from_name: Eric R. Meyers

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Hello Wikimedians,

On Monday 14 August 2006 19:03, Anthere wrote:
> It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
> we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)
>

Wholeheartedly, I want to congratulate you all, because I know how difficult
it has been to get Wikiversity going.

I know for a fact, even thought I can't really prove it to you, that
Wikiversity is very much The Right Thing to do for the world.  I personally
can't wait to see it all happen for us.  Really good things are coming, I'm
very sure of that.

Really great job to all of you involved in the proposal!  And, thank you to
all the board members, and the special project committee for getting it
through to fruition.  Thanks Jimbo, for placing you John Hancock on the page!

Just making an idiot out of myself, again, for a really good thing. :)

Thanks,

Eric
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list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Hello Wikimedians,

On Monday 14 August 2006 19:03, Anthere wrote:
> It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
> we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)
>

Wholeheartedly, I want to congratulate you all, because I know how difficult
it has been to get Wikiversity going.

I know for a fact, even thought I can't really prove it to you, that
Wikiversity is very much The Right Thing to do for the world.  I personally
can't wait to see it all happen for us.  Really good things are coming, I'm
very sure of that.

Really great job to all of you involved in the proposal!  And, thank you to
all the board members, and the special project committee for getting it
through to fruition.  Thanks Jimbo, for placing you John Hancock on the page!

Just making an idiot out of myself, again, for a really good thing. :)

Thanks,

Eric
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list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Hello Wikimedians,

On Monday 14 August 2006 19:03, Anthere wrote:
> It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
> we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)
>

Wholeheartedly, I want to congratulate you all, because I know how difficult
it has been to get Wikiversity going.

I know for a fact, even thought I can't really prove it to you, that
Wikiversity is very much The Right Thing to do for the world.  I personally
can't wait to see it all happen for us.  Really good things are coming, I'm
very sure of that.

Really great job to all of you involved in the proposal!  And, thank you to
all the board members, and the special project committee for getting it
through to fruition.  Thanks Jimbo, for placing you John Hancock on the page!

Just making an idiot out of myself, again, for a really good thing. :)

Thanks,

Eric
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subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Hello Wikimedians,

On Monday 14 August 2006 19:03, Anthere wrote:
> It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
> we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)
>

Wholeheartedly, I want to congratulate you all, because I know how difficult
it has been to get Wikiversity going.

I know for a fact, even thought I can't really prove it to you, that
Wikiversity is very much The Right Thing to do for the world.  I personally
can't wait to see it all happen for us.  Really good things are coming, I'm
very sure of that.

Really great job to all of you involved in the proposal!  And, thank you to
all the board members, and the special project committee for getting it
through to fruition.  Thanks Jimbo, for placing you John Hancock on the page!

Just making an idiot out of myself, again, for a really good thing. :)

Thanks,

Eric
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list: wikien-l

from_name: maru dubshinki

subject: [WikiEN-l]And you thought Pokémon was trivial...

body:
On 6/24/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/24/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > We're slowly reaching at least basic completeness in some fields; a
> > lot of the missing-articles lists are beginning to top out. There's
> > still a long way to go, though.
>
> It would be fascinating to see a global view of this. I know we have a
> lot of WikiProjects that track completeness in indivdiual fields, but
> a way of combining these into an overall view, like "Politicians: UK
> 20% missing, 60% stub, 20% advanced" or something, would be amazing.
> It would also be then interesting to compare that "top down" view with
> a "bottom up" view, whereby articles are sampled at random for quality
> and to see what domains they belong to.
>
> Steve

Not workable. We can't say that by adding up all the lists and then
seeing what the master percentage is that we know how incomplete
Wikipedia is:  there are tons and tons of areas that simply don't have
lists, and the current lists are incomplete. So you *could* try the
master list idea, but I'd think that it would be overly optimistic,
since having a list implies people interested enough to write those
articles, and lists are always too short.

~maru


body:
On 6/23/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/23/06, Zero <megamanzero521 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On 6/23/06, George William Herbert wrote:
> > >Is there a project or such of people who can go around focusing on
> > >adding references?
> >
> > >Would adding references be a useful thing to encourage as class
> > >projects for college students, etc?
> >
> > That would be a ideal wiki-project to implement, certainly more useful than
> > these sub projects that pop up every five minutes for the lastest fad down the street.
>
> Quick poking around finds:
> WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
>
> This project seems somewhat aligned with this goal, but it seems to
> combine fact checking with reference addition activities.
>
> It also seems, as a project, to be not moving very quickly at the moment.
>
> Would working within that structure be useful, or a new project?
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert

I figure it's a false premise. If you're gonna fact-check and
reference an article, you need a lot of knowledge of that area, not to
mention knowledge of what sources and books and reference works to
consult; you need subject-area knowledge to interpret what you find.

That knowledge is essential. You can through sheer grunt work and
search engines perhaps verify the true bits of an article, but there
are some things that just don't work. I'll lay out an example. Let us
suppose the Wikipedia articles on Japanese court poetry were
completely screwed up, and were the next designated target. You find
in the [[Emperor Go-Toba]] article an assertion that in his exile, he
asked [[Fujiwara no Teika]] to judge some of his poems.
Now, this seems fairly plausible. You know they were both alive at
this period, because you've already fact-checked the dates, you know
that they had a fairly close relation.  But how can you prove it? You
simply can't find any statements one way or the other.  No source is
going to tell you that this is false, and that it was *Fujiwara no
Ietaka* who Go-Toba asked to judge his poems. They might mention the
correct fact, but you can't be sure that he didn't really ask both and
your source for the correct fact simply omitted one of the requests -
after all, he was exiled for a pretty long time.  Hard to prove a
negative, y'know.

We can ask area-specific projects to do it. Ask a Star Wars editor to
fact-check and source a SW article; ask a football fan/editor to check
a football editor. Expecting a project of random people to instantly
make themselves into area epxerts is to expect too much.

~maru


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Simetrical

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

body:
On 8/14/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Actually, I believe the answer is a conditional yes: if the license
> under which you acquire the code permits you to relicense it under the
> GPL and distribute it, then you can take that path.

The license you release the combined work under has to have no more
restrictions than the GPL, because otherwise you can't combine it with
the GPL, but it also can have no fewer restrictions than the GPL,
because you can't relicense the GPL parts without permission of all
contributors.

Basically, if you have a preexisting body of GPL work that you can't
effectively relicense, such as MediaWiki, any modified versions must
be released under the GPL exactly, even if the modifications by
themselves are under a less restrictive license (such as one that
permits you to relicense under the GPL).


from_name: Julien Lemoine

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Suggest

body:
Hi Nick,

Nick Jenkins wrote:
> Hi Julien,
>
>
>> The latest version of the sources with all these modifications is
>> available at :
>> http://suggest.speedblue.org/tgz/wikipedia-suggest-0.31.tar.gz
>>
>
> Some search suggestion updates:
>
> * Got rid of the race condition in autocomplete when user types fast (e.g. can type "new" fast without having it lose the
> highlighting on " York").
> * Removed the first field from the JSON response from TcpQuery (basically client was asking a question, and getting a response from
> server that said "the question you asked is this, and the answer is this" - however we only need the answer back, not the question).
> Also removed a handful of spaces that aren't needed in the JSON data.
> * Pressing "Enter" on a response which has no matches will now invoke MediaWiki's "Special:Search" on that query.
> * Moved the URL to the wiki to index.php (as "var baseUrl"), which hopefully means that a single WSuggest.js file can be used for
> both English and French.
> * Added a CHANGELOG file to keep track of what's changed + release dates.
> * With the "var autocomplete" + delete key stuff (intKey == 8), I think the intent was to update the suggestion list (but not the
> autocomplete) if the user presses the backspace/delete keys. Added a 'showAutocomplete' boolean parameter for this.
> * If the user searched for "XYZ Affair", then deleted the "Y" to give "XZ Affair", it would still show "XYZ Affair" as the only
> matching result (when really there are no matching results). To prevent this removed the 'cache' boolean var.
>
> Patch against 0.31 is at http://files.nickj.org/MediaWiki/wikipedia-suggest-0.31-diff.txt
>
>
Very good job, I will integrate your patch in the 0.4 version that I
will release tomorrow.
Thank you very much.

