body:
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 16:32:29 -0800, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> Arbitrary HTML and JavaScript in the MediaWiki: messages is dangerous,
> and is something that's being phased out. There are a couple reasons
> for this.
>
> The first is security: on our larger sites we have literally *hundreds*
> of sysops with permissions to edit these messages.
[snip etc.]

I thought this was likely to be the case.

> It would probably be worthwhile to write up the special character
> inserter as a MediaWiki extension -- then it could be inserted into the
> wikitext message in a safe, secure way.

It would indeed.  A lot of the characters needed for the dictionary are
not easy for many people to access.  Copy-and-paste is fine, but point-and-
click would be much more convenient, if it can be securely reimplemented.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


list: wiktionary-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: Re: [Wiktionary-l] RC bug in 1.4 (Wiktionary) ?

references:
<200412212141.05143.yann@forget-me.net>
	<opsjdwffkn2okkek@arcadia.attbi.com>
	<CDA89594-53B3-11D9-BF17-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>

body:
On Dec 21, 2004, at 4:52 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
> On Dec 21, 2004, at 4:46 PM, Muke Tever wrote:
>> The same happens on la:.  In fact, not only in Special:Recentchanges,
>> but also in the article history, and the diff view they are missing.
>> I don't know if the software is discarding them entirely, or what.
>
> The link placeholders aren't being properly turned into real links in
> comment formatting. Will look into it...

Fixed. (Please note cached pages may still show the old results.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiktionary-l/attachments/20041221/f9dc3970/attachment.pgp


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Pages not being created?

body:
On Dec 21, 2004, at 5:34 PM, Muke Tever wrote:
> New pages on la: are not appearing properly.  The last two pages I
> made,
>  ([[Californium]], [[Cerium]]), upon submitting, returned me to the
> this-page-has-no-text message; the page is still empty upon reload,
> though the edit is listed in recentchanges.  Going back to the edit and
> submitting again creates the page properly, though this edit does not
> appear in recentchanges.

There is a problem with the way the database slave servers are used
which causes them to sometimes show slightly out of date data. (eg not
showing the page you just created a half second ago) It's being looked
at.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiktionary-l/attachments/20041221/0a1d45f0/attachment.pgp


from_name: Muke Tever

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Pages not being created?

body:
New pages on la: are not appearing properly.  The last two pages I made,
  ([[Californium]], [[Cerium]]), upon submitting, returned me to the
this-page-has-no-text message; the page is still empty upon reload,
though the edit is listed in recentchanges.  Going back to the edit and
submitting again creates the page properly, though this edit does not
appear in recentchanges.

	*Muke!
--
website:     http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt:  http://kohath.deviantart.com/

FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/


list: foundation-l

from_name: Viktor Horvath

subject: [Foundation-l] Wiki Translations of Greek/Roman/XYZ classics

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>While I can appreciate the occasional need for several translation
>versions, I don"t think that it is a realistic prospect in the near future.
>Before there is a second translation of a work there needs to be a first
>one.

Yes. But you won't get one complete translation if you don't make clear
which type of translation it should contain, as after the first translated
pages, at least two parties will start argumenting. I think Robin's idea is
a very good one: One could start with a first translation and some explicit
policy, begging everyone who wants to follow a completely different approach
to start another one, which is linked by the main page. This way, "edition
management" is very possible.

What's missing? Two-pane design *for translating* can be achieved by having
two browser windows side by side. You only have to use the same original
text, for example by linking to the Perseus Project.  If you follow their
page numbers (or even set links to the individual Perseus pages into the
translation, if that's permitted), you can even *read* bilingual versions.
For footnotes, one can start by using the discussion page.

I agree, this way one can at least start and see where there is a real need
for software features. Now let's start a project and find some translators
:-)

Have a nice Christmas everybody,
Viktor.


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikien-l

from_name: Robin Shannon

subject: [WikiEN-l] Painting copyright

body:
The copyright on the paintings of the great masters are obviously all
well out of date, however, does this mean that straight photos of
these are uncopyrightable? Or are they like translations of the
classics which are copyrightable. It just seems that not enough has
been down by taking a photo (or photocopying or scanning or however
the hell it is that art galleries make thier pictures of paintings) to
really justify calling it a new work in its own right.

Anyone know the answer? Even any unqualified people want to take a
stab at guessing the answer?

Also if they are copyrightable, does anyone know of any place where
there are PD/open license pics of the works of the great masters?

Paz, amor y Pap? Noel,
rjs,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths

body:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>Rebecca wrote:
>
>
>>There's absolutely no reason why said arbitrator should be allowed to
>>continue serving - he wasn't elected, he's done basically nothing in
>>months, and he's been approached about the matter several times, with,
>>as far as I can see, no response. While we've just had elections, now
>>seems to me to be the perfect time to do something - there's a couple
>>of people who only missed out by one or two votes who would be quite
>>capable replacements.
>>
>>
>I agree with this completely.  Will you research for me which arbs
>have been least active, and I'll email to ask them about their plans
>for the future, and then make some decisions.
>
I already did this before the election, to try and move the issue along.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee#Level_of_arbitrator_participation

Since then, we've elected replacements for Camembert and Gutza, while
Mav and Delirium have stepped up their participation in the process
again. That leaves Nohat.

>There's no indignity in
>people stepping down because they won't have time to deal with it.
>
>
None at all, as I've tried to point out. But as the position of
arbitrator has evolved, it carries with it a certain obligation to the
community - more so than admins, who aren't individually required to
exercise their functions if they don't feel like handling, say, page
protections. Part of that obligation is knowing when to step aside.

--Michael Snow


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Election procedures (was Arbitration committee term
	lengths)

body:
Rebecca wrote:

>This election turned into, to put it bluntly, a
>crapfight, with open season on the candidates. I found it to be a
>painful experience, and I wasn't even one of the ones being targeted
>most. I would also seriously consider not running again entirely on
>that basis, despite the fact that I'm looking forward to getting into
>my work as an arbitrator. That's why I chose one of the three-year
>terms - and I believe I'm not the only one.
>
>I think it would be wise to make absolutely damned sure that the
>events of this election don't happen again before we start talking
>about shortening the terms of the newly-elected arbitrators, or we may
>well find next time that we once again won't have enough suitable
>candidates, or that a certain class of users won't run. Being
>tremendously thick-skinned shouldn't, IMO, be a requirement for
>running for arbitrator.
>
>
I agree with Ambi that the campaign phase of this election had some
serious problems, particularly the handling of the endorsements page.
Since I was working on the process, I feel this as a personal failure.
Unfortunately, I felt somewhat limited in what I could do because I was
acting with no particular official mandate and didn't feel it would help
to arrogate the authority to myself. I'm sure the candidates also felt
restricted in terms of how much they could do about the deteriorating
situation without appearing self-serving, even if they were honestly
concerned with the health of the process. As a result, the manner in
which endorsements and "disendorsements" were presented was left up to a
group of users, several of whom have little interest in the good of the
project and are primarily active in stirring up trouble, as a review of
their contributions will show.

This would be a good time to review the process and establish some
better ground rules for future elections. I like the practice of
collecting short candidate statements in one place, leaving them the
freedom to post longer statements and have discussions with the
community in their own user space. If we continue to have endorsements,
I think a similar principle can apply there. Let people who want to make
public endorsements use their own user pages for that purpose, and
perhaps collect a list of links to those pages. Anything more than that
becomes an unreadable VfD-style page and bogs down in the attacks that
get flung back and forth. Just because some people want the opportunity
to air their grudges with particular candidates does not entitle them to
maximum exposure of their grievances.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] RC bug in 1.4 (Wiktionary) ?

body:
Hi,

I?found something which seems to be a bug in RC in the new 1.4 on Wiktionary.

Comments like [[en:article]] or [[:en:article]] don't appear in RC.
This can be seen at least on http://hi.wiktionary.org/wiki/?????:Recentchanges
and http://gu.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

For exemple, this (21 Dec, 20:20)
(diff) (hist) . . N Malayalam; ??:?? . . Yann (Talk) ()
should be
(diff) (hist) . . N Malayalam; ??:?? . . Yann (Talk) ([[en:Malayalam]])

Thanks,
Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [WikiEN-l] Painting copyright

body:
Thanks for the clarification, but what about outside of the US (eg.
for the purposes of the mandrake distro, or for wikireaders etc.).
Does anyone know of any precedents esp. in commonwealth countries and
in the EU?

paz y amor,
[[User:The bellman]]

--
hit me: robin.shannon.id.au
jab me: saudade at jabber.zim.net.au

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Recombo Plus License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: When is an oil painting "published?"

body:
Repeated comment with key correction

dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote:

> Well, since the topic has been raised, there's another question I'm
> curious about.
>
> I think in the U. S. publication is the key to copyright.

It is for now, but the US is changing to the life plus 70 regime for
works published after 1977, but in practical terms none of the works
affected will come into the public domain until Jan. 1, 2049

> For sure, unpublished letters can be copyrighted when they surface,
> even if they were written over a century ago.
>
This is no longer the case.  If a work was not published before 2003 and
not registered for copyright before 1978 it goes into the public domain
on the January 1, following the 70th anniversary of the author's death.
For somebody who died in 1934 that means 11 days from now.

> Millet's Le Semeur was painted in 1850, but when was it "published?"
> What constitutes publication for an oil painting which isn't
> mass-produced? Is it published when it's exhibited in a gallery? If
> so, then no problem (for most famous classic old paintings).

