from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: board manual and where information about the WMF
 should really be

body:
So....

You will all find here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_board_manual
the draft of what could be included in the manual.

First paragraph shortly explains
* why we need this manual
* who it will be adressed to
* how we could build it...

Next paragraphs should list the actual content.

I suppose it will be best that upon time we build a template as we are
used to do on meta, to act as a table of content and keep the actual
board manual page to a short description of why it is need and who it
adresses to.

As some of you will notice, quite a bit of information is already
available, others are not

3 Mission and vision statement
Basically, we have nothing except the mission statement in the bylaws.
In particular, there were many discussions recently indicating that the
role of the board should be in most part restricted to this area (ie The
role of the board of directors is to set the overall mission, to
give broad guidance, to give expert opinion and advice, to engage in
fidcuciary responsibilities for monitoring, etc); so I guess we really
have to work on filling up this area

4 The board
the board bios are on Foundation
Board statement of responsibilities are nowhere

5 Historical references of the organization
Fact sheet does not exist
History of Wikimedia Foundation Inc is incomplete on meta
Articles of Incorporation do not exist
Bylaws are on foundation ...

6 Minutes from some recent board meetings
Are all on foundation

7 Policies pertaining to the board
Are not written anywhere

8 Finance and fundraising
Current annual budget is on foundation
Budget versus Actual budget is on internal
Banking resolutions do not exist
Current funder list - partners, hosts, sponsors are here and there, but
not updated.

9 Staff
Staff listing is on meta

10 Wikimedia local chapters
is mostly on meta

11 Other informations
plenty of stuff, but is here and there

Please comment on talk page, please suggest new items, suggest to remove
items, suggest to move items from one place to another. Just give your
thoughts freely on all this.

-----------

Some of the stuff above may only be done by board members I guess,
probably with help and support from officers. Other stuff may be done by
anyone interested.

I fear a bit that the answer to my call for help to build this manual
will be a fear, a perception that more bureaucracy will enter the
organisation.

I plead that this is not perceived as so. I think it is necessary for
the long-term health of the organization. We are growing very rapidly,
our legal requirements will be tighter and tighter, our responsabilities
are getting heavier and defining roles of each person is getting more
and more important. We need to rely more on stability,  continuity, and
steady development if we want to succeed.

We also need help here.

Ant

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> There has been a bit of discussion recently about Non Profit
>> Foundations and their organisation. Michael Davis has been discussing
>> a lot in the past few days with a lawyer we are working with, and
>> amongst various conclusions, it was recommanded that we try to
>> anticipate the best we could our growth curve and to get a strong
>> legal framework in place asap. Which seems to involve good functioning
>> structure... and sticking a bit more to traditional board governance
>> procedures, with some evolution in the way we handle agendas, minutes,
>> bylaws, resolution, board manual, insurance and so on.
>
>
> It's hard to know when an exponential growth curve will level off.  Thus
> far we all stand in amazement at the growth.  Generally this is a step
> in the right direction.
>
>> We are currently working on all this very much. Each according to its
>> own ability.
>> Some of this can only be done by board members proper, other tasks can
>> also be supported by officers, and some can involve anyone who is
>> serious and supportive.
>>
>> Amongst the tasks I will try to take care of in the next few weeks (or
>> months...) is documentation, such as typically board manual. Michael
>> has provided us with some documentation (such as
>> http://www.boardsource.org/FullAnswer.asp?ID=98) and I gathered some
>> more as well. Most of what is typically required on a board manual, we
>> already have, but it is dispersed on at least 3 different wikis and
>> poorly organised. This is unfortunate.
>
>
> I would suggest beginning with a Table of Contents or site map for the
> Manual.  This would be helpful in monitoring the development of this
> project.
>
>> Board governance is not something new and there is no reason for us to
>> reinvent the wheel. When I looked at some of these pages, I recognised
>> areas where we have indeed tried to reinvent the wheel... other areas
>> we have never explored at all, areas where we found our own balance
>> and areas which are still a mess :-)
>>
>> I invite you to join and help the way you can if you have such a
>> desire. Either help to organise the structure of the future document
>> (and more generally Foundation website), help to gather what already
>> exist, help write what does *not* exist, help fix poor english, help
>> translate (much later) some of the pages.
>>
>> If you are interested, please, let's talk about this on meta or by
>> irc. I presume this will be very boring for most editors here, so it
>> will probably rarely be mentionned on the list, but if you wish to
>> help, please jump in any time.
>
>
> I object to your saying that such a task would be boring. ;-)    Where
> on meta?
>
> Ec


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox


list: foundation-l

from_name: David Moreno Garza

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic

body:
On 16:31 Mon 12 Dec 2005, oscar wrote:
> i strongly support this initiative :-)

I also second this proposal.

--
David Moreno Garza <damog at damog.net>   |  http://www.damog.net/
		   <damog at debian.org>  |          GPG: C671257D
 ?Qui?n lo viera orinando en un cajero?


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic


list: wikien-l

from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] NPOV trainwreck

body:
"Ruy Lopez" wrote

>Wouldn't it be a good
thing for all the "left wing cranks" to go off and edit some other wiki
encyclopedia?  Wouldn't that
stop a lot of edit wars and nonsense [...]

Depends who you took with you.  Please leave us some of the ones who are
literate, use references to build a case, and understand WP policy.

>Nobs01 is a nut even nuts are scared of.  And ArbCom is doing nothing
>except a month ban of him for personal attacks.  Is this going to solve the
>problem?  Is thing going to solve  Nobs spreading his crank
>red-under-every-bed theories around Wikipedia?

A month ban is more than a slap on the wrist.

Charles


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Class Action

body:
Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 12/12/05, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I just subscribed to draw the community's attention to:
>>
>>http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/
>>
>>Apologies is if this is old news, but I hope people appreciate that the
>>vast size of the project means that it's very difficult to find out who
>>is aware, and to what extent, of any particular issue.
>>
>>
>Hmm. It's nice to know that even the people wanting to bring a lawsuit
>haven't managed to get the story straight:
>
>"Untrue information ... was eventually removed by Wikipedia's
>co-founder Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales, but only after more than four months
>anguish and hard work by Seigenthaler" - yes, those anguishing four
>months of being unaware of it...
>
Also, IIRC, it's Seigenthaler and not Chase that lives in Nashville. :-)

Ec


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Zigger

subject: [Wikitech-l] Inactive wikis

body:
At least 50% of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SiteMatrix.

Have a look at:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/inactivewikipedias
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:SWMT
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis

-- Zigger

On 12/12/05, Mark Williamson wrote:
> Which wikis would this be?
>
> Mark
>
> On 11/12/05, Zigger wrote:
> > Having spent many hours recently starting to clean out spam from
> > wikimedia's inactive wikis, I would be very surprised if they are all
> > regularly monitored.
> >
> > The list below is of currently targeted pages on inactive wikis, which
> > should be deleted (now that there is protection from anon page
> > creation), or at least protected until the wikis have at least one
> > active contributor.
> >
> > Help:Contents
> > Current_events
> > Project:About
> > Project:General_disclaimer
> > Project:Community_Portal
> >
> > -- Zigger
> >
> > On 10/12/05, Mark Williamson wrote:
> > > These wikis are regularly monitored for vandalism.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > On 09/12/05, Amgine wrote:
> > > > There is a list of inactive wikis which should be locked at
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis which are currently spam
> > > > traps, with many more to be added. I was wondering if this was still a
> > > > Steward privilege, or if we need to ask developers to lock these?
>...


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
>
> > How best to single these people out and correct their
> > behaviour? Any examples of articles in question? Isnt
> > the term "pseudoscience" a POV pejorative from the
> > SPOV?
> >
> > Stevertigo
> >

No, not really - pseudoscience is a term for something which adopts the
appearances of the scientific method, and claims to be scientific, without
actually using the scientific method.  The difference between science and
pseudoscience is fairly clear.  It isn't really an expression of an
opinion.  If something can be objectively described as science or
pseudoscience, then it isn't POV.  (Of course you could go into a long
debate about the nature of reality, but for our purposes I think we have to
assume we know what is is).

Ian (Guettarda)


subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
All,

    An anonymous user (IP 146.6.110.149, which tracks back to UT Austin) claiming to be Gary LaVergne, a UT employee and author of a book on Charles Whitman entitled "Sniper in the Tower" (http://www.garylavergne.com/book.htm), has posted a message on my talk page complaining about some content I about him, presumably at [[Charles Whitman]].

    Here is the text of his message:

Mr. Sigenthaler's recent experience has encouraged me to send you this note. As you know, I have been the subject of some discussion in one of the pages you administer. Some of those comments I consider libelous. I strongly suggest that you, as the party responsible for this article and discussion, and/or Wiki executives take immediate action to purge such false and irresponsible statements, and block such from occurring in the future.

Please forward this to Wiki executives.

I look forward to your speedy response.

Gary M. Lavergne

    I'm a relative newcomer to the Charles Whitman page, having been asked to review some rather disruptive behavior and inappropriate editing by [[User:Subwayjack]], who I blocked until this evening for 3RR, vandalism and disruption.  I can only guess, but I assume that this person is referring to Subwayjack's rather convoluted assertion that Lavergne's book was biased and that he published it in collusion with the University of Texas somehow to support their position on Whitman (it was published by UT Press).

    The article doesn't contain this speculative information currently, although at one time Subwayjack did insert it and it was summarily deleted (Inserting edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Whitman&diff=30745179&oldid=30739441).  It does remain on the talk page, and I suppose in the article's page history. What's the general feeling about how to proceed?  I don't think a person's comments on the talk page can be considered libellous, but maybe it's advisable to delete that edit from the article itself's revision history.

