disinclined to think the son to be notable, but his marriage to a Baronness von Willmurg likely is
 notable (he doesn't want her maiden name to be given), even as the languages she speaks likely don't need to be enumerated.  My inclination, then, would be to remove nothing (especially in view of the considerable difficulties involved, as much of the information was added concomitantly to the date of birth and wife and son names).  Finally, one issue of which I think we can easily dispose: the professor doesn't wish the fact of his having been born titled (as a baron) to be in the edit history, as he desires that he should not be associated with an aristocratic background, lest one should think him to have become successful only because of his family history.  Notwithstanding that the birth name isn't cited (although I'm certain it could be), I'm disinclined to think we ought to remove it; the concern, though privacy-based, seems to be one about which we shouldn't care.  I know, though, that my interpretation of BLP may be affected in part by my general disfavoring of it
 (as I've explained many times, we ought to edit, IMHO, absent legal concerns, wholly dispassionately and disinterestedly, not caring about the extra-Wiki consequences).

  So, what parts, if any, of the edit history ought we to remove, and what ought we to ask [[User:Jpbrenna]] to pass along to the subject (should we simply encourage him to contact the Foundation's designated agent or even an admin directly, or should we do what we can to assuage his concerns)?

  Thanks in advance for your help,

  Joe Hiegel
  Jahiegel


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [Wikipedia-l] sanger on 'open meritocracies'

body:
On 5/28/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I thought some people might be interested that Larry Sanger's written an
> article clarifying what he has in mind for a collaborative model that
> improves on what he sees as Wikipedia's shortcomings:
>
> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/5/26/162017/011
>
> (I don't agree with most of the article, but not all his suggestions are
> completely wrong, either.)
>
> -Mark

So Larry Sanger is complaining about Wikipedia being too anarchistic
and Nicholas Carr is complaining about it being too hierarchical.  You
guys must be doing something right :).

I thought the most insightful part of the article was this:

"I think that the Wikipedia community made a mistake when it decided
that it's the wiki part that explained Wikipedia's success. They
proceeded to apply the same software and content development system,
which happened to work (more or less) for an encyclopedia, to develop
very different kinds of projects: a dictionary, news articles, editing
public domain books, writing new books from scratch, and several more
things. It seems they found they had a whopping good hammer and
suddenly everything looked like a nail."

I think I've fallen into that trap myself a few times.

Anthony


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 5/27/06, Seth Price <seth at pricepages.org> wrote:
>> I've been working on an outdoors website that has a focus on parks.
>> The idea is I can add photos, reviews, scores, and other information
>> to a given park. The site is Wiki-like, in that people can correct
>> and add information that is listed (like admission fee info and lat/
>> long). I think that I have many pages that would be of interest to a
>> person browsing related Wikipedia articles.
>>
>> So, I would like to edit a number of articles to add links to my
>> pages. For example, I would link to my Yellowstone National Park
>> (http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/140 ) from Wikipedia (http://
>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park ). Would this be
>> acceptable? Could I do the same for many other pages?
>>
>> Like (for another example):
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_National_Wildlife_Refuge
>> http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/1594
>>
>> Making these links makes sense, as far as I can tell, but I thought
>> I'd ask about them first, because I'd be making a few hundred of them
>> (at least) and I don't want to step on any toes.
>
> G'day, welcome, and a couple of suggestions to you:
<snip>
> *Links are of some value, but we would love it if you would actually
> release the photos under GFDL and upload them to Commons, our
> repository of multimedia content.
<snip>

Please *don't* just use the GFDL for photos. Use a Creative Commons
Attribution license instead of, or together with the GFDL.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/29/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Nothing we can do. Legaly they are untouchable.
> >
> > Are they?  Surely some of their behavior has crossed or will cross the
> > line into illegal stalking.
>
> I doubt it although IANAL and my knowlage of criminal law is minimal.
> In any case that only hits indivdual members.
>

Yes, it only hits individual members, but if what some of their activities
ARE illegal and enforceable (and I'm thinking of what happened with Jayne
Hitchcock's stalker), it at least discourages WR members from doing anything
illegal. They can harp on
Wikipedia all they want, but if they want to do something illegal, they'd
better watch their backs.


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> So Larry Sanger is complaining about Wikipedia being too anarchistic
> and Nicholas Carr is complaining about it being too hierarchical.  You
> guys must be doing something right :).
>
> I thought the most insightful part of the article was this:
>
> "I think that the Wikipedia community made a mistake when it decided
> that it's the wiki part that explained Wikipedia's success. They
> proceeded to apply the same software and content development system,
> which happened to work (more or less) for an encyclopedia, to develop
> very different kinds of projects: a dictionary, news articles, editing
> public domain books, writing new books from scratch, and several more
> things. It seems they found they had a whopping good hammer and
> suddenly everything looked like a nail."
>
> I think I've fallen into that trap myself a few times.

One of his useful observations, yes. Although it could be pointed out
that plenty of people in the community support the principle that being
a wiki is secondary to producing an encyclopedia (though certainly still
a free and collaborative encyclopedia). That would be why we make
adjustments of the kind that prompted Carr's pronouncement.

