body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Kat Walsh
>
> On 5/23/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > Nevertheless, Snowspinner got harassed by the fuzz and WR
> didn't. If
> > you judge real life by whoever thinks up the coolest reply after
> > thinking about it for a while, then you spend too much time
> in front
> > of your computer.
> >
> > Personally, I can take any amount of clever dick criticism
> coming over
> > email or the web, but get a couple of policefolk sitting down at my
> > kitchen table and hamfistedly investigating my life, and it's no
> > longer fun.
>
> Indeed, the grilled by the cops thing, not good, and you'd
> have a point if it ended there.
>
> But for an English/media studies grad student and a writer,
> getting yourself and your work featured in the media as an
> example of that sort of ridiculous situation... not bad for
> exposure, no?
>
> I think Phil wins this one.

I don't. The person who thinks there's no such thing as bad publicity hasn't
been around long enough. IMHO the average reader will see Snowspinner as
foolish to post such stuff on the interweb and the police just doing their
job. This is the way that news reports on police-investigated internet
fiction go, because that's a better story then the other way round. Everyone
likes to see an egghead brought down, especially in Florida.


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: abu hamza

body:
here is an earlier example where it was already there
cur) (last)  01:17, 13 May 2006 87.80.113.51

the reason why i felt it was relevant , was because in a discussion
elsewhere off the wikipedia site it was mentioned (and wikipedia sourced).
The conversation surrounded the scarcity of any references to harold shipmas
past. I went to check and it had been removed. I put it back in. I then
researched the issue. In fact it was the very first time i had signed into
wikipedia.

the reason why i put it in the first sentence was because that was where it
was originally.

>From: Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold shipman
>Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 02:36:07 -0500
>
>On 5/24/06, abu hamza <abuhamza1970 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > The harold shipman page already stated he was jewish, well before i came
> > along. I put it back in, after it was removed with no explanation (first
> > time).
>
>(a) Can you show me diffs to its previous inclusion in the article?
>(b) Can you please explain why you felt it was relevant, and not only
>that, but so relevant that it had to be in the first sentence?
>
>Sarah
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN Search Toolbar now includes Desktop search!
http://join.msn.com/toolbar/overview


from_name: Sam (Asbestos)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Oddest form of wiki identity theft I've seen...

body:
I happened to be glancing down the [[Wikipedia:Facebook]] when, to my great
surprise, I found my own face.

It seems that [[User:Vizcarra]] borrowed the photo I made for [[Making a
Face]], [[Image:MakingAFace.jpg]], cut out half of it and made [[Image:
DavidVizcarra.jpg]], giving it the caption "My picture, taken by myself with
the use of a webcam."

I'm not remotely mad, rather I think this is hillarious. Also rather
flattering. What do you think would be the best way to broach the subject
with him? ("Excuse me, but you look familiar. Are we related?")

Sam
--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] In which Snowspinner pwns WR.

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Theresa Knott
> >This is the way that news reports on police-investigated internet
> >fiction go, because that's a better story then the other way round.
> >Everyone  likes to see an egghead brought down, especially
> in Florida.
>
> Not in England they don't.  We take civil liberties
> surprisingly seriously here. I strongly suspect America is
> the same. Anyway we'll have to wait and see. Eitherway the
> folks at WP have been made to look petty, vindicitive and stupid.

Glad to see such refreshing honesty from you.

As Snowspinner said with a straight face: "I was going after just the idea
that people who want power are exactly the sort of people you don't want to
have it."
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/LOCAL/2052303
26/1078/news

Pete


from_name: Sarah

subject: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold shipman

body:
On 5/24/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > It isn't relevant enough to be put in the first line. If at all it has
> > to be brought up, it should be added in a way that makes it seem
> > insignificant.
>
> I disagree.  If it has to be brought up, it should be introduced in a
> way that shows it's very significant indeed.  Because if we can't
> honestly say it's relevant, we should not be saying it at all.
>
The reason [[Abu Hamza al-Masri]] raised it during his trial in the UK
was as evidence that the British Foreign Office and media is
controlled by Jews. Why did he believe this? Because Harold Shipman's
Jewish background wasn't mentioned by the media during coverage of
Shipman's murders. Ergo, Jews are in control. That either (a) Shipman
didn't have a Jewish background or (b) he did but the media rightly
dismissed it as irrelevant, is not entertained. For Abu Hamza al-Masri
and his namesake on this mailing list, there's no such thing as
editorial judgment. There are only Jewish conspiracies.

Sarah


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Theresa Knott

> > > ...Eitherway the folks at WP have been made to
> > > look petty, vindicitive and stupid.
> >
> > Glad to see such refreshing honesty from you.
>
> LOL My dislexia strikes again. (That should read WR not WP)

Yeah. It's one Freudian slip after amother here.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
> >
> > Then take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Constanzo Are
> > the person who added information about this American born serial
> > killers Cuban heritage going to be scolded in a similar way as
> > Saladin1970 now?
> >
> Because that information is contained in a paragraph about his early life,
> not in the lede...
>
It's not only not in the intro, it's arguably relevant, because I
assume the point of the way the early life section is written is to
emphasize that he was born into poverty to a 15-year-old girl, and may
therefore have had an unstable start in life. That the family were
poor immigrants is therefore not an irrelevance. I'd have no objection
to including in the [[Harold Shipman]] early life section that he was
Jewish if it could be sourced and if it was in any way relevant. But
there would still be no need for it in the first sentence. It's
particularly jarring when writing about a British person, because the
British don't as a rule identify themselves as "Jewish British," in
the way an American might say Jewish American, and as Abu Hamza is
based in the UK, he certainly knows that.

Sarah


from_name: NSLE (Wikipedia)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Cydes indefinite blocks

body:
I have unblocked Rgulerdem (and only Resid), pending actual results of the
CU request. As of this writing, you are correct that no result has been
returned.

--NSLE

On 5/24/06, Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
>
> Ben McIlwain wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Raphael Wegmann wrote:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> please take a look at
> >>
> >> [[WP:RFCU#Rgulerdem]]
> >>
> >> Azate files a checkuser request, where he mostly complains
> >> about comments from Mokotok and Light&Truth. Even before
> >> the alleged "Sock-puppets" get checkuser tested, Cyde blocks
> >> Regulerdem for "exhausting community patience" and the
> >> other editors for being his "Sock-puppets".
> >
> > This is quite simply a lie.  I blocked him AFTER the checkuser evidence.
> >  A simple examination of the logs will confirm this.
> >
>
> I still cannot see the checkuser evidence anywhere on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFCU#Rgulerdem
>
> Would you please tell me where I can find it.
>
> --
> Raphael
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] OTRS bug ?

body:
Well that came through, try a nastier attachment like an exe or a zip.

Steve

On 5/24/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
> > Yesterday, I tried to forward three times a mail with attachment from
> > the partnership queue on OTRS. Nothing happened (no mail was received).
> >
> > Do you guys observe the same issue (no forward when done with
> > attachment) ?
>
> No one answered this, so I'll reply with an empirical test.
> I'm replying twice, once with and once without an attachment.
> This reply has an attachment.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
>
>


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jan Kulveit

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?

body:
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 08:39:36PM -0400, Delirium wrote:
>
> I know I got adminned on en.wikipedia.org without much discussion, while
> I was still pretty new.  I edited for 4-5 weeks, requested adminship,
> and was given it.

Was that in 2003? In that case, that's what I'm speaking about.
I doubt you would request adminship with the same ammount of contributions
& time spent on Wikipedia if you were to ask now. Read some of recently
failed RfA... demands are rising, judging by what people request while
voting, you should
-have editcount in order of thousands
-contribute ~3months
-satisfy various demans on structure of contributions
-good portion of contribution should be "signifficant" contributions
in main namespace
-portion should be housecleaning work
-you should have some experience in Project ns
-but do not spent too much time on Project!
-you should have led 1 article to featured status
-fill edit summaries!
-be nice in edit summaries
-no POV!
-preferably, almost no serious conflicts
-yet some experience with conflicts
and so on...

Jan Kulveit


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Term of service?


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 12:21 AM, abu hamza wrote:

> well lets get ther record straight.
> The harold shipman page already stated he was jewish, well before i
> came
> along. I put it back in, after it was removed with no explanation
> (first
> time).  I didn't add it.
> It was then removed repeatedly.

Usually, one is (a) either supposed to get the hint and stop adding
it back in, or (b) attempt to discuss the issue instead if just
revert warring over it.

> the few references that are available (not usable in wikipedia)
> such as
> letters to newspapers on websites ( i have given the link here
> already)
> state he was jewish as his mother was a jewish asylum seeker.

If the only references available aren't usable in Wikipedia, then the
information in question is not verifiable and should not be included
in Wikipedia.

> Whether it should be included on his page is debatable, because you
> would
> then have to go through all the pages where criminal and muslim are
> put
> together and ban the editor of that page indefinately.

No, not at all. First off, if you look at pages like [[John Allen
Muhammed]], there's nothing in the lead paragraph (which is where you
kept putting it in the Shipman article) indicating that he is Muslim.
Secondly, it is a verifiable fact that John Muhammed is Muslim. It is
not verifiable fact that Harold Shipman is Jewish or is of Jewish
ancestry.

> Thankfully there is NO WIKIPEDIA policy that states this is grounds
> for an
> indefinate ban???

Wikipedia is not a corporate bureaucracy operating solely by written
procedures and policies. There's a consensus of administrators to
block your account indefinitely. That's enough.

