from_name: Ilmari Karonen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Fair use in free images (was: Is it true...)

body:
Anthony wrote:
> On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>> I am honestly
>> confused here.  What about, say, a painting of an aircraft?  Is that
>> unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
>
> A painting which incorporated a copyrighted logo would be copyrighted
> as a derivative work.  If the use was so insignificant as to be fair
> use/fair dealing in just about any jurisdiction, I'd still call it
> free though.

I think this is the core of the issue, and a matter that also in general
  ought to be further clarified.

Wikipedia, as a whole, is distributed under the GFDL.  It is a matter of
some debate exactly _who_ should be considered the actual distributor,
but that is at most only tangentially relevant to the matter at hand.

In any case, this implies that there are only three cases where content,
whether text or images, may be legally incorporated into Wikipedia:
either a) the content must fall outside the scope of copyright entirely,
b) the copyright owner must have released it under a license permitting
at least redistribution under the terms of the GFDL, c) or its inclusion
in Wikipedia must legally qualify as fair use.[1]

The first two types of content we may designate as free, and the last as
unfree.  Wikipedia has different policies for the two: free content may
be used in any manner as long as the license requirements are satisfied,
whereas unfree content must pass a set of fair use guidelines based on,
but going far beyond, those in U.S. law.  In particular, the inclusion
of unfree non-textual content is only permitted in the encyclopedia
proper (and implicitly on image pages), even if broader usage might be
permitted by law, and they are entirely excluded from Commons.

A point to be noted here is that a work released under a free license
may contain portions that are unfree; Wikipedia itself is an example of
such a work.  Such a work -- and any derivative work thereof -- will
remain free and legal to copy and redistribute only as long as it is not
transformed in such a manner as to render the claim to fair use invalid.
  For example, if one were to extract an album cover from Wikipedia, or
the content of a billboard from a free photo of a city street, and use
the resulting image prominently in a commercial context, the use would
almost certainly no longer be legal even if one complied with all the
license terms of the work from which the image was extracted.

The question then becomes: should such free images containing fairly
used unfree elements be treated as free or unfree for the purposes of
Wikipedia (and Commons) policy?

Generally, the traditional answer seems to have been to treat an image
as free if it would be legal to freely distribute as a stand-alone work
outside the context of Wikipedia.  I personally find this a reasonable
standard, though it does produce some apparent paradoxes, such as the
fact that removing parts of a free image can make it unfree, or that the
legally fair inclusion of an unfree element in certain parts of the
project may be against policy _unless_ it is (fairly) included as part
of a free stand-alone "wrapper" work.

That is not to says that the issue hasn't been subject to numerous
debates, both generic and specific.  A particular dispute I recall
involved a picture of a drive-in fast food restaurant that included a
prominent sign bearing the restaurant's logo.  A related source of
disputes have been images containing parts, such as official documents
or simply identifiable people, whose use in some context may be
restricted by laws other than copyright.

In this particular case, the image of the Starship Enterprise, as seen
in the Star Trek films, TV series and related works, is almost certainly
protected by both copyright and trademark law.  On the other hand, it is
also almost certain that the hand-drawn rendition in [[Image:Anti-Star
Trek Cabal logo.png]] counts as fair use; the amount used is so low that
one might almost claim the copied elements to be below the threshold of
originality, there is no attempt to replace the original and certainly
no effect on its market value, and in any case the use counts as parody
and critical commentary on the original.

Of course, Wikipedia, unlike Uncyclopedia, is not itself a parody site,
nor would our strict fair use policy allow us to use that defense even
if it was legally available to us.  Nor will our policy permit us to use
an unfree image on a user page, even if the use was legally fair.  So
the question remains, is it enough that the likeness of the Enterprise
is fairly used in a freely licensed image?  Or do we demand that every
unfree part and aspect of an image on its own meet our fair use policy?
  Either choice seems to lead to paradoxes somewhere.  Perhaps there is
a middle road; but if so, it has yet to be defined.

--
Ilmari Karonen


list: foundation-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: David Strauss

subject: [Foundation-l] Answers to more questions/comments regarding FundCORE

body:
I'm still catching up with foundation-l since joining. I had no idea so
much discussion happened here regarding FundCORE.

All the questions/comments are paraphrased.

 > Translating is very hard without context. I can't tell if something's
 > a noun or a verb, nor what gender to use for adjectives.

I'm very new to internationalization, so please be patient. I'll have to
add context explanations to each translated word/phrase. Also keep in
mind that the previous fundraising report system was English-only, so I
have no existing translation set on which to build.

 > Using flags for languages is terrible.

I agree. It happened to be the default for the internationalization
system I'm using, but I've disabled it now.

 > Some languages people want don't have translations for Drupal's core
 > already, and translating Drupal's core for these languages isn't
 > feasible.

For languages that don't have Drupal translations already, we only need
to translate the very limited set of Drupal phrases and words that are
publicly visible. Well over 90% of the Drupal core translation is for
the administrative area, which does not need internationalization into
every language because very few people use it. About 10 additional
words/phrases require translation if no Drupal core translation exists.

 > I've translated "Fundraising C.O.R.E." to another language, but the
 > title for the site remains untranslated.

The translation templates for Drupal modules are automatically created,
and I should have pruned it better. "Fundraising C.O.R.E." should either
not be translated at all or translated everywhere. I don't know how to
change the site title for each language (or even if it's possible), so
I'll probably opt for the former.

 > The "coming soon" announcement isn't offered for translation.

That's intentional. I change it so frequently that it would be in
English most of the time, anyway. It's also non-essential to using the site.

 > "Central Online Reporting Engine" isn't available for translation.

I'm working on this. I think this needs to be localized. Unfortunately,
how to do so is not obvious because it's not part of my module; it's
part of the global site configuration.

 > Why not just use MediaWiki? It has translations for many of these
 > languages.

1. I would have to write significantly more code to offer the same
features from within MediaWiki.
2. Our fundraising database is CiviCRM, which is Drupal-based.
3. I hope to roll many of the features of FundCORE into CiviCRM itself.
If the initial code is Drupal-based, this will be far easier.
4. The CivicSpace team (Drupal-based) is interested in contributing to
the project.
5. Drupal is free software, so it's not morally worse for the Foundation
to use.
6. Creating a Drupal module that integrates with CiviCRM is a more
valuable contribution to the free software community than contributing a
MediaWiki extension that integrates with CiviCRM.
7. Cherokee is the first and only translation we've been offered that
doesn't already have extensive Drupal support. Now that a member of our
community has generously contributed a full Drupal core translation,
this is no longer an issue for us. The Drupal community has also benefited.
8. Most of the translation effort is for my module. MediaWiki's existing
translations do not help here.

 > What are the current top priorities for FundCORE?

- Right-aligning amounts
- Filtering comments for donations less than US$5 or equivalent
- Implementing full support for matching donations in the meter and on
the donations listing:
<http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/payments/meter/index2.php>

 > Dictionary translations are terrible. Why would anyone suggest we do
 > one?

I'll take the heat of first noting this in an email to Brad. I wasn't
expecting it to be re-published to foundation-l. My intention was to
relay how simple I thought the translations would be, not to have people
without any language experience blindly use a dictionary. I apologize
for any confusion.

Sincerely,
David Strauss


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Aphaia

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
	other communities

body:
Sam, I don't think those vandal fighters act on a bad faith, but on
the other hand, editors with a good reputation at least on their home
wiki have been blocked due to their username and even not allowed to
edit anonymously.

They are astonished in blocking and perplexed rather angry. An editor
said "I tried to find why I was deserved permanently blocked but
couldn't find a discussion". After unilateral decision of blocking, no
discussion and "encouragement" of changing username, it is hard to
agree on that they don't want to do so, and it is generally not
pursuasive to argue "we don't want to do but we need to", specially if
alternative ways, like modified signatures, checking contribs and
alike are proposed and you reject all of those alternative.

On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/20/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The policy  does exist, and the vigilante group that tries to enforce this
> > is quite succesful in doing so, because they have admin rights on
> > en:wikipedia, so people who do not keep to it get blocked from English
> > Wikipedia.
>
> This is more of the "big, bad English Wikipedia" mentality that
> pervades this discussion.  En.wikipedia does not have vigilantes who
> want to block all people who use usernames in foreign character-sets.
> En.wikipedia has very dedicated vandal-fighters who sometimes cross
> the line in how aggressive they can be.  This is unfortunate.
> However, there are real concerns that you are completely ignoring.
>
> --
> Sam
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


list: wikien-l

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
>> that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the
>> USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
>>
>> Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling,
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is
>> possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
>
> To quote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Derivative_works
>
>> And no, it doesn't matter whether Mickey Mouse is printed on a
>> T-shirt, which you bought with your own money and which is worn by
>> yourself while you're walking in a public place, loudly reciting the
>> GFDL. That doesn't at all give you the right to take a picture of the
>> T-shirt, cut out Mickey Mouse and upload it as "free" material.
>> Nothing you'll ever do, whether you draw Pikachu with your own crayons
>> or sculpt a giant Sailor Moon figurine, will ever lead to the point
>> where you magically turn copyrighted material into "free" material.