K.


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: The heart of the deletion problem

body:
On 12/12/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
> > And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a
> > final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that Wikipedia
> > has been going for five years, I think we're ready to start. Stable
> > versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature we need. In
> > fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable versions is
> > completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we should be
> > asking people to rate.
>
> I generally agree with your comments, although this one strikes me as
> backwards.  I see ratings as a way of determining whether an article is
> in fact stable.  If an article must first be judged stable what would be
> the mechanism for making that decision?
>
You seem to be confusing "good" and "stable".  It's easy to see if an
article is in fact stable.  Just look at when the last time is that
it's been edited.  I suppose you could get even more detailed, and
look at the types of edits that have been performed (minor fixes
indicated stability or major changes and new content indicated lack of
stability), but even that isn't what ratings are about.  Ratings are
about whether or not a version is good, not whether or not it's
stable.

And in order for ratings to be useful, you have to have a lot of
ratings on the same version.  That's why you need stability before
ratings can be effective.

> The lack of an agreed mechanism for doing that has been a major factor
> in not getting the 1.0 project off the ground.
>
> Ec

I agree.  That's why I haven't really opposed adding ratings in.
Agreeing on something is better than nothing here.  Worst case
scenario ratings come out and everyone realizes why they weren't such
a good idea, and then new ideas can come forward.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Turn off AfD

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

David Gerard stated for the record:

> I hereby declare that I will make deleted content (apart from copyvios
> etc) available for reading. Of course, using it to recreate the deleted
> content is speedyable, and using it to keep it hanging around in your
> userspace may get you penalised as Anthony was for doing so. But that's
> what you do with it afterwards.
>
>
> - d.

Watch out, David.  The AfD crew is vicious -- defy them in public like
this, and I won't be surprised to see that you've been put up for
deletion, Arbiter or not.

And by the bye, I've extended the same offer for quite some time now.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Most people who need to be shot need to
 sean at epoptic.org | be shot soon and a lot. Very few people
                  | need to be shot later or just a little.
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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from_name: Delirium

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a
>> final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that
>> Wikipedia has been going for five years, I think we're ready to
>> start. Stable versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature
>> we need. In fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable
>> versions is completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we
>> should be asking people to rate.
>
>
> I generally agree with your comments, although this one strikes me as
> backwards.  I see ratings as a way of determining whether an article
> is in fact stable.  If an article must first be judged stable what
> would be the mechanism for making that decision?

I mostly agree with this view, but I see them as somewhat interrelated.
If we have some good ratings on at least a few recent versions, it'll be
easier to figure out how stable it is.  For example, if I know version
[x] is good, and someone makes a minor edit that just fixes a typo, then
I know that version [x+1] is also good.  What we really want are
versions that are both stable *and* relatively good, with some
indication to the end-user of how good it is (perhaps on a
range)---making versions stable in the trivial sense is easy by just
protecting the page.

-Mark


from_name: steven l. rubenstein

subject: [WikiEN-l] What are we?

body:
>Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an
> > > encyclopedia in the first place.

If "encyclopedia" means a compendium of all knowledge (which is what I
think Diderot and D'Alembert and EB were shooting for), then no
encyclopedia has ever existed.  EB is itself partial and limited, which is
why it goes through different editions.  In fact, that a print encyclopedia
goes through additions, or produces annexes periodically, shows that they
too are "works in progress."  If I have the Fifth Edition of the Columbia
encyclopedia, does that mean the first edition was not really an
encyclopedia?  All so-called encyclopedias are projects of people striving
to write an encyclopedia.  The work can never be finished.

If "encyclopedia" means material for general study, I'd say we are a
reasonable encyclopedia.

Of course, Borges's famous story about the Chinese encyclopedia is meant
(among other things) to question what the word itself could possibly mean.

In any event, I would contest any claim that there exists, even as an
ideal, a "real" encyclopedia against which we could measure ourselves --
and fall short.

Wikipedia proves, like Borges's story, that "encyclopedia" can mean
different things, and that there is another way for an encyclopedia to be a
work-in-progress aside from the occasional publication of a revised
edition.  That is our mark of distinction, the open process that means that
Wikipedia is always a work in progress, and not just a fixed document that
will eventually be superceded by the next edition.

To say that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is only to say that we share the
ideals of Diderot and D'alembert,however different our means.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


subject: [WikiEN-l] What are we?

body:
On 12/12/05, steven l. rubenstein <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> In any event, I would contest any claim that there exists, even as an
> ideal, a "real" encyclopedia against which we could measure ourselves --
> and fall short.
>
I'd say Wikipedia falls short when compared to any encyclopedia that
actually has a publisher.

Anthony


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Separate namespace for Deletions and other achives?

body:
Kat Walsh wrote:
> Strongly agree with giving AfDs their own namespace. (This has been
> proposed before but never got anywhere.) Wikipedia: space search is
> all but useless now.
>
> One further suggestion: that they not be indexed by Google. Why? It
> just adds noise to search results, and there are plenty of people who
> have had nothing to do with Wikipedia other than the fact that someone
> wrote a miserably bad or pure vanity article about them, and thanks to
> AfD the first several hits on their names are us and mirrors
> proclaiming "vanity, kill it quickly with an axe" or "not notable,
> delete". They usually tend to be upset about this and I can't say that
> I blame them.
>
> -Kat
> [[User:Mindspillage]]

Absoultely.  Strong strong support from me on this.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
Well, I guarantee this gentleman is going to come back from his block tonight around 11:45 PM EDT, and start talking about all this stuff again, including his feelings about Mr. Lavergne.  What happens then when the discussion that needs to be excised is an active concern?  It's easy enough to remove comments that are 5 months old and nobody's still whanging on about them, but in this situation -- I mean, should we just erase his comments every time he puts them back up?  Do we get into the business, then, of censoring someone actively whenever he broaches this subject?  And I feel certain that he will.  (I don't mean these questions rhetorically, and I myself have no answers...)

K.

----- Original Message ----
From: Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com>
To: Katefan0 <katefan0 at yahoo.com>; English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 5:45:35 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

    The article doesn't contain this speculative information currently, although at one time Subwayjack did insert it and it was summarily deleted (Inserting edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Whitman&diff=30745179&oldid=30739441).  It does remain on the talk page, and I suppose in the article's page history. What's the general feeling about how to proceed?  I don't think a person's comments on the talk page can be considered libellous, but maybe it's advisable to delete that edit from the article itself's revision history.

K.

Kate - my feeling would be to remove the information from the talk page.  There seem to be a lot of complaints about material on talk pages because search engines can find them.  If it looks really bad, the edit history might be worth removing too, but as long as it's on the talk page it's likely to remain an issue.

Ian (Guettarda)


body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/12/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Michael Snow wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a
>>>final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that Wikipedia
>>>has been going for five years, I think we're ready to start. Stable
>>>versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature we need. In
>>>fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable versions is
>>>completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we should be
>>>asking people to rate.
>>>
>>>
>>I generally agree with your comments, although this one strikes me as
>>backwards.  I see ratings as a way of determining whether an article is
>>in fact stable.  If an article must first be judged stable what would be
>>the mechanism for making that decision?
>>
>>
>You seem to be confusing "good" and "stable".  It's easy to see if an
>article is in fact stable.  Just look at when the last time is that
>it's been edited.  I suppose you could get even more detailed, and
>look at the types of edits that have been performed (minor fixes
>indicated stability or major changes and new content indicated lack of
>stability), but even that isn't what ratings are about.  Ratings are
>about whether or not a version is good, not whether or not it's
>stable.
>
>And in order for ratings to be useful, you have to have a lot of
>ratings on the same version.  That's why you need stability before
>ratings can be effective.
>
The two go hand in hand, or become part of a feedback loop.  A "poor"
rating will have the effect of destabilizing an article.  This is
perhaps a chicken-or-egg kind of problem.  One would need an easily
applied criterion to measure stability.  We all know that the edits on
[[George W. Bush]] can be chaotic.  For comparison I looked at the
recent edit history of [[Martin Van Buren]] and it had 26 edits in the
last month.  I didn't look at the details, but it would still take time
for someone else to do that if it were being considered for rating.  To
be effective a rating system should be able to automatically adjust its
results for stability.

>>The lack of an agreed mechanism for doing that has been a major factor
>>in not getting the 1.0 project off the ground.
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>I agree.  That's why I haven't really opposed adding ratings in.
>Agreeing on something is better than nothing here.  Worst case
>scenario ratings come out and everyone realizes why they weren't such
>a good idea, and then new ideas can come forward.
>
>
Yes.  Ratings like any other tool will have bugs.