> The issue here was not my obsession with putting it back in, but
> someones
> obsession with taking it out.

It takes two to edit war. Besides, there's a consensus between
multiple parties to take it out. You're the only one obsessed with
keeping it in.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] We need a policy against feeding the trolls

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy Wales
>
> I agree with you completely.  I am recommending that Peter
> McKay be removed from the list immediately, and Anthony
> DiPierro put on notice that not much more will be tolerated.

I guess "Peter McKay" means me.

Oh well. Thanks everybody for your company. Best wishes to all!

Yours aye,
Peter


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 4:10 AM, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:

>> Anyone thinking about whether the indefinite block of Abu Hamza is
>> justified ought to consider (apart from the various policy
>> violations)
>> his determination to add to the introduction of [[Harold Shipman]]
>> that he was a *Jewish* British serial killer. It's not just that
>> there
>> are no reliable sources for this. It's the obsession with trying to
>> add an entirely non-notable reference to a person's ethnicity in
>> order
>> to make that ethnicity look bad.
>
> Then take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Constanzo Are
> the person who added information about this American born serial
> killers Cuban heritage going to be scolded in a similar way as
> Saladin1970 now? An indefinite ban for that editor maybe? Why is it ok
> to write that his mother was a Cuban immigrant, but it is not ok to
> write that Harold Shipman's mother was a Jewish immigrant?

It's not verifiable that Shipman's mother was Jewish?

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


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> It seems to me that supporting the creation a single chapter for these
> independent countries and cultures, solely on the basis of them having once been
> part of a single state, might be considered offensive to the people involved.

It might be, to some, but to many others it would not be.  Each location
around the globe will involve different circumstances.

> No  one is proposing that Austria and Hungary merge their potential chapters,

Right, but Austria and Hungary do not even share the same language.

> nor is  anyone suggesting that the UK, Canada, and Australia set up a single
> chapter,  though the cultural differences there may be even less distinct and
> they still  share a single crown, language, etc.

Right, but UK, Canada, and Australia do not even share the same
geographical location.

These matters are for the local people to decide, of course.  But I
believe based on my experience in talking to people in this region,
there is a strong sentiment from a lot of people that the ideas of
radically different language, culture, etc., is hardly a settled matter
for most ordinary people.

--Jimbo

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [WikiEN-l] my week ban - which is now an indefinate ban again

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 2:37 AM, <andrew.j.norman at ntlworld.com> wrote:

>> Um, that's what the listserv is for.
>>
>> Yes, but it will be more "official" if it was recorded on Wikipedia.
>> Also this (putting it up on WP:ANI) is the practice that seems to be
>> more common. It's just a request, given the somewhat disputable
>> nature
>> of this block.
>
> I've put a suggestion on WP:AN for a process to quickly confirm
> community bans and allow for review.  I agree with Prasad that this
> sort of thing needs to be done on Wikipedia itself.  We need a
> rapid, open and fair method for ensuring that community bans have
> genuine community support, and it seems to me we don't really have
> that at the moment.  Once an admin's decided on a community ban,
> the only way that can currently be overruled is an appeal to the
> arbitration committee, or the start of a wheel war.

There are countless administrators on the listserv already. If we
need to find a consensus among admins, we don't need to go to AN
because we've already established it here.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is (s)he Jewish? (was: Saladin1970 (new thread))

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> It seems fairly clear to me that there is some inconsistency
> applied to
> issues such as these on Wikipedia.
> 1) For "bad" people, Jewishness must be proven beyond all doubt,
> and must
> not go in the lead. I couldn't actually find any examples of Jewish
> criminals - there doesn't seem to be a "Category:Jewish criminals" for
> instance.
> 2) For "good" people, Jewishness must merely be asserted, and
> should be
> applied as a category. Occasionally it goes in the lead ([[John von
> Neumann]]), other times as "born into a Jewish family" ([[Alan
> Greenspan]]),
> other times it's not even mentioned except for the category. There are
> around 15 "Jewish Xs" categories, some with subcategories like
> Jewish-American scientists.

Hey, check out our verifiability policy. If we can't verify that
someone is Jewish or comes from a Jewish family, it shouldn't be in
the article either way.

That said, mentioning that a famous scientist or economist is Jewish
isn't offensive, so it's not enforced as strongly there for
understandable reasons.

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:
> Imposing names or cooperation on chapters that form in different parts
> of the world just because we think it's *nicer* is, in my opinion, not
> the way to go.

I agree, just to be clear.  I think that in this part of the world,
there are good reasons why many local people will want to try to have a
broad umbrella organization.  Contrary to media stereotypes, Serbians
and Croatians do not all irrationally hate each other.  Many Wikipedians
in the area have expressed a desire that Wikipedia be a neutral place to
rise above all that, and I think they are very interested in making sure
that whatever legal structure is adopted does not artificially create
divisions and conflicts.

As it stands at the moment, I think this is mostly an artificial
question, since in fact I think we don't currently have anything like a
critical mass of people in Montenegro to do anything at all.

--Jimbo

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Prasad J

subject: [WikiEN-l] prasad j - your answer

body:
Ryan Delaney, reverted it to 1 week so that consensus could be gained to ban
me indefinately or remove the ban.

Was such consensus achieved-if so where did the discussion take place?
RfC or Administrators' Noticeboard? Why don't you ask for Arbitration?
If this block seems disputable (as in my view it does) then you should
exercise your option to have some sort of formal hearing. Was any
alternate probationiary agreement offered to you? Or a partial ban to
keep you from editing disputable articles? I believe these offers are
generally made to indefinitely blocked users.

Then jaygy revoked tom harrisons 24 hour ban and placed an indefinate ban on
me.

How did he go straight from 24 hours to indefinite? As far as I know,
indefinite blocks are a last resort.

, it is my talk page, (sorry not my user page), that i wish to make
my case on. It is fully protected, so i unable to put my case.

Unless you were using your talk-page to make personal attacks or the
like, this too seems irregular. I suggest that you send the matter to
RfC or RfAr. Since you are a blocked user and not a banned one , there
is a difference between the two, you should be able to contest this
block. Maybe you could ask someone who is not blocked to put forth
your case on RfC or RfAr. I'm not sure whether this would be a policy
violation but since you are ,as I mentioned, not a  banned user, it
probably isn't. I suggest you contest the block via some formal method
like RfAr- it will be more likely to get you results than arguing on
the mailing-list.


subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body: How is this related to Wikipedia?


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:

>Best,
>Phil Sandifer
>sandifer at english.ufl.edu      AIM: Snowspinner
>
>You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a
>boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
>
> >
>
As a token of appreciation for the publicity they have provided I would
suggest that you ask a local doughnut shop to send those police a dozen
of their finest with a thank you card signed Mack Sennett.  The actual
sending should be done directly by the shop to avoid having your
fingerprints and DNA on the evidence. :-)

Ec


body:
Mr. Wales could you please look into the case of the blocked user Abu
Hamza? He claims to have been indefinitely blocked without benefit of
Arbitration. His talk-page too has been protected. This sort of
incident, where Administrators (effectively) ban users without any
formal Request for Arbitration is becoming  more prevalent by the day
and seems to be in violation of Wikipedia principles.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> So what you are claiming is that Adolfo Constanzo's poor immigrant
> family is relevant TO HIS CRIMES? That is nothing short of racism.

Don't be disingenuous. It may definitely be relevant to Constanzo's
personality and sense of self (how could it not be?) that he was born
to a 15-year-old girl from a poor immigrant family and that his other
two siblings each had different fathers. This is not a good start in
life, by any standard.

If you can show me something similar about the effect on his life of
Shipman's alleged Jewish background (assuming you can find a source
showing he had one), I'll go and add it myself.
>
> In the early life section of the Adolfo Constanzo article it says:
>
> "... His mother, Delia Aurora Gonzalez del Valle, was a widowed Cuban
> immigrant."
>
> With Saladin1970's last edit to Harold Shipman,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harold_Shipman&diff=53826041&oldid=53825304,
> the early life section said:
>
> "... His mother, Vera, died in 1963 from [[lung cancer]], when he was
> 17.She came to Britain as a Jewish Asylum Seeker."

Abu Hamza ended up adding it to the early life section, but started by
several times trying to add it to the very first sentence, and with no
source. I repeat: with no source. We stlll have no idea whether it's
true, never mind relevant.

Sarah


subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Phil Boswell
>
> Peter Mackay wrote:
> >
> > Mmmm, but does requesting someone to take a photograph
> actually give
> > you copyright over the resulting image? I don't think it
> does, without
> > explicit assignment.
> >
> If you were on holiday and asked a passing random person to
> use your camera to take a picture of you, I suspect that you
> would be quite surprised were they to attempt to assert
> copyright over the picture.

That's quite true, as I've already noted. But even if they fade away and
never claim copyright over the photograph they have just created, how can
this give YOU the copyright? There has to be some explicit assignment of
rights for the copyright to be transferred to a new owner.

--Peter


body:
On 5/24/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I have reverted, and left a note.

Hey, that was my job! Now it looks like I've gone and ratted him out to the
teachers...  No matter, I've explained and put things right (hopefully).