Millet died in 1875, so his work is now well into the public domain.  It
was "published" when it was made generally known to the public.  So,
yes, exhibiting it in a gallery would be a form of publication.  A
publishing firm that prints a book and leaves all the copies locked up
in a warehouse for a number of years has not published it as long as
they all stay there.

> Otherwise, do you need to research when the first printed reproduction
> was published? Truly "slavish" color reproductions weren't cheap and
> common (and used in textbooks and encyclopedias and magazines) until,
> oh, maybe the 1930s.
>
Basing copyright expiry on the life of the author avoids the problem of
determining when it was published.  An author's death date is far more
available piece of data.

> So, if "published" means "printed" then printed reproductions that are
> old enough to be in the public domain would be hand-tinted engravings,
> or chromolithographs (or whatever the Currier and Ives things are
> called), or black-and-white photos.  Which are significantly different
> enough from a color photo of the same painting.
>
What would make such photographs copyrightable would be the level of
creativity involved.  A simple point and click, or even mechanical film
selection, f-stop, shutter speed or focus adjustments to enhance the
representation of the picture would not be creative acts.  Wilfully
putting a picture out of focus or distorting the colours (? la Andy
Warhol), or a risqu? variation of the Mona Lisa in the style of Monty
Python could be creative enough to merit a new copyright.

Ec


from_name: Rebecca

body:
In this circumstances, why don't we have a means for replacing arbitrators?
There's absolutely no reason why said arbitrator should be allowed to
continue serving - he wasn't elected, he's done basically nothing in
months, and he's been approached about the matter several times, with,
as far as I can see, no response. While we've just had elections, now
seems to me to be the perfect time to do something - there's a couple
of people who only missed out by one or two votes who would be quite
capable replacements.

-- ambi

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 04:43:40 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Right, it isn't doing things poorly that is the problem, but doing nothing
> at all, but still filling the slot. So we wait and wait for someone who will
> neither propose anything nor vote for or against others proposals.
>
> Fred
>
> > From: Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net>
> > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:04:13 -0800
> > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths
> >
> > I think there is an
> > obvious problem when an arbitrator who has not really been active in the
> > process at all still has two years left to serve, and based on the past
> > year there is no reason to seriously expect this arbitrator to begin
> > participating. No experience is being gained by anyone that way.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Copyright Violation

body:
Ian Monroe wrote:

>Now that Wiktionary 1.4 is settling in, thought I would bring up an
>issue thats been on the en:Beer parlor for a while, which may benefit
>from some ideas from other wikt's. Plus it would take a sysop,
>{{sofixit}} isn't an option ;)
>
>Here it is:
>
>Its fairly common that we find copyright infringing articles. I
>hypothesize this is not someone trying to poison Wiktionary, but is
>due to ignorance. If you are like me, you've read it once and then
>forget that it says the following at the buttom of every edit page:
>
>    You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied
>it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT
>COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!
>
>Really I think this assumes the reader understands copyright as well
>as understands what folks in the Free Software movement consider to be
>'free'. I mean, dictionary.com is free as in beer, but it isn't
>'similar free' which is kind of expecting a bit from Joe User. The
>paragraph previous to that already gets the legal crap over with by
>stating you are releasing under the GFDL, I don't think we need to
>cover every case. It should talk to the anonymous junior high student
>who sees noctilucent doesn't have a definition. I'm not claiming to be
>a great wordsmith, but here is a try:
>
>    All definitions must be written by yourself or borrowed from a
>public domain resource. Do not use content from copyrighted resources
>such as dictionary.com.
>
>I think dictionary.com is the biggest culprit, so naming it
>specifically will be helpful. Also its a good example of what a
>copyrighted resource is. We could also throw on something nice to it,
>like 'we want to know what you think' or 'we apperciate your input'.
>I'm not sure how to put it. Just to be nice and to reiterate the
>'your'.
>---
>There wasn't any further discussion of it, though Eclecticology stated
>his belief in their being legal gray area around copyrights on
>dictionaries.
>
>Any ideas?
>
I really don't think that the problem is as bad as Ian makes out.  The
copying of any single definition from another dictionary may just as
easily be fair use.  Though when the definition is copied  from another
source that source needs to be referenced.  Copyright infringement would
depend on a pattern of behaviour.  Writing one's own brand new
definitions is not as sound a practice as Ian suggests.  If one is to do
that it should properly be accompanied by evidence of identified
quotations that illustrate the use of the word in just that way.

We've already had the argument about protologisms as original work, but
so too are definitions that take a word into areas where it has never
been used before.  Writing one's own definitions is not as easy as it
seems.

A significant statement in the GFDL license is "You accept the license
if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission
under copyright law."  Fair use does not require these permissions.

Ec


subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade

body:
Okay, I _think_ I've got the messages sorted out now.

There was a bug in the handling of messages on wikis with the
case-sensitive first letter option turned on. I _thought_ I had fixed
it before converting the Wiktionaries, but it still wasn't quite right
-- with the result that all messages were being pulled from new copies
of the defaults, and the customized messages were moved to the wrong
place.

Now the messages that were there prior to upgrade _should_ be restored
and working correctly.

This may have replaced any customizations done in the last day; you
should find those versions now at [[Template:xxx]] where xxx is the
_lowercase_ name of the message. (The working message pages are at
[[MediaWiki:Xxx]], with the _capitalized_ name, as they were before the
upgrade.)

Sorry for all the troubles; the lowercase titles option wasn't really
meant for general use and some upgrade cases were not as thoroughly
tested as they should have been.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiktionary-l/attachments/20041222/674e28f9/attachment.pgp


from_name: Ian Monroe

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Copyright Violation

body:
Now that Wiktionary 1.4 is settling in, thought I would bring up an
issue thats been on the en:Beer parlor for a while, which may benefit
from some ideas from other wikt's. Plus it would take a sysop,
{{sofixit}} isn't an option ;)

Here it is:

Its fairly common that we find copyright infringing articles. I
hypothesize this is not someone trying to poison Wiktionary, but is
due to ignorance. If you are like me, you've read it once and then
forget that it says the following at the buttom of every edit page:

    You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied
it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT
COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!

Really I think this assumes the reader understands copyright as well
as understands what folks in the Free Software movement consider to be
'free'. I mean, dictionary.com is free as in beer, but it isn't
'similar free' which is kind of expecting a bit from Joe User. The
paragraph previous to that already gets the legal crap over with by
stating you are releasing under the GFDL, I don't think we need to
cover every case. It should talk to the anonymous junior high student
who sees noctilucent doesn't have a definition. I'm not claiming to be
a great wordsmith, but here is a try:

    All definitions must be written by yourself or borrowed from a
public domain resource. Do not use content from copyrighted resources
such as dictionary.com.

I think dictionary.com is the biggest culprit, so naming it
specifically will be helpful. Also its a good example of what a
copyrighted resource is. We could also throw on something nice to it,
like 'we want to know what you think' or 'we apperciate your input'.
I'm not sure how to put it. Just to be nice and to reiterate the
'your'.
---
There wasn't any further discussion of it, though Eclecticology stated
his belief in their being legal gray area around copyrights on
dictionaries.

Any ideas?


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia upgrade to MediaWiki 1.4

body:
At this point most of our wikis have been upgraded to MediaWiki 1.4,
which has a few spiffy new features, some bug fixes, and some
performance improvements in page rendering.

I'm slating the upgrades for *.wikipedia.org to start around 1 or 2 am
UTC Thursday morning (Wednesday evening in the US). There will be some
read-only time during the conversions, which may last up to a few hours
depending on how cooperative the databases are.

Note that there's an issue with the special character insertion
template on the edit page; on older versions it happened to be possible
to insert raw HTML and JavaScript in that portion of the template but
ongoing cleanup (for security and robustness reasons, outlined in my
recent post to Wiktionary-l) mean that it doesn't work anymore.

It is a useful thing though, and it should be possible to make it work
through alternate means, namely a simple MediaWiki extension module.
I'll try to have one ready around the time of the conversion if
somebody doesn't beat me to it.

Please don't forget to file bug reports at
http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org for unresolved problems on the other new
wikis. We might not get to everything immediately, but we'll never be
able to fix problems we don't know about.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20041222/7a9a541c/attachment.pgp


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Uploading soundfiles to Commons using the
	pywikipediabot

body:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> I have been uploading LOADS of soundfiles to Commons. I would like to
> have more people upload soundfiles to Commons. The big thing people hate
> to do is the uploading itself.

I would second this.  Indeed, when I made a recording of Anthere
saying Merry Christmas (in French), Gerard had to pester me for
several days to upload it, and finally I just uploaded it to my own
website and asked that he do it for me.

The same is true, by the way, for image uploads.  As I travel, I try
to always take photos of things that should be in wikipedia -- not
just the major sights, but here and there smaller statues and so
forth.  But these just sit on my computer because the pain of
uploading is so great.

--Jimbo

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Keyboards

body:
pinco wrote:
> For these reason I'm writing pages for their keyboards. I succeeded
> thanks to the page written by Daniel Wunsch & Elisabeth Bauer
> (http://djini.de/better_arabic.html) which I modified.

I think you may be in luck, since Daniel and Elisabeth are
wikipedians.  (Elisabeth is elian.)

