subject: [Wikitech-l] Wysiwyg debate

body:
"Steve Bennett" wrote:
> My suggestion is the only way I can think of making footnotes bearable
> for both creator and maintainer. Short of a separate "footnotes"
> editing box, that is (which I believe has been proposed before).

Good idea. What Simetrical said was more in the idea of a wysigig editor,
but we could have it now. We can edit per sections ?section=N, we could also
have a per-reference section ?reference=reference_name (incompatible with
per section editing), where you would only edit that references.
What i don't know is where to put the edit link, as it may fill almost the
same as the reference. a javascript floating div, perhaps? They usually
aren't very nice, but may fit here.


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Platonides

subject: [Wikitech-l] An error occur when send a mail

body:
"liu haokai" wrote:
>A email can be sent through the following script, sure, the mail address
>has
> been replaced by an existing one:
> <?php
> // The message
> $message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";
>
> // In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use
> wordwrap()
> $message = wordwrap($message, 70);
>
> // Send
> mail('caffinated at example.com', 'My Subject',
> $message);
> ?>
>
> I wonder is the problem related to the UTF-8 email address?

Mail addresses shouldn't be utf-8. As SMTP protocol is 7-bit ascii (unless
the server has 8bitmime extension, which i think only applies for the
content), a utf-8 email with non us-ascii chars (those which fall outside
the 7-bit) could be rejected by the server, and probably should, as it has
no mean of knowing if the next server is going to accept this protocol
violation, and as the smtp specification says the user part of email
shouldn't be touched, i wouldn't accept it.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Luiz Augusto

subject: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Are TV screencaps reputable sources?

body:
Citing someone is authorized in so much more legislations. Brazilian (my
contry) copyright law don't have anything related to fair use or educational
use, but, authorizes citations.

On 8/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> >
> <snip>
> >> Oh, and if quotes are copyrightable (and we can only use them under
> >> "fair use"), please explain to me how Wikiquote can exist?
> >>
> > I did not say that quotes were copyrightable; you cannot claim copyright
> > on something that is already copyright by someone else, or is in the
> > public domain.  I said, "...unless the work is in the public domain the
> > use of any quotation from it is an example of fair use"   Wikiquote can
> > exist because of fair use.
>
> IANAL, which is why I'm crossposting to foundation-l so that someone can
> clarify this for us; does Wikiquote really only exist because of the
> "fair use" provision in US law?
>
> --
> Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
> Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
> "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
> Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>


list: wikimedia-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Cross-project transclusion

body:
> Hi, I would like to transclude ((User:Kungfuadam/Status}} onto another
> Wiki.
> I used the format {{:en:User:Kungfuadam/Status}}. Apparently the media
> wiki
> software doesn't allow cross-project transclusions, but this would be a
> nice
> feature.
>
> Adam J. Lorenz
It could both be a nice feature and a nightmare. It has appeared several
times before. Good for this kind of things, and even transcluding your whole
user page, for babel templates... Horrible if you downloaded the wikipedia
database only to find that you also need the polish one and the urdu?!
Images can be easily excepted, as they're another media type. A full
transcluding to any article can be a nightmare. And what to do if a
vandalism is being transcluded from another wiki? You can only remove the
including. Do you need to go to the foreign wiki searching for an admin?


list: wikien-l

from_name: Mark Gallagher

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Invited by admin to leave en if concerned about free
 reusability

body:
G'day geni,

> On 8/15/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> * Speedy deletion (it's vanity!  You must speedy it!)
>
> CSD A7

An article can be vanity and still not speediable.  People seem to
interpret A7, however, to mean anything that they think is vanity
(whether it is or not; whether it's a good article or not) must be speedied.

>> * Image copyright (if you tag it as "fair use" it can't be deleted!)
>
> Fortunetly there is a loophole in the current set up with no one
> appears to have found a way to close.

Well, there's always IfD.  Also, there are moves (successful?) to make
fair-use-with-a-shit-rationale speediable.  Either way, it's deletable,
if not right away.  {{fairuse}} doesn't make you safe.

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


subject: [Wikitech-l] Statistics?

body:
"Aerik Sylvan" wrote:
> Okay, so instead, and only slightly more expensive, go ahead
> and hit the counter, but the counter does the randomization check - if
> it's
> the 1 in 1000, run the code that posts to the database.
But then we fail in the original problem. A server with billions of
conections... die.


from_name: Michael R. Irwin

subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)

body:
Brad Patrick wrote:

>I'm not going to address this point by point, because my aim is to expand,
>not stifle, discussion.
>
>Some more grist for the mill:
>
>- Do you really believe a reduction in US-centrism is going to be
>accomplished by having a high financial barrier to entry?
>
>
I agree financial barriers are inappropriate.    We are trying to
interact with and serve all of humanity, not the American middle class
or some upper financial crust.   Internet access is already a de facto
finanical barrier but it is inevitably a falling one due to the
continuous decline in price of computers and internet access.

>- Your distinction re billion member organization vs. billion dollar
>organization is intriguing.  How do we get there?
>
>
One possibility which has been continually ignored is distributed
computing applications.   In a distributed scenario members can donate
the services of their inactive computers and bandwidth to help serve the
community and its customers.

An example might be the use of bittorrent for making download of
databases a distributed effort.

Another would be tackling service of view only pages (current and
history) from a permanent distributed service such as the "Oceanstore"
project promises to deliver.   It has current been prototyped as open
source "Pond".   A possible approach to this might be to set up the
distributed datastore using centralized servers which use distributed
resources to create a datastore consisting of a file for every possible
page in the database.   Then when one requests the read only version of
the current page or a history page the request is sent to the Oceanstore
system to deliver the archived page while when one requests edit
capability the current infrastructure responds.   When one is done
editing the current database is updated while simultaneously a new
archive page is sent to the datastore for future readonly access.

The above does not eliminate the need for centralized computing
infrastructure but should reduce its requirements growth by offloading
substantial work to the Oceanstore archive created by the use of a few
centralized servers and distributed participating computers which create
the storage space.

The above could shift substantial capital requirements back to
participating volunteers.   It is possible that a better match for the
distributed participation would be gnunet.   Obviously little effort is
available for such speculative projects unless some customers express
serious interest and committment to such project.

>- How do non-editing, non-computer using people intersect with those who
>presently self-affiliate with WMF et al.?
>
>
Given the above distributed approach to expansion it is possible that
parents or adults who rarely use encyclopedias might donate bandwidth
and hard drive space on new systems until they find they need the space
to support a free service viewed as useful to educational systems and
youngsters.    For example:  On a Dell Desktop I have used for a couple
of years with a 160 GB hard drive I am even now only using 80GB,
primarily because I rarely erase anything and I download a lot of open
source applications.    I could easily make 40-80GB of this available to
a trusted application such as gnunet or oceanstore if I knew it had been
vetted by a trusted organization such as the technical teams at
Wikimedia.  In the past I have donated hard drive space and processing
to SETI, Cancer, etc. @ home although I recently ran into a distributed
application allegedly put out by a reputable scientific team that
screwed up my BOINC installation.   Hence the need for good vetting.

>- With such a diluted definition of 'member' what is the real point of being
>a 'member'?  Is it political so members have control of the organization in
>some way? Philosophical, in that we have 'card carrying' members to prove
>allegiance to something? You have not made it sufficiently clear to me, at
>least, precisely what the point is other than 'there should be membership'.
>Membership implies there exists exclusivity or at least a definable
>difference between member and non-member.
>
>
In my view the above is correct.   Hence my noninterest in the
Foundation.   Once Wikiversity activates I am out of here unless we get
a substantial negative impact from Board Member or Employee grams
directed at areas of personal interest on Wikiversity.

>- If the subtext is money, let's call it out and understand it.  My earlier
>point about "what would we do with a Billion dollars" is that it is a
>difficult question for anyone to answer.  Ask the Gates Foundation.
>(Present staff, ~600, btw).
>
>
Buy a dedicated server and some support staff for Wikiversity to meet
our advertised goals of delivering all free knowledge to all humanity.
Despite a 200/300 vote to proceed well over a year ago and plenty of
discussion and prototyping prior to that the project has been placed at
the mercy of several appointees and approved volunteers.   Jimbo claims
Wikiversity has overwhelming Board support but has heard nothing back
from the appointed volunteers.   Perhaps a professional project manager
could get an initial project with overwhelming support setup if he could
purchase a server, some bandwidth and some professional setup time.

Personally I suspect this is not really a budget issue but if it is then
a small part of a Billion should resolve it for the near future.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)


subject: [WikiEN-l] accessing Wiki on cellphone

body:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>> On 8/15/06, David Gerard <
>>> How is it in the Classic or Simple skin?
>>>
>>
>> Is there a way where you can get the simple view, without having to go
>> through preferences? It'd be great if we had something like
>> en.wikipedia.org/wikisimple/Some_Page...
>>
>> Steve
What about using en.wapedia.org?
Note: i just found it's not a rendering change hosted by the WMF.


from_name: Christopher Larberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] News.com: Teen's warning on the gospel of Wikipedia

body:
On Tue, 2006-08-15 at 11:32 -0700, George Herbert wrote:
> Great news.com commentary piece on WP, humorous and serious at the same time:
>
> http://news.com.com/Teens+warning+on+the+gospel+of+Wikipedia/2010-1038_3-6104446.html?tag=fd_carsl

This is kind of tangential, but if I see one more person assert that we
"banned Stephen Colbert," I'm going to scream.
--
Christopher Larberg [[w:en:User:Slowking Man]]
<christopherlarberg at gmail.com>
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from_name: liu haokai

body:
A email can be sent through the following script, sure, the mail address has
been replaced by an existing one:
 <?php
 // The message
$message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";

// In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use
wordwrap()
 $message = wordwrap($message, 70);

// Send
 mail('caffinated at example.com', 'My Subject', $message);
 ?>

I wonder is the problem related to the UTF-8 email address?