Sam

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos


from_name: andrew.j.norman at ntlworld.com

body:
>
> From: "Prasad J" <prasad59 at gmail.com>
> Date: 2006/05/24 Wed AM 07:46:21 GMT
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] my week ban - which is now an indefinate ban again
>
> Um, that's what the listserv is for.
>
> Yes, but it will be more "official" if it was recorded on Wikipedia.
> Also this (putting it up on WP:ANI) is the practice that seems to be
> more common. It's just a request, given the somewhat disputable nature
> of this block.

I've put a suggestion on WP:AN for a process to quickly confirm community bans and allow for review.  I agree with Prasad that this sort of thing needs to be done on Wikipedia itself.  We need a rapid, open and fair method for ensuring that community bans have genuine community support, and it seems to me we don't really have that at the moment.  Once an admin's decided on a community ban, the only way that can currently be overruled is an appeal to the arbitration committee, or the start of a wheel war.

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.ntlworld.com
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software
Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information


subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection policy

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 9:40 AM, Bryan Derksen wrote:

>> As someone who regularly polices RFP, I am pretty strict on what I
>> semiprotect and what I don't.  But I must say, that rigor aside, I
>> very much like the idea of semiprotecting living people's articles as
>> a matter of course.  Accountability skyrockets when someone has to
>> register for an account to edit.
>
> Only if the editor doesn't actually understand the system. If the guy
> who messed with the Siegenthaler article had logged in with a
> disposable
> account before he'd done it rather than making an "anonymous" edit
> that
> permanently recorded his IP address for all the world to see he'd have
> got away with it scott-free rather than losing his job.

We still could have uncovered his IP address with CheckUser, no?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Historical debates

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony DiPierro
>
> On 5/23/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Nope. When I saw that image I was thinking of my own smiling
> > photograph, ripped off my used page by someone making bad faith
> > assumptions about copyright status.
> >
> You probably took it too personal.

Given the identity of the person who removed it, no I don't think so. It
wasn't an impersonal administrative tidy-up. It was deliberately aimed at
me.

--Peter


from_name: valdelli at bluemail.ch

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
I don't believe that the mass of the persons could decide of the fate of
the own nation, frequently (or all the time?) the decisions are in the hands
of little groups where the friendship has no weight.

Ilario

>
>Well, remember, I have been there, and I have met Serbian and Croatian
>Wikipedians.  They are... like Wikipedians everywhere.  Friendly people,
>interested in sharing knowledge. :-)
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] prasad j - your answer

body:
On 5/23/06, abu hamza <abuhamza1970 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Then jaygy revoked tom harrisons 24 hour ban and placed an indefinate ban on
> me.

More dissembling.  I never "revoked tom harrisons 24 hour ban".

Jay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anyone thinking about whether the indefinite block of Abu Hamza is
> justified ought to consider (apart from the various policy violations)
> his determination to add to the introduction of [[Harold Shipman]]
> that he was a *Jewish* British serial killer. It's not just that there
> are no reliable sources for this. It's the obsession with trying to
> add an entirely non-notable reference to a person's ethnicity in order
> to make that ethnicity look bad.

Can you clarify: when you say "determination" do you mean "he was determined
to do this" or "he is determined to do this". If he overstepped the mark and
got hit for 3RR, that's one thing. If you think he's going to do the same
thing to the same article, that's another.

We regularly have anons turn up at [[Ron Karenga]], the founder of the
> African-American holiday [[Kwaanza]], who try to describe him in the
> first sentence as a "convicted felon,"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ron_Karenga&diff=45070575&oldid=45070079
> and they do it because he's black and they're racists. That makes them
> useless Wikipedians, not because they're racist, because no one cares

Useless?  Nah, no reason they couldn't sort stubs, fight vandalism or  work
on Pokemon articles. Has anyone seriously made a push for Mediawiki
supporting article-level bans? As awful as it sounds, it would actually be
useful for us to tag articles [[Black people]] and blocking certain people
from editing such articles.

if they keep it to themselves, but because they're not willing to be
> Wikipedians. I could give scores of examples of the persistent
> addition of racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynist slurs
> designed to make a person look bad, or to make Islam look terroristic
> or Judaism fascist.

If that's their *only* goal at Wikipedia, that's one thing. If they just
happen to strongly believe that and attempt to "correct" these articles when
they come across them, well, they need guidance.

That kind of editing is the polar opposite of what it is to be a
> Wikipedian. In Abu Hamza's case, it's compounded by the sockpuppetry
> and the deceit about it, the reverting, the bad use of sources, and so
> on. But it's the lack of even the most basic grasp of what it is to be
> a Wikipedian that makes me support an indefinite block.
>

Also from looking at his contributions, virtually every single one was
reverted. Useless indeed.

Steve


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
--- Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hello
>
> Will we keep one Serbia and Montenogro chapter or will the current
> chapter separate in two ?

Chapters are supposed to be nation-based, no? So it would not make much sense to have two
different chapters until Serbia and Montenegro actually become two different nations with
different governments and laws, etc (the vote is just the first step). What would be neat,
however, would be the existence of a supra-national organization that could coordinate the
activities of different national chapters in the same region. Wikimedia Europa, for example,
and/or even smaller coordinating bodies such as Wikimedia Balkans.

-- mav

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
 .
>
> Then take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Constanzo Are
> the person who added information about this American born serial
> killers Cuban heritage going to be scolded in a similar way as
> Saladin1970 now? An indefinite ban for that editor maybe? Why is it ok
> to write that his mother was a Cuban immigrant, but it is not ok to
> write that Harold Shipman's mother was a Jewish immigrant?

I'm astonished not that people are willing to defend the poster Abu
Hamza (nothing wrong with that of course), but that they are insisting
on ripping single offences free from their context and then saying
"Hey, this looks perfectly innocent."  No, there's nothing wrong with
someone making a good faith, sourced edit to Harold Shipman indicating
his religious background.  "Hey, Abu Hamza is the equivalent of Johnny
Smith!"  Sure, and my real name might be Davey Duke too, but we don't
have to be purposefully naive when we look at these issues.  In
isolation, we can make everything he did look perfectly innocent, but
when a user takes the screen name of a man (quoting WP) convicted of
"racial hatred and incitement to murder", shares the same obsession
with Harold Shipman's supposed Jewish background as the convicted
Hamza, inserts text dumps from "Zionism The Real Enemy of the Jews"
into articles and claims he's merely "quoting the Talmud", and calls
respected editors Zionists in a way that's clearly intended as a slur,
well, you don't need a weatherman to know which way this wind is
blowing.  This clearly adds up to a pattern of behavior that is
inappropriate for Wikipedia, and you aren't doing him any favors by
defending his behavior.  That will just encourage him to perpetuate
this patten of offenses and he will get banned again or his ban will
just never be permanently lifted.  If you really want to stick up for
this guy, try to get him to improve his behavior, don't try to
rationalize it for him.


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

body:
Hi,
  Maybe a project for future SoC's :) Basically, it would be handy to
be able to perform image manipulation on the server. Libraries for
this must exist already.

Currently, there are a lot of fairly poor images, generally uploaded
straight from people's digital cameras. To manipulate them, one must
download, modify, then reupload - the last step being fairly fiddly.
It would be very handy if even basic tools like cropping,
rotating/straightening and increasing contrast were available, to
allow one to quickly modify fairly large numbers of images.

Any takers?

Steve


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Katefan0 wrote:
> As someone who regularly polices RFP, I am pretty strict on what I
> semiprotect and what I don't.  But I must say, that rigor aside, I
> very much like the idea of semiprotecting living people's articles as
> a matter of course.  Accountability skyrockets when someone has to
> register for an account to edit.

Only if the editor doesn't actually understand the system. If the guy
who messed with the Siegenthaler article had logged in with a disposable
account before he'd done it rather than making an "anonymous" edit that
permanently recorded his IP address for all the world to see he'd have
got away with it scott-free rather than losing his job.

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body:
On 5/24/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Steve Bennett-8 wrote:
> >
> > Does interest in editing Wikipedia plummet when you have to wait 4 days
> to
> > do it?
>  Only if you're dead-set on editing stuff which has rightfully been
>  semi-protected...

Eep, AGF, please! Someone comes along and wants to add some info on their
basketball stars, and you're already accusing them of having an agenda? Or
maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Also, what does "rightfully" mean in this context.

Steve


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletions

body:
On 5/23/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
> Admin actions are reversable anyway

You would think that but people keep wanting to call it wheel waring.

--
geni


body:
On 5/23/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Molu wrote:
> > Either that or a separate mailing list for these activities. I don't
> > know why experienced editors let themselves get dragged into
> > irrelevant and pointless debates and name-calling on silly issues.
> > This is a mailing list about Wikipedia, not about conspiracy theories
> > or their refutations. These long threads are really lowering the
> > signal-noise ratio. Trolls will be trolls, but those of us who are
> > NOT trolls don't need to compete at the same level. Let's put an end
> > to this unhygienic practice.
>
> I agree with you completely.  I am recommending that Peter McKay be
> removed from the list immediately, and Anthony DiPierro put on notice
> that not much more will be tolerated.

On 5/23/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mr. Wales could you please look into the case of the blocked user Abu
> Hamza? He claims to have been indefinitely blocked without benefit of
> Arbitration. His talk-page too has been protected. This sort of
> incident, where Administrators (effectively) ban users without any
> formal Request for Arbitration is becoming  more prevalent by the day
> and seems to be in violation of Wikipedia principles.
> _______________________________________________

Jimbo, for another good candidate, see poster above.