Ec


from_name: flockmeal at gmail.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/12/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:

> Could you give an example of a "scientific point of view" which is not
> neutral point of view?
>
> Pseudoscience is not a POV pejorative term, as pseudoscience has little
> or no actual basis in reality. The fact that pseudoscience is 'wrong' is
> not a POV opinion, as it is true. Scientific observations have
> demonstrated the vast majority of pseudoscientific babble to be exactly
> that - babble.
>
> Wikipedia should accurately reflect truth - if people say something
> wrong, it is not POV for us to point out that it is wrong, and to show
> why it is wrong.
>
> Pseudoscientific ideas deserve a page (for historical value), but they
> don't deserve a voice in what is said in it, and the fact it's all wrong
> should be made crystal clear.
>

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

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


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Caching old revisions

body:
Tim Starling wrote:

>On wikipedia-l, Brion wrote:
>
>
>>Please confirm that you have talked with Tim, who is already working on version
>>tagging keeping our caching requirements in mind.
>>
>>
>
>I thought I'd better describe here what I'm doing in that area, so that I
>can get some comments on the design, and in case any of it affects what
>other people are doing.
>
>It started innocently enough, I ported Salvatore's "show verified" patch [1]
>to HEAD, with the intention of putting it live within a day or so. But the
>problem with that patch, like other features that encourage viewing of
>revisions other than the latest one, is that such page views are currently
>uncached. This is especially a problem for Salvatore's patch, which proposes
>to switch particularly popular articles and frequently vandalised articles
>to a moderated mode, where the old revision is displayed by default.
>
>Our goals are:
>* Consistency between the parser cache and the rerendered HTML at any time
>* Fast cache hits
>* Low-latency cache updates
>
>At the moment, rerendered HTML changes in the following circumstances:
>* Template change
>* Link colour change
>* Deletion of the revision
>
>One simple way to reduce the rate at which the cache for old revisions is
>invalidated would be to retrieve the old revisions of all included templates
>when the revision is rerendered. In other words, to display all templates as
>they were when the article was edited. Besides the cache implications, this
>is also a highly desired UI feature. It turns out to be fairly easy to
>implement, with the following caveats:
>
>* If a template is moved, there is no way to reliably determine where it
>moved to. We could follow the redirect in the first revision, but the
>redirect might have been changed by deletion and recreation by an admin.
>* Template deletion necessarily changes the rerendered HTML.
>
>My original idea was to ignore these changes, and any link colour changes,
>in the interests of simplicity and cache efficiency. However Brion expressed
>a desire to see at least some part of MediaWiki work perfectly, and I admit
>that's a good point.
>
>For caches of old revisions to properly reflect these changes described
>above, there are two design options that I can see:
>
>1) Store a list of templates and links in the parser cache object, and check
> them all to make sure they still exist, on every parser cache hit. This
>would make parser cache hits slow, although they would be somewhat faster
>than rerendering.
>
>2) Store a list of templates and links in the database, indexed both ways,
>in a similar way to what we do now with current revisions. Then analogously
>to the behaviour for current revisions, all revisions which include a
>template would have their rev_touched field updated when the template is
>deleted or moved.
>
>

How about
3) Add a parser hack for *only* replacing templates with their contents
(recursively). Then store *that* wikitext.

Takes more space than a template links table, but would be *way* faster
(template replacement is only done once, on declaring a stable version).

Or the solution I took for my "StableVersion.php" extension:
4) Don't care about templates - if it turns out to be a mess, declare
the whole template namespace "protected" :-)

A user-inteface issue: What I was wondering - I got feedback for my
extension about confusion arising from showing a stable version and the
associated "edit" link. Many people will do that, and then
* either get the source of the stable version, change and save it, thus
resetting all changes made since the stable version was declared
* or get the source of the current version, which will raise quite a few
eyebrows

I thought to solve this, the *initial* attempt to edit a stable version
should be a page giving you choices:
* view the current version (and then decide to edit it)
* edit the current version (without viewing it first)
* really edit the stable version text (only if you know what you're doing)

What do you think?

Magnus

P.S.: My own extension is pretty cheap - just store the old_id of the
"stable" revision and put a link to it into the subheader. I didn't
really plan for the caching issues, so I'll put my extension on ice for
the time being. Feel free to borrow stuff from there if you like :-)


from_name: geni

subject:
[WikiEN-l] No wonder people don't realise that anyone can edit
	Wikipedia

body:
On 12/12/05, Steve Bennett <wiki at stevage.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>  I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page,
> where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free
> encyclopedia that anyone can edit".  However, for any visitor who comes
> directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case.  There is not
> a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than
> "The Free Encyclopaedia".
>
> Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a
> fairly authoritative looking bio.  Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not
> made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a
> reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free".
> In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is
> nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited
> by them - or anyone else.  This page could easily become another
> Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and
> you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you
> couldn't blame him for getting angry.
>
> Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it
> is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this.
> Including you." appeared for anonymous users?  What exactly, if anything
> other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning
> users against taking Wikipedia at its word?
>
> Steve

Not our juristiction. You would need to talk to the people over at meta.

--
geni


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
--- Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kate - my feeling would be to remove the information
> from the talk page.
> There seem to be a lot of complaints about material
> on talk pages because
> search engines can find them.  If it looks really
> bad, the edit history
> might be worth removing too, but as long as it's on
> the talk page it's
> likely to remain an issue.

What?  Have you forgotten WINASCO... 'Wikipedia Is Not
a Self-Censoring Organization.' The notion that the
threat of libel claims requires us to be proactive in
removing material is entirely based on a misconception
of what Wikipedia is, how it works, what its value is,
and what the stakes are.

WP is a living, breathing, global information
dispensation entity --one which is open enough that
any claimed repsonsibility or accountability for its
content must fall to everyone to correct; including
those who may be implicated by material in it.

Noone complains if an article on some video game
character be less than encyclopedic. And nor should
they; quality gravitates can be found in more
important articles, and conversely, less quality may
be indicative of a substantial lacking in importance.

By inadvertently giving Siegenthaler a wide berth, WP
may have gained a friend who can speak for old
generations of people may not quite grasp the concept.
Conversely this may have also left ourselves open to
solicitations from various forms of legalistic hackery
from people, or people's secretaries, their lawyers,
etc. There are no shortage of lessons to come of this,
and perhaps thats the point. IAC, this notion that we
have to delete comments on talk pages (against
etiquette no doubt) is overreactive and misguided.
IMHO.

Stevertigo

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
--- Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> Off topic here, but you'd think that 200+ years
> after the Enlightenment
> we'd all accept that scientific (empiric)
> rationalism isn't just a
> 'view' but is the only sensible way to understand
anything (with an  exception for > logical
rationalism, i.e. philosophy)!

Translation: "Its not the dark ages anymore, so
everyone should just accept SPOV as the One True POV."
Hrmph.

Stevertigo

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


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Stupid Mediawiki Tricks: logical templates

body:
"David Gerard" <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote
in message news:439A1430.5050100 at thingy.apana.org.au...
> [[:en:Category:If Templates]]
> [[:en:Category:Boolean Templates]]
>
> Check out some of the code in them, too, but make sure you haven't eaten
> first.
>
> The perpetrators of this l33tn3ss are trying to gut [[:en:WP:AUM]] by
> consensus, because everyone knows database performance and computer
> science in general can be determined by voting. Or maybe it can't.
>
> What would the Stupid Mediawiki Tricks in these things do to the
> database and the cache structure? If it's as bad as I suspect it would,
> could some of you please stop by [[:en:WT:AFD]] and describe reality to
> them?

If the repeated requests for the ability to do this type of thing
**without** resorting to "clever tricks" had been responded to, this is the
kind of thing up with which you would not have to put.

Some people are trying their hardest to avoid duplicating the functionality
in multiple templates, so that when (!) it can be hard-wired into the
Template Syntax it will be as easy as possible to switch over.

Sadly. some are not, and there are a number of duplications. My personal
bug-bear is {{qif}}, mainly because I cannot for the life of me see what it
can do that {{if}} cannot.

Furthermore, as you well know, once the code in those "horrible" templates
is stable, the effect on the caching system is much reduced. AFAIK the code
on these templates is thoroughly checked and stable.

Flame-free help would be much appreciated. High-handed measures like those I
suspect you are suggesting above will simply inflame matters and help
Wikipedia very little.
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
On 12/12/05, effeietsanders-list <effeietsanders.l at gmail.com> wrote:
> The WikiMusic wiki has to *allow for growth*. Not just for experts, but
> rather also for people with little knowledge of the software.
> Lilypond<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_LilyPond>is at the moment
> still too difficult, too technical, for this purpose. Maybe
> there are possibilities to make it easier to enter scores into a Wiki. Maybe
> it is possible to integrate some kind of keyboard (java applet) in the
> software, and have the software rewrite it into Lilypond-like formats.
> Perhaps a (java) applet to drag and drop the notes into the score can be
> developed, so a full score can be reproduced in a Wiki. And that such will
> be transcribed into the Lilypond format automatically is our dream.

Saying Lilypond is hard is like saying wikitext is hard.
Lilypond is just one step above ABC and much more expressive, anything
else would not be sufficient to produce and maintain a professional
quality score.

I'm not convinced.

> WikiMusic must, last but not least, be *able to survive*. Not only with its
> envisioned community, but also with a protection from vandals. It may prove
> to be be hard to maintain the usual wiki-way here. Some brainstorming about
> this issue needs to be done. How can vandals be checked best, by a mere
> possibility of *listening to the differences* perhaps?

Most people qualified to edit such work would be able to visually
qualify such changes.. How could you expect to help out if you can't
read music?  For such a project all changes should be clearly
explained. I don't see the problem with regular wiki procedures.

> You can help with this! Today a proposal is posted on meta
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimusic_II
> and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimusic_II), and there are still a lot
> of technical issues to be solved.

It is almost always mistake to ever think that technical issues are
nearly as big as social or resource issues or to think that good
technical decisions can solve problems of those sort.

There is already a great public domain score site, Mutopia. Tell us
why what you propose would be worth anyones time when mutopia already
exists?


from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject: [WikiEN-l] Quoting back list footers

body:
G'day Phil,

> Can we program it to reject messages from people who have taken it  upon
> themselves to demand that people take time to format their  messages
> according to their personal preferences when said formatting  takes
> considerably more time than just ignoring it too?