Best Regards.
Julien


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] The sky is blue {{citation needed}}

body:
> From: Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>

> But on the other hand, the "enforcement" of the policy
> has been getting so zealous lately that I don't have too much
> trouble imagining editor A saying "the sky is blue" and editor B
> demanding a verifiable citation lest the assertion be deleted as
> original research.
>
> It "ought" to be the case that "obvious" facts, which "everybody
> knows", can be inserted without explicit citation.

Obviously "the sky is blue" should not be deleted. But it's a rather
bad example for your purpose, as I recently noted on a talk page.

In the first place, the sky is "not" always blue, and therefore this
is a "fact" that is not really quite true. In the second place, as is
so often the case of things that "can't be sourced because they're
just common knowledge," it is ''very'' easily sourced:

"the blue sky is so commonplace that it is taken for granted" {{cite
book|title=A Field Guide to the Atmosphere|first=Vincent J.|
last=Schaefer|coauthors=John A. Day|year=1998|publisher=Houghton
Mifflin Field Guides|id=ISBN 0395976316}}

I also found:

The poet [[Robert Service]] says "while the blue sky bends above/
You've got nearly all that matters;" songwriter [[Irving Berlin]]
wrote of "[[Blue Skies (song)|Blue Skies]] smiling at me," airmen fly
into the [[The U.S. Air Force (song)|wild blue yonder]].

{{cite book|title=Collected Poems of Robert Service|first=Robert|
last=Service|year=1940|publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons|id=ISBN
0-399-15015-3}},</ref>

For the sky _not_ always being blue: Matthew 16:2, Jesus says to the
Pharisees "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for
the sky is red."

"At twilight, salmon reds, oranges, purples, white-yellows, and many
shades of blue can be seen."

{{cite book|title=Light and Colour in the Outdoors|first=M. G. J.|
last=Minnaert|origyear=1974|year=1993|publisher=Springer-Verlag|
id=ISBN 0-387-97935-2}} p. 295

And songwriter [[Oscar Hammerstein II|Oscar Hammerstein]]'s famously
wrote of "when the sky is a bright canary yellow."<ref>{{cite book|
title=American Musical|first=Marc|last=Bauch|publisher=Tectum Verlag|
id=ISBN 382888458X}} </ref>

It took me less than ten minutes to turn up the "serious" sources
(Schaeffer and Minnaert) another fifteen to find the rest. If
something is really a commonly known fact, it is just not that hard
to source. And the effort to do so _often_ yields dividends.

This is not to say that requests for citations can't be abused. But,
if I am an editor, and I inserted something without a source because
I didn't really think it needed one, and someone marked it "citation
needed," my response would be to source it. This has happened to me,
and it's what I've done. Except in one case... where I couldn't find
one... and so I removed the item myself.


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Announcement regarding the Election

body:
(Copy/paste from Meta, yes, I'm lazy)

Following the Boston Board meeting on August 4, we the Election
Officers announce hereby the upcoming September election will fill the
board position of Angela Beesley.

We wish all candidates good luck,
Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia
19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC), Election Officials, Wikimedia Election
Committee 2006


subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
> From: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
>
> I think it's only deletionist when you delete such claims that
> could be true
> instead of giving people the chance to verify it. Only when you can
> falsify
> it, it can be removed.

Once a "citation needed" tag is in place, there's no need to do
anything in a hurry. The reader is adequately warned, other editors
are informed.

Depending on the situation, I will usually let them sit for a week to
several months. I'll usually make at least a quick, half-assed effort
to find a source myself before removing it. And when I do remove it,
I don't just delete it, I put it on the talk page.

Not infrequently, someone will find a source and take it out of the
talk page and put it back in the article. I love it when that happens.

The people I don't understand are the people who object to the tag
being placed in the first place. I'd be all in favor of trying to
find a less obtrusive tag, but, yes, I sometimes think the people who
complain about "citation needed" tags are using it as a mask for
opposition to the verifiability policy itself.


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
-- Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:

> Assuming good faith does not go so far as to say that we assume
> perfection of edits. As long as the person is civil and not abusive of
> the editor who put in the unverified statement it should fit within
> all the policies.

And so... do you agree that a modus operandi of blanket tag-team reverts
while making obtuse references to various policies is... incivil?

-Stevertigo

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


from_name: Evan Prodromou

body:
On Tue, 2006-15-08 at 08:33 +1000, Angela wrote:
> On 8/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Actually I'm a little confused on this Wikia business. Wikia is
> > apparently testing WIKYWYG. Wikia is owned by Jimbo. Wikia is not
> > GFDL. After that, things get hazy for me.
>
> Wikia is developing Wikiwyg, not just testing it. Wikia is not just
> owned by Jimbo - it's owned by its staff and investors. Wikia content
> is GFDL, but that's irrelevant since this is about the software, which
> is GPL (the same as MediaWiki).

I'm so glad to hear from someone who works for Mikia on the new
WIGGYWACK functionality. Isn't Wygiwisia also sponsoring the development
of Mediwisyg? I though Jimbo specifically said that the GPL'd content on
Kiwimedygo would be part of the next version of the GFDL'd license in
WYGIWYS WediaMiki.

~Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan at prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/


from_name: Ray Saintonge

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

body:
jayjg wrote:

>>>>>>I seriously question the notion that using material from the original
>>>>>>movie or book is original research.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>I don't see how you possibly could question it; it's clear as day (see
>>>>>above). Where have the screencaps in question been published?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>It's clear as day that they were published when the movie was released.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Published in what sense?
>>>
>>>
>>Made public.
>>
>>
>Made public and being published are not synonyms.
>
"The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2001: "prepare and issue (a book,
journal, or piece of music) for public sale. ...print in a book or
journal so as to make it generally known. ... formally announce or read.
... communicate to a third party".  You might find it enlightening to
look at the etymology of both words.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] giving medical advice

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Deon Wentworth wrote:
>
>
>>Forgive me.. perhaps I missed something.. but what does this have to do with
>>medical advice?
>>
>>
>Ray just likes trolling me.
>
Get it right!  That comment of yours to which I responded had nothing to
do with medical advice to start with; I have no idea where you got the
subject line from.

Ec


list: commons-l

from_name: Tim 'avatar' Bartel

subject: [Commons-l] Deletion of still-used images

body:
Hi,

Alphax (Wikipedia email) schrieb am 12.08.2006 10:50:
> Florian Straub wrote:
>> Can anyone tell me how I can reply to the daily digest WITHOUT messing up
>> the whole thread at
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-August/thread.html#511 ?
>
> Switch to individual messages and use a different email program; Outlook
> can't handle threads at all.

I don't use Outlook (well, I don't use Windows) but I'm pretty sure,
this is not correct.

Seems the guys from Microsoft call mail threading "conversations":
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011357041033.aspx

Bye, Tim.

PS: Ah, well, I see. Florian is using Outlook Express - this program
can't do mail-threading. Please don't be confused: Besides the name
theese programs are totally different.

--
Schaufensterbummel = Die weibliche Entsprechung
zum Spaehtrupp beim Militaer.
-> Peter Ustinov

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from_name: Michael Snow

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

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> On 8/15/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>> Under the Florida Statutes, the members of a non-profit have a right
>> to remove any board member upon a majority vote.  (Florida Statutes
>> 617.0808)  So no, legal membership would make a difference if a few
>> board members did something outrageously stupid.
>
> I didn't realize that (note to self: read Florida Statutes). That's a
> pretty compelling argument for membership -- it could be a long term
> safeguard for the Foundation's principles.

I think this overstates the value of such a safeguard. The statute
actually reads, "Any member of the board of directors may be removed
from office with or without cause by the vote or agreement in writing by
a majority of all votes of the membership." Glossing over for a moment
the procedural niceties that follow, equating "a majority of all votes
of the membership" with a majority vote is a little simplistic. If I
read this right, removal requires an absolute majority of the entire
"electorate", not merely a majority of votes cast.