Jay.


body:
On 5/24/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/24/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This sort of
> > incident, where Administrators (effectively) ban users without any
> > formal Request for Arbitration is becoming  more prevalent by the day
> > and seems to be in violation of Wikipedia principles.
>
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BP#Bans
>
> Community bans are becoming more common and are bound to do so, as the
> community continues to grow at a rate that cannot be matched by the
> Arbitration Committee's capacity to cope with every single problem
> user.  Eventually (probably very soon) community bans will be more
> common than arbitration-imposed bans.

If you include socks of community banned users they probably already are.

--
geni


from_name: Erik Moeller

body:
On 5/24/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> Currently, there are a lot of fairly poor images, generally uploaded
> straight from people's digital cameras. To manipulate them, one must
> download, modify, then reupload - the last step being fairly fiddly.

Or you could set up the external editor helper app:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors

Someone expressed interest in doing an improved version of this for
this year's SoC, but I'm not sure if they followed up on it.

> It would be very handy if even basic tools like cropping,
> rotating/straightening and increasing contrast were available, to
> allow one to quickly modify fairly large numbers of images.

That's also true. ImageMagick does provide some nifty command-line
utilities which could be used for some basic, quick operations.

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/24/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > So what you are claiming is that Adolfo Constanzo's poor immigrant
> > family is relevant TO HIS CRIMES? That is nothing short of racism.
>
> Don't be disingenuous.

Indeed.  That was a disingenuous and dishonest accusation, and,
frankly, typical trolling from this "contributor".  Now that we have
Jimbo's fiat on this, perhaps the list mods could get involved in
fixing this as well.

Jay.


list: commons-l

from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [Commons-l] Models, toys, and other objects can be copyrighted

body:
On 5/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> No, this is not the purpose of commons.  The purpose of commons is to be
>  very restrictive and narrow so that a huge range of people who would
> like to feel comfortable reusing our work can do so.  There will of
> course be borderline cases, but unlike the other projects, commons
> should come down firmly on the side of caution.
>
> Indeed, by doing so, we make all the more clear what is broken about
> aspects of current copyright law worldwide.

I agree that we should come down on the side of caution, but not
paranoia.  Photos of copyrighted characters are probably not OK;
photos of general 3D objects, even if those objects are copyrightable,
are generally not considered copyright infringements, in the US at
least and many other countries.

-Matt


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] What is the chapters committee?

body:
It's recently become clear to us, having met with chapter organizers
and talked with various members of the community, that the role of the
newly formed Chapters Committee is still not well-understood (or
well-known).  Here's an overview:

The Chapters Committee [1] is a Wikimedia committee [2] created on 15
January 2006 to coordinate Wikimedia Foundation efforts regarding
local chapters.  Its duties include:
* Facilitating the creation of Wikimedia chapters [3], acting in an
advisory capacity and responsible for granting final approval of
bylaws, etc.
* Acting as the Foundation's point of contact for chapters, and the
line of communication with chapters from within the Foundation.
* Negotiating agreements between the Foundation and chapters, as for
fundraising, sponsorship, and trademark use.
* Coordinating interchapter communication.
* Generally acting on behalf of the Foundation to serve its interests
in chapter matters.

A more complete overview of the work of the Chapters committee can be
found here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Scope_and_area_of_delegation

The committee consists of five members:
* Nathan Carter (m:User:Cartman02au)
* ?ukasz Garczewski (m:User:TOR)
* Austin Hair (m:User:Austin) - vice chair
* Delphine M?nard (m:User:Notafish) - chair
* Hari Prasad Nadig  (en:User:HPN)

And two advisers:
* Arne Klempert (m:User:Akl)
* Andrew Lih (en:User:Fuzheado)

In a word or in a hundred, if you don't know what a chapter is, if you
want to create a chapter, if you wonder what a chapter can do, if you
want to get in touch with a chapter, do not hesitate to contact us,
either on IRC in #wikimedia-chapters or by mailing chaptercommittee-l
AT wikimedia PUNTO org. English is preferred, so that all of us
understand, but we get by in Spanish, French, German, Polish, Kannada,
Italian, Hindi, Sanskrit, Chinese...and I think that's it.

Thank you,

Delphine
for the Chapters Committee

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_committees
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters

PS. Could the translator-l addressees translate/forward this message
to their language list? Thank you!


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] What is the chapters committee?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletions

body:
On 5/24/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Drini drini <wpdrini at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Admin actions are reversable anyway
>
> You would think that but people keep wanting to call it wheel waring.

They're almost all technically reversable, and if the reversal is done
with agreement/communication/consensus, it's not wheel warring. Let's
avoid the strawman arguments...

Jay.


from_name: Dan Rosenthal

subject: [WikiEN-l] Speedy deletions

body:
Wikipedia-EN ListServ Ops....could you possibly change my settings from
individual email to digest? I'm about to go out of town for 2 months.

-Swatjester


body:
Would the blocking Administrator please put this issue on WP:ANI so
that we can get some Community consensus? Or maybe some suggestions on
probationary mentorship?


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> Maybe it's time for commons to decide not to concern itself with
> copyright issues when they only impact certain types of commercial
> use, and do not prohibit the uses of such images even in a commercial
> encyclopedia.

No, this is not the purpose of commons.  The purpose of commons is to be
 very restrictive and narrow so that a huge range of people who would
like to feel comfortable reusing our work can do so.  There will of
course be borderline cases, but unlike the other projects, commons
should come down firmly on the side of caution.

Indeed, by doing so, we make all the more clear what is broken about
aspects of current copyright law worldwide.

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from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 5/24/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or you could set up the external editor helper app:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors

Is commons already set up to allow that? I gather from that page that
it needs to be set up at both ends. If so, I'll have a go and see how
easy it is.

Steve


from_name: Austin Hair

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Let's shoot for a single Wikipedia and multiple chapters, not the
other way around.

Austin


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


body:
On 5/24/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is commons already set up to allow that? I gather from that page that
> it needs to be set up at both ends. If so, I'll have a go and see how
> easy it is.

Yes, it's live on all Wikimedia sites. Tricky to set up, but once it
works, it should be relatively smooth.

Erik


from_name: arnomane at gmx.de

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Am Mittwoch, 24. Mai 2006 03:37 schrieb Filip Maljkovic:
> And that's all there is. We're all interested in sharing knowledge, but
> not the projects. People just don't wanna cooperate and you just can't
> force them. I think ongoing flame/revert wars at English Wikipedia speak
> for themselves.

Well. Random Wikipedians coming from Serbia and Croatia or some other former
yugoslav republic and flaming against each other is no surprise but the
people that are active members in Wikimedia chapters should be way more
resonable.

As Wikipedia is a mutilingual open minded community it would be just very
anachronistic not working together across borders. And additionally there is
no real language barrier for example between Serbs and Croats. For example
the Serbian and Croatian language are much more similar than the various
German dialects (that have in fact a large variety).

So what does speak against a shared Wikimedia chapter in that region apart
barriers in mind and maybe some legal problems with establishing a
multinational chapter (I am sure there is a way how to solve it)?

So I want to say: Open mind does not start with being open minded towards
people that live in nations several thousands kilometers away but with being
open minded towards the direct neighbours.

Why not creating a Wikimedia chapter that is a community asociation of
croatian, serbian, serbo-croatian ... Wikipedias and which is thus trying to
care about all of them?

Arnomane


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: Łukasz Garczewski

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
Walter van Kalken napisa?(a):
> If you can pull that of I will personally send an email to the nobel
> peace prize foundation and to the UN for a prize and for you to become
> the secretary general.
I thought somebody did that already... ;)

But seriously now... Why the irony, Walter? There is a saying (or is it
a quote?) which goes more or less like this: "A given thing cannot be
done until somebody who doesn't know it cannot be done comes along. And
that somebody does it." We're writing an on-line encyclopedia. And it
works, it grows. and... it was impossible. Or at least it was thought to be.

Now... Imagine we're a bunch of people who don't know the first thing
about anything. ;) World peace? Piece of cake. Wikipedia on Mars? Just
wait and see. Alpha Centauri by 2050? Well... That might be a problem.
But not because we can't. We can and we will if we want to, just not by
any set date. Because we don't (and can't) really keep dates. But if you
look at things in the long term (and I do mean long) you'll see it'll
all work out fine in the end. That is how wiki works, right? Eventually
every page will get better and better and better. Same goes for the real
world (at least for us optimists).

And we *will* have these different chapters mentioned up and running and
working together... someday.

--
Best regards,
?ukasz Garczewski


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/24/06, arnomane at gmx.de <arnomane at gmx.de> wrote:

> Why not creating a Wikimedia chapter that is a community asociation of
> croatian, serbian, serbo-croatian ... Wikipedias and which is thus trying to
> care about all of them?

Because, as stated in the Chapters FAQ, chapters have a country base,
on the contrary to projects. At some point, you need a legal form of
some kind, and as far as I know, there is no such thing as a legal
form that would allow the creation of a Germano-Swiss-Austrian
chapter, just because they all speak German, or a
Franco-Canadian-Blegian-Swiss chapter. It'd have to be legally based
somewhere.

I think the debate is drifting from a purely legal thing, ie. the
country is now called "Serbia" and not "Serbia and Montenegro" to a
trial of intention (that's a French word - proc?s d'intention) to the
Serbians for having to change their name.

It's not their fault, it doesn't mean that Montenegrans are not
welcome in the Serbian chapter, or Croats for that matter, until they
also have a legal frame to which they can attach. It does not mean
either that once all formed, those chapters will not work on common
projects such as "The Balkan Wikimedia project" or some such.

