from_name: SJ

body:
We clearly need an "edit this page!" line of post-its, notebooks, etc.
 That is, the world needs one... Wikipedia may as well provide it.  I
imagine this means finding an outside supplier interested in getting
involved...

SJ

On 1/29/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I spent a few hours today updating the Wikipedia CafePress shop tonight (20%
> from every purchase
> goes to the foundation). The biggest change was replacing the 'Edit this
> page' image on the back
> of items with an image that shows the multi-lingual nature of the project
> (the 'Edit this page'
> image is still there, just much reduced in size). Here is the image:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikipeidaIntl.PNG
>
> All items with front and back options now have a big Wikipedia logo in front
> and the multi-lingual
> 'The Free Encyclopedia' logo (see above) on back. A new item that shows this
> well is a golf shirt:
> http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46067950
>
> I also added a mousepad and clock with the new image:
> http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46065179
> http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46066953
>
> New items with just the standard logo include a black cap, a khaki cap,
> teddy bear, and wall
> clock.
>
> Just for fun I also created a "We make the Internet not suck" bumper
> sticker:
> http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46073071
>
> The full shop is here: http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia/528088
>
> If you have ideas for slogans and artwork, then please add them here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_ideas/Cafe_Press
>
> -- mav
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
++SJ


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: CafePress shop updated

body:
And a nice update to cafepress, btw :)

On 1/29/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> We clearly need an "edit this page!" line of post-its, notebooks, etc.
>  That is, the world needs one... Wikipedia may as well provide it.  I
> imagine this means finding an outside supplier interested in getting
> involved...
>
> SJ
>
> On 1/29/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I spent a few hours today updating the Wikipedia CafePress shop tonight
> (20%
> > from every purchase
> > goes to the foundation). The biggest change was replacing the 'Edit this
> > page' image on the back
> > of items with an image that shows the multi-lingual nature of the project
> > (the 'Edit this page'
> > image is still there, just much reduced in size). Here is the image:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WikipeidaIntl.PNG
> >
> > All items with front and back options now have a big Wikipedia logo in
> front
> > and the multi-lingual
> > 'The Free Encyclopedia' logo (see above) on back. A new item that shows
> this
> > well is a golf shirt:
> > http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46067950
> >
> > I also added a mousepad and clock with the new image:
> > http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46065179
> > http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46066953
> >
> > New items with just the standard logo include a black cap, a khaki cap,
> > teddy bear, and wall
> > clock.
> >
> > Just for fun I also created a "We make the Internet not suck" bumper
> > sticker:
> > http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.46073071
> >
> > The full shop is here: http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia/528088
> >
> > If you have ideas for slogans and artwork, then please add them here:
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_ideas/Cafe_Press
> >
> > -- mav
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
>
>
> --
> ++SJ
>

--
++SJ


list: foundation-l

from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: Outsiders on the Board? (was Re: Poll for
	Wikistandards)

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 1/29/2006 9:05:46 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>> t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au writes:
>>
>> If  Wikimedia needs qualified outside help, it's in operations, not
>> oversight.  Only an elected board, accountable to the Wikimedia
>> community, can ensure  that the principles that the community holds
>> dear are upheld.
>>
>> Some  committees might benefit from the guidance of qualified
>> outsiders, but the  committees should still be dominated by
>> volunteers, either selected by a  transparent and fair process with
>> Board oversight or, as Erik suggests,  with open membership.
>>
>>
>>
>> Actually, as Wikipedia grows it requires help in oversight no less
>> than it  does in operations. A large organization entails legal and
>> financial responsibilities. If we are sued, for whatever reason, we
>> cannot  simply throw another server at the person suing us.
>> As I understand it, serving on the Board or in some other official
>> capacity, such as officer, includes legal responsibility, including
>> liability.  It is not just the ability to make decisions that comes
>> with a position,  but the willingness to face the consequences. The
>> issue is not who takes  credit when things go right, but rather, who
>> takes the blame when something goes  wrong.
>>
>
> I am amazed that you suggest that an officer of the Wikimedia Foundation
> would be personally liable for the work done as an officer. I would
> expect that an officer of an organisation speaks for the organisation
> and as a consequence the organisation is liable for the actions of its
> personnel. Normally someone employed by an organisation is liable only
> when gross incompetence can be proven or in cases where the law has been
> violated to an extend where criminal intend can be proven.
>
> I am sure that someone can and will explain to what extend an employee
> is personally liable for his actions as an employee of the Wikimedia
> Foundation.

There has been a confusion made between what is an officer from a legal
perspective, in an organisation such as Wikimedia Foundation, and the
titles (eg, press officer) we gave to a few people in the past year.

In the primary definition, "officers" are indeed liable. They receive
delegations of power from the board, and in case of mistakes in their
duties or lack of respect of the delegations which were given to them,
they are liable.

In the secondary definition (ie, the one we have been using for the past
year), "officers" are essentially titles of recognition/identification.
They allow the board to have a primary contact for a collection of
issues, they allow the community to know who to contact and they allow
the outside (press etc...) to feel that they are talking to someone
trusted by the board. But, these "titles" do not imply liability per se.
Some of these titles actually contained the word officer (such as Chief
Technical Officer or Press Officer), while others did not (such as Grant
Coordinator).

We are in the process of clarifying this.

Finally, the whole issue is independant of whether the person is an
employee or not I think. Someone may be an employee, with little
delegation of power, so very limited responsability in front of the law.
And someone may be a volunteer officer, with liability.

It appears that the main two areas where liability is necessary right
now, are the financial and the legal areas. However, one of the board
member has good financial experience, while no board member do have a
legal background.

an t


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Standard Wikipedia procedure?

body:
It may not be wise to make such bold moves on one's own favorite
projects with so little discussion.  By the same token of not
repeating content, we would have to get rid of local Help: articles on
every project...  if we want Meta: to suddenly take on that role, this
would be cause for an interesting discussion.  But please don't get
into edit wars without such discussion.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents

sj

On 1/29/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
> > 2006/1/29, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org>:
> >
> >>What kind of pages do you mean? Stuff generally gets transwikied to meta
> >>if it's not really about Wikipedia but more about the community. What do
> >>you mean by other languages deciding differently? To not transfer stuff
> >>to meta? I don't think it's a dictated policy by Jimbo so I reckon you
> >>can do what you like with it.
> >
> >
> > The issue is about the page [[Wikipedia:Wikiholic]] and its equivalent
> > in other languages. Someone (CoolCat) moved them from all languages he
> > could find to meta. Getting reverted in some languages, he wrote "I
> > already moved everything here to the meta page, what is the problem?
> > True Wikipediholic always put this stuff to meta :P" and then
> > re-reverted in some cases, not in others.
> >
> > --
> > Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> > ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>
> Just revert back if your community agrees to keep it on wikipedia.
> He is free to copy the text on meta, but imho, NOT FREE to impose the
> move to communities to which he does not belong.
>
> I looked at the french version. CoolCat was reverted twice over there.
>
> I would recommand CoolCat to avoid doing that too often on projects
> which are not his. He would be free game to be *blocked*.
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
++SJ


body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> 2006/1/29, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org>:
>
>>What kind of pages do you mean? Stuff generally gets transwikied to meta
>>if it's not really about Wikipedia but more about the community. What do
>>you mean by other languages deciding differently? To not transfer stuff
>>to meta? I don't think it's a dictated policy by Jimbo so I reckon you
>>can do what you like with it.
>
>
> The issue is about the page [[Wikipedia:Wikiholic]] and its equivalent
> in other languages. Someone (CoolCat) moved them from all languages he
> could find to meta. Getting reverted in some languages, he wrote "I
> already moved everything here to the meta page, what is the problem?
> True Wikipediholic always put this stuff to meta :P" and then
> re-reverted in some cases, not in others.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels

Just revert back if your community agrees to keep it on wikipedia.
He is free to copy the text on meta, but imho, NOT FREE to impose the
move to communities to which he does not belong.

I looked at the french version. CoolCat was reverted twice over there.

I would recommand CoolCat to avoid doing that too often on projects
which are not his. He would be free game to be *blocked*.

ant


from_name: Pawe³ Dembowski

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Where ends the responsibility of Wikipedia?
	(personal information of people)

body:
> This seems clearly a verifiability issue. If his dob is publicly verifiable,
> then having it on wikipedia creates no additional risk for him. If not,
> someone who knows him is a wikipedian and they added it, then it should be
> removed as not verifiable. And we don't have to bother with the identity
> theft issue.
> Jim

This person's birthdate is also available at IMDb, actually...