And for the other projects, a wiki is sometimes far from ideal, true
enough. That's been recognized for some time, which is why there are
ongoing efforts to adapt or extend the software to better serve those
objectives. In the meantime, the wiki is the tool we've got. Tired
cliches aside, I'm sure better ones would be welcomed if somebody cares
to offer us more tools.

--Michael Snow


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem (was: katefan0)

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Delink administrative actions from user accounts. Give admins access to
>> a shared admin account, with a private log linking actions to the users
>> who have done them, viewable only by other admins.
>
> Not good, because you then also have to create secret communication
> channels (for users to ask questions, admins to explain and discuss
> their actions in complex situations, etc.). Everything2 has a similar
> system called "Klaproth" which is used to anonymously "nuke"
> write-ups. See the FAQ at:
> http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=E2%20FAQ%3A%20Klaproth
>
> This should give you an idea about some of the complex problems that
> result from such an approach.
>
> Everything2 also has the "Everything Death Borg" who anonymously
> swallows people who make inappropriate comments in the chatterbox. I
> don't think either approach is likely to engender a more pleasant
> working atmosphere in an open project that is already suffering
> constant accusations of cabalism.
>
> Since we would still require a public list of admins (due to RfA), it
> should also be noted that some of the people who target admins do so
> indiscriminately. You're an admin? That means you're a member of the
> ruling class, baby.
>

Well, we may just have to have a secret cabal, and deal with it.
Openness is exposing people to too much risk.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon
> articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly
> trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.

Yes, if we allowed brute force accessing of it.

Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins
that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit
disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...) How can we
reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?

Steve


from_name: Hsiang-Tai Chien

body:
Yes, the issue on Chinese Wikipedia seems fixed now.

H.T.
[[w:zh:User:Htchien]]
[[w:en:User:Htchien]]

-----Original Message-----
From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 5:39 PM
To: Wikimedia developers
Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Help: Chinese Wikipedia error on Variant zh-cn,
zh-tw, zh-hk, zh-sg

mingli yuan wrote:
> Hi, buddies. We need your help on Chinese Wikipedia.
>
> This morning all pages are shown with errors: internal links are
> missing, pictures can not be shown, tables are upset. But if you
> change the language variant from zh-cn, zh-tw, zh-hk, zh-sg to zh, all
things return to normal.

This is (hopefully) fixed now.

I'm not sure how or why, but this was triggered as a side effect of the
message transformation changes I introduced earlier today. It doesn't seem
to have affected anywhere but Chinese Wikipedia, and I have had great
difficulty trying to reproduce the problem locally.

For the moment I've reverted the changes, so constructs like
{{urlencode:$1}} and {{fullurl:$1}} are broken again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

___________________________________________________  ??? Yahoo!?????? 7.0???????????  http://messenger.yahoo.com.tw/


from_name: A. Nony Mouse

body:
ACTUALLY, historically speaking and in most islamic traditions, it's no big
deal. There have been many and varied portrayals of Mohammed through the
centuries. Some have no problem with his portrayal, some insist that
portrayals must either blank or shield his face, some insist that only
Mohammed may not be depicted, and some - like the nutjobs who love to throw
paint over billboards advertising women's cosmetics - insist that the
portrayal of ANY human face is blasphemy.

But little things like the truth rarely get in the way of the ravings of
religious nutjobs, of course.

A. Nony Mouse

On 5/28/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
> No, they won't be, creating an image of Mohammed is generally
> prohibited and sacrilegious.
>
> Fred
>
> On May 28, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Raphael Wegmann wrote:
>
> > Do you think, that the cartoons would ever be shown in a mosque?
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Gerard Meijssen

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I didn't understand exactly what you're proposing. Can you clarify?
>
> On 5/28/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> You have to allow for the way the pywikipedia bot works. There is a
>> whole infrastructure around MediaWiki. and interpreting these things
>> differently depending will create breakage.
>>
>
> Interpreting which things differently? What is the piwikipedia bot?
>
The Pywikipedia bot is the (python) software that is used by many if not
most of the bot operators on MediaWiki projects. When the MediaWiki
software takes a different tack, the pywikipedia software has to follow.
What I am suggesting is that changing the behaviour of MediaWiki can
cause breakage in the bot environment (it did in the past).
>
>> Depending on what software you use two double quotes and two two
>> apostrophes are displayed in a different way. It is therefore
>>
>
> Yes, I'm not necessarily suggesting every displaying a double quote as
> if it was two apostrophes.
>
>
>> important to keep things as they are in that language. It is imho much
>> better to have language dependent behaviour.
>>
>
> What is "language dependant behaviour" in this context exactly?
>
> Steve
At this moment, a Wikimedia project is associated with a project code.
This code has a passing resemblance with language codes. At this moment,
for a project there is an association with language aspects; for
instance the Hebrew, Arab et al are left to right where we typically
expect them to be right to left. Gangleri, Nikerabbit and Rob Church
have spend quite a lot of effort in fixing many issues in MediaWiki to
deal with those. They are doing a stellar job making these necessary
fixes to the MediaWiki usability for the left to right scripts. These
are however primarily script dependent fixes. There are other issues
where there the fix is necessary on the level of the language.