2006/8/14, xaosflux <xaosflux at gmail.com>:
>
> If the 5.5.4 error is comming for your email server, it may be that you
> are
> trying to send it an email that it does not have a registered user
> for.  If
> you are goign to use your mail server as a relay agent, you may need to
> enable relaying from your wiki server.
>
> xaosflux
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "liu haokai" <haokai.liu at gmail.com>
> To: "Wikimedia developers" <wikitech-l at wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 8:28 AM
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] An error occur when send a mail
>
>
> > I am running a mediawiki 1.7.1 on a PC of my company, and the email
> server
> > is another pc on the intranet. I setted the mailserver address in
> php.ini,
> > and enabled the mail function in mediawiki. Once I test the mail
> function
> > in
> > mediawiki I got the message like this:
> >
> > "Error sending mail: mail()
> > [function.mail<http://192.168.21.25/ewiki/function.mail>]:
> > SMTP server response: 501 5.5.4 Invalid Address"
> >
> > However, the following script in a soly php file has been tested working
> > well.
> >
> > <?php
> > // The message
> > $message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";
> >
> > // In case any of our lines are larger than 70 characters, we should use
> > wordwrap()
> > $message = wordwrap($message, 70);
> >
> > // Send
> > mail('caffinated at example.com', 'My Subject', $message);
> > ?>
> >
> > I wonder is it a bug of mediawiki?
> > BTW, I am running mediawiki on windows xp sp2 professional chinese
> > edition,
> > apache 2.0.58, php 5.1.4 and mysql 5.0.22 .
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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: Lars Aronsson

subject: [Wikitech-l] Apple's Wiki Server brings WYSIWYG to wiki

body:
Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

> The problem, Lars, is that several of the partisans on the "WYSIWYG
> should take over the world" side of the argument are framing approaches
> that would, in fact, force us -- practically -- to use WYSIWYG editing:

Come on, if anybody is proposing that, they are either trolling or
completely naive people, and either way they're not going to have
any real influence at all.  You and mboverlord are the only two
people who don't get that this is a big joke.  You are feeding
these trolls. Can't you just ignore this, so we can get back to
discussing technical issues?

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)

body:
Anthony wrote:

>On 8/14/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
snip

>
>
>>- With such a diluted definition of 'member' what is the real point of being
>>a 'member'?  Is it political so members have control of the organization in
>>some way? Philosophical, in that we have 'card carrying' members to prove
>>allegiance to something? You have not made it sufficiently clear to me, at
>>least, precisely what the point is other than 'there should be membership'.
>>Membership implies there exists exclusivity or at least a definable
>>difference between member and non-member.
>>
>>
>
>The members are the organization.  They are the ones who discuss and
>recommend what new projects to set up, how to best integrate the
>different projects, how to run pretty much everything that isn't being
>handled by one of the individual projects.  When someone comes up with
>an idea to get rid of the 9/11 wiki, it'd be the members of Wikimedia
>that would talk about whether or not to do this, not the members of
>the English Wikipedia.  Eventually I'd like to the members directly
>elect 100% of the board.  I don't see that being accomplished without
>having a membership based organization.  Do you?
>
>
Yes/No.   I favor breaking up effective lines of control and influence
around infrastructure teams and projects.  In this approach, Jimbo's
opinion becomes irrelevant unless a project is found to be in violation
of specific agreements between the infrastructure (Wikimedia Foundation)
and the project (Wikipedia, Wikiversity, etc.)   Obviously in this
approach one could be a valued member of Wikiversity and an ignored
member of the mob on the mailing list for Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation.

>
>
>>- If the subtext is money, let's call it out and understand it.  My earlier
>>point about "what would we do with a Billion dollars" is that it is a
>>difficult question for anyone to answer.  Ask the Gates Foundation.
>>(Present staff, ~600, btw).
>>
>>
>>
>I just don't see where you get the idea that Wikimedia will be getting
>a billion dollars any time soon.  With it following a comment about
>"pitching Big Rich Guys for money", it worries me that that's the
>direction Wikimedia is headed.
>
>
Consider possible grants from the U.S.G.   At the moment the U.S. is
spending well over a couple of hundred billion/year  to "win hearts and
minds" by shipping professional soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan in an
alleged "War on Terror".

It might be cost effective to spend a billion dollars on one million
$1K portable computers that could be used as infrastructure for schools
and internet based import/export businesses, ten billion dollars on
fiber trunks to currently bandwidth limited areas, and a hundred million
dollars on an unsolicited proposal from the Wikimedia Foundation to make
neighborly online communities available to exchange information between
citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the World while
creating valuable content for everybody.

Of course it could only be available if we were interested and pitched
it convincingly.   Personally I would just as soon decentralize and keep
foundation costs low.

Of course for those rabidly opposed to the U.S. military we could pitch
essentially the same thing to Commerce (import/export .... increased
trade)  or the Peace Corp (does it really make sense to ship singe
volunteers to single villages when a fiber optic cable and a few local
computers could make world class data products available on demand?)

>Money is great, but if it comes from a few large donations from a few
>Big Rich Guys, it's probably not worth it.
>
>
Its the strings that matter not the origin.

>Anyway, the money issue is really a tangential point.  It just
>disturbed me and made me think you don't have anywhere near the same
>picture as for the future of Wikimedia as I do.
>
>
Like it or fork it.   A firm no on Wikiversity might be useful for
generating another foundation helpful in distributing free
knowledge.....   E unum pluribus.     Limbo appears to be deadly for
volunteers participation.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)


list: textbook-l

subject: [Textbook-l] Printed Versions of Textbooks

body:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:

>If there isn't any commentary or interest from other individuals, I'm
>going to go ahead and do this anyway myself and be bold, but I do want
>to make other Wikibooks user aware of this effort.
>
>

I agree with another poster.   Enabling independent publishing is a goal
of the FDL.

However, I would like you to consider the possible value of waiting a
few months prior to publishing.

I have been told Wikiversity should startup soon.  If this is true,
running a class around the work to be published might shake out a lot of
bugs such as spelling, word use, confusing presention, gaps, etc.    It
might be worth waiting and attempting to run a class around the
book/text to get this helpful input and free editing and feedback prior
to going to hardcopy print.

On the other hand, there is always room for improvement in future
editions so if you feel the urge to commit to publication then by all
means proceed at best possible pace.

regards,
lazyquasar


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 8/15/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Cormac Lawler wrote:

> > Yes, I think you've got me, Birgitte :-). I just
> > think that NPOV (as I
> > conceptualise it) is not a useful concept to apply
> > to Wikiversity.
> > Don't get me wrong - I wince just as much as anyone
> > if someone will
> > try to teach people that the world began 10,000
> > years ago ;-), but
> > surely the point of education is to try to get
> > people to think for
> > themselves? I see no problem with provocative, even
> > biased,
> > educational materials - so long as people are given
> > the wherewithal to
> > critically evaluate them. I think we need an analogy
> > to NPOV -
> > "completeness" sounds better, but just not catchy
> > enough :-)
> >
> > Cormac
> >
>
> Yes I agree and your response just sparked in my mind
> a very realistic example.  I always thought WV would
> find an audience developing homeschooling materials.
> Now in the US many people who homeschool do this
> because they do not like the lack of religion in
> public schools.  How will WV handle the develpoment of
> science teaching materials for homeschoolers which are
> based in "creationism"?
>
> Birgitte SB
>

Well, Wikipedia, for example, has an article about a given topic, say
[[Earth]]. Wikiversity, I would imagine, will have many learning
resources on the Earth - geared toward particular learner levels, or
styles of teaching. So, much as I wouldn't like there to be a
Creationism school on Wikiversity, I could tolerate it as long as it
was categorised properly - for that level, within that
pedagogical/theoretical framework. I hope that materials will be
searchable for teachers and learners, sop that they can find materials
that suit their needs, quickly. This is one reason we're working on a
metadata patch to be added to wikiversity - though I don't know just
how developed it is yet.

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject:
[Foundation-l] Please activate the English Wikiversity using
 whatever standard nomenclature accessible from the main portal page
 wikiversity.org

body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 8/14/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
>>we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)
>>
>>Here is the resolution :
>>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Wikiversity
>>
>>A couple of important points
>>
>>1) there will be a domain at beta.wikiversity.org, where all new
>>languages may contribute and start working on translation of guidelines
>>etc...
>>
>>2) those languages with at least 10 active participants can request a
>>separate domain name. As of today, I presume the english language has at
>>least 10 people interested, so you guys may bug Brion to ask for
>>en.wikiversity.org. I am not sure if it is the case for any other
>>language.
>>
>>3) All sites will be flagged "beta" in the same way that wikinews has
>>been for at least 6 months.
>>
>>4) During these 6 months, guidelines should be developped, *in
>>particular* with regards to collaborative research. We would hope that
>>these guidelines are as much as possible developped on the beta site (in
>>particular collaborative research), so that all languages share a common
>>goal and a few common non negociable rules.
>>
>>5) At the end of these 6 months period, the project will be reviewed, in
>>particular so that the issue of collaborative research is qualified, and
>>if possible to define whether the beta stage is over. Reviewal will be
>>done by Spc.
>>
>>I hope that's clear... ;-)
>>
>>We wish good luck to this project.
>>
>>Ant
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>Thanks for the note on that.  Is there an ETA on beta.wikiversity.org going
>live?
>
>
>
>
Brion,

If you could please activate a  Wikiversity mailing list as previously
discussed it will be useful in coordinating Wikiversity activities and
encouraging immediate participation and useful policy formation.