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Jovana Milicevic

subject: [Foundation-l] Weekly digest from Wikimedia SCG

body:
January 24th:
Jovana Milicevic and Goran Obradovic talked in tv show Mozaik(3rd channel of
National television).
January 25th:
IT magazine COM&GSM published an article about Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Serbia and Montenegro.
January 26th:
Weekly newspaper Vreme published article about serbian Wikipedia.
January 27th:
Jovana Milicevic speaked in the programe at radio B92 about Wikipedia.
January 28th:
In Youth center Dom omladine Belgrade Wikimedia Serbia and Montenegro, FSN
(Free Softver Network), LUG (Linux User Group) organized projection of the
movie Revolution OS  (J.T.S. Moore), and there were almost 200 visitors.

Jovana Milicevic
Wikimedia Serbia&Montenegro


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Weekly digest from Wikimedia SCG


list: wikien-l

from_name: Ben Emmel

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/29/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is an interesting one. An article "List of state-named Avenues in
> Washington, D.C." was listed for deletion recently but kept because of
> no consensus.  Someone thought "dang it, AfD is supposed to be a
> discussion, not a vote", and went to Wikipedia:Deletion review (DRV)
> to try to overturn the result for what he thought were weak arguments
> to keep.
>
> Well that's all very well, but DRV (perhaps uniquely in all Wikipedia
> forums) does not operate by consensus but by majority vote.  So it
> looks to me like we've got a possible loophole where someone
> dissatisfied with an AfD result can go and have the article deleted
> anyway on a straight majority vote.  As it happens a lot of people who
> looked at the article in DRV thought it should be deleted (which isn't
> unusual--it's part of the culture in DRV)
>
> So, I thought I'd give a second AfD a go. If the first AfD wasn't
> clear enough, let's try for a second. I accordingly relisted the
> article for deletion, explaining the circumstances and recommending
> keep.
>
> Six people promptly said "keep".
>
> Whereupon someone involved in the attempt to overturn the first
> deletion discussion and delete the article "unlisted* the article from
> AfD.
>
> This is quite a quandary.
>
> I've no doubt that this fellow is acting in good faith and genuinely
> believes that we cannot have a second AfD while the first is being
> reviewed, but I cannot see why not especially if (as seems here) it's
> clarifying that yes, Wikipedians really do want this article to be
> kept.
>
> However he's not really granting good faith, is he?  He's removed the
> second AfD listing. I restored once but I don't edit war so I'm not
> going to get into that stuff.
>
> So I turn to you, dear readers.
>
> How am I to ensure that, if this article is deleted, it is only
> deleted on the basis of consensus?
> _______________________________________________
> 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 think that all of us, at least from this issue alone, can see that DRV is
probably worse off than any of the other *FD pages. It is hopelessly
confusing, with all the different options, and functions contrary to the
consensus-driven spirit of Wikipedia. I think the only way that you can get
a result for the page using a measure of community consensus as a gauge is
by using AFD. DRV is not going to give consensus: it will give you votes.
And as we all know, [[Meatball:VotingIsEvil]].

--
Ben Emmel
Wikipedia - User:Bratsche
bratsche1 at gmail.com
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
-- William Blake


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Ideally, the ED position should not matter all that much if we design
> the committees properly, and make sure that no single person can make
> too big mistakes. And, on the positive side, an "outsider" Director
> can hopefully be removed without too much of a fuss if he or she turns
> out to be a problem.

That sort of thing needs to be spelled out in his employment contract.
If the contract makes it clear that there would be no big severence
package it makes it a lot more difficult for him to argue for one in court.

> I understand that the plan is to wait with hiring the ED until we have
> the surrounding structures in place and working. That makes sense,
> because it allows us to see more clearly what role they should have in
> the organization, and very precisely define it, preferably also in the
> form of workflows and use cases. This might also lead us to using a
> different title, such as "Administrative Director", or, as you
> suggested, "Business Manager".

That's a better name.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees


from_name: Tim Starling

subject:
[Foundation-l] Outsiders on the Board? (was Re: Poll for
	Wikistandards)

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Angela wrote:
>
>> On 1/28/06, Robert Scott Horning
>> <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>>
>>> One other issue that needs to be dealt with immediately is the
>>> opposition vote by a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Two members of the Board were elected by the community, so,
>> unsurprisingly, those two people are going to be involved in community
>> matters like this poll. I realise some people would prefer the Board
>> be made only of external people, but with the current situation,
>> you're going to have to accept that at least two people on the Board
>> have dual roles of being on the Board and being Wikimedians. I am not
>> going to accept the constant attempts to prevent me expressing any
>> opinion outside of official meetings.
>>
>> We will soon have the Special Projects Committee
>> <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Special_projects> to
>> decide things like this, so I can't see the results of the poll going
>> directly to the stage of Board decision anyway. Since we're delegating
>> authority away from the Board, my view on the matter, as someone not
>> intending to be on the SP Committee, isn't any more relevant than that
>> of anyone else voting.
>>
>> Angela.
>>
>>
> As for having members of the board being outsiders, I think that should
> not happen at all or under exceptional circumstances.  I support the
> concept of Wikimedians being involved with the board, and I understand
> the role of being both a leader and a contributor... and having opinions
> as well.  We live with that on all of the Wikimedia projects anyway,
> where admins and bureaucrats are also ordinary editors and contributors
> as well... each with their own opinion and often vote on things like
> VfDs and policy questions within projects.

If Wikimedia needs qualified outside help, it's in operations, not
oversight. Only an elected board, accountable to the Wikimedia
community, can ensure that the principles that the community holds dear
are upheld.

Some committees might benefit from the guidance of qualified outsiders,
but the committees should still be dominated by volunteers, either
selected by a transparent and fair process with Board oversight or, as
Erik suggests, with open membership.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> This user is "gaming the system". Isn't there some policy that explicitly
> forbids this?

Which user - Tony?

-Matt


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: German wikipedia to be printed - where's the
 stable version feature?

body:
I'm replying to this wikipedia-l post in wikitech-l, it's more relevant
here.

Brion Vibber wrote:
> I'd been waiting on Tim's in-progress code to compare. Apparently there's not
> really anything much of that left (his work mostly transmogrified into the
> templatelinks temple) so I'm poking at Magnus's code now.

Salvatore's moderation feature was implemented in a similar way to
Magnus' one, in that it used an extra revision ID field in the page
table to point to the relevant version. Salvatore's used parameters
passed back to Revision to determine whether page_latest or
page_verified should be used, whereas Magnus's code operated mainly at
the UI level, redirecting to a page with an oldid parameter, IIRC.

Neither of them had the structure required for efficient caching, that
is, page/tag retrieval instead of page/revision retrieval. The basic
problem is that tugela, which we are now using instead of memcached, has
no efficient means for identifying and purging expired keys. In fact at
the moment, this garbage collection is not done at all. To limit the
growth of the cache under these circumstances, it's better to index the
parser cache by page and tag, rather than page and revision ID. I
thought that the best way to implement a tag concept, to merge Magnus's
and Salvatore's features while minimising MySQL index space, would be to
put the tag information in its own table.

Then there's the problem of template and link colour changes. I posted
to wikitech-l about that before. Magnus's suggestion of storing the
wikitext with the templates expanded at save time is a quite reasonable
solution.

I stopped working on Salvatore's moderation feature when Brion
implemented the semi-protection proposal put forward by the English
Wikipedia. It was quite redundant -- Salvatore's feature was a form of
semi-protection, a more complicated one than the one that the
Wikipedians were supporting. I was even working on integrating it into
the protection UI when Brion rewrote that part of the code. At that
stage I still hadn't addressed the caching issue. So I salvaged what I
could of my code branch (mostly the templatelinks table), and abandoned
the feature. I wasn't interested enough in the stable version feature to
keep working on the backend.

Perhaps the simplest solution at the moment is to put Magnus's feature
live (after the necessary code cleanup), and put up with the lack of
caching for a while. We've still got a bit of spare hardware capacity
haven't we? The request rate for stable versions should be lower than it
would have been for verified revisions. If I understand it correctly,
stable revisions are not displayed by default, verified revisions would
have been.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees

body:
On 1/30/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> On 1/29/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > A proper executive director for the organization will have decades (yes,
> > decades!) of experience at a major international public facing charity
> > with a strong volunteer component.  An ideal candidate should have
> > extensive experience at an executive level with: fundraising, regulatory
> > compliance, international chapters, donor relations management,
> > staffing, budgeting, etc.
> >
> What kind of salary do you think someone like that is going to get?
> You bring up the Red Cross as an example in another post, the top
> executives at that organization make around half a million a year.
> Hiring from the outside is probably going to be expensive, though if
> there's no one competant on the inside it might be more expensive not
> to do so.
> _______________________________________________

That is indeed something to be considered carefully. It recently happened in
the Netherlands when the salary of the chair person of the heart foundation
was revealed. (which was a lot). He finally resigned and the heart
foundation lost a whole lot of money (and good will) in their following
fundraising activities. Not that I think wikimedia will ever pay as much as
that though.