--Jimbo


from_name: cookfire

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Doing things we used to be able to do,	in the
	new upgrade

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Dec 21, 2004, at 6:20 AM, Muke Tever wrote:
>
>> Now, you help me. :p  It used to be that a few wiktionaries edited
>> [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]] to allow users to click and insert
>> necessary special characters... but it seems it is no longer possible
>> to insert the script (/style/wikibits.js) to allow this. Is there a
>> workaround, or a better way to do it now, or will it just have to
>> revert to a copy-and-paste plain-text list?
>
>
> Arbitrary HTML and JavaScript in the MediaWiki: messages is dangerous,
> and is something that's being phased out. There are a couple reasons
> for this.
>
> The first is security: on our larger sites we have literally
> *hundreds* of sysops with permissions to edit these messages. With
> those numbers, it's hard to assign sufficient 'trust'; even if we
> believe every one of them to be upstanding, well-meaning individuals
> the likelihood of a compromised account increases with every new
> sysop. If a broken-into (or malicious) sysop account can be used to
> add arbitrary HTML or JavaScript code, it could be used to exploit
> security vulnerabilities in web browsers or more simply attack and
> subvert the wiki accounts of other users. Such an attack might be
> found and reverted immediately, or it might attack dozens or hundreds
> -- or thousands -- of visitors before being stopped.
>
> The second is robustness: accidentally or maliciously placed invalid
> HTML could break the site. As the web moves towards more XML (which is
> very strict about proper markup syntax) it can become difficult to
> recover from such a breakage without manual intervention.
>
> There's still a lot of places with raw HTML in messages, so it's an
> ongoing process. Text fragments are being moved to either plaintext or
> wikitext, depending on their use and purpose. (Paragraph-level blocks
> such as the copyright warning are generally wikitext.)
>
> It would probably be worthwhile to write up the special character
> inserter as a MediaWiki extension -- then it could be inserted into
> the wikitext message in a safe, secure way.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Hi Brion,

I understand the security implications and I must admit I was already
somewhat surprised that it was possible to add javascript to these
pages. I have been creating a very comprehensive template for allowing
to insert all the accented characters I was able to cram out of my
Mandrake Linux Unicode keyboard. It wasn't totally ready yet and it was
good to be able to develop it in real time. I will forward it to you
tonight. I don't know how to create MediaWiki extensions. Is there a
place where this is described. I can program a little, so I should be
able to do it with just a few pointers.

Polyglot


subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Dec 21, 2004, at 3:06 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> On Dec 21, 2004, at 4:18 AM, Sabine Cretella wrote:
>>
>>> Do you mean you finished work on the wiktionaries ? This means that
>>> on the Italian wiktionary all the localised pages are not there
>>> anymore or at least the redirects are lost or is there still
>>> something to do after an update?
>>
>
> Ok, I think I see the problem. If necessary I'll pull the messages
> from backup once I've sorted out the bugs.

On the Dutch Wiktionary the same thing happens. Localized pages and
interface strings that were already translated were overwritten by a
post install script. It seems like reverting the changes the script made
would work (i.e. the localizations still seem to be in the history of
those pages). On the other hand sometimes it seems like MediaWiki: is
redirected to Template: (Sjabloon: on nl) and vice versa and I am
seriously wondering where the interface strings are coming from then.
I tried to resolve it (on nl) a bit yesterday, but I got totally
confused due to all the redirects.

Polyglot


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade

body:
> I really need you to be a lot more specific.
>
Thank you Brion for your answer. Gerard explained me what to do and we
could sort things out - at least everything seems OK now (and I know
where to go and change things in the future).

There's one more little point to modify the link "Wikipedia" in the
navigation menu should say "Pagina principale" - where can I amend this?

As you may note: these are quite generic questions, but it is the first
time I need to change such things.

Thank you!

Ciao, Sabine


subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade

body:
Sabine Cretella wrote:

>
>> I really need you to be a lot more specific.
>>
> Thank you Brion for your answer. Gerard explained me what to do and we
> could sort things out - at least everything seems OK now (and I know
> where to go and change things in the future).
>
> There's one more little point to modify the link "Wikipedia" in the
> navigation menu should say "Pagina principale" - where can I amend this?
>
>
Me again, sorry - the Community portal is not in place - I just noted it
- thank you for having a look at "Portale comunit?".

I don't know what I am going to miss next - anyway: thank you for your help!

Ciao, Sabine


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
I don't really agree. It isn't wrong to consider people's past or private
life, if, in fact, it is relevant. That may be hard to determine in a
particular case, especially when slogans such as "interfering with the
administration of justice" are being thrown around. Not paying costs for
transporting and housing a witness in an ethics proceeding is a serious
matter considered from the perspective of a court, but hardly relevant to
Wikipedia. Aggressive and systematic point of view editing over a period of
years, accompanied by bad faith denial, is a serious matter considered from
the point of view of Wikipedia. I think we need to be able to talk about
whatever someone considers relevant with respect to both candidates and
existing arbitrators.

With respect to CheeseDreams and her discovery of my legal problems, I can
understand that upon this discovery she felt she had hit the jackpot and all
her troubles would go away once she knocked her tormentor out of the matter.
The problem is, she is involved in an Arbitration case due to the complaints
of a number of people which resulted from a number of actions she has taken.
Trying to change the focus won't work, even dropping the case wouldn't work
as the underlying problem would continue to manifest. Most of the
arbitration proceedings only happen after many attempts to somehow resolve
matters at a lower level and indefinitely continuing with the status quo
becomes very difficult.

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 09:49:44 -0500
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration committee term lengths
>
>
>>> My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself
>>> in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off  a
>>> certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These
>>> people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? -
>>> vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and
>>> abuse in order to be an arbiter.
>>>
>>> Theresa
>>
>> Oh, don't get me wrong - I realise that some thickness of hide is
>> needed. I'm a big girl, and I can take that sort of stuff. But I think
>> much of the crap that was thrown during the election process stepped
>> well over the line.
>>
>> -- ambi
>
> And the witchhunt that's been going on recently with an existing ArbCom
> member is way, way over the line.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> Okay, I _think_ I've got the messages sorted out now.
>
> There was a bug in the handling of messages on wikis with the
> case-sensitive first letter option turned on. I _thought_ I had fixed
> it before converting the Wiktionaries, but it still wasn't quite right
> -- with the result that all messages were being pulled from new copies
> of the defaults, and the customized messages were moved to the wrong
> place.
>
> Now the messages that were there prior to upgrade _should_ be restored
> and working correctly.
>
> This may have replaced any customizations done in the last day; you
> should find those versions now at [[Template:xxx]] where xxx is the
> _lowercase_ name of the message. (The working message pages are at
> [[MediaWiki:Xxx]], with the _capitalized_ name, as they were before
> the upgrade.)
>
> Sorry for all the troubles; the lowercase titles option wasn't really
> meant for general use and some upgrade cases were not as thoroughly
> tested as they should have been.

Don't worry about the troubles. Version 1.4 is a good version and it's
worth a few 'child diseases'. Anyway, could you have a look at the
nl.wiktionary.org. All the templates show up like this:

    * #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki:Mytalk]]
      <http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Polyglot>
    * #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki:Preferences]]
      <http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Speciaal:Preferences>
    * #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki:Watchlist]]
      <http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Speciaal:Watchlist>
    * #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki:Mycontris]]
      <http://nl.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal:Contributions&target=Polyglot>
    * #REDIRECT [[MediaWiki:Userlogout]]
      <http://nl.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal:Userlogout&returnto=Speciaal:Recentchanges>

Polyglot


subject: [Wiktionary-l] upgrade a direct link

body:
This is what I'm talking about, but I think it is the same on all the
other pages as well:

http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Speciaal:Recentchanges


from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration committee term lengths

body:
> > My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself
> > in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off  a
> > certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These
> > people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? -
> > vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and
> > abuse in order to be an arbiter.
> >
> > Theresa
>
>Oh, don't get me wrong - I realise that some thickness of hide is
>needed. I'm a big girl, and I can take that sort of stuff. But I think
>much of the crap that was thrown during the election process stepped
>well over the line.
>
>-- ambi

And the witchhunt that's been going on recently with an existing ArbCom
member is way, way over the line.


from_name: Shane King

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee term lengths

body:
Charles Fulton wrote:
> I don't know that we really want or need that many arbitrators in the
> system. If these elections seemed ugly, imagine what a perpetual
> Requests for Arbitratorship would be like.  Also, I think Arbcom
> should develop an institutional memory so that its rulings are
> consistent, and that would be hard to do with a fluid membership.

Well the beauty is if enough people don't think we need that many
arbitrators, then people can vote oppose to people who put their name
forward unless they are very much exceptional candidates.

Think of it as being closer to Requests for bereaucratship rather than
adminship in that respect.

As far as consistency goes, I think it's more important that it's
effective. If having lots of available arbitrators means decisions can
be turned around faster, I'm all for it. If that comes at a cost to
consistency, then I think that's a fair price to pay. The people who
punishments are currently being delt to are more than fully deserving of
a good kick in the bum. I don't mind whether the size of kick varies a
bit from case to case, so long as the kick happens before they cause
even more damage.

Shane.


body:
I've tried to refrain from commenting here, but I can't help it.