Yet, if you take a photo of your friend in Disneyland, you can upload it
as a free picture even if some kid in the background happens to be
wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

Probably even if it's you friend who's wearing the T-shirt, as long as
the main subject of the image is your friend and not the shirt.

Anyway, I just posted a much longer message on this subject, so I'll
keep this one short.

--
Ilmari Karonen


body:
Thank you Sam, for your reply, and all who are interest in solving this issue,

On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> An editor
> > said "I tried to find why I was deserved permanently blocked but
> > couldn't find a discussion".
>
> This is a problem that needs addressing.  No argument.

A question: we have a page or alike where relevant problems are listed?

> After unilateral decision of blocking, no
> > discussion and "encouragement" of changing username, it is hard to
> > agree on that they don't want to do so, and it is generally not
> > pursuasive to argue "we don't want to do but we need to", specially if
> > alternative ways, like modified signatures, checking contribs and
> > alike are proposed and you reject all of those alternative.
>
> You won't find me defending the current en.wikipedia policy -- I think
> it's over-done and, to repeat my clich? analogy, cracking a walnut
> with a sledgehammer.  What I want to see is some recognition from the
> people on this list that there is a problem that has caused this
> overblown solution and that that problem needs addressing.  I haven't
> rejected the alternatives that you mention -- nor have I considered
> them in depth to get an understanding of their practicalities -- so
> please don't put words in my mouth.

Wtih "you" I meant you as individual but rather enwiki editors/admins
but my wording was not so clear. Apologies. And I expect you remind
English is not my mother tongue, even not my second language; I am a
researcher of German thought and I spent my real life mainly to have
Japanese discussions and to read German texts. There is a little room
for English communication in my life expect here Wikimedia project.
Back to the topic, I fully agree with you it is over-done and for
prosperous future of our project, I expect all involved people
recognize there are problems and the current? "no-latin" policy on
enwiki is implemented with a very unthougtful way and that might be a
part of this problem.

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


subject: [Foundation-l] Translations fundraising.wikimedia.org

body:
Never, since in some languages there is *no* sole counterpart. For
example, fundraising is just such a word in Japanese. There is no
custom in Japanese society so you need to know how it functions in a
society to find an appropriate expression and concise enough fit to
the sitenotice, for example.

On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/21/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > /* in a soft voice */
> > Oh, one of translation coordinators work is discouragement young
> > aspirant people who can help translation because he got a dictionary.
> > Sometimes their translation is worse than machine's. You don't know
> > probably because they are simply speedied. (And if you are not
> > Wikimedian, you may not know what means "speedied" exactly - you know
> > the word and its context, speedy deletion on a wiki by a sysop, not
> > merely blanking etc,  so you needn't a dictionary here). There are so
> > bad translation that no other translation can make a good work on that
> > basis and simply need to ignore. I daresay if you need always a
> > dictionary to read something, you are not ready to translate it. Just
> > Danny said, you need to have a competence in both languages. "Ask a
> > dictionary and it's okay" causes disasters so I friendly ask them to
> > go back their home wiki ;)
>
> But...
>
> when it's only one-word phrases (such as "fundraising", "navigation"),
> that is quite possible to do with a dictionary.
>
> --
> Sam, who doesn't have experience translating on Wikimedia projects,
> but who has done plenty of translation in his time
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

--
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd) (Ray Saintonge)

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>
> Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
>> I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
>> let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an online
>> catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two that come to mind are the
>> Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
>> Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
>> offline but it was available a few years ago).
>>
>> You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
>> not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
>> to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
>> seem very different to me from a citation.
>>
> More precisely you can say that you could not find the book listed in
> the Cornell University Library Catalog.  It's not the same even though
> the correlation between the two statements will be strong.

Yes, I stand corrected. Quite right. Or even "the book was not found
in an online search of the Cornell University Library Catalog." If
the citation gives the details of the search, that gives the
opportunity for someone else to check and point out that the search
succeeds if you spell the title differently. Not at all impossible.

(Of course we get back into murky territory if someone asserts that
the book is not in the online catalog, but nevertheless can be found
on the the shelves, third floor of the stacks, two rows from the
back, sixth set of stacks, fourth shelf, sixteenth from the left in a
dull red binding, catalog number QQXXZZ-12345).


from_name: zero 0000

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> From: Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<4cc603b0612212250s7013522en8eb03e740941dcee at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University
> Library
> > > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this
> seems
> > > so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others
> would
> > > claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in
> physics,
> > > and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> > > theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> > > Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
> >
> > What's novel about "It doesn't appear on the such results,
> therefore
> > it isn't in the library"? Seems like an obvious conclusion to me...
> > (might not be 100% reliable, depending on search terms, accuracy of
> > the library's index, etc, but that doesn't make it novel).
>
> You may have made a mistake. Or it may be in the library but not in
> the catalogue, or vice versa. That you conducted the search yourself
> makes publication of your results OR. We publish the mistakes of
> reliable sources, not of Wikipedians. :-)

The fact that mistakes might happen doesn't make it OR.  You have
to show how looking up a library catalogue is fundamentally
different from looking up something in a book.  I don't think you
have done that.  I think that an error in a library catalogue is not
really a different problem from an error in a book, and an error in
consulting the library catalogue is no different from an error in
consulting the book.

To me, these are logically indistinguishable:
1. "Joe Blow died in 1923. [Franky: Joe Blow, A worthless life]"
2. "Library of Congress has the 1923 edition. [LofC catalogue]"

I think these negative assertions are indistinguishable too:
1. "Franky's biography of Joe Blow doesn't say when he died
    [Franky: Joe Blow, A worthless life]"
2. "Library of Congress doesn't have the 1923 edition.
    [LofC catalogue]"

Zero.

__________________________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> In all seriousness, I think the policy should be that any special
>> knowledge
>> needed to understand the article should be included somewhere in
>> Wikipedia.
>> For example, the above knowledge is included at [[key signature]]
>> and at
>> [[E-flat major]].
>>
>> Thus if the example article read
>>
>> "The [[key (music)|key]] of the score is [[E-flat major]]<ref>
>> [link to
>> score]</ref>..."
>>
>> Any person with the knowledge contained at those links would be
>> able to
>> understand the reference.
>>
> That's perfectly sensible.  Instead some people are intent on
> reinventing the wheels that they are already spinning too fast to see.

The essence of the matter is that a reader be able to verify that
there is a source that confirms the statement.

Nit-picks/genuine questions (my musical literacy is almost nil): what
is "the" key of a piece of music which modulates into many different
keys and has different key signatures marked within the score? Is it
a general rule or custom or convention that the first key signature
which appears in the score is "the" key signature?

Nit-pick number two: how do you tell by looking at the music whether
it is in C Major or A Minor? That is, can you always unequivocally
tell the key of a piece of music by glancing at it, or is judgement
sometimes involved?


from_name: Ken Arromdee

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, zero 0000 wrote:
> I think these negative assertions are indistinguishable too:
> 1. "Franky's biography of Joe Blow doesn't say when he died
>     [Franky: Joe Blow, A worthless life]"
> 2. "Library of Congress doesn't have the 1923 edition.
>     [LofC catalogue]"

Be careful with this argument, because someone could say the Library of
Congress catalog is a self-published, non-peer-reviewed, source.  (On the
other hand, it's maintained by librarians who would get fired if they kept
making mistakes, so in that sense it's not self-published, and it makes a
non-contentious claim about the subject, so it should be allowed anyway.)


from_name: Birgitte SB

body:
--- Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:

> [Many posts]

You want people to acknowlede that en.WP is having
problems.  I don't see anyone disputing that the en.WP
policy makes thing eaisier for vandal-fighters.  I do
see that not everyone agrees that not being able to
remember a username is a significant problem.  Other
significant problems that existed when the en.WP began
this policy have been since   Personally, I do not see
why it such a hardship for the vandal-fighters to
simply check edits instead of mentally whitelisting
non-latin editors.  Yes it will be a little more time
consuming, but the majority of edits will still be
from latin usernames that are more memorable.  I do
not see that the memorable issue is a significant
problem nor that it is actually limited to non-latin
usernames.

However that does not mean I do not encourage to find
a way to make vandal-fighting easier that is
compatible with SUL.  I am glsd you wish to modify the
policy, I was encouraging a change there back in
October.  However there are people who wish to keep
the policy as is, you can see this at the talk page to
the policy.  I hope you are right that most of en.WP
sees that the policy is confilcting with SUL.  What
modifications would you like to see to the policy?

Birgitte SB

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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Stirling Newberry

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Begging letters on our blogs?

body:
You must be in private equity.

