from_name: Katia Gruppioni

subject: [Wiktionary-l] unsubscribe

body:
unsubscribe

?
katia gruppioni
marketing e relazioni internazionali
mail to:katia_gruppioni at siragroup.it
tel +39 0516268411
fax +39 051743866
call m.p.:+39 3356820495

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: wiktionary-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiktionary-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] Per conto di wiktionary-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org
Inviato: mercoled? 4 aprile 2007 16.59
A: wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Oggetto: Wiktionary-l Digest, Vol 29, Issue 3

Send Wiktionary-l mailing list submissions to
	wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	wiktionary-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	wiktionary-l-owner at lists.wikimedia.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Wiktionary-l digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Dmcdevit)
   2. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Oldak Quill)
   3. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Muke Tever)
   4. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Muke Tever)
   5. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Yann Forget)
   6. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Muke Tever)
   7. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Yann Forget)
   8. Re: Klingon Wiktionary closed (Dmcdevit)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:28:24 -0700
From: Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <4612F128.4060003 at cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Muke Tever wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:20:29 -0600, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Oldak Quill wrote:
>>
>>> I, for one, object to the closure of projects based on elitist
>>> concerns as to the origin of the language. What matters is the place
>>> of the language in the world now. This language is, crucially,
>>> recognised as a language by the International Standardisation
>>> Organisation
>>>
>> There is no sense of "recognition" in the ISO code designations. As they
>> say for the 693-3 codes, "it is a goal for this part of ISO 639 to
>> provide an identifier for every distinct human language that has been
>> documented, whether living, extinct, or constructed, and whether its
>> modality is spoken, written or signed." There are 7,589 currently.
>>
>
> tlh is also in ISO 639-2 as well, whose scope is more limited, codes being
> added to it "when it becomes apparent that a significant body of literature
> in a particular language exists."
>
> The full criteria are here:
> http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/criteria2.html
> (in brief, "that there is a significant body of literature in the language
> or describing the language".)
>
>
>> So I repeat, your choices are either to have a dictionary define wordsusing words it does not define (Klingon words) or to define words (Klingonwords) that cannot be attested according to normal dictionary standards.
>>
>
> First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
> reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
> Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
> more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
> the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
> as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.
>
*All* natural languages have a right to be included when they meet the
requirements for starting a new language project, which is part of
Wikimedia's mission to provide the sum of all human knowledge *to every
single person*. That is a false comparison.

So, you have no original literature whatsoever, and a hodgepodge of fan
translations of famous works into this fictional alien language, and
that ought to constitute enough use? Why is it that no one seems able to
tell me how many fluent speakers there are? At least other languages
have educational uses, including cross-lingual communication, ease of
use or learning, simplification of existing languages, etc.
> I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
>
I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable
organization we  volunteer for, be used for significant, educational
purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist. That does not fit my
definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the term is just an
ad hominem distraction. This is the most important point. There is a
reason that the MuppetWiki (a fine project, expanding rapidly) belongs
on a non-WMF site like Wikia.
> If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
> moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
> not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
> at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.
>
Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.
> It seems [from what I can tell now] that the Klingon Wikipedia was closed down not
> because of any demerit in the language itself, but chiefly because it was not being
> used (having 60 articles at time of closing).  tlh.wiktionary, it seems, has at
> least two currently-active users (its admins) and 2,311 content pages.
That is not at all my understanding of how the Klingon Wikipedia closed.
There was widespread community opposition. All wikis start small. Worse,
I will note again that this wiki was an accidental creation without the
Board's approval, and they have already voted to close the Klingon
Wikipedia.

Dominic

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 02:21:08 +0100
From: "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
	<54f6f2050704031821j76eb5967rae17e5a9c4a882ac at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On 04/04/07, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> Muke Tever wrote:
> > I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
> >
> I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable
> organization we  volunteer for, be used for significant, educational
> purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist. That does not fit my
> definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the term is just an
> ad hominem distraction. This is the most important point. There is a
> reason that the MuppetWiki (a fine project, expanding rapidly) belongs
> on a non-WMF site like Wikia.

Huh? Since when does "education" preclude the Klingon language? How do
you define "significant"? How is the suggestion of elitism a
distriction? I consider it a problem for Wikimedia that should be
solved. When elitism results in the closure of harmless projects that
could potentially bring more people to Wikimedia (and maximise the use
of our content), it is a problem for the Foundation.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:45:57 -0600
From: "Muke Tever" <muke at frath.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <op.tp8kivmc2okkek at maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
>> First off, what kind of attestation are you seeking here?  There are published
>> reference books on the language and several translations into Klingon have been made:
>> Gilgamesh and a couple of Shakespeare plays are in print; online of course there's
>> more, such as extensive selections from the Bible (linguist Nick Nicholas has
>> the full text of the book of Mark on his website, among other things)...  This is
>> as much as if not more than many minority natural languages have.
>>
> *All* natural languages have a right to be included when they meet the
> requirements for starting a new language project, which is part of
> Wikimedia's mission to provide the sum of all human knowledge *to every
> single person*. That is a false comparison.

Ok, so you're drawing a distinction between natural languages and artificial
languages.  That's perfectly fine; I'd support a difference in the rules on
that ground myself.  But my response was not to that concern.

> So, you have no original literature whatsoever, and a hodgepodge of fan
> translations of famous works into this fictional alien language, and
> that ought to constitute enough use?

I don't have anything; it's not my language.  I responded to your statement
that the words "cannot be attested," with attestation; the concept of 'enough
use' had not yet entered, and if you expect it to be met, you'll have to phrase
it more quantitatively.

> Why is it that no one seems able to tell me how many fluent speakers there are?

"Counting second language speakers is extremely difficult and approximate at best
and would run into the additional problem of deciding how well a person is supposed
to speak the language in order to be counted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_speaker_data

> At least other languages have educational uses, including cross-lingualcommunication, ease of use or learning, simplification of existing languages, etc.

All right, now you are proposing criteria for acceptable constructed language wikis.
That's fine too, though they are not the currently accepted criteria.

>> I agree with Oldak about "elitist concerns as to the origin of the language".
>
> I apologize if my concern that the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable
> organization we  volunteer for, be used for significant, educational
> purposes, as it is intended, appears elitist.

I wasn't speaking about the Wikimedia Foundation; I'm speaking of your opinion
of the language which seems largely to be based on its origin as the language
of a fictional alien race on a popular American television show, as if this were
somehow a less serious language origin than, say, having been cobbled together in the
altogether serious belief that it would bring about world peace, like several of the
more acceptable alternatives.

> That does not fit my definition of elitism, however, and bandying about the termis just an ad hominem distraction.

The point is to indicate your own argument seems to be rather _ad linguam_ (if I
may so mangle the phrase) -- it seems to be against Klingon because it is Klingon,
not because it meets any objective standard.

>> If Klingon (or any other language) is to be rejected it should be on at least
>> moderately objective criteria, which would pertain to the language's present,
>> not its origin--the bar can be higher for a constructed language, but it should
>> at least be presented an opportunity to rise above its birth.
>
> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
> from its origins is absurd.

I hope I didn't indicate I held such a notion.  I intended to say its origins are
irrelevant to its status as a language, or ought to be.

> It only needs to be rejected for its present: which is as a linguistically
> unimportant, functionally nonexistent, and educationally useless language towrite a dictionary in.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy
indicates that the only additional criterion for a fictional language wiki as opposed
to a natural language one is "a reasonable degree of recognition", not linguistic
importance, functional existence, or educational usefulness.  (It also links to
the discussion saying tlh.wikipedia was closed due to inactivity; if there is a more
correct discussion, it may be helpful to update the link appropriately.)

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:51:50 -0600
From: "Muke Tever" <muke at frath.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <op.tp8ksomz2okkek at maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> When having only 60 articles is a criterion for deletion of a Wikipedia
> project, there are many more projects in the danger zone. 50 of the current
> 250 Wikipedias do not have this number of articles. This is as far as I am
> concerned no valid reason.

Of course, if it's a natural language.  But in a constructed language I can
see justifying a minimum amount of activity.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:31:47 +0200
From: Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <46136273.4040402 at forget-me.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hello,

Dmcdevit wrote:
(...)
> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.

I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all.

> Dominic

Best regards,

Yann

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:35:59 -0600
From: "Muke Tever" <muke at frath.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <op.tp8819j92okkek at maadim.hsd1.co.comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Dmcdevit wrote:
> (...)
>> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
>> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
>> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
>> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
>> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.
>
> I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all.

It is not an argument, it is rhetoric.  And very weak, at that.  It can be used
with equal force by the other side, e.g.
    >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally
    >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative
    >> that we produce a dictionary in it.

Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in
the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki.  The only
remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and
we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:47:48 +0200
From: Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <46138254.3060809 at forget-me.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

And claiming the Klingon should be supported by Wikimedia without giving
any information about numbers of speakers, is not rethoric???
I think we don't have the same definition of this word.

Regards,

Yann

Muke Tever wrote:
> Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>> Dmcdevit wrote:
>> (...)
>>> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
>>> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
>>> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
>>> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
>>> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.
>> I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all.
>
> It is not an argument, it is rhetoric.  And very weak, at that.  It can be used
> with equal force by the other side, e.g.
>     >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally
>     >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative
>     >> that we produce a dictionary in it.
>
> Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in
> the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki.  The only
> remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and
> we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages.
>
> 	*Muke!

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:58:49 -0700
From: Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed
To: "The Wiktionary (http://www.wiktionary.org) mailing list"
	<wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <4613BD29.4060906 at cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Muke Tever wrote:
> Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
>> Dmcdevit wrote:
>> (...)
>>
>>> Your notion that Klingon, the language of a fictional alien race on a
>>> popular American television show, has some kind of existence separate
>>> from its origins is absurd. It only needs to be rejected for its
>>> present: which is as a linguistically unimportant, functionally
>>> nonexistent, and educationally useless language to write a dictionary in.
>>>
>> I agree with the closing of this Wiktionary, and this argument says it all.
>>
>
> It is not an argument, it is rhetoric.  And very weak, at that.  It can be used
> with equal force by the other side, e.g.
>     >> Our language is considered linguistically unimportant, functionally
>     >> nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the more imperative
>     >> that we produce a dictionary in it.
>
> Prejudice like that against a natural language (which is very often expressed in
> the world) would, I hope, never stand here against the opening of a wiki.  The only
> remaining part of the agreed-with argument is that it is a constructed language, and
> we have not been deleting wikis merely because they belong to constructed languages.
>
> 	*Muke!
>
You are under the misimpression that I don't like Klingon *because* it
is a constructed language. Nowhere have I said that. I have given actual
reasons, including its lack of speakers, lack of literature, lack of
significance, lack of educational use. On the other hand, if your
argument *is* "Our language is considered linguistically unimportant,
functionally nonexistent, and educationally useless. It is thus all the
more imperative that we produce a dictionary in it" that's not a
problem. The problem would be using that argument to create an
admittedly "educationally useless" dictionary as a WMF project rather
than on an external site. Inclusion guidelines are not prejudice; if you
are against any vetting of supposed languages at all, I think you are
fighting a losing battle. Wiktionary is not for promotion of your pet
project, so this is beginning to sound rather like the sort of argument
I hear when I delete some kid's protologism on Wiktionary, of some high
school band on Wikipedia ("The world doesn't know about it/us yet;
that's why we need an article!"). In fact, it *is* important that our
work support educational purposes, and it's not unreasonable to demand that.

Dominic

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Wiktionary-l mailing list
Wiktionary-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l

End of Wiktionary-l Digest, Vol 29, Issue 3
*******************************************


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Aphaia

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Crossproject vandal: 影武者 / Kagemusha

body:
Hi there,
I created an entry about [[User:???]] on zh- and jawiki on
[[m:Vandalism reports]]. This user is known on East Asian language
projects as impostor, mainly of zh & jawiki admins.
Yesterday I noted he created an account on meta, trying to
personificate a jawiki sysop / checkuser. The same accounts were
created on English and Korean  Wikipedia, and Bastique blocked English
one per request. That's why I think now he deserves having a entry on
that page.

If you know useful pages for tracking his or her activity patterns,
could you please add to that page?  Thanks,

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *


list: foundation-l

from_name: Jeff V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Review Committee

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>>Then the native speakers who are from the culture that concerns the language
>>should be the ones setting up the wiki, running the wiki, and deciding
>>who will or will
>>not be contributors.  It should not be done by folks who do not speak
>>the language or do not know the culture.
>>
>>
>
>They *are* the ones doing this. The discussion here is about
>restrictions being placed on these people.
>What we *are* discussing is whether or not these people should be
>burdened with translating LanguageBat-ltg.php before they even get
>their own Wikipedia. Nothing more, nothing less.
>
>
>
Completing a language file is reasonable and must be done.  Period.
There are XML dumps and other
logostics reasons why this makes sense.

>>By way of example, there's a lot of Dine folks who are interested in working
>>on Wikipedia projects,  but in my discussions with them, they have
>>little interest in
>>getting involved with non-natives with their language, and a lot of it
>>deals with control issues
>>and the lack of desire to interact with people outside of their culture.
>>
>>
>
>If they wish to work on the Navajo Wikipedia, I would see no problem
>with finding a suitable sysop who is a native speaker of that
>language, and if they wish I would be willing to leave right away.
>There is no need to deal with non-speakers or non fluent speakers or
>"outsiders".
>
>

I don't think it is all on you, and the issue goes beyond having admins
who are not speakers.  Dine people
have an aversion to dealing with what they term "white culture".  They
would look at it more like "Do I want
to help Wikipedia take in money by using our language without our
consent".   There's also the whole elder
authority thing to deal with as well.  60 year old Dine speakers are not
going to hang around long if they get
chased around by trolls and 18 year old admins.

>I'm not sure what your point is here.
>
You got the point, you just disagree with it.  That's ok though.

Jeff


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Nyenyec N

subject: [Foundation-l] EDP: US servers loophole?

body:
Thank you for the answers, so far. Let me rephrase my problem.

Hungarian copyright law does have something similar to "fair use"
called "szabad felhaszn?l?s". This is, however, just like in Germany
much more limited than its US counterpart.

The interpretation of the law is not always easy, but after some very
informal discussions with some Hungarian lawyers and copyright
experts, we do know that there are classes of images that you can't
distribute without the copyright holder's permission in Hungary.
This seems to be the case for album covers, movie posters etc.

So far, we permitted these in HuWiki based on the fact, that the
servers are located in the US, therefore we can rely the more liberal
US "fair use" concept. We marked them with warning messages that these
are not free images, and might be deleted in the future.

However, it is my understanding that with the Resolution, the
Foundation's intent was to close this loophole and make the projects
accept rules that don't make it illegal to distribute the content in
their home countries without breaking the law.

Disclosure: I'm a free content person and would prefer a solution
similar to EsWiki, DeWiki and others where they only allow images from
Commons. But there are several other editors who would rather have
more images and don't really worry about copyright, free content and
ease of reuse as long as their articles are well illustrated.

We started to draft our EDP, but it would be nice to have this
clarification from the Foundation: do they want the projects to
collect content that is free to redistribute in their home countries
or is it OK, that it doesn't break US copyright laws?

Thanks again,
nyenyec

On 4/5/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> >On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
> >[snip]
> >
> >
> >>Let's take album covers as an example. Hungary, just like Germany
> >>doesn't have a broad equivalent of "fair use". According to Hungarian
> >>law, album covers cannot be distributed without permission.
> >>
> >>
> >I think we need a FAQ point that says:
> >
> >Q: "But my country doesn't have anything like fair use / fair dealing"
> >A: "You're probably incorrect."
> >
> >See the current Hungarian copyright act, (Act LXXVI of 1999, I have no
> >clue how to cite Hungarian law).
> >
> >I'm fairly confidence that you have some degree of fair use, ...
> >although it may not be as permissive as US law, the Wikimedia policy
> >is focused on the part of fair use which should be most widely
> >available (the part required to prevent copyright from being used to
> >effectively stop free speech).
> >
> One also needs to consider the extent to which the fair practice
> provisions of the Berne Convention apply to Hungary as a signatory.
>
> Ec
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


list: wikien-l

from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Lock new article creation for three months

body:
Rory Stolzenberg wrote:
> You're right, Wikipedia certainly isn't comprehensive. However, this is only
> a temporary solution, and as soon as it's over, people can start adding more
> articles again (indeed, we'd probably even have a system for people to do
> this during the moratorium). This doesn't make it worse for newbies, because
> by closing new article creation now, we can finally clear the massive
> cleanup backlogs, and so we can start dealing with new articles right away,
> making Wikipedia more reliable, giving it a better reputation and therefore
> attracting more new users.

Now that most backlogs are categorized by date it should be possible to
get some rough information about how quickly things in them get
addressed. Personally, I suspect that three months wouldn't be long
enough to flush all our backlogs. Especially considering that disabling
article creation isn't going to stop things from continuing to be added
to them. I find old articles in need of cleanup, merging, fact-checking,
etc all the time in my travels.

> In addition, perhaps if we didn't have to focus
> on fixing year-old problems, we could open up article creation to everyone,
> including anons, making us even more welcoming to new users than before, but
> still not compromising our integrity, because we'd have the manpower to
> actually fix any new articles with problems.