Garion


subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees

body:
Jimmy:

> A proper executive director for the organization will have decades (yes,
> decades!) of experience at a major international public facing charity
> with a strong volunteer component.  An ideal candidate should have
> extensive experience at an executive level with: fundraising, regulatory
> compliance, international chapters, donor relations management,
> staffing, budgeting, etc.

Yes, I am quite comfortable with an outsider ED position that focuses
primarily on administrative issues rather than on those which, as you
say, would make them "another Jimbo". I much prefer the idea of
decentralized committees with a reasonable amount of authority and some
high level oversight to that of a single position of which we expect
immeasurable ingenuity, permanent availability and infinite wisdom.
After all, we have you for that. ;-)

What concerns me is that we make sure that a) the ED does not stand
alone, so they cannot screw up too badly and are at least surrounded by
members of the community, b) we leave those areas of work which require
true innovation to the community to the largest extent possible, c) the
Board exercises constant oversight to make sure that both the committees
and the chapters are as open and participatory as reasonably possible.

As for b), take fundraising and donor relations management as an
example: No area has been transformed more radically through the use of
the Internet than this one since Howard Dean pocketed $40 million
through his online campaign. While our Christmas cards are nice, we also
need to systematically measure and improve our online campaign
efficiency (Daniel has already done excellent work in this area), and
develop fundraising methods completely new and unique.

I think your case is indeed strongest in the area of setting up
chapters, obtaining non-profit status, complying with the associated
regulations, making sure that our trademarks are in order, and so forth.
Day to day legal issues are a bit more complex and I'm not convinced
decades of experience will help in an area that is as ever-changing as
international Internet law.

Ideally, the ED position should not matter all that much if we design
the committees properly, and make sure that no single person can make
too big mistakes. And, on the positive side, an "outsider" Director can
hopefully be removed without too much of a fuss if he or she turns out
to be a problem.

I understand that the plan is to wait with hiring the ED until we have
the surrounding structures in place and working. That makes sense,
because it allows us to see more clearly what role they should have in
the organization, and very precisely define it, preferably also in the
form of workflows and use cases. This might also lead us to using a
different title, such as "Administrative Director", or, as you
suggested, "Business Manager".

Best,

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] New Wikimedia Committees


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] WP:AC/C

body:
I am very pleased indeed to see the arrival of and first appointments to the
position of Arbitration Committee Clerk. These editors will perform many of
the administrative tasks previously performed by the ArbCom members, and I
hope that we will see a consequent reduction in the stress and workload that
is the lot of our senior magistrates. Perhaps this will transfer the
"burn-out factor" to the Clerks!

In any case, a hearty cheer from me for the first Clerks in volunteering
their services, congratulations on being accepted, and may they work
diligently and well in the service of the ArbCom and Wikicommunity!

Peter (Skyring)


from_name: Oskar Sigvardsson

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Being able to see an article whose undeletion is
	beingactively discussed

body:
You know what would be really really fun, if this template got
deleted, then ended up at WP:DRV, then temporarily restored with a
note saying "This template has been temporarily restored due to
discussion..." etc. Now if anything would illustrate the sometimes
curies practices that wikipedia uses for deletion, that would be it!

I'm almost tempted to go vote delete for that reason alone!!!

--Oskar

On 1/28/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is there perhaps a template for this, datestamped with words to the
> > effect that if no consensus for undeletion is established within 7 days
> > of the addition of the template, it should be redeleted?
> >
>
> I created a small template (I find large in-your-face boxes repellant) at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_under_review
>
> I see that it's already been listed for deletion.  Oh how fun! :)
>
> There is a shortcut for it: {{dur}}
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
This is an interesting one. An article "List of state-named Avenues in
Washington, D.C." was listed for deletion recently but kept because of
no consensus.  Someone thought "dang it, AfD is supposed to be a
discussion, not a vote", and went to Wikipedia:Deletion review (DRV)
to try to overturn the result for what he thought were weak arguments
to keep.

Well that's all very well, but DRV (perhaps uniquely in all Wikipedia
forums) does not operate by consensus but by majority vote.  So it
looks to me like we've got a possible loophole where someone
dissatisfied with an AfD result can go and have the article deleted
anyway on a straight majority vote.  As it happens a lot of people who
looked at the article in DRV thought it should be deleted (which isn't
unusual--it's part of the culture in DRV)

So, I thought I'd give a second AfD a go. If the first AfD wasn't
clear enough, let's try for a second. I accordingly relisted the
article for deletion, explaining the circumstances and recommending
keep.

Six people promptly said "keep".

Whereupon someone involved in the attempt to overturn the first
deletion discussion and delete the article "unlisted* the article from
AfD.

This is quite a quandary.

I've no doubt that this fellow is acting in good faith and genuinely
believes that we cannot have a second AfD while the first is being
reviewed, but I cannot see why not especially if (as seems here) it's
clarifying that yes, Wikipedians really do want this article to be
kept.

However he's not really granting good faith, is he?  He's removed the
second AfD listing. I restored once but I don't edit war so I'm not
going to get into that stuff.

So I turn to you, dear readers.

How am I to ensure that, if this article is deleted, it is only
deleted on the basis of consensus?


from_name: Jesse Weinstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: note David Gerard's just placed on [[WT:AFD]]

body:
On 1/25/06, Justin Cormack <justin at ...> wrote:
> On 25 Jan 2006, at 21:47, Fred Bauder wrote:
> > Properly done each fact (or set of facts) will point somehow to the
> > source, including the page in the source.
>
> How? And how will the article still be readable? And what is a fact?
> And what use is the page number
> when there are loads of editions of a source?
>
> No encyclopaedia is written like this.

I am sort of surprised and disturbed to see people getting so far-fetched with
the task of specifying a source for each fact in an article.  We don't need
magic new software tools, we don't need 500 obtrusive footnotes in the article,
we don't need any of this.

We can simply use a subpage.  On the subpage, put a list of quote from the
article, followed by citations (and preferably quotes) from sources which
support the quoted material from the article.  Simple, easy to do, requiring no
magic software support.  The disadvantage is it dosn't automatically update if
the article is changed, but on the other hand, that's actually an advantage; if
the article changes, we *need* someone to review the references, so having the
subpage not automatically update is actually a feature.

People might object that such a subpage is "just too hard", or "too
time-consuming", or various other things; my answer to this is simply - if you
don't want to work on it, don't work on it.  It benefits the encyclopedia, by
easing the task of factual verification; yes it will take many years to get lots
done, but so what? Each piece we do is one more that's done.  This is not a
problem, folks - it's just a big job.  Get to work! (if this is the sort of work
you want to help with...)

Jesse Weinstein (User:JesseW)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
I'm not going to get drawn into editing that nomination again.  SimonP
restored the discussion to AfD but R. Fiend has now closed it, falsely
claiming that the nominaiton was made in bad faith.

Now I don't get angry easily, but I do think something's amiss here.
I'm trying to hold a second deletion nomination and things are going
heavily in favor of keep, and the person who apparently thinks the
article should be deleted is thwarting the discussion and claiming
that I am, in effect, lying when I say that I want AfD, and not DRV,
to make the decision to delete this article, if it is to be deleted.
Meanwhile there is a vote going on in Deletion review which is
apparently designed to overturn the original no-consensus keep, and
delete the article.

As I say, I don't easily get angry.  But sometimes I do get a little
bit suspicious.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Well that's all very well, but DRV (perhaps uniquely in all Wikipedia
> > forums) does not operate by consensus but by majority vote.
>
>
> If so, supermajority vote (just nitpicking)

I don't thnk so.  I believe DRV inherited from Votes for Undeletion a
majority vote system (with a small quota, say three voters) for
overturning a result.

As far as I'm aware there has never been quite this blatant an attempt
to overturn a consensus-based AfD result on DRV, nor to prevent a
legitimate AfD discussion.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can not remember where, but somewhere at enwiki it says that "concensus"
> is in some cases defined as a supermajority number

This numerical intepretation was in the Consensus article for a while,
but it was removed.  Although one person favored it strongly and
championed it for a long while, there was no consensus for it.