It's life. Wikimedia "Deutschland" is called Wikimedia "Deutschland"
and it operates in "Deutschland". The name does not prevent it from
working together with a future Austrian chapter or with the new born
Swiss chapter. On the contrary. Working towards a similar goal creates
bridges and ties across countries, languages and cultures that may be
very or slightly different and that learn from each other, from their
mistakes and their successes.

Imposing names or cooperation on chapters that form in different parts
of the world just because we think it's *nicer* is, in my opinion, not
the way to go.

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote
> Anyone thinking about whether the indefinite block of Abu Hamza is
> justified ought to consider (apart from the various policy violations)
> his determination to add to the introduction of [[Harold Shipman]]
> that he was a *Jewish* British serial killer. It's not just that there
> are no reliable sources for this. It's the obsession with trying to
> add an entirely non-notable reference to a person's ethnicity in order
> to make that ethnicity look bad.

Then take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Constanzo Are
the person who added information about this American born serial
killers Cuban heritage going to be scolded in a similar way as
Saladin1970 now? An indefinite ban for that editor maybe? Why is it ok
to write that his mother was a Cuban immigrant, but it is not ok to
write that Harold Shipman's mother was a Jewish immigrant?

> on. But it's the lack of even the most basic grasp of what it is to be
> a Wikipedian that makes me support an indefinite block.

Have you read his talk page: "I am more than happy to go through the
official wikipedia mechanism for resolving disputes."

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Prasad J

body:
Um, that's what the listserv is for.

Yes, but it will be more "official" if it was recorded on Wikipedia.
Also this (putting it up on WP:ANI) is the practice that seems to be
more common. It's just a request, given the somewhat disputable nature
of this block.


body:
On 5/24/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:

> G'day Prasad,
>
> [Why aren't you quoting any more?  It's not possible to tell who you're
> replying to, or what they said.]
>
> > Why is showing Shipman's religion relevant or important?

Fwiw, this line "Why is..." was actually quoted, it wasn't a rhetorical
question. Gmail is good at that - it shows any line which appeared verbatim
in a previous message in purple, whether or not it was actually preceded by
> signs.

Now, back to Shipman's mother.

Steve


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/05/the_death_of_wi.php

It is worth noting that Nicholas Carr has taken note of this thread to
announce the death of Wikipedia.  Apparently, 154 articles
semi-protected out of 1,151,768 is the end of open editing.

--Jimbo

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


from_name: charles matthews

body:
 "Tony Sidaway"  wrote

> Community bans are becoming more common and are bound to do so, as the
> community continues to grow at a rate that cannot be matched by the
> Arbitration Committee's capacity to cope with every single problem
> user.

Well, it never was the ArbCom's job to have a finger in every pie.  It took
over from Jimbo having to rule in the toughest cases.  And the process is
still most suitable for ruling on apparently intractable cases which need a
fairly transparent process.  Having cases disposed of by other routes is
intended.

Charles


from_name: Mark Gallagher

body:
G'day Matt,

> On 5/23/06, David Boothroyd <david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Unfortunately in English law it is potentially actionable to call
>>someone litigious.
>
> Only editors from England are subject to that restriction.  More
> accurately, given England's ... generous libel laws ... saying
> ANYTHING about someone they don't like is potentially actionable.
>
> Of course, in the US, you can pretty much sue anyone for anything -
> whether you can win in court is another matter, of course.

(Disclaimer: IANALBIPOOTV)

On the assumption that Australian defamation law has not become
completely divorced from English law (unlikely), defamation is not the
bogey man I see a lot of Americans claiming it is.

It's simply an additional test.  In America, I'm led to believe, you can
say whatever the hell you want so long as you can prove you reasonably
believed it to be true.  In Commonwealth Countries, what you say *also*
has to be in the public's best interest.  If your non-notable next door
neighbour, Matt Brown, has a homoxeual affair, and you create a website
dedicated to revealing that "Matt Brown is a cheating faggot bastard",
and you get sued ... a defence of "but he *was* unfaithful!" will not be
sufficient.

I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for (even if
we don't need to).  If something is not true *and* in the public
interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone, in particular
living people.  That's not a legal decision, it's an editorial (and, if
you like, moral) one.  We should be displaying more discretion than
simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in".  Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate
collection of facts.

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


body:
G'day David,

> Seed of story:
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=1116

Funny that fiction about stalking someone raises alarm bells on WR,
given that they welcome amorrow and similar editors.

I suspect Snowspinner could collect a lot of valuable advice on what
it's like to be a creepy psychopath from some of WR's more respected
contributors.  Think about it, Phil --- the story ideas some of these
people could give you!

<snip/>

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Foundation-l] correcting a big usability problem

body:
On 5/24/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> In this context, to "execute" might well be taken to mean "edit"...what else
> would one think might be accomplished by "executing" a section or indeed a
> whole page?

I'm not aware of any webpage where double-clicking the page has any
particular meaning. Outside of webpages, it's fairly common in
graphical development GUIs (VB, Delphi etc) for doubleclicking an item
to lead to editing the code for it. But in word processing packages, I
can't think of many scenarios where you need to double click to edit a
section.

I don't think it's a particularly good paradigm. When navigating
Wikipedia, one very frequently needs to click at least once on an area
to get the focus there, and it's fairly easy to accidentally double
click, leading to a most unexpected result.

Anyone know of any reports or discussions about whether people
actually use the existing double-click feature?

Steve


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On Tue, 23 May 2006 21:05:56 +0530, you wrote:

>You have neglected the second part of my message- the one that deals
>with indefinite blocks placed without benefit of Arbitration. Do you
>have any comments to make about the latter?

I'm not really entering this debate, I got this by accident as I was
going through the messages of condolence for the death of my sister,
but I want to respond to this point.

As a member of the community, a white supremacist exhausts my patience
at about the first edit.  Ditto an extremist Zionist, an Islamist or
even a militant atheist - if they can't bring themselves to respect
other editors and contribute according to the rules, good riddance to
them, and it's not like we haven't heard it before.  Kids who add crap
learn and grow up, bigots do not, they just get a greater feeling of
entitlement to their bigotry.

Wikipedia is a collaborative project.  People who prove themselves
unable to collaborate, whether over a long or a short period, are
destructive of the project.  Absolutely no good can come of having
bigots insert crap.  None whatsoever.  It's not just that these are
not valuable contributors, they are actively harmful because they
cause dissent and strife among other editors who are actively trying
to cover subjects neutrally.  WP:NPOV is non-negotiable, and someone
who shows that they cannot and will not abide by it is best shown the
door soonest.  Experience indicates that it will happen sooner or
later anyway, in the meantime we have better things to do than police
them.

The amount of good, useful editing a user needs to do in order to be
seen as worthy of trying to save is very small.  These POV-pushers who
do nothing but try to slant articles to support their lunacy are
simply not worth saving, and the sooner we ban them the quicker.  Why
wait for Arbcom?  Arbcom are just folks, like admins are just folks.
They may be a bit more experienced, but they are not gods.  Blocks can
be challenged, discussed, debated, meanwhile the vast majority of
editors - the ones who do not feel the need to spew bile wherever they
go - can get on with it.  Let the blocked POV pushers come here, or go
to Wikitruth or wherever.  Just as long as they are not adding
antisemitic / anti-Islam / anti-Christian / racist / whatever poison
into the project.

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


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wiki markup <-> MS Word?

body:
>>>>> "Gregory" == Gregory Maxwell
>>>>> <gmaxwell at gmail.com> writes:

   Gregory> I sometimes edit using a wikitext mode in emacs.. it is
   Gregory> fantastic and removes a number of annoyances, such as when
   Gregory> a stray tick causes a huge chunk of an article stuck in
   Gregory> bold.
Just curious: What wikitext mode do you use?

Uwe Brauer


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Something like that, and I would change the copyright tag on the image too.
To say edit of image x used with permission of original creator. Editing
images on Wikipedia is fine. If someone is doing it to act like someone
else, they need permission. - ~~~~

Mgm

On 5/24/06, Sam (Asbestos) <asbestos999 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I happened to be glancing down the [[Wikipedia:Facebook]] when, to my
> great
> surprise, I found my own face.
>
> It seems that [[User:Vizcarra]] borrowed the photo I made for [[Making a
> Face]], [[Image:MakingAFace.jpg]], cut out half of it and made [[Image:
> DavidVizcarra.jpg]], giving it the caption "My picture, taken by myself
> with
> the use of a webcam."
>
> I'm not remotely mad, rather I think this is hillarious. Also rather
> flattering. What do you think would be the best way to broach the subject
> with him? ("Excuse me, but you look familiar. Are we related?")
>
> Sam
> --
> Asbestos
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos
> _______________________________________________
> 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: Steve Summit

body:
> We have open editing?

Of course we do.  Does the fact that, for example, felons can't
vote in the U.S. mean it's not a democracy?


body:
On 5/24/06, Sam (Asbestos) <asbestos999 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I happened to be glancing down the [[Wikipedia:Facebook]] when, to my
> great
> surprise, I found my own face.
>
> It seems that [[User:Vizcarra]] borrowed the photo I made for [[Making a
> Face]], [[Image:MakingAFace.jpg]], cut out half of it and made [[Image:
> DavidVizcarra.jpg]], giving it the caption "My picture, taken by myself
> with
> the use of a webcam."
>
> I'm not remotely mad, rather I think this is hillarious. Also rather
> flattering. What do you think would be the best way to broach the subject
> with him? ("Excuse me, but you look familiar. Are we related?")