On Dec 22, 2006, at 3:08 AM, Ronald Chmara wrote:

>
> On Dec 21, 2006, at 11:16 PM, Michael Snow wrote:
>> Perhaps you've gotten confused over the critical distinction between
>> income and valuation? Or if you were relying solely on memory, please
>> avoid that bad habit (responsible for quite a few Wikipedia errors),
>> especially when the facts require such a trivial effort to check.
>
> I value this post at 500 bajillion dollars.
>
> I will expect the check delivered to my house in morning.
>
> Thank You.
>
> -Ronabop
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>


subject:
[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was:
	English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

body:
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Regarding,
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/nonalphausers
>
> On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> > If you want this to be meaningful, you need to
> remove accounts with only
> > Arabic numbers. Obviously these can be recognized
> easily by English-only
> > speakers.
>
> Some are, some are not. 863929163 is not too easily
> remembered,
> although I can type it. While 555 is a fine name for
> an English
> speaker to communicate with... Feel free to skip
> over the ones that
> seem too English compatible. With 1000 in the list
> there are plenty to
> look at.
>
> > > Obviously it does not count users who were
> blocked before they could
> > > "contribute".
> >
> > This would be useful too, as a separate list,
> maybe.
>
> Based on your suggestions I have created a new list
> consisting of all
> usernames which have been blocked since Dec 2005
> that contain any
> non-ascii characters.
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/nonalphausers/blocked
>
> They have been grouped based on the existence of
> edits by the users.
>
> It would be useful if someone would go through and
> fix the places
> where a loose RTL character is making everything
> backwards (don't
> remove the RTL mark, just insert a matching LTR
> mark).  I have no idea
> how people edit mixed directional text with any
> ease, and I can't seem
> to find help on any of our metapages.
>
> Of 3,049,903 usernames in the enwiki database
> 454,122 contain at least
> one non-ascii character. Of those, 2,016 have been
> blocked at least
> once in the last year.
>
> Of the 454,122 accounts with non-ascii characters
> 367,501 were created
> in the last year.
>
> I am somewhat surprised that so much fervor is being
> made of a matter
> which appears, by the numbers, to of nearly
> insignificant frequency.
>

Of course much less would be made of this matter if it
were not for SUL.  You must also take into account the
editors who have been editing as IP accounts.  After
SUL they will no longer default to anon on entering
en.WP, but will default to their natural username; and
if that happens to be non-latin they will be blocked.
Obviously some people believe this will be
significant.  How many good faith editors being
blocked would warrant significance in your eyes?  And
it is not just the "being blocked" that is the issue.
It is the fact that these editors can not have the
full benefits of SUL.  They will have either have to
manage multiple accounts, contribution records, talk
pages, etc. or else not have editing privledges on all
Wikimedia wikis.

Birgitte SB

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: christoph.huesler at css.ch

subject: [Wikitech-l] Antwort: Re:  Importing images (plus deletion)

body:
SUL won't help with local wikis (non-wp), so 1) simply isn't true.

-- chris

wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org schrieb am 22.12.2006 03:08:46:

> On 12/21/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> > Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the import option
allowed
> > importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does
not
> > help in this case. Either the user isn't verified, in which case users
of
> > the remote wiki can delete WP content willy nilly (even if not
registered),
> > or the importer has to enter their Wikipedia username & password at
the
> > target wiki, and thus give these details to the administrator of that
wiki
> > (or a malicious extension writer).
>
> I don't understand the difficulty.
>
> 1) You log in on Wiki A.  Your username and password are the same as
> on Wiki B, since SUL is implemented, so no security breach occurs.
>
> 2) You say, through Wiki A's interface, that you would like to delete
> an image from Wiki B.  Wiki A passes your username and password to
> Wiki B for authentication; since they're the same on both wikis, Wiki
> B will accept them and check if you're a sysop on Wiki B.
>
> 3) If you are, the image is deleted, and Wiki B tells Wiki A to
> acknowledge the deletion.  Otherwise it tells Wiki A to return an
> error.
>
> There can't be any security breach if the two wikis share the same
> database for usernames and passwords (i.e., SUL).  If they don't, this
> doesn't have to work, but if it did, you could directly (but
> invisibly) connect to Wiki A and give it your cookie if you're already
> logged in there.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [Foundation-l] Reminder: Open Access chat

body:
On 12/17/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Today, 21:00 UTC:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Open_Access_chat

The log of that meeting can be found at:
http://scireview.de/wiki/openaccess/channel.log

There was a lot of interest, but I don't think we have critical mass
to achieve many concrete results yet. Unfortunately there weren't many
non-Wikimedians present; I'll try to seek personal contact with some
of the folks from OA journals to see where we can go from here. There
will probably be a follow-up event some time in the next few months.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.


body:
The en.WP Username policy has been changed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Username&curid=168684&diff=95920637&oldid=95900078

I would encourage everyone to continue to work on
ideas to help with vandal-fighting.  With SUL, I think
there will be even stronger benefits to collabortaion
across wikis on these issues.  One important issue
would be finding a way to share information on these
sleeper accounts who turnout to be blatant vandals
since all blocks will be local only.  There is always
the possibilty one might careless show himself to be a
vandal on one wiki while still gathering posistive
edits on others.  Currently there is no way to
distinguish why a person was blocked outside of being
to read block summaries which has serious limitations.

Birgitte SB

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


body:
The system FundCORE replaced was English-only, so I saw no harm in
implementing it with English first and adding translations shortly
after. Now in the case of the other side of the fundraising effort (site
notices and fundraising submission pages), I agree that more
organization ahead of time would have smoothed things along.

Gary Kirk wrote:
> I think what should be taken from all this is that translation
> requests should be made and publicised *well* before the whatever
> we're translating about happens - for stuff we know about obviously -
> like the Fundraiser. 'The Fundraiser starts tomorrow' is not much
> notice, is it?
>
> On 12/22/06, habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2006/12/22, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> I doubt that will make a difference, as I only used the notes that
>>> were in English to help me.  Provided that a Thai dictionary, for
>>> instance, has similar quality notes (and this is a good but not
>>> exceptional dictionary) I see no reason why this should be impossible.
>>>
>>> Yes, a knowledge of the language and culture is helpful.  But it's not
>>> completely impossible to manage without for these simple phrases.
>> IMHO we are splitting hairs. Of course there exists lists of words
>> that are simple enough that they can be translated with only a
>> dictionary! (and some context, or you can not use the explanation and
>> notes in your dictionary). The question is how common these cases are,
>> and I'd say that partly depends on how afraid you are of silly
>> mistakes. One might realise that when put in context, the simple word
>> has the wrong grammatical form... since the language one translates
>> from does not distinguish between these two etc. etc. ad nauseam.
>>
>> I've translated MediaWiki messages "blindly". It often worked OK, some
>> had to be tweaked when we discovered where they were used. That was no
>> big deal. In PR material, such as this fundraising stuff, silly
>> mistakes look much worse. I think this discussion still somehow hovers
>> around the topic of C.O.R.E. and to me it is clear that a translation
>> with just a dictionary would be less satisfactory, so that correct
>> English in most cases is a better alternative.
>>
>> /habj
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>


from_name: Christophe Millet

subject: [Foundation-l] Automatic username transliteration for SUL

body:
On 22/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/12/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I did a large amount of copying and pasting of all
> > kinds of fonts about a year ago when repairing the
> > broken links from the WS split. [1]  I never had a
> > problem with getting a usable link.  What exactly was
> > the problem you encountered?
>
>
> Erm, I stated the exact problem and software environment in the bit of
> my message you in fact quoted ...

Copy and paste doesn't work on Internet Explorer, or on
these browsers where all you see is "?" or an empty box.
It works with firefox, where what you see is a box, and in it
is the Unicode number of the character (or some other number),
so that different unknown characters do look different to me.

Kip.


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
Regarding, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/nonalphausers

On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> If you want this to be meaningful, you need to remove accounts with only
> Arabic numbers. Obviously these can be recognized easily by English-only
> speakers.

Some are, some are not. 863929163 is not too easily remembered,
although I can type it. While 555 is a fine name for an English
speaker to communicate with... Feel free to skip over the ones that
seem too English compatible. With 1000 in the list there are plenty to
look at.

> > Obviously it does not count users who were blocked before they could
> > "contribute".
>
> This would be useful too, as a separate list, maybe.

Based on your suggestions I have created a new list consisting of all
usernames which have been blocked since Dec 2005 that contain any
non-ascii characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/nonalphausers/blocked

They have been grouped based on the existence of edits by the users.

It would be useful if someone would go through and fix the places
where a loose RTL character is making everything backwards (don't
remove the RTL mark, just insert a matching LTR mark).  I have no idea
how people edit mixed directional text with any ease, and I can't seem
to find help on any of our metapages.

Of 3,049,903 usernames in the enwiki database 454,122 contain at least
one non-ascii character. Of those, 2,016 have been blocked at least
once in the last year.

Of the 454,122 accounts with non-ascii characters 367,501 were created
in the last year.