I don't object to the idea of shorter terms in theory, but based on
the experience of the last few weeks, I think it's too early to be
talking about it. This election turned into, to put it bluntly, a
crapfight, with open season on the candidates. I found it to be a
painful experience, and I wasn't even one of the ones being targeted
most. I would also seriously consider not running again entirely on
that basis, despite the fact that I'm looking forward to getting into
my work as an arbitrator. That's why I chose one of the three-year
terms - and I believe I'm not the only one.

I think it would be wise to make absolutely damned sure that the
events of this election don't happen again before we start talking
about shortening the terms of the newly-elected arbitrators, or we may
well find next time that we once again won't have enough suitable
candidates, or that a certain class of users won't run. Being
tremendously thick-skinned shouldn't, IMO, be a requirement for
running for arbitrator.

I'm not going to get into the additional issues that have been
previously raised about people trying to make popular decisions
instead of right ones, but I agree wholeheartedly with much of what
was said by people like Angela.

-- ambi

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:05:47 -0500, steven l. rubenstein
<rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> I agree with Blankfaze and Danny that three year terms are too long.  Isn't
> it one of the points of computers that they speed things up?  Three years
> in the wikiworld is a very, very, long time.  Shorter term limits are a
> matter not only of  preventing the establishment of a cabal (or the
> appearance of one); it will help prevent burn-out and of course encourage
> greater participation on the part of others.
>
> I understand Angela's concern about experience, but I think that requiring
> candidates for AC to have been around for a certain amount of time, or
> having done a certain number of edits, will guarantee a minimum amount of
> experience at Wikipedia, and staggered terms will help ensure a continuity
> of experience on the committee.
>
> Steve
>
> Steven L. Rubenstein
> Associate Professor
> Department of Sociology and Anthropology
> Bentley Annex
> Ohio University
> Athens, Ohio 45701
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 05:48:02 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> I agree with Angela completely.  The real problem I see with 3 years
> is just that experience shows that many arbcom members will not stick
> around that long -- the job is just too exhausting.
>
> On the other hand, elections are quite stressful for the candidates
> as well.
>
> My plan is to watch the caseload and possibly expand the committee
> with new appointments fairly quickly if it seems warranted.

And I agree with Jimbo completely. This is the way to proceed, IMO.

-- ambi


from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
David Gerard wrote

> A certain thickness of skin would pretty much be a requirement for the
job.

I hope that all the successful candidates, who have had  support across the
community of Wiki-en, will also be supported by others now that a very open
and democratic election process has proceeded to a conclusion.  There seems
no reason to doubt that as an institution it is, roughly speaking, what
Wiki-en wants, and that the elected members are there because their general
take on policy matters has a broad consensus behind it.

I think the corollary to allowing wide freedom to comment in the public life
of the community, in the elections, is that the thickness of required skin
should not be constantly called upon in the day-to-day work of the ArbCom.

Charles


from_name: Theresa Knott

body:
>
>
> I missed this crapfight, and that sounds like a good thing. What happened?

A number of users used the endorsement page to disendorse candidates.
Some of the disendorsements were in fact personal attacks. Several
people tried to remove the disendorsements from the endorsement page -
this led to accusations of censoring, cabalism, and election fraud.
Lots of fun all round  ;-)
>

> A certain thickness of skin would pretty much be a requirement for the job.
>

My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself
in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off  a
certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These
people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? -
vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and
abuse in order to be an arbiter.

Theresa


from_name: apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] When is an oil painting "published?"

body:
Hi everyone

Check out 'Reproduction Fees' on Wikipedia. Its possible for an out
of copyright image to attract a reproduction fee from the library
holding it and providing the image. These fees can be very high and
even prohibit the publication of limited-run publications since the
finances do not add up.

Season's greetings to all

Tony Woolrich
Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK
Phone (44) 01278 663020
Email apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.3 - Release Date: 21/12/2004


body:
This has puzzled me too. The Arbitration Committee seems a poor remedy. Just
what is the barrier to immediate banning?

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:38:48 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admitted sockpuppet making continual abusive comments
>
> I'm faced with something I haven't seen before on Wikipedia.  A
> self-confessed sockpuppet, Wiesenthaler, is making continual abusive
> comments, and edits that straddle the line of anti-Semitism.  He has
> admitted he created the sockpuppet for the purpose of engaging the Jewish
> "gang" on Wikipedia.  With people who break the 3 revert rule we now have an
> administrative remedy, but what can be done about a sockpuppet created for
> the purpose of abuse?  A number of editors have already e-mailed about this,
> indicating how upset they are with this situation, and generally indicating
> that they are thinking of leaving Wikipedia.  Can sockpuppets like this be
> banned, or must they be dragged through a 6-8 month Request for Comment,
> Mediation, Arbitration process, continuing to abuse and drive away Wikipedia
> editors, before finally being banned, only to then pop up as another
> sockpuppet?
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] [Off-topic] Software patent; thanks Poland

body:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5499520.html

Yesterday where almost the Software patents approved by the ministers of
fishing of the EU by use of a very fishy procedure.

Thanks to the intervention of Poland the software patents where removed of the
agenda.

Let us thank Poland!

http://www.thankpoland.info

[[gebruiker:walter]]


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 12/22/04 7:04 AM, "Rebecca" <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, don't get me wrong - I realise that some thickness of hide is
> needed. I'm a big girl, and I can take that sort of stuff. But I think
> much of the crap that was thrown during the election process stepped
> well over the line.
>
Which is why i'm interested to see how she's going to be treating he
responsibilities on arbcom. I have to admit that I'm a bit skeptical of ambi
and raul654, but hey, it's a thankless job, and as long as people remember
that the law serves people, not the other way around, we'll all do fine.

i do look forward to some festive spats. Hopefully no destructive banning
sprees and hacker-goading though.


list: textbook-l

from_name: Curt Ashendel

subject:
[Textbook-l] Very general discussion of goals and methods (long
	post)

body:
Hi all,

I'm new to this list, but have read a lot of the material on the goals and
methods of Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and Wikipedia as well as the last few
months of archives for this group. I was not able to find my concerns
address in that material, so I'm trying out this mailing group. I hope my
comments and questions are not all hat that has long since been addressed.

It seems that the very large problem with Wikibooks, and the cause of its
very slow development (relative to Wikipedia), is that the goal of a book,
or even a textbook, is too vague and represents many things to many people.
On the other hand, an encyclopedia can be fairly narrowly defined both in
its goals and its "methods," which include selection of content and style
of presentation. Generally, for any collaborative project, if the goal can
be agreed on, the "methods" can be discussed and agreed on by participants.
Developing a set of goals is always the first step in the "acquisition" of
any product of creative endeavor, including book publishing and software
development. This is also true for collaborative open-source projects.

Finding a common goal (or set of goals to be solved by the proposed
project) is essential BEFORE any project work can proceed effectively. This
is a MAJOR problem that must be dealt with before collaborative, open
source books can thrive like Wikipedia. I have some ideas for solving this,
but first some more analysis of this problem.

Let me start by illustrating the nature of the problem with the case of
open source development of a college level textbook. Of course this is
quite distinct from K-12 level textbooks as well as non-text non-fiction
books, but this is simply to illustrate the difficulty of reaching a common
goal for any book.

As a university professor, I have taught Biochemistry for 22 years, using
several textbooks from several publishers and authors. These are thick,
expensive ($120) textbooks and there are about 12 or so current versions
that are in print. All of them have problems with accuracy, clarity, topic
order, timeliness, and depth of coverage. These problems make choosing one
of them a nightmare for me, and probably for every instructor of
Biochemistry in the country/world. No instructor enjoys changing texts,
because this means a change in the syllabus, topic order, and lecture
content (new figures, slides, terms, etc), at the very least. This can
double or triple the prep time needed for teaching the first time a new
text is used compared to years when a previously used text is continued.
But changing texts is essential because they become out of date as science
progresses with new facts and new paradigms, as well as changing topic
coverage and discontinuation of a title for various reasons. Also,
textbooks tend to drive the selection of topics taught, since teaching
without a text means more work for both the instructor and the students.
This means that the courses are designed around the texts, rather than vice
versa (the way it should be). Also this means that the slowly changing of
textbooks tend to keep the teaching of a topic behind the current
understanding of the topic. An open source text book (eText or print
format, it doesn't matter) would be the ideal solution to this, as long as
each instructor could tailor the textbook content to the desired selection,
order, and depth of coverage of each topic in the field.

The purposes of/markets for biochemistry textbooks vary quite a bit.
Sometime the material is presented in abbreviated form and shallow depth in
a single semester or quarter (30 to 45 hours of lecture), while other
courses take two quarters or semesters (60 to 90 hours of lecture).
Medical, pharmacy, and nursing schools need a medically oriented Human
biochemistry course, while cellular biologists, microbiologists, chemists,
and food and agricultural science students need a more broadly oriented
course that covers microbes and plants and has less focus on clinical
aspects such as diseases and drugs. Sometimes this topic is taught to
seniors in high school while most get it as seniors in college, yet others
take this class as graduate or professional students. But there are not
enough students in each of these various market subcategories to justify
creating individual texts for each. Thus, the texts available try to be
everything for everyone, but as a result they are universally poor for
everyone.