Further, if you could please activate the English namespace and make it
accessible from a portal page similar to what has been done with
Wikipedia it could get us off on a level playing field for everybody who
chooses to participate or browse Wikiversity materials.

This has the major advantage that all participants in all languages have
an easy portal page and URL to publicize while encouraging useful
participation from newcomers.

I will attempt to get a language registration page accessible from the
current Wikibooks Wikiversity main page setup to facilitate documenting
ten language users who wish to move away from the beta site currently
being established to a dedicated language site.

Thanks for your efforts on our behalf.

Sincerely,
lazyquasar


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-16

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

Running test TODO: Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Template with thumb image (with link in description)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Parsing optional HTML elements (Bug 6171)... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting... FAILED!
Running test TODO: Mixing markup for italics and bold... FAILED!
Running test TODO: 5 quotes, code coverage +1 line... FAILED!
Running test TODO: HTML Hex character encoding.... FAILED!
Running test TODO: dt/dd/dl test... FAILED!

Passed 413 of 429 tests (96.27%) FAILED!


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>
>Jeff
>
>
>
Various naysayers were intensely against this including members of the
Board.

There was a lot of concern that long term efforts necessary to become
accredited would be misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood by
various users of the site.   Rather than encouraging individuals or
teams of volunteers to begin long term investigations, the entire issue
was essentially tabled for after we have an effective Wikiversity site
and community of participants thriving.

regards,
lazyquasar


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
James Hare wrote:
> We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
> instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?

How about someone creating instruction material which teaches the
superiority of the aryan race? Or schoolbooks in turkish which explain
that there was never such thing as an armenian genocide? Where's the border?

In my western ignorant mindframe I'd say that we need a common ethical
ground for those projects to which NPOV doesn't and can't apply.

greetings,
elian


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] MeatballWiki down, needs cached files

body:
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl

They're not asking for money, but for cached copies of files, should
you have stopped by there lately.

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Financial Times column on open content

body:
maru dubshinki wrote:

>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>maru dubshinki wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 8/15/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
>>><charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>"maru dubshinki" wrote
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>In comparison to normal human writing, this stuff's positively antipodean.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>That would be why Gerard goes for it. I hear their screens scroll the other way, Down Under.
>>>>
>>>>Charles
>>>>
>>>>
>>>He would. There's a reason Dante located the exit of Hell and the
>>>mountain of Purgatory in the Southern Hemisphere...
>>>
>>>
>>Hmmm! Dante (1265-1321), Galileo (1564-1642). ;-)
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>
>Are you accusing me of not knowing my Dante?
>
>"The two poets escape by climbing the ragged fur of Lucifer, passing
>through the center of the earth, emerging in the southern hemisphere
>just before dawn on Easter Sunday beneath a sky studded with stars."
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy#Purgatorio
>
>~maru
>
I hadn't thought of it as an accusation, but if you want to take it that
way you have that option.

There is considerable doubt that Dante's reference to the other
hemisphere is to the southern one.  That strikes me as inconsistent with
the state of geographical knowledge in the early 14th centure.  The
suggestion that Dante's exit from hell would be in Antarctica has not
basis in fact at ball. Where in the text do you find evidence for this.
Antarctica was not discovered until much later.

Ec


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 8/16/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
> > We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
> > instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?
>
> How about someone creating instruction material which teaches the
> superiority of the aryan race? Or schoolbooks in turkish which explain
> that there was never such thing as an armenian genocide? Where's the border?
>
> In my western ignorant mindframe I'd say that we need a common ethical
> ground for those projects to which NPOV doesn't and can't apply.

None of the examples you cite are NPOV. They are, in fact, distinctly
POV. Treating these topics in an NPOV manner requires us to clearly
state that "there was never such a thing as an Armenian genocide" is a
fringe theory which has a significant number of adherents only in
Turkey.

[[Creationism]] is clearly labeled as pseudoscience in the English
Wikipedia right now. I have no problem with Wikiversity instructional
materials that treat it as such. The scope of the project should be
"educational materials with a scientific grounding"; there may be a
need for additional ethical principles, but this is not it.

Research is another story. Some research may only be a cover for
propaganda. But the principle of open collaboration might be enough to
discourage crackpots, who will find their nonsense ideas dismantled
before they have even started putting them together. We've mostly been
able to deal with propaganda on Wikinews so far, which encourages
original reporting, comparable to original research.

Erik


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


body:
On 16/08/06, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Scanning through the "talkback" from that article, I was somewhat amazed at
> the several, seemingly genuine notes of thanks to the author from high
> school students who hadn't realized the "limitations" of Wikipedia.
> As much as I was irritated by Colbert's stunt, perhaps it had some
> beneficial results if it has the effect of helping high school students
> understand why using a single source, especially WIkipedia, is not
> appropriate for serious research.

Yeah. Hell, we're unreliable. But so is EVERYTHING ELSE.

Eegh. Wikipedia is being expected to teach people to think who
everything else hasn't.

- d.


from_name: Jan Kulveit

subject: [Wikitech-l] Statistics?

body:
On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 07:28:33PM +0200, Jens Frank wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 03:50:25PM +0200, Jan Kulveit wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 02:04:37PM +0200, Jens Frank wrote:
> >
> > Than, there must be some flaw in the implementation. Othervise the method
> > (running some client-side javascript contacting statistics server) is
> > industry standard (e.g. Google Analytics works this way).
> >
> > Moreover, it could be easily done with modest hardware and existing
> > statistics software.  It's unnecessary to process the whole huge dataset -
> > it would be enough to process random selection. Which can be easily done
> > with JS ... the JS code would contact the statics server if some $random>0.999
> > for example.
>
> That's exactly how the JS for the German wiki works and that's also why
> it doesn't work. With only a few requests you can fake the statistics,
> since every hit on the statistics server counts as 1000 page views.
>

Ok, that would mean someone deliberately plays the system.
Its easy to make such plays more difficult :
if hash_function(server_random_of_the_day,your_ip)>0.999 than...

Statistics server would compute the same thing and compare.

Jan Kulveit


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>snip
>
>
>
>>My first general observation about this set of by-laws is that they
>>should not contain what does not need to be contained.  By-laws are
>>about establishing a structure that allows an organization to function.
>>Beginning with the first section, what's the purpose of showing the web
>>address in the by-laws?  References to any websites should not be in the
>>by-laws since these are subject to often daily change.  A look at the
>>edit history of [[Wiki]] will be enough to substantiate that.
>>
>>The Statement of Purpose needs to be greatly simplified.  Many of the
>>details here can be expected to change over time.  Why not simply say
>>something like:
>>
>>   * The purpose of The Foundation is to promote and institute the
>>     universal free access to all knowledge based on the principles of
>>     mutual respect of editors, neutral point of view and respect for
>>     copyright.
>>
>>
>Perhaps "all knowledge" should be amended to "all free knowledge" or "
>the entire knowledge commons of humanity" or something with similar
>implications.
>
"All knowledge" is fine.  The fact that certain knowledge is not free
now does not imply that that will always be the case.

>Surely we are not intending to publish proprietary trade secrets or data
>classified as national secrets such as the design or performance
>specifications of the highly rumored B-3 project?
>
Before that question can be meaningful someone needs to have access to
the material.  Bringing military secrets out into the open would help to
create a level playing field on the road to general disarmament.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikibooks texts and Wikiversity

body:
Amgine wrote:
> A comment in IRC yesterday raised a concern for me which I would like
> to see addressed.
>
> Cormac mentioned that he and Mr Horning had discussed moving  textbooks
> and curricula from en.Wikibooks to en.Wikiversity. He was  unsure if
> this meant the textbooks would be deleted from  en.Wikibooks, but he was
> sure any contributors who preferred working  on en.Wikibooks would be
> able to copy them back to that project.
>
> This seems extremely odd to me, that deleting a textbook from  Wikibooks
> would even be contemplated. Educational materials are,  after all, the
> mission of the project. And dividing a textbook  between projects seems
> to be forking, both of the book in question  and the potential
> contributors as well, again something which should  not even be
> contemplated in my opinion.
>
> Could the Wikiversity project please clarify this?

Amgine is correct.

The point of reference in the future should be this one :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal

This proposal was the one which was approved for the creation of
Wikiversity. This proposal makes it clear that both projects should try
their best to cohabit in peace. Wikiversity should not become the new
host provider of wikibooks content, but aim at building a collection of
references for one topic.

For example : textbook, lesson plans, lecture notes, presentation
slides, memory flash cards, listening exercises, educational video etc...

This does not mean that all these materials will be hosted on
Wikiversity. Some may but other material may be found at wikipedia, or
wikibooks and wikisource etc...
For each topic, Wikiversity will be the central place where someone may
find the material available for a topic. If the material is on
Wikibooks, then Wikiversity should only link to the Wikibooks content.