Even if it did seem desirable, does anybody think it would be plausible
to mobilize the necessary votes? Keep in mind that with the kind of
turnover we experience, over time we'll have an increasing number of
members who no longer actively participate. The dissatisfied are
especially likely to be in this group, perhaps undermining their
preferred outcome. I suspect that even in the unlikely possibility of an
unopposed vote for removal, it might not command enough votes. (I'd also
note my guess that the ballots cast in board elections so far probably
have not amounted to a majority of eligible voters.)

The one method I can imagine of preserving this as a useful safeguard is
to regularly prune the membership records. Considering the liberal
eligibility being suggested for membership, and the general culture of
openness in our community, such an approach would seem, to my mind at
least, hypocritical in the extreme.

>> Regarding anonymity, I think that keeping Wikimedia governance
>> separate from Wikipedia editing (for example) increases anonymity.  In
>> order to have elections you have to have some sense of identity,
>> otherwise sockpuppetry would run rampant.  But that identity doesn't
>> have to be connected to your edit history.
>
> Do membership records have to be public?

They have to be available for inspection and copying to members (or
their agents or attorneys). Given the scope of membership that seems to
be contemplated, that's pretty public. If you're going to solicit a vote
to remove a director (i.e., board member), you need to be able to
contact those who can vote.

--Michael Snow


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


from_name: Anthony

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

body:
On 8/14/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/14/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> > and I have yet to see a clear rationale for a foundation with members.
>
> There are three primary reasons that seem to be cited in favor of
> legal membership:
>
> 1) Stable and permanent governance by the community. The idea here is
> that without legal membership, the Board is more likely to do whatever
> it wants. I'm not convinced by this argument: the Board has the final
> organizational authority in any case, and if we cannot trust the Board
> to do the right thing, legal membership will not make a difference.

Under the Florida Statutes, the members of a non-profit have a right
to remove any board member upon a majority vote.  (Florida Statutes
617.0808)  So no, legal membership would make a difference if a few
board members did something outrageously stupid.

> Moreover, it is perfectly possible to hold community elections without
> having legal members.
>
"If a corporation has no members or its members do not have the right
to vote, the directors shall have the sole voting power."  (Florida
Statutes 617.0721).  If "it is perfectly possible" to do so, then I
for one would like to see an example of a US non-profit organization,
with no members, that elects its directors - preferably a Florida one.

> 2) Membership could be a better mechanism to select users who are
> allowed to vote in Board elections, project votes, and so on. I don't
> have to tell you why edit counting is a poor model of trust. That
> said, it is not clear to me that membership does not suffer from its
> own problems (mostly that the number of members may always be too
> small a subset of the number of active volunteers). There may be
> alternative methods which scale better, such as an additional layer of
> trust between admins and new users.
>
What would you consider too small a number of members as compared to
active volunteers, and why would you consider this number too small?
Right now, the organization is in the hands of just 5 people.
Presumably the number of members will be greater than 5.

> 3) Legal membership could be a social filter to engage only those
> users who have a clear understanding of the organization's purpose,
> and who do not confuse e.g. a Board election with some local vote on
> the English Wikipedia. This is perhaps the strongest argument I can
> see for legal membership: defining a group of people who genuinely
> care about the organization.
>
> But there are counterarguments to this as well. Requiring membership
> may exclude users who care about their anonymity. It is also not clear
> that the number of users who think Wikimedia==Wikipedia is large
> enough to negatively affect decision making processes. Perhaps it is
> more imporant to raise awareness of the activities of the Wikimedia
> Foundation within the community, than trying to single out the slice
> of users who know and care about them already.
>
Regarding anonymity, I think that keeping Wikimedia governance
separate from Wikipedia editing (for example) increases anonymity.  In
order to have elections you have to have some sense of identity,
otherwise sockpuppetry would run rampant.  But that identity doesn't
have to be connected to your edit history.

And remember, pseudonymity is exceedingly different from anonymity.
While pseudonymity might keep a casual observer from coming up with a
list of your Wikipedia writings with a google search, once you've made
100 or 1000 edits it's going to get easier and easier for anyone who
really cares to tie your pseudonym to your person.

> > * How do you deal with the injustice of membership fees in general? One
> > dollar is much more money in Pakistan than in the US...
>
> If we choose to create a Foundation membership, I believe that only
> effort, not money, should be _required_ to become a member. From the
> discussion so far, it seems that there is rough consensus about this.
> This could be established as a standard for chapters as well. How much
> do membership fees currently contribute to the budget of the German
> chapter?
>
In case someone reading this didn't catch my repeating of it, I
completely agree with your statement that only effort, not money,
should be _required_ to become a member.

In fact, if I got the feeling that more people cared about membership
(right now it seems me and Ant are the only ones who really do care),
I'd consider dropping the idea of paying money even being an option.

But one of the reasons I wanted paying dues to be an option is because
of the anonymity.  Someone, like me for instance, who makes a lot of
edits to Wikimedia projects, but doesn't do so under a consistent IP
address or pseudonym, could still be a member.  The other reason I
threw the option for paying dues in there is because it's an easy way
to bootstrap membership.  Ultimately it's the members that are going
to make up the committees which decide what level of volunteering is
required for the members who are exempt from paying dues.

> > and last but not least, what would be the relation between the countless
> > members of the projects and the paying foundation members? Should only
> > the latter have the right to vote for board members and influence
> > foundation decisions?
>
> No -- there should be no distinction between paying members or
> volunteers in terms of their rights within the organization.
>
Again, I completely agree.  In fact, when I ran for the very first
board election, getting rid of the distinction between "contributing"
and "volunteer" members was pretty much the single issue I ran on.

> I haven't seen a strong enough case for membership to unambiguously
> support it. For now, I would already be happy with a strong
> Board-level commitment that the majority of the Board will be
> community-elected.
>
> Erik

If I could be shown that there is precedent for a community-elected
board of an organization with no members, if the bylaws were adapted
to include a board with a majority elected by the community, and if a
change in the bylaws required a majority vote of the community, then
membership wouldn't matter to me.

But right now membership is what the bylaws claim we have, and those
other things are nonexistent.  Maybe we should just start pushing the
board of directors to start enforcing the bylaws that are already in
place.

Anthony


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


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Future avenues of garnering participation;
 or, How Wikipedia is currently a crappy/crack-tastic game

body:
maru dubshinki wrote:

>On 8/13/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Each student uses the Random article generator (perhaps with the help of
>>a bot) to generate a list of ten articles that already exist on
>>Wikipedia. He does not see the articles, only the titles. He then
>>proceeds to write a first draft of an article on a chosen topic from
>>that list. He uploads the article to a local wiki where the other
>>students can view and edit the article. Marks can be allocated for
>>different types of writing and editing, including big marks for
>>achieving NPOV on a controversial topic and marks taken off for getting
>>into an edit war.
>>
>>
>Meh. Edit wars are hard to generate on a small wiki AFAIK, and if the
>other editors are fellow students, I don't see'em lasting long.
>Wouldn't it be more effective to draw on the lists-of-missing-articles
>like the Missing Encyclopedic Articles Project maintains, and get the
>feedback from Wikipedia at large?  Feed'em through Peer Review, if
>normal processes aren't enough.
>
A couple years ago a professor at Dartmouth had his students put
articles on Wikipedia as part of a class project.  These kids promprtly
fell into the notability meat grinder.  While it would obviously benefit
Wikipedia to generate articles from that list, I don't think that that
many of these kids are ready for some of the abuse that's so frequently
doled out.  Such abuse does nothing to encourage co-operative work among
people who might never edit Wikipedia anyway.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>
>Jeff
>
What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
diploma mill."

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Anittas Hatti

subject: [WikiEN-l] accessing Wiki on cellphone

body:
Yesterday I went to check a thingy on Wiki by using my cellphone. I don't know about other cellphones, but on my model (Sony Ericsson Z530i), the mainpage is divided into four pages. You scroll down and click on Next Page to browse through the pages. Depending on article length, every page is divided into two or more pages.