I see this motivation, to have the ideal, custom tailored textbook that can
be revised every year, as quite distinct from the motivation of states and
schools to save money by preparing their own text books. The latter appears
to be the major motivation for the K-12 crowd. However, the same problem
hits the K-12 groups: There is not one set of standards and/or goals for
all the markets/purposes of a potential book, and people will never, ever
agree on a common purpose or set of goals. This should be obvious: A
introductory book on learning the Spanish language (or any other foreign
language) for English speaking students could be written for grades 9-12,
for college students, or for grades 4 to 8. Each audience requires that the
books would vary dramatically in depth of coverage as well as style of
presentation, and probably even in the order of presentation. Yet all the
different level books would need to contain the same facts and many of the
other instructional material, including reading/translation passages,
exercises, vocabulary, verb and noun ending tables, irregular word tables,
and some cultural and geographic information. This information makes up
over 50% of the book (usually more like 90% of the book), and it is simply
a waste of time to recreate it for each of the three different versions of
the book.

I have a lot of experience in software development, and the holy grail in
that field is reusable software modules. It turns out that this has never
been achieved at a finely grained level, but it certainly has been
successful with any module that can be created to function in a generic
manner and purpose. This is especially true for software modules that are
incorporated into the coding language library, or better yet, into the
operating system or as a stand alone, but generic, application. An
outstanding example of this is the relational database application. No
modern application programs today include code for their own data storage
and retrieval system for anything beyond serially outputted log files or
serially inputted configuration files. All programs today use database
engines to do data access because they can do it far faster and with much
less application coding than if one "rolls their own code".

How is this relevant here? Well, the problem with open source textbooks, as
I see it, is not to do the impossible and seek consensus on the goals for
each book project, but that we need to avoid reinventing the wheel
(creating the facts, paradigms, explanations, figures, etc) with every
book. We need to segregate the reusable information from the non-reusable.
We should put the reusable material in one or two places, perhaps the facts
in Wikipedia, and the learning modules in another. Then for each book, let
one instructor (or a small group of them that share a common need) glue
these reusable pieces together in a custom order with a small amount of
content that is created for each book.

My vision for how this might work is as follows:
1. Facts are added via Wikipedia articles and other resource repositories.
The latter might include dictionaries, various types of network diagrams
(spatial networks = maps, concept networks, metabolic pathway networks,
biomolecular regulatory networks, phylogenic trees, etc) and possibly
separate databases of images, figures, and other data that might require
special viewers (though these are best kept inside Wikipedia and/or
dictionaries by using shims to let their data be included.)

2. People interested in creating teaching/learning modules using the
resources listed in #1, would have a collaborative tool, like the Wikipedia
editing function, for creating such learning modules with only the most
generic aspects required for a module (its title, scope, connections to
other modules including recommended prerequisite modules, wikipedia
readings/links, dictionary terms/vocabulary, network subsection, and
possibly exercises). The idea would be to cover a topic at all relevant
levels of treatment. For my Biochemistry example, that would mean for
medical vs general courses, for secondary, college, and graduate students,
and for 2 semester vs 1 semester courses.

Finding a way to deal with the multiple levels of coverage remains to be
developed. My idea for doing this is to require that each prerequisite,
reading/term, and exercise in a module be categorized as appropriate for
one of three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. These levels
could refer to both the learning style of the intended student and their
prior experience with the topic. Alternatively separate specifiers could be
developed for each, with beginner, intermediate, and advanced referring to
the student learning style and separately to the familiarity with the
prerequisite material.

Given such specification of the learning module components, when a module
is selected for inclusion in a book (or possibly chapter -see below), it
inherits the level(s) chosen for the book and only the module elements
appropriate for that level are incorporated into the book. Optionally, the
one or more lower levels of material coverage depth (at the same learning
style level) also could be incorporated. Alternatively, modules on the same
topic but with different coverage depth levels could be incorporated into
the text (or chapter) in a serial and progressive fashion immediately after
each other, or perhaps interspersed with other topics at other depth
levels. Currently many biochemistry texts have introductory chapters on
more general topics (proteins, nucleic acids, cells, metabolism) not only
before the more detailed chapters, but as the first 3 or 4 chapters in the
text, so that there is an introductory mini-course inside each the
textbooks. Of course, it would make the most sense to specify that all the
modules selected for a book to be at the same level of student learning
"style".

3. A second development tool would be used to create the text book by
selecting the modules and their order and specify their level of treatment
of the topics.

There will probably need to be an intermediate level or organization of
material  between a book and modules, something like a chapter, but not
serialized numerically. For any subject, most chapters fall naturally into
a rational order for teaching, so identifying the prerequisites should not
be a problem. One way issues about order and prerequisites could be solved
is by allowing some more basic treatments of a subject precede more
advanced treatments that occur in later chapters. However, the development
tools needed to create chapters would be similar or identical to the tools
needed to create texts. Both use lower levels (chapters or modules) in a
customizable order with selectable level of treatment and would provide a
means to provide custom text and/or figures to glue the sub-components
together. This way, there not only could be different texts made from the
same modules, but even different chapters made from the same modules,
depending on the purpose, emphasis on each topic, topic order, as well as
the learning level/style of the students.

4. This vision will not only need these two new development tools (one for
modules and one for chapters and texts), but also will need a means to
create a "freeze" of the reusable parts used in the text (chapters,
modules, Wikipedia articles, dictionary entries, etc) at a user selectable
time. This is essential for any instructor because it would be impossible
to teach a course where the "Facts," their presentation, or their
arrangement are changed in the middle of teaching a course by some
well-meaning contributor. Some means will be needed for the instructor to
selectively "refresh" an article or other resource during the duration of
the course if it is found to be defective in the freeze.

Unfortunately, the need for a freeze requires an infrastructure requirement
for its deployment at the instittution that "adopts"/creates the book. This
requirement for a web server with middleware and database engine support
for "deployment" of a freeze along with its modules and chapters would be a
substantial disincentive to use this approach. However, the IT support at
most colleges and universities, and a great many K-12 school
districts/authorities are sufficiently advanced to provide this level of
infrastruture. Clearly, the pain of this can be minimized if there can be
some sort of data encoding method that lets difference software engines
(and operating systems) support this need. If open source textbooks become
popular, there would be a tremendous need for such deployment software, and
such need tends to inspire healthy competition among vendors and even
different open source developers.

Probably a better approach would be to develop a third tool that
accomplishes  both the freezing and the deployment simultaneously. It would
create a complete post script or pdf document or set of html files with
images to create a web site based on the specifications of the book,
including a snapshot (freeze) of the chapters, modules, and resources such
as Wikipedia articles, etc. While this could be a rather large document or
set or web pages, an alternative would be to create one pdf or ps document
for each chapter, but do it simultaneously so that the reused components
are identical in each chapter. It would be easy to write a program to
create these pdf or ps documents for distribution as is, as well as to roll
them up into something that can be distributed as needed, such as a self
installing web site directory heirarchy. Yet all three formats would retain
their  nonlinear hyperlinked basis. Such deployment methods can fairly
easily deal with the copyright notices, terms of use, and authorship
attributions that would be needed if the pdf or ps file is printed or if
the html material is posted to a public web site. Other formats such as MS
Word or open office XML document could be included by using a system of
output filters such as those that have been developed by the open office
project.

Of course, such a development tool for freezing and deploying would have to
have a means for an instructor (or curriculum committee, or district/state
text authority) to do a mid-semester "refresh" or update of a single
resource  for any module used to fix problems as they are encountered. This
is a bit like the CVS code-branch problem, and so solutions to this issue
exist.

Thanks to anyone who has the time to read this long document and to offer
feedback on how we can get there from where we are now. I have a certain
amount of influence in my field and my University to make this approach
more popular. With some of these problems solved (if we can agree on a
solution), then we can move on to making this promising approach a reality
in a big time way.

Curt Ashendel
ashendel at purdue.edu


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admitted sockpuppet making continual abusive comments

body:
I'm faced with something I haven't seen before on Wikipedia.  A
self-confessed sockpuppet, Wiesenthaler, is making continual abusive
comments, and edits that straddle the line of anti-Semitism.  He has
admitted he created the sockpuppet for the purpose of engaging the Jewish
"gang" on Wikipedia.  With people who break the 3 revert rule we now have an
administrative remedy, but what can be done about a sockpuppet created for
the purpose of abuse?  A number of editors have already e-mailed about this,
indicating how upset they are with this situation, and generally indicating
that they are thinking of leaving Wikipedia.  Can sockpuppets like this be
banned, or must they be dragged through a 6-8 month Request for Comment,
Mediation, Arbitration process, continuing to abuse and drive away Wikipedia
editors, before finally being banned, only to then pop up as another
sockpuppet?

Jay.


from_name: pinco

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Keyboards

body:
Hi,

a group of esperantists from Pakistan, Kazakhistan, Iran, and so on are
trying to revise the Islamic terminology in Esperanto. These terms are
put in www.lernado.it with their translations in the languages of the
contributors.

For these reason I'm writing pages for their keyboards. I succeeded
thanks to the page written by Daniel Wunsch & Elisabeth Bauer
(http://djini.de/better_arabic.html) which I modified.

But I noticed that some keyboards (e.g. www.lernado.it\urduaklavaro.htm)
have a strange behaviour if opened by Mozilla: some keys change their
size if clicked on!

I'm writing to this list because: I would like to know if someone else,
working with non-latin languages, can suggest better virtual keyboards,
if not, can someone help me to debug my pages (www.lernado.it\klavaro.hmt)?