The reason anon article creation is disabled is not because anons were
creating articles with problems, it's because an anon user added a false
statement to an article that had been created by a logged-in editor. No
evidence was ever presented (that I'm aware of) suggesting that
anon-created articles are more of a problem than non-anon-created ones.


from_name: Gary Kirk

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia groups on Facebook need monitoring for
	vandals

body:
Prevention is better than cure...not often they tell us they're going
to vandalise.

On 04/04/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 4, 2007, at 12:53 PM, gjzilla at gmail.com wrote:
>
> >>
> >> This is worrying. We should probably try and keep an eye on these
> >> places.
> >>
> >>
> > Probably. Either they're just a lot of hot air, or serious. Anyone
> > willing
> > to be a double agent on one of these?
>
> Why? It's just vandalism. Even if they block out the bulk of the
> normal RC patrol and CVU it'll get stopped quickly and undone. Yes,
> it'd be a bit of work to undo. But it would be far less work than
> trying to watch every place vandals might be planning something.
>
> -Phil
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Gary Kirk


from_name: Oldak Quill

subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: improving quality on enwiki

body:
On 04/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Kirill Lokshin wrote:
>
> >But the key issue, I think, is simply this: prescriptive collaboration
> >models do not, as a general rule, work on Wikipedia.  The vast
> >majority of editors make content contributions on topics of their
> >choice; if they're told that they *must* work on article X, they'll
> >simply refuse.  This proposal, basically, assumes that there's a
> >supply of editors somewhere willing to do work (which happens to be
> >"not fun" in a major way) according to some central bureaucracy's
> >dictates; in my experience, there simply isn't such a supply
> >available.
> >
> Prescriptive collaboration is an oxymoron.

It depends on the level of prescription. This proposal never required
that an individual editor *must* work on any article or any groups of
articles. It attempted to match editors to areas of Wikipedia needing
work and contribute their time by fulfilling ticket requests.

This is not in any conflict with collaboration.

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Proposed overhaul of Meta

body:
I find this unfortunate. While stewards definitely have a prominent role on
Meta, they're not the only ones there. This wiki also has a function for
translation work, and plus in order to get the attention of either stewards
or translators (or all the other people who do work on Meta), the wiki has
to be navigatable by everyone else. This is -- after all -- a public wiki.

On 4/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/04/07, James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki is, in my opinion, the portal of things relevant
> to
> > every single involved member of Wikimedia projects. All of them. Yet,
> Meta
> > is not quite to my standard. I remember some time ago there was an
> effort
> > for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust. This won't be
> some
> > fancy project, this is just what I am thinking about and I want to see
> if
> > you all get where I am heading at.
>
>
> The stewards regard Meta as their playground and don't want outside
> involvement. Even Anthere was pulling the sort of tricks that were
> getting people arbcommed on a better-behaved wiki such as en:wp.
> (Anthere, before you react with incredulity - I pointed these out to
> you at the time.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On 04/04/07, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/4/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Apr 4, 2007, at 12:53 PM, gjzilla at gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > >>
> > >> This is worrying. We should probably try and keep an eye on these
> > >> places.
> > >>
> > >>
> > > Probably. Either they're just a lot of hot air, or serious. Anyone
> > > willing
> > > to be a double agent on one of these?
> >
> > Why? It's just vandalism. Even if they block out the bulk of the
> > normal RC patrol and CVU it'll get stopped quickly and undone. Yes,
> > it'd be a bit of work to undo. But it would be far less work than
> > trying to watch every place vandals might be planning something.
> >
> > -Phil
>
>
> Yeah - especially these days, the effort it takes to get one admin account
> is probably
> enough to dissuade almost anyone who wants to get one to do evil.  Trying to
> get 10 of them would take an awful lot of effort.
>
> Of course, trying to take out RC patrollers is probably one of the least
> efficient ways to do harm with an admin account.

Another interesting group: "Abolish Abstinence-Only Wikipedia
Education" (97 members):

"Is anyone else tired of listening to clueless teachers bash
Wikipedia? They complain that it can't be used for research because
it's "not a source." They tell you that anyone can write whatever they
want, so it must be wrong. I've even heard teachers say that "the
author" makes stuff up.

Our schools say "Sex is bad, but we're going to tell you how to do it
safely just in case." Why don't they apply the same policy to
Wikipedia-- teaching students about the proper way to use it instead
of indiscriminately banning it. These teachers are well aware that
students are going to continue using Wikipedia anyway. I'm convinced
that they just don't understand what Wikipedia is or how to use it."

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research or common sense inferral?

body:
On 04/04/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/4/07, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> > I also had a response from the school, who state that the symbol "is a
> > logo, as was the previous version". So. This is relevant information,
> > but how can I cite emails I have received in the article? Thoughts
> > appreciated.
>
> Quite simply, you can't.  Personal communications can't be cited as
> sources for Wikipedia articles.

Yes, I understand that. How then is one supposed to add unpublished
true facts that have been obtained personally? (As opposed to original
research, which this is not.)

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/


from_name: Rory Stolzenberg

body:
On 4/2/07, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/2/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > "The Cunctator" wrote
> >
> > > I soundly disagree with you that's the main conclusion from this
> discussion.
> >
> > I'm open to other conclusions.
> >
> > > In fact, looking at your above summary, I might think the proper
> > > conclusion to draw is that the bureaucratic overhead of contributing
> > > to Wikipedia has grown out of control.
> >
> > It probably is harder to be a newbie. But you can still turn up and edit
> 99.9% of the articles without having an account. It is not plausible to me
> that there is a solution to compiling the largest repository (of its kind)
> of human knowledge ever, without some sort of trade-off. 'Open for business'
> is still hanging there on the door.
> >
> I think a powerful fallacy in your line of reasoning is the assumption
> that the encyclopedia in its current state is anywhere near the point
> of being comprehensive.
>
> We should be expending every effort to prevent Wikipedia from being
> less welcoming or harder for newbies. Signs that Wikipedia is becoming
> less welcoming for newbies indicate the primary points of decay in the
> system.

You're right, Wikipedia certainly isn't comprehensive. However, this is only
a temporary solution, and as soon as it's over, people can start adding more
articles again (indeed, we'd probably even have a system for people to do
this during the moratorium). This doesn't make it worse for newbies, because
by closing new article creation now, we can finally clear the massive
cleanup backlogs, and so we can start dealing with new articles right away,
making Wikipedia more reliable, giving it a better reputation and therefore
attracting more new users. In addition, perhaps if we didn't have to focus
on fixing year-old problems, we could open up article creation to everyone,
including anons, making us even more welcoming to new users than before, but
still not compromising our integrity, because we'd have the manpower to
actually fix any new articles with problems.


list: wiktionary-l

from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Klingon Wiktionary closed

body:
Hoi,
The discussion about the Klingon Wiktionary is moot. After the initial
lock down of this database, Brion has opened it up again. Technically it
has a status aparte as is it impossible to create interwiki links
between this and any other Wiktionary. This is very much the situation
as before this latest exchange of pleasantries started.

As far as I am aware, nobody is really interested in it and be unpopular
by one or another fraction within our communities. The language
committee will not consider it because part of the status of the Klingon
language within the Wikimedia Foundation has been decided in the past on
the board level. The committee will only consider it when the board asks
it to do so.

My conclusion: the least words spilled over it, the better. However, if
people want this project seriously closed, they should try to get this
done now or else leave it be (including in the future).

Thanks,
     GerardM


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

body:
"The Cunctator" reply

> This also shows how pushing too hard on the Sourcing issue promotes a bias
> against the third world and the like which have a lesser internet presence.

True. They also have fewer lawyers. We don't want to defame anyone, but should worry most about Americans.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


subject: [WikiEN-l] idea: BLP clean up category

body:
"Denny Colt" wrote

>But not everyone is also an
> admin. Non-admins can't do that, and there might be an article that *should*
> exist for whatever reason--notable subject, say--but the current article is
> a complete mess that the person maybe feels they don't have the time or
> ability to clean themselves.

So it looks like the correct approach is for any editor confronted with a clear BLP problem to hack out, there and then, the worst (unsourced attack) stuff, and drop a note onto [[WP:BLPN]] as an alert/request for help.

Charles

-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
On 04/04/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >>Then the native speakers who are from the culture that concerns the language
> >>should be the ones setting up the wiki, running the wiki, and deciding
> >>who will or will
> >>not be contributors.  It should not be done by folks who do not speak
> >>the language or do not know the culture.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >They *are* the ones doing this. The discussion here is about
> >restrictions being placed on these people.
> >What we *are* discussing is whether or not these people should be
> >burdened with translating LanguageBat-ltg.php before they even get
> >their own Wikipedia. Nothing more, nothing less.
> >
> >
> >
> Completing a language file is reasonable and must be done.  Period.
> There are XML dumps and other
> logostics reasons why this makes sense.