I am somewhat surprised that so much fervor is being made of a matter
which appears, by the numbers, to of nearly insignificant frequency.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was: English
	Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
 other communities

body:
geni schreef:
> On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> We would have a better edge on vandalism if we
>> required confirmed email adresses before allowing a
>> user to edit.  But the goal of Wikipedia is not
>> prevent vandalism at all costs.  I really don't
>> understand the particular problem with non-latin
>> vandals.  More inforamation is always better but why
>> is this information needed for vandal-fighting?
>>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers type in various swear
> wods to start searches.
>
>
>> I
>> have never had to type in any username to make a
>> block.  Everything is dome by clicking through links.
>> Click on  a diff to confirm vandalism, click on block
>> to block the user, click on contribs to cleanup the
>> mess.  For a major vandal; paste the link to the
>> contribs on IRC to solict help.  Whether the username
>> is english, bosian, or ????; I am not sure how it
>> would make a difference.
>>
>
> Because I can't glance at recent changes and tell whcih of the half
> dozen ????? are problem users.
>
>
It is your choice not to install fonts. So this is self inflicted
damage. Something you punish others for.
>>  What do vandal fighters as
>> en.WP do differently than that makes non-latin
>> usernames a significant problem?
>>
>>
>
> Some of our vandles have trademarks. It is also very hard to come up
> with large numbers of legit sounding names in a short timeframe. The
> result is that mayn vandles resort to nonsense names. If they can hide
> that by useing japanses characters I have lost a way of picking them
> up.
With SUL you can check out who and what they are within WMF. They will
not only have but also have en.wikipedia history. So in stead of not
knowing who they are you will find that they have extended history in
other projects. So you will have gained a way of identifying your
vandals in stead of lost a way of identifying them.

Thanks,
    GerardM


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:46:03 -0800, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

>To use NOR as a bare tool to
>excuse the omission of information is a perversion of the basis for
>having that guideline in the first place.

Depends on context.  If the people pushing a very minor fringe theory
don't include sources, there really is no problem with removing it.

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


body:
geni schreef:
> On 12/22/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What functionality is impaired by not being able to read the username,
>> given that MediaWiki makes all these things clickable?
>>
>
> The ability to remeber who the heck someone was. I can remeber Kasuga.
> I can't remeber ????.
>
> If I'm dealing with a problem user who I can't neutralise on sight it
> is helpful if can remember who they are
Hoi,
How many users are working at any one time at en.wikipedia? And you can
remember the vandals by name .. I am impressed .. but somehow I doubt
it. I think you use the history views of the contributions of that user,
the talk pages of that user and for that you do not even have to know
what the user name is.

And for all the ????? you only have to have to install the appropriate
fonts .. You are talking about self inflicting damage that you roll over
on people that have earned respect. From the point of good faith, it is
hardly that.

Thanks,
GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:59:26 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>[[Wikipedia talk:Fair use]] is currently 512 kilobytes long

Most of it people trying to argue it away :-)

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


from_name: phoebe ayers

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:

<snip>

> The fact that mistakes might happen doesn't make it OR.  You have
> to show how looking up a library catalogue is fundamentally
> different from looking up something in a book.  I don't think you
> have done that.  I think that an error in a library catalogue is not
> really a different problem from an error in a book, and an error in
> consulting the library catalogue is no different from an error in
> consulting the book.
>
> To me, these are logically indistinguishable:
> 1. "Joe Blow died in 1923. [Franky: Joe Blow, A worthless life]"
> 2. "Library of Congress has the 1923 edition. [LofC catalogue]

And for both these cases, cite as finely as you can: down to the page number
of the exact edition for the book, and with the LoC card number (it'll be
found in the full record, next to the ISBN if one exists) for the other.

I think these negative assertions are indistinguishable too:
> 1. "Franky's biography of Joe Blow doesn't say when he died
>     [Franky: Joe Blow, A worthless life]"
> 2. "Library of Congress doesn't have the 1923 edition.
>     [LofC catalogue]"

There is one fundamental difference: unless you're writing *about* the
biography or the LoC itself, why on earth would you include such a statement
in an article? IMHO, the absence of information in the few sources you may
have consulted doesn't constitute a useful statement for a global
encyclopedia. (And the fact that your sources were few is not a negative
judgement on your research skills; it's simply a fact of life -- it's likely
*none* of us will be able to consult all the potential useful sources of
information on any given topic unless the topic is so small as to be
basically NN in its own right. Hence the usefulness of collaboration).

As far as "the ultimate truthfulness" of these two statements: you're
totally right, they both depend on your skills as a researcher. For the book
statement, it depends on your reading comprehension abilities and ability to
search an index/read the complete book. For the LoC statement, it depends on
your ability to search. In general, we trust people's abilities to read, and
we may be able to trust their abilities to search, as well, but there seems
to be some confusion about what a library catalog is.

A catalog is not like a book (format aside) because it is a continually
updated series collection of collated and indexed metadata about other
works, whereas a book (except for other collections of information or
printed databases, like the phonebook) is usually a narrative about some
particular topic. A library catalog serves three major purposes: discovery
(what are some books about serial killers?); identification (what is the
name of the book about serial killers written by Brown?); and location (does
the LoC have the book by Brown about serial killers, and if so, where is
it?) Mistakes can enter at any of these stages, information can come from a
variety of places at any of these stages, and you have to be entirely clear
that you've got the right edition at stages 2 & 3. That's not to say that
for your statement (LoC doesn't have the 1923 edition) I wouldn't take your
word for it -- modern catalogs have been designed so that it's easy to find
things, just like it's easy to find web pages in the catalog of them we
affectionately call Google (though I think we all know how hard it is to
track down one rare snippet of information on the web, and try finding a
rare non-English title in LoC sometime).

However! There is one major caveat: not everything in a library is cataloged
and present in their online catalog. Not even (especially?) in the LoC.
Every library I have *ever* run across in my short career has a cataloging
backlog of some sort. Cataloging is hard and tedious and manually done by
trained professionals who take a lot of care in making sure they have the
right book, which is why catalogs are generally accurate, and irregardless
of this particular question or references in Wikipedia that's worth
remembered if one is trying to be comprehensive in one's researches :) And,
as Jayig and I have pointed out, holdings change, and sadly there is no
"permanent link" or "compare diffs" in most library catalogs; the best you
can do is cite a date. *No* library catalog will claim that "this is a full
and accurate record of everything we have," and if they do, they're either
very small or lying.
-- phoebe

p.s. the LoC catalog *is* peer-reviewed, because their records are
downloaded into worldcat and may be checked by many other people. Mistakes
are reported and fixed :)


body:
geni schreef:
> On 12/22/06, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And how much mass vandal robots did you have before discuting and
>> accepting this policy (if it has been ever discussed and accepted ;))
>> ?
>>
>>
>
> It's in our records for the most part you are free to search through them.
>
>
>> If you have a bot making mass vandalizing, if the pseudo will be latin
>> or non latin won't make any difference.
>>
>
> Evidences?
>
>
>> And by the way for bot generated pseudo it exists a feature ;).
>>
>
> Um no.
>
>
>> The
>> probleme here, for my point of view, is totally different. In the five
>> pillars we can read "Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit"
>> exept vandals of course, and your policy is going against this as you
>> block non latin pseudo before they began editing, even if they would
>> be a good editor.
>>
>>
>
> If an editor can't cope with useing a latin alphabet username (doesn't
> have to make sense in any lanague know to man mind) then they are
> unlikely to be able to contibute to wikipedia.
This is not the issue. Certainly with SUL there is ONE user for all
projects and the English language Wikipedia seems to be of a mind to
effectively sabotage this by insisting on practices that can be and
should be replaced by new practices that provide a better result. A
1.000+ editor from a Korean, Serbian, Chinese, Inuktitut can be accepted
as a known good. Please show some good faith as this can be easily be
checked.
Thanks,
    GerardM


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
None of the problems previously mentioned with legal databases apply to
> library catalogues, which I would rather compare to other common
> catalogue works such as phone books and dictionaries.  In fact, ten or
> twenty years ago, one could even have pointed to the filing cabinets
> full of index cards and said "here's your printed source".  :-)

The problems are exactly the same; they're the same sort of beast. A legal
or other bibliographic database indexes articles, proceedings and books that
are published in some pre-determined subset of all the journals in the
world; a library catalog indexes books that are held in a particular
institution (a subset of all the books in the world). A catalog is simply a
database of books; see worldcat.org.

Sorry to get all semantic,
phoebe


from_name: Mathias Schindler

subject: [WikiEN-l] FYI: Full access to Britannica for free (as in beer)

body:
Britannica seems to be playing innovation with linking.

If you don't have a EB subscription, visiting this URL may only give
you a short snipped:

http:// www.britannica. com/eb/article-9433599/ Wikipedia
(cut and paste by hand, then remove the blanks)

But there is a new feature that will give you free access to the text.
EBI asks you to link to them. If you access a page via that link, the
full text is shown.

Of course, if you don't want to play a link farm for britannica,
simply open up the page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Access_to_Britannica (which is
empty).

Click on "edit this page".

Put in
[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599/Wikipedia Wikipedia]
and klick on "Preview"

If you click on that link again, you will see the full text and you
don't have to worry about pushing EBI with google juice.

Or you may use that "rel=nofollow"-tag if you really want to link to them...


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Assume good faith" is no longer policy.

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>On 12/18/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>It was called a guideline for a year before someone called it policy a
>>few months ago. I haven't seen much difference in its treatment.
>>
>>I would be more concerned if I thought it made any practical
>>difference what sort of template got stuck on top of it; it's not as
>>though it were an easily enforceable bright-line rule to begin with.
>>It is simply necessary to avoid killing each other, sometimes, and so
>>people tend to regard it as a Good Idea and try to hold others to it
>>no matter what designation gets slapped atop it.
>>(As a side note, there is discussion about its status on the talk page.)
>>
>>
>I think we should totally do away with the Guideline/Policy/Essay
>notices.. Instead we should put a signature space below... so users
>can see all the people who support the page.
>
So what happens when someone amends the page, as they often do?  Are the
signers deemed to continue supporting the "policy", or are all the
signatures wiped out with the voting started again?