Nuts to personal preferences.  You wouldn't fill Wikipedia articles with
"=Heading 1= ==Heading 2== ===Heading 3=== [[Image:Example.png]]", don't
fill your mailing list messages with extra mailing list footers.  Not
even if you think it'd be funny.

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

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.13.13/197 - Release Date: 9/12/2005


from_name: Justin Cormack

subject: [WikiEN-l] So, is there a lag in getting posted?

body:
On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 07:29 -0800, Blackcap wrote:
> I had the same question. I've just recently subscribed, and it seems that my
> posts don't go on for a while. I don't mind, we need to check emails for
> spam and that sort of thing, but how long does this go on for? I couldn't
> find any info on that.

Once your first mail has reached the list this should mean you are
unmoderated and any sent after this will have no lag. Occasionally
errors are made, so be patient.

Justinc


subject: [WikiEN-l] What are we?

body:
Anthony DiPierro writes

>I'd say Wikipedia falls short when compared to any encyclopedia that
>actually has a publisher.

I agree with you that Wikipedia falls far short of many encyclopedias,
especially Encyclopedia Britannica.  But there really are many crappy
encyclopedias out there.  And when Wikipedia works, it works extremely well
-- I think we have a number of superb articles.  If you and I differ, it is
largely semantic.  Wikipedia's weakness, just as a product, is that it is
very uneven.

I fear that participants in the list-serve will either drop this topic
entirely, or will argue over how good Wikipedia really is (or isn't) for days.

I would rather use Anthony's comment as an opportunity to have a serious
discussion about why Wikipedia has more mediocre or poor articles than
great ones, and how we can improve it.

Some time ago a few people - I was one, but I think Mav may have originated
the idea - suggested a review board to arbitrate conflicts over content,
which the ArbCom does not do.  I still think this is a good idea and I
think it is about time we begin a concrete discussion about what such a
committee would look like, and what it's procedures would be.  For starts,
I would say that it could simply arbitrate content disputes by assessing
the degree to which a contributor is complying with our Verifiability and
No original research policies.  This would be a well-defined and narrow
mandate which should limit abuses.  We should also discuss whether the
current ArbCom or the one I am proposing should also arbitrate conflicts
over NPOV.

I do not think this is an ultimate solution or a perfect idea.  But I
believe that no proposal will be perfect.  The question is not whether this
is an imperfect idea that some users can manipulate.  The question is,
would this help improve the quality of articles.  I think it would.  To
those of you who think the weaknesses of this proposal outweigh its
strengths, I only ask you this: please suggest something better.

And we all know that personal attacks and trolling both drain the energy of
dedicated editors, undermine the quality of articles, driving away
knowledgeable potential editors, and harming our general reputation.  Now,
I am in no position to throw stones.  I have made personal attacks, and
have violated the three-revert rule a few times.  I'd like to think that in
my case the current system worked -- other users chastised me, and I have
been blocked temporarily.  It cases it helped me cool down, and in most
cases I apologized.  I certainly think that the system works for the vast
majority of contributors.  It's understandable that editors who are most
knowledgeable about a topic and passionate about the project, and thus
emotionally invested in their contributions, may be quick to anger.  But I
really do believe that in the vast majority of cases, our system works.

But there are some cases where it really doesn't work.  A troll can wreck
havoc at Wikipedia over a long period of time, and as I said a couple of
weeks ago, the larger Wikipedia gets the more territory a troll can roam
over -- and the harder (certainly more time consuming) it gets to track
down a troll's damage.  I think that a committee to arbitrate content
disputes will help; it will take some pressure off of the ArbCom, for one
thing.  But I don't think such a committee will be enough to deal with
serious trolls.  We need a more efficient system for banning trolls.

I bet many of you are thinking, Steve's definition of a troll is simply
going to reflect his own bias or agenda.  Who is to define what a "troll"
is (in other words, who is going to enumerate the kinds of, or measure the
amount of, personal attacks that distinguishes a troll form the many
well-intentioned users who just lose their temper some time?  Obviously the
answer is, "not I."  No one person can do this.  But enough of us have had
enough experience that I am sure if we put our heads together and worked at
it, we can come up with something appropriate and effective.  I think if we
revisit our No personal attacks policy, we can draw on a lot of experience
to improve it - to make it systematic and specific enough that there will
be little argument over what problems ought to go to the ArbCom and what
cases can be handled by admins.  This means giving admins clearer
guidelines as to what kinds of personal attacks (or frequency?) are grounds
for a short term block, a medium term block, or banning.

I have forwarded a few concrete proposals.  None are perfect, all are
undeveloped.  My hope is that they provide a basis for a constructive and
practical discussion that will lead to better and more fully developed
proposals.

I've expressed many times how much I value the anarchic elements of
Wikipedia, that it is an open community and relatively transparent.  But as
several people have occasionally had to point out, this process is the
means to an end: a high-quality encyclopedia.  Anthony is right that we
fall short.  We need some more structure, or new processes, that will
address our weaknesses.  I am certain that we can do this in a way that
does not undermine our principal strength -- the openness of our community
-- but rather in a way that supports this open community by providing more
effective processes for constructive collaboration and productive debate
that is as respectful as it is impassioned.

The question: where do we go from here?

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject:
[Wikitech-l] proposals for discussion pages: enforce the use
	of	headers and subheaders

body:
Uwe Brauer:
>     1 When adding a new contribution the user  is forced to use a
>       header, that    is the  construct  == ==   is automatically
>       inserted. Right  now I have to  press the button *+*. But
>       couldn't that functionality be on the button *edit*?

I changed the "Click on a red talk page link" behavior a while ago to
use the "+" feature rather than "edit" by default. Brion reverted it
because some users complained that they found the new behavior
confusing. I think that some initial confusion is inevitable, and that
the changed behavior would be the right thing to do.

Because the change was imperfect in other ways (you could no longer call
the regular edit page even when requesting it explicitly, and it should
filter the ==..== when templates are inserted into the subject) I left
it for now, but I still intend to work on that issue again.

Making these headers mandatory is not a good idea (for one thing, some
user message templates which are frequently subst:ed include the headers
already), but giving the user the comment interface when they are
typically adding comments encourages proper sectioning on talk pages
(the change already led to many better-structured talk pages in a few
hours). Renaming "+" to something more intuitive would also help; on
Wikinews we use "add comment".

>     2 then when the user wants to reply  to a contribution by using  the
>       `local' *edit* button,  automatically a subheader would  be
>       inserted, in   this case === ===, then    the reply to that
>       would get a ==== ==== header and so on and so on.

That would look terribly ugly, but some hack to produce a "reply" link
would certainly be useful (it's harder than it sounds though).

Erik


from_name: Effe iets anders

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
hello everybody,

 We now have a free encyclopedia. We now have a free library. We now have
free pictures. Now we have to *free the music* (
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Presentation-JW1) and make it
available for everyone. But with the preservation of the wiki-idea:
publishing music with a free license, or publishing music in the Public
Domain.

Let's make a WikiMusic. A Wiki with:

   - *both score and text* of a free piece of music
   - the *music itself* in a playable music file (in different versions,
   for example one version with trumpet, one with a whole orchestra, not MIDI)
   - the *sheet music* in a wiki-text format
   - *information about* the piece of music.

The WikiMusic has to be *user-friendly* as well. So NO WikiMusic just for
expert musicians, but also for people who are just looking for a nice work
of Beethoven. There has to be a system to *search* in this Wiki in a
user-friendly way, too. Maybe the so-called Parsons
code<http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html>(
http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html) can be used?

The WikiMusic wiki has to *allow for growth*. Not just for experts, but
rather also for people with little knowledge of the software.
Lilypond<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_LilyPond>is at the moment
still too difficult, too technical, for this purpose. Maybe
there are possibilities to make it easier to enter scores into a Wiki. Maybe
it is possible to integrate some kind of keyboard (java applet) in the
software, and have the software rewrite it into Lilypond-like formats.
Perhaps a (java) applet to drag and drop the notes into the score can be
developed, so a full score can be reproduced in a Wiki. And that such will
be transcribed into the Lilypond format automatically is our dream.

The Wikimusic has to be *editable*. So not just the creation of new scores
has to be easy, but also their editing. Maybe some way can be found to
change the rather complex format of lilypond into a drag-and-drop idea, so
the sheet can be altered easily. Later the sheet can be transcribed into the
standard format again.

WikiMusic must, last but not least, be *able to survive*. Not only with its
envisioned community, but also with a protection from vandals. It may prove
to be be hard to maintain the usual wiki-way here. Some brainstorming about
this issue needs to be done. How can vandals be checked best, by a mere
possibility of *listening to the differences* perhaps?

You can help with this! Today a proposal is posted on meta (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimusic_II and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimusic_II), and there are still a lot of
technical issues to be solved. Plese add your comment, and get the project
on it's way. Every bit of help and comment is welcome. I hope to see you
there.

Effeietsanders (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/gebruiker:Effeietsanders and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Effeietsanders)


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
Hi all,
  I've always had my bookmark set to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page,
where it's prominently written "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia that anyone can edit".  However, for any visitor who comes
directly through www.wikipedia.org, this is not the case.  There is not
a single reference on the page to the nature of Wikipedia, other than
"The Free Encyclopaedia".