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Being able to see an article whose undeletion is being
	actively discussed

body:
It's almost enough to make you wish that this sort of deleted material (not
defamatory, not a copyvio, etc) were stored in the edit history, like it
would be under pure wiki deletion...

Ryan

On 1/28/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am hugely in favor of this. There are some categories of deleted
> article which might be harmful to keep up, but otherwise there is no
> harm keeping the content available, especially if marked as being
> temporarily visible while an undeletion discussion is underway.
>
> -Matt
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Habj

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well that's all very well, but DRV (perhaps uniquely in all Wikipedia
> forums) does not operate by consensus but by majority vote.

If so, supermajority vote (just nitpicking)

/habj


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> 1. Is the information verifiable?
> 2. Does the article contain original research?
> 3. Does the article cite sources?
> 4. Is the information presented in the article useful and of an
> encyclopedic nature?
> 5. Is this whole mess driving good editors from the project?
>
> If you answered "Yes", "No", "Yes", "Yes" and "Yes", Congratulations!
> Please speedy keep the article and block those who persistantly disrupt
> the project by their lack of common sense.
>
If you're still talking about [[List of state-named Avenues in
Washington, D.C.]], it's not of an encyclopedic nature.  It's not even
an article, it's a list.  Lists have to be treated differently, that's
why there used to be "Lists for Deletion", but Wikipedia wasn't big
enough to handle such a minor issue on a separate page, so it was
merged into VFD.  In hindsight, the merge was a mistake.

Anthony


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] US Congress Staff Editing Wikipedia

body:
Anthere was working on it yesterday.

Fred

On Jan 30, 2006, at 4:19 AM, John Lee wrote:

> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
>
> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela?
> Anthere?) might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get
> vandalised by Congress everyday. :)
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> _______________________________________________
> 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] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/30/06, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If so, supermajority vote (just nitpicking)
>
> I don't thnk so.  I believe DRV inherited from Votes for Undeletion a
> majority vote system (with a small quota, say three voters) for
> overturning a result.

I can not remember where, but somewhere at enwiki it says that "concensus"
is in some cases defined as a supermajority number, different in different
cases: 70% at VfD, more at RfA etc. Is that not correct? Too bad I can not
say the name of the page, I know it's there... or at least was, less than
two months ago.

/habj

As far as I'm aware there has never been quite this blatant an attempt
> to overturn a consensus-based AfD result on DRV, nor to prevent a
> legitimate AfD discussion.
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Sean Barrett

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ryan Delaney stated for the record:
> Whoops, I'll try this again...
>
> Like you say, each of these offices are more or less autonomous. I think the
> only real thing we can do is embarass them through publicity. If that
> doesn't work, we'll just have to watch and revert.
>
> Ryan
>

I doubt you can embarrass a congresscritter; they'll just disavow all
knowledge of their (anonymous) staffers' activities.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | That would have worked if you hadn't
 sean at epoptic.org | stopped me. --Dr. Egon Spengler
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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from_name: Philip Welch

subject: [WikiEN-l] Block of a Notable Wikipedian

body:
> There's a pile of discussion on WP:ANI on this case. There's been a
> pile of socks after DreamGuy for a while, and when Elonka started as
> well, several admins (me included) presumed this was another one. This
> probably isn't the case. Someone else has dropped the block to a week.
> I've exchanged email with Elonka on the matter, and strongly suggested
> that the abovelinked page be removed or severely toned down if she
> wants a happier involvement in general with Wikipedia.
>
> ps: I'm probably about that famous, but I don't state a claim of such
> every breath I take. I'm just picturing WMC or someone doing that sort
> of thing ... nah.

How come we're blaming her all of a sudden? We're the ones who
screwed up. The predominant culture on Wikipedia is really good at
pissing off good-faith contributors sometimes--I'm often loath to ask
others to contribute because I know how they'll ultimately be treated.

Here's someone who openly states on her page that she wants to help
Wikipedia, but she wants the personal attacks against her removed
before that happens. If you step back and look at it from her point
of view, and not through the lens of the Wikipedia culture, is that
really so unreasonable?

--
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch


from_name: - Essjay -

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Stewards policy proposal

body:
I agree with the original statement: Desysopping should be discussed on the
project where the user is an admin. If it is done on Meta, it will prevent a
wide section of that project's community from commenting, and having wide
community input is essential in determining whether to remove admin rights
or not (as admin rights are the result of a community's trust of a given
user). Unless the discussion is about desysoping a meta admin, or
destewarding a steward, it should be done on the project where the rights
are assigned.

Essjay

On 1/30/06, Mihai Floran <mihai at emma.ro> wrote:
>
> >Besides what steward(s) should do, I propose that no discussion on
> >desysopping has not to be submitted on meta but on their own projects
> >unless desysopping in request is related to two or more projects, or
> >at least such discussion might be moved to more appropriate page (like
> >requests for comment).
> >
> >Or, submission of request for desysopping might be qualified only if
> >there is already a closed vote on project(s) in question. (sigh)
>
> I agree. There should be no discutions at Requests for permisions. There
> should be just approved requests which have to be done. Maybe we shuld have
> a special page for this kind of discutions? It is an idea with Requests for
> comment. If not, we can do another page.
>
> M
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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


body:
There's not really any central body you could get in touch with that would
mean anything.  Each person's office is essentially a little fiefdom.

-k

On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> John Lee wrote:
> > John Lee wrote:
> >
> >> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
> >>
> >> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> >> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> >> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> >> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> >> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> >> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> >> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?)
> >> might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by
> >> Congress everyday. :)
> >>
> >> John Lee
> >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> >
> >
> > Well, whaddya know; it's on WikiNews!
> >
> >
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation
> >
> >
> > That's probably a more readable explanation of what's going on than the
> > RfC.
> >
>
> Oh, we've had a link to that (via http://ln-s.net/$jo) in the #wikipedia
> topic for about 8 hours now... :)
>
> --
> 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
>
>


body:
On 1/30/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's not really any central body you could get in touch with that would
> mean anything.  Each person's office is essentially a little fiefdom.
>
> -k
>
>
> On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > John Lee wrote:
> > > John Lee wrote:
> > >
> > >> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> > >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
> > >>
> > >> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> > >> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> > >> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> > >> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> > >> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> > >> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> > >> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?)
> > >> might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by
> > >> Congress everyday. :)
> > >>
> > >> John Lee
> > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >
> > >
> > > Well, whaddya know; it's on WikiNews!
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation
> > >
> > >
> > > That's probably a more readable explanation of what's going on than
> the
> > > RfC.
> > >
> >
> > Oh, we've had a link to that (via http://ln-s.net/$jo) in the #wikipedia
> > topic for about 8 hours now... :)
> >
> > --
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Whoops, I'll try this again...

Like you say, each of these offices are more or less autonomous. I think the
only real thing we can do is embarass them through publicity. If that
doesn't work, we'll just have to watch and revert.

Ryan

On 1/30/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's not really any central body you could get in touch with that would
> mean anything.  Each person's office is essentially a little fiefdom.
>
> -k
>
>
> On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > John Lee wrote:
> > > John Lee wrote:
> > >
> > >> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> > >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
> > >>
> > >> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> > >> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> > >> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> > >> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> > >> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> > >> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> > >> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?)
> > >> might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by
> > >> Congress everyday. :)
> > >>
> > >> John Lee
> > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > >
> > >
> > > Well, whaddya know; it's on WikiNews!
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation
> > >
> > >
> > > That's probably a more readable explanation of what's going on than
> the
> > > RfC.
> > >
> >
> > Oh, we've had a link to that (via http://ln-s.net/$jo) in the #wikipedia
> > topic for about 8 hours now... :)
> >
> > --
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: J Apple

subject: [Wikitech-l] 2. Re: How to use Mwdumper? (Brion Vibber)

body:
Hello,

The READ Me is not very newbie friendly...

Don't even know what to do with the .jar file.
WHen I double click it nothing happens on my machine.
Can anyone give me more detailed instructions on what
I'm supposed to do with it?