There are also issues where there is a need for language dependant
behaviour; there will be a large improvement with the Multilingual
MediaWiki where it will be possible to associate an article with a
language. When we can associate the article with a language, the next
step would be to indicate a text within an article with a language. An
example how this can already be done can be found on the WiktionaryZ
main page where several of the language codes have been associated with
language dependant. Here you find for instance that the Assamese text is
shown in a different way from what is standard.

Yesterday there was a post of people translating English Wikipedia
content to Navaho. When we mark content that is decidedly NOT English,
it will make the machine translation engine more effective. I would
advocate identifying text to be identified as not English content when
we had the Multilingual MediaWiki, however at this moment it may be too
early to do this.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Francis Tyers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tajik Wikipedia

body:
Actually the opposite ;)

The italics were the ones that seemed to me to be discernable.

I'm working on messing around with the vowels. It would be helpful if
there was an "official" transliteration standard, but I can't seem to
find one.

Thanks for the link to RFE, I've actually already been trawling it to
download as much as I can in Tajik, then I intend to produce a wordlist
(possibly by frequency) and experiment with comparing "transliterated"
Farsi with the wordlist by edit distance.

It would be helpful to have a bilingual dictionary, but I don't think
any currently exist in machine tractable form.

Regards,

Fran

On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 14:37 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> Also, I noticed that you seemed to use italics for what you took to be
> incorrect transliterations.
>
> In fact:
>
> "?????" is an incorrect transliteration of "?? ????", same with "????"
> and "??????"; "?????" and "?????"; "????" and "?? ???", "???????" and
> "??????????"; "???" and "????"; "??????" and "?????????" (except for
> the -and suffix); "?????" and "??????"; "?????????" and "?? ???????";
> and possibly even "?? ???? ??????" and "??????????".
>
> This is because not all vowels are always explicitly indicated in
> Farsi. The only way to know is to be a native speaker or to use a
> dictionary.
>
> Mark
>
> On 28/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ...having said that, that won't fix the fact that Tajik uses more
> > Russian loanwords than Farsi.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > On 28/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Francis,
> > >
> > > I have a suggestion to improve this software: build a corpus from the
> > > Tajik RFE website http://www.ozodi.org/
> > >
> > > As you can pretty obviously tell, not all vowels are indicated in
> > > Farsi, so in some cases there *should* be multiple candidates for
> > > transliteration. For example, Farsi "yeh" can be transliterated in a
> > > number of different ways.
> > >
> > > In these cases, a simple search of the corpus should reveal which
> > > alternative is an actual word, or which is most frequent, and select
> > > it.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 28/05/06, Francis Tyers <spectre at ivixor.net> wrote:
> > > > Are there actually any Tajik native speakers working on the Tajik
> > > > Wikipedia at the moment?
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to discuss some software I'm making with them...
> > > >
> > > > http://82.133.33.43/~spectre/tajik/tajik.php
> > > >
> > > > I've had a look over at tg. but it seems to be very inactive.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Fran
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> >
>
>


from_name: Raphael Wegmann

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> You are right that putting insulting pictures on Wikipedia was a bad
> idea. Why so many of our users have a blind spot regarding this issue
> I don't know, but there is a consensus that the pictures ought to be
> shown. When a consensus develops, it is best to simply register your
> dissent and move on. You do not need to ever agree, but you are not
> entitled to keep agitating over the issue.

Many of "our users" never showed up again after that poll:
http://www.dartblog.com/data/004950.html
http://penumbra604.livejournal.com/25659.html
...

> The need to block a whole bunch of outraged users who would try to
> remove the cartoons is one of the consequences of what I think was a
> bad decision, but once made, the decision is going to be enforced.
> Those who are enforcing the decision are just enforcing a community
> decision.

What about WP:NBD and "WP:NOT a democracy" policies?
Are we now an Ochlocracy resp. Mobocracy instead,
and the admins are supposed to enforce the "mobs" decision?

> There is a point of view issue, but it is not so much American as one
> of free expression, really a part of the zeitgeist, of which
> Wikipedia is an expression. While I may not wish to publish the
> cartoons because I can anticipate the pain of those who may be hurt
> by it, the authority of Islam to forbid expression is generally
> rejected.

Isn't there some kind of logical fallacy (non sequitur) here?

A => B
Since Islam limits free speech, Muslims refrain from

                                 insulting any of their prophets.

reject A:
We value free expression and reject any authority
which limits free speech.

=> reject B: We have to insult Muhammad.

What about this example:

Laws in the country, where I live, limit free speech.
For example it is forbidden to deny the Holocaust.

I value free expression and reject any authority
which limits free speech.

=> I have to deny the Holocaust.

Or an example from the U.S.:

In 1992, the US Supreme Court ruled that the burning
of crosses is not generally protected by the First Amendment.
If we value free expression, are we now supposed to join
the KKK?