Nobody in the past was required to do it _before_ they could start a
Wikipedia. I'm not sure why we need that requirement now. It's
certainly possible to extract the messages from
http://###.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php
post ipso facto. Translating the messages via the MediaWiki namespace
is certainly a lot less 'technical' and is going to be a lot easier
with little technical experience to do.

I remember when a user wanted to translate the LanguageXX.php into
Breton, I had to walk him through certain parts (for example, the
Breton language uses an apostrophe as part of a trigraph, c'h, and you
have to type c/'h or it will think that's the end of the message).

> >>By way of example, there's a lot of Dine folks who are interested in working
> >>on Wikipedia projects,  but in my discussions with them, they have
> >>little interest in
> >>getting involved with non-natives with their language, and a lot of it
> >>deals with control issues
> >>and the lack of desire to interact with people outside of their culture.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >If they wish to work on the Navajo Wikipedia, I would see no problem
> >with finding a suitable sysop who is a native speaker of that
> >language, and if they wish I would be willing to leave right away.
> >There is no need to deal with non-speakers or non fluent speakers or
> >"outsiders".
> >
> >
>
> I don't think it is all on you, and the issue goes beyond having admins
> who are not speakers.  Dine people
> have an aversion to dealing with what they term "white culture".  They
> would look at it more like "Do I want
> to help Wikipedia take in money by using our language without our
> consent".   There's also the whole elder
> authority thing to deal with as well.  60 year old Dine speakers are not
> going to hang around long if they get
> chased around by trolls and 18 year old admins.

Well, there are several things here.

1) Perhaps certain people have an aversion to "white culture", but
there are many urban Navajo (in Flagstaff, Phoenix, and
Albuquerque/Santa Fe) who speak their language but also have no
"aversion" to "white culture" because they must interact with it on a
daily basis.
2) "Wikipedia" (the foundation?) is not making any money from the
Navajo Wikipedia. Note that there are no ads there, and there never
will be. The content is not for sale. It may be used freely by
anybody.
3) Well, culturally it is important that respect for the opinions of
elders is embedded into policy. However, I see that as a non-issue
because as of yet, I have not heard of any elders with computers. I
knew a woman who said her uncle liked to use her computer to play
solitaire, but in this day and age, many elders are without
electricity, running water, or telephone service, let alone Internet
access.
4) Perhaps arguments can be made about linguistic ownership for
languages like Hopi, with ~4000 speakers or O'odham with ~10000, but
when you cross the threshhold of 50000 or 100000, really, it isn't
something you can claim ownership of anymore. The idea that one person
has control over how far their culture may reach is something that has
been debated in the past, but the idea that one can complain about
their language being used "without their consent" is absolutely
ludicrous when there is a speaker body approaching larger numbers like
that. I have talked to people in the past who showed an interest in
nv.wp. Are their feelings to be denied by a small group of people who
feel it is inappropriate that their language be used anywhere without
their personal consent? What about the fact that certain municipal
documents in Flagstaff are available in their language? I'm sure they
didn't consent to that either. And what about people who genuinely
_do_ use the language for profit? Rather than demonising a NFPO,
perhaps they should pick on the people who make a living teaching
"Navajo culture" and "the Navajo language" to Europeans? (I use quotes
because it is often either a perversion of these or just entirely
fabricated)

> >I'm not sure what your point is here.
> >
> You got the point, you just disagree with it.  That's ok though.

I don't disagree with the idea that cultural sensitivity is important.
I don't disagree with the idea that people cannot be forced to write
content in their language. I do not believe that we should be
purposefully insensitive.

If the Navajo Wikipedia were in Hopi instead, I would understand such
objections because there is a religious basis for them, but the Navajo
language has been used in public documents by Navajo people, many
books have been written in it without a care as to who may buy them
(as opposed to, say, Havasupai, where books in the language are really
only available to tribal members). It's too late to say "oops, wait,
we want to keep our language secret".

Mark

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] What can be done to let users fix it themselves?

body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> >After a post here mentioned it, I went to WP:COI and WP:AUTO.
> >These two articles seem to promote the view that you're not supposed to edit
> >an article about yourself.
> >However, WP:BLP seems to suggest that you can to remove libel or unsourced
> >material, and it's a common refrain to complaints about Wikipedia, "why didn't
> >you just fix the article yourself?"
>
> A valid criticism.
>
> I boldly added a Nutshell to AUTO:
>
> [ This page in a nutshell: Avoid writing or editing an article about
> yourself, other than to correct errors of fact ]
>
> Hopefully that will help move things in the direction of forwards.

It's a tiny step.  It's not *bad*, but I don't think it'll help much
either, because the real problem has always been one of emphasis.  Just
adding a sentence doesn't change the emphasis all that much; cumulatively,
WP:AUTO and WP:COI still state in such strong terms that a user should not
edit his own article that most if not all new users will conclude that
they're not supposed to do it.

It's only going to be solved by going through both articles line by line
and making it clear throughout them, not just in one sentence at the top,
that it isn't meant to discourage fixing libel or unsourced statements.
And I'm not going to (and can't) do it.

Besides, saying "other than to correct factual errors" interferes with
another policy: verifiability, not truth.  You aren't allowed to correct
verifiable false information (and believe me, I argued against this one
lots of times in WP:ATT).


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] idea: BLP clean up category

body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 20:18:47 +0100, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>So it looks like the correct approach is for any editor confronted with a clear BLP problem to hack out, there and then, the worst (unsourced attack) stuff, and drop a note onto [[WP:BLPN]] as an alert/request for help.

Yes, that seems like the best approach.

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


body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 12:12:38 -0700 (PDT), arromdee at rahul.net (Ken
Arromdee) wrote:

>After a post here mentioned it, I went to WP:COI and WP:AUTO.
>These two articles seem to promote the view that you're not supposed to edit
>an article about yourself.
>However, WP:BLP seems to suggest that you can to remove libel or unsourced
>material, and it's a common refrain to complaints about Wikipedia, "why didn't
>you just fix the article yourself?"

A valid criticism.

I boldly added a Nutshell to AUTO:

[ This page in a nutshell: Avoid writing or editing an article about
yourself, other than to correct errors of fact ]

Hopefully that will help move things in the direction of forwards.

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


body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 06:29:53 -0700 (PDT), Ken Arromdee
<arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:

>Letting people fix it themselves, though, has one advantage: it's removed
>*immediately*, not when some volunteer gets around to it.  Moreover, figuring
>out who to complain to is itself something that newcomers may find difficult
>to do.

Yes.  This situation, though, should be fixable.  Nobody should have
to stand against all comers in removing offensive material about them,
and neither is it fair to expect them to judge what is objectively
fair when they are personally involved.

The box:

[ If you feel it necessary to make changes to Wikipedia articles
despite a real or perceived conflict of interest, we '''strongly
encourage''' you to submit content for community review on the
article's talk page or file a [[WP:RFC|Request for Comment]] to the
wider community, and to let one or more trusted community members
judge whether the material belongs in Wikipedia.  ]

should, I think be added to along the lines of:

[ If you see something in an article where you are conflicted, which
you consider to be offensive or defamatory, you are requested to
[[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from
subject)|contact us immediately]], our volunteers will aim to assist
you in resolving your issue ]

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Some of them are starting to get the message

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 11:17:07 -0700 (PDT), Doc glasgow
<doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:

>porn actresses

There ain't no such animal.  Or maybe you've seen a better class of
porn?

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question ("compilation copyright")

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 01:46:12 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
wrote:

>With the exception of fair use, of course - which is in fact more
>useful AND more defensible in text than in pictures.  (For UK
>contributors, of course, replace that with 'fair dealing' which is
>much more restrictive, but I believe DOES still allow for criticism
>and commentary - though someone better versed in it would be useful)

Indeed.  So some examples would be fine, and a discussion of the
process would be fine.  I am completely behind both.  What is not
fine, in any case I can think of, is reproducing the content *in its
entirety* as part of that.

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


body:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:20:31 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>Such as your image uploads
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chichester-Psalms.jpg
>and
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Durufl%C3%A9-Requiem-Kirie.jpg
>for example? Those particular pages of sheet music aren't even directly
>discussed in the articles they're used in, they're just there for
>decoration.

That might have some merit if I had included the entire score.  I
didn't.  That is the point here: the list was included *in its
entirety*.  A few examples?  No problem.

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


body:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:31:05 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>> What, like the personal essays on character traits of various
>> characters in video games?  I would say that is *objectively* crap :-)

>You'd be wrong.

Not really.  Personal essays are not allowed by policy, after all.

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


body:
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:49:13 -0700, Michael Snow <wikipedia at att.net>
wrote:

>Are you sure it didn't triple in just the last six months?

Five points for subtle self-reference there :-)

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:16:18 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>> >In this case, the criterion for list membership is "has been on the Top
>> >Gear Cool Wall". This is no more a matter of subjective interpretation
>> >than coming up with a cast list for an ongoing TV show.