Search an item, say, "Matt Drudge", and you will be taken directly to a
fairly authoritative looking bio.  Again, the nature of Wikipedia is not
made clear anywhere - most people will read "The Free Encyclopedia" as a
reference to price, since many sites on the net proclaim to be "free".
In fact, apart from the links "[edit]" and "edit this page", there is
nothing which would suggest to the user that this page could be edited
by them - or anyone else.  This page could easily become another
Siegenthaler - if the paragraph about Drudge's sexuality is made up (and
you'd have to read an 8 page newspaper article to decide), then you
couldn't blame him for getting angry.

Can we blame people for thinking Wikipedia is more authoritative than it
is? Is it not time that a banner "Anyone could have written this.
Including you." appeared for anonymous users?  What exactly, if anything
other than possible "aesthetics", would be the argument against warning
users against taking Wikipedia at its word?

Steve


from_name: effeietsanders l

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic

body:
hello everybody,

 We now have a free encyclopedia. We now have a free library. We now have
free pictures. Now we have to *free the music*
(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Presentation-JW1
) and make it available for everyone. But with the preservation of the
wiki-idea: publishing music with a free license, or publishing music in the
Public Domain.

Let's make a WikiMusic. A Wiki with:

   - *both score and text* of a free piece of music
   - the *music itself* in a playable music file (in different versions,
   for example one version with trumpet, one with a whole orchestra, not MIDI)
   - the *sheet music* in a wiki-text format
   - *information about* the piece of music.

The WikiMusic has to be *user-friendly* as well. So NO WikiMusic just for
expert musicians, but also for people who are just looking for a nice work
of Beethoven. There has to be a system to *search* in this Wiki in a
user-friendly way, too. Maybe the so-called Parsons
code<http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html>(
http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html) can be used?

The WikiMusic wiki has to *allow for growth*. Not just for experts, but
rather also for people with little knowledge of the software.
Lilypond<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_LilyPond>is at the moment
still too difficult, too technical, for this purpose. Maybe
there are possibilities to make it easier to enter scores into a Wiki. Maybe
it is possible to integrate some kind of keyboard (java applet) in the
software, and have the software rewrite it into Lilypond-like formats.
Perhaps a (java) applet to drag and drop the notes into the score can be
developed, so a full score can be reproduced in a Wiki. And that such will
be transcribed into the Lilypond format automatically is our dream.

The Wikimusic has to be *editable*. So not just the creation of new scores
has to be easy, but also their editing. Maybe some way can be found to
change the rather complex format of lilypond into a drag-and-drop idea, so
the sheet can be altered easily. Later the sheet can be transcribed into the
standard format again.

WikiMusic must, last but not least, be *able to survive*. Not only with its
envisioned community, but also with a protection from vandals. It may prove
to be be hard to maintain the usual wiki-way here. Some brainstorming about
this issue needs to be done. How can vandals be checked best, by a mere
possibility of *listening to the differences* perhaps?

You can help with this! Today a proposal is posted on meta (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimusic_II and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimusic_II), and there are still a lot of
technical issues to be solved. Plese add your comment, and get the project
on it's way. Every bit of help and comment is welcome. I hope to see you
there.
 Effeietsanders (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/gebruiker:Effeietsanders
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Effeietsanders
)


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic


from_name: Cormac Lawler

body:
On 12/12/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 07:29 -0800, Blackcap wrote:
> > I had the same question. I've just recently subscribed, and it seems that my
> > posts don't go on for a while. I don't mind, we need to check emails for
> > spam and that sort of thing, but how long does this go on for? I couldn't
> > find any info on that.
>
> Once your first mail has reached the list this should mean you are
> unmoderated and any sent after this will have no lag. Occasionally
> errors are made, so be patient.
>
> Justinc

Also, if you're using gmail (not sure about other clients), when you
send an email to the list, you won't see it in your inbox until
someone responds to it (though there may be a way to change this in
preferences). A good way of finding out if your mail has been sent is
to check the archives: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/

Cormac


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Turn off AfD

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>I've found that listing an article on AfD, and the ensuing strong keep
>vote, is a pretty effective way of damping down deletion wars that
>sometimes result from undeletion.  It's not ideal but it's probably
>all that can be done while people are ready to speedy delete stuff on
>purely procedural grounds.
>
>Having said that, lately we're getting articles that are being
>undeleted by DRV and then listed on AfD when no real reason exists for
>wanting to delete them, and also cases where DRV is being used to
>endorse bad speedy deletions.
>
>[[Brian Walters]]. Prominent Melbourne barrister and civil
>libertarian.  Article stated as much, and it's easily checked.  There
>were numerous votes on DRV to keep it deleted until I  did a quick
>google, undeleted and expanded it.  The person who originally speedied
>it could have done the google and saved himself the bother of
>deleting.
>
>[[The Form of Preaching]]  Nominated by someone who thought the
>article was OR (presumably didn't google either).  A few sheep-votes
>sealed it deletion.  The guy whose student created it came to DRV and
>pointed out that the piece was very important in medieval rhetoric.
>For some reason, although undeleted, it got listed on AfD *yet again*.
>
>[[Mary Welsh Hemingway]], prominent international journalist who,
>after covering World War II, married Ernest Hemingway.  Was undeleted
>and, for no real reason, relisted.  Speedy keep of this article has
>been strongly resisted.
>
In all fairness Googling, then adding the information is a lot of work.
That has been my experience at Wiktionary where I have been pushing
people to cite sources.  We've had the situation where an anon would add
a new word of dubious parentage, then one of our more regular
contributors would take up the cause, fix up the formatting, and argue
to keep the word.  The general rule has been that on our Requests for
Deletion (RfD) something would stay for at least a week if there is
anything to discuss.  Even after deletion everything (including
"speedys") stay for at least a week before being removed from the list.
There is plenty of opportunity to have serious debate continued.  It
also helps that we do not equate stubs with some kind of criminal act;
there are words where there is very little to say.  Deleted ones can be
easily reconstructed if the situation calls for it.

Complaints about deleting unsourced material resulted in a separate page
called Requests for Verification (RfV) where supporters have a full
month to find sources.  After that, it *may* be deleted.  I personally
work on maintaining the RfD page, trying to find common ground, and
making decisions in the tough cases.  Some complaints are inevitable,
but it never reaches the level of persistent rancour that flare up on
the mailing list over AfD.  I do not personally monitor RfV, and limit
myself to occasional comments on specific items or particular
nominations that I don't bother to track.  The resulting division of
labour has helped in a growing project.

I suppose too that I indirectly take advantage of this mailing llist for
Wiktionary's administrative benefit.  The kind of arguing that I see
here makes me very conscious of what to avoid in Wiktionary.  I suppose
that that makes me grateful to those here whose ideas differ
significantly from mine. :-)

Ec


from_name: John Lee

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> <snip>
> The real heart of the problem is that people are laboring under the
> misapprehension that they're looking at or working on something like a
> final version of the encyclopedia. So they get themselves in a
> lather/snit/tizzy (pick your idiom) over a transient state of affairs,
> or they try to force permanence where consensus for it is lacking.
> Disputed deletions are in the latter category.
>
> And it's very easy to give people the wrong idea when we don't have a
> final or even a stable version of anything. Considering that Wikipedia
> has been going for five years, I think we're ready to start. Stable
> versions, even more than article ratings, are a feature we need. In
> fact, I think setting up article ratings before stable versions is
> completely backwards, because it's the stable versions we should be
> asking people to rate.
>
> Stable versions that feed into development versions, with the latter
> clearly identified as such (in David Gerard's words, 1995-style yellow
> and black "Under Construction" GIFs), would do quite a bit to defuse
> these problems, I think. In particular, I don't think the urge to
> delete would be nearly as strong, and the concern about harm to
> Wikipedia's image from be minimized. The time to provide stable
> versions has come.
>
> --Michael Snow

Strong agreement here.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an
> encyclopedia in the first place.  It's not really an encyclopedia,
> it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia.
>  I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the
> argument.  Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
> even though common sense says that it is not.

Yet.

--
Sam


from_name: Kat Walsh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/9/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/9/05, Jtkiefer <jtkiefer at wordzen.net> wrote:
> > Yes but unfortunately as it is now edit summaries are always viewable to
> > anyone even when deleted which the vandals have figured out and are now
> > using to get away with slander and privacy policy violations which it
> > takes a developer to remove.  If something like this is implemented
> > admins should have the ability to also hide the edit summary from being
> > seen by non admins
>
> Locked revisions would have their edit summaries obscured (it would
> appear as "(edit summary obscured for legal reasons)" or something
> like that).
>
> Kelly

Strong support for the locked revisions idea. Also for the ability to
obscure edit summaries, perhaps independently of this.

-Kat
[[User:Mindspillage]]

--
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
On 12/12/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> ??? I'm not too sure what you are addressing.  If I were voting for this
> sort of thing in Wikipedia I would likely take a stronger stand than you
> about the need for fewer bureaucrats AND admins.  As long as I'm not a
> candidate for anything, I don't need to worry about the outcome of any
> such vote.

Fewer admins? Really? Why? I happen to think we could use more. Grunt
work is boring and people get tired of it.