--
Raphael


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Robin Shannon <robin.shannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Is this the first time a CEO has been proposed? what on earth would be
>>the point of having one? I ask if this is the first time it has been
>>asked because i would like to see any wikipages or archeived email
>>threads to see what the arguments are for having one.
>>
>>
>We have been talking about this for at least a couple years; the last time we did so publicly was
>just mentioned and linked to by Erik. The reason why this is necessary is due to the fact that we
>long ago reached the limit on what volunteers alone can accomplish. We have therefore been missing
>out on many different potential opportunities (for getting grants, very large donations and to
>reach our ultimate goals) simply because we have not had proper staffing. And a staff needs a
>person to manage them and the daily aspects of running the organization. Simply put, we are
>transitioning from the amateur football club model to a professional organization. Staff are an
>investment.
>
What you seem to forget is that Wikipedia's strength rests with its
amateurs.  While there may be evident need for some amount of
administrative staff it is as important to avoid pretensions of being a
professional organization.  If you look at staff as an investment you
are assuming an economic model that runs contrary to Wikipedia's free
nature.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


from_name: geni

body:
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Not really. It just so happens that our admin who works on pokemon
> > articles has never edited [[Raticate]]. in any case it would be fairly
> > trivial to use brute force searching to figure out who was doing what.
>
> Yes, if we allowed brute force accessing of it.
>
> Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins
> that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit
> disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...)

Litits thier usefulness somewhat.

>How can we reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?
>

We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on.
Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less
concerned.

--
geni


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 28/05/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
> > You are right that putting insulting pictures on Wikipedia was a bad
> > idea. Why so many of our users have a blind spot regarding this issue
> > I don't know, but there is a consensus that the pictures ought to be
> > shown.
>
> It's hardly the case that pictures insulting to Muslims are being
> singled out for inclusion on Wikipedia.  I'm not sure if anyone still
> remembers, but there was a bit of an uproar in the United States a few
> years ago about anti-Christian artwork, and we have a photo of the piece
> that triggered that uproar included in the article, [[Piss Christ]].

...and, indeed, this image has been used in a sustained vandalism
campaign recently.

For the record, info-en has receieved complaints about the
Jyllands-Posten cartoons, but it has also - at least, since the
in-the-news-controversy died down - recieved about as many complaints
that I've noticed about the fact that our article on Bah?'u'll?h
includes a picture of him.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 5/26/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Since most of us don't have sufficient funds to travel to public
>>meetings, nor sufficiently flexible schedules to sit around on IRC, it
>>should be no surprise that we're much more willing to debate on mailing
>>lists, which are the most inclusive.  If there were a public meeting in
>>Atlanta, I would certainly attend, but to my knowledge there hasn't been
>>one.
>>
>>
>If you consider your own contributions of such low value that they are
>not worth going out of your way to present, even including sending
>someone else in your place... then why should we expect them to be
>worth our time reading on a mailing list?
>
How do you measure the worth of a person's contributiona?  Some of us
have real lives.  Perhaps you are independently wealthy, and can do
this.  For most of us, however, running around the world to defend our
contributions would require a significant outlay for which no subsidies
are available.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> On 28 May 2006 at 11:34, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>
>> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>> You were not being a legitimate critic.  You were building a hit list.
>> I wouldn't call it a hit list. It was more like a list of (virtual)
>> victims of the J-P cartoon controversy article.
>
> Victims or perpetrators... depends on your POV, I guess.
>

True.

I have listed both victims and perpetrators, but I don't actually
see what difference it would make to leave out the perpetrators,
since everybody can easily take a look at the victims block log
to find out who did the block.

Since action speaks louder than words, I guess that I've hit
the mark. Otherwise the admins involved wouldn't have to hide
the facts I've listed indefinitely.

--
Raphael


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > > I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
> > > actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
> > > criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.
> > >
> >
> > Ignore them.
>
> Ignoring them didn't do Katefan0 any good.

Brandt is seperate from WR. Need to find him something else to campain against.

--
geni


body:
On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/29/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on.
> > Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less
> > concerned.
>
> Eh? Warn them when? The first time they sign onto Wikipedia?  If I
> became an admin now, there's nothing I could do - my username and name
> are linked, and there's plenty of info to track me down.
>
> Let's attack the problem from that point of view: is it possible for
> me to become an admin, from the position I'm in now, without being an
> easy target for WR?
>
> Steve

Create a new account start from scrach and make some styleistic
changes to your writeing style and where you edit. Other than that
probably not.

Ultimately you either try to hide or you accept being out.

--
geni


body:
On 5/28/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> Laws in the country, where I live, limit free speech.
> For example it is forbidden to deny the Holocaust.
>

And if that prevented us from writing about holocaust denial then we
would have a problem in your country.

--
geni


from_name: Molu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userbox policy achieved?

body:
Hi,

  There has been a poll for a userbox policy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:May_Userbox_policy_poll#Poll which seems to be almost concluded (probably closed by the time you read this) which has garnered more than a two-third consensus for a compromise that will allow even POV userboxes but migrate them out of Template: namespace into a new Userbox: namespace (apparently Rob Church has agreed to create this namespace if the community agrees). Are we finally at the end of the road? Or will this policy also get rejected as no consensus? We sure could do without this particular debate.