>> That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes.  Like saying
>> it was No. 1 in the charts.  But, as with the charts, including the
>> entire list violates copyright.

>Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there.

I am looking for the OTRS ticket reference; the UK charts company
wrote to us asking to take down two lists on precisely that basis.  Of
course, they could have been bullshitting, but why bother?

>>  And to get the names requires either
>> interpretation of the pictures or watching every show.  There are no
>> independent secondary sources, and the primary source does not publish
>> the list in text form.

>OH MY GOD! Someone watched every show! I know, let's shut down
>Wikipedia for three months.

Oh don't be silly.  If we can forget all the hyperbole for a minute
here, someone has copied content from a broadcast programme with a
copyright statement at the end.  Under the circumstances it seems
reasonable to ask them to prove it is not copyright before it goes
back in.  That is, after all, supposed to be how it works: the onus is
supposed to be on those seeking to include content, to show that it is
valid.

Me, I sent an email to the BBC asking them.  I thought that was smart.
But hell, I thought it was smart to remove a big chunk of material
taken directly from a copyright broadcast, and look where that got me.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:20:01 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>"removing content with ambiguous at best copyright status" is
>generally copyright paranoia.

Paranoia?  Or reasonable caution?  Paranoia, I'd say, would be a fair
judgment if I'd removed - what - three or four examples from each
category.  That would be paranoid.  Reproducing the entire list, that
looks a lot like copyright carelessness.  We delete hundreds of images
a day for this kind of copyright carelessness.

One man's cautious is another man's paranoid, clearly.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 17:41:59 +0100, "James Farrar"
<james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:

>So it *is* OK to have a thousand and something articles that all state
>"this song was number one in the UK from (x) to (y)", but it *is not*
>OK to have a single article listing them all in chronological order?

According to the rights owner, yes.

>And if that is the case, how does the succession box fit in?

Probably shows too few at once to be a big deal.  I suspect their
concern is their ability to sell for profit books detailing the
chronology of the charts.  But that's only a guess.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 08:23:20 -0700 (PDT), Ken Arromdee
<arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:

>> I am not the only one who thinks that "if not one then the other"
>> applies here, and we should not include the list in its entirety.

>As I've said, "if not one then the other" ignores the fact that Wikipedia's
>definition of "original research" is not the same as any legal definition
>related to copyright.  It does *not* follow that if not one then the other.

So you say.  We define it somewhat differently.  That is a legitimate
difference of opinion.

>> But
>> my fundamental reason for removing it is copyright, and if the BBC
>> says it is not copyright then I will add it back.  I have asked them.

>Why?  You claim that either it's copyright, or it's OR.  If you truly
>believed this, surely if the BBC says it is not copyright, you would conclude
>it's OR and still leave it out for that reason.

Because OR is an editorial judgment, while copyright theft is a legal
issue.  I would have hoped this was obvious.

>(And what are we doing using British copyright laws in a Wikipedia run in the
>US anyway?  Surely the BBC won't tell you if it's copyright under *American*
>law.)

The BBC will tell me whether they assert copyright over the list
itself.  If they do not assert copyright, then it essentially does not
matter.  If they do assert copyright, then we should respect that, per
our mission, our copyright policy, and not being foolish.  The issue
is not so tremendously important that we should risk breaking the law
to include it.  Hell, Top Gear don't even bother putting it on their
website! It really is pretty trivial, as facts go.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 13:23:28 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>Did the complete list ever appear on Top Gear?

Every week, in the form of a board with all the cars pictured.  New
ones added each week, the board shown in full at least once per show.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

body:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:36:10 -0700, "Matthew Brown" <morven at gmail.com>
wrote:

>IMO, this is using BLP as a hammer to beat scandal and negative
>stories out of Wikipedia, even a well-sourced one, and I suspect that
>it is done out of a belief that Wikipedia should not be reporting on
>such - that it is 'unencyclopedic'.  I don't think that point of view
>has strong consensus.

That's not how I see it.  I see it as preventing Wikipedia from being
used as the primary vehicle for publicising barely-known negative
material about barely-known living individuals.

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


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:31:41 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>It is ridiculous to claim that including a
>listing of cars that have been on it is reproducing the show *in its
>entirety*. You're stretching really hard here.

And indeed I did not.  I claimed that we were reproducing the cool
wall list in its entirety.  A chapter in the book that is Top Gear, if
you like.

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


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:42:01 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>>>> What, like the personal essays on character traits of various
>>>> characters in video games?  I would say that is *objectively* crap :-)
>>
>>> You'd be wrong.
>>
>> Not really.  Personal essays are not allowed by policy, after all.

>You're shifting the goalposts from the subject of the article to the
>quality and style of the writing in it, reread the part of my response
>that you snipped and that should be clear. It's a fallacy along the
>lines of "pies laced with arsenic are dangerous, ergo we should ban pies."

Not really.  I was treating the concept as a whole: personal essays on
the character traits of video game characters.  Every such essay I
have seen has sucked royally.  I don't discount the possibility that
properly cited encyclopaedic treatment of the same subject may be
possible, and it would be quite refreshing to see such a section.

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


from_name: James Farrar

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 04/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 17:41:59 +0100, "James Farrar"
> <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >And if that is the case, how does the succession box fit in?
>
> Probably shows too few at once to be a big deal.  I suspect their
> concern is their ability to sell for profit books detailing the
> chronology of the charts.  But that's only a guess.

In which case, we'd better remove it. Just in case we get sued.


from_name: Robert Horning

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> On 04/04/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>> Mark Williamson wrote:
>>
>>
>>> They *are* the ones doing this. The discussion here is about
>>> restrictions being placed on these people.
>>> What we *are* discussing is whether or not these people should be
>>> burdened with translating LanguageBat-ltg.php before they even get
>>> their own Wikipedia. Nothing more, nothing less.
>>>
>> Completing a language file is reasonable and must be done.  Period.
>> There are XML dumps and other
>> logostics reasons why this makes sense.
>>
>
> Nobody in the past was required to do it _before_ they could start a
> Wikipedia. I'm not sure why we need that requirement now. It's
> certainly possible to extract the messages from
> http://###.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php
> post ipso facto. Translating the messages via the MediaWiki namespace
> is certainly a lot less 'technical' and is going to be a lot easier
> with little technical experience to do.
>
> I remember when a user wanted to translate the LanguageXX.php into
> Breton, I had to walk him through certain parts (for example, the
> Breton language uses an apostrophe as part of a trigraph, c'h, and you
> have to type c/'h or it will think that's the end of the message).
>

I'm having a hard time trying to understand this one as well.  Certainly
any such translation that already exists (for example, creating a new
Wikibooks/Wikisource/etc. when a Wikipedia in that language already
exists) perhaps ought to be carried over, but why would it be so much
harder to simply open a new Wikipedia in a given target language and
encourage early supporters and community members to simply make the
appropriate changes to the MediaWiki namespace?  This sounds like a
technical problem that is forcing people into doing things to suit the
technology than trying to be amiable to people who very likely are not
technically inclined.

-- Robert Horning


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 09:16:18 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>> That is defensible in the case of an individual car, yes.  Like saying
>> it was No. 1 in the charts.  But, as with the charts, including the
>> entire list violates copyright.

>Huh? You keep repeating this, but the evidence for the claim just isn't there.

OK, the OTRS ticket is 2007031910019141.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:53:18 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>Wikipedia allows fair use of copyrighted material, and furthermore it
>follows American copyright law rather than British so even if the BBC
>claims "the list is copyright us, don't touch!" and a British lawyer
>says "they're right, you know" that doesn't necessarily mean we can't
>include the list. It may be uncopyrighted in the US, and at the very
>least I expect it's easy fair use.

You suspect.  But I suspect that reproducing in its entirety a list
which constitutes original creative work is not an "easy" fair use. If
you look lower down you'll see that Ray Saintonge agrees.  So:
probably not "easy".

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


body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:48:48 -0400, "The Cunctator"
<cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:

>I thought you said the Cool Wall  list doesn't ever appear in its entirety
>on the show.

Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.

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


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:54:35 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>Or like the first page of a copyrighted musical score, perhaps?

Unlikely.  The test, as I understand it, is significance, and whether
the use impacts on the rights owner's ability to profit from the work.
The rights owner in this case does publish derivative works based on
the Cool Wall.

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


from_name: Sam Blacketer

body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:13:16 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 11:17:07 -0700 (PDT), Doc glasgow
> <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >porn actresses
>
> There ain't no such animal.  Or maybe you've seen a better class of
> porn?

I was thinking at the weekend, when the Sunday Times headlined "BAE
hired actresses for Saudis", how welcome it was to see the return of
the use of the word 'actresses' as a euphemism for 'prostitutes'.