Just put a note on his user page (not talk page): I am Asbestos's long lost
twin brother.

Steve


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] Creation of user photographs

body:
On 21/05/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> I refer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PICT4101.JPG] which was
> clearly not taken by the subject, nor by using a tripod or other support
> such as a wall.

How do we know he didn't turn his camera's timer on, put it down on a
wall or bollard and go and stand in front of the camera? This seems to
be jumping the gun a bit. Also, note the copyright release says "I,
the creator", not "I, the photographer". I don't see any basis for
attacking this image.

It would be handy to have some more image copyright tags available for
use, as the current ones don't cover all legitimate situations.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: jf_wikipedia at mac.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 12:07 AM, Mark Gallagher wrote:

> We have a moral obligation to treat the people we write about with
> some
> sensitivity, and not publish stuff just to scream "FUCK YOU" to these
> people, or anybody who would dare suggest we adopt a modicum of
> responsibility.  We also have some measure of editorial discretion.
> These two things go hand-in-hand.

If only this would be properly understood by contributors (newbies
and not so)... No matter how mmany policies and guideline we have,
nothing beats common sense. Unfortunately common sense such as what
you said in your post, gets usually lost behind the trivialization of
WP's principles of "anybody can edit".

-- Jossi


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
	information

body:
On May 20, 2006, at 12:36 PM, Steve Summit wrote:

>>> say the following exciting phrases!
>>>     *  "Referencing is hard!"
>>>     * "I love adding cruft!"
>>>     * "Will we ever have enough articles?"
>>>     *"Wanna have a copyvio party?"
>>
>> Can I add "We need more Pok?mon articles!"

What about...

"I [[NPOV]] without [[NPA]]"

"My POV is NPOV and yours is not"

-- Jossi


from_name: Ben Lowe

body:
>
>
> I think it still needs to be put on Wikipedia, for users (including, I
> have no doubt, some admins) who don't subscribe to the mailing list.
> It's always better to make these things as open as possible, so nobody
> can complain that the secret cabal is claiming yet another innocent
> victim.  I'm not trying to make community bans more difficult - I'm
> actually of the opinion that they ought to be used far more often.
> _______________________________________________

{{sodoitalreadyandstopfillingmyinboxwiththisridiculousness}}  (That's a
valid template, right?)


subject: [WikiEN-l] 911

body:
  However I can see that any entertainment that deviates from
the politically correct monotony of Bollywood could be interpreted as
profanity

Not really, we get "Will & Grace" here which is based on
homosexuality-which is still taboo in India. Nobody has objected to
that show being aired. The same applies for shows like "Sex and the
City", "Desperate Housewives", "Six Feet Under", among others which
have sexual references the likes of which are generally frowned upon
in this country. As for Bollywood being politically correct, Hindi
movies have been made on everything from lesbianism to nuns having
affairs with married men. As such "profanity" refers to the use of
word which can be described as lewd or uncivil.

Remember too that much of European entertainment is not in
English, and I don't know the extent to which these films are translated
for audiences in India. Even if they are translated, it is difficult to
compete against the American marketting behemoth.

Quite a few BBC serials like "Little Britain", "The Office" etc. are
aired in India and have done reasonably well even though they got as
much (or rather as little) publicity as their American counterparts.


body:
Why is showing Shipman's religion relevant or important?

It isn't relevant enough to be put in the first line. If at all it has
to be brought up, it should be added in a way that makes it seem
insignificant.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] New SVN committer

body:
I've set up a SVN account for Greg Sabino Mullane (username 'greg'). Greg has
contributed some patches for fixing up PostgreSQL support and will be doing some
further improvements in that area.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
On 5/24/06, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/24/06, arnomane at gmx.de <arnomane at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> > Why not creating a Wikimedia chapter that is a community asociation of
> > croatian, serbian, serbo-croatian ... Wikipedias and which is thus trying to
> > care about all of them?
>
> Because, as stated in the Chapters FAQ, chapters have a country base,
> on the contrary to projects. At some point, you need a legal form of
> some kind, and as far as I know, there is no such thing as a legal
> form that would allow the creation of a Germano-Swiss-Austrian
> chapter, just because they all speak German, or a
> Franco-Canadian-Blegian-Swiss chapter. It'd have to be legally based
> somewhere.
>
[snip]

This is the crucial point - the legal existence of our local chapters.
We had this debate within Wikimedia UK, and whether it was desirable
to to create a Wikimedia British Isles (or whatever it would be
called) - a geographical region where we all speak the same language
(as well as others). I thought then (and still think) that it would be
nice to have such a thing - but the thing was that it would have been,
legally, very difficult, if not impossible to create it. Even more
obscurely, because of the UK's bizarre legal system, we are,
technically, actually bound by the laws of England and Wales - not
Scotland and/or Northern Ireland (if I have understood this
correctly). What I hope will happen, again echoing Delphine, is that a
Wikimedia Ireland chapter will be formed, which will work with
Wikimedia UK on issues of common interest, not least our cultural and
lingual heritage.

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
> > > Then take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Constanzo Are
> > > the person who added information about this American born serial
> > > killers Cuban heritage going to be scolded in a similar way as
> > > Saladin1970 now?
> > >
> > Because that information is contained in a paragraph about his early life,
> > not in the lede...
> >
> It's not only not in the intro, it's arguably relevant, because I
> assume the point of the way the early life section is written is to
> emphasize that he was born into poverty to a 15-year-old girl, and may
> therefore have had an unstable start in life. That the family were
> poor immigrants is therefore not an irrelevance. I'd have no objection

So what you are claiming is that Adolfo Constanzo's poor immigrant
family is relevant TO HIS CRIMES? That is nothing short of racism.

No one has, so far, claimed that Harold Shipman's possible Jewish
refugee background is in any way relevant to his crimes. Anyone doing
so would be rightly called an anti-Semite. What people have claimed is
that Harold Shipmans family background is an interesting tidbit of
knowledge, which I agree with. What I have showed is that it is not
taboo for articles about (non-Jewish) serial killers to include
information about their family background.

> to including in the [[Harold Shipman]] early life section that he was
> Jewish if it could be sourced and if it was in any way relevant. But
> there would still be no need for it in the first sentence. It's

In the early life section of the Adolfo Constanzo article it says:

"... His mother, Delia Aurora Gonzalez del Valle, was a widowed Cuban
immigrant."

With Saladin1970's last edit to Harold Shipman,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harold_Shipman&diff=53826041&oldid=53825304,
the early life section said:

"... His mother, Vera, died in 1963 from [[lung cancer]], when he was
17.She came to Britain as a Jewish Asylum Seeker."

So you are wrong, with Saladin1970's last few edits, it was not stated
in the first sentence, it was stated in the "early life" section.
Exactly like it is written in the Adolfo Constanzo article.

It is very telling of your attitude that you, on one hand, defends the
mention of ethnicity in the Adolfo Constanzo article and on the other
says it cannot be mentioned in the Harold Shipman article and then
also using that to accuse Saladin1970 of anti-Semitism.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:

> So what you are claiming is that Adolfo Constanzo's poor immigrant
> family is relevant TO HIS CRIMES? That is nothing short of racism.
>
> No one has, so far, claimed that Harold Shipman's possible Jewish
> refugee background is in any way relevant to his crimes. Anyone doing
> so would be rightly called an anti-Semite. What people have claimed is
> that Harold Shipmans family background is an interesting tidbit of
> knowledge, which I agree with. What I have showed is that it is not
> taboo for articles about (non-Jewish) serial killers to include
> information about their family background.

It seems fairly clear to me that there is some inconsistency applied to
issues such as these on Wikipedia.
1) For "bad" people, Jewishness must be proven beyond all doubt, and must
not go in the lead. I couldn't actually find any examples of Jewish
criminals - there doesn't seem to be a "Category:Jewish criminals" for
instance.
2) For "good" people, Jewishness must merely be asserted, and should be
applied as a category. Occasionally it goes in the lead ([[John von
Neumann]]), other times as "born into a Jewish family" ([[Alan Greenspan]]),
other times it's not even mentioned except for the category. There are
around 15 "Jewish Xs" categories, some with subcategories like
Jewish-American scientists.

I don't want to speculate on why this is the case, and I certainly don't
want to imply that it only applies to Judaism. At a quick glance, Christian
and Muslim scientist categories exist, but with somewhat poorer organisation
(Egyptian scientists is a subcat of Muslim scientists, for example).

However, I do think there is something inherently dodgy about allowing the
categorisation of "good" people by religion with no sources, but not "bad"
people. If a serial killer's religion is "irrelevant", I don't see why the
same should not be said for a nobel prize winning scientist.

Steve


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Abu Hamza (was We need a policy against feeding the
	trolls)

body:
On 5/24/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at gmail.com> wrote:
...
>
> Jimbo, for another good candidate, see poster above.