Thanks!
--- wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org wrote:

> Send Wikitech-l mailing list submissions to
> 	wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web,
> visit
>
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body
> 'help' to
> 	wikitech-l-request at wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	wikitech-l-owner at wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it
> is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikitech-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Re: New anti-spam initiatives (Brion
> Vibber)
>    2. Re: How to use Mwdumper? (Brion Vibber)
>    3. Re: New anti-spam initiatives (Aerik Sylvan)
>    4. Re: German wikipedia to be printed - where's
> the stable
>       version feature? (Tim Starling)
>    5. Re: Re: German wikipedia to be printed -
> where's the	stable
>       version feature? (Domas Mituzas)
>    6. Re: MediaWiki API (Daniel Wunsch)
>    7. Re: Re: New anti-spam initiatives (Brion
> Vibber)
>    8. MathML support in MediaWiki (David Harvey)
>    9. Re: how to add an extension to wp (Petr
> Kadlec)
>   10. Re: how to add an extension to wp (Oscar
> Quintanilla)
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:42:14 -0800
> From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: New anti-spam
> initiatives
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <43DC0F66.5050505 at pobox.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Aerik Sylvan wrote:
> > Brion - it looks like you're collecting the same
> info I set out to get, plus
> > some more - but is this running live anywhere?  I
> was under the impression that
> > the captcha is still totally in development?
>
> Running currently on all but the top 20 Wikipedias
> plus meta, commons, and a few
> misc.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: signature.asc
> Type: application/pgp-signature
> Size: 249 bytes
> Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
> Url :
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:42:44 -0800
> From: Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] How to use Mwdumper?
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <43DC0F84.5000200 at pobox.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> J Apple wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I'm a newbie.
> > I installed MW 1.5.5
> >
> > then I downloaded an SQL dump from wikipedia and
> > extracted the bzip2 to xml.
> >
> > Then how do I open/install/use mwdumper to get the
> DB
> > into my mediawiki?
>
> See the README.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: signature.asc
> Type: application/pgp-signature
> Size: 249 bytes
> Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
> Url :
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 01:03:13 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Aerik Sylvan <aerik at thesylvans.com>
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New anti-spam initiatives
> To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <loom.20060129T020217-84 at post.gmane.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:
>
> > Running currently on all but the top 20 Wikipedias
> plus meta, commons,
> > and a few misc.
> >
> Great!  How do I go about getting the logs?
>
> Thanks!
> Aerik
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:22:51 +1100
> From: Tim Starling
> <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au>
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: German wikipedia to be
> printed - where's the
> 	stable version feature?
> To: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> Message-ID: <drimkh$mg$1 at sea.gmane.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
> format=flowed
>
> I'm replying to this wikipedia-l post in wikitech-l,
> it's more relevant
> here.
>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > I'd been waiting on Tim's in-progress code to
> compare. Apparently there's not
> > really anything much of that left (his work mostly
> transmogrified into the
> > templatelinks temple) so I'm poking at Magnus's
> code now.
>
> Salvatore's moderation feature was implemented in a
> similar way to
> Magnus' one, in that it used an extra revision ID
> field in the page
> table to point to the relevant version. Salvatore's
> used parameters
> passed back to Revision to determine whether
> page_latest or
> page_verified should be used, whereas Magnus's code
> operated mainly at
> the UI level, redirecting to a page with an oldid
> parameter, IIRC.
>
> Neither of them had the structure required for
> efficient caching, that
> is, page/tag retrieval instead of page/revision
> retrieval. The basic
> problem is that tugela, which we are now using
> instead of memcached, has
> no efficient means for identifying and purging
> expired keys. In fact at
> the moment, this garbage collection is not done at
> all. To limit the
> growth of the cache under these circumstances, it's
> better to index the
> parser cache by page and tag, rather than page and
> revision ID. I
> thought that the best way to implement a tag
> concept, to merge Magnus's
> and Salvatore's features while minimising MySQL
> index space, would be to
> put the tag information in its own table.
>
> Then there's the problem of template and link colour
> changes. I posted
> to wikitech-l about that before. Magnus's suggestion
> of storing the
> wikitext with the templates expanded at save time is
> a quite reasonable
> solution.
>
>
=== message truncated ===

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body:
You MAY get some response, on the House side anyway, from Vernon Ehlers, in
his capacity as chairman of the House Administration Committee.  That
committee basically deals with the day-to-day issues of operating the
Congress, its chairman is sort of the "mayor of the House."

That'd be my best suggestion, but it's probably still a longshot.  Trent
Lott is his Senate equivalent (chairs the Senate Rules and Administration
committee), but that committee is much less active and has a somewhat
different mandate.

-k

On 1/30/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Whoops, I'll try this again...
>
> Like you say, each of these offices are more or less autonomous. I think
> the
> only real thing we can do is embarass them through publicity. If that
> doesn't work, we'll just have to watch and revert.
>
> Ryan
>
> On 1/30/06, Katefan0 <katefan0wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There's not really any central body you could get in touch with that
> would
> > mean anything.  Each person's office is essentially a little fiefdom.
> >
> > -k
> >
> >
> > On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > John Lee wrote:
> > > > John Lee wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> A most interesting case, ladies and gentlemen:
> > > >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress]]
> > > >>
> > > >> "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States
> > > >> Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with
> > > >> vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should
> > > >> probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their
> > > >> reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at
> > > >> understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just
> > > >> think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela?
> Anthere?)
> > > >> might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by
> > > >> Congress everyday. :)
> > > >>
> > > >> John Lee
> > > >> ([[User:Johnleemk]])
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Well, whaddya know; it's on WikiNews!
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > That's probably a more readable explanation of what's going on than
> > the
> > > > RfC.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Oh, we've had a link to that (via http://ln-s.net/$jo) in the
> #wikipedia
> > > topic for about 8 hours now... :)
> > >
> > > --
> > > 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
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Petr Kadlec

subject: [Wikitech-l] how to add an extension to wp

body:
On 1/26/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
>
> i would like to add an extension to wp, especial to wp.de.
> it is the point-mapping-extension described
> here:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GISWiki/Point-Mapping_Extension
> [...]
> how can an extension be added?

If you would follow
http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Installation ->
http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Code, you would know
that

# Copy this text into a file called "MapPoints.php" and save it into
the directory "extensions"
> # To activate the extension, include it from your LocalSettings.php
> # with: include("extensions/MapPoints.php");
> # Hint: Do'nt mix up MapPoints with the older version MapPoint!
>
> HTH,
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]


from_name: Jon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
[[WP:NOT]] is the worst policy we have, it doesn't need to be expanded!

  Why can't we express ourselves positively. The policy should be:

  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia

  As far as asking the question of What Wikipedia is Not:

  well, Wikipedia is not anything you'd care to mention that isn't an encyclopaedia.

  Just a bugbear of mine:)
  Take care

  Jon
  (jguk)

Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
  Maybe at [[WP:NOT]]. That page definitely needs a "Wikipedia is not a
game of Nomic", if it doesn't already have one.

Steve

On 1/30/06, Ryan Delaney wrote:
> This user is "gaming the system". Isn't there some policy that explicitly
> forbids this?
>
> Ryan
>
> On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway wrote:
> >
> > On 1/30/06, Habj wrote:
> > >
> > > I can not remember where, but somewhere at enwiki it says that
> > "concensus"
> > > is in some cases defined as a supermajority number
> >
> >
> > This numerical intepretation was in the Consensus article for a while,
> > but it was removed. Although one person favored it strongly and
> > championed it for a long while, there was no consensus for 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
_______________________________________________
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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
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from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Ryan Delaney wrote:
> Whoops, I'll try this again...
>
> Like you say, each of these offices are more or less autonomous. I think the
> only real thing we can do is embarass them through publicity. If that
> doesn't work, we'll just have to watch and revert.
>
My secret dream is to see the United States Congress hauled up before
the Arbitration Committee. Maybe we could get them to pass clearer
fair-use legislation as part of their parole.


from_name: Anonymous

subject: [Foundation-l] Narrative vs. Selective bias

body:
Narrative vs. Selective bias - the analogy

Let's say I'm an author and I'm writing a novel. I choose a style of
storytelling in which the narrator is "neutral", i.e. the narrator does
not make judgments about or criticize the characters or scenarios in the
story. For example, the book will not feature statements like:

     And then Eve, with her usual unbearable manner, replied "I think
you're just being ridiculous".

Instead:

     And then Eve replied: "I think you're just being ridiculous".

In my book, the narrator is neutral, as the narrator is not involved in
interpreting the story. Therefore it may be correctly stated that the
book is written from a neutral point of view. However, me, the author,
is far from neutral, as I choose to show different aspects of the
characters and scenarios, but not others, that might have shown them in
a different light if I chose otherwise. Thus, me, the author, is
selectively biased.

-

This is a critical distinction between two completely different aspects
of unbiased writing. "Narrative bias" - bias that stems from how the
text is narrated, regardless of what facts are presented i.e. narrating
views. And "Selective bias" - bias that naturally stems from the
selection of facts - selecting views.

The current formulation of the Neutral point of view policy does not
make the above distinction clear, thus leading one to believe that
eliminating narrative bias (judgments about views) will make the article
itself unbiased.