--
Sam Blacketer
London E15


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 21:54:52 +0100, "James Farrar"
<james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:

>In which case, we'd better remove it. Just in case we get sued.

Oh sure.  And we'd better remove the articles on any books because
they use the book title in its entirety, yes?  Or we could be perhaps
just a tad more realistic and recognise the difference between
reproducing all of the Cool Wall in the Cool Wall article, and
reproducing the precursor and successor in an article on a pop single.

Mind you, it is possible that *would* turn out to violate fair use,
but it's less likely than, say, a list of all the top ten singles,
which is what the chart company was complaining about.

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


body:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 22:09:46 +0100, "Sam Blacketer"
<sam.blacketer at googlemail.com> wrote:

>I was thinking at the weekend, when the Sunday Times headlined "BAE
>hired actresses for Saudis", how welcome it was to see the return of
>the use of the word 'actresses' as a euphemism for 'prostitutes'.

Shurely "seamstresses?" Ed.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 04/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 21:54:52 +0100, "James Farrar"
> <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >In which case, we'd better remove it. Just in case we get sued.
>
> Oh sure.  And we'd better remove the articles on any books because
> they use the book title in its entirety, yes?  Or we could be perhaps
> just a tad more realistic

Realism is hardly the first characteristic I'd apply to the recent
copyright paranoia I've seen here.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright question

body:
On 04/04/07, James Farrar <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/04/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 21:54:52 +0100, "James Farrar"
> > <james.farrar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >In which case, we'd better remove it. Just in case we get sued.
> >
> > Oh sure.  And we'd better remove the articles on any books because
> > they use the book title in its entirety, yes?  Or we could be perhaps
> > just a tad more realistic
>
> Realism is hardly the first characteristic I'd apply to the recent
> copyright paranoia I've seen here.

s/apply/attribute (whoops...)


body:
That's what all the debate is about. Some people, such as Jeff and
most of the people on the Langcom, seem to feel this is necessary.

Others, such as myself, Arbeo, David Gerard, yourself (Robert) and
several others seem to be having difficulty understanding why this is
necessary for precisely the reasons you have outlined.

Nobody seems to be making any new arguments.

Suffice to say, from discussions I have had with people who had
_formerly_ *approved* Wikipedias, they cannot understand why they are
required to do this, many of them don't know what exactly it is that
is required of them, and they are confused. It should be the
responsibility of the LAnguage Committee, not of me, to explain to
them what is happening here and give them a tutorial on how to edit
the messages file and give them help dealing with the problems like
the ones Fulup encountered.

We need to be amicable and try to make this process easier for these
people, not make it some sort of obstacle course.

Mark

On 04/04/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > On 04/04/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Mark Williamson wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> They *are* the ones doing this. The discussion here is about
> >>> restrictions being placed on these people.
> >>> What we *are* discussing is whether or not these people should be
> >>> burdened with translating LanguageBat-ltg.php before they even get
> >>> their own Wikipedia. Nothing more, nothing less.
> >>>
> >> Completing a language file is reasonable and must be done.  Period.
> >> There are XML dumps and other
> >> logostics reasons why this makes sense.
> >>
> >
> > Nobody in the past was required to do it _before_ they could start a
> > Wikipedia. I'm not sure why we need that requirement now. It's
> > certainly possible to extract the messages from
> > http://###.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allmessages&ot=php
> > post ipso facto. Translating the messages via the MediaWiki namespace
> > is certainly a lot less 'technical' and is going to be a lot easier
> > with little technical experience to do.
> >
> > I remember when a user wanted to translate the LanguageXX.php into
> > Breton, I had to walk him through certain parts (for example, the
> > Breton language uses an apostrophe as part of a trigraph, c'h, and you
> > have to type c/'h or it will think that's the end of the message).
> >
>
>
> I'm having a hard time trying to understand this one as well.  Certainly
> any such translation that already exists (for example, creating a new
> Wikibooks/Wikisource/etc. when a Wikipedia in that language already
> exists) perhaps ought to be carried over, but why would it be so much
> harder to simply open a new Wikipedia in a given target language and
> encourage early supporters and community members to simply make the
> appropriate changes to the MediaWiki namespace?  This sounds like a
> technical problem that is forcing people into doing things to suit the
> technology than trying to be amiable to people who very likely are not
> technically inclined.
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:26:21 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>What if we were to include a screenshot of that?

What purpose would that serve?  To get form one to the other you
either have to listen to the script week by week, or recognise the
pictures.  I don't think you would dispute that the latter is original
research.

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


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:24:12 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>> Unlikely.  The test, as I understand it, is significance, and whether
>> the use impacts on the rights owner's ability to profit from the work.
>> The rights owner in this case does publish derivative works based on
>> the Cool Wall.

>Cite? I thought you said they considered it so trivial they didn't even
>include a listing on their homepage, part of your "original research"
>claim on this subject. Now it's a major revenue stream instead?

"What not to drive", Hammond, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2005, ISBN
0297848003

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


body:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:18:42 -0600, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:

>And again you've snipped the portion of my reply where I addressed that
>very issue. Go ahead and rewrite the essay, I've never had a problem
>with that. My objection is to your claim that you can determine the
>objective crappitude of it. A well-written personal essay could well
>contain plenty of useful material to be incorporated into the article,
>and even a poorly-written one could have a few tidbits. Outright
>deletion is not the best approach.

You say.  I say the best approach to personal essays is indeed to
remove them.  Both legitimate Wikiphilosophies.

>Also, could you perhaps explain how this is relevant to the university
>crest and top gear issues? We seem to be drifting here.

Wooo, topic drift.  That's never happened before.

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


list: wikitech-l

from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2007-04-05

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

This is MediaWiki version 1.10alpha (r21020).

Reading tests from "maintenance/parserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Cite/citeParserTests.txt"...
Reading tests from "extensions/Poem/poemParserTests.txt"...

  17 still FAILING test(s) :(
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (single parameter)  [Has never passed]
      * URL-encoding in URL functions (multiple parameters)  [Has never passed]
      * Table security: embedded pipes (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-April/034637.html)  [Has never passed]
      * Link containing double-single-quotes '' (bug 4598)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <noinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * message transform: <onlyinclude> in transcluded template (bug 4926)  [Has never passed]
      * BUG 1887, part 2: A <math> with a thumbnail- math enabled  [Has never passed]
      * HTML bullet list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML ordered list, unclosed tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested bullet list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * HTML nested ordered list, open tags (bug 5497)  [Has never passed]
      * Inline HTML vs wiki block nesting  [Has never passed]
      * Mixing markup for italics and bold  [Has never passed]
      * dt/dd/dl test  [Has never passed]
      * Images with the "|" character in the comment  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, without trailing slash or name.  [Has never passed]
      * Parents of subpages, two levels up, with lots of extra trailing slashes.  [Has never passed]

Passed 494 of 511 tests (96.67%)... 17 tests failed!


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [Foundation-l] FYI: MediaWiki extensions developed by Brockhaus

body:
Hi,

some of you might already know it from IRC or the news. The
Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, publishing some of the
best-known general purpose encyclopedias in the German language has
started a web site last year that contains the full text of the
"Meyers Taschenlexikon", a paperback small-to-medium size reference
work mostly aimed at students. lexikon.meyers.de is the url. In the
first weeks of its existence, they "forgot" to mention that this site
is running MediaWiki (stripped of any Wiki functions).

In fall 2006, I met the CEO of the electronic/online department of
Brockhaus during the book fair in Frankfurt on a discussion panel. He
promised to release all the modifications they did to MediaWiki under
the GPL. A few weeks ago, they set up an SVN server where they had
published those modifications
http://lexikon.meyers.de/meyers/Meyers-SVN

The description says GPL 2.0.

(didn't I mention this earlier on somewhere else? Sorry, if this is a dupe)
Mathias


from_name: Husky

body:
I'm wondering about the 'Computergenerierter Kontext'
(computer-generated contextual links). Is that simply an inline
version of Special:Whatlinkshere, or are they using something they
build themselves? Also, is there a list of major changes/enhancements
they made to mediawiki?