  The thing that makes it uncomfortable is the search option which is placed at the bottom of the last page. If you want to search for something, you'll have to browse to the last page and scroll all the way down. Since this is done on the cellphone and not on a computer, it's obviously not very userfriendly. I don't know if anyone took in consideration cellphone surfing when creating the Wiki pages, but it would be more convinient to have the search option at the top of the first page. Or at least somewhere in the middle. Just a tought.

User:Anittas

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail Beta.


from_name: Jon Harald Søby

body:
This presumably means there will be no new seats up for election this year?

On 8/14/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
> (Copy/paste from Meta, yes, I'm lazy)
>
> Following the Boston Board meeting on August 4, we the Election
> Officers announce hereby the upcoming September election will fill the
> board position of Angela Beesley.
>
> We wish all candidates good luck,
> Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia
> 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC), Election Officials, Wikimedia Election
> Committee 2006
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
Best regards,
Jon Harald S?by

Website - http://www.alqualonde.com/
Wikipedia - http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Jhs
MSN messenger - jhsoby at gmail.com
Skype - jon.harald.soby


from_name: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
"Matt Brown" wrote

> To follow up to my own posting, one of my concerns about pushing too
> hard about 'reliable sources' is that it discourages people from
> sourcing AT ALL and encourages mis-sourcing.

And please to bear in mind that perfect sourcing, with poor selection of material, is a great way to be misleading; while it is of course possible to respect NPOV without footnotes.

Charles

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


from_name: Sherool

subject: [Commons-l] Editorial use vs commercial exploitation

body:
On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:01:59 +0200, David Monniaux
<David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:

> There is a similar issue with the photographs produced by various
> organisations: these organisations would allow commercial use for e.g.
> informations, encyclopedias, education, but not for making
> advertisements.
>
> In some instances, this is a case of protection of image: they don't
> want their image to be associated with products or political campaigns
> without their authorisation, and it's much easier for them to act on
> grounds of copyright infringement than on other grounds (especially
> since in some cases they cannot claim trademark protection).
>
> This will probably have to be addressed in a satisfactory fashion.
> Currently, we deal with such images by allowing them on some Wikipedias
> (en: in particular) by claiming "fair use". However, many projects don't
> allow "fair use", though their communities would perhaps appreciate
> being able to use such images.

While such licences are free-ish I don't think they would fall fully
within the definition of free content (thouh IANAL). Either way they would
not be compatable with the GFDL licence, since it does not put any
restrictions on who can use a work or for what purpose, and unless I'm
mistaken GFDL compatability is the acid test for wether or not something
is allowed on Commons.

--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>mboverload wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Someone explain to me how a screencap is ANY different than a quote from a
>>>>book.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Quotes are factual (somebody said them), and facts cannot be copyrighted.
>>>
>>>
>>Wow!  Some people really work hard to prove they haven't got a clue.
>>Quotes may be factual, but they are not facts.  What is copyrighted is
>>the way something is expressed rather that its informational content.
>>Sometimes they become merged when the two are indistinguishable.  The
>>merger principle can render something uncopyrightable; this was the
>>basis for Lexmark's loss over the copyrightability of the software in
>>its ink cartridges.  When the work in question is fictional you are less
>>likely to be dealing with facts, and unless the work is in the public
>>domain the use of any quotation from it is an example of fair use.
>>Picking up the quote from a work about the work doesn't change that.
>>
>>
>You misunderstand me. First, you abuse me when I'm trying to explain
>something to someone without flaming them for not understanding; second,
>what is a quote if it's not a factual saying? Even made-up quotes are
>factual in that someone made them up; even quotes from a book are
>factual in that someone wrote the book they come from.
>
What I was saying was that the copyright issue is irrelevant to the
original research issue.  A quote taken directly from a novel or
indirectly from an encyclopedia is still the same quote.  Its copyright
status, whether fair use or not, remains the same.  It's no different
for a picture.  While the encyclopedia may very well present that it is
a fact that the novel said what it said, this kind of meta-factual
process does not change the nature of what is quoted.  It is not
justification for characterizing the clear application of fair use as
something else.

>Oh, and if quotes are copyrightable (and we can only use them under
>"fair use"), please explain to me how Wikiquote can exist?
>
I did not say that quotes were copyrightable; you cannot claim copyright
on something that is already copyright by someone else, or is in the
public domain.  I said, "...unless the work is in the public domain the
use of any quotation from it is an example of fair use"   Wikiquote can
exist because of fair use.

Ec


from_name: Paweł Dembowski

body:
Sherool wrote:

> While such licences are free-ish I don't think they would fall fully
> within the definition of free content (thouh IANAL). Either way they would
> not be compatable with the GFDL licence, since it does not put any
> restrictions on who can use a work or for what purpose, and unless I'm
> mistaken GFDL compatability is the acid test for wether or not something
> is allowed on Commons.

Not really, even CC-BY-SA isn't compatible with GFDL.

--
Ausir
Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia
http://pl.wikipedia.org


from_name: Jack

body:
> >> (Copy/paste from Meta, yes, I'm lazy)
> >>
> >> Following the Boston Board meeting on August 4, we the Election
> >> Officers announce hereby the upcoming September election will fill the
> >> board position of Angela Beesley.
> >>
> >> We wish all candidates good luck,
> >> Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia
> >> 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC), Election Officials, Wikimedia Election
> >> Committee 2006
> >> -- Siedlecki
> >
> > This presumably means there will be no new seats up for
> > election this year?
> > -- Jon Harald S?by
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.  Angela has announced she is
> leaving the Board.  This election will fill her slot.
> -- Brad Patrick

"At least one trustee will be elected to a term ending July 2007." -
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En>.

>From Dariusz's email it seems no other positions will be voted for next month.
--
Jeandr?


from_name: Steve Summit

body:
Daniel P.B. Smith wrote:
>> From: Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>
>> But on the other hand, the "enforcement" of the policy
>> has been getting so zealous lately that I don't have too much
>> trouble imagining editor A saying "the sky is blue" and editor B
>> demanding a verifiable citation lest the assertion be deleted as
>> original research.
>>
>> It "ought" to be the case that "obvious" facts, which "everybody
>> knows", can be inserted without explicit citation.
>
> Obviously "the sky is blue" should not be deleted. But it's a rather
> bad example for your purpose, as I recently noted on a talk page.
>
> In the first place, the sky is "not" always blue, and therefore...

You're not in training to be a wikilawyer, are you? :-)

> This is not to say that requests for citations can't be abused. But,
> if I am an editor, and I inserted something without a source because
> I didn't really think it needed one, and someone marked it "citation
> needed," ...

Don't get me wrong; the policy I'd like to (and tend to) follow
is simply that you can post "obvious", uncited information as
long as you can get away with it.  No one will quibble with the
"obvious, everybody knows 'em" facts, and we're all happy.

But that works only as long as there aren't too many people
running around unreasonably slapping "citation needed" on things.
(Which is the point you already made when you said "This is not
to say that requests for citations can't be abused.")  There are
actually two subcases of this problem: (1) requests for citation
of contentious content coupled with highhanded rejection of
proffered sources as "unreliable" leading to the abuse of WP:V
as a censorship tool (i.e. the problem Stevertigo started the
"CITE nazis" thread by asking about), and (2) people dogmatically
insisting on references for "sky is blue" facts which every
reasonable editor thought was obvious, which although, you're
right, they usually can be sourced easily enough, eventually
leads to articles which are so heavily slathered with footnotes
and other references that they're cumbersome to read and just
*ugly*.  (As a friend was commenting about a featured article a
little while ago, "I suppose this is what all featured articles
are going to look like from now on -- littered with a welter of
footnote marks.  This is getting ridiculous.")


subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
Stevertigo wrote:
> --- Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>> To exhaustively, regimentedly cite every well-known fact in every
>> article would be ugly, unwieldy, and overbearing.  But it's equally
>> obvious that, the bigger and more popular Wikipedia gets, the harder
>> it is to rely on "obvious" or "ought to" rules which depend on people
>> being reasonable.
>
> So are you saying AGF (a subpolicy of CIVIL, (predecessor too, actually))
> is out the window too?