Many policy statements which have broad support lose that support when
that policy is elaborated in some direction.

Ec


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 12/18/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It's become a guideline. Ho hum.
>>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
>>>
>>>
>>So much for policy changes being discussed widely prior to implimentation...
>>
>>
>It doesn't seem to work like that these days - the change is made,
>then thye see who complains.
>
IOW, who notices?

Ec


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

body:
Are you supposed to click something? I see nothing different.

Mgm

On 12/22/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Britannica seems to be playing innovation with linking.
>
> If you don't have a EB subscription, visiting this URL may only give
> you a short snipped:
>
> http:// www.britannica. com/eb/article-9433599/ Wikipedia
> (cut and paste by hand, then remove the blanks)
>
> But there is a new feature that will give you free access to the text.
> EBI asks you to link to them. If you access a page via that link, the
> full text is shown.
>
> Of course, if you don't want to play a link farm for britannica,
> simply open up the page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Access_to_Britannica (which is
> empty).
>
> Click on "edit this page".
>
> Put in
> [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599/Wikipedia Wikipedia]
> and klick on "Preview"
>
> If you click on that link again, you will see the full text and you
> don't have to worry about pushing EBI with google juice.
>
> Or you may use that "rel=nofollow"-tag if you really want to link to
> them...
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Alphax (Wikipedia email)

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the
> USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
>
> Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is
> possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
>

To quote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Derivative_works

> And no, it doesn't matter whether Mickey Mouse is printed on a
> T-shirt, which you bought with your own money and which is worn by
> yourself while you're walking in a public place, loudly reciting the
> GFDL. That doesn't at all give you the right to take a picture of the
> T-shirt, cut out Mickey Mouse and upload it as "free" material.
> Nothing you'll ever do, whether you draw Pikachu with your own crayons
> or sculpt a giant Sailor Moon figurine, will ever lead to the point
> where you magically turn copyrighted material into "free" material.

--
Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

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from_name: Simetrical

subject: [Wikitech-l] Antwort: Re: Importing images (plus deletion)

body:
On 12/22/06, christoph.huesler at css.ch <christoph.huesler at css.ch> wrote:
> SUL won't help with local wikis (non-wp), so 1) simply isn't true.

Random wikis will not be able to delete anything from Wikipedia under
this scheme.  Only wikis linked to it through SUL would be able to.  I
should have thought that was obvious from my clearly-stated premises.
I don't think allowing admins of Uncyclopedia (or any other random
wiki) who are also Wikipedia admins to delete remotely from Wikipedia
would be terribly useful.  Allowing Commons/Wikipedia admins (or just
Wikipedia admins who are autoconfirmed on Commons) to delete remotely
from Wikipedia when moving to Commons would be, and that's what this
feature is aimed at.


body:
George Herbert wrote:

>On 12/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Incidentally, see the "Assume high intelligence" bit?
>>
>>
>Yeah.  That should be a different guideline, at least, and probably
>someone should do an essay attempting to put forth a coherent idea of
>what exactly it means and how to interpret it.
>
>If it's an attempt to say "please stop telling people that they're
>dumb so often" then it belongs under NPA anyways.
>
>I don't think our policies or guidelines should expand out to include
>every fundamental aspect of human value or dignity.
>
But we do need a policy to meticulously define common sense. ;-)

Ec


body:
On 12/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you supposed to click something? I see nothing different.

Interesting. Some people are able to reproduce it, some are not. I
initially thought that it was only having to do with the external
referer...

You might want to have a look at the button "Share Full Article with
Your Readers"

Mathias


body:
That's it.

On 12/22/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/22/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are you supposed to click something? I see nothing different.
>
> Interesting. Some people are able to reproduce it, some are not. I
> initially thought that it was only having to do with the external
> referer...
>
> You might want to have a look at the button "Share Full Article with
> Your Readers"
>
> Mathias
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Importing images (plus deletion)

references:
<fbad4e140612151558o7d672fdanfc37e0fefbd5f2a1@mail.gmail.com>
	<em93em$k7v$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<fab0ecb70612191032s4db8b922h4e121b4413b6c3ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<em9ccv$nh8$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<ecc6a1f0612191124x7b954114l5b4daa9afced4b8c@mail.gmail.com>
	<fab0ecb70612201329t76e9d930l5b2034effa86cb57@mail.gmail.com>
	<emertg$2s3$1@sea.gmane.org> <458B072A.6010108@pobox.com>
	<emfc5b$gie$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<e92136380612211804t2b8914a8s92427fe57bc9c68f@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On 12/22/06, Rob Church <robchur at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/12/06, Mark Clements <gmane at kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
> > Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the import option allowed
> > importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does not
> [snip]
>
> The problem is that someone took the "let's support true image
> importing" ball and ran with it, off to the "ooh, let's enable moving"
> camp.
>
> I am of the opinion that while making the import process easier for
> Commons admins is going to end up being more or less essential, it is
> just as essential that a human has the final say over whether or not
> the image is deleted from the source wiki.

I don't think anyone suggested someting different.

> There are cases where you wouldn't want to be performing a *move*,
> anyway; the import process as it stands implies copying, rather than
> moving, and that is I how I think it should remain.

Well, there will be tons of cases where you *do* want to move images,
and for these cases, the subsequent deletion after copying should be
as pain- and clickless as possible.

Magnus


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 12/19/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>I haven't participated in any of the discussion about Assume Good Faith, but
>>>in my experience, I've usually encountered it when users quote it to claim
>>>that criticism of them is equivalent to not assuming good faith.
>>>Does it really solve more problems than it causes?
>>>
>>>
>>It's like "don't be a dick".  The idea is to do it, not to quote it.
>>
>>
>I personally agree with Jimbo's elevation of "assume good faith" to be
>the single mantra which binds us together and makes Wikipedia work.
>Everyone *does* need to know about. You don't enforce it, you don't
>beat people over the head with it, but you do make sure people are
>aware of its existence, and hope they follow it.
>
That's better.  More than either a rule or a guideline, "assume good
faith" is a principle.  It is integral to the five pillars.

Ec


from_name: geni

body:
On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Are you just trolling?  The concern was specifically
> about vandals who *are* dodging your tests.  How can
> you answer that with "Unless they find a way to dodge
> our tests"?

Because I assume that on some level you can join the dots. A trivial
way to dodge the tests would be to create the accounts in a not latin
script.

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is your choice not to install fonts. So this is self inflicted
> damage. Something you punish others for.

I could make wikipedia pretty much un-useable in IE (and partly
firefox) your choice not to run opera.

> With SUL you can check out who and what they are within WMF. They will
> not only have but also have en.wikipedia history. So in stead of not
> knowing who they are you will find that they have extended history in
> other projects.

In a small number of cases

> So you will have gained a way of identifying your
> vandals in stead of lost a way of identifying them.

How do I tell a vandle from a newbie from Ja.wikipeida?

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni schreef:
> > On 12/22/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> What functionality is impaired by not being able to read the username,
> >> given that MediaWiki makes all these things clickable?
> >>
> >
> > The ability to remeber who the heck someone was. I can remeber Kasuga.
> > I can't remeber ????.
> >
> > If I'm dealing with a problem user who I can't neutralise on sight it
> > is helpful if can remember who they are
> Hoi,
> How many users are working at any one time at en.wikipedia? And you can
> remember the vandals by name

Problem users who I can't neutralise on sight are not vandles have you
even bothered to read en's policies in these areas.

> And for all the ????? you only have to have to install the appropriate
> fonts ..

No. Long standin policy is that we make the mininum posible software
and hardware requirements.

>You are talking about self inflicting damage that you roll over
> on people that have earned respect.

So logicaly by this standard We should stop worring about how images
in articles appear in low res monitors. I think not.

>From the point of good faith, it is
> hardly that.

I'm not makeing any assumptions at all.
--
geni


from_name: Earle Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright Violation Bot

body:
On 21/12/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> The odds of finding a copyvio are going to be quite low.

Did you try actually running the program? I guess not.

Let's have another demonstration. I just ran the program a few times.
On the fifth try it got me this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilal-i-Jurat

which is copied wholesale from this copyrighted text:

    http://faculty.winthrop.edu/haynese/medals/Pakistan/pakistan.htm

On the very next try, I got:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Seymour

which was either copied from, or to (either way, without attribution)
this website:

    http://www.triste-le-roi.blogspot.com/ajs_main.html

The revision history indicates the person responsible was the
maintainer of the website. Six or seven more program runs later, I
got:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd%C3%BClhak_H%C3%A2mid

which contains material copied from:

    http://www.osmanli700.gen.tr/english/individuals/a19.html

My conclusion? First, the basic idea of the program is a sound one.
Second, there are thousands more copyvios on the English Wikipedia
than most people would ever imagine.