-- Hay Kranen / [[User:Husky]]

On 4/5/07, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> some of you might already know it from IRC or the news. The
> Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, publishing some of the
> best-known general purpose encyclopedias in the German language has
> started a web site last year that contains the full text of the
> "Meyers Taschenlexikon", a paperback small-to-medium size reference
> work mostly aimed at students. lexikon.meyers.de is the url. In the
> first weeks of its existence, they "forgot" to mention that this site
> is running MediaWiki (stripped of any Wiki functions).
>
> In fall 2006, I met the CEO of the electronic/online department of
> Brockhaus during the book fair in Frankfurt on a discussion panel. He
> promised to release all the modifications they did to MediaWiki under
> the GPL. A few weeks ago, they set up an SVN server where they had
> published those modifications
> http://lexikon.meyers.de/meyers/Meyers-SVN
>
> The description says GPL 2.0.
>
> (didn't I mention this earlier on somewhere else? Sorry, if this is a dupe)
> Mathias
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Phil Sandifer wrote:

>On Mar 31, 2007, at 8:34 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>>In en.wikipedia, we have a base of work for the future.  And therefore
>>it is natural and proper that we should over time get more and more
>>and more serious about quality.
>>
>>
>Then what the hell was the point in writing all the stuff in the
>first place?
>
>I mean, I've made a good number of contributions based on personal
>knowledge and on primary sources of philosophical and theoretical
>texts in the humanities. Stuff that doesn't fit the current
>"independent secondary sources or bust" model at all. I'm appalled at
>the idea that these contributions - contributions I made admin on the
>basis of, and contributions that my ability to make was part of why I
>fell in love with the project - are now part of a steaming pile of
>shit that needs to be cleared out.
>
>If we want to get serious about quality, there are ways to do it
>without starting to destroy what we've already built. But this idea
>that we should feel guilty because you got slammed in a television
>interview is ridiculous. Of course Wikipedia has inaccuracies. It
>always has. You know full well we haven't fixed them all. And we've
>had a defense in line for that for years too - "it's a work in
>progress. We don't recommend using Wikipedia as the only source for
>serious research. We recommend using it as a starting point, with
>care, and looking at the sources and other resources provided." I
>know being slammed in a TV interview isn't fun. But, well, if you
>want to be able to go on TV praising a project that's done and
>accurate and wonderful, Wikipedia probably isn't the project to go on
>TV about. It doesn't lend itself to that. It lends itself to having
>to be defended, over and over again, against the same objections. It
>lends itself to waiting for two or three years at which point we'll
>be better. It lends itself to recognizing that we hit the big time
>well before we were ready to. You of all people should know that. So
>stop trying to guilt the community because the job of evangelizing
>Wikipedia isn't as easy as you'd like.
>
Hear, hear!

It should come as no surprise that those most concerned about Doc's
proposals and similar trends are people who have participated on the
projects for a considerable time.  These are not the people who are
about to wilfully add libellous or other illegal content.  When they do
so by inadvertance they are the ones who will review the situation
fairly once it is brought to their attention.  Their commitment to the
project is too great to support either the kind of National-Enquirer
silliness that some would add to the project or the equally silly
framework of broad-stroke rules that ravages the ecology in a by-catch
of useful efforts.  An ecology can withstand trolls much better than
drift nets.

The long-term participants have always been serious about quality, just
as much as those who are now proposing rules.  They also incorporate a
vision that goes far beyond what may be found in any individual article,
good or bad.  Vision does not come from looking at a limited problem,
and setting out to find a specific solution that will easily solve the
problem without regard to other effects that the solution may have.

The vision of a compendium of human knowledge that anybody can edit
remains valid even if it does get messy around the edges.  The desire
for accuracy has always been a part of the vision despite the antics of
those whose understanding of accuracy and neutrality is particularly
limited.  The vision is what made Wikipedia what it is to-day.  The
openness that told the prospective contributor that he had to say was
important, that he was important, that his ideas were just as important
as those of the professional, that lifted his spirit- this is what made
Wikipedia.  The fact that it is now the world's single biggest reference
source remains an afterthought.  It was inevitable that Wikipedia would
include material that is mind-numbingly trivial, that it would include
articles about people whose claim to notability is dubious at best, that
ideas of perpetual motion machines would be in perpetual motion, but all
this is perfectly harmless.  Most of it will go completely unnoticed,
and the amount of space that it takes up in the databse is
inconsequential for as long as there is no debate about its value.

As a collector of old books I encounter a surfeit of material that has
fallen into a well deserved oblivion, but I'm glad it's there.  Like
much of our "non-notable" material nobody notices it's there, and I
wonder whether the editors of that day had the same arguments as we now
have.

Try this experiment at Wikimania:  Set up two meetings where people are
asked to comment broadly to identical questions about their views of
Wikipedia.  The difference between the two would be that the
participants in the first would have joined during the first half of
Wikipedia's existence, and the participants in the other in the second
half.  Compare the results.

I think it's important to trust the instincts of those who have endured
for a long time.  Picking up on Phil's theme that Wikipedia is a work in
progress, once it is out of progress it will be something else.

Ec


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] enwiki-20070206 Wikipedia Thesaurus XML Dumps Posted

body:
An XML Dump with  articles has been posted to:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/thesaurus/wikipedia-thesaurus-20070206.xml.bz2

This dump has been imported in a MediaWiki installation as an online
Thesaurus compiled by a Machine interpreter from the English Wikipedia
Dumps and the links these dumps contain.   Wiki links with a [[Article
Name | phrase]] were used in this first run.   The XML dump is
importable into MediaWiki
as a real time Thesaurus of word and phrase associations used by the
English Wikipedia Community.   This same compilation can be done with any
languages that use MediaWiki and for which XML dumps exist.

The site is at:

http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Main_Page

I have not fully run the rebuildall.php script, so the full text search
is rebuilding at present.

Some interesting pages are:

http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Egypt_%28220406%29
http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Town_Center_%281864650%29
http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_%28571170%29

Jeff


subject: [Wikitech-l] enwiki-20070206 Wikipedia Thesaurus XML Dumps Posted


subject: [Foundation-l] A successful request not yet fulfilled

body:
Yann Forget wrote:

>Hello,
>
>
>>On 4/2/07, *Birgitte SB* wrote:
>>
>>    Due to past conversations I have had with people
>>    involved with incubator, I read the comment about
>>    "merging processes" differently than you did.  Perhaps
>>    I am mistaken, and that is not what was meant in this
>>    case.
>>
>>
>This clearly shows the misunderstanding of what Wikisource is and what
>[[:oldwikisource:]] is meant for.
>
>Although some Wikipedias will remain small for a long time because of
>lack of contributors, some Wikisources will never get more than a few
>dozen or hundreds of pages, simply because the original content in that
>language doesn't exist. Another example is Sanskrit (a bit more than
>1700 pages) which could qualify to have its own subdomain because of the
>amount of content, but does not because of lack of contributors.
>Although we could dream to have the whole of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
>translated in Sanskrit, the quantity of existing Sanskrit texts will
>never be more than a few thousand pages. For some other languages, it
>will ever be much less, so creating and *maintaining* a wiki for only a
>few pages is quite a waste of work and time. That's why
>[[:oldwikisource:]] exists and will continue to do so. In that sense,
>this interwiki name is also badly chosen.
>
Of course the fundamental difference is that a Wikipedia is there for
the benefit of those who currently write in and work in that language.
A Wikisource contains texts in its language even if it is a dead
language.  Old English texts do not need a complete interface in Old
English.

Ec


body:
Delphine M?nard wrote:

>On 4/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N wrote:
>>
>>
>>>But one could say, that Hungarian copyright law doesn't make it
>>>illegal to upload these images to servers located in the United
>>>States. By doing so you're not breaking any laws.
>>>
>>>
>>I'm reasonably confident that you will not find a single jurisdiction
>>with effective copyright law where the act of uploading to someone
>>elses website isn't considered a reserved right under copyright law
>>(in most places it will likely be consider just another form of
>>copying, although some laws may special case it in order to have extra
>>harshness for infringements created online).
>>
>>
>Greg, i'm not sure I understand you here (Speaker of English as a
>foreign language ;-)) so let me try and rephrase what I understood and
>please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>you seem to be saying that there is probably no juridiction that will
>allow the uploader to break the local copyright law by letting them
>argue that they're uploading on servers that are set under a different
>set of local laws and run in another jurisdiction.
>
>In clear, if you live in Hungary and are subject to Hungarian laws,
>uploading copyrighted material on an American server where it is
>allowed won't keep you from being sued in your own country. Is that
>right?
>
In theory, I think that Greg is correct.  In practice it is unlikely to
be enforceable unless the Hungarian individual makes a big show of
uploading this copyrighted Hungarian material.  If the Hungarian is
posting under a pseudonym it is unimaginable that a US court would
enforce a Hungarian court's order to reveal who was uploading Hungarian
protected material when that material is not protected in the United States.

It's always important to keep in mind the distinction between a strict
wording of the law, and situations which would require enormous efforts
to prosecute over very little.  Cost-effectiveness matters.

Ec


body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N <nyenyec at gmail.com> wrote:
>[snip]
>
>
>>Let's take album covers as an example. Hungary, just like Germany
>>doesn't have a broad equivalent of "fair use". According to Hungarian
>>law, album covers cannot be distributed without permission.
>>
>>
>I think we need a FAQ point that says:
>
>Q: "But my country doesn't have anything like fair use / fair dealing"
>A: "You're probably incorrect."
>
>See the current Hungarian copyright act, (Act LXXVI of 1999, I have no
>clue how to cite Hungarian law).
>
>I'm fairly confidence that you have some degree of fair use, ...
>although it may not be as permissive as US law, the Wikimedia policy
>is focused on the part of fair use which should be most widely
>available (the part required to prevent copyright from being used to
>effectively stop free speech).
>
One also needs to consider the extent to which the fair practice
provisions of the Berne Convention apply to Hungary as a signatory.