Not out the window, no, though perhaps standing uncomfortably
close to it.  (I said "the harder it is to", not "it's now
impossible to".)

I'd love it if we could hang onto WP:AGF, WP:BOLD, WP:IAR, and
the rest forever.  But we'll be different from every large
society the world has ever known if we can manage that.


from_name: Anthere

body:
Jon Harald S?by wrote:
> This presumably means there will be no new seats up for election this year?

This mostly mean the board was not able to reach an agreement on how
many new seats should be opened, nor on when, nor on how they should be
filled up.

I am actually not fully sure there is general agreement for board expansion.
I put a resolution on the board wiki many weeks ago on that topic. The
only comment offered was Angela's, who said "Oppose since it's not clear
whether this applies to existing members and gives no rationale for not
all of the members being elected." Other members did not comment the
resolution, nor vote.

Angela wished all new seats filled up by election. I wished some of the
seats filled up by election and some by appointement. Jimbo apparently
wishes only appointements.

There is no evidence as of today that appointments will have a time
limit in the future (such as 2 years) (the resolution dealing with that
issue did not receive sufficient votes to pass).

So, current elections will only concern Angela seat and the board will
discuss possible expansion and Tim Shell replacement after the
elections. Seemingly, Tim Shell will be replaced by appointement. Though...

It may be that results of the elections influence appointements if there
are appointements for new seats. This is likely to depend on who is
precisely elected in september.

Ant

> On 8/14/06, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>(Copy/paste from Meta, yes, I'm lazy)
>>
>>Following the Boston Board meeting on August 4, we the Election
>>Officers announce hereby the upcoming September election will fill the
>>board position of Angela Beesley.
>>
>>We wish all candidates good luck,
>>Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia
>>19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC), Election Officials, Wikimedia Election
>>Committee 2006
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>
>


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [Wikitech-l] Open proxy blacklist

body:
On 8/14/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> My impression is that portscans are sometimes grounds for IP-blocking,
> at least by firewalls.  (Personally I think this behavior is
> completely stupid, but I can only turn it off for myself, so . . .)

I briefly worked as a sysadmin. Roughly every hour there was a
portscan on our single, unimportant, unadvertised machine. It would
have been totally idiotic to *not* consider a portscan as a threat
worth taking action against.

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Desire to Contribute

body:
On 8/14/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> That does not, and will not, stop me from Wishing and Hoping that
> people will decide to Want to Learn again.

Wikipedia is your hobby. Not theirs.

Steve


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

references:
<NABBJGECPILFNLFEAPIKOEGEIKAA.nickpj@gmail.com>
	<44DBFB21.9050609@pobox.com>
	<f1c3529e0608110152t78a10babpde43b8fe8443bd27@mail.gmail.com>
	<44DCA33F.40906@pobox.com>
	<f1c3529e0608111008i713ab8e0n99105ff93cbcf1e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<ebq8p9$u1b$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<f1c3529e0608141016i2e16d2bave327654d9acaebc@mail.gmail.com>
	<20060814180929.GE16929@cgi.jachomes.com>
	<2006Aug14.1458.scs.0012@eskimo.com>

body:
On 8/14/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
>    at the top.  Almost immediately someone changed it to
>
>         ...For the linguistic concept, see Count noun.
>
>    noting that [[Countable noun]] is a redirect.  But I think
>    showing the link as [[Countable noun]] was (mildly) preferable
>    in this case, because it explicitly shows the same word which
>    the searcher who got redirected from [[Countable]] is looking for.

You were right - that's the entire reason why {{redirect}} exists.
> [P.S.  Personally, I think it would be good if articles could have
> alternate titles or "aliases" as a formally-supported concept, so
> that we could do away with the hordes of manually-maintained
> explicit redirects which simulate them, but that would admittedly
> be much more complicated on the implementation side, if "more
> convenient" on the user side.]

Is there any difference between an "alias" and a protected redirect?

Fwiw, I kind of asked for this a while ago, but from a different point
of view. It'd be nice for any article if you could edit *on the
article page* the list of redirects that point there. Redirects should
be considered part of the article, not as random other articles that
by sheer chance happen to point to it.

> [P.P.S.  One way to tell if a redirect is really an "alias" is if
> the alias name shows up in bold face, preceded by the word "or"
> or "also", in the redirected-to article's lead sentence.

Yes...but...no.  It's a pretty complicated topic. I've thought a fair
bit about that logic and it's complicated. Often for some topic A, you
have redirects A', A'', B, B', B'' and C. In the text at A, A, B and C
will be in bold. If you're lucky. Maybe D and E will be in bold too,
but they won't be linked. Although they should be. Other times, F
(which also redirects here) will be in bold, but in the 8th paragraph,
because it's a minor topic, related to A, but that doesn't deserve its
own article...

IMHO we should stop this tendency towards agglomerating all articles
into one unless they stand a chance of becoming an FA....but that's a
different debate.

Steve


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [WikiEN-l] CITE nazis

body:
Death Phoenix wrote:
> I think it's most useful to detect original research and speculation. For
> example, in [[Colonization of Mars]], I noticed two recent additions (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonization_of_Mars&diff=66947187&oldid=66945515and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonization_of_Mars&diff=66952733&oldid=66947187)
> that weren't common knowledge and I was wondering where the heck they found
> this information.

As another potentially interesting case, I recently added 272(!)
{{citation needed}}s to the article [[List of Star Wars races]] (before
I subsequently split it into five sub-articles for size reasons, see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Star_Wars_races&oldid=68661770>
for the pre-split version).

I felt this was a reasonable thing to do since the Star Wars universe is
defined and described in a truly vast range of books and movies and
other media, and each of the hundreds of races listed on that page could
well come from completely different sources. Ensuring that each one had
at least one citation seems a lot easier this way than by putting a
single {{unreferenced}} at the top - this way there's more of a
checklist one can knock items off of by substituting references in their
place (and indeed some references were added even as I did the work of
requesting citations).

It'll probably take years for most of those cite requests to be resolved
(unless some brave soul with good access to Star Wars sources makes a
major project of it), but IMO eventualism is a perfectly fine philosophy
for this sort of thing.

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Wysiwyg debate

body:
On 8/14/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> Basically, the advantages of having just a reference name be in the
> text itself, and the text in the references section, are intuitiveness
> and less clutter.  The advantages of having the full reference in the
> text are that it works with section editing, and the ref doesn't break
> invisibly if someone transplants the section or whatever without
> thinking to move the refs as well.  Trust me, that's constant and
> horrible with the {{ref}} style: I've had to spend half an hour or
> more on more than one occasion digging through page histories to
> figure out where the references disappeared.

Trust me, from the POV of the person *adding* the references, genuine
inline references are *extremely* attractive. It is *much* more
pleasant to simply write and John Smith was born in 1953
<ref>http://some.web.site.info</ref> and died in 1923, than to have to
mess around with choosing a reference name and add things in two
different places - *especially* when you're doing section editing
(because otherwise you have to make two separate edits, and the
article is in an inconsistent state in the meantime). I basically
never added footnotes at all until this new method came along, and now
I add them regularly.

However, genuine inline references *suck* for the maintainer. They're
a nightmare. There's actually a simple algorithm to find the source of
a footnote: click the footnote, then click the first letter on that
footnote line, then click edit - but it's not at all intuitive.

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

Steve

>
> Jay is right that coloring the refs probably wouldn't be too hard with
> current wikitext.  Ideally, WYSIWYG would handle refs in some special
> way so that editing them is fully intuitive and uncluttered.
> Something like being able to click the ref number to bring up a
> floating popup-y thing that you could edit, while also being able to
> click the ref in the references section and edit that directly, with
> the Javascript keeping them synced and secretly editing only the <ref>
> contents either way.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Jeffrey V. Merkey

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

references:
<ebqvdc$kd3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44E11275.3040407@wolfmountaingroup.com>
	<44E15782.8070103@telus.net>

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
>
>
>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
>diploma mill."
>
>

Not a diploma mill, accreditdation of the content and course materials,
similiar to what college textbook publishers do.