If Wikiversity wishes to double host the content, fine (though it seems
  unecessary), but it is excluded that Wikibooks should lose its content
because of Wikiversity activity.

This is within that spirit that the special project committee
recommanded the creation of Wikiversity project.

Anthere

> Amgine
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

references:
<ebqvdc$kd3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44E11275.3040407@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<44E2C6C6.6020201@verizon.net>

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Various naysayers were intensely against this including members of the
>Board.
>
>There was a lot of concern that long term efforts necessary to become
>accredited would be misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood by
>various users of the site.   Rather than encouraging individuals or
>teams of volunteers to begin long term investigations, the entire issue
>was essentially tabled for after we have an effective Wikiversity site
>and community of participants thriving.
>
>

Well, this is a reasonable plan. I intend to proceed with publishing
hard cover books
of the Cherokee translations for our internal use. It could be extended
to English and we
have the ability to accredit and approve the content after thorough
review. I discussed
the plan with Dr. Delso this evening and we are going to incorporate the
Cherokee translations
into our approved curricullum. I realize the Foundation is not a
University, however, we
have one and its accredited and I am on its Board of Trustees. At some
point, when you feel
ready, we will be available to review this as a possibility. I
appreciate your response and
well thought out position on the matter.

Jeff

>regards,
>lazyquasar
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)

body:
Brad Patrick wrote:

> - With such a diluted definition of 'member' what is the real
>   point of being a 'member'?

There was a decision point back in 2002 or so, where Wikipedia was
still more or less Jimbo's private property, and the question was
where to put it.  Many Germans and other Europeans wanted a
membership association, but Jimbo went for a foundation.  Later
(in 2004) the German national chapter was structured exactly like
the membership association (Verein) that they had wanted also for
the international body.  There is a fundamental difference between
the two kinds of organization, but I think this was more clear to
the Germans than it was to Jimbo or most Americans.

(This seems to be a European/American cultural divide.  When I
look at an article such as the [[New England Anime Society]] the
*first* question I ask is *how many members* do they have?  And
this is not answered.  This is like not knowing the annual
turnover for a business or the population of a city.  Is it
thousands or millions?)

However, one fundamental requirement for a membership association
was also missing.  The word "Verein" means union, a get-together
of equals.  The corresponding verb "sich vereinen" means "to
unite", to team up.  And there simply was nobody who equalled
Jimbo.  The German Wikipedians could get together as equals to
form their national chapter.  Their elected board was only
slightly more into Wikipedia than the rest.  There was nobody
there with the God-like status of Jimbo.

I think the only way Wikipedia could have been turned into a real
membership association is if a global "chapter" of wikipedians had
been formed in 2002, without Jimbo, and then started to negotiate
with Jimbo about the future rights to domain names and servers.
As we all know, this didn't happen.

This leaves Jimbo with the decision, and it is a fact that his
position is more like that of Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, or
Alfred Nobel.  One day he finds himself in possession of something
that should live on after him, and there really is little point in
his family to inherit it.  What do you do in such a situation?
You start a foundation.  Its bylaws is your last will. If a board
member needs to leave, the rest of the board must find a new board
member.  Many newspapers are owned by foundations, so it makes
sense for a web media venture as well.

The fact that two out of five board members should be elected by
the community is merely a curious detail of the Wikimedia
Foundation.  This is not expected from a foundation.  Foundations
are used for purposes where democracy is not an issue. And in fact
the Wikimedia Foundation works perfectly alright without
democracy, as does the Nobel Foundation.  The former only needs to
keep the servers running.  The latter only needs to find the best
scientists.  Both tasks can be accomplished with a handful of
administrators and a network of experts.  These small tasks are
independent of the whole body of article-editing or science that
they serve.

> Is it political so members have control of the organization in
> some way? Philosophical, in that we have 'card carrying' members
> to prove allegiance to something?

The German chapter fills both roles, as far as I can see.

--
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call) Beyond membership

body:
Birgitte SB wrote:
> I find the conversation about the benefits of having
> members of the Foundation really interesting and it
> has me thinking about the opposite scenario.
>
> Lets examine what *is* the WMF if it does not have
> members.
>
> According to the Bylaws update:  A group of at least 5
> trustees where at least 2 are brought in from the
> community at large.  These (at least 2) community
> members are voted on by the community where the
> "dates, rules and regulation of the voting procedures"
> are set by (the at least 5) trustees of the WMF.  This
> vote is overseen by two people from the community
> chosen by the (at least 5) trustees.  The other
> trustees not run through some form of community vote
> are chosen by a vote of  the (at least 5) trustees.
>
>
> A cynical view of this set-up is that it could become
> easily self-selecting by a very small group.  Even the
> trustees elected by the community can be pretty much
> controlled by setting "dates, rules and regulation of
> the voting procedures" in a certain fashion.  There
> are not even any requirements for the advertising of
> such an election.  I will enumerate all the ways this
> could allow a corrupt board to have a large hand in
> picking the (at least 2) trustees from the community
> as there are more than a dozen tactics.
>
> Also notice that any of trustees elected by the board
> to fill a vacancy remain until among other things
> their "removal from office".  Now a vacancy can be
> created by anything including expansion of the board.
> This means any new non-community elected board members
> can somehow be removed by board.  There are no
> specifications of limits on how they would be removed,
> so any resolution that passes would probably do the
> job.  This could be a board expansion seat, Tim's
> replacement, basically any future trustees not from
> the community elections.  The significance of this is
> people could believe they are leaving the WMF in good
> hands by ensuring a particular replacement or
> expansion of the board, however any new trustees
> elected by the board can be easily removed by any
> future board even ten years later.  This could one day
> apply to *all* non-community elected trustees simply
> due to mortality.
>
> After looking at this with a cynical eye, I do not
> think these are a good set of bylaws to govern the
> future of WMF.  It would be just too easy for a couple
> of corrupt people with a little bit of patience to
> effectively take control of the board at some point in
> the future.  It has been pointed out that having
> members would be an effective legally mandated way to
> have a final check against such a possibility.
> However it would be much better to write the by-laws
> with internal checks and balances rather than to rely
> on a last resort vote of the membership.  If it really
> ever came to that vote the corrupt board could do a
> great deal of damage by passing various resolutions
> while the membership is being marshaled.
>
> My personal opinion is that we should develop some
> satisfactory by-laws to protect the WMF and its
> mission.  After such protections have been drafted as
> bylaws we should then examine what benefits would then
> be gained by having members.  Right now membership
> looks good because the by-laws are not.  I don't know
> that once we have a good set of by-laws membership
> would still be worth the hassle or the divisiveness
> that it would entail.  However I am strongly against
> the bylaws being modified to remove the membership
> clause without other significant changes being made.
>
>
> BirgitteSB
>
> PS None of my concerns are regarding any current
> trustees.  I am simply imagining worst case scenario
> here.

I agree with much of what you write above.

I think it is also the job of current trustees to look at the worse
scenario.

One important provision to add to the bylaws is a duration of term for
appointed members. For example 2 years, just as elected trustees (and
the fact no one can vote for his re-election).

It is however not sufficient to ensure a take-over of the Foundation
could not occur.

I would be curious to know how this is ensured in big NGOs; does anyone
know ?

Ant


from_name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Challenge: explain NPOV in a sentence.

body:
My crack at it:

Wikipedian NPOV consists of describing human knowledge and opinion
about a subject in a manner that all such is contained, which a honest
adventurer would be likely to encounter, if he encompassed the world
and all humanity in his travels discarding none but the views of the
feeble-minded and incoherent.

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon avaro


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Milos Rancic

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] From mass content adding to cross-Wikipedia
	cooperation

body:
Finally, I found some time to continue with work on the project Mass
content adding (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_content_adding). I
started with preparing materials for adding countries
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_world and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_world/Names_of_the_countries)
and I found a number of open questions of multilingual/cross-Wikipedia
cooperation.

As I want to have the base for countries related things -- on English
Wikipedia -- the first point on the road of getting some help was the
WikiProject Countries
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries) on
English Wikipedia. I wrote a message to the participants of the
project and I am waiting for their response...

And, here is the point: It is very useful for me that some other
projects can cover some parts of the project Mass content adding. But,
this is the project of English Wikipedia, not a multilingual project.
And I am sure that some people from other Wikipedias would be
interested to participate in the project Mass content adding. Also,
for the MCA project, there is a need for coordination between a number
of Wikipedian communities. And there is no such thing as "Coordination
place for WikiProjects Countries". And this is just one example of
need for cross-Wikipedia coordination/cooperation.

So, I think that all of such projects should have some place on Meta
for multilingual coordination. This means, also, that there people
from different Wikipedias should announce the existance of new project
on some page on Meta.

I would like to see a unified template for countries on all of
Wikipedias; a unified template for biographies on all of Wikipedias;
etc. In general, smaller Wikipedias are copying English templates, but
there are no feed-backs.

I remember: when I asked people on Serbian Wikipedia would we want to
use a template from English Wikipedia, one of them said "Why to use
their, our is better?" And, in deed, in that time Infobox Country on
Serbian Wikipedia was based on Infobox Country on English Wikipedia,
but with some more features.

In other words, I think that a number of technical details on
Wikipedia should be multilingual and not specific for the local
Wikipedias.


from_name: Anthony

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license

body:
On 8/15/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> There might be already a discussion about this somewhere, dunno:
>
> Before wikiversity really starts, it might make sense to think  about the
> license. There could be better choices than GFDL for such a project.
>
Is there any reason not to handle Wikiversity like the commons, and
allow any license so long as it's free?