Thanks a lot,
Nino

--
http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidariet? per la Tanzania)
http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)


from_name: Yann Forget

subject: [Wiktionary-l] RC customization (new 1.4 on WIktionary)

body:
Hi,

Wiktionary:Recentchanges was used to customize RC head.
How to do it now with the new 1.4 ?
cf.?http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionnaire:Recentchanges
doesn't appear any more on RC.
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

Thanks,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclop?die libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux


subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about recusal

body:
Given the conduct of at least one arbitrator, my own view is that anyone should be able to unconditionally challenge and reject at least two arbitrators, without cause, much as jury challenges work.

I'm thinking, for example, of an arbitrator who appeared happy that an arbcom interim action would prevent someone from standing in the arbcom elections, because they were (at least in the view of that arbitrator) prohibited from editing the page to indicate their candidacy.

Given that, it seems wise to provide an easy way to eliminate those who do not do the right thing and recuse themselves when appropriate.

I wonder... has James F actually used his admin capabilities recently? Wondering if it might be an idea to keep arbitrators at arms length from all but essential enforcement, and have the arbitrators who opposed a particular penaly be the ones acting to enforce it, at least if the decision was close.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:03:58 -0800
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Questions about recusal

Has everyone voted?  If you've still not voted, please consider doing
so today. :-)

James Rosenzweig wrote:
> what do we feel are legitimate grounds for recusal as
> an arbitrator, and what may a user legitimately demand
> to know about an arbitrator when the user is
> considering asking them to recuse?

I would say that if you've been involved personally in a dispute with
someone, you should recuse from the case.  Add to that I guess any
case where you personally feel that either your own neutrality would
be too difficult to sustain, or where there could be a significant
appearance of impropriety.

I would suggest pretty strongly of course that ArbCom members try to
be exemplars of kindness and thoughtfulness in day to day actions, so
as to reduce any perception that you've got a vendetta or whatever.
You in particular are *very very* good about this in my opinion. :-)

I think a very good example we can look to is that of James F, who has
in his own words become "increasingly Wikignomic" in his editing over
the past year.  What this means is explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_gnome

What this means, in my opinion, because he's never said such a thing,
is that he's better able to function as an arbitrator because he's
basically been steering clear of the sort of edits that can land you
in combat with the trolls and POV pushers.  A wise way for an arbitrator.

Has everyone voted?

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


from_name: Stacey Greenstein

body:
I had done it, but [[user:Ta bu shi da yu]] has undone it.

UtherSRG

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:32:59 +1100, Rebecca <misfitgirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's now done (not by me).
>
> -- ambi
>
> On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:10:24 +0000, Theresa Knott
> <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just block the account. The block policy is clear on this matter
> >
> > "Sockpuppets that were created to violate Wikipedia policy should be
> > blocked permanently."
> >
> > Theresa
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
>
>It's now done (not by me).
>
>-- ambi
>

And now it has been undone, by Ta bu shi da yu.  There seems to be no remedy
for this.

Jay.


subject: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org

body:
So what is [[How to make Biodiesel]] doing there? And why wasn't it
routinely deleted?

Fred

> From: "user_Jamesday" <user_Jamesday at myrealbox.com>
> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 18:42:51 -0500
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: Re: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org
>
> It's not simply a dumping ground for things the English language encyclopedia
> doesn't want.


subject: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Doing things we used to be able to do,
	in the new upgrade

references:
<opsjc3gtrv2okkek@arcadia.attbi.com>
	<F68965C0-53B0-11D9-BF17-000A95DAA284@pobox.com>
	<41CA1B17.3040207@softhome.net>

body:
On Dec 22, 2004, at 5:10 PM, Jo wrote:
> I have spent more than 5 hours on creating the following, so I hope it
> is useful. (See attachment)

Sorry, the mailing list automatically discards most attachments. (We've
had problems in the past with viruses mailing themselves to the lists
with a fake return address from list members.)

Open an enhancement request at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ and
attach it there.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiktionary-l/attachments/20041222/079850e9/attachment.pgp


from_name: Charles Podles

body:
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 17:01:06 -0500, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >It's now done (not by me).
> >
> >-- ambi
> >
>
> And now it has been undone, by Ta bu shi da yu.  There seems to be no remedy
> for this.
>
> Jay.

And it has been redone for what I hope will be the final time, but
this time the block has been fully and incontrovertibly explained.

--Charles Podles ([[en:User:Mirv]])


subject: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org

body:
Lgo over your points:

"a spam magnet".

There has been no spam at all since 23 November.

"not educational: outside our mission"

What's not educational about the events and consequences of the September 11th attacks?

"not a community: scope too narrow"

You're missing most of the project. It's not only about those who died or for their relatives. It's about September 11th and it's consequences, which so far include the invasion and conquest of two countries and a wide variety of other events.

"not verifiable"

Try the New York Times and the vast amount of other coverage. You'll find related articles in every major newspaper every day and are likely to do so for for some considerable time to come.

"no NPOV"

The memorials aren't supposed to be neutral, since that's not the point of a memorial. The biographies and details of events are supposed to be.

"improperly located"

Maybe. The coverage should eventually be encyclopedic so encyclopedia seems to fit fairly well but I suppose wikimedia wouldn't be too out of place.

You also appear to be under the misapprehension that it's a static project. I suggest you take a look at recent changes and notice that it's still growing, though coverage of the events isn't as great as it could be, by far.

With respect, you miss the point of the project. It's not simply a dumping ground for things the English language encyclopedia doesn't want. It is a place where the wealth of details about the events and their consequences can be covered. Those details are removed from the encyclopedia and are what prompted my own interest in the project, since I'm interested in truly comprehensive coverage.

If you've any concerns about the technical work involved in keeping it running and growing, I suggest you put them to rest. An extra project entry in scripts isn't at all hard to manage. 'foreachwikidb localhost "do whatever"' covers hundreds of databases already. So do the rest of the scripts used to maintain the sites. Add a thousand more and it's not a big deal either.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 10:08:19 -0800
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org

I support this concept, and will host it for free wherever the major
participants prefer.

Erik Moeller wrote:

> sep11.wikipedia.org is a spam magnet, and not really an appropriate
> project of its own:
> * not educational: outside our mission
> * not a community: scope too narrow
> * not verifiable
> * no NPOV
> * improperly located: sep11.wikipedia.org suggests association with
> Wikipedia - it even uses a Wikipedia logo
>
> We're apparently so embarrassed by it that we hide it from most of our
> "Sister Projects" lists.
>
> Well, I won't be too negative - there are some valuable memories there
> that deserve to be preserved, and volunteers have kept it in presentable
> shape.
>
> So here's my offer:
>
> With Board authorization, I would go over these pages, and transform them
> into a static website. This could be located at some URL which has yet to
> be decided, maybe 911memories.org or something like that. I would prefer a
> location that is not directly associated with Wikimedia, though it could
> be labeled a Wikimedia publication.
>
> Wikipeople has been brought up as a potential assimilation project, but
> that strikes me as too vague, and there's no real thrust behind it, and
> I'm not sure Wikipeople is a good idea in the first place, so the static
> version seems like the best way forward for now. We would of course
> preserve and make available the wiki database in case we ever want to
> integrate it into something else.
>
> Another option would be to host it at Jimbo's free wiki hosting service,
> Wikicities.com. That would disassociate it from Wikimedia while still
> allowing interested people to work on it.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
"La n??fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l at wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


subject: [Foundation-l] sep11.wikipedia.org


body:
Just block the account. The block policy is clear on this matter

"Sockpuppets that were created to violate Wikipedia policy should be
blocked permanently."

Theresa


from_name: Marshall Wold

subject: [Wikipedia-l] question re Wikipedia for PDA

body:
How can I obtain either a download or a CD of Wikipedia for my PDA (palm OS), Tome Raider 3 version text only?
Please respond. Thanks.
Marshall Wold
--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


body:
-Please respond to question below.---- Original Message -----
From: "Marshall Wold" <mbenj at mail.com>
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] question re Wikipedia for PDA
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 21:31:43 -0500

>
> How can I obtain either a download or a CD of Wikipedia for my PDA
> (palm OS), Tome Raider 3 version text only?
> Please respond. Thanks.
> Marshall Wold
> --
> ___________________________________________________________
> Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
> http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Questions about recusal

body:
>Wondering if it might be an idea to keep arbitrators at arms length
from all >but essential enforcement, and have the arbitrators who
opposed a particular >penaly be the ones acting to enforce it, at
least if the decision was close.

Actually it's been my experience that admins do the enforcing, not the
arbitrators. Except in an emergency, I don't see any need for the
arbitrators to enforce thier decisions. There has never been a case (
to my knowledge) where there aren't any admins willing to enforce an
AC ruling, and i don't think there is any realistic chance of that
happening in the future.

Theresa


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Rebecca (misfitgirl at gmail.com) [041222 11:06]:

> I don't object to the idea of shorter terms in theory, but based on
> the experience of the last few weeks, I think it's too early to be
> talking about it. This election turned into, to put it bluntly, a
> crapfight, with open season on the candidates. I found it to be a
> painful experience, and I wasn't even one of the ones being targeted
> most. I would also seriously consider not running again entirely on
> that basis, despite the fact that I'm looking forward to getting into
> my work as an arbitrator. That's why I chose one of the three-year
> terms - and I believe I'm not the only one.