-Kat
[[User:Mindspillage]]

--
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily
escaped the chronicler's mind."  --Douglas Adams


from_name: oscar

subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic

body:
i strongly support this initiative :-)

oscar

On 12/12/05, effeietsanders l <effeietsanders.l at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hello everybody,
>
> We now have a free encyclopedia. We now have a free library. We now have
> free pictures. Now we have to *free the music*
> (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Presentation-JW1
> ) and make it available for everyone. But with the preservation of the
> wiki-idea: publishing music with a free license, or publishing music in
> the
> Public Domain.
>
> Let's make a WikiMusic. A Wiki with:
>
>    - *both score and text* of a free piece of music
>    - the *music itself* in a playable music file (in different versions,
>    for example one version with trumpet, one with a whole orchestra, not
> MIDI)
>    - the *sheet music* in a wiki-text format
>    - *information about* the piece of music.
>
> The WikiMusic has to be *user-friendly* as well. So NO WikiMusic just for
> expert musicians, but also for people who are just looking for a nice work
> of Beethoven. There has to be a system to *search* in this Wiki in a
> user-friendly way, too. Maybe the so-called Parsons
> code<http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html>(
> http://www.musipedia.org/pcnop.0.html) can be used?
>
> The WikiMusic wiki has to *allow for growth*. Not just for experts, but
> rather also for people with little knowledge of the software.
> Lilypond<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_LilyPond>is at the moment
> still too difficult, too technical, for this purpose. Maybe
> there are possibilities to make it easier to enter scores into a Wiki.
> Maybe
> it is possible to integrate some kind of keyboard (java applet) in the
> software, and have the software rewrite it into Lilypond-like formats.
> Perhaps a (java) applet to drag and drop the notes into the score can be
> developed, so a full score can be reproduced in a Wiki. And that such will
> be transcribed into the Lilypond format automatically is our dream.
>
> The Wikimusic has to be *editable*. So not just the creation of new scores
> has to be easy, but also their editing. Maybe some way can be found to
> change the rather complex format of lilypond into a drag-and-drop idea, so
> the sheet can be altered easily. Later the sheet can be transcribed into
> the
> standard format again.
>
> WikiMusic must, last but not least, be *able to survive*. Not only with
> its
> envisioned community, but also with a protection from vandals. It may
> prove
> to be be hard to maintain the usual wiki-way here. Some brainstorming
> about
> this issue needs to be done. How can vandals be checked best, by a mere
> possibility of *listening to the differences* perhaps?
>
> You can help with this! Today a proposal is posted on meta (
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimusic_II and
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimusic_II), and there are still a lot of
> technical issues to be solved. Plese add your comment, and get the project
> on it's way. Every bit of help and comment is welcome. I hope to see you
> there.
> Effeietsanders (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/gebruiker:Effeietsanders
> and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Effeietsanders
> )
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] WikiMusic


from_name: Jelle Zijlstra

subject: [Wikitech-l] Hooking

body:
On 12/11/05, Aron Rubin <arubin at atl.lmco.com> wrote:
>
> Without advocating too much hook promiscuity, a larger base set of hooks
> would need to be provided because the extensions would need to execute
> before certain state changes or, in the case that prompted this thread,
> before the close of a certain div tag. In mediawiki the content is
> rendered as it goes (via a call like addHTML) so if a hook was to
> execute after target content was generated it would have to reprocess
> the OutputPage buffer. I doubt there would need to be too many
> (subjective, I know) hooks added because most extensions probably fall
> under the wikitext extension category.
>
> Aron
>
> Peter Danenberg wrote:
> >> Why are there so few hooks in MediaWiki?
> >>
> >
> >
> >      Imbalanced forward pack, I'm afraid; locks and flankers
> > are in order, but the front row needs some work.
> >
> >      In good sadness, though, did you  have  something  like
> > Apache's bucket brigades in mind?
> >
> > --
> > Peter Danenberg                                           .
> > wikisophia.org                                           ..:
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The heart of the deletion problem

body:
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>>
>This is not consistent with reality.  The only consensus is built by and
>from people who like rules.  Many people just go about their daily business
>of improving articles in the subjects that interest them, and have done so
>back to a time before those rules were "adopted".  A person who has done
>this for say three years will be completely surprised and shocked when a
>newbie administrator suddenly attempts to impose a rule that was "adopted
>by consensus" one year ago.  For that newbie the rule is law, and he won't
>hear of having  the rule reconsidered no matter how inappropriate the rule.
>  Dedicated editors do not spend their time paying attention to the nuances
>of rule-making; if they did they would never get anything useful done.

I've run into editors who have been editing for years (much longer than me),
but haven't felt the need to abide by various newfangled rules like Cite
your sources, Verifiability and Neutral Point of View, which have often been
completely ignored, especially in the early days.

Jay.


from_name: Guettarda

subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
>
>
>     The article doesn't contain this speculative information currently,
> although at one time Subwayjack did insert it and it was summarily deleted
> (Inserting edit here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Whitman&diff=30745179&oldid=30739441).  It
> does remain on the talk page, and I suppose in the article's page history.
> What's the general feeling about how to proceed?  I don't think a person's
> comments on the talk page can be considered libellous, but maybe it's
> advisable to delete that edit from the article itself's revision history.
>
> K.

Kate - my feeling would be to remove the information from the talk page.
There seem to be a lot of complaints about material on talk pages because
search engines can find them.  If it looks really bad, the edit history
might be worth removing too, but as long as it's on the talk page it's
likely to remain an issue.

Ian (Guettarda)


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>Saying Lilypond is hard is like saying wikitext is hard.
>Lilypond is just one step above ABC and much more expressive, anything
>else would not be sufficient to produce and maintain a professional
>quality score.
>
>
I haven't been heavily involved in the open-music community, but I've
attended a few academic computer-music conferences on and off, and the
people I've met are somewhat ambivalent about Lilypond.  Basically, the
main complaint is that it's intended to be a music-*presentation*
language (or music *typesetting*), not a music-*representation*
language.  This makes it hard to use for a lot of things, like automatic
manipulation, transformation to ther formats, and so on.  It also makes
it relatively hard to edit, since you have to specify a lot of the
nitty-gritty presentation details yourself.

Of course, it's a poorly-funded area with only a relatively small body
of interested people working on software, so there aren't many good
replacements.  There is one system called GUIDO, that was promising but
still very early the last time I heard about it; it may have a release
by now, but I don't know of it.  One problem is that most people who are
interested in this sort of functionality just give in and use Sibelius
or Finale, both fairly full-featured but proprietary commercial
programs---an "open source Finale" hasn't yet appeared.

There is also an MPEG working group trying to develop an open standard
for music representation, but it works slowly.  The main stumbling
block, besides being a working group in the first place, is that music
representation is a much harder problem than it seems at first---there
are a *ton* of variations in how people have written scores over the
years, many of them conveying substantive information that needs to be
captured somehow.

-Mark


body:
On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> I think that's implied in what I said.  We're building an
> encyclopedia.  We haven't produced one yet, at least not in English.
> German Wikipedia arguably *has* produced an encyclopedia.

Oh, I realise that.  I was just emphasising your point, which is an
extremely valid one.

--
Sam


from_name: Rowan Collins

body:
On 10/12/05, M. Creidieki Crouch <creidieki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could we make a separate namespace for all of the AfD archives?  Right
> now, [[Special:Randompage/Wikipedia]] only gives me AfD pages, and
> doing a search in the Wikipedia namespace is near impossible.  We
> could call it "Deletion" and only put the AfD stuff in it, or we could
> call it "Archives" and put some other stuff in it (FAC, RFA).

I think the idea is good, but neither of those names quite hits the
nail on the head - there are all sorts of archives which shouldn't be
in there, and no reason to have to move pages *into* the "archive"
space rather than creating them in the first place. [Indeed,
performing such moves would require admin access whatever the
permissions of the namespace, as the point would be somewhat lost if
we didn't delete the redirects afterwards]

Meanwhile, Magnus has begun work on finally automating such pages
completely [see
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-December/043073.html],
and has called the corresponding namespace "Tasks", which I think
seems a very sensible name (although the actual tasks currently have
ugly numeric names, which needs fixing IMHO).

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
On 12/12/05, effeietsanders-list <effeietsanders.l at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi Gregory, thank you for your imput,

No problem. I have also provided comment on the project talk page
about copyright.

> 2005/12/12, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>:
> >
> > Saying Lilypond is hard is like saying wikitext is hard.
> > Lilypond is just one step above ABC and much more expressive, anything
> > else would not be sufficient to produce and maintain a professional
> > quality score.
> >
> > I'm not convinced.
>
> In short: I want not only "proffessionals" to add their information, but
> also people with little knowledge of music. This is very hard with Lilypond.
> Please take a look into http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/talk:Wikimusic_II for
> further discussion we already had.

Can you make an example for me of the sort of valuable addition which
would be performed by someone who could not handle lilypond?

I haven't used lilypond in many many months, and never used it for
much but here is the lilypond for mary had a little lamb in C  "E D C
D E E E D D D E G G E D C D E E E E D D  E D C".

I'm not sure how much simpler you can get! :)

> > Most people qualified to edit such work would be able to visually
> > qualify such changes.. How could you expect to help out if you can't
> > read music?  For such a project all changes should be clearly
> > explained. I don't see the problem with regular wiki procedures.
>
> If there come a lot of edits, it'll be hard to determine if a edit is okey
> or not. I'm not saying it has to be done the way I mentioned, but that we
> have to think about it.

If we demand that the scores be accurate and true, we can ask people
to justify their edits.
If we are only asking that they sound good then there isn't a clear
model for success in the Wiki world.  I've yet to see proof that
Wiki's are a scaleable medium for material where there is not a set of
fairly easy objective criteria.

> > There is already a great public domain score site, Mutopia. Tell us
> > why what you propose would be worth anyones time when mutopia already
> > exists?
>
> There are even more small projects on the web, and the few I found, probably
> not even 10 % of them, don't have the infrastucture I would like to see in a
> wikimusic-like project. For example, they seem to have no talkpages, they
> seem to have no recent changes, they seem to have no "real music" files.
> They don't have possibilities for entering musin in an easy way as well, nor
> a way to find the music you search, as a non-musician.