Jeff

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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>That was me, and it's not a red herring. Every time we claim "fair use"
>on an image, it is because the image is not Free; that means, we are
>infringing someone's copyright. "Fair use" is something which exists
>under US law (presumably several others, but it's US law that we rely
>on) which we use to justify that infringement; I was making the point
>that with things like screenshots, we have to be careful that our claims
>are in fact fair and valid.
>
If you ever bothered to read section 107 of part 17 of the U.S.C. you
would see it plainly written:

> the fair use of a copyrighted work, ...  is not an infringement of
> copyright.

This is much stronger wording than simply justifying an infringement.
Free use and fair use operate on separate tracks.  One does not follow
from the other.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create a
business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able to
swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
find out.

Jeff

James Hare wrote:

>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like Wikipedia's
>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
>
>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
>>diploma mill."
>>
>>Ec
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why not
the rest of the specialized languages and even
english for that matter?

Jeff

>I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
>bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
>or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create a
>business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able to
>swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
>find out.
>
>Jeff
>
>James Hare wrote:
>
>
>
>>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like Wikipedia's
>>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
>>
>>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>>>
>>>>Jeff
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
>>>diploma mill."
>>>
>>>Ec
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: John Q.

body:
Hi everyone,

There appear to be two separate discussions going on here... 1) whether
wikiwyg is good/bad and all the permutations thereof, and 2) what's up
with wikiwyg and SocialText/Wikia?

There are many pros and cons for #1 and it looks like this is a pretty
healthy debate to which I'm not qualified to add anything. However, I
can definitely shed some light on #2.

SocialText has developed a pretty nice wikiwyg interface for simple
editing that they wanted to donate to MediaWiki... the issue was that
they aren't currently using MediaWiki so they wanted some help in
bringing it over and they also wanted a demo to show at WikiMania to
demonstrate proof-of-concept. The idea was to get feedback on it at
WikiMania to determine if this would be something the community would be
interested in before trying to submit it to svn, etc. The good news is
that there was plenty of interest.

We (Jimmy/Wikia) offered to help and so Jason was helping to make their
code MediaWiki friendly and also put it into its own extension to make
working on it cleaner (not yet complete). The main participants in this
were Ingy and Gugod (SocialText), Travis (wikiHow), and Jason (Wikia).
In order to make a proof-of-concept demo practical, we reduced the scope
of what the wikiwyg editor would do so that we'd have something to show
by the time WikiMania rolled around. Currently, it does the following:

* Basic in-page rich text editing (bold, italics, bullets, links, etc)
which is saved as wikitext.
* Recognizes when there is wikitext on the page that it can't parse and
defaults to an in-page editor that just lets you edit the wikitext like
normal.
* Defaults to "disabled" on the page and you can enable it via
a left-nav bar option.

The plan was also to have a drop-down list of simple templates that
users could choose from and, as time permitted, start expanding that
list as the wikiwyg functionality was increased. Obviously, this sort of
thing will not spring out of Zeus' head full-grown, so this seemed like
a good compromise to start with. One thing I do want to clear up is that
we're not "being paid" to do this... we have *plenty* of other stuff on
our to-do lists. This is a really interesting project so we decided
to volunteer some time for it... same with SocialText and good for them
to throw in code they'd already written.

As for the current discussion about whether wikiwyg is good or not, I
can't contribute anything from the technical side but one thing to
consider is that when introduced to some sites, wiki page editing went
up 30% per month after introduction. So there are definite benefits to
having a simpler editing interface. My own personal opinion is that with
new tools come new ways of maintaining the quality of the content.
Making things more available does not have to correlate to lesser
quality. Actually, I believe the essence of the "lower barrier to entry
= lesser quality" argument was originally applied to the concept of
Wikipedia itself, wasn't it? (Not trying to be flippant... it just struck
a similar chord for me). That's not to say that the introduction of
wikiwyg won't pose new challenges, but I would argue that Wikipedia has
had greater challenges and managed to come out the better for them... I
wouldn't expect anything different here.

As for what's going on now with it .... we don't pretend to know the
best way to proceed with this... the next step of functionality isn't an
easy or straightforward problem. So I would sum it up this way...
proof-of-concept is done and the next phase is that we put this in the
right place in the repository so that any further development is done in
the right way by people who know MediaWiki best.

Can you please tell us what we should do next and who can help us to further
this effort and do the right thing here??

Thanks,
John Q.

p.s., to clear up something said earlier... Wikia is primarily GFDL although a few
wikis are Creative Commons because they started that way. Any code contributions
made would of course be GPL.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-08-15

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

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

Passed 413 of 429 tests (96.27%) FAILED!


from_name: ScottL

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>> From: Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>
>
>> But on the other hand, the "enforcement" of the policy
>> has been getting so zealous lately that I don't have too much
>> trouble imagining editor A saying "the sky is blue" and editor B
>> demanding a verifiable citation lest the assertion be deleted as
>> original research.
>>
>> It "ought" to be the case that "obvious" facts, which "everybody
>> knows", can be inserted without explicit citation.
>
> Obviously "the sky is blue" should not be deleted. But it's a rather
> bad example for your purpose, as I recently noted on a talk page.
>
> In the first place, the sky is "not" always blue, and therefore this
> is a "fact" that is not really quite true. In the second place, as is
> so often the case of things that "can't be sourced because they're
> just common knowledge," it is ''very'' easily sourced:
>
> "the blue sky is so commonplace that it is taken for granted" {{cite
> book|title=A Field Guide to the Atmosphere|first=Vincent J.|
> last=Schaefer|coauthors=John A. Day|year=1998|publisher=Houghton
> Mifflin Field Guides|id=ISBN 0395976316}}
>
> I also found:
>
> The poet [[Robert Service]] says "while the blue sky bends above/
> You've got nearly all that matters;" songwriter [[Irving Berlin]]
> wrote of "[[Blue Skies (song)|Blue Skies]] smiling at me," airmen fly
> into the [[The U.S. Air Force (song)|wild blue yonder]].
>
> {{cite book|title=Collected Poems of Robert Service|first=Robert|
> last=Service|year=1940|publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons|id=ISBN
> 0-399-15015-3}},</ref>
>
> For the sky _not_ always being blue: Matthew 16:2, Jesus says to the
> Pharisees "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for
> the sky is red."
>
> "At twilight, salmon reds, oranges, purples, white-yellows, and many
> shades of blue can be seen."
>
> {{cite book|title=Light and Colour in the Outdoors|first=M. G. J.|
> last=Minnaert|origyear=1974|year=1993|publisher=Springer-Verlag|
> id=ISBN 0-387-97935-2}} p. 295
>
> And songwriter [[Oscar Hammerstein II|Oscar Hammerstein]]'s famously
> wrote of "when the sky is a bright canary yellow."<ref>{{cite book|
> title=American Musical|first=Marc|last=Bauch|publisher=Tectum Verlag|
> id=ISBN 382888458X}} </ref>
>
> It took me less than ten minutes to turn up the "serious" sources
> (Schaeffer and Minnaert) another fifteen to find the rest. If
> something is really a commonly known fact, it is just not that hard
> to source. And the effort to do so _often_ yields dividends.
>
> This is not to say that requests for citations can't be abused. But,
> if I am an editor, and I inserted something without a source because
> I didn't really think it needed one, and someone marked it "citation
> needed," my response would be to source it. This has happened to me,
> and it's what I've done. Except in one case... where I couldn't find
> one... and so I removed the item myself.

   If we have an article on missing the point compleetly in a
discussion.  I propose we include this email under the subheadingin the
article:

==Too clever to get the point==

Dalf


body:
On 8/14/06, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> You cannot create non-GPL'd software, very roughly, that integrates
> code from GPL'd software -- absent a separate license to do so --
> unless it's an LGPL'd library.
>
> You can create a program that, say, calls a GPL'd binary program and
> utilizes its results across an execv boundary, without having to GPL
> your code, but you can't *utilize source* without the license
> "infecting" your code.