By the way, my program has a second use - you can also use it on a
specific page if you're suspicious that it contains copyrighted text.

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


from_name: jayjg

subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, jayjg wrote:
> > Read your own words; "Seems like an obvious conclusion to me..." You
> > are drawing your own conclusions, rather than quoting others who have
> > drawn those conclusions. In addition, by definition it is a *novel*
> > conclusion; if it weren't novel, then you'd be able to quote someone
> > who had come to the same conclusion.
>
> That only applies if *any conclusion whatsoever* is original research.  But
> that's not true.  Otherwise it would be original research to say that someone
> is more than 5 feet tall if the source just said they are 6 feet tall.
>
> So you can't just say "that's a conclusion, so it's original research".  You
> need to figure out exactly what types of conclusions are and aren't allowed,
> and then show that this particular conclusion falls into the prohibited
> category.
>
> I would argue that an *obvious* conclusion falls into the permitted category.
> The whole reason we accept conclusions like "he is 6 feet tall, therefore
> he is more than 5 feet tall" is that they don't require specialist training
> to make, and that nobody could seriously deny they are true--in other words,
> we accept such conclusions because they are obvious.

But we're not talking about trivially obvious conclusions; rather,
we're talking about conclusions based on complex actions that require
expert knowledge to conduct correctly, and even then don't always
produce accurate results.  The only *obvious* conclusion we can draw
in this case is "Daniel Smith ran this specific search on the catalog,
and it didn't return any results", which is hardly encyclopedic
information.

Jay.


body:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 05:52:45 -0500, "Daniel P. B. Smith"
<wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:

> Or even "the book was not found
>in an online search of the Cornell University Library Catalog." If
>the citation gives the details of the search, that gives the
>opportunity for someone else to check and point out that the search
>succeeds if you spell the title differently. Not at all impossible.

Another issue: a particular promoter of a particular POV cites a book
in support of his argument.  It is not a widely-circulated book.
Others are unable to find the book, or, having found the book, unable
to find the specific text supposedly quoted.  At some point we have to
apply the "yeah, right" rule and remove it.

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


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Is it true...

body:
On 12/22/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>
> You're half right.  Fair use is a defense for copyright violation.
> But if you successfully defend against a charge of copyright
> violation, it means the copyright violation hasn't occurred.  Copying
> may have occurred, but not a copyright violation.
>
> For an analogy, insanity is a defense for murder.  And if the accused
> successfully defends against a charge of murder using the insanity
> defense, it means a murder hasn't occurred.  Killing might have
> occurred, but not murder.

A fitting analogy. It evokes particularly well the "shoot first and
hope for the best" attitude of many users around here to copyright law
:)

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
> > On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
> >>not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
> >>to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
> >>seem very different to me from a citation.
> >
> > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research;
>
> I would disagree, and say that it is a claim made by the library
> catalogue, and thus properly sourced to them.  The claim may be one made
> by omission, but, insofar as the catalogue claims to be comprehensive,
> it is nonetheless an unambiguous claim.

But that catalog has made *no* claims; it can't, it simply exists.
Rather, some Wikipedia editor has made a claim *on behalf of the
catalog*.

>
> If the catalogue does not claim to be comprehensive, or if there is
> doubt about its accuracy, it may be better to phrase the statement
> explicitly as "his book is not listed in the Cornell University Library
> catalogue."

And who do we source that claim to? Zero0000? Daniel Smith? What does
the footnote say: "Wikipedia editor Daniel Smith ran this specific
search on the catalog on December 11, 2006, and it did not return any
results"? Ridiculous.

> None of the problems previously mentioned with legal databases apply to
> library catalogues, which I would rather compare to other common
> catalogue works such as phone books and dictionaries.  In fact, ten or
> twenty years ago, one could even have pointed to the filing cabinets
> full of index cards and said "here's your printed source".  :-)

Assuming you'd searched through the cards properly, one card hadn't
stuck to the back of another, or been temporarily removed for some
reason, or...

> Or would you also consider the statement "IttyBittySoft was not listed
> in the Fortune 500 list for 2006" to be OR?

Why on earth would one ever want to put such a statement into an
article? It's clear that the only reason would be to make some sort of
argument, push some sort of POV regarding IttyBittySoft. Why not just
stated the obvious facts, and leave it at that? "IttyBittySoft
reported annual revenues of $36 million in 2006". That's all we need
to say; let's not beat our readers over the head with our agenda.

Jay.


subject: [Foundation-l] when uploading pictures to commons ....

body:
James Hare wrote:

>I know it sounds tempting, but the "Crash my computer" button on Commons
>will just have to not be clicked. :)
>
>In other words, if you know an image is large, as in very very large, don't
>click on the full-size version link.
>
Sounds like blaming the victim.  Those who have less sophisticated
systems are often also the ones who have less sophisticated knowledge
about such things.

Ec


from_name: Sam Korn

body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> No other WMF project has as many resources as the English language
> Wikipedia does. No other project gets as much attention from the
> developers. No other project does as well as a result. No other project
> can therefore withstand the constant abuse from vandals as successfully.

One senses that here lies the real reason so many people are bitching
so much about en.wikipedia -- jealousy.  Users of other wikis see all
that the Foundation and the developers devote to the English Wikipedia
and ask why that can't come to their efforts too.  Perhaps they see
the intense media coverage that the English Wikipedia gets and compare
their own coverage unfavourably.

> However, this does not mean that might is right.

No.  Obviously.

> It also does not mean
> that arguments used that are in opposition to some of its policies can
> be ignored as is currently happening.

I don't see this happening.  I see a lot of English Wikipedians who
are trying to find a way to resolve the problems that SUL could bring.
 I don't see anyone on this list ignoring the opposition or the
arguments, just people who are trying to get a rational discussion on
the subject.

> With the improvements
> that have happened like the prevention of mixed script user names and
> the upcoming the SUL the arguments for the practice of blocking non
> Latin users on sight have been largely removed.

Nonsense.  All that has been changed is that the sledgehammer policy
currently in use is now outdated and overblown and should be
*modified* to take these considerations into account.  The arguments
for the practice have not changed; the arguments against the practice
have been strengthened, however, and that's a completely different
kettle of fish.

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] Top posting poll; was Re: MONGO and the ArbCom

body:
On 19/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Qm90dG9tLXBvc3RpbmcgeW91ciBtZXNzYWdlcyBhZnRlciBCYXNlNjQ=
> > >> ZW5jb2RpbmcgdGhlbSBiZWF0cyBldmVyeXRoaW5nLg==
> > > begin 644 -
> > > M5&AA="=S(&YO="!V86QI9"!B87-E-C0Z('EO=2=R92!O;FQY(&%L;&]W960@
> > > C=&\@<'5T("<])R!A="!T:&4 at 96YD(&]F('1H92!F:6QE+ at H
> > > end
>%49%74%27%73%20%61%20%70%61%64%64%69%6e%67%20%63%68%61%72%61%63%74%65%72%2e
>
> Lbh xvqf whfg gel gbb uneq fbzrgvzrf.

01001001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000
01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111
01110101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01101110 00101110

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

body:
On 12/22/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > From: Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
> > To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> > Message-ID:
> >       <4cc603b0612212250s7013522en8eb03e740941dcee at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > > > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University
> > Library
> > > > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this
> > seems
> > > > so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others
> > would
> > > > claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in
> > physics,
> > > > and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> > > > theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> > > > Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
> > >
> > > What's novel about "It doesn't appear on the such results,
> > therefore
> > > it isn't in the library"? Seems like an obvious conclusion to me...
> > > (might not be 100% reliable, depending on search terms, accuracy of
> > > the library's index, etc, but that doesn't make it novel).
> >
> > You may have made a mistake. Or it may be in the library but not in
> > the catalogue, or vice versa. That you conducted the search yourself
> > makes publication of your results OR. We publish the mistakes of
> > reliable sources, not of Wikipedians. :-)
>
> The fact that mistakes might happen doesn't make it OR.  You have
> to show how looking up a library catalogue is fundamentally
> different from looking up something in a book.  I don't think you
> have done that.  I think that an error in a library catalogue is not
> really a different problem from an error in a book, and an error in
> consulting the library catalogue is no different from an error in
> consulting the book.

Anyone can find the book you have quoted, and look on the page, and
see if it says what you claim it says.  The best footnotes actually
quote the section in question, so the confirmation is easy, and the
book is published, we know the edition and publication date, and the
contents of that specific publication are not going to change.
However, we can't easily reproduce the search you Zero0000 has done on
the library catalogue, and even if we could, there's no guarantee that
the catalogue will have the same contents when *we* search it. On the
contrary, one can guarantee that the contents *will* have changed.

Databases, library catalogues, and similar ephemera are complex beasts
that have little in common with printed works.

Jay.


body:
On 19/12/06, Abigail Brady <morwen at evilmagic.org> wrote:
> For historical interest, you may which to see the initial version of
> AGF that I wrote.  It wasn't some "let's all hug and be happy" type
> thing, it was some practical notes about how assuming good faith is a
> good debating tactic because you can give your opponent Enough Rope
> (tm).