To put it in another way, the policy suggests a journalist is unbiased
in his/her reports, just because they are not making any interpretations
of the facts they (consciously) choose to present.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
Maybe at [[WP:NOT]]. That page definitely needs a "Wikipedia is not a
game of Nomic", if it doesn't already have one.

Steve

On 1/30/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> This user is "gaming the system". Isn't there some policy that explicitly
> forbids this?
>
> Ryan
>
> On 1/30/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/30/06, Habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I can not remember where, but somewhere at enwiki it says that
> > "concensus"
> > > is in some cases defined as a supermajority number
> >
> >
> > This numerical intepretation was in the Consensus article for a while,
> > but it was removed.  Although one person favored it strongly and
> > championed it for a long while, there was no consensus for 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
> >
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Tim Starling

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> I am amazed that you suggest that an officer of the Wikimedia Foundation
> would be personally liable for the work done as an officer. I would
> expect that an officer of an organisation speaks for the organisation
> and as a consequence the organisation is liable for the actions of its
> personnel. Normally someone employed by an organisation is liable only
> when gross incompetence can be proven or in cases where the law has been
> violated to an extend where criminal intend can be proven.
>
> I am sure that someone can and will explain to what extend an employee
> is personally liable for his actions as an employee of the Wikimedia
> Foundation.

Well, firstly IANAL and secondly most of my legal knowedge comes from studying Australian law rather
than US law. But my understanding is that civil liability for the action of employees rests with the
corporation or individual employing them. This is called vicarious liability.

Members of the Board of Directors are not ordinary employees though, and I think Danny's implication
was that the Board is responsible for the actions of the corporation. At common law, the civil
liability is limited to the assets of the corporation, that's the major difference between a
corporation and a partnership. The threats to the Board of Directors then fall into three categories:

* Statuatory -- many countries have laws making the Board of Directors liable for gross
mismanagement, or other forms of misconduct.
* Contractual -- for example, some wholesale suppliers require that the Board of Directors accepts
liability for debts accrued.
* Criminal -- limitation of liability and vicarious liability do not apply in criminal cases.

I don't know whether vicarious liability extends to officers. Their legal position is less clear
than, say, Kyle's (an outsider employed by the Foundation).

Let's just say that I for one wouldn't be deterred from accepting a position of responsibility
within the foundation by legal liability. We all live in a world ruled by law. That should be an
impetus to educate ourselves about the issues, and to seek advice where appropriate, not to hand
over the keys to the lawyers and let them run the place.

-- Tim Starling


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>I've decided to act on this, and have placed the following notice on the page:

I should note that I've had a notice on my user page that I'll make
the text of a deleted article available for a while now, and I've had
zero requests.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
It's best to define things in terms of what we are.

  Not least as suggesting things that we're not just gives people ideas.

  Let me give an example. You know what a blue door is. Well, don't think
  of a blue door. Think of anything other than a blue door, and wipe your
  mind of all thoughts about doors that are blue.

  Now tell me what you're thinking of, and whether you'd have been thinking
  of it had I not mentioned blue doors.

  Expressing things positively is important. It's very tempting to express things
  negatively, but that way tends often not to work well.

  Incidentally, I had seen [[WP:ENC]]. The shame is that [[WP:ENC]] is not
  the policy, and [[WP:NOT]] is not the joke.

  All the best
  Jon
  (jguk)

Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
  On 1/30/06, Jon wrote:
> [[WP:NOT]] is the worst policy we have, it doesn't need to be expanded!
>
> Why can't we express ourselves positively. The policy should be:
>
>
> Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia

You're obviously not aware of [[WP:ENC]]. *groan* But if you like,
there's always [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia in eight words]].

> well, Wikipedia is not anything you'd care to mention that isn't an encyclopaedia.

Well, Wikipedia is lots of things that no other encyclopaedia is
(including user-editable, unreliable, inconsistent, multilingual,
frequently up-to-the-minute etc etc).

To get really picky though, I thought the official line was that
Wikipedia is a *project* to *build* an encyclopedia. Or maybe
"Wikipedia" is the name of the encyclopaedia being built by "The
Wikipedia Project". In that case, half of the entries at WP:NOT refer
to the project (wikipedia is not therapy, a game, myspace, a chat
site) and half refer to the actual encyclopaedia (not an
indiscriminate collection of information, not a jargon file etc).

To answer your original point though, "why expand WP:NOT"? Basically
because the nature of Wiki means that people can endlessly expand the
project in new directions. Saying "WP is X and nothing but X" doesn't
really pose any limits on this expansion. Saying "WP is X, but
definitely not Y or Z" does.

Steve
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
On 1/30/06, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> [[WP:NOT]] is the worst policy we have, it doesn't need to be expanded!
>
>   Why can't we express ourselves positively. The policy should be:
>
>
>   Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia

You're obviously not aware of [[WP:ENC]]. *groan* But if you like,
there's always [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia in eight words]].

>   well, Wikipedia is not anything you'd care to mention that isn't an encyclopaedia.

Well, Wikipedia is lots of things that no other encyclopaedia is
(including user-editable, unreliable, inconsistent, multilingual,
frequently up-to-the-minute etc etc).

To get really picky though, I thought the official line was that
Wikipedia is a *project* to *build* an encyclopedia. Or maybe
"Wikipedia" is the name of the encyclopaedia being built by "The
Wikipedia Project". In that case, half of the entries at WP:NOT refer
to the project (wikipedia is not therapy, a game, myspace, a chat
site) and half refer to the actual encyclopaedia (not an
indiscriminate collection of information, not a jargon file etc).

To answer your original point though, "why expand WP:NOT"? Basically
because the nature of Wiki means that people can endlessly expand the
project in new directions. Saying "WP is X and nothing but X" doesn't
really pose any limits on this expansion. Saying "WP is X, but
definitely not Y or Z" does.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
You don't even need question 2. Original research isn't verifiable by reference to reputable sources, so if you answer Yes to question 2 you must necessarily answer No to question 1.

Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
  On 1/30/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
> 1. Is the information verifiable?
> 2. Does the article contain original research?
> 3. Does the article cite sources?
> 4. Is the information presented in the article useful and of an
> encyclopedic nature?
> 5. Is this whole mess driving good editors from the project?
>
> If you answered "Yes", "No", "Yes", "Yes" and "Yes", Congratulations!
> Please speedy keep the article and block those who persistantly disrupt
> the project by their lack of common sense.
>
If you're still talking about [[List of state-named Avenues in
Washington, D.C.]], it's not of an encyclopedic nature. It's not even
an article, it's a list. Lists have to be treated differently, that's
why there used to be "Lists for Deletion", but Wikipedia wasn't big
enough to handle such a minor issue on a separate page, so it was
merged into VFD. In hindsight, the merge was a mistake.

Anthony
_______________________________________________
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from_name: Oscar Quintanilla

body:
--- Petr Kadlec <petr.kadlec at gmail.com> a ?crit?:

> On 1/26/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> >
> > i would like to add an extension to wp, especial
> to wp.de.
> > it is the point-mapping-extension described
> >
>
here:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GISWiki/Point-Mapping_Extension
> > [...]
> > how can an extension be added?
>
>
> If you would follow
>
http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Installation
> ->
>
http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Code,
> you would know
> that
>
> # Copy this text into a file called "MapPoints.php"
> and save it into
> the directory "extensions"
> > # To activate the extension, include it from your
> LocalSettings.php
> > # with: include("extensions/MapPoints.php");
> > # Hint: Do'nt mix up MapPoints with the older
> version MapPoint!
> >
> > HTH,
> -- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> ecrire-en-fran?ais-S.V.P.