I should have thought this fellow who chooses to use the name "Abu
Hamza" and gets involved in endless flame wars on this list was a
no-brainer, too.  Please, if we don't want to kick him off, could
those who cannot restrain themselves from responding to him at least
either filter out his edits or reply to him off-list?


body:
Molu wrote:
[Still top-posting, I see]
> On Wed, 24 May 2006 13:40:28 +1000 Mark Gallagher wrote:
>> I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for
>> (even if we don't need to). If something is not true *and* in the
>> public interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone,
>> in particular living people. That's not a legal decision, it's an
>> editorial (and, if you like, moral) one. We should be displaying
>> more discretion than simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in". Wikipedia
>>  is not an indiscriminate collection of facts.
>
> I submit that this is a terrible standard for WIkipedia to aim for,
> and the day Wikipedia starts doing that is the day Wikipedia as we
> know it has died a horrible death. When the government of PRC censors
>  content critical of them, they say those content were banned because
>  they are "not in the public interest".

Our definition of "public interest" is not the same definition as the
PRC's.  While we're flinging about the "slippery slope" argument with
gay abandon, I could argue that you are in favour of us throwing away
all editorial standards.  We would no longer be able to argue that
such-and-such is irrelevant, because That's Censorship, And Censorship
Is Bad.  We would have to print everything we could get our hands on; we
could not decide not to include something of no import, because if it's
negative and we leave it out we'd be as bad as the Chinese government ...

> IMO, none of the two criterias you mention are good criterias for
> inclusion in WIkipedia. Wikipedia does not report the Truth?, only
> the NPOV. As for public interest, let the public decide what is in
> their interest, wikipedia is not the appointed moral guardian of the
> society (and in case Jimbo received that appointment letter I hope he
> has burned it).

Wikipedia does not and should not report lies as truth merely because
some filthy rag has published them.  Being truthful is an inherent
component of neutrality --- if we do not report the truth, we are
showing bias towards those who want to spread lies.  I use Lyndon
LaRouche a lot in my examples, because he's just so gosh-darn crazy that
he's a good candidate for this sort of thing.  So let's take Lyndon
LaRouche.

Example A:
"Lyndon LaRouche is a popular and powerful American politician.  He has
become famous worldwide for his expos?s of Dick Cheney's plan to flatten
Iran with nuclear weapons, the Queen of England's secret Satanic
connections, and the influence of Masonic Jewish Bankers in
international politics.  He earned critical acclaim in 2004 after
finally completing the construction of the Eurasian Land Bridge, and has
been hailed as a modern-day Marco Polo.  His critics, however, deny this."

Now, as far as I'm concerned a paragraph like Example A would be utterly
unacceptable, both because it's biased and because it's a pack of lies.
  Obviously we can't just say that all LaRouche's "achievements" are in
fact the fantasies of his diseased mind, but we can sure as hell point
out where the truth lies.

While we're talking examples, I'd be interested to hear how you and the
Chinese government view ...

Example B:
Lyndon LaRouche once had sex with a 15-year-old girl while he was 16 (or
17 while 18, or insert your own age of consent laws here).  So far the
authorities have refused to do anything about this accusation since it
surfaced in 2005, sixty years after the fact, but a small group of
dedicated Internet slander-mongers are working hard to bring this
troubling issue to light.

Even in the Land of the Brave, we can be sued for publishing defamatory
statements about people, if those statements aren't true.  Therefore (if
morality is not sufficient), we should be concerned about whether what
we say is, in fact, true.  If Wikipedia were hosted in a country like
Australia, we could also be sued for publishing defamatory statements
about people, if we haven't taken reasonable steps to ensure those
statements are true, or if what we have to say is something we have no
business saying (like the LaRouche example above which, being something
I just made up, really did the double here).

We have a moral obligation to treat the people we write about with some
sensitivity, and not publish stuff just to scream "FUCK YOU" to these
people, or anybody who would dare suggest we adopt a modicum of
responsibility.  We also have some measure of editorial discretion.
These two things go hand-in-hand.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
I feel this way as well. So far his behavior on the mailing list has been
quite disappointing however. I'm not holding out much hope for the
possibility of reform, but he deserves his fair shot anyway.

Ryan, why don't you take the matter to ANI or RfAr? Perhaps some sort
of probationary mentorship can be worked out? I feel that keeping Abu
off Jewish-related articles would solve this problem, taking into
account the fact that this user has not been given any chance to
reform. Please assume good faith.


body:
G'day Mark,

> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>
>>I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for (even if
>>we don't need to).  If something is not true *and* in the public
>>interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone, in particular
>>living people.  That's not a legal decision, it's an editorial (and, if
>>you like, moral) one.  We should be displaying more discretion than
>>simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in".  Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate
>>collection of facts.
>
> I'd agree, but only if you have a pretty broad view of "public interest"
> (possibly broader than that in UK law; I'm not an expert on UK libel
> law).  I do agree it doesn't make sense to publish all information, even
> if true, about every random person in the world.  However, I also don't
> think something should have to rise to a particularly high level to be
> worth mentioning; facts of less consequence than those disclosed in,
> say, the Pentagon Papers are useful to have in an encyclopedia.  In
> general, we should provide to the public verifiable (and sourced) facts
> about any subject they may potentially be looking for information on;
> not act as a nanny deciding whether, in our subjective opinions, they
> should know one fact but are better off not knowing another.

I can live with that.

Welcome back, by the way!

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


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro

body:
If you can pull that of I will personally send an email to the nobel
peace prize foundation and to the UN for a prize and for you to become
the secretary general.

Waerth/Walter

>Very idealistic Jimbo.
>
>Fred
>
>On May 23, 2006, at 3:49 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>
>>Anthere wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hello
>>>
>>>Will we keep one Serbia and Montenogro chapter or will the current
>>>chapter separate in two ?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Or, as I would advocate, have one chapter for Serbia, Montenegro,
>>Croatia, and Bosnia... if at all possible.
>>
>>
>>--
>>######################################################################
>>#
>>#    Office: 1-727-231-0101       |  Free Culture and  Free
>>Knowledge #
>>#    http://www.wikipedia.org     |     Building a free
>>world         #
>>######################################################################
>>#
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Serbia and Montenegro


subject: [WikiEN-l] Saladin1970 (new thread)

body:
On 5/24/06, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/24/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/24/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > So what you are claiming is that Adolfo Constanzo's poor immigrant
> > > family is relevant TO HIS CRIMES? That is nothing short of racism.
> >
> > Don't be disingenuous.
>
> Indeed.  That was a disingenuous and dishonest accusation, and,
> frankly, typical trolling from this "contributor".  Now that we have
> Jimbo's fiat on this, perhaps the list mods could get involved in
> fixing this as well.

Before "the list mods" (including me) do anything, they'd probably like to
know exactly what they're doing (putting someone on moderation), why they're
doing it, and have consensus that this is a desirable thing to do - probably
by people emailing wikien-l-owner at wikipedia.org . The other thing to
remember is that with moderation (as opposed to banning), we have to make a
decision every mail that comes through, and it's quite difficult to say when
a message is "trolling" or not. It would be easier to enforce a blanket rule
like "no one may accuse each other of racism", for example.

It is probably better that people simply stop replying to trolls, or that
you find other ways of controlling them.

Also, as I understood it, we only had Jimbo's support to ban Peter Mackay,
which turned out to be unnecessary anyway.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] New SVN committer

body:
And another:

David McCabe ('david') will be implementing threaded discussion support
(LiquidThreads) as one of our two Google Summer of Code projects.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: abu hamza

subject: [WikiEN-l] prasad59

body:
of course i am happy to admit i am going to mend my ways . I have lot a lot
about wikipedia policies, and the way things are done, since then. I was
only editing for 3 days before i was banned indefinately, and had no clue
about NPOV, WP:V, blocking, 3RR, sock puppetry etc

>From: "Prasad J" <prasad59 at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] for slimline and the reference to harold shipman
>Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 22:41:40 +0530
>
> > Abu, don't even think about arguing that you did nothing wrong - editing
> > articles in the way you did is totally unacceptable to WIkipedia. Your
>only
> > defence here is ignorance and pleading remorse, and promising never to
>do it
> > again.
> >
>I agree. Why don't you just apologise and agree to mend your ways?
>You're only wasting time by trying to justify those edits.
>_______________________________________________
>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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from_name: Nick Jenkins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Index of PHP runtime errors in MediaWiki 1.6.6

body:
Hi All,

There is an index of PHP runtime errors encountered in MediaWiki 1.6.6
now online at http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/runtime-errors/

These errors are of varying severity, and hopefully most should be
fairly painless to resolve. A lot of them seem to be "Non-static
method Foo::Bar() should not be called statically".

The reporting level used deliberately included E_STRICT, which is
PHP's fussiest level, although the things it finds in my personal
experience tend nevertheless to be worth fixing to ensure correctness
and to help prevent problems.

The index contains a bit over 80 files. Each file is a text file that
corresponds to one runtime error.

How to read the files:
* The name of each file tells you the name of file that the runtime
error occurred in, and the line it occurred on. For example
"SpecialLog.php-35.txt" means it happened on line 35 of MediaWiki's
SpecialLog.php
* The contents of each file include the details of the error, the
"Action" attribute, and a full backtrace explaining how we got there.