Ec


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Newimages search

body:
On 4/5/07, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> > One possibility I mentioned in IRC is integrating it with the search
> > engine backend to do properly indexed word searches?
>
> What asks for properly named and described images. lonelygirl14 will
> not find you 'girl', unless you do heuristic tokenizing of
> concatenated words, anyone ready for that? :)

Just carry an index on all the trigrams (sets of contigious three
letters). No problem! :)

i.e.

lon one nel rly lyg ygi gir irl rl1 l14  :)


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Foundation-l] Language Review Committee

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:
>
> Please remember: only admins can edit the UI. Normal users on wikipedias
> can not. Sometimes this is an advantage, but very often it is a
> disadvantage. Nobody talks about a 100% localization though.
>
So why don't you simply make the people who are able to perform the
localisation into admins?

What actually is the stumbling block here?
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Language-Prevention-Committee-created-tf3462850.html#a9856076
Sent from the WikiMedia Foundation mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
I would point out that the person who intiated that
request was not even aware that el.WS was already
hosting ancient greek texts at the time.  My opinion
is that we should not duplicate efforts across
multiple wikisources.  As I said then, if further
experience shows us there is significant problem the
situation should be debated at that point, not before
people even try to work it out.  I also believe that
there are a number of solutions to your valid concern,
outside of creating a marginally viable subdomain.

Birgitte SB

--- Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> There was some debate about this regarding Ancient
> Greek.
>
> Should Ancient Greek texts be put on the Greek
> Wikisource, since the
> interface is by default in Modern Greek, which will
> be difficutl to
> understand for some people looking for texts in
> Ancient Greek? Should
> it have its own Wikisource with an interface in
> Ancient Greek?
>
> Nobody suggested housing it at Oldwikisource... but
> I for one was in
> favor of having a new Wikisource with an interface
> in Ancient Greek.
>
> Mark
>
> On 05/04/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> wrote:
> > Yann Forget wrote:
> >
> > >Hello,
> > >
> > >
> > >>On 4/2/07, *Birgitte SB* wrote:
> > >>
> > >>    Due to past conversations I have had with
> people
> > >>    involved with incubator, I read the comment
> about
> > >>    "merging processes" differently than you
> did.  Perhaps
> > >>    I am mistaken, and that is not what was
> meant in this
> > >>    case.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >This clearly shows the misunderstanding of what
> Wikisource is and what
> > >[[:oldwikisource:]] is meant for.
> > >
> > >Although some Wikipedias will remain small for a
> long time because of
> > >lack of contributors, some Wikisources will never
> get more than a few
> > >dozen or hundreds of pages, simply because the
> original content in that
> > >language doesn't exist. Another example is
> Sanskrit (a bit more than
> > >1700 pages) which could qualify to have its own
> subdomain because of the
> > >amount of content, but does not because of lack
> of contributors.
> > >Although we could dream to have the whole of
> Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
> > >translated in Sanskrit, the quantity of existing
> Sanskrit texts will
> > >never be more than a few thousand pages. For some
> other languages, it
> > >will ever be much less, so creating and
> *maintaining* a wiki for only a
> > >few pages is quite a waste of work and time.
> That's why
> > >[[:oldwikisource:]] exists and will continue to
> do so. In that sense,
> > >this interwiki name is also badly chosen.
> > >
> > Of course the fundamental difference is that a
> Wikipedia is there for
> > the benefit of those who currently write in and
> work in that language.
> > A Wikisource contains texts in its language even
> if it is a dead
> > language.  Old English texts do not need a
> complete interface in Old
> > English.
> >
> > Ec
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Refije dirije lanm? yo paske nou posede pw?p bato.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
The fish are biting.
Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php


from_name: David Gerard

body:
On 05/04/07, Robert Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:

>  but why would it be so much
> harder to simply open a new Wikipedia in a given target language and
> encourage early supporters and community members to simply make the
> appropriate changes to the MediaWiki namespace?  This sounds like a
> technical problem that is forcing people into doing things to suit the
> technology than trying to be amiable to people who very likely are not
> technically inclined.

I think you've described precisely why this new policy is such a
stunningly bad and obstructive idea in practice. The people are being
bent around the deficiencies in the technology, and that's completely
the wrong way around.

- d.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] enwiki-20070206 Wikipedia Thesaurus
	XML Dumps Posted

body:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com>
Date: 05-Apr-2007 08:29
Subject: [Foundation-l] enwiki-20070206 Wikipedia Thesaurus XML Dumps Posted
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia developers
<wikitech-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

An XML Dump with  articles has been posted to:

ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/thesaurus/wikipedia-thesaurus-20070206.xml.bz2

This dump has been imported in a MediaWiki installation as an online
Thesaurus compiled by a Machine interpreter from the English Wikipedia
Dumps and the links these dumps contain.   Wiki links with a [[Article
Name | phrase]] were used in this first run.   The XML dump is
importable into MediaWiki
as a real time Thesaurus of word and phrase associations used by the
English Wikipedia Community.   This same compilation can be done with any
languages that use MediaWiki and for which XML dumps exist.

The site is at:

http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Main_Page

I have not fully run the rebuildall.php script, so the full text search
is rebuilding at present.

Some interesting pages are:

http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Egypt_%28220406%29
http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Town_Center_%281864650%29
http://thesaurus.wikigadugi.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_%28571170%29

Jeff

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


from_name: John Lee

body:
On 4/5/07, gjzilla at gmail.com <gjzilla at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Another interesting group: "Abolish Abstinence-Only Wikipedia
> > Education" (97 members):
> >
> > "Is anyone else tired of listening to clueless teachers bash
> > Wikipedia? They complain that it can't be used for research because
> > it's "not a source." They tell you that anyone can write whatever they
> > want, so it must be wrong. I've even heard teachers say that "the
> > author" makes stuff up.
> >
> > Our schools say "Sex is bad, but we're going to tell you how to do it
> > safely just in case." Why don't they apply the same policy to
> > Wikipedia-- teaching students about the proper way to use it instead
> > of indiscriminately banning it. These teachers are well aware that
> > students are going to continue using Wikipedia anyway. I'm convinced
> > that they just don't understand what Wikipedia is or how to use it."
> >
> > --
> > Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>
>
>
> My feelings exactly.

The conclusions reached are generally sound, but I don't think a group
campaigning to cite Wikipedia as a reliable source should be supported.
We're a patently unreliable source. We're a jumping off point for learning
about a topic and finding sources - not a source in ourselves.

Johnleemk


from_name: Anthony

body:
On 4/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:48:48 -0400, "The Cunctator"
> <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I thought you said the Cool Wall  list doesn't ever appear in its entirety
> >on the show.
>
> Not as text, it appears as a pictorial representation.
>
So the use in question is highly transformative.  That's one factor in favor.

And the Cool Wall *doesn't* appear in its entirety, if you're claiming
that is the work in question.  Only the text of the wall appears,
rearranged in a non-creative order.  That's another factor which is
neutral at worst.

I'd say there's no way this is copyright infringement.  On the other
hand, it's not free content either.  So the question shouldn't be
whether or not this falls under fair use, but whether or not it's the
type of fair use which belongs in a free encyclopedia.

Anthony


from_name: Sabine Cretella

body:
Aagain I am posting the link to my blog - it seems as if just some very
few people read it - there is some experience behind all this. I posted
this already on the date it was written here.

Sorry, I am overloaded right now with work and cannot really take part
in this discussion:

http://sabinecretella.blogspot.com/2007/03/language-prevention-committee.html

Thanks, Sabine

Mark Williamson schrieb:
> That's what all the debate is about. Some people, such as Jeff and
> most of the people on the Langcom, seem to feel this is necessary.
>
> Others, such as myself, Arbeo, David Gerard, yourself (Robert) and
> several others seem to be having difficulty understanding why this is
> necessary for precisely the reasons you have outlined.
>
> Nobody seems to be making any new arguments.
>
> Suffice to say, from discussions I have had with people who had
> _formerly_ *approved* Wikipedias, they cannot understand why they are
> required to do this, many of them don't know what exactly it is that
> is required of them, and they are confused. It should be the
> responsibility of the LAnguage Committee, not of me, to explain to
> them what is happening here and give them a tutorial on how to edit
> the messages file and give them help dealing with the problems like
> the ones Fulup encountered.
>
> We need to be amicable and try to make this process easier for these
> people, not make it some sort of obstacle course.
>
> Mark
>
>