I missed this crapfight, and that sounds like a good thing. What happened?

> I think it would be wise to make absolutely damned sure that the
> events of this election don't happen again before we start talking
> about shortening the terms of the newly-elected arbitrators, or we may
> well find next time that we once again won't have enough suitable
> candidates, or that a certain class of users won't run. Being
> tremendously thick-skinned shouldn't, IMO, be a requirement for
> running for arbitrator.

I chose one year rather than two because seeing how I feel about it in a
year sounds about right. Of course, I am remarkably thick-skinned ;-)

A certain thickness of skin would pretty much be a requirement for the job.

- d.


from_name: Ashar Voultoiz

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Re: RC customization (new 1.4 on WIktionary)

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

Hello Yann,

Yann Forget wrote:
| Hi,
|
| Wiktionary:Recentchanges was used to customize RC head.
| How to do it now with the new 1.4 ?
| cf. http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionnaire:Recentchanges
~                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^

It really should be MediaWiki: . Looks fixed now, can you confirm ?

Also by copy+pasting the text from Wiktionnaire: to MediaWiki: you lost
the history, that should be fixed ! :p

cheers,

- --
Ashar Voultoiz - WP++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hashar
Servers in trouble ? noc (at) wikimedia (dot) org
"This signature is a virus. Copy me in yours to spread it."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFByeRppmyHQ2O4INERAo9AAJ9zVsxlyR0vltPzHZEBELSfK4wVtgCghM/Q
HVKS+waIByRG0DaKhyOqizs=
=8M1j
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


body:
Charles Matthews (charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com) [041222 22:44]:

> I think the corollary to allowing wide freedom to comment in the public life
> of the community, in the elections, is that the thickness of required skin
> should not be constantly called upon in the day-to-day work of the ArbCom.

Oh, certainly. A certain thickness, not necessarily a hide like The [[Thing
(comics)]].

- d.


from_name: Rebecca

body:
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 11:50:33 +0000, Theresa Knott
<theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I missed this crapfight, and that sounds like a good thing. What happened?
>
> A number of users used the endorsement page to disendorse candidates.
> Some of the disendorsements were in fact personal attacks. Several
> people tried to remove the disendorsements from the endorsement page -
> this led to accusations of censoring, cabalism, and election fraud.
> Lots of fun all round  ;-)

I think that's a reasonable summary...

> My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself
> in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off  a
> certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These
> people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? -
> vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and
> abuse in order to be an arbiter.
>
> Theresa

Oh, don't get me wrong - I realise that some thickness of hide is
needed. I'm a big girl, and I can take that sort of stuff. But I think
much of the crap that was thrown during the election process stepped
well over the line.

-- ambi


body:
Rebecca (misfitgirl at gmail.com) [041222 23:04]:

> Oh, don't get me wrong - I realise that some thickness of hide is
> needed. I'm a big girl, and I can take that sort of stuff. But I think
> much of the crap that was thrown during the election process stepped
> well over the line.

Perhaps it's just me, but looking at some of the disendorsements made me
wish I'd gotten better ones than I did. Evidently I do love everyone.
Goodness me!

- d.


from_name: Ian Monroe

subject: [Wiktionary-l] Copyright Violation

body:
I don't think the AHD has some crystal ball to divine the definitions
of words. How are you not saying that a dictionary has no place being
developed in a wiki-way?

Personally, I sometimes write a new definition if I have a spark of
inspiration, otherwise I modify the definitions that make sense to me
from Wordnet (I avoid Webster 1913 like the plague generally). When I
finish writing, I often will read dictionary.com's definitions to make
sure I got it right. Information isn't under copyright, expressions of
information are. I mean George Harrison got sued successfully for
having a song that followed a similar chord pattern as another (the
book /Copyrights and Copywrongs/ is excellent). Fair use ain't what
people think it is. And somehow I don't see the scope of fair use ever
extending, quite the opposite.

If it is possible to copy definitions in a fair-use manner, IANAL and
probably YANAL and we'd need to have someone write down what is
precisely OK to copy. Personally, I think we shouldn't even get close.
Whatever the case we would want to discourage newcomers from copying
from dictionaries, since I imagine it isn't obvious how to do it.

"Copyright infringement would depend on a pattern of behaviour." What
do you consider copyright infringement? We should discourage the
wholesale copying of the AHD into Wiktionary shouldn't we? Thats what
I had in mind. Ex.
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=65.35.3.81

While Ec thinks the current copyright statement its outright wrong, I
just think the current copyright statement is a bit confusing and
could be simplified.

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:04:06 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Ian Monroe wrote:
>
> >Now that Wiktionary 1.4 is settling in, thought I would bring up an
> >issue thats been on the en:Beer parlor for a while, which may benefit
> >from some ideas from other wikt's. Plus it would take a sysop,
> >{{sofixit}} isn't an option ;)
> >
> >Here it is:
> >
> >Its fairly common that we find copyright infringing articles. I
> >hypothesize this is not someone trying to poison Wiktionary, but is
> >due to ignorance. If you are like me, you've read it once and then
> >forget that it says the following at the buttom of every edit page:
> >
> >    You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied
> >it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT
> >COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!
> >
> >Really I think this assumes the reader understands copyright as well
> >as understands what folks in the Free Software movement consider to be
> >'free'. I mean, dictionary.com is free as in beer, but it isn't
> >'similar free' which is kind of expecting a bit from Joe User. The
> >paragraph previous to that already gets the legal crap over with by
> >stating you are releasing under the GFDL, I don't think we need to
> >cover every case. It should talk to the anonymous junior high student
> >who sees noctilucent doesn't have a definition. I'm not claiming to be
> >a great wordsmith, but here is a try:
> >
> >    All definitions must be written by yourself or borrowed from a
> >public domain resource. Do not use content from copyrighted resources
> >such as dictionary.com.
> >
> >I think dictionary.com is the biggest culprit, so naming it
> >specifically will be helpful. Also its a good example of what a
> >copyrighted resource is. We could also throw on something nice to it,
> >like 'we want to know what you think' or 'we apperciate your input'.
> >I'm not sure how to put it. Just to be nice and to reiterate the
> >'your'.
> >---
> >There wasn't any further discussion of it, though Eclecticology stated
> >his belief in their being legal gray area around copyrights on
> >dictionaries.
> >
> >Any ideas?
> >
> I really don't think that the problem is as bad as Ian makes out.  The
> copying of any single definition from another dictionary may just as
> easily be fair use.  Though when the definition is copied  from another
> source that source needs to be referenced.  Copyright infringement would
> depend on a pattern of behaviour.  Writing one's own brand new
> definitions is not as sound a practice as Ian suggests.  If one is to do
> that it should properly be accompanied by evidence of identified
> quotations that illustrate the use of the word in just that way.
>
> We've already had the argument about protologisms as original work, but
> so too are definitions that take a word into areas where it has never
> been used before.  Writing one's own definitions is not as easy as it
> seems.
>
> A significant statement in the GFDL license is "You accept the license
> if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission
> under copyright law."  Fair use does not require these permissions.
>
> Ec


from_name: Jo

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Dec 21, 2004, at 6:20 AM, Muke Tever wrote:
>
>> Now, you help me. :p  It used to be that a few wiktionaries edited
>> [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]] to allow users to click and insert
>> necessary special characters... but it seems it is no longer possible
>> to insert the script (/style/wikibits.js) to allow this. Is there a
>> workaround, or a better way to do it now, or will it just have to
>> revert to a copy-and-paste plain-text list?
>
>
> Arbitrary HTML and JavaScript in the MediaWiki: messages is dangerous,
> and is something that's being phased out. There are a couple reasons
> for this.
>
> The first is security: on our larger sites we have literally
> *hundreds* of sysops with permissions to edit these messages. With
> those numbers, it's hard to assign sufficient 'trust'; even if we
> believe every one of them to be upstanding, well-meaning individuals
> the likelihood of a compromised account increases with every new
> sysop. If a broken-into (or malicious) sysop account can be used to
> add arbitrary HTML or JavaScript code, it could be used to exploit
> security vulnerabilities in web browsers or more simply attack and
> subvert the wiki accounts of other users. Such an attack might be
> found and reverted immediately, or it might attack dozens or hundreds
> -- or thousands -- of visitors before being stopped.
>
> The second is robustness: accidentally or maliciously placed invalid
> HTML could break the site. As the web moves towards more XML (which is
> very strict about proper markup syntax) it can become difficult to
> recover from such a breakage without manual intervention.
>
> There's still a lot of places with raw HTML in messages, so it's an
> ongoing process. Text fragments are being moved to either plaintext or
> wikitext, depending on their use and purpose. (Paragraph-level blocks
> such as the copyright warning are generally wikitext.)
>
> It would probably be worthwhile to write up the special character
> inserter as a MediaWiki extension -- then it could be inserted into
> the wikitext message in a safe, secure way.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Hi Brion,

I have spent more than 5 hours on creating the following, so I hope it
is useful. (See attachment)

Jo


body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Dec 22, 2004, at 5:10 PM, Jo wrote:
>
>> I have spent more than 5 hours on creating the following, so I hope
>> it is useful. (See attachment)
>
>
> Sorry, the mailing list automatically discards most attachments.
> (We've had problems in the past with viruses mailing themselves to the
> lists with a fake return address from list members.)
>
> Open an enhancement request at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ and
> attach it there.
>
I will do that. Thanks!