  Molu

---------------------------------
Be a chatter box. Enjoy free PC-to-PC calls  with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Delirium wrote:

>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>
>>On 5/26/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 5/26/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>If you consider your own contributions of such low value that they are
>>>>not worth going out of your way to present, even including sending
>>>>someone else in your place... then why should we expect them to be
>>>>worth our time reading on a mailing list?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I find questioning people's financial situations in poor taste.
>>>
>>>
>>Huh? I was refering to the IRC meetings which is what almost all of
>>them have been.
>>
>>
>Oh, I thought you meant the in-person meetings.
>
There was nothing in that comment to specify that he was talking about IRC.

>I don't find IRC (or "chat" generally) a useful or efficient means of
>communication.  Email gives enough space that people can look up
>sources, consider their positions and arguments, read other material if
>necessary, and then respond.  IRC is a mixture of off-the-cuff and
>prepared remarks, broken up into small bits with a lot of asides and
>chit-chat that you have to sit through in real time.
>
I strongly agree with this.  I have this unfortunate habit of liking to
think about what I say.  That leaves me ill-suited for the instant
gratification that is sometimes required in chat rooms.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [WikiEN-l] The admin problem

body:
On 5/28/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> But those who are potentially legitimate critics do themselves a serious
>  disservice by participating in a forum with people who are, quite
> simply, mental cases, and who discredit the entire operation with what
> can only be classified as offensive hate speech and stalking.
>
> --Jimbo

Problem is that you have just described a fair sized section of our
active critics. Makes it very hard to have a forum discusing
wikipedia's problems without these people joining in. depening on how
cynical you are this can be viewed as a defence mechanism.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 5/26/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>[snip]
>
>
>>I don't find IRC (or "chat" generally) a useful or efficient means of
>>communication.  Email gives enough space that people can look up
>>sources, consider their positions and arguments, read other material if
>>necessary, and then respond.  IRC is a mixture of off-the-cuff and
>>prepared remarks, broken up into small bits with a lot of asides and
>>chit-chat that you have to sit through in real time.
>>
>>
>[snip]
>
>IRC's time constraints, is by large, a primary factor in its
>attractiveness. It acts as a great time equalizer, preventing kooks
>with unlimited time to prepare their rants from monopolizing the
>fourm. Actions are what counts, not how long you can make your
>argument.
>
So now people who take time to consider their answers are kooks
preparing rants.

>If someone were to propose such discussions happen on a mailinglist
>with a limit of ~100 words per person/day, then I'd find that
>agreeable. If you can't make your point in a small space you either
>haven't thought about it enough or it's just not a good idea. Brevity
>also helps non-native English speakers understand.
>
I'm not opposed to brevity and concise answers, but a comment that is
both brief and effective can take longer to draft than a long sloppy one.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


body:
G'day Raphael,

> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>> G'day Raphael,
>>
>>> even though I haven't touched the J-P Muhammad cartoons since
>>> my last block one month ago, I have now again been blocked
>>> for a week for criticizing administrators, who unjustifiably
>>> blocked editors for "Censorship" resp. "removing Muhammad
>>> images" and literally called editors vandals, who merely
>>> removed an insult on their religious belief.
>>>
>>> I am not a Muslim myself, but discrimination bothers me wherever
>>> I see it. Therefore I created a page in my userspace, where
>>> I documented cases, in which editors apparently only have been
>>> blocked, because of the strong "free speech" convictions of
>>> some administrators: [[User:Raphael1/Persecution of Muslims]]
>>
>> You were not being a legitimate critic.  You were building a hit list.
>
> I wouldn't call it a hit list. It was more like a list of (virtual)
> victims of the J-P cartoon controversy article.

It was a list of blocks performed by administrators just doing their
jobs.  The list included not merely your "victims", but also the names
of the administrators who you thought had abused their powers.  That is
a hit list.

>> This is inappropriate.
>
> Why?

You honestly do not understand why a hit list is an inappropriate use of
your userspace privileges?  You do not know why it is frowned upon to
maintain a list of users you dislike?

Whew.  Well, it's incivil, disruptive, and a series of personal attacks.
  All of these things are considered Bad by the community as a whole,
and I'm not at all sure how you managed to miss that fact.

> And why isn't it inappropriate for administrators to block editors
> to "keep Wikipedia from my brand of censorship" (IIRC I haven't
> removed the cartoons since I created my account, instead I've moved
> them behind a link) and enforce their brand of censorship instead?

You're implying, it seems, a quotation.  Who said they were "keep[ing]
Wikipedia from [your] brand of censorship"?

By the way, you might have noticed that many of us, when we snip others'
text, include a little note about it, like so: <snip/>.  This is so that
other readers will know that we aren't replying to the other fellow
verbatim, when we aren't.