See also http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AssumeGoodFaith

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


body:
On 12/22/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> >
> > Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> >
> >> I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
> >> let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an online
> >> catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two that come to mind are the
> >> Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
> >> Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
> >> offline but it was available a few years ago).
> >>
> >> You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
> >> not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
> >> to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
> >> seem very different to me from a citation.
> >>
> > More precisely you can say that you could not find the book listed in
> > the Cornell University Library Catalog.  It's not the same even though
> > the correlation between the two statements will be strong.
>
> Yes, I stand corrected. Quite right. Or even "the book was not found
> in an online search of the Cornell University Library Catalog." If
> the citation gives the details of the search, that gives the
> opportunity for someone else to check and point out that the search
> succeeds if you spell the title differently. Not at all impossible.

No, the accurate statement is "This specific online search by Daniel
P.B. Smith on this specific date did not return any results". And, of
course, there's no guarantee that 1 minute after Daniel P.B. Smith
does his search, the book will not be acquired, or entered into the
catalog, or re-indexed properly because it had been improperly entered
before, or...

Once one is forced to make an *accurate* (non original research)
statement, it starts looking ridiculous, and rightly so.

Jay.

Jay.


references:
<mailman.198.1166775811.3736.wikien-l@Wikipedia.org>
	<AF04C2FE-44EA-42F0-877A-C31850F20BAE@dpbsmith.com>
	<10hno210lhjmab7bj12605ilakfckne2kq@4ax.com>

body:
On 12/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 05:52:45 -0500, "Daniel P. B. Smith"
> <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> > Or even "the book was not found
> >in an online search of the Cornell University Library Catalog." If
> >the citation gives the details of the search, that gives the
> >opportunity for someone else to check and point out that the search
> >succeeds if you spell the title differently. Not at all impossible.
>
> Another issue: a particular promoter of a particular POV cites a book
> in support of his argument.  It is not a widely-circulated book.
> Others are unable to find the book, or, having found the book, unable
> to find the specific text supposedly quoted.  At some point we have to
> apply the "yeah, right" rule and remove it.

If the book hasn't been published or circulated widely enough, at some
point it falls into the non-notable/vanity publication/extreme
minority opinion category.

Jay.


body:
On 12/22/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/12/22, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:
>
> > Users who've done 1,000+ edits on Korean, Serbian, Chinese, Inuktitut
> > etc WPs are not the users we are afraid of here, Gerard.
>
> They may not be the ones you are afraid of, but they ARE the ones that you
> are blocking.

Yes, at the moment.  You won't find many people on this list defending
that policy.  You will find people on this list who think that policy
demonstrates a very real problem.

I see users from en.wikipedia who are acknowledging the problems that
current policy causes.  I see users not from en.wikipedia who are not
acknowledging the problems that SUL causes.

SUL is not a panacea, and it does have side-effects.  Now how about
finding some way to manage these problems, rather than blind,
unthinking en-bashing?

--
Sam


body:
On 12/22/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> What about seeing a "sign" (newbie) near the name of a user registered
> since less than 1 month ago, and with less than 100 edits all projects
> accross in the last month ?
>
> Ant

Not really needed. I can tell if someone is new. What I can't tell is why.

--
geni


from_name: Andre Engels

body:
2006/12/22, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:

> Users who've done 1,000+ edits on Korean, Serbian, Chinese, Inuktitut
> etc WPs are not the users we are afraid of here, Gerard.

They may not be the ones you are afraid of, but they ARE the ones that you
are blocking.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> When you do this you will get banned. Certainly if you have developer
> rights, it will be the end of it. A steward lost his stewardship because
> he threatened to do things.

Are you suggesting it is unreasonable to expect people to use browsers
that are W3C compliant?

> With SUL people will be asked to concentrate all the users under one
> user. Effectively it will mean that the number of people is likely to grow.

We shall see.

> The same way you can identify a newbie on en.wikipedia; you look at the
> user contributions. NB it is vandal and not vandle.

I can't read their contributions on Ja. I can't tell if their name is
legit such as "Lorem ipsum" or the JA equivalent of swldk23p or whilly
on wheels and is part of a series
--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > How do I tell a vandle from a newbie from Ja.wikipeida?
>
> You look at their contributions. How else would you tell?

Various methods. However I can't read Ja and what if they don't have any?

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> How many users are working at any one time at en.wikipedia? And you can
> remember the vandals by name .. I am impressed .. but somehow I doubt
> it. I think you use the history views of the contributions of that user,
> the talk pages of that user and for that you do not even have to know
> what the user name is.

OK, think about this.  I'm looking at Special:Recentchanges.  I see an
edit by [[User:David Gerard]].  I ignore this edit.  It's David.  I
know he's a good editor.  Now I see an edit by [[User:Fabien1309]],
who is a fr admin who has a rarely-used en account.  I don't recognise
him, but I see the edit, see it's a good one, and he goes on my mental
whitelist.

Now I see [[User:??????:???????]], who is an admin on th.  I look at
the edit, and it's a good one.  But how am I to whitelist him/her?
It's impossible, or near enough.  And the same would go for ja, zh, or
el (I can read Greek script, but I'm in the definite minority...)

Even a set of numbers is easier to memorise.

> And for all the ????? you only have to have to install the appropriate
> fonts .. You are talking about self inflicting damage that you roll over
> on people that have earned respect. From the point of good faith, it is
> hardly that.

So now, in order to contribute helpfully to vandal-fighting (for
instance) in a Wikipedia in someone's own language, they have to
install all world fonts.  Yes.  That will really encourage people to
join up.

Don't we try to aim at a low barrier for entry?

--
Sam


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 185

body:
On 12/21/06, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > From: jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com>
> >
> > On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > > > From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
> > > >
> > > > On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >>> A while back I wrote about a self-publicising vanity author.
> > One of
> > > >>> the details I'd liked to have note was the complete (or near-
> > > >>> complete)
> > > >>> absence of his books in public library catalogues, but it's
> > almost
> > > >>> impossible to actually find a way to cite a "negative search"
> > much
> > > >>> less a positive result...
> > > >>
> > > >> Indeed, that would end up being OR - quite simple OR, but OR all
> > the
> > > >> same. It's annoying when you know something that apparently
> > no-one
> > > >> has
> > > >> published, but there isn't much we can do about it. (Unless you
> > > >> happen
> > > >> to be an expert on the subject and can publish it yourself)
> > > >
> > > > If that is OR then WP:NOR is a broken rule.
> > >
> > > A citation is essentially a very simple piece of research that can
> > > easily be reproduced by anyone without specialist knowledge.
> > >
> > > I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
> > > let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an
> > online
> > > catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two that come to mind are the
> > > Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
> > > Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
> > > offline but it was available a few years ago).
> > >
> > > You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
> > > not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
> > > to the search or a description of how to do the search. This
> > doesn't
> > > seem very different to me from a citation.
> >
> > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
> > so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
> > claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
> > and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
> > theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
> > Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.
> >
> > Jay.
>
> Jay, I don't agree with everything Daniel and Steve have written
> about this, but I also find your reply quite problematic.  Surely
> the library catalogue is the most reliable and verifiable source
> for what is in the library.

It's the most reliable source we have for what is in the library at
that time. However, we, as searchers of that catalog, are neither a
reliable or verifiable source for what is in the catalog.

> Concerning negative information, consider "John Smith's latest
> murder novel Killers of Wiki did not reveal the identity of the
> murderer."  Can't I cite the novel for that?  Anyone can get
> the book and verify the information, so it is reliable and
> verifiable. I don't think it is necessary to wait until some
> third party makes this observation about the book.  (Obviously
> it would be a different matter if the claim needed some actual
> thinking or analysis beyond mere looking.)

Well, to begin with, that claim is not trivial; one would actually
need to read the entire book to be sure that the murderer's identity
is not revealed, and be sure one had read it correctly, and not
drifted off one night while reading page 344, and missed the critical
paragraph. Moreover, if that particular fact is notable or
interesting, it is most likely to have already been stated in a book
review of some sort. And, of course, John Smith's rabid fan X is
likely to show up and say "Are you kidding? The identity is of course
indirectly yet deliberately revealed via these means".  I suppose you
could get away with it if the claim is entirely non-controversial (if
there actually is such a thing as a non-controversial claim on
Wikipedia), but it would be better practice not to.

> It seems to me that
> citing a library catalogue as a source for saying that a book
> is not there is fine.  I can't think of why one would want to do
> that in a Wikipedia article but I don't think it is illegal.

As I've stated elsewhere, books are published, the contents of a
specific edition don't change once published, and quoting from a page
is a simple task that any non-expert can verify. Catalogs are
ephemeral, their contents change all the time, they inevitably contian
bad records and are missing records, searching them is non-trivial,
and the best we can do is verify that Zero0000's specific search on a
specific date did not return any results.

Jay.


subject:
[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects
	other communities

body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> When, as the current practice seems to be, block immediately, there is
> no argument that these users are the victim of this policy.

Yep.

> The suggestion of making people known by a
> number is dehumanising and, it does not work either because people
> typically do not remember numbers.

And nor do they remember words in foreign scripts.  I'd take numbers any day.

> You are objecting and you reserve the right not to do the obvious thing
> and install fonts.