___________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] MathML support in MediaWiki

body:
--- David Harvey <dmharvey at fas.harvard.edu> a ?crit?:

> Jitse Niesen is running a modified version of
> MediaWiki that can
> produce MathML in addition to the current support
> for HTML and PNG
> output.
>
> http://wiki.blahtex.org/
> The test wiki installation
>
> http://www.blahtex.org/
> Blahtex home page, with source code and manual for
> blahtex 0.4 (the
> underlying TeX-to-MathML converter), an interactive
> demo and samples of
> equations from wikipedia
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blahtex
> Discussion page on Meta
>
> (This message has been cross-posted at village pump
> (technical) and at
> wikiproject mathematics on en.wikipedia.)
>
> David Harvey
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> S.V.P.-?crire-en-Fran?ais

___________________________________________________________________________
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body:
--- Oscar Quintanilla <chicoguerra58 at yahoo.fr> a
?crit?:

> --- David Harvey <dmharvey at fas.harvard.edu> a
> ?crit?:
>
> > Jitse Niesen is running a modified version of
> > MediaWiki that can
> > produce MathML in addition to the current support
> > for HTML and PNG
> > output.
> >
> > http://wiki.blahtex.org/
> > The test wiki installation
> >
> > http://www.blahtex.org/
> > Blahtex home page, with source code and manual for
> > blahtex 0.4 (the
> > underlying TeX-to-MathML converter), an
> interactive
> > demo and samples of
> > equations from wikipedia
> >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blahtex
> > Discussion page on Meta
> >
> > (This message has been cross-posted at village
> pump
> > (technical) and at
> > wikiproject mathematics on en.wikipedia.)
> >
> > David Harvey
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > S.V.P.-?crire-en-Fran?ais
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________________________
>
> Nouveau : t?l?phonez moins cher avec Yahoo!
> Messenger ! D?couvez les tarifs exceptionnels pour
> appeler la France et l'international.
> T?l?chargez sur http://fr.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

___________________________________________________________________________
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body:
--- David Harvey <dmharvey at fas.harvard.edu> a ?crit?:

> Jitse Niesen is running a modified version of
> MediaWiki that can
> produce MathML in addition to the current support
> for HTML and PNG
> output.
>
> http://wiki.blahtex.org/
> The test wiki installation
>
> http://www.blahtex.org/
> Blahtex home page, with source code and manual for
> blahtex 0.4 (the
> underlying TeX-to-MathML converter), an interactive
> demo and samples of
> equations from wikipedia
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blahtex
> Discussion page on Meta
>
> (This message has been cross-posted at village pump
> (technical) and at
> wikiproject mathematics on en.wikipedia.)
>
> David Harvey
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> S.V.P-?crire-en-Fran?ais

___________________________________________________________________________
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: New anti-spam initiatives

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> a ?crit?:

> Aerik Sylvan wrote:
> > Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:
> >
> >> Running currently on all but the top 20
> Wikipedias plus meta, commons,
> >> and a few misc.
> >>
> > Great!  How do I go about getting the logs?
>
> A copy of the raw log for a day or so:
> https://wikitech.leuksman.com/captcha.log.txt.gz
>
> Extracted the items which didn't get a pass, did
> some first-pass sorting:
>
https://wikitech.leuksman.com/captcha-failed-extracts.txt.gz
>
>
> The log doesn't contain any personally-identifiable
> information that's not
> already available through the wiki.
>
> Last night I added the captcha to the new account
> creation form, also, which
> will protect against automated sleeper accounts for
> spammers and automated
> vandal username registrations.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> S.V.P-?crire-en-Fran?ais-o-espanol
> > _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

___________________________________________________________________________
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body:
THAT'S your secret dream?  =D

-k

On 1/30/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Ryan Delaney wrote:
> > Whoops, I'll try this again...
> >
> > Like you say, each of these offices are more or less autonomous. I think
> the
> > only real thing we can do is embarass them through publicity. If that
> > doesn't work, we'll just have to watch and revert.
> >
> My secret dream is to see the United States Congress hauled up before
> the Arbitration Committee. Maybe we could get them to pass clearer
> fair-use legislation as part of their parole.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> a ?crit?:

> Aerik Sylvan wrote:
> > Brion Vibber <brion at ...> writes:
> >
> >> Running currently on all but the top 20
> Wikipedias plus meta, commons,
> >> and a few misc.
> >>
> > Great!  How do I go about getting the logs?
>
> A copy of the raw log for a day or so:
> https://wikitech.leuksman.com/captcha.log.txt.gz
>
> Extracted the items which didn't get a pass, did
> some first-pass sorting:
>
https://wikitech.leuksman.com/captcha-failed-extracts.txt.gz
> S.V.P-?crire-en-Fran?ais-o-Espanol
>
> The log doesn't contain any personally-identifiable
> information that's not
> already available through the wiki.
>
> Last night I added the captcha to the new account
> creation form, also, which
> will protect against automated sleeper accounts for
> spammers and automated
> vandal username registrations.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> > _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but a legit question for the
group:

If someone disagrees with a deletion result, then lists it on DRV, this is
generally (with the exception of vanity self-promoters, trolls, and the
like) accepted as a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia.

If someone disagrees with a keep result, then lists it on DRV, this is seen
by many as an "abuse of process" and an effort to "get the result he
wanted".

It seems that if one type of result can be reviewed and possibly overturned,
what's wrong with reviewing another type of result?  What's the difference?

On 1/30/06, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No, the one he is talking about, who tried to use DRV to overrule a
> no-consensus AFD because it was more likely to get the result he wanted.
> This is a picture-perfect example of how process should NOT be (ab)used.
>


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one

body:
>
> To get really picky though, I thought the official line was that
> Wikipedia is a *project* to *build* an encyclopedia. Or maybe
> "Wikipedia" is the name of the encyclopaedia being built by "The
> Wikipedia Project". In that case, half of the entries at WP:NOT refer
> to the project (wikipedia is not therapy, a game, myspace, a chat
> site) and half refer to the actual encyclopaedia (not an
> indiscriminate collection of information, not a jargon file etc).
>
> To answer your original point though, "why expand WP:NOT"? Basically
> because the nature of Wiki means that people can endlessly expand the
> project in new directions. Saying "WP is X and nothing but X" doesn't
> really pose any limits on this expansion. Saying "WP is X, but
> definitely not Y or Z" does.
>
> Steve

There's at least 2 sections in WP:NOT. One which explains what the project
is not, one which explains what the articles are not. BTW, I do agree with
that last paragraph. You can say Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia anyone can
edit, but some people don't seem to grasp the idea of what an encyclopedia
is, so while it's unfortunate we have to use negative language "Wikipedia is
not a vehicle for promotion" is something we need to have in there. Even if
it's just so we can point people there. It's easier than explaining what
type of content is encyclopedic and what isn't.

Mgm


from_name: David Harvey

body:
Jitse Niesen is running a modified version of MediaWiki that can
produce MathML in addition to the current support for HTML and PNG
output.

http://wiki.blahtex.org/
The test wiki installation

http://www.blahtex.org/
Blahtex home page, with source code and manual for blahtex 0.4 (the
underlying TeX-to-MathML converter), an interactive demo and samples of
equations from wikipedia

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blahtex
Discussion page on Meta

(This message has been cross-posted at village pump (technical) and at
wikiproject mathematics on en.wikipedia.)

David Harvey


from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: New Wikimedia Committees

body:
For those of us not directly involved in foundation matters, why
precisely do we need a COO (from inside or outside wikimedia) and what
precisely would they do? I'm not trying to suggest that we don't, just
that to the average editor/donator/reader the case has not been made
at all why we should spend the editor's/donator's/reader's money this
way.

paz y amor,
-rjs.

--
DO NOT SEND ME WORD ATTACHMENTS - I *WILL* BITE!
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sylvester-response.html>

Hit me: <http://robin.shannon.id.au> [broken]
Jab me: <robin.shannon at jabber.org.au>
Upgrade to kubuntu linux: <http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/breezy/>
Faith is under the left nipple. -- Martin Luther


subject: What Wikipedia is not (was: Re: [WikiEN-l] Here's an interesting one)

body:
On 1/30/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>You can say Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia anyone can
> edit, but some people don't seem to grasp the idea of what an encyclopedia is

I have to say I don't like the insinuation I have sometimes seen that
people who don't know what encyclopaedias are are somehow inferior,
stupid or un-educated. I confess that I have had very minimal contact
with encyclopaedias. My parents had an out of date Funk & Wagnalls
which I sometimes looked at when I was young, and my school had an out
of date World Book. Never in secondary school or university did I ever
consult one, a brief flirtation with Encarta aside.

So I suspect that screaming "Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia" fails to
resonate with a lot more people than just me. And constant references
to and comparisons with Encyclopaedia Britannica, as if we all had a
copy of the most expensive printed work in history at home, don't help
matters either.

So by all means, create more links to Wikipedia in 8 words, or direct
people there, or make WP:NOT contain a more explicit definition of
what an encyclopaedia is. But please don't join the unhelpful chorus
of people who think that chanting "Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia"
explains everything. Because it doesn't.

Whew. That wasn't meant to be a rant. Honest :)

(On second thoughts, I don't think you *were* joining that unhelpful
chorus. But let this be a warning to others...or...something.)