Right, but can the GPL'd program integrate non-GPL'ed source? E.g.,
can MediaWiki use non GPL'ed source code?

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Sebastian Moleski wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I'm *very* interested in this new project. I think it's an outstanding idea
>because it might offer the benefit of a college-level education to people
>who don't usually have access to that. That being said, how can I find out
>more about the project and what I can do to help.
>
>Sebastian
>
>

Well,

We should create a project page somewhere and setup a cirricullum and
get a major accrediting orgnization to review and approve it. We should
not be
giving out diplomas -- but we should get in the door on creating
textbooks. I know one major university I can convince at the Board of
Regents Level to endorse it and its not a "University of Phoneix" deal.
It's a group that's been around since 1888.

Jeff

>On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why not
>>the rest of the specialized languages and even
>>english for that matter?
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>>>I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
>>>bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
>>>or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create a
>>>business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able to
>>>swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
>>>find out.
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>James Hare wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like Wikipedia's
>>>>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
>>>>
>>>>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>applying
>>
>>
>>>>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>a
>>
>>
>>>>>diploma mill."
>>>>>
>>>>>Ec
>>>>>
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Well,

The knowledge is free, but paper and book binding costs money, so we
should be able to undercut these book peddlers by 45%. I think that
would be compelling and still keep the electronic versions FREE.

Jeff

James Hare wrote:

>(facetiousism warning)
>
>Jimbo can teach options trading!
>
>On 8/15/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>I'm *very* interested in this new project. I think it's an outstanding
>>idea
>>because it might offer the benefit of a college-level education to people
>>who don't usually have access to that. That being said, how can I find out
>>more about the project and what I can do to help.
>>
>>Sebastian
>>
>>On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why not
>>>the rest of the specialized languages and even
>>>english for that matter?
>>>
>>>Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
>>>>bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
>>>>or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create
>>>>
>>>>
>>a
>>
>>
>>>>business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able to
>>>>swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
>>>>find out.
>>>>
>>>>Jeff
>>>>
>>>>James Hare wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>Wikipedia's
>>
>>
>>>>>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
>>>>>
>>>>>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>>>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>applying
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>not
>>
>>
>>>a
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>diploma mill."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Ec
>>>>>>
>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


body:
On 8/14/06, Simetrical <Simetrical+wikitech at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/14/06, Eric Astor <eastor1 at swarthmore.edu> wrote:
> > Just a note on size - this is an argument that I think holds a lot of value.
> > XHTML is, on average, about 12x larger than wikitext...

How would [[Simple Outline XML]] do?

Steve


subject: [Wikitech-l] Desire to Contribute

body:
On 8/15/06, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> Clearly.  I still sympathize with Jay's thoughts on the matter -- that
> it would be nice to see an increase in the desire to learn in the
> general populace.

Ok, now that we've enjoyed 5 seconds of wistful pondering, can we get
back to the real world?

Seriously. People are what they are. We can attempt to change
everyone, or we can work with what we've got.

Steve


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
Let's do it. I've already setup a Foundation and Endowment with a major
university doing the Cherokee textbooks. Let's roll this in as well. It will
take me a week or so to get everything setup -- Brad already has the
paperwork on it (except they mispelled my name). I will be teaching
Computer Science next year at this new school, and this will roll in nicely.

Jeff

James Hare wrote:

>I'm very excited about the project -- I can't wait until it's set up!
>
>On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Well,
>>
>>The knowledge is free, but paper and book binding costs money, so we
>>should be able to undercut these book peddlers by 45%. I think that
>>would be compelling and still keep the electronic versions FREE.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>James Hare wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>(facetiousism warning)
>>>
>>>Jimbo can teach options trading!
>>>
>>>On 8/15/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hello,
>>>>
>>>>I'm *very* interested in this new project. I think it's an outstanding
>>>>idea
>>>>because it might offer the benefit of a college-level education to
>>>>
>>>>
>>people
>>
>>
>>>>who don't usually have access to that. That being said, how can I find
>>>>
>>>>
>>out
>>
>>
>>>>more about the project and what I can do to help.
>>>>
>>>>Sebastian
>>>>
>>>>On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>not
>>
>>
>>>>>the rest of the specialized languages and even
>>>>>english for that matter?
>>>>>
>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
>>>>>>bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
>>>>>>or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>a
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>to
>>
>>
>>>>>>swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
>>>>>>find out.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>
>>>>>>James Hare wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>Wikipedia's
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>>>>>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>applying
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>funding?
>>
>>
>>>>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>not
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>a
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>diploma mill."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Ec
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>foundation-l mailing list
>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>foundation-l mailing list
>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

references:
<ebqvdc$kd3$1@sea.gmane.org>	<44E11275.3040407@wolfmountaingroup.com>	<44E15782.8070103@telus.net>
	<44E1652B.5060209@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
>>>
>>>
>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
>>diploma mill."
>>
>>
>Not a diploma mill, accreditdation of the content and course materials,
>similiar to what college textbook publishers do.
>
Even if I were to concede that accreditation were a good thing, I could
not see this happening for several years.  You can go through a lot of
bureaucratic nonsense just trying to get things accredited.  What is
acceptable in one state may not be acceptable in another.  In a wiki
environment it may be difficult to keep a text that remains unchanged,
and who would want to when the students themselves may want to
participate in improving  the material.

Second language learning is probably an easy place to start, but even
there decent workbooks are more in demand than decent textbooks.  The
textbooks can be loaned by the school to the students, and be reusable
for several years.  Workbooks in which students must write will have a
life of only one school year, after which they become worthless because
of all the writing in them.  Several schools in our district offer
Chinese language lessons, but the cost of workbooks and other study
material varies considerably depending on the resourcefulness of the
teacher.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
It came to my mind that we probably did not clearly announced here that
we approved the creation of Wikiversity :-)

Here is the resolution :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution_Wikiversity

A couple of important points

1) there will be a domain at beta.wikiversity.org, where all new
languages may contribute and start working on translation of guidelines
etc...

2) those languages with at least 10 active participants can request a
separate domain name. As of today, I presume the english language has at
least 10 people interested, so you guys may bug Brion to ask for
en.wikiversity.org. I am not sure if it is the case for any other language.

3) All sites will be flagged "beta" in the same way that wikinews has
been for at least 6 months.

4) During these 6 months, guidelines should be developped, *in
particular* with regards to collaborative research. We would hope that
these guidelines are as much as possible developped on the beta site (in
particular collaborative research), so that all languages share a common
goal and a few common non negociable rules.

5) At the end of these 6 months period, the project will be reviewed, in
particular so that the issue of collaborative research is qualified, and
if possible to define whether the beta stage is over. Reviewal will be
done by Spc.

I hope that's clear... ;-)

We wish good luck to this project.

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] Watching multiple talk pages

body:
Sorry if this is something I should know already.

I find it tedious to keep watch over my talk pages at en.wiki,
commons, wikiquote, etc.  I was thinking that a nice facility would
be if all my talk pages could be in my watchlist at en.wiki.
Then whenever I'm in en.wiki, which is most of the time, I will
see that one of my other talk pages has been editted.

Is this possible?  Plausible?

Zero.

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


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
James Hare wrote:
> A thing that should be pointed out...
>
> Don't worry about policies and guidelines, start working on things and let
> the policies come in later. I believe Jimbo posted something to this effect
> when Wikinews was new.
>
> However, things that SHOULD be noted include NPOV.

I'm not sure if the concept of NPOV fits for a collaborative research
project. Maybe one of the project supporters can say something about this.

greetings,
elian


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: James Hare

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

references:
<ebqvdc$kd3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44E11275.3040407@wolfmountaingroup.com> <44E15782.8070103@telus.net>

body:
Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like Wikipedia's
"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?