Jo


from_name: Sj

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee term lengths

body:
Sometimes I have the sense that the current mold of arbitration
committee has been decided upon as an ideal, stable, long-term
solution for devolving authority to make tough decisions about problem
users.   Unlike wiki itself, the AC arrangement is not scalable, save
perhaps through making mediation (which can readily absorb new
community members) better and more active.

If this has not been decided, and even the AC members are actively
thinking about ways to improve on the current system in scalable wiki
ways, then the length of the terms doesn't matter so much.  If the AC
members are setting out to design a system that will become the only
recourse for serious conflict resolution, and if being an arbiter
will give them more of a say in how this system is structured than the
average community member will have, then it would be a tad worrisome.

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 01:04:13 -0800, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> It seems like a long time not just because Wikipedia is young, but
> because realistically, it is a very long-term commitment relatively to
> the contributing lifespan of quite a few Wikipedians. Turnover and
> attrition will happen among arbitrators as well.

I think that a good half of all admins (including many who would never
volunteer or campaign for such a post) would make fine arbiters.  Just
as adminship is no big deal, and involves taking on extra work for the
community, it might be useful if Arbitration posts were "not such a
big deal," and presented as posts that need filling for the community
to run well.

To address one of Angela's points, these posts should not be ones for
which one aggressively campaigns for reelection, perhaps not even
posts for which one stands for reelection.  If they are now being
fought over, rather than so undesirable that Jimbo has to twist a few
arms to fill seats, then perhaps we should address that issue, rather
than opting to hold elections as infrequently as possible.

On a tangent : the community *does* need more ways to acknowledge the
contributions of devoted community members.  This should not be
confused with the need for an effective AC.

--
+sj+


from_name: David Chang

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Hello I am a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, and I am interested to set up a Wikipedia based on Cantonese.  Cantonese is spoken by around 70 to 80 million people, in Hong Kong, Macau, the Chinese province of Guangdong, and many Chinese communities in Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.  Attached below is the information of the language on Enthnologue.org.

David Chang

information from http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=YUH

CHINESE, YUE: a language of China
      SIL code:  YUH
      ISO 639-1: zh
      ISO 639-2(B):  chi
      ISO 639-2(T): zho

      Population 52,000,000 in mainland China, 4.5% of the population (1984). Includes 498,000 in Macau. Population total all countries 71,000,000 (1999 WA).
      Region Spoken in Guangdong (except for the Hakka speaking areas especially in the northeast, the Min Nan speaking areas of the east, at points along the coast as well as Hainan Island), Macau, and in the southern part of Guangxi. Also possibly in Laos. Also spoken in Australia, Brunei, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Viet Nam.
      Alternate names   YUET YUE, GWONG DUNG WAA, CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH, YUEYU, BAIHUA
      Dialects YUEHAI (GUANGFU, HONG KONG CANTONESE, MACAU CANTONESE, SHATOU, SHIQI, WANCHENG), SIYI (SEIYAP, TAISHAN, TOISAN, HOISAN, SCHLEIYIP), GAOLEI (GAOYANG), QINLIAN, GUINAN.
      Classification Sino-Tibetan, Chinese.
      Comments The Guangzhou variety is considered the standard. Subdialects of Yuehai are Xiangshan, spoken around Zhongshan and Shuhai, and Wanbao around Dongwan City and Bao'an County. Official language. Grammar. SVO; prepositions; genitives, relatives after noun heads; articles, adjectives, numerals before noun heads; word order mainly distinguishes subjects, objectives, indirect objects; passives usually indicated by adding a word in front of the verb; tonal. Outside of mainland China, many Cantonese-specific characters are used in the writing system. TV. Bible 1894-1981.

Also spoken in:
      Brunei    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 3,500 in Brunei, 6.93% of ethnic Chinese (1979).
            Alternate names   YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Costa Rica    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 4,500 including Mandarin and Hakka speakers (1981 MARC).
            Alternate names   YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Indonesia (Java and Bali)    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 180,000 in Indonesia (1982 CCCOWE).
            Alternate names   CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Malaysia (Peninsular)    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 748,010 in Malaysia, including 704,286 in Peninsular Malaysia, 24,640 in Sarawak, 19,184 in Sabah (1980 census).
            Alternate names   CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH
            Dialects CANTONESE, TOISHANESE.
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Panama    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Alternate names   YUE, YUEH, CANTONESE
            Comments Bilingualism in Spanish. Merchants. Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Philippines    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 6,000 to 7,200 or 1.2% of Chinese population (1982 CCCOWE).
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Singapore    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 314,000 speakers in Singapore (1985), 12.3% of the population, out of 338,000 in the ethnic group (1993).
            Alternate names   CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH, GUANGFU
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Thailand    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 29,400 in Thailand, .5% of Chinese-speaking Chinese in Thailand (1984 estimate).
            Alternate names   CANTONESE, YUE, YUEH
            Comments Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

      Viet Nam    Language name   CHINESE, YUE
            Population 900,000 in Viet Nam (1993 Dang Nghiem Van).
            Alternate names   SU?NG PH?NG, QUANG DONG, HAI NAM, HA XA PHANG, MINH HUONG, CHINESE NUNG, NUNG, LOWLAND NUNG, HOA, HAN, TRI?U CHAU, PH?C KI?N, LIEM CHAU, SAMG PHANG
            Comments Renowned fighters. Came from Canton, China as railroad workers and soldiers several decades ago. They are not the same as the Nung in the Tai family or the Tibeto-Burman Nung (Nu) of China and Myanmar. Chinese calligraphy. Daoist, Christian. Bible 1894-1981. See main entry under China.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:
  Huang Yuanwei. 1997. "The interaction between Zhuang and the Yue (Cantonese) dialects."

  Shepherd. 2000. "Messages from a treasure box."


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] [In the Press] En content micro-review;
	WP critics "mean" and "boring"; competition for Wikinews

body:
For those of you who can't wait for the next Quarto (
http://tinyurl.com/4clcg ) to come out, here is a quick rundown of
some media highlights from December:

========
Forbes had one of their encyclopedia editors (they manage American
Heritage these days) half-heartedly compare WP to Britannica Online :
checking Haydn, Millard Fillmore, warblers, King James II.

"...Frederick Allen, Managing Editor of American Heritage admitted,
'it looks as if Wikipedia's gotten a lot better, more thorough and
more accurate.'...Even the Wikipedia's James II of Britain article
beat Britannica in size, reach and outside references..."
     http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/best/2004/1213/bow001.html

We should introduce Mr. Allen to Lord Emsworth; I wonder what he would
think then.
     http://tinyurl.com/453e7

(For those of you keeping score at home, it is James II of "England",
if you please.)

========

Meanwhile, Tim Bray sat down and wrote a delightfully thoughtful piece
on the emerging properties of  Wikipedia.

"...the proposition that the Wikipedia is a misguided waste of time is
boring. Something poorly-understood is happening here, and the
observed results are immensely better than intuition from first
principles would suggest. This is interesting; it seems obvious to me
that there are lessons to learn here, about reference publishing in
particular and knowledge husbandry in general."
     http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/12/06/Trustipedia

========

Journalists continue to get heated up about collaborative journalism:

Mark Glaser wrote a passionate piece on the collaborative news org he
wants to work for, almost a community Wikiproject :
http://tinyurl.com/62nu4
( See also his earlier notes on Wiki and journalism: http://tinyurl.com/5cxzu )

Then Mitch Ratcliffe spun a long editorial on Wikinews itself (
http://tinyurl.com/5bm9z )

And some local citizen journalism enterprises are starting to take shape:
... from the fully-realized Baristanet ( http://www.baristanet.com ,
serving Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield, NJ ), and the entire
town of Greensboro, NC ( http://tinyurl.com/432ea )

... to Pegasus News, "launching in Dallas in late 2005, but with a
cool blog up now," which plans to eventually expand to "every major
U.S. city with a monopoly newspaper"
          http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/pegasus_news/

...to Dan Gillmor's "jumping out of a window, and building a parachute
in midair"
departure from the SJ Merc to start his own venture that enables and
illustrates the kind of grassroots journalism he has been writing
about.
          http://tinyurl.com/66rag

========

Elsehwere, Wikiquote picks up a few admirers on Bill Hicks' birthday :
  http://maisonneuve.org/blog/index.php?itemid=718
  http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/2952532

And Wikimedia gets another quick plug in the Indian press, in a review of
reference desks and online dictionaries:
  http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20041213/market06.shtml

========

Finally, a question for our style gurus: is it "Wikipedia" or "the
Wikipedia"?
We had better start presenting clear guidance for our loving referers.
A quick score sheet from recent pubs:

- Frederick Allen, American Heritage editor  : "Wikipedia"
- Dr. 'Alfaso' Gizmo, semi-anonymous journalist : "graffiti"
- Matt Rand, /Forbes/ writer : "the Wikipedia"
- Mitch Ratcliffe, veteran journalist : "Wikipedia"
- Robert McHenry, Former /Britannica/ editor  : [unintelligible]
- Tim Bray, Encyclophile : "the Wikipedia"
- Val Souza, Express Computer columnist, India : "the Wikipedia"
- Wired Magazine, various writers : "Wikipedia"

--
+sj+  +  +  +  -  +  -  +   --  ||  --  +  -  +  -  +  Happy Holidays to all!