--
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office

body:
Lord Voldemort wrote:

>On 5/25/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>There are real limits to the amount that can get done via email, IRC, and telephones. For example,
>>we were able to do more work in the January face-to-face meeting than we did in the previous six
>>months. Face-to-face communication simply has a much higher bandwith (as does having direct
>>physical access to records). Increasing the opportunity for that by physical proximity to the
>>people we want and need to be in contact with, can only reap great benefits.
>>
>>
>Okay, so even if this was the case, would the foundation be wanting to
>rent or buy?  Buying would obviously be more cost-effective, but how
>much would the foundation be willing to spend on a new office?
>
Buying real estate would be a bad idea from a resk management
perspective.  The possibility of expensive legal suits will always be
there, no matter how much we strive for accuracy in Wikipedia articles.
One thing you don't want in such circumstances is assets that can be
lusted after by suitors.  By having one (perhaps for-profit) company
lease servers to an associated non-profit company you can cut the risk
of being sued.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office


subject: [WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 5/26/06, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
>
>
>>When we choose to publish facts on private people
>>versus public people, for example, is a judgment call about how
>>"notable" they are---not anything to do with verifiability, as many
>>private/non-notable people have information about them verifiable from
>>e.g. phone books.
>>
>>
>Actually, I'd dispute that a phone book is a reliable source.  It's
>pretty easy to get fake information into a phone book.  Also I'd say
>there usually isn't enough information in a phone book to uniquely
>identify a person anyway.
>
>I'd go so far as to say phone books are completely excludable as
>Wikipedia sources, regardless of whether the information is on a
>public or private person, famous or average, "notable" or
>"non-notable".
>
While I acknowledge that most phone book information has very limited
value, but it is easy to imagine situations where that would not be the
case.

Ec


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-05-29

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 Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test Language converter: output gets cut off unexpectedly (bug 5757)... FAILED!
Running test HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, closed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!

Passed 322 of 332 tests (96.99%) FAILED!


from_name: Resid Gulerdem

subject: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia

body:
I would like to start by applauding Mr. Wales for his
wonderful idea of writing a free online encyclopedia
by the contribution of volunteers. I am hoping that it
can be improved to a reliable source of information as
time goes.

At this point, it is evident that, there are some
structural problems in Wikipedia. Ignoring these
problems doesn't lead to a reasonable solution and
doesn't help.

The main problem I can see is the unbalance between
the user rights and admin privileges. It can be
adjusted and corrected but the problem needs to be
identified first. It might not seem to be a
serious issue for one who is not effected, but it
really is. It is of paramount importance to realize
that motivation of ordinary users from any background
can be stimulated only by a fair treatment of
their edits.

It is also equally important to realize that the
conjuncture has a strong influence on the editors
without an exclusion of the admins. Some people feel
marginalized and faced to bias actions from some
admins. Isn't this important enough to address? The
answer to the question is strongly related to the
strategic call of being inclusive or exclusive.

Please note that any person leave Wikimedia is not
only a minus to the community, in general, is a plus
to the anti-Wikipedia community. I, myself, am at or
around that border line and before crossing it I
wanted to make a friendly call for a discussion of the
issue. I would be glad to discuss the issue and make
some suggestions for the solution if you are
interested.

Best,

Resid

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


body:
On 5/29/06, Ceyda Lacin <ceyda-lacin at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 'Death of Wikipedia' is a motto already invented to summarizes the future of
> Wikipedia.
> Good luck!
> CLacin
>

People have been makeing that prediction for a long time. We generaly
mudle through somehow.

--
geni


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/29/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> We can't really. All we can do is warn people what they are taking on.
> Some will be careful as to their idently others will be less
> concerned.

Eh? Warn them when? The first time they sign onto Wikipedia?  If I
became an admin now, there's nothing I could do - my username and name
are linked, and there's plenty of info to track me down.

Let's attack the problem from that point of view: is it possible for
me to become an admin, from the position I'm in now, without being an
easy target for WR?

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/29/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is exactly the point. To start with, they at least had the
> potential to offer something constructive that we could use to improve
> the project. The only productive threads were ones started by me and
> other WP regulars in the vain hope of eliciting something positive,
> but every discussion degenerated into an abuse-fest against whichever
> admin was out of favour that week.
>
> We tolerated their existence as a legitimate source of criticism,
> which is not only entirely appropriate, it should be encouraged;
> external criticism is the best kind. I used to think that good WP
> users could participate and mould WR into something beneficial to the
> project. Then I used to think that we should all leave them alone so
> they could consume themselves in their own bile.
>
> But now their petty hatred is having consequences in the real world,
> and for me, that is crossing a line. Forgive me for being so
> uncharacteristically agressive, but I have simply had enough of WR.
>

Nothing we can do. Legaly they are untouchable. DOS attacks or forum
invasions are counter productive. Asking nicely is unlikely to work. I
doubt they are breaking lunarpages' TOS and even if they are they can
server hop.

> WR serves Brandt as a ready made circle of sycophants.

Blogs and the like would provide them otherwise. There are people who
hate us. There are people who want to see us hurt. There are people
who want to see us fail.

--
geni


body:
On 5/29/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Create a new account start from scrach and make some styleistic
> changes to your writeing style and where you edit. Other than that
> probably not.
>
> Ultimately you either try to hide or you accept being out.