No, people are saying that it is an unreasonable demand to say that
people *must* install fonts.

> You object and you do not intent to look at the
> history of people on the WMF that will be much better available under
> SUL.

No, we see that SUL will bring advantages.  You don't see that it also
brings problems.

> You object while the problem of mixed script users has already been
> solved.

But other issues remain...

> You do not consider SUL and its obvious implication that we
> /will /have one person one user.

Is anyone disputing this?  Is anyone saying SUL is a bad thing?  Stop
putting up strawmen.

> You seem to be of the opinion that the
> English language Wikipedia is a law on to itself.

Well, we say the English Wikipedia is unique because of its size and
prominence.  Is that the same as being a law unto itself?  No.

> PS You is not meant as only you personally, it is there for all who
> cling to this bad policy.

So, um, who?  People recognise that the policy as written is not
optimal.  Pretty much everyone realises the conflict that the
implementation of SUL has brought. Do you see the conflict, or are you
blind to en.wikipedia's problems?

--
Sam


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jealousy, hell not for me. OmegaWiki has its own momentum and is doing
> quite well thank you. When you consider the amount of press projects in
> other languages get, it is quite similar remember, the Dutch Wikipedia
> is world famous in the Netherlands and Belgium. What I argued was that
> the English language Wikipedia has the resources to withstand abuse from
> vandals. For the record I do think the English Wikipedia is doing a
> splendid job.

And the implementation of SUL has the potential to harm this splendid
job.  Yes, it's overall a good thing, but it has it's problems, and
this thread has been nothing but people moaning about en.wikipedia and
en.wikipedia getting understandably annoyed.

> > Nonsense.  All that has been changed is that the sledgehammer policy
> > currently in use is now outdated and overblown and should be
> > *modified* to take these considerations into account.  The arguments
> > for the practice have not changed; the arguments against the practice
> > have been strengthened, however, and that's a completely different
> > kettle of fish
> The arguments for the current policy have already largely gone away.
> With SUL the arguments will be even less relevant.

How?  How have they gone away?  Do you know what the arguments ARE?

> And thank you for the
> acknowledgement that the current practice is outdated and overblown.

You will find few who disagree with me or you on this matter.  So stop
arguing with them.

--
Sam


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Korn schreef:
> > On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> How many users are working at any one time at en.wikipedia? And you can
> >> remember the vandals by name .. I am impressed .. but somehow I doubt
> >> it. I think you use the history views of the contributions of that user,
> >> the talk pages of that user and for that you do not even have to know
> >> what the user name is.
> >>
> >
> > OK, think about this.  I'm looking at Special:Recentchanges.  I see an
> > edit by [[User:David Gerard]].  I ignore this edit.  It's David.  I
> > know he's a good editor.  Now I see an edit by [[User:Fabien1309]],
> > who is a fr admin who has a rarely-used en account.  I don't recognise
> > him, but I see the edit, see it's a good one, and he goes on my mental
> > whitelist.
> >
> > Now I see [[User:??????:???????]], who is an admin on th.  I look at
> > the edit, and it's a good one.  But how am I to whitelist him/her?
> > It's impossible, or near enough.  And the same would go for ja, zh, or
> > el (I can read Greek script, but I'm in the definite minority...)
> >
> > Even a set of numbers is easier to memorise.

Do you want to reply to this?

> > So now, in order to contribute helpfully to vandal-fighting (for
> > instance) in a Wikipedia in someone's own language, they have to
> > install all world fonts.  Yes.  That will really encourage people to
> > join up.
> >
> > Don't we try to aim at a low barrier for entry?
> You do not lower the barrier of entry to Wikipedia by blocking people on
> sight.

No.  We've already managed to work out that I don't agree with that.

> You are talking about people who are admins so we can tell them
> that they have to install fonts.

And users who aren't admins who want to do this kind of work?  I
started anti-vandalism work within a couple of months of joining
en.wikipedia.  I didn't become an admin for seven months.  I would
probably not have bothered if I'd had to search out my XP disk and
install fonts, when I was far less computer savvy than I am now.

> At issue is that people using their standard user are
> treated worse than anonymous users Really that is outrageous..

But to all intents and purposes, they are anonymous, in that few
admins will a) be able to read and b) be able to remember and
understand usernames __even if they install the fonts__.  That is the
issue that you haven't grasped.

--
Sam


body:
On 12/22/06, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Even a set of numbers is easier to memorise.
>

But somewhat primitive. It would be possible to create pseudo words as
identifies.

A simple on would be to use a CVCVCV combination which would allow up
to 207 million unique combinations which should be enough for our
current userbase (CVCVCVC gets you up to over 4 billion).
(V =vowel C= consonant)

--
geni


body:
On 12/22/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> How large is this mental whitelist of yours? If you have normal mental
> capabilities it will be hard to have more than 150-200 names on it. That's
> merely a bump in the total Wikipedia usage feature. The statistics of
> English Wikipedia seem to be down at the moment, but according to the
> Wikistats, German Wikipedia had 1000 'very active' (at least 100 edits in a
> month) and 7500 'active' (at least 5 edits in a month). Remember 200 of
> them, and you still will find a majority of those edits being made by
> active-yet-unknown users.

But you only need to associate a name with good or bad.  I know my
mind can remember more than 200 names and whether they are good or bad
users.  Or am I unusual?

> > So now, in order to contribute helpfully to vandal-fighting (for
> > instance) in a Wikipedia in someone's own language, they have to
> > install all world fonts.  Yes.  That will really encourage people to
> > join up.
>
>
> Vandal fighting is done by checking the edits, not by trying to pronounce
> the name of the editor.

True. But tell me that the name of the editor isn't a factor in
deciding whether an edit is worth checking.

--
Sam


body:
On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is unreasonable to suggest that you can make IE and Firefox stop
> functioning. This is poring oil on the fire.

But both of those fail the W3C standards. Why should we support broken browsers?

> You can find out that someone has loads (1.000+) edits.

Howver most will not so that is unhelpful.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 41, Issue 153

body:
Sarah wrote:

><charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Sarah wrote
>>
>>
>>>The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to
>>>the general public, and it's not clear that we can expect the public
>>>to have access to a legal database.
>>>
>>>
>>This is rather objectionable, as a type of argument. 'Available' to the 'general public' contains two very negotiable ideas. Few academic sources (in proportion to the total) are easily available to many (in proportion to the 6 billion total) of the world's inhabitants. Making a fuss about this is a sure route to a worse encyclopedia.
>>
>>
>Any public library can order material that's in a regular academic
>library. Similarly, they can order any material that's in a legal
>database. But they can't "order" the database itself, and it's the
>database as a whole that Zero wanted to call his "source," or rather
>his own interpretation of its contents. That's not reasonably
>checkable by Wikipedia readers, which is why we don't allow OR.
>
The database or library is an intermediate to the sources.  If 20 items
in the database are said to support a point it is still the 20 items
that provide the verification, and not the database itself.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd) (Ray Saintonge)

body:
On 12/22/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Another issue: a particular promoter of a particular POV cites a book
> in support of his argument.  It is not a widely-circulated book.
> Others are unable to find the book, or, having found the book, unable
> to find the specific text supposedly quoted.  At some point we have to
> apply the "yeah, right" rule and remove it.

If the british libiary does not have a copy I'm going to want to hear
a pretty good explantion.

--
geni


from_name: Ken Arromdee

body:
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006, jayjg wrote:
> > Jay, I don't agree with everything Daniel and Steve have written
> > about this, but I also find your reply quite problematic.  Surely
> > the library catalogue is the most reliable and verifiable source
> > for what is in the library.
> It's the most reliable source we have for what is in the library at
> that time. However, we, as searchers of that catalog, are neither a
> reliable or verifiable source for what is in the catalog.

You could apply the same argument to books.  "We, as searchers of a book, are
neither a reliable or verifiable source for what is in the book".

> Moreover, if that particular fact is notable or
> interesting, it is most likely to have already been stated in a book
> review of some sort.

Oh, come on now.  You're just saying that as a boilerplate response without
thinking about whether it actually makes sense.  Why is being notable enough
to be in a book review the same thing as being notable enough for a completely
different purpose?


from_name: George Herbert

body:
On 12/22/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> And you English Wikipedia admin blocked him and his IP permanently on
> sight.
>

I'm having a hard time understanding why you state that this was a permanent
user and IP block, as he appealed it, got it undone, and got a username
change to a (curren en standards) ok one.

--
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com


body:
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

>Sarah wrote
>
>
>>Any public library can order material that's in a regular academic
>>library.
>>
>>
>Sorry - any public library in Kerala, Kampala or even Lima can order up anything from any academic library? Do remember that this is a global project. The 'populist' idea that anybody should be able to fact-check anything rather founders on the reality that it at most refers to about 5% of the world population, selected just about entirely on wealth.
>
>We are really doing the opposite: making the cream of reliable-source material actually globally available whereever there is a decent internet connection.
>
It's what we are doing, not what we have done.  The observation that it
is now only available to the richest 5% is, IMHO, intuitively true.  Our
work will not be done until the resources are freed and available to
all, and that's a big task.

Ec