If you wish to recreate this index, you can, and here's how (note:
these steps assume a UNIX-like system):

# Create somewhere for the files to be stored, needs to be public (so
that apache can write to it) :
mkdir /tmp/errors
chmod a+wrx /tmp/errors

Then add this to the end of your wiki's LocalSettings.php (note: the
E_STRICT level assumes PHP5) :

==================================================================================
// -------------------- error logging ---------------------------
// want all warnings
error_reporting (E_ALL | E_STRICT);

set_error_handler( 'error_handler' );

function error_handler ($type, $message, $file=__FILE__, $line=__LINE__) {
  global $action, $PHP_SELF;

  // PHP 5.1.4 does away with this error, so ignore:
  if ($message == "var: Deprecated. Please use the
public/private/protected modifiers") return;

  $save_as = "/tmp/errors/" . substr(strrchr($file,"/"),1) . "-" .
$line . ".txt";

  $backtrace = DBG_GetBacktrace();

  file_put_contents ($save_as,
                     "Page     : $PHP_SELF\n"
                    ."Message  : $message\n"
                    .(isset($action)?"Action   : $action\n":"")
                    ."Type     : $type\n"
                    ."File     : $file\n"
                    ."Line     : $line\n"
                    ."Backtrace: \n$backtrace");
}

function DBG_GetBacktrace() {
   $s = '';
   $MAXSTRLEN = 64;

   $traceArr = debug_backtrace();
   // remove the error handler and this function from the backtrace.
   array_shift($traceArr);
   array_shift($traceArr);
   $tabs = sizeof($traceArr)-1;
   foreach($traceArr as $arr)
   {
       for ($i=0; $i < $tabs; $i++) $s .= ' ';
       $tabs -= 1;
       if (isset($arr['class'])) $s .= $arr['class'] . '.';
       $args = array();
       if(!empty($arr['args'])) foreach($arr['args'] as $v)
       {
           if (is_null($v)) $args[] = 'null';
           else if (is_array($v)) $args[] = 'Array['.sizeof($v).']';
           else if (is_object($v)) $args[] = 'Object:'.get_class($v);
           else if (is_bool($v)) $args[] = $v ? 'true' : 'false';
           else
           {
               $v = (string) @$v;
               $str = substr($v,0,$MAXSTRLEN);
               if (strlen($v) > $MAXSTRLEN) $str .= '...';
               $args[] = "\"".$str."\"";
           }
       }
       $s .= $arr['function'].'('.implode(', ',$args).')';
       $Line = (isset($arr['line'])? $arr['line'] : "unknown");
       $File = (isset($arr['file'])? $arr['file'] : "unknown");
       $s .= " # line $Line, file: $File\n";
   }
   return $s;
}
==================================================================================

Then just click around your wiki for a minute or two. I also ran the
wiki fuzz-tester for a few minutes to try and catch some of the more
obscure stuff.

All the best,
Nick.


subject: [WikiEN-l] welch and consensus

body:
phil, there is no concensus, you know that,  i know that, and there are many
references to emails on this list where administrators are not supporting an
indefinate ban. Because it would go against the wikipedia project to ban
newbies who rush in with all enthusiams, and little knowledge of how wiki
works.
All that wasted enthusiam.

>From: Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] my week ban - which is now an indefinate ban again
>Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 09:13:28 -0700
>
>On May 24, 2006, at 2:37 AM, <andrew.j.norman at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> >> Um, that's what the listserv is for.
> >>
> >> Yes, but it will be more "official" if it was recorded on Wikipedia.
> >> Also this (putting it up on WP:ANI) is the practice that seems to be
> >> more common. It's just a request, given the somewhat disputable
> >> nature
> >> of this block.
> >
> > I've put a suggestion on WP:AN for a process to quickly confirm
> > community bans and allow for review.  I agree with Prasad that this
> > sort of thing needs to be done on Wikipedia itself.  We need a
> > rapid, open and fair method for ensuring that community bans have
> > genuine community support, and it seems to me we don't really have
> > that at the moment.  Once an admin's decided on a community ban,
> > the only way that can currently be overruled is an appeal to the
> > arbitration committee, or the start of a wheel war.
>
>There are countless administrators on the listserv already. If we
>need to find a consensus among admins, we don't need to go to AN
>because we've already established it here.
>
>--
>Philip L. Welch
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>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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from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 24/05/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> On May 24, 2006, at 9:40 AM, Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
> >> As someone who regularly polices RFP, I am pretty strict on what I
> >> semiprotect and what I don't.  But I must say, that rigor aside, I
> >> very much like the idea of semiprotecting living people's articles as
> >> a matter of course.  Accountability skyrockets when someone has to
> >> register for an account to edit.
> >
> > Only if the editor doesn't actually understand the system. If the guy
> > who messed with the Siegenthaler article had logged in with a
> > disposable
> > account before he'd done it rather than making an "anonymous" edit
> > that
> > permanently recorded his IP address for all the world to see he'd have
> > got away with it scott-free rather than losing his job.
>
> We still could have uncovered his IP address with CheckUser, no?

Only if he'd edited recently. IP-to-editor links are discarded after a
period of time - [[m:CheckUser Policy]] says one week, but I vaguely
recall this is the absolute minimum and in practice the information is
often left for longer. It's pushing it to hope it would still be there
three months later, though...

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Administrivia

body:
Done. As a reminder to others, you can change these options yourself by
going down the bottom of this page:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l<http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/>

Steve

On 5/24/06, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Wikipedia-EN ListServ Ops....could you possibly change my settings from
> individual email to digest? I'm about to go out of town for 2 months.
>
> -Swatjester
> _______________________________________________
> 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 5/24/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> Usually, one is (a) either supposed to get the hint and stop adding
> it back in, or (b) attempt to discuss the issue instead if just
> revert warring over it.

I sort of think we're losing sight of the fact that he had less than 50
edits total. Basically, what it comes down to is, is he willing to accept
that he violated our code of behaviour (whether or not he knew about it),
and is he willing to totally change his way of editing.

Abu, don't even think about arguing that you did nothing wrong - editing
articles in the way you did is totally unacceptable to WIkipedia. Your only
defence here is ignorance and pleading remorse, and promising never to do it
again.

The Oracle has spoken.

Steve


from_name: geni

body:
On 5/24/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Only if he'd edited recently. IP-to-editor links are discarded after a
> period of time - [[m:CheckUser Policy]] says one week, but I vaguely
> recall this is the absolute minimum and in practice the information is
> often left for longer. It's pushing it to hope it would still be there
> three months later, though...

If  it works the way I think it does then records currently go back
about a month.

--
geni


from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>abu hamza wrote:
>
>
>
>>well lets get ther record straight.
>>The harold shipman page already stated he was jewish, well before i came
>>along. I put it back in, after it was removed with no explanation (first
>>time).  I didn't add it.
>>It was then removed repeatedly.
>>the few references that are available (not usable in wikipedia) such as
>>letters to newspapers on websites ( i have given the link here already)
>>state he was jewish as his mother was a jewish asylum seeker.
>>Whether it should be included on his page is debatable, because you would
>>then have to go through all the pages where criminal and muslim are put
>>together and ban the editor of that page indefinately.
>>
>>Thankfully there is NO WIKIPEDIA policy that states this is grounds for an
>>indefinate ban???
>>
>>The issue here was not my obsession with putting it back in, but someones
>>obsession with taking it out.
>>
>>
>>
>Why is showing Shipman's religion relevant or important?
>
>
Don't we usually mention people's religion in their biography if it's
known and sourceable (along with race/ethnicity, nationality, place of
birth, etc.)?

-Mark


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 5/24/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Maybe it's time for commons to decide not to concern itself with
> > copyright issues when they only impact certain types of commercial
> > use, and do not prohibit the uses of such images even in a commercial
> > encyclopedia.
>
> No, this is not the purpose of commons.  The purpose of commons is to be
>  very restrictive and narrow so that a huge range of people who would
> like to feel comfortable reusing our work can do so.  There will of
> course be borderline cases, but unlike the other projects, commons
> should come down firmly on the side of caution.
>
Not only did you take my quote out of context, but you responded with
a point which is completely tangental to the comment I was making.  I
agree that the purpose of commons is to be very restrictive and
narrow.  But if you're going to allow items which are non-free due to
trademark law, then the decision has already made not to insist on
absolute restrictiveness.

> Indeed, by doing so, we make all the more clear what is broken about
> aspects of current copyright law worldwide.
>
Who are you going to make it clear to?  Most of the world *supports*
copyright when it comes to blatant commercial non-educational use.
Considering the reluctance of Wikimedia to release its own logos under
a free license I would assume Wikimedia itself even supports this.
Those people who are completely anti-copyright in all situations,
well, I don't think they need anything made more clear.

Anthony


body:
On 5/24/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree that we should come down on the side of caution, but not
> paranoia.  Photos of copyrighted characters are probably not OK;
> photos of general 3D objects, even if those objects are copyrightable,
> are generally not considered copyright infringements, in the US at
> least and many other countries.
>
> -Matt

Photos of copyrighted characters also are generally not considered
copyright infringements, in the US.  If you take the photo and build a
comic book around it, then maybe it would be.  I'm not at all familiar
with the status in other countries, though.  Japanese doujinshi
artists certainly seem to get away with a lot of things that probably
wouldn't be possible in the US, though.

Anthony


from_name: Philip Welch

body:
On May 24, 2006, at 3:21 PM, Delirium wrote:

>> Why is showing Shipman's religion relevant or important?
>>
> Don't we usually mention people's religion in their biography if it's
> known and sourceable (along with race/ethnicity, nationality, place of
> birth, etc.)?

Yup, but it wasn't sourceable.

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


body:
On May 24, 2006, at 3:21 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> See whatever that lame policy about off-wiki discussion was. It
> eventually
> became sensible.

Yeah, when Jimbo changed it to say that off-wiki discussion is an
essential and vital part of Wikipedia :)

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