Anthony


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Special:Desysop

body:
Andrew Garrett wrote:

> I've today developed an extension based on Special:Makesysop that may be a
> solution to the problems (at least on en: ) with the process of gaining
> adminship. Part of the problem with adminship is that it is somewhat
> difficult to remove. This extension may change that. The extension, as
> currently configured, allows local bureaucrats to desysop a user. I believe
> that this is sensible. If we can trust bureaucrats to set the sysop bit, why
> shouldn't we trust them to remove it? Additionally, desysopping is quite a
> political issue, and generally requires the intervention of somebody
> *familiar with the situation*, not an outsider who has simply been informed.
> Therefore, I suggest that we use this extension to allow Bureaucrats to
> desysop users in serious cases of abuse of powers. A different process for
> desysopping may need to be developed to accompany this - and a policy on
> when bureaucrats may use this ability.

There's no inherent reason why a steward should be an outsider, that's
just a matter of policy. It's no accident that bureaucrats can't desysop
people -- the reason, simply put, is that it was meant to be harder to
desysop than to sysop. It wasn't meant to be impossible, however. I did
make the assumption that stewards would competently oversee the
Wikimedia projects, not be frozen by fear of the community.

Most of the actions we let people do on wikis are reversible, such as
editing or deleting articles. There are two things however that are
potentially irreversible -- desysopping and blocking. Both of them can
easily lead to the permanent loss of contributors from the project, and
so should be done only with great care. Sysops are especially vulnerable
to an attack on their pride, and since they are generally
wikipediholics, they are devastated by being blocked.

I'll support a move towards allowing bureaucrats to desysop people on a
project-by-project basis, but I'd like to make sure it's well informed
by knowledge of the likely social consequences.

-- Tim Starling


subject: [Wikitech-l] [Wikipedia-l] Special:Desysop

body:
Andrew Garrett wrote:

> I've today developed an extension based on Special:Makesysop that may be a
> solution to the problems (at least on en: ) with the process of gaining
> adminship. Part of the problem with adminship is that it is somewhat
> difficult to remove. This extension may change that. The extension, as
> currently configured, allows local bureaucrats to desysop a user. I believe
> that this is sensible. If we can trust bureaucrats to set the sysop bit, why
> shouldn't we trust them to remove it? Additionally, desysopping is quite a
> political issue, and generally requires the intervention of somebody
> *familiar with the situation*, not an outsider who has simply been informed.
> Therefore, I suggest that we use this extension to allow Bureaucrats to
> desysop users in serious cases of abuse of powers. A different process for
> desysopping may need to be developed to accompany this - and a policy on
> when bureaucrats may use this ability.

There's no inherent reason why a steward should be an outsider, that's
just a matter of policy. It's no accident that bureaucrats can't desysop
people -- the reason, simply put, is that it was meant to be harder to
desysop than to sysop. It wasn't meant to be impossible, however. I did
make the assumption that stewards would competently oversee the
Wikimedia projects, not be frozen by fear of the community.

Most of the actions we let people do on wikis are reversible, such as
editing or deleting articles. There are two things however that are
potentially irreversible -- desysopping and blocking. Both of them can
easily lead to the permanent loss of contributors from the project, and
so should be done only with great care. Sysops are especially vulnerable
to an attack on their pride, and since they are generally
wikipediholics, they are devastated by being blocked.

I'll support a move towards allowing bureaucrats to desysop people on a
project-by-project basis, but I'd like to make sure it's well informed
by knowledge of the likely social consequences.

-- Tim Starling

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Death Phoenix

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watching multiple talk pages

body:
On 8/15/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/16/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > E-mail me wheb my user talk page is changed
>
> > The second option is of particular interest. I use it on my two
> > rarely-visited Wikia Wikis, and it's worked for the one user talk
> message
> > I've received since enabling it. I'm assuming this feature is being
> > beta-tested in Wikia and will eventually make its way to Wikipedia and
> the
> > various sister projects.
>
> This is a standard option in MediaWiki, not something specific to
> Wikia. A few Wikimedia wikis run it (meta and board). I don't know why
> it isn't used everywhere since it's an incredibly useful feature.
>

So it's not the version of MediaWiki, but rather, a standard feature that
you have to enable in the config file?


from_name: Dan Li

subject: [Wikitech-l] What *should* WikiWYG do if you hand it wikitext?

body:
On 8/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> It would also be acceptable imho to have a mode where wikitext could
> be entered directly,

That mode already exists: http://wikiwyg.wikia.com/index.php/Testpage
(first enable wikiwyg from the toolbox on the left).

Regards,
  - Dan Li


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license

body:
Plus it's not good to have divergent licenses when ideally we're trying to
produce original material.

On 8/16/06, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/16/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Is there any reason not to handle Wikiversity like the commons, and
> > allow any license so long as it's free?
> >
> >
> Well, isn't the clutter on Commons due to all these licenses a good reason
> to you ?
>
> --
> Guillaume Paumier
> Disciplus Simplex
> http://fr.wikipedia.org : Resistance is futile ? You will be assimilated.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 8/15/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> What should WIKIWyg *do* if you hand it something that looks like
> wikitext?
>
> My intuition is that it should *not* treat it as wikitext, and this is
> the corner case that demonstrates why, but I can see arguments on both sides.

My first reaction is that it should have to be escaped in some magic
Wikywyg syntax, which would presumably be accessible from the toolbar.
Maybe tripled something, like ///insert '''wiki''text''''' here/// ?
Something incredibly unlikely to occur naturally?

It would also be acceptable imho to have a mode where wikitext could
be entered directly, such mode being disabled when you want to talk
*about* templates, rather than including them directly...

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
On 8/15/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
> With this modification, you will be able to use wikipedia-suggest on any
> project using MediaWiki. I downloaded the last dump and updated my
> website for the ten most popular languages of Wikipedia.

This is nice, but I want it integrated into Wikipedia. How do we do that?

Steve


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
On 8/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
> > We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
> > instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?
>
> Information that lets people learn, neutrally, information _about_
> Creationism, sounds great.  Courses advocating creationism, no.
>
> --Jimbo

The obvious question this raises is (as Elian has already asked):
"where do we draw the line?"

We could orchestrate, for example, a policy that says "Wikiversity
will not host materials that endorse a particular world-view". But
then, we are excluding all religious material (and not all religious
material is bad). It could well be argued that much of what most
people consider to be appropriate educational material espouses a
particular world-view, such as that of free-market economics,
feminism, whatever.

This is a difficult issue that we can't simply dismiss out of hand.
I'm genuinely interested in finding a usable concept that we can apply
as policy - fwiw, there's already a page on NPOV on Wikiversity for
anyone who's interested:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Neutral_point_of_view

Cormac


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject:
[Foundation-l] Please activate the English Wikiversity using
	whatever standard nomenclature accessible from the main
	portal page wikiversity.org

body:
On 8/16/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:

> Brion,
>
> If you could please activate a  Wikiversity mailing list as previously
> discussed it will be useful in coordinating Wikiversity activities and
> encouraging immediate participation and useful policy formation.
>
> Further, if you could please activate the English namespace and make it
> accessible from a portal page similar to what has been done with
> Wikipedia it could get us off on a level playing field for everybody who
> chooses to participate or browse Wikiversity materials.
>
> This has the major advantage that all participants in all languages have
> an easy portal page and URL to publicize while encouraging useful
> participation from newcomers.
>
> I will attempt to get a language registration page accessible from the
> current Wikibooks Wikiversity main page setup to facilitate documenting
> ten language users who wish to move away from the beta site currently
> being established to a dedicated language site.
>
> Thanks for your efforts on our behalf.
>

Michael,

The English Wikiversity was set up yesterday - see:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Main_Page

Also, there is now a mailing list you can sign up for:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l (although
this is for some reason absent from the mailman main page).

Cormac


subject:
[Wikitech-l] 404 on en.wikipedia.org: Server-side HTTP header
	instead of client-side meta-refresh?

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKOEGEIKAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<44DBFB21.9050609@pobox.com>
	<f1c3529e0608110152t78a10babpde43b8fe8443bd27@mail.gmail.com>
	<44DCA33F.40906@pobox.com>
	<f1c3529e0608111008i713ab8e0n99105ff93cbcf1e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<ebq8p9$u1b$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608141016i2e16d2bave327654d9acaebc@mail.gmail.com>
	<ebte81$v5p$1@sea.gmane.org>

body:
On 8/15/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> My personally preferred way is to simply redirect to B, and at the same
> time make it much easier than currently to get a list of "what redirects
> here" (and whatever other subsets of "what links here" you can imagine).
> Thus, the answer to your question is: You get the link to A because A
> redirects to B and you get the list of all titles that redirect to B.

That sounds to me like the link from A would become quite hidden. I do
agree with the point that the link has to be prominent to make it easy
for people to understand why the hell they are where they are, and how
to fix it if that's not the right place to be. It happens fairly
frequently that someone (pipe)links to some [[A]], without expecting
that to redirect to some other [[B]]. What does the average user do
when they clicked on the word "C", only to find themselves at [[B]],
which bears no relationship whatsoever? At least by having a link back
to A, they can see that it's a redirect and start to see where it all
went wrong...