On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
> >Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
> >online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
> >for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
> >
> >Jeff
> >
> What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
> diploma mill."
>
> Ec
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

references:
<ebqvdc$kd3$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<44E11275.3040407@wolfmountaingroup.com> <44E15782.8070103@telus.net>
	<44E1652B.5060209@wolfmountaingroup.com>

body:
I see... like a self-education sort of thing. Perhaps we could have people
skilled in certain areas assist people who have questions about the learning
materials.

Wikiversity would be a great place to try out stable/development versions,
too: you have the approved textbook that can be accredited, and you have the
development zone.

Sorry if I'm being very redundant here -- I came into the picture far too
late to try to catch up to any of the development discussion.

On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
> >Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
> >>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and applying
> >>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
> >>
> >>Jeff
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is not a
> >diploma mill."
> >
> >
>
> Not a diploma mill, accreditdation of the content and course materials,
> similiar to what college textbook publishers do.
>
> Jeff
>
> >Ec
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
(facetiousism warning)

Jimbo can teach options trading!

On 8/15/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm *very* interested in this new project. I think it's an outstanding
> idea
> because it might offer the benefit of a college-level education to people
> who don't usually have access to that. That being said, how can I find out
> more about the project and what I can do to help.
>
> Sebastian
>
> On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> > Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >
> > I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why not
> > the rest of the specialized languages and even
> > english for that matter?
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > >I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
> > >bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
> > >or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create
> a
> > >business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able to
> > >swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
> > >find out.
> > >
> > >Jeff
> > >
> > >James Hare wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like
> Wikipedia's
> > >>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
> > >>
> > >>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
> > >>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and
> > applying
> > >>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real funding?
> > >>>>
> > >>>>Jeff
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is
> not
> > a
> > >>>diploma mill."
> > >>>
> > >>>Ec
> > >>>
> > >>>_______________________________________________
> > >>>foundation-l mailing list
> > >>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>_______________________________________________
> > >>foundation-l mailing list
> > >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >_______________________________________________
> > >foundation-l mailing list
> > >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Erik Moeller

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

body:
On 8/14/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> and I have yet to see a clear rationale for a foundation with members.

There are three primary reasons that seem to be cited in favor of
legal membership:

1) Stable and permanent governance by the community. The idea here is
that without legal membership, the Board is more likely to do whatever
it wants. I'm not convinced by this argument: the Board has the final
organizational authority in any case, and if we cannot trust the Board
to do the right thing, legal membership will not make a difference.
Moreover, it is perfectly possible to hold community elections without
having legal members.

2) Membership could be a better mechanism to select users who are
allowed to vote in Board elections, project votes, and so on. I don't
have to tell you why edit counting is a poor model of trust. That
said, it is not clear to me that membership does not suffer from its
own problems (mostly that the number of members may always be too
small a subset of the number of active volunteers). There may be
alternative methods which scale better, such as an additional layer of
trust between admins and new users.

3) Legal membership could be a social filter to engage only those
users who have a clear understanding of the organization's purpose,
and who do not confuse e.g. a Board election with some local vote on
the English Wikipedia. This is perhaps the strongest argument I can
see for legal membership: defining a group of people who genuinely
care about the organization.

But there are counterarguments to this as well. Requiring membership
may exclude users who care about their anonymity. It is also not clear
that the number of users who think Wikimedia==Wikipedia is large
enough to negatively affect decision making processes. Perhaps it is
more imporant to raise awareness of the activities of the Wikimedia
Foundation within the community, than trying to single out the slice
of users who know and care about them already.

> For not having members, I see several reasons:
> * adds one more organisational burden on the already strained office
> resources of the foundation (it would need a membership management then,
> letters to the members, lots of paperwork)

Why would we have to send letters to members, rather than just
e-mails? For those who donate, I can see the motivation. But that is
already done anyway.

> * what about the chapters? Should their members become automatically
> members of the Foundation? How do you deal with the injustice of
> different membership fees then (polish chapter has no fees, germans
> pay)? Or should they have to choose between single memberships and
> double memberships? What would be the incentive for becoming a member of
> a local chapter then?

I like the idea that membership anywhere (Foundation and/or local
chapter) would give you the right to participate in Foundation-level
votes. Chapter membership would, logically, be necessary to
participate in chapter-level decision making.

You could compare this to the EU model: being a citizen of an EU
country gives you the right to vote in that nation's elections, and
also to vote in the EU parliamentary elections. The main difference
would be that you could also be an "EU citizen" only.

> * How do you deal with the injustice of membership fees in general? One
> dollar is much more money in Pakistan than in the US...

If we choose to create a Foundation membership, I believe that only
effort, not money, should be _required_ to become a member. From the
discussion so far, it seems that there is rough consensus about this.
This could be established as a standard for chapters as well. How much
do membership fees currently contribute to the budget of the German
chapter?

> * Would people in Pakistan even think of becoming members in an US based
> foundation? Or would it turn into a totally US centric organization,
> contrary to its international and multilingual goals?

If membership in the Pakistani chapter gave them all rights of
participation in the Foundation, it wouldn't matter. This might then
actually be an incentive to create new chapters.

> and last but not least, what would be the relation between the countless
> members of the projects and the paying foundation members? Should only
> the latter have the right to vote for board members and influence
> foundation decisions?

No -- there should be no distinction between paying members or
volunteers in terms of their rights within the organization.

I haven't seen a strong enough case for membership to unambiguously
support it. For now, I would already be happy with a strong
Board-level commitment that the majority of the Board will be
community-elected.

Erik


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


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity

body:
I'm very excited about the project -- I can't wait until it's set up!

On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
>
> Well,
>
> The knowledge is free, but paper and book binding costs money, so we
> should be able to undercut these book peddlers by 45%. I think that
> would be compelling and still keep the electronic versions FREE.
>
> Jeff
>
> James Hare wrote:
>
> >(facetiousism warning)
> >
> >Jimbo can teach options trading!
> >
> >On 8/15/06, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hello,
> >>
> >>I'm *very* interested in this new project. I think it's an outstanding
> >>idea
> >>because it might offer the benefit of a college-level education to
> people
> >>who don't usually have access to that. That being said, how can I find
> out
> >>more about the project and what I can do to help.
> >>
> >>Sebastian
> >>
> >>On 8/15/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
> >>>
> >>>I am already doing this with Cherokee and Uto-Aztecan textbooks. Why
> not
> >>>the rest of the specialized languages and even
> >>>english for that matter?
> >>>
> >>>Jeff
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I went in and checked the prices of college textbooks at the BYU
> >>>>bookstore. The books cost almost as much as the tuition, church funded
> >>>>or not. UofU bookstore is the same. Why shouldn't we be able to create
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>a
> >>
> >>
> >>>>business around the Foundation Wikiversity Programs? I might be able
> to
> >>>>swing this one. I'll work on it next week and let everyone know what I
> >>>>find out.
> >>>>
> >>>>Jeff
> >>>>
> >>>>James Hare wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Will Wikiversity even give out diplomas? Or will it be like
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>Wikipedia's
> >>
> >>
> >>>>>"we're-good-for-learning-stuff-but-don't-use-us-for-school"?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>On 8/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>Has anyone considered the possibility of actually instrumenting an
> >>>>>>>online course of instruction (beyond creating the content) and
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>applying
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>>>for accredidation of the whole project and going after real
> funding?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>Jeff
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>What a frightening idea!  A helpful rule might be, "Wikiversity is
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>not
> >>
> >>
> >>>a
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>>diploma mill."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Ec
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>>>foundation-l mailing list
> >>>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>>foundation-l mailing list
> >>>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>foundation-l mailing list
> >>>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>foundation-l mailing list
> >>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >_______________________________________________
> >foundation-l mailing list
> >foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [Wikitech-l] Special:Desysop

body:
Andrew Garrett wrote:
>
> Questions, comments and requests for demonstrations are more than welcome.
>
This is obviously going to be a great help to other users of Mediawiki as
well. It makes good sense to have a proper UI for as many of these delicate
operations as we can manage.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Special%3ADesysop-tf2108462.html#a5811987
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