Steve


body:
Elonka wrote:

>I am a public figure who has contributed over a thousand edits to  Wikipedia,
>and created dozens of articles.  I was attempting to  go through the dispute
>resolution process to build an RfC to address a series of  personal attacks
>that were generated towards me by user DreamGuy, but  earlier today I was
>accused by Admin Bishonen of harassment, and  then blocked
"indefinitely", without
>warning, by Admin David Gerard,  with the comment, "clearly not here to write
>an encyclopedia in any  way."
>More information is available here, including a link to the related
>discussion on the Admin noticeboard: _http://www.elonka.com/wikipedia/_
>(http://www.elonka.com/wikipedia/)

There's a pile of discussion on WP:ANI on this case. There's been a
pile of socks after DreamGuy for a while, and when Elonka started as
well, several admins (me included) presumed this was another one. This
probably isn't the case. Someone else has dropped the block to a week.
I've exchanged email with Elonka on the matter, and strongly suggested
that the abovelinked page be removed or severely toned down if she
wants a happier involvement in general with Wikipedia.

ps: I'm probably about that famous, but I don't state a claim of such
every breath I take. I'm just picturing WMC or someone doing that sort
of thing ... nah.

- d.


from_name: Sue Reed

subject: [WikiEN-l] Organizing AfD List

body:
Is there anyway to organize the AfD list by subject matter
or general topic? I think part of the problem with the
listings are that they are huge, and people like me would
rather spend time working on new articles, updating
articles, etc. versus reading through a huge laundry list
of articles up for deletion.

However, if the list were more organized, I think you would
get a better representation in the vote and discussion as
people would be better able to find the articles they had
actual thoughts on.

Sue Anne
sreed1234


from_name: Jesse W

body:
On Jan 30, 2006, at 12:46 PM, geni wrote:
> On 1/30/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/30/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hard to fit in with th GFDL
>>
>> I don't understand. Please explain,
>>
>> Theresa
>
> The quotes from the article would have to be credited to the author(s)
> which would make the page even more clumsy.
Er; no they wouldn't.  The page they were from would be
linked(obviously) and the history of it would be available.  I hope
you're not claiming that someone can't quote a page from Wikipedia
without directly crediting the account that first edited each word they
quote...

Jesse Weinstein


from_name: Rob Church

body:
Well that's fine for any other wiki, but the original poster was
enquiring about how to go about asking for something to be installed
on a Wikimedia wiki, e.g. Wikipedia.

The simple answer is to ask on the bug tracker and see what happens.

Rob Church

On 30/01/06, Petr Kadlec <petr.kadlec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/26/06, Heinz <h-j.luecking at t-online.de> wrote:
> >
> > i would like to add an extension to wp, especial to wp.de.
> > it is the point-mapping-extension described
> > here:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GISWiki/Point-Mapping_Extension
> > [...]
> > how can an extension be added?
>
>
> If you would follow
> http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Installation ->
> http://www.giswiki.de/index.php/Point-Mapping_Extension#Code, you would know
> that
>
> # Copy this text into a file called "MapPoints.php" and save it into
> the directory "extensions"
> > # To activate the extension, include it from your LocalSettings.php
> > # with: include("extensions/MapPoints.php");
> > # Hint: Do'nt mix up MapPoints with the older version MapPoint!
> >
> > HTH,
> -- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] RFC: Principles of mass content adding on small
	Wikipedias

body:
Hi, please allow me to add my 2 cts here :-)

>
> Danny mentioned in his response that a bot could do great work. Henna
> did remark that Wikidata could make a difference. Milos mentions that
> data may need localisation.. I want to remind you about an e-mail that
> Sabine Cretella send to the lists. Sabine is really active in the
> Neapolitan Wikipedia. A project much younger than the Swahili
> wikipedia but already with 4336 articles. The secret of this success
> is among other things that Sabine uses professional tools to translate
> into the Neapolitan language. OmegaT, the software Sabine uses, is GPL
> software and is what is called a CAT or Computer Aided Translation
> tool. This allows for an efficient translation and is /not /the same
> as Automated Translation.

I am using OmegaT for things I write in Neapolitan - for the simple
fact, that during translation I get terminology proposed, already
translated or similar sentences are proposed etc. This has nothing to do
with Machine Translation. What is re-used here is a glossary and the
translations previously done.

The cities of Campania were uploaded with the pywikipediabot
(pagefromfile.py). What is lacking here: a documentation of the single
bots and how they work - so more people could learn how to use them
since installing python and running the bot is not soooo difficult.

Back to translations with OmegaT: the advantage for languages where we
have a community that very often lacks in having a stable Internet
access are obvious: translations can be planned, people who can
translate, but who maybe would not be good writers, can translate
offline and create contents that way. Another person can care about
uploading the translated articles, if necessary. Once there is something
written others, who are more likely to be writors than translators can
start editing and adapting, improving etc.

We have very different people around and not many of them are real good
writers. I myself can write about certain stuff, but that is more
marketing text than encyclopaedic text - so for the "translation" is the
easiest way to do things.

Steps to translate articles now:
Copy the Text from the original language wiki in a file. (This can be
one page or 50 pages - on file per wiki page or one file with several
wiki pages in there ... it does not really matter)
Create the project with OmegaT (well it must be on your computer first
and you need java on your computer as well)
Load the file to be translated
Copy the glossaries you have for that language in the glossary directory.
Copy eventual Translation Memories from previous projects in the
directory for TMs
Reload the project
Translate
Save to target
Copy and paste the translated text to the wiki

Now there are some more features that can help you - this is just to
"see" how it basically works ... then like any application it has more
features that can help you to easen work.

People who are interested in using OmegaT for Wikipedia translations
should show up. I know that is is being used for contents on scn
wikipedia as well. Maybe it would make sense to create a work-group for
this tool and exchange our TM's or upload them to Commons or another
common place. Of course the Translation memory could also be stored on a
wiki, but that is than another step ahead.

>
> When we have Wikidata ready for prime time, we will be able to store
> structured data about one subject. This is not a full solution as many
> of the words used in the presentation need to be translated, maybe
> even localised to make sense in another language. I for instance
> always have to think if 9/11 is the ninth of November or the eleventh
> of September; I do know of it for the event. In order to present data,
> labels have to be translated and data may have to be localised. The
> WiktionaryZ project will help with the labels and standards like the
> CLDR are what define how the localisation is to be done.
>
> We are making steady progress with WiktionaryZ, the first alpha demo
> project is at epov.org/wd-gemet/index.php/Main_Page (a read only
> project for now). There is a proposal for a project at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards that intends to help
> us where the standards prove to be not good enough. As Sabine is part
> of the team behind OmegaT, it is being researched how OmegaT can read
> and write directly to a Mediawiki project.

Well, see above, but even if it cannot do that now: it is very helpful
to work on it locally and offline. The only thing I'd say is important
is a note on the wikipedia/wikibooks whatever project of the target
language that this article is being translated by XYZ.

>
> One other aspect that is needed in new project is commitment. People
> who express their support for a new language project should see this
> as an indication of /their /commitment and not as an expression of
> their opinion. When people start to work on a new project it is
> important that like on the Neapolitan wikipedia, there are people who
> are knowledgeable and willing to help the newbies, I hope that the IRC
> channel #wikipedia-bootcamp can serve a role for this as well.

Hmmm ... Danke f?r die Blumen :-) but really there are so many projects
that do good :-) very often people just don't know about existing tools
or whatever and often these could be the things that make the difference.

I always like to take the African languages as an example, because they
somewhat have the most difficult position:
People there often do not have the same possibilities we have... well:
even if students don't have a stable Internet connection they could well
have huge advantages of offline versions on a CD or versions that can be
copied on a hd or wherever you can easily store and re-write data for a
pc. I know that often they do not even have computers like we have.
There is that 100 usd computer for schools ... well this one would be a
good approach also for school kids in Europe ... from the first class
onwards (thinking about kids here where I live) ... but let's go back to
"offline use and work"

Well considering those regions where "online" is a problem students and
capable people who would like to see their language present in wikipedia
could become pages to translate - even a non-native speaker could care
about the upload of the pages. And there should be one person who
speaks/writes enough of that language to add pictures, sound etc. Then
the ready article can go back to them, and they can distribute it among
people.

I know, now you say Wikipedia is an "online encyclopaedia" ... well, it
might be ... but does this mean that people who do not have stable
online access and who cannot afford it are second class and therefore
should not get information in their language? Why should they not be
allowed to work on such contents, read it, distribute it ...

Wikipedia is about giving people encyclopaedic information in their
language - well I see its scope much wider than that - but basically
that's it ... so we should give it to them, right?

OmegaT runs on Windows, Linux, OSX etc. so why not take up that possibility?

There would be so much more to write about these things .... well let's
take this thread as a good start :-) and let us develop strategies and
work together.

Best,

Sabine

*****and there is my never ending wish ... that day of at least 48 hours
...*****

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