(However, having a list of all articles that point to B would be great ;))

Steve


from_name: Andrew Dunbar

body:
On 8/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/15/06, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I just got back 4 weeks ago from a 12-month trip from Mexico to Panama and
> > back again. Being an Internet and wiki junky I used dozens of different internet
> > cafes in this time. The Spanish keyboard has a smaller left shift key and a
> > smaller enter key. There is an extra key between the left shift key and the z
> > key which has < and > - one is accessed by holding the shift key. With a US
> > keyboard this key is absent and neither character is possible. I even tried to
> > add them to MediaWiki:Edittools but they produced < and > so I had to
> > resort to cut and paste!
>
> Weird. Normally a "US keyboard" the < is on top of the comma (shifted)
> and the > is on top of the dot. I understand that the combined <> key
> doesn't exist on the US keyboard. Apart from the Romanian keyboard I
> can't see any at keyboards at [[Keyboard layout]]  with no < and >
> keys at all.

No you are confusing the physical keyboard (hardware) with the keyboard
layout (software). Latin Americans must use a Spanish keyboard layout
(keymap, probably other names) so they can access the extra characters.
Many learn to live with some letters on the keycaps not matching the letters
which appear on the screen but at least they are accessible, which is more
than can be said for < and > .

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Steve
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wysiwyg debate

body:
On 8/15/06, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Why? I can't think why. Of course, the software would have to
> automatically renumber them if references get deleted or moved around.

Can you elaborate on that? What exactly is your proposal, because
anything that involves typing in numbers manually sounds like a
terrible idea, at first glance.

> That's another possibility, of course -- although I would still contend
> that something like [1], or even if it needs to be [ref:1], is much
> better (easier to read, easier to ignore, easier to type, easier to type
> without mistakes) than <ref name="ref1"/>.

Still a problem if you have to add the references to a references
section (bad if you're doing section editing).

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Statistics?

body:
On 8/16/06, Jan Kulveit <jk-wikitech at ks.cz> wrote:
>
> Ok, that would mean someone deliberately plays the system.
> Its easy to make such plays more difficult :
> if hash_function(server_random_of_the_day,your_ip)>0.999 than...

Yes, we're far from the first people in the world to have to solve the
problem of people cheating on statistics, voting, etc...

Steve


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<44DC5C85.7030405@wikia.com>	<NMENLBGDKAFGBDHEPOBNKEKPDCAA.erikzachte@infodisiac.com>	<44DCD134.5030800@yahoo.com>	<38a7bf7c0608111207j5f37fd52h6847e3e2d87a196f@mail.gmail.com>	<44DCE1B4.5020101@wikia.com>	<44DCE4DC.5070309@wikia.com>	<38a7bf7c0608111333i2e002033sba9c53ad136c1736@mail.gmail.com>	<ebivm4$lf4$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44E297BC.2020300@verizon.net>

body:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> 1.  The Wikimedia Foundation is not independent.  It has a stacked Board
> designed by Jimbo to allow him to maintain personal control.

This is an insult to the board.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
> The obvious question this raises is (as Elian has already asked):
> "where do we draw the line?"

I think this is the wrong way to look at the question.  The whole point
of NPOV is that it is not about line drawing.  It is about a social
approach to collaboration.  We draw the line at the point where we have
consensus among virtually all reasonable people that the material is
neutral.

> We could orchestrate, for example, a policy that says "Wikiversity
> will not host materials that endorse a particular world-view". But
> then, we are excluding all religious material (and not all religious
> material is bad). It could well be argued that much of what most
> people consider to be appropriate educational material espouses a
> particular world-view, such as that of free-market economics,
> feminism, whatever.

It could well be argued that this is one of the things which is deeply
flawed about proprietary texts... the passing off of propaganda of
whatever kind as being educational materials.

> This is a difficult issue that we can't simply dismiss out of hand.

Certainly, we do need to discuss it in detail.  But I think it would be
a tragic mistake to dismiss NPOV out of hand based on arguments which
fail to draw on our deep experience with how it works and what it means.

--Jimbo


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


body:
On 8/16/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 07:27:40PM +1000, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> > This kind of thing interests me greatly. I just did some Google searches
> > for Neapolitan OR napolitano with alphabet OR spelling OR orthography OR
> > apostrophe OR quote. I couldn't find anything. So instead I'll ask here
> > in which kinds of cases this occurs. Does it represent a certain sound or
> > omitted letters?
>
> Check the archive, last month; there was an *extensive* thread on this.

I took part in that thread and then, as now, as have not received a definitive
answer and certainly no references at all to explain the orthography or the
grammatical reasons for it.

My main question is does Neapolitan use a) a single character that looks like
an English double quote mark or two adjacent apostrophes or b) a character
that looks like an English apostrophe which in certain situations can occur
as a "double letter"?

In the thread people describe the situation both ways and nobody clarifies it.

For instance, does Neapolitan use '' in contractions the way other languages
use just ' ?
Does Neapolitan use ' for something like palatalization or glottal stop and can
that occur at the same place where a contractin occurs, thus necessitating '' ?

In Hebrew there is a single character "gershayim" which looks a bit like an
English double quote character and it is not present on Hebrew keyboards
though it is present in Unicode. People often use the English double quote
character is place of gershayim.

In Amuzgo, an indigenous language of Mexico, there is a letter which looks
like the English apostrophe which functions as a glottal stop. All consonants
can be geminated in Amuzgo, and when they are they are written double -
including the glottal stop. Unicode provides a character which looks like an
English apostrophe but functions as a letter but again it's not present on
keyboards so people use the English apostrophe (which can lead to an ugly
mess if Word's Smart Quotes is not turned off).

Is the Neapolitan case more like the Hebrew case or more like the Amuzgo
case, or unlike either case?

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
> Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
> Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274
>
>         The Internet: We paved paradise, and put up a snarking lot.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


body:
On 8/16/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> Andrew Dunbar schrieb:
> > On 8/14/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 8/14/06, Sabine Cretella <sabine_cretella at yahoo.it> wrote:
> >>
> >>> How I work on the nap.wikipedia? Well there are two things to it: I
> >>> first write in OOo or Word, then I subsitute all '' with the numeric
> >>> code with search and replace and I avoid to create wiki-links, because I
> >>> am simply very annoyed (better I remain with nice words...)  to copy and
> >>> paste it here and there. Or I write the article on the wiki and then
> >>> substitute the parts needed - both ways require loads of time more.
> >
> > This kind of thing interests me greatly. I just did some Google searches
> > for Neapolitan OR napolitano with alphabet OR spelling OR orthography OR
> > apostrophe OR quote. I couldn't find anything. So instead I'll ask here
> > in which kinds of cases this occurs. Does it represent a certain sound or
> > omitted letters?
> >
> > Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)
> >
> >
> >
> This happens quite frequently with d''a d''o
>
> which is a combination of the preposition + the article

A combination of which preposition and which aritcle? I'm guessing
the preposition cognate to "de" in other romance languages and either
of the masculine or feminine articles which appear to be identical to
their counterparts in Portuguese.

If so, why does this contraction use '' ? Doe all Neapolitan contractions
use this or do some use a simple ' ? What is the grammatical
underpinning of this orthography?

> People on the nap wikipedia, to avoid the mess or stop editing or use
> all sorts of strange combinations that shows correct but is wrong - some
> put a space inbetween, others use ?? `` - well these are accents and
> even if they "show up" like this in a research they do not give good
> results. I cannot even handle the proof-reading of that stuff alone,
> because there is too much already in there. And we cannot do it with the
> bot since it would anyway not find all of them and also substitute
> occurances where these signs might be needed.
>
> We had that discussion more than once.
>
> http://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napule is an article where I corrected it
> halfway through - it is on my todo list - but there are thousands of
> things to care about and so these often remain there, because I am
> waiting for the right person who takes over the job (this could be done
> by many ... it is just caring about some simple rules) - we are just two
> or three people working regularly on nap - so at a certain stage you
> have to choose what to do and what must wait.
>
> The use of wrong characters is of course an error, but there are for now
> other things to be created and cleaned up. For now we have to live with
> it :-(

If '' functions as a single character there may be a Unicode character which
is the correct one and thus two English apostrophes is wrong.

If '' is two adjacent apostrophes, this seems like a very good argument for
using the actual correct apostrophe character - the curly one. So it's not on
the keyboard but it should be in Edittools. You'd just have to teach
contributors to differentiate between apostrohes as part of Neapolitan text
and apostrophes as part of wiki markup.

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> Best, Sabine
> Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
>  http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net


from_name: Rotem Liss

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

Rob Church wrote:
> I don't, it's too easily confused with $wgGroupPermissions and the two
> aren't compatible. However, rename the variable to something
> appropriate, e.g. $wgRightsManipulation (ick, someone think of a
> better phrase) and the format makes some sort of sense, although of
> course, we could then switch the middle portion to be "add" or
> "remove".
>

It's possible ? although it drops the group blacklist feature, I'm not
sure someone will ever use the blacklist.

> One thought that's fairly negligible at this stage, and kinda obvious,
> but if $wgRightsManipulation, or whatever, was not set, or set to
> false or null (and that'd be the default), then any user with the
> "userrights" permission could use the form, as it is now.
>

Of course.