Goodie.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Google indexes quickly!

body:
On 5/28/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > What is:
> > 3. John Q. Highschoolstudent is a brilliant basketballer and has made
> > numerous appearences on TV.
> >
> > Presume that we can't find any google references to back this up.
> > Presume (debatable) for the sake of argument that if the claim is
> > true, this is notable enough. Do we classify it as unverifiable? Do we
> > call it hoax? Is it still vanity, whatever that means?
>
> My own personal response is: zao it, don't look back.  Be kind about it.
>  But zap it.

I did. "Unverifiable" is a good catch all for "you're probably making
this up", but doesn't sound quite so harsh.

Actually there seems to be an established pattern for this at
[[WP:AFC]]. They don't accuse contributors of making stuff up. They
just say they didn't have enough information to verify it.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/29/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/28/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Nothing we can do. Legaly they are untouchable.
>
> Are they?  Surely some of their behavior has crossed or will cross the
> line into illegal stalking.

I doubt it although IANAL and my knowlage of criminal law is minimal.
In any case that only hits indivdual members.

--
geni


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

body:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> On 28 May 2006 at 00:19, "John Lyden" <rasputinaxp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes yes. We are ALL very anti-Muslim, as has been shown by yourself,
>> Prasad, Abu-Hama-Saladin whoever, Dr. Gulerdem, Rocky Balboa, The New
>> York Times, Marvel Team-Up #193 and last but certainly not least
>> Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.
>>
>> It's all a conspiracy perpetrated by THE CABAL. Fnord.
>
> Waitaminnit... Marvel Team-Up (1st series, 1972-1985) ended at issue
> #150 (there were also 7 annuals), while its second series (1997-1998)
> was canceled after issue #8.  Thus, there was never any #193... or is
> there just a conspiracy to cover up its existence?  (Source: The
> Standard Catalog of Comic Books, Krause Publications, 2002; obviously
> part of the conspiracy.)
>

It's going to be written in the future. You assume that The Cabal does
*not* have access to time-travel technology? Sheesh, who do you take
them for? The Justice League?

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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body:
On 5/29/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> IANAL, but I don't think that this law would prevent me
> from writing *about* Holocaust denial, as long as it is
> clear, that I don't deny the Holocaust myself.
>
> The same should IMHO apply to the J-P cartoon article:
>
> There's no problem to write *about* insulting cartoons
> and the controversy following it, as long as we distance
> ourself from the publishing of the cartoons by i.e.
> moving them one click away instead of re-publishing them
> as we do right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial#Questions_Raised_by_Holocaust_Deniers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bahaullah_from_miller.jpg

The cartoons are infomation. The information adds to the article.
simular to [[Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima]].

--
geni


from_name: Stephen Bain

body:
On 5/29/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 1. "The borg" - all admins by default act through the same account. It
> is possible, but with difficulty, to determine who performed which
> administrative act. - Major problems of accountability of course.

Oh yes please, then when trolls complain at being blocked we can tell
them that "resistance is futile".

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] katefan0 (was: First post)

body:
On 5/28/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Still, it saddens me greatly whenever
> a good user like Katefan0 gets trampled on, and I wish we could do
> more to help them.

I think it's time to destroy WR. They've had more than six months to
actually do some reviewing and come up with some constructive
criticisms, and have offered nothing but hatred.

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
Delirium wrote:
> Fred Bauder wrote:
>> You are right that putting insulting pictures on Wikipedia was a bad
>> idea. Why so many of our users have a blind spot regarding this issue
>> I don't know, but there is a consensus that the pictures ought to be
>> shown.
>
> It's hardly the case that pictures insulting to Muslims are being
> singled out for inclusion on Wikipedia.  I'm not sure if anyone still
> remembers, but there was a bit of an uproar in the United States a few
> years ago about anti-Christian artwork, and we have a photo of the piece
> that triggered that uproar included in the article, [[Piss Christ]].
>

IMHO you are comparing apples with oranges:

Serrano, who created this photograph, considers his work religious,
not sacrilegious (or anti-Christian). He thinks, that the best place
for that image is a church and states, that it had been shown in an
actual church in Marseilles.

Do you think, that the cartoons would ever be shown in a mosque?

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2002/09/shooting_the_kl.php
http://www.slate.com/id/74144/

--
Raphael


body:
geni wrote:
> On 5/28/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>> Laws in the country, where I live, limit free speech.
>> For example it is forbidden to deny the Holocaust.
>>
>
> And if that prevented us from writing about holocaust denial then we
> would have a problem in your country.
>

IANAL, but I don't think that this law would prevent me
from writing *about* Holocaust denial, as long as it is
clear, that I don't deny the Holocaust myself.

The same should IMHO apply to the J-P cartoon article:

There's no problem to write *about* insulting cartoons
and the controversy following it, as long as we distance
ourself from the publishing of the cartoons by i.e.
moving them one click away instead of re-publishing them
as we do right now.

--
Raphael


body:
We can't do that really. Just drop the person a polite note explaining that while we respect his right to privacy, we are an encyclopedia and it's our job to provide information. It is unfortunately not possible for us to remove verifiable information based on such considerations. This is a sensitive issue and care needs to be taken. But ultimately, we really can't put the interests of the subject over those of the encyclopedia.

  Molu

    On Sun, 28 May 2006 20:44:50 -0700 (PDT) Joseph Hiegel wrote:

>Yesterday a user posted to ANI requesting that excisions be made from the >edit history of a biographical article in order that information troubling to the >subject should be removed.
  <snip>

---------------------------------
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tajik Wikipedia

body:
Cool :)

I've added those per your suggestion, although i just made the YEH as IE
for now... I really have to look further into digraphs etc.

Do you have any bitext? (e.g. aligned translations -- one side Tajik,
the other side Farsi?) That would make development a hell of a lot
easier...

Thanks,

Fran

PS. I now have a ~8,000 entry wordlist and growing... I might play
around with that in the future.

On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 18:04 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> Also, you're missing a few letters.
>
> I'm not 100% certain about the *proper* conversion of the following
> passage, but:
>
> ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ??
> ??????? ?????? ?? ??????? ?????? ????: ?????? ??????? [ ????? ??? ?:??
> ] ????????? ?????? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ???????? ?????? ?? ?????
> ??????? ????? ????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ?????
> ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???????? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ??
> ????? ?? ???? ???? ???????? ?????? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ?? ????
> ??????? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??????? ?????? ??? ????
> ?????????? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ?????? ???????
> ?????? ???? ?? ??? ????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????
> ?? ??????? ?? ????. ?? ????? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ??????? ?? ???????
> ????? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ?????? ???? ???????? ??????? ??????
> ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ??????????? ???? ????? ????? ?????
> ??????? ????? ?? ??????? ???????? ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ??????
> ????. ?? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ?? ?????
> ???????? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ????? ?? ??? ????? ??
> ???? ???. ?? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????????????? ???? ??????
> ?????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ?????????? ?? ????
> ?????? ?? ?? ????? ????? ????.
>
> As you can see, there're quite a few letters missing. One thing worth
> noting is that if you have the sequece "??", it's actually much more
> likely to be "??".
>
> But while I'm at it, I'll give you the proper transliterations for the
> missed letters:
>
 <? > ?
 <? > it means there is another vowel, as in ??????? (Esraail; Israel)
 <? > ?
 <? > ? as in ??? > ????? (speech)
 <? > ? as in ????? > ?????? (ethnic)
 <? > ? as in ??? > ??? (gigantic)
 <? > ?
 <? > ? as in ??? > ???? (wager)
 <? > ? as in ??? > ??? (migration)
 <
> Best,
> Mark
> On 28/05/06, Francis Tyers <spectre at ivixor.net> wrote:
> > Actually the opposite ;)
> >
> > The italics were the ones that seemed to me to be discernable.
> >
> > I'm working on messing around with the vowels. It would be helpful if
> > there was an "official" transliteration standard, but I can't seem to
> > find one.
> >
> > Thanks for the link to RFE, I've actually already been trawling it to
> > download as much as I can in Tajik, then I intend to produce a wordlist
> > (possibly by frequency) and experiment with comparing "transliterated"
> > Farsi with the wordlist by edit distance.
> >
> > It would be helpful to have a bilingual dictionary, but I don't think
> > any currently exist in machine tractable form.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Fran
> >
> > On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 14:37 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > Also, I noticed that you seemed to use italics for what you took to be
> > > incorrect transliterations.
> > >
> > > In fact:
> > >
> > > "?????" is an incorrect transliteration of "?? ????", same with "????"
> > > and "??????"; "?????" and "?????"; "????" and "?? ???", "???????" and
> > > "??????????"; "???" and "????"; "??????" and "?????????" (except for
> > > the -and suffix); "?????" and "??????"; "?????????" and "?? ???????";
> > > and possibly even "?? ???? ??????" and "??????????".
> > >
> > > This is because not all vowels are always explicitly indicated in
> > > Farsi. The only way to know is to be a native speaker or to use a
> > > dictionary.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 28/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > ...having said that, that won't fix the fact that Tajik uses more
> > > > Russian loanwords than Farsi.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > > >
> > > > On 28/05/06, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > Hi Francis,
> > > > >
> > > > > I have a suggestion to improve this software: build a corpus from the
> > > > > Tajik RFE website http://www.ozodi.org/
> > > > >
> > > > > As you can pretty obviously tell, not all vowels are indicated in
> > > > > Farsi, so in some cases there *should* be multiple candidates for
> > > > > transliteration. For example, Farsi "yeh" can be transliterated in a
> > > > > number of different ways.
> > > > >
> > > > > In these cases, a simple search of the corpus should reveal which
> > > > > alternative is an actual word, or which is most frequent, and select
> > > > > it.
> > > > >
> > > > > Mark
> > > > >
> > > > > On 28/05/06, Francis Tyers <spectre at ivixor.net> wrote:
> > > > > > Are there actually any Tajik native speakers working on the Tajik
> > > > > > Wikipedia at the moment?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'd like to discuss some software I'm making with them...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > http://82.133.33.43/~spectre/tajik/tajik.php
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I've had a look over at tg. but it seems to be very inactive.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Fran
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > > > > > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>