True, Mutopia lacks performances... But it is not easy to get people
to work on those in any case. They have also worked out much of the
complex legal waters.

I don't see how talk pages would be all that useful.. We hardly use
them for images....

Would music really see much fluid collaborative editing?

> I just hope so much that the music will no longer be limited to a small
> group of people, that everybody can enjoy it. I hope so much that if I have
> a tune in my head, and I want to find out whitch one it is, how it is
> calles, and who composed it, I can easely find it. Through a WikiMusic.

Searching for 'tunes' is a hard subject. It is not at all remotely
solved. Nothing you've proposed in Wikimusic will help people find
some melody they half remember.

> I really recommend you to take a look at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/talk:Wikimusic_II , because some of the
> things you mentioned are already discussed over there. (As well as some
> legal issues). If you think there might be some problems, please add them.

I have. :)


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>On 12/12/05, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/12/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>> > But then again, I have my doubts Wikipedia should be calling itself an
>> > encyclopedia in the first place.  It's not really an encyclopedia,
>> > it's a website for a group of people who are building an encyclopedia.
>> >  I remember arguing that years ago on IRC, though, and I lost the
>> > argument.  Most Wikipedians insist that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
>> > even though common sense says that it is not.

>> Yet.

>I think that's implied in what I said.  We're building an
>encyclopedia.  We haven't produced one yet, at least not in English.

Suggested soundbite: "It's not a polished encyclopedia, it's the raw
materials for one."

But considering this obvious beta is a top-30 website, there's clear
demand for what we offer. Saying "no no no we produce the materials
for others to distribute" may well be as disingenuous as when Mozilla
claimed the same.

>German Wikipedia arguably *has* produced an encyclopedia.

With considerable assistance from Directmedia, the outside company
that actually publishes it.

But I think commercial republishing of our content is entirely within
not merely the GFDL, but our mission: USE OUR STUFF! THAT'S WHY IT'S
THERE!

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia should accurately reflect truth - if people say something
>> wrong, it is not POV for us to point out that it is wrong, and to
>> show why it is wrong.
>
> I got a private message saying this conflicted with Wikipedia's NPOV
> policy on pseudoscience. I'd like to clarify - it's right to mention
> that some people disbelieve a certain theory, and believe other ideas
> on how such a phenomenon exists. It's also good to include why people
> believes/believed such a theory.

Absolutely.

> Of course, because the other ideas are normally all wrong, it's not
> POV to include a criticism section in the article with references to
> scientific experiments demonstrating that the idea is wrong.

Your statement that "the other ideas are normally all wrong" is a POV.
If your criticism depends on a POV then it too is a POV.  A scientific
experiment that shows something to be wrong is not the same as one that
fails to show it right.  To say that something which is not science is
necessarily pseudoscience is a textbook application of the fallacy of
[[False dilemma]].

> As an encyclopaedia which is intended to include 'all knowledge', I
> don't see any conflict between including pseudoscientific babble and
> explaining why it is babble. Including all knowledge doesn't conflict
> with Wikipedia accurately reflecting reality.

When your premise is that the material in question is "pseudoscientific
babble" you have already prejudiced the discussion.  It presumes that
the only thing left to do is to convince otheres that it is babble.

> It's easy to get all philosophical about this (what is truth? what is
> reality? what is knowledge?), so please assume that I'm within the
> bounds of WP:NPOV with what I'm saying and that any deviations are due
> to me becoming philosophical :) ).

Assuming that you are within the bounds of NPOV calls for a leap of
faith.  You might as well ask us to believe in intelligent design with
you as the designer.

The foundations of science are philosophical, and without a grasp of
that philosophy there is no grasp of the science.  A laboratory
technician is not really a scientist.  He knows how to manipulate
certain chemicals (or other equipment) in oder to test a predetermined
hypothesis.  There is no room for him to suggest alternative
hypotheses.  He follow science's equivalent to politically correct..  A
scientist questions everything down to its roots,  and spurns glibly
predetermined answers.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Turn off AfD

body:
Kat Walsh wrote:

>On 12/12/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>??? I'm not too sure what you are addressing.  If I were voting for this
>>sort of thing in Wikipedia I would likely take a stronger stand than you
>>about the need for fewer bureaucrats AND admins.  As long as I'm not a
>>candidate for anything, I don't need to worry about the outcome of any
>>such vote.
>>
>>
>Fewer admins? Really? Why? I happen to think we could use more. Grunt
>work is boring and people get tired of it.
>
It is indeed.  Maybe we need more efficient ways to handle the grunt work.

Ec


from_name: Dori

subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation

body: Is this a trademark violation? http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/


subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Christmas presents, or: MediaWiki,
	reloaded

body:
On 11/12/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
> The third one I talked about, but noone saw it yet, so here it is: Task
> management! (you gonna love this!)

This looks like a really great start, and a much-needed new feature,
so thank you. Here are my thoughts on the key things that need work to
get this operational (hm, this should probably be on wikitech-l,
shouldn't it... re-addressing):

* A proper replacement for manual in-page templates saying "this
article has been listed for..." - as mentionned before, things like
"wikify" don't need much prominence (though arguably more than the
current sidebar link gives), but things like deletion most certainly
do. A configurable banner for each task still seems the best way to
me, with perhaps a built-in priority for different tasks (so that, for
instance, only one banner is ever shown, but with an extra "+ 3 other
outstanding tasks" if necessary)

* Actual replacements for AfD, etc - i.e. more viewing options for
Special:Tasks, including ones which transclude all the relevant Task:*
pages. These should probably be linked to from the little task status
tables, as well.

* The "task discussion pages" need a better naming scheme, involving
both the pagename and the task in question. e.g. "Task:Main
Page/Delete". [I now realise that the current system is actually
broken, with the "task box" relying only on the task's ID number, so
that http://www.magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php/Task:Delete_%281%29
and http://www.magnusmanske.de/wikipeerdia/index.php/Task:Wikify_%281%29
show the same metadata, but different content.]

* Obviously, presentational details can be fiddled with relatively
easily, but I thought I'd mention that on the Task: pages themselves,
the "This task is for..." message seems a bit hidden, and the "initial
comment" might need to be more prominent to look like the start of the
conversation that will take place below it.

Like I say, great start, and these are just a few thoughts, most of
which you'd probably already thought about, but not had time to do
yet. Y'never know, I might find time to help out (though presumably
this isn't in CVS yet, since we don't really have an 'unstable' branch
there atm, HEAD being the version live on Wikimedia).

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
On 12/12/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I haven't been heavily involved in the open-music community, but I've
> attended a few academic computer-music conferences on and off, and the
> people I've met are somewhat ambivalent about Lilypond.  Basically, the
> main complaint is that it's intended to be a music-*presentation*
> language (or music *typesetting*), not a music-*representation*
> language.  This makes it hard to use for a lot of things, like automatic
> manipulation, transformation to ther formats, and so on.  It also makes
> it relatively hard to edit, since you have to specify a lot of the
> nitty-gritty presentation details yourself.

Eh, hard to edit compared to what?
There are two classes of music (vs sound) formats.

One is symbolic formats used for typesetting, analysis, and scores for
humans. (Examples are lilypond, ABC, humdrum's format, commercial
typesetting systems, etc). These convey the music at a fairly high
symbolic level, and make it difficult to attack high resolution
performance information.  They generally make many forms of useful
transformation fairly easy, and often provide hinting for logical
grouping (ties) and other aids which either help perfomers working off
a typeset copy or machines doing analysis understand the natural
grouping of the music without hearing it.

The other is time series formats used for electronic music
performance. (Examples, MIDI, Csound ORCs, PD's graphical score
dohookey).

It usually trivial to convert from the symbolic to a kludgey low
resolution performance type. The reverse is darn near impossible
because the non-audiable logical grouping is usually lost.

Generally doing notation work in the symbolic type is pretty easy
while in the second type you end up getting mired in the details.
(0-127 pressure? I don't care I just want it louder than before!)

> Of course, it's a poorly-funded area with only a relatively small body
> of interested people working on software, so there aren't many good
> replacements.  There is one system called GUIDO, that was promising but
> still very early the last time I heard about it; it may have a release
> by now, but I don't know of it.  One problem is that most people who are
> interested in this sort of functionality just give in and use Sibelius
> or Finale, both fairly full-featured but proprietary commercial
> programs---an "open source Finale" hasn't yet appeared.
>
> There is also an MPEG working group trying to develop an open standard
> for music representation, but it works slowly.  The main stumbling
> block, besides being a working group in the first place, is that music
> representation is a much harder problem than it seems at first---there
> are a *ton* of variations in how people have written scores over the
> years, many of them conveying substantive information that needs to be
> captured somehow.

Eh, What problem do you think Finale solves?  It is pretty much as bad
as lilypond from the perspective of storing a musical performance
rather than a representation for typesetting. Have you heard the midi
it produces? Yuck. Mr. Roboto.

The problem is largely that they are conflicting goals. For
performance, we'd best want a flexible event time series format. For
editing we want a highly symbolic format (like sheet music).
Performance has the extra challenge in that we must somehow specify
how to turn the notation into sound.

For an human compatible score, which works with all your notational
wishes we could use PDFs.. but you lose editing and layout
flexibility.  There is lilypond, but it fails to capture all the
interesting notations that have been out there. I expect it will be
impossible to capture all notation in  a format that still has a
symbolic understanding of the music.

As far as performance goes, Lilypond will produce reasonable midi, but
getting fine detail into the midi is impossible while keeping a
readable score. As I said, conflicting goals.

As far as the conversion of notation into sound, thats what the MPEG4
structured audio group has tackled. Uses what is effectively midi for
its score. It's totally useless unless you're in to the
electroacoustic music scene.

Not that midi is an ideal performance representation.. lots of silly
limits, problems of serialization, and poor resolution hinder that.
Open sound control ( http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/OpenSoundControl/)
fixes all that, but gets us even further away from something which can
be converted to a symbolic representation sutiable for music.


from_name: Bod Notbod

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia Class Action

body:
Hi,

I just subscribed to draw the community's attention to:

http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/

Apologies is if this is old news, but I hope people appreciate that the
vast size of the project means that it's very difficult to find out who
is aware, and to what extent, of any particular issue.

Best,

User:Bodnotbod from en.wikipedia.org


subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation

body:
Dori wrote:

>Is this a trademark violation? http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/
>
>
I doubt it.  He is not pretending to be Wikipedia, and I suppose his
usage is relevant to what he is trying to do.  None of the ads for other
class actions use the logo.  As long as he limits himself to that narrow
use it may be better to follow a policy of "Don't feed the trolls."

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"Phil Boswell" <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote
in message news:dnk5ht$8e6$1 at sea.gmane.org...
[snip]
> ... My personal bug-bear is {{qif}}, mainly because I cannot for the life
> of me see what it can do that {{if}} cannot.

Now that I have taken another look at it, I think that it is actually doing
something extremely clever. The wikicode is:

{{{else{{{test|}}}|{{{test{{{test|}}}|{{{then|}}}}}}}}}

You call it like this:
{{qif
  |test=VARIABLE_OR_PARAMETER_TO_TEST
  |then=code if 'test' is not empty
  |else=code if 'test' is empty
}}

It relies on the relatively-recent optional value system, where
{{{parameter|value}}} gives you "value" if "parameter" is blank, otherwise
"parameter".

So if I introduce a bit of white-space to make it easier to read the
operation becomes a little more apparent:
{{{ else {{{ test | }}} | {{{ test {{{ test | }}} | {{{ then | }}} }}} }}}

If 'test' is empty, this reduces to:
{{{ else {{{ | }}} | {{{ {{{ | }}} | {{{ then | }}} }}} }}}
and thus to:
{{{ else | {{{ | {{{ then | }}} }}} }}}
and assuming that 'else' is non-empty this simply gives
else

If 'test' is *not* empty, then the original reduces to:
{{{ else {{{ test }}} | {{{ test {{{ test }}} | {{{ then | }}} }}} }}}
and thus to:
{{{ elsetest | {{{ testtest | {{{ then | }}} }}} }}}
Now 'elsetest' is perforce empty, since it's a whole new "parameter" giving:
{{{ testtest | {{{ then | }}} }}}
and the same goes for 'testtest':

{{{ then | }}}
which trivially reduces to:
then

Takes me back to my (admittedly brief) functional programming days and the
dreaded lambda calculus :-)

So whether this template is more efficient than {{if}} basically boils down
to whether the Template Syntax code can perform the transformations detailed
above quicker than the extra fetch which the slightly-simpler {{if}}
requires, relying on the trick whereby if you specify two parameters with
the same name, Mediawiki discards the first and uses the second, passing
parameters to a supporting template named {{show1}}.

I'm betting on the code beating the fetching by a long margin. So until we
can persuade some kind developer to implement the "if" functionality in
Mediawiki, I'm championing {{qif}}. It would be nice if we could retire the
current version of {{if}} and re-use that name, but the nice thing about a
wiki is that you can take things just about as slow as you like, provided
nobody jogs your elbow.

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


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] More Seigenthaler fallout

body:
On 12/12/05, Katefan0 <katefan0 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> All,
>
>     An anonymous user (IP 146.6.110.149, which tracks back to UT Austin) claiming to be Gary LaVergne, a UT employee and author of a book on Charles Whitman entitled "Sniper in the Tower" (http://www.garylavergne.com/book.htm), has posted a message on my talk page complaining about some content I about him, presumably at [[Charles Whitman]].
>
>     Here is the text of his message:
>
> Mr. Sigenthaler's recent experience has encouraged me to send you this note. As you know, I have been the subject of some discussion in one of the pages you administer. Some of those comments I consider libelous. I strongly suggest that you, as the party responsible for this article and discussion, and/or Wiki executives take immediate action to purge such false and irresponsible statements, and block such from occurring in the future.
>
> Please forward this to Wiki executives.
>
> I look forward to your speedy response.
>
> Gary M. Lavergne
>
>     I'm a relative newcomer to the Charles Whitman page, having been asked to review some rather disruptive behavior and inappropriate editing by [[User:Subwayjack]], who I blocked until this evening for 3RR, vandalism and disruption.  I can only guess, but I assume that this person is referring to Subwayjack's rather convoluted assertion that Lavergne's book was biased and that he published it in collusion with the University of Texas somehow to support their position on Whitman (it was published by UT Press).
>
>     The article doesn't contain this speculative information currently, although at one time Subwayjack did insert it and it was summarily deleted (Inserting edit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Whitman&diff=30745179&oldid=30739441).  It does remain on the talk page, and I suppose in the article's page history. What's the general feeling about how to proceed?  I don't think a person's comments on the talk page can be considered libellous, but maybe it's advisable to delete that edit from the article itself's revision history.
>
> K.

Forward it to Jimbo.  He's the one who opened up the can of worms by
deleting the Seigenthaler references from the history (wasn't he?).
Let him deal with this one too.

Anthony


from_name: Ryan Delaney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve AFD - require rationales (2-step process)

body:
On 12/12/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
> Tony Sidaway got RFCed for not doing a strict numerical count. I said
> the RFC was completely fuckheaded (which it was), and then Ed deleted
> VFD. So there's some historical precedent for your view ;-)
>
>
The RFC *was* fuckheaded, but there might have been a point somewhere in the
nonsense.  That admins can execute as much discretionary power when it comes
to what "consensus" means in an AFD is worrisome; it implies that the
closing admin can alter the result of the vote substantially according to
whatever arbitrary view he or she might have on deletion.  Tony doesn't
think this is a problem, because (I get the impression-- please correct me
if I'm wrong here) that he's happy that he can close AFDs with an inflated
standard for consensus, because he wants more articles to be kept.

Whatever you think about the question of whether more articles need to be
kept, it would be prudent to consider whether we want admins to make this
kind of decision at all, in either direction. It seems contrary to the idea
of what consensus means; it means that the closing administrator is really
the one with the power, and the idea that the "normals" in the discussion
have power is just an illusion.  Now, this is why I think the RFC was
fuckheaded: the RFC was really about a systematic problem with AFD, not Tony
Sidaway's behavior. Tony's closing habits are, if anything, a symptom of the
problem inherent in AFD, because it makes this kind of dispute even
possible.

Since what I'm providing here is yet another reason to think of AFD as
borked and needing replacement, I don't expect much debate on these points.
But I see a lot more discussion about how bad AFD is and a lot less
discussion about what we should replace it with, and why whatever system we
choose to replace it will be any better. Defense of AFD seems to be getting
quieter and quieter but I still don't see us making much progress toward
enacting some actual improvements.

Ryan


subject: [Wikitech-l] WikiMusic

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>As far as the conversion of notation into sound, thats what the MPEG4
>structured audio group has tackled. Uses what is effectively midi for
>its score. It's totally useless unless you're in to the
>electroacoustic music scene.
>
>
That's not actually the MPEG group I'm thinking of.  The one I had in
mind is the Ad Hoc Group on Symbolic Music Representation, which is
attempting to come up with a consensus symbolic-representation format.
Some of their publications discuss in some more detail why this is a
difficult problem, and why existing systems do not solve it:
http://www.interactivemusicnetwork.org/mpeg-ahg/

-Mark


body:
On 12/12/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>
> No, this is a misrepresentation of what happened. He was RFCed for
> following the actual deletion policy.
>
>
>
Er, okay. So how about the rest of what I said? :-)

Ryan


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:

> Off topic here, but you'd think that 200+ years after the
> Enlightenment we'd all accept that scientific (empiric) rationalism
> isn't just a 'view' but is the only sensible way to understand
> anything (with an exception for logical rationalism, i.e. philosophy)!

I would not call your "empiric rationalism" just a view.  A creed is far
more than just a view.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation

body:
Dori wrote:

>On 12/12/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Dori wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Is this a trademark violation? http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/
>>>
>>>
>>I doubt it.  He is not pretending to be Wikipedia, and I suppose his
>>usage is relevant to what he is trying to do.  None of the ads for other
>>class actions use the logo.  As long as he limits himself to that narrow
>>use it may be better to follow a policy of "Don't feed the trolls."
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>I won't post anymore here since people are discussing it at juriwiki,
>but the site does say "(c) 2005 WikipediaClassAction.org ? All rights
>reserved." and they mention nothing about Wikipedia being a redistered
>mark of another entity. At the very least having the image there is a
>copyright violation. Anyway I'm not a lawyer so I'll shut up.
>
He would probably have a fair use claim.

Copyright notice is not an essential element to owning a copyright, so
any such notice is in itself meaningless.  Furthermore, a domain name is
not a person, and has no legal standing of its own; it can't own anything.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Trademark violation