> I still feel this kind of complicated control is better off as an
> extension, let's face it; who's going to want to use it besides
> Wikimedia and a couple of other large installs? Best to keep the core
> implementation simple, I think. If people want it, it can be added.
>

An extension will either duplicate logic into another special page ?
like now (then every change will have to be done both in the base code
and in the extension), or use hooks written especially for it ? then it
will be much easier to do that in the page itself, and the extension
will be very short. After all, most of the changes in the branch are not
the permissions system, but the remote users, and the permissions system
itself is only set in one short function ? removing it won't really
simplify the code very much, especially if we add hooks behind it.

> I'm not convinced of the need for a "remote" permission. If access is
> available and $wgAlternateMaster or whatever is set, then fine, it
> happens, otherwise it doesn't.
>

I think $wgLocalDatabases ($wgAlternateMaster is only to reach enwiki)
is set in all Wikimedia sites, but only the stewards should touch the
remote users, and the local bureaucrats should only add sysops,
bureaucrats and bots, and remove bots *in their site*. Even if
$wgLocalDatabases is set only in Meta, the local bureaucrats of Meta who
are not stewards should not touch the remote users. Therefore,
'userrights_remote' should be set to false for local bureaucrats.

>
> Rob Church
>

- --
#define Name RotemLiss
#define Mail mail-AT-rotemliss-DOT-com
#define Site www.rotemliss.com

#define KeyFingerPrint 4AFD 8579 A449 4267 BED9 38E5 6EF8 5B1F EBDE 7AC0
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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KgYK7gtS4J6Y5YomYM4v3NM=
=S67f
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subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring

body:
Kim Bruning wrote:
> Running as lean as possible and not _depending_ on too much income is another
> way to be sure we'll still be around in 2106. We can't count on always having
> goodwill.

Absolutely.  Survivability has always been a core value, and should
continue to be so.


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring


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

Rotem Liss wrote:
> It's possible ? although

Sorry, wrong character encoding. Please read "-" whenever written "?".

- --
#define Name RotemLiss
#define Mail mail-AT-rotemliss-DOT-com
#define Site www.rotemliss.com

#define KeyFingerPrint 4AFD 8579 A449 4267 BED9 38E5 6EF8 5B1F EBDE 7AC0
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFE4rz1bvhbH+veesARAkWcAJ4yOcOMSPS7xD5CPs/g9q56+j6q/gCfUK10
VqhIuUu/vo39jaNLMGBovyc=
=wXCc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
Matt Brown wrote:
> E.g. absolute and utter hogwash is regularly published in newspapers.
> Even, though less frequently perhaps, in world-renowned newspapers.
> Yet, by some versions of Reliable Sources, newspapers are
> automatically in the reliable category.

In many cases, the issue is further complicated by the question of
exactly _how_ a source is used.

Consider a claim: "X is Y"

1. "X is Y"<1>  --- that is, we assert the claim, using the authority of
the cite as a reason, with the cite being to, for example, the New York
Times.  Usually this is fine if the claim is not really controversial.

2. "According to the New York Times, X is Y" --- we do not assert the
claim, but rather assert something which is much less controversial,
i.e. that the NYT said so, leaving the reader to judge it.  This is much
better when the claim is controversial.

3. "X is Y"<2> --- we assert the claim, only this time, the source is
the Weekly World News (a tabloid of perhaps questionable authority).
Very bad.

4. "According to the Weekly World News, X is Y" -- less bad, but
probably still awful in most contexts

And the NYT and Weekly World News are both more or less easy cases.  The
difficult cases are partisan publications writing "factually" about
political events, and things of that nature.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> Once a "citation needed" tag is in place, there's no need to do
> anything in a hurry. The reader is adequately warned, other editors
> are informed.

In many many cases, this is true.  But not in all.

The one that is absolutely imperative for all editors is to recognize
that "If this claim would be libellous if false, it is absolutely not
acceptable to simply put a 'citation needed' tag and hope for the best."

It is extremely painful to see those.  "Lord John Doe was a porn star in
1943. <citation needed>"  In such cases, being a citation nazi is the
right thing to do.

That is not the only case, but that is the one where it is absolutely
imperative.


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watching multiple talk pages

body:
On 8/16/06, Death Phoenix <originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com> wrote:
> E-mail me wheb my user talk page is changed

> The second option is of particular interest. I use it on my two
> rarely-visited Wikia Wikis, and it's worked for the one user talk message
> I've received since enabling it. I'm assuming this feature is being
> beta-tested in Wikia and will eventually make its way to Wikipedia and the
> various sister projects.

This is a standard option in MediaWiki, not something specific to
Wikia. A few Wikimedia wikis run it (meta and board). I don't know why
it isn't used everywhere since it's an incredibly useful feature.

An alternative is to get the rss feed of all your talk pages and
aggregate them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Angela&action=history&feed=rss

Angela.


from_name: Birgitte SB

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Cormac Lawler wrote:
> > The obvious question this raises is (as Elian has
> already asked):
> > "where do we draw the line?"
>
> I think this is the wrong way to look at the
> question.  The whole point
> of NPOV is that it is not about line drawing.  It is
> about a social
> approach to collaboration.  We draw the line at the
> point where we have
> consensus among virtually all reasonable people that
> the material is
> neutral.
>
>

I can understand NPOV when creating new materials.
Although WV may still have the sort of problem
Wikibooks asked for guidance on regarding unethical
topics.  There may also be issues with following NPOV
as is outlined on WP, simply because lectures and
things will have time constraints and may not be able
to cover the whole "constallation of opinion" within a
course on the subject.  Still this is hopefully
nothing consensus cannot handle.

I guess the bigger issue I see with WV and bias has
more to do with the "learning communities".   I will
say first off I do not understand exactly how they
will operate.  But within these communities it seems
people will guide each other in learning.  Also I
imagine contributors here are expected to be
themselves rather than edit within the persona of
"textbook editor".  I do not see how to apply NPOV in
these learning communities.  I suppose that they could
be compared to the Talk pages at WP which no one
really worries about.  However as WV will be directing
users to these spaces as a place to learn and
encouraging the guidance type of interaction, I think
that bias here is a larger concern than on WP talk
pages.  Are other people concerned with bias in these
communities, or do I misunderstand the concept
somehow?

Birgitte SB

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Sue Reed

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2007 - get ready for the third edition.

body:
There is something strange and geeky about me mentioning the World Science Fiction convention on a wikimedia email list, but it fits the situation. They have a really great system of organizing and planning future conferences several years in advance. The convention is coming up for this summer in Los Angeles, the 2007 convention location was chosen by popular vote last year, and the 2008 convention location will be chosen at this year's convention.

One of the greatest benefits of pre-planning conventions this way is the pre-registration that happens. A) It gives you money to start working with right away. B) It allows you to realistically and sensibly negotiate with hotels and other vendors regarding number of people that will be attending, etc.

Sue Annesreed1234 at yahoo.com


from_name: Alex Powell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKAELCIKAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<44E21E27.3020102@happycoders.org>
	<f1c3529e0608152328lbbaffb5q5de606fe04eb3067@mail.gmail.com>
	<44E2E210.1000907@happycoders.org>

body:
Hi Julien,

I was wondering if it had an extension to keep its index up to date -
an "OnArticleSave" hook. With that a really useful place to hook it in
would not be just the search, but also the edit box. Little bit of js
that checks for the user inputting [[, and then the suggest code kicks
in with possible article matches. It would make article linking a lot
easier.

One problem with it is I don't know how to work out where the text
cursor is in a textarea from JS, but I guess you could just have it
pop up somewhere, ready for people to click. Obviously to make it all
work seemlessly the index would need to be up to date...

Best regards,

Alex Powell

On 8/16/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > On 8/15/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
> >
> >> With this modification, you will be able to use wikipedia-suggest on any
> >> project using MediaWiki. I downloaded the last dump and updated my
> >> website for the ten most popular languages of Wikipedia.
> >>
> >
> > This is nice, but I want it integrated into Wikipedia. How do we do that?
> >
> For me, you can integrate it now and update the index (trie) after each xml dumps. When
> the compiler using a sql database will be ready you will be able to replace the update
> process with the new analyzer.
>
> If you need information about how to install it, don't hesitate to ask me.
>
> Best Regards.
> Julien Lemoine
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Kim Bruning

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license

in_reply_to:
<875DAF61-BAFD-44C4-8B00-7036EDA88CEA@saewyc.net>;
	from amgine@saewyc.net on Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 12:30:28PM -0700

body:
On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 12:30:28PM -0700, Amgine wrote:
>
> "I now understand why the GFDL is a bad license." Eben Moglen,
> Wikimania 2006

I wish I'd been at that talk! Cool. My question is in which
time frame can we expect an improved GFDL? Perhaps CC-BY-SA
is more appropriate until then? [1]

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

[1] This is coming from a previously avowed GFDL proponent.
They are taking way too long to fix the issues with it, however.
This has been going on for how many years now?

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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity license


from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies

references:
<44DC5C85.7030405@wikia.com>	<NMENLBGDKAFGBDHEPOBNKEKPDCAA.erikzachte@infodisiac.com>	<44DCD134.5030800@yahoo.com>	<38a7bf7c0608111207j5f37fd52h6847e3e2d87a196f@mail.gmail.com>	<44DCE1B4.5020101@wikia.com>	<44DCE4DC.5070309@wikia.com>	<38a7bf7c0608111333i2e002033sba9c53ad136c1736@mail.gmail.com>	<ebivm4$lf4$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44E297BC.2020300@verizon.net>
	<44E33F21.9030204@wikia.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>
>
>>1.  The Wikimedia Foundation is not independent.  It has a stacked Board
>>designed by Jimbo to allow him to maintain personal control.
>>
>>
>
>This is an insult to the board.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>

Adding two more seats will forever destroy this inaccurate and
misleading perception. I have heard it from several
other folks who are external observers to the Wikipedia phenomena and
its "urban legend" type of talk -- not based in fact --
and not based upon any emperical observations. I believe the root of the
misperception is how the by laws are worded.
If it were me, I would appoint these two additional positions from the
Foundations major financial contributors or foundations
supporting Wikipedia's fine work to balance out the various
representation and views.

Jeff

>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] board candidacies


from_name: geni

subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws

body:
On 8/16/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin at verizon.net> wrote:
> Surely we are not intending to publish proprietary trade secrets or data
> classified as national secrets such as the design or performance
> specifications of the highly rumored B-3 project?
>

That would run into problems with WP:NOR. If somone else published the
data would would be able to include it.

--
geni


subject: [Foundation-l] bylaws


body:
Kelly Martin wrote:
> I strongly urge that we should begin discussing venues for 2008 not
> later than October of this year (by which point we should have 2007's
> host city decided), and 2009's host city not later than February of
> next year.  Going forward, the host city for year n+2 should be
> decided not later than May of year n, and the venue decided not later
> than May of year n+1.

I agree, and I was talking with some UK people who felt the same way...
it is hard to get a good venue in some cases because they are reserved a
full year in advance.

Perhaps in the deliberations about next year's wikimania, we should
ponder 2007 and 2008 simultaneously, since the choices are not fully
independent, given our desire for ongoing geographical diversity.

--Jimbo


body:
On 8/16/06, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
> No you are confusing the physical keyboard (hardware) with the keyboard
> layout (software). Latin Americans must use a Spanish keyboard layout
> (keymap, probably other names) so they can access the extra characters.
> Many learn to live with some letters on the keycaps not matching the letters
> which appear on the screen but at least they are accessible, which is more
> than can be said for < and > .

Oh, Spanish keyboard layout on a physical US keyboard. Ok, that makes sense, ta.

Steve


body:
On 8/16/06, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail at gmail.com> wrote:
> My main question is does Neapolitan use a) a single character that looks like
> an English double quote mark or two adjacent apostrophes or b) a character
> that looks like an English apostrophe which in certain situations can occur
> as a "double letter"?

The best I can figure is that it uses a single character ' to indicate
that a letter has been left out. This can occur at the end of a word,
or at the start, or at the middle. Also, in a couple of specific
cases, when it occurs at the end of a word *and* at the start of the
following word, then those two words are written as one, with both the
apostrophes: d''a

This is purely reverse engineering and speculation, based on the
patterns I saw at nap. and the comments above. I'd also like to hear
the definitive answer. Not that it will change much, obviously the
spelling is important enough that people don't consider simply writing
the word "d'a" a viable option.

Steve


from_name: Julien Lemoine

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
Hi Nick,

Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Sounds good, and I really like it having the top 10 languages.
>
> I think _maybe_ though it could be useful to have two variations of the Analyzer (like you have two variations of TcpQuery - one
> that uses DiskQuery, and one that uses MemoryQuery). With Analyzer though, it could be good to have one that connects to MySQL and
> gets the data directly from the database, and one that uses the downloaded XML dumps. This way, people can use whichever one is most
> appropriate for them. For example, for someone running a big MediaWiki site who wanted to look at the possibility of using
> suggestion searching, they probably wouldn't want to create an XML dump, then run Analyzer on the XML dump (this would be too slow,
> and too many steps, and take a lot of disk space). Rather, if possible, in that situation it would be nice to create the compiled
> files directly from the database.
>
> To try and help with this, I've modified a copy of Analyzer.cpp to add basic importing (but just of the article names, not redirects
> or article counts) from MySQL (i.e. does not use any downloaded files). The rough file (which still needs work for redirects +
> article counts) is here: http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/MysqlAnalyzerCmd.cpp
> Please note that I have not used C or C++ in a _very_ long time, so if looks like I have done something silly then that is almost
> certainly correct. :-)
>
> To use compile and run this, on a Debian/Ubuntu system, I did this:
>
> # Install required MySQL libraries
> apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev
> cd cmd
> # Compile:
> g++ -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I../expat/lib    -g -O2 -O3 -MT MysqlAnalyzerCmd.o -MD -MP -MF ".deps/MysqlAnalyzerCmd.Tpo" -c -o
> MysqlAnalyzerCmd.o MysqlAnalyzerCmd.cpp
> # Link: (Note: needs " -lmysqlclient" parameter)
> g++  -g -O2 -O3   -o MysqlAnalyzer -L../tools -L../serialization -L../analyzer
> MysqlAnalyzerCmd.o -lanalyzer -lserialization -ltools -lexpat -lglib-2.0 -lmysqlclient
> # Run (change hostname / username / password / database-name params as required) :
> ./MysqlAnalyzer localhost wikiuser FakePasswd wikidb
>
> If it is working, it should print out something like this:
> -----------------------------
> Connection success
> Found 12345 articles
> -----------------------------
> Then use the .bin files as per usual on TcpQuery.
>
>
Thank you very much for your contribution Nick. It is better indeed to
have the two versions, I preferred working on xml dumps at the beginning
since it was faster and easier for me to update wikipedia-suggest and
need less time/memory/cpu power (I have the analyzer and the sql server
on the same computer).
But the next step of wikipedia-suggest for me is to wrote a sql analyzer
(probably using OTL : otl.sf.net and unixodbc), but unfortunately I will
not be able to wrote it before september.

> Also there is a small diff for WSuggest.js to fix a small problem in my autocomplete stuff. For example, suppose the user typed
> "Aer", then moved the text cursor back to be between the 'A' and the 'e', typed 'm' (to make "Amer") then typed 'p' (to try and
> spell 'Amper'). However in-between typing the 'm' and the 'p', the cursor position will jump to the end of the text box to try and
> autocomplete "American", so the result of pressing 'p' will be 'Amerp', not 'Amper'. To prevent this, will now only try to
> autocomplete if the cursor position is at the end of the text field. Diff is here:
> http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/WSuggest.js-0.4-autocomplete-update.txt
>
Thank you, I release the wikipedia-suggest 0.41 with your contribution :
http://suggest.speedblue.org/tgz/wikipedia-suggest-0.41.tar.gz

Best Regards.
Julien Lemoine


subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring

in_reply_to:
<44DE7B1B.2030308@gmail.com>;
	from bradp.wmf@gmail.com on Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 09:06:35PM -0400

body:
On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 09:06:35PM -0400, Brad Patrick wrote:
> This is the big picture stuff the board will be thinking about for the
> Retreat.   I'm not worried about a million dollar donation.  I'm worried
> about how to think about an organization that has a *billion* dollars.

Does this mean we'll finally be able to run wikimedia out of a trust fund?

I'd be more interested in being around for 100 years than having a billion
dollars to play with, however tempting the latter might seem at first blush.

Running as lean as possible and not _depending_ on too much income is another
way to be sure we'll still be around in 2106. We can't count on always having
goodwill.

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

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subject: [Foundation-l] WMF staff & hiring


subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
Hi Steve,

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 8/15/06, Julien Lemoine <speedblue at happycoders.org> wrote:
>
>> With this modification, you will be able to use wikipedia-suggest on any
>> project using MediaWiki. I downloaded the last dump and updated my
>> website for the ten most popular languages of Wikipedia.
>>
>
> This is nice, but I want it integrated into Wikipedia. How do we do that?
>
For me, you can integrate it now and update the index (trie) after each xml dumps. When
the compiler using a sql database will be ready you will be able to replace the update
process with the new analyzer.

If you need information about how to install it, don't hesitate to ask me.

Best Regards.
Julien Lemoine


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:

>On 8/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
>>James Hare wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
>>>instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?
>>>
>>>
>>Information that lets people learn, neutrally, information _about_
>>Creationism, sounds great.  Courses advocating creationism, no.
>>
>>
>The obvious question this raises is (as Elian has already asked):
>"where do we draw the line?"
>
>We could orchestrate, for example, a policy that says "Wikiversity
>will not host materials that endorse a particular world-view". But
>then, we are excluding all religious material (and not all religious
>material is bad). It could well be argued that much of what most
>people consider to be appropriate educational material espouses a
>particular world-view, such as that of free-market economics,
>feminism, whatever.
>
>This is a difficult issue that we can't simply dismiss out of hand.
>I'm genuinely interested in finding a usable concept that we can apply
>as policy - fwiw, there's already a page on NPOV on Wikiversity for
>anyone who's interested:
>http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Neutral_point_of_view
>
The serious scholar is not deterred by the fact that a subject is
controversial, and that he must fairly explore areas that many would
fairly consider POV.  The integrity of research is not well served by
putting it in the hands of True Unbelievers who are more satisfied with
polemical than with reasoned approaches.

My own brand of atheistic spiritualism is not consistent with
creationsm.  If creationsim as a theory or doctrine must fail it must
fail of its own accord, and not in as a part of freeing itself from a
heap of mindless invective.  If someone wants to teach a course on
creationism that puts that doctrine in a favorable light, I have no
objection.  The introductory page should probably note prominently that
the subject is very controversial. Those enrolled could then proceed at
their own risk, but with eyes wide open.

I would like to see the creationsit emperor without his clothes.  In the
light of day he may not be as powerful as either the supporters or
detractors